Lords Sitting of 14 February 1980

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock (Prayers having been read earlier at the Judicial Sitting by the Lord Bishop of Worcester):
The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
The Lord Grimston of Westbury—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

THE BBC RUSSIAN SERVICE
Lord CHELWOOD: 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 are satisfied with the strength of the BBC transmitters used for the Russian language service; how this compares with those used by the Voice of America, Radio Liberty and other prominent Western stations; and in which geographical areas in the Soviet Union the BBC programmes are usually clearly audible.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, the Government are not satisfied with the strength of the BBC's transmitters used for the Russian language service, and for this reason have made financial provision for a capital programme to improve the audibility of the BBC's external broadcasts, which is now under way.
The operating power of the BBC transmitters varies between 70kW and 250kW. The Voice of America operates at 250kW and Radio Liberty varies between 50kW and 250kW. West Germany and France operate at 500kW; Italy at 100kW and Spain at 350kW. According to the BBC, their Russian service is normally audible in the Moscow, Kiev and Leningrad areas, but the quality of reception varies according to the time of day, time of year and ionospheric conditions.
Lord CHELWOOD: My Lords, I am most grateful for that reply, which is
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encouraging so far as it goes. May I press my noble friend to say a little bit more about the timing? Does he agree that the longer it takes to provide the BBC with powerful transmitters such as are used not only by the countries he has mentioned but also by much smaller countries like Sweden, Norway and Switzerland, the more it will cost? Is he also aware—I presume he is—that there is a great risk if any more time is lost (and something like ten years has been lost) of being crowded out on the air?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I certainly agree with a good deal of what my noble friend says. The improvement of the audibility of the BBC external services both in English and the vernaculars is regarded as a matter of priority by Her Majesty's Government. A sum of £1·8 million for capital expenditure has been made available in the current financial year and there is provision for £5·1 million of capital expenditure in 1980–81. The Government are now considering the question of financial provision for subsequent years.
Lord ORR-EWING: My Lords, can my noble friend give us some indication when the first of these high powered transmitters might become operational? Does he not agree that this is an urgent problem and that a crash programme is really warranted, in view of the tremendous need to get the British voice and British viewpoint put across in the Soviet Union and its satellites?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I certainly agree that we must do what we can within the limits of our resources. But I should say in answer to the specific point put by my noble friend that the new transmitters are unlikely to be in service, even with the expenditure I have referred to, until 1983. With regard to the speed, which was the burden of the point put by my noble friend, there has been a difficulty with planning permission for the site of one of the new transmitters in the West country, but we believe this has now been overcome.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords, will the noble gentleman tell me—
Several noble Lords: Noble Lord.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: Noble Lord—but all Lords are gentlemen—
Baroness FAITHFULL: My Lords—
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: I include Lady Faithfull! To be serious, in view of the dynamic interest once again of all of this House in constructive Russian broadcasts, is the noble Lord aware how long it takes someone to learn to be fluent, having done about four years in the language myself, and will he see that we do not withdraw grants to people to learn the Russian language?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I think that is a rather different point.
Lord HANKEY: My Lords, coming back to the Russian service on the BBC, is it jammed at present or has jamming stopped since Helsinki?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I have no information about that, but my recollection is that they are not now jammed.
Lord MORRIS: My Lords, are Her Majesty's Government aware that the BBC external services broadcast one hour per day to Turkey, and that Russia, together with the satellites and including a clandestine Communist station within Turkey, broadcasts 14½ hours a day. In the light of present circumstances, do Her Majesty's Government agree that this position should be very seriously reviewed.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I am afraid that that again is another question.
Lord CHELWOOD: My Lords, now that I have had more time to think about my noble friend's Answer, is he aware that the quite small capital sums which he has announced will be made available will be completely inadequate to make sure that the BBC's output, which is widely acclaimed as perhaps the best in the world, will be audible in a very large part of the Soviet Union, and at this particular time is that not a most regrettable thing?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I would not accept that the sums announced are inadequate at all. As for inaudibility, it is not only a question of
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buying new transmitters; it is also a question of where you can site them.
Lord WIGG: My Lords, will the noble Lord be good enough to say how much time is now given by the Russians to broadcasting in English, as compared with, let us say, six months ago?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I do not have that information.

SUGAR PROCESSING AND REFINING
3.8 p.m.
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what figures have been set by the EEC for processing margins of beet sugar and for refining margins of cane sugar; how many people were employed in sugar processing and refining in 1976; and what is the total of those now in this employment.
The MINISTER of STATE, MINISTRY of AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES and FOOD (Earl Ferrers): My Lords, beet sugar processing margins and cane sugar refining margins are not fixed by the EEC as part of the common price régime. According to the EEC Commission, a total of 72,933 people were employed in the production of sugar beet in the Community in 1976–77; the provisional figure for 1978–79 is 71,912. Figures for the numbers employed in the refining of cane sugar in the Community as a whole are not available, but in the United Kingdom cane refinery employees totalled approximately 6,200 in 1976 and total about 3,900 now.
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, while thanking the Minister for that satisfactory reply, may I ask whether he can assure me that the Government will secure from Brussels the same profitability as is enjoyed by the beet section? Secondly, can he assure me that there will be no further reduction in employment on cane sugar?
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, we believe that there is a scope in this country for both refined sugar from cane and also for sugar beet. My noble friend asked for an assurance that there will be an equal profitability from the two by Brussels. Of course, that is not Brussels' particular responsibility. Perhaps I could give her this piece of information, which might help to put it in perspective. It is estimated that the margin for producing one tonne of white sugar from sugar beet is £116 approximately. Within this, the refining margin from sugar beet to white sugar is estimated to be £32. The margin for refining one tonne of white sugar from raw cane is estimated to be about £42. In this country in dealing with sugar beet the difficulty is that it is not only the refining but the processing of the complete crop which is taken into account in deriving the margin, whereas with sugar cane it is only the refining.
Lord DOUGLAS of BARLOCH: My Lords, is the noble Earl not aware of the very great injury that has been inflicted upon the sugar-producing countries all over the world by the protectionist policies adopted by the EEC?
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, I think that in fact the noble Lord will find that the demand for world sugar this year is outstripping the actual supply.
Lord PEART: My Lords, I hope that the noble Earl will appreciate that what was said earlier was not really factual. We actually import 1.4 million tonnes of sugar—that was negotiated in the Community—and the Commonwealth sugar producers were delighted at that.
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, I was about to say that the noble Lord is, of course, absolutely right, but in fact he is very nearly right. We consume about 2.4 million tonnes of sugar. We import from other countries about 0.2 million tonnes. We import from ACP countries 1.2 million tonnes and we produce about 1 million tonnes ourselves.
Lord MACKIE OF BENSHIE: My Lords, can the noble Earl give us an assurance that he appreciates the point of the Question—namely, that the health of the cane sugar refining industry in this
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country is very important to our agreement with the Commonwealth?
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, I take absolutely the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie. We are equally very concerned that the sugar refining industry is kept as healthy as possible. Moreover, we think that there is a substantial part that can be played by the sugar beet industry. Our concern at present is that the original proposals put forward by Brussels would severely restrict the growing of sugar beet in this country by 32,000 hectares, which is unacceptable.
Lord WALSTON: My Lords, can the noble Earl give us an assurance that there is no question of renegotiating or in any way reducing the amount of sugar at present imported into this country under the ACP agreement?
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, the noble Lord will be glad to know that the arrangements for importing ACP sugar into the Community are of indefinite duration.

CIGARETTE SMOKING
3.12 p.m.
Lord AIREDALE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in view of the 70th Report of the Commissioners of HM Customs and Excise (Cmnd. 7807), which reports an increase in the consumption of tobacco, albeit accompanied by a reduction in tar yield, they remain satisfied with their measures to discourage cigarette smoking.
Lord CULLEN of ASHBOURNE: My Lords, the Government cannot be satisfied with the progress made to date to reduce the prevalence of cigarette smoking and are committed to achieving further reductions in the habit in order to reduce the toll of premature death and illness which it causes. My right honourable friends the Health Ministers are currently engaged in negotiations with

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the tobacco industry on measures to follow the existing voluntary agreement, which expires shortly.
Lord AIREDALE: My Lords, I am obliged for that Answer. Is it the case that cigarette smoking is on the increase among women? If so, is the campaign, such as it is, being directed particularly towards women?
Lord CULLEN of ASHBOURNE: No, my Lords, there is no evidence to that effect. I shall try not to mislead the House, but the figures are a little complicated in this respect. From 1974 until 1977 the consumption of cigarettes, by weight, steadily reduced. It also reduced by the numbers of cigarettes smoked. In 1978 the weight increased and the numbers went down slightly. Moreover, during that period the percentage of males who smoked dropped from 51 per cent. to 45 per cent. and of women who smoked from 41 per cent. to 37 per cent.
Viscount HANWORTH: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that I now find it extremely difficult to get a smoking carriage on the railways, and that when I go to a meeting or a conference I very often find that I cannot smoke because there is nobody else smoking? Would the noble Lord take the view that possibly it is only the young who are increasing the smoking habit, and would he think it wise to direct more attention to them than to those of us who have smoked all our lives?
Lord CULLEN of ASHBOURNE: My Lords, I certainly agree that it is more important to stop the young smoking than it is to stop some of us who continue to smoke, as I do myself. I am sure that, speaking from this Dispatch Box, I should suggest that everybody in this House who smokes should stop doing so.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I should like to press the noble Lord on the question of the amount of consumption by women. He quite rightly says, if I may be permitted to say so, that the number of women smoking represents 37 per cent. However, is it not a fact that the 37 per cent. of women who are smoking, are smoking many more cigarettes per person than they did when the previous research
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was carried out? Is it not also a fact that the increased consumption is, if not entirely due—and I would not suggest that for one moment—partly due to the fact that women are smoking more cigarettes?
Lord CULLEN of ASHBOURNE: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, knows a great deal about this subject and he has been dealing with these questions over many years. I believe that he is quite right in what he says, but it is also true to say that the men who are smoking are inclined to be smoking more. The average number of cigarettes smoked by those males and females continuing to smoke has increased in recent years.
Lord BOYD-CARPENTER: My Lords, is not the most effective method of reducing consumption to be found in the Budget?
Lord CULLEN of ASHBOURNE: Yes, my Lords, but I am sure that my noble friend does not expect me to make any comment on that.
Lord DERWENT: My Lords, can my noble friend say whether the research on this question is in any way reasonably accurate?
Lord CULLEN of ASHBOURNE: No, my Lords, I cannot.
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, will the noble Lord admit that the large number of cigarettes now smoked by women is the result of the economic strain placed upon them by the Government's policies?
The Earl of CORK and ORRERY: My Lords, I should like to ask my noble friend and kinsman whether he thinks that the Government might consider being a little more specific in the slogans that they issue, bearing in mind that it is a question not merely of lung cancer that is involved, but of respiratory diseases and diseases of the circulation?
Lord CULLEN of ASHBOURNE: My Lords, I think that what the Government are trying to do is to stop people smoking, period.
Lord LEATHERLAND: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that smoking is only one of many vices, and that if he runs a campaign to dissuade women from smoking they may resort to other vices which are less acceptable?
Lord CULLEN of ASHBOURNE: My Lords, that is an excellent point.
Lady SALTOUN: My Lords, what price women's lib? Why should the women not smoke if the men can?
Lord CULLEN of ASHBOURNE: My Lords, I think that I have already said that I am trying to put across the Government's view that neither men nor women should smoke if we can arrange it.
Lord MISHCON: My Lords, in those circumstances, is the noble Lord prepared to say here and now that his Front Bench, in order to encourage the Government's campaign, will, as from this minute, collectively and individually renounce smoking?
Lord CULLEN of ASHBOURNE: My Lords, I am afraid my hearing is getting very bad!
Lord AIREDALE: My Lords, if it is the case, as I think the noble Lord is saying, that those who do smoke are smoking more, is it a fact that, although they are smoking cigarettes of a lower tar yield, they are smoking more of them in order to get back to their accustomed daily intake of nicotine? If that is so, is anything being achieved by the lower tar yield?
Lord CULLEN of ASHBOURNE: No, my Lords, I think that there is too much said about this. It must be right to reduce the tar content, but it is very important not to reduce it too quickly because otherwise people immediately reach for a stronger cigarette. That is why, in the arrangements that have been made between the DHSS and the tobacco industry, we have tried to do this gradually. Negotiations are now taking place for a further voluntary agreement with the industry, as the present agreement runs out in a few months time.

GOVERNMENT STATEMENTS
Lord DENHAM: My Lords, with the leave of the House, my noble Friend Lord
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Gowrie will repeat a statement being made in another place on special employment measures for 1980 and 1981. This will be followed by my noble friend the acting Leader of the House, who will repeat a Statement on the Boyle Report.

BRITISH OLIVETTI LIMITED BILL [H.L.]
The CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (Lord Aberdare): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a;—(Lord Aberdare).
On Question, Bill read 2a and referred to the Examiners.

EAGLE & GLOBE STEEL LIMITED BILL [H.L.]
Lord ABERDARE: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a—(Lord Aberdare).
On Question, Bill read 2a and referred to the Examiners.

AIRPORTS POLICY
3.21 p.m.
Lord TREFGARNE Lord TREFGARNE rose to move, That this House takes note of the Policy of Her Majesty's Government relating to airports. The noble Lord said: My Lords, in rising to open this debate on our airports policy, I want, first, to express my deep personal regret that the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, who died last weekend, will not be with us. I understand that he had, in fact, intended to speak today. I must say that the noble Lord was a lifelong friend of mine and, indeed, of my own late father.
On 17th December last the Government made known their views regarding the future handling of air transport demand at our airports. When I repeated in this House my right honourable friend's Statement on airports policy, I made clear that the Government would

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welcome an opportunity to hear your Lordships' views on their proposals. In the course of Questions on 17th January, my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye, who unhappily is not able to be here today, said to me that these matters were of considerable interest to your Lordships, and were not a party political issue; and he suggested that we should debate them as soon as possible without the need to wait for them to be raised in another place.
My Lords, I have great sympathy for the views of my noble friend and I took note of what he said. I am sorry that he cannot be with us today but he has written to me with his comments, expressing his general support for the Government's policy. We may be departing somewhat from tradition, but I feel that in this case an early debate ahead of the other place is wholly justified. In deciding to hold the first full debate of this Administration on airports policy in your Lordships' House, the Government took particular account of the strong public interest in this matter and the valuable contribution this House has made by its dispassionate consideration of airports issues. The question of how to meet the growing demand for air transport has been one of the more intractable problems faced by successive Governments. All the more reason for approaching it candidly and with an open mind, as we have sought to do.
The previous Government's White Paper on Airports Policy followed an extensive review of national airports capacity and air traffic demand in the wake of the oil crisis of 1973. The slow-down in the growth of traffic provided a breathing space during which Heathrow and Gatwick in the South-East could be expected to cope with the demand. The White Paper proposed developments designed to meet the demand until about 1990, and ceilings on the expansion of Heathrow, Gatwick and Luton, but it did not deal with the problem of whether there should be new airport capacity to meet the longer term demand, and if so, where. There was a missing piece in the puzzle which was left for us to find when we took office. It had to be found quickly, bearing in mind the resumed rapid growth of traffic which took place in 1978 and 1979 and the long
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lead times required for airport development.
Our predecessors set up an Advisory Committee on Airports Policy and a Study Group on South-East Airports to look into the matter. On both these bodies were represented the principal organisations concerned with airport development and regional planning, all of which contributed their expert knowledge. I must emphasise in particular the co-operative approach of the local planning authorities. My noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford sat on the Advisory Committee as the representative of the Standing Conference of Local Authorities in the South-East. He is, therefore, very familiar with the problems. He, too, had intended to speak today but I understand that he is indisposed.
These advisory bodies explored all the facts so as to enable the Government to reach their conclusions, but—and I must emphasise this—they made no specific recommendation. A crucial factor in assessing the need for airport capacity is the prediction of future traffic. The report of the Advisory Committee provides forecasts of the demand to the end of the century. Careful attention was given to the likely increase in oil prices; the economic growth in this country and in others with which we have substantial air traffic; and the relative competitiveness of our tourist industry, since tourism is an important component of air traffic. These forecasts suggest that in 1990 air traffic in the London area will be between 69 million and 81 million passengers a year; in other words, there could be, and indeed probably will be, a doubling of the current level of 38 million passengers. These figures represent only a modest annual growth of between 5 per cent. and 7½ per cent. comparable to what has happened in the last 10 years, but the rate of growth is expected to fall after 1990 to between 3 per cent. and 4 per cent. a year.
Despite the forecast that there will be more traffic at the regional airports than had previously been assumed, despite the inherent uncertainties in the forecasts, and even assuming that the overall demand will be at the lower end of the range, there is no doubt that the planned capacity of the existing airports will be exhausted by the late 1980s.
The first choice before us, therefore, was whether to meet the demand or deliberately omit to cater for it. If we decided not to provide extra capacity, most of the traffic would move to other countries, with consequent effects on our airlines, our tourist industries, and on employment and the economy in general. It would be unthinkable for a modern developed nation, so heavily dependent on its external communications, to take such a retrograde step. It would be unreasonable to penalise the travelling public and deliberately to stifle an important growth sector of our economy and one in which we enjoy a prominent position in the world.
My Lords, the Advisory Committee was quite clear on this point. It said:
"We consider that the deleterious effects of airport development should be mitigated as far as possible, but overall we take the view that the arguments for continuing to meet the demand for air transport are more compelling and should continue to be Government policy".
We have accepted this advice and decided that we should continue to so provide. But given the inherent uncertainty of the forecasts, and in particular the longer term predictions dependent on world events which are themselves so unpredictable, we have come to the conclusion that the solution we need is one which meets the demand as it develops and avoids massive commitments which may prove to be unnecessary. Starting from these premises, I shall now outline the Government's thinking and our proposals for meeting the demand.
First, I should like to say a few words about the role of regional airports. It is often represented that there is considerable spare capacity at airports outside the South-East and that if we could only ensure that it is fully utilised, there would be no need to provide additional capacity in the London area for some time. I do not think anyone would disagree with the objective of spreading out the burden and thus reducing the pressure on our London area airports. However, the question is not whether it is desirable but to what extent it can be achieved.
One of the most significant points to emerge from the Advisory Committee's forecasts is a new method of assessing regional airport traffic which leads to a lower share of international traffic for
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London. The new method is clearly more realistic than that used in the White Paper on Airports Policy which simply assumed a constant proportion. The percentage of United Kingdom traffic from particular geographical areas has been calculated using origin and destination survey information, and combined with forecasts of international interlining. The crucial point of course is that even if the demand exists at the various regional airports, there is a volume of traffic below which particular routes would not be viable and would, therefore, be commercially unattractive to airlines. Naturally, short-haul routes using a higher frequency of small aircraft are more likely to be successful than long-haul services with larger aircraft. But even then the picture is inevitably distorted by the wider range of convenient services and concessionary fares available at the London airports, which tend to attract passengers who would really prefer to use their local airport if it were possible to do so.
The latest survey of passenger origins and destinations at the London airports carried out in 1978 confirmed the previous results that about 78 per cent. of the passengers, excluding those transferring between international flights, had origins or destinations in the South-East. Clearly this leaves a significant potential traffic for regional airports to attract, but it does point to two important conclusions: first, traffic must be concentrated at the major regional centres, otherwise it will not be profitable for airlines to operate these routes and there will be no easing of the burden on the London airports. And secondly, the numbers are such that even the maximum utilisation of regional airports will not remove the need for additional airports capacity in the South-East. We have no reason to doubt the Advisory Committee's conclusion that it would only delay the evil day by a year or so.
Having said this, I want to stress that the Government will adopt policies designed to encourage the fullest possible use of regional airports by loosening the market structure to create opportunities for innovation, by promoting the establishment of new air services between provincial centres in Europe and negotiating new rights in the context of bilateral air service agreements; and by encouraging the development of tourism in the regions and with it the extension of direct scheduled

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and charter services from an increasing range of points abroad to regional airports. It will be for the airports concerned, the airlines and the tour operators to exploit these new opportunities and tap the demand which we believe to be there.
May I now turn to the London airport problem. There are in fact both short-term and long-term problems. In the short-term we have to deal with the intolerable congestion which is developing at Heathrow, our premier airport and busiest international travel centre in the world. My right honourable friend announced on 17th December that permission had been granted to the British Airports Authority to construct a fourth terminal on the South side of the airport, capable of handling 8 million passengers a year subject to certain conditions designed to mitigate the environmental effect of the development in the light of the particular circumstances at Heathrow. The new terminal is expected to be in operation by 1984 or 1985 and will provide sufficient capacity to cope with the growth of Heathrow's traffic for some years. However, in the meantime the BAA will use their best endeavours to encourage more traffic to move to Gatwick.
I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Burton, will be particularly interested in the provision of adequate public transport links to the new terminal for the convenience of passengers. Special mention was made of this in the decision letter. I can tell her that careful attention has been paid to this matter and that a report will be submitted shortly to my right honourable friend the Minister for Transport on the various options, which include the extension of the Piccadilly line to Terminal 4. My right honourable friend will then discuss the recommendation with those concerned: the GLC, London Transport and the BAA. The Government have this problem very much in mind, and I can assure the noble Baroness that I have drawn the attention of my honourable and right honourable friends to the useful points she recently made on this subject in the course of Questions.
As regards Gatwick, your Lordships will know that a Public Inquiry is currently taking place into the proposal by the BAA to build a second terminal with a capacity of 9 million passengers a year.
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This would enable them to make full use of the runway's capacity of about 160,000 air transport movements a year, which they estimate in the early 1990s will allow them to handle up to 25 million passengers per year. This of course is dependent on the rate of introduction of larger aircraft into Gatwick's traffic. If approved, the new terminal could be in operation by about 1986 and cope with the growth of Gatwick's traffic well into the early 1990s.
As your Lordships will appreciate, I cannot comment on the merits of the case. The Inquiry will examine all the evidence and the wider implications of the proposal in order to give them their due weight in relation to airport capacity requirements. The Government will reach their conclusions in the light of the Inspector's report. But again, for the benefit of various noble Lords who have raised the matter in the past, I can say that, regardless of the outcome of the Inquiry, steps have already been taken to improve the Victoria to Gatwick rail service. Gatwick station is being entirely rebuilt at a cost of £6 million; there will be a new concourse above the station platforms with a walkway into the airport terminal, and escalators will link the concourse and the platform. British Rail hope that two of these escalators will be brought into operation later this year and they expect the entire reconstruction of the station to be completed by 1982. British Rail have also introduced special rolling stock for the regular train service to the airport with additional luggage space and destination markings for ease of recognition by air passengers.
At Victoria the concourse has been enlarged to reduce congestion and the number of trolleys has been increased. A special ticket office is provided in peak holiday periods solely for Gatwick passengers. Thus the service is already much improved and further substantial improvements are under consideration to cope with the growth of airport traffic, in particular the provision of dedicated platforms for a separate rail service and purpose built facilities at the station for airline passengers. I am prepared to give more details when I wind up later if noble Lords wish me to do so.
However, if the forecasts are to be believed, even these developments cannot

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provide sufficient capacity to meet the demand at the end of this decade, let alone for the longer term. The Government therefore considered the following options. First there was the possibility of developing Heathrow and Gatwick beyond the level currently envisaged, by building a fifth terminal at Heathrow and a second runway at Gatwick with further terminals there as required. This possibility was not fully explored in the report of the Advisory Committee but it was tempting, in particular since it would have avoided the environmental damage that a new airport would undoubtedly cause. We have carefully considered this option but have come to the conclusion that a fifth terminal at Heathrow would strain the ground facilities, and would impose a significant extra noise burden on an area which already suffers heavily—1½ million people are currently affected by significant levels of aircraft noise around Heathrow. Moreover, it would take perhaps 11 to 13 years to build, bearing in mind the need to relocate the Perry Oaks sewage works and drain the land before construction, and its use would be constrained by runway capacity (bearing in mind, in particular, the limit of 275,000 air transport movements which will apply when the fourth terminal is in operation) and it would not provide a long term solution.
As regards the second runway at Gatwick, I respect the views of my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter, which the Government have carefully taken into account. But I must point out that the earlier plans for a second runway were concerned rather with an auxiliary to the existing one—shorter and closer than would be required for independent parallel operations. We have looked at the possibility of a second independent runway with a minimum separation of 2·4 kilometres used by the Study Group which would allow, with appropriate terminal facilities, a total throughput at Gatwick of up to 50 million passengers per annum. Such a runway would have to be located either to the South where it would involve substantial destruction of the built-up area in Crawley, or to the North where it would require cutting some 110 feet into a hill and destroying the village of Charlwood and other smaller settlements. Even if such wholesale disturbance of the
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environment were to be regarded as an acceptable price to pay, it is doubtful whether air traffic control problems would enable the capacity of the airport to be fully utilised, bearing in mind the proximity of Heathrow and interference with defence activities.
My Lords, I will dwell on that point no longer. The Government concluded that the idea of a fifth terminal at Heathrow and a second runway at Gatwick would not meet the requirements and should not be pursued. This effectively limits the future expansion of these airports.
The second option we considered was the development of one of the inland greenfield sites examined by the Study Group. However, there seemed little point in pursuing this option since none of the four inland sites which had been assessed had overall demonstrable advantages over the site of the existing airport at Stansted. The only realistic choice therefore was between Stansted and developing a new airport at Maplin. For the benefit of my noble friend Lord Cork and Orrery who, I note, has tabled a Motion on this matter, I will say that the Government specifically requested advice on the possibility of building a new airport on Severnside. This was carefully considered by the Advisory Committee and is discussed in Chapter 5 of their report. Their conclusion, which the Government accept, is that a new airport at Severnside is not a feasible solution to the problem of airports capacity in the South-East.
I turn to the proposition of a new airport at Maplin or Foulness. As your Lordships will recall, it was a Conservative Government which decided in the early 1970s to site the proposed third London airport at Maplin. In those days the plan was for a massive four-runway airport, but the expected traffic has not materialised, the future is uncertain and the requirements have changed significantly. We had to look at the question in the light of today's circumstances. Your Lordships will be aware that there is a body of opinion which is still in favour of Maplin, or perhaps more accurately against any inland site. It is represented that on regional planning grounds there are arguments for Maplin because it would create less disruption to

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existing strategy plans and would provide employment in an area where jobs are needed. Great weight is placed on the fact that the noise nuisance in the immediate vicinity of the airport would be least at Maplin.
But account must also be taken of the serious disturbance that would be created by moving the Ministry of Defence firing ranges at Shoeburyness to a new site—if indeed one could be found (and I need not dwell on the difficulties this raised in the earlier Maplin project)—and the 40 miles of new motorway and the rail link which would need to be built across Essex before the airport could operate. Moreover, Maplin is remote from the market and is the least attractive site to the airlines, which would not bode well for its success; it would take much longer to bring into operation—even if the 17 years estimated by the Study Group could be compressed, which is by no means certain—and it would be a much more expensive project than the expansion of Stansted.
All these considerations are greatly reinforced by the uncertainties about future air traffic. Maplin requires massive investment in moving defence installations, reclaiming land, building an entirely new airport, motorway and railway access before the first passenger could be handled. Would it really be sensible to embark on such a commitment, with all it entails in terms of public expenditure and environmental damage, without any certainty that these facilities would ever be used to the full?
Against this is the possibility of making use of the existing facilities at Stansted, which have considerable operational and economic advantages, are easier to develop, and could start to carry additional traffic much earlier. The Government do not believe that a case has yet been made for building a major new international airport for London. The provision of a new terminal building at Stansted capable of handling 15 million passengers a year is in our view the best way of providing additional capacity before the end of the decade. This can be carried out by 1987–88 by the purchase of about 1,500 acres of additional land and some improvements to the road and rail access facilities.
However, as I said on 17th December, the Government believe that the time is long overdue for a settlement of the airports' question for a much longer period ahead, so that demand can be met if it develops into the next century. The best solution must be one that avoids premature expenditure and leaves future Governments with the maximum degree of flexibility as regards timing. On the evidence before them, the Government believe that these objectives can be achieved at Stansted.
The Government have therefore invited the British Airports Authority to bring forward proposals for the construction of a new terminal building and associated facilities at Stansted, with a capacity of 15 million passengers a year. I understand that the authority will be seeking planning permission sometime this summer and that compulsory purchase orders for the 1,500 acres required for the development will be submitted at about the same tune. The authority has also been invited to define in an illustrative plan and apply for the safeguarding from incompatible development of an additional area of about 2.500 acres sufficient to provide for a possible second runway and further terminal buildings should these be needed in the 1990s or beyond.
These proposals will be examined under appropriate planning procedures which are currently under consideration, but which will include a wide-ranging Public Inquiry. This is likely to start in the first half of next year. The Inspector will be able to take into account any evidence and views which he considers relevant to whether the development should be permitted and this will provide a full opportunity for the wider social and environmental implications of the proposals to be explored or assessed in the light of possible longer-term requirements. I can assure your Lordships that the Government will reach their decision only after the most careful study of the Inspector's findings.
To conclude, I have set out some of the considerations which have led the Government to their conclusions. I have explained why we have decided not to build a major new international airport and not to revive the Maplin project even in a revised form. In our view, the most sensible approach is to encourage the

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fullest use of our regional airports' potential and to provide additional capacity at the existing airports in the South-East to meet the demand as it develops. I am well aware that, even after 20 years, any expansion at Stansted remains a controversial issue; I believe I have demonstrated that our proposals are modest and reasonable and I hope they will receive your Lordships' support. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House takes note of the policy of Her Majesty's Government relating to airports.—(Lord Trefarne.)
3.46 p.m.
Lord PONSONBY of SHULBREDE: My Lords, I wish at the outset to thank the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, for giving the House the opportunity of debating at this early date the question of airports policy and for so comprehensively introducing the debate. As he rightly says, this is a question on which there are many strongly held individual points of view, and I have no doubt that the Government will be under considerable pressure from different sources to change their decision on this matter, but I hope in this case that the flexible approach outlined by the noble Lord will be one which the Government will stick to.
As he rightly says, this is a matter of great public concern, a matter which will cause hardship to some and a matter which, if not properly solved, could work to our national detriment. It is not, as he said, a party political issue. Indeed, I see that his right honourable friend the Secretary of State in the Commons on 17th December commented that he appeared to have more friends on the Opposition side than on the Government side; whether that is the case in this House, I do not know.
The first question to which one must address oneself is the all-important question of need. As the noble Lord said, forecasts have a habit of being notoriously inaccurate. Indeed, I felt that he himself was not fully convinced of the forecasts which have been made and whether we should believe in them. One can remember, for example, forecasts being made after the war about the birth rate which proved to be a considerable over-
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estimate of what in fact happened; and I noted the other day that the population of the United Kingdom was reduced last year for the first time for very many years. Likewise, forecasts for car ownership proved to be greatly underestimated in the years to which they referred.
Regarding the forecasts we are looking at today on the question of air traffic, there are some provisos given in the appendix to the report of the Advisory Committee, where the comment is made:
"They do not reflect changes in the competitiveness of the United Kingdom as compared with other world tourist markets or the possibility of accommodation or tourist site congestion in London".
This is a matter of which we have become very much aware in the tourist field. We have seen a decrease during the past year in the number of tourists coming to London from the North American Continent, and this is of general concern in the tourist industry.
Therefore, almost before the ink is dry on the forecasts, one sees that they may not in fact prove to be right. But when one is talking about forecasting and the forecasts which the tourist industry has made, one sees that the general forecast still stands at the proposed 5 per cent. growth level in the 1980s, levelling down to about 2 per cent. by the end of the century. One should remember that in absolute terms an increase of this kind of level is still a very considerable increase in numbers, because these are percentage increases based on very much higher figures than in the past. In fact one is talking about an increase of 2 million to 3 million tourists a year. Against this one should recollect that during the last year only about 15 per cent. of United Kingdom residents took a journey by air at all, and therefore there is obviously great leeway to be made up in terms of possible additional flights to be made by United Kingdom citizens, and indeed by citizens from all parts of the world.
The other factor is concerned with exactly how people are arriving in this country; what is the size of the planes they are arriving in. Certainly as new planes have been introduced the load factors on individual planes have increased, and this one believes will continue. Ten years ago total aircraft movements were about 263,000, while last year they were 292,000—not a very substantial increase.

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But if one turns to figures for the number of passengers per aircraft on the intercontinental services one finds an increase from 68 to 167—almost three-fold. One wonders what will be the effect on the average number of passengers coming into our airports following further re-equipping by the airlines with larger aircraft. This is a factor which must be taken into account. The cost of air travel, the increasing cost of fuel, the cost of staying in London (to which I have already referred) are all factors which could make the proposed forecasts wrong when we come to the years in respect of which they are projected.
One should say that for some years now the concern of the British Airports Authority has been for the handling of passengers, not for the amount of runway space available. This is very clearly demonstrated by those figures for aircraft movements and passenger movements. I am left in no doubt that there is a need, but I am in some grave doubt as to how great the need will turn out to be. I am also convinced that, as these figures show, the need will be in and around London, where it must be met. The need for additional airport capacity in London will not be met by trying to tackle the problem from much further afield, because if that approach were adopted, passengers and airlines would switch to airports which are not really very much further from London but are sited on the continent.
In introducing the debate the noble Lord reiterated the remarks of the Secretary of State regarding the expansion of capacity at regional airports; and he underlined the need for this. I am sure that noble Lords would all agree with this to the extent that expansion is possible, but one quickly recognises that there are strong economic reasons why in fact a more comprehensive regional airport service is not being developed at the present time. The concern of the major European airlines is to fill their long haul planes; to see that they have sufficient feeder services coming into the hub of their activities so that they can make a financial success of their long haul routes; and the process of "sucking" passengers into the centre of their individual nets is being followed by the major European airlines.
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It is obviously uneconomic to run services from many regional airports to many European cities. We know that the Department of Trade has negotiated for services to be run over some 1,500 routes between regional airports and points in Europe, but less than 100 of these routes are in fact being operated at present. The constraint arises not because airways are unable to operate the services, but because they find it uneconomic to do so. I am sure that many noble Lords wait with expectation the result of the application by Laker Airways to operate some 666 new routes in Europe. Putting aside the question of whether or not the application will be successful, what will be more interesting will be how many routes are operated—how many routes actually get off the ground. On the other hand, one can see a very great role for regional airports in developing charter services. I should have thought that in course of time there will be considerable development in this way.
The general strategy of the Government is to meet the demand for airport space as and when it arises, and their concern that they should not be frustrated in this is of great importance. One must be flexible; one must be able to ensure that the demand can be met as and when it arises. We must always remember that there is no reason why anyone should be compelled to come to the United Kingdom for a holiday. Whether or not people come is their own choice. There are many other attractive destinations in Europe for, say, Americans to visit—if indeed Americans wish to come to Europe at all. This is a point which must not escape us because, as has been said, the economic success or otherwise of this country depends very much on the level of our invisibles and the fact that we are able to continue to attract people to this country.
I particularly feel the campaign which has been waged over the years by my noble friend Lady Burton to see that people are properly looked after when they arrive at the airports—that they receive a welcome, and that they do not have to endure delays or undue inconvenience—is one which is terribly important, because on the sort of welcome they receive will depend very much whether or not somebody will decide to come here a second

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time. Indeed, I may say in parenthesis that it was gratifying to know that last year, for the first time, the majority of visitors to Britain were people who were coming here on a second occasion. This was the first time that this statistic emerged—51 per cent. of our visitors were repeat visitors. Therefore, we have the incremental approach of the Government: in 1984–85, the fourth terminal opening at Heathrow; hopefully, in 1985–86 the second terminal opening at Gatwick; and then one sees the proposal for Stansted following on that. I think that this incremental approach is by and large a very wise approach. It would be wrong, in my view, to build a white elephant which might not in fact be needed in the outcome if the forecasts are shown to be wrong.
Having said that, in many ways I would prefer that there were alternative solutions. I would think that in many ways a fifth terminal at Heathrow would have a great deal to commend itself. But, as the noble Lord has rightly said, the time taken could well stretch very far away. The Perry Oaks sludge disposal works have to be re-sited, and not only do there have to be inquiries about the application itself but there will no doubt have to be inquiries in relation to any alternative site for the sewage works themselves; and this could add immeasurably to the time-scale there. Then, of course, there is the problem whether in fact the existing runway pattern at Heathrow could cope with the additional passengers. Another solution, which again I would prefer, would be the solution of the second runway at Gatwick to increase capacity there, but the noble Lord has said—and, indeed, this is a matter which I have looked into myself—that the present configuration of the situation makes it very difficult for a second runway to be built there without a gross loss of amenity, with many hundreds of people being re-housed. Therefore one comes down and back to Stansted, an existing airport. There you have a situation where in eight years or so you could have increased capacity and where you are not going to spend overmuch (although a great deal) on developing the new facilities required.
I think that that, in a sense, is the order in which one sees the viability of the
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different solutions which have been put forward. Like the noble Lord, I think that any proposal for developing a green field site, or indeed for developing Severnside or Maplin, would be proposals which would be vastly expensive; and, indeed, one might find at the end of the day that one did not need airports of this particular size. Therefore, I think the Government's broad strategy is correct, but that they must keep flexible for a number of years ahead to see whether these additional requirements to capacity are in fact required. The forecasts could be proved wrong, and we could have a change in the way people travel or a change in our attractiveness as a tourist centre. I therefore hope that the Government will still be keeping their options open.

SPECIAL EMPLOYMENT MEASURES 1980–81
4.6 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of EMPLOYMENT (The Earl of Gowrie): My Lords, with the leave of the House, I should like to repeat a Statement being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Employment on the special employment measures for 1980–81. My right honourable friend's Statement goes as follows:
"We announced on 12th June last year some changes in the programme of special employment measures for 1979–80 which were designed to focus them more sharply on areas and groups with special employment needs and to reduce public expenditure. The current programme of measures expires on 31st March and we have been reviewing the measures, again taking account of their cost-effectiveness, the particular groups most in need of assistance and what we can afford. We have reached the following decisions on the programme to operate in the year from 1st April 1980.
"We have agreed to a proposal from the Manpower Services Commission to increase the size of the Youth Opportunities Programme from 210,000 entrants this year to 250,000 to 260,000 entrants in 1980–81, with the number of filled places increasing to 100,000 to

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105,000. This expansion will provide further work experience and training opportunities for unemployed young people designed to improve their prospects of finding permanent jobs, and will enable the Commission to continue to operate under the programme their present undertakings for unemployed school-leavers and young people unemployed for 12 months or more.
"We have also agreed to Manpower Services Commission proposals to maintain the community industry scheme for personally or socially disadvantaged unemployed young people at the current level of 6,000 filled places, and to maintain the special temporary employment programme for long-term unemployed adults at 12,000 to 14,000 filled places, concentrated on Special Development Areas, Development Areas and designated inner city areas.
"We have decided that the small firms' employment subsidy, which is the least cost-effective of the special employment measures, should close for applications on 31st March 1980. The temporary short-time working compensation scheme, which reimburses employers for up to six months for payments made to employees on short-time as an alternative to redundancy, will continue to operate throughout the country on the present basis.
"We are extending for a further year the job release scheme, which opens up vacancies for unemployed workers by enabling older workers to leave their jobs early. The scheme will continue to be open to women aged 59, but for men who are not disabled the age of eligibility under the scheme will revert from 62 to 64. With this change it will not now be necessary to tax the allowance from April 1980 as the previous Government had planned; this also applies to all those who enter the scheme by 31st March this year. The allowance will, however, be increased to £45.50 for a married person with a dependent spouse with income of £10 or less a week and to £36 for all other applicants.
"There will also be a special job release scheme to enable disabled men to leave their jobs from the age of 60 as at present and to be replaced, where-ever
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possible, by an unemployed disabled person. As the allowances for disabled men will be payable for more than one year they will be taxed, but will be further increased to maintain on average their value net of tax. The allowances will be £53 for a married man with a dependent spouse with income of £10 or less a week and £43 for other applicants.
"All these changes to the Job release scheme will take effect from 6th April 1980—the beginning of the next financial year.
"We consider that this programme of measures will make an important contribution towards reducing unemployment and helping particularly hard-hit groups within a level of expenditure which we can afford. The impact of the measures on unemployment has increased during the present financial year and the new programme should maintain that increased impact over the year from 1st April".
My Lords, that ends my right honourable friend's Statement.
4.10 p.m.
Lord McCARTHY: My Lords, I should like to thank the Minister for repeating this Statement and to welcome several aspects of it—three, in particular, as I understand it. I should like to welcome the fact that he does not propose any cuts in the Youth Opportunities Programme and that there will be a natural expansion in that area; although I am bound to say, that, on the Government's own figures, youth unemployment is likely to double in 1981. Given that fact, one is bound to ask whether this represents a real increase in relation to the problem. Secondly, I think one would like to welcome the provision for the disabled under the job release scheme and, thirdly, to welcome the maintaining of the community industry scheme. In many ways this is a welcome example that there are still cases where in the Cabinet, despite disagreements, the doves can draw level with, at least, if not pass, the hawks. For that, we on this side are very grateful.
There are some unsatisfactory features in the Statement as I read it and I should like to raise them now. The first point is the most important. It is not clear from the Statement whether this represents

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an overall increase in the money which will be available for the special employment measure or whether it represents a reduction in real terms, and, if so, what are the nature and the size of the savings? What are the figures for these factors? I wonder whether the Minister can tell us about that.
Secondly, it must be the case that what is being suggested here today undermines further the work of the Manpower Services Commission. Here I should like to ask the noble Earl whether he has read the statement which Sir Richard O'Brien made to the Select Committee on Employment in the other place yesterday, when, as I understand it, he said that he was very concerned about the present level of services in the Manpower Services Commission and that he wondered whether they could maintain the present level of services under the cuts of roughly a further £30 million which the Government intend to impose; and whether this did not further undermine the work of the Manpower Services Commission. Can the Minister tell us something about that?
Thirdly, I should like to protest. I should like to ask for some explanation about the decision to raise the eligibility for job release from 62 to 64. There will be undoubtedly many thousands of people between the ages of 62 and 64 who have been confidently anticipating that they would be able to take advantage of the job release scheme and in that way be able to make way for certain young people who would otherwise be unemployed. I wonder whether the noble Earl can tell us what savings are anticipated as a result of raising the eligibility from 62 to 64 and why he should suggest that they will be worth while.
Fourthly, I should like to ask why there should be—from this Government, above all—abolition of the small firms employment subsidy. I must say to the House that I always thought that this Government favoured small firms. I always thought that their tax policy and their policy towards incentives stemmed from their belief that small firms were going to save the economy. If so, why the abolition of the small firms employment subsidy? What is to be put in its place? Finally, I should like to ask the Minister if he can explain the last part of
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the Statement, which reads:
"We consider that this programme of measures will make an important contribution towards reducing unemployment".
I should like to ask, what contribution? I should like to ask whether we can be given the figures of how far it will reduce unemployment. The Statement goes on to say that the programme will help,
"particularly hard-hit groups"—
What hard-hit groups?—
"within a level of expenditure which we can afford".
Surely it is the time for the Government to tell us why measures of this limited kind are expected to deal with the fundamental underlying problem of rising unemployment throughout this country, especially in particular areas and in particular occupations. If it will not help, what do they propose to do about it?
4.18 p.m.
Lord ROCHESTER: My Lords, we on these Benches should like to join in thanking the noble Earl for having repeated this Statement. Like the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, we welcome the increase in the size of the Youth Opportunities Programme and the opportunities that expansion gives for further work experience and training for unemployed young people. We welcome also the maintaining of the community industry scheme.
One of the disadvantages of speaking after the main Opposition spokesman in response to this Statement is that one has one's thunder stolen; but I should like to echo practically everything the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy has said. We, too, should like to know what are the overall estimates of saving or of increase in expenditure which these measures, taken together, will produce. If it is the case, as reported in today's Guardian, that Sir Richard O'Brien told the Commons Select Committee on Employment yesterday that there was to be a cut of £30 million in each year from 1981–1982 onwards—that is, for three years from that year onwards—we for our part would on the face of it very much regret that. We, too, have noticed the point in the Statement concerning the small firms employment subsidy and the job release scheme. Little explanation is given as to the reasons underlying these two items and I should

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like to echo what the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, said in asking the noble Earl if he will be good enough to give us some further explanation as to the Government's thinking on these matters.
Lord KILMARNOCK: My Lords—
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, if I may, I shall take the points of the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, in a moment; but perhaps I may first answer the substantial points put from the Opposition Benches. The noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, gave two cheers at any rate for the Statement; and for that I am grateful. I take this teasing about doves and hawks, but I do not think that this is a particularly dissenting or inconsistent aviary because we did not oppose these measures in particular in substance when we were in Opposition and therefore there is no need for us to appear inconsistent by not doing so now. As I have shown, we have, in certain instances, expanded upon them.
The noble Lord welcomed the expansion of the Youth Opportunities Programme. That is an expansion of some 25 per cent. That, we think, will be more than adequate to enable us to give our Easter undertaking whereby any young person unemployed after a certain period of having left school will have a place on the scheme offered to him. He welcomed the remarks about disablement in relation to the job release scheme and also in connection with community industry.
Both the noble Lords, Lord McCarthy and Lord Rochester, asked about the public expenditure implications of the Statement. The expenditure for all the measures will be found from within the reduced resources provided for the Department of Employment and the Manpower Services Commission in the White Paper to be published in March. Both noble Lords wanted some specific overall figures. The total expenditure on the programme of special measures in the financial year 1980 to 1981 is expected to be about £360 million; that is similar to the expenditure provided for this year which was £374 million. What we are trying to achieve is to serve a rather larger number of people but also at a slightly reduced cost by maintaining a reduced STEP programme and cancelling the small firm
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employment subsidy about which I shall have a word or two to say in a moment.
Both noble Lords (if I may say this to them), perhaps casting round for things to criticise in an otherwise admirable Statement, said that we might be undermining the work of the MSC. I attended the Select Committee of another place and heard everything that Sir Richard O'Brien said. I wish to pay a tribute to Sir Richard O'Brien for the close co-operation that he has given us in trying to frame these schemes, operate them and prepare the Statement. Sir Richard is, as one would expect, a good fighter for his corner, and that was what he was engaged in doing in another place the other day. I would certainly not criticise him for that. The fact that we have in certain realistic and effective ways been able to increase provision within overall slight reduction of expenditure is an indication of the importance that we give to the work of the Manpower Services Commission, and we would continue to give importance to that work within the constraints that the economy faces.
The noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, asked me why we were putting up the job release eligibility age for men from 62 to 64. I regret this. I like the job release scheme; I think that it has been very effective, but we have managed to preserve it within considerable public expenditure restraints. It was certainly not our fault that the public sector borrowing requirement that we found in May was £11 billions rather than the £8½ billions that Mr. Healey had told us to expect.
Finally, some remarks were made about the small firms employment subsidy. Our understanding was that this was less cost-effective than it might have been, and certainly when there was a cutback in that particular subsidy to small firms last June there was a quiet reaction about it. I am glad to be able to say to the House that my right honourable friend the Chancellor will be giving considerable attention in drawing up his Budget proposals to the needs and problems of small firms. We think that there are more effective ways of assisting them than with this subsidy.
4.23 p.m.
Lord ORR-EWING: My Lords, would my noble friend take this opportunity of giving the House some information about

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the retraining facilities? If there is to be redundancy—and particularly in places like South Wales—and if there is to be expenditure by the Government of £48 million on shadow factories for the future so that other employment is available, is it not desperately important that we should match those efforts with some real effort to provide training and retraining facilities so that people who are declared redundant will take on a new craft or a new industry?
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, I share the views of my noble friend about the importance of training and retraining. He will appreciate that, just as the special employment measures are only part of the work of the Department of Employment and of the Manpower Services Commission, they do not cover all instances of training. There is a training element contained in the special measures in the Youth Opportunities Programme which we have expanded and in the Special Temporary Employment Programme which has been sharpened (if I may put it that way) by concentrating them on areas of greatest need. Both those programmes contain training elements but the thrust of the work of the Government on training is not in the special employment measures as such.
Lord McCARTHY: My Lords, I thank the Minister for trying to answer at least three of my five questions. I do not want to go into those. It leaves me with two which I do not think he even tried to answer, and I want to try again. He did not say how far the proposals he put before the House today represent an overall saving or an overall increase, particularly in real terms, in the STEP. He used two figures. He said at one stage we were spending £360 million, and then £374 million. It seems to me that, given the Government's assessment of a 14 per cent. inflation rate, which I think is grossly too low—but I leave that aside—this represents a real reduction. Does he agree with that, and, if so, to what extent? The second question which I ask him was my fifth question, which he did not answer. I referred him to the last paragraph of the Statement:
"We consider that this programme of measures will make an important contribution towards reducing unemployment …".
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My question is quite simple: what contribution will it make?
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, I plead guilty for not answering the noble Lord's last question. Though I should in courtesy have mentioned this, I do not intend—and I do not think that it is useful—to get involved in forecasting. These measures are carefully designed to operate on a year-on-year basis, that being the efficient way to proceed because then one has some indication in any given year of what the requirements are going to be in the following year. So I am going to avoid—but quite deliberately—any argument about forecasting.
On the question of whether these figures are in real terms, the answer is that they are. The total expenditure on the special employment measures, which the Statement announced, adds up to £359·5 million, which is what I said in my supplementary remarks. The expenditure provided for special employment measures last year totalled £374 million. So there has been a reduction in real terms; but there has also been an increase in the numbers of people serviced in real terms, as people must always be seen in real terms. We consider that we have gone for cost effectiveness and have directed the programmes in the areas of greatest need.
One more point on that aspect: when we came into office we found an extraordinary à la carte of eccentric "make-work" schemes. One of the STEP projects that I was asked to investigate—I had to say that I refused—was the consideration of the relationship between Commoners and ponies in the New Forest. It is that kind of scheme that we were fairly ruthless in cutting out of the programme. We reckon that we have the balance now about right for this coming year. What happens thereafter of course will have to be considered again.
Lord KILMARNOCK: My Lords, may I express to the noble Earl my relief that the winding up of the small firms subsidy scheme does not indicate that the Government are ceasing to take an interest in this sector? May I ask the noble Earl if he is aware of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's study on the extremely important role of job creation played in the United States by recently formed small firms? I am sure that he is aware

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of this. Also when the noble Earl's right honourable friend considers the question of small firms, will the noble Earl draw his attention to this very important study?
The EARL of GOWRIE: My Lords, I am grateful for the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock. One of the difficulties with subsidies is that if you withdraw them the arena which is affected always feels in some way under fire. The Government are relying enormously on the wealth creation and on the employment generation capacities of small firms, and a great many of our fiscal and other policies are directed towards this end. The problem with expansion subsidies, like the small firms employment subsidy, is that they are inevitably paid even when employers would have created extra jobs without payment of the subsidy. This is not the best way to fulfil our responsibilities and what we are hoping to achieve from the small firm.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: My Lords, I think that many of us expected very much worse than this, judging by the kind of things that we have heard mooted around the country, such as that the Government were concerned about real jobs and not about the kind of jobs that were being provided under these schemes. So I am very glad that there has been a change of heart. I am disappointed that the noble Earl the Minister told us that he is not going to indulge in forecasting. Surely what he means is that he is not going to publish forecasts, because I should be very surprised indeed if the Government would have gone about spending this amount of money, and being able to say that it would help more people, without having made some kind of forecast. What I am concerned about is how this fits in with the real need for this kind of scheme, because we know that at the present time unemployment is rising. In Scotland over 200,000 people are now unemployed. We used to be appalled when the figure was 100,000. Does the noble Earl think that this is going to be in any way adequate to meet the real needs in respect of the unemployed young people?
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, I am grateful for the first part of the noble Lord's remarks, when he praised us. But
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he took away the praise towards the end, without, in fact, adding anything further to the argument. The point is that it is because we are responsive to changes in the employment position of young people, that we have increased the provision of the scheme. All I was saying was that the essence of these programmes is that they should operate year on year, so that one can monitor what reality is. We have kept the Easter undertaking, which, as the noble Lord will be aware, is an undertaking that all young people who are unemployed for six weeks after leaving school will receive an offer of a place on the programme before the following Easter. We are therefore responding, as it were, to market conditions in terms of employment levels, rather than notional ones. That is surely the sensible way to proceed.

THE BOYLE REPORT
4.32 p.m.
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, with the permission of your Lordships, I should like to repeat a Statement which is being made by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in another place on parliamentary pay and allowances. The Statement is as follows:
"With permission, Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a statement about the pay and allowances of Members of Parliament.
"The Thirteenth Report from the Review Body on Top Salaries is published today as Cmnd. 7825. Copies are available in the Vote Office. Members will have an early opportunity to debate the report, but I would today like to outline briefly the Review Body's recommendations, and to tell the House the Government's reactions.
"The Government are most grateful to Lord Boyle, the chairman of the Review Body, and his colleagues for the consideration they have given to these issues. We accept in general the report's recommendations, but would like to propose some modifications which I will explain.
"The Review Body comment on the growing usage of secretarial and research assistance by Members, reflecting
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the growth in paperwork and the need for them to inform themselves on increasingly technical or specialist subjects. Consequently, they propose that the present secretarial allowance, which was fixed at an interim level of £4,600 last summer, should be replaced by two allowances with maxima of £5,500 for the employment of a full-time secretary, and £1,250 for part-time research assistance. The Government consider that this change in the scope of the allowance will help Members with their task, and contribute to the better functioning of Parliament. However, we do not believe it would be right to make it obligatory that Members should have their secretaries paid directly by the Fees Office as the Review Body suggests, although we would strongly urge Members to adopt this method of payment.
"The suggestion is also made in the report, although it was not within its terms of reference, that the House"—that is, the House of Commons "might possibly wish to reconsider the question of secretaries being employees of the House rather than of Members. Members may well wish to express their views on this issue when we come to debate the Report in greater detail. However, I am conscious of the fact that in the past many Members have felt that they should remain their Secretary's employer, and this is a view we share.
"The Review Body have also looked at the question of providing severance pay and pensions for secretaries, and also at whether the secretarial allowance should be paid during a period of dissolution, but have recommended no change in the existing arrangements.
"Turning to the Review Body's recommendations on honourable Members' pension arrangements, the Government accept the conclusions that the existing rate of accrual is satisfactory and that no further improvement of provisions for back-service credit would be appropriate. The Government also agree, however, that there should be more flexibility in the limit within which honourable Members may transfer pension rights into the scheme. An appropriate amendment
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will be introduced when further legislation on the scheme is planned. The Government also accept, in principle, the proposal to use the Members' Fund to provide a measure of benefit as of right to Members who left the House before 16th October, 1964, and their dependants. Once the options have been examined and costed in greater detail, appropriate legislation will be introduced.
"I now come to the recommendations on other Parliamentary allowances and facilities. First, on severance pay, the Review Body consider that there could be difficulties for the older longer-serving Members when they lose their seats, and they recommend a higher severance payment for them. The report also looks carefully at the problem of the expenses which Ministers in the House of Lords incur, and recommends an allowance of up to £1,000 per annum should be available towards the cost of secretarial assistance needed to deal with non-departmental correspondence, subject to the production of evidence of expenditure. These Ministers will, however, cease to be eligible for the maximum of £700 per annum of Peers Expenses Allowance which they may currently claim.
"As part of their remit the Review Body also looked at the question of constituency surgery costs, travelling expenses of spouses attending official functions and the cost of office equipment. Apart from a minor change to the spouses' travel arrangements the Review Body sees no case for introducing special allowances.
"On travel facilities, the Review Body reiterate the view expressed on their Eighth Report in 1976 that the costs of all journeys within the United Kingdom on parliamentary business should be reimbursed. The Government recognise the argument that this improvement might help Members carry out their duties, but feel unable, because of the costs involved, to accept this recommendation at the present time.
"Finally, there is the question of how Members' pay should be treated for the future, and whether it should be linked in any way. The Review Body, having considered this issue very carefully

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once more, conclude that linkage would be inappropriate for the Members' salary. The remit to the Review Body asked them to look specifically at professional analogues, but the conclusion reached here is that there is no similarity between the functions and responsibilities of any professional group and those of MPs, and that there is no relationship in terms of pay.
"TSRB reiterate that in their view regular independent review remains the best way of dealing with Parliamentary pay, and in the light of all these factors the Government intend to propose the institution of annual TSRB reviews on the parliamentary salary from next year. The intention would be to invite the Review Body to take account particularly of salary movements in the professional field. Of course, the Government could not undertake a blanket commitment to implement whatever is recommended with regard to Members' salaries, but our firm intention is that recommendations will be implemented unless there are clear and compelling reasons to the contrary."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
4.39 p.m.
Lord PEART: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for repeating that Statement, which is very important from the point of view of House business. May I say that my colleagues and I, and indeed colleagues in another place, feel that we should have further consultations on this matter. For that reason, I am not going to commit the Opposition to anything specific in regard to this Statement. I believe that we should have proper consultations, and then we shall have to make our decisions when legislation is introduced.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, while recognising that this is primarily a matter for another place, may I say that it is rather incongruous that a body which is described as the Review Body on Top Salaries should be recommending such derisory increases, which will cause bitter disappointment among secretarial staff in the Commons. Does the noble Earl honestly think that it is possible to employ a part-time research assistant at £1,250 and that this is going to go any way at all
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towards meeting the needs which the Government themselves recognise, and which they say would contribute to the better functioning of Parliament? What provision is there in these arrangements for the National Insurance contributions which Members have to pay for their secretaries and which we understand are to be increased in April? Did the review body take into account the increase in National Insurance contributions, and will there be an automatic adjustment when that takes place?
Does the noble Earl the Deputy Leader of the House recognise that there is nothing in this award for costs other than for secretarial salaries and National Insurance and that Members have to buy many things besides, such as their own typewriters? One cannot get a typewriter nowadays for less than £750. Then there are the consumable items that one uses in an office, like typewriter ribbons, which are not cheap, either.
Does not the noble Earl agree that we are worse served than almost any other legislature in the world? If one compares our situation with Congress, a typical Congressman may have a research and secretarial staff of 18 people. How can we really expect Members of another place to do their job properly on such minute resources? Does the noble Earl the Deputy Leader of the House recognise that there will be particular disappointment among the secretarial staff that the Government did not find themselves able to deal with the question of severance pay and pensions for secretaries? When an honourable Member dies or loses his seat, it means instant dismissal for his secretary. Does he not think that that is entirely unreasonable? The Fees Office even inquire as to the exact time of death of the Member so as to decide whether or not his secretary is entitled to payment on that day. Does he not think that we owe it to these people, who work extremely long hours—one secretary whom I spoke to yesterday told me that she was at her desk regularly from 8.30 in the morning until 8 in the evening—to treat them in a more civilised manner when through no fault of their own they lose their employment?
Turning to the provision of secretarial allowances for Members of your Lordships' House, does not what I have said in regard to another place apply here with

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even greater force? How can anybody expect to employ a part-time secretary to deal with his non-ministerial business for £1,000, let alone an ordinary Member of your Lordships' House to employ anybody for £700. Does the noble Earl realise that if the proper salary for a secretary is £5,500 and she works the normal office hours of 35 hours a week, the £700 paid to Members of your Lordships' House as the maximum secretarial allowance would enable somebody to be employed for less than 4½, hours a week, which is totally inadequate to deal with the amount of correspondence which many of your Lordships have? Will the Review Body consider in future a proper provision for your Lordships as well as for Members of another place, and will the annual review which is recommended by the Top Salaries Review Body on Parliamentary salaries apply also to the allowances in your Lordships' House?
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, may I answer the observations made by the noble Lord, Lord Peart, and the noble Lord, Lord Avebury. First, I accept that the noble Lord, Lord Peart, said that he would like to reserve his position and consult with others about this. Perhaps he means with us. By all means let him do so, should he so wish.
Lord PEART: My Lords, I did not intend to be discourteous but I forgot to mention the admirable work done by the noble Lord, Lord Boyle, and his colleagues. It is quite a difficult job. I should like to put that on the record.
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for having made that observation. I concur with him totally. It is a very, very difficult job of work to get the balance right when there is absolutely no yardstick by which to compare results. If the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition wishes to have consultations, by all means let him do so.
With regard to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, I think that the barrage of questions which he put to me indicates how very difficult this problem is. I have no doubt whatsoever that the Top Salaries Review Body have considered all those points. When the noble Lord introduced his remarks he said that this
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was mostly a matter for another place. I think he is entirely right about that. Frankly, I would hesitate about involving myself too much in criticising the arrangements for Members of another place, and their secretarial allowances. That is a matter for Members of another place who will have an opportunity to discuss it themselves and to raise the very points which the noble Lord has made—and quite justified they are, too.
The noble Lord mentioned one thing to which I should refer. He asked, did one think that it was possible to get a secretary for £5,500, and a research assistant? I would make only this point, which was brought out in the Statement; that secretaries are employed by the Member. What the Member can get is a contribution towards the payment of the secretary. It does not mean that he is obliged to pay the secretary only that amount. What he pays the secretary or, the part-time secretary, is a matter for the Member and the secretary. This is merely a contribution from public funds towards that cost. I think that the noble Lord asked me whether the secretarial arrangements would be reviewed once a year. May I ask him whether that was his question?
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, I was referring to the arrangements for this House.
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, I think the answer to that question is that Peers' expenses will be reviewed periodically by the Top Salaries Review Body. They will not necessarily be reviewed every year, but probably biennially.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl the Deputy Leader of the House whether he is aware that the suggestion made by my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition is very wise: that there should be further consultations about some of the items contained in this report? May I ask him whether he is also aware that some of the obvious anomalies that have arisen out of the pension scheme do not appear to have been rectified, nor is there any suggestion to that effect? I admit that I have an interest in the matter; I do not deny that I have. But I would not make a song and dance about it; nor have I ever made heavy weather about

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it. I am not the only Member affected. My noble friend Lord Boothby was very grievously affected—even more than I—by not receiving anything at all by way of a pension, despite his prolonged service. Although I have never complained about it, in my particular case it is an anomaly that seems to be accepted by everybody.
Under the 1964 pension scheme, pensions were determined by 10 years' service, despite the fact that many of us had almost three or four times more service than that. In my own case, my pension was based on 10 years' service. I never could understand the reason why, but, as I say, I have never complained about it. But now that Members of Parliament are going to be—and I emphasise this—less harshly treated than we were when we were Members of Parliament, perhaps I could say this. There was no severance scheme. When I lost my seat in 1931 there was not even the dole. One can now apply for social security. Few people appreciate what some of us endured in view of our defeat. But none of these anomalies are going to be rectified.
I do not want to complain about the noble Lord, Lord Boyle. He is doing his best, but I hear that secretaries are now going to be paid over £5,000 per year, which is much more than the income of some noble Lords; and we have no secretaries. Over and above that, is the noble Lord the Leader of the House aware that many of us receive letters from our old constituents and from the descendants of our old constituents asking us to deal with questions? I had two only last week in which I was referred to as a Member of Parliament. They think that we are still Members of Parliament, and of course we are. What do we do about all that?
I am delighted to hear that Members of Parliament are to be less harshly treated than we were. We went through the mill; we took a chance, a calculated risk and we have no right to complain about it, but when I hear about these enormous sums that are going to be paid for secretaries and all the rest of it, with all the ancillaries, with rooms for themselves (which we do not have here) with couches, for reasons that I do not understand, really, it is going a bit too far! I hope the Deputy Leader of the House will take into account what my noble
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friend and also other noble Lords interested in the matter have suggested in order to ensure that if there is to be special treatment of Members of Parliament there should be recognitiion, for what it may be worth and so long as it may last, that we are also Members of Parliament and have a duty to this House and also to the general public.
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, I understand the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, and it does not exactly surprise me that he referred to the fact that those who were Members of Parliament before 1964 and retired receive no pension at all. I know that this is a matter of great concern to those who are so placed. I think the noble Lord said that he was a Member for 30 years before that occurred and there was no pension there and only the dole. That was a fairly traumatic experience, but of course things have altered quite a bit. I even remember that when I first came to your Lordships' House there was no expenses allowance at all. Indeed, the only allowance we received was a travel allowance, provided we attended a third of the Sittings, and if one intended to attend a third of the Sittings and one did not, there was no refund of the travelling expenses. So things have advanced since then.
When the noble Lord says that the secretaries are getting too much for what is done, I am bound to reiterate that that is a matter for the Members of the House of Commons to consider, because this is something which specifically refers to them. However, I think I can give the noble Lord a little encouragement on one facet; that is, with regard to the pre-1964 pensions. If I may, I should like to repeat that part of the Statement which said that the Government also accept in principle the proposal to use the Members' Fund to provide a measure of benefit as of right to Members who left the House before 16th October 1964 and their dependants. Once the options have been costed and examined in Greater detail appropriate legislation will be introduced. So it looks as though something may be done. I am not fully conversant with what the Members' Fund is, and I doubt whether the noble Lord will find himself very flush at the end of it when the appropriate legislation has been introduced,

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but at least something is happening.
Lord LEATHERLAND: My Lords, I notice that the noble Earl had two pages of paper in front of him. Has he by any chance mislaid the third page, which might have related the allowances which your Lordships draw to the increasing inflationary effect of the last 18 months?
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, I fear that part of the expenses of your Lordships' allowance ought to go to provide the noble Lord, Lord Leatherland, with a pair of spectacles, because I have the third page here and the curious thing is that the third page does not say anything about the expenses which your Lordships' draw, because in fact that does not come into the review undertaken by the noble Lord, Lord Boyle.
Lord MISHCON: My Lords, will the noble Earl permit me to refer again to the pre-1964 category, in which quite obviously this humble noble Lord has no personal interest whatsoever. The noble Earl mentioned that there have been discussions on this matter in this House and that the feeling of the House was very clear. He mentioned that the matter would be under consideration and that legislation might take place. Would the noble Earl have in mind that, unless the consideration is speedy and the legislation is given priority, many of those who are supposed to benefit will not be here to benefit at all?
Lord SHINWELL: How does the noble Lord know?
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, I am quite certain that that cryptic observation will be read with concern by those whose responsibility it is to lay this legislation; and, of course, they are not at present in another place by virtue of the fact that they have left it.
Lord AYLESTONE: My Lords, without wishing to delay proceedings at all and thanking the Deputy Leader of the House for reading the Statement, may I ask him whether I am clear in thinking that as a result of the unanimous decision of this House in referring reckonable service to the Boyle Committee for their
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consideration, the Boyle Committee and the Government now feel that any change in reckonable service should be met from the Members' Fund, which of course is a fund which has an upper limit and is subject to a means test?
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, I think I shall have to write to the noble Lord, Lord Aylestone, on that. It is a matter of detail about which I am not certain.
4.55 p.m.
Lord BOOTHBY: My Lords, as one who sat in another place for 34 years—unbroken years—and as a result contributed regularly to their pension fund but who has no pension at all, may I ask the noble Earl whether he is aware that the interminable delay of the Boyle Committee in making any recommendation about pre-1964 Members of Parliament, despite strong pressure over the years from both Houses of Parliament, has meant that a good many of the people concerned have had to live, and some of them to die, in considerable poverty? It really is time that something was done.
May I also, with the indulgence of the House, and in the form of a question, make a very brief personal statement? It is this: Is the noble Earl aware that I am a little sensitive on the subject of declarations of interest, and I have a vague recollection that one day when I was in a particular rage with the Boyle Committee I said to your Lordships that if they recommended that I should get a pension of any kind I would not take it. My Lords, I have thought that one over, and I should like to put it on record that I have changed my mind; and the reason why I have changed my mind is that I have been doing a bit of research with the help of the Librarian of your Lordships' House, and find that I have now sat continuously in both Houses of Parliament for longer than anyone else in this century or, so far as they can make out, in any other century. In fact I may have sat in both Houses of Parliament for longer than any man who has ever lived; and if that does not entitle me to a pension, I don't know what does.
Several noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, I think it must be quite a unique occasion, first, to

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hear the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, say that he has been a Member of Parliament longer than anyone else has ever been—and I am certainly not in a position to contradict that, nor if I were, would I do so, because it is a great claim. Secondly, it is a unique occasion to hear the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, totally change his view. I think it was Winston Churchill who said that periodically one has to make a meal of one's words and not an unwholesome diet, either. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Boothby's diet would not be unwholesome, but in a serious vein I do accept that this is a real problem and I accept also that it is such a problem because it cannot be ventilated personally by people in another place, simply because they have already left there.
I think it would probably meet the feelings and the requirements of the House if I were to ensure that my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster was given a copy of the proceedings of this House in which the observations which your Lordships have made will appear.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, may I be permitted to clear up a misunderstanding, because we do not want to go on being vague about this? The noble Earl the Deputy Leader of the House has dealt with one point which would clear up the anomaly affecting my noble friend Lord Boothby—namely, that if the parliamentary fund to which we contributed, first, £24 and then a further sum per annum, were used, he would be brought into the scheme. On the other hand the 1964 scheme would not affect a person like myself or others similarly placed, but, if it is going to benefit the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, I do not mind being left out. I think he needs it much more than I do.
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, I would not dare to intervene as to who required it most or more, but I will see that the sentiments of the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, on that matter will also be passed to my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster—but I dare say he would rather that one was not passed on, in fact.

AIRPORTS POLICY
5 p.m.
Debate resumed.
Earl AMHERST: My Lords, I too, from these Benches, would like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, for initiating this debate, which enables us to find out what changes have taken place in airports policy since the present Government came into office, and to note what progress has been made.
In our debate on 17th December, the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, said that history will tell us that we made a great mistake in not proceeding to develop Maplin, and the noble Baroness, Lady Burton of Coventry, said that we should not have spent more money on Maplin than we have on all the little bits and pieces that we have since added, and, I would say, we are going to add. I agree with both of them. From what the Minister has told us today, I think it is clear that this Government at least are not going to open the question of Maplin again, despite what protests may be made from various local interests against the development of Stansted.
On the subject of costs, it is perhaps relevant to this debate to make mention of the huge costs that have been involved and are going to be involved in the patching up of Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted. Has there ever been a calculation or estimate made of the real net cost to the taxpayer, bearing in mind that a large proportion of these costs are in respect of wages and salaries and a large lump of that finds its way back to the Treasury by way of personal income tax? In saying that I am not inviting a lecture on elementary economics.
We have been told there is to be a policy of development to maximise the potential of the English, Scottish and Welsh regional airports so as to shift the burden away from the London area. The East Midlands, Manchester and Birmingham have been specifically mentioned. There is also to be a policy of negotiating rights for new services, which I imagine will also include charter services, from the Continent to these regions. Presumably the idea is to induce air passengers generated in these local catchment areas

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to elect to fly from their own local airports rather than to go to the London area, and so reduce the load in the South-East. It could hardly be in the reverse direction, bearing in mind the time and expense involved in taking surface travel from the South-East to the Midlands or beyond. I note that preliminary estimates have been made for the potential traffic and choice of destinations from these airports, and that there are plans for some new services.
Can we be told what the first selection of local regional airports to be developed will be, and what the new services may be in the first instance? I have heard a rumour that the Channel Tunnel project is to be revived. If and when it comes into operation it is undoubtedly going to syphon off a lot of air traffic, thus relieving congestion. As such, I think its mention does just come within the sphere of this debate. If there is any news of this it would be interesting to hear it.
To return to the London area, it seems that the present policies do not go further than the provision of a fourth terminal building at Heathrow, a new terminal at Gatwick but not a second runway, and a new terminal building and ancillary buildings at Stansted, which has acquired or can easily acquire enough additional acreage for a second runway if that comes to be needed. As I have said before in this House, this fourth terminal at Heathrow is to be on a site which is difficult and time-wasting to get to from the M.4, even if a tunnel from the central area is provided. The hard standing is restricted.
Airlines with whom I have spoken have told me that they went along with the proposal to build it because it could provide a relief, but not a cure, for the problem of congestion and it could be ready by 1985, some time before the Perry Oaks site could be developed, and as such it was better than nothing. But they would have preferred the Perry Oaks site, and still hope that it may be developed, with its 400 acres, with easy access to the M.4 without having to go through the central area and its congested tunnels; also to the M.25 when that is completed, and the possiblity of a rail link to lines that go through Staines. I am told it could be got ready about 1991, and subject to the price it would get for its land, the
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Thames Water Authority no longer see great difficulty in moving its sewage farm. I hope the Government will reconsider this matter; but if they cannot do a U-turn, then at least will they consider preliminary planning without commitment so that they will not be caught short when demand for a fifth terminal becomes all too obvious? We have heard that there are plans to extend the Tube from the central area to the fourth terminal, which will be of great benefit to that terminal. Can the noble Lord tell us when it is expected that that will be in operation?
As regards Gatwick, assuming that the hurdle of the public inquiry is finally jumped, I note that it is expected the new terminal will be ready in 1986. Can we be told when the extension of the M.25 from the top of Reigate Hill westwards to the boundaries of Heathrow will be completed? I understand that at the moment it is held up due to some local squabble with the Leatherhead District Council which has been going on for a long time and is likely to cost the Surrey ratepayers a lot of money.
The Minister has told us today of plans for a large-scale development of Victoria Station. These are most welcome. They are to provide booking and other facilities for air passengers for Gatwick and keep them separated from the commuter traffic. This scheme will include special platform capacity to provide for a special non-stop four-an-hour rail service to and from Gatwick. Luckily, this does not require a public inquiry, but is subject to planning permission, and should be ready by 1984. In the meantime, and starting this summer, British Rail plan to operate a fast non-stop train between Gatwick and Victoria at week-ends, which it is hoped will go a long way to relieve the congestion on these services. The rail link to Manchester promised last year is in operation.
With regard to Stansted, can we be told when the new terminal building will be ready? Are there any plans to improve the rail connection from Liverpool Street station, which is not perhaps the easiest of the London termini to get to, together with an improved road connection when the southern end of the M.11, which now ends in Woodford, can be linked to the eastern end of the M.25? I am also told

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that British Rail are to provide special coaches to carry passengers between Bishops Stortford station and the airport, and may even explore the possibilities of running a spur line into the airport itself from the Bishops Stortford/Cambridge main line. Do we know of any plans, similar to those planned for Victoria, to develop Liverpool Street station?
On the subject of transfer of services, is there any final solution to the problem of transferring certain services from Heathrow to Gatwick? I gather compulsion is not contemplated. There has been considerable co-operation by certain airlines, notably British Airways, who have transferred their Spanish services, including charters. Stansted, no doubt, raises a much more difficult problem owing to the difficulty of inter-lining. I understand that, when new routes are negotiated the conditions of designation may contain an obligation for those new services to go to Stansted or Gatwick. Can the Minister enlarge on that?
I turn to the question of frequencies and wide-bodied aircraft. It is argued that, with the introduction of wide-bodied aircraft, the passenger flow will increase, but the aircraft frequencies will decrease. That has been an argument for not providing a second runway at Gatwick. I am told that, at Heathrow, the annual number of aircraft movements is now just about 207,500, which is nearly the limit of the present capacity of the runways; that is, allowing for the restrictions on night flying. So, with the increase of the wide-bodied aircraft, more runway capacity should not be required. I am told that, so far, while certain airlines are already operating wide-bodied aircraft, there is no indication of a decrease in aircraft movements. As on a previous occasion, I have been asking a great many questions. However, I have given the noble Lord notice of some of them which I hope he will be able to answer today.
5.12 p.m.
Lord BOYD-CARPENTER: My Lords, I was very glad that my noble friend Lord Trefgarne when he opened this debate paid a tribute to our late noble friend Lord Thomas who, as he said—and Lord Thomas said this to me—
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had intended to take part in this debate. Lord Thomas was a very old friend of many of us; a great airman, with a distinguished record in the first war; the most successful Chairman of BOAC and, up to his death, the Chairman of Britannia Airways. I worked with him very closely on two of those occasions and I am sure that the House has lost a great deal by his passing and feels the deepest sympathy with Lady Thomas.
The record of successive British Governments on airport policy is, as the Secretary of State himself admitted in his Statement in another place on 17th December, not a very impressive story of British public administration. There has been a plethora of public inquiries, statutory inquiries, study groups and expert investigations spread over many years. What has been the outcome? One outcome has been that, as long ago as 1964, the Government presided over by my noble friend Lord Home of the Hirsel favoured the development of Stansted. Now, 16 years later, after the expenditure of vast masses of paper and even more public money, the view has come round to Stansted again. Meanwhile, the situation has become acute and unsatisfactory.
Those noble Lords who have the misfortune to have to travel through Heathrow Airport, especially during weekends in the summer, know that conditions there are appalling, that they are getting worse and that they are a discouragement to travellers to come to and through this country. The matter, therefore, is now —and I do not blame the present Government for this, for obvious reasons—one of very great urgency and one calling for crisp and immediate action.
Some people outside—I am sure not in this House—seem to think that aviation is a hobby of the very rich and of no very great economic significance. But, as the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede —who himself, if he will allow me to say so, has done so much work for British tourism—pointed out, tourism and aviation, which are, of course, inextricably linked, are now a major contributor to the British balance of payments. Indeed, I think I am right in saying that, if we take the two together, they are the biggest earners of foreign exchange in the current year. Certainly they are of far more

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economic significance to this country than is, for example, the heavy industry about which we naturally—especially at this moment—feel so much concern.
Therefore, one is talking about the essential infrastructure of a major British industry and a major prop of the British economy. It is not just a question of something which is on the periphery of our national life. I sometimes think that the professional planners are very apt to treat it just like that. They will place an airport where it fits nicely into a general land planning scheme, and they do not seem to give very much weight—and I have seen them at close quarters—to the economic necessities of a major industry. They do not seem to give weight to the fact that, if an airport is really to be of use to this vital industry, it must be in the right place and the right place is reasonably close to the centres that it serves and, in particular, to London. It is only that sort of planners' dream of revelry over a map that ever produced Maplin—that planners' dream and that airlines' nightmare. No one seriously concerned with the interests of aviation would have sought to place an airport 50 miles away, on the wrong side of London, with all the problems of ground access.
I think that it is essential to return—as, up to a point, I think the Government are now returning—to the practical question of how best to serve the needs of a major British industry. It is no use kidding ourselves that, if we do not provide the facilities, somehow or other we shall still get the results. Long haul traffic, if it cannot be served conveniently for London with comfortable, civilised conditions for its passengers, will tend more and more to divert to Amsterdam or Paris, where splendid facilities are now provided. This country will lose not only a considerable part of its tourist trade and a considerable part of the advantage it has as a business centre, but also a great deal of aviation business, because that business will tend to go to the foreign lines which mainly serve those airports.
Therefore, it is crucial that we should now get ahead with the provision of those facilities which will prevent Heathrow, in particular, becoming the sort of by-word that Kennedy Airport in New York has become, and prevent it becoming the sort
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of airport which people will go to great expense not to have to pass through. The approach of the Government in not attempting to build a new airport on a greenfield site is, I am sure, right. Prophecy is proverbially the most dangerous of all public occupations. I shall prophesy that no major airport will be built on a greenfield site in this country in this century. Not only is the cost enormous and not only is the provision of ground facilities immensely difficult, but the resistance of the community is such that years and years of effort and vast expenditure are needed to carry it out.
I suggest to your Lordships that the Government are right to base their policy on an expansion of existing airports and, of course, among existing airports I include Stansted. There is real confusion and some public controversy when people outside talk about instituting a third London airport. There is a third London airport at Stansted which has been in operation for many years, which has an excellent runway and which requires development. The additional airports that those people are talking about are fourth or fifth airports. Indeed, if we include Luton, there is indeed a fifth airport.
So, if I may come back to the point which I was making, I am sure that the Government are completely right to build on the existing foundation. They are also right to move flexibly. As some of your Lordships know, I was involved for some years in this arcane business of the forecasting of traffic. I am hound to say that that taught me considerable cynicism about it. The truth is that in the rapidly changing world of today forecasts are no more than the intelligent guesses of reasonably intelligent men and women. Therefore, in a sphere in which preparations must be made a long time ahead, the Government require a flexible policy.
This afternoon, if I have any criticism to offer of the Government's policy and of the Statement by the Secretary of State, it is not that it is wrongly directed, but that it appears even now to lack sufficient urgency, and certainly very considerably to lack flexibility. On the urgency point, perhaps I may put this to my noble friend. I have been studying—as I know have all noble Lords—the

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Statement that was made in another place by the Secretary of State for Trade. In the handout copy, his Statement carries convenient numbering; I am sure it is the copy that my noble friend has. At the beginning of paragraph 9 the Secretary of State says:
"At Heathrow capacity is virtually exhausted, and that is why we must continue to divert traffic to Gatwick, as already announced in my Statement on 9 October".
That is clear, but, when we proceed to the following paragraph, paragraph 10, the right honourable gentleman says:
"At Gatwick a public inquiry is to be held next year into a proposal for a second terminal at the airport. The Government will reach its conclusions on this matter in the light of the inspector's report".
I say this to my noble friend: no one in this world knows what public inquiry inspectors will report; they often produce surprises. However, if the report is against a second terminal at Gatwick, what will the Government do? As the Secretary of State has even now announced, their policy is to divert traffic from an overcrowded Heathrow to Gatwick, and they have had, as your Lordships know, some difficulties in respect of foreign airlines. They have gone in for this public inquiry at Gatwick, which I do not believe to be a legal necessity, as a conscious decision, and the Secretary of State has committed himself not to take a decision until this inquiry is over, which probably will not be until the end of this year.
Therefore, I must ask my noble friend and the Government, given the urgency of the situation and given that they themselves say that Heathrow is at the end of its resources, what they are going to do if the inspector reports against the development of the second terminal at Gatwick. My guess is that they will go ahead with it anyhow for, as I understand it, legally they have power to do so. However, if that is in their minds, why this waste of time and public money in a public inquiry—which would appear to give no direct benefit other than to members of the planning Bar?
I am similarly unhappy with the Government about the lack of flexibility, and that centres on two points. First, I think—as did The Times in a leading article published just after the Statement of the Secretary of State—that they have
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made a great mistake in excluding either the fifth terminal at Heathrow or the second runway at Gatwick. I think that they are probably right not to take a positive decision on either of these at the moment until they study how the other facilities which they provide cope with whatever the traffic increase is. But I think they are making a great mistake in this very uncertain field in excluding these possibilities.
My noble friend said that one of the objections to the fifth terminal at Heathrow is that it would take 12 years to build. With respect, I think he is exaggerating. I know that the sewage farm has to be moved, but the Thames Water Authority—if I may say so, not the most dynamic of bodies—has committed itself to the proposition that it can leave the site cleared in six years. If that be so, surely it is not beyond the capacity of the British Airports Authority, having gone through all the procedures while the site was being cleared, to build the terminal itself in two and a half or, at the outside, three additional years. If that be right, the fifth terminal could, in fact, be built and be in operation not after the 12 years which my noble friend indicated, but before the end of the decade.
I hope and believe that the Government have paid some attention to the view of British Airways in this matter. British Airways believe that the fifth terminal should be built. I should like to quote a sentence from a letter from them:
"We believe there are very strong arguments in favour of developing the Perry Oaks site which would provide a new terminal capable of meeting the needs of air passengers in the nineties. A fifth terminal would enable London to remain competitive with other European gateways; without it we should lose traffic to Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris and Frankfurt. These arguments are considered fully in the enclosed brochure",
et cetera. I shall not trouble your Lordships any further. But that warning from the major British airline and the major user of Heathrow is, I suggest, one that should be treated extremely seriously.
In his reply the Secretary of State dismissed the fifth terminal basically by saying that it would put an increased burden on the neighbourhood. Let us analyse that. It would only put an increased burden in the sense of additional air noise if the effect of not building the fifth terminal is to turn traffic away from

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Heathrow. Is that the Government's intention?—so to limit the capacity at Heathrow that traffic is lost. For unless that is the reasoning behind it, I simply do not understand the Statement by the Secretary of State that this would put an increased burden on the neighbourhood. On the other hand, if he means that it would add to ground traffic, with the difficulties of access, my noble friend knows well that, in fact, schemes have been put forward by which the construction of a fifth terminal at Heathrow would improve ground access to Heathrow Airport by enabling traffic to be brought in from the West direct, and not having to go through the tunnels.
There are also schemes for extending both the underground line and the railway spur into the fifth terminal at the west side of the airport. There is good reason to believe that if the fifth terminal is pushed forward, so far from causing worse ground congestion, it would make a contribution to bettering it. Therefore, I beg the Government not to exclude it, not to close doors which may cause great problems to their successors.
In parenthesis, the problem of airport planning is that Governments must take decisions which often are very unpopular, if they go any distance; but, of course, it is always left to a subsequent Government years and years later to take the consequences of a failure to make provision in time. Therefore, it is a temptation to Governments and to Ministers to bow to opposition, to do as little as possible at the time, and to leave it to some remote successor to "carry the can" when the trouble arises. I am not accusing my noble friend of doing that deliberately, but I am saying that there are pressures on Government to act in that way.
The same goes—and I do not want to weary the House—with the second runway at Gatwick. I am even more puzzled about this. It is the declared policy of the Government to build up Gatwick to 25 million passengers a year. My noble friend knows Gatwick better than any other noble Lord in this House. I simply do not believe that we could handle anything like that number of passengers on a single runway. I know that the construction of a second runway has been made more difficult by the quite deliberate
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action of the British Airports Authority in building some of their cargo facilities across what was, in the original plan, the track of the second runway. But it is not impossible to create it. Here again, I think that the Government would be very unwise, if it is their declared policy to build up Gatwick to 25 million passengers, to exclude the second runway.
My doubts are reinforced by study of the Secretary of State's Statement in its reference to Stansted. In that Statement it is indicated that Stansted will first be built up to 15 million passengers a year, and that land will be safeguarded so that a second runway at Stansted can be built if the traffic is to go above 15 million passengers a year. Perhaps my noble friend will explain why, if the British Airports Authority are so clever that they can handle 25 million passengers on a single runway at Gatwick, they are taking precautions and spending money so as not to have to handle more than 15 million passengers a year at Stansted without a second runway? I hope I have made my point clear to my noble friend.
Therefore, while I support and am glad to see the Government's policies as set out in this policy in the short term, provided they are energetically pursued and provided that such public inquiries as they feel they must undertake are pushed through with speed and decisions taken quickly, I reiterate—and I hope that the House will forgive me for saying this again but I should like to put it on record—that I think in closing any of these doors, be it the fifth terminal at Heathrow or the second runway at Gatwick, the Government will be making a mistake. Even if they feel that there is insufficient evidence to justify expenditure on them now, in which they may well be right, I hope that they will leave the door wide enough open to enable another Government in a different situation some years hence to go ahead with what I do not say will be necessary, but what, there is a reasonable possibility, may be vitally necessary.
5.32 p.m.
Baroness BURTON of COVENTRY: My Lords, I should like to start by echoing the tribute paid by the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, to Lord Thomas, who was always a very good friend to me. I remember, going back to the saga of

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the West London air terminal, Lord Thomas saying to me and I think to the House, "You have no idea how the Government can lean on a nationalised industry if they want something to be brought about". I should like to add my tribute.
I welcomed the tone of Lord Trefgarne's opening remarks today, because it seemed to me that he was prepared to look at matters that we put forward and to see that they went elsewhere also. The noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter—I was wondering whether I should say that I always bow to his greater knowledge. I think I will acknowledge his greater knowledge because nobody in the House knows more, but I am not going to agree with him on everything he said today. I wholeheartedly agree on the matter of urgency and on the second runway at Gatwick, and I hope he will bear with me on the other matters.
While appreciating the problems and dilemma of the Secretary of State in assessing correctly in 1979 what may be right for 1999 I remain unconvinced that the cost of these interim, I call them "bits and pieces", will not assume gigantic proportions, and that 20 years hence we may well consider that "taking a chance" on Maplin today was an error of judgment. Obviously I myself, and those who are better informed than I am, have neither the expertise nor the experience which is available to the Secretary of State. But I believe that the Secretary of State and his colleagues will study opinions that are genuinely held and have been formed over several years.
I myself regretted that the Maplin project was cancelled in 1974. Had it been adopted in 1971, as the then Government then recommended, I believe that the resultant cost would not have exceeded what we have since spent on what I call these "bits and pieces"; and nobody could say that the might-have-been Maplin in any way compares with the position that we have today. I noted what the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, said and I should like to assure him that I am not in favour of Maplin because I am against any inland site. I am not taking sides on those at all.
Coming to the Statement in another place on 17th December, the Secretary of
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State spoke of financial problems concerning Maplin, which presumably were one of the reasons for rejecting Maplin. Included in these was "the re-location of defence establishments". We all know that obstacles to removing defence establishments will always exist, and moreover will never change unless the Government of the day decide that something will have to be done. Nothing less will do.
Although the Government have stated that they do not intend to revive the Maplin project in any form, I want to assume that they have a change of heart as a result of further inquiry. As the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, said, we have these inquiries, and one assumes that the Government mill take note of them. Indeed the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, assured me the other day on the inquiry at Gatwick that if the inquiry went against what the Government wanted they obviously would have to take note of it as we were a democracy, and one never knows what will come out of these inquiries.
What I wanted to ask about was what about the cost concerning Maplin? I advance into this minefield with considerable trepidation, but I have done my best and I should like an answer to some very real doubts. I do not expect the noble Lord to be able to give them to me tonight, but I would appreciate them. On 18th December the Financial Times produced a table which was headed: "Capital costs of third London airport", giving these in three stages, the total cost and the time taken from decision in principle to opening date. Taking Stansted the cost is, stage one, £365 million; stage two, £260 million; stage three, £605 million. For Maplin stage one, £900 million; stage two, £230 million; stage three, £575 million. I am not hoping or expecting noble Lords to bear those figures in mind. I thought they should be on the record. But I would ask the House to note that stages two and three at Stansted cost more than at Maplin, although the total cost is £1,250 million for Stansted and £1,700 million for Maplin. Obviously this difference arises from stage one, which brings me back to the defence establishments.
I have talked to others who, like myself, are unhappy at the Ministry of Defence

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estimates both as to cost of re-locating the defence establishments, estimated at that £240 million to £300 million in the Maplin cost, and to the time it would take to re-locate, if such an unheard-of action were to come about. Apart from being unable to accept what I will term the "projected" costs of Maplin and what I will term the "hidden" costs of Stansted, equally I cannot accept the statement that it would take only eight years for Stansted to be brought into operation as a stage one airport carrying 15 million passengers a year, while for Maplin the figure is given as more than double: that is, 17 years. I would only say to the Minister that many besides myself find these points (shall I say?) unacceptable and leave it there.
On environmental aspects, of course there is no case to be argued between Stansted and Maplin. We all know that the Roskill Commission excluded Stansted from its short list on the ground that too many people lived near it and would suffer excessively from a major increase in its use. This argument still holds great force. Taking the cost of land acquisition for the urbanisation of a fully developed Stansted, this is estimated at some £340 million. This would give Stansted no cash advantage at all. I have seen the letter in The Times today from the chairman of the British Airports Authority, Mr. Payne, on these matters and it really does not cause me to alter anything that I have just said.
Add to that the noise and numbers affected, and I suggest that the term "environmental disaster" is no exaggeration. I do not believe that civil aviation will decline; I think that if Stansted is chosen, it will have to be developed, and Stansted will become what the Secretary of State has said he does not want, namely, a major new international airport. The option to develop Stansted further, possibly to 50 million passengers a year, would mean nothing less.
It is forecast that air passenger markets will more than double between 1978 and 1986, with greater growth on long haul routes, and that leisure travel will represent the area of highest growth. British Airways looked at this on their routes worldwide. On their short haul routes in 1978 the high fare passenger percentage was 60 and the low fare, 40; in 1986, the
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high fare passenger percentage had declined from 60 to 31, and the low fare percentage had risen from 40 to 69. On the long haul routes in 1978, the high fare passenger percentage was 24 and the low fare, 76; in 1986, the high fare percentage had declined from 24 to 18 and the low fare percentage had risen from 76 to 82.
I did not want to weary the House with figures, but merely to substantiate my belief that civil aviation will not decline and to illustrate the likely development. Succinctly, in 1986 British Airways expect that on short haul routes, 69 per cent. of passengers will be low fare ones, while on long haul routes the expected figure is 82 per cent. I wish to make it clear that British Airways did not ask me to make this statement; in June last year their Director of Commercial Operations, Mr. Draper, and I were speakers at the 6th World Airports Conference in London organised by the Institution of Civil Engineers. I listened with great interest to what Mr. Draper had to say and stored his remarks away for future use.
This growth, which I believe in, can be realised, or realised fully, only if two major constraints are removed. The first, obviously, is the fuel threat, with which I am not competent to deal; but the second constraint is, or would be, the inability of airports to handle any significant increase in passenger traffic.
I now come to airports. I agree that we should encourage the fullest use of regional airports and by doing so, additional to any regional benefits, shift some of the burden away from the London area airports. Also, I welcome the intention of the Government to negotiate new rights permitting services between overseas cities and British provincial towns. But it is informed opinion that the need for substantial aircraft capacity is in the South-East, where about 70 per cent. of the country's air traffic is expected to be found through the rest of this century.
I come now to Heathrow, and there seems to be unanimous opinion among us in this House that the congestion at Heathrow is a nightmare. It is also a real disincentive to tourists to come here again, as the noble Lords, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede and Lord Boyd-Carpenter, said, and I am sure the noble Lord, Lord

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Parry, will say the same again. The addition of a further 12 million people a year using the fourth terminal will need drastic rethinking if the burden is not to become both impossible and intolerable, and it gives rise to the question I am now continually asking myself, and, from the tone of the speeches, the question the House is asking itself today: Are people made for airports or airports for people? In other words, what about the passenger, without whom there would be no civil aviation industry? I believe that officialdom is in danger of accepting the first premise; namely, that people are made for airports. It is, after all, much the more convenient one.
I must here bring in the problem of passengers with luggage getting out to Heathrow. How is it proposed that these 12 million additional passengers per annum are to get there? The noble Lord told us—and he expected I would be pleased to hear—that we could hope for the extension of the underground link to the fourth terminal. My concern is not at that end but at this end: how are people to get on to it at this end with luggage? British Airways and London Transport have always regarded this problem as a nuisance and have refused to do anything about it, merely stressing the benefit of the underground link to Heathrow. Of course it is a benefit; but it is not unusual for passengers to have luggage, and that seems a very hard point to get over to authority. We should like to use it, too. It seems quite extraordinary that a new link to Heathrow Airport, constructed at considerable public cost, should expressly exclude use by air travellers with luggage, and I would submit that that is a normal condition for people going away.
As the House is well aware—I would say most patiently well aware—I have asked on many occasions that access to this underground link at street level should be made available to passengers, even if at only one station. I have suggested Gloucester Road, and many tourists and business people who stay in hotels in that area have asked the same. Two years ago, on 25th January 1978, in this House we had a debate on tourism, and at column 419 there appear two simple questions that I asked, and I think the House knows them as well as I do. The first was whether we could have an inquiry into
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which station on the Heathrow-London rail link could best accommodate travellers with luggage, and could we have the matter treated as one of urgency. The second was whether the coach service would be retained. On the first question I got nowhere. On the second, the Minister replying said, at column 449, that there was no question of cutting down the coach service.
That was 25th January 1978. In April 1979 the coach service was withdrawn from the West London Terminal, although it had been used by more than 1 million people in the preceding 12 months. On 15th January this year I asked about the coach service facilities provided from the Victoria Air Terminal to and from Heathrow Airport and whether those were to be curtailed. The Minister told me at column 10—I am sure he remembers it—that there were no plans to curtail the service. I am sorry to say that I do not believe it, and that is the honest truth. I do not mean, of course, that the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, was deliberately misleading the House; he could only repeat information given to him by the department, as did the Minister two years ago.
I believe we have a right to demand something better, and I hope the Minister will see that we get it. I am sure he would not wish to have to get up in this House in the not too distant future and tell us that the service had either been curtailed or had disappeared altogether. I suggest on this transport matter, which I hope the Minister will pass on, that it is not unreasonable to demand that there must be direct access, by road or rail—I am not asking a lot; by road or rail—to Heathrow for all passengers, those with and those without luggage. That should be a precondition to any expansion, and I wonder whether the Government would ask those concerned to cease stating only the difficulties and address themselves to possible solutions.
I come now to Gatwick, and I am on good ground here because I have the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, either behind or in front of me. I still maintain that to put through 25 million people a year on one runway is an unjustifiable risk. It is admitted that at Stansted 25 million is the "absolute maximum" but at Gatwick it is dismissed as being no

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problem at all. At column 1466 on 17th December last, the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, speaking of the figure of 25 million, said:
"that is certainly the maximum capacity of the single runway".
The Press notice issued for the Department of Trade on 17th December last, at paragraph 10 showed that we are still at cross-purposes over this point when it stated:
"We have also considered whether further capacity should be created by constructing a second runway at Gatwick, but have decided not to pursue this possibility".
I am not on about creating further capacity, and have never even mentioned creating further capacity. Quite simply I have been, and still am—as is the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter—on about the fact that no airport in the world which deals with the traffic contemplated for Gatwick is, or is planned to be, operated on a single runway basis. The airlines want a second runway. I think that the passengers need one. The British Airports Authority does not. I am going to say with respect—that usually means that one is not going to be too polite—that the Government, like all bureaucracies, are pursuing the point that has not been raised, presumably to avoid answering the real one.
In conclusion, I think that demand is still climbing, and I am not sure that we are wise, even in the existing financial circumstances, to decide on piecemeal expansion at existing airports. Obviously it does not matter if I am wrong, but it does matter if the Secretary of State is wrong. I agree with Mr. Nott that years of indecision, decision and counter-decision reflect no credit on the capacity of this country to make difficult, but necessary, choices. I agree also that the time is long overdue for a settlement of the airports question for a much longer period ahead, so that the demand can be met if it develops into the next century. But to me this projected policy is the avoidance of decision, and I still hope for a change.
5.52 p.m.
Lord LUCAS of CHILWORTH: My Lords, I start from much the same position as the noble Baroness in questioning whether the airports are for the benefit of the people who use them—the passengers
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—or for the benefit of the operators and the airport authorities. I have always thought that airports essentially are passenger transit depots and are not necessarily centres of social intercourse. I look at most of the airports—at any rate in this country—with some disappointment. This view is borne out by the accounts of the British Airports Authority, whose aviation revenue has so seldom exceeded their commercial revenue. I believe that it was only in the year 1978–79 that revenue from aviation services exceeded commercial revenue. Commercial revenue comes from a variety of sources. I understand that most of the 1978–79 commercial revenue—£73.7 million—came from retail outlets, of which the duty-free shops and peripheral activities in the airports represent a substantial share. I pose this question: is the revenue derived from these peripheral activities disproportionate to the physical space they take up? Would not that space be better utilised for passenger movement and the real needs of the traveller?
I ask this because, judging from everything we have heard this afternoon, the difficulties do not appear to be in the movement of aircraft, but purely in the movement of the people arriving and departing. If terminals are cluttered up with non-essential activities—activities not essential to the moving of the people from one place to another—there is bound to be the kind of congestion that we all complain of. I do not know how much space would be released if terminals were not cluttered up in this way. If I did know, I suppose I would not ask the question.
It seems to me that before people start demanding new terminals they ought to ensure that the existing terminals are properly used. The planners tend to run away with the idea that something new, bigger and better is the answer to the complaints that are levelled. I do not hold that view. I hold the view that in most of the airport terminals in which I have been in this country there is a gross misuse of the asset. That this misuse may contribute considerably to the income of the operators is not, I think, quite the point. If one removes the peripheral activities and therefore a source of income, that may very well have to be made up by making additional charges to travellers, but I do not think that the travellers

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would be any the worse off. I understand that in 1975–76 travellers were relieved of an average of £1·34 each through the duty-free shops, and by and large the figure would be somewhat similar today but for the massive decline in such purchases; and that is not only in the United Kingdom. An article in the magazine Airports International, at the end of last year, stated:
"The British Airports Authority says that its commercial revenue—which constitutes almost half its total income and all its profit—barely kept pace with inflation last year, while its duty-free sales were disappointing in relation to traffic growth".
The article went on to state that the Paris Airport Authority,
"is concerned about a 25 per cent. drop in the number of customers at the Orly duty-free shops last year".
The article also stated:
"The director of Tampa International has pointed out that concession revenue will become less important to US airports as the pressures on space in terminals increase. Already, he noted, concession revenue falters at peak hours".
To me all this spells the fact that we are wasting space in these activities which are not contributing very much to the profitability of the operation. So I think that we need a massive change of attitude here. I do not suppose that even if this kind of suggestion were adopted, there would be a vast increase in the number of passengers passing through existing terminals, but I am told that the main consideration in relation to the shape and size of passenger terminals is the shape of wide-bodied aircraft and the method by which they can be parked. My informant from Airports International tells me that a number of more or less successful attempts have been made to get free of the constraint relating to the parking positions of the aircraft and produce smaller, and therefore cheaper, buildings; for example, at Mirabel Airport, Montreal.
From what I have heard and seen it seems that we are continuing in much the same way as we have in the past. If we are to attract the kind of traffic that noble Lords envisage (and some in particular want) we must adopt new ideas—ideas which are certainly different from those which have been practised in the past. I do not think that we can possibly wait until 1992 for a new terminal to be built. The traffic will have gone by then; people will have become fed up with the situation. It
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would be much more useful if we attach greater importance to the improvement of what we have, bearing in mind that aircraft movements are apparently to remain roughly consistent, while passenger movements are to increase.
That takes me to the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Burton of Coventry, has mentioned this evening, and indeed on so very many other occasions. The congestion outside the terminal—movements of traffic and movements of people—is something which always seems to be left until last. While the Piccadilly Line is supposed to be of great use, I understand from travellers that it has the grave disadvantage of being part of the ordinary transport system, and therefore you get all the stops, all the starts and all the commuter traffic. If we are going to maintain and improve airports such as Stansted, Gatwick and most notably, of course, Heathrow, then the movement of people and vehicles from those places to the hearts of the cities to which they want to go must be planned well in advance of the completion of any terminal improvement or any new terminal building. It is to these peripheral activities and these other services that I do not believe sufficient attention is being given.
Grandiose statements that so many people are likely to come and that so much traffic is going to be generated I think blind people to the down-to-earth need of what it is that the traveller wants; that is, to move through a transit depot in order to get from one place to another, and not to hang around super-lush lounges with shops, offices and goodness knows what. He is a passenger in transit, and he wants to do that quickly, safely and reasonably comfortably.
6.1 p.m.
Lord PARRY: My Lords, I am extraordinarily grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Spens and Lord Abinger, for allowing me to take precedence over them in this debate—only in the matter of time and not in any other sense. The reason will become clear in a moment. I rise handicapped: for an Englishman to lose his voice is a trial; for a Welshman it is a tragedy. It will not surprise noble Lords that I intend to say something about the national airport of Wales at Cardiff, but I see it in context. The noble Baroness,

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Lady Burton of Coventry, as ever, has won the admiration of the House for her exposition of a case which has been set—and I think I am not being pompous but accurate in saying this—in a debate of real consequence for airport usage in this country.
As all the previous speakers have said, all the forecasts suggest a big increase in air traffic running into tens of millions of passengers over the decades ahead. It should be possible to make sure that part of that increase uses the regional airports, and I was as encouraged as were other Members of this House when the Secretary of State for Trade, Mr. John Nott, in the other place on the 17th December, said:
"In the future we will adopt policies designed to maximise the potential of the English regional airports and those in Scotland and Wales, and thus shift the burden away from the London area airports".—[Official Report, Commons, col. 35.]
Indeed, the speaker from the Front Bench opposite this evening, the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, has repeated that statement almost word for word.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I repeated it on 17th December as well.
Lord PARRY: Exactly, my Lords. I do not wish to take anything away from the noble Lord; all credit is due. I was about to say that since I am the chairman of the Welsh Tourist Board and a member of the British Tourist Authority I must plead the Addison rules, because I speak for myself this evening and not for either of those bodies. But the promotion of the Airport Committee in Canada this week is supported by the British Tourist Authority and the Welsh Tourist Board. I shall myself be flying to North America for the British Tourist Authority tomorrow afternoon. We all realise that an increase in traffic to Cardiff (Wales) Airport, raising it to its designed level of one million passengers, would bring considerable benefits to tourism. In fact, Cardiff (Wales) Airport could handle three million passengers a year without further investment in runways or aprons; it would merely require modest spending on passenger-handling facilities and in extending car-parking spaces. The assurances repeated, and perhaps even strengthened, by the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, this
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afternoon, that traffic would be encouraged to regional airports, are welcome and most important.
However, much needs to be done to change long years of actively discouraging traffic to regional airports. If I could give one example, I am advised that the Civil Aviation Authority navigation service charges are approximately four times higher for Cardiff (Wales) Airport, and one assumes for other regional airports, than for Heathrow. The example I give is in fact for an aircraft of the size of a BAC.111. This year, the Cardiff (Wales) Airport Committee will be paying approximately £400,000 to the Civil Aviation Authority for navigation service charges. I should like to invite the Department of Trade Ministers, through the Minister on the Front Bench, to look immediately at what must be an inconsistency. The navigational difficulties of flying into Heathrow—and I take up the challenge made to me by the noble Baroness—one of the world's busiest airports, are surely greater than those of Cardiff (Wales) and some of the regional airports of its calibre. Indeed, the Minister used the adjective "intolerable" to emphasise the burden of traffic through Heathrow.
As air traffic to the United Kingdom grows, and with it the pressures on the South-East of England, it should be possible to plan sensibly for new services to regional airports. Other countries seem to have been more successful in doing this and in decentralising their air traffic. It is possible, for example, to fly directly to many American cities, and several more are anxious to develop international links. This should be seen as an opportunity for Britain in international trade and tourism. We should, as the Minister has said, plan for new routes from fresh destinations on the understanding that they would use regional airports. It was a discouragement, to say the least, when, recently, British Airways, after a long period of service into the national airport of Wales at Cardiff, discontinued almost overnight a series of services that were of great importance to the building up of confidence in that airport. Britain is blessed with excellent train and bus services. They are certainly better than those in most other countries in the world, although it is our habit to "knock" them. We should now seek to get more benefit for the

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regions of Britain from the investment which has already been made in public transport services and our motorway network
I have already apologised to the noble Lord, and I now do so to the House, for the fact that I have a long-standing commitment to be elsewhere very shortly. The important statements made earlier affected our timing, and I would ask the House to excuse me from hearing out the rest of this valuable debate. But the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, was explicit in committing the Government to developing the role of regional airports; that is, outside the South-East. He talked, as I do, of transferring the burden. He asked how it could be achieved. His mention of the new method of surveying travel demands was interesting. The British Tourist Authority had hoped that it might be able to co-operate with, say, the immigration authority by placing limited travel survey questions on the standard card completed by travellers to the United Kingdom. I understand there were difficulties about this, perhaps insurmountable, and nothing materialised. Should the Government perhaps look again at such a detailed and extended survey?
The noble Lord said that short-haul routes should be made more attractive, and he properly noted that the larger airports can offer more attractive packages than the smaller regional ones. Nevertheless, he said, there was significant potential traffic to be attracted to the regions, and in this context I should like to suggest that decisions should be taken very carefully indeed before services to regional airports are ended abruptly. As we all know, if British Rail needs to terminate a service, and proves that need, it has to go through a long and extended period of public appeal before it is allowed to do so. Incidentally, I agree whole-heartedly with the noble Lord that even maximum use of regional airports would not remove the need for additional facilities in the South-East of Britain. I wonder, though, whether there is perhaps one area which I might suggest has not even yet, with all the surveys, with all the examinations, been properly investigated. I am impressed that in the United States of America it is possible for the carriers of private charters to use, on an integrated service, Service establishments for civil purposes.
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I believe that in the financial affairs of this nation we have reached a point beyond which it is almost impossible for any Government to go in the provision of services for only one purpose. I think that we have not looked carefully enough at possible double usage of facilities for which the ratepayer and the taxpayer have already paid and for which there is now reduced use. I am not in any sense saying that the civil carriage of air passengers should take over space needed for defence requirements. I am saying that it should be possible to put to use very expensive facilities for a double purpose. I wonder whether the Minister might look in future as to whether this question has been fully and properly examined. The assurances have been strengthened and repeated here.
At this stage in the debate, it is unnecessary for me to go on any longer, particularly as I am speaking, as your Lordships will gather, at some strain to my vocal chords—the House may note that with some relief. We should seek to get more benefit for the regions of Britain from investment which has already been made in the public transport services. A very small part of the future increase in air traffic in Britain, if planned from the outset for the regional airports, would make a great difference to them. An increase in international traffic to Cardiff (Wales) airport—and I use it not only as an illustration—would create more jobs; it would do so in an area which needs all the help it can get in these difficult times; because in Wales, as elsewhere in the regions, traditional industries have gone into decline.
I should have liked very much to have said something about this in the context of the debate that my noble friend Lord Brooks of Tremorfa (who, incidentally, is the vice-chairman of the Cardiff (Wales) Airport Committee) is to initiate next week; but, as I have already said, I am going to be on a British Tourist Authority sales mission overseas. The problems that the Government face and the problems that previous Governments have faced are such that it is necessary for us to think in future of building not simply an extension of the industrial economy, as I have said in this House before, but an alternative to it. I see, as do other speakers in this debate, the travel and tourism industry as being at least one leg of a tripod or perhaps quadruped system of the

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economy which perhaps will make it possible for future governments to plan in a more determined, long-term way the sort of "ad hoc-ing" that has passed for policy for too long; and I do not here apportion blame to one or other Government.
6.13 p.m.
Lord ABINGER: My Lords, I intervene to comment only on the narrow issue of Stansted and the surrounding area in the context of the Government's airports policy. I speak as one who farms in Essex, who has worked in local government there for many years and who has been active in the conservation movement in Essex for many years. I would add that I do not farm near Stansted; so that I have no personal interest in developments there. I am hardly empowered to speak for those interests that I have mentioned; but I can report how they feel about the Stansted proposals in Cmnd. 7084. They view them with utter dismay. I certainly view the proposals in the same way myself. I think that anyone who has studied the intractable problem of providing London with efficient air transport facilities for the future must accept that arrangements should be made now to handle the likely increase in air passenger movements in the 1980s and 1990s. Many of us do not accept the projections made on the subject. They have been badly wrong in the past and are just as likely to be wrong in the future. I accept that there will be a big increase in passenger movements in the London area; but where I believe the stated Government policy in respect of Stansted to be faulty is that in seeking to make proposals to meet the admittedly urgent needs of the air transport industry, the Government have failed to weigh up the irreparable damage that their proposals could cause other more important interests outside. These outside interests in particular would seem to be agriculture and the conservation of unspoiled countryside near London.
It may not be generally known outside the industry why North Essex plays such an important part in the agriculture of Britain. It is because Essex, of all counties in Britain, is far and away the most important area for growing wheat; and wheat is Britain's most important cereal crop. Let me put it this way. It is
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accepted that Bordeaux in France is a most important area in that country for producing fine wine. It is equally true that Essex, of all our counties, produces the finest wheat in Britain whether as regards quality, quantity or the ease with which it may be grown. The amount of first-class wheat grown in Essex is out of all proportion to the size of the county to the rest of Britain. Essex is the heart and core of the granary of Britain. It is in North Essex that Stansted lies and where so much of the county's agriculture is concentrated. South Essex has long since been urbanised, and I am sorry to say that Central Essex is now going the same way. But North Essex remains a granary.
It is not so much the actual acreage which is lost in the development of a large airport that worries the agricultural industry. The acreage need not be very great. What is damaging is the consequent urbanisation of a huge surrounding area—more than 200 square miles in the case of a major airport—and, if that airport should be Stansted, more than 200 square miles of our finest wheatland. Responsible planners estimate that if Stansted is to be expanded to handle between, say, 15 million and 20 million passengers a year, the servicing of the workforce and their families will require an entire new urban infrastructure equivalent to the size of a town like Cambridge; and, if this expansion is to be to 50 million passengers a year, then to a town the size of Sheffield.
These estimates have not been pulled out of the hat; they have been made by professional planners and, surely, they make nonsense of any proposals for a massive expansion at Stansted or, indeed, at any new inland site in Essex or elsewhere near London. In France, they seem to manage these things better. I cannot imagine that the French would contemplate building a vast airport in the middle of their Bordeaux vineyards or in the heart of their champagne country. Surely we in Britain should no more contemplate prejudicing our finest wheatlands in such a way.
It is true that in Cmnd. 7084, paragraph 158, the Government propose that the expansion of Stansted should be limited to 4 million passengers a year only as an initial step. I, myself, believe that such a limited expansion would be acceptable. I also believe that public opinion

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in Essex and the outside interests like agriculture would not oppose too vehemently a strictly limited expansion of that order. I believe, though, that the Essex County Council believes even this figure to be too big, and it certainly runs completely counter to the county structure plan on which many councillors and professional civil servants have done hours of work. I do not think that the county council has been treated with proper consideration in this matter to date. Nevertheless, it is recognised that Stansted is under-used and that a limited expansion there would bring local benefits such as facilities for increased employment.
But such comfort as is held out for Essex, and indeed for Hertfordshire too, by paragraph 158 is immediately dashed by paragraph 161 in the White Paper. It is this paragraph that seems to state that the Government retain the option of a major expansion of Stansted. It does not say how big an expansion. Are we to assume that it could be up to 50 million passengers a year, or any other unlimited creeping expansion to the size of a major airport? That is just the type of proposal that the Roskill Commission examined in the greatest detail and found unacceptable as an option. It is an option which I submit, for the reasons which I have explained, should remain unacceptable. This is the option which has dispirited great numbers of people not only in Essex, not only in the immediate Stansted area, but throughout Essex and Hertfordshire. It is that option which suggest should have no place in the Government's airports policy.
I do not know whether the noble Lord will wish to do so, but if he said: "It may be the option will not be exercised," I would say that, by their very nature, options can always be exercised. This one will be like a sword of Damocles hanging over North-West Essex and much of Hertfordshire which are proud of their first-class agricultural industry and the few areas of unspoiled country which is left to them.
In the interests of brevity, I shall say little about the conservation objections to a greatly expanded airport at Stansted. Such a policy will of course destroy the character of one of the few remaining large stretches of countryside left near London, one of London's lungs; but the
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conservationists are of course in complete agreement with the local authorities in Essex and the farmers in that area in their opposition to the Stansted proposals. However, they draw their ranks from people much further afield. I cannot imagine a farmer in Lancashire or Cornwall spending a sleepless night about the Stansted proposals. No doubt he would sympathise with his colleagues in Essex, who perhaps face the ruin of their fine farms. But it is the conservationists throughout Britain, not just those in Essex, who deplore this particular proposal. They ask not for whom the bell tolls; they know it tolls for them. If the Government can really contemplate the destruction of such fine countryside by unnecessarily importing a major industrial project into the heart of it, then no countryside in Britain can feel safe from such intrusion.
Conservationists are civilised and sensible people, they realise that man finds pleasure, peace and strength from the quiet enjoyment of unspoilt country, whether he be a visitor to it or whether he lives and works there. So the interests of conservationists, I maintain, really do matter. Man cannot live by air transport facilities alone; he needs bread. If Stansted is developed in the way that has been proposed in paragraph 161 man is going to lose a lot of bread, and he will also lose a huge stretch of magnificent countryside which can never be replaced.
6.25 p.m.
Lord SPENS: My Lords, I put my name down to speak this morning and expected to find myself at the bottom of the list of speakers, which would have suited me because I have a point to raise with the Minister which has nothing to do with this present debate but it fits in with the title of the debate. As I have been elevated a little, I feel that I must make one general comment on this debate before going on to my own particular point. I am no expert on airports policy. What I am going to say rather complements what the last two speakers, the noble Lords, Lord Parry and Lord Abinger, have been talking about.
I look at this from the point of view of a Select Committee on unemployment on which I am now sitting. I do not think I am revealing any secrets of that committee if I say that it is becoming very

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clear to us that increasing unemployment is occurring but not at a level rate throughout the country; it is happening more quickly in certain regions. For that reason, I feel that the Government ought to give serious consideration to building a new airport somewhere in the North-West; a completely new airport which would generate an enormous amount of new employment, both in its construction and afterwards in the industries which would be drafted towards it. I offer that as my suggestion, and I believe that that would certainly assuage the fears of the noble Lord who has just sat down.
To get back to my point: I apologise for taking the eye of the Minister off the ball which he has been playing this evening and bowling him a small, slow one; but I hope that he received a note from me earlier on. I am interested in the affairs of Cyprus and I want to ask him this question. I realise that the airport in Northern Cyprus, Ercan, is not accepted as an international airport and therefore is not accepted by the scheduled airlines. But is there any policy or any rule which prevents charter 'planes from flying direct from airports in this country into Northern Cyprus? At the moment people seem to think that there is a rule against it which prohibits it, and if there is such a rule I want to know why. I hope that the Minister will be able to give me an answer in his reply.
6.29 p.m.
The Earl of CORK and ORRERY: My Lords, you are witnessing a ventriloquial turn. My noble friend Lord Gainford is sitting beside me in silence and he is going to speak after me. We have agreed, for reasons which will probably emerge, to change places. I mention this for the comfort of the noble Lord, Lord Pitt of Hampstead, who may have become confused as he is to follow us both. I find myself in great and unexpected agreement with my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter—unexpected to me and unexpected to him. He will probably be startled to hear me say this. He need not be too startled too quickly. I am indeed in agreement with almost everything he said—almost—but there are certain things he has not said with which I am in total disagreement. There is one thing he said with which also
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I am in disagreement. We will come to these one at a time.
Something he said with which I am not in agreement is that he mentioned that he finds the Government's proposals too inflexible. I, on the other hand, find them too flexible. We may be at odds here over the definition of the word "flexible". But it seems to me that the proposals which the Government have put forward leave open an enormous number of possibilities, which might strike dismay into the hearts of many people, including myself. My noble friend wishes more options to be kept open than are being kept open, so that we can go ahead more quickly; and in this I entirely appreciate his point of view.
But certain of the proposals have a negative effect. For example, we have been told that there is no intention to build a second runway at Gatwick, that there is no intention to build a fifth terminal on the Perry Oaks site at Heathrow and that there is no intention of doing this, that or the other. But you do not have to go back very far in the calendar to discover the effect on the future of beliefs that were held at one time or another. You do not have to go back very far to find the time when there was no intention to build a fourth terminal at Heathrow, a third terminal at Heathrow or even a first terminal at Heathrow; when there was no intention to enlarge Stansted, and when there was no intention to build a major airport at Gatwick. Indeed, if we had accepted the statements made by various persons in the past that they did not intend to do something, and had taken those as statements of truth, then there would be one London Airport now and it would be at Croydon.
So what are we to think about the future of these airports? I mention this largely for one reason, not merely to get at my noble friend for whom I have the greatest possible respect, as indeed I ought to. It is because I have discovered from my own observations that there are people in important places, even in local government—people of intelligence, integrity and so on—who are taken in by this kind of talk. They say, "The Government say that they do not intend, will not allow or will not consider approving a second runway at Gatwick". This is where the flexibility comes in. Of course, they can

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change their minds and probably will.
Therefore, the situation has not changed in character over the last three or four decades. We are going along in exactly the same way, so far as airports policy is concerned, as we always did, going right back to the days of Croydon. When we find that we do not have enough capacity to handle the aircraft, the passengers or both, then we scratch around to see how we can increase capacity here and there. That is precisely what is happening now. It is for that reason that in an earlier debate I referred to the probability that we are now facing yet another unplanned disaster.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I thought that all disasters were unplanned.
The Earl of CORK and ORRERY: That is a very rash remark from any Front Bench, or indeed from anywhere else. No, my Lords, I think that is not the case. Of course, there is planning which is going on now, but which is ad hoc, and the whole set-up, the whole aviation situation that we have—and that we are going to have—has grown up unplanned from the beginning. I do not think that that ought to happen. My noble friend Lord Trefgarne, in opening the debate, referred to a Motion that I set down on the Order Paper. If noble Lords have not seen it, it is a Motion,
"That no decision should be taken on major airport construction in the South-East of England until a feasibility study of the Severnside project has been made".
Noble Lords may be interested to know that I received a telephone message on this subject yesterday, referring to my seven-sided airport—the 50p airport, I suppose it would be. I do not not have any intention of going over again in detail the arguments in favour of Severnside—and I may earn some gratitude for that—but some details I must touch upon.
Here I bewail the lack of support that I have, in particular from three noble Lords whom I would wish to see speaking, and who would, if it were possible, speak in support of this project. Two of them are secretaries of the Severnside airport study group—some of your Lordships may have heard of it—my noble friend Lord Kimberley and the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek. Both are prevented from speaking in this debate. The third is one
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who has already been mentioned three times, my late noble friend Lord Thomas, who has been from the beginning of this idea the chief supporter of it, and who would unquestionably, as would the other two, have spoken in support of it this evening. I join other noble Lords who have expressed dismay on a personal basis at the loss of a friend, quite apart from the more official aspect.
My noble friend has said that the subject has been gone into in a way that I have said it has not, and drew attention to Chapter 5 of the report of the advisory committee. It is certainly a fairly comprehensive damning of the project—comprehensive, but not particularly effective. It makes great play with cost. I do not know what the cost would be, but it is fairly certain that it would be a good deal less than Maplin. That, admittedly, is not tremendously important, as Maplin is not under consideration. But I have here a cutting from this morning's Financial Times which says:
"The British Airports Authority expects to spend about £700 million at today's prices on developing its airports in the next five years".
I do not know whether this report is reliable; I imagine that it probably is, coming from the Financial Times. If not, my noble friend will no doubt say so. The cutting goes on:
"This includes the fourth terminal at Heathrow, the proposed second terminal at Gatwick—another subject of a public planning inquiry—and a start at Stansted, Essex"—
a start, my Lords; not even the finish. It is probably of the same order as the cost of building a brand-new international airport at Severnside.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, that is a very valid point. Is my noble friend saying that while the cost of the developments at Stansted, Heathrow and Gatwick that we have announced may to some extent be comparable with what he is proposing for his airport at Severnside, the airport at Severnside could be produced in the same timescale?
The Earl of CORK and ORRERY: Yes, my Lords. I think so. I must be cautious over this. I certainly think that it could be done not in the same timescale, but in a quite different and shorter time-scale, so far as construction is concerned. I have no doubt at all about that. All

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these projects will take many more years to build than an operational airport at Severnside. I am not including the planning time which, in any case, is shorter than in most places, because the road and rail links are already there.
I would touch on a remark made just now by the noble Lord, Lord Spens. He referred to unemployment, and that is an excellent argument in favour of building an airport, but he proposes to put it in the North-West. His argument is perfectly valid, and it is just as valid in favour of an airport on the North side of the Severn estuary. I see that the noble Lord is nodding his head, so he agrees. This is an area of enormous unemployment. It is possible that the great Llanwern steelworks may close down, and then there will be hardship on a great scale due to unemployment. It is within two miles of the site to which I referred. Those who feel with the noble Lord, Lord Parry—and I should not like to let him go without a word about what he said—will object to the closing of the Cardiff (Wales) airport at Rhoose. I must admit I regret that. It is a very agreeable airport. If the paper is correct, I imagine that the airport would have to close. I am sorry, but it might have to.
Apart from that, I think that the damage which would be done to the ground installations and to people would be minimal. Less damage would be done there than at any other site I can think of. Noble Lords will notice that this is almost the first mention of people that has been made in this debate. The first mention of people was by my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter, who referred to them as—I must not paraphrase him wrongly—people who produce money: tourists, passengers, economic units.
Lord BOYD-CARPENTER: My Lords I have never in my life used that appalling description of a human being as an "economic unit", and I repudiate the suggestion with all the vigour of which I am capable.
The Earl of CORK and ORRERY: My Lords, I accept entirely my noble friend's correction, though I did forearm myself against it by saying that I did not want to paraphrase him incorrectly. I am sure that I did paraphrase him correctly.
Lord BOYD-CARPENTER: My Lords, it was a parody!
The Earl of CORK and ORRERY: My Lords, a parody? Well, it was the impression that I received, whatever may have been meant. However, let us not pursue the matter any further. The point is that we have not heard any reference of significance, or any at all, to the people who live on the ground, except from my noble friend Lord Abinger who did not speak particularly about people as people, or about people as "economic units". He referred to the land upon which they live and the surroundings they love, farm, cherish and grow up in. These are all of a piece.
I view with dismay—I have used that word twice already, so I shall say that I am appalled by the thought of a great development of Stansted. Perhaps I may quote from a letter written in 1967 by the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the time. On 21st December he wrote a letter to the chairman of the Essex County Council in which he said:
"It would be a calamity for the neighbourhood if a major airport were placed at Stansted. Such a decision could only be justified by national necessity".
That was quite a long time ago. The question is: does this national necessity exist? I believe that it does not. I believe that the proposal which I advocate would replace it and entirely supersede it, if it were to be taken seriously. If it is not to be taken seriously, if we are not to recognise and admit, as the noble Baroness, Lady Burton of Coventry, said, that people are not made for airports, that people and airports do not even mix—if we do not accept that principle and therefore do all that we can, even at great financial expense, to put our airports, our major constructions, as far as possible into the sea, then indeed we are heading for a calamity for which posterity will have no excuse for forgiving us.
May I now quote from a letter written by Professor Sir Colin Buchanan to The Times newspaper on 9th January. He said:
"The effect will be that of the largest single deliberate act of urban industrial development ever to be thrust upon rural England".
It is perfectly legitimate to reply to that

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by saying, "Very well; what about it?" It is, I believe, totally and utterly wrong to revert—and I quote again—to a site which was rejected 11 years ago after a bitterly contested public inquiry. We are going to go back to that site again. After 15 years the clock has come round again. I really must get my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter right this time! The clock has come round, after 15 years, back to Stansted, where it started.
But what has happened in the meantime? It is not simply the same point. What has happened is that the people of Stansted and the country round about have been relieved of the fear and the blight of having an airport thrust upon them whether they like it or not. They have been told by Governments that this is not going to happen, just as the people of Gatwick were told that there would be no second runway. But here it comes again, with all the force the Government can put behind it and with all the force that the other persons who advocate it can put behind it.
What, then, are we to say about the promises that come from governments about what may or may not happen in the future? Do you wonder, my Lords, that people get frightened? And will you wonder if the resistance to this scheme that grows up in Essex as a result amounts to something far greater than we have seen of this kind before?
This is the point at which I must disclaim any kind of interest. I may have become identified by this time with a particular environmental group which is interested in the dispersal of aircraft noise and the protection of people on the ground. Therefore, I must tell your Lordships that I do not live anywhere near the places that would be affected. The organisation to which I have referred is the Haslemere Aircraft Disturbance Action Group, which is quite well known to the Government and to other persons. I do not live at Haslemere. Headlake itself would be totally unaffected by anything which happens at Stansted. I repeat again that airports and people simply do not mix.
May I end by reading the last words of this same letter from Professor Buchanan:
"There is no place inland in the whole Kingdom where an airport would not be bitterly opposed by local people. In Heaven's name! Why cannot
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the aviation people get this message and come to terms with it and stop spreading alarm and despondency with their ill-concealed plans?".
6.47 p.m.
Lord GAINFORD: My Lords, I rise to support my noble friend Lord Cork and Orrery. I have spoken in earlier debates on the Severnside project. My particular interest in the scheme is not only complete agreement with its siting but also a wish to repeat again what has been said in earlier debates. One of my particular interests is the matter upon which the noble Baroness, Lady Burton of Coventry, and I are allies; namely, the problems of people and their luggage and getting to and from airports quickly.
There was mention in the Severnside debate about a special train service which could be incorporated, by means of which Customs facilities would be made available which would facilitate and speed up the formalities which take place at airports.
At the time it was considered that distance was not so much a matter of miles as a matter of hours. However, the use of high speed trains on the Western Region main line put Severnside within reach of London. One can reach London in just over an hour, which is not much longer than it takes to get out to Heathrow from the City of London and into the airport terminals. It takes 40 minutes to get to Victoria from Gatwick, which is a little less. I like using Gatwick, since it is easy to get out to; and when one comes back to England it is not too difficult to get out of. There is the constant problem of how to get away from your aeroplane, through Customs and on to where you are going. The earlier proposal that we should have facilities on these trains is a brilliant idea. Therefore, may I ask my noble friend whether it can be considered at a future date, and how such facilities might be incorporated?
As I am interested in land travel in connection with air travel, the matter I want to bring forward today, which I have also mentioned in previous debates, is the use of that station, at Kensington, otherwise known as Olympia, as a train service airport terminal. To the North the line goes out of Olympia and it goes up to Willesden and on to the North London Line which runs between Richmond

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and Broad Street. It has connections with the Western main line out of Paddington and to the Midland line out of Euston. Also to the South there are connections with the Southern main line at Clapham, which would give it access to Victoria and Waterloo and also down South to Gatwick; and if another terminal is to be built at Heathrow on the South side, there is a railway track which runs near the South of Heathrow and the existing track is available to connect Olympia with that part of London and Heathrow Airport. Olympia has already been used as a substitute for main line stations in the 1960s, when Euston and Paddington were undergoing alterations. On the existing track, which is still there, modern fast trains could get out of Olympia and on to the Western main line although it means going through a rather sharp curve. I think a high-speed train could manage it, going very slowly. Of course it could not begin to accelerate until after it had reached Acton.
Thinking now of people who are not so hindered, of those who have the great fortune to be able to travel light: Olympia is served by four bus routes—Numbers 9, 27, 28 and 73. I know that there used to be—and I think that there still is—a Green Line coach service which goes past it, and also, although I do not know the name of the company which runs it, I have seen a double decker bus plying between London and Reading which goes that way, which again makes Olympia an easy station to get at as well as to get away from. Also, on days of important exhibitions, London Transport runs trains from High Street Kensington and Earls Court, and so on, to Olympia. Therefore, Olympia station could easily be connected to the District and Inner Circle lines.
My own experience as a traveller—and I have travelled to a good deal of the world and have done a lot of flying over the last 30 years—is that, while it may be quite easy to get out of Britain by air, to get back in again raises considerable difficulties, and I have heard similar comments from other people. Again, facilities for Customs formalities and immigration, and emigration formalities on the trains to and from the airports, would be a great help in speeding up the time taken in getting out of an airport. Having got off the aircraft one has then a
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long walk, and there are the carousel arrangements and one has to wait for something to come out. It is a toss-up as to whose suitcase comes out first. If you are by yourself you may be lucky; but if there happens to be a family of four, one suitcase belonging to the family may come out first and then they may have to wait till the very end for the last case. Then one has to find a trolley and get the luggage through the customs.
I know that a number of airlines are already trying to make their own arrangements to speed up this procedure. I have not yet had the opportunity of discussing it with the airlines, particularly the British ones, although very recently I was talking to a senior representative of Transworld Airlines who explained how they encouraged their staff to get the luggage off the aircraft quickly and into the halls. Also TWA had not heard about Severn-side, and were extremely interested in the possibilities, particularly in the fact that to and from Severnside instead of into London airport would mean a good part of 200 miles less flying, and that means a considerable saving in fuel.
I would earnestly ask my noble friend to consider these matters and to let me know the answer in due course. It need not be an immediate answer, but I shall be grateful to have it at some time; and I shall remain hopeful that my noble friend's ideas for Severnside will eventually bear fruit.
6.56 p.m.
Lord PITT of HAMPSTEAD: My Lords, I must begin, as I normally do, by apologising for not hearing the opening speech. On this occasion I did not hear the first four speeches. I am sorry about that and I hope your Lordships will, as usual, forgive me. It is particularly unfortunate on this occasion in view of what I now intend to say. Some of your Lordships will remember that on a previous occasion I said that Stansted would become London's third airport by stealth. Now we are well on our way to achieving that and, whatever may be said to the contrary, the practical effect of the Government's Statement on airports policy on 17th December 1979 is to designate Stansted as a major international airport, with a potential eventual capacity nearly double that of Heathrow today, that is

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50 million, as the noble Lord, Lord Abinger, mentioned, as compared with 28 million passengers which Heathrow dealt with up to the end of October 1979. And I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Abinger, "Do not be fooled by the way in which the matter is now being approached. That option is there and the option will be taken".
The Statement also reveals that the Government's preoccupation with short-term economic considerations is what matters. It seems that the matter which has weighed most heavily is the presence of an existing airfield, despite the fact that this airfield will have to be largely rebuilt at an early stage if the demand for air travel increases as forecast. Of course the additional factor which prevailed is the existence of the M.11 motorway.
These short-term considerations are not in themselves good reasons for locating a development which would cost up to £1,000 million for the airport and its road and rail links in a part of the South-East region which every responsible body has said is not suitable on environmental and planning grounds. I refer to the Blake Report in 1967, the Roskill Commission in 1971, the Standing Conference on London and South-East Regional Planning in 1979 as well as, of course, resolutions of the Essex, Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire County Councils.
When, in April 1971, the previous Conservative Government decided to face this problem they decided to establish the third London Airport at Foulness—Maplin. They stressed the paramount importance which they attached to the environmental and planning considerations and stated that because of the irreversible damage that would be done to large tracts of countryside and to many settled communities by the creation of an airport on any of the three inland sites studied by the Roskill Commission, it was worth paying the price involved in selecting Foulness. That is what the previous Conservative Government said.
Although Stansted was not included in the Roskill Commission's short list the Commission did include Nuthampstead, which is only a few miles to the North-West of Stansted. In their report they recorded the many objections to Nuthampstead, especially of noise, planning and
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environment, and observed in passing that:
"our judgment on Nuthampstead supports the many objections raised on planning grounds to the Stansted proposals".
Wherever a major airport is sited it will inevitably give rise to objection on environmental and planning grounds, particularly at the local level. Let us not run away from that; that is a fact. But we should also take a broader view and see where the balance of advantage lies in regional and national terms. We must, of course, give due weight to the airside considerations, for, as the Roskill Commission wisely said,
" 'an airport cannot achieve any social purpose unless it first succeeds as an airport'. Neither in regional planning terms nor in environmental terms can an ailing airport achieve the desired result".
But so far the Government have given too much weight, as I said at the beginning, to the short-term economic factors and have failed to give sufficient consideration to vital environmental and planning matters.
An airport which is to be an integral part of the London airports system, which is a prime consideration in this matter, must have the relationship between the airport and London which is appropriate, and particularly between the airport and the strategic planning and transport policies for London. From London's point of view the fundamental starting points are, first, that it should sustain and enhance London's economy; the supremacy of its airports as the premier airport complex in Europe should be maintained by ensuring that additional capacity is provided in time to meet the increase in the demand for air travel.
Whatever plans there may be for using the regional airports these considerations will still remain paramount. It is also important that such additional capacity should not—and I repeat, not—be located where it will create unacceptable environmental, planning and surface access problems, or seriously exacerbate existing problems. The third consideration must be that the provision of additional airport capacity should not merely be compatible with strategic planning and transport policies for London but should, so far as practicable, positively assist those policies. I would have thought that these must be

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the considerations which prevail when a third London airport is being planned.
Because of the tightness of the situation, or what is alleged to be the tightness of the situation, where expected demand seems likely to outstrip available capacity within a few years, the Government appear to believe that they have no choice but to undertake a further expansion of London's existing airports. That seems to be the basis of the Government's policy. In other words, they intend to continue the policy of ad hoc incrementalism which has bedevilled the long saga of the third London airport. As part of this process they have just approved the construction of a fourth terminal at Heathrow, although it is gratifying to see that the recommendation of the Inspector at the fourth terminal inquiry that there should be no fifth terminal has been accepted; and despite the powerful interests already lobbying to have the fifth terminal proposal resurrected I hope the Government will firmly resist any attempt to do so.
A very different situation exists on the East side of London and beyond into South Essex. There is no need to describe in detail—because again I have spoken in your Lordships' House, on more than one occasion of the problems of that part of London—the social and economic problems of East London particularly in the inner areas. The need for major new employment opportunities, injection of capital, and a powerful economic stimulus to redress the imbalance between the eastern and western sides of London and to tackle the problem of social and economic polarisation is overwhelming. The problem is to find an adequate catalyst. The third London airport, if planned in the right way, could be a solution. I am not putting it any higher than that, but it could be a solution.
In order to maximise the benefits for London, and at the same time reduce the urbanisation demands in south Essex, and therefore meet the objections of the noble Lord, Lord Abinger, and his friends, the more of the new airport's facilities which can be located in east London, the better. The Greater London Council is convinced that a two-centre, rail-based airport with its runways at Maplin and its main passenger terminal, as well as air cargo facilities, provided in east London, is the
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right answer on planning and environmental grounds, and that it could be provided for no more cost than, and at the same time as, the major expansion of Stansted.
What gives the greatest cause for concern in all these matters is the failure to seize the opportunity to produce an imaginative solution to this important problem. The new airport should be sited to provide the greatest environmental protection, and be used as a shop window for British planning and engineering technology, as well as to provide a shot in the arm for railway transport. Moreover, by working with private enterprise, it could be a useful exercise to demonstrate that public investment in such a project could be kept to a minimum. It is not too late to turn an exercise, which is fast bringing the planning system into disrepute, into one that could bring credit to the nation and be of real benefit to the redevelopment of London. I sincerely hope that the Government will give full and careful consideration to the proposals of the Greater London Council.
7.11 p.m.
The Earl of KINNOULL: My Lords, having the great honour of being the last on the list of speakers in this debate tonight, I am glad to advise the House that I shall be very brief. I should like to add my congratulations to my noble friend Lord Trefgarne for the very able manner in which he introduced this long and interesting debate. Like many others taking part today, my noble friend has had a long interest in this subject and I was going to say to him, if he had been present, that this was his best speech out of the six he has made on the subject in the last 12 years.
I should also like to congratulate the Government on the timing of their Statement last December, for there was a very real need at that time to remove the uncertainties that surrounded the five other sites under consideration by the Study Group. The Statement in December not only dispelled the uncertainties surrounding those sites, but it also achieved the best compromise of a most difficult and unpopular problem. To make better use of regional airports, to expand existing facilities at the three existing London Airports, to limit the aircraft movements

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at Heathrow and to accept that a brand new airport today is untenable, all blends well, I believe, for a good policy.
Despite the robust reference in the December Statement to: "Years of indecision, decision and counter-decision," reflecting no credit on the country's capacity to make difficult but necessary choices, perhaps we have profited from those U-turns and so might well achieve the best solution to one of the most important planning decisions that I believe this country has had to face this century.
I should like to concentrate on four very brief points: two have been touched upon, but the other two have not. The first is the short-term problem facing Heathrow. I thought that at the beginning of his remarks my noble friend was very frank about the problem that faces the British Airports Authority—the growing traffic exceeding capacity between now and when Terminal 4 comes into operation. My noble friend was careful to say that the British Airports Authority was using its "best endeavours" to persuade carriers to move to Gatwick. As I understand it, these "best endeavours" are in the shape of the rather blunt, unsophisticated fiscal instrument of increasing airport charges. I am not sure whether this policy will be effective in time, or that it is particularly fair to the traditional operators or their passengers at Heathrow. However, I suspect that something will need to be done in addition to a "best endeavours" policy, if unacceptable conditions are to to be avoided.
My noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter referred to "crisp" action being needed. I hope that this evening my noble friend will have a crisp reply to that point. My noble friend referred briefly to the decision not to provide the fifth terminal, and other noble Lords have already commented on that. His reasons—as set out in the statement—were to avoid added burdens on the surrounding area which, of course, is the infrastructure, and the length of time that it would take to construct.
I do not wish to go over this ground again other than to say that from the information I have received I think that there are good planning arguments in favour of a fifth terminal which would not give rise to more
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aircraft movements or noise, but which would improve access to the airport terminals and also increase the capacity to meet the demand for more passengers being carried by fewer larger aircraft.
This is not, of course, the time for specific arguments, but I hope that my noble friend will be able to say, when he winds up that, if the Thames Water Authority decides to give up the Perry Oaks sewage treatment area, the land will be held in reserve in case future trends reinforce those in favour of a fifth terminal.
My noble friend touched upon a very important and sensitive subject at they start of the debate—namely, compensation for land likely to be required to provide the extra facilities at Stansted. Compensation is not an easy subject and in the case of Stansted I suspect that it would be very complicated. But there is a very real problem, as my noble friend will know, of those people who own properties in the area, who now face a period of uncertainty and blight. Indeed, the rights of those people until, I am advised, a decision of planning consent has been reached—and that could well take up to three years—will be basically unprotected.
I am advised that those people have no statutory rights. Of course they can—and I am sure they will—rely on the goodwill of the British Airports Authority and I do not doubt that that goodwill or the desire by the British Airports Authority to achieve goodwill will not be there. However, the basis of compensation under goodwill and the basis of compensation under statutory rights is different. As my noble friend probably knows, under statutory rights one would be entitled to a "farm loss" claim if one were a farmer or a "home loss" claim if one were a home owner, and they are not insignificant. It would be patently unfair if those who are protected at present are not able to receive that. I believe—and I hope that my noble friend can be helpful on this—that the Government should be alert to the problem and that some directive should be given to the British Airports Authority to achieve the worthy aim of fair play for those who may be suffering hardship.
My last point concerns the form of public inquiries that surround airport planning. This is, in fact, a different point from the one so ably put by my noble

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friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter. It is relevant, in view of the very major and important inquiry that will be held at Stansted, one assumes in about 18 month's time. If I may say so, my noble friend Lord Abinger had a good first off shot at this. It has been said about these inquiries—and I am referring, at present, to the terminal inquiries—that they are more geared to barristers and lawyers than to the individual, that these long exhaustive procedures are becoming more and more remote from the people, that the real participation—a dialogue to allow individuals to question the British Airports Authority and the British Airports Authority to answer those questions—is being lost. I do not pretend to know the answer and certainly it is a vital part of our planning procedure that a monopoly body like the British Airports Authority should publicly have to justify the need and consequences of its proposals. But I hope that my noble friend can say that the framework of these inquiries is under review, as it is indeed a matter of concern.
In conclusion, I should like to wish the Government well for their airports policy. I think it was very encouraging at the start that the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, was able to give unequivocal support for the policy from the official Opposition Bench. There will be many critics of their policy. One does not win many friends or votes on this subject, but the need for the success of the policy has never been more important, to combat the dwindling spare capacity and to avoid the creeping thrombosis at our major international airports that some of us fear.
7.20 p.m.
Lord SANDHURST: My Lords, I was unable to put my name down for this debate because I did not know whether could be present. Briefly, I should like to mention the fact that at London Airport there is the very great problem of pressure of traffic, a problem which is tending to drive out the smaller users. In the Channel Islands we are becoming progressively more and more worried by the fact that we appear to be being squeezed out of our link with London Airport. It is a link which is of very great commercial importance to us and one which, as it dwindles, is becoming more and more of a worry.
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We have heard a great deal about passengers arriving at London and Gatwick Airports and about problems of baggage and so on, but nothing about passengers arriving by air and having problems in transferring their hand-baggage, which nowadays is very often heavy because they cannot entrust it to the airline for fear of damage. One sees large numbers of people carrying heavy baggage with no means whatever of getting a trolley or anything like that from the aircraft through to the point where they can pick up their transport.
7.21 p.m.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, in my opening speech I sought to explain the general considerations which led the Government to frame their airports policy and the steps we propose to take to provide for the expected growth in air transport demand in the years to come. I am grateful to all noble Lords for the balanced views which have been expressed —not all being in agreement, of course—during this debate and I shall deal as best I can with as many as possible of the points that have been raised.
I should like to start with one or two important general points without ascribing them to particular noble Lords, although they were raised by several, and then deal specifically with points raised by particular noble Lords. I am aware that several noble Lords have received copies of the British Airways booklet on the possibility of a fifth terminal on the Perry Oaks site at Heathrow. This proposal has a long history. It was raised at the public inquiry into the fourth terminal, and I explained in my opening speech why, in accordance with the inspector's recommendation, the Government have reached the conclusion that a fifth terminal should not be provided. I do not think that the evidence submitted by British Airways would lead us to believe that the circumstances have changed sufficiently to allow us to reopen this question.
One very important point that brought us to that conclusion, though it is by no means the only point, was that, as your Lordships will have recalled, the decision letter issued in respect of the fourth terminal has provided for a maximum

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total number of air transport movements to be imposed at Heathrow once the fourth terminal comes into use. The figure is 275,000, which I think has been mentioned by several noble Lords. That limitation of itself would, I think, severely limit the use that could be made of the fifth terminal were it to be built.
As the Heathrow Terminal Four decision letter also said, the Government accept the need to ensure that there are adequate public transport links to the new terminal. As I said earlier, my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport has established a working party to consider the various options. I believe that the working party's report will be completed very soon. I hope that this will help the noble Earl, Lord Amherst. My right honourable friend will then discuss its recommendation with the BAA, the GLC and the other parties involved.
The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, made what I thought was a most helpful and balanced speech. I greatly appreciate the constructive comments that he made. He was, of course, quite correct to emphasise that uncertainty about future projections of air traffic. As I have made clear, the Government's policy has been deliberately constructed so as to enable us to adopt the flexible approach which he suggested. By way of illustration of the unreliability of these forecasts, may I refer to the Roskill Commission, which was a most important inquiry into this matter. They thought that we would be handling 57 million passengers this year at London's airports; in fact, we are handling 38 million; they missed the target by about 50 per cent.—even the Roskill Commission, with all the huge resources which they had at their disposal.
However, as the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, pointed out, we shall also have to bear in mind that capital investment in new airport capacity has a very long lead time, with preliminary planning procedures often taking some years before final decisions can be taken or construction begin. On the other hand, traffic can sometimes grow very rapidly after a period of relative stagnation. The experience of the 1970s, after the oil crisis, demonstrated that for a time very clearly. Therefore, we need to plan ahead now so that we are in a position to provide extra
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capacity to meet the pattern of demand as it develops.
I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter for his general words in support of the Government's policy to expand airport capacity beyond that presently available. I can assure my noble friend that we have taken very carefully into account the timing of the need for additional capacity in deciding not to develop a greenfield site, and to propose instead the eventual expansion of Stansted. However, such major developments as the construction of a new terminal building at Heathrow, Gatwick or Stansted, with all their implications for access, the environment and so on, really cannot be implemented without allowing local views to be expressed and taken into account before a final decision is reached.
My noble friend specifically asked me what would happen if the current public inquiry into the proposal to construct a second terminal at Gatwick recommends that it should not be built. We would, of course, have to take that most carefully into account. Of course, the final decision on whether or not to build the terminal rests with the Government. The Public Inquiry is designed to advise the Government on these matters. But if a negative recommendation is made by the inquiry and a negative decision followed from the Government, then, of course, the result would be increased congestion, and we should have to see whether we could speed up some of the other developments that we have in mind. However, I must not prejudge the outcome of that inquiry.
Lord BOYD-CARPENTER: My Lords, if my noble friend will allow me to say so, does it not follow that if the Government, in the light of the inspector's report or for any other reason, dropped the proposed second terminal at Gatwick, the present policy of diversion of traffic from Heathrow to Gatwick would be in ruins?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, that is certainly so. If it was decided—for whatever reason—not to construct a second terminal at Gatwick, our policy in that area and others would be in the most serious difficulties.
I turn to the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Burton of Coventry. She raised a good m any interesting points,

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as she always does. First, I should like to deal with the question of baggage-handling at Heathrow, particularly in connection with the Underground. It is the case apparently—and I am sure that is right—that there is no airport in the world so well equipped as Gatwick and Heathrow with rail links of one sort or another. But I have to agree that the Underground is not the perfect vehicle for passengers travelling to the airport with considerable quantities of luggage. There are 249 stations, I am told, on the Underground system, of which only 10 per cent. are equipped presently with lifts. There is, however, now a lift at Heathrow which those passengers with heavy baggage can use.
I gather that there have been some difficulties about whether the lift is adequately signposted, and that not sufficient passengers know about it. I am asking the BAA and London Transport to look into this matter, to see whether the availability of the lift can be more widely advertised. There have also, I understand, been some difficulties with porters. I gather that they are not at present permitted to go on to the platform at the Underground station, which seems to me to be a shortcoming. That also I am asking the BAA to look into to see whether they can improve the situation.
May I now refer to the second runway at Gatwick, which the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, and other noble Lords and the noble Baroness mentioned.
Baroness BURTON of COVENTRY: My Lords, I know that it is late and I have had my innings, but the Minister has avoided the main question. I am not concerned with the Heathrow end, I am concerned with this end. I am saying that people with baggage cannot get out to Heathrow on the Underground now, and that is why I asked whether the bus service is going to continue. The noble Lord has not dealt with this end.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, the noble Baroness is quite right in saying that the Underground facilities for passengers with baggage are not ideal. There are indeed no platforms that I am aware of where there is lift access from the street direct to the platform. As I have said, the Underground is not primarily
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designed for passengers with large quantities of baggage, and they are expected to use other methods of transport. The bus service still runs from Victoria, as the noble Baroness knows, and I have nothing to add to the answer that I gave her a week or so ago on that matter.
I have the greatest respect for the views expressed about the second runway at Gatwick. I think there are two issues, however, which we should be careful not to confuse. First, the desirability of an auxiliary runway to facilitate the handling of traffic at the level currently envisaged; that is to say, up to 25 million passengers per annum. Problems which might arise if the single runway is closed for whatever reason have always been foremost in the minds of those who operate aircraft from Gatwick, despite that airport's excellent record of runway utilisation. However, as I explained to your Lordships recently at Question Time, the BAA have plans and planning permission for the upgrading of the existing northern taxiway to provide an emergency runway. This could be readily brought into operation if the main runway were out of action, and would I think deal adequately with that problem.
Secondly, there is the question of whether a second main runway at Gatwick, and additional terminals, should be provided as a solution to the longer-term problem of airport capacity in the South-East. I have already given the Government's thinking on this issue, and there is little I can add except to say that in my own view Gatwick, with a throughput of, say, 50 million passengers per annum, considerably larger than that expected at Heathrow with the fourth terminal, would raise some serious problems which we have hardly begun to think about. May I now refer to the British Rail service.
Lord BOYD-CARPENTER: My Lords, before my noble friend leaves this runway question, I asked him—he is very conscientious in replying and no doubt he overlooked it—why, if the Secretary of State's Statement sets out so clearly that if passenger movements at Stansted go above 15 million it is necessary to provide the possibility of a second runway, it is still thought that you can operate up to 25 million passengers a year at Gatwick on only one?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, there is the question of the related terminal facilities. Perhaps I may study what my noble friend has said in more detail. If I am wrong about my thought on the terminal facilities I will write to him. May I now move to the rail service. British Rail currently provide a 15 minute interval rail service between Gatwick Airport and Victoria from 6 a.m. until midnight, and an hourly service at night throughout the year. This service is now supplemented at weekends by two additional trains per hour, and last May a through service was introduced between Gatwick, the Midlands, and Manchester in order to ease congestion on trains between the airport and London. As I have said before, these services make Gatwick one of the best rail-linked airports in the world.
Some airlines have facilities at Victoria Station for passengers to check in their luggage, which is then moved in bulk to Gatwick, sorted there and loaded directly on to the appropriate aircraft. But only about 10 per cent. of all airline passengers travelling from Victoria to Gatwick make use of these facilities. Some further improvements will however be needed to cope with the planned growth of the airport, with or without the proposed second terminal. I understand that the improvements required have been the subject of discussions between the Railways Board and the British Airports Authority, and those Government departments and others directly concerned.
Their conclusion was that by about 1984 the airport would need a separate rail service to London, although this could still run on the existing lines into Victoria. At Victoria two platforms would need to be dedicated solely for the trains to the airport, and there would be some purpose-built facilities for the airline passengers. The implementation of the board's proposals will be subject to the outcome of their recent application for planning permission to undertake the necessary construction work, and to the approval of the Minister of Transport, though the board have not yet submitted their proposals to him. Availability of the necessary finance is another important consideration, and I understand that this is the subject of current discussions.
The noble Earl, Lord Amherst, put a
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number of points to me. May I deal first with the one about the extension of the M.25. My right honourable friend the Minister of Transport announced last December that the construction of the section from Yeoveny to Poyle interchange, and the Heathrow airport spur, have been approved. Work is to start this summer and should take two years to complete. The section from Poyle to Egham is under construction and should be completed in 1981. The section between Egham and Thorpe is already open, and that between Thorpe and Chertsey should be completed this year. The remaining section between Chertsey and Reigate via Leatherhead has been fixed, but some orders remain to be made. Subject to satisfactory completion of the statutory processes, the whole stretch could be completed by 1983.
I come now to the Severnside airport. As I mentioned in my opening speech, the Government accept the Advisory Committees conclusion that a new airport at Severnside is not a feasible solution to the problem of providing capacity in the South-East. Although on the surface an airport at Severnside may seem an attractive proposition, many problems are revealed when it is examined more closely. The Advisory Committee's work showed that the English side of the River Severn was not topographically suitable for an airport, and that an airport on the Welsh side would give rise to very severe access problems. The Severn Bridge and the Severn Tunnel could not cope with the additional traffic that an airport would generate. From the outset a further bridge and a tunnel would have to be provided. These large items of expenditure, estimated by the Advisory Committee to be about £600 million at the minimum, would be necessary right from the start, irrespective of the ultimate size of the airport.
The Earl of CORK and ORRERY: My Lords, am I right in suspecting that there may be a scheme already on foot for building a second Severn Bridge?
Lord TREFGARNE: Not that I am aware of, my Lords; but I shall look into it and write to the noble Earl if I am wrong. Like Maplin, an airport at Severnside could prove to be an expensive white elephant. There are further problems

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of restricting Ministry of Defence activities in the area and the doubt there must be about such an airport's ability to attract air traffic. My noble friend Lord Gain-ford referred to the reported views of TWA—how they would save fuel on their way to Europe from America by landing 200 miles short of London. We have to say at the same time that fuel must then be expended to take those selfsame passengers from Severnside on to Central London by the magnificent train described by my noble friends. Furthermore, I think it is the case that, with many of the American carriers, the aircraft all continue on to further destinations in Europe, and of course when they do that they have to fly 200 miles further, so I do not accept the argument that the airport at Severnside would save fuel.
The airports at Bristol and Cardiff would certainly have to close if this airport were proceeded with, and that would, I am sure, disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Parry.
Lord PARRY: Hear, hear!
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I know that my noble friend Lord Cork and Orrery has promoted vigorously the idea of an airport on Severnside and I respect his views, but I think we must accept the advice of the experts that it is simply not a feasible solution to the problems of airport capacity in the South-East. It is a plank of our philosophy that people can do what they like with their money, but I am not planning to put any money into the Severnside airport.
Now to Maplin. It certainly was an attractive proposition in the early 1970s, despite the opposition of the airlines who would have had to use it. At that time, before the 1973 fuel crisis, traffic was expected to grow much more rapidly than has in fact been the case, and there were prospects of developing a harbour and other things which amounted to an imaginative planning solution. But circumstances have changed; we are now expecting a much slower growth of traffic in the next 10 years and there is an even bigger question mark about the more distant future. At present, the only development which can really be justified is a single runway and a single terminal
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building, with no certainty about when or indeed whether more capacity might be required.
In general, the proponents of Maplin are opposed to airport development per se, but they believe that if there is to be any, it should be at Maplin. That is not a view with which I have much sympathy, because the implications of an airport at Maplin are really no less serious than elsewhere. Indeed, in many ways they are even more disturbing. The problem of the Ministry of Defence establishments at Shoeburyness cannot be ignored. Some doubt was cast by the noble Baroness on the accuracy of the estimates for the cost of relocating MOD establishments; the estimate included in the report of the Study Group represents the costs of moving all four of the defence establishments presently at that site. In the case of the largest, the proof and experimental range, it is based on the possibility of having to split the facilities among several locations as envisaged in 1974. There is certainly no wish to inflate the estimates for defence relocation costs, but I think that if we take into account the technical complexity of these facilities and the physical problems of their reconstruction in what would most certainly be remote locations less than ideal in terms of access and terrain, the estimates will be found, however provisional, to be realistic.
As to timescale, which was another plank in the points on this matter made by the noble Baroness, in respect of any practical site or sites, if they could be found, we think it would take not less than 10 years for MOD establishments to vacate the Maplin site, and this estimate is reflected in the Study Group Report. The noble Baroness suggested that this might be exaggerated, but perhaps I may observe that in 1974, when the Maplin project was cancelled, the opening date for the airport had already slipped by a number of years and we still, at that point, had not solved the considerable difficulties of relocating the defence facilities.
I come to the question of Stansted; there is much more I could have said on Maplin, but time is getting on. In regard to the proposed expansion of Stansted, I have already made clear—and I did so earlier in the debate—that the Government will reach no final decision on the matter until after the public inquiry. I have no

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doubt that many of the points which have been raised—such as the effects of noise and other environmental implications, particularly those raised by my noble friend Lord Abinger—will be carefully examined at the public inquiry in a way which was perhaps not possible in the context of the Study Group's investigations, but there are some points which I would briefly make.
First, as your Lordships will be aware, of the six sites examined by the Study Group, the only one at which additional terminal capacity could be provided in time to meet the demand was Stansted, and this is an important consideration. I know that some scepticism has been expressed about the time it would take to develop Maplin, to which I referred a moment ago; it has been calculated at 17 years. The basis of lead-times was clearly set out in the report of the Study Group on South-East Airports and it is open to anyone to form his own conclusions, but I am bound to say that I do not find some of the more modest timescales suggested acceptable, but no doubt these will come under further examination at the public inquiry.
I will deal with only two further points, because time is marching on. First, one of the other questions raised by the noble Earl, Lord Amherst, was about the rail link to Stansted. The Study Group on South-East Airports envisaged that rail access to Stansted would be provided by a short spur which would connect to the London-Cambridge line north of Bishop's Stortford. This is a busy commuter line and additional track will be required from Broxbourne to Tottenham Hale. The Study Group considered that the most suitable location for a London rail terminal would be in the Kings Cross/St. Pancras area. This will require some further major track improvements, and the estimated cost of providing a rail service of four trains an hour bringing airline passengers to the Kings Cross/St. Pancras area in 40 minutes was estimated to be £85 million—namely, £60 million for track improvements and £25 million for rolling stock. In the intervening period, trains can be run from Bishop's Stortford to Liverpool Street Station, but because of the perhaps short-term nature of that arrangement, we are not proposing any major improvements
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to the Liverpool Street Station facilities.
Several noble Lords raised questions regarding the arrangements for dealing with flight. These will depend to some extent on the planning procedures adopted, which is currently under consideration. That partly answers the point made by my noble friend Lord Kinnoull. It also depends on the timing of the inquiry. However, I can say that the BAA expect to submit for confirmation some time this summer compulsory purchase orders for the 1,500 acres of land they will require for the single terminal development. This will be done at the same time as their planning application. The CPOs will not of course be confirmed until the application is approved, after the inquiry, if it is, but the statutory blight provisions will apply to affected properties as soon as the notice of compulsory purchase is published, so eligible property owners will be able to serve blight notices on the BAA obliging them to buy their property at the unblighted price.
As regards the wider area of about 2,500 acres which may be required in the future, should it be necessary to expand the airport further, this will not be the subject of a planning application at this stage nor of compulsory purchase. The BAA will present a plan for purely illustrative purposes and, as my right honourable friend said in his Statement, our aim would be that the owners of residential and agricultural property in this wider area should have the opportunity of staying on pending any possible requirement for this land or of selling to the BAA at an unblighted price. The BAA have been invited to apply for this land to be safeguarded from incompatible development. The Government will be looking for a safeguarding procedure which would in due course induce the statutory blight in the additional 2,500 acres to enable the established provisions to be applied.
I think that I have spoken for long enough. I have attempted to answer as many as I can of the points that have been raised in the debate, and I hope that your Lordships will forgive me if I have not provided all the replies. The Government have put forward a policy designed to meet the demand for air transport as it develops by making the best use of our scarce national resources.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

NORTHERN IRELAND: SECURITY
7.50 p.m.
Lord DUNLEATH Lord DUNLEATH rose to call attention to the security situation in Northern Ireland; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion that stands in my name on the Order Paper. First, I should like to say a few words about the background to the situation. The vast majority of people from all sides of the community in Northern Ireland are outraged, embittered, and bewildered by the fact that terrorism has continued for so long in the Province. Those of us who joined the Ulster Defence Regiment and the Police Reserve in the early years of the last decade thought that the considerable inconvenience, and indeed risk, were worth the trouble because we felt that if we all put our shoulder to the wheel, the problem would be solved within a couple or three years. In the event this has not been the case.
The ordinary man in Northern Ireland is convinced that there must be a solution, if only someone in authority had the vision to be able to identify it and the determination with which to implement it. Therefore, politicians who aspire to an easy round of applause can achieve that with no difficulty by advocating apparently simple solutions, such as the reintroduction of capital punishment or the reintroduction of internment. I was for some years chairman of the Alliance Party's Security Committee and we discussed the security situation many times. I am convinced that there is no single, simple solution. I should perhaps add in passing that I resigned from the Alliance Party through no disagreement over policy or no clash of personalities, but for business reasons.
On the subject of capital punishment, whenever an atrocity has been perpetrated I have found myself very tempted to advocate reintroduction of capital punishment. But on reflection I am convinced that it would be counter-productive, because in my view the only way that capital punishment can provide a real deterrent is for the convicted terrorist to be given a summary trial and then executed first thing next morning. If we are to adhere to our fundamental principles of British justice, which I support, the entire appeal process has to
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be followed through, and the lapse of time that inevitably is entailed means that the colleagues of the convict have every opportunity not only to stir up public opinion, but even to take hostages. Those hostages can well be prominent public people who have no connection with the security forces or with any political organisation.
I may say, with great sorrow, that I wrote the sentence I have just delivered before a prominent Belfast public businessman had been kidnapped, mutilated and, I am told, had both his hands cut off, though I cannot substantiate that, and then murdered, his body later being found lying by the side of a road. That is the sort of thing we are up against.
So far as internment is concerned, we in the Alliance Party advised against it when it was first suggested in 1970, and indeed when it was introduced in 1971 it turned out to be counter-productive. Reintroduction now would certainly rally support for the Provisional IRA, and almost certainly would once again bring out on to the streets of West Belfast women banging bin lids on the pavement any time a security forces' patrol came in sight.
So, to try to be constructive, what possible courses of action can we consider? I shall try to float a few ideas for the consideration of Her Majesty's Government, and if the other noble Lords who have been good enough to put down their names to speak in the debate have better ideas, no one will be more delighted than I am to hear them.
On the subject of policing, in the 1960s the decision was made by the then Minister of Home Affairs to close quite a number of local police stations with a view to district centralisation and rationalisation, with more emphasis on mobile patrols. But in the event if we want normality restored, I think that the man on the beat—who is familiar with the locality, knows the residents and can spot immediately anything that might look irregular—is the answer, although I am sorry to say that the mobile patrols, with the Land Rovers, police, and soldiers with guns in their hands will be inevitable for quite some time.
I am aware that steps have been taken to tighten up control of police interrogation procedures and to improve the complaints

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procedure. This I welcome, because I think it is in the interests of the security forces themselves that any mud which may be slung at them in the form of allegations of impropriety should not stick.
So far as the law is concerned, I continue to feel that the absolute right of silence on the part of a suspect should be abolished. Indeed, I understand that in the Republic of Ireland—I learnt this only the day before yesterday—the law has been modified at least to limit the right of silence. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, was good enough to write to me some time before I heard that, explaining what would be the legal complications of modifying the law on this matter in the United Kingdom. It is a matter of importance because the experienced terrorist knows all the tricks of the trade. Furthermore, I believe that the law relating to conspiracy should be implemented, or if necessary widened, so that not only those who have been engaged in acts of terrorism, but also those who are members of proscribed organisations, or who have been involved in the organisation of terrorism, should be able to have charges preferred against them.
Next, with the remission that is presently available I honestly feel that heavier sentences ought to be given in the case of terrorist crimes, because already, after only 10 or 11 years, there are at large unrepentant terrorists who committed quite serious crimes in the last decade. They are out again, and are dining out publicly on their alleged horrific experiences in the H blocks. Moving on to that point, I salute the Government for having refused, and stood firm against making, any concession towards the protesters in the H blocks, who have entirely brought upon themselves the disgusting conditions of squalor in which they are living. I similarly salute them for having refused to give any hint or indication that at any time they would entertain the idea of any amnesty towards criminals who have been convicted in the courts and properly sentenced. I sincerely hope that Her Majesty's Government's nerve will hold so far as this one is concerned.
My Lords, on the subject of cross-border security, I am afraid it is clear that terrorists are still able to bring explosives, weapons and ammunition into the North
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of Ireland from the South without much difficulty. Similarly, it would seem that when they have perpetrated a crime in the North they are able to escape to the South and take refuge there without great impediment. Indeed, in my own experience, security and Customs checks are now very much less noticeable than they were 10 or 15 years ago. The subject of sealing off the border has been discussed many times, and the main answer against it usually is the number of security force personnel who would be tied up in so doing, thus leaving other sensitive areas unprotected.
An interesting piece of information which came my way recently is that when there was trouble in Cyprus and there were terrorist incursions between the Greek and Turkish communities, the border was sealed off by being mined. The border there is somewhat shorter than it is in Northern Ireland—I think about 180 miles, or something like that; I have never been there—but it is not all that much shorter; and I understand that conditions there are different in so far as, in Cyprus, the border runs through mountainous territory where there is not a great deal of civilian traffic and no very intensive farming activities. In Northern Ireland, however, there are many farms, including those of certain noble Lords in the House this evening, which straddle the border, and this would cause a difficulty. What I am respectfully suggesting to your Lordships is that consideration should be given by Her Majesty's Government to drawing, not a new political border but a security line, which would circumvent those farms which actually straddle the border, and, by mining it, reduce the number of access points to a relatively small number.
One has to bear in mind that crossing the land border is not the only way to get from the Republic of Ireland to the North, and therefore, obviously, security forces would have to be deployed in watching the civil airports, the harbours and convenient beaches. But perhaps (I am not saying this must be the case, but perhaps) if the border were thus sealed, sufficient security forces would be made available to do that, and it would make life more difficult for the terrorists. The really determined terrorist is going to get in anyway; but if you make it more difficult, at

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least that is a step in the right direction. What I have suggested is rather unrealistic, your Lordships may perhaps think, but what I am saying is that if the Government of the Republic of Ireland are sincere in their stated determination to eliminate terrorism, at least this is something which ought to be considered.
Indeed, both Her Majesty's Government and the Government of the Republic have stated their determination to eradicate terrorism in the British Isles. In my view—and it has always been my view—extradition is the only clean and effective method of bringing criminals to justice, and I think that maximum pressure ought to be put on the Government of the Republic, particularly now that they have a new Prime Minister, Taoiseach, to get them to agree to such a treaty. The Extra-Territorial Jurisdiction Act never seems to have been used to much effect, and I am sorry to say that the climate of opinion in Northern Ireland is that neither Government have had the will or the determination to really make it work. If both Governments do have that determination to eliminate terrorism, I suggest that a joint security committee should be set up. This would be purely for the purposes of liaison between the Ministers and the commanders of the security forces on both sides of the border, so that efforts could be better co-ordinated. I envisage no political flavour whatever to such liaison, but rather that co-ordination in strategy to defeat terrorism should be improved.
It is quite some number of years now since I first suggested that each unit operating on either side of the border should have a liaison officer with a radio rear link, so that in the event of anything happening one unit could immediately alert the other. The way things are at the moment, I understand, if the British Army want to alert the Irish Army to something, the British Army have to contact the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the Royal Ulster Constabulary then have to contact the police in the Republic, the Garda, and then the Garda have to contact the Irish Army. This delay can be absolutely crucial.
One example of this is that not so very long ago there was a terrorist incursion from the South and a serious crime
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involving, as far as I can remember, rockets was perpetrated in the North of Ireland. Not only did the terrorists then drive 15 miles to the border in a lorry, which is not the swiftest form of transport, but they also took time off to attack another target, involving a prison officer, before they got to the border; and yet they were able to do that without impediment. A couple of them were injured during the course of this expedition. That was bad luck, but that is an occupational hazard for that sort of activity. They therefore had to go to hospital, and they were questioned in hospital. But when the Northern Ireland Office requested extradition, the answer was, "No". They were not extradited. This is why I say that promptness of action is of the essence.
To summarise, my Lords, Lieutenant-General Sir Timothy Creasy, shortly after relinquishing his office as General Officer Commanding in Northern Ireland, stated that given the public will and determination terrorism would be defeated. This, in my view, could be done in three ways. First, if the public on both sides of the community and both sides of the border are in support of the security forces and in support of the respective Governments, they will provide the information necessary to convict the terrorist criminals. Secondly, if civilians feel sufficiently strongly about the security of the Province, they ought to do something about it; they ought to join the part-time security forces, the UDR or the RUC reserve. I have little time for the public bar heroes who say what they would do to sort the thing out, but who, if you say to them, "Why don't you join the UDR?", say, "Well, it would not fit in with my work", or "It would not suit the family", "My wife would not like it", or something like that. But I have even less time for, and I positively despise, the saloon bar and lounge bar heroes who deplore the situation but say, "I play golf at the weekends", "I go out sailing", or something like that. They are the people I despise, and if they are serious in deploring the situation they ought to get off their backsides and do something about it. Personally, I had to resign from the UDR when I stood for the Northern Ireland Assembly in 1973, and would have rejoined since, were I medically fit so to do.
The third point, my Lords, is that public aspiration in the absence of a devolved Parliament must be channelled through its public representatives, who now are your Lordships' House, another place and, in particular, the Northern Ireland Office. The public wish to see an end to terrorism and the establishment of political stability in the Province. For years, we have been hearing Ministers on both sides of the water and on both sides of the border saying that their Governments were doing all that they could. None of us, I suppose, really always does all that could be done. At the end of the day, perhaps, the ordinary man is right in saying that there is a solution if it could be identified and if there were the will to implement it.
My Lords, I conclude by calling upon Her Majesty's Government to take decisive action to end this running sore which has cost over 2,000 lives, tens of thousands of injuries and millions of pounds of destroyed property. I am not competent to come up with an instant solution—I do not think there is an instant solution—and I am not competent to make authoritative recommendations because I do not have access to the necessary security information. But "where there's a will there's a way"; and if more positive action rather than a policy of containment were implemented and seen to be pursued, then I am convinced that the vast majority of the population from all sides of the community in Northern Ireland would back Her Majesty's Government and the security forces to get this burden of anarchic terrorism off our backs. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
8.11 p.m.
Lord HAMPTON: My Lords, once again we must thank the noble Lord, Lord Dunleath, for opening a debate on Northern Ireland and its problems and for doing it so ably. Among such a distinguished list of speakers with so much personal experience of the problems under discussion I shall only speak briefly, to put a Liberal view. At the moment, in general, we support the Government policy. We seek only to offer criticism that is constructive. I do not see any value in the maxim that the duty of an Opposition is to oppose, where opposition is considered a merit in itself.
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There are three areas in which solutions need to be found and worked for at the same time: political, economic and social and security and law and order. On the first point, we would have tackled the political conference somewhat differently; but, none the less, we wish the Secretary of State all success with his plans. On the second point, the social, environmental and economic problems, these were considered only a few weeks ago and I will confine myself to a few remarks only. The more I read and hear about and see in the Province, the more I realise what a great deal must be done to bring conditions of life there up to the standard which would be considered barely tolerable on the mainland. Such a standard of environment coupled with a large proportion of unemployed and low income levels must be a fertile breeding ground for dissatisfaction, despair and trouble making. It is essential in facing up to the problems of security that maximum effort also should be exerted in this field.
The third point is our subject tonight, that of security. We are not happy with the rigours of the Emergency Powers Act, the suspension of habeas corpus and the limitations on personal freedom by the power granted for detention and interrogation. But at present we have to accept reluctantly that the alternative would be much worse; and the workings of this Act are, rightly, reviewed from time to time. The Army and the security forces have to maintain a very difficult balance. On the one hand, they have to take the necessary steps to prevent the success of the terrorists and, on the other hand, they must not go too far lest they provoke further unrest and merely add fuel to the flames that they are trying to put out.
A correspondent who is considered to be reliable told me that the young soldiers are supposed to behave with the restraint and self control, as she puts it, not of angels but of archangels, often in the face of deliberate "aggro". At the same time she says, frankly, that unless one has lived in areas where disturbances are frequent and the full forces of the Emergency Powers Act are rigidly applied, one cannot know the strains and stresses of life involved. I understand that some people seem to be interrogated time and time again for no apparent reason. The other day, I read of the IRA being referred

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to as "scum". This is probably a more common occurrence than I knew of; and I note seriously what the noble Lord, Lord Dunleath, said about an atrocity recently committed.
While the acts of terrorism must be condemned in the strongest terms, I still, from the mainland, despite everything, say that these are people and success must lie in showing them also that a happier future lies in peace and reconciliation than in terror and the bomb. I feel that I must repeat what I have said on a former occasion in this House: that if one relies on our national Press, one gets a distorted view of life in the Province, with the emphasis on disaster and despair. It still comes to me as a surprise to read some accounts of the good things that go on there: of the holidays where children with very different backgrounds meet, mix and relax: and of the acts of courage and concern that all too often go unmentioned. I noticed in the Alliance newspaper, in its last edition, the statement that it is of vital importance to realise that the community as a whole is not in a state of turmoil. I submit that a great many people on the mainland get a very different impression.
Last summer I was included in an official parliamentary visit to the forces in Germany. The great majority of the men had been to Ireland, some on as many as nine tours of duty. Very few said that they did not think the Army was doing a vital job there. They did not enjoy the task but they asked of the public one thing: Give us your support. I look forward to hearing what the noble Lord, Lord Carver, has to say on this subject. I trust that those who know Northern Ireland well will not disagree with me when I speak of grounds for cautious optimism. Believe me, I am still aware of the painful price that has yet to be paid.
8.19 p.m.
Lord MELCHETT: My Lords, I am conscious that, given the late hour, it falls to me to set a good example in brevity to Back-Bench speakers. I will do my best to do so. Following on what the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, has said, I am conscious also, given the subject that we are debating and the time at which we
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are debating it, that it is important to recognise the amount we are leaving out of what we discuss—in particular, the economic problems and the political problems which the noble Lord mentioned. I also do not intend to touch on those; although I think that that, in many ways, makes our discussion a little artificial. What I wanted to talk about briefly were the powers available to the Security forces and, in particular, the Emergency Powers Act, with reference to some research work which has been done by three researchers from universities in the Republic of Ireland, Queen's University and the University of Bristol, Boyle, Hadden and Hillyard.
The particular value of this research, it seems to me, and the reason for drawing it to your Lordships' attention, is that the authors start off by discussing the different approaches which it is possible to take in formulating a security policy: the approaches adopted by British governments over the last 10 or 11 years and the approaches that have been suggested occasionally as those they ought to have adopted. The authors go on to make some particular suggestions for improvements in the Emergency Powers Act.
I am very conscious, particularly as a former Government Minister in Northern Ireland, that it is quite impossible to be other than in favour of and supportive of the security forces and the emergency legislation which is in existence. That is true for most of the people who live in Northern Ireland. Either one is for the security forces and the legislation under which they act, or one is against them. There is no happy middle ground where people can say: "That is all right, but it would be better if you did it that way; you can improve things if you do it another way". That is the great weakness under which Governments and many other people have to work in the circumstances in Northern Ireland and given the pressures which there are.
The authors of this particular study suggest that our understanding of the problems facing the security forces and the British Government, and the usefulness of various alternative approaches which have been suggested, would be greatly increased if we clarified the various possible approaches on which security policy is based. They mentioned three: the war model; the detention model;

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and the criminal court model. To take those briefly in turn, the war model approach, that this is a war which we are fighting, is the one adopted by the Provisional IRA, but not by successive British Governments.
Although this is occasionally urged on British Governments, it is worth those who do so bearing in mind that just because this is the approach adopted by the provisional IRA, it does not necessarily mean that it is the approach that would be most successful for the British Government to adopt. The consequences that would flow—besides, I am afraid, the suggestion which the noble Lord, Lord Dunleath, made of sealing off the border—would be wide-scale detention; shooting suspects on sight; the taking of hostages in civilian areas, and so on.
The British Government—quite rightly—have ruled out the possibility of adopting such an approach for a number of reasons; in particular, the number of deaths of innocent civilians that would inevitably result. Maybe another reason which I think in my own experience was not sufficiently recognised in Northern Ireland was the effect of international pressure on a British Government and the significance in particular of the views adopted by the United States, the United Nations, our partners in the European Community, and so on. The British Government are subjected to pressures from other Governments in the world we live in, and quite rightly so. The approach that a British Government would have to take if they started to fight a war against the Provisional IRA would make our position internationally untenable. There are a number of other very strong arguments aginst that particular approach. I think that it is worth mentioning that probably the Provisional IRA's greatest successes in terms of recruitment and propaganda, nationally and internationally, have been on those occasions when they have got the British Government to forget that they were not adopting the war model—for example, when they introduced internment and, in particular, the special category status.
Turning to the detention model which the noble Lord, Lord Dunleath, mentioned, and on which I will not go into in any great detail, this was tried with fairly catastrophic results. It seems to me
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that the best argument against its reintroduction has been the substantial decline in the numbers of deaths and injuries that has occurred since that particular approach was abandoned. Frankly, I find it difficult to distinguish selective detention from the internment that was used between 1971 and 1975, which, in all the public pronouncements that were made about it, was intended to be selective in operation, and in practice was said to be so by all those who operated it. I do not see how calling something "selective detention" alters it from what has been tried, with catastrophic results, in the past.
The third model, the one adopted by this Government and previous governments, is the criminal justice approach. It is important to recognise that this has substantial disadvantages as well as, I suggest, substantial advantages. This approach involves the police finding evidence against individuals, that evidence being produced in open court with rules applying as to whether it is admissible or not, and with rules about the finding of guilt and so on. However, in those circumstances, some people who are guilty, who have committed crimes, will go free because there will be insufficient evidence or because the evidence presented is not of a type which the court feels it is safe to convict on. In some people's eyes that is a major disadvantage of adopting the criminal court approach.
There are major advantages: in particular, that mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Dunleath, in his speech—the importance of gaining and increasing the respect and faith which the ordinary people in Northern Ireland in all communities have for the institutions of the State, for the police force, for the court system, the judiciary, and so on. As the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, said, if that is the approach which is being adopted—and it is being adopted, as I understand it, by this Government, as by the Government of which I was a Minister—it is vital that things should not be done which tend to reduce the confidence and the respect that people have for the courts, the police, and so on. If that is done, the very objective which this approach is attempting to achieve will be reduced and nullified.
My Lords, I am conscious of speaking for some length, and I do not wish to go

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on for too long. I commend the paper and, in particular, the specific recommendations which it makes for amending the Emergency Powers Act, not only to the Minister but to noble Lords in all parts of the House. The approach adopted by these authors on the basis of substantial research over a number of years, that the emergency powers—in other words the detraction from the criminal justice model, from the normal process of criminal justice—while justified in the particular circumstances of Northern Ireland, should be only as great as is absolutely necessary. If the
detractions from that criminal justice model are greater than are necessary, then the objectives we are trying to achieve—greater confidence in the police, the courts and the institutions of the State—will not be achieved. The reverse will be achieved and the policy will not have the desired effect.
8.28 p.m.
Lord MOYOLA: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dunleath, for the opportunity to discuss the security situation in Northern Ireland once again. We have had, as he said, over 11 years of terrorism. We have had over 2,000 people dead. Many of them were members of the security forces; even more were perfectly ordinary civilians. Against this background of 11 years of terrorism, I am afraid that it is very unlikely that any of us tonight can make any suggestion that is going to bring about its immediate end. It is certainly an opportunity to emphasise through Her Majesty's Government how long this has been going on—and those of us who live there feel that it has been going on far too long—and to say again to Her Majesty's Government that if anything worth while can be put forward, the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland are prepared to put up with almost any inconvenience to bring this thing quickly to an end. Having said that, it is true to say that of course the security situation is a great deal better than it was. I have come to this House on many occasions when there has been nothing but a stream of incidents reported on every local news, day after day. Now, thank goodness, those incidents are very much fewer; but unhappily those that take place are usually very much more lethal.
Having said that the situation is better,
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there are still some aspects about which I am worried. Before I speak about those I should like to make two points about things which I am certain should not be done. They have both already been touched upon and I make no apology for mentioning them again, because I feel very strongly on them both. The first is internment. Call it what you like, it will be only the start of further trouble if internment is brought in. When it came in in 1971, it provided the entire Catholic community with a cause, and I cannot see any reason to think that if it came in again today it would have any other effect. It is a popular thing to shout and that is about all, except that, undoubtedly, if it happened it would lead to more violence, more rioting, the drying-up of such information as comes, and, I am quite certain, the tying down of a great many more troops in the streets of Northern Ireland. Happily, I think the numbers so deployed have been declining lately.
Similarly, I feel equally strongly on the subject of capital punishment. It is a very simple thing to shout about, as the simple panacea for all evils in dealing with terrorism. But, again, without dwelling on it, there is absolutely no doubt at all that for every execution that might take place, there would simply be worse and more horrific reprisals.
I do not want anyone to think that in what I say in this debate—and indeed this applies to what any of us from Northern Ireland may say—I am seeking to be critical of the security forces—far from it. I think that all of us are immensely grateful for the great service that they have given to us over very many trying years, and we all wish only to see the time come in Northern Ireland when they can move about without risk.
But there are, obviously, a number of things that worry us. The first that I would mention is the problem of the border, and the ease with which terrorists can go across it in order to do what they want, and then go back again with apparent impunity. Only last week, some wretched farmer was shot down in County Fermanagh while in his tractor, three miles from the border. I understand that the terrorists are known to have come across the border, carried out the shooting and crossed back again. I know full well

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the enormous problems of the Northern Ireland border—its length and the huge number of crossing points there are—but it still seems to me that some more effective way should be found of preventing these incursions from taking place.
It seems to me, too, that if there really is goodwill towards us on the Republic side of the border, and a desire to stop terrorism, this is the moment when they should play a part in stopping these incursions. I know people will tell me that, of course, they are deployed all along the border, but the fact remains that there is very little evidence on the ground when one goes across it. If this alleged goodwill exists between the North and the South, and the South is willing to help, then this is their chance to do so.
Way back last autumn, following the murder of Lord Mountbatten and the massacre at Warren Point, various meetings took place at Downing Street between Her Majesty's Government and members of the Government of the Republic, out of which came assurances that there was going to be great co-operation. One had the feeling that a great many things would be better. Quite frankly, it all sounded splendid at the time, but there is no evidence of any sort or kind that anything has changed.
There is one other matter I should like to mention. It is, so to speak, a military point—the question of the UDR. I make no apology for the fact that I have mentioned it many times in this House, but I feel strongly about it. There are far too many murders of Ulster Defence Regiment men and, for that matter, of Royal Ulster Constabulary reserve men. It is all too easy, because many of them live in isolated farmhouses and many of them drive milk lorries or whatever it may be. It is extremely easy for ambushes to take place. I am still totally convinced that something should be done to change the mode of operation of the security forces, particularly in the country areas. I feel that they must be able to react much more quickly. They can do that only if they operate in smaller units than they do at present, and the leaders of those smaller units should have rather greater discretion, allowing them to take immediate action when an incident occurs in their area. I do not think that this is a matter which should be developed publicly, but I hope
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that in his reply the noble Lord, Lord Elton, may be able to touch upon the possibilities. Even if he does not feel free to say too much, perhaps he will at least see that some consideration is given to it.
The last point I want to make is about employment. It may seem that this has nothing to do with security, but, in my view, it has a great deal to do with it and could have a great deal more in the future. In Northern Ireland, we are in a situation where the unemployment figures are back at the height they were at in the old days of the 'thirties. They are more than twice what they were, certainly throughout my political life. I shall not suggest for one moment that this has anything to do with the troubles or the causes relevant to this debate. But the fact remains that young men, with nothing to do and without any future, will turn to crime and violence. You have only to look around the world at impoverished countries, to look at Spain, Italy, Turkey and many of the Central and South American States. Terrorism flourishes, and always flourishes, in countries where there is a shortage of pennies. It certainly seems to me that terrorism, nowadays, is not so much about any cause; it is simply a war between the "have-nots" and the "haves". For that reason, it is thriving in Northern Ireland, and it will thrive even more if the unemployment figures go on rising.
As I said, it is inevitable that terrorism will increase against a background of massive unemployment. It is all too easy, when people go about offering young men so much to shoot a policeman, offering them a cut of the takings if they go out and do a bank raid, and arranging and setting up many other similar acts of lawlessness. All I would say is that unemployment and lawlessness go hand in hand, in my mind, and much greater efforts ought to be made to provide work in Northern Ireland, even if it is contrary to Government policy in other parts of the United Kingdom. It would surely be better to spend more money in Northern Ireland, and thereby save a lot of soldiers' lives.
There are no simple answers to this problem. Very often, people in Northern Ireland come up to one and ask, "Why doesn't somebody tell the army to go in and finish it?" Then you look at them and say, "What do you mean? Where are

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the army to go into and, when they are there, what are they meant to do?" Well, they look at you rather nonplussed. It is not simple like that. That is, unfortunately, the problem. The problem is what to do, and I am afraid that it is going to be a long, slow business. But so long as the will remains to fight against it, then I am quite confident that it is going to have an end.
Viscount MASSEREENE and FERRARD: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, may I ask him whether or not he thinks it would be wise to have what would I call very selective detention? I understand that there are one or two individuals who are known by the authorities to have committed a lot of murders but that it is very difficult to convict them under the processes of the law, because witnesses are intimidated. In that case, surely it would save a lot of innocent lives if we had what I would call very selective detention.
Lord MOYOLA: My Lords, what the noble Viscount says is perfectly true. There are people—"godfathers", if you like—directing many of the acts of violence, who manage to remain immune to the law. But personally I still take the view that whatever form of detention, internment, or call it what you like, is brought in, it will still provide once again a cause for the Catholic community. One would see violence on the streets again on exactly the same scale as it was in the early 1970s.
8.42 p.m.
Lord CARVER: My Lords, like other noble Lords who have spoken I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dunleath, for giving us this opportunity to discuss this very important subject—very important for all the inhabitants of Northern Ireland; very important for the United Kingdom; very important for our Army. In the calm, secluded atmosphere of your Lordships' House, it is difficult to appreciate the strain under which so many people in Northern Ireland live, particularly those who live near the border and who give of their time to contribute to the security of their fellow men, particularly part-time members of the UDR and of the RUC Reserve. It has all been
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going on for so long now—for over 10 years—that we are inclined to shrug our shoulders and to regard it, in the unfortunate phrase of a former Home Secretary, as "an acceptable level of violence." But we cannot calmly accept that within the borders of the United Kingdom, for the Government of which these Houses of Parliament are responsible, men and women are blown up and shot by an organisation whose openly declared aim is to overturn that Government in that part of the United Kingdom, and whose leaders remain free to pursue that policy and to further it by violent and illegal means. To that extent, the security situation in Northern Ireland is serious, and has been serious over the last 10 years.
I would not accept, as some suggest, that it is deteriorating, but I do accept that it is not improving to the extent that most people hoped about a year ago. One of the principal reasons for that, I think we must realise, is that the nature of the IRA's campaign has changed. The split between the Provisional and the Official IRA, which took place many years ago, arose because the latter, the Officials, aimed for a Marxist People's Republic, covering the whole of Ireland, while the former, the Provisionals, were what one might call old-fashioned Fenians, whose aim was the more limited one of just getting rid of the British.
Now the Provisional Sinn Fein themselves have become Marxists, and pretty extreme ones too, as their recent Ard Fheis made clear. They have tightened up their organisation and are now much more akin to the other Marxist-orientated terrorist organisations. The attendance of fraternal delegates and the messages of support they received from other terrorist organisations in Europe and elsewhwere at their recent conference clearly revealed this. The adoption by the IRA of methods employed by such organisations has meant that preventive measures to anticipate terrorist' incidents are made much more difficult, as the IRA's organisation is much smaller, tighter knit, more secure and therefore difficult to penetrate. Incidents are now carefully prepared and primarily designed to keep the power of the IRA in the public eye. But less and less, I am sure those of your Lordships who live in Northern Ireland will agree, do they have the support of the Catholic

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population at large, most of whom are fed up to the teeth with the continuation of violence and with the repercussions that that has on the lives of all of them.
So what should we do? It seems to me intolerable, as it has always seemed to me intolerable, that those who direct and actively participate in this campaign should be almost completely free, as many of them are, to do so with impunity. Until they are brought to book, no number of soldiers, operating overtly or covertly, will be able to bring the violence to an end. There are, rightly, calls, as there have been this evening, for more effective action.
I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, that there are basically three options or models on which action can be based. The first—what he called the military model—is by recourse to more drastic, more military methods—a virtual declaration of war, throwing away the restraints that are imposed by trying to carry on life in the normal way. Like other noble Lords who have spoken, I am not in favour of this. It would, I believe, throw the Catholic population and the Republic back in support of the IRA and forfeit all the success that has been gained in this field over recent years. Moreover, I do not believe that in fact it would be effective in eliminating what might be called the godfathers.
To turn aside for one moment to deal with the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Dunleath, about the border, my first contact with the Northern Ireland problem was the day I became the Chief of the General Staff, which, appropriately or not, was 1st April, 1971. I took office, as it were, at 9 o'clock that morning and at 10.30 I and General Tuzo were in No. 10 for the first meeting between Brian Faulkner and the Prime Minister of the day, Edward Heath. It will not surprise your Lordships to know that almost the first thing to be raised was the possibility of sealing off the border. There are very grave and, in my opinion, insuperable practical, not merely objections but obstacles to ever being able to make that effective.
I also happen to have been the Deputy Commander of the United Nations Force in Cyprus when it was first formed. I am afraid it is not the case that until the
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Turkish invasion took place there was any sealing off of any areas, except for the Turkish fighters themselves sealing off their own villages from Greek Cypriots, and vice versa. The sealing off of the border in Cyprus came when the Turkish army invaded—it was a very large army in a very small area, not in the mountains but in an open plain—and sealed it off by preventing any movement of any kind whatever by straightforward military means. That is not a policy that to my mind could possibly be applied to the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic.
The second option, therefore, is the one which the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, called the detention model—a return to internment. Who the instigators and the directors of the campaign are is well known. Where they are is also generally well known, although it might not be if it were suggested that they were to be arrested. They are not arrested today, partly because there is no appropriate crime with which they could be charged, partly because, when there is, the methods, including the rules of evidence by which the courts conduct their busines, make it impossible to convict them; and some who have been arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced are then given early remission, as much as 50 per cent. of their sentences, and set free again to resume their activities.
That, my Lords, seems to me the most absurd handicap that we should impose on ourselves. As the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard, has just suggested, internment restricted to those who are the real directors of the conspiracy seems to many people to be attractive; but I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Moyola, that it has such emotional overtones that to resort to it would, I believe, also alienate a very large element of the Catholic population who at present do not actively support the IRA, and would encourage them to do so.
What then are we left with? We are left with the law itself and how it is administered. It is ironical that in some ways the laws applicable to terrorist organisations and those who support or publicise them are more severe in the Republic than in Northern Ireland. It seems to me that the first step should be to have another look at the law to see

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whether there are not new offences which could be introduced. The second step—and here I speak with great trepidation in a House which contains so many legal luminaries—is to take a really radical look at the way in which the courts in Northern Ireland conduct their business.
I do not pretend for one moment to be an expert in the law, except military law, but it seems to me to be possible that we may have something to learn here from the methods practised on the Continent under Roman or Napoleonic law—and I an thinking in particular of the procès-verbal, instead of questioning by the police. What I am sure must be looked at, and has in fact already been raised, is the right of the accused under our system to remain silent without, officially, any prejudice to himself; and Father Faul's advice, which I saw in the newspapers this morning, makes it quite clear what importance he attaches to that in a rather different sense.
I would also entirely support the noble Lord, Lord Dunleath, and the noble Lord, Lord Moyola, in saying that I am totally opposed—for a number of different reasons, but also a perfectly practical one—to a return to capital punishment. I suggest that there could be considerable advantage in trying to bring together both the law and how it is applied, not only with the Republic but also with other European countries who are faced with a terrorist problem, as almost all of them are.
My Lords, it is right that the security forces should act within the law, but they have a right to demand that the law then makes it possible for them to do their job effectively within the law. If that is not possible they are tempted to go beyond it or they are liable to despair and frustration. I believe it is the right policy that those who challenge the authority of Government and of the law should be treated as criminals and that the task of dealing with them should, so far as is possible, be in the hands of the police. I am glad that the recent appointment of Sir Maurice Oldfield has already been accompanied by the removal of some difficulties between the Army and the RUC, but the application of the policy of primacy of the police must be flexible. What suits Belfast and Londonderry is
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not applicable round Crossmaglen. To a certain extent that may meet the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Moyola.
I am afraid that political initiatives now have very little relevance to this issue. The IRA and Sinn Fein, particularly with recent developments within them, are not influenced by any such modifications to the existing basic position. However, what is relevant, I believe, is good administration. If only the services which local government is meant to provide could be provided with greater vigour and efficiency to the whole population, wherever they live—streets cleaned, uninhabitable houses demolished, lights repaired and the people made to feel that the authorities, the Government, really care for them and serve them; and I do not underestimate the practical difficulties of this—that I believe could, not cure but greatly contribute to an improvement in the security situation.
But basic improvement depends, I believe, on two things. The first remains one of the most difficult—co-ordination and co-operation with the Republic. I think it is the greatest tragedy that in the murder of Lord Mountbatten the opportunity was not seized, as it might have been. The blame was divided among many people. It might have become the platform from which a greater degree of co-operation could effectively be launched. But we must go on trying. Secondly, it depends on changes to the law and how the courts operate, in order that those who defy the law, defy the authority of Government, defy the interests, security and wellbeing of their fellow citizens, should no longer be free to do so.
8.55 p.m.
Lord LEONARD: My Lords, before I enter into the debate, looking around this Chamber, my heart goes out to those who are here tonight who have suffered from the terrorists of Ireland, and I wish it to be known that no good Irishman would ever wish to be associated with the things that have happened.
Having said that, let me now turn to the fact that in this debate tonight 10 out of 13 speakers are old Etonians; 99·99 Irishmen never made it to the bastion of education and security. However, that is not casting any aspersion on that great school. There is also one old Harrovian, and I am more in favour of

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him because I have family associations there. Your Lordships are all too blooming serious! You really make me feel that I am going to the undertaker, and I am not going to the undertaker. For heaven's sake, liven yourselves up! Do not be crying about past deeds and past acts. As I said before, there are people here who could literally cry, but they are not crying. For heaven's sake, pull yourselves together and do not be on about this and that and who is going to do the law and who is going to do the order!
Your Lordships must remember that there was no such thing as Northern Ireland 60 years ago, there was only Ireland. Northern Ireland was created by men, only a few and comparatively recently. While I am not saying that it should not have been created, I am saying that it was created (and this is literally true) under the threat of immediate and terrible war. That is history; so therefore do not get it into your heads that God made Northern Ireland, because He did not, you know. That is true, and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Dunleath, will come back to hear what I am going to say in due course, because I am not going to be doleful and I am not going to cry.
There has been tragedy in Ireland; it has been shocking, but it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that it can be mended. In the last debate on Ireland the noble Lord, Lord Elton, told us that Her Majesty's Government had spent approximately £4,000 million since 1969. These figures are coming out of the back of my head, so give or take a million or two. Let us be fair, £4 billion is an enormous amount of money to pump into something. Honestly, I believe you do not know a damned thing about Ireland, any of you. You are talking here and you are not Irish, you see. You do not know, You think you know but you do not.
If I can find it I am going to give a quotation which I wrote down because I thought it was most interesting. It was about a Catholic cardinal who came over from Australia; he made a speech, saying:
"If only England trusted Ireland as she trusted Australia, every Irishman would be a missionary of the British Empire".
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Get that into your heads. The Irish are not your enemies. The Irish detest terrorism; they do not want it. But, my God, you have got to face up to the fact that this thing must be settled and it must be settled by Irishmen. I detest using North and South; I say it must be settled by Irishmen. You talk about taking hostages or setting landmines and all this sort of thing. You must be out of your tiny minds to be talking about setting landmines and taking hostages. You must get down to a table like this and talk, Irishmen among Irishmen. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, said in the last debate that we must build a bridge. Well, all right, let us build a bridge. But you must have water to build a bridge and there is not any water; it is only a little man-made border. It can be sorted out; it can be discussed, it can be talked about.
Seriously, this is what it is about. Great Britain must realise that there is a greater enemy even than the IRA, and that is a hard thing for me to say; there is a greater enemy than the terrorist, and that is the Communist. I will tell you this much, the greatest bulwark against Communism in the world today is Ireland, North and South. England may one day wish for the help of Ireland, and I would be the first to hope that she would get it. She will not get it if you start talking about laying landmines across borders or taking hostages; it is monstrous to even hear tell of it. I will quote you now from the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland on Thursday the 7th of this month in another place:
"… co-operation between the security forces in Northern Ireland and those of the Republic is extremely valuable. I am happy to say that it is working well and producing results ".—[Official Report (Commons), 7/2/80; Col. 717.]
If the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland makes a statement like that, you must be mad to stand up here and talk about laying landmines. I have never heard such nonsense in all my life. You must really get down to normal discussion and conference. If Switzerland can live with a multitude of races, if Belgium can live with Catholics and Protestants—and I could quote a few more European countries; they are living together, they have one Head of State—why cannot we do it, why cannot it be done in Britain? I will tell you why it cannot be done in

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Britain, because there is just a small group of fanatical people, religious or mental, I do not know which; it is a small group that is stopping this country coming together with Ireland and making a happy group of people in Ireland.
Lord DUNLEATH: Would the noble Lord allow me to intervene for a moment? Would he not agree that, whereas we all want to see reconciliation in Ireland, there is this fanatical group of terrorists who are now very much Marxist-orientated, who shot a man dead on his tractor the other day? How does the noble Lord think that entering into consultations—and I hope he was not suggesting that Her Majesty's Government should enter into consultations with the Provisional IRA or the Irish National Liberation Army or the UVF—would stop these people coming over the border and shooting a man on his tractor and blowing up 18 soldiers near Warren Point? Is he seriously suggesting that?
Lord LEONARD: My Lords, what I am suggesting is that if Britain and the Republic of Ireland came together I would go over myself and sort that 1,500 out in about ten minutes. They are nothing; they do not count. They are just a small group of bandits. They have no say in the matter. But while you make suggestions like those you have made, you are making enemies of the peace-loving people of Ireland, and the peace-loving people of Ireland are not going to be friendly towards you while you make those statements. Those people, those bandits, those IRA, those Communists, call them what you like, are so infinitesimal in the overall population picture that if Britain and Southern Ireland would get together and talk these people would disappear like the mist on the mountain; they would be gone tomorrow.
Lord DUNLEATH: I would be very glad in that case if the noble Lord would kindly go and "sort them out".
Lord LEONARD: I will go when you cease to talk about laying landmines in Ireland.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY of STATE, NORTHERN IRELAND OFFICE (Lord Elton): My Lords, with the greatest respect, the noble Lord should address the House and not individual Members.
Lord LEONARD: I am very sorry, I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Elton. You have always been a keen critic of me and you are continuing to be so. I do not object to that. I am not going to belabour your Lordships much longer with my talk. I just want it to be known here that Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, the people of Northern Ireland, want peace, but for God's sake let them talk. As a matter of fact I wish you would go away and let us talk together, and I honestly believe that peace would come about much quicker than pumping in £4,000 million to keep a wrecked ship afloat.
Viscount MASSEREENE and FERRARD: My Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord Leonard, sits down I should like to ask him whether he does not agree that, if those bandits destroyed the Government in Northern Ireland, they might then want to destroy the Government in the South of Ireland and we would probably have a Cuba to our West?
Lord LEONARD: My Lords, they would not be there for five minutes. In fact, I had sat down, but I shall answer by saying that they would not last five minutes.
9.9 p.m.
Viscount BROOKEBOROUGH: My Lords, I should like to begin by saying how grateful I am to the noble Lord, Lord Dunleath, for opening this debate and for instituting it. The other day we discussed the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill, and as I was walking through the lobby behind the noble Lord, Lord Peart, I heard someone say, "I have always been in favour of devolution for Scotland because nothing will get rid of the Scots quicker than devolution". Then another man said to him, "Well, there is one thing—they are much better than the Irish"!
I feel that we probably are slightly unwelcome in continually keeping this House up to a late hour, and I apologise to the staff who service us so very well. I, for

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one, will do my best to keep my contribution as short as possible. I wish for a moment to mention a change in perspective that has taken place and which I think is very significant. While the noble Lord, Lord Leonard, says that we should not cry, it is certainly something which is significant. The other day the headline on the news was "Kevin Keegan returns to England". The second headline was, "Two policemen blown up in County Fermanagh". I think that that is wrong, but it is symptomatic of the problem.
I wish to pay tribute to our Ministers, both past and present, for the efforts that they have made and are making on behalf of the United Kingdom. They have a most inconvenient job; it is very hard work and to a large extent it is thankless. Their families also have a very tough life indeed, and I should like to pay tribute to them. I should also like to point out that I met the noble Lord Lord Vaizey, on the way out tonight. He said that the debate was too late for him. I am very sorry about that because he said, "This is a United Kingdom matter and I do so strongly feel that we should take part in it". I should like to endorse that and to say that it is most encouraging that so many people not living in Northern Ireland take part in these matters and make such very valuable contributions. The speech by the noble Lord, Lord Carver, was quite the best that I have heard on this type of subject for many a long time. But then that is something that I would expect because he has very strong Ulster connections and Ulstermen make very good soldiers—nobody is better than an Ulster field marshal.
I have listened with great interest to those who have spoken, some of whom have been philosophising on the method and the theory of how democracy should fight terrorism. I should like, possibly on rather a lower level, to consider the results. However, before doing so I shall remind the House of the philosophy of the terrorists because our reaction must be against the way they operate.
The first duty of a democracy is to ensure that the law abiding citizen has the right to live and work in peace and harmony with his neighbour. That is the first and prime duty of any Government who call themselves a Government at all. The aim
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of the IRA, as expressed by various philosophers in writing, is to commit—and I am telescoping considerably what I have to say because of the late hour—so many acts of terrorism that the law abiding citizen believes that his lawful Government have not the will to defend him. Two results flow from that: first, there is a backlash with retaliation involved; and secondly, there is war-weariness and in the particular case about which we are talking two forms of war-weariness—war-weariness in the area of Ulster, and war-weariness in the rest of our United Kingdom, in Great Britain. Those are the threats and that is the problem.
As other speakers said, to meet those threats democracy has to suspend temporarily certain freedoms. We have, in fact, to suspend enough freedoms to convince the law abiding citizen and the IRA—that is the enemy—that violence does not pay. The question is: Have we changed the law enough or suspended enough freedoms to convince either the people of Ulster or the IRA that crime will not pay, and that they cannot succeed? If we fail to do that in Ulster, then I believe there is very little of the Free World which will be safe in the future.
How far do we think the Government have succeeded? I must say at this point that the Government must make greater efforts to convince the people of Ulster that they are determined to succeed. Too often we use the words "military victory". In terms of 11 years of violence "military victory" does not mean that we want to go barging around with Saracens and equipment like that. By "military victory" we must give the legal weapons—because we have decided that the law is the means by which we are to operate—to our forces of law so that they can carry out the tasks which we give them, which are to frustrate the terrorist and, if he commits an illegal act, to make sure that he is brought to book.
In my county—and this is why I said that I would be speaking on rather a lower level—we have had 51 murders in 10 years, which are all unsolved, out of a population of 50,000, for it is only a very small county. But in the smaller area of Lisnaskea, from where I come, there have been 30 unsolved murders in a population of 10,000. It is very easy statistically to multiply those figures and make them

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become irrelevant. But there is a certain relevance in that if they are multiplied up to cover 10 million people, which is the population of London, we get a figure of 30,000 totally unsolved murders. I cannot help feeling that if there were even 3,000 unsolved murders over 10 years, the Governments of this country would have found some way of changing the law so as to enable the forces of law and order to bring those concerned to justice.
In many cases the reason that they cannot be brought to justice is not that there are no witnesses; there are in fact many witnesses. But to ask a witness to come forward to a court of law is tantamount to asking him to commit suicide. Therefore, so far as I am concerned, when we talk about a military victory, we are discussing equipping the forces of law and order with laws that will enable them to carry out the tasks we give them; that is, in the first place, to prevent crime and, in the second place, to enable convictions of those who have been caught.
I hope that the Government will not be tempted to mine the border. I should be so very sad, so soon after my noble friend Lord Erne has taken his place in this House, to lose him when he is out doing some nefarious smuggling operation across the border! Seriously, I do not consider that that is a very sensible solution and I should certainly be very sad. I know that many people would agree with me.
I return to the question of the laws. The Government have blunted the weapons of the RUC by the acceptance of the Bennett Report. In the last 12 months they have not provided any other legislative equipment to enable our forces to recover the loss of the interrogation process. At this particular moment we in County Fermanagh are suffering a very severe attack from the IRA. We have made representations—I have done so personally—to almost all authority possible over the last four months when this began to occur. People in this area are very desperate at present. It is extremely necessary for the Government to convince the people in that area at once that the Government and the country have the will to win.
We are continually told that we cannot merely have a peaceful solution without a political solution; that is, that we cannot
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have a military victory without a political solution. One must look things absolutely straight in the face. The change of getting a political solution which is acceptable in the way that will change those who do not support law and order now, is very remote indeed. Therefore, it is very important that at the earliest possible moment the Government should get down to it and change the laws and the method of operation—after all, they have been in office for nine months—so that we can, in fact, convince everybody that we have the will to win.
Everyone here sees on the television reports of the funerals of those who are murdered. But that is not the end of the story. I think a great deal about the families who have been dealt with and comforted by doctors; of the absolute misery there is which is caused by terrorists. I shall probably be told that I am giving comfort to the terrorists in saying that they are achieving this. But in my part of the country we are without a Member of Parliament to express views, and if I do not express them here, and refer to the absolute horror of what is going on at present, I shall be letting the people of my county down.
We are coming up to the tenth anniversary of the formation of the Ulster Defence Regiment. I should like to make a plea that this be made a really special occasion. I and many others have put in a plea that the bounty for going to camp and certain training periods be increased. But that is not everything. We want something else to hang our hat on, to recognise what these people have done. Night after night, in our area three nights a week, they are out and carry on normally in their normal jobs. These people deserve the greatest credit, but they also deserve some form of recognition in the way of a great occasion by which their work can be recognised. I should also like to pay tribute, as did my noble friend Lord Moyola, to the Royal Ulster Constabulary and to the Army. Goodness knows! they have had a tremendous task, and they have done it almost faultlessly. Because it is the tenth anniversary of the formation of the UDR, may I say: Please make it a really remarkable occasion.
9.21 p.m.
Lord KILBRACKEN: My Lords, I

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should like to begin by expressing my appreciation of the remarks made by my noble friend Lord Leonard, as one of the many Etonians to whom he referred. He and I both hail from the County of Leitrim in the Republic, which is perhaps the poorest county in Ireland. It is one of those curious facts that Leitrim sends no deputy to the Dáil but does have two representatives in your Lordships' House.
We are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dunleath, for putting down this Motion today. I must admit that I was surprised and sorry that, like the noble Lord, Lord Moyola, he sought to put so much blame for what is going on in Northern Ireland on the Republic. As one who comes from just eight miles from the Border—I am within sight of it I should like to say how fed up the people in the Republic are with this continuing pretence—and I must call it a pretence—that our Government, our army, and our gardai, through collusion and sympathy with the terrorists, are in some way contributing to what has to be regarded as the British failure to end terrorism in the North.
I would ask your Lordships to consider the facts. In the first place at least 90 per cent. of the incidents in the North have no connection with the border at all. In all those cases those who are responsible are walking about—although they may be known as terrorists—in the North and not in the Republic. Indeed the noble Lord, Lord Moyola, admitted—and the same fact was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Carver—that there are many known terrorists at liberty in Northern Ireland. If this is so in the North where the trouble is going on, it is to be expected that there must be some known terrorists at liberty in the Republic. It is all very well to talk about such known terrorists being present, but as is being found in the North it is not always easy to arrest them. A further point is that not once since the new legislation has Belfast sought the prosecution of any terrorist or any criminal in the Republic for offences committed in Northern Ireland. As your Lordships know, this is permissible; a fugitive offender who commits an offence in the North can be tried and found guilty in the courts of the Republic, but on no single occasion has any request been made or such prosecution to take place.
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I wish to talk about the situation on the border because I know it quite well and cross it quite frequently. I can only say that if the Republic is not doing all it should to stop terrorists from crossing it, the security forces and police in the North are doing far less. If I were to set out to drive to the house of the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough—which does not seem very likely at present and cover the 22 miles as the crow, or guided missile, flies between my house and his, I could drive by three different routes—Swanlinbar, Ballyconnell or Clones—and I could guarantee that if we saw any sign of security forces at all, customs officers, police or army, they would be on my side of the border and not on his.
As a matter of fact, I once had to take a consignment of 50 live white rabbits to Sligo in a trailer behind a car and, because I had someone staying with me who wanted to see the North, I agreed to go via Enniskillen, and of course my trailer could equally have been filled with 50 Armalite rifles. I was stopped by the Customs at Swanlinbar, who in their disbelief came out to check on what my cargo was and to look at it; I then crossed the border, where there were no Customs officers on duty and no army or police on duty. I drove on and out through Belleek, where again there were no signs of security in any form, on the so-called Northern side of the border, until I crossed into the Republic, where I was again stopped by a police patrol who wanted me to account for my movements.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord to tell me whether, if in fact he had been carrying 50 Armalite rifles, he would have gone along a road which was covered by a Customs post?
Lord KILBRACKEN: My Lords, if I had been carrying Armalite rifles I would have gone by a different road where I know there are no Customs posts; I would have gone via Ballyconnell. I was, of course, with a trailer, arousing suspicion, but if I had been driving an ordinary saloon car I would have driven straight by the Irish, the Republican, customs without being stopped; they do not stop cars. I was finally stopped by the Garda when I entered County Donegal after leaving Belleek, but there was no sign of the British security forces at any time, and that is typical of the way it invariably is.

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As the noble Lord, Lord Carver, mentioned, there is already draconian legislation in the Republic, every bit as severe as it is in the North and much more severe than would ever be acceptable in Britain, and the prisons of the Republic are overflowing with terrorist prisoners, this despite the fact that, though opposing violence as a means to securing it, the great majority of people in the Republic share what is the IRA's, the Provisionals', desire for a united Ireland. I therefore hope that the Republic will not be made a scapegoat for the lack of success by the British security forces in the North.
I want to mention one further point. The noble Viscount, who is still in the Chamber, referred to what he described as barging about in Saracans—the sometimes very aggressive activities of the army in Northern Ireland, particularly in cities. I have been in the Catholic ghettoes of Belfast when the army have been maintaining a high profile and have evidently been in force in the street, barging about in Saracens. Then suddenly—no one ever knows why; but for some reason or another—there is no sight or sound of them. I have seen how at once the tension and bitterness in those unhappy areas diminish—that hothouse climate in which terrorism breeds. Consequently, just as happened—as my noble friend Lord Melchett mentioned—on the ending of internment, there is at once a much less tense and a much less active reaction from the terrorist forces. I indeed believe that so long as the arrests, the shooting, the imprisonment and the maltreatment of the paramilitary forces continue, the violence will go on. In every case where one man is taken, three or four will spring to take his place—so the army tends to be the IRA's most potent recruiting sergeant.
I ask the Government to consider the possible withdrawal of the army for a trial period of a month, and then see the kind of reaction there would be when this continual irritant is removed from the ordinary people of Northern Ireland. What is there to be lost? If there were incidents, the army could be sent to deal with them. But if the army were removed first of all to barracks, who knows what the result might be, and perhaps eventually in the not-too-distant future the gradual removal of the army from the Province
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would prove possible. I believe that it is only when that can be done that peace will come to Northern Ireland.
9.33 p.m.
Lord HYLTON: My Lords, I imagine that this must be the first occasion on which we have had 50 white rabbits in the middle of a security debate. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Kilbracken, has not convinced me about withdrawing the army, and I do not imagine that he has convinced very many others of your Lordships. We are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Leonard, for making us smile in the midst of a serious and sombre evening, and I concede that he has a serious point as well.
I should like to join in the eloquent tributes that have been paid this evening to the victims of violence and terrorism and to the members of the security forces, with whom I include the members of the Prison Service, as well as, in particular, the wives and families of all the members of the security forces. Having said that, I should perhaps add that I join in the debate with a little diffidence since I am not a resident in Northern Ireland. I should like to ask my noble friend Lord Elton just one question this evening: What steps are being taken at the present time to prevent the recruitment of boys and young people into the terrorist organisations?
My information is that boys and young people, sometimes still at school, are persuaded to run simple errands or to carry messages for terrorists, and that they are then rewarded for their pains. This goes on a little further, until gradually, step by step, they become fully-fledged terrorists themselves. This process of persuasion is of course much easier where young people are truanting from school; much easier during the holidays and much easier, as has already been mentioned, where young people remain unemployed for some time after leaving school. I should like to suggest that we need a concerted effort by parents, by schools, by community and youth organisations and, of course, by young people themselves, to prevent this process of recruitment. In England, parents are by now quite used to warning their children not to accept sweets from strangers or offers of lifts in cars; and in Ireland a similar

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vigilance, I believe, is necessary to overcome enticements and recruitments into the paths of violence.
I should like to go one stage further and say that in my belief security by itself is nothing like enough. The point has already been made tonight that politics, economics and security are inextricably interwoven. I think it perhaps needs saying from these Benches that security is not enough. It needs saying, I suggest, because some (perhaps only a few, but at least some) Ulster Unionists have given at least the impression that all would be well once security problems were overcome. I think they know in their hearts that even when violence is at an end there will be some massive problems still to be overcome.
I think it is fair to say that the position in Northern Ireland is something of a stalemate at the moment After 10 or 11 years the terrorists have not won, but neither have the security forces. That, in my view, is the reason why the present political talks are so extremely important; and that, I suggest, is why the debate we had last December on the economic and social problems was somewhat significant. I would go further and say that the European dimension to Irish affairs is becoming more and more urgent and important, and with it, of course, go very considerable implications for regional and social policy.
Those, my Lords, are some points of progress and of hope. Behind them and beyond them, I believe, we need a real movement of the minds and hearts of people. We need a coming together of the people, not only of Britain but of the whole of Ireland. I go back to something I mentioned in December in your Lordships' House. I believe we need a movement towards the politics of forgiveness. If we could perhaps just look for a moment at what has happened since 1945 or 1950 in France and Germany, we see there that there have been three major wars in less than a hundred years with millions of deaths resulting. Yet since 1950 great statesmen, such as Adenauer and de Gaulle, have come together; they have been followed on by Herr Schmidt and Mr. Giscard d'Estaing; and hostilities between those countries are now inconceivable; co-operation has won the day.
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I believe that it is up to us not only to understand but to make it quite clear to everybody that the group of Anglo—Celtic islands are totally and completely interdependent. It is up to us to forge the instruments that will be necessary to acknowledge that interdependence and to make it work peacefully. Then security will perhaps be a thing of the past. But, first, we need to kindle the desire for mutual forgiveness and co-operation in the hearts of people in Britain and in all parts of Ireland.
Lord WESTBURY: My Lords, I have listened with interest to your Lordships' views on Northern Ireland and I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dunleath, for drawing our attention to this momentous task. In Ulster since 1969—and I hope you will forgive me for repeating these figures; but they are important—there have been 1,450 civilians killed, 135 RUC killed and 450 soldiers killed. The total number of civilians and soldiers wounded to date has been 22,733. These are staggering figures. The annual cost of supporting the Army in Northern Ireland amounts to £81 million and the RUC, £125 million. Public expenditure on governing the Province is £2,200 million. This vast and appalling cost comes on Her Majesty's Government and, therefore, ultimately, on the taxpayer. The destruction of private and public property has been enormous and the compensation falls also upon Her Majesty's Government.
What have Her Majesty's Government achieved, and what are they going to achieve against a now more expertly-led terrorist organisation which is continually reinforced by ex-inmates of Long Kesh? That the situation is ever worsening can be substantiated by recording the terrorist achievements of the last two years of the civil war. The reason for the deterioration is due to four factors which have caused the downward trend. The lack of political motivation over the past six years has caused the Ulster population to accept the terrorist environment as part of their natural daily life. Some relish the situation as it allows them to breach numerous petty civil laws and even to evade tax. The security situation has also deteriorated owing to the emergence of the RUC as an anti-terrorist force to be reckoned with, which is being given by the Government a superior role to that of the Army, who have been involved since 1969.

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This has caused friction and petty jealousy which detract from the sole purpose of combating terrorism. The IRA are no longer representative of the Roman Catholic population. They are now a highly trained and financed organisation operating on an international basis. They no longer require local community support but rely on known "Godfather" figures living in Ulster, and also on foreign support to organise their acts of destruction. As long as these proxy murderers are allowed to survive, the IRA will continue to carry out successful acts of human and economic devastation.
As my noble friend Lord Moyola and the noble and gallant Lord opposite have said, the failure of Warren Point and the Mountbatten murder to improve the resolve of Her Majesty's Government and the Government of the Republic towards the border security problem, has made it patently obvious that Her Majesty's Government and the Government of the Republic cannot agree or co-operate. This apathy was proved by a recent opinion poll on the attitude of the Irish population towards the Ulster situation.
Before I conclude, I should like to pay tribute to the magnificent way in which the British Army, the UDI and the RUC conducted themselves during the past traumatic decade. They have been a fine example to us all, and what I should like to say will in no way detract from my respect and gratitude for their achievements in probably the most difficult time in the history of Anglo-Irish relations. One begins to wonder seriously if it is really essential for British troops to remain in the Province, to be used as targets and be slowly picked off one by one with virtually their hands tied behind their backs. Now their presence provides the sole reason—I repeat, the sole reason—for a non-representative bunch of thugs to ravage peaceful country. For how much longer can this be tolerated? If the present political attitude in Ulster and the lack of co-operation in the Irish Republic remain as it has done for the past 10 years, there will be no military solution, and our troops would be better preparing for a far more dangerous threat from Eastern Europe.
9.46 p.m.
Lord BLEASE: My Lords, speaking as
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one in your Lordships' House whose home and family are in the Province, I wish to say to all the noble Lords who have spoken that I greatly appreciate the thoughtful and understanding way in which they have taken part in this debate. I also wish to thank the noble Lord, Lord Dunleath, for kindly sending to me an outline of his speech. I should not like to embarrass him this evening, but I know of his courage affecting a close relative of mine during his period of service with the UDR against a riotous mob; and I have spoken to him privately about this. He has displayed tremendous courage on several occasions. We have had, in my opinion, an earnest and heart-searching debate. There are of course many matters on which I should like to express a viewpoint, but I know that at this late hour noble Lords want to hear what the Minister has to say about this crucial and difficult subject. So I shall endeavour to be brief in my remarks and not impose upon the goodwill and tolerance of your Lordships.
There are two aspects about security that I should like to mention. The first is the bi-partisan approach, and the second is the co-ordinating of community efforts in support of security policies. Concerning the bi-partisan approach, since the upsurge of communal strife in Northern Ireland in 1969, the subsequent emergence of para-military groupings and the politically motivated terrorist campaigns, there has continued a bi-partisan approach by the three major political parties at Westminster to policies and to matters concerning security in Northern Ireland. Speaking from these Benches, I wish to indicate that this bi-partisan approach to security matters still stands and is based on the principle that the policies are in accord with the authority of Parliament. I wish also to say that I support the position taken in the Government's working paper, Command Paper 7763, which states that in the foreseeable future, given the Government's overriding commitment to combat terrorism, responsibility for law and order will also remain with Westminster.
In this connection, it will appear that the present talks and the search for an acceptable political solution to Government in Northern Ireland are failing to come to any early solutions. Whatever

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may be the problems to obtain the long-term security arrangements, while this political situation prevails, we must address ourselves to the short-term security issues while the search goes on for a political solution. The noble Lord, Lord Dunleath, put forward a number of points in this respect, and the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, also referred to the short-term needs and security. Here I would echo a word of caution just as others have done in this respect. We all recognise that we cannot obtain political stability at the cost of injustice, and if there is any attempt to impose it, it will make the security situation worse.
At the same time, it is a great pity that a common interim arrangement on two crucial areas of concern in Northern Ireland—namely, security and unemployment—could not be agreed between the Government and the Northern Ireland political parties, while the search for a political solution continues. It is morally indefensible for the political leaders and their party followers in Northern Ireland to allow the present suffering and hardship to remain, without reasonable action to alleviate this misery, because of their failure to achieve common action on security and unemployment. It is surely morally and politically wrong that this human suffering should be used as a bargaining counter for their respective long-term constitutional objectives.
I welcome the call made this week by the Social Democratic and Labour Party for a common front against unemployment. Much could be achieved, if all concerned met and considered in positive terms the tragic unemployment problems and the need for industrial growth. If it is possible to reach agreement about a common interim arrangement concerning employment, surely it is not beyond the reason of people of good will to reach an agreed interim arrangement about security matters, without loss of any principle of substance. I know that there are critical questions of how to police those who do not identify with the Government in a way which is tolerable to them, and which is within the law.
I feel sure that if questions are tackled on the basis of the sanctity of life and the value of human dignity, there can be ways found to overcome the issues and
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to reach common ground for dealing with security and terrorism. May I ask the Minister whether he will see that every encouragement is given to Northern Ireland political leaders and their parties actively to consider possible arrangements with the Government to deal with security and employment matters.
I should now like to say a few words about the co-ordination of community efforts in support of security policies. The noble Lord, Lord Carver, spoke with keen insight and great understanding about how this may contribute to the solving of immediate problems and of long-term issues. Last November, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Mr. Atkins, announced the appointment of a new staff under Sir Maurice Oldfield to assist the Secretary of State in improving the co-ordination and effectiveness of the fight against terrorism. I am sure that this new joint staff co-ordinating team is highly professional and efficient. But may I ask the Minister whether attention has been given to the need for all Government departments in Northern Ireland to be effectively consulted and advised about the relative co-ordinating policy matters emanating from the work of this new joint staff team?
Without going into detail, it will be obvious from the statements made by the present Northern Ireland Secretary of State, and by others who have held that office, that security forces, however professional and effective, require the goodwill and positive support of all law-abiding people. To encourage this goodwill and to obtain positive support as many elements as possible of the social fabric must be suitably involved in the general environment of peace-keeping, and in efforts to uphold human dignity in all sections of the community.
The noble Lords, Lord Hampton and Lord Hylton, and others, have referred to the good that is going on within our community. It is not all evil men. I should like to emphasise that the noble Lord, Lord Carver, has placed a good deal of faith in the involvement of the community in assisting reconciliation and in finding methods of peace-keeping. Northern Ireland is presented as a place where bloodthirsty bigots of various obscure sects murder each other incessantly, for reasons which no sane

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person can fathom. There is much more to Northern Ireland than that. It is not a place inhabited only by evil men. No one will deny that a few exist and, whatever else he said, the noble Lord, Lord Leonard, at least, made that point. But there are a few who exist and they threaten all civilised life. But it is also a place of decent human beings, seeking to live with dignity and in pursuit of happiness and peace. It is a place where much is being done to promote justice, achieve peace and obtain reconciliation.
I should like to invite the Minister to consider the valuable contribution that has been made to these ideals of peace and reconciliation by various elements in our community. I am thinking of education—of schools at both ordinary school level and at higher education and adult levels. I am thinking also of the Northern Ireland Council for Social Services, of the Churches' Central Committee for Community Work, of the leisure centres, the Arts Council, the Sports Council and industry, both management and trade unions. I am wondering whether the Government could think of ways in which these organisations, these bodies in the Province which are of good standing and which are publicly accountable could in some way be embraced either in a coordinating committee or brought into joint ministerial meetings which could be provided to assist in this kind of work. They do need assistance, both financial and encouragement.
To the credit of the Minister, may I say that he has endeavoured to assist, in his own way, in the field of education. He has encouraged a number of bodies to destroy the myths that arise from the teaching of history. By his attendance and by his advice at these particular gatherings, much, I think, can be done. However, I still feel, in the light of recent statements by educational psychologists in Northern Ireland that there are terrifying weak spots in education, that we ought to see whether something more can be done in this respect.
I mentioned in passing the questions of deprivation in our community and unemployment. Perhaps I may close with words which are better said and better conveyed than any words of mine. They were said by the Lord Privy Seal,
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Sir Ian Gilmour, in The Sunday Times of 10th February. He is quoted as saying:
"A free State will not survive unless its people feel loyalty to it, and they will not feel loyalty to it unless they gain from the State protection and other benefits. The beneficence of competition and the dangers of interfering with market forces will not satisfy people who are in trouble. If the State is not interested in them, why should they be interested in the State?"
I am afraid, sadly, that that reflects the position of many of our young unemployed people in Northern Ireland. For that reason, I plead for something to be done to ensure that their time can be occupied in other ways.
9.58 p.m.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, I last spoke to your Lordships about security in Northern Ireland on 12th December. That is only 64 days ago. Since then there have been a number of tragic incidents, but your Lordships will not be surprised that there has been no dramatic change in the overall circumstances meanwhile. Indeed, though I share your Lordships' anxiety about so vital a matter, I question whether much constructive good would be done if we were to continue to have debates on the subject regularly every two months. But in fact there have been some changes in this short period and I am glad, therefore, to take the opportunity offered by the noble Lord, Lord Dunleath, not only to place before the House the bitter record of continuing and barbaric atrocities, but also to set beside it some of the achievements of our own security forces and then to consider briefly what I believe to be the grounds for an increasing confidence that eventually we shall win this war.
First, the record. It is a stark reminder of the misery that terrorist enemies can inflict upon a civilised society, a point to which the noble Lord, Lord Westbury, so movingly drew our attention. In the space of those nine weeks, 30 people have been killed. Thirteen of them were civilians, two were prison officers, four were members of the UDR, five were policemen and six were regular soldiers. My Lords, those figures tell a very dreadful tale, but, merely because they are figures, they can only suggest the shape of the truth; they do not project the reality. Only when it is your own father or son, your own fiancé or lover, who is suddenly

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wiped out of your daily life; only when the whole of your own future is left suddenly empty and deprived of one beloved presence, or maybe more, does the full, sordid, degrading horror of terrorism become completely real.
That is why this problem is one which has to be tackled with both urgency and compassion. Blood is not the only exaction of the terrorist. There has also continued to be a good deal of material destruction. Bombs have caused considerable damage in Armagh, Aughnacloy, Kilrea and Belfast and 20 buses were destroyed or damaged by terrorist devices in the Falls Road bus depot on 1st February. The bomb, my Lords, is an indiscriminate and cowardly weapon. It very oftens kills or maims others than those for whom it was intended. Less often it destroys those who seek to use it. On 17th January, when a bomb exploded on the Lisburn-Belfast train, it killed the IRA terrorist carrying it. We were all sickened to learn that in that unexpected act of grim and summary justice two passengers, wholly unconnected with the exercise, were burned to death at the same time.
Lord KILBRACKEN: My Lords, as a former bomber pilot may I ask the noble Lord whether he is aware that bombs are also used by Her Majesty's forces?
Lord ELTON: My Lords, it would be possible to extend this debate to cover the philosophies which relate to war between States in a conventional manner, but that would not be within the conventions of this House.
My Lords, I have presented to you one side of the picture. There is another. It would be very wrong if either this House or the media were to look at the one and not the other. It is not always dramatic—indeed for the most part it cannot even be seen. We do first of all have to remember that whenever the vigilant presence of the security forces prevents a terrorist attack taking place, we, the public, know nothing about it. For this reason therefore, the great majority of our successes—and they are very many—are unknown. I would like it to be conveyed to every soldier who at the end of a tour of duty has reason to complain that it has been boring or uneventful (and such there are, for I have met them) that this is the best possible indication of the success of his
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contribution to the campaign that he could hope to achieve. But some security successes do result in moments of high drama. Many of your Lordships will recently have seen on television a bomb being neutralised by an Army Ammunition Technical Team. They were dealing with a radio-controlled device containing 600 lbs of explosives. It is difficult to find words to describe the skill, the courage and the self control of men like these—let alone to give them adequate praise. This was the third major device they had dealt with in the 9 weeks that we are considering. Some of your Lordships may be able to imagine yourselves doing theft job. I cannot. My admiration for them in unreserved.
There have been other successes, less dramatic but very important. The security forces have recovered 23 weapons and 3,277 rounds of ammunition; 101 persons have been charged with terrorist offences. These include 12 for murder including the murder of policemen and soldiers and 14 for attempted murder.
This brings me to the security forces. Inevitably and tragically part-time members of the Ulster Defence Regiment are frequently targets for the Provisional IRA murderers. I sometimes wonder if there is enough public acknowledgement of the patient and courageous endurance of that remarkable body of men. I welcome what has been said about them. The work of the permanent cadre of full-timers is as vital as that of any of the security forces, but it is to the part-timers that I would draw your Lordships' particular attention. Some of your Lordships, notably including the' noble Lord, Lord Dunleath himself, have served with them and know the burden they carry. To do a full day's work, and then return home not to slippers and the "telly" but to uniform and flack jacket and then to go out again in every kind of weather to keep the peace in the face of concealed and un-uniformed gunmen: to return with the milkman; to change into day clothes for breakfast and then go back to work; to do this every fourth night, sometimes every other night, week after week and month after month and to do it not to public acclaim but very often without the knowledge even of your own workmates for fear that you may become another off-duty target—that, my Lords, requires a dogged courage and a level of

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sheer physical stamina that makes these men and women citizens twice over in our troubled society. They are the hallmark on our people's determination to defeat the enemies of society. Both they and their families deserve the greatest praise and gratitude.
In saying this I do not wish to belittle the diligence and courage of the other soldiers who also shoulder very heavy and dangerous burdens. They have also earned our lasting respect and gratitude in an unremitting and thankless, but vital struggle. Nor can I let this occasion pass without acknowledging the admirable service of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. This is a dedicated, effective and, I am glad to say, growing force of men and women who are at the essential heart of the campaign against terrorism. Their work demands patience as well as courage, and tact as well as resolve. These qualities they give without stint.
May I turn to some of the points your Lordships have raised. The noble Lord, Lord Dunleath, speaking of the RUC, spoke about their levels. The Government, by their determination to restore peace in Northern Ireland, have imposed a considerable and increasing burden on the forces responsible for enforcing the law. It has always been our policy to ensure that these forces have adequate manpower and resources to carry out this task. This was clearly demonstrated in August last when the Secretasy of State increased the strength target of the RUC from 6,500 to 7,500. This increase in manpower has been matched, as I told the House on 12th December, by the provision of better and more equipment, accommodation and services. The emphasis has been placed on improving the communications, control and mobility of the force. This technological development is being backed by a massive programme to build, extent and refurbish RUC stations throughout the Province. It is no exaggeration to say that the RUC is one of the most modern and best equipped forces in Europe.
The noble Lord, Lord Dunleath, wished that it would be possible to extend the law of conspiracy wide enough to embrace more offences than it at present covers. It is already sufficient to convict all who engage in the planning of terrorist crimes.
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The difficulty is not to decide on the law under which the charge should be brought, but to find the evidence that will support the bringing of it. Evidence is suppressed by two factors, sympathy and fear. It is the security forces who have the primary role in combating this fear.
If I may quote a remarkably perceptive and sensitive speech made by the General Officer Commanding, Sir Richard Lawson, earlier today, I can best illustrate this theme. He said:
"The security forces can only do so much and the rest is up to the people. As we go about the business of cutting out the terrorist with the skill of the surgeon delicately removing a growth so that it does not damage the vital tissues surrounding it, the people of Ulster will need to remember the lessons of the past and accept that violence breeds on fear. If you remove the fear the men of violence cannot remain. This, I hope, gives to every man and woman of goodwill in this Province of Ulster a clear part to play, as the soldier and the policeman tackle their legal task of eradicating crime".
We are fortunate to be served by a soldier who is at once so articulate and so accurate in his perception. He knows his duties. Very courteously he reminds us of ours.
My Lords, I note Lord Dunleath's concern about the early release of what he calls unrepentant convicts. While the Government keep the law relating to terrorism under constant review, I do not believe that the efforts of the security forces are hampered or frustrated by the level of penalties currently available for terrorist types of offences. The maximum penalties available to the courts are adequate. The use made of these powers is a matter for the discretion of the courts, who have the facts in each case before them. As far as remission is concerned, the present remission scheme for prison sentences in Northern Ireland, which was introduced when special category status was ended, reflects the Government's determination to treat terrorists as criminals and to deal with them according to the process of law. Whatever the offence, remission is conditional on good behaviour, both in prison and during release. There is no remission for a life sentence, which is the only sentence available for murder. Nor is there any remission for those who deliberately create for themselves conditions of squalor in the H blocks in order to seek the sympathy of an incredulous public for deeds of violence which that public rightly and continuously abhors.

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The noble Lord, Lord Dunleath, proposed a new structure of consultation across the border. The noble Lord, Lord Carver, showed himself acutely interested in this subject. There is in fact, already close co-operation over security matters between British authorities and those of the Republic, at many levels. The RUC and Garda consult regularly on counter-terrorist measures, from working level up to meetings between the Chief Constable and the Garda Commissioner. Government officials and Ministers also meet from time to time, all with a view to increasing the effectiveness of the campaign to defeat our common enemy, the IRA. We could only welcome a greater enthusiasm on both sides of the border in the pursuit of this.
The arrangements for communication between the security forces either side of the border are considered to be satisfactory. Naturally, I shall not reveal what they are, but noble Lords should note that the Irish Army does not have the same legal status as our troops and can only act on the instructions of the Garda in counter-terrorist operations.
The noble Lord then continued his survey of the border and talked of redrawing it and reducing the number of crossing points to restrict the movement of terrorists. I fear that a redrawing of the border would not be welcomed by the local communities North or South, and, nor would it restrict the movement of terrorists unless obstacles such as fences or minefields were constructed. By themselves these passive, but formidable defences, would be useless; they would require both static guardposts and mobile patrols to keep the obstacle under surveillance. The consequences would all be unwelcome: those most affected would not be terrorists, but the law-abiding citizens north and south whose commercial, social or family interests depend on regular cross-border travel.
The static guardposts would require unacceptably large numbers of the security forces and would provide a tempting target for small numbers of determined and mobile terrorist. The barrier would be pierced at many points by navigable water. Its length would ensure that before long it became porous in other places and its flank could be
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turned at either end by a short and easy sea-crossing at a variety of points.
Finally, our country's enemies would waste no time in drawing unfavourable and plausible parallels with the frontier barrier which divides East and West Germany. The concept would be repulsive to a great many people besides the noble Lord, Lord Leonard, who rightly spoke out against such measures.
No, the answer to effective cross-border security lies in the close cooperation of the security forces of the Irish Republic with the RUC and the Army, in preventing the terrorists from seeking refuge in any part of Ireland. Although there has not yet been a further meeting with Irish Ministers since that on 5th October, the momentum established then in security co-operation has not been lost, and co-operation between the security forces either side of the border is good. The Government continue to believe that the best way to make progress in defeating our common enemy, the IRA, is through friendly relations and effective co-operation.
The noble Lord raised other points which I shall touch on briefly. As regards extra-territorial prosecutions, I would say that the numbers are limited to specified offences committed after 1st June 1976, when the legislation came into force. They have proved difficult to mount in practice largely because, as in all prosecutions, they are dependent upon securing evidence. That is a condition which I have already referred to north of the border, and it is a condition which is common to a great many of the problems that we have looked at this evening. Your Lordships are aware of them and I shall not dilate upon them further.
In conclusion, the noble Lord, Lord Dunleath, urged in somewhat general terms more vigorous action, and a number of noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Westbury, had the same sort of thing in mind. I shall not read the whole of the speech which the GOC made earlier today, but I commend it to your Lordships. I do not doubt that it will be widely reported. May I just take a summary paragraph of a few lines, in which he said:
"This is the time for a cool head and sustained courage as we devote our efforts to intensifying and sharpening the operation of the security

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forces, so that they can be used as a rapier to destroy the terrorist as opposed to a broad sword cutting a swathe through the crowd ".
The noble Lord, Lord Hampton, provided welcome words of support for the political initiative at the conference. He suggested that terrorists might be susceptible to persuasion. I think that that was something which the noble Lord, Lord Kilbracken, had in mind, though I believe that the dramatic and dangerous withdrawal of troops which he suggested might have the opposite effect to that which he wished, not only on the terrorists but on those who want to protect themselves from the terrorists. I can see nothing but disaster resulting from that.
In commending the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, for his brevity, may I take up a point which he made on the question of the article in Fortnight, and welcome the opportunity to comment on that interesting publication. Much of the authors' analysis is, indeed, acceptable. In particular I am glad to note that they endorse Her Majesty's Government's policy of relying upon normal, if modified, criminal procedures to deal with deeds which are perpetrated as if they were acts of war. However, I note that the material on which the article was based dates in the main from before the implementation of the Bennett recommendations. Some of the changes advocated in it are, therefore, superfluous.
I am aware of the allegation that methods of interrogation continue to be unnacceptable. I would not accept that allegation solely on the evidence produced. I would also ask the House what we consider to be unacceptable treatment under the circumstances. The proportion of those who plead guilty suggests to me that the majority of those interrogated are, in fact, terrorists and that they regard themselves wrongly but passionately to be soldiers in a stealthy and rather disgusting war. We have seen the senseless brutality with which they wage that war. But what, I ask your Lordships, would be the method of interrogation which they would apply if they were to capture a member of our security forces? Any noble Lord who thinks that they would allow the Bennett rules, the Geneva Convention or any other humane guidelines is, frankly, in Cloud Cuckoo-land. After an IRA interrogation you do not find a man who has had a degrading experience; you find either a
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man with no knees or, more simply and more likely, a corpse. If noble Lords believe in fair play, let us remember that.
Nevertheless, I can assure noble Lords that Her Majesty's Government continuously keep the methods of the security forces under review and that in this function they are constantly and sometimes vigorously and tendentiously supported by a number of voluntary agencies as well as the Standing Advisory Committee on Human Rights and the pressure of international opinion, to which noble Lords have referred.
The noble Lord, Lord Moyola, and other noble Lords were interested in the question of detention, which was also referred to as internment. Detention, which is provided for in Section 12 of the Emergency Provisions Act, has not been used in Northern Ireland since 1975. The Government are fully aware of the dangers to which the noble Lords, Lord Carver and Lord Moyola, and others have referred. If the Government had absolute confidence that we could continue to do without that power in the foreseeable future, then the case for dropping this section would be overwhelming. However, our revulsion against it in principle and our determination not to use it except in the last resort are no safeguard against the Government being compelled to do so by some development in the security situation. The Government are determined that the courts shall be used to convict terrorists so that whatever their proclaimed cause they can be seen for what they truly are—common criminals. But before recommending that this section should cease to have effect, we need to be absolutely sure that there is no possibility of having to come back to the House to ask that the detention provisions be reintroduced.
The noble Lord, Lord Moyola, raised a number of points on the UDR, including the need for a quick-response system. He rightly said that this could not be publicly discussed. I can assure him that I shall take his message down the corridor to my honourable friend who is in charge of these matters, with those words of advice. He and several noble Lords rightly connected the security situation with a wider picture: the question of employment and the shortage of jobs, and the fact that it is all too easy for the devil to find work for idle hands to do. We are aware of this.

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My speech is lengthening. I do not want to go into a review of the Government's policy on social, economic and industrial matters. However, I should like to take this opportunity to tell your Lordships that we take constructive initiatives in this field. Today we have announced the introduction of a project in Belfast for the development and production of a very nearly revolutionary kind of aircraft. The project is called the Learfan project. It is funded equally between the Department of Commerce and Learfan at a rate of £7 million. We hope to see 200 jobs out of it by the end of 1980, building up to 1,250 in five years. We would hope to see the first plane airborne in 1982, and thereafter production rising from 100 to 300 a year. That is a bit of hard news, and a bit of good news for a change, and I hope that noble Lords will welcome it.
The noble Lord, Lord Carver, in an intensely interesting and authoritative speech, touched on a number of matters which have overlapped with others. He also introduced the matter of the right to silence, to which I shall revert in a moment, but I should like briefly to refer to it at this stage. Considerations of practical results as well as of principle apply in this area of the so-called right to silence; the right of a suspect not to answer questions put to him in interrogation without having guilt or any other adverse inference drawn from his silence. It is a critical area in the application of the law to terrorism because of the general scarcity of external evidence—and here we come back to it again—in these cases: that is from independent witnesses, forensic sources, and so forth. A suspect may thus well secure immunity simply by declining to answer under interrogation.
It is of course right to feel intense frustration if he is able as a result to go free, when persuasive information about his involvement is to hand but cannot be led as evidence in court. But it is quite another matter to determine in what way and to what extent the protection afforded by the right to silence can properly be removed or modified, and with what practical result. I will not list the questions; they are many, and they are being looked at today in relating to the law of England and Wales by the Royal Commission on Criminal Procedure.
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Your Lordships are in the midst of looking at some aspects of them in your own consideration of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill. We are no less determined to consider any reasonable change in the law of Northern Ireland, consistent with fundamental legal principles, which offers a good practical prospect of helping to overcome the obstacles before us. But, for the reasons that I have referred to, we cannot be sanguine that this avenue will lead to any major breakthrough.
The noble Lord, Lord Carver, also referred to the close relationship between good security and good local administration. I am glad that he did so. The relationship is indeed a close one. Successive Governments have recognised that Northern Ireland's deep-seated social and economic problems need to be tackled. Our objective is to improve the opportunities open to, and the living conditions of, ordinary individuals. This is not only right on grounds of social justice but we also know that terrorists exploit unemployment, bad housing, shortage of social amenities, and so forth.
We are devoting a large amount of money and effort in an attempt to overcome these problems. You might say that the £7 million I have referred to was part of this attempt. Expenditure of central Government resources in the Province is running at a rate of roughly 30 per cent. above the average for the rest of the United Kingdom per head of population. This policy will take time to take effect, and the tide of economics in world affairs is running against us; but in the short term all branches of the Government machine are urged to be responsive to genuine concern of people living in deprived areas. Machinery exists to ensure close liaison between the security forces and those responsible for the civil administration. We are very much alive to the problems in question, both in their own right and in terms of the bearing they have on security. We are doing our best. We listen to advice. I heed the noble Lord's enthusiasm in this cause.
It was a pleasure to hear the noble Lord, Lord Leonard. Although he brought a lighter vein, he brought a very sincere mind to the problem. We passed each other almost, as it were, because I was translated from Shadow Minister on Wales to a junior Minister in Northern Ireland,

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and he has his origins in the island and has finished up in the Principality. He urged us to get down to the table like this. I have seen the conference at the table. It is not like this; it is round, and this is square, but otherwise it is the same. We are trying to build bridges, I assure him of that.
The noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough—forgive me for going at this gallop but I do not wish to detain your Lordships for much longer—very movingly I thought, introduced his speech by saying that sometimes the rest of the country gets the perspective wrong. I agree with him. I believe that much of what he said has been or will be covered by what I have been saying. However, I know his corner of the country, thanks in part to his own hospitality, and I would mention the fact he referred to.
I recognise the concern which he rightly expressed about the recent flurry of attacks on the security forces in County Fermanagh. It is always a cause for worry when violence blows up anew in a district which has previously been quiet for some time. The security forces are, naturally, paying special attention to the position there. Noble Lords will not expect me to go into detail, but I can tell the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, and the House that the responsible commanders are not dismayed and are taking the necessary action. I trust therefore that, though these words may carry scant comfort to those who feel afraid at night, the noble Viscount may be assured that the situation is not and will not become out of hand.
I have referred already to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Kilbracken. The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, was interested in the way in which recruitment of young people to the Provisional IRA is inhibited. I know what he is talking about; he is talking about what in Rhodesia they call the Mujibas, runners for terrorists who later grow up and become terrorists themselves. I see it as the function of Government and largely the function of my own department to engage the sympathies of young people with the society in which they live to give them an active and meaningful role in that society.
This means the maintaining of a high
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level of dedication and professionalism in the schools' staffs. It also involves the important but self-effacing work of the Community Relations Branch of the RUC. It further involves a programme of opportunities for young people and provision for their leisure, and I am responsible also for sport and leisure. I was happy to announce earlier this year that we intend to keep the level of provision in this sector for youth in broadly the same range as it has been in the past; in other words, this is an area of my budget which I am trying to shelter for precisely the reasons the noble Lord adduced. We wish to keep people happy and occupied, not bitter and disoriented.
I understand the depth of feeling with which the noble Lord, Lord Westbury, spoke, and I would say a word of reassurance to him. He spoke of the friction between the police and the Army. I honestly believe that that is a thing of the past. We have had many changes in things over the last few months and some of them have been referred to, and the noble Lord, Lord Blease, referred to them as well. I think the co-operation between the police and the Army has not been so good these many years, and we shall see the fruits thereof.
The noble Lord said kind words about the bi-partisan approach, and I warmly welcome what he said. Like us, he supports the authority of Parliament; like the working paper, he believes that security must be reserved to the Westminster Government; like us, he believes there must be agreement in the Province over a wide range of things; and like all of us, he hopes this could be extended to include the operations of the security forces. Whether this can be brought about through the leaders of the political parties there, or through the more wide and social approach which we have been discussing, I would not presume to judge at this moment.
He talked about co-ordination of policy. Co-ordination is for Sir Maurice Oldfield perhaps of a slightly more specialist order than he thought. It is the job of political Ministers to co-ordinate the efforts of their departments, and that is our endless aim and we try to do so in order to establish a healthy economy, increased employment, a more contented society and one which has a common loyalty. He

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spoke, and I share every word he said, about the important contribution education can make to the development of a corporate and loyal spirit. As I say, loyalty must be neutral.
May I conclude by referring to the approach of my noble friend Lord Brookeborough to the philosophy upon which our conduct of this campaign is founded. He appealed to the supremacy of freedom, and then almost in the next breath he proceeded to ask whether we had discarded enough of that freedom to be convincing. Is not the central paradox always this? When a free society comes under terrorist attack, it is exactly those elements that constitute its freedom that it is easiest to jettison in order to make it more defensible. But if we throw away too much, we are left with nothing that we would wish to defend.
I have often heard proposals made for the Province that would lead rapidly to a society safe from criminals, but which would make it very unsafe indeed for honest men and women. It really is not safe to make the assumption that no one would be brought before the courts for a terrorist crime if he was not a terrorist. That being so, everyone who comes before a court must be given that fair trial, and under English law hitherto that has always meant that innocence is assumed until guilt has been proved. If noble Lords propose taking that protection away from those who are prosecuted, they want to consider whether it will be only the guilty who suffer.
Similarly, many of us cast envious eyes towards the Continent where there is a supposed absence of a right to silence. I have dealt with this already. The noble Lord, Lord Carver, has also referred to it, so I shall follow it up a little further. In fact there is no such absence in the courts on the Continent, but only at the preliminary hearing when a magistrate determines whether or not there is a case to answer. If the accused remains silent, the assumption is that there is a case to answer—that there is a case, and that he is reserving his defence. Once the case is brought, however, there is a presumption of innocence just as there is here.
The noble Lord, Lord Dunleath, referred also to the Republic's law on silence. I do not want to go into a series
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of historical justifications, but the fact is that that law worked for as long as the penalty one received if one did not recognise the court, and were therefore assumed guilty, amounted to two years. When it became longer the game was not worth the candle and people objected to being convicted on the evidence of one witness—a policeman. That objection was heard by the court and the presumption of innocence was again restored.
If anyone thinks that it would be a good thing to bring in presumptive guilt, or guilt by association, let him look at the America of Senator McCarthy's day and think again. I do not say that either the law or the rules on admissibility of evidence are perfect, but this I do say: in talking to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State the burthen of this debate I shall know that he, like me, sees our struggle as a fight against a threatened tyranny and as a fence of an established freedom. He would be very hesitant indeed about any reform that might turn that proposition on its head. This is just another way of saying at greater length, and less eloquently, what the noble Lord, Lord Blease, said very succinctly. We do not wish to buy political settlement at the price of injustice.
To understand terrorism properly one must think of it not only in terms of a battlefield, but also in terms of something rather different—say, an aquarium. The terrorist is like an ugly predatory fish—a pike, a piranha, or possibly a leech—and the society in which he moves is like the water in the aquarium. He can operate only within certain levels of salinity. I believe that the most gradual, but the most important, change that is taking place on the security scene is a change in the salinity of the water. Increasingly people right across the Province and beyond its borders are sickened by the trail of torn flesh: shattered buildings, and broken hearts. Increasingly they recognise it as an obscene trail that can lead only to the destruction of democratic society, no matter in what country it finds lodgment. Their character was amply illustrated, as the noble Lord, Lord Carver, said, by what was said at the Provisional Sinn Fein Ard Feis. Fewer and fewer people want that sort of an ally in pursuing their own aims. That is why I think the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, was wrong to refer to a stalemate in the system.

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May I emphasise to my noble friend Lord Brookeborough that the constitutional conference is a part of our effort in this field. Civil agreement will not of itself eliminate terrorism, but it will make its own contribution by adding salt to the water.
May I quote no less an authority than Mr. Gerry Adams of the Provisional Sinn Fein itself. Speaking to Time magazine last November, having claimed that the main aim of the IRA was to get the British out, he coupled with it another aim of equal priority. I quote:
"The movement wants to see the creation of a decentralised socialist State. Obviously, even the term united Ireland means that the Government that has been set up in the Republic must come down. The working-class majority from Ulster—Protestants and Catholics—don't simply want to be absorbed into a decadent State. The Republic has got severe economic problems: high unemployment and all the ills of an unjust society whose wealth is controlled by a very small group. Obviously
Gerry Adams said,
"that Government has to come down, and they know it".
Small wonder that few people of any reasonable political persuasion want to work in double harness with people like that. It is this determination to overthrow the society of all citizens in every part of Ireland, coupled with the chosen means of brutal and merciless terror, which has begun to change the hearts of men and women against violence. When that change reaches a critical point, the terrorist will find himself without a bolt-hole. He will at last be as exposed as our own security forces have been these many years. That day, towards which our soldiers and policemen, our regulars and reservists, continue to sustain us with unexampled courage, cannot arrive a moment too soon. Her Majesty's Government, gladly acknowledging the debt of gratitude which we owe them, will continue to strive to do all in their power to hasten its coming; and if your Lordships have spent a little longer on this debate than might have been expected, I hope that will be taken as an indication of the intense importance of the matters under consideration.
Lord BLEASE: My Lords, I did not want to interrupt the Minister, but I should like to thank him very much indeed for a very detailed and very helpful reply.
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There is one point about the coordinating committee. I do not want him to reply to it now, but I should like to take it up with him privately. The coordinating committee's role I understand. What I said was that it impinges on other Ministries in Northern Ireland, and I think that that is an important aspect of it to be considered.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, my door is always open to the noble Lord, Lord Blease.
10.37 p.m.
Lord DUNLEATH: My Lords, it only remains for me to thank all those noble Lords who have participated in this debate. As I said, I was trying to be constructive, to float ideas and to expose them to the collective expertise of this House; and, indeed, they have been very carefully considered by your Lordships, particularly the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Carver, who gave us a most interesting speech. I have got a lot out of this debate, but one of the main things is a vague feeling that there is not a great deal of acceptance for the suggestion that was put to me that the Border ought to be mined. I will take that home with me. My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

EDUCATION (NO. 2) BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.