Lords Sitting of 16 December 1981

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Carlisle
The Lord Amherst of Hackney—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

Small Businesses: Bureaucratic Burden
Lord Gainford: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what they have done to reduce the burden of bureaucracy and form-filling on small businesses.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment (Lord Bellwin): My Lords, among other things the Government have lifted controls on prices, office and industrial development, simplified and speeded up planning procedures, reduced the amount of information to be returned to the registrar of companies, eased employment registration restrictions, reviewed powers of entry, taken steps to reduce the burden of rates and made substantial cuts in form-filling.
Lord Gainford: My Lords, I sincerely thank my noble friend for that very encouraging Answer. Arising from that delightful reply, have the Government any more information on the possible increase in simplicity as well as reduction in quantity?
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, to give chapter and verse on each of the items I mentioned would perhaps push Question Time too far. However, I take the point that my noble friend makes. Simplicity must, of course, be at all times as paramount as, indeed, the sheer quantum to which my noble friend refers.
Lord Leatherland: My Lords, can the Minister assure us that there is one kind of form-filling which the Government will not abolish, and that is the form which noble Lords have to fill up every month claiming their expenses?
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, I should have thought that to have done that would have been to court disaster.
Lord Belhaven and Stenton: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that when I was running a small hotel business in the Highlands quite recently, we had to answer questions from four tourist boards—the British Tourist Authority, the Scottish Tourist Board, the Highlands and Islands Development Board and the mid-Argyll Tourist Board? Is there any possibility of doing something about this sort of situation?
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, I was not aware of that, and I sympathise very much indeed with my noble friend. I can only hope that his having raised the matter today will ensure that it is brought to the notice of those concerned. Who knows? it may have some beneficial impact as a result thereof.
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, is it in the mind of the noble Lord that in Italy they have gone a quite considerable distance towards getting rid of restrictions on small businesses? Are the Government monitoring this to see the results and to see whether it would be beneficial to do the same in this country?
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, I am not aware of what is being done in Italy. Certainly, we are very seized indeed of this whole matter of forms and circulars, and the impositions upon small businesses, indeed, in many other areas. Therefore, again, I shall note what the noble Lord says and, if there is anything to be learnt, we shall be glad to do so.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, will the noble Lord tell us—because we are all very puzzled—how the Government have eased the burden of rates?—when our rate demands have risen by anything from 10 per cent. to 30 per cent. a year since the Government have been in office.
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, it has to be said that if the Government's requests to local government had resulted in the reduction of expenditure, which we have felt so necessary, the burden of rates would not have been as great as the noble Lord mentions. However, this is an ongoing situation with which we are concerned the whole time. Indeed, forthcoming legislation as well as other measures will, hopefully, contribute towards doing the very thing that I am sure the noble Lord wishes to see.

Mobility Allowance
2.42 p.m.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: 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 is the present mobility allowance and whether there is an increase in the number of claimants.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Lord Elton): My Lords, mobility allowance is now £16·50 a week. The number of people receiving the allowance has risen from about 115,000 in May 1979 to 210,000 at the present time.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, can my noble friend give me further information on how this relates in real terms, and also how it compares with the rate of inflation since this Government came to office?
Lord Elton: My Lords, the allowance was increased by nearly 14 per cent. last month, from £14·50 to £16·50 a week. That is well above the percentage increase expected in the retail price index in the year up to November. Mobility allowance has increased by 65 per cent. since the Government took office. This is substantially more than the rise in the retail price index.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, as the noble Lord is aware, the allowance is not payable at the later ages. Can he say whether there is any prospect of the allowance being payable to people of 70 years or so, which is not a great age, as we now know in this House?
Lord Elton: My Lords, the allowance was introduced in 1976 with an age limit for new applicants of 65. Once in the scheme a beneficiary remains entitled for a further 10 years, to age 75. It took four years to establish the scheme to include all existing age groups of beneficiaries, and it will therefore be another seven or eight years before any of them reach the upper age limit. Perhaps the noble Lord will he kind enough to raise the matter again nearer the date.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, perhaps I could ask a further question of the noble Lord. How would this compare to average cost increases for motorists? Would it be in line with that or would it be better?
Lord Elton: My Lords, the transport and vehicle group component of the retail price index has risen by 45·5 per cent. since April 1979. Noble Lords will readily see that the mobility allowance has increased substantially more than that, and people with mobility allowance do not, of course, have to pay vehicle excise duty.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, may I press the noble Lord a little further? Is it not the case that no one over 65 can apply for the allowance, and is it not possible that the Government might be prepared to receive applications for persons of a later age?
Lord Elton: My Lords, the assumption is that people who are now over 65 will already have applied before reaching the cut-off point. I understand that the noble Lord is referring to people who did not make an application before they reached 65 and now wish to do so. I shall write to the noble Lord on this.

Enterprise Zones
2.44 p.m.
Lord Gridley: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Gisborough, who is snowbound in the North, and with his permission and that of the Table, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in his name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are satisfied that enterprise zones are making a successful contribution to economic recovery.
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, I think it would be for the assistance of the House if I were to make it clear that these two schemes are quite independent of each other. It is too soon to draw conclusions about the overall impact of both schemes, but the early indications are encouraging. Ten of 11 enterprise zones have been designated since June, and a wide range of development is under way in them, including the establishment of a number of entirely new companies. The loan guarantee scheme also came into operation in June, and in its first six months of operation, as I reported only the other day to your Lordships, 1,512 guarantees have been issued in respect of £52.6 million of bank lending. This includes £28.3 million of lending to new businesses.
Lord Gridley: My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for that Answer. May I ask him whether it is possible for the Government to give greater publicity to these schemes—these imaginative schemes—which they are at present setting up, and in particular to the recent enterprise allowance which has now been initiated to assist the unemployed who may be short of finance and who wish to start up their own businesses?
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, the matter of publicity is one that constantly concerns us. I think it is perhaps a little soon at the moment to do this on a major scale. We are monitoring very carefully what is happening. We are anxious not to give any wrong impressions at all, but I am sure that, when the time—hopefully not too far ahead—comes when we are in a position to produce a list of what is being achieved, my noble friend, and indeed all Members of your Lordships' House, who I know are anxious that we should succeed in this, will be pleased with what is taking place.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that there have been reports of at least one undertaking which has moved into an enterprise zone with all its advantages, and then subsequently has closed down its undertaking outside the enterprise zone? If such reports are correct, what action do the Government propose to take?
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, of course the noble Lord will have to give me the details of the specific instance so that I can have a look at it. But I would say that that is not something that is impossible. If it was an odd case, then it would not be of great significance, certainly not when measured against the totality of what we are hoping to achieve with this scheme. But in the main the record so far of what is happening is very encouraging, and I think would far outweigh the kind of, hopefully, individual situation to which the noble Lord refers.
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that, despite the anomalies which are created in neighbouring sites and neighbouring developments, enterprise zones are welcomed particularly in areas of deep depression like Clydebank in Scotland and also in London's docklands? But, since it is essentially an experiment, would the noble Lord undertake to report after a reasonable period on the success or otherwise of this interesting experiment?
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for the helpful way in which he puts his question. I gladly undertake that we shall do just as he says. The important thing however is not to do so too soon nor to give any wrong impression. It is not a question of scoring points, or wanting to show things that have not been achieved. I think everyone is interested in what the scheme genuinely can do and be seen to do, and I am sure that in due course we shall be able to come back with that information.
Lord Northfield: My Lords, the noble Lord says, " in due course ". May I again ask him how long those of us who were disappointed the first time round, like my own new town of Telford, will have to wait to know whether they can have a go at a second chance of having an enterprise zone?
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, the noble Lord asks a fair question, how " due " is " due course "? Clearly, at this moment in time I cannot tell him, but he can be quite sure that, if the scheme achieves all, or the greater part, of what we hope, then the case for extension will presumably be overwhelming. However, I think we have to see it really proved further than is the case at the present time.

Youth Unemployment
2.48 p.m.
Lord Molloy: 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 plans they have to arrest the growth of youth unemployment.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Earl Ferrers): My Lords, the Government's plan to help young people, including the young unemployed, were announced yesterday by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Employment in a White Paper entitled, A New Training Initiative: a Programme for Action. Lasting employment, however, depends on ensuring that our companies, and the goods which they produce, are competitive, and that they will both attract and create demand. It is to this end that the Government's policies are directed.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that there are two major defects in these proposals—namely, the miserly £15 a week, which is redolent of all that is mean in creating cheap employment and cheap labour, and, secondly, the coercion aspect that if youngsters refuse even the first offer they lose all supplementary benefits? Would the noble Earl ask the Government to reconsider those two distasteful aspects?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I will ask the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, to reconsider his question, because in fact what the Government have done is to create a
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situation where every school-leaver who is not in further education, or who is not in employment, will in fact be offered the opportunity of being trained, for which he or she will be in receipt of funds. Those people who do not desire or choose to be so trained should not, in the Government's view, necessarily be in receipt of supplementary benefit.
Lord Renton: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that this excellent scheme for the voluntary training of young people is about the best thing that has happened since the compulsory apprenticeship scheme in the reign of the first Queen Elizabeth? To what extent will the physically and mentally handicapped be able to take part in it?
Earl Ferrers: I accept my noble friend's historical analysis without disagreement, my Lords. Regarding his latter point, I think I am correct in saying that those who are mentally and physically handicapped will be subject to the same conditions, but if I am wrong about that I will write to my noble friend.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, when the Government are implementing this scheme will they look at a very simple way of doing it? Instead of setting up new training facilities, they could raise the school-leaving age, with exemptions for young people who secure employment. There is a lot of space in the schools nowadays and it could be done quite simply there, and done much more quickly than by the time-table the Government have in mind.
Earl Ferrers: It is, of course, more efficacious if people stay on at school and get a better and fuller training, my Lords. The whole object of the Government scheme is that those who have left school should nevertheless be trained, and they will be trained for a year. I would only point out that this scheme, in its first full year of operation, will be costing the Government £1,000 million.
Lord Glenamara: The Minister did not answer my question, my Lords. Will the Government look at the possibility of simply raising the school-leaving age by six months or a year, with exemptions for young people who secure employment?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I shall of course, without commitment, see that that proposal is examined.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the other side of the question asked by the noble Lord is that many youngsters want to leave school when they reach 15 or 16 and do not wish to continue for another year? They will make much better use of their time if they go on to some adult training scheme for the next year rather than remain at school.
Earl Ferrers: My noble friend is absolutely correct, my Lords; it is very difficult to force people to stay on at school when they do not wish to do so.
Baroness David: My Lords, is the Minister certain that the further education colleges and colleges of tech-

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nology will have the space and staff to accommodate the training aspect that will be necessary for the new scheme, in view of the cutbacks in local authority expenditure?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, the noble Baroness will be aware that the scheme comes into operation in April 1983, some 15 months ahead. This time will be used to make sure that those facilities are available.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that I am simply asking the Government to be realistic and to try to understand that young people can hardly exist on £15 a week? If they become apprentices in technological establishments, should they not have the least of financial worries? Is he aware that they should not be coerced if they decide that they cannot accept other offers? Will the Government reconsider these two aspects? While many of us welcome the endeavour that is being undertaken, is the noble Earl aware that we do not want to see it spoilt by meanness and coercion?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I accept the noble Lord's question in the spirit in which it is put, and of course those matters will be considered because the point he makes is a very real one. I would emphasise, however, in respect of those who are in full-time further education that their parents receive the child allowance, and this continuation of the child allowance will also apply to those who come under this new training scheme.
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the statement he has just made is not in accordance with paragraph 36 of the Government White Paper?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, the noble Lord must be very adept at reading. I will read paragraph 36 in a rather longer time than half a minute and, if I am wrong, I will get in touch with him.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT FINANCE
Lord Denham: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 this afternoon my noble friend Lord Bellwin will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement which is to be made in another place on local government finance, the Green Paper on alternatives to domestic rates.

Business of the House: Housing (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Baroness Young): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That Standing Order 43 (No two stages of a Bill to be taken on one day) be dispensed with to enable the Housing (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill to be taken through its remaining stages tomorrow.—(Baroness Young.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

The Arms Race and the Economy
2.57 p.m.
Lord Noel-Baker Lord Noel-Baker rose to call attention to the relationship between the arms race and inflation, unemployment, trade recession and the world economy; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, at 4 p.m. on the first Sunday in June 1981, six months ago, eight F.16 bombing aircraft with six F.16s for fighter cover flew in a tight formation from Israel over Iran to the power plant at Osyrak, nine miles from Baghdad, the capital of Iraq. They told inquiring controls that they were a commercial flight. When they reached Osyrak, the F.16s each dropped the two bombs they were carrying, bombs of 2,000 lbs. of TNT. and 32 tons of high explosive destroyed the nuclear plant. There is strong ground for thinking that that act of unprovoked, aggressive, charter-breaking war signed the death warrant of President Sadat of Egypt. His assassins must have said, " Israel takes no interest in his policy of peace ". After they dropped the bombs they threatened that they would repeat that savage act whenever any Arab state might build a nuclear plant. The assassins must have said, " Sadat is a dreaming fool. We must remove him before he sells our country to a ruthless foe ".
There is strong ground for thinking that that savage act and the murderous threat that followed signed the death warrant of the State of Israel. I am a lifelong Zionist. I was converted to Zionism by the Emir Feisal and Lawrence of Arabia. For many years I was the spokesman of the Zionists in another place, but I am certain that Israel will not survive if she relies on winning wars against the Arabs once every seven years. The savage act and the murderous threat which followed might have been the action that would have started World War 3. Operation Babylon, the destruction of the nuclear plant, gave us in a sudden blinding flash a new understanding of the urgent peril of the arms race. If that race goes on, someone somewhere as insanely irresponsible as Begin will commit the act which will unleash the dogs of war. That is the thought which I hope your Lordships will take away from this debate.
But the burden of my Motion seeks to cast a searchlight on a different aspect of the arms race. The Motion has been drafted with the help of the authorities of the House, to whom I voice my thanks. In language that accords with the conventions that your Lordships observe, it states that the arms race has a relation to inflation, to unemployment, and to trade recession. With as few harsh words as may be, I want to argue that in fact the arms race is a major contributory cause to national and world inflation, to national and world unemployment, and to the trade recession which is not yet at an end.
I start with inflation. Every economist since Adam Smith has said that inflation is too much money chasing too few goods. Every economist since Adam Smith has said that arms production is unproductive. The nations are now spending 600,000 million dollars a year on arms—6 billion dollars. In the last 10 years they have spent 4 million million dollars. That vast accumulation of purchasing power goes on the markets of the world through the wages and the salaries of the

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men in the armed services, the wages and the salaries of the men and managers in the armament factories, the dividends of the private armament firms. That vast sum of purchasing power is balanced by the production of no goods whatever which people can purchase and use.
Prima facie, it seems obvious that it must mean too much money chasing too few goods. Some economists say that that is not the case, that the extra purchasing power is mopped up by new taxation. With all respect to the economists—I remember a transatlantic saying of long ago, that if you took all the economists in the world and laid them out in a row end to end, they would not reach a single conclusion—I do not think that what they say adequately explains the facts. The men in the forces, the men in the factories, spend their income. They pay rent. They buy food. They buy television sets and motor cars. And they produce no goods that anybody can buy.
I believe that the case is more adequately stated by Mrs. Sivard of the United States. She says that excessive arms spending overheats the civil economy. It generates too much spendable income without producing goods and services that will mop it up; and I am glad to think that the economists of the Secretariat of the United Nations have endorsed Mrs. Sivard's view. They say that armament expenditure is inflationary.
Let me test the theory against some facts of what happens in the world. I believe that I could prove my case by taking two countries only, two countries at opposite extremes: Israel and Japan. Israel, of all the nations in the world, spends the largest percentage of her GNP on arms, 23·2 per cent., and, with the finest financiers in the world—money magic is the heritage of the Jews—Israel has an inflation rate of 130 per cent. Japan spends the lowest percentage of its GNP on arms—3·9 per cent.; and Japan has an inflation rate, if I remember rightly, of about 4 per cent.
I could add a further flood of figures, but I shall try to make a very simple table in which I add three countries to Japan. The United States, with 5·5 per cent. of her GNP spent on arms, has an inflation rate of 11 per cent. Britain, with 5·1 per cent. expenditure on arms, had an inflation rate in October last of 11·7 per cent. Western Germany, with 3·4 per cent. of her GNP spent on arms, has an inflation rate of 6 per cent. Japan, with 0·9 per cent. expenditure, has an inflation rate of 3·4 per cent.
I add some comments. Britain and the United States have taken sustained and drastic action to check inflation: soaring interest rates, slashing of the social services; but their inflation rates remain in double figures. Germany, with rather more than half of our expenditure on arms, has an inflation rate almost half that of ours. Japan, again, is far below any other nation in inflation.
Inflation is a cancer in the body politic. It assaults every section of the community, but it bears most harshly on the elderly and the poor. It robs them of what are their basic needs to keep them alive and well. It also slows investment. It upsets exchange rates. It diminishes international trade. While the nations go on spending 600 billion dollars on armaments they will go on having high inflation.
Let me pass to unemployment. The prophets of military power always say that armaments create jobs, and of course they do. But there are official United States Government figures to show that capital invested in armament production produces considerably fewer jobs than capital invested in civil work. The United States lists as examples construction, the transit system, health and education. By construction they mean buildings—houses, schools and hospitals—roads, bridges and other public works; by transit they mean public transport—trains, ships and aircraft—coaches and taxi-cabs. On construction, transport and health, a thousand million dollars invested in such civil work produces 100,000 jobs; but a billion dollars invested in armament production produces only 78,000 jobs; that is to say, there are 22,000 more jobs from civil work. Investment in education of a billion dollars produces 120,000 jobs, and the schooling prepares the pupils for skilled productive work.
But take 100,000 jobs as the average for civil work. That is 22 per thousand more than from a billion dollars spent on arms. Twenty-two thousand multiplied by 600—the 600 billion of world expenditure on arms—makes 13 million jobs. There are 14 million unemployed in western Europe, 8 million in the United States. If we could divert expenditure on arms to expenditure on civil work of the kind I have described we should make a massive attack on the unemployment which causes such misery today.
Have noble Lords ever tried to imagine, as if it were happening to themselves, what unemployment means to the men without a job? Idle days; sterile empty nights—they have no cash for entertainment—and no purpose in life. As the days and weeks go by, hope dies, morale decays. The young can turn too easily to the kind of senseless violence that we had in Britain not long ago. But unemployment is a scourge which afflicts the families of the men and women without jobs only slightly less than those men and women themselves; and while we have this high armament expenditure, we shall have the high unemployment which results.
Expenditure on arms slows the rate of investment. I resist the temptation to give your Lordships another flood of figures. I offer only a very simple table of the four countries which I have already named: the United States, with 11 per cent. of GNP on arms, has a growth rate of about 2 to 2½ per cent.; Britain, with 11·7 on arms, has a growth rate of 2½ to 3 per cent.; Germany, with 4·3 per cent. on arms, has a growth rate of 6 per cent.; Japan, with an arms expenditure of 0·9 per cent of GNP, has a growth rate of a fabulous 8 per cent. Those figures— 2½, 2½ to 3, 6 and 8—tell the story for themselves.
The manufacture of arms damages the economy in other ways. For the most part the industry is hideously inefficient. Private manufacturers of arms always try to make their contracts on a cost-plus basis, and they fix the cost more or less to please themselves. Governments are not well equipped to challenge what they ask, and neither management nor trade unions have much scruple about how they exploit the public purse. Those high production costs are wasteful of resources in many ways; and, of course, again, they are inflationary.
But, far more serious than anything else that I have said, armament expenditure is the cause of the world

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poverty which afflicts so many of our fellow men. It was President Eisenhower who said it first.
" Every warship ",
he said,
" every aeroplane, every gun, rightly viewed, is a theft from those who hunger and are not fed ".
The great Pope John said:
" Armaments kill their millions while they lie unused in their silos, their hangers and their sheds. They absorb the resources which should go to ease the sufferings of the poor ".
Let your Lordships consider the vast sum of suffering, hardship and loss which armament expenditure involves. There are 1,000 million men and women, grown-up, who cannot read or write—the darkness of the mind; the gravest form of poverty of all, which shuts the path to economic, cultural or political advance. There are 200 million children (perhaps a great many more) for whom there are no schools, no hope of education, destined from their early years to grow up as part of the vast assembly of the voiceless who have no way to influence the policies which their Governments pursue.
There are 800 million people who live on the margin of starvation. They never know a solid meal from the cradle to the grave. There are 2,000 million people who have no clean water to drink. Every time they slake their thirst they may be contracting some foul disease. I repeat: 2,000 million, my Lords! There are hundreds of millions every year who are victims of preventable disease—malaria, leprosy, yaws and other diseases; diseases which could easily be cured if a little capital is given to the task. There are hundreds of millions who suffer deprivation in other ways. There are 40 millions who are blind. Trachoma destroyed their sight; yet a simple, cheap ointment would have effected a cure. All this vast sum of suffering and loss could be ended if we could divert the armament expenditure to human welfare instead.
Confronted with this ghastly situation, it is not enough, I say with all respect, to speak of multilateral arms control, of balance at a lower level, as did the noble Lord the Foreign Secretary in the last debate on the subject in this House. The trouble about balance of power is that each side always tries to tilt it in its own favour, and 60 years of seeking balance at a lower level has given us hardly any practical result. The arms race is more dangerous today than ever before. What is needed is the application of the policy of the final document of the special session of the United Nations General Assembly devoted to disarmament which met in New York in 1978.
That final document, prepared and endorsed by the 140 who pledged themselves to the policy proposed, said that it was now essential to proceed to the disarmament of all the nations of the world, general and complete, down to the level at which no Government keeps more than it needs to maintain internal order within its state and to make a manpower contribution to the United Nations peace force; disarmament to be carried out in progressive stages and under stringent international control, accompanied by the reallocation of the resources so released—vast resources of one and a quarter million dollars every minute—to ending world poverty and promoting social justice everywhere.
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And there is a lot of social justice still to be promoted in our Britain.
That policy was accepted by the Governments in 1978 and it was a reaffirmation—and I call this to your Lordships' close attention—of the major war aim of the victorious allies in the Second World War as described by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1940 in his famous " four freedoms " speech. President Roosevelt said that in the postwar world there must be freedom from fear, which, he said, means a reduction of armaments to the level at which no Government has enough armaments to make aggressive war against any neighbour anywhere.
I venture to think that in 1981 we are not entitled to forget the war aim of the Second World War, of the struggle of six agonising years in which more than 50 million people lost their lives. We cannot forget the war aim. We cannot forget the sacrifice of the 50 million. We must proceed to carry out the final document of 1978. And the time to do it would be in New York, six months from now. I beg to move for Papers.
3.25 p.m.
Lord Thomas of Swynnerton: My Lords, I am sure that the House would wish me to express our gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Noel-Baker, for initiating a debate so far-ranging and so far-reaching that it would be difficult for any of us, even with the worst will in the world, to seem to be irrelevant; although I fear that some noble Lords may think that some of the things I am about to say, or may say, seem irrelevant. The eloquence of the noble Lord, Lord Noel-Baker, who initiated this debate and who over many years has shown me personally great kindness, is, I think, a sure indication that a young heart and a creative brain are sure consequences of a life devoted to noble causes.
I hope that he will forgive me if I do not follow him in all the things that he said since he ranged over so wide a field. I think, however, that the House might have been more convinced perhaps by the general thrust of his argument if, among the statistics that he quoted at the beginning, he had mentioned the fact that one country, namely, the Soviet Union, spends no less than 13 per cent. to 15 per cent. of its GNP on armaments; and if he had also noticed that the world economy might be much better off if the Soviet Union were able to manage its agriculture more efficiently so that, instead of having to import food, it were able to export it, as was the case with Russia before 1914.
The noble Lord also mentioned Adam Smith. I think that the quotation that he made prompted some of us to recall that that great economist also said in the same book, The Wealth of Nations, that,
" defence is more important than opulence ".
In relation to the Soviet Union, I think that he might have recalled, when talking about the need in a perfect world for no Government to keep armaments or armed forces greater than those needed for the maintenance of internal order, that the Soviet Union maintains vast numbers of forces for the maintenance of that internal order and security which, even if they were kept only for that purpose, would continue to seem a threat to the rest of the world.
I do not think it possible to cover all the subjects raised in this debate. Certainly, the subjects men-

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tioned on the Order Paper are interlocked and have a connection with each other, although it is difficult to say that there is a general explanation of how these things are interlocked and linked. Some of us would feel, I think, that there have been occasions, such as in the 1930s, when employment has been beneficially affected, lamentable though that may seem, by the armaments industries. Some would want to recall that there have been occasions when technological innovation has been the consequence of effective armaments industries. I must say, too, that the lesson of history is that it is not only since 1945 and not only in international affairs but also in domestic affairs, that armaments have contributed to the maintenance of stability.
Those generalisations stated, I do not want to dwell too much on such matters. With the permission of the House, I should like to divert from the general to the particular. There can be no doubt that today in our minds that there is one country which is preoccupying us: that is, Poland. It preoccupied us last week during the moving debate initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich—a debate to which there was a magnificent speech contributed by the noble Baroness, Lady Ryder of Warsaw. Her moving speech must remain for a long time in the memories of all those who heard her—they certainly will in mine.
Certainly, Poland will preoccupy us in this House on many occasions in the future. The reactions of Her Majesty's Government and their allies in relation to this military coup—as it is, and a very remarkable thing for the Soviet world—have led their spokesmen to make suggestions primarily of an economic nature. Our Governments in Europe have suggested that we should, so far as possible, and so far as I can understand, continue to send food to Poland until and unless repression occurs; whereas the United States Government have at the moment taken a slightly different line and suggested that food should not be sent to Poland while there is a chance of repression.
Many of us will have felt initially that this discrepancy between the European and the United States Governments is unfortunate; but I am not so sure that that is the case in a very difficult situation. The need for flexible policies is perfectly obvious, and perhaps we should consider two policies in this particular case. One has to remember that, bad though the situation in Poland is at the moment, it could he very much worse if there were a Soviet invasion. That said, however, I welcome very much the fact that there has been a recognition by our Governments that the co-ordination of economic policies by the West could very well play a part in securing the triumph of Western ideals in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. I hope it may be possible for this crisis to be the occasion for further co-ordination of Western economic policies in relation to the Soviet bloc.
In this connection, I wish to draw your Lordships' attention to two matters in a preliminary way. First of all, there is no doubt whatever that the West has never used its great economic preponderance over the Soviet Union and her allies in an effective way. No doubt at the back of the minds of our leaders has been the fact that policies of economic sanctions have never in the past been successful. Nevertheless, we have never used this economic power.
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The second point to which I wish to draw attention is the fact that the Soviet economic system in the last generation seems only to have survived at all because of their successful exploitation of Western technology and Western economic assistance. This is a very important factor in the present circumstances. It is particularly true in respect of Soviet military developments—really the only zone of Soviet economic life where there has been an effective advance.
A list of items where Western economic assistance has been of great military value to the Soviet Union would be quite endless. It stretches from petrochemicals to lasers; from steel welding to precision grinding. This last item is particularly important, since I understand that it would be almost impossible for the Soviet Union to have modernised their intercontinental ballistic missiles in the early 1970s without the assistance of the precision grinding equipment made available to them under détente by United States companies.
Now, hearing in mind these two things, I wonder whether this would not he a good opportunity for Western Governments to make plans for a much more effective economic policy in relation to the Soviet bloc than we have had hitherto. This is a proposal which is well covered by the terms of reference of this Motion. I should like to suggest something like a three-pronged policy.
The first prong might consist of a revised and modernised agreement under the present arrangements known as COCOM to cover some of the items which I mentioned a minute ago, and also bringing into the COCOM agreement some of the countries which at present do not adhere to it. All of the advanced industrialised countries should be invited and indeed pressed to join this agreement. That is something which could be done now, Poland or no Poland.
The second prong of my proposal is that plans should be made so that if there were a new Soviet outrage, whether it were the invasion of Poland or something else, the West would be perfectly well prepared for the next stage of economic policies towards the aggressor. This might include all equipment and technology which might conceivably be of assistance to the Soviet military power, including fuel, oil ex-ploitation and credits. I do not at this stage think that food should be involved. That is another question which might be discussed.
This policy should be prepared and should be ready for introduction if such an outrage were to occur. The fact that that policy had been prepared should be amply publicised in the hope that the outrage would not occur. If it did occur, and if it were to continue and if these other measures which I have mentioned were effective, then the Western countries could go on to activate a third prong in the policy. This would affect without question the provision of food to the Soviet Union and other items which make an effective contribution to the Soviet standard of living.
It may be that a way of preventing the circumvention which occurred when President Carter suggested a rather similar programme, or tried to introduce one, after the invasion of Afghanistan, could be achieved by COCOM or perhaps some other organisation buying up the grain and other foodstuffs which might otherwise reach the Soviet Union. Perhaps the EEC's

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target price policy offers some precedent for this proposal.
It may seem that these suggestions are rather strong meat. However, bearing in mind the psychological warfare which the Soviet Union is perfectly plainly waging against us—as was indicated with some eloquence last week by the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont—and the support which the Soviet Union seems to be giving to terrorist activities throughout the West with the intention of destabilising our societies, and bearing in mind that the Soviet Union is perfectly plainly also concerned in the battle to prevent us securing essential supplies of raw materials, this would seem to be a minimum response which we should make.
In the long run, a properly co-ordinate and intelligently managed economic policy towards the Soviet Union might place that country in a dilemma between two policies: on the one hand, to cease their excessive and wholly unjustified military spending and collaborate in the sort of real reduction of armaments which the noble Lord, Lord Noel-Baker, rightly considers to be desirable, or, on the other hand, to continue to spend such vast sums on armaments, depriving consumer demand in the Soviet Union of what it plainly desires and leading to unrest which could spark off connections with nationalist discontent in some of the non-Russian Soviet Republics and so, in a sense, forcing the Soviet Union in the end to abandon its policies or at any rate to change them radically.
These proposals seem to me to be the best hope of securing world peace and the other desirable measures which are implicit in the Motion on the Order Paper. I think it was Mirabeau who said:
" the national debt is the germ of our liberties ".
It may well be that, if we link all these matters with debts and credits as well as economic assistance, international debt may come to seem the germ of liberties on the other side of the Iron Curtain.
3.42 p.m.
Lord Aylestone: My Lords, the House is indeed indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Noel-Baker, for initiating this debate and, if I may say so, also to the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Swynnerton, for suggesting one or two psychological warfare effects that might he of value in bringing world peace. The noble Lord, Lord Noel-Baker, has spent a great deal of his life on behalf of world disarmament and has contributed so much over so many years, and I am sure he will continue in that field for a very long time. In this particular debate he refers to the arms race—for that is what is it. No mean athlete himself in the days when we were all so much younger, he would know that in this particular race there is no winner: no one can win it. And no one disputes the terrible cost of the race in money and, perhaps even more important, in the drain from industry of our best technological knowledge in this country and in others towards the arms race. All the major countries of the world on both sides of the Iron Curtain are fearful of possible attack and yet prepare for defence. The brain drain of which I speak is of the most advanced kind in electronics and engineering and it takes from industry
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into research and construction of armaments something that no country can really afford. In this field the present-day, very sophisticated weapons are often themselves obsolescent before they leave the drawing-board and construction begins.
What a waste the whole thing is! Mr. Brezhnev himself not so very long ago said that Russia needs tractors more than she needs tanks, and I am sure it would he equally true to say that Russia needs more technically able people for its development in Siberia rather than to produce more and still more sophisticated arms. The same shortage of technical manpower is probably equally felt in the countries of the West. We might ask whether America, if she engaged in considerable sales of AWACS aircraft, has sufficient skilled personnel to train the purchasers of those aircraft in maintenance and in flying the aircraft. Coming nearer home we might ask: if we were to sell our own Nimrods would we not be in the same position? Can we afford the technical knowledge, or have we got it, to train a would-be purchaser in maintenance of Nimrod aircraft and to teach the purchasing country how to fly them?
The shortage of skilled manpower on both sides of the Iron Curtain is equally as expensive as the purely monetary cost. This ever-ascending scale of cost of skilled manpower is preventing the major powers from doing so much that we should be doing, as the noble Lord, Lord Noel-Baker, has said. There is so much we should be doing in our own country and so much that is so badly needed in the third world. The economic collapse of a country because of its armament costs, or even the possibility of it, is a terrible price to have to pay for security and defence, but—and perhaps some of us will part company here—in my view it is a price we have to pay and it is the duty of this or any other Government to provide it. Maybe economic collapse is an exaggeration, but certainly economic decline is very evident in all the countries so active in preparation for " defence ".
On this Bench we believe that in the present state of the world the possession of a nuclear deterrent is essential. The scale of the deterrent capability in the nuclear field may itself be debatable, but let us say at least that it should be sufficient to give us security. Nevertheless, the competition between the groups of powers on both sides of the Iron Curtain is reaching almost a degree of madness. It might be a good song title to say, " Anything you can do we can do better "; but applied to competition between world powers it can and does lead to economic disaster and much worse.
We on this Bench cannot, I am afraid, accept the argument which some noble Lords seem to accept, that unilateral nuclear disarmament can be of help. We are of the opinion that it can only be of help to a country or countries with the greatest strength in so-called conventional armaments—and that certainly is not the West. I personally should like to think that, at best, the unilateralists have not thought through the real dangers. There is very little point in baring one's chest and inviting the assassin to put the knife in. When we share in massive demonstrations behind the Iron Curtain, especially in the USSR, in favour of unilateral nuclear disarmament in that country, then

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the whole argument will be more credible; but that is not the position at the moment.
I cannot help but feel that if little Afghanistan had had the smallest nuclear deterrent, that country would never have suffered invasion. I am sure that the real hope for peace, the only hope of reducing the effects of the arms race on our economy, is to press on with disarmament—if I may paraphrase, to talk, to talk, and to talk again, resolutely, and for as long as it takes, to try to reach agreement on a rundown of all armaments between the major powers, with all the safeguards and all the verifications that are felt to be necessary. Let us hope that 1982 will bring progress in world disarmament, that the talks will continue, and that during next year at least some progress will be made.

Local Government Finance
3.50 p.m.
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I should like to repeat a Statement that is being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment. The Statement reads as follows:
" Mr. Speaker, I will, with permission, make a statement about a number of rating and local government finance matters. In their relationship with local authorities, the Government face two main problems—first, the need to contain levels of expenditure; and, second, the need to make progress with their commitment to reform the rating system. The Government are determined to reduce the level of local government current expenditure and to ensure through the distribution of the rate support grant that the consequences of high spending policies are financed more directly by those local communities where the highest spending takes place.
" The majority of local authorities have now proved that the Government's expenditure targets were realistic and attainable. I am most grateful to these authorities for the very real efforts that they have made. The continuing wish of most local authorities to co-operate with Government by reducing the rate-borne costs of public expenditure in their areas is further reinforced by the publication today of the latest local government manpower figures for England. These show the largest total drop in manpower ever achieved in one year. At 1·9 million, the number of full-time equivalent employees in local government in England is the lowest total recorded since the joint manpower watch system was introduced, and effectively eliminates all the manpower growth that has taken place since 1974.
" In their determination to maintain pressure on current expenditure, particularly in authorities which do not co-operate with the overall policy of securing a better balance between the public and private sector, the Government decided to legislate this Session to deter high spending. The Government intend to proceed with legislation. Instead of the proposals to permit supplementary rates only after a poll of local communities, the Government propose to ban supplementary rates altogether.
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Parts II and III of the Bill, subject to drafting changes, will stand. I am therefore withdrawing the Bill which was introduced on 6th November. I am introducing today a new Bill incorporating these proposals.
" It may be that during the financial year an authority may incur unforeseeable expenditure. In these circumstances, it could apply to me for temporary borrowing permission. I would not grant such permission, unless it was absolutely essential for the expenditure to be incurred in the year, and unavoidable commitments met. I should expect the borrowing to be repaid out of revenue income within the first quarter of the following year.
" Our election manifesto restated our determination to reform the domestic rating system. I am today publishing, together with my right honourable friends the Secretaries of State for Scotland and Wales, a Green Paper on alternatives to, and possible reforms of, the present system of domestic rates. Copies are available in the Vote Office. The present system contains anomalies and unfairness. In publishing the Green Paper, the Government reaffirm their long-standing commitment to reform.
" The Green Paper considers, first, the main requirements to be met by any revenue-raising system for local government. Against those requirements, it discusses, first, domestic rates; and then the most promising alternatives—local sales tax, local income tax, poll tax and assigned Exchequer revenues. It then discusses a number of associated questions, including the economic effects of change and the consequences for the system of Exchequer grant towards the cost of local services.
" We have said in the Green Paper that the country views the question of domestic rates with a sense of urgency and that the Government wish to move ahead as quickly as possible. I am, therefore, asking for comments on the Green Paper to be submitted by 31st March 1982. I look forward to wide ranging consultations between now and next April. We shall then aim to produce proposals for a system which would remedy as fully as possible the shortcomings of the existing system of domestic rating, and which would command the widest possible acceptance in the country as a whole ".My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
3.55 p.m.
Baroness Birk: My Lords, I should first like to thank the Minister for repeating the Statement, but I also want to make a very strong protest. I have not yet been able to get a copy of the new Bill or of the Green Paper. They have not yet been released from our Printed Paper Office, and it is extremely difficult at a time like this, when one is trying to deal with a Statement, not to have a copy of the Green Paper or the Bill. I appreciate that it is not the fault of the Minister, but that really has to be said.
I am rather disappointed at the tone of the Statement because, after all, the new Bill—which I have not yet had the pleasure or displeasure of seeing—is a direct result of the Government having to change their mind over the referendum, which they have had to do because the pressure was so great not just from the

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Opposition, but from members of all parties and from supporters of local government. It would have been a little more gracious if that had been incorporated in the Statement. It could have been done in a very felicitous way, without the Government entirely stabbing themselves in the front and the back. But instead of that we have this rather curious Statement today.
I should like to draw attention to the point made in the Statement about the drop in manpower. It seems to me extraordinary that, at this moment, the Government now seem to be taking a tremendous amount of credit for increasing unemployment, especially in the building and related industries, because that is where there have been great lay-offs. Also, all the way through our society we are seeing the effect of the cuts in the social services, in education—and I could go on for ever. So I do not think that this is something which, at this time, makes any sense or fits in with some of the policies that the Government say they are attempting to bring about. It is no good making remarks and compassionate comments about unemployment and then bringing this in.
It also seems very odd, when we had a Statement last week on the inner cities according to which a certain amount of money was to be given, that we now have this Statement with the Government congratulating themselves on the cuts. Does this mean that the Statement on the inner cities—as many of us suspected—did not mean as much as it appeared to do? Is it pretty meaningless, therefore, in financial and employment terms, if at the same time the Government are attempting to cut both expenditure and employment?
As regards the refusal to allow authorities to raise a supplementary rate, I should like to point out that the Government have consistently under-estimated the rate of inflation and the level of wage settlements. This must mean that in every local authority, whether it is Tory. Labour, or whatever it is, the treasurers, who will be responsible, will fix the rates at a level which will provide sufficient income to cover all the eventualities and contingencies that may arise. This is a direct incentive to over-rate from the beginning, and any sensible authority will be induced to do that because they know that they will not be able to raise supplementary rate.
As for the slight let-out in the Statement about unforeseeable expenditure, whereby a local authority can appeal to the Secretary of State for temporary borrowing permission, I would only say that, going by the past record, any authority in its right mind would scarcely appeal to the Secretary of State for temporary borrowing. That is very unlikely. The Statement mentions that the Green Paper discusses the most promising alternatives. Am I not right in believing that every single alternative here was examined in detail by the Layfield Commission? If so, why do the Government want to go through this exercise again? It will involve considerable expense. Why have the Government not made up their mind and come forward with proposals? We on this side of the House are not against consultation. Indeed, we are very much for it. But the Government seem to be going over the same ground again. It will be a similar exercise to that carried out by Layfield.
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Will the Minister also take note that, so far as the various alternatives are concerned, we on this side of the House would be opposed to any change which switched the burden on to those least able to bear it—that is, the low paid, the unemployed and pensioners? The Green Paper which is referred to in the Statement (I have not seen that Green Paper) deals with domestic rates. What are the Government's intentions concerning the rating of commerce and industry, about which we have read and heard whispers and rumours? How would the rates of industry and commerce be related to domestic rates? Are the Government not grasping this thistle because they are aware that in Westminster, for example, 84 per cent. of the rate revenue comes from the non-domestic rate, while in a small place like Rother in Sussex it is only 25 per cent.? This Statement will exacerbate the very unfortunate relationship which exists now between central and local government. We are reaching a state of almost civil war between local and central Government, which can only be bad not only for local authorities and for the people living in those authorities but for our democracy as a whole. Nothing in the Statement has led me to believe that anything will be done to help or to improve that situation.
Lord Beaumont of Whitley: My Lords, I, too, should like to thank the noble Lord the Minister for repeating the Statement. We on these Benches give a welcome to the Green Paper and look forward to studying it in the hope that we shall be able to find and support a system of rating which will give true independence to local authorities all over the country, the kind of devolution to which this Government paid lip-service when they came to power.
I find it very difficult, as did the noble Baroness, to stomach the Secretary of State's boast that he has eliminated all the manpower growth that has taken place since 1974. This would seem to be the wrong moment to do that. I should like to ask what I think is a concomitant question: what steps are the Government taking to repair and halt the dreadful decay that is occurring to the capital infrastructure of this country? I find it extremely difficult to understand how the Secretary of State, who is a nice, well-meaning man, can possibly put forward these proposals which will increase unemployment and decrease local autonomy. It reminds me of a remark made by a distinguished Tory pamphleteer of the past about a Socialist Chancellor of the Exchequer. Colm Brogan asked how it was that despite Sir Stafford Cripps being a highly intelligent, deeply honest, Christian man, wherever he trod the grass never grew again. We are beginning to reach the stage where we are asking that question about the Secretary of State.
I have two more specific questions to put to the Minister, one of which echoes a point made by the noble Baroness. How will this proposal to do away with supplementary rates lessen expenditure? Will not councils merely inflate their normal annual rate setting in order to guard against this eventuality? And since it will be all councils who will do this instead of merely the one or two which are forced to charge a supplementary rate, will not the results be worse rather than better? Finally, may I ask what consultations the Secretary of State has had with

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local authority associations on the banning of supplementary rates and what replies he has received?
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, it does not surprise me that the noble Baroness was disappointed at the tone of the Statement. I have yet to make a Statement which has not disappointed the noble Baroness. But who knows? Perhaps I shall, one day. The noble Baroness said that the Bill was changed because of pressure. If listening to what is said and reacting to people's feelings is pressure, she is quite right. I do not think many noble Lords would quarrel too much with it having been done in that way. The Secretary of State made it quite clear that he was willing to listen to alternative ways of achieving the same objective, so I hope we shall not be too critical of that.
The important point which the noble Baroness made, as did the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, when referring to the drop in manpower figures was that rather than being a cause for some satisfaction it is quite the opposite. I would have to differ totally and utterly from that point of view, as again perhaps they will not be too surprised to hear. It has been a constant complaint that ever since reorganisation in 1974 (I am well aware of where that came from) the number of people employed in local government has risen steadily. Indeed, in 1979 it was at a peak. Yet who would claim that the level of services is any better? Is it said that in 1979 the level of services was all that superior to what it was in 1974–75? I do not hear people saying that, and it is not necessarily my experience. If one looks at what people were employed upon, one sees a 65 per cent. cut in spending on capital projects in those years, with all the dramatic impact that had upon the construction industry.
Never mind about employing people upon current spending and then saying that is employment. You have to look at what people do. I will not accept the criticism that this reduction is other than a cause for considerable satisfaction. I prefer to look at exactly what is being achieved. That is what concerns me. So when the Secretary of States says, as he does, that there has been some progress, I agree entirely with him.
Baroness Birk: My Lords, if I may take up that point before the Minister forgets it, he made a point about capital projects. There is nothing in this Statement about the reduction in manpower affecting only current expenditure. Would not the Minister agree that, while there was a certain amount of " fat " to be carved off, we have gone beyond that and are now getting down to the bare bones, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, has said, is affecting the whole infrastructure of local government and increasing unemployment?
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, I do not accept that. It is what people do that matters. There is sufficient evidence to show that, while some authorities are very prudent and are having to manage very tightly and very carefully, there are others who could not care less and who, indeed, have embarked, deliberately and openly, on a policy of frustrating central Government policy by employing people. If you look at some of the activities for which those authorities employ them—I could reel off a whole string—it is a matter of shame
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for local government that a few local authorities should be spending as much as they do in that way. I take no pride in it at all, with my attachment to local government.
If I may continue with the other points which were made by the noble Baroness, she said that the Layfield Report was published, so why have a Green Paper? Why did not the Government come forward with proposals? We really cannot win. If the Government had come forward with something, the Opposition would have asked what consultations we had had. We have consulted over the years. The Layfield Commission was in 1976. Everybody who is interested in this subject has had something to say. We have already received many submissions from people, with suggestions as to what might be done about altering the rating system. Of course, we shall look at those, but here we are saying, " Come on, we want some reactions quickly from those who may not have made submissions and we want some reactions to the Green Paper when you read it ".
I take the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, about not having a chance to look at the Green Paper. Nevertheless, when you do read it you will see that we have tried to set out in greater detail exactly what are the implications of the alternatives which Layfield put forward and some new ones as well which are in there. I am sure we shall have some more discussion in due course on that.
As to the Government's intentions on the non-domestic rate, again I do not think that one can really consider a review of the domestic rating system without recognising that there is an impact on non-domestic rating. Clearly that will have to be part of the debate, and certainly I expect that. With regard to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, as to whether local authorities will simply put up the initial rates to compensate for not being able to make a supplementary rate, I do not think that will be so. The fact is that for the very first time, almost, rates have become and are becoming an electoral issue—something which many of us wish had been the case in the past—and local authorities are not going to make swingeing increases in their rates and try to blame it on Government. They will not be able to get away with that, in my submission. I think that, generally, the proposals will mean that ratepayers, both domestic and non-domestic, will know in future where they stand right from the start of the year, and I hope that that will help in the budgeting which they have to do.
Before I sit down, may I just say to the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, that, with regard to her not having received a copy of the Bill, I am informed that until a Bill has had its First Reading it is quite normal in fact that this cannot be made available. Although I take the noble Baroness' point on the Green Paper, perhaps she will take mine on that latter point.
4.13 p.m.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, party interests might cause us to rejoice at this further exchange of broadsides between authoritarian, paternalist monetarism at the centre and dogmatic, public sector, inflationary, entrenched positions at the grass roots, but we do not do so because, having adopted the policy of local autonomy, so far as is conceivable in a parliamentary

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democracy, we stand by it even when we see the champions of two conflicting policies destroying each other on the ground. This party stands for local autonomy in the levying and the expenditure of taxes. This does not prevent us from being interested in and casting a favourable eye over the promised Green Paper and the alternatives which are going to be proposed to the present rating system. We do think that the rating system is defective and if the Green Paper and the consequent legislation contain proposals to replace it with something we consider satisfactory, then we shall of course be in favour of that.
In the meantime, I have one question to put to the Government: when does the prohibition of supplementary rates come into effect, and can the Minister say anything to clarify the position about London ratepayers at the moment and the supplementary rate demand which is now in doubt in more than one quarter?
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, I make no general observations about the comments which have been made by the noble Lord, Lord Kennet. I think they speak for themselves, and no doubt will be read for themselves. As to his request for information about when the procedure will come into effect, clearly, it has now to be put through, but we are hoping for the beginning of the municipal year. That means at the end of March and the beginning of April. I do not think that I can help the noble Lord further with anything else he said. I know of his interest and I know of his considerable experience in that field. I respect that, and I hope that, when we come to debate the nuts and bolts, if I may call it that, he will make a contribution, and I shall look forward to hearing it.
4.15 p.m.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that on this side of the House his information that there has been this reduction of manpower in local government services is very welcome news for the hard-pressed ratepayers of this country? Is he aware also that the noble Baroness's good debating point, that this is increasing unemployment, does not really have much substance, because in many cases the high financial burden of rates at the present time is handicapping industry and commerce and so causing more unemployment? Is my noble friend aware that, in the forthcoming review based on his Green Paper, we look most hopefully to a new system of financing local government which will make a fairer distribution of the financial cost of local government upon more shoulders and with a considerable reduction on the shoulders of industry and commerce, because that is the best way of getting a more competitive edge to our industry and commerce and so increasing employment rather than reducing it?
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend for making a point that perhaps I should have made. I see so many representations to our department of the impact of high rates, and only this week I had two letters that were really quite heartbreaking, about firms which had moved out of inner London areas and taken their employment with
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them, so that they could pay, not all that far from London, rates something like a quarter of those they were paying here. Yet in both cases they had taken considerable employment out of the centre. There is no doubt that, although there are those who argue otherwise, there is now a mass of examples which show that high rates do create unemployment. My noble friend helps very much in reminding me of that.
Lord Davies of Leek: My Lords, is the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, aware that we all like him and that he has made a magnificent effort to change a threnody into a eulogy? I could even set it to music; it would be in a minor key, but it could be done. I should like to ask the noble Lord about a couple of facts. Had he been in any of the streets of Britain in the last tempestuous week or so he would have seen shivering people standing waiting for buses which did not come and motor cars which could not move, and heard about some people being found dead in cars on roads which could not be cleared. And yet we have swanked about cuts in manpower in local authorities, while local authorities were stating in local newspapers that they could not afford to spend money on salt or on sand to keep the country moving. Is the noble Lord aware that if we added up the social accountancy of this swanking about less pay going into manpower in local government against the loss of work and hours of production, and its effect on exports, this Paper would be thought a disgrace to the minds of the famous old Conservative Party?
Secondly, and lastly, what about British agriculture and rates? It took a Labour Government to put British agriculture on its feet, and the only time that the farmers paid in to the local Conservative Party was when they had better money under Tom Williams's agricultural policy. What is to be done about British agriculture when we are destroying the fabric of local government, which is older than central Government?
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, I am not about to bandy words with the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek on the agricultural scene. I am sure that he has far greater knowledge of it than I have. But when he talks about the streets not being gritted or whatever, this is of course a priority for each authority. Some may think it a very strange priority that some authorities claim not to be able to do so while at the same time they do feel able to subsidise their fares to the tune of over £50 million a year, as I know one local authority does. It subsidises bus fares to the tune of over £50 million a year, and I hope that that authority is not saying that it does not have the funds to grit the streets.
4.19 p.m.
Lord Raglan: My Lords, the noble Lord the Minister will be very well aware that the number of obligations which a local authority has to discharge has increased enormously over the past 15 years compared with the past 100 years or so in which local authorities have been in being. When considering how the Government are going to raise finance for local authorities, will they also consider the strength of the management structure which needs to control the spending of this money, and bear in mind that it is just as important a matter how this structure is designed, that it should be brought

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up to date and not designed for 100 years ago when local authorities were quite a different animal?
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, to go into the management structures of local authorities one would have to debate all that came at the time of reorganisation. There is no doubt that different local authorities have different management régimes, and perhaps that is not a bad thing. I have my own view as to the best way of doing it. But if we are also committed, as I think we are, despite what was said a moment ago, to allowing local authorities to do their own thing, they will manage their affairs in different ways, and some would criticise many of them for the way they do it. It is part of the whole problem.
Viscount Montgomery of Alamein: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend a question about the timetable? Restructuring of the domestic rating system is widely welcomed and all those of us concerned with local government in any way will read the Green Paper with great interest. But it is a very complex subject. Is the noble Lord confident that the timetable, allowing for full consultation and reporting back by 31st March, is sufficient?
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for pointing out the need to be careful. I would only repeat what I was saying earlier, that it is not something that is new. The noble Baroness said that much of what is in the Paper she understands is what Layfield had said. That is quite true, but it puts the implications in much greater detail. But the whole subject is not new. We have had many representations already. I do not think we should hang around, if I may use that expression. I do not think anyone would want us to do that for longer than need be. I cannot give the House a timetable as to what will follow from that. It will depend upon what is decided. But I repeat that we understand the urgency of something being done without any more delay than is absolutely necessary.

The Arms Race and the Economy
Debate resumed.
4.23 p.m.
Lord Brockway: My Lords, we return to the short debate on the Motion of my noble friend Lord Noel-Baker. May I say that I regard the speech that he delivered in initiating this debate as historic. I believe it will be so regarded by future generations. It not only dealt with our immediate problems but gave a picture of the world to come if there is to be any hope for mankind. Our speeches which follow will seem minor in the light of the grandeur of his utterance. I say that with respect to the two noble Lords who have already spoken and the noble Lords who will follow. May I just say this to the noble Lord, Lord Thomas? I listened with the greatest interest to his alternative constructive proposals and I hope they will be seriously considered.
My Lords, I propose today to voice quite elementary first principles. They may possibly be regarded as
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simplistic and even naive, but I believe they are fundamentally true. I think we make a mistake sometimes in being overcome by temporary circumstances and losing sight of fundamental issues, that we are too sophisticated in our approach to problems. I think it will be accepted that inflation is expanded by public expenditure which brings no monetary return. That has been the argument in favour of the cuts in education, health, social services, the real cut in unemployment and other benefits. But at least those contributions to our society do benefit human standards.
In the case of arms expenditure, with one exception which I shall mention later, that neither gives any monetary return nor does it lift human standards. Arms production either becomes obsolete and wasted, or, worse, is used to destroy human lives. Arms do not benefit human standards. If they are used they obliterate human beings. One exception when the sale of arms does being monetary returns is when it yields profits in the arms trade. In answer to a Question which I put this week, the Government stated that Britain sells arms now to over 60 countries, many of them third world countries. From the point of view of fundamental human principle the arms trade is an immoral trade. It is more immoral than the trade in drugs, because it is a trade for killing human beings.
My Lords, I suggest that this is particularly objectionable when the supply of arms is to third world countries, some of which have unfortunately contracted the poison that prestige depends upon military strength. Sometimes the arms trade to the third world countries has been with the object of influencing them on one side or the other in the confrontation between the two power blocs. The British Government actually organises exhibitions of arms for sale and invites the third world countries to be inveigled into purchasing them. At the last exhibition 140 British arms companies were present to seek sale for their arms of destruction.
My Lords, on the other side it is argued that strength in armaments is a deterrent to conflict, and that there is this human benefit. Undoubtedly, the fear of mass destruction has held back the super powers for 36 years, but at the end of it all only to mount arms expenditure throughout the world and to create the danger of a more devastating war. A recent Gallup Poll showed that 57 per cent. of our people believe that a nuclear war will take place in their lifetime.
I want to urge very strongly that there is no need for the recession and the poverty in the world. It is clear now that we have a technology of production which, if fully used, could meet the needs of all people. It is ironical that that technology is only fully used to create weapons of death and that major research is devoted to that purpose. The technological potentialities of production are not fully used for civilian production, thus causing recession, first, because of the concentration on the waste of arms production, and more fundamentally because the peoples of the world are too poor to buy and make demands on the industrial structure which technically is able to meet their needs. Machinery is idle as well as workers. Willy Brandt in his introduction to the report of his commission said that a mere fraction of 1 per cent. of military expenditure could end hunger in the world within a decade.
The noble Lord, Lord Noel-Baker, is right: the expenditure on arms is the greatest cause of inflation.

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If it were devoted to constructive ends it could—in an economic system devoted to meeting the needs of mankind—not only end recession now but end poverty in the world.
4.34 p.m.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, I am puzzled as to the reason for the noble Lord, Lord Noel-Baker, introducing a Motion in these terms, not because of any doubt that he wishes to contribute to his lifelong pursuit of disarmament, but because it seems to me that he is not furthering his cause by asking us to deal with highly abstract notions, some of them platitudinous and others of them misleading. If he is merely asking us to say that money which is spent on arms could, in a better world, better be spent in a variety of other ways, then it is difficult to imagine that there would be anyone in this House, or indeed anyone anywhere in the world, who would dissent from that opinion. The precise impact, of course, as my noble friend Lord Thomas of Swynnerton, has pointed out, will depend on the economic situation and the industrial situation in particular countries at particular times, whether their resources are fully employed or whether, as in the 1930s, they are in a state of depression. It will vary from country to country, and to pick out, as the noble Lord did, a series of random examples, does not fortify his case.
Let me take two examples. The noble Lord gave the example of Japan. It is true that Japan spends relatively little on defence and has had hitherto a quite formidable record of economic growth. But, of course, it is also true that Japan is only able to pursue this policy because it can rely upon the protection of the United States. Therefore, some of the defence expenditure allotted against Japanese growth should he the defence expenditure paid for by the United States of America. However, as my noble friend Lord Thomas, said, we have Poland much on our minds, but the noble Lord did not quote the example of Poland which, like most of the Soviet satellite countries, has a relatively low level of expenditure of arms and yet their inflation has reached a pitch at which the domestic currency has no value at all.
We can all produce figures to prove this or that. The noble Lord also referred—and this was echoed by the noble Lord, Lord Brockway—to world poverty and the extent to which that could be remedied by a use of resources at the moment tied up in the production of arms. But I would suggest that what we are looking at is a failure of the world economic and administrative systems, because there are a great many resources which are not tied up in the production of arms—the resources which we have in this country in 3 million people out of work, and yet we have not found a way of channelling their possibilities to the creation of wealth to relieve world poverty.
What strikes me is that the argument here is intended to be an argument about armaments, and the noble Lord is using arguments which do not help us along the road of finding a method of coping with the problem. I think that the reason can be found in a phrase used by the noble Lord, Lord Noel-Baker, and echoed by the noble Lord, Lord Brockway—the use of the
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words " arms race ". I think that it is one of those metaphors which has become a cliche and which has distorted thought. There is no such thing as an arms race. The analogy with two small boys collecting rival piles of fireworks, for example, which is what it calls to mind, is wholly inappropriate. No one has arms—except perhaps for a few isolated and often petty tyrants—for the sake of prestige, for the sake of show, or for the sake of making an impression. If countries or states spend their substance, or their people's substance, on arms, they do so either because they believe that it is a way of imposing their will on others or because they believe that it is the only way of preventing others from imposing their will on them.
The noble Lord, Lord Brockway, began with a condemnation of the Israeli raid on the Iraqi reactor. I am not, and nor is the noble Lord, privy to the intelligence sources available to the Government of Israel when that decision was taken and I do not know, without access to those sources, whether that decision was justified or not. But clearly the belief that lay behind it was that this reactor was capable of producing nuclear weapons; that the state of Iraq, in which it stands, is a state which has maintained a state of war with the state of Israel for over 30 years although it has no territorial contiguity, and no kind of political claims to advance. Therefore, I do not think that it is altogether surprising that in a world in which there are states at war with another state—whether actively or merely on paper—the prospect of their attaining powerful weapons of mass destruction should be one which is liable to cause unpleasant and perhaps in this case—and, as I say, we do not know—a mistaken reaction.
But surely this points to the core of the problem. All over the world there are rivalries; there are positions of conflict. Most of the time we tend to think about the basic conflict between East and West, of which the Polish tragedy is another and the latest example. But can anyone look at Poland today or consider the arguments that have been advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Swynnerton, and still deny the importance of the military factor in international relations and the reality of deterrence? Why is it that the western countries and the western world are—and, I am sure that we would all agree, rightly—rightly concerned to do nothing which might suggest a positive contribution to Poland's defence of elementary human, social and political rights?—because they are deterred by the powerful military presence of the Soviet Union. Deterrence certainly works that way round. Why should we assume that it does not work the other way?
Again, does anyone seriously believe that the Polish military, who undoubtedly share the general patriotic sentiments of the nation to which they belong—would have courted the wrath, the indignation and, perhaps for a long period, the hostility of their own fellow countrymen unless—as has been more than hinted at by the Polish Prime Minister—they had the feeling that the alternative was a Soviet military occupation, and that if one is to live under military rule, it is not unnatural to prefer the military rule of one's countrymen to the military rule of a foreigner. For those, like the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, and myself, whose background is that of professional historians,

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the phrase "order reigns in Warsaw" has a very unpleasant and long-lasting resonance.
However, it is not only that conflict. If it were, it might be easier to solve. All over the world there are conflicts—some justified, where people are being denied justice; some the result of aims of an aggressive kind; but some, I would suggest, the result of the transformation of the world into a very large number of sovereign states, many of which, in fact, do not have the force at their command which enables them to escape from the domination of their neighbours—we have seen this in South-East Asia—some of which are unable to do what is normal for sovereign governments: to protect their citizens and other citizens going about their lawful business.
Let me take for a moment, if I may, a seasonal comparison. When I was a small boy, 60 years ago, at this time of the year I was taken to the theatre, and the two plays which were thought suitable for someone of my age were Peter Pan and Treasure Island. I knew that small boys could not actually fly; I also thought that pirates were things of the remote past. Yet today over some of the most important waters in the world—the avenues between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean—piracy is a way of life. It has not merely resulted in grave financial and commercial losses; it has resulted in further miseries for the people escaping from the tyranny of Vietnam. Can one really say that that part of the world has too much in the way of force at its disposal, or that the decline in the power of the navies of the commercial states of the world has not brought with it severe human penalties?
Therefore, I think that we must keep ourselves free precisely from those simplicities to which the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, wishes us to direct our attention. The world is a complicated, difficult and dangerous place. There are problems which we must solve in bringing about better relations between states; in trying to negotiate for the reduction of arms between great states which have very different views of the world. That is our business, and to be distracted from it by these shining generalities does no service for the cause of peace. For that reason it seems to me to be very important always to be clear what it is that we are aiming at when we introduce, in this House or elsewhere, a resolution or when we speak to it.
In my view there is one element of optimism in the arguments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Noel-Baker. I believe that he is right. I believe that the burden of armaments on the economies of many countries has become so serious that even those least disposed to question the use of military force are now likely to begin questioning it. It is because of the pressures on the Soviet economy to which the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, referred that I think—and it is the only reason why I think this—that we may have some success from the current talks on the limitation of armaments.
4.48 p.m.
Lord Kaldor: My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Noel-Baker for giving us yet another opportunity to discuss issues of defence and defence strategy. I am afraid that I cannot follow him in the particular arguments that he put forward today. As an economist, I cannot agree with many of the things
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he said about the connection between inflation, unemployment and military expenditure. To my surprise, I was forced to agree with many of the things that the previous speaker said on this subject. However, this detracts not at all from my admiration for the general view and philosophy of the noble Lord, Lord Noel-Baker. I have known him since the days when I was his pupil at the London School of Economics, before he became a Member of Parliament and then a Minister, since when he has consistently maintained his stand for peace and disarmament, both between the wars and since the Second World War, and has fought for it ceaselessly. On these fundamental issues there is no difference at all between us.
If I may, I should like to return the discussion to the central issues of defence strategy, on which some of us heard a very good debate last week, in which, however, certain matters which I regard as very important were left unsaid. I think I could sum up the majority view of the House on the central issue in a sentence by the noble Earl, Lord Cathcart, who said that,
"with the existence of nuclear weapons a policy of deterrence is inevitable".—(Official Report, 9/12/81; col. 1345.)
Not enough emphasis was laid on the fact that it is a peculiar sort of deterrence. It is the sort of deterrence the justification for which is that it is never going to be used, because if it were used it would completely defeat its purpose.
This country in particular is in such a vulnerable position that any attempt by us to use our nuclear deterrent, Polaris or Trident, would merely result in our own annihilation. Therefore, I do not believe that any British Government under any circumstances, whatever they may say now, would sanction the use of our nuclear deterrent, except perhaps in the sense that they might leave instructions behind that, if they were all dead, the surviving commanders of submarines should let off all our Polarises and Tridents. But that would not be deterrence. It would be an act of divine retribution, which is something different.
The great danger that I see is that, persuaded by NATO, by American thinking, we put too many of our eggs in the nuclear basket. We think of the next war as a nuclear war, which is an all-out war, which can last only a few hours. Whereas I think that the likelihood, on the whole, is that it will be a non-nuclear war, like the two world wars, or the Vietnam war—a war which could last for years rather than for hours. For this type of war, Britain has not been so ill prepared since I do not know when—I suppose since King Harold in 1066.
We are in a much worse position than our Continental allies who, despite what is being said now, might hold the line on the land frontiers; might prevent any Russian breakthrough. But we should be exposed to the blackmail of submarines, and to not having the naval power to secure our lifelines. This has been said by many people before. We have nothing like the resources that we had in 1914 or in 1939 to ensure the security of the communications of these islands and to prevent an invasion from the sea.
It has been suggested by many noble Lords that, whereas our position makes it impossible in fact that we should make a first use of the nuclear deterrent de facto, the enemy cannot be sure of this, and it is the uncertainty which is the real value of our nuclear

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deterrent. The enemy will not know what we will do. I should like to suggest that this is a double-edged argument. It is an argument the misuse of which has already cost us two world wars. In 1914 Sir Edward Grey was anxious to keep the Germans in the dark on the vital question of whether this country would be neutral in a coming European war or not. The German Ambassador persuaded the Kaiser that England would not fight if it came to a European war. If the Kaiser had not been convinced of that, he would not have given the order for general mobilisation, and the war might not have taken place.
In 1939 Neville Chamberlain told Hitler that we should fight for Poland. But he did so in a rather hesitant voice, and, after the many U-turns and tergiversations and the failure to fight for Czechoslovakia the year before, I believe Hitler was justified in thinking that it was not meant very seriously; and that, once Poland was conquered, or when France was conquered, we should abandon the war. In that he was mistaken. I mention these two examples only to show that a state of uncertainty does not always produce the results that are intended, but may produce the very opposite.
I belong to those who do not believe that it is possible ever to have complete multilateral nuclear disarmament. The best we can hope for is that the nuclear super-powers achieve a stable balance of terror—stable enough not to wish to disturb it by either one trying to get ahead of the other sufficiently to make likely the possibility of one destroying the other completely at a first strike. But once this stable balance is achieved then it is most improbable that a super-power would engage in an all-out war, and a war whose objective was the complete surrender, or defeat, of its opponent.
But that does not mean that nations will refrain from limited nuclear wars. We had Mr. Reagan saying the other day—Lord Chalfont is not here, otherwise I should have asked him whether that made him one of the KGB's agents for the promotion of the nuclear disarmament movements!—that he does not see why there should not be a nuclear war confined to Europe in the European theatre. I dare say that this would be welcome to the Americans. It may not be unwelcome to the Russians, although Mr. Brezhnev may not be quite so frank on the subject as the President of the United States.
From the point of view of Europe, however, this is the most dangerous possibility, and it is our duty to try to fight it in every way possible. That is why some of us believe that the current doctrine of using nuclear weapons as a way of avoiding defeat in a conventional war is something which should he excluded from our current strategy. Those of us who read Lord Carver's article in the Guardian this week will, I am sure, be convinced of that. There are no counter-arguments.
In other words, we ought to declare that we shall never use nuclear weapons first—never use them except as a response to a nuclear attack. That is an absolute necessity if we want to save Europe from extinction. The danger is that a nuclear war will not bring the world to an end; it will not mean the end of humanity, but it may mean the end of Europe, and we are Europeans. Therefore, we are particularly interested in the future of Europe. Yet the strategy of NATO which is
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triumphant at present regards the saving of money as the most important factor. They maintain that we save a lot of money on conventional armaments by having nuclear theatre weapons—the US now has 7,000 warheads in the European theatre.
While you can make a thermonuclear bomb as large as you like, as powerful as you like, what you cannot do is to make a nuclear bomb as small as you like. The smallest nuclear weapons have a power not much less than that dropped on Hiroshima. Seven thousand of them would have the effect of seven thousand Hiroshimas in Europe, which would leave Europe a nuclear wasteland.
I must bring my remarks to an end because this is a short debate. The essential requirement is to leave the balance of terror to the Russians and Americans and to reach a situation where Europe becomes a nuclear-free zone, thereby forcing the Americans to abandon any idea of fighting out a limited nuclear war which leaves them untouched at our expense. When Governments arrive at that idea I feel that progress is possible. However, it will make military expenditure for countries like Britain larger, rather than smaller, and that is why I do not like too much emphasis being placed on the fact that military expenditure causes us to be in the present very poor economic situation. In the case of Britain that is certainly not true.
5.1 p.m.
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: My Lords, the view of the Social Democratic Party was adequately explained by my noble friend Lord Aylestone. Incidentally, he appeared to be the only speaker to accept the disciplines of a short debate, and in the short time at my disposal I shall discard many of the things I had planned to say. It is important to pay personal tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Noel-Baker. I thought it was just a little unfair of the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, to suggest that Lord Noel-Baker was a purveyor of platitudes and a provider of generalities. If ever a man has witnessed, not only for his pacifist belief, and has sought to apply that faith, in international conferences and gatherings, to secure some practical reduction in armaments, it has been Lord Noel-Baker. He is, in a sense, a conscience to us all, and I admire his constancy of faith, despite the many frustrations he must have suffered in the course of a life devoted to securing the peace of the world.
I am glad that there is unanimity, including the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, in the view that armament expenditure is a substantial contributor to inflation. I accept some of the strictures he mentioned with regard to comparisons with Japan, Germany, Israel and so on, because there are many other factors contributing to inflation outside purely military expenditure. But if we look at the situation, I think we accept that inflation is probably the greatest menace to the continuation of our western society. In the United Kingdom, those of us who negotiate with Government departments on public expenditure are continually faced with the argument,—" It will offend or exceed the PSBR ".
That has been applied in the case of some very desirable projects, for example the gas pipeline which would bring gas from the North Sea and increase our energy resources; without that we are flaring off £1

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million of gas every day. Then there is railway electrification. A whole number of major projects which are desirable in our community are not being provided because of the effect of the PSBR. However, apparently, in calculating the PSBR, military expenditure is contributory to inflation.
Every year we should re-read the Brandt Report because it tells us a great deal about this subject and establishes the connection between military expenditure and inflation. The figure quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Noel-Baker, of 600 billion dollars being spent on arms, against 20 billion being spent now on development, is an imbalance in a sensible world. Those who look at the stock market these days will see that two major companies are in great trouble, Massey Ferguson and International Harvester, both of which are going through a massive financial reconstruction. Even British Leyland at Bathgate is having problems.
Those companies are engaged in providing capital equipment for food production. Meanwhile, countries in Africa and elsewhere are unable to buy that equipment. For example, poor old Uganda, recovering from the ravages of Amin, will spend this year 23 per cent. of her GNP on defence equipment and 7 per cent. on agriculture. Questions were asked in your Lordships' House the other day about the transportation of food in Africa. They have had an excellent harvest in Zimbabwe this year, but they cannot get it to the coast and get it distributed because of a lack of transportation equipment, this at a time when British Leyland at Bathgate is closing down and when British Rail workshops are reducing their manpower in Derby and elsewhere. It is that lack of balance of priorities that worries us all.
Last week in this House the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich told us a little about the discussions of the World Council of Churches in Amsterdam recently at which they were committed to the idea that we belong to one world, in which issues of peace, justice and security are all part of the one world, so that we cannot escape or isolate ourselves from other parts of the world. We are all concerned about frustrating the ambitions of communists but we should recognise that this objective can be attained not simply by multiplying the number of arms at our disposal. The greatest contribution to the defeat of communism in Europe immediately after the war was the Marshall Plan, in which 4 per cent. of the United States GNP was devoted to aid in Europe. That was a successful and important factor in preventing the spread of communism in Europe. In this country alone at the end of the war, impoverished as we were, 1 per cent. of our GNP was devoted to United Nations relief to less fortunate countries than our own. Today, we have reached about half of the 0·7 per cent. of the target which the United Nations has established as the appropriate figure for overseas aid.
I believe, therefore, that if we have the kind of world in which all the time we are increasing expenditure on armaments to the neglect of aid for development, we shall create the kind of social and political tensions on which communism grows and strengthens. I therefore make an appeal that we should think a little about how much we are spending on armaments and how little we are spending on aid and try to get our priorities in balance.
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The noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Swynnerton, made some interesting suggestions about building up the economic power of the Western nations in order to bring some pressure on the Soviet Union. I regard the present time as the moment for making approaches for d·tente, despite all the problems of Poland just now. The Soviet Union are currently spending 13 to 14 per cent. of their total GNP on armaments. In this country the figure is about 5 per cent. and in the United States it is about 6 per cent. The Soviet Union are having to sustain that burden of armaments with an army in the Far East, an army in Afghanistan, an army on the borders of Iran, and an army in Europe. They are having to support that kind of military expenditure on an economy that is inefficient and weak, and I am sure that the leaders in the Soviet Union realise that that is so. They are in a very critical position. They have had a very bad harvest this year. They are short of foreign currency and they are required to import wheat and equipment. It is at this time, when obviously they are in a state of weakness, that, despite all the disappointments that we have had in the past, we should be making every effort towards some initiatives in this field. If we continue to increase the burden of armaments, it will simply contribute to the destruction of Western society and all the standards that we hold to be important.
5.10 p.m.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, I should like to join in the tributes paid to my noble friend Lord Noel-Baker for introducing this short debate, and to say that I follow very largely what he had to say. Indeed, if I may venture to do so, I should like to strengthen his argument in one small respect. He said that Japan's military and defence expenditure is about 3 per cent. of her gross national product. In point of fact the expenditure is 0·9 per cent., and that makes my noble friend's case even stronger than he had already made it. I would not go so far as to say that there is a direct relationship, but there can be no reasonable doubt, as the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, has just suggested, that military expenditure does in fact notably contribute to inflation.
The noble Lord, Lord Beloff, suggested that there is no such thing as an arms race. I think that this is a semantic objection. I rather suspect that if an elephant walked into your Lordships' Chamber, the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, would say, " Well no, that's not a elephant, that's a pachyderm ". However, to most of us it would still be an elephant and for most of us there is still an arms race. I believe that this is a point that is accepted all over the world, accepted on both sides of the Chamber.
In the last two years we have seen a serious deterioration in the international situation. We have seen a growth of conflict and of tension. We have seen increasing military expenditure and an escalation of whatever we might call it. Whether we call it an arms race, an increase of arms, or whatever, it has gone on, and the process of détente which culminated in the Helsinki Agreement of 1975 has gone into reverse, and even the whole idea of detente is beginning to come under attack. There has been a very serious deterioration in the international atmosphere. The United States Senate has failed to ratify the limited SALT 2

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strategic arms limitation treaty which was signed by the USA and the USSR in June 1979, and prospects for SALT 2, let alone a SALT 3 treaty, begin to look extremely bleak.
In the time available to me this afternoon I shall not say a great deal about nuclear disarmament. For one thing, my noble friend Lord Kaldor has said a great deal of what I might otherwise have said, and for another thing, I have said it before and I shall probably say it again. So I shall not take up your Lordships' time, nor inflict further tedium upon you, by saying it again this afternoon. I want to devote the time available to me to making one or two other points.
The Soviet Union is deploying a new and highly accurate missile, the SS20, against targets in Western Europe as well as targets in Asia. The NATO decision of December 1979 to station ground-launched cruise missiles and Pershing II missiles in Western Europe dangerously escalates the nuclear arms race.
In the Library there is a document entitled The Soviet Military Power, issued by the Department of Defense of the United States of America. It is a glossy, well-produced, and very frightening document. Its object is not only to provide us with information, but also to shackle upon us the manacles of fear. It is intended to deprive us of that freedom from fear which President Roosevelt wanted us to enjoy, and to say, " Look, you have very grave reason to be alarmed ", and of course we have. But the object of this exercise is not merely to inform us; it is also to prepare public opinion in the United States of America to bear the burden of a very large arms expenditure, so that they can say, " We are matching, we are over-matching, we are in fact still the most powerful nation in the world ", as indeed they are.
So far as we are concerned the object of the exercise and the point behind the distribution of the document is equally to soften up our taxpayers, so that we are equally prepared to spend money on arms expenditure and to carry a burden of an unreasonably high character in order to match once again the threat which is posed in the document.
It is, of course, true that the Soviet Union is a formidable power. But in any military appraisal of strength on either side or of any given situation one does not only measure the physical and military capacity of the potential enemy—and I am sorry that we are slipping into that kind of terminology—but one considers what that power has to cope with, and what is the morale and standing of the power. On that balance the position of the Soviet Union at the present time is extremely weak, as the noble Duke, the Duke of Norfolk, pointed out on a previous occasion.
Therefore, the attempt to create a position in which all of us say, " Yes, yes, we must build up, build up ", is self-defeating because we are moving into a position in which we are armed beyond our capacity to manage. That is already the case so far as the Soviet Union is concerned. On a quite slender economic basis there is built an enormous military machine, and it has now risen to the point when it is beginning to weaken the entire organisation of the Soviet Union, instead of strengthening it. If we are ourselves moving into the same situation by building up our military power, we are undermining our economic basis; and that is the main
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point that the noble Lord. Lord Noel-Baker, was making in his very well-informed introductory speech.
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan severely heightened international tension. This escalating arms race—I use the term without apology—combined with the growing instability and the power relationships between nations poses a major threat to world peace. It also threatens the stability of the world economy—not only national economies—by concentrating scarce resources on armaments and thus condemning millions of people in the third world to continuing poverty and starvation.
The arms race gives an illusion of security, but in reality it increases the risk of war. We are already in an overkill situation, all around us. By piling armaments upon armaments, by seeing danger here and danger there, and saying, " Yes, we must have more, we must match this weapon, we must match the SS20 with a similar weapon "—regardless of the fact, so far as the West is concerned, that we still have a very substantial overall superiority in strategic missiles—by saying that we must match at all points, we are in danger of creating a position in which the explosion begins to become inevitable and in which the culmination of the arms race must eventually terminate in war. That is a risk which we cannot afford to take in the nuclear age.
My Lords, I am approaching the time at which I must sit down. The single point that I have made is the one I wanted to make. I agree very much indeed with what the noble Lord, Lord Noel-Baker, was saying. It would be a false move if, in an attempt to pretend that we are still a world power, on a super power basis, we maintained that we, too, must have our own independent nuclear weapons; that we must still pretend that we are, as we were, the largest and most important military power in the world. My Lords, we are still from many points of view a very great nation indeed. Artistically we can stand comparison with any nation in the world. Why do we not concentrate on the things we can do so well and not attempt to do something which, if we succeed in it, will only finish by destroying us?
5.21 p.m.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, we have had a most interesting debate, with differing views clearly expressed in all parts of the House. I should like to follow noble Lords who have expressed gratitude to my noble friend Lord Noel-Baker for tabling his Motion, and for the thoughtful speech with which he opened this debate. My noble friend, as several noble Lords have said, has a remarkable record of working for peaceful solutions of the grim problems which face the world, but he has done so throughout a long and active life without a faltering of resolve or a loss of idealism. I remember attending a public meeting in Anglesey as a schoolboy when my noble friend spoke about the League of Nations, and the lasting impression he made upon me and others 50 years or so ago.
Today he has drawn attention to the effect of the progressive accumulation of armaments upon the world economy and other problems, like inflation, which afflict us. It is not possible in this short debate to deal in detail with all the matters raised by my noble friend,

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but he pointed to the great dilemma, to the great paradox, probably the great crime; namely, that nations large and small are devoting a huge percentage of their resources to armaments of war and destruction while at the same time a high proportion of the world's population, about 800 million people, are starving or living just on the subsistence level. On the one hand, we have the Brandt Report, with its catalogue of human misery and its constructive recommendations. On the other, we have the ascending pile of armaments. One noble Lord objected to the term " armaments race ". What is the piling of armaments upon armaments but a race—and an obscene race at that? It is something which ordinary people, whose only wish is to live in peace, cannot understand—and who can blame them?
On the one hand, again, we have the so-called super powers facing each other with increasingly sophisticated nuclear equipment. It is just as well that we remind ourselves, and remind them, that they are called super powers only because they have big populations and large resources, and not because of any superior moral quality. What they do have, of course, is correspondingly very heavy responsibilities. There are also other countries which, like our own, spend more than they can afford on arms; and there are relatively poor countries, some with megalomaniac military leaderships, which squander what money they can get hold of while their people starve and rot with disease. Uganda under Amin was an example; El Salvador is another. It is a diabolical state of affairs.
This is the dilemma which concerns my noble friend and others, and in his Motion he relates the arms race to a number of other current problems such as inflation, unemployment and trade recession. Is my noble friend justified in setting the one against the other in this way? He produced some very persuasive arguments, and this is where the complexities begin to rear their heads.
In the broad global context my noble friend must be right in the sense that if the resources of all nations, large and small, or indeed a relatively small percentage of those resources—I think the figure of 1 per cent., mentioned in the Brandt Report, was referred to—were diverted to investment in productive industry, in research and education, in preventive health measures and in constructive aid to developing countries, then the world would very quickly become a happier place in which to live.
Mr. Brezhnev and his colleagues could devote more resources to making Soviet agriculture more effective, and to bringing their so-called virgin lands under cultivation. They do have, as noble Lords have mentioned, an acute economic problem, after all. President Reagan and his colleagues could begin to think about improving social services in the United States, and about diverting more to helping the third world, especially those countries in Latin America, many of which are in a morass of economic difficulty. Our own economic difficulties and problems at home would look a little less intractable if our defence bill was substantially reduced, as this Government have now begun to realise.
My noble friend is therefore right in his general proposition. But the tragedy is that these eminently desirable and sensible policies seem to have no early prospect of fulfilment. The world is full of danger
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spots, like the Middle East, Afghanistan and Southern Africa, and there is a struggle for spheres of influence in other places. It is easy to be pessimistic as we approach this Christmas of 1981. As the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Swynnerton, said, Poland is very much in our minds at this time, and the House must hope that sanity will prevail in that country because the Polish people are a great nation and a courageous people, and they deserve to be allowed to develop in their own way in independence.
But it would be a mistake not to recognise at the same time that there are small signs of hope. I thought that my noble friend Lord Kaldor, who always makes a constructive contribution in this House, was rather over-pessimistic today. I think that there are small signs of hope, as I am sure my noble friend Lord Noel-Baker would agree. For example, I do not totally dismiss as frivolous and superficial some of the statements recently made by President Reagan and Mr. Brezhnev. The former has modified his attitude, and the latter knows perfectly well, and has said so, that a nuclear war would be a universal disaster. They, of course, and their colleagues, are perfectly aware of the consequences of a nuclear holocaust. To think that you could confine a nuclear war to Europe is to be foolish. A nuclear war in Europe would spread and become a global nuclear war, and Russia and the United States would be largely destroyed in that terrible process.
In addition, there are the conferences and the talks in Mexico, in Madrid, and now in Geneva. There are people who dismiss these talks as useless and a waste of time. But they are greatly mistaken to say this, for as the noble Lord, Lord Aylestone, stressed in his speech, it is when the talking stops that we should begin to tremble for the world. These talks can be disappointing, as we know only too well—as they were, indeed, I think, in Cancun, in Mexico—but we must persist with them, for the enemy of peace is fear and suspicion and these can be dispelled only if there is a meeting place and a will to make progress.
We have had debates on defence and foreign affairs, and on the Brandt Report and the third world, and will not tire the House with a repetitive speech. The Geneva conference is crucial, but if the will is there then the central problem of medium-range missiles in Europe can be solved. We rely on the Government to bring all their influence, all their skill and all their determination to bear to help towards a solution. It is sometimes difficult to see the wood for the trees. The propaganda is deafening, and blinding. The Soviet Union talks constantly about peace. But peace depends on faith, and it depends on good works as well. The propaganda directed at Western Europe must be matched by real progress in Geneva, and it would help the Soviet Union's image and increase our confidence in them if they started a phased withdrawal from Afghanistan.
In his speech last week my noble friend referred to his recent visit to the Soviet Union, and I heard and read later with interest what he said about the discussions he had there on defence and on disarmament. He referred to his clear belief that the Soviet Government have a better understanding than we have of the horror of nuclear war, and that the Soviet Govern-

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ment and people are obsessed by the fear and hatred of war.
The second proposition, I have no doubt, is true. I had the honour to lead a parliamentary delegation to the Soviet Union three years ago and the impression gathered by the representatives of both Houses was the same as his. Soviet losses were so huge in the last war—2 million died in Leningrad alone—that they abhor and dread the very thought of another war, let alone a nuclear one; but I am not sure that they have a better understanding of the horror of nuclear war than we have in the West.
What is clear is that the Russian people believe that the threat of war is all on one side, that it is the West, and especially the USA, which is aggressive and that the Soviet Union is innocent and pacific. The truth is that, leaving Afghanistan out for a moment, the very act of increasing nuclear capacity, the concentration of land-based intermediate range missiles, the so-called " theatre missiles (a phrase I do not like) in Europe is a threat. We, in the West of Europe, are as apprehensive of the Soviet SS20s, which are already there, as they are of cruise missiles and Pershing 2s which are not yet installed. The danger lies as much in the conditioning of minds as it does in the deployment of missiles. The young people of the West are demonstrating mainly against nuclear weapons in the West; the young people of Eastern Europe are also demonstrating against nuclear weapons in the West. Whatever they may say, I hope that the young people in the East are in their hearts demonstrating as much against the SS20s as against other nuclear weapons. If they are, that is the beginning of wisdom. The zero option means zero everywhere throughout the world.
I was much encouraged by what the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, said when he wound up our defence debate on 9th December. He said (Hansard, col. 1425):
" I would say that our disarmament hopes are high … That does not mean that we expect miracles, or expect miracles quickly, but for the reasons I gave in my opening statement we are optimistic ".
All of us here, of all shades of opinion, would agree on one thing: that the policy of the final document of the first special session of the United Nations in 1978 should be implemented as rapidly as possible. That is at the heart of my noble friend's plea to the House, and he made it plain in his opening speech today.
If we look at our own country, then the other related matters raised by my noble friend are very much in our minds. We can assume that the Government are currently considering defence expenditure as part of their Budget preparations. We need effective defence in this country within our capacity and within the framework of our alliances. This is not the moment to examine our economic policies but it is as well to remember that our position and influence in the world would be stronger if we were speaking from a more stable economic base. At the root of my noble friend's Motion is the need for disarmament. The objective must be to support all constructive initiatives for disarmament in Geneva now, and, when the START talks begin in a few weeks, there as well.
Can the Minister give the House some indication of how the Geneva talks are proceeding? Are Her
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Majesty's Government satisfied that some worthwhile progress is being made? I know that he cannot give details, but a broad assessment would be helpful to the House and the country at present. Can he say what part this country will play in the START talks? I know that we shall not be main participants, but I assume that there will be full consultations. It will be interesting to know whether these will be between the USA and NATO or on a Government-to-Government basis? Finally, there is no doubt that people everywhere are yearning for a substantial practical act of disarmament. It would be wicked and cynical for the Soviet Union or for the USA or any other country to deny the people of the world what they should rightly have. I hope that this country will play its part fully in the efforts to achieve success.
5.35 p.m.
The Minister of State for Defence Procurement (Viscount Trenchard): My Lords, I must thank the noble Lord, Lord Noel-Baker, who introduced the debate, for an extremely interesting debate. It is with reluctance that it is my duty to resist some part of his passionate idealism with which so many of us agree. As my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for defence has said, defence may be expensive but war is enormously more expensive. In the world in which we live, as opposed to the desirable world which the noble Lord, Lord Noel-Baker, would like us to live in, we must maintain the peace. This currently means maintaining deterrence against potential aggressors. Nevertheless, we support fully the sentiments that have been expressed in the debate towards arms control and disarmament on a multilateral basis and supported by practical verification.
We are currently optimistic following President Reagan's initiative that talks both on intermediate-range nuclear weapons and on the reduction of strategic nuclear weapons will achieve a practical reduction in armaments and in spending upon them. We believe that the firmness of the United States and NATO not to allow the balance of arms to be tilted even further against NATO is responsible for the new talks which have now started.
We are not ashamed of our past record in relation to other kinds of expenditure. We spend on aid to the third world substantially more than the USSR in relation to our national income and we spend a large proportion of it on the poorer countries; whereas the USSR spends virtually the whole of it on Cuba and Vietnam. The total figures are 0.34 per cent of national income for the United Kingdom compared with 0.1 per cent. for the Soviet Union. Neither should it be forgotten that the USA spends more on aid for the undeveloped world than any other nation. In other desirable areas of expenditure, we spend almost twice on health and education together compared with what we spend on defence. In the USSR, the situation is the opposite way round.
This Motion and the speech of the noble Lord have assumed that there is an arms race, yet Professor Lawrence Martin, the Reith Lecturer, pointed out that the percentage of GDP spent by the United States and this country has reduced substantially since the early 1960s. As noble Lords well know, the Soviet Union is spending between 12 per cent. and 14 per cent. Of

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its national income on defence—which is double the percentage spent by members of NATO. It is estimated that the share of national income spent on defence for the world as a whole fell from about 7 per cent. in the mid 1960s to about 5½ per cent, in the late 1970s and the USSR, as I have made clear, made a heavy negative contribution to this reduction.
Too many noble Lords on both sides of the House have assumed, because they have heard the phrase " arms race " so often, that there is an arms race. In economic terms that is not true, but in the power of modern weapons, it is true. But the world as a whole has seen a reduction in expenditure since the mid-1960s and that has been wholly on the side of the West while Russia has moved in the opposite direction. In the defence debate I made clear that we believe that the policy of deterrence with possession of arms for defence of the free nations of the world is a necessity and that the major crime, which too often is not mentioned, is aggression, which continues. I have not the time (much as I should have liked to do so) to follow the noble Lord, Lord Kaldor, into the defence area which we covered fairly fully in a debate last week; but I must say to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, that I am delighted that he mentioned the SS20s today, but he then went on to mention the plan to place the cruise and Pershing missiles and suggested that this was a setback to the movement towards world disarmament.
I would point out the timing of these things. The USSR started to place the SS20s in 1977. NATO announced that we would modernise and place land-based nuclear missiles in Europe which could reach Russia, of which at the moment we have none; and we took that decision in 1979 as part of a two-way decision which depended upon whether or not we managed to get into arms control talks—which we have now managed to do.
In our defence debate, as was mentioned, the noble Lord, Lord Noel-Baker, said that the Russian people wanted peace. What worries us is the rulers in dictatorships. He was recorded, in replying to an intervention by my noble friend Lord Renton, as saying that of course we are all agreed that it is regrettable that the Soviet Union do not take the same view of human rights as we take. I suggest that this is not a detail. The two and a half million refugees who have left Afghanistan are proof to that. I believe that the difference of approach that stems from this attitude, which the noble Lord himself agreed, must colour all the steps that we take to move towards the ideal world that the noble Lord has in mind. I say " colour" but not stop us. With totalitarian states with aggressive records we must tread with care. But we believe the time is right for practical steps forward.
Against the background of the prime necessity of the security of the nation and of the maintenance of peace against a potential aggressor, the terms of this Motion and, indeed, the suggestions of the noble Lord and others that everything harmful in the economic world is correlated with defence expenditure and that everything good is correlated with low defence expenditure, is a slightly academic study. However, correlations need examining closely. There is a close correlation between the growth of television sets and the growth of heart attacks hut there is no causal significance in
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that correlation. Unemployment, inflation and recession can be correlated with many other things. Economists have covered volumes in the pursuit of the causes of inflation. It is, of course, possible that too much public expenditure can contribute to inflation but so can cost push inflation, fuelled by strong wage demands; or scarcity of goods in the face of strong demands; so can lack of monetary control. Perhaps a broad way to look at the limited meaning of these correlations would be to look at history—for instance, at the Roman Empire at the height of its military expenditure and enormous economic growth; and at the huge economic recovery achieved by Hitler's Germany at the time, regrettably, of massive rearmament.
No, my Lords, the 5¼ per cent. of GDP that this country spends on defence at the moment is not the cause of our economic ills. Our lack of competitiveness leading to our loss in the share of world markets from 20 per cent. in 1960 to 8½ per cent. in 1975 has many other reasons which have been debated over and over again in this House. If we look at the figures, we find that inflation in the 1940s was much lower than it was in the 1970s. For the decade from 1939 to 1949 up to half our national income went on defence yet at the end of that decade prices had only doubled. By comparison, the 1980 pound was worth about a quarter of its 1970 value, yet defence spending during that decade was 5 per cent. of GDP.
The same story emerges internationally. Although noble Lords have mentioned Israel and Japan, I would quote the Swiss, with annual inflation of around 5 per cent., with strong growth around 5½ per cent. per annum and with a relatively strong and effective defence; whereas Iceland, which spends practically nothing on defence, averaged 30 per cent. inflation in the 1970s. Unemployment has increased throughout the 1970s yet, as I have stated, total military expenditure as a share of national income fell.
Let me take South Korea, with 6 per cent. of GDP for that developing country spent on defence, and an 8 per cent. to 9 per cent. a year growth rate. Let me take the USSR with a 12 per cent. to 14 per cent. expenditure on defence and inflation—not that the Soviet consumer is in a very happy state—at only 1 per cent. to 2 per cent. When I look at France, I find good growth and high defence expenditure. The case is not proved by the two examples that the noble Lord, Lord Noel-Baker, gave.
In the 1981 Year Book of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute the following statement appears:
" It does not appear valid to attribute this worsening economic performance to any change in the trend of military expenditure—for the very good reason that there has been no significant change in that trend. The reasons for the deteriorating economic performance lie elsewhere ".
The trend referred is, of course, the downward trend in defence expenditure which has occurred during this period to which I have referred and to which Professor Lawrence Martin also referred, and which contradicts the thesis of the arms race. In addition to the many other factors that I mentioned earlier, economic performance varies because of factors like sharp increases in oil prices and rapidly developing competition from newly industrialised countries. These have much relevance.

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As I have said, the vital necessity for the economy, as for everything else, is to maintain peace. At a more detailed level, 237,000 jobs in the United Kingdom are directly involved in the defence industries and approximately the same number of people again are involved indirectly. This does not include members of the armed forces or civil servants in the Ministry of Defence. Efforts that I have seen to correlate the capital intensity, which the noble Lord, Lord Noel-Baker, mentioned today, of the defence industry with low employment in my opinion do not stand up. Pressed for time, I would merely quote Karl Marx, who I believe said that capital was the fruits of past labour and all that capital has indeed to be produced. This is a complicated subject but I do not believe that these correlations are made out.
Furthermore, the advance of high technology in the defence industries has produced a major beneficial fall-out in the civil area, notably in aircraft, communications and in satellites for communications, which are to the benefit of the world as a whole. Also—dare I say it?—though many of us may regret the splitting of the atom, it may prove to be the basis on which the maintenance of our whole standard of life may rest when other energy supplies run out.
In fact, the economic justification for this Motion in our view is not substantiated. This does not mean that we should not take every step that we can to save money for other purposes, and for that reason we supported the recent United Nations study and will support further studies. However, the Government accept the absolute duty for any realistic measures of arms control that can be achieved without threat to our national security and the defence by NATO of peace, freedom and democracy.
I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos, that we shall leave no practical stone unturned in the world in which we actually live to move in that direction. At this very important moment in international discussions we hope that the Soviet Union will respond to the real and practical initiatives agreed by NATO and put forward by President Reagan on behalf of the United States.
I will write to the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos, in detail on his two questions. But I am satisfied that the Geneva talks are off to a constructive start. I believe that these negotiations should be conducted by the smallest number of the main countries involved and should be conducted in secret if they are to make progress. I am, however, completely satisfied with the consultation procedures lying behind those which make absolutely sure that the United States will move forward with the full agreement of the rest of the NATO alliance.
5.49 p.m.
Lord Noel-Baker: My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. To some of them I will express my personal gratitude in writing. At this hour I do not want to add further observations, except to say that I agree with noble Lords who have said that the policy of world disarmament is idealistic—and in my view the better for that; but I add my deep conviction that world disarmament of the kind defined in the final document of the Special Session of 1978 is
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the only realistic policy of national defence. The armaments do not defend. They are machinery for destroying an enemy, but they do not protect the people who maintain them. Look at Vietnam!
I beg leave to withdraw my Motion, and I do not ask for Papers.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

South-West Atlantic: Development Opportunities
5.51 p.m.
Lord Morris Lord Morris rose to call attention to the development opportunities in the South-West Atlantic; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. The knowledge and experience of this ever-increasingly important part of the world held by other noble Lords who are to follow me is a source of great comfort to me and indeed a great help. My interest in the subject is limited to the short period of time I have been a Member of your Lordships' House. However, one thing I have learned in that time is that the uninterest of successive Governments is in dramatic contrast to the interest and concern of the people they govern and the Members of both Houses of Parliament, of all political persuasions. Even today an Early Day Motion has been tabled in another place with no less than 66 signatures of Members of another place, of all shades of opinion. No doubt many more names will be added to the list and I cannot help wondering, in all seriousness, what direct material effect that will have.
It reminds me so often, this subject, of A. G. MacDonell's England, Their England, wherein your Lordships will recall the personal assistant of the United Kingdom's delegate to the League of Nations was sent to elucidate from the Permanent Representative Her Majesty's Government's foreign policy on a particular matter. The officials looked in total amazement when he asked this question, as though he were mad, and responded:
" Her Majesty's Government do not have a foreign policy other than, of course, that we must be nice to the French ".
If one is to substitute " the Argentinians " for " the French " I think one has the message.
Recent parliamentary endeavour and history around this subject has shown us that, with the notable exception of the Administration which the late and much-missed Lord Goronwy-Roberts served, which made a very real attempt to do something, the attitude of successive Administrations has been:
" Who will rid me of this turbulent priest? "
Lip-service alone has been paid to the major recommendations in the admirable economic survey of the Falkland Islands made by the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton. Indeed, at the very beginning of this Government's Administration in May 1979 an Answer was given in another place in the form of a Statement, to the effect that the majority of recommendations in the report had been implemented. The Question that had been asked in the other place was followed up by a Question in your Lordships' House and it was made quite clear that, by any straightforward measure, this

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was nothing if not misleading. However, am pleased to inform your Lordships that only this afternoon in another place the record has been put straight. In answer to the same Question—of course, I am quoting from memory—Her Majesty's Government changed their answer and gave the following:
" Very many of the recommendations have been implemented, some are in hand, and some have been rejected ".
In the light of that Answer, may I ask my noble friend which of the recommendations of the report have been rejected? He will be aided in his answer because he can refer specifically to the list of recommendations which was tabled by Her Majesty's Government at the time. That would be very helpful indeed. It is, however, sad to reflect that those recommendations which will have a major impact upon development will no doubt be those which are rejected.
As your Lordships will be aware, there are other indications of increasing uninterest by Her Majesty's Government in maintaining and encouraging developments in that part of the world. In the face of increasing activity by other nations in the marine resources of the Falkland Islands and Dependencies and the Treaty area of Antarctica, Her Majesty's Government decided to take HMS " Endurance " out of active service next May. Knowing full well that other noble Lords will be developing this theme far better than I ever could, I will only say that this decision is as sad as it is short-sighted. This decision has been greeted with unalloyed joy in the Argentinian press. It has been seen, which is hardly surprising, and I quote—
" as a relaxation of Britain's vigil in Antarctica ".
When one considers the almost certain presence of oil in the area, not to mention the fish, krill and kelp, one begins to understand the ever-increasing international interest and activity in the Falkland Islands and British Antarctica. A recent survey of Antarctic waters by the CIA Glomar Explorer, previously used to raise part of a Russian missile submarine sunk off Hawaii, discovered large quantities of methane gas, which is, as your Lordships will know, a very firm indication of the presence of oil. The agency's report said that oil reserves as much as a third of those now in Saudi Arabia lie under the Antarctic Ocean, most of them in territory now claimed by Britain. This view is endorsed by scientists of the British Antarctic Survey. In addition, West German scientists, during the survey by the research ship " Meteor " in the 1980–81 southern summer reached similar conclusions.
West Germany, like Russia, America, Japan, China and Brazil among others, have no territorial claims in Antarctica but that in no way appears to inhibit their research. Indeed, Dr. Richard Laws, director of the British Antarctic Survey, points out that in the case of the Russians their claims are widespread throughout the continent. With newcomers like the Chinese, an agreement has been reached with Chile for joint exploration and research. Since the Antarctic treaty does not touch on the economic exploitation of the continent, only the climatic and sea conditions remain a real barrier to attempts to extract the oil. These and the present world glut of oil are likely to be only short-term inhibitions, since in the view of Dr. Laws
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the technology now exists to enable the oil to be drilled once the most promising sites have been located.
This brings me to HMS " Endurance ", because one of the most vital tasks that ship performs is the hydro-graphic survey of such areas which are still largely uncharted. As has been seen with the movements of oil rigs around the familiar coasts of the British Isles, such surveying is absolutely essential as a preliminary to the movement of both rigs and supertankers.
Another piece of evidence of international interest in this part of the world is that the French have now established an important base with a colonial governor on the remote Kerguelen group of islands, which are far to the east of South Georgia, but only a little more northerly in latitude than South Georgia. It is from Kerguelen that the French support their research stations in that part of Antarctica to which they lay claim.
Notwithstanding that, perhaps the most telling development has been the fact that Argentina has advertised the availability of licences to drill for oil in disputed waters that straddle the median line between the Falklands and Patagonia. My honourable friend in another place, the Member for Uxbridge, Mr. Michael Shersby, in an excellent speech on the Address, named three groups of companies which are interested in bidding for concessions. Her Majesty's Government's response to this—and I quote from column 202 of the Commons Hansard of 5th November—was:
" We have protested to the Argentinian Government about what they have said. Our information is that the block for which they have invited tenders … has not yet been awarded ".
The only response one could possibly have to that is: I should think not!
I was pleased to learn that my noble friend Lord Mottistone will speak on the point of the illegal occupation of Southern Thule. I do not wish to develop this, but I should like to say that the presence of military personnel on British territory, and indeed in British Antarctica, is nothing other than deplorable. No doubt, my noble friend Lord Montgomery of Alamein might be tempted to suggest that the military uniform and side-arms of the Argentinians are akin to the bowler hat and umbrella of the British. However, I shall not say any more on that point, because I know that my noble friend Lord Mottistone will be handling it. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
6.3 p.m.
Lord Shackleton: My Lords, I rise to support the noble Lord, Lord Morris. I am not sure whether I heard him correctly at the beginning. I support him on most things, but, if I may say so, his enthusiasm has led him slightly astray in giving the names of senior diplomats. On the whole, as a former Civil Service Minister, I find this undesirable. I forgive him, and perhaps he may have said something at the beginning. But perhaps, at the end, he might care to express some regret on this. It would be very undesirable. Somebody might give the noble Lord's number, but perhaps he would not mind that.
The subject of this debate is a very good one, because we are talking about the South-West Atlantic and one of the problems is in getting people to understand that

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this is not a single issue. It is not just the Falklands; it is not HMS " Endurance "; it is not South Georgia and it is not oil on the Burdwood Bank. It is a complex which needs to be looked at in a totality, because these issues are all very closely related. Of course, the British Antarctic Territory is a place to which, thanks to the treaties—and I know that this is an old remark—the cold war has never come. It owes much to the pioneer work of British scientists and explorers over many years. It is in this context that noble Lords and honourable Members in another place have been critical of the decision to scrap HMS " Endurance ". This is perhaps the most obvious and vital symbol that is at stake.
It is not without significance that I have been approached by friends on the Argentine side, who have asked whether that meant that the British were thinking of changing their posture generally. I may say that I believe the Government when they say that they have no such intention. But intentions are not enough, and it is some of the facts that we want to draw to the attention of the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale. I am not sure how far he has dealt with this subject. I know that he is interested in conservation and that is one of the matters that I shall want to talk about.
I am sorry to say—and this is why I sympathise with the noble Lord, Lord Morris, in his desperation in trying to get at the diplomats—that no Government have ever really understood this issue. I would also say that, had it not been for some pretty determined action, particularly in another place, we might well have seen a departure, an abandonment of our interests. What is at stake—and I say this particularly to the noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery, who, dare I say, may be speaking for the Opposition on this occasion, and not for the first time—is peace and the continuation of the status quo in the Antarctic and in the adjacent islands: that is quite fundamental.
It is, of course, a fact, as the noble Lord, Lord Morris, has said, that the Argentines have fired a few shots in the past, though, I am happy to say, not recently. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, will be referring to the fact that there are not many scientists on the Argentine base, that there are quite a number of military bearing arms, and even carrying that new-born baby whose mother was flown there so that there might be the first Argentine colonial member of the Antarctic. My friend Peter Scott carried that 10-day old baby in his arms. I do not say that the baby is contrary to the Antarctic treaty, but bearing arms is.
Most of the arguments have been deployed at some time or other, but I should like to recap some of the main points with regard to the Falklands. First, the Falkland Islands are unquestionably British. I am told that some tourists from South America arrived there and expected to be able to speak in Spanish. They are very surprised when they look at the oppressed Falkland Islanders and find that they are very British and very proud. They are indistinguishable—and people will have seen some recent television films about them—from inhabitants of the British Isles. They are a declining population. This is because their future is uncertain and, again, the
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decision to scrap HMS " Endurance " contributes to that.
But I want to repeat something of which no Government will ever take cognisance, although it is in my report, which was rather long, and I shall not blame the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, if he has not had time to read it. But the fact is that over the 23 years up to 1973, the Falklands effectively contributed to the United Kingdom Exchequer—that is, out of profits repatriated to this country—more than twice what they received by way of assistance at current prices. In certain years, it may have been the other way round. I am not making a racist point, but if the inhabitants had been not British but Indian, coloured or black, there would have been a howl at the United Nations, because this is a classic example of colonial exploitation. I say that without any hesitation. The British have failed to repay a debt which they owe to the Falklands.
Not everybody may like the Falkland Islands. It is wild, empty country with a very temperate climate. They never have it as cold as we have had it in one or two parts of Britain lately, and they do not get it as warm either. The wealth there has been in the sheep. They are dependent on good relations with the Argentine, which provides many services. I hope that they will continue to be good neighbours and, maybe, in the course of time, as this good neighbourliness develops, the people of the Falkland Islands may wish to have some association. But the Falkland Islands are 300 miles away. After all, Britain was a bit slow in joining European Community and we are only 20 miles away.
The fact is that at the moment the people there, for good or for ill, are totally opposed to the idea of being joined up with the Argentine. But it is not only the Falkland Islands. There are the dependencies. There is that marvellous island of South Georgia, one of the most beautiful islands in the world, which is on the other side of the Antarctic convergence. Although it is only the same latitude South as Manchester is North, it is very sub-arctic. It has marvellous wildlife, abandoned ghost towns from the days of the whaling stations, tens of thousand of pounds worth of equipment. It is the centre of one of the richest fishing areas in the world. These ports are properly British. We have developed them. Although at the moment there is only a British Antarctic survey base, it would be intolerable if the Falkland Islands were leased or given away and if South Georgia should also go that way.
The fact is that most of the fishing and maritime development in the Antarctic has been done by the British. I am going back not only to the explorers but to the discovery, the investigations, the biological work. At the moment we are taking nothing in the way of the wealth of the sea. In the last year or two it is said that the Russians took 240,000 tonnes of fish from the vicinity of South Georgia. They are already beginning to take fairly large quantities of squid, and certainly fairly large quantities of krill. I do not know how much squid they are taking. There is enough food there to equal the whole of the world's fishing industry product. There is an important requirement to achieve a proper régime of conservation in which I know that the British, having taken the initiative, will play an important part.

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This links up with the South-West Atlantic. In the British Antarctic territory where there have been bases for a number of years (American bases are nearby and also Argentine bases) there is undoubtedly a prospect—I say no more than that—of oil. I have very mixed feelings about oil. I would much rather that people did not find oil either in the vicinity of the Falklands—because I do not think that in the short run it would necessarily be to the benefit of the Falklands—or in the Antarctic. But if oil is found, it will almost certainly be exploited. It would be very wrong if the British were to abandon their entitlement under whatever treaty arrangement may be made to exploit oil, since we are the people who have done most of the work in developing this part of the world.
This brings me back once again to the importance of HMS " Endurance " and the importance of the white ensign in the Antarctic. HMS " Endurance "—I assure noble Lords that it is not because of my family connection that I take this view—is the one naval ship which is capable of going into ice. It is also the one ship which, with her very economical performance, is capable of covering tremendous distances. The Falkland Islands are 7,500 miles from the United Kingdom. To send a modern frigate down there would require a lot of time. It would probably need a fleet auxiliary company, because frigates have such poor endurance, and it is doubtful whether there is suitable gas turbine fuel in the area. HMS " Endurance" is particularly well qualified to perform this role. It is a former Danish Dan ship—I think it was the " Anita Dan "—and she probably has another 15 years of life. We are told by the Government that it costs £4 million to £4½ million a year to maintain her and that this is too large an amount to be carried. But the fact is that a number of very heavy overhead costs are loaded on to this. If one looks at the cost of British Antarctic surveys, with two ships—" Brans-field ", which is very much larger than " Endurance ", and " Biscoe "—several bases, and several aircraft and if one realises that " Endurance " comes to a great deal less than that, one wonders whether or not HMS " Endurance " could be operated more cheaply. It is vital that the white ensign should be there. It is vital that there should he a presence. When the research ship " Shackleton " was intercepted there is now good evidence that the presence of HMS " Endurance ", even though she is not heavily armed, since she has only two 220 millimetres, a couple of helicopters and perhaps a few missiles for the helicopters, was a point in ensuring that our ship was not taken after she had had shots fired at her—officially across the bows but actually over. HMS " Endurance ", furthermore, has saved a lot of money and, I suspect, lives. They provide the back-up to British Antarctic surveys. When " Biscoe " was damaged, HMS " Endurance " had to tow " Biscoe " from Port Stanley to the River Plate, the longest tow since the war, with very great economy. Again, HMS " Endurance " had to help " Bransfield " when she went aground in Graham Land. HMS " Endurance " is part, but not an isolated part, of the general picture in the Antarctic and the sub-Antarctic area.
This is a short debate. There are many arguments which I could add. Although I have been black-guarded in the Argentine press—at least they thought
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they were blackguarding me when they said that I was as bad as Drake, Dampier and Cavendish—the British take this as a compliment! There was something about the wolf having sailed. I have many friends in the Argentine. I have a very high regard for the Argentinians. They have a proud tradition. But they ought to realise that we also still, I hope, carry some traditions and some duties. This is something which we can afford because our future in the Antarctic is very important. I am not talking about the next year or two but about the next 20 or 30 years. A withdrawal now might be very difficult to recover from. It may be necessary for HMS Endurance " to be laid up for a year, but I hope very much that it will be possible to sustain the one ice-patrol ship that we have which is also capable, if necessary, of being operated in the Arctic.
There have been some broadcasts on the subject. One produced a letter which, although a bit of a tear-jerker. I should like to read to your Lordships. It is written from a school which is named after my father. They use the family motto: " By endurance we conquer ". This is why my father called the ship " Endurance ". They say:
" We are so sad to hear that the ' Endurance' is on its last voyage and is going to be sold to another country ".—
I hope there is no question of HMS " Endurance " being sold to another country in the short run—
" We are so unhappy to think what might happen in the future. It would be wrong if the Antarctic Treaty was not renewed and people move in and build oil rigs and drill for minerals spoiling the landscape. If the land was polluted penguins may die out and become extinct ".
These are very small children. The letter continues:
" All the good things would be destroyed. Please would you do all you can so these things do not happen. Is there any more we can do? "
And so on:
" … it would be a shame to spoil this land and just let it be used for money-making purposes ".
The least I can do is to read that letter to your Lord-ships' House. Although it may be sentimental, there are still reasons why our own interest coincides with sentiment.
6.20 p.m.
Lord McNair: My Lords, somebody had to have the misfortune of trying to follow the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, on this subject and it seems to be my unlucky day. We hear him all too seldom. On this subject he is, of course, the acknowledged expert. It has occurred to me that, as the number of our colonial dependencies decreases, it ought to be possible for Her Majesty's Government to give an increasing amount of attention to those which remain. In my necessarily rather hurried study of this subject, I find very little evidence that that is actually what happens. I will leave it to other more qualified speakers, particularly the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Hill-Norton, to say what is the strategic significance of the geographical position of the Falkland Islands, but I assume that, at least in the negative sense of denying that base to any potential enemy, they must be of some importance. However, that may be, I am basing my speech on the assumption that we do intend that the Falklands shall remain British. It would surely be

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quite unthinkable to make any other assumption in view of the loyalty and the frequently-expressed wishes of the inhabitants, practically all of whom are of our blood.
This is a declining economy that we are looking at, and it is dangerously dependent on the single commodity of wool. There is no lack of suggestions as to how this decline might be halted. Most of them are either ways in which the economic and social infrastructure of the islands can be improved or directions in which the economy might be diversified. Diversification depends, of course, on infrastructure, and both depend upon the removal of political uncertainty, since political uncertainty deters investment just as surely as it lowers the morale of the population. There are others who will deal with many of these difficult and interlocking questions. Two previous speakers have already dealt with many of them. I shall leave kelp and krill to the experts and concentrate on the sheep and the wool, the land and the people who so sparsely inhabit it. I do this not only to conceal my own ignorance of the more technical subjects but also because I feel sure that no matter how desirable some of these more complicated developments may be in the long run, the economy of the Falkland Islands will for all practical purposes for some time to come depend upon the land, the sheep and, most definitely, the people.
There seems to be unanimity among all the experts I have been able to consult, among whom I include the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, the Guillebaud Report, and the Falkland Islands Office of Information. There seems to be unanimity that the free-ranging system of grazing sheep has led to a progressive decline in the quality of the pasture. The sheep are not fools; they eat what they like first, and like children they should be encouraged to eat the other equally nourishing things which are not so appetising. Everybody agrees that more fencing is needed so that tracts of grazing land can be rested in rotation. I understand that in many cases electric fencing could be powered by wind-generated electricity. All this is so widely agreed that one wonders why it has not been more widely practised.
I wonder too whether the monocultural preoccupation with sheep is altogether wise. The Falkland Islands' yield of about 2,000 tons per year looks very small when compared with the 900,000 tons which come from Australia and New Zealand, and it is entirely at the mercy of fluctuations in the demand for, and price of, wool, and open to increasing competition from man-made fibres. I read that in the middle of the last century there were about 50,000 head of cattle roaming wild in the Falkland Islands: these were the feral descendants of quite a few South American cattle which de Bougainville had deposited there in 1764. So some diversification into beef and out of wool would seem to me to be a sound policy.
However, what I consider to be the most important point—and here again I find that the experts are all agreed—is that the system of land tenure is at the root of the trouble. I find it very difficult to believe, although I have read it in at least two reports, that there are only about 30 farms in this territory, which is not much smaller than Wales. The ownership of
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these farms is concentrated in a very few hands. There are virtually no tenant farmers, only salaried managers. However well-paid these managers and the other employees may be, they lack the incentive of the farmer who farms his own land. There is in my party a fairly ancient tradition of anti-landlordism, but I want to assure the House that we do no longer sing the old song, " Give the land back to the people ", perhaps because we have all forgotten the words, if indeed we ever knew them.
It is not that spirit which inspires the next point I wish to make, which is that I believe with great conviction that in an ideal world nobody would own any land unless he recognised that one does not ' own ' land in the same sense as one can own a suit of clothes or a motor-car. A good landowner, of whom there are many examples in your Lordships' House, knows that he is really holding the land in trust for posterity and it is surely his hope that when he eventually hands it on, the land will be in better heart than it was when he acquired it. That is a mental attitude which comes fairly easily to many people, but is it—and this is at least a half-rhetorical question—a mental attitude that one can expect a company to adopt? I should take some convincing of that, and yet these Falkland Islands are virtually " company islands ".
6.29 p.m.
Lord Shackleton: My Lords, if the noble Lord, Lord McNair, will allow me to interrupt him, the actual figures are that out of 36 farms that we reported, nine are sole trader partnerships and four can be described as owner-occupied, in that the farm residents own more than 50 per cent. of the capital shareholding. This does not destroy the main purport of the noble Lord's argument, because the other 23 farms are owned by 14 companies, and virtually 50 per cent. of the economy is owned by the Falkland Islands Company.
Lord McNair: My Lords, I do not believe I need to withdraw anything I said, but I am grateful for that amplification. I think it is true that, in addition to owning almost half the sheep-bearing land, the Falkland Islands Company markets the entire wool-clip from the islands and has a substantial stake in the company which is the principal buyer. I believe that this is known as vertical integration ", and I have no doubt that it makes very good business sense, and brings considerable comfort to the shareholders. But the consequences on the islands you can see in the low morale, the steady drain of emigration and the difficulty of attracting the right sort of new immigrant. I am not—and I want to emphasise this—imputing any villainy to the Falkland Islands Company. This is not a scandal like the treatment of Ocean Island by the British Phosphates Commission some years ago. But surely it was a mistake in colonial administration to sell those 28,000 acres to the Falkland Islands Company in 1964. They had enough already.
To conclude, I am sure that there are many things that ought to be done in the Falklands—a regular and direct air link with South America, development of tourism and of the alginates industry, judicious exploitation of the enormous reserves of marine protein, encouragement of immigration of the right

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sort; the ideal package would seem to be a hardy young shepherd married to a schoolteacher with two young daughters. All these things no doubt should be done, and I hope will be, but I am sure that this question of land tenure must be tackled as a first priority.
6.32 p.m.
Lord Buxton of Alsa: My Lords, I should like to thank my noble friend Lord Morris for introducing this debate which is both timely and of extreme importance. May I first apologise to your Lordships that I have to leave, I fear, before the end of the debate, owing to a very long-standing commitment which I cannot opt out of, but I shall, of course, read what is said after my departure with the greatest of interest tomorrow.
I have spoken at considerable length in the past on this subject on two or three occasions and I shall not do so again this evening. But I should like to try and unravel how our policies have become established in regard to the Falklands and also how decisions like that concerning " Endurance " have been made. I very much hope that my noble friend the Minister will clarify a lot of these points in his reply, which I shall of course be anxious to read. Whereas this whole subject of the situation in that southern part of the planet should be one of elation and excitement for British people, it is sadly of great concern and anxiety—exactly the opposite of what it ought to be in view of our history and experience and our advantages. We see at present the lamentable picture of Britain, the historical and traditional leader in Antarctic discovery and in the search for new opportunities, apparently tamely opting out, while all other countries are moving in, taking advantage of our past endeavour and enterprise, gaining at our expense the prospects which we have always, up till now, firmly held in our grasp.
On the question of HMS Endurance " I must say that I have some understanding and some sympathy for the Secretary of State for Defence. Like any business manager, he has to manage his budget, and I can understand that in his examination of these problems, tiny fringe costs like HMS " Endurance ", without other knowledge, might be readily forfeited. Perhaps it is not necessarily his responsibility to take account of the far-reaching consequences for Britain's future of the withdrawal of this absolutely vital Royal Navy service. But may we get this issue clear—and I hope my noble friend will clarify it. The Secretary of State for Defence presumably, in my limited experience, has to defend primarily what the rest of the Government want or demand. Being under severe pressure to trim his expenditure and obliged to cut wherever he can, no doubt " Endurance " and other apparently fringe items are likely to be axed unless voices are raised in protest by other Ministers, some of whom should have a keen and acute interest.
I do not want to hear so much what the Ministry of Defence has to say about it; what I want to be told, and we should he told, is what other Ministers said before the " Endurance " decision was taken. Can the Minister tell us what the Foreign Secretary said? Can he say what the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries said? What was said by the Department of Trade and the Department of Energy? How did they react and what representations did they make before this decision was taken? It is said that this was a
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Cabinet decision, but these Ministers cannot all have been asleep, or do they not understand the importance to this country's future of the Antarctic.
The hinge of our position, as the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton has made so clear, in the South Atlantic and the Antarctic and the key to our future economic interests are of course the Falkland Islands and the Dependencies. The root problem is that they are apparently not recognised by the Government as an important defence commitment. The Government seem to see the Falkland Islands simply as an irksome problem concerning 1,800 isolated British citizens; they do not see them as the vital key to future opportunities for future generations. Of course, there are these 1,800 isolated British citizens, being, if f may say so, treated very discourteously, particularly over the axing of " Endurance ", but that is not the root of the problem. The root of the problem is that the Falklands and the Dependencies are the key and the doorway to British interests in the future in the Antarctic.
There is surely something lacking at present in Government priorities. We all understand, particularly those of us on these Benches, the present economic difficulties, but when our country's future interests abroad are at stake we Back-Benchers must take account of how the taxpayers' money is deployed overall. What we are talking about for the maintenance of HMS " Endurance " is, it is said, £4½ million a year. I take Lord Shackleton's point that one would like one's accountants to look at that very hard to see how it is arrived at. Yet at the same time we see nearly £200 million being happily granted to the arts. I am not a philistine and I am not attacking the arts, but, just think of it, £200 million apparently available for the arts while £4½ million is not available to protect Britain's future in the Antarctic and the interests of future generations and our grandchildren. There must be something wrong with priorities.
Of course, the Secretary of State for Defence may not on his own be able to solve this dilemma of priorities. However, the Prime Minister and the Cabinet can. It is up to them to do what is required to make the necessary adjustments in the national interest and to enable the Ministry of Defence to sustain British interests for the future.
The noble Lord, Lord Morris, and others have pointed out the importance to Britain, and indeed to all nations, of future opportunities in the South West Atlantic and Antarctica, some perhaps unknown as yet. But the doorway to these benefits unquestionably resides in the advantages we already possess, particularly the Falkland Islands and the Dependencies, especially South Georgia and the British Antarctic Survey bases on the Antarctic Peninsula. Above all, the most vital part is the servicing of these outposts by the Royal Navy. It is simply not valid to say that the ship itself is what matters. I have heard suggested, " All right, if you want the ship, let us keep it, or BAS could use it ". It is not the ship that matters; it is the presence of the Royal Navy, the Royal ensign. The critical factor is the Royal Navy.
Again, the problem as I see it is a lack of cohesion in Government. The Foreign Office, whatever it says, is clearly at present uninterested in the Falkland Islands. Of course, one has to hold the Government responsible for current decisions. I myself take a

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more detached view and do not necessarily blame this Government for the attitude. The Foreign Office has been at it for years, conducting a negative policy about the Falkland Islands, and it started long before Lord Chalfont went to buy out the inhabitants in favour of Argentina in the 'sixties.
It is not entirely irrelevant in this context to mention the question of the BBC External Services, because it helps to underline the point. I do not hold my friends in the Government responsible for the policy of the cuts, although I hold them responsible for the decisions. How could they be responsible for the policy when the cuts have been pressed for in Whitehall for eight years, long before our Government came into power? The new cuts are part of a consistent plan pursued by the Foreign Office, and the present general round of cuts were, in my view, simply an excuse for pursuing a long-established policy. The only benefactors are our enemies, primarily Russia, and exactly the same thing is now happening in the South Atlantic over the Falklands and over " Endurance ". The axing of " Endurance " is a massive undeserved bonus for other nations.
So, if the Falkland Islands are the key to our economic prospects in the southern hemisphere, I can understand as well as anyone in Whitehall or the Foreign Office the problem about the Falklands and Argentina. I firmly believe that a joint solution may be possible; I have broadcast on Falkland Islands Radio to the islanders and stated firmly that I believe a solution must be found, and that I believe that it is possible, provided both parties manifest some statesmanship and flexibility. Like the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, I also have had discussions with Argentinian friends and people in responsible positions, and I believe that it is conceivable that the end result could bring a harmonious and mutually rewarding conclusion.
But with great respect, the Foreign Office are being two-faced at present and are making a successful outcome to such things very difficult, if not unlikely. Every time this important subject arises we get the declaration that the Government consider the Falkland Islands British, and that is that, and nothing will be done without the agreement of the islanders. But you cannot just say that unless you consolidate it with positive policies and actions. The British Government cannot say that the Falkland Islands are British and then do absolutely nothing to keep them British. It is frankly hot air, and I hope that the Minister will simply not repeat it today unless he has some new, positive information to encourage everyone.
In recent times, there has not been one single event or action that could give the Falkland Islands any encouragement whatever to believe that the Government mean what they say and intend the Falkland Islands to remain British. There is, and has been, simply a long sequence of actions and events which is totally discouraging to everyone. Not one encouraging symptom—only a long history of discouragement. That is dishonest. It is the same as the Government saying that they are against inflation and then doing absolutely nothing about it. It does not make any sense.
Of course, the Foreign Office does not have to tell
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me that there are difficulties with Argentina. We know that there are. But you can have difficulties with your brother, sister or cousin, and it does not mean that you have to have a bust-up. It does not mean that you have to make enemies. You have to sort things out and sometimes you have to go to court. but it does not mean that members of families are not on speaking terms and that one side has to go into a decline because it does not seem to have the fibre or the stomach to stand up for its case. Even if you are in dispute with a brother, sister, or cousin, you do not surrender all your cards in advance, denude yourself of your vital tactical asset, and then go naked into the negotiation. That is what the Government are doing by planning to withdraw HMS " Endurance ".
As a member of these Benches, and anxious to help and to support all Ministers in their various responsibilities, I hope that I do not cause offence by stressing that what concerns me about our Antarctic policy, our Falkland Islands policy and about our attitude to the Argentinian problem, is that several left hands do not seem to know what several right hands are doing, and I do not believe that these decisions have been carefully considered in the round, taking into account all aspects and interests. I consider that they are short-sighted and (dare I say?) appear unpatriotic.
I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Morris, for raising this subject. I believe that it is imperative to have a Motion at an early date on the subject and thereby assist the Secretary of State for Defence by having a convincing vote in this House, and hopefully a vote in another place, to ensure that the Royal Navy maintains a positive presence in the most interesting region of the world that now remains, and not to deny future British generations their rightful heritage and quite probably great opportunities in the decades ahead.
6.45 p.m.
Lord Hill-Norton: My Lords, I, too, must apologise in advance as did the noble Lord, Lord Buxton of Alsa, for the fact that an engagement at which I am presiding and which was arranged many months ago, will, I fear, cause me to leave before the debate is over. I shall not detain your Lordships long and nor shall I, except in passing, deal with the economic aspects of the South-Western Atlantic now or in the future, about which other noble Lords are much better informed than I and have spoken wisely both today and on previous occasions.
As your Lordships will suppose, my interest is in the strategic aspects of the subject of our debate today, and they are, as the noble Lord, Lord McNair, has said, of great importance. They lie, as is normal, primarily in the domain of foreign policy, but our objectives and our development opportunities in the area which we are debating tonight can only he reached and maintained, as is also normal, by a complementary defence policy.
I share the serious doubts of the noble Lords, Lord Morris, and Lord Buxton, about whether our general policy on this increasingly important strategic area is sufficiently clear for our own understanding, much less that of our potential competitors, or worse still, potential adversaries. What I have no doubt about is that the decision to withdraw HMS " Endurance " from this station next year, after 27 years of continuous Antarctic patrol, without replacement by another of Her Majesty's

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ships suitably fit and fitted, is a grave mistake. The consequence of it will almost certainly be disastrous in the political, military and economic fields alike, and equally probably it will be irreversible. I believe that each noble Lord who has spoken this evening has said much the same thing, but perhaps not so strongly.
The Government have stated that the withdrawal of the " Endurance " is part of the major reduction of the surface fleet, the foolishness of which not only I, but many other noble Lords have referred to on several recent occasions. It has also been asserted that her role will he fulfilled by what can, in the very nature of naval operations, only be rare and occasional visits by other naval vessels, which will not, of course, be ice-strengthened. This is in practice nonsense. It cannot be done—certainly not with the surface fleet to which it is the Government's intention to reduce our navy. Rare and occasional visits, even if they were possible, could never adequately take the place of a permanent presence during the operational season.
The Government assert, as a noble Lord has already said this evening, that the withdrawal and paying off of the " Endurance " will save £4 million a year. That is a highly dubious figure which would not withstand any objective scrutiny, as the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, has already suggested, But, even if it were true, I ask your Lordships to reflect that it would be £4 million out of £12,500 million. Put in housekeeping terms, that is equivalent to 1p in £40. Do any of your Lordships know anybody who could budget to that sort of accuracy? I do not. What I do know from many years of experience of actually doing it is that such a trivial sum is well within the margin of error always, and necessarily, accepted when compiling defence estimates.
What, then, are we losing for the sake of this almost invisible candle-end? We are losing deterrence. It is a sad fact, confirmed by everything that Ministers have said and written on the subject this year, that they either cannot or will not understand the notion of deterrence. It is certainly not for want of having had it explained to them. The " Endurance ", wearing a White Ensign, is a very visible symbol of British interest, not just in the Falklands Islands but in Antarctica as a whole. Of course, it is not her actual military power that matters. What matters is simply that she is there. Nor will it do for the Government to say that she is not always there, for she always has been on station until now during the seven months of the year when the ice edge is far enough south to permit the operation of a ship strengthened as she is.
Much less will it do to assert that the small Royal Marines detachment in the Falklands is, by itself, an adequate deterrent to any aggression against those islands, because it is a military fact that without the " Endurance ", or a suitable replacement, the value of that detachment is vastly diminished. Nor could it be deployed elsewhere in the region by any other means, and everyone with an interest in the area—except, it seems, our own Government—knows that.
We have many interests in the Antarctic, some of which have been referred to—some in detail and some in passing. As other noble Lords have said, it is highly likely that in the medium or long term those interests will multiply dramatically in importance. The best, and certainly the most economical, way of protecting
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them as part of our foreign policy is by deterrence. It is a fact of life that in the South-West Atlantic and Antarctica this can be done only by one of Her Majesty's ships at sea on station. The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, gave many other detailed reasons in support of that view.
Therefore, to conclude, it is my view that to withdraw the " Endurance " would be the clearest signal imaginable of our lack, or loss, of interest, not only in the Falklands but in the whole area. Make no mistake about it, that signal will at once be read, with anguish by our friends and with delight—as the noble Lord, Lord Morris, has quoted—by any potential opponent. I beg the Government to reconsider this false and derisory economy; to retain HMS " Endurance "; and quickly to provide a replacement for her under the White Ensign.
6.54 p.m.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, it is, indeed, a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hill-Norton, in a debate of this sort. I hope that I shall not need to detain your Lordships too long because he has said so much from the great depth of experience that he has which I would seek to underline. I should like to thank my noble friend Lord Morris for raising this debate and, indeed, all those who have spoken, who have consistently made this strong point. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will take particular account of the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, who I am sure we all felt privileged to hear, not so much because of his knowledge and his connections with the part of the world about which we are talking but because of his great stature as a Minister in this House and as someone whose views must surely be respected, even if those of us who are trying to contribute do not get the same level of respect.
I deeply hope that when my noble friend replies he will at least be able to say that the matter is not closed and that the Government are still prepared to listen, because one gets a very strong impression that they are deliberately closing their ears. It could be that my noble friend Lord Buxton is right and that this is a consistent, long-term and—if I may say so—narrow-minded policy of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. That I would not know, though perhaps it rather looks like it. But whatever it is, I hope that Ministers of the present Government will listen and think.
I had a Question down on Monday about the unauthorised occupation by the Argentinians of an island called South Thule. I would very much commend to your Lordships—and there is not time to spell it all out—the exchange that took place on 10th May 1978, when my noble friend Lord Carrington, the Foreign Secretary, expressed the views that all those who have spoken in this debate are trying to express now. I can understand why my noble friend sought to push the point aside, because it might be very embarrassing for him when he answered my questions. But the fact of the matter is that both he and my noble friend Lord Home of the Hirsel put their fingers on the fact that this was an unauthorised occupation.
Why was this? It is because not only is the " Endurance "—and this applied to her predecessors as well—essential for the very reasons that were so

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succinctly put by the noble Lord, Lord Hill-Norton, but also perhaps because there is not enough of a peace-keeping presence to ensure that the possessions and the lands which are the responsibilities of this country are properly watched as the years go on. When we possessed vast territories it was not necessary for each and every corner of the Empire, as it then was, to be so watched over, because people knew that there was a force on the high seas keeping a watch for us which could come when required. Now that our horizons have narrowed, it has become very much more important that those responsibilities that remain are properly looked after and watched over, because otherwise we get examples like South Thule and unauthorised occupation occurring, because we just have not seen it happen. If your Lordships read the exchange on the Question of 10th May, you will get the impression, as I have, that it was quite some time even before we knew that the Argentinians were there.
So I would most strongly suggest to the Government that not only must they retain the " Endurance ", for the reasons which the noble Lord, Lord Hill-Norton, has given, but also that they should back her up in addition with the sort of periodical patrols that they themselves have suggested. They need those patrols in addition to the " Endurance " and not instead of the " Endurance ". It so happens that this debate is about the South-West Atlantic as a whole, and it so happens that we have other similar possessions in other parts of the South Atlantic, and it would seem to me that we need to have a patrol every year going round and having a look in the areas that the " Endurance " herself has not the time to look at.
I would suggest to your Lordships that it is easier for the Government—because essentially the Government are all land animals—because it is just like beating the bounds of the parish. All that one seeks to do is what, in earlier times in this country, parishioners sought to do when they beat the bounds of their parish; they saw that the nearby parish had not taken over their land or their possessions. This is the factor that is necessary as time goes on, not only to show potential enemies, or greedy countries, that we are interested, concerned about those territories for which we are reponsible; not only to show them that we also believe that it is our right to develop those territories if it should turn out that that is something that needs to be done; but also to give reassurance to peoples who live in the vicinity, like the unfortunate Falkland islanders, who must feel that there is a steady conspiracy to persuade the British Government to ignore their interests gradually over the years.
Therefore, I would endorse all that has been said before. I would implore the Government to listen to those of us who have spoken, and in particular to listen to the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, with his great eminence in this House; to give the sort of reassurances that we are seeking, and above all in no circumstances to carry on with their plan—their piddling little plan—to pay off the " Endurance " before her function has been properly replaced by another.
7.2 p.m.
Viscount Montgomery of Alamein: My Lords, I too
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should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Morris, for introducing this Motion. I should also like to congratulate him on his persistence, since this Motion has been down on the Order Paper for, I think, about 18 months in one form or another, so it is gratifying that his patience has been rewarded. The noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, will forgive me if I do not follow him precisely in taking up the point about HMS " Endurance ", because the subject has been dwelt on at great length by a number of speakers and I think that it may almost be in danger of confusing the issue. If we allow ourselves to consider the " Endurance " too much in the specific, we shall lose sight of the general issue which is at stake this evening.
The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, gave a comprehensive review more related to the original title of this debate; namely, the opportunities for economic development in the South-West Atlantic. Obviously, any consideration of this issue cannot exclude the Falkland Islands and therefore, by definition, our relations with Argentina. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, will forgive me if I say to him that I do not propose to speak from the point of view of the opposition, because I do not think it is helpful to refer to the Argentines in this context as the opposition. But what I do propose to do is examine for a minute—
Lord Shackleton: My Lords, would the noble Viscount give way? I was not suggesting that the Argentine was the opposition. I was suggesting that the noble Viscount was the opposition.
Viscount Montgomery of Alamein: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his compliment in that respect, if I may take it as such, but I am not sure that that is quite correct either, because I think we are probably very much on the same side in this issue.
What I want to do for a few minutes is to examine this problem from, as it were, the other end of the telescope, because so frequently in this House we examine this issue only from the point of view of the British. The Argentines have been brought up to believe that the islands belong to them. Indeed, they have so believed since the last century. The technical and legal aspects of this claim, whether it is right or wrong, were outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Buxton, in his comprehensive and long speech of 30th June.
However, the point is that, rightly or wrongly, the Argentine belief that the islands are their territory has passed out of the realm of folklore and is in fact an article of faith. We in Britain debate this issue fairly infrequently, and I think the importance of the issue is to a certain extent underlined by the small number of people who are here this evening. Indeed, we debate it more frequently in this House than they do in another place. In other words, the whole issue of the South-West Atlantic—wrongly, in my opinion—is a relatively minor issue in terms of British foreign affairs.
On the other side of the coin, in Argentina it is quite the reverse. In Argentina, if there were a Parliament, this issue would be debated weekly. In Argentina the issue of the islands is second in importance only to relations with the immediate neighbours. As a foreign affairs issue it is viewed by the people—not just the Government—as being of paramount importance.

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It is vital that when we in this Chamber consider this objectively we remember this situation. That is the realpolitik of the affair, and must never be ignored.
But as the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, pointed out in his excellent summation in the debate on 30th June to which I have referred—I am sorry I was not here—it is vital to all parties that we continue to make progress with these discussions, and anything that is said here, or in any other place, to exacerbate those discussions will not be helpful.
Of course in the context of those discussions the islanders are British; always have been, always will be, and that is not really in dispute by anybody. But what is considered a confusion, and what is in fact something which cannot be ignored, is that it is the land on which they live and will continue to live which is the subject that we have to consider philosophically—not the nationality of the islanders nor where they will go, but the land on which they live. There have been many solutions proposed to try to resolve this question—for example, leaseback, condominium—all of which are undoubtedly worthy of further analysis, but whatever we do, whatever consideration we come to, this must be jointly with Argentina. We have to work together.
It has been pointed out in past debates that Argentina provides services to the islands, and indeed those services are very important, and therefore to a certain extent Argentina exerts leverage on the islanders. That is correct, but it does not win the hearts and minds of the people. I have put it frequently to my Argentine friends—and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, has done likewise—that it behoves everybody concerned with this issue to try to help the islanders see what the real situation is, because this issue can never be resolved until the islanders themselves freely and willingly realise the advantages that will accrue from closer association with the mainland, whatever form that closer association may take. That is the key to the issue to which those on all sides of the problem should address themselves.
Returning to the title subject of the Motion, the area has vast marine wealth, and the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, once again gave us the benefit of his knowledge of the matter. But both Argentina and Great Britain are losing out, and so therefore are the islanders, although they may be the least aware of their loss in the matter. As several noble Lords have pointed out, other nations take advantage, and Argentina turns a blind eye, something to which we must address ourselves. But by collaboration, by working together, Britain and Argentina, together with the islanders, could achieve great progress for everyone concerned. I hope the Minister will reassure us tonight that the discussions on the future of the area will be carried on as soon as possible, and with even more vigour, than has been shown hitherto.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend how the Argentinians justify their unauthorised occupation of South Thule, which is not part of what I believe they call the Malvinas Islands, and many miles away from it?
Viscount Montgomery of Alamein: I have never actually asked them that question, my Lords, so I do
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not think it would be proper for me to answer my noble friend. However, I would point out, in considering South Thule that, it is some 1,200 miles from Port Stanley, and I am not sure, therefore, that it is necessarily a matter of great preoccupation to the islanders. I should have thought their preoccupation was much more with what was going on on the mainland, and I suspect that the islanders by and large were never even aware that there might have been such occupation until somebody from outside drew it to their attention.
7.13 p.m.
Lord Geddes: My Lords, I must first apologise in that my name was omitted from the typed list of speakers for this debate, That, I regret to say, was due to a loss of communication between the Government Whips' Office and my own, but in fact my name was put down to speak last week. I wish to concentrate briefly on two aspects only, the hydrocarbon potential of the area under discussion and, unashamedly, on HMS " Endurance ", which I think are inextricably linked and interwoven. I must declare an interest, or perhaps I should say a quasi interest, on both subjects in that one of the companies with which I am associated is on the fringe of hydrocarbon exploration. On the other hand, I am a retired officer of the Royal Naval Reserve. Into the bargain, I wish to refer to the question of costs in that I have also been involved in the shipping industry for some 20 years.
On the question of hydrocarbons, the South Atlantic area, am advised, has been under review for some years now, but industry—and here particularly I mean British industry—has consistently fought shy of involvement due to the political situation in the area. However, I am further advised, I believe on good authority, that in the last two to three years the prospects in the context of hydrocarbons have been considerably upgraded, but again the political situation discourages active participation. As for getting an answer to the question, " Is the area a really worthwhile one in the context of hydrocarbons? ", my advice goes further, namely, that it would need a further 18 to 24 months of concentrated seismic activity to reach a drilling stage; not a very long period if—the important word is " if "—the industry concerned has sufficient confidence in the political stability to invest its money. Finally, in the context of hydrocarbons, I think there is no doubt—the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, is much more of an expert on this than any of us—that the Falkland Islands and South Georgia are two of the, if not the two, safe deep water ports in the area. Why throw them away by default? That is a point to which I shall return.
With regard to " Endurance ", I make no apologies for raising the matter again. My noble friend Lord Montgomery I think tried to steer us away from HMS " Endurance ", but I believe it is inextricably interwoven with the whole British presence in the area and, as has been said before and I repeat, it is a symbol of the British presence there. There are perhaps three major activities performed by " Endurance " or a ship of her ilk. The most important, as has been said, is the expression of a British presence by the mere fact of the White Ensign. In no particular order, the second, from a business point of view, is that to the best of my knowledge the United Kingdom is the only nation

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charting in that area. The work of " Endurance " is co-ordinated by the Hydrographer-General of the Royal Navy and a large part of her work is in hydrography. This is of inestimable value not only to the British shipping industry but for the maritime safety of the world. The third main area of her activity is undoubtedly in the very real support she gives to British scientific exploration in the area, which includes seismic exploration, which in turn brings me back to the importance of the hydrocarbon potential.
I said I would be brief and I intend so to be. We, the British, are there now. My noble friend Lord Montgomery told us that the Argentinians regarded the Falkland Islands as theirs. With respect, so does the People's Republic of China regard Hong Kong as theirs. So does Spain regard Gibraltar as theirs. That does not make either of those two places, Hong Kong or Gibraltar, any the less British, be it the people in or the land on those two independent territories.
Viscount Montgomery of Alamein: My Lords, I said that was how they saw the issue. I did not say that they were necessarily right. I said that was how it was perceived in that country. It is important to realise that.
Lord Geddes: I thank my noble friend for that intervention, my Lords. My point in turn was that so it was similarly perceived by the two countries I mentioned. HMS " Endurance " is effectively—I think this point has not been sufficiently emphasised—the only mobile, if not the only, means of secure British communications in the area. That could be a vital factor in times of stress.
Industry—by which I clearly mean in this context the oil industry—have said loud and clear that they have not invested in the area as the investment climate is not good. Or, to put it another way, comment has been made to me that there would be industry interest in both the Falkland Islands and South Georgia as " a safe jumping off point " for the South Atlantic shelf if the bugbear of territorial rights was removed. Clearly, expansion by industry would cause problems for both the Falkland Islands and South Georgia, but, my Lords, what pleasant problems for them to have! Expansion would surely give a rewarding spin-off to British industry per se, and in this context some of your Lordships might have been privileged to be in the House for the maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Kadoorie, of Kowloon, during consideration of the British Nationality Bill when he made exactly the same point in the context of Hong Kong.
There is a real fear that in the present situation, which includes—and again I make no apologies for bringing it up—the rejection of British nationality for the Falkland Islanders by the narrowest of decisions in your Lordships' House during the passage of the British Nationality Bill, and now the withdrawal, or the threatened withdrawal, of HMS " Endurance ", that something either is going, or has already gone, by default. The cost of maintaining HMS " Endurance " has been instanced. I do not claim specialised knowledge of the running costs of that particular ship. I do have passing knowledge of the cost of running a ship of similar size and weight, and it cannot he any
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greater than half a million pounds sterling per annum. There is no way that such a cost, if done commercially, could be greater than that.
I submit that it is not too late to cancel the withdrawal of HMS " Endurance ", which symbolises our presence in a very important area of the world. Indeed, I am advised that there is precedent for such an eleventh hour change of heart in that HMS " Endurance " was threatened with withdrawal under the 1974 Defence Review, which was reversed in mid-1976. I earnestly ask the Government to ensure that HMS " Endurance " is maintained on station in the South-West Atlantic, thereby both directly and indirectly giving encouragement not only to the inhabitants of the area, but also to industry to invest in that area.
7.23 p.m.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Morris, for the opportunity to discuss this wide-ranging and interesting topic, which is of such great importance not only to us in Britain, but also to the people of the Falkland Islands. We are also grateful to the noble Lord for putting that dependency in its geographical context. I am also personally grateful that the great expertise of the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, not only on the Falkland Islands, but on the working of your Lordships' House, has been brought out to help us in our debate this evening. I agree with what the noble Lord said in his opening remarks regarding my noble friend. I, too, suffer from exuberance, being a young man, and I would say to my noble friend that in his exuberance perhaps he went a little too far. It is neither correct nor fair to attribute to officials responsibility for decisions taken by the Government of the day. The noble Lord's suggestion that members of the public should telephone certain Foreign and Commonwealth Office officials about HMS " Endurance was therefore misdirected. The decision on HMS " Endurance " was taken by Ministers, and any representation should be addressed to them, through Members of Parliament, or directly. Since, not surprisingly, practically every noble Lord has this evening referred to the subject of HMS " Endurance ", I shall come back to that in a minute.
In the course of the debate your Lordships have mentioned so many individual aspects of the development potential in the South-West Atlantic that it is not easy for me to know where to start my reply. Perhaps it would be best if I follow the example of those of our forebears who first ensured that there would be an abiding British interest in the South-West Atlantic, by starting with the sea, and then moving on to the land.
There are three main aspects of South-West Atlantic marine resources to be considered, and I shall begin with the opportunities for fishing, which were mentioned primarily by the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, and by my noble friend Lord Montgomery of Alamein. The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, in his justly renowned report on the economic opportunities for the Falkland Islands, to which several of your Lordships have referred tonight, made it clear that there was considerable potential for fishing in the waters around the Falkland Islands and their dependencies.

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However, perhaps before I go into that it might be appropriate if I answer my noble friend Lord Morris on his question about the number of recommendations in the report which have been implemented. In general terms, out of the list of 90 recommendations published in the Official Report of this House (Vol. 401, cols, 634–644) nearly 70 have either been implemented, or are in train. Specifically, Recommendation No. 14 (the appointment of a chief executive) has not been implemented. Recommendation No. 16 (about the Exco and Legco Committees) has been rejected as impracticable without more officials. Recommendation No. 21 (consideration to be given to providing sheltered houses/old people's homes) has been held over until funds can be made available, and the same reason is put against Recommendation No. 23, relating to the construction of a patients' hostel.
Recommendation No. 35 (that a permanent social worker should be appointed) has been rejected. The recommendation about the oil jetty (Recommendation No. 47) has been examined, but rejected. The recommendation that Her Majesty's Government should offer OSAS terms to qualified islanders living in the United Kingdom has been rejected. Recommendation No. 55, about a commercial bank to absorb the Government's savings bank, is, I am told, now under way—
Lord Shackleton: My Lords, when the noble Lord says that it is under way, does he mean that the recommendation has been implemented or not implemented? If I may say so with due respect, this is one of the most dishonest numbers games that I have ever heard in any debate. I am not accusing the noble Lord personally.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I am not au fait with the day-to-day workings of every department within the Foreign Office. I certainly did not intend to be dishonest. By saying that it is under way, I understand that it is in progress at the time. In other words, it has not been rejected; it has not yet been implemented fully. If there is any change from what I say, or if I have got it wrong, I shall certainly write to the noble Lord.
The recommendation about a feasibility study to be undertaken on the introduction of television in the camp, using video cassettes, has been recommended against by the British Council on the lines that video is now in widespread private use, anyway. I shall speak in a little more detail in a minute about Recommendation No. 63—that the Government should finance an extension of the permanent airfield.
With regard to Recommendation No. 79 (that the Falkland Islands Government should invite ODA, MAFF, and the White Fish Authority to conduct an exploratory fishing survey) a desk study by the White Fish Authority has been commissioned and received by the Government, and I shall say something about that in a minute. With regard to Recommendation No.85 (the appointment of a horticultural adviser) the Falkland Islands Government carried out a survey and rejected the recommendation. Those are the facts as I have them at this minute, and if I am wrong, I shall most certainly let noble Lords know.
A few minutes ago I mentioned the desk study of the White Fish Authority. It was as a result of the report of the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, that the then
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Government commissioned, in 1978, a desk study from the authority to identify the extent of the resources and to suggest how a fishing operation could most profitably be mounted. The authority's report was completed in early 1980 and discussed soon afterwards between Ministers of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food and representatives of the United Kingdom fishing industry. The report confirmed that there were, indeed, large stocks of fish in the waters around the Falklands and their dependencies, although an exploratory voyage would be necessary to provide more detailed statistics. However, the report also made clear that much of the fish was of poor quality and that there was unlikely to be much profit in marketing it in the United Kingdom. A mother freezer ship operating a number of trawlers might have the capacity to be economically viable, but there would be no guarantee of this.
In discussion with representatives of the industry, Ministers made it clear that there would be no Government finance available to fund an exploratory voyage to the area, but also that there would be no objection to United Kingdom companies fishing in these waters, just as certain other countries are doing. It is the Government's view that if a profit can be made out of fishing in the South-West Atlantic, it should be left to private enterprise to do it. If no profit can be made, then there is no point in the Government underpinning a losing operation. If there is no profit for United Kingdom interests, some have said, why do you not at least declare a 200-mile fishery zone, so that the Falkland Islands Government may benefit from licensing the foreign trawlers which operate there? Nothing would please us more than to be able to do just this. But a fishery zone does not just mean licensing fees for the administering authority: it also means that the latter have responsibilities and obligations which they must fulfil.
It is clear that neither the Falkland Islands Government nor we would be able adequately to police a 200-mile zone in the South-West Atlantic. The difficulties are obvious when one considers that the islands are less than 400 miles from the Argentine mainland, and that both countries are in dispute over the ownership of the waters. For a zone to he operated successfully will require some agreement with Argentina on how it should be done. During several talks at both ministerial and official level, the Government have sought to obtain agreement to a declaration of a 200-mile fishery zone around the Falklands—I am afraid, without success. The Argentines have hitherto maintained that their claim to Falklands waters is an aspect of their claim to the Falklands themselves, and that agreements cannot be reached piecemeal on parts of the whole. I can assure the House that we will continue to press hard for progress on a scheme to bring under control the activities of third country fishing fleets in these waters.
The second marine resource is seaweed—the kelp which has led to the Falkland islanders calling themselves helpers. A British company showed interest several years ago in exploiting the Falkland Islands' rich supply of kelp, but has never in fact started operations. This is a disappointment both to us and to the Falkland islanders, but it is a matter for commercial judgment. I understand, however, that an American

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company has recently shown interest and has been in correspondence with the governor of the Falkland Islands.
I turn now to the third possible resource on which so much of tonight's debate has centred—that of hydrocarbons. Let me make absolutely clear from the outset that nobody knows whether there are any hydrocarbons present in exploitable quantities on the Falkland Islands continental shelf. There are occasional reports in the press making very interesting but entirely speculative suggestions about the vast quantities of oil which may be found there. I emphasise that these reports are not based on solid evidence. The situation is straightforward: there have been two seismic surveys of parts of the Falkland Islands continental shelf, authorised by Her Majesty's Government and carried out by American companies in 1978.
The results of these surveys were made available to the Government. While they remain commercially confidential, it is generally known that the area appears to contain sedimentary layers with a structural style and of sufficient thickness both to generate and to contain hydrocarbons. However, in order to confirm the existence, location and extent of any oil or gas deposits, which may be there, exploration drilling would be necessary. Until such drilling takes place it would be premature to conclude that the area contains economically recoverable hydrocarbons, though it clearly has potential and hydrocarbons have been discovered offshore of Argentina.
There is a very simple reason why drilling has not taken place. No régime exists in the area for the exploitation of any such resources. It is the Government's view that this is needed urgently. But it is also our view that it can be planned and operated only in co-operation with the Argentines. No other proposal seems workable to us. Any attempt by us to introduce a régime unilaterally would be bound to exacerbate the already delicate relations between Argentina and the Falkland Islands, and it would be very difficult for us to provide any oil companies interested in working in these waters with the protection they would have the right to expect. The fact is that no reputable oil company is going to risk investing the huge sums of money which would be necessary when there is no agreement between Governments as to which has the right to exploit the resources of the area.
This is not to say that the Government are in any doubt about their sovereignty over the Falkland Islands and their rights over the continental shelf: we remain as certain of this as ever. But the political reality, as referred to by my noble friend Lord Montgomery of Alamein, is that no viable oil régime can be put into operation without a solution to the sovereignty dispute with Argentina. In any case, as the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, has himself pointed out, it would be a great pity to allow the Falkland Islands to be turned into a base for oil development. While revenue from oil operations would certainly be of enormous help to the islands' exchequer, the Falklands simply could not assimilate the activities normally associated with oil exploration and survive in their present form. The only solution that makes sense is co-operation with Argentina and the use of the facilities which already exist there for developing an oil industry.
Lord Shackleton: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord. I am not disagreeing, but my remarks need a little more qualification than the noble Lord has expressed. I merely express a slight reservation.
Lord Skelmersdale: Yes, my Lords, that point is taken. I was trying to do a little encapsulation, and if I unintentionally misled the House in so doing, I apologise. In this connection the noble Lord, Lord Morris, asked what action the Government will take if drilling commences on the Falkland side of the line. I should answer him with some care, that we shall deal with the situation if and when it arises, but we need to protect our rights and the interests of the islanders.
My noble friend Lord Buxton asked why we are talking to the Argentines at all. The claim of the Argentines simply will not go away. As long as the dispute continues, it will remain difficult for the islands to be developed properly and there will be a shadow of uncertainty over the islanders' daily lives. That is why successive British Governments have held talks with the Argentines, and we are continuing to do so. But the wishes of the islanders themselves are paramount. No solution could be approved which was not acceptable both to them and to Parliament.
However, the bulk of Lord Shackleton's report and its recommendations dealt not with marine resources but with the islands themselves. I obviously have not the time to go into them all here, but perhaps I may comment in particular on those which involve British aid. It is a measure of our commitment that over the past five years the islands have received more British aid per head of population than any other recipient. While the sums involved may not in themselves be large, we have to take account of our own economic constraints, as well as the small population and relative prosperity of the islands. A great deal has been done. For example, the islands' airport was built with British money. Several speakers tonight have criticised the building of an airport with what they see as too short a runway, and have called on the Government to have it extended. The noble Lord, Lord McNair, mentioned this towards the end of his fascinating speech on agriculture, which I must say struck home with me.
The arguments for a longer runway are that it would make the islands independent of Argentina, and would help to promote an expanded tourist industry. No one can deny the beauty of the islands and their potential for tourism. But, equally, no one can deny how remote they are and how expensive travel to them would be. The Argentine company operating the present service was in fact obliged this year to reduce the number of flights to one a week in each direction because of lack of demand. There would seem to be little obvious incentive for any other airline operator to he interested in offering an alternative service. We understand that the Argentines have decided to reduce the flights to one each way a week, because there was insufficient traffic to justify two flights.
Our ambassador in Buenos Aires is discussing with the Argentines the restoration of a second flight during the summer tourist season. We cannot spend what would amount to a minimum of £10 million of aid money on such a project only to discover that there is insufficient interest. In addition, an expanded airfield

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would be accompanied by increased recurrent costs which the Falkland Islands Government would find it difficult to meet. This is the main recommendation, perhaps, of Lord Shackleton's report which has been refused. However, the Government are flexible and have said that we should be prepared to look at the matter again should the circumstances change.
British aid has also gone towards improving the islands' internal communications, helping with the education of the islanders' children and assisting the improvement of the quality of the islands' grasslands. Again the speech of the noble Lord, Lord McNair, was applicable here. I think that he asked about the grassland trial unit, which is working well; but no firm results are expected before next year. When the results are received and we have had time to consider them, we shall write to the noble Lord. Our aid also supplements the salaries of over 40 expatriates in senior positions in the Falklands.
This is not to say that we should not like to be able to do more, but the Government are convinced that in the end more aid is not the answer. What is needed is the impetus which private enterprise and investment can give to the islands' economy. But as long as the dispute with Argentina continues it will inevitably be difficult to persuade private enterprise to risk their investment in the Falklands. It is for this very reason that we want to overcome our difficulties with the Argentines so as to guarantee for the islanders a secure and viable future under the administration of their choice.
Practically every noble Lord who spoke today has suggested that the decision to pay off HMS " Endurance " implies that the Government are losing interest both in the Falklands Islands and in the Antarctica. I hope that what I have said so far will convince your Lordships that nothing could be further from the truth. We know that HMS " Endurance " will be missed. During her annual deployments in the South-West Atlantic she has performed a great deal of useful work. To answer my noble friend Lord Buxton, this was preceded by interdepartmental consultation in the normal way and the decision was that of the Government. The decision to withdraw her none the less was far from easy. But it was taken against the background of a reduction in the overall size of our surface fleet, as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Hill-Norton, surmised. It has to be borne in mind that she has only a limited military capability.
We remain firmly committed to the defence of the Falklands and shall maintain the Royal Marine garrison in the islands as a tangible demonstration of that commitment. Royal Navy ships will also continue to deploy to the South Atlantic from time to time. Equally, although " Endurance " has made an invaluable contribution in support of the work of the British Antarctic Survey, her withdrawal does not indicate any diminution of our interest in Antarctica and it will not seriously affect the work of the Survey which has its own ships, the " Bransfield " and the " John Biscoe ", both of which have strengthened hulls and can go into the ice as does " Endurance ".
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, can they also operate helicopters?
Lord Skelmersdale: No, my Lords, they cannot also operate helicopters.
As several noble Lords have mentioned, Britain has a long and proud record of exploration and research in Antarctica. We were the first country to stake a territorial claim in the area in 1908. We were one of the main architects of the Antarctic Treaty of 1959 which carried on from the experiences of International Geophysical Year and paved the way for international scientific co-operation in the area while protecting the widely varying positions of the parties regarding territorial claims. We run an active Antarctic programme which is the envy of many other countries. The British Antarctic Survey operates four stations which are engaged in fundamental research in the atmospheric, earth and life sciences.
There is growing interest in the resources of Antarctica. The fisheries of the area, like those around the Falklands, are being increasingly exploited although again the British fishing industry has shown little interest. Several noble Lords have drawn particular attention to the Antarctic krill which is being caught by a number of countries, notably Japan and the Soviet Union. Conscious of the need to prevent over-fishing, we took a leading part in the negotiation of the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, concluded in Canberra in May 1980, which provides for internationally-agreed regulations for the harvesting of krill and other marine species of the Antarctic ecosystem. The United Kingdom ratified the convention in August this year and it is likely to enter into force early next year. Also, we play a leading part in the international research programme (BIOMASS) which is studying krill and the species which depend on it for food.
The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, in a passing remark about babies and passports in Antarctica asked whether these activities were taking place. They are. In our view they have no significance in respect to the Argentine's claim to territorial sovereignty in the Antarctic. My noble friend Lord Montgomery, in a most diplomatic speech, said that the Argentine people have been brought up with the knowledge of their claim over the dependencies and over that part of Antarctica. Argentina has explicitly claimed sovereignty over South Georgia for more than 50 years and over the South Sandwich Islands, of which Southern Thule (referred to by my noble friend Lord Mottistone) is one, for more than 30 years. We have no doubt about British sovereignty over the Falkland Islands dependencies.
Let me add a particular word on the subject of whaling. Her Majesty's Government have a strong conservationist policy on whaling. We have been pressing in the International Whaling Commission for a moratorium on all commercial whaling. The possibility that important mineral resources may be found in Antarctica, particularly hydrocarbons, has also attracted growing international attention. However, the technology to exploit any such resources, in spite of what has been said this evening, I am informed, does not yet exist and, in view of the costs involved, it is unlikely that any exploitation will take place unless an appropriate political framework can first be established. In this context we should not forget that the parties to the Antarctic Treaty include those with

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territorial claims and those who do not recognise any sovereignty in the region. There are rival claims by Argentina and Chile to most of the British Antarctic Territory and our claim to sovereignty in the area is not recognised by, among, others, the United States, the Soviet Union or Japan.
At the last Antarctic Treaty consultative meeting, a recommendation was adopted setting the stage for the negotiation between the Antarctic Treaty powers of an Antarctic Minerals Regime which would provide the necessary framework for the exploitation of resources. Negotiations are likely to open in Wellington next year. We shall approach these negotiations in a positive spirit but we are determined that British sovereignty in the British Antarctic Territory should be fully taken into account and that we obtain the maximum possible benefit for Britain under any régime eventually agreed.
The negotiations on Antarctic minerals exemplify the fact that Antarctica, an area of many different claims and interests, has become an area of co-operation which the countries concerned are seeking to extend to new fields. It is in the same spirit of looking for elements of co-operation that we approach negotiations with Argentina concerning the Falklands Islands. I repeat that we have no doubt about our sovereignty over the Falklands, their dependencies and British Antarctic territory. We are fully conscious of our responsibilities, but in the South-West Atlantic as a whole we want to work with the countries of the region, and not against them, so that its resources may be exploited in peace for the good of all.
Lord Shackleton: My Lords, before the noble Lord concludes, may I give him one other correction? In my report there is no suggestion that the extended runway was proposed in order to by-pass the Argentine. We merely pointed to the development of fisheries, trawlers, the need to fly crews out and, above all, tourists—probably from Buenos Aires, which happens to be in the Argentine.
Lord Skelmersdale: No, my Lords, I suggested that an argument had been advanced. I did not pretend to suggest that it had been advanced by the noble Lord.
7.51 p.m.
Lord Morris: My Lords, first of all may I thank my noble friends and noble Lords from all sides of the House for taking part in this debate. I should particularly like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, for mentioning at the very beginning of his speech the fact that almost six years of watching with very little encouragement developments in the Falkland Islands and continual Parliamentary Questions, debates, and other methods of persuasion provoked me inadvertently to commit a parliamentary solecism which I most bitterly regret. In all honesty, I fervently believed that the department of state concerned had no comprehension of the depth of feeling of the people whom they are meant to serve. This is of the greatest importance. Members of Parliament and the Civil Service are too quick to forget the people whom they are meant to serve. It was most negligent of me that I made the
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ignorant mistake of not seeking wiser counsels. However, the continued and persistent ignoring of the express will of Parliament and the views of members of the public in this country and, above all, the anxieties of the Falkland Islanders themselves, I believe is a matter of deep constitutional concern.
I am afraid that it never occurred to me that to suggest as I did that the department of state should be exposed more directly to the views of those whom they serve would be met by such a passionate protest. On the contrary, those close to influencing the decision-making process must surely welcome confirmation that the decisions to be taken either now or in the future are in line with public opinion, or of the extent to which they are in line with public opinion. I may be old-fashioned, but I happen to wonder, if any Government, let alone department of state, choose to ignore or diminish public or parliamentary opinion, what value there is in expressing a view. However, I admit my ignorance and indiscretion. I regret my clumsiness. It has been suggested to me—not by my noble frend Lord Skelmersdale—that my indiscretion while speaking to the press was founded in ignoble motives. Not unnaturally, I both deny and resent that suggestion.
Turning to the speech of my noble friend Lord Montgomery—which was as usual most interesting and stimulating—may I say this from a central point that he made? The realpolitik in the United Kingdom is that the Falkland Islanders are our flesh and blood. He agrees with that. It is something which cannot be denied. However, what my noble friend is suggesting—and this is the point that he is missing and, knowing his influence in Latin America, I implore him to get this point across—is that the islanders should agree to trade their birthright, the land upon which they have been born, the land upon which they live, the air which they breathe for what may be a richer way of life for this generation. I ask, what of their children and their children's children? It may not be absolutely clear to my noble friend but it is absolutely clear to all other noble Lords, and indeed to all other people who are tied to land, that without their land they are nothing. The Falkland islanders will become non-persons, whatever a piece of paper issued by a Government may tell them to the contrary.
I must confess that my heart went out to my noble friend Lord Skelmersdale in his closing remarks, for I happen to know that he was put in the hot seat at very short notice. He spoke with admirable courage. I know other noble Lords will agree with me—I have heard this trotted out time and time again—that the brief which he read so excellently, if rapidly, was a potpourri of this Government's and other Government's dead flowers. The nub of my noble friend's remarks is very simply this: the official view on oil exploration—and indeed on any major exploration—the major recommendation of Lord Shackleton's report, is simply this: we can do nothing out there for fear of upsetting the Argentinians. That is precisely what I suggested in my speech, and again this has happened. Again they came trotting out with the argument about the largest amount of assistance per head of population of anywhere in the world. There are only 1,850 people in the Falkland Islands. Anybody can play this mathematical game. It is totally divorced from reality to look up previous Government statements and come

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trotting out with that argument again. It was beautifully argued down by my noble friend Lady Elles. Those who were there at the time will remember that it was well and truly defeated
I welcome most strongly the news that Her Majesty's Government are determined to look to our interests in the future and for the future in the Antarctic area. What concerned me very much indeed—and this will take very close reading later on—is that the cold hand of Government deciding what is in the best interests of the people of the Falkland Islands has raised its head again. I cannot understand this. If anybody wants to know what the best interest of other people is, the best thing to do is to ask them and not suggest to them what is their best interest. Surely they know what is in their best interest.
The final point that I should like to mention is that my noble friend appears at any rate to be unaware that the presence of a people in a particular area speaks far, far louder than the law. The fact that there are people present in a particular area gives them a standing whatever the legal position might be. I have spoken for far too long in winding up this debate. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Viscount Montgomery of Alamein: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, may I ask him one question? He took me to task. I was not suggesting in any way that there should be a trade-off. What I was suggesting—and, if he reads my remarks, he will see what I said—was that there are three parties to this problem of developing the South-West Atlantic, all of whom have interests: the islanders, Argentina and Britain. It behoves us to work together to the same end and not to take sides in the issue. It is only by working together that a solution will be achieved.
Lord Morris: My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend. I never suggested that one should work other than with the Argentinians. What is quite wrong is to use the land as a bargaining counter. That is the hub of the whole position. To bend to the big neighbour is, I believe, a dishonourable way of going about it.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

West Indian Children: Rampton Recommendations
7.59 p.m.
Lord Young of Dartington Lord Young of Dartington rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have considered the recommendations of the report on West Indian Children in Our Schools (Rampton Report, Cmnd. 8273) and what action they intend to take to put them into effect.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I do not think that anyone in this House would want to argue—and I am sure that the Minister who is going to reply for the Government will not want to argue—that the education of West Indian children is of no importance to their country, or that the Rampton Report, which is on this very subject, is therefore of no interest to their country.
The noble Lord who will be replying later was
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courteous enough to tell me in advance that consultations are still proceeding with the corporate bodies that surround the Department of Education and Science like mosquitoes around the Zambezi, and that they have been given their D-day later this week, Friday, for submitting to the department their views on the report. He therefore warned me—and I am grateful to him—that he would not he able to say anything very positive about the Government's reaction when he replied to this debate. Despite that warning I am ever hopeful—perhaps because I am in the party that I am in at the moment—that he will be able to say something at least moderately positive and deal with some of the questions I am going to raise and some of those which will be raised by other noble Lords who have taken the trouble to stay for this debate.
May I say at this point how grateful I am to those noble Lords who have stayed on, particularly as some are a good deal more knowledgeable on this subject than I am. I am particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Swann, who has taken over the chairmanship of the committee and will he taking part later in the debate. I am also grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, who has the unique advantage of having been a member of the committee both when it was under the chairmanship of Mr. Anthony Rampton and now under that of the noble Lord, Lord Swann. I look forward very much to hearing what they have to say.
My plea—it is an obvious one, I know—is that there should be a positive response from the Government early in the New Year to the Rampton Report. I put forward this plea with all the more urgency because there was just a hint from Dr. Rhodes Boyson in the Adjournment Debate on 6th July, initiated by a fellow member of the Social Democrats, that the Government might not want to say much, if anything, about Rampton until the Swann Report had been submitted, which we are told might be something like two years hence. I hope the noble Lord opposite will be able to reassure me, and I think others, not only in this House but outside it, that this suspicion is altogether unfounded and that early in the New Year there will be a positive and full response on the interim report taken on its own.
After that introduction I should like to set the scene very briefly by a sketch of the history or what might perhaps be called the pre-history of the Rampton Committee. Going back some 10 years, I think it can be said quite fairly that Governments of all parties had warning even then of what was to come. In 1971 a report from the National Foundation of Educational Research, which was financed by the DES, stated that unless West Indian needs were met with,
" something at least approaching the urgency with which many LEAs are tackling the question of Asian, Italian or Cypriot language, there is likely to be an increasingly high proportion of West Indian under-achievers, both in school and in employment."
Unfortunately, this is very much what has happened. This was known right through the 1970s. There were rumbles through the decade on the subject and in 1977, as the Minister will know even better than I do, the Select Committee on Race Relations urged that the Government should mount an inquiry into the performance of West Indian children in the schools. I

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am afraid it has to be accepted that on this question all Governments have been palsied. The last Government were not quick to act, any more than this Government have been so far; but when Shirley Williams was appointed as Secretary of State she did act and she did establish the Rampton Committee. That, in the view of many students of the subject, marked a considerable advance. At least it represented the recognition by the Government of the seriousness of a whole set of very complex issues surrounding this matter.
Fortunately, for once—it is a happy occasion to this degree—there was actually some continuity between the Governments. There was no reversal of policy between one Government and the other, and the establishment of the committee was confirmed. The terms of reference included the instruction that,
" … early and particular attention should be given to the needs of West Indian children and interim recommendations made at an early date."
with this injunction, the committee, within a little over a year of starting work, produced an interim report and submitted it to the Government in February of this year. On the face of it, I think all fair-minded people would regard this as a remarkable achievement on the part of the committee and its chairman. Mr. Rampton coaxed suspicious groups—West Indian and others—to give evidence to his committee, just as Scarman had to do something over a year later, and from the very diverse members of the committee on a highly contentious subject succeeded in producing a unanimous report: an outcome which very few people would have thought possible earlier.
So far, so good, one would have thought—until something went wrong. The noble Lord opposite may know better than I what went wrong, but it seems that some time earlier this year the DES took fright. Why, I do not know; but, just as a conjecture, my suggestion is that at any rate it seemed—it is difficult to get at the truth, I know—that the DES thought the report might give support to people who might want to blame schools, and indirectly the department itself, for not giving a firmer lead and for the part they may have played, indirectly perhaps, in the riots which in April broke out in Brixton and spread out from there, and which produced, as Scarman in his report said recently:
" the most serious civil disorders in this country this century "—
and in my view the most serious civil disorders since Bloody Sunday nearly a century ago in 1887.
However, for whatever reason, the chairman was sacked and the report, although not published, was leaked to The Times—and in the beginning to The Times alone. As has happened before—many of us have some experience of this—with reports that Governments do not like, though never on this scale to my memory, the report was peppered with a fire of disparagement before it was published. It was published in June, and I think we can say that from then on the tone began to change because people could see for themselves what was in it, rather than seeing from incorrect reports what was supposed to be in it. The Economist, for instance, which I do not think can be expected to have a particular bias on this question, noting that Mr. Rampton was the chairman of a large
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mail order firm and the biggest private employer in Brixton perhaps, said:
" The present Government says it is in favour both of successful businessmen and of good race relations. By his rudeness to Mr. Rampton, Mr. Carlisle has struck a tiny blow against both."
All the more reason why the Government should now make amends by a full, generous and positive response to the recommendations in that report. I hope very much that they can do this without delay, and the Minister may have a few more words to say to us on that at the end of the debate.
I think it is not unfair to say that the report that we are debating had a sour reception before it was published, a sweet and sour reception when it was—not all newspapers were as complimentary as the Economist—and it has appeared steadily sweeter as time has gone on in this highly difficult year which is now coming to an end. The Select Committee on Racial Disadvantage had very warm words in July for the report and said, among other things, that there would be a great intensity of disappointment—and hoped that the Secretary of State would realise this—if he was half-hearted in his response to the recommendations of the report.
When the Scarman Report came, it acknowledged the help of the Rampton Committee, broadly supported what that committee had said and particularly attributed to education—as it was able to do within its terms of reference—some part in the riots, on the grounds that under-achievement among West Indian children was partly responsible for the appallingly high rate of unemployment among West Indian youngsters. There is no doubt at all, according to Scarman and, I think, any other observer of the scene, that these high rates of unemployment in Brixton. Toxteth and other places have played their part in the dreadful disorders that have marred this year.
The Scarman Report also recognised that some members of the police service were racially prejudiced and said that every possible step should be taken to root out racialism in the police service. These remarks, and somewhat similar remarks in the report of the Select Committee, put in a new light what had been said in the Rampton Report which, at the time of publication, seemed particularly outspoken. The report referred to racism, racial prejudice and discrimination and the part that had played in the low achievement of West Indian children; one implication of the evidence being that West Indian children may be stereotyped in schools as low achievers, in the way that some Asian children are not.
The report quoted the evidence of the National Union of Teachers which said, among other things, that attitudes of racial intolerance, prejudice and a stereotyped view of ethnic minority groups will often percolate through into schools. I am afraid that some other trade unions have not been similarly enlightened on this subject. Anyway, it has turned out that what Rampton said, and said first, is what in other settings both the Select Committee and the Scarman Report have said later on.
It is only fair to say, as a result of this, that the general view now is that the Rampton Report on under-achievement was a very much under-appreciated report. It is notable not just for its analysis, but for its impressive list of recommendations upon which it urges

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the Government, local authorities and other bodies to act. I think that other noble Lords and Baronesses who will take part in this debate will have more to say about those recommendations.
I want to mention only one point, because it struck me very forcefully. The main theme of the report of the Plowden Committee on primary schools, of which I had the honour to be a member, was—to sum it up in one-half of a sentence—that learning begins at home and that the relationship between home and school is of crucial importance. The Rampton Report referred to the study, which seems to me an extremely interesting and important study, done by the Thomas Coram Research Unit, which showed that reading standards among West Indian children and others were raised—and, presumably, can be raised more generally—when schools encouraged parents to help their children at home. That is when the relationship between teachers and children is not only a direct one, but an indirect one around the vital triangle of teacher, children and home with teachers busying themselves to try to influence parents directly, and bring them into the educational process as equal partners.
I must come back to my main plea. Fortunately, there is now a new Secretary of State who is known for his humanitarian sympathies. He once inaugurated a big national debate on the cycle of disadvantage between generations, which is highly relevant to what is happening now. He took that initiative when he was in the Department of Health and Social Security and it has been vigorously followed up by the Social Science Research Council. He has an opportunity to act in the tradition of two of the outstanding Ministers of Education in this century, both from his own party—Lord Butler and Lord Boyle. He can ask advice from one of them, but, unfortunately, not from the other.
The response of the Home Secretary in another place to the Scarman Report—which other noble Lords may want to mention later—in a debate which came on just 15 days after publication had, at least, some small encouragement in it for us, although we have to await a forthcoming White Paper to see what will be the Government's full response. The obvious fear is that he and others, who may have somewhat more liberal sympathies on this kind of question, will be ground between the clamant needs for reform and the monetarist dogma of this Government, which makes so much forward action so difficult.
Now for three last points, which are all related to my hope that the Government will adopt a holistic, rather than a fragmented, approach to this series of problems. Point number one is that education will not make a full contribution to our present multicultural society, if policy is devoted only to the inner city areas where many West Indian people live. There is a need for an overhaul of the curriculum and of attitudes in schools everywhere throughout the country. Whether schools have blacks in them or not, whichever part of the country they are in, blacks are part of their and our common society. They are members of it, as we are; they are entitled to have that membership recognised, and every school certainly needs to acknowledge that fact.
Secondly, it means accepting that any new policy on education, housing, police or employment should
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not be adopted except by reference to the whole. The West Indian community needs a whole new deal, and in preparing for that new deal Rampton, Scarman and the Select Committee therefore need to be considered together, as well as along with other evidence which is relevant.
Thirdly, and lastly, these tasks, despite their immense difficulty—no one would want to underestimate that—can be tackled without the despair which some people engaged in the field sometimes feel, as long as the approach is comprehensive and generous enough. On this, I should just like to refer back to what happened in the United States in the 1960s, because it is relevant. That was the time when the civil rights movement was beginning to assert itself. There were much worse riots in Memphis, Atlanta and, later, in Watts in Los Angeles than we have had.
The Kerner Commission—somewhat similar in some ways to the three commissions and inquiries we have had but it was all in one, admittedly backed up much more substantially by the social sciences than our inquiries have been—delivered to the American Government a remarkable report. Partly as a result of that, and partly as a result of many other things, there was an extraordinary turnabout in the policy of Government in America at all levels and also in private business, whose importance in all this should not in any way be underestimated. As a result, a worse situation, I would say, than we are in (and ours is bad enough) was saved by the end of the 1970s. As the United States goes into the 1980s they have a far better situation than they had in the 1960s.
If they can do that, I submit to your Lordships that we also can do it. Our situation, too, can be saved by our efforts and without any sense of despair whatsoever. And we shall be able to do it better because the Rampton Committee, and these other inquiries about which we have been speaking, really are right hitting at what is perhaps the most urgent social problem of our time.
8.21 p.m.
Baroness Faithfull: My Lords, I am sure that we must all be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Young of Dartington, for initiating this debate. I am also quite sure that the West Indian community throughout the country will be grateful to him.
I had thought to speak on the history leading up to the formation of the Rampton Report but this has been ably dealt with already by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Dartington. I wish only to say that it has been my privilege to be a member of the Rampton Committee. I sat under Mr. Anthony Rampton, the chairman, whose sensitive and kindly manner welded the committee into a cohesive and happy working group of people. He, I know, has thanked all those who gave evidence to the committee—the schools that we visited and all those who came to give us help—and I wish in your Lordships' House to pay tribute, too, to all those who gave that help. I wish also to pay tribute to the secretariat of the Department of Education and Science who very carefully helped all members of the committee.
An interim report on the educational needs of West Indian children was requested as a matter of urgency. How right this was, in the light of the later report by

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the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman. The noble Lord, Lord Swann, is to take the committee into its next stage when the needs of all ethnic minorities will be considered. We are glad that the noble Lord, Lord Swann, is to speak in tonight's debate.
May I crave the indulgence of your Lordships' House and comment on some of the points contained in the report. First, the committee decided on the definition of West Indian children. This definition is given on page 2 of the report. There is no nationally recognised definition of the West Indian. The committee defined the West Indian as a " British-born black ". It must be remembered that in 1977, 95 per cent. of West Indian school children were born in this country. It must be appreciated that 30 per cent. of West Indians in this country were aged between 5 and 15 years. Of all other children, only 17 per cent. were aged between 5 and 15 years. These figures were obtained from the national dwelling-house survey of 1977.
What was the evidence of under-achievement? The noble Lord, Lord Young of Dartington, has referred to this. I will give to your Lordships just a few figures. For instance, in CSE English, 9 per cent. of the passes were West Indians, 21 per cent. Asians and 29 per cent. others. Of those entering university, 1 per cent. were West Indians, 5 per cent. Asians and 4 per cent. others. Having given these figures it must be emphasised that some West Indians are achieving results comparable to those of their very best peers. I cannot forbear but to point out that serving on the Rampton Committee were four West Indians of calibre: one working at the Institute of Education, one a woman journalist and lecturer, one a deputy principal of a large comprehensive school (and also a magistrate) and one a health visitor and a public relations officer. Others were co-opted on to the committee at various stages. Asian members also serve on the committee. They, too, are people of outstanding calibre.
May I turn to the factors which the committee considered contributed to the under-achievement of West Indian children. First, I wish to speak about the needs of children under five and their families. In 1978, the Central Policy Review Staff drew attention to the inadequate aspects of existing services for children under five. There is a lack of direction and no clear priorities as to the ways in which such service s should progress. I wish to underline that this applies to all sectors of the population. This is not applicable just to the West Indian and those from the Indian sub-continent. There is confusion in the administration of services for children under five. The provision of services is fragmented and responsibility is divided.
The consequences of the present situation for children and their parents are both unjust and inequitable. There is a serious loss of opportunity for preventive work at an early stage. The report stated that in Great Britain there are 900,000 children under five whose mothers have a job. The Government provide or control full and part daytime care for about 120,000 children in day nurseries and with minders. There are over three-quarters of a million children under five whose mothers work and who at present have no
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access to local authority day or nursery minding. As I said earlier, those figures apply across the country, but they hurt in particular the West Indian community.
When the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman, recommended in his report that special consideration should be given to the West Indians I think meant (in fact, I am sure that this is what he meant) that because they had difficulties particular to their community a difficult situation was made more difficult for them. And what are these particular difficulties? A disproportionate number of West Indian women are going out to work because of the economic circumstances. The 1971 census showed that 68 per cent. of West Indian women worked, as against a national average of 48 per cent. The percentage of West Indian men on night shift is double that of white men on night shift. The incidence of one-parent families in this country has risen in all sectors of society but it is higher among West Indians, due perhaps in part to various social circumstances of an historical nature.
First generation immigrant families had low status jobs when they first arrived in this country, which meant a depressed environment and poor housing—plus, as the noble Lord, Lord Young, has said, the cycle of deprivation has operated from one generation to another. This has meant among some but not all of the West Indian population a loss of self-esteem, a loss of confidence, and the loss of a sense of balance and security. This had led to a number of West Indian children arriving at school at the age of five with the experience of and at the stage, perhaps, of a child of three. This means that the children either never catch up or if they do catch up, they catch up at a later stage and during the earlier part of their schooling have suffered deprivation.
As I said earlier, West Indian parents go out to work. They work long hours and they do not always know where to go to find child-minders who would suit their child. Very often they have to use a child-minder who charges less rather than the right child-minder for the child. They are not always certain where the day nurseries are and very often they are fearful of or do not know where there is a nursery school, even if they could get the child into it. There are many schools with empty class rooms owing to the falling school population. The report asks, why cannot these class rooms be used as resource centres for children under five; be used by pre-school play groups, by nursery schools, or even as family centres where both mothers and children can come? It is in this area that I believe the positive discrimination for West Indians as recommended in the Scarman Report should take place. My experience of the West Indian community is that they do not wish for more than anybody else or for less than anybody else; but they do wish to have and to be able to take part in services equally with other people. But in the area of the under fives, they need specialised help at this point in time.
The report covered—and I am not going into this—language and curriculum. The evidence from the National Union of Teachers showed that a curriculum which pays tribute to cultural diversity and achievements should be accepted and used, and that the diversity of cultures ought to be a source of community enrichment rather than division.

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I now come on to the role of teachers, which is essential to the issue. Here, there are very real difficulties. The teachers have a case, but I believe equally that the West Indian community have a case. The teachers are trained to be teachers but they have not, I suggest, been trained to teach in a multiracial community—and I believe that this is shown in the report. It does seem, and it is recommended, that teacher training should look far more deeply and far more extensively at the roots of the British-born black child and not only at the indigenous white child, and therefore that the training of teachers is almost something that has to be tackled at once and with no delay.
It has been pointed out in the Rampton Report that there are very few West Indian teachers, that there are very few West Indians working with families under five, that there are very few West Indian health visitors. If there were to be West Indians in these roles, then there would be a role model of hope for many West Indians, who would try to achieve these roles. May I just point out that on the question of schools' pastoral arrangements it was felt by the Rampton Committee that there should be much more outstretching of the school into the community. We found that many teachers were visiting West Indian families in the areas where they worked, but many were not. West Indians sometimes find it difficult to go to the schools, to talk to the teachers, and until this becomes part of their way of life there must be an outstretching to the West Indian parents in the community.
I could go on to speak about many other issues but it is all in the report, and therefore at this time of the evening I am not going to take up your Lordships' time. But may I talk about just some of the recommendations, some of which are the same as those made by the noble Lord, Lord Young. First of all, there is the matter of the collection of statistics. When the committee first sat there was a certain amount of concern over the collection of statistics. On page 67 of the report it will be seen that the committee recommend that statistics should be gathered from all over the country on a form to be drawn up by the Department of Education so that we can get a picture of the needs of the children of the ethnic minorities, where those needs most exist, and where it would be possible to train people from the ethnic minorities, from the West Indian community, in the areas required. I say to the Minister who is to reply that this would not cost money. It should be done as soon as possible, and I hope that his noble friend will consider going forward with this recommendation as soon as possible.
Secondly, I have already mentioned the training of West Indian teachers, of those who work with parents and children under five, and of health workers. Surely it might be possible to encourage, to help and to train those who could then help to set a role model for other West Indians. There is also the matter of consultation. It is so easy for all of us to think that we know what is right for other people. In implementing the recommendations of the Rampton Report we should consult, and Her Majesty's Government should consult, for instance, the Caribbean Teachers' Association, and others.
Also, there is the involvement of parents. Too little have parents been involved and, as the noble Lord, Lord Young, has said, if children's parents are not
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involved, children tend not to have a relationship with teachers. It is true that a number—although not all, only a proportion—of West Indian children are not read to, are not spoken to very much, and time is not spent with them by their parents, simply because the mothers do not have the time. Where children are concerned, time is of the essence.
Finally, my Lords, in 1977 there was cynicism and disbelief among West Indians that there would be any change or that any notice would be taken of any report. West Indians parents realised that education should be a key factor in the development of their children. Many of them were disappointed that teachers tended to think of the West Indian child as good at sports, good at dancing, good at art but not good at the academic subjects. There has now been, I believe, a change of heart among the West Indian community, and it is believed that perhaps Her Majesty's Government may listen to the recommendations of both the Rampton Report and the Scarman Report, and I believe that among them there is now a sense of hope. We, the committee, sitting under the chairmanship of Mr. Rampton, were asked to report as a matter of urgency. We hope that Her Majesty's Government will respond as a matter of urgency as well, and may we, the committee, refer to a speech made in the other place on 15th June 1874 by Disraeli:
" Upon the education of the people of this country the fate of this country depends ".
8.42 p.m.
Lord Pitt of Hampstead: My Lords, may I also join in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Young of Dartington, for introducing this debate by asking this Unstarred Question. May I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, not only for serving on the committee in the way that she has done, but for the way she has contributed to this debate tonight. I am grateful to her for dealing with two or three of the issues that I had intended touching on; for example, the importance of pre-school training. I do not think I need to expand any more on what she said, except to add that it is necessary if the nurseries would meet the needs of the West Indian parents that they should be open until a later hour. That involves having more staff, either full-time or part-time or voluntary. I think this is something which needs to be explored. I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for that contribution.
I am also grateful to her for her point about the importance of West Indian teachers and West Indians in other fields like health visitors and day nurseries. I have always maintained that in this particular field of education the provision of teachers from the West Indies, teachers of West Indian origin, is of the utmost importance. There have always been two things that I have advocated; one is that we should try as far as possible to get the maximum number of teachers of West Indian origin; but I have also advocated that we should do some exchanges with the West Indies in terms of teachers. There are two advantages. One is that we would quickly get black faces into the classroom, which is one of the reasons I want West Indian teachers. The other advantage is that the English teachers we would send to the West Indies would learn a great deal about the children they have to

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teach there. Therefore, for the last 15 years I have been advocating that we should do that. Some local education authorities have done it; it has been done on a very small scale. That is something the Department of Education and Science can do, Government to Government, so that we could have this exchange which could be of the utmost value.
I am also grateful to the noble Baroness for raising the question of statistics. It is about time we came to grips with this question of statistics and stopped running away from it. I remember in 1967 I made a speech in County Hall in which I advocated that we should have statistics relating to our housing programme, the people we house. Immediately I finished the then chief whip of my party got up and indicated that I was not speaking for the party but only for myself. The funny thing about that was that some years later we did in fact do a survey on some estates, and we discovered that quite unwittingly we had been discriminating against blacks because what we found was that the blacks were on the worst estates. Had we taken the trouble to take statistics in 1967 we would not have found ourselves in that position.
Nationally we are in the same position; we have continued to run away from the issue of statistics. We must stop it, because you cannot plan programmes unless you know the facts. The facts need to be got through those statistics. Therefore, we must stop running away from the question. I hope this is one of the proposals the Department of Education and Science will accept. I have always been very sorry that the Government ran away from this question of ethnic minority statistics in the 1981 Census. We need the figures in order to be able to plan. I hope that, so far as education is concerned, at least the Department of Education and Science will be prepared to get figures not only of West Indians but of West Indian teachers.
This problem all started with the subjective view that there were a large number of West Indians in educational subnormal schools. In fact, as far back as 1971, as Lord Young mentioned, Bernard Coard, who is now the Deputy Prime Minister of Grenada, wrote a pamphlet on the subject of West Indians in educational subnormal schools. When the Select Committee reported in 1977 one of the things they were promised was that figures about the West Indians in educational subnormal schools would be ascertained and published. We have not got those yet. Reading this report, I gather that up till now the department either has not got the figures or is not prepared to allow the figures to be published. We must stop this, and I hope that one thing we shall hear from the Minister is that we have come to the end of the road on this fudging and we have stopped running away from this question of statistics.
Although one started off being concerned about the number of West Indians in educational subnormal schools, it was soon discovered that what was much more important was the number of West Indians who were put in the lowest stream in the comprehensives and then ignored. At the moment there is still the question of the large number of West Indians who are suspended or put in disruptive units. Those figures can easily be ascertained. But in effect the worry still is about the children, because the view is—I can tell your Lordships the view—that West Indian children who are nice and
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quiet are left in the lowest streams and they go right through the school learning nothing. The West Indians who are not nice and quiet and who are as I was when I was at school, insist in being heard. They are regarded as disruptive. They are either suspended or put in disruptive units. That is the problem.
I am very glad that the committee touched on the question of racial prejudice because it is basic to the issue; it is another matter that we have run away from. People in this country are prejudiced but they are ashamed of the fact that they are prejudiced and they are never prepared to admit it. I found during the long period when I was working with the Community Relations Commission that when I went to talk to teachers I was invariably told that no teacher is prejudiced. That is so silly. After all, Colin Jordan was a teacher. There have been several teachers who have publicly expressed what are racist views. So the suggestion that no teacher is prejudiced is ridiculous.
What is required, therefore, is that we should face up to these things. The question of prejudice is a very difficult one to deal with. What is necessary, in my view anyway, is that the prejudices should be faced and dealt with. One can, in fact, allow one's action not to be affected by one's prejudice provided one knows that one has that prejudice. However, one cannot fail to be affected by a prejudice if one is trying very hard not to reveal it. That is part of the trouble.
In the society in which these West Indian children are living there is the class colour bias against people of colour. This is a very class-conscious society. There is a bias against working-class people. Members of your Lordships' House may not want to admit it but it is a fact. There is, however, in addition to that a degree of bias against people of colour. The reason for that is that the way in which people in this country are educated—I mean the books they read and the way in which they are taught history—leaves them with the impression that people of colour are somehow inferior. This is basic. One has to overcome it if one is to make a real contribution. I was a little dispirited when I read the press comments on the Rampton Report because I got the impression that in fact the press were anxious that the racial element in the problem of West Indian children should be ignored. Please, my Lords, let us not ignore it.
One of the most revealing facts in the Select Committee's report in 1977 was that when they went to the Caribbean they found that some of the black children who had gone back to the Caribbean had to be put in lower classes because, in fact, they were not up to the standards of the children there. That is not something that can be ignored. What I, and people like me, think is that a lot of it is due to the problem of self-image. Therefore, one needs to face the racial element when dealing with the cause of under-achievement and how it can be remedied. I hope that is one of the matters we shall not run away from.
The only other matter I want to talk about—and I had not intended to talk for long—is the question of funding. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, who will speak after me, will raise this problem. I want to invite the Government to face this matter. We have had a debate here before on this subject. During the days of the last Government they introduced a Bill which would have increased the resources

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available to local authorities for dealing with ethnic minorities. That Bill lapsed with the end of the Parliament and this Government refused to reintroduce it. I remember that the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, tried to introduce a Bill here which I supported, but it was rejected. But the spokesman for the Government at that time indicated that the Government would give serious thought to improving Section 11 so that the resources could be available in that way.
One of the things that I hope I shall hear tonight from the Minister is that Section 11—I am not asking the Government to reintroduce the Bill—will, in fact, be improved in a way that will allow more resources. It is no use—and I use the words advisedly—talking about improving the situation of the disadvantaged in our cities if we refuse to provide the resources that are required to do so. There are several matters that I want to hear from the Minister, but I hope that one of them will be that we shall have a real look at the whole question of how we can improve the resources that will be available for dealing with the problem of the disadvantaged, which this report and all other reports that we have had indicate exists.
8.58 p.m.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, I too am very glad to welcome the opportunity that has been given to us by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Dartington, for discussing the important report of Mr. Rampton and his colleagues. I want to take this opportunity to say to the noble Lord, Lord Young, that I believe that this is one of the prime areas in which we as Liberals and Social Democrats must get together and collaborate, because it would he one of the major priorities of a Liberal/Social Democratic Administration to see that we achieve genuine racial equality in this country, and stop talking about it, and stop discussing the many reports, valuable as they may be, which have been in front of us for a long time. The noble Lord himself emphasised this when he went right back to the 1960s and showed that we knew all the facts before we ever got to Rampton, and yet Administrations of both Labour and Conservative hue have made the right noises but have done nothing about them.
Here we have Rampton. I daresay that there are very few recommendations in this report with which anybody is likely to disagree. It will be the analysis of the problem and the manner of implementation which are matters of controversy, which will enable Governments to get off the hook and find some reason for delaying the implementation of those recommendations. The noble Lord himself said that there was a mass of evidence on racial disadvantage going back to the 1960s, and it seemed to me that it was merely reaffirmed by Rampton.
The previous Government in the White Paper, Racial Discrimination, published in September 1975 had this to say, and I think that it is worth reminding your Lordships of it:
" The Government recognises that what is here proposed for a further attack on discrimination will need to be supplemented by a more comprehensive strategy for dealing with the related and at least equally important problem of disadvantage ".
Yet when, during the period of the Lib-Lab Pact, I went to see the then Home Secretary, Mr. Merlyn Rees, with a paper that was entitled A Programme for
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Racial Equality, advocating an extremely modest scheme of education and training—which was designed to make a start on the task of bringing the ethnic minorities up to a common starting point in the competition for jobs and position in society with native whites—he threw up his hands in horror and exclaimed: " But this is positive discrimination ". That has been the way of dismissing, in a pejorative manner, all the schemes which have so far been advanced for attacking racial disadvantage in particular sectors. It is that kind of reflex thinking which, I suggest, has prevented the development of a strategy more than six years after it was said to be so essential by the previous Administration.
As the noble Lord has reminded us, in the intervening years we have had two reports of the Select Committee as well as the Scarman Report. The Select Committee has reiterated that disadvantage in education and employment are the two most crucial facets of racial disadvantage; and for the first time, it tried to set this in the context of a thorough national strategy. Scarman, from a rather different perspective, notes that the evidence is overwhelming that the second generation of West Indians have not benefited from our society to the extent that they might reasonably have expected. It really is now time that these studies and assessments of the problems came to an end and that we start with some action.
I think that it would be a very serious mistake for the Government to embark on a long process of consultation about the recommendations of the Rampton Report before dealing with them. I take note of what the noble Lord, Lord Young, said, that the Government have given a deadline of the end of this week for observations to be made on the recommendations. I hope that that means that immediately thereafter some, at any rate, of the recommendations in this interim report will be implemented. I really think that we have to do that if we are to avoid more Brixtons and Toxteths, although it seems to me that far worse than the destruction of property, which has occurred in those episodes, is the horrendous waste of human talent implied by the exceptionally high rates of black unemployment that we have experienced and the low grade jobs which many of those fortunate enough to work at all have had to accept.
The DES has not responded formally to the Rampton Report. I would suggest that if, when all the observations are in this Friday, it is not ready to deal with all of the recommendations at the same time, it should at least implement some of those, as has been suggested, which are matters primarily for the DES rather than for consultation with other departments or with other bodies. However, let me take some examples and try to illustrate how very diffcult it will he for local education authorities to move until they have at least had some kind of a lead from central Government.
By way of preface, I would observe that some of the authorities which will need to find extra resources—and I pick up from where the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, left off because I think that whether we are to make the resources available is at the heart of the problem—are those which have been most severely hit by the recent cuts; for example, Lambeth or, one that I know a little about, Liverpool. My honourable friend Mr. David Alton was saying last week in another place

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that over the last two years Liverpool has lost £24½ million—£11½ million on its rate support grant settlement and the remainder in other funding—with the result that 11,000 jobs have disappeared from the City of Liverpool. If resources are to be made available, as I hope they will be, for some of the inner city areas and for other local authorities where there is a high concentration of West Indians, part of the money which comes from the DES will simply be making up for the funds which have been taken away from them with another hand. Therefore, we need a very substantial programme indeed.
The noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, I thought quite rightly, emphasised that there is here a great opportunity of doing something for the under-fives in an era of lower birth rates. I understand that some OPCS figures were supposed to have been published today—they were certainly referred to in The Times—showing that we may be returning to the era of the mid-1970s, when births were below replacement level. I say that I understand that. When I inquired in the Printed Paper Office to see whether I could obtain a copy of the population trends from which these deductions were drawn by The Times reporter, I was told that although copies have been made available to the newspapers, they were not available for your Lordships to refer to before this debate. I really must take this opportunity of protesting to the Government at the way in which this is always happening with HMSO documents. It happened to me last week when I went to ask for social trends. It has happened again now with population trends. One is constantly reading some reference to a public document in The Times or the Guardian and then one comes here and asks for it in the Printed Paper Office and is told that it is not available. I think that it is the greatest disrespect to your Lordships' House to publish documents through newspapers and then not to have them available, particularly when they may be very important for a subject such as that which we are discussing this evening.
As the noble Baroness pointed out, the Rampton Report calls attention to the CPRS Report of 1978, Services for Young Children with Working Mothers. If points out that there was this very large number of children under five who had working mothers, and that in particular a higher proportion of West Indian married women go out to work compared with the national average. The noble Baroness has underlined the particular needs of the West Indian community for increased provision of nursery care and education; and that extra provision could mean that the West Indian children have a better start than they do at present when they reach school age, in many cases having a great deal of catching up to do with their contemporaries.
In this connection, I notice that the Rampton Committee deferred the important question of the use made by local authorities of Section 11 of the Local Government Act, 1966. I shall take up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, and say that, if there is one recommendation in the Rampton Report that I strongly disagree with, it is that the Home Office and the DES should review the provisions of the operation of Section 11 with a view to making it more
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appropriate to the needs of the ethnic minority communities.
We know what we have to do. When I reintroduced the Local Government Grants (Ethnic Groups) Bill, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, pointed out, was lost as a result of the 1979 election, the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, the Minister who answered, persuaded your Lordships to reject it on Second Reading because he said it would not be possible to find the additional resources demanded if the criteria were to be widened. Well, this is the whole point. The children whom we are now talking about were mostly born here. The noble Baroness gave the figures. A very high proportion of West Indian children in our school system are born in this country. Their parents have been here for most, if not all, of their lives, and therefore they do not come within the scope of Section 11. That is the difficulty that we were trying to deal with in that Bill.
The false assumption that disadvantage was a function of recent arrivals only, whereas all the studies consistently show that it extends to the second and third generations, was the basis for Section 11. We know that it was a false assumption, and we have to deal with it. If the Government are not prepared to introduce legislation on the lines of the Local Government Grants (Ethnic Groups) Bill, well we have lost three years, but let us get on with something else. Let us have their solution to the widening of Section 11, and let us have it pretty soon.
If Section 11 is not to be reformed, as has been advocated for so long, how else can education authorities provide extra nursery provision in areas, say, like Lambeth or Haringey? All the recommendations on pre-school provision—I think the noble Baroness will confirm this—are addressed to local authorities, but additional resources are least likely to be available in those areas.
One recommendation in this group which is of particular importance, as has already been mentioned, is that local authorities and health authorities should seek to recruit more West Indians and indeed members of other minority groups as nursery nurses and health visitors. As I understand it, the Government, in a welcome reversal of policy, have decided to introduce ethnic monitoring within their own recruitment and promotion practices to ensure that in the Civil Service minorities are getting a fair share of the jobs available. Should not that be extended to the local authorities? It might then be obvious that some councils with substantial West Indian populations had not recruited any people from that particular minority to work as, say, nursery nurses and health visitors. Then one could generate the sort of public pressure that would be needed to remedy the difficulties.
After the 1976 Act came into operation, I wrote to some 100 local authorities asking whether they had taken any active steps to comply with the provisions of Section 71 of the Race Relations Act, which laid on them a duty to ensure that their policies were designed to promote racial equality, and in particular whether they envisaged ethnic monitoring as a means of satisfying themselves of the success of their policies for racial equality. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, who has just said that we should stop shying away from statistics.

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The number of responses I got to this questionnaire was fairly high. Well over 60 per cent. of the authorities replied, but almost to a man, or to a local authority, they did not think that ethnic monitoring was necessary. I hope that, now that the Government have given a belated lead, this attitude will change. I should like to ask the Government: will they be prepared to issue guidelines to local authorities on how to meet their obligations under Section 71, and in particular to offer them advice on ethnic monitoring?
Alternatively, might the Government ask the Commission for Racial Equality to undertake this important task? The CRE are under fire, with yesterday's Select Committee report and its uncomplimentary findings reverberating in their ears. I think it would be a good idea if the Government were to take this step towards restoring morale by giving them a positive role in drafting the sort of guidelines that they would like to see local authorities adopting in the practice of achieving their obligations under Section 71, and ethnic monitoring in particular.
The other matter with which I wish to deal is the support for schools and teachers, the subject dealt with in Chapter 3 of the report, and I do not want to get involved in the argument about the prevalence of racism among teachers. Not that I want to run away from it. I accept it as a fact, to answer the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, and I do not think it is believable that no teacher is ever guilty of bias or prejudice, as I understand the NASUWT seem to maintain. It may well be that, as a profession, teachers are more liberal than some others, but it seems futile and dangerous to pretend that school-children may not be the victims of teacher racism, and in some cases it may be quite unconscious.
I remember when one of my own children brought home a geography text book dealing with South Africa. I was so angry when I found that it made no reference to the fact that in South Africa blacks were repressed, under-educated, forced to carry passes, to live in certain areas, to be limited to only certain kinds of work and to be employed at sub-human wages that I wrote some comments on those various matters over my daughter's text book. The only result that I achieved, however, was that the head teacher asked me to pay for another copy of the text book. I got no reaction whatever to the merits of the additions I had made to the text. I believe therefore that there are some completely ingrained attitudes with which one has to contend among certain teachers, and obviously we must overcome them if we are to be certain that West Indian children get a fair deal in the schools. But there are a number of obviously sensible, positive recommendations on training in the report, and these should be carefully read and mostly implemented, together with those of the Select Committee.
The report says that teacher training institutions have not been successful in preparing students for their role in a multi-cultural society. But examples are given of good practice which the report has unfortunately to say are the exceptions. The teacher training institutions, for example, have not developed contacts with local ethnic minority groups and organisations in order that those organisations may contribute to the work of the institutions. I also very much agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, that teachers in
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the schools should themselves reach out to the communities they serve, and in particular should make an effort to establish personal contact with West Indian parents and bring them more closely into the work of the schools.
The committee mentions the contribution that West Indian teachers can make, not least as role models, and this also has been referred to. I am dealing with the Home Office at the moment on the case of a West Indian girl who trained and qualified here, whose immediate family are all settled in the United Kingdom but who is now being told to go back to the Caribbean. What madness is this? Surely there are not so many black teachers that we can afford to lose any of them, and I warmly endorse the recommendation of the Select Committee that the present Caribbean teacher exchange scheme should be continued in its present form. We should do more of that, and I suggest as a further possibility which the Government should consider that perhaps exchanges between Britain and the United States might also contribute to this business of providing schools with successful role models, and that our own teachers would benefit from a stay in the United States, where blacks have succeeded in making far greater progress in society.
On an Unstarred Question, we cannot do justice to a report as important as this, and, although I have spoken far too long, I have been able to mention only one or two aspects which seem to me to be of prime importance. My plea to the Government on behalf of my noble friends on these Benches is this: for Heaven's sake let us have no more studies and investigations. Let us get on with the job of giving black people a fair chance, and in particular let us equip young blacks with the basic education they need to compete in our society on equal terms.
9.18 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Southwark: My Lords, I speak with some hesitation on a subject which is both complex and controversial and when we have already had some weighty and informed contributions from noble Lords opposite and from the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull. I hope your Lordships will find it helpful if I make a small contribution from the standpoint of someone whose diocese includes most of South London and who has some particular concern and responsibility for Church of England schools in this area.
I find, speaking very generally, that there has been a good welcome for this report, along with a recognition that the specific issue with which it deals is a difficult one to handle without controversy or offence. As an illustration of this, even the title, West Indian Children in our Schools, has come in for some criticism on the grounds that, as the report makes very clear, we are talking about 95 per cent. of children of West Indian origin who were born in this country and so, of course, have a perfectly proper case to be regarded as British and not immigrants. I recognise that the report states that.
That point leads me into the bigger issue with which the report deals very clearly and to which the noble Lords, Lord Pitt of Hampstead and Lord Avebury, have already referred; namely, the question of racism and racial attitudes in our schools. I should like to say that from what I have heard in fairly informed discussion,

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South London would confirm much of what has been said, and there is a welcome for the fact that the Rampton Report has faced this situation and stated it. I believe that this will be helpful in the long term.
At this juncture I should like to make a personal comment. It was just under a year ago that I came from the North of England down to the South of England, and one thing that has struck me most sharply is the gap in my own understanding and awareness of what racism means. I have found that have a lot of catching up to do. I have tendecd to assume that I am colourblind in both attitude and action. I have to say, to my own discomfort, that I now realise that it is not always so, and I believe that it is important that the report reminds us that though much of this kind of attitude is unintentional—of course it is—nevertheless it is a factor that has to be taken into account.
From talking to someone who has studied the report and who has taken part in a very careful discussion of it with teachers and others, I am able to report these two main comments which he has made to me. First, he wanted to underline the pattern of " low expectation " where children of West Indian origin are concerned, and this relates to a number of factors which the report explores and lays bare very carefully. Speaking generally, one does not find this situation with, for instance, Ugandans or Nigerians. Parents and teachers—and this is, I think, the point are caught up in this situation quite as much as the children, and so there is a very definite and specific need to attend to the problem in the whole area of teacher support, teacher training, and, for instance, the composition of governing bodies, so that a different and better climate of expectation and hopefulness can be created.
The second point that the person to whom I spoke wanted to stress really springs from this situation, or perhaps it goes deeper, perhaps it lies behind it and is more fundamental, because in a way it is beyond the control of the school community. The extent of unemployment and poor vocational opportunity, particularly in our inner cities, undermines the whole educational process. I ask your Lordships to consider for a moment what it is like for a head teacher and his or her teachers—never mind the parents and the children concerned—to do their job knowing that at the end of the school year eight or even nine out of 10 school-leavers will have no proper job to which to go. If your Lordships think that I am exaggerating, I would say that I am not. I have been told about that in a letter from a head teacher on Tyneside. In areas in the South and in my own diocese the total figure is not, thank goodness!, so high, but the situation can be almost as bad proportionately for the young black school-leavers, and there is then the added sense of disillusionment and resentment which might be caused against the school and society.
Finally, I should like to say a few words about Church schools, more particularly of course Church of England schools. I have no brief to speak of others tonight. I do not think that they are specifically mentioned in the Rampton Report—I am not sure whether it is the intention to make any reference to them in the final report—but they represent an area o
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both opportunity and difficulty. The basic question (which of course, needs far more time to explore than I can give it now) is whether Church schools exist only to provide a particular kind of education for their own church members, or those who ask for it, or whether they also exist to provide a service by the Church for society and for the local community in areas which have become both multiracial and multi-faith. This dilemma is often very acute, with many conflicting expectations in the community and much beating on the doors of the schools. This is particularly true in areas where there are, for instance, increasing numbers of, shall we say, Moslems of Asian origin and a declining number of Christian children, nominal or active.
This particular dilemma, though, is much less acute in fact in the case of children of West Indian origin, since the vast majority have a Christian background and many of their parents are clear in wanting a Christian upbringing for their children. A number of our Church schools in South London, therefore, I am very glad to say, have substantial numbers of such children on their rolls, and we take very seriously the questions which are raised in this report. I hope that we, along with others, can respond to them positively and vigorously, but I believe that, together with others who have spoken tonight, our ability to do so will depend a good deal on the kind of lead which can be given to us by the Department of Education and, through them, the local authorities. That is of crucial importance, and I hope very much that it will not be long delayed.
9.27 p.m.
Lord Swann: My Lords—my not very many Lords—I, too, hope that the Government are going to act on these recommendations. I had been feeling up till now that the Government's response had about as much steam in it as the heating pipes of the House of Lords until a few minutes ago, and I take it, therefore, as a good omen that the Chamber has become decidedly warmer in the last few minutes. Nevertheless, one must give credit where credit is due, and I, at least, welcome (albeit only a very small move in what I believe is the right direction recommended by the Rampton Report) the Home Secretary's announcement that he is going in for some experimental monitoring of the amount and extent of the employment of ethnic minorities in the Civil Service.
My Lords, the hour is late. The noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, and other speakers have really said much that needs to be said about the Rampton Report. Nevertheless, I should like to say just a little bit about some of the criticisms that have been made of it. People who are well intentioned, I think, have seen much good in the report. People who are less well intentioned have in fact made a number of criticisms, behind which it is possible to take refuge. I believe that we ought to face those criticisms and, if we can, demolish them.
There are two, one of them particularly contentious, that I want to refer to which had, and indeed from time to time still have, a certain amount of currency in the public press and elsewhere. The first one centres on the well-known, well-publicised statistic about the IQ of blacks being some 15 points lower than the IQ

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of whites—averages, of course, in both cases. The other criticism is this. If, as the Rampton Report says, racism in schools, either intentional or, more particularly, as he calls it, unintentional (although it is sometimes called institutional) is the major or the only factor in the under-achievement of blacks, then how come that the statistics in the Rampton Report itself show that Asians, who I think would claim (and I think we would probably mostly agree) are just as much likely to be subject to racism, are themselves performing very much on a level with white children?
On the matter of IQ, for a long time people disputed this figure of the 15 points difference. I do not believe, as a scientist, that one can do that any longer. But one must hear in mind that IQ is not intelligence; it is merely an attempt to measure intelligence. It is subject to many errors, assumptions and difficulties and it by no means equates with intelligence. There are a very considerable number of factors which would lead to one to expect that the measured IQ of blacks might come out lower. There are different cultural traditions. We have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, of some of the difficulties under which West Indian families in this country labour. Families were disrupted when they came over here. There are a large number of factors which might account for the difference.
There are also more subtle problems—which I do not want to go into because they get one deep into the psychology of IQ testing—which might lead one to suppose that tests devised by middle-class whites for basically middle-class whites might not be very appropriate for testing the intelligence of blacks. We must face it. The committee is going to have a look at this and it will take some expert and, I hope, impartial advice and facing the problem. If you ase me at this moment what I think the answer will be, I believe it will be that this IQ as a measured difference is not responsible for the difference in achievement in schools.
Then there is the question of racism seemingly not affecting the Asians in the way it affects the blacks. This does not mean to say that it does not affect the blacks. It may do so; but it is at least surprising and is bound to lead one on to look at a number of other factors—as the Rampton Interim Report says clearly it intended to do. One has only to look at the latter pages of the report to see a list of all the things the committee did not have time to investigate and said they were going to; and we are going to investigate. There must be a lot of other factors. The noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, listed a number of them. Other speakers have listed practically all the others. They are complex, inter-related and it will not be easy to disentangle them and discover their relative importances and how they measure up in importance with racism, albeit intentional or unintentional.
To help us in this, we are going to extend what the Rampton Committee (in his day) did; namely to commission research. Your Lordships may have seen the admirable survey of all the research that has been done on West Indian learning, culture, cultural differences and so on by the National Foundation for Educational Research. We are at the moment in process of commissioning them to do an equivalent volume on Asians and, if there are enough for them to get hold of,
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on other minorities as well. We are in process also of commissioning work on what one can call the profile of successful pupils and the profile of successful schools, in the hope that that will help us pinpoint what some of the important factors are. I do not think there are any simple answers. I do not think there will be any rapid solutions, but I hope the committee can do something to guide society in general and the schools in particular in the future.
There is one last point I want to make and it is about unemployment. This may seem to be wandering off from education and schools, which is the primary concern of the committee, but in reality I do not think it is because, wisely, in my opinion, the terms of reference of the committee include, among other things, prospects for school-leavers, which is indeed a question of employment or unemployment. The Select Committee for Home Affairs, in their report on racial disadvantage, had these words to say:
" Disadvantage in education and employment are the two most crucial facets of racial disadvantage. They are closely connected ".
They go on to say:
" There is no point in getting ethnic minority education right if we do not, at the same time, sort out racial disadvantage in employment and vice versa".
However well you educate, if you remove one of the major motivations for learning by denying people jobs, then you are in difficulties.
The fact of the matter is that there is of course a high level of unemployment throughout the country. It is particularly high for young people and higher still for ethnic minorities who may experience two, three, four or even more times the level of unemployment of white youngsters, and that is high enough in all conscience. The fact of the matter is that there are employers who do not want to employ blacks, Asians or ethnic minorities in spite of impeccable statements of intent issued by employers' organisations. Also the fact of the matter is that there are trade unionists who do not wish to work alongside blacks, Asians or ethnic minorities despite impeccable statements of intent from trade union leaders and the TUC.
There are also employers who may be reasonably well intentioned but are too timorous when it comes to taking a firm line with any attempt at discrimination in the workforce. As an old media man I want to make a suggestion. Lest your Lordships raise a collective eyebrow at an erstwhile academic describing himself as an old media man, I should say that eight years as chairman of the BBC I think qualifies me as being an old media man. When I think back on all the troubles I had it makes me a very old media man. Remembering the penchant, the enthusiasm, that journalists have for fearless, investigative journalism, might they not pin some of their energies on a fearless investigation of what is actually going on—it is quite difficult to find out—and bring some publicity to bear on discrimination where it occurs, from employers or workers in factories, local authorities or even in central Government?
Let me repeat that I hope that the Government will not merely take note, but do something about the recommendations in the Rampton Report. There is not one recommendation that will not do good; and not very many of them even cost much money.

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Finally, I hope that the committee can successfully conclude the admirable work started by Mr. Rampton.
9.33 p.m.
Baroness David: My Lords, I, too, should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Young, for initiating this debate tonight. I wish I had thought of doing it myself, because I think it is a matter of great importance. I was delighted that he congratulated the Rampton Committee, because it has not been recognised enough for the work that it has done. I was glad to hear the noble Lord, Lord Swann, say this. It seems to me that, in the time they had, they did an extremely good job of work. They did what they were asked to do. They came out quickly with a report and with recommendations. They are extremely good recommendations, and I hope that they will be followed. As we have had the good fortune to have the new chairman of the committee, the noble Lord, Lord Swann, taking part in the debate, I should like to wish him and his committee well in the very difficult and sensitive task that they have to do. He has mentioned a number of matters into which they will be looking. Having known him for a long time, I have great confidence that he will have the courage to take on all these problems and that he will be sure to gather in all the evidence and certainly to scrutinise it with scientific thoroughness. So I wish them well.
The fourth chapter of the Rampton Report is called " Programme for Action ", and it sets out clearly what a whole series of institutions and organizations associated with education—central and local government, the DES, HMI, LEAs, the Schools Council, teacher unions, teacher training establishments, examining boards—can do to bring about the changes that the committee would like to see. It has a section on costs. It recognises the need to consider how much additional expenditure is required by the recommendations and the answer, it says, for most of them is " none ".
I understand that one of the reasons for asking this Unstarred Question this evening is to find out why, six months after publication of the interim report, which, as the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, said, was asked for urgently by the Government, and five months after the Select Committee's report on racial disadvantage, so little has been done. Maybe we shall be told that the consultative period is not over for another two days, but surely, after the events of this spring and summer, urgent action is called for. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Scarman, has called for it already. The education system, he says in Part 2 of his report, has not adjusted itself satisfactorily to the needs of the ethnic minority. He endorses the " careful words ", as he calls them, of the Select Committee where it says:
" It has long been evident that we have not got ethnic minority education right ".
Mr. Whitelaw, in the debate on Scarman on 10th December in another place, at column 1005, said:
" The Government will be replying to the Select Committee report in a White Paper which we shall publish early in the New Year ".
I hope that that does not mean that action on the Rampton Report is going to be delayed too.
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Many of the Select Committee's recommendations are similar to those of Rampton, as indeed are those of the noble Lord, Lord Scarman, and those of the Central Policy Review Staff of nearly a decade ago. Can the Minister, when he replies, give us some sort of timetable for action? Where recommendations are directed straight to government departments, I should have thought that Ministers who have responsibility and authority for their departments could have acted immediately, and the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, spoke of this. Eighteen of the 80 recommendations are to the DES and the HMI. Several more are to the DES and the Department of Employment jointly. I understand that consultation may be necessary with local authority associations where recommendations demand action by LEAs, but surely the department can come out with a major policy statement which will show their good intent to improve the educational system for the ethnic minorities, because that system has failed in so many places.
A lead on teacher training, efforts to make access to entry into teacher training and careers work easier for coloured people, guidance on the maintenance of records and statistics and guidance on a multicultural curriculum by HMI are a few of the ways in which immediate help could have been given by the department, and as far as I know it has not been.
As I said earlier, the needs are agreed. Positive discrimination is essential. I am aware that this term has come in for criticism and its meaning has been queried. What I mean by it is positive action to make certain that the special needs of the ethnic minorities are recognised and met so that truly equal opportunity is there for everyone. That is, in order to give equal opportunities to all children, we must provide more resources for some than for others; and if we are going to create equal opportunities for all our children, we must put money into pre-school provision at all hours, as the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, said. We must also make sure that there is proper co-ordination of the social, educational and health services at local level and the voluntary and statutory bodies.
At a meeting of the All-Party Children Group which was chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, last week, it was agreed that the situation is still bad, as the CPRS put it and as the noble Baroness quoted it—
" The provision of services is fragmented and responsibility is divided ".
As a Minister in the DHSS and a spokesman for education here, it would seem that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, is in an eminently suitable position to oversee that co-ordination. I think that he is a man of action and energy, and I hope he will tell us what he is going to do about co-ordination.
I should like to mention a few areas where the Government could take positive action quickly, and they seem to me to cover the main recommendations in this report. The content of teacher training courses needs to be reviewed now that we are a multicultural society and, says the report, no teacher training institution appears to have succeeded in providing a satisfactory grounding in multicultural education for all of its students, although it does give credit for a number of initiatives in certain colleges. It asks for validating bodies to become directly involved in supporting and encouraging such developments. This

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is where the DES could have influence. If the department wishes to improve the numbers of West Indian teachers in our schools, it should find ways of providing mandatory awards not only for the full training, but for the special access courses which enable those without the usual full qualifications to be accepted for entry to the colleges. Only two LEAs give even discretionary awards for this purpose at the moment, and the Select Committee is very keen for this to be done.
If we want to be sure that " unintentional " racism, as the report put it, is removed, we must do all we can to be sure that teachers' attitudes are not coloured by any in-built hidden prejudices; and one way is to have more black teachers in the schools. I am aware that the NAS has just denied any such prejudices, but from my reading of the evidence, not only in Rampton but in the Review of Research into the Education of Pupils of West Indian Origin by Monica Taylor, and published by the National Foundation for Educational Research, and elsewhere, it would seem that they exist. I have a hope that the younger generation may be slightly different. I think that we are looking at it from our rather old, middle-aged point of view. From my experience of young people, their attitude is changing, which is a very good and encouraging thing.
As with the training of teachers, so with the training of careers teachers and officers. We want more coloured men and women in the service, and we want officers who accept that the expectations of the young need to be raised and their aspirations encouraged. The right reverend Prelate mentioned this in relation to teachers, but it applies equally to people in the careers service. The National Association for Multiracial Education expressed concern in their evidence to the Rampton Committee about the quality of personnel in the careers advice posts, and drew the attention of the committee to widening the training of those involved in a way that would take account of the multicultural dimension. In their evidence they said:
" Members of the Association have found many Careers Officers to have very little personal understanding in depth of the young people they advise: a worrying characteristic of their approach to young black people is their tendency to generalise about career aspirations: e.g. ' They always want to be mechanics ' etc. ".
The committee received a great deal of evidence claiming discrimination and low expectations, and the report gave several quotations from West Indians. I should like to quote one from a West Indian girl. She was saying what the careers people said to her:
" They said catering. It's just because my mum's a dinner lady. I wanted to do youth work and she said, ' What do your parents do?' I said: ' My mum's a canteen manageress'; and she said: ' Why not do catering? ' I got no information at all on how to do youth work ".
Of course, we know that there must be good and bad careers officers and it is not at all an easy job. I felt some sympathy for them when I read an article in the Daily Telegraph about somebody who had been doing careers work. She gave a description of a girl called Josephine. She said:
" Josephine was typical. In the domestic science department she was streets ahead of any white student. Her cooking, by any standards, was superb. Had she followed the Institutional Management course we recommended, she would have done very
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well indeed. But no. She would be a secretary, a secretary and nothing but a secretary ".
She went on:
" She was still capable only of the simplest English at the end of her course. This was clearly out of the question ".
She visited Josephine's home and found it to be spotless. The mother, grandmother and, I think, a great-grandmother had been cooks to white people in the West Indies. The officer said it was no wonder that Josephine was good at that. But there was not a book anywhere and she had absolutely no writing or reading capacity. So I agree that the careers people do have a difficult job. There need to be more coloured careers officers.
May I say a word about Section 11 of the Local Government Act 1966, which has also been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury. While recognising how valuable a source of funding this section is, the Rampton Committee, the Select Committee and Lord Scarman have all pointed out that its use could be widened and made more appropriate to present needs. Of course there is a need for other funding as well, but I think it is slightly encouraging that on Wednesday of last week the Home Secretary said that his department had recently completed its review of the section and that they would be able to accept many of the Select Committee's specific recommendations. When the Minister replies I hope he can tell us a little more about this, or say whether the Government have other plans in mind. It seems that there at least some immediate action is forthcoming. And has the Minister anything to say about resources generally, which is so important?
The last part of the report that I want to speak about deals with statistics. Four of the five recommendations relate to the Department of Education and Science. Ethnic records have got to be collected. Everybody who has spoken tonight agrees about that. They are needed on pupils in school, on what happens to them after they leave school, on students in teacher training institutions and in universities and polys., and on the teachers in our schools. The committee's task was made more difficult by the absence of statistics.
As far back as 1977 the Select Committee report on the West Indian community recommended the collection of statistics. The Government concluded that some statistics should be collected, with first returns to be made by January 1980. However, owing apparently to discussion on the inclusion of an ethnic question in the 1981 Census little progress has been made. Last week, however, Mr. Whitelaw said, and I quote from col. 1006 of Hansard for 10th December:
" To help in the attack on racial disadvantage we must place greater emphasis on what is generally known as ethnic monitoring in order to measure more accurately the extent of the problem. I appreciate the concern that is often expressed among the ethnic communities and elsewhere about the possible misuse of this information, but only if the relevant information is available can we take the necessary steps to remedy racial disadvantage ".
Mr. Whitelaw went on to say that they were accepting the Select Committee's recommendation in support of ethnic monitoring in the Civil Service. I understand that the majority of the main teacher unions are now in favour of the keeping of records on an ethnic basis, so can we please expect some action on this soon?
The burden of my song is that action is needed now. We must not have further and further delays while the department digests the documents which have come in

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as a result of the consultative process. I have tried to outline some very important areas where the department could get going now because, as I have
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said, the costs of some are minimal. It could get going now if it had the will. Is the department aware of the urgency, and is it prepared to move?
9.54 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Lord Elton): My Lords, in asking his Question, the noble Lord, Lord Young of Dartington, has initiated a very interesting, if hardly heated, debate. I am sure that the House will be grateful to him, though not to the engineers, for that and for the wide experience which he brought to this subject. However, I mentioned to him (he has already referred to it) that I feel the debate could have been both more interesting and perhaps more influential had it taken place a little later. I do not say that because we do not think there is any urgency or any importance attending the subject of the report. Quite the contrary. I say it because the report is at this moment subject to the consultative process. Governments habitually submit reports to this process in order to evaluate them and to evaluate their own opinions of them against the opinions of people and institutions who would be affected by the recommendations made in the report or who might have a particularly close knowledge of their subjects.
In this case, the process is more complex than usual. The interim report of the independent committee of inquiry into the education of West Indian children in schools was published on 17th June. Its title is West Indian Children in our Schools, and the noble Lord and everybody else refers to it quite rightly as the Rampton Report after the first chairman of the committee. Shortly afterwards, seven weeks afterwards to be precise, the House of Commons Select Committee on Home Affairs published a report of its own. This, the 5th Report of the Home Affairs Committee, dealt with racial disadvantage. In view of this area of concern common to both reports, the Government decided to combine the consultative process so that it covered the whole of the Rampton Report and covered as well that part of the Select Committee's report that covered the same ground. The resulting document was published in October and comments on it were sought from a wide constituency.
The noble Lord opposite referred to the respondents as set about the Department of Education and Science like mosquitoes around a swamp. I must say that I was a little surprised that he should refer to these bodies in that way. They are listed in Annexe D of the consultative document. They start with the Afro-Caribbean Teachers' Association, the Afro-West Indian Association and so on. There arc 100 of them—I will not list them but I believe that this is not a frivolous inquiry and is directed at the proper people.
The closing date has been mentioned already by two speakers—it is at the end of this week. Even if we were to ignore every submission received after this week, we would still not be in possession of all the comments we are likely to receive on this report. Still less would we be able to digest them. That being so, noble Lords will see that I cannot at this stage give any useful answer to the second part of the noble Lord's Question. The Government will not come to a
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conclusion on this report until they can do so in the light of all the informed opinions they are able to collect upon it. Therefore, I cannot say anything which would amount to a commitment on any part of it. I did in fact point this out earlier.
I make no complaint of the decision of the noble Lord to bring this debate this evening. I merely want to say that I am not resorting to a subterfuge in order to excuse the lack of a concrete reply. May I say that, before we have all the answers to the problems of the West Indian community, we shall have to ask a good many more questions. Indeed, I confidently expect that the committee itself will be doing just this, and we have heard of some from the noble Lord, Lord Swann. The West Indians are not, for instance, alone in being an ethnic minority group, yet different ethnic minority groups respond in different ways to what, superficially at least, are similar circumstances. We need to know very much more about the reasons for this before we leap to general conclusions about the causes. My noble friend Baroness Faithfull, in a most interesting speech, has shown us the fringes of this problem in the statistics she quoted on the size of age groups, on the levels of employment among mothers, and on the levels of unemployment among men, and so on.
Such inquiries require very sensitive handling and I note that the committee itself recognises this in the passage on page 67 which my noble friend quoted; that it would be wrong for the Government to take any initiatives on this front without first consulting the local authority associations, the teachers' associations, the Society of Education Officers, and representatives of the ethnic minority groups. The noble Lord, Lord Pitt of Hampstead, urged us to proceed. I take note of that urgency, but I hope he will agree that it must be done with caution. We have a lot of experience of difficulty over this in the past. Doubt about causes, and difficulties in coming at them, do not mean that there is nothing to be done. The potential capability of our fellow citizens of West Indian origin and their calibre is proved beyond doubt by the composition of the committee itself. The noble Lord, Lord Swann, has suggested—and I shall be fascinated to read his further investigations into this—that our present system of IQ testing actually masks this potential in early years and thus (although he did not draw this inference) leads teachers to expect and so encourage under-achievement.
If we look at the problem in its context and see it as part of that context, we shall see that a great deal is already in hand or in preparation. The context to which I refer was dramatically illuminated last summer in the streets of Toxteth and Brixton and again in the publication of the profoundly important report of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman. But it extended to many places other than these. Almost all of them are in inner city areas, and it is here that the ethnic minorities with which we are concerned have their homes. The Government are deeply concerned with their predicament. As your Lordships recall,

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after the civil disturbances of last summer the Prime Minister decided to give the Secretary of State for the Environment a special role in tackling the problems of Merseyside in general and inner Liverpool in particular. A special task force has been established to help in this, and it will take account throughout of the need to promote good community relations and reduce disadvantage among ethnic minority groups.
The noble Baroness, Lady David, asked for resources. My right honourable friend's announcement of additional resources for the inner cities last week provides further evidence of the Government's commitment. The pressures on public expenditure at present are very great indeed. Yet the level of resources the Government will be making available under the urban programme next year is £270 million. That is the highest ever in real terms. The new resources will be concentrated on capital works and will be deployed so as to generate as much matching private investment as possible. So the impact will be greater than that sum. Improvement of the physical environment and the creation of better job opportunities must bring benefit to both black and white schoolchildren through improvement of the whole atmosphere in which they are brought up. As my noble friend Lord Bellwin said last week, we certainly intend that ethnic minorities will benefit from the national resources. The right reverend Prelate said that this was a matter of great importance in changing the atmosphere of the schools, and this is endorsed by the noble Lord, Lord Swann. That is an initiative which the Government have already taken.
Urban programme resources are already being used for projects which benefit the ethnic minorities. In 1980–81 some 350 projects were funded which were specifically for the benefit of ethnic minorities. In 1981–82 a further 130 projects are approved. Many of the other urban programme projects have a bearing on their needs.
The noble Baroness, Lady David, was kind enough to warn me in advance of her interest in Section 11 of the Local Government Act 1966, and most other speeches in this debate have referred to it. At the time when the consultative document we are debating was issued, the Home Office was in the middle of its review of the operation of Section 11 funding, and organisations with comments to make on this subject were asked to do so as soon as possible. In response to the urging of the Home Affairs Committee and of Lord Scarman, my right honourable friend made it clear in another place on 10th December that he intended to alter the rules covering the administration of Section 11 grant so as to make it more appropriate to the circumstances of the day. If the comments on the Rampton Report reveal that further changes in the funding system might be thought desirable, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science will no doubt wish to draw this to the attention of the Home Secretary.
The Home Office has been concerned with other aspects of what I have termed the context of this report. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary published on 17th November a report of a study by his officials into the incidence of racial attacks. He has outlined in his foreword to the report the lines of
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action he intends to pursue. But the report we are concerned with is concerned with the narrower world of education which exists within the context that I have been considering. I have no intention of suggesting that any part of the education of children in the community does not contribute in some degree to their behaviour within that society or outside it. But I would not want noble Lords to think that the Government have awaited the publication of the interim report, let alone consultation, before they took any action. Some of what has been done has had to be done by exhortation.
Education in this country is not centralised as it is in some others. Control is dispersed to local authorities to be exercised within boundaries set by Government, but to detailed specifications that are not laid down in Whitehall. Very much that is done, therefore, is done either in response to local needs or to central advice rather than to central direction. Under this head the Government have encouraged certain local education authorities to establish special preparatory courses aimed particularly at students from ethnic minorities to enable them to reach the standard necessary for entry to training courses for teaching social work, or general higher education. Noble Lords have referred to the necessity of getting people into these professional posts so that they shall provide a " role model "—I think it was my noble friend Lady Faithfull who mentioned this—and thus your brilliant cook does not become a secretary. That is the initiative we have taken already in this direction.
I should also mention the Caribbean Teacher Exchange scheme.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, the committee report says that only two such schemes are going now. What are the Government doing to encourage more of them?
Lord Elton: My Lords, it is part of Government policy. I regret I cannot quantify it, but I shall write to the noble Lord as to the future plans.
Noble Lords referred to the value of exchanges between the home country and the Caribbean. These are going on. I happen to have been to two receptions for exchange teachers in exactly that scheme in the last two years, and have met them. There are also schemes for exchanges in the United States, which I think the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, commended in his speech. Maybe the scale is not yet big enough, but it is actually happening and it is producing results, as I clearly understood in my conversations with the teachers concerned.
Of course, the attitude of teachers to their pupils is an important factor. It can be an overridingly important factor in some instances. It always is in any classroom in any community. The noble Lord, Lord Pitt, spoke both of explicit racism which all of us deplore, and of what the report, perhaps in an infelicitious phrase, calls " covert "—I would call it " unintentional or unconscious "—racialism as well.
On teacher training, the department and the inspectorate take every opportunity to encourage consideration by the training institutes of the best way to ensure that students are adequately prepared for teaching in today's multiracial society. At present about half of all initial training institutions appear to be

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offering relevant studies, and the fact that many of the others are now reviewing the content of their courses offers an opportunity for further development.
I do not wish to extend my speech overlong. However, I think I should mention that it was in March this year that the Government urged local education authorities to take into account the wide range of ethnic and cultural backgrounds of their pupils when planning the curriculum. The department also promotes research by supporting the work of certain voluntary bodies. Present and recent beneficiaries include the National Association for Multiracial Education; the Caribbean Communications Project; the National Association for the Teaching of English as a Second Language to Adults and the National Committee for Mother Tongue Teaching.
Reference has been made to the work of the inspectorate. It is also effective in this field. Its central task is to assess trends and standards in the educational system. But as part of their routine inspection activity all inspectors give attention to the needs of ethnic minority pupils and students. Within the programme there are also some inspections and surveys which concentrate specifically upon the needs of these groups. I should add that they advocate good practice everywhere, and certainly a failure to involve all members of staff in pastoral activities in the school or to involve parents as closely as possible in the teaching of their children is bad practice. I do not think that we need to wait, and we have not waited, for the report to exercise pressure in this field. Parental involvement in governing bodies is, as noble Lords already know, part of Government official policy.
The department has not been idle in this matter; nor have the Government underestimated, and nor should your Lordships underestimate, the amount of work that is going on in this field. The committee of inquiry that produced this report is not labouring alone in that field. We had already begun to tackle the job before they reported. We shall continue with the benefit of their advice in the future. That process is not yet concluded and, as I said at the opening of my speech, I cannot tell the noble Lord that the specific impact of those findings will be upon the policy of Her Majesty's Government. The holistic approach which the noble Lord asked for cannot be produced as a result of this report alone. My noble friend Lady Faithfull has shown how important are the very early years, the pre-school years in which toddlers learn to stand on their own two feet, and estimate their own relationships in the community in which they live.
It remains for me only to thank all those who have contributed to the interim report, including Mr. Rampton, for their good work and to wish the noble Lord, Lord Swann, and his committee every success in their continuing work towards their final report, which I am sure will be of the greatest interest and value.
Lord Young of Dartington: My Lords, before the Minister sits down, on the question that I put to him specifically, can he say that there definitely will be a response in full from the Government to this report, and that there will not be a period of waiting until the Swann Report is published? I also hope that the Government
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will accept that the full response has not yet been evoked.
Several Noble Lords: Order, order!
Lord Young of Dartington: My Lords, the noble Lord was rather implying that there has been a complete response.
Lord Elton: My Lords, as I had actually sat down, I shall merely say that all I said we had to wait for was the consultative process.

Personal Statement: The Earl Ferrers
10.12 p.m.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I should like, with your Lordships' permission, to make a personal statement and, in doing so now, I am taking the first opportunity to correct a misleading answer which I regret that I gave to the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, on two occasions. The first occasion was yesterday in answer to a question on the Statement of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Employment. The second occasion was today in answer to a supplementary question on the Starred Question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Molloy. On both these occasions I said that the parents of trainees on the new Youth Training Scheme would continue to receive child benefit. I now understand that this is not the case and I must apologise to your Lordships for describing this aspect of the proposed arrangements incorrectly.
The position on child benefit is set out in paragraph 36 of the White Paper, A New Training Initiative: A Programme for Action. From the date when the new scheme is fully introduced in 1983, child benefit will continue to be paid to parents of those who leave school at the minimum school-leaving age until the following September, provided that the young person is neither in work nor on the new Youth Training Scheme. Young people who are on the scheme will be paid a training allowance from the Government on the basis set out in paragraph 38 of the White Paper. Child benefit will not be paid to their parents.
My Lords, it is with considerable regret that I find that I have misled your Lordships on a matter of some substantial importance, and I should like to apologise sincerely and without reservation both to the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, and to your Lordships for this inaccuracy.