Lords Sitting of 15 July 1981

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Peterborough.
The Lord Netherthorpe—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

MSC Sectoral Review: Training Arrangements
Lord Rochester: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, when the Manpower Services Commission has completed its current sectoral review of training arrangements, it will publish the criteria on which its conclusions are based and indicate the extent to which the criteria have been met in each sector.
The Minister of State, Department of Employment (The Earl of Gowrie): My Lords, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Employment has asked the Manpower Services Commission to publish its report on its sectoral review of future training arrangements before the Summer Recess. The report itself is likely to explain the criteria which the commission has applied in carrying out its review, and to identify those criteria which have influenced its conclusions on the most appropriate training arrangements for each sector.
Lord Rochester: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. Is he aware that it will give pleasure to those who feel that the principles which will help the Secretary of State to determine the
future of industrial training boards should be open to public and parliamentary scrutiny? Is the noble Earl in a position to say whether the commission's conclusions are likely to be made known to us before the Report stage and Third Reading of the Employment and Training Bill which is now going through your Lordships' House?
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, the usual channels have arranged for the Report stage and Third Reading to take place on Friday week, and that still leaves us a little time before the beginning of the Recess, so I cannot say which will be the first.

Road and Rail: Investment Returns
2.38 p.m.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they consider that a study should be undertaken of how to compare road and rail investments; and if so, by what body they will have it done.
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, the Department of Transport and the British Railways Board have jointly been considering the ways in which the returns on road and rail investment can be compared. This work has been delayed by the pressure of other work—for example, on the electrification review. The independent Standing Advisory Committee on Trunk Road Assessment (SACTRA) was consulted about the work, and asked to be kept informed. It is possible that the newly reconstituted SACTRA may wish to return to this issue.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, when the Minister says that SACTRA has been reconstituted, is that not rather an understatement for the sacking of every single member of this body except one? Why do the Government bother to rig the composition of advisory bodies in this way, rather than adopting the cheaper and more honest course of continuing to give preference to investment in roads as compared with rail, as all Governments have done in the past?
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, to answer the first part of the noble Lord's supplementary with regard to SACTRA, he may have been referring to an article in the New Scientist magazine; I hope the noble Lord will not believe everything he reads. When the appointments expired, my right honourable friend the Minister reviewed the future of the committee and its members. Some members made it clear that after, in many cases, four years' work on highly technical issues, they did not wish to continue for a further term. Others had changed their jobs or moved, so that service on the committee was less relevant or convenient. After four years of hard work, to refer to these hard-working gentlemen as having been sacked is totally wrong. The new board has been set up by my right honourable friend and consists of a very well-balanced board under the chairmanship of Professor Williams, who was himself on the previous board of SACTRA. So far as investment is concerned, we have maintained the investment ceiling for the railways, as the noble Lord is well aware, at the same level in real terms as the previous Administration, and we are perfectly prepared to stand on our record.
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, have the British Waterways Board and the navigation authorities also been asked to join in this study? Is the Minister aware that the investment criteria so far used for investment in major navigations have been even weirder than some of those used for rail; and if the British Waterways Board are not involved in this, may I ask the noble Earl to say why they are not?
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, I cannot inform the noble Viscount off the cuff whether the British Waterways Board is involved in this, but of course the Department of Transport would consult them on anything relevant, and we had a very good Question Time on the British Waterways Board only last week.
Lord Moyne: My Lords, can my noble friend assure us that, when considering investment in the railways, the benefit to the steel industry is taken into account?
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, I am sure that all relevant information, apart from that of financing, is taken into account.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, would the Minister accept that there are a number of noble Lords who take the view that it is not a question of competing for investment in the roads, waterways or railways, but a question of what is best for the nation, what will help in our recovery and what will be of assistance in dealing with unemployment?
The Earl of Avon: I am grateful to the noble Lord for those remarks, my Lords. The subject of comparability is, as he said, inherently difficult and in principle there is a case for the Government, in assessing proposals for public sector transport investment, having a mechanism for comparing investment levels and projects for one transport mode with those for another mode, and I fully take the point made by the noble Lord.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, in regard to SACTRA, may I ask whether, as he has obviously read the New Scientist, the noble Earl recalls that Professor Peter Hall, who was one of the members who was sacked, said he was surprised that they should have made such a clean sweep? Is the Minister aware that, while I do not believe everything I read in the newspapers, I take the word of Mick Hayman in preference to that of the Department of Transport? In regard to the substantive merits of road and rail investment, may I ask whether the noble Earl would agree that in the past it has always been the practice to insist that British Rail should adhere to the normal public sector investment criterion that it should meet the forecast rate of return specified in advance by the Treasury, but that no such restriction is applied to investment in roads?
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, I really must object to the noble Lord using the word "sacked", which he has culled from the New Scientist magazine. They were not sacked; and so far as Professor Hall is concerned, since he is now working for the University of California, it would be quite hard for him to continue to work for the board in London. With regard to the noble Lord's other comments on investments, I think I agree with the first ones, but I am not sure about the latter.

The Queen's Flight
2.43 p.m.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how long each of the Andover-type aircraft currently used by the Queen's Flight has been in service.
The Minister of State for Defence Procurement (Viscount Trenchard): My Lords, two of the Andover aircraft currently used by the Queen's Flight entered the Royal Air Force service in September 1964, and the third in March 1965.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, does my noble friend appreciate that the anxiety that has been expressed in a number of questions in this House will certainly not be dissipated by those figures? Are these not somewhat elderly aircraft? And despite the admirable maintenance of the Queen's Flight, in view of the fact that there have been one or two somewhat disconcerting accidents to aircraft of this type and age, are not Ministers perhaps taking a very serious responsibility in not going forward with a replacement?
Viscount Trenchard: My Lords, these aircraft are somewhat elderly—I think that my noble friend is correct in those adjectives—but this is certainly not exceptional among extremely reliable aircraft of various kinds which we have had. The flying hours of the Queen's Flight Andovers are far fewer than the average for the Andovers used as communication aircraft in the Royal Air Force. In our view, the safety record of the aeroplane is very high, and, as my noble friend has mentioned, the maintenance is to an exceptionally high standard. Yes, the Government are confident that this is an extremely safe and reliable aircraft.
Baroness Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe: My Lords, would the noble Viscount forgive me if I asked him a rather practical question about these aircraft? Is he aware that since the aircraft are unable to fly very high, Privy Counsellors, when flying north as part of their duty, often are most horribly sick?
Viscount Trenchard: My Lords, I cannot answer that point, except to say that I have flown quite often in the aircraft without experiencing any of the difficulty that has been mentioned. I would take the opportunity to say that the question of the prestige of our Royal Family flying in the aircraft has been mentioned on previous occasions—I think by my noble friend—and I would remind the House that on long journeys abroad Her Majesty almost invariably flies in a VC 10.
The Earl of Selkirk: My Lords, can the noble Viscount say whether the navigation equipment is fully up-to-date?
Viscount Trenchard: My Lords, I think that for the purpose for which the RAF, and for that matter the Queen's Flight, aircraft are used, and for the conditions in which they are used, the instruments are more than adequate. I say again that the aircraft is extremely reliable.
Lord Beswick: My Lords, while admiring the defence that the noble Viscount the Minister makes of a quite indefensible position, may I ask him, would not the situation here be eased if the vote for the Flight were spread over departments other than the Ministry of Defence?
Viscount Trenchard: My Lords, the noble Lord, with his past background of experience in the manufacture of superb modern aircraft, will of course take the view that he has taken. However, I must remind him that if we are to meet the growing threat (which we shall be talking about next Monday) we really must select the necessary enormously high-cost equipment. Regrettably, this item comes lower down the priority list. So far as other departments are concerned, the whole Government policy is still to try to cut further the undue proportion of national expenditure that is represented by public expenditure. The defence budget is under great stress, but so, too, are budgets of all other departments.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, can the noble Viscount confirm that there are coming off the assembly line at Hurn at the end of the year two small VAC-475s which are not sold? If that is true, would they not be very suitable for transfer to the Queen's Flight? Secondly, is it not a fact that many of the uses to which the Queen's Flight are put would be better
and more economically catered for by the HS 125s in the ministerial flight from Northolt? Therefore is there not a very strong case for combining the ministerial flight and the Queen's Flight?
Viscount Trenchard: My Lords, I cannot give a reply in relation to the first part of my noble friend's supplementary question. I do not think that the aircraft mentioned is of the size normally required for Queen's Flight operations; neither is the HS 125. The question of amalgamating the HS 125 Squadron with the rest of the communications squadron has attractions and has been looked at, but that would still involve considerable additional cost in moving the aircraft and in servicing different aircraft at different places; and it cannot claim priority at present.
The Earl of Kimberley: My Lords, will my noble friend say whether Her Majesty's Government have considered the plea by the Air League that in the interests of economy the Queen's Flight should be amalgamated with No. 32 Squadron?
Viscount Trenchard: My Lords, I think my last answer in relation to two other aircraft covers that proposition as well.
Lord Balfour of Inchrye: My Lords, may I ask the Minister this question: In terms of modern speed, are not the Andovers considered extraordinarily slow and antiquated? Is the Minister aware that there is a saying in the Royal Air Force about those who use Andovers—that strong men on bicyles can pass them on a windy day?
Viscount Trenchard: My Lords, my noble friend has such experience of aircraft flying slower than bicyles that I would hesitate to take him on. But I can assure him that I get to the West of Scotland to visit Coulport, for instance, I think in about an hour and a half, and have a very nice meal on the way.
The Lord President of the Council (Lord Soames): My Lords, we have one more Question to go, and I think the House would wish us to move on to it.

Work Sharing
2.51 p.m.
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have discussed with the trades unions their ideas on work sharing as a means of reducing unemployment, and if so to what extent the unions are willing to accept some small but necessary reduction in shared wages if products produced under such a regime are to remain competitive.
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, we have not discussed this issue specifically with the trade unions, as it is best dealt with directly between employers and unions in individual cases. The noble Viscount is, however, quite right to point out that, if work is shared to create extra jobs, those involved must accept that their combined wages should be shared, too, in order to allow the goods or services they produce to remain competitive. Otherwise, all the jobs will be put at risk.
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for that reply. May I ask him whether he realises that it has been reliably estimated that it costs the country something approaching 80 per cent. as much to have people not working and getting unemployment benefit as it would if they were actually in a job? This being so, and if the Government are prepared to look at their accounting, it surely creates great possibilities as to what could be done, not only by way of work sharing—the Government getting the 80 per cent. which they would otherwise have to lose—but also, of course, in cutting down overtime, were they to subsidise by some means firms which are at the moment in fact relying on overtime. Would he not agree that this is an area which it would be well worth looking at in conjunction with the unions on the basis that everybody would have to give up a bit to decrease the unemployment?
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, no one is keener to bring down unemployment that I am; and I know of cases where firms have offered one salary for two jobs to young people and to new recruits, and that seems to me to be an admirable and sensible thing to do. But overall, as I said in my original Answer, it is more sensible for unions and employers to negotiate together about the sharing of work than for the Government to plunge in themselves.
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, if I may take up one point that the Minister has, I think, failed to answer, there is 80 per cent. which, one way or another, the Government have to spend on unemployed persons—that is including the tax they do not get, and so on—and it really is up to them to put that 80 per cent. to some useful purpose in solving this problem. Could the noble Earl deal with that point, which I thought I had made clearly at the start?
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, the 80 per cent. figure is not accurate in any respect, and the noble Viscount must be aware that the unemployment register is a constantly shifting register. Even at this particular dark hour more than 300,000 people a month are leaving the register.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that, while his Answer has rectified it to some extent, the Question as it stands depicts very dangerous trends in suggesting that the Government and the unions should talk? Are not management and the owners of businesses to have any say in how their labour should be deployed in the interests of their companies and the country?
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, I agree with my noble friend.
Lord Brockway: My Lords, in view of the suggestion that everyone should share, would this proposal extend to the salaries of the management and the fees of the directors in these concerns?
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, since the proposal is the proposal of the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, and not mine, that question is perhaps more properly directed to him.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, would the noble Earl not agree that the Question itself is indicative of the appalling situation into which the present Administration has got this country? Would he not further agree that his Answer confirms that; and is it not the fact of the matter that what we have to do—and it is a possibility—is create jobs; that is, take the unemployed and give them work to do, which they want to do? They want to earn a living, not to be dished out with money on the dole; and, if we were to follow the policies which have been enunciated by the Leader of the Opposition and by well-known economists, this could be achieved and our nation could be saved.
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, I would very much welcome the co-operation of the noble Lord and his friends in talking to unions about the lowering of objections to activities by young people which are at present undertaken by unionised labour.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, would not the noble Earl have a word with the Institute—
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, would the noble Earl not confirm that he and the Members of the Government with whom he sits have for a very long time been urging the unions to ask for rather lower rises in order to keep more of their colleagues in employment? Is this not in fact the same picture as was put forward by my noble friend Lord Hanworth?
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, yes, I have no objection to the proposition that lower wages will protect more jobs. I agree with both the noble Viscount and the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, on that. My objection was as to whether the Government were the best agency to try to determine what people should bargain at the workplace in this respect.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, would not the noble Earl agree that another way to tackle this problem would be by issuing a sort of reverse rights issue, whereby you substitute one share for two? By this means you halve profits, and this makes the product more competitive in exactly the same way as the noble Viscount proposes.
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, I very much enjoy the financial language on the lips of the noble Lord, with his background. I must point out—and this is a view not necessarily of the Government, however—that the CBI recently came out against a reduction in hours overall because of loss of competitiveness. But, as I said to the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, where people are offering two jobs for one salary that would seem to me to be a sensible way to proceed, particularly where new recruits are concerned.

Business
Lord Denham: My Lords, it may be for the convenience of your Lordships if I announce that dinner will be available today at the usual time.
Also, your Lordships may wish to know that at a convenient moment after 3.30 my noble friend Lord Belstead will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement which is to be made in another place on equipment for the police.

Transport Bill
2.58 p.m.
Read 3a, with the amendments.
Lord Underhill Lord Underhill moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 3, line 38, at end insert—
("(9) Notwithstanding the provisions of this section and section 1 above the harbours company shall continue to be part of Sealink").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, during the Committee stage I asked the Minister whether, in any possible disposal of the shipping and harbour service operations of Sealink, they would not be separated. The Minister said that he recognised that there were such apprehensions, but assured me that it was the firm intention that the shipping and harbour operations of Sealink would be kept together. But, as noble Lords will appreciate, there have been discussions on possible proposals for, I do not know whether one would call it a take-over, a merger or an amalgamation, possibly with another cross-Channel ferry operator. Therefore, it would appear desirable to ensure that what the Government say is their intention and what I raised during the Committee stage should be written into the Bill. I readily have accepted the assurance of the Minister. Therefore, that is not in question; but Secretaries of State may change and the view of the Government may change. In view of the fact that the shipping and harbour services are so closely related to Sealink, the amendment proposes that this should be written into the Bill so that what the Government seek and what I sought at Committee stage is firmly in the Bill. I beg to move.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment (Lord Bellwin): My Lords, Clause 2 of the Bill provides for the establishment of a new company to which Sealink's harbours will be transferred. There are legal and commercial reasons for this which I have explained to the House before and which I shall not therefore repeat. The new company will be a wholly owned subsidiary of Sealink.
It is true that as the Bill stands there would be nothing to prevent the Railways Board selling the harbours company separately from Sealink's shipping business, or to stop any future private sector owner of Sealink disposing of the harbour company while retaining the shipping business. However, I do not think that this is likely to happen. The present intention of the Railways Board is that the two businesses should be kept together, and there are good commercial reasons for this. Sealink believes that ownership of its harbours, some of which are strategically very well placed for crossings to the Continent and Ireland, gives its shipping business a significant advantage over its competitors. If all connection between the two businesses were severed, in Sealink's view this would damage the company's commercial interests. Assuming that this is so, separate sales might also be expected to command a lower price than if the two companies are sold together. So, there is every reason to expect that the board will want to keep the two companies together.
I would have thought that that was as powerful an argument to assuage the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, as the previous references which were made as to the attitude of the board on general lines, the Secretary of State, and so on. I should have thought a good commercial incentive was a very substantial additional reason why the dangers which he fears in fact will not happen.
Lord Underhill: I am very grateful to have the reassurance from the Minister. Everything that has been said justifies why the amendment should be in the Bill. He has agreed that it is desirable and commercially wise to do so. Therefore, it would seem that this ought to be something written into the Bill. It is not an issue on which one would seek to divide the House but there is a principle involved. I shall not withdraw this amendment but ask the House to make a decision without a Division. If only the Minister would accept that what he wants is what we want and that all his arguments go to that length as well.
On Question, amendment negatived.
3.3 p.m.
Clause 3 [Powers of Secretary of State to give directions]:
Lord Underhill Lord Underhill moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 4, line 3, at beginning insert—
("The Secretary of State shall exercise these powers in a reasonable manner and").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, at both Committee and Report stages various noble Lords from all sides of the House have considered amendments and expressed their views on the arbitrary powers which are given to the Secretary of State under Clause 3 of the
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Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, at each stage could not accept the particular amendments, and at Report he could not accept an amendment which proposed deletion of the entire clause because of these arbitrary powers. The noble Lord said that it was essential that the powers were wide-ranging but they were reserve powers. I quote:
"… we have no intention of using these powers in an underhand or vindictive way or in a way which damages the interests of the board's main activity …"—[0fficial Report, 2/7/81; col. 338.]
What we are suggesting in the amendment is that that ought in some way to be put into the Bill. In framing this amendment, we considered how it was possible to lay down some criteria because both at Committee and Report stages the point was: What should be the criteria for the Government using the reserve powers? It may be recalled that at the Report stage there was an amendment which intended to make it quite clear that the board would not be asked to do anything which was against the powers and duties given to it under the previous Act.
It is extremely difficult to frame a criteria and therefore we are using the words:
"The Secretary of State shall exercise these powers in a reasonable manner and".
The word "reasonable" is used in a number of places in this Bill. Only this week there was a long discussion in your Lordships' House on the word "reasonable" in another Bill. What we are trying to do in this amendment is to make it quite clear that the Minister will use the powers in a reasonable way. In other words, as the Minister has said, this is the intention. That should be written into the Bill. This will give an assurance for the future; and whatever may be the wise attitude of the present Secretary of State, Secretaries of State can change. Therefore, it is desirable that these powers should not be used in an arbitrary way, but that they should be the reserve power to which the Minister has referred. Therefore, I hope that the noble Lord will accept the simple words in the amendment:
"The Secretary of State shall exercise these powers in a reasonable manner".
I beg to move.
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, this amendment takes up again a theme which we discussed both in Committee and at Report stage. The noble Lord is not convinced, despite extensive assurances which I have given, that the present or future Secretaries of State might use these powers in an irresponsible or vindictive way. I have to say that this latest amendment is no more acceptable to the Government than the others which we have already discussed and for reasons with which the House will by now be familiar.
I said at Report stage that it was important when taking powers of direction to leave no doubt as to the scope of those powers. If powers of direction are to be worth having they must be absolutely clear. I thought at the time that this was one issue on which there was agreement between us. The noble Lord, Lord Underhill, seemed to accept the force of my point that we must avoid enacting ambiguous powers whose use invites litigation. Yet this amendment offends against that important aim: it creates ambiguity in a clause whose purpose and effect are crystal clear. It

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introduces the criterion of reasonableness to the exercise of these powers; and yet offers no test by which reasonableness may be established.
Reasonableness depends on the eye of the beholder. We may be sure that the Secretary of State will not give directions that he does not think to be reasonable; but will the Railways Board agree? The very existence of a situation in which a direction needs to be given implies that agreement cannot be reached. The Secretary of State may want to do something that appears to him perfectly reasonable as a way of implementing the Government's policy—policy that will have been discussed in great detail by Parliament and approved. The Railways Board may disagree and may therefore want to challenge the reasonableness of the Secretary of State's direction simply on the grounds that it does not please them. In that case it would ultimately be for the courts to consider whether or not the Secretary of State's direction should stand. This is quite inappropriate. It is not for the courts to interpret Government policy and we ought not to include in legislation of this kind such a subjective requirement which can only be interpreted by a court.
Both Houses of Parliament have for decades accepted the principle that the appropriate Minister or Secretary of State should have the last word on when to exercise powers of direction given to him by Parliament. I have looked at more than a dozen Acts containing powers to direct the disposal of assets and, as one might expect from what I have said, none of them contains the kind of limitation that the noble Lord wants to introduce. I see nothing in the policy under discussion or the proposals before the House that suggests we should depart from these precedents. I respectfully suggest to the noble Lord opposite that the amendment would create confusion by its dependence on the subjective element which has no place in the drafting of legislation, would place on the courts a role in policy-making that they could not suitably carry out, and that its chief practical effect would be to give the board or any other interested party scope for argument and delay. I have given the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, categoric assurances about the Government's intentions to proceed as far as possible by agreement and to use the powers of direction with care and discretion. I cannot go further than that without nullifying the whole of Clause 3, a clause already approved by the House in Committee and at Report.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, is the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, aware that some five or six years ago I put forward an amendment on similar lines to this when speaking from the Back Benches opposite, and his noble friend on the Front Bench—I forget who it was—said, a great deal more succinctly than my noble friend today has just said, that whenever Secretaries of State exercise powers they always do so reasonably?
Lord Underhill: My Lords, I am dealing with 1981 and not with 1976. Not only myself but other noble Lords, not of my party, at the Committee and Report stages expressed great concern at what they called the arbitrary, wide-ranging powers given to the Secretary of State. I made it clear, in moving the amendment this
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afternoon, that I fully accepted the assurances of the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, and that I could do nothing else but accept them. However, it is what is written in the Bill that matters—I have said this so many times—and when there are wide-sweeping arbitrary powers in a Bill they can be used; and assurances are not sufficient to bind any future Government or any future Secretary of State. Far from my creating ambiguity by trying to put these words in, the ambiguity is already there, because the Secretary of State is given these powers of direction—direction to dispose of and to form subsidiaries. Those directions are really instructions, and no matter how much one may say, "We have the assurances that these will not be used", the fact is that the powers are there. What the amendment was seeking to do was to make their use "reasonable".
It is pretty clear that the Government will not move on this. I thought I was being very reasonable in moving this amendment, because I should have liked to frame exact criteria to be used for the reserve powers—I accept that the Government may wish to use reserve powers. But the clause does not refer just to reserve powers: it refers to these wide-sweeping powers which a Secretary of State could use if he so desired. The comments made about the word "reasonable" may unfortunately come back in discussion on other Bills in which the same word appears: the point was challenged in this House only a few days ago. In the circumstances, although I think our amendment is right and justified, I beg leave to withdraw it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 27 [Compulsory wearing of seat belts]:
Lord Monson Lord Monson moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 20, line 37, at end insert—
("Provided that such regulations shall not require the wearing of seat belts on private roads whether or not such roads coincide with public footpaths or bridleways").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move this amendment. It is an improved version of an amendment which I moved last week and which attempted to provide that the wearing of seat belts should not be compulsory on private roads. I do not believe it was ever the intention of the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, or of the Government that seat belt compulsion should apply to cars when driven on private roads, but unless we accept this amendment, or something very like it, we are going to run into difficulties. The difficulties arise because under the 1972 Act the definition of "road" not only embraces public highways and bridges over public highways, as might be supposed, but also includes all roads to which the public have access.
The noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, speaking to my amendment last week, gave an assurance that the driveways of houses open to the public and indeed of all houses would be automatically exempt from these provisions, on the grounds that public access was strictly limited both in duration and in other respects. But this still leaves us with roads on private industrial estates, such as can be seen in great profusion within a radius of 10 miles from London Airport and in other parts of the country, private housing estates—and here Wentworth springs to mind: it is 20 years since I was

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there but I believe the roads there are still private—and, above all, farm roads where they happen to coincide with public rights of way, as they so often do. After all, public footpaths are open to the public 24 hours a day, by definition. One can visualise the sort of trouble this could cause for farmers and for those shooting over private estates. Modern Land Rovers have three seats in the front and it is common for three guns to sit in the front and put their dogs in the back; but there is no seat belt on the centre front seat in a Land Rover, nor is it possible to fit one.
The noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, suggested that this matter should be left for litigation, but I really do not think that is at all a good idea. Is it not the case that judges are constantly complaining of the way in which Parliament, certainly in recent times, produces imprecise and obscure statutes, which throw a great burden on the courts? I really think we ought to try to get it right at the outset.
It is a little unclear as to whether private roads can be dealt with under the regulations, because the regulations do allow the Minister to make different provisions for different circumstances. I am not sure whether that would include different provisions for different types of road. If that were indeed the case, perhaps this matter could be left until we have discussed the regulations. If the noble Lord could assure us on that point, and if he could also assure us that he would look very seriously at what has been said, then I would consider withdrawing the amendment; but I should like to hear what the Minister has to say.
Lord Glenkinglas: My Lords, I should like strongly to support the noble Lord's amendment in this regard, until we have better and further information. Owing largely to the operation of the Hydro-electric Board in the parts of Scotland where I live, there are very many miles of private roads, and on the estate which belonged to my brother and
myself there were something like 25 miles of private roads. They were used, as
the noble Lord said, by shepherds, by people crammed into Land Rovers, and so on. It would be absurd and ridiculous if the regulations suitable for other roads were insisted upon in these areas. What is more, it would be even more absurd if the police had to come and check up.
Viscount Barrington: My Lords, I should like strongly to support this amendment. I do not know if it is relevant, but I have only twice been upset and overturned completely in a motor car, and neither time was I driving. The second time was on a private road when I was rather rashly asked to act not as a kind of "baby-sitter" but as a semi-instructor to a learner driver, a rather timid, middle-aged lady. I tried to impress upon her that when one was approaching a right-angled turn one should go very slowly and turn into it. She was doing admirably until a friend of hers who had taken her out said: "You are going much too slowly." So the next time she was approaching a right-angled turn on to a private road I said: "I presume, Mrs. H, you are not going into that turning?" She said: "I am." It was much too late, of course. We landed upside down in a ditch with a crash of glass, and such is the peculiarity of one's
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subconscious that I found myself saying to her: "Mrs. H, this happens to everyone who learns to drive!"
Had I been wearing a seat belt I think I should have had much more difficulty during the 10 minutes it took me to extract myself and her from the car. Before it was lifted out by a crane in 10 minutes' time it had sunk very much deeper into the ditch, and I think that a seat belt, far from being a help in those circumstances, might have spared your Lordships this latest speech of mine. That is only one particular example but, for what it is worth, I would ask your Lordships' forgiveness for putting it forward.
Lord Barnby: My Lords, I also support the amendment, which I thought was put forward with great reasonableness by the mover. Without going into any details on this point, it seems to me that the question of seat belts had wide discussion in previous stages of the Bill. I refrained from participation, though I followed as closely as I could the reasonings put forward. But it seems not improper that, in this connection, there should be reference also to the general question of seat belts and it is on that that I have reservations.
I realise that, in the Bill's passage to this stage, there have been imposed qualifications which should allay the anxiety of many, like myself, with regard to the considerations in general, which equally apply to this amendment. Like so many in the country, my objection is to general compulsion in this matter, and it seems to me that the Government should now reflect on the possible priorities. Many speakers in the previous stages were moved by the emotional aspect of the loss of life, due to the absence of seat belts. There was less advancement of the point that people strapped in by seat belts often lose their lives, too. So I think that the Government should consider the priorities in other directions, which would help to avoid further loss of life. There are many other angles that could be advanced that would save lives, but which have received less emphasis.
Lastly, I come to the question of enforcement. How can the police be everywhere on private roads, so as to enforce this law? Already there is wide disregard of regulations and it is just folly, at this moment, when there is such pressure on the police, to put more on them by this legislation. That is why I support the amendment moved on this phase of the whole problem.
Lord Derwent: My Lords, there is one small point which I wish my noble friend would clear up. Am I right or wrong in thinking that the police have no right of entry, as such, for prosecution purposes on a private road?
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, this amendment is concerned with a technical legal matter and I am afraid that, in explaining why I think it is unnecessary, I shall have to resort to the use of legal technicalities. As I explained during the Report stage, the clause relates only to roads as defined by Section 196(1) of the Road Traffic Act. These are highways and any other road to which the public has access. I do not think we are concerned today with highways. As to other roads,

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I think the noble Lord, Lord Monson, is misdirecting himself when he refers to "private" roads. The ownership of the land is not the critical point. All roads are in private ownership, be it the ownership of a highway authority or other body or, more usually, the frontagers. One question in relation to a road which is not a highway is relevant—and only one. Namely, is it a road to which the public has a sufficient degree of public access to bring it within the statutory definition, or not? If so, the seat belts clause relates to it; otherwise, it does not.
Access is a matter on which there has been considerable litigation over the years. The fundamental principle is that the meaning of the words "to which the public has access" is a matter of fact and degree. It is clearly established that, if persons obtained access either by overcoming a physical obstruction or in defiance of a prohibition, express or implied, they do not have access within the meaning of the Act. It has been held that, to be within the definition, access has to be by the public in general and not by a special class of persons, such as residents or visitors only to an estate, and that general public access has, at least, to be by the tolerance of its owner or proprietor. And it has
also been held that use by dustmen, milkmen and postmen is not evidence of use by the public, so as to bring a "road" within the statutory definition. In giving these two random examples of decisions in the High Court, I hope that I may have persuaded the noble Lord, Lord Monson, that there is no need for the amendment which he moved and, with respect, it tends to confuse the issue.
Similarly the second part of his amendment is also somewhat misplaced. "Footpaths" and "bridle-ways" are also defined under Section 196(1) of the Road Traffic Act 1972. In neither case do the public have any vehicular right of way. Therefore, although there may be a right of way on foot or on horseback to that part of the land which is a footpath or bridle-way, that does not affect the
classification of the road and as public rights of access are not vehicular they are irrelevant to the point. It is no use saying that a private road is to come within the scope of this amendment, without defining that expression. For example, a private street is defined in great detail in the Highways Act 1980 for the purpose of street works. I respectfully submit that the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Monson, would cause more litigation and uncertainty than it seeks to save. I feel that that detailed and rather tortuous explanation is necessary, because I understand exactly what the noble Lord is seeking to achieve.
I and other noble Lords who have spoken have much sympathy with what he is trying to achieve, but I fear that, because of the complexity of the definition and the legal technicalities to which I have referred, the amendment will not achieve what he wants and would only make the position more complex and difficult. For that reason, I hope the noble Lord will feel that he does not wish to press the amendment.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, does my noble friend's explanation mean that, if people who control what they think is a private road put up a notice saying that the public are prohibited, the effect would be that the amendment was in operation?
Lord Bellwin: No, my Lords. I cannot say that, because I am not sure how far putting up a notice of that kind could be sustained, based upon the access points to which I have referred. So I do not think that that would be enough to cover the point.
Lord Monson: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, has satisfied me to the tune of about 75 per cent. of my doubts, but we still have some grey areas and I do not think this is very satisfactory. Unless I did not hear him, he said nothing about whether this is a matter which would be covered by the regulations; in other words, whether the Minister would have any discretionary power. This is rather important. If he would, then there is no problem, because we shall have some months before the whole thing has to be defined. I wonder—
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, by leave of the House, it would be very easy to say that and let it go at that, but I do not want to mislead the House at all. As always, we will read very carefully what has been said, and the noble Lord can be assured that my colleagues will think about the matter carefully. But I feel that the points that I made, very much based as they were upon the legalities and problems that would ensue if the amendment were put into the Bill, are a cause for real concern—not the motivation. Nevertheless, I certainly undertake that we will look at the point, although I cannot promise that we will be able to come back or, indeed, that it might be taken within the regulations, which I know is what the noble Lord would like.
Lord Monson: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that reply. I am still not entirely happy, and I do not imagine that every other noble Lord is happy about it, either. But for the moment I had better beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
3.30 p.m.
Lord Monson Lord Monson moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 21, line 9, leave out ("persons") and insert ("any person").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the purpose of this amendment is to correct a grammatical error and, more importantly, to avoid confusion when the law is being interpreted, whether by the courts or anybody else. If your Lordships will examine Clause 27(2)(iii), it will be seen that there is a singular pronoun "him" which refers to a plural noun, "persons". This of course is ungrammatical. However, there also happens to be in the same paragraph a singular noun "medical practitioner" to which the pronoun "him" also might be taken to refer. Thus the subsection could be interpreted as meaning that the medical practitioner could sign a certificate to the effect that it was inadvisable for "him"—that is to say, the medical practitioner—to wear a seat belt. I really think that this is something that ought to be cleared up. I beg to move.
Lord Bellwin: Under section 6(6) of the Interpretation Act 1978, "words in the singular include the plural and words in the plural include the singular". The clause has been drafted so that all the exceptions

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in subsection (2)(b)(i) to (iii) are expressed in the plural in respect of the drivers of vehicles and persons holding a certificate. Subsection (2)(iii) does seem grammatically wrong because it refers to "persons". The amendment corrects this by putting the whole of this subsection into the singular, although stylistically it should be in the plural in order to tie in with subsection (2)(ii) and (iii). Having said that, if your Lordships feel that this amendment should be incorporated, the Government would have no objection. I believe that it is a matter of style and presentation and I am happy to leave it to your Lordships to decide the matter.
Lord Monson: My Lords, I simply believe that this amendment would help to avoid confusion, since the subsection contains another noun—"medical practitioner"—to which the pronoun "he" could relate.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
The Earl of Selkirk The Earl of Selkirk moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 21, line 12, at end insert—
("(iv) persons who from genuine anxiety are unwilling to use seat-belts").
The noble Earl said: My Lord, I must apologise to your Lordships for not moving this amendment at Committee stage because I was involved in some other activity in your Lordships' House at that particular time.
I am one of those who does wear a seat belt and who proposes to continue to do so, so my personal life will be totally unchanged by this particular clause. But my noble friend and everyone in your Lordships' House is fully aware that some people will never wear a seat belt. I am not going to give examples because I believe that almost everybody knows of examples. I will just say that the stories I have heard are certainly understandable and, in the opinion of many people, decisive. What I should like to ask is, is the particular case which is the object of this particular amendment covered by the proposed new Section 33A(2)(c) and (d)? Those are the sub-paragraphs which say that the Secretary of State may prescribe exceptions and that a fee may be charged for any certificate required. Will this point be covered by the statutory instrument when it is produced?
The reason why I believe that this particular point is important is that, although it is all very well to carry a majority in your Lordships' House and to carry a majority in the other place, to be successful, this clause must be accepted by the whole country. In fact, it must be something of a propaganda exercise; to draw the attention of the country to the desirability of the objectives we have in mind. I have a mild reservation that the balance might be weighted slightly in favour of what one might call the criminal aspects. The criminal aspect will not influence people to wear a seat belt, but the general acceptance by the public that seat belts should be worn will.
This is not the most important of all the road code regulations. There are many which are far more important. I will quote just one, which is that one should drive "with due care and attention", in the words of the Highway Code. It is for that reason that I am asking my noble friend this question because, if
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unreasonable cases are brought before the courts, it will act very adversely against the purposes of those who are promoting this clause. Suppose that a man refuses to wear a seat belt; he is convicted, fined £20 which he refuses to pay, and is sent to prison. He may have a sick wife and young children and this story will come out in the press. This will be adverse to the general operation of this particular clause. It is because it is very desirable that this clause should be acceptable and reasonable that I move this amendment.
3.37 p.m.
Lord Denham: My Lords, before this debate proceeds any further and without wishing in any way to curtail the discussion, I should perhaps tell your Lordships that it is at least arguable that my noble friend's amendment—and maybe one or two other amendments to Clause 27—goes a little wide of our rules and conventions on Third Reading. An amendment should not be moved that raises again an issue—and here the issue is in effect the compulsory wearing of seat belts—which has been decided at earlier stages in the Bill. In addition, Third Reading amendments should be limited to those which seek to remove remaining inconsistencies or uncertainties. I do of course realise the depth of feeling which noble Lords have on this particular issue, but I hope that your Lordships will bear what I have said in mind and will seek to keep debates as short as possible. I am not suggesting, of course, that my noble friend has been anything other than commendably brief in moving his amendment.
Lord Drumalbyn: My Lords, may I make an observation on what has been said by my noble friend? Surely the rule that he has just explained presupposes that there have been two previous occasions when this matter has been discussed. In fact, this particular amendment was first moved at Report stage and so there has only been one previous opportunity to discuss it.
Lord Denham: My Lords, the Procedure Committee discussed this point very recently and my advice is that the Procedure Committee is at the moment of the opinion that amendments to Third Reading should be on these very limited points.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, may I remind the House that the Amendment No. 46A moved by Lord Monson at Report stage dealt specifically with conscientious objections, and that point was answered by my noble friend Lord Bellwin. I would have thought that we were now being invited to cover the same ground.
The Earl of Selkirk: My Lords, I have made only one plea and that is that we should clear up an uncertainty, precisely as the noble Lord said. If that is contrary to the rule of your Lordships' House, then I think that the rule should be changed.
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, perhaps I may join in. I appreciate that there are a number who would suffer varying degrees of anxiety about being made to wear seat belts because they believe that wearing seat belts would be worse in an accident. This could be because

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such people believe that they would sustain injuries from the belt itself, or because they were afraid of being trapped by fire, by water, or whatever. The problem is that the degrees of anxiety may range considerably: all the way from those who are known to suffer from acute claustrophobia to those who may merely dislike anything new which they do not altogether understand. Those whose anxieties amount to a medical condition (this part of what I have to say answers my noble friend Lord Selkirk in the affirmative) can, I suggest, be covered by the medical exemption already provided for in the clause. I see no reason why the inadvisability on medical grounds of wearing a seat belt should not cover both physical and mental conditions, though clearly this is something which we should have to discuss with the medical profession.
My next point gives the contrary view. I say that where such an anxiety is not thought to amount to a medical condition I can see no practical way of providing exemption, because I can see no practical way of testing whether the anxiety is genuine. Nor should I have thought that such grounds were in themselves strong enough to warrant people's being privileged to be exempt from a law of general application.
I hope that for most people the problem will largely resolve itself. Most of us dislike doing something new, especially as we grow older, but most of us get used to it in the end and think nothing more of it. The best answer I can give to my noble friend, hopefully to assuage his concern and those of others who are similarly anxious, is that a statement will be made some three months before we move to the Affirmative Resolution procedure. My noble friend touched upon this point when speaking to me only yesterday. I was not then able to answer him in the same way as I do now: by saying that there will be an opportunity to deal with points of this kind.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, I support what has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin. If we are to have a non-medical condition known as anxiety, what about a conscientious condition known as deeply held personal conviction?
The Earl of Selkirk: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for saying that there will be a statement, but I very much regret that he has not answered the one question which I asked to remove uncertainty: whether the Secretary of State is perfectly free to prescribe any exemptions which he wants to, or thinks desirable, and may charge a fee for the cost of doing so. I think I am correct in so interpreting paragraphs (c) and (d), but I should like this to be confirmed.
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, in my one speaking note I tried to cover it all by saying that the part where I refer to the medical condition generally, I feel, comes within the scope of the section to which my noble friend refers, but that the anxiety aspect of it does not.
The Earl of Selkirk: My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Police Equipment
3.44 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Home Office) Lord Belstead: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will now repeat a Statement being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary. The Statement is as follows:
"Mr. Speaker, with permission, I shall make the short statement which was requested yesterday in advance of tomorrow's debate by the Leader of the Opposition and the right honourable gentleman the Member for Sparkbrook on the equipment available to the police. Naturally the whole House wants to see the police provided with sufficient means of protecting themselves and also of taking positive and effective action to deal with riotous behaviour.
"To protect police officers special helmets are being provided in increasing numbers; fire resistant overalls have been ordered; and so have more standard shields and new lighter shields. Better protection has assisted chief officers in adopting positive tactics to break up violent groups. It is firmly the view of the chief officers who have been most closely involved that their most effective approach lies in training their officers and developing their tactics for mobile and positive public order policing.
"But there may be extreme circumstances in which further equipment might be required in dealing with riots. I have, therefore, decided to make available to chief officers, who alone are responsible for the conduct of operations, a range of alternatives.
"Different types of water cannon are being looked at by police forces to see which might suit their needs. Additional protection is being provided for normal police vehicles, and the need for specially protected vehicles will be urgently examined.
"This brings me to CS gas and plastic bullets. Neither I nor chief officers wish to see these used except in the very last resort and under strict control, but they should be available. Stocks of CS gas have therefore been reviewed, and appropriate groups of officers will be trained in the proper use of plastic bullets. They will be used only on the authority of the chief officer himself. I shall be talking to chief officers about the circumstances in which such authorisation might be given.
"Mr. Speaker, in opening tomorrow's debate I shall be speaking on other aspects of these matters and about the implications for the penal system".
That, my Lords, is the Statement.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, for repeating in the House the Statement of the Home Secretary. I am sure that the House will welcome the first part of the Statement, that the police should be provided with sufficient means of protecting themselves. Indeed, in the House on several occasions noble Lords have spoken of the need in particular for fire resistant overalls and other wear and for special helmets to protect the heads of officers, many of whom have

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been so grievously injured, and also of the need for more effective shields. But more questons are likely to arise about the circumstances in which the other type of weaponry, if that is the right way to describe it—
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone): Equipment.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: Yes, equipment. I am obliged to the noble and learned Lord. As always, he is most helpful on these occasions. Namely, CS gas and plastic bullets, can be used. This will introduce a new dimension into the English scene. The noble Lord may have seen the observations in a statement attributed to Mr. Terry, the President of the Association of Chief Police Officers, which is reported in today's Guardian: that there is a worry throughout the police forces that they might be turning to what might be seen as the Continental system of offensive policing on behalf of the Government rather than protective policing on behalf of the community. Another fear among police officers, said Mr. Terry, is that the appearance of the new weapons on the streets might lead to an escalation in the violence of rioters. I have no doubt that serious thought will be given to those observations.
With regard to CS gas, may I ask the Minister what type of CS gas is to be used? Is there a standard type, or is there a more or less offensive—I mean offensive to the nostrils of the body—type? Perhaps we might obtain some guidance about that.
With regard to the use of plastic bullets, in a situation short of the civil war which we have in Northern Ireland where real bullets are used against the police, will there not be a proper repugnance about the use in this country—in the present situation, at any rate—of guns by the police, just as there will be about the use—in present conditions, at any rate—of CS gas? Both are liable to cause indiscriminate harm to innocent bystanders as well as to the wrongdoer. One can well imagine the appalling consequences which might arise from, say, the accidental killing of a child on the streets of one of our cities. Perhaps, therefore, the noble Lord could elaborate upon the circumstances, which the Home Secretary is to discuss with chief officers, in which authorisation for the use of this equipment, to use the neutral phrase of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, though one could think of more fierce words, could be applied for.
Obviously, we want the police to be properly protected. As to the use of water cannon, what the experience in Germany and indeed in Northern Ireland, has been about the use of water cannon and its effectiveness perhaps the noble Lord can tell us. There is danger—I will not put it more strongly than that—as again another chief constable has apparently said, that the new weaponry comes too soon and that the scale of rioting is not yet large enough to justify such a response.
Lord Hooson: My Lords, while agreeing that the police must have the equipment necessary to defend society and to defend themselves, will the noble Lord
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not agree that those misguided persons who would like to promote rioting in this country have a vested interest, not only in escalating violence, but in escalating the response to violence, and is this not one of the great dangers of the present situation? Has not Northern Ireland taught us that it is virtually impossible to retrace one's steps once one has taken a step forward in response to violence?
While I would distinguish between the selective use of water cannon—and indeed CS gas—in certain circumstances, will the noble Lord enlarge upon the need for the use of plastic bullets in the present situation? It seems to me to be an unacceptable response to the present situation.
Another point on which I should like to ask the noble Lord a question is that: while I think every law-abiding citizen would agree that once one has a riotous situation it is first of all necessary to restore confidence in the security forces and in law and order, nevertheless would it not be more acceptable to the community at large if the Government expressed understanding of the underlying causes of the present discontent and the hope of remedying that situation?
The last question that I want to ask is this: in the light of the fact that some innocent people have been injured in the riots, would it not be an appropriate moment to call attention to the provisions of the Criminal Injuries Act and the procedure by which innocent people who have been injured may obtain compensation without necessarily the apprehension of the wrongdoers?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, if I may, I shall reply to both the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones and the noble Lord, Lord Hooson, who in essence both said the same thing, in the sense that the noble and learned Lord spoke of a new dimension in the English scene and the noble Lord, Lord Hooson, spoke of those who wished to promote violence wanting to see an escalation of response. The reply I give to both noble Lords is that the decisions which have been made about equipment are precisely directed to promoting public confidence in the ability of the police to deal with a wave of violence of a new intensity, and the fact that the police must have equipment available to them to use as a last resort will, I give an assurance to both noble Lords, in no way reduce police efforts to enhance day by day ordinary contact between the police and the public, on which we all know the real value of policing in this country depends.
So far as concerns CS gas, which the noble and learned Lord specifically asked me about, of course this is a substance which has been available for some years. I only know of one form of CS gas—there may be others. What I do know about is that it was used, in the last resort in a most serious situation on Merseyside; in a situation which did not, so far as I know, cause any lasting
harm to anyone but it dealt with that situation on that particular occasion. Chief officers would employ it only against violence which could not otherwise be contained and it would be delivered only by officers who would be fully trained in its use and in its effects.
So far as the very serious matter of plastic bullets is concerned, here again I join with both noble Lords in expressing my right honourable friend's extreme

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distaste in having to consider this matter at all, but plastic bullets would only be used as a matter of last resort and would only be used by officers who would be fully trained.
With regard to water cannon, as I understand it, there are two types available through the Ministry of Defence. I should prefer not to speak specifically about them this afternoon because I expect that my right honourable friend may have more to say in another place tomorrow and anyway, from the point of view of your Lordships' House, the police themselves are deciding what in this particular respect would best meet their needs.
Finally, in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Hooson, the noble Lord asked me whether the Government should not look more closely, in the Statement being made, at the underlying causes. This is a matter to which I know my right honourable friend the Home Secretary will wish to address himself in the debate tomorrow, but nothing can excuse the criminal violence which started in Toxteth some nine days ago and which we have seen repeated in other parts of the country. The effects of that can be relieved, but no more than relieved, by the criminal injuries legislation to which I referred specifically when I repeated the Statement following the Toxteth disturbances.
Lord Inglewood: My Lords, while welcoming the noble Lord's statement, which is a great deal better than the very weak statement on the same subject which was issued as a press handout after a meeting not long ago, may I ask that, while speed is obviously important here, we should see no panic, because what is necessary is considerable study to make up for the wasted years during which not enough attention has been paid to the whole question of street disorder and the means which are necessary to combat it, which ought to have been apparent to us from what we have seen on the Continent.
I was glad to hear the noble Lord say that tactics are as important as equipment and that no equipment is for universal application. As one of the probably few Members of this House who have had instruction in the use of the water cannon, may I ask the noble Lord whether he will consider the types of water cannon available on the Continent, particularly Germany, as well as those which happen at this time to be in the North of Ireland, and will he ensure that, at the end, the final outcome is a system which is common to all our forces?
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: My Lords—
Lord Denham: My Lords, if the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, will forgive me, my noble friend at this stage normally answers questions one at a time, so perhaps the noble Lord would ask his question after that.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, if the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, will allow me, I do not know to what statement my noble friend Lord Inglewood was referring at the beginning of his supplementary question. I am not aware of any weak statement which has been made as a result of these very serious matters which started to occur nine days ago.
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So far as the effect of equipment is concerned, may I simply add to what I said to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, and to the noble Lord, Lord Hooson, that I think upon having the right equipment for the police depends, at the present time, the confidence of the general public and upon the confidence of the general public depend, once again, better and closer relations between police and public, upon which so much depends for good policing in this country.
The noble Lord asked me a specific question about water cannon: I repeat that it is the police service themselves who are now looking into the choices of water cannon and I think this is a matter about which we should rely upon their professional judgment.
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: My Lords, in fact the noble Lord has answered my question, so I will put it briefly. Is the noble Lord aware that, according to all the evidence, public opinion is determined that the police should have everything they need to control riots, and what is important (which is well explained in the statement) is that this should be used only under the very strictest supervision and as a last resort?
Lord Belstead: Yes, my Lords, and I am grateful to the noble Lord for putting those points to me.
Lord Shinwell: My Lords, may I ask a simple question? Reference has been made to the use of lethal weapons by the
police and various speakers have sought to safeguard against that possibility, but nobody has mentioned the possibility of the use of lethal weapons by rioters. In those circumstances, what are the police expected to do? Are they to refrain from using plastic bullets or CS gas or weapons of that kind? Has that consideration occurred to the Home Secretary?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, and indeed I think my right honourable friend's thinking is exactly the same as the noble Lord's thinking upon this.
A noble Lord: I do not think so.
Lord Belstead: Well, I have mistaken what the noble Lord said. I understood the burden of the noble Lord's remarks to be that if those who are rioting are availing themselves of weapons of various kinds is it not then important that the police should be equipped to be protected? I understand from the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, that that is what he said, and therefore my right honourable friend's thinking is exactly the same as Lord Shinwell's on that particular matter. But it goes one step further, indeed two steps further. If the police are properly protected they can take positive action to end the riots which are causing such misery to law-abiding people. From that comes the further point that once that has been achieved we may be able to get back to the close connection between the police and the community upon which, I repeat, so much depends in this country for good policing.
Baroness Sharples: My Lords, is not perhaps the most important word in the Statement "available"

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because this applies to the defensive equipment which is very definitely needed at this moment, but "available" does not mean that the offensive weapons will necessarily be used.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, again I would not wish to add to what my noble friend has said.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, I think there are no differences between any of us on the desirability of the police being fully protected by all available means. I think perhaps where the difference—
Several noble Lords: Question!
Lord Jenkins of Putney: May I ask the noble Lord to accept that there is no difference between us about the question of the complete desirability to provide the police with every possible protection. There is, however, a difference of emphasis when we move on to the question—
Several noble Lords: Question!
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, I am sorry; I ought to know this after 15 years in another place. May I ask the noble Lord to accept also that there is a difference of emphasis between us when we move into the question of retaliatory action by the police. Is the noble Lord aware that CS gas was abandoned some time ago in Northern Ireland because it was felt to be too dangerous? Is he further aware that water cannons were described
by the Northern Ireland press office as being worse than useless? Is he further
aware that people in Northern Ireland have been killed by plastic bullets? When we move into this area, is the noble Lord aware that some of us feel that great caution needs to be used before any freedom of action is allowed in that way, and that this is a matter which should remain firmly under the control of the Government?
Lord Belstead>: My Lords, the noble Lord speaks of retaliatory action. I think it is important to say that my right honourable friend sees the need for positive action being made fully practicable for the police by the provision of the right equipment. We know that our police forces in this country, if they are properly equipped, even in these very difficult circumstances, can take positive action to end the misery that is being caused by these riots. With regard to all the various pieces of equipment the noble Lord mentioned in the second part of his supplementary question, I should like to underline once again that the Statement makes it quite clear that the very greatest care will be taken by chief constables, who are operationally responsible—the Government, of course, are not operationally responsible in these matters—before considering the use of these things only in the last resort.
Lord Glenkinglas: My Lords, would my noble friend do everything that he can to assure senior police officers that the country is solidly behind them in trying to put an end to these riots? I understood, from the comment from a chief constable to which
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Lord Elwyn-Jones referred, that there was some worry that the Government might be responsible for bringing in this new equipment or these weapons. Is it not absolutely certain that there is no division between the police and the community with regard to this? The community are the people who need protection, and the chief constables are the only people who can use these weapons.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, again I would not wish to add anything to what my noble friend said at the end of his supplementary question. So far as his initial remarks are concerned, I think what he said will be much appreciated by the police.
Lord Howie of Troon: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that many of us in all parts of the House would react much in the same way as he has done; namely, towards greater severity. But will he reflect that in most countries of the world where there are fiercer police there are also fiercer riots, and which is the chicken and which is the egg it is often hard to tell. Let him dwell on that with some care. Further, does the noble Lord understand that many of us would be a great deal happier if there were some indication that the Government intend to concentrate a good deal more strongly than appears to be the case at first sight on the underlying reasons for these very regrettable and dismaying disturbances, and that this is nothing to do with plastic bullets or water cannon.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, this, of course, was a Statement requested by the right honourable gentleman the Leader of the Opposition and the right honourable gentleman the Member for Sparkbrook, and it was to be on equipment, paving the way for the debate in another place tomorrow. That is why the Statement does not go into the causes. But I repeat—I hope the noble Lord and the Government can meet on common ground about this—that however worrying the causes may be, nothing, but nothing, can excuse or in any way condone the appalling violence we have seen in the last nine or 10 days.
Lord Hunt: My Lords, would the noble Lord the Minister accept that I understand the relationship between the Home Secretary and the chief constables, but would he also not agree that, in view of the very great importance of exercising the strictest control if it were to come to a question of using plastic bullets, in no matter what area of the country, this is a matter which really would be such a new departure in England and Wales that the Government, and the Home Secretary, should be consulted before any chief constable were to have resort to these weapons?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, at the very end of the Statement there are the words "I shall be talking"—meaning my right honourable friend will be talking—"to chief officers about the circumstances in which such authorisation should be given", and that authorition referred to plastic bullets and the use of CS gas. I know that the words of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, will be taken into account in any discussions which my right honourable friend will have.
Lord Pargiter: My Lords, would not the noble Lord agree that the object of providing the police with greater protection is in order to enable them to move into the crowd instead of standing distant from them, as they have to at the present time, in the light of petrol bombs and things of that kind. In those circumstances having regard to the anxiety there is about the use of plastic bullets, if the object of the police is to get into crowds and break them up, plastic bullets used in those circumstances would be very dangerous. In those circumstances, would it not be wise to lay less emphasis on plastic bullets and leave them very much in abeyance, and see what arises from other actions before there is any question of the possible use of plastic bullets?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I think there is no disagreement between the Government and the noble Lord, Lord Pargiter, on this matter. The noble Lord has put in very clear terms what I have referred to as positive police action in these very difficult circumstances. So far as other pieces of equipment are concerned, what the Statement is saying is that these should be available but only used as a last resort. That was the intention and the only intention.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Earl Ferrers): My Lords, I think, with respect, that we have had a good run on what is a limited, though important, Statement, and I suggest that we go on to the next business.

Transport Bill
4.10 p.m.
Consideration of amendments on Third Reading, resumed.
Lord Mottistone Lord Mottistone moved Amendment No. 6:
Page 21, line 12, at end insert—
("(iv) the users of vehicles manufactured before 1965").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 6. During the Report stage on 8th July your Lordships will remember that I put a question to my noble friend the Minister, at col. 780 of the Official Report, about whether ancient cars—as I described them—would be subject to the clause under discussion. My noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford kindly came to the rescue and said that cars of before 1964 or 1965 would not be so affected. As it will be clear from the Report stage debate, I was really thinking of "vintage" cars, as they are commonly known, and I was not thinking of what I call relatively modern cars.
I have put down this amendment to try to clarify the matter and to satisfy myself and perhaps the House, because if the date of 1964–1965 is confirmed by the Government it seems to me that we are talking here about cars of (shall we say?) between 1950 and 1964, which are not all that old. Many of them are what one might describe vulgarly as "old bangers" and they are not very safe. I understand that with the type of car design which was used before it became compulsory to fit seat belts, the actual structure of the car would not always be suitable for seat belts. However, we are
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now to have a borderline. I imagine—and I should be grateful if my noble friend could confirm this—that the police will have no difficulty in identifying these vehicles because their number plates will show their age. Therefore, that is not a particular problem. However, it seems a little odd that the older and more unsafe cars may become popular and their prices may go up—I do not know what the Government think about this—because they will be in demand by people who do not want to use these things.
There is a degree of unfairness. If you are lucky enough to have a car that is rather old you do not have to bother with this new imposition, but if you have a car that is more modern and perhaps more reliable then you have to take note of this imposition. I do not know how much my noble friend will be able to tell me now, but there are some doubtful aspects that I hope that he will be able to clarify for me. It would seem to me that there is not much point in having this particular clause in the Bill if it cannot be a little more comprehensive and include the type of cars about which I am talking. I beg to move.
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, I had hoped that the provisions inserted in the Bill on Report to ensure that all the regulations made under this clause would be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure might have enabled us to avoid going over some of the old ground. As I explained during the Committee stage, the Government would have no intention of requiring someone to wear a seat belt where there is no requirement to fit a belt. Therefore those travelling in vintage cars will not have to wear seat belts because none has to be fitted. I can assure my noble friend that his amendment really is not necessary.
Although, as the House knows, the Government are neutral on the issue of compulsion, I feel I should point out that amendments which have not been drafted by parliamentary counsel, however well intended, are likely to present difficulties for the courts. For example, this amendment might be interpreted as providing exemption for anyone who uses a pre-1965 vehicle, irrespective of the vehicle in which they are actually driving or riding. Moreover, it does not accurately cover all vehicles where compulsory fitting is already required. To do so it would need to refer to cars manufactured on or after 30th June, 1964, goods vehicles manufactured on or after 1st September, 1966 and three-wheeled vehicles manufactured on or after 1st March, 1970. I mention this just to show the difficulty that one can fall into. My noble friend Lord Mottistone is very experienced in bringing forward amendments, but even he can fall into a situation of this kind. Therefore, I hope that with the assurances I have given as regards what, in fact, is not required, he will feel at least satisfied as regards this amendment.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, I thank my noble friend. Of course, this was a probing amendment and I put forward the excuse that we have had only one intermediate stage, as my noble friend Lord Drumalbyn said earlier, because this particular clause came into the Bill rather late in the day. However, the point is that I think my noble friend has answered the main features of what I had to say. I hope that in preparing the regulations the Government will take carefully into

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account the fact that there will be a degree of unfairness. As I have always said, it will be impossible to apply this particular clause fairly. If the Government really feel that to be so, then perhaps with all the safeguards that we are trying to get written into the Bill the thing may die. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Monson Lord Monson moved Amendment No. 7:
Page 21, line 12, at end insert—
("(iv) any person holding a valid non-medical exemption certificate obtained from the Secretary of State upon payment of an annual fee equivalent to 25 per cent. of the sum payable for an annual Road Fund Licence for a motor car;").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 7. I agree most strongly with the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, about the absolute necessity for gaining public consent for this highly controversial measure. This amendment is a last attempt to devise a means of securing this consent and so avoid the legacy of bitterness and resentment that will certainly otherwise ensue.
What I am suggesting in effect is that we de-criminalise the whole issue of compulsory seat belt wearing by substituting fiscal sanctions for penal sanctions. This is a principle that must surely appeal to the Conservative Party and, I should have thought, to other democratic parties as well. The method would be to put the undoubtedly pleasurable habit—pleasurable to many of us, at any rate—of driving unfettered on a par with the other pleasurable habits of smoking and drinking, both of which involve a very much greater risk to life and to health. (Your Lordships may not be aware that 50,000 people die every year from smoking cigarettes.)
The idea would be to allow those people who cannot obtain medical exemption certificates to buy exemption on non-medical grounds upon payment of one quarter of whatever the annual road fund licence fee happens to be at the time. At the moment it would be £17·50 for an individual; £35 for a husband and wife, assuming that both wanted to be exempted; and £70 for a family of four—that is, four adults all of whom wish to be exempted.
If, by any chance, all the 30 million drivers and regular passengers—because of course those people who did not travel in cars very often would not go to the expense of buying exemption—were to opt to pay their £17·50 (highly unlikely, I agree, but let us suppose that that were the case) then no less than £255 million per annum would be raised for the Exchequer. That would permit, for example, the rate of VAT to be reduced from 15 per cent. to 14 per cent. So far as the National Health Service is concerned it works out at three-quarters of a million pounds for every one of the 700 deaths per annum which seat belt compulsion would allegedly prevent, and about £50,000 per annum for each injury necessitating at least one night's stay in hospital. So it can be seen that the State and the National Health Service would profit very considerably. It is worth mentioning that smokers effectively contribute by excise duty on tobacco only £56,000 to the National Health Service for each death—less than 10 per cent. of what non-seat belt wearers would contribute.
I believe that this would satisfy the widest possible spectrum of public opinion—not only most of those who dislike compulsion. There would still be a few who would say, "Why can we not be treated like hang-gliding enthusiasts, pot-holers and those who indulge in point-to-point riding and so on and who pay no tax at all?" However, they are a minority on our side. It would also satisfy most of those who are for compulsion on the grounds that they do not, in theory, mind what other people do with their lives, but do object to having to contribute, through taxation, for their treatment on the National Health Service. I think that this is something which really would meet many people's desires and make the whole measure much more acceptable. I beg to move.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale: My Lords, I should like to speak very briefly in support of this amendment, the attraction of which is to lessen the impact of the criminal law with all its problems of enforcement, which still bother me very greatly, and to return to a measure of individual decision in a way which would meet the argument that the costs of death and injury as a result of not wearing seat belts would be an extra burden on the community.
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, I should like to speak very briefly on this as well because at one point I had an idea of tabling an amendment on much the same lines. But, if I had done so, I would have made the conditions rather more strict, so that it was not just a question of paying £25 and getting your exemption; the exemption would probably have had to be carried on the person, witnessed by a commissioner for oaths, and so on.
The advantage of this is that it removes the objection that so many people have to making seat belts compulsory, which is the loss of personal freedom. I think that we are very late in the Bill for this sort of consideration, particularly the amendment as it stands at the moment. Therefore, may I simply suggest that the Government should consider it, but should consider giving themselves powers to introduce something on these lines, should it prove to be desirable, at a future date.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, briefly, much as I admired the arithmetic of the noble Lord, Lord Monson, I found the basic argument to be quite wrong. It seems to me to be quite wrong that you can buy your way outside the law. I do not like this clause—and noble Lords know that. But I do not think that I could give any support to paying a fee, whatever it may be, thus buying myself outside the law.
Lord Boothby: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, is not this a case of buying yourself to freedom?
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, I can only admire the facile solution which the noble Lord, Lord Monson, seems to have found for the problems facing my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer I am sure that he will read with much interest the very substantial sums of money which the noble Lord's amendment would find.

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I must confess—and I know the noble Lord well enough and he knows me well enough to know that I say this, perhaps, lightly—that I thought when I first saw the amendment that he was tabling it with tongue stuck firmly in cheek. All else apart, the effect of this amendment for what it would do to the basic proposition which your Lordships accepted—certainly it was self-evident, so far as I am concerned, although it may not be the noble Lord's intention—appears to provide for the issue of certificates of exemption from the law to anyone who is prepared to pay for the privilege. I think that the point made by my noble friend Lord Lucas was a fair one. Certainly the point that the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, made was another way of, if you like, coming at the problem. But any way you look at it, it is really saying that those who wish to pay for the privilege can do so. Indeed, if vehicle taxation were ever abolished at some time in the future, such exemptions might be free. I find the principle of exempting people from the law, if they are prepared to pay, rather extraordinary to say the least.
Compulsory seat belt wearing is presumably being proposed not only for the benefit of the individual, but for the benefit of the community as a whole. I should not have thought that an individual could claim to opt out simply because he thought that he was such a careful driver that he would never be involved in an accident and, therefore, never need the benefit of a seat belt. Accidents can happen to anyone and, if they do, the cost to the community as well as to the individual can be very high indeed. But, from a practical point of view, an exemption which anybody can obtain obviously weakens the potential effectiveness of compulsion.
I think that this amendment is on a par with some of the others which we were debating on Report and which, in fact, the noble Lord did not then press because he was, at least to some extent, satisfied that he would have the chance to look at the nuts and bolts, if I can put it that way, when we come to the regulations. I understand the great feeling of those who object to the principle of compulsion. I must repeat that the Government have taken a neutral line on this matter all along, and are still taking that line. But the House did come to a decision; it came to a decision after a full debate. It came to that conclusion and although I am certain that we shall probably never satisfy those who feel strongly to the contrary, nevertheless that was the conclusion reached. What will be said about the matter in another place will be for them to decide. But, so far as we are concerned, with this Bill in its present form as we are hoping to pass it forward, that is where we were, and that is where we are at present. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Monson, who is always reasonable as I well know in these matters, despite his inner feelings will say, "So be it". At least I invite him to do so.
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, could I make it clear that from my point of view at any rate the idea of paying was really in order to compensate for the extra cost to the nation of the injuries which would be incurred by not wearing safety belts. That was my thinking. I just wanted to put the record right on that point. It was not quite as the noble Lord had said with regard to the amendment.
Lord Monson: My Lords, first, may I take up the point made by the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth. If my amendment were accepted, it would more than compensate the nation for any expense incurred by people not wearing seat belts. I suggest that the amounts are well above the actuarial amount that would be needed to compensate the National Health Service. The nation would make a large profit on the deal.
With regard to the comments made by the noble Lords, Lord Lucas of Chilworth and Lord Bellwin, I regret to say that they have both missed the point. They object to people buying their way out of the law, but if this amendment were accepted it would not be the law, because those who took advantage of the exemption would
be excluded by law. They objected to the idea of people buying a right to take a risk—that is what it boils down to. If non-smoking teetotallers were to object to this, I could understand it. But let me point out that every time any noble Lord lights up a cigarette or knocks back a double whisky he is effectively buying a right to take what is, statistically, a risk. A hundred times as many people die from drinking or smoking as die from not wearing seatbelts; they pay, through taxation—not as much as seat belt wearers would pay in proportion—but they pay in taxation for that right and some of what they pay goes to compensate the National Health Service.
I take the point that the noble Lord spotted, which I did not, that if the road fund licence were abolished, the amount payable by those who wish to be exempt would also vanish. Therefore, I accept that the amendment is defectively drafted. It is for that reason alone that I do not press it, because I know that there are many noble Lords who feel strongly about this. It seems to me to be something that, perhaps looked at in a more thorough fashion, could be dealt with under the regulations. But for the moment I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Bellwin Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 8:
Page 21, line 21, leave out from ( "but") to end of line 23 and insert ("notwithstanding any enactment or rule of law no person other than the person actually committing the contravention shall be guilty of an offence by reason of the contravention.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, noble Lords will recall that on Report we accepted an amendment to Clause 27 to ensure that each person was alone responsible for wearing or not wearing his seat belt. In other words, that a driver would not be responsible for his passenger or vice versa. As I mentioned at the time, the Government were concerned about the drafting and this amendment simply corrects it. I beg to move.
Lord Monson: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, for that tidying-up operation, for which I am very grateful.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
4.29 p.m.
Lord Monson Lord Monson moved Amendment No. 9:
Page 21, line 23, at end insert—
("( ) It shall be a defence to any prosecution brought under

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this section to establish that failure to comply with the requirement to wear a seat belt saved the life of the individual being prosecuted or materially lessened the severity of injuries sustained by him as a result of a road accident.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords this is a watered-down version, amended in the light of what was said last week, of an amendment which I moved last week which was meant to provide that anyone whose life had been saved or whose injury had been lessened as a result of not wearing a seat belt would escape prosecution. I think it is worth reiterating that this happens much more frequently than the pro-compulsion lobby has ever accepted.
I took the trouble of looking up before I came here this afternoon a debate we had early in 1977. In that debate, when only a relatively small number of noble Lords spoke, no less than 16 positive and definitive cases were cited of people whose lives had been saved by not wearing a belt. That was in one debate alone, and I exclude all the other debates we have had in this place and another place. What happens more often than not is that people are either thrown out on to the grass, as the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, was or more frequently thrown into the back seat, or, if the car is an estate car, on to the back platform, in a collision when the front of the car is totally crushed. In those instances, as the law stands, such people would render themselves liable to prosecution on the grounds that clearly they had not been wearing their belt.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord on a point of order? Is not this exactly the same point raised earlier on the amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk? This is substantially repeating an amendment, Amendment No. 53, which was debated on Report and answered by my noble friend Lord Bellwin, and the noble Lord, Lord Monson, thereupon withdrew.
This is directly in conflict with the recent advice from the Procedure Committee in January of this year with regard to this point. Perhaps it may be helpful for the House if I ask the Clerk if he will be good enough to read it out so that your Lordships can have it before them. Would it be agreeable if that were to be read out?
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, if it may help the House, I have with me and could read out what was said. It is as follows:
"Amendments may be moved after the Third Reading has been agreed to and before the Motion ' that this Bill do now pass.' Notice must be given of them not later than the day preceding that on which they are to be moved (except in the case of privilege amendments) in sufficient time to enable them to be printed and circulated in the form in which it is proposed to move them.
"The principal purposes of amendments on Third Reading are to clarify any remaining uncertainties, to improve the drafting and to enable the Government to fulfil undertakings given at earlier stages of the Bill.
"It is considered undesirable that an issue which has been fully debated and decided upon a previous stage of a Bill should be reopened on Third Reading."
Lord Monson: This is not the same issue that has been debated before. The noble Lord, Lord Nugent, knows that we have not effectively had a Committee stage on this clause. The Report stage had to be the Committee stage, and the Third Reading has perforce
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to be the Report stage. There is no way around it. This is a controversial matter and we have not had the number of stages that we would normally have.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, would the noble Lord kindly give way? The amendment which the noble Lord put
down at Report stage was:
"It shall be a defence to any prosecution brought under this section to establish that failure to comply with the requirement to wear seat belts saved the life of at least one individual or materially lessened the severity of injuries sustained as a result of a road accident."
That is very substantially the same as the noble Lord has down here. It was debated. Several noble Lords took part in it. My noble friend answered it, and the noble Lord thereupon withdraw. It really is an abuse of the Rules of the House for the noble Lord to persist with his amendment now.
Lord Monson: My Lords, if the noble Lord had allowed me to finish what I was going to say, I should have explained that it is not the same. My amendment on Report was criticised, very rightly, because it was too widely drafted. The noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, and other noble Lords pointed out that if anybody anywhere in the country had been saved as a result of not wearing a seat belt this could be cited in defence by the person being prosecuted, which of course is much too wide. I had not intended that, and naturally I withdrew it because it was defectively drafted. This narrows it right down so that the defendant himself can cite in his defence only the fact that his own life was saved. He cannot even cite the experience of his wife or his son or daughter. It narrows it right down, and it applies only to incidents which take place after the coming into law of these provisions, so it is totally different; not the same at all. I beg to move.
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, when we considered that I think I had better refer to as a similar amendment on Report, the noble Lord, Lord Spens, clearly explained why he thought the House should support that amendment, and I had every sympathy with the reasons he gave, as indeed I have sympathy with the basic point underlying this amendment. However, as I said last week, it is a difficult task, to say the least, to establish what might have happened in the event of an accident had, or had not, someone worn a seat belt. We must face the fact that there may well be unfortunate cases when one could speculate that if someone had not worn a seat belt then they might have been saved from the worst effects of the accident. But surely the point is that the number of such cases will be very few compared to those where the wearing of a seat belt would have saved death or injury, or would have had a significantly mitigating effect upon an accident situation.
We would be imposing an impossible burden on the courts by requiring them to decide on the merits of any defence in the complex area of accident investigation. Nor do I think that we should encourage people to feel safer without seat belts when, with the exception of rare cases, this is not so. The chance of someone benefiting once by not wearing a seat belt is small; the chances of them doing it twice are fairly minute. If someone felt so strongly about this, because of some previous experience, that it amounted to a medical condition, then I am sure that he, or she, would be able

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to obtain a medical certificate to exempt them from wearing a belt.
I hope that the noble Lord will think again about the desirability of this amendment. Throughout the whole of the seat belt aspects of this Bill again and again runs this thread of concern; the great dislike of compulsion that so many people have. I say again, and I know it is repetition, that one has to be sympathetic because it is not a right or wrong situation. It is a question of taking the overall balance. The Government stay neutral. I made my own position clear. My position was that I think that the balance just came down in favour of compulsion. I said so. But, having said that, I still think that we must consider all aspects of it, and we shall get plenty of chance to do this in detail when we come to the regulations in as reasonable—I use the word "reasonable "at the risk of its being quoted back at me by the noble Lord, Lord Underhill—a way as possible, and I think that is what we shall do.
Lord Glenkinglas: My Lords, I wonder whether my noble friend would consider rephrasing an expression he used just now? He seemed to indicate that somebody who had been thrown out of a car because they were not wearing a seat belt, and thereby it saved their life, might be in such a mental state that they could get some sort of certificate for not wearing one in future. I think if my noble friend had been thrown out of a car he would not want to wear one again, and I am quite sure he would not regard himself in a mental state.
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, with respect, I think that is semantics. I think that a mental state in the terms of a medical condition is something that the medical profession will advise us upon in due course. I am no more qualified to dissertate on that subject than, so far as I am aware, is my noble friend, although possibly he has the advantage of me in that way. I am trying hard in all this seat belt discussion to try to take an objective view about it because I realise how deeply felt are the feelings of those with both points of view. But if when we come to regulations we approach it in the right spirit, then we will get something that will at least be acceptable to just about everyone in your Lordships' House.
Lord Monson: My Lords, the Minister mentioned regulations, but this cannot be dealt with in that way. This is something quite separate and it is not a question of exemption: it merely excludes from prosecution those whose lives have been saved or whose injuries have been lessened. I have done my best to meet the wishes of the House, in that I entirely accept that the amendment I moved a week ago was too widely drawn and went too far. I have cut it down even further than I intended. Indeed, it is cut down so that it excludes anybody injured before the Bill becomes law.
I think it would be intolerable if people were to be prosecuted under such circumstances. The police would be duty bound to do so; they do not have discretion in these matters and while the magistrates might let them off with a very small fine, the law must still be upheld. I believe the "t' s" should be crossed and the "i' s" dotted and people given an absolute
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right to escape prosecution in these circumstances, and therefore I am not prepared to withdraw the amendment.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
4.41 p.m.
Lord Bellwin Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 10:
Page 21, leave out lines 41 to 45.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, during our debate last week it was agreed that the Secretary of State for Transport should provide Parliament with an opportunity to consider his proposals for the regulations to be made under this clause before they were laid. The Government have said on numerous occasions that they will be consulting widely about these regulations, and we were therefore happy to agree to the suggestion by my noble friend Lord Lucas that a document setting out these proposals should be made available to Parliament. Now, with the benefit of the wisdom of parliamentary counsel, I have prepared an amendment which will ensure that a statement is laid before Parliament and that there will be an opportunity for three months' discussion on the proposed regulations before they are laid before Parliament. These first regulations are the most important ones as they will set out who will be required to wear seat belts, when and under what circumstances they must be worn and who will be exempt.
As to the review of the regulations after a certain period of time, that is not a matter on which the Government would wish to express a view. Subparagraph (c) in Amendment No. 11 is tabled in my name to correct the drafting of the earlier amendment. The period of time for the review, following an amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Inglewood, is a matter on which it was thought right to offer some advice. The review will be important because inevitably it will be a review not only of the regulations but of the success or otherwise of the compulsion itself. We think three years might be preferable to two because two would be too short a time to be able to form a judgment. The first year will inevitably be a running-in period and may not be typical and, more important, the casualty figures for the second year will not be available until well into the third year, so they would not be available for a review at the end of two years.
I know that my noble friend Lord Inglewood (who at the moment is not in his place) was pleased that his amendment had been accepted; he felt it was an indication, now that the House had come to a certain decision, of the Government taking a view which was by no means the last word. After all, how could anyone say that on this sort of subject one could take such a view? However, I think three years is a more practical term than two, and accordingly I hope the amendment will be accepted.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, as my noble friend Lord Bellwin has moved Amendment No. 10, I think it would be convenient for me to speak to Amendment No. 11 at the same time. My noble friend explained clearly the intent and content of the amendment, which meets totally the points made by my noble friend Lord Mottistone and the noble Lord, Lord Monson, at an earlier stage, and I know

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that my noble friend Lord Inglewood is grateful that the point he made has been embraced more accurately in this amendment, and therefore we are grateful to the Government.
Lord Monson: It might be convenient to the House, my Lords, if, while addressing some remarks to Amendment No. 10, I spoke at the same time to my Amendment No. 12, because I am not sure of the procedure if that amendment were agreed to. I should say at the outset in relation to Amendment No. 12 that the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, certainly would have added his name to mine had he known about the Government's precise intentions rather earlier than last night when the Marshalled List had already been printed.
We were under the impression last week that the Government had accepted the period of two years, and perhaps that is why I appear to be reacting rather late in the day. I shall be very unhappy if the period is extended to three years, particularly as that was not the intention, as we understood it, last week. It is important to remember that this whole question of seat belts has never really been put before the public; it never appeared in any election manifesto, it was never mentioned in any party political broadcast, I do not think it appeared in any individual candidate's election address and it was certainly not a feature of the Queen's Speech.
I believe this matter should be in the forefront of people's minds at the next general election, so that they may give their verdict on it. I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, about the figures for the second year not being available, but some interim figures will surely be available, and I think it right that the people should be able to express their opinion on it at about the end of 1983 or the beginning of 1984, when there will have to be a general election. If the pro-compulsion lobby are right in assuming that opposition to this measure will dwindle away, then they have absolutely nothing to worry about, because it will not make any difference to candidates in marginal seats. If, on the other hand, opposition is still as great as I suspect it will be, then it may make a difference in a number of marginal seats, depending on the candidates' attitudes to compulsion. If the pro-compulsion people have the courage of their convictions they will accept my amendment. If they resist it, I can only conclude that they are worried about the possible electoral consequences of compulsion.
Lord Bellwin: The noble Lord, Lord Monson, misses the whole point, my Lords, because this has nothing to do with elections. Indeed, the provision is not even basically in a Government clause;
the provision was moved initially by my noble friend Lord Nugent and the Government took a neutral line on it. The House as a whole, right across party lines, voted on this issue and so far as I am aware the same will happen in another place. In no way is it a political issue, and to bring that aspect into it does not help the substance of the debate.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Bellwin Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 11:
Page 22, line 6, at end insert—
("( ) In section 199 of the Road Traffic Act 1972 (exercise of regulation-making powers and Parliamentary control) the following subsection is inserted after subsection (2)—
"(2A) The following provisions apply to regulations made under section 33A above—

(a) when the Secretary of State proposes to make the first regulations under that section he shall lay before each House of Parliament a statement explaining his proposals; and

(b) no draft of those first regulations shall be laid before Parliament for approval under subsection (4) below until after the expiration of the period of three months beginning with the day on which the statement was laid (or, if the statement was laid on different days, with the later of the two days); and

(c) at the end of the period of three years beginning with the day on which the first regulations under that section came into force, all regulations in force under that section shall expire unless their continuation in force has been approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament,"").

The noble Lord said: I spoke to this, my Lords. I beg to move.
Lord Monson Lord Monson moved, as an amendment to Amendment No. 11, Amendment No. 12:
In paragraph (c), line 1, leave out ("three") and insert ("two").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, although I have effectively spoken to this amendment, my being able to rise again gives me an opportunity to reply to the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin. Seat belt compulsion is essentially a collectivist idea. One need only study the voting figures in both House of Parliament over the years to see that the majority of Conservatives have always opposed it, albeit with a recent majority slightly smaller than in the past, while the majority of people on the Left have always been in favour of it. Thus, whether or not one wishes to face the fact, it is essentially a political matter, because it is a question of people's ideas about individualism, collectivism, and so on. I believe we should stick to the decision that was taken—admittedly there was no vote on it—a week ago, when it was the general sense of people in the House that two years was the agreed time. I know that many noble Lords would have come along today had they realised that it was the intention to extend the period to three years. I think that we should test the opinion of the House on this matter. I beg to move.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, I feel that I must say a few words in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Monson, on this point. I am sure that to most of us this question is the absolute opposite of a political decision. I agree with the noble Lord that many of my noble friends here and honourable friends in another place are opposed to the idea, but opinions go right across the board. I can think of many subjects that might be included in the manifestoes of the respective parties at the next election, but I do not think that this will be one of them, nor do I think that it will be one on which the nation decides who it wants to form the next Government.
I know of the passionate feelings of the noble Lord, Lord Monson, on this matter, and for him it really looms as priority No. 1, but for most of us it is a single, important matter with a complex of arguments

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which we have discussed here at great length, and its political significance is very small indeed, if it has any political significance at all. It is really in that spirit that we looked at this question. Clearly my noble friend Lord Bellwin has looked at it. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, has looked at it, and evidently the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, has, but he has not at all taken a view about the period being three years instead of two years. On a pragmatic basis obviously three years will provide sufficient a test for us to sec how it all works out, whether it is working out satisfactorily, whether the regulations are satisfactory or whether they should be changed—indeed whether the scheme is workable at all. If the noble Lord, Lord Monson, is right, it will not be workable. But I do not believe that that will be the case.
In any event, three years is obviously a much better period than two years. A period of two years is not long enough properly to test the regulations. The first year will be concerned with running-in the scheme and in the second year it will begin to operate normally. Then there will be sufficient experience to say whether the regulations are sound or should be modified, or to take any other view. That is the sole purpose of changing the period. I am sure that noble Lords will not think it a practical point to decide on two years in order to coincide with the next general election. I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Monson, knows very well that I am in sympathy with him on most of the points here, but I agree with the Government amendment as it stands. I think that the great advantage of having three years before there is what will in effect be a review is that it will confirm even more strongly that the promoters of the clause were in fact at fault and that the casualty rate will be even more definitely confirmed as being quite unchanged or, if anything, slightly worse. Therefore it will be very helpful to us to have the three years evidence with which to shoot down the idea when the time comes.
Lord Monson: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, is quite wrong in thinking that I feel uniquely strongly about this matter; my bulging file of letters proves altogether otherwise. Of course, the question of seat belts will not appear in any political manifesto, because they all want to brush it under the carpet and will not want it as an election issue. My idea is that it should be in the forefront of people's minds and they should be able to make their choice. Of course it will not affect Parliament as a whole, but it might make a difference in a few marginal seats, depending on the views of candidates in those seats on the issue.
As for the idea that we should wait for three years, I can only ask why the noble Lord did not mention it at the time, when there was plenty of opportunity to do so. Several noble Lords have said to me that they think it wrong that the period of two years agreed to last week should be altered. I take the point of the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone; there is something to be said for it. But the overriding issue here is the one of not sticking to what we agreed to last week, and therefore I should like to press the amendment.
Amendment to the amendment negatived.
On Question, Amendment No. 11 agreed to.
4.55 p.m.
Viscount Cross Viscount Cross moved Amendment No. 13:
Page 22, leave out lines 7 to 14.
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, to prevent any possible misunderstanding, may I say that this amendment is not the same as the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye on Report. It is about another matter altogether. I wished to speak on this question at the Committee stage, but unfortunately time did not allow—the vote had to be taken. I had an amendment on the Marshalled List at the Report stage, but unfortunately my amendment was defective.
The aim of this amendment is to do away entirely with any financial penalty for not wearing a seat belt, thus bringing forward the possibility of following the lead set by West Germany, where the law specifies that seat belts shall be worn, but where there are no financial penalties, although if anyone who is involved in an accident is not wearing a seat belt there are accepted reductions of compensation. I understand that this system has been in use in Germany since 1975 and that it is a great success. The RAC tells me that in West Germany the rate of wearing seat belts is very high, in particular on autobahns.
I think that the aim of Clause 27 of the Bill is to encourage people to wear seat belts, and therefore we should give serious consideration to the German system. Why do people wear seat belts in West Germany? I think that the reason is, in part, that it is the law that they should wear them, and being law-abiding citizens, many of them do wear them. It is also partly because there is an insurance penalty if they are not wearing a belt when involved in an accident. That approach could be described as the incentive of the carrot rather than the threat of the stick.
I shall not yet again go into all the many and varied arguments for and against the wearing of seat belts, but let it be said that the experts disagree, as is so often the case in these matters. One day there is a letter in The Times from a expert in favour of the wearing of seat belts. The following day in the same paper there is a letter from another expert against the wearing of seat belts. At the Committee stage in this House your Lordships' opinion was divided in the proportions of rather more than two-fifths against to rather less than three-fifths in favour. In a curious way, those figures might well reflect opinion in the country.
I consider that in the circumstances that I have described the German system is a brilliant compromise solution to the problem. It solves the complicated questions of exemptions and enforcement that we have been discussing and which will take up so much police time and court time. If I may say so, I feel that very many extremely sensible suggestions on the subject of seat belts have been made from all quarters of the House during the passage of the Bill through the Chamber; but do we really want to tie ourselves up in knots on the many questions of exemptions and enforcement when it is completely unnecessary to do so?
As to exemptions, anyone with a genuine case can

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obtain an exemption certificate from his doctor to satisfy his insurance company or the courts in the case of a claim for damages. What a pity that in our proposed new system we should create yet more motoring offences: failure to produce an exemption certificate within five days; failure to wear a belt. As to enforcement, in the German system the police encourage drivers to wear belts, but drivers are not harassed, and there is no impairment of police/public relations. Drivers are not stopped in the middle of the night in order to see whether they are wearing seat belts.
This country is a member of the EEC. Over the years much that is good and which has had its origins in this country has been adopted in many different parts of the world. On this occasion I suggest that we, in our turn, should give very serious consideration to the adoption of a successful system of seat belt wearing as practised by another member of the EEC, in this case West Germany. It could be that this matter will be taken up by an honourable Member in another place when the road safety provisions in this Bill are debated there shortly for the first time; and, later on, should the Government run into difficulties with exemptions and enforcement, should the seat belt provisions in this Bill prove too expensive or too complicated to operate, then I suggest very seriously that the West German seat belt wearing system might well prove to be the answer. I beg to move.
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, I do not want to press the point about what may or may not be in order for consideration at Third Reading, but the fact is that your Lordships clearly voted at Report stage to accept the maximum fine of £50, and to go over this once again really is taking us round the track once more. But I think I would still want myself to make one or two observations on what my noble friend has said. First, the wearing rate in West Germany is only 51 per cent., and it is therefore far lower than in those countries where there is a penalty; and I think that point ought to be made. Without going further—because I do not think it is right that we should—I would only say that this amendment would make a nonsense of the whole clause: and, of course, I certainly could not support what is in fact a wrecking amendment.
Viscount Cross: My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for what he has said. The wearing rate on motorways in Germany is as high as 70 per cent., and I think that is very high. As this is the first time, I think, that the German system has been discussed in your Lordships' House, I should like to test the feeling of the House on the matter and to press my amendment.
On Question, amendment negatived.
Clause 33 [New basis of vehicle excise duty for goods vehicles]:
5.3 p.m.
Lord Underhill Lord Underhill moved Amendment No. 14:
Page 24, line 42, at end insert—
("(7) In Part I paragraph 3(d) of Schedule 4 of the Vehicles (Excise) Act 1971 the following words shall be added:
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'Provided that a vehicle not owned by a local authority shall not be chargeable by virtue of this Schedule solely by reason of its use for the conveyance of educational books, materials and equipment to and from or between educational establishments.'").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this amendment relates to Clause 33, which provides for a new basis of excise duty in respect of goods vehicles. The Department of Transport has stated that where an estate car or hatch-back type of vehicle is used to transport goods in connection with business or trade, the vehicle must be classified as a goods vehicle and thus attract the higher rate of vehicle excise duty. This ruling has caused considerable concern, because the Department of Transport also state:
"Schools, colleges and universities are regarded for vehicle excise purposes as being engaged in trade or business. It follows that any goods vehicles used to convey goods or burden in connection with the business of such an establishment—i.e., the provision of an educational service—would be liable to the goods rate of vehicle excise duty, and any staff who use their own estate cars or hatch-backs to carry goods in connection with their work would need to license their vehicles at the goods rate".
When the question was posed to the department about the difference between these particular vehicles and, say, private saloon cars, it was stated—and again I quote:
The discrimination between saloons and estates or hatch-backs is therefore a direct result of the different construction of these vehicles".
Many teachers and others have been providing the use of their own vehicles to assist the smooth running of their work because of their interest in their teaching profession, and I should like to give three examples.
A teacher has to move from one building to another building of the same school—and this is quite a common occurrence now—when often that building is separate from the other building of the same school by, it may be, a mile or a mile and a half or even more. To carry out his teaching timetable he finds it desirable to take equipment for that purpose in his own personal car, which may be an estate or a hatch-back. Another teacher takes school equipment to be repaired or buys equipment to facilitate a lesson or series of lessons. These are just one-off occasions. A third example is that the education authority may organise courses of lectures whereby lecturers and equipment required are moved to a particular establishment so that in-training may proceed on the site. This has obvious advantages, not the least those of economy of cost and of the lecturers' time.
But the point is that in all these cases and in similar cases, if teachers, inspectors and others use their own private vehicles and they are of an estate or hatch-back type, then they are liable to pay goods vehicle excise duty on them. The Association of Metropolitan Authorities has expressed very great concern with the situation, and there are already cases of teachers and others with such vehicles regrettably having to take the view that they will be unwilling to use their vehicles in this way. It is a blow at such persons providing this voluntary assistance in the interests of the educational service.
There is also the point that if these vehicles are to be classified as goods vehicles then undoubtedly this may have some effect on their insurance policies and premium rates. Therefore, what the amendment seeks to do is

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to meet this situation by removing the use of such vehicles in these ways from charge under the schedule. It seems a most reasonable thing to request; and, as I have said already, to continue with what will happen under the procedure outlined by the Department of Transport will really be a blow at teachers and others in the education profession being of help to their profession by using their own cars, if they are specified in these two particular categories, for the educational service. I beg to move.
Lord Somers: My Lords, while I can understand the anxiety of the noble Lord for the teaching profession, I can think of so many others where the same conditions would apply. How about the medical profession—a doctor carrying his own equipment in his car? How about members of the musical profession carrying their instruments in their cars? There are many other examples that I could think of. I do not know why the education profession—deeply though I feel for them, may I say—should have special exemption in this way.
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, I should perhaps note that we are in some danger here of becoming enmeshed in a particular fiscal matter outside the scope of the provisions of the Bill and our remit in these matters. Be that as it may, while I understand the intentions of the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, on this point, I cannot accept that a reduced vehicle excise duty burden on the lorries used by educational suppliers is appropriate.
There are two fundamental objections to this amendment. The first relates to the point which was touched upon a moment ago by the noble Lord, Lord Somers, and that is simply equity. The Government are frequently pressed to grant exemption or relief for what might be called special cases in special circumstances. Each one is well argued, and on the face of it has merit. But were they accepted there would be a severe loss of Exchequer revenue which would then have to be
made good by increases on other VED payers or increases elsewhere. On the other hand, singling out one case for special treatment would be equally unfair. Moreover, the position of educational suppliers does not seem to me to be at all different from that of those in many other businesses who at the present time may well be faced with difficult trading positions.
The question of equity apart, the amendment would lead to more complex VED administration and enforcement at a time when the Government are taking steps to streamline the operation of the tax and cut out bureaucracy. I hope that the noble Lord can accept these very real difficulties of principle and of
practicability which the amendment poses. The Government are, I can assure your Lordships, sympathetic to the underlying question of provision of books and equipment for schools. In that context, I should perhaps note that the Government's rate support grant settlement for 1981–82 allows for an increase—not a decrease—in local authority spending on books and equipment of 2 per cent. in real terms. Similar increases for later years are included in the Government's public expenditure plans. But it is of course for local authorities and schools themselves to determine their priorities within the resources made available to them.
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I hope that the noble Lord will accept these observations on his amendment.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, I am extremely disappointed with the Minister's reply. It will be recalled of course that I spoke in support at Committee stage of the downplating of lorries under this same clause in support of the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, on the basis of equity and fairness. If there are other categories which ought also to be considered, that is a matter which could be adjusted when Lords amendments go to another place. It should not affect this particular amendment which is trying to deal with the question of justice. To suggest that this is to be looked at from the aspect of loss of revenue appears a farfetched argument.
We are talking about a simple way for teachers to help the pupils and the smooth running of their educational work. If they refuse to do this because of the extra goods duties then somebody has to provide goods vehicles to move the equipment from one part of a comprehensive school to another. When we are talking about wiping out bureaucracy, my amendment would do that. What will happen if teachers say that they are not prepared to have this additional goods duty placed upon them? Either the equipment will not be moved from one part of the building to another, under the three examples I have given, or the LEA will have to meet quite considerable costs in providing goods vehicles to do it.
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord will give way for a moment. I should have said that the position of estate cars being used for this purpose is something we would be willing to look at.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, I am delighted to have that assurance. On that basis, I readily withdraw the amendment. The noble Lord said "estate cars". Will he look at the hatch-back as well? They are both in the same position. With that assurance, I readily beg leave to withdraw and hope that something may happen.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
5.13 p.m.
Clause 35 [Charges for licensing of cabs and cab drivers]:
Lord Underhill Lord Underhill moved Amendment No. 15:
Page 26, line 14, at end insert—
("( ) Subsections (3) to (5) of section 70 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976 shall apply in relation to licences issued under the said Act of 1847 as they apply to licences issued under the said Act of 1976.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this amendment relates to provision for a possible increase which could take place under the terms of the Bill for licence fees relating to taxi cabs. We have had this discussed at both Committee and Report stages and each time I have changed the amendment in order to meet criticisms that have been levelled. I withdrew the amendment at Report stage and urged the Government to make the same provisions for district councils which function under the 1847 Act as function under the 1976 Act for some district councils. That would

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then meet my wishes. What I have attempted to do today is precisely that. Under the 1976 Act the taxi trade may object to the district council on any licence fees that the council may wish to introduce, whereas those district councils that function under the 1847 Act have no possible basis at all to raise an objection. Under the Bill there could be increases in licence fees.
I want to thank the noble Earl, Lord Avon, for a letter which he sent following the Report stage. He emphasises two or three points and particularly that the elaborate procedures under the 1976 Act are such that the Government would not wish to have repeated under the 1847 Act measures. I must ask one simple question, with respect: If that is the case, why did not the Government introduce an amendment to this clause to improve the procedures under the 1976 Act? The position has been left entirely as it is. Therefore, we are faced with a situation that if one is in the taxi trade in a district council which has adopted the 1976 provisions, one can object, That is the law which the Government do not propose to change even though they say it is an elaborate procedure.
If you are in a district council which functions under the 1847 Act you cannot have any basis for objection to the same district council. That seems to be completely inequitable and completely unfair. If the Government feel that the 1976 provisions are too complicated, then really the Government under this clause ought to change (which they would have power to do) the provisions of the 1976 Act. To have certain district councils where one procedure obtains and another where it does not obtain seems unreal and unfair.
The letter which the noble Earl kindly sent to me emphasises that it would be possible for the matter to be raised with the district auditor. That cannot be done until the auditor has audited the local authority accounts, which could be 15 months or so after the increase has been made. Also we have reference to the fact that it could be possible, if action was not taken by the council, to go to the courts. Surely, we do not want to have that elaborate procedure. There is a right of objection to the district council which wishes to implement an increase where the 1976 Act provisions obtain. All I am asking for in this amendment is that exactly the same procedure should be laid down for those district councils that function in this respect under the 1847 Act. That seems completely equitable and fair, and if we do not have that then frankly there are going to be a lot of district councils functioning under different laws regarding appeals and one section of the taxi trade will be treated differently from other parts of the country. I beg to move.
The Earl of Kinnoull: My Lords, briefly, I should like to support the noble Lord and congratulate him on the energy with which he has pursued this issue and the energy with which he pursued many other issues under this Bill. I believe that there is a case of equity as the noble Lord has expressed. If my noble friend cannot accept the amendment, I hope he will say he will look at the case as I feel that he should.
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, with permission, I should
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like to speak to Amendment No. 16 as well as this amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Underhill, is certainly most persistent and I entirely endorse what my noble friend Lord Kinnoull has said about his endeavours while we have been going through this Bill. At every stage he has sought doggedly to restrict the powers of licensing authorities to charge economic licence fees. I fully appreciate that he has the interests of the taxi trade at heart. I know that the trade is worried lest it be required to pay excessive licence fees.
It was in recognition of this worry that, at the Report stage, we moved an amendment making it absolutely explicit that a licensing authority may not charge a taxi licence fee greater than is necessary to cover its reasonable costs. Although, as I have said, I think I have a good understanding of the arguments that the noble Lord puts forward, beyond that I fear I cannot go. The Government's whole policy on local authority charges is directed towards removing unnecessary restrictions. Indeed, that was the very purpose of this clause. The proposals put forward now would take us in the other direction. As I shall try, briefly, to show, I am convinced that they are unnecessary.
The complicated procedures for notification and for the hearing of representations by district councils whenever they wish to charge licence fees in excees of £25 set out, as the noble Lord said, in the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976, are no longer appropriate. They merely impose additional costs on local authorities without significantly benefiting the trade. Indeed, in the long run, the trade is probably the loser since these extra costs have to be passed on through it to its customers. Furthermore, I really cannot see that a statutory right to make representations to the very authority whose decision is being objected to would add to the trade's ability to further its interests. As has been said more than once before, the trade has never shown any signs of being unwilling or unable to make its views abundantly plain if it dislikes a decision taken by a licensing authority.
The noble Lord's second amendment, to make it a duty for a council to supply details of the costs on which its licence fee is based, appears eminently reasonable on the face of it, so I hope he will not think that I am being churlish in having to resist it. But resist it I do—even at that risk. For local authorities are, in the great majority, responsible and reasonable bodies. The noble Lord spoke, in our debate on Report, of authorities who had refused to give a break-down of their costs. I accept that there may be some which may have done so, just as I accept that there may be a minority who in the past have set fees at a level which could not strictly be justified on the basis of their costs.
I have no doubt that most local authorities would do their best to be helpful in explaining the general basis of their charges. Because a minority might not, this amendment would apply to all the necessity so to maintain their accounts as to be able to supply at any time a break-down of costs, including apportionment of administration costs. While this would, of course, be feasible, it would be bound to add to authorities' general costs at a time when the Government's concern has been to limit and reduce local government expenditure.

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The purpose of seeking details of costs is to check the reasonableness of the licence fee charged. Both my noble friend Lord Avon and I have explained in letters to the noble Lord that there already exists ample protection for taxi operators who suspect that a licence fee is excessive. Though it was already implicit in the law, the Government amendment which was accepted at Report stage has made clear that charges not firmly based on local authorities' actual costs are ultra vires. It is open to any local government elector whose interests are affected by the level of a licence fee to challenge his local authority's accounts by raising a formal objection at audit (or the matter could be drawn to the auditor's attention at any time). If, on examination, the auditor judged that the authority's charges were excessive, he would raise the matter with the council. If the circumstances warranted it, he could record the issues in his statutory report, which is a public document and which could provide a basis for the taxi trade to bring a case before the courts against the council.
That is the long-standing method by which the interests of the public are protected, in whatever field of local government operations. There is no separate provision for the man who thinks the local swimming bath charges are high to demand a break-down of the authority's costs in providing the bath: no separate provision for the market-stall holder to demand a break-down of costs of provision of the market; no separate provision for the applicant for planning permission to demand an analysis of the costs of the planning department: frankly, nor should there be. Similarly with taxi licence charges. This amendment might be the thin end of a very thick wedge, and, while I do not suggest that the wedge would necessarily be driven into the thick end, it seems to me undesirable even to introduce it.
The amendment is also to some extent defective, in that the word "details" is so vague as to render the enquirer's purpose unenforceable. I apologise for having gone on at some length, but I know how deeply the noble Lord feels and therefore I feel obliged so to do. I appreciate that my arguments will probably not convince him, though I am always hopeful. They must, however, be seen in a much wider context than the issue of taxi licence fees. The noble Lord's proposals would represent an undesirable precedent that could have serious repercussions right across the field of local government charges.
In case the noble Lord is not aware of it, I would want to say before I sit down, hopefully in a helpful way, that the Home Office are preparing a consultation paper on the 1976 Act, and that I should have thought that when that comes forth there would be an opportunity for the noble Lord, or anyone else concerned, to take up matters arising out of the working of that Act. So I hope that, with at least a helpful ending to my remarks, the noble Lord may be at least partially satisfied.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, I am in some difficulty because I have not spoken at all on Amendment No. 16. I confined myself entirely to Amendment No. 15 because I thought there were two different principles involved. Therefore, before I sit down perhaps I may be permitted to say a few words on Amendment No. 16.
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The noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, said that my efforts had been to try to restrict the powers of local authorities to charge proper licence fees—not at all: that has not been my purpose. My purpose has been to ensure that there is fairness to all the taxi trade and that they will all have equal opportunity to make objections. I have not argued about whether it is right to increase fees because everybody knows, as the Minister pointed out at Committee stage, that the licence fee under the 1847 Act is something like half a crown, and therefore that has got to be dealt with. But I wanted those authorities where it is as low as that to have the same right of objection as the 1976 ones. I am delighted to be told at this late stage that there is going to be a consultative paper—
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, if the noble Lord will give way perhaps I may give him some information which is helpful. Perhaps I should explain that the point I was making about the 1976 Act concerned consultations about the taxi trade that were going to take place. I do not want to mislead the noble Lord.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, I cannot imagine a consultation in connection with the 1976 Act dealing with the taxi trade not covering the very point I have in mind. Therefore, while it does not fully satisfy me, we can come back later to this question of equity. But I would urge that, if the Government propose to amend the 1976 provisions, we must have something which dealt with the whole of the country together and, if the Government's proposals are not adequate, we can fight it on the basis of the whole country, whereas at the moment it deals only with some of the district councils; and nobody can possibly justify that.
If I may, I should like to say a few words on Amendment No. 16, because here again, as the noble Lord has rightly said, a promise was made at Committee stage to bring forward some clarification of the costs which a council could take into consideration in fixing licence fees. I pointed out at the Report stage that the words which were brought in then in the Government's amendment were exactly the same words as are at present in Section 70 of the 1976 Act. I am not arguing whether or not that is correct. It is because of the way that has been implemented by councils that the taxi trade was very concerned; and this Amendment No. 16 was seeking to say: "These are the costs which a council may take into consideration under points A, B and C, but, where an applicant or licence-holder feels aggrieved and wants to know the details, he should be able to get them from the licensing authority, the district council."
I indicated examples where one district council—I have been given the names of another seven but I shall not mention them here—had likewise refused to give this information. It is not a question of waiting for the auditor or taking cases to court: we want to avoid that if possible. One would have thought that it was not bureaucratic but common sense, because it might well be that when a licensee got the information he might decide not to press the matter further—he might be satisfied with the break-down of costs. But there have been complaints that in some cases the department responsible for this has been built up unnecessarily and that in some cases it would

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appear that too high a proportion of the salary of part-time officers has been placed in this particular department whereas it should have been spread over a number of other departments.
If a licensee or an applicant wanted to check that, that, he could only go to
the council. When he got the information, he might decide to drop the business and not take it any further, without having to worry about checking with the district auditor 15 or 18 months afterwards. Therefore, I should have thought that this amendment was assisting in the reduction of bureaucracy, rather than adding to it.
Before I sit down, I should apologise to the noble Countess, Lady Loudoun, and the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, whose names appear on the Marshalled List in support of Amendment No. 15. Much as I appreciate their support on other matters, on this occasion there was a mistake by the printers. I do not know whether by leave of the House, the Minister wants to reply to my points on Amendment No. 16, because I have not given him the opportunity to reply to them before.
Viscount Simon: My Lords, I am not sure whether we are completely in order, but, if we are discussing Amendments Nos. 15 and 16 together, there is one point which I should like to put to the Minister before he replies. He mentioned in his anticipatory statement about No. 16, that it would put councils to a great deal of trouble to have to work out these detailed figures. But, surely, they have to work out these detailed figures in order to fulfil their obligation not to charge more than the cost, do they not?
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, may I say, first, that I apologise for speaking to Amendment No. 16. I thought that it had been agreed beforehand and, as I gather that it had not been agreed, I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Underhill. There was no intention to put them together on any other basis.
May I say briefly, on one or two points that have been made, that I thought the amendment that we brought forward at Report stage clarified very much the fact that local authorities can base their fees only on their actual costs. The noble Viscount, Lord Simon, asked how local authorities will calculate their costs separately, if they have to justify them later on. I can tell him from my own experience that the point I was making earlier, about the need for other services having their costs calculated, is one thing. But the great difficulty in these matters is not simply that you ascertain how many people are working on the preparation of something; it is what you apportion to each separate function.
They will have to be able to do that in this case, and that information will have to be available in case anybody wants to have it. There is no problem in doing that; there is only the problem of the precedent that is created if one insists on doing it in this way, because one would then have to apply it to all the other services. That is the difficulty.
For example, one has only to bring in the auditor, if an authority is proving reticent. The noble Lord, Lord Underhill, talked about those authorities who are refusing to give information. I would only repeat that
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it is an option for anyone to request the auditor, at any time, to look at something which he may have grounds for feeling is ultra vires. Those are very serious matters for local authorities, and they do not take them lightly. So I hope that the authorities to which the noble Lord referred will take note of what has been said and will act accordingly.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, if I may say one or two further words, I recall that under the Local Government Act the Government are insisting on a supply of information; for example, on direct works departments. The Government say that they want the information and they will then decide what to do about certain things. These licence-holders want the information so that they can decide. I hope that this may be included in the consultation document on the 1976 provisions, because it is part of them. My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 16 not moved.]
Clause 38 [Fires caused by railway engines]:
5.35 p.m.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth Lord Lucas of Chilworth moved Amendment No. 17:
Page 27, line 33, leave out from ("engines)") to ("or") in line 34 and insert ("in subsection (3) for the words "two hundred pounds" there is substituted "£3,000").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this amendment brings to finality a number of debates which we have had throughout the stages of this Bill, with regard to provisions of the 1905 Railway Fires Act, as amended by the 1923 Act. Your Lordships will probably remember that we have discussed raising the limit of absolute liability from £200 to something more appropriate to present day times; that is, £3,000. This amendment seeks to do that.
I understand that the Government have now accepted the principle involved. Indeed, I have to thank my noble friend and the department for the conversations and exchange of letters with regard to this matter which will bring it to a conclusion. I do not think I need to detain your Lordships by explaining it further. But it may be as well if I say that Amendment No. 26 is consequential upon this amendment being accepted by your Lordships. My Lords, I beg to move.
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, without going into detail, which I do not think my noble friend requires me to do, I am glad to say that we are pleased to accept this amendment and I gladly pay tribute to his assiduity in pushing this forward.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Bellwin Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 18:
Page 27, line 36, leave out second ("subsection").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, if I may, I should like to speak to this amendment and Amendment No. 19 together. Amendment No. 18 is, in fact, consequential upon Amendment No. 19. It is a purely drafting amendment which will delete the word "subsection" in line 36 of page 27. This will be necessary,

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because Amendment No. 19, if it is agreed, will insert a further subsection (3B) into Section 1 of the 1905 Act. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Bellwin Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 19:
Page 27, line 39, at end insert—
("(3B) In the application of subsection (3) above to Northern Ireland for the reference to the Secretary of State there shall be substituted a reference to the Department of the Environment for Northern Ireland and any order made by the Department under that subsection—

(a) shall be made by statutory rule for the purposes of the Statutory Rules (Northern Ireland) Order 1979; and

(b) shall be subject to negative resolution as defined by section 41(6) of the Interpretation Act (Northern Ireland) 1954 as if it were a statutory instrument within the meaning of that Act.").

On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 40 [Repeals]:
Lord Bellwin Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 20:
Page 28, line 26, after ("Schedule") insert ("so far as relates to—

(a) the Railway Fires Act (1905) Amendment Act 1923; and

(b) the Public Passenger Vehicles Act 1981,

comes into force on the passing of this Act and otherwise").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, these amendments are necessary to enable repeals in Schedule 12 relating to the Railway Fires Act (1905) Amendment Act 1923 and to the Public Passenger Vehicles Act 1981 to come into force on the passing of the Transport Act, without the need for a statutory instrument. There will be no reason for delay once the Bill becomes law. The amendments are technicalities. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 41 [Northern Ireland]:
Lord Bellwin Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 21:
Page 28, line 42, at end insert—
("(ee) Part III of Schedule 12 and section 40 so far as relating to the Railway Fires Act (1905) Amendment Act 1923;").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this small amendment is consequential on the amendment to Clause 40. It ensures that Clause 40, so far as it relates to the Railway Fires Act (1905) Amendment Act 1923 and to the corresponding part of Schedule 12, extends to Northern Ireland. My Lords, the amendment is also a technicality. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Schedule 3 [Powers of Associated British Ports]:
Viscount Simon Viscount Simon moved Amendment No. 22:
Page 36, leave out lines 16 to 18.
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I hope that I am in order in moving this amendment on Third Reading, because it is for the purpose of clarifying an uncertainty. It is the same amendment which I moved at the Report stage and which I withdrew, after having explained its purpose and after having given the noble Lord the
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Minister some facts and some arguments which 1 think he had not heard before. He kindly undertook to talk to his colleagues and to bring to their notice the points that had been made. This he has done and this morning I received a letter from him, for which I extend my thanks. As I feared, the noble Lord the Minister replied that the Government were still resisting the amendment.
I have only one or two short comments to make. First, I understand that Associated British Ports, as a statutory undertaking, must be given explicit powers in this Bill; powers which in the case of a Companies' Act company would be included in the memorandum and articles of association. There is no dispute about that. If Associated British Ports want the power to set up as a ships' agency, then this power must be set out in Schedule 3. All along my argument has been that ABP do not need this power, that it is inappropriate and indeed that it is undesirable that port authorities should act as agents for shipowners. An agent has to negotiate with the port authority and may perhaps become involved in a dispute with the port authority, and how could that situation work satisfactorily?
The Minister may not yet have seen a letter from E. H. Mundy and Company, a leading firm of ships' agents in London, to his right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport, which sets out the position very clearly. I was very glad to see that a working concern such as this company, with which I am not acquainted although its name is well known to me, took the same view as I did. I am still not sure that the noble Lord, the Minister, has fully understood the point and no doubt this is because I have been ineffective in making it. In a letter I have received this morning, the noble Lord the Minister states:
"They (Associated British Ports) have given categorical assurances that they will not impose any particular agency on port users who will be completely free to employ whichever ships' agents they wish to provide the services they want. In doing so, port users will doubtless have regard to the likelihood of any conflict of interests on the part of a ship's agent employed by the port authority".
There is no question of a ship's agent being employed by the port authority. The provision in the Bill is that the port authority may itself act as a ships' agent. Frankly I do not understand the sentence I quoted from the Minister's letter and I wonder whether he does, I have every sympathy with him, because I realise that he has been dealing very effectively with a Bill for a department in which he himself does not serve. I can appreciate how difficult it must be working to departmental briefs and being given no room to manoeuvre. But I wonder what is meant by the sentence I quoted. The Minister's letter goes on:
"In view of these assurances and the economic reality that Associated British Port's best interest will lie in ensuring the best services for its customers, any conflict of interests is likely to be theoretical rather than real".
Of course Associated British Ports will offer their customers the best services they can, but there will be occasions when the port authority, for some good reason of its own, does not wish to give the ship precisely what it is seeking in the way of facilities or services. I presume that a small department would have to be set up, staffed by people who are experienced in ship agency work, and I do not understand how a small

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department of that kind could possibly carry as much weight with the general management of the port authority—which, after all, will be the department's overall boss—as would an outside body.
Moreover, as I said at Report stage, it is not only a question of conflict of interests. May there not also be some confusion about responsibilities? If a mishap arises there may be doubt whether the action taken or not taken which was the cause of the mishap was so taken or not taken by the port authority as such or by the port authority as the agent for the ship. The answer to that question will of course determine where large liabilities may lie one way or the other. Before deciding what to do with this amendment, I shall be glad to hear what comments the noble Lord the Minister has to make.
Lord Mottistone: I should like to speak briefly in support of the amendment moved by the noble Viscount, Lord Simon. As my noble friend the Minister will recall, his reply when I moved a similar amendment at Report stage was so frustrating that in desperation I put my amendment to a Division. In fact this was a very unwise thing to have done, and I know that, but it was done in an attempt to demonstrate to my noble friend that I cannot understand why the Government cannot see the arguments which have been put forward so cogently by the noble Viscount on two occasions and which he has now amplified very well.
There is really no justification for introducing this new provision, which the Government admit is a new provision. It is something that the British Transport Docks Board did not have, did not need, and did not want. If my noble friend has not been given the good advice to accept this amendment, can he tell me whether the Government could inject an amendment when this Bill goes to the other place, if they see the point by then? If not, we shall be a little desperate, because this is really quite an important point and for some reason, very good arguments in its favour do not seem to be accepted.
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, we have gone into this matter in considerable depth, but I wish to spend a little longer replying now than my noble friend the Chief Whip—who has just entered the Chamber—would want me to do; I feel obliged to do so because of the concern which has been expressed by the noble Viscount, Lord Simon, and by my noble friend Lord Mottistone. If I go into the matter in some depth, my remarks will go on the record and that may be helpful. To take the question asked by my noble friend Lord Mottistone, I can only comment that, as always, everything that is said will be carefully considered and whether or not the other place will wish to do something is for the other place to decide—I cannot say.
I hope that the House will be content if I speak to Amendments No. 22 and No. 22A, which both deal with ships' agency. We have discussed on a previous occasion the power which the Bill will give to Associated British Ports to undertake the activities of a ship's agent. On the second of those occasions, at Report stage, I promised to bring to my colleagues' attention the points which had been raised in order to find out
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whether they felt we should do something different. However, I hope that the noble Viscount, Lord Simon and my noble friend will not be too disappointed at having received my letter in the one case, and in the other case at hearing me say that the Government have come to the conclusion that the extension of Associated British Ports' powers to acting as a ships' agency is reasonable and logical.
The noble Viscount expressed his concern about possible conflicts of interest which might arise on the part of a ship's agency employed by the port authority. Your Lordships will be aware that British Transport Docks Board has gone to considerable lengths to reassure existing ships' agents and ports users that it does not propose to enter into ships' agency activities in a big way. Many of your Lordships may recall, for example, that during Report stage I read out quite a long joint statement which the BTDB made with the General Council of British Shipping. That statement made it clear that BTDB still viewed the operation of its ports as its primary objective and proposed to undertake ships' agency work only where there was a gap in the existing services which ABP could advantageously fill. The position of port users will be further protected by the economic reality that ABP's best interest will always lie in providing the best possible service for its customers, thereby retaining their custom and ensuring an adequate return to the private sector shareholders who will control the business. In these circumstances, I believe that any conflict of interest is likely to be theoretical rather than real.
I should like to take this opportunity to reply also to the points which my noble friends Lord Mottistone and Lord Lucas of Chilworth raised at the Report stage. My noble friend Lord Mottistone expressed concern about whether BTDB proposed to use their ship's agency powers to engage in the chartering of ships. I hope he will be reassured by the fact that it is my understanding that such chartering would normally be undertaken by a chartered shipbroker and that it would not come within the scope of ABP's power to undertake the activities of a ship's agent.
My noble friend Lord Mottistone also expressed his anxiety lest I thought there was an exact comparison to be made between Schedule 3, paragraph 4, of the Bill and the memorandum and articles of association of a private sector company involved in ship's agency work. Such a comparison of course is not exact and the important comparison to which I had wanted to draw attention is one of principle. This is that a private sector company is empowered to do whatever its memorandum and articles of association authorise, subject only of course to the general laws of the country. On the other hand, ABP, as a statutory corporation, has no memorandum and articles of association and will only be empowered to do those things which its statute expressly allows. Hence, Schedules 2 and 3 achieve for ABP what the memorandum and articles of association achieve for a company. The schedules go no further than a private company's memorandum and articles and confer no special privileges on ABP either in respect of ship's agency or any other power.
My noble friend Lord Mottistone saw a danger of a ship's agent employed by ABP joining his colleagues on strike and so depriving ship's masters of the ability to have their ships redirected to ports free of industrial

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action. I believe his fears are misplaced. BTDB's management have never gone on strike and it is fair to assume that port services not dependent on registered dockworkers would always be maintained as they have been in the past. So those who rely on the service of ship's agents have little to fear from this viewpoint, though it is, of course, a factor which they will be free, if they think it necessary, to take into account in appointing an agent.
My noble friend Lord Lucas of Chilworth took the industrial relations point further by suggesting that BTDB's assurances about the use they expected to make of their ship's agency powers might be more welcome if backed up by similar assurances on behalf of the employees' side of the docks industry. Even if theoretically possible, it would I think be unfair to expect the BTDB management to subject their assurances, or any other business arrangements they make, to detailed scrutiny and, implicitly, consultation with their employees. They are not a co-operative and, therefore, responsibility for the business must reside with the management who will in turn be answerable to the shareholders. I think, therefore, that only management itself can ever be in a position to give assurances about the use of their ship's agency powers.
Finally, I should like to emphasise once again that BTDB have gone a long way to reassure those concerned that they do not intend to enter into the ship's agency business in a big way and that they have no intention of jeopardising the independent status of existing ship's agents or taking business away from them. I do not want to repeat all those assurances, but I should like to say that the reconstituted BTDB will not engage in any of their new ancillary activities unless circumstances fully justify it and they accept that it could well be in the best interests of their customers for a gap in the ship's agency services at a port to be filled by an existing member of the profession. In these circumstances they have said that they would be happy to initiate any liaison needed to achieve this. On the other hand, there may be instances in which a service would be provided more appropriately by ABP itself. In the Government's view, ABP should not be denied the flexibility accorded to other private sector businesses to respond to changing circumstances, and it should be left to them to exercise their new powers in a sensible and commercially effective manner in the best interests of its ports and its customers.
The Government have given full and careful consideration to ABP's powers and I hope that the comments which T have made today will help to reassure those of your Lordships who have expressed concern about the new ship's agency power. To the noble Viscount, Lord Simon, who has pressed this all the way from the start, I should like to say that I hope that, if not fully, he will be at least partially reassured by what I have said.
Viscount Simon: My Lords, I am very much obliged to the noble Lord for the very full reply lie has given. I cannot say that I find it entirely satisfactory, but there it is. In the early part of his reply, I think when answering the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, the noble Lord said that of course he could not say what would happen in another place: that it was up to them. If we do not pass the amendment, there is no possi-
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bility of the other place doing anything about it. This is the point which the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, was making; we should pass the amendment here and then the other place can either remove it or alter it. If we do not pass the amendment here, there is no possibility of the other place doing anything.
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, if I may speak again on that point, I went on to say that, while we could not accept the amendment, the other place would read very carefully, as we always do, what has been said, and, if that should be an influence upon their thinking, they would know what to do. However, so far as this House is concerned, we cannot accept the amendment.
Viscount Simon: With great respect, I do not think that the noble Lord has got it right. They can read what we say and it may affect their thinking, but there is no means by which the other place can introduce into a Bill which has already been through that place an amendment which they have not got.
Lord Bellwin: Yes, my Lords, that is absolutely right. I apologise to the House.
Viscount Simon: Apart from that, once again the noble Lord gave us a very full explanation of the Government's view. Part of it was similar to the letter which he wrote to me. I invited the noble Lord to tell us whether he understood that curious sentence which I read out when I moved the amendment and which I could not understand. He read it out again, but he did not make any comment upon that reference to the likelihood of a conflict of interest on the part of a ship's agent employed by the port authority. I do not know how it has got into the text; it has nothing to do with what we are considering. Again, I am afraid it suggests to me—I have the greatest sympathy for the noble Lord, who is clearly having to speak on information given to him by another department—that the point has not really been understood. Nevertheless, I do not feel that this is a matter of such enormous importance that we should delay the House any longer or go to a Division. In all the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
5.58 p.m.
Lord Mottistone Lord Mottistone had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 22A:
Page 36, leave out lines 17 and 18 and insert—
("The Associated British Ports may act as ships' agents in any of its harbours providing that the services of a Chartered Shipbroker are not available at that harbour.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Brougham and Vaux, who, sadly, had to leave the House before we reached Amendment No. 22A, asked me to look after his amendment. I was very much reassured by what my noble friend said in answer to Amendment No. 22, and I thank him very much for certain parts of it. I therefore do not wish to move this amendment.
Schedule 5 [Provisions supplementing ss. 15 to 17]:
Lord Underhill Lord Underhill moved Amendment No. 23:
Page 49, line 27, at end insert—
("(2) The Secretary of State shall after a period of twelve months from the day appointed under subsection (1) of section 15, present a report of the carrying into effect of section 15 and this Schedule and the exercise of the functions conferred or imposed on him by or by virtue of that section or this Schedule").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, may I briefly explain the purpose of this amendment The Bill proposes the abolition of the National Ports Council. In the light of that, I proposed during the Committee stage that we should agree to the establishment of a National Ports Authority. After an explanation had been given, that amendment was withdrawn. This matter was brought forward again at the Report stage. The noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, explained then that research and training, which are responsibilities of the National Ports Council, and also assistance to harbour authorities in the exercise of their functions, would be made the responsibility of the industry itself through the British Ports Association. He also pointed out that the Secretary of State is to take over two functions—collection of port statistics and decisions on objections to port dues—and that the other functions will be repealed or their scope reduced.
All the amendment says is that if that is to be the situation on the passage of this Bill then, at the end of a period of 12 months from the appointed day, the Secretary of State should present a report on how all these matters have been carried into effect—in other words, how the research and training and the other matters going to the British Ports Association have been carried through; how he has carried through the duties which he is now going to assume and also what has been the effect of scrapping some of the duties of the National Ports Council which will not be carried out by anyone in future, so that Parliament may consider the matter. It seems an eminently reasonable amendment. We ought to know the effects of all these decisions which will be made if the House agrees to the abolition of the National Ports Council, and I hope the Minister will feel able to accept this amendment. I beg to move.
Lord Bellwin: My Lords. I was interested to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, said in regard to this amendment. He will know that I do not share his pessimistic view of my right honourable friend's ability to carry out his responsibilities effectively after the abolition of the National Ports Council. But I do not believe that a report of the sort provided for in the amendment offers the best way of informing Parliament of how he is exercising his responsibilities. Many opportunities arise in practice, whether through questions, statements or debates, to discuss ports matters. If noble Lords, or honourable Members in another place, wish to discuss the ports industry, the Government's ports policy or indeed more specific questions, my right honourable friend and his colleagues welcome the opportunity of such discussions. They can take place on the issues of the day and be relevant to current problems. This is likely to provide the basis for a more worthwhile discussion than a single report 12 months after the Appointed Day on a rather
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limited aspect of my right honourable friend's responsibilities.
I do not need to describe to your Lordships at this late stage the provisions of Section 15 and Schedule 5, but I should explain that they are mostly concerned with the detailed arrangements for the abolition of the National Ports Council. I described at Report stage what was to happen to the Council's functions and also the role of the Secretary of State. Schedule 5 transfers to the Secretary of State the duty to decide objections against ship, passenger and goods dues and the power to collect port statistics. It also makes him responsible for administering the Council's staff compensation and pension scheme, responsibilities which the Public Trustee is to carry out on his behalf. But most of the Secretary of State's responsibilities derive directly from the Harbours Act 1964.
To sum up, I do not believe that a formal report a year after the Council is wound up is necessary. Nor do I think that a report on the rather limited issues covered in the amendment as drafted would assist Parliament. But my right honourable friend and his colleagues welcome occasions for debate on important matters of ports policy and I have no doubt that such opportunities will continue to arise.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, I should point out that all the words in the amendment after the word "report "on the third line of the proposed subsection (2) are actual words taken from the subsection in question. I am disappointed with the reply because I think it would be helpful if we knew how the carrying out of those things was working out in practice. But in the light of what the noble Lord has said, he can rest assured that I shall have discussions with my honourable friends in another place and I am certain that they will follow up the suggestions he has made. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule 6 [Amendments of the Harbours Act 1964]:
6.4 p.m.
Lord Underhill Lord Underhill moved Amendment No. 24:
Page 65, line 19, leave out subparagraph (3) and insert—
("(3) For section 31(1) (right of objection to ship, passenger and goods dues) there is substituted—
"(1) Subject to the following provisions of this Act charges to which this section applies are ship, passenger and goods dues and cargo handling charges.
(1A) In this section "cargo handling charges" means charges for loading, unloading and handling goods where such services are supplied by a harbour authority or its agents or a subsidiary or associated body or person and there is no other supplier of such services at the dock quay or wharf at which the particular services are provided or no other supplier other than the harbour authority, its agent or a subsidiary or associated body or person and where there is no reasonable opportunity for a person desiring to use such services to obtain such services from any other harbour authority").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I will be brief on this amendment. Noble Lords may say that they have heard this before, but in actual fact the amendment has now been revised for a second time because of points raised by the Ministers who have replied to the amendments. Because of changed conditions since the

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Harbours Act 1964 came into effect—and it is generally agreed by the Ministers and everybody that in many harbours the harbour authority is now the sole employer of dock labour—we sought to extend the right of appeal by port users to cover these other charges in addition to the ship, passenger and goods dues.
At the Committee stage it was pointed out to me by the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, who resisted the amendment, that there was no case for extending the appeal because there were no monopoly conditions in existence, but that if there were monopoly conditions the matter would be looked at again. Thereupon at the Report stage I tabled an amendment to provide for an appeal where there were monopoly conditions. Again it was pointed out to me by the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, that this would not be acceptable, as there was no monopoly condition, because a port user could go to another port. In fact there are certain port users who would find that extremely difficult; particularly those who are using the waterways and who find it necessary to come out to the Humber Estuary or to the Trent.
Therefore, added to this amendment now are the words:
"and where there is no reasonable opportunity for a person desiring to use such services to obtain such services from any other harbour authority".
Accordingly it seems that we have met all the conditions: that there should be no appeal except where the port harbour authority is the sole provider of the services and where it is not reasonable for the port users to go anywhere else. That seems to have met every single point of criticism put up by the Ministers at the other two stages of the Bill and I hope they will now consider that I have framed an amendment which meets all their requirements and which they can accept. I beg to move.
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, on this occasion I will not repeat the reasons why the Government are not prepared to accept an extension of the provisions of Section 31 of the Harbour Act to cover all port charges, because we spoke on this at much length during the earlier stages and it is recorded in Hansard. I would rather confine myself now to the particular circumstances of this amendment, which of course is a very restrictive one. The amendment would in certain circumstances extend the existing right of appeal against ship, passengers and goods dues to cargo handling services. As the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, has explained, these circumstances are where the services are provided at a port by one supplier and there are no other suppliers available, and where in addition the user has no reasonable opportunity of taking his business to another port.
Our ports industry is a highly competitive one, with a large number of individual ports providing a wide range of services and facilities and competing for a limited amount of trade. A user is, generally, free to choose the port to which he takes his business; if he is dissatisfied with the service provided he can take his business to another port. We regularly read of examples of this. Moreover there is no basis on which a statutory cargo handling monopoly can exist in the industry. There are ports at which there is only one employer of stevedoring labour. But any person or
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company may provide cargo handling services at a port, provided that at ports covered by Part I of the Docks and Harbours Act 1966—that is at the "Scheme Ports"—he first obtains a licence to employ registered dock workers. This is of course the very point made at Report by the noble Viscount, Lord Simon. I was grateful to him for having raised it then and I regret that we may have misunderstood it at that time. The trend is to a reduction in the number of firms providing stevedoring services, but there is certainly not a statutory monopoly.
I have no evidence that the combination of circumstances which is envisaged in
the amendment exists in practice within the ports industry. Although the canal traffic, for example, from South to West Yorkshire must use the Humber or the lower Trent, the BTDB does not have a cargo-handling monopoly there. On the other hand, where there is a cargo-handling monopoly at a port, we are not aware of a captive market. The noble Lord, Lord Underhill, has raised an interesting point, but I do not think it is one which arises in practice. I do not think we can do anything about the noble Lord's amendment: all we can do is to take note of what has been said, not with a view to altering it in another place, as I said earlier, but with a view generally as to where we go from here. I am sorry that I cannot be more helpful with regard to this amendment, which I recognise is one that the noble Lord felt might be accepted, but that is the position as I understand it.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, I wonder whether I might put just two or three points. In the first place, what the amendment is saying is that where the port authority is the only employer and where there is no reasonable opportunity for the port user to go anywhere else, there should be the right of appeal. Therefore, it is not a question of whether at this stage there is such a port, but it could be in the near future. The National Waterways Transport Association have expressed real concern about this and they represent the independent private freight operators on our waterways, and a number of freight operators have expressed concern about it. Under the Bill the British Transport Docks Board will go out of existence and Associated British Ports will come in as a private company, controlling those particular harbours and docks in the Humber Estuary and the Trent. Therefore, there could be conditions of monopoly on both the points raised in this amendment. I wonder whether that is fully appreciated. I know it is no good asking the Government to take it back because there is no opportunity to take it back; either we do not proceed with the amendment, or alternatively the Government are prepared to accept it and then possibly, if they wish to improve it in the other place, they could do so.
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, I fear, however helpful one wants to be, I am not in a position to accept it.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, this is one of the issues on which we feel very strongly, but in view of the Government's refusal to reconsider I do not think we will press it to a Division. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule 8 [Provisions substituted for ss. 6 to 12 of the Road Traffic Act 1972]:
6.12 p.m.
Lord Underhill Lord Underhill moved Amendment No. 25:
Page 73, line 15, leave out subparagraph (6) and insert—
("(6) Subject to the following provisions of this subsection, of any two specimens of breath provided by any person in pursuance of this section that with the lower proportion of alcohol in the breath shall be used and the other shall be disregarded; however—

(a) The person who provided the specimen with the lower proportion of alcohol may claim that it should be replaced by such a specimen as may be required under subsection (4), and if he then provides such a specimen neither specimen of breath shall be used;

(b) After the expiration of the period of one year from the coming into force of this Part of the Act both Houses of Parliament may resolve that as from a date specified in the resolutions paragraph (c) of this subsection shall apply in place of paragraph (a) above;

(c) If the specimen with the lower proportion of alcohol contains no more than 50 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath, the person who provided it may claim that it should be replaced by such a specimen as may be required under subsection (4), and if he then provides such a specimen neither specimen of breath shall be used").

The noble Lord said: My Lords, here again is a matter which has been before your Lordships on other occasions, but it is now in a completely different form. Even at this hour I think I should explain in some detail precisely what the differences are. In Committee an amendment was proposed with a view to substituting completely paragraph 8 of Schedule 8 and having a completely different wording, the main purpose being to provide that in every case where a driver is alleged to be above the limit of alcohol he should always have the option of a blood test. Because of arguments put forward, that the amendment was too comprehensive and other arguments, that amendment was withdrawn.
At Report stage there was a simple amendment which dealt solely with the one central issue of the optional blood test. On that occasion there was widespread support from your Lordships; some 97 noble Lords went into the Division Lobby in favour of the proposal, and it was defeated by only 14 votes. If that amendment had been carried it would have meant that the change proposed in the amendment would have been a permanent one until other primary legislation was introduced. It may well be that a number of noble Lords did not wish to do that but were nevertheless sympathetic to the idea of the optional blood test in the immediate period. As one noble Lord said in another debate, the important thing is to get the consent of the public for the introduction of any great new innovation.
The only part of the amendment which is new—all the other parts of the amendment are words taken from the existing paragraph in Schedule 8; they are all existing words but put round in a different form—is sub-paragraph (b). The effect of the amendment would be that a person would always have the opportunity to claim to replace the breath specimen by the blood specimen, or in certain circumstances a urine sample. But after the end of one year if circumstances necessitate a change both Houses of Parliament may by resolution drop that provision, which is what is set
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out in paragraph (a), and substitute for it paragraph (c), which would revert the position to exactly that proposed in the existing Bill.
I will not go into all the arguments which have been made previously, but I should say that this new amendment has the full and complete support of the Automobile Association and the Royal Automobile Club. At Report stage the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, said that the amendment that was moved then would drive a coach and horses through the drink and drive proposals in the Bill. That argument cannot possibly obtain with this amendment because after 12 months the position could revert to what the Government wish, if it was thought the circumstances justified it, merely by the passing of a suitable resolution through both Houses.
At Report stage it was stressed that the three motoring organisations, including the Royal Scottish Automobile Club, held the view that only a relatively small number of motorists are likely to avail themselves of the blood option; and that was also the view expressed by the Blennerhassett Committee, who recommended exactly what is proposed in the amendment regarding the optional blood test. But I am not basing the argument on the question of numbers; I am not using the numbers argument. Nevertheless, it is worth while repeating to your Lordships that Northern Ireland has had the evidential breath analysis for some 12 years, and I am informed on very good authority that never have more than 10 per cent. ever asked for the optional blood test. At the moment it is running at a figure of 3 per cent. As I say, I am not going to stand on the numbers argument on this question, but it is very interesting to look at these figures, and there is no reason why those figures should not obtain in this country.
The point I would emphasise is that the introduction of the evidential breath test and the machine readings is something totally new. If we want this to be freely accepted the way to do it, surely, is by providing the option of the alternative blood test where it is required. But I emphasise that the difference between this amendment and the amendment which was moved at Report is that it is not suggested that this should obtain permanently if the circumstances justify a change. It would mean that if at the end of one year the Government find that so many people are requesting the alternative blood option they could introduce the resolution suggested here in both Houses; it could then revert to paragraph (c), which is exactly what the Government want in the existing Bill.
If, on the other hand, numbers are found to be infinitesimal because the Government's publicity about the effectiveness of the machine reading has been so generally accepted that few people want the alternative option, then the Government can say, "We will let it continue, or they can say, "It is obviously not required and we can drop that and adopt paragraph (c)". Therefore this is, I believe, a constructive amendment. It provides for us to get over this first period, where there is a new innovation, where we need to get public assent, where we need to get good police-public relations, which is continually emphasised in this House and elsewhere. It would give the opportunity after one year for the position to revert to what the Government wish, if the circumstances justify that,

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without the need to introduce new primary legislation; it could be done by resolution of both Houses.
I hope the Government will take the view that this meets the overwhelming desire of many noble Lords who voted for the other amendment, and maybe of others who would have supported it if they realised it would not be for many years but that there would be an opportunity to reconsider it in 12 months, which is what is provided here.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, I feel I must say a word here in support of my noble friend Lord Bellwin, sorry though I am to find myself in conflict with the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, who has been such a valued and stalwart supporter of mine through much of this Bill. The fact is that we really did decide this issue at Report stage, and, as the noble Lord reminded us, we divided on it. He made out a very attractive case and the result was that he got a great many people into the Lobby with him. It is the type of case which one can always make out very persuasively, because it seems to give an option which gives a rather serious matter a merciful application, and I can understand that.
However, my noble friend has to explain that in practice, certainly in the early years, it is almost certain that the majority of motorists would go for the option—they have nothing to lose by it—and that if they did so, the whole administrative system would break down. That is the dilemma. I am perfectly certain that if the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, were sitting in the seat of my noble friend Lord Bellwin, he would be saying exactly the same as my noble friend. The problem here is to make the new system work and to try to make the law with regard to drink and driving more effective, which I know is what the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, wants.
Those were the very cogent reasons that were advanced last time. If I may say so, I think that the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, is rather stretching the recent new rule of order that came into operation at the beginning of this year, and was quoted earlier, in taking us round this course again. It is true that he has introduced an ingenious new feature of the provision, which would allow the Houses of Parliament to reverse their order after a year if they found that it was not working, but I cannot imagine how that looks constitutionally. It sounds very unattractive to me and I have never heard of it before, but no doubt my noble friend Lord Bellwin will inform the House about it. I hope very much indeed that after the House has heard what my noble friend Lord Bellwin has to say, the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, will not feel disposed to press his amendment.
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford, not for the first time, because I, too, would have wanted to say that we had a very full debate on this whole question during the Report stage. There was indeed a large turn-out for the vote, although I acknowledge that the result was as the noble Lord said. But what in fact the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, is now saying ostensibly is that we should not restrict the right to a further blood test until some experience has been gained in the operation of the breath machines and
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public confidence has been established in them. However, what he in fact is saying is, "Let us adopt the procedure which was defeated on Report, and not until after a year—and only after a year—will it be permissible for the Government to seek to reintroduce the procedure which was accepted on Report".
I shall not say a great deal on this matter except to pick out one or two points which the noble Lord made. First, I said on Report that since the Blennerhassett recommendations the technology of breath analysis has advanced a great deal. In Northern Ireland, I understand that there are, in fact, two offences—the major and the minor offence—and it is for the minor offence only that a small proportion opt to have a blood test.
I believe, exactly as my noble friend Lord Nugent said, that a person who is found to be over the limit on the breath machine, faced with an option to take a blood test, must surely take a blood test. He is faced with being off the road for 12 months, so why should he not take up an option which may throw up something different? In fairness, it should also be pointed out that the new procedures give more scope to the person so affected than do the present procedures. At present, if you are shown, by a blood test, to have over 80 milligrams then that is all there is to it. What we are saying now is that because the breath machine—and no one is querying its accuracy because it was generally shown in the examples which noble Lords have had the opportunity to see as being pretty accurate—is a machine and there may be some inaccuracy in it, we shall go further, and say that if someone has up to 50 microgrammes (which is equivalent of up to 115 milligrammes in relation to blood) then he may have the option to have a blood test. We shall allow for that. That really goes much further than the present provision and in that way we are allowing for any of the eventualities. I should have thought that that was a very fair safeguard to those who might be concerned about this matter.
We are all trying to bring into this drink/driving legislation something that will materially affect the position so as to make it more of a penalty, because we are all so very concerned at what is happening on the roads, and no one more so than the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, himself. Therefore, we do have a safeguard and we have a bigger safeguard even than we have now. In view of that, and the impracticality of doing what the noble Lord suggests with the 12-month procedure on which we came to a conclusion previously, I think that the noble Lord should let the clause stand as it is.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, responds, and notwithstanding the niceties which have been pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, I feel bound to say something since I have put my name to the amendment. I support the general tenor of the amendment and at the same time accept what my noble friend Lord Bell-win has said. I hope that perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, will not feel the necessity to press this amendment. However, I must say to my noble friend that we are not concerned with noble Lords who have had the benefit of widespread discussion and demonstration of some of the machinery that might be used

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in these tests. I am not here to cast any doubt upon the accuracy of those machines. But what I am saying is that it is all the other people—and of course in these arguments it is never oneself; it is always the other people—who have to be convinced.
The Blennerhassett Report has been with us for some years and we have now approached at this stage of this Bill the provisions which are to implement part of that Report. These proposals are somewhat contrary to Blennerhassett. I am suggesting, therefore, that it may be prudent if the Government were to make haste more slowly in this matter. I do not believe that many of the general motoring public who may be inclined to drink at one and the same time are fully conversant with that which the law is proposing. I am suggesting, therefore, that a very heavy programme of publicity be set up before this part of the Bill conies into force so that people are assured, at least to some extent, of (a) what their rights are and (b) the accuracy of the machine which will determine their guilt or otherwise. I would ask my noble friend to have regard to what I can only describe again as a public relations exercise, because it is the public who must be convinced, not, frankly, your Lordships.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, I am grateful for the support of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, but I note also his plea for me not to press this matter to a Division. I recognise that the basic issue was debated and went to a Division at the Report stage, although, as I have emphasised, I think that there is a complete change in what is being proposed in this amendment. Before I decide which step I shall take, we must consider that, despite the machines having advanced since Blennerhassett, it was the principle that Blennerhassett was advancing, for the very reasons that I have advanced the principle, and the fact that we need to get this so freely accepted. One way in which to get it freely accepted I am certain, would be to provide the machinery which is suggested in the amendment. I am certain that the motoring organisations are not asking for the optional blood test because they believe that there will be tens of thousands who will rush in and demand it. I do not believe that the motoring associations would be so foolish as to ask for that. They themselves want to encourage the general acceptance of the new procedure and the machines. I am in some difficulty, in so far as we had a vote on this issue last time, and I do not want to waste the time of the House or to intrude upon the general kindness of the House in letting me bring forward this matter again.
The other point I want to make is that this afternoon we have already passed a Government amendment which suggests that a certain measure shall not continue beyond two years unless there is an affirmative resolution. I am almost trying to do the same thing in half the time, in 12 months instead of two years, and to say that you have power to go back to what you want. That seems to me to be a most sensible procedure. But as it will appear if I divide the House that I shall possibly be asking for defeat and be most unpopular, I ask leave to withdraw the amendment. However, I should like to emphasise what the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, has said: that the Government must not assume that they can ride roughshod over this and
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that there will be ready acceptance. I believe that there will be acceptance if the Government handle it properly, and that is what my amendment sought to provide. However, in the circumstances I beg leave to withdraw it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule 12 [Repeals]:
Lord Lucas of Chilworth Lord Lucas of Chilworth moved Amendment No. 26:
Page 93, line 27, column 3, at beginning insert ("Section 1.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I have spoken to this amendment. It is consequential upon Amendment No. 17. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Bellwin Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 27:
Page 94, line 9, at end insert—

("1981 c. 14.

The Public Passenger Vehicles Act 1981.

In Schedule 7, paragraph 24.

In Schedule 8, in the entry relating to the Transport Act 1968, the words "In section 145, subsection (2)".")

The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is purely a technical amendment. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
6.33 p.m.
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass. In all, we have spent many hours debating this Bill. I am told that 273 amendments have been tabled and—and this is significant—more than 80 amendments to the Bill have been agreed to. Apart from minor technical amendments, of which I am glad to say that there have been relatively few, the main amendments to which we have agreed have been to the road safety provisions.
I should like to take this opportunity to thank, first, my noble friends Lord Avon and Lord Skelmersdale and my noble and learned friend the Lord Advocate, who were very helpful to me as we went through the Bill. Not for the first time, I am deeply grateful to them. I should also like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, for the major role which he has played in the Bill. I hope that he will think that it has been worth while, in that some of his amendments did get through, although I know that I always disappoint him in the ones that I am not able to accept. Likewise, to the noble Viscount, Lord Simon—who is always so very cautious, very careful and usually so right in the points that he makes—I also regret that I am not always able to accept as many amendments as I might, personally, sometimes like to accept.
It would be invidious of me to mention many other names, but I should certainly want to refer to my noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford, who carried through a very significant measure on the seat belts issue. Whether or not one agrees with that, it is right and proper that we should pay tribute to him for the way in which he has persevered for so long in something in which he believes and which he has managed to convince your Lordships to accept. I should also like to pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Lucas, who

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is always so knowledgeable in the whole transport area, and to my noble friend Lord Mottistone. He and I do not always see eye to eye, but he, too, has somehow found a way to get through many amendments.
I think that this is a good Bill. I am happy to conclude it by saying that it is the second Transport Bill that it has been my privilege to pilot through. We have covered a wide range of topics. We have put some excellent new road safety regulations on to the statute book and I think that everyone will benefit from that. It has been a great pleasure for me, and I hope your Lordships will now agree that the Bill do now pass.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Lord Bellwin.)
Lord Underhill: My Lords, first, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, for the way in which he has piloted the Bill through this House. I suppose one can say that it is always a pleasure to do business with him. Sometimes his manner is so disarming that he gets away with things that he should not, but he is always helpful in giving full and detailed explanations. He was also greatly helped by his team of Ministers, to whom I am certain the House is grateful. I have been appreciative of the various letters which have been sent by the noble Lord and by his noble friends on various matters which have arisen.
Needless to say, although some good improvements have been made in Part IV of the Bill, naturally I am disappointed at there being no changes whatever in Parts I, II and This may be because of the highly political content of the Bill, the fact that it reflects a complete Conservative doctrinaire attitude adopted in Parts I, II and III, in which we were unable to make any move. In particular, I was sorry that we could get no assurance from the Government that the proposals for the BR subsidiaries will not go beyond the four named. We shall have to watch this matter very carefully, because any movement in the British Rail engineering would, in my view, be a great tragedy.
As the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, said, the House has benefited considerably from the discussions on the road safety clauses. We said on Second Reading—I think that many noble Lords expressed this view—that there would be some lengthy debates on a number of the provisions. These have been contentious in some forms, but they have been completely free of politics, and on this side we have not allowed politics to enter at all into the road safety provisions.
I am grateful that a number of the amendments, which various noble Lords have moved, have been accepted. In other cases the Government have been prepared to listen to the voice of the House—not on every issue, as has been evidenced this afternoon, but on a number of issues—and I believe that in that respect we have improved the Bill. I should also like to pay my tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, because I believe that he has been assiduous in trying to get through the particular item on which I gave him some support. I think that the praise is mainly due to him. I can only hope that the other House takes the same view. I believe that the road safety provisions will be of great help to us. I am sorry that one or two other provisions have not been adopted, but I believe that the other House will see that since the Bill left them,
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the provisions of Part IV have been greatly improved, although I am sorry that there were not some equally reasonable improvements made to Parts I, II and III.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, I also should like to thank my noble friend Lord Bellwin for his able conduct of this long and difficult Bill. I would also congratulate my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport for finding time to legislate on road safety. It does not get much attention in this busy world, but, of course, the annual toll on the roads is gigantic. Some quarter of a million people are killed or injured each year. It is an enormous figure, and we all too easily become used to it. Therefore, any Minister who is prepared to find the time and the energy to legislate in this field is much to be thanked.
I suppose that the responsibilities that some of us have in this field bring home the impact of road safety, and that certainly causes me to feel that I must make a move to try to reduce the toll. However, I should like to pay a tribute to the medical profession and to the nursing profession who have played such a large part in the campaign that I have been waging for the compulsory wearing of seat belts. The BMA's and the Royal College of Nursing's massive support with RoSPA has, I think, begun to change opinion in the community and certainly in this House. Doctors and nurses, of course, have the harrowing task of treating the injured from road accidents, and all too often those with head and face injuries could have been saved had they been wearing a seat belt. Therefore, it is not surprising that those great professions have weighed in strongly in support of the measure. I should like to express my thanks especially to the noble Lords, Lord Porritt and Lord Richardson, who unfortunately are not here. They have been very helpful to me. I am sure that this has been one of the major factors of our success.
I should like to say to my noble friends who are opponents of the Bill—and many of them are—who base their case on defence of the liberty of the subject that not only do I sympathise with their point of view but it was indeed the major inspiration which moved me to enter political life some 30 years ago. It continues to be so, but I see its interpretation not in terms of black and white but in terms of humanity, and in this case the saving of life and suffering for thousands of people seems to me to justify the minor concession involved. But I recognise that this must be a matter of personal judgment, and I certainly respect the strongly-held feelings of my noble friends.
The Bill now goes to another place carrying our amendments. This will give the elected House the chance to vote on this issue on the Floor of the House. I hope and believe that the supporters will carry the day.
6.42 p.m.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I am sure that my noble friend Lord Nugent will forgive me if I do not add my congratulations to others upon his success in Clause 27. I remain opposed to the principle of compulsion. However, I am happy to join him in congratulating my noble friend Lord Bellwin on his conduct of this Bill.
May I confine myself to the road safety aspects? I believe that this is Lord Bellwin's first road safety Bill

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—in fact it is the first road safety Bill for some years in your Lordships' House. How he has managed with good humour and charm throughout all these hours, I do not know. However, perhaps next time he comes to deal with road safety he will realise that motor cars and motoring, and all its aspects, raise great passions in your Lordships' House and are not to be dealt with too lightly. Obviously there are in the road safety section of the Bill innumerable advantages to be gained in the future along the lines of safety, saving lives and reducing the number of serious injuries. I feel confident that your Lordships' House has, under the guidance of my noble friend and his colleagues, done a worthwhile service.
Viscount Simon: My Lords, may I add a few words from these Benches in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, and his colleagues for what they have done, although I have not always agreed with it? I am left with two worries on this Bill. One is Clause 3. We are told that there are plenty of precedents for the Secretary of State having powers to override, in this case, the British Railways Board. I feel that Clause 3 will only be a success to the extent that it is never used. If it is used to any great extent, or even only a few times, we shall find it difficult to get the best people to serve on nationalised industry boards, and if they are there we shall find it difficult to keep them there.
At one stage during the discussion the Minister let a cat out of his briefcase. If I do him an injustice I apologise, because I have not been able to pick up the reference. Once in justifying these powers of the Secretary of State he said in effect, if my memory is correct, that the Secretary of State could not let the Railways Board get away with failing to implement the policy of the Government to privatise. That suggested to me that privatising was being pursued as a dogma and not for any good economic reason. If there was a good economic reason for privatising in any particular case, of course the Railways Board would be happy to do it. It seemed to me a slight slip on the part of the noble Lord, who hardly ever makes a slip at all. After all, in the case of the Scottish hotels, the Railways Board saw that it was to its advantage to pursue privatisation, and it did it.
The other more important thing that worries me—and it is a very worrying point—is the still unanswered question as to what happens to the proceeds of the sale of subsidiaries or part of the undertaking. Will they be available to British Rail for capital expenditure in addition to whatever sum the Government would have been willing to make available under the external finance limit? I think we would all agree that when any undertaking is in urgent need of capital investment, as British Rail obviously is, and sells capital assets, the receipts should be ploughed back into new capital projects. If that does not happen, if the result of recovering this money is that the external finance limit is cut, then British Rail gets no advantage from this process at all. The undertaking will be no better off, but will have lost the cash flow that the subsidiary was previously generating.
I recall that, on one occasion when we were discussing this matter, the Minister made the point that it is cheaper for British Rail to use its own money for
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capital expenditure than to borrow. That, of course, is obviously so, but, as I see it, British Rail in the near to middle future is never likely to have all the resources available that it needs for investment. If it so happened in some particular year that there were non-financial restraints on the amount that it could spend upon capital projects, then no doubt British Rail would use its own money first before it borrowed. But I do not think it is very likely to happen, because I can hardly foresee a position in which it will not in fact need all the money it can possibly get, whether from its internal resources or within its external finance limits.
One last word about seat belts. I voted against Lord Nugent's amendment. Most of my noble friends voted for it. I fully accept the decision in the House, and hope that the same decision will be reached in another place. But it is a rather curious position that we have here an important amendment in a Government Bill put forward by a Private Member of your Lordships' House. The amendment is only an enabling provision, and in due course the real impact will come when regulations are brought forward. That of course will he a Government affair when the regulations are brought forward.
But the Secretary of State, when he comes to make the regulations, will find that he is already restricted in what he does by certain things which have been written in already—that exceptions shall be given to this, that or the other category. It was natural after that had been done that other noble Lords should try to get other things written into the Bill. I am glad they were not. I am only worried that the restrictions already written into the Bill may inhibit the Secretary of State from doing what he really wants to do when he comes to make the regulations.
On Question, Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.

Employment and Training Bill
6.48 p.m.
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Earl of Gowrie.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD AYLESTONE in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Industrial training orders]:
Lord McCarthy Lord McCarthy moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 2, line 17, leave out from ("fit") to end of line 19.
The noble Lord said: It is appropriate that we should begin this Committee stage on a somewhat low note. The amendment which stands in my name and which I now move is not seeking to reverse the general intention of Clause 1 of the Bill. That is to say, it accepts the situation in which the Secretary of State can in the future decide the fate of industrial training boards without the approval, or proposals, of the

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Manpower Services Commission. That is accepted in the amendment. The objective of the amendment is simply to seek to clarify the consultative process which is being proposed by the Government.
Under the previous measure, the 1964 to 1973 Act, as it were, the Manpower Services Commission was free to decide in effect whom it would consult. This Bill specifies that they should consult not those who are affected—which is what the previous situation was—but those whom they think are fit to consult. Therefore, as I see it, the Bill actually narrows the scope of the MSC's necessity to consult. Yet in addition to narrowing the scope of the MSC's jurisdiction in that way, it adds to the scope of the Secretary of State to suggest to them who they should consult, so that in two ways the MSC finds its role affected from the point of view of consultation.
The objective of the amendment is to delete those parts of Clause 1 which stipulate that the Minister may direct the MSC to consult such other organisations, associations or bodies as he thinks fit. One reason why I tabled the amendment is that it has not become clear—certainly it is not clear to me as a result of a careful reading of the debates in another place—precisely why the Secretary of State wants this power. The noble Earl has been good enough to provide us with explanatory notes, and I quote from those:
"The new subsection (4)(a) leaves it to the judgment of the Commission which organisations need to be consulted, and so makes it doubtful"—
that is to say, the Bill itself makes it doubtful; it was not doubtful before—
"whether the Secretary of State could direct them to add particular organisations. Paragraph (b) of the new subsection therefore gives the Secretary of State express power to do this".
I suggest he did not have the power before; but now he is to have express power to do it. The notes continue:
"This means that he could require the Commission to consult"—
and this is the first indication we have of what is in mind—
"educational bodies or small trade unions or individual large employers, and the bodies consulted do not, as in paragraph (a), have to be representative of a substantial number of employers or employees".
In other words, they need not represent anyone. That is a strange explanation, for two reasons. The first is that the whole problem has arisen because the Bill itself has narrowed the scope of those whom the MSC have to consult. In the previous situation they had to consult those who were affected, and I should have thought that that satisfied all reasonable considerations. Why the Government, having created the problem, then pass the problem to the Secretary of State has not been explained to us, and that is what I should like the noble Earl to explain tonight.
Secondly, it is a strange explanation because we are not told whom the Secretary of State thinks will be fit. We may be given some examples in the explanatory notes, but there is nothing in the Bill to tell us who the Secretary of State is likely to direct the MSC to consult and who the people are likely to be whom the MSC did not think fit to consult. Will they be educational bodies and small trade unions? If so, what small trade unions? What small trade unions are unrepre-
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sentative that the MSC do not consult? Are they to be large or small employers? Is it because the Secretary of State has in mind certain groups who might give the right answer? Is it because the Secretary of State has in mind that in cases where particular industrial training boards may be, as it were, up for the chop, everybody in the industry who can be found, whom the MSC think fit to consult and who are affected, in fact are against abolishing that industrial training board and therefore one must search about to find certain people—Conservative trade unionists, the Institute of Directors, various unrepresentative small traders' associations, perhaps those cultural rejects who circle round the ancient mulberry tree that stands in the garden of 2 Lord North Street? Are those the people whom the Secretary of State will ask the MSC to consult? We do not know, and therefore we ask, because we want to know.
6.57 p.m.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, the Committee will have listened with care to the explanation of the amendment by the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, and I am sure we were grateful for his references to the explanatory notes. I am sure the noble Lord will accept that it will not be often that the Secretary of State, his Ministers or representatives of the department would expect in any way to direct the commission over any particular organisations or groups of organisations whom it should consult. We continue to believe that the commission should normally be left to undertake its own consultations as it sees fit.
However, I am sure the Committee will agree that the Secretary of State should have the ultimate power to respond to a particular request—for example, from a Member of your Lordships' House or of another place or indeed from other organisations—that those concerned should be included in any discussions or consultations with the commission. The noble Lord has stolen some of the reply I had for him in that he mentioned educational bodies, small or even large trade unions or individual large employers. As he pointed out, the bodies which would be consulted would not necessarily be representative of substantial numbers of employers or employees.
The noble Lord wanted an explanation of how, as he put it, the Government had narrowed the scope of consultations and how the Secretary of State or his representatives might widen that scope. The noble Lord will know that my right honourable friend is in touch with all sorts of organisations on a continuing basis on behalf of the MSC—indeed, the commission reports on a continuing basis to my right honourable friend—so the noble Lord is asking for half the moon, if not for the whole moon, when requesting precise details of all the groups of employers, unions and other organisations which might be consulted. The consultations continue. All we wish to do in the Bill is to give my right honourable friend the power to fill in any possible loopholes which might have become evident.
Lord McCarthy: I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, has done his best, but I do not find his explanations very convincing. Indeed, he seems to have two explanations, the first being that he will not do it very often—rather like the lady who was raped and was told

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it was all right because it would not happen very often. But the question is: is it necessary to do it at all'? I do not think that the noble Lord's second explanation indicated that it is necessary to have the power.
He said, in very general terms, that the Secretary of State surely should have the ultimate power to direct the Manpower Services Commission to consult. The answer to that is that he did not have the power in the 1964 Act, which was passed by a Conservative Government, and he did not have the power in the 1973 Act, which, too, was passed by a Conservative Government. No, he has the power at this time, at the very time when the general direction of the Bill is to pass power from the Manpower Services Commission to the Secretary of State.
Of course that makes it even more bizarre, because if the effective power is to pass from the Manpower Services Commission, as it is, to the Secretary of State, then of course the important person one wants to get to in this game is the Secretary of State. If the Secretary of State, who has the ultimate power of life or death over industrial training boards, feels that there is someone whom the MSC has not consulted, then he can consult that person himself. It is perfectly possible for the Secretary of State to consult people. He is entitled to do it under the Bill. He does not have to depend on the Manpower Services Commission. This is just one more attack upon the authority and the position of the MSC; and therefore, although I do not wish to press the amendment to a Division at this stage, I am not mindful to withdraw it.
On Question, amendment negatived.
7.1 p.m.
Lord Mottistone Lord Mottistone moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 2, line 34, at end insert—
("( ) Where an order is revoked under subsection 1(b) above, any requirements for employers or establishments in the industries concerned to respond to actions authorised under sections 2, 4, 4A, 4B, 6, 6A, or 7 of this Act shall cease to have effect.").
The noble Lord said: On Second Reading my noble friend Lord Gowrie, in answer to a question from me, stated, as reported at column 140 of the Official Report of 30th June:
"He asked me whether the Government were requiring a collective training organisation in all cases. The Government will not necessarily insist on collective training organisations in all cases".
My noble friend then went on to other matters. We are therefore left with the picture that either there is the training board, or the training board may be revoked; and if it is revoked, industry will be able to have collective training organisations, or in certain circumstances as spelled out by my noble friend it may be possible to do without even that if there are large companies in a relatively small group forming a particular industry.
The point of the amendment is to establish beyond doubt that if there is not an industrial training board—that is, if the industrial training board's order has been revoked—companies, or groups of companies, will be spared the overseeing and the information collection involving the Manpower Services Commission. That will be not identical, but similar, to the sort of relaxation
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from bureaucratic control that is being given to enterprise zones in Clause 4, as amended—assuming that the Committee agree—by Government Amendments Nos. 15 and 16.
Members of the Committee may say, "Gosh! This is terrible!"—I am sure that this would be the view of several noble Lords opposite—"You are going to suggest that these companies should actually be allowed to be on their own without any bureaucratic interference, that they can be trusted to get on with their training and that they will do it properly. They will not need auntie Government or uncle Manpower Services Commission to hold their hand and tell them how to do it". I can see it all coming out.
However, as I said on Second Reading—and I shall touch on it again briefly—the fact of the matter is that in competitive industries there is the tremendous discipline of the market forces. Over the past 15 or 20 years people have learned that they cannot be efficient unless they undertake effective and good training. This message has got through to them, and it will be underpinned by the competition that will force them to keep up the training. The question of which particular type of training they undertake in detail, as seen by grand people at the centre with all their theories, is not even relevant to them. There has been much trouble with companies under the aegis of training boards from 1964 onwards.
Quite apart from the even greater overseeing provided by the Manpower Services Commission, which has so deadened the attitude to training at the top levels, under the training boards themselves—I know about this, having worked in one from the other end—one of the troubles is that when there is set out criteria to which companies are expected roughly to conform, they will find that all the things that are being suggested are not relevant to them. This is because not only is each industry different, but each company within each industry is different in terms of the particular systematic training that it requires to satisfy its own needs.
That is the problem, and much time is wasted in answering questions that are only partly relevant to one's own affairs and in complying with various forms of instruction. The instruction might be specific, in that it might be said, "You won't get a grant", or, "You won't be exempt from levy", or whatever, "unless you do this"; or there might be what could be termed a veiled instruction, which is guidance. One wastes a great deal of time. One wastes a lot of executive time, and therefore, in another way, one wastes a great deal of money. The money comes out of the training budget for the company, and that is at the expense of spending on proper training.
So what I am saying to the Committee is that if one does not have a training board, one should not be subjected to some kind of guidance, some form of information collecting from the central bodies which, sadly, are to remain with us. That is the point of my amendment. With the Committee's permission, in conjunction with this amendment I should like to take Amendment No. 13, which covers another aspect of the same matter. I beg to move.
Lord Lyell: I have listened, and I am sure that the Committee has listened, with care to my noble friend's

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detailed explanation of the amendment. Did I hear him aright when he said that he was speaking at the same time to Amendment No. 13?
Lord Mottistone: Yes, Amendment No. 13.
Lord Lyell: I am grateful, and I am sure that the Committee, too, will be grateful, to my noble friend for explaining both amendments at once. As my noble friend has stated, both amendments—certainly Amendment No. 2—concerns the situation where an industrial training board has come to an end and is abolished. I am sure that we would accept that logically that must mean the cessation of the operation of the board. It will mean that any obligations that only the board could have imposed will be extinguished. But in the event of winding up, or abolishing, the industrial training board, it is very important to ensure that, first, the affairs are discontinued and wound up in orderly manner, and, secondly, that there is a reasonable degree of equity between the contributors and the levy payers.
There are only two obligations that a board can impose on any employer. There is, first, the obligation to pay the levy, and then the obligation to provide
information. Both obligations were very picturesquely described by my noble
friend. I think that he spoke of "uncle MSC "and "auntie bureaucracy". Certainly my noble friend put the matter very clearly. If we take the first obligation—to pay—this, of course, derives from a levy order, which would be made by the Secretary of State; but the second obligation—to provide any information to the MSC—could be imposed only with the approval of the Secretary of State. Thus, my right honourable friend would be in a position to control the initiation of either of the obligations in any case. But in the continuing situation, once he has approved the statutory return or, indeed, made a levy order, then it will be up to the board to continue with any action that they need to take.
I would assure my noble friend that any powers that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State would want to take would be fairly wide and flexible, especially if he was winding up a board. If a winding-up order were needed, it would provide for some time between the making of the order and the final cessation of any legal existence of that board. May I give one example? The order could provide that the board should cease to issue statutory returns, or it could cease to require that employers should complete those returns. It could also amend or revoke any levy order, which I hope might please my noble friend, though this may or may not be desirable in the light of the board's financial circumstances. It would also be needed to ensure fairness and equity as between payers of the levy. Any discontinuation or winding up order would probably require a board to cease carrying out the functions except where this was necessary to wind up the affairs of the board.
I would assure my noble friend that we have very much in mind the problems which may possibly be involved in winding up any boards, and we shall take careful note of what my noble friend has said. But certainly we find that the amendments are, I am afraid, unnecessary; and we also find that they would
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remove some of the flexibility from the Manpower Services Commission which we see as desirable in order to achieve an orderly and equitable cessation of the affairs of the board when it is ceasing to be in existence.
Lord McCarthy: I wish to intervene only to say that I am afraid I could not agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, was saying. It seems to me that he believes that the tremendous discipline of market forces produces training. I think that tremendous discipline just produces poaching. So far as concerns what the Government say is germaine to this, I understand the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, to say that the amendment is largely unimportant and irrelevant but that there are certain residual functions in clearing up the results of abolishing an ITB which the MSC might like to have. I should be in favour of their having something, and therefore I would be against this amendment.
Baroness Phillips: I should like to ask the noble Lord who moved the amendment whether he would not agree that the arguments he advanced would go back to the beginning of the training boards themselves. In other words, even if, as he suggests, large concerns—and I am sure this is true from my own knowledge—did have excellent training schemes, it unfortunately was not so true of certain other firms within industry, and therefore it was necessary to have training boards. So the reason for their beginning still remains; and I am afraid it is one of the unfortunate laws of life that those who are doing the right thing often have to set the example to those who are not quite so good at it. The information is something which is pooled and utilised; therefore I think that if you did not have the discipline of some kind of an overall control certain industries and certain firms within those industries would not have training schemes, market forces or no.
Lord Tordoff: If I may just follow that point made by the noble Baroness—
Lord Mottistone: Would it be relevant, or may I answer the noble Baroness first?
Lord Tordoff: May I put a slight gloss on what the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, have said? It seems to me that the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, is based on a slight fallacy in terms of market forces in this situation. It is not to say that trained manpower will not be available in those companies which are not doing the training. So they will still be technically capable of doing their job; they will still be capable of competing in the market-place; but they will not be contributing to the training process, and, as the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, said, they are poaching. They will not be controlled by the market forces which operate on the day-to-day running of their businesses.
Lord Mottistone: I have another amendment on which I should be happy to debate the point that the noble Lord has just raised, but perhaps I could address my remarks briefly, if the Committee would allow me, to the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips. The fact of the

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matter is that I think the noble Baroness went back to assume that if things were changed back to pre-1964, the 1964 attitudes would apply today. Having been in the attitude-changing business in this very area for really quite a long time now, I think it is reasonable to suppose that the attitudes have changed. I think you will find that there are many more firms than there were in 1964 which, from the point of view of satisfying their own training needs to make themselves efficient businesses, are on a par with the best firms which existed in 1964, when there were really very few of them.
Your Lordships may say: What about the other ones? It is my experience, for what it is worth, that the other ones will probably never respond to the blandishments of a training board. It depends on the industry, but in the industry that I am in now about 90 per cent. of the firms have responded and have got themselves levy exemption; but that is one sort of industry. The industry whose training board I had many happy years serving, the distributive industry, presents quite a different picture, and always there will be about a quarter or so of the firms in the industry which, however hard you try, you will never convince. So that is a different picture, and it is a waste of time having a great bureaucratic system to try to work away at the edges of that quarter of the firms.
Furthermore, because they do not listen—because they do not want to listen, because they are stubborn, because they are splendidly British and independent; whatever you like to say—they are not efficient and, in fact, they are more likely to go to the wall in times of hardship. Indeed, there is evidence to show that that is so. I am sorry that that is not a Committee point, but I thought it important to take up the noble Baroness's point because it is fundamental to the whole of this issue.
To turn now to my amendment, as I understood it from my noble friend Lord Lyell he said that some of the proposed exclusions were unnecessary and some of them it would he necessary to retain in order to conduct the winding-up process. I wonder whether he could possibly write me a letter and say which fell into each category. It would be useful to know which he thought were unnecessary and which ones were required for that. If he feels he could do that, perhaps he could tell me before I finish my speech.
Lord Lyell: My memory is fairly fresh from what my noble friend had to say at the Committee stage of another Bill last night. I will save the time of the Committee and say I will gladly write to my noble friend and spell out in detail what I have in mind.
Lord Mottistone: I thank my noble friend very much, and with that 1 beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
7.19 p.m.
Lord Kilmarnock Lord Kilmarnock moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 2, line 38, at end insert—
("Provided that it is not intended to abolish an industrial training board actively concerned with the implementation of a unified vocational preparation scheme.
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(4) In the event of the Minister proposing the abolition of such a training board, he shall lay before Parliament the advice he has received with regard to the future of the said scheme together with any alternative arrangements which he proposes to make.").
The noble Lord said: This amendment is an expression in more concrete form of the disquiet which I and other noble Lords voiced at Second Reading at the fact that the Government should be seeking wide powers to dismantle existing arrangements before there is anything to put in their place. This disquiet has, if anything, been increased by newspaper reports that the Secretary of State is running into difficulties in the Cabinet over his proposals for the 16-year to 19-year age group. The amendments which follow mine seek much more all-embracing guarantees on the future of training in this country. We on this Bench sympathise with their spirit. But I simply want to concentrate on one curious contradiction in Government policy. As most Members of the Committee will know, the unified vocational preparation pilot schemes were first announced in 1976 and were subsequently assessed in the consultative document A Better Start in Working Life, which argued for their adoption on a wider scale.
The object was to make some dent in the appalling numbers of school-leavers in the United Kingdom who go directly into the workforce and get no significant further education or vocational training in their lives. According to Outlook on Training, the MSC's review of the Employment and Training Act, this amounted to 44 per cent. of all school-leavers on the last count. This is by far the highest percentage in any EEC country of young people dumped on the labour market without adequate preparation.
The original target group of the UVP scheme was in the region of 200,000 school-leavers per annum. The latest figures given by the Department of Education and Science in answer to a Written Question of my own show that of 2,393,000 young people aged 16, 17 and 18 in England and Wales in the academic year 1979–80 some 1,135,000—nearly half—were in full-time employment without part-time day education or training. Of those, 449,000 attended evening classes in their own time, leaving nearly 700,000 in the 16–19 age bracket without any further provision whatsoever after leaving school.
Though relatively small in scale—only about 4,000 were covered in the financial year 1980–81—UVP is the principal Government-backed scheme for the young employed as opposed to the young unemployed who are catered for by the Youth Opportunities Programme. It is financed and managed by the MSC and the education departments working together through an inter-departmental group and is a welcome instance of increasing collaboration between Government departments. In November 1980 the Secretary of State for Employment announced that the scheme would be expanded to cover some 20,000 young people by 1983–4. The programme was also referred to by the noble Earl in his
opening speech at Second Reading on 30th June, in which he said (at col. 103 of Hansard):
"our plan is to try to provide links between education and training by a more systematic programme of vocational preparation based on our experience of the Youth Opportunities Programme and of the Unified Vocational Preparation Scheme".
So far so good. We must be thankful for small mercies. But here comes the rub: who got most

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of the current UVP schemes accepted by employers? Not unnaturally, it was the industrial training boards. In 1978–79 the Distributive Industry Board launched 90 schemes; rubber and plastics, 13; food and drink, four. Thirty-four
schemes were launched by colleges of further education but the industrial training boards were undoubtedly the main agencies in selling the idea to employers. Furthermore, it was the considered opinion of the National Foundation for Educational Research in their evaluation of UVP published in November 1980 that:
"college organised schemes were more likely to experience problems in obtaining employer support for UVP than were the ITB-organised ones".
Finally, this view was supported by the Association of Principals of Colleges representing the heads of more than two-thirds of the major establishments of further education in the United Kingdom who themselves admitted quite openly in a recent statement that
"the UVP Scheme is largely dependent on the initiatives of the training boards—particularly the Distributive, Food, Drink and Tobacco and Rubber and Plastics Boards".
And they go on,
"Voluntary arrangements are unlikely to enable the Government to fulfil its expressed intentions to extend training opportunities to the majority of our people".
Well, leaving that general opinion on one side—which we on this Bench happen to share—let us look simply at the Government's expressed intentions in the UVP field. In paragraphs 54 and 55 of the New Training Initiative, which the noble Earl said on Second Reading that the Government backed, we read that,
"By 1983–4 the UVP programme will be expanded to cover 20,000 young people in employment, a six-fold increase … Our intention is to use it as a test bed for foundation training and further education for young people w employment who are not apprentices or trainees on other schemes".
In other words, not only is the Secretary of State's undertaking of November 1980 reaffirmed but the UVP programme is to become an important strand in the New Training Initiative. In the next paragraph we read,
"the two programmes—the YOP and the UVP—will be planned and developed together in order to provide experience and a foundation on which provision for all young people in the age group can eventually be built".
Now this is all very laudable, but to abolish or take powers to abolish without further consultation the delivery mechanisms before you have secured the general agreement of employers to the principle of voluntarism seems unwise to say the least of it. I am not disputing the right of the Government to act according to their rights, but I am saying that Parliament and the country have an equal right to know on what grounds the Secretary of State bases his actions, most particularly if he acts in disregard of his experts and informed opinion in the field.
The MSC's sector by sector review must presumably by now be on the Secretary of State's desk or, if not, it will be very shortly. I am afraid that I was unable to be in the Chamber when the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, asked a Question earlier on, so I do not know whether anything emerged on that. If the Secretary of State is satisfied with the consultations that the MSC have carried out, he has no further obligation to consult. But, given his stated intention to expand the UVP scheme, which is very largely
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dependent on the ITBs scheme, it seems only right and proper that he should lay before Parliament the reasons for abolishing or changing the scope of any board on which he might have relied for assistance in implementing an expansion of the UVP scheme, and that he should tell us on whose advice he is relying in reaching his decision. Finally, he should set out the alternative lines on which he proposes to proceed. That is the purpose behind this relatively modest amendment. I beg to move.
7.27 p.m.
The Earl of Gowrie: Sometimes one asks the Committee to resist an amendment with which one has some sympathy. This is the case at the moment. My objection to the noble Lord's amendment is the inappropriateness of statute in this field rather than that I have any disagreement with him in his analysis of the poverty of real vocational training in this country. We have said that on many occasions, and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State has consistently compared—as have many of his colleagues —our own situation adversely, even for those in work, as the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, reminded us, with the situation that obtains with some of our competitor countries. We shall give what the noble Lord has said great consideration, just as we shall give considerable weight to the report by the MSC as and when we start taking decisions about the future of boards.
This intention has been reinforced by the new training initiative document which the noble Lord mentioned and which I indeed commended to the House when we considered this Bill on Second Reading. There are other considerations as well as these and as well as the issue about whether a statutory law is the appropriate vehicle for achieving what we are all anxious to see done. For instance, we have to consider the ability of future training arrangements to provide wide opportunities for apprentices, to maintain up-to-date training standards and to counteract potential skill shortages, as well as to provide opportunities for adult training and other important training needs generally.
No one would dissent from that, but one gets into very difficult territory when one tries to write such considerations into statute law. I could not accept, either, that vocational preparation should be written into the law—as the noble Lord proposes—in isolation from all these other considerations that I have mentioned. If we go back to the 1964 Act, we find provision for any order abolishing, establishing or changing the scope of a board to be subject to the negative resolution procedure. There is thus a procedure for Parliament to debate such orders.
If any Member of this House or of another place wants to question the effect of any order being made or wants to draw attention to what he or she may feel to be an adverse effect, that seems to us to be the proper way of dealing with these matters, and to deal in parliamentary terms with a subject which is of continuing interest and capable of improvement but which, even if improved, will always be a matter of concern. But the unified vocational preparation programme, as it has existed up to now, is relatively small. As I said on Second Reading, we do want to provide much wider opportunities for vocational

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preparation and we are absolutely in line with the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, there. At present the MSC is consulting how to do so, and in these circumstances it seems to me it would be quite wrong to tie our consideration of the role of boards just to the existing UVP scheme.
Certainly I acknowledge, with the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, that some boards have played an important role in the scheme up to now, and I pay tribute to the work they have done, though equally some boards have chosen not to participate. But I see no reason why voluntary arrangements, under the eye of the Secretary of State with the very considerable enabling powers this Bill gives him, cannot be as effective, and in any case large numbers of young people whom we think need vocational preparation opportunities do happen to find themselves employed in sectors where there are no statutory boards. Therefore, acceptance of this amendment would create, to put it mildly, an extremely lopsided position in respect of very many young people.
So I hope that in asking the Committee to resist this amendment I shall not be considered pedantic or obscurantist or over-technical. I am passionately anxious to improve training, and a great part of my work in the department is on that. Nevertheless, I think that if we reverse the question posed by the noble Lord's amendment and say, "Suppose we accepted it, what would be the net results over the field and what would be the net obligations of Parliament, the Secretary of State and the Exchequer?" we would come to some rather confused answers. That is why I must ask the Committee to reject the amendment.
Baroness Seear: May I ask the noble Earl, accepting that he has the very great concern that we know he has, if we abolished training boards what mechanism is to be used to see, firm by firm, that in fact these schemes are operating? I cannot see how it is going to work on the ground. I do not believe that the noble Earl believes that if we just leave it all to the market the market forces will be making them do all the right things. The noble Earl is far too intelligent to believe that. But it does need some prodding mechanism and I cannot see, in the structure that will be left behind when the training boards have gone, where the prodding mechanism would be found.
The Earl of Gowrie: First of all, not all the training boards, by any means, are liable to go: in fact it is a very open question as to which of them will go at the moment. Secondly, we have in Government a Department of Employment and a Secretary of State for Employment. It seems to me to be somewhat in the area of political science fiction to suggest that any Secretary of State for Employment, however much I myself might disagree with some of his politics or whatever, would be uninterested in training issues. Thirdly, we have the Manpower Services Commission which, with its tripartite character, if I may use that jargon to save time, is unlikely not to be interested in training issues within its orbit. Fourthly, those people on the ITBs that remain—and they are liable to be the key ITBs—are not likely (and on this I think the noble
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Lord, Lord Scanlon, might agree with me) to be uninterested in general training across the field.
Fifthly, we have an educational sector which does not do enough for my taste, and perhaps not enough for that of the noble Baroness, but certainly does consider its interface, to use some more jargon, with the world of work. Sixthly, we have the careers service, which is not known for its reticence about the transition of school-to-work activities. Really it seems to me that we have goads galore in this issue, and I do not think the noble Baroness need be too worried.
Lord McCarthy: Without attempting to follow the noble Earl into that issue, I do not think that the noble Baroness was saying that these people or bodies are uninterested. Of course, they are all interested. What she was asking was what would be the mechanism, and why at this point the Government want to dismantle in effect, in the areas where they do dismantle it, the only effective mechanism we have. I think we are going to take that up in subsequent debates and so I will now return to this particular amendment. Many of the things the noble Earl said one must have sympathy with. This amendment takes one individual, small area where, as he rightly said, the industrial training hoards have done a very great deal. It is a very important and vital area where the Government, as he rightly said, wish to see a six-fold increase, and it is saying surely in this area you would be prepared to say in a statute that you are going to take the question of what happens to unified vocational preparation schemes specifically into account when deciding whether or not to get rid of a particular training board.
The reply of the noble Earl, as I understand it, is that it is very narrow and there are many other things which a training board would be required to do and which presumably the Secretary of State would take into account before deciding whether or not to abolish an industrial training board. If he carries on with that line of argument, since he knows there are further amendments on the Marshalled List which take a much wider view—indeed there is the next amendment—one might expect him to go for a rather more favourable wind to a general amendment which does not select a narrow area, though a most important one of unified vocational preparation schemes; except that, towards the end of what he says, he seems to be saying that he does not believe in specifying criteria in statutes at all. That would be a fine doctrine, if it were a general one, I might say. But he does not believe in specifying criteria in this statute and he believes in fact that a debate on an order in this Chamber or in another place would be a substitute.
I do not think it would be a substitute because we want some measure against which to debate what it is that the Secretary of State is doing, and we want some indication from the Secretary of State that he really means what he and the noble Earl have said on many occasions that they do not want to undermine the total volume of training in this country and in particular, in the case of this amendment, unified vocational preparation schemes.
The Earl of Gowrie: May I just say to the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, that I congratulate him on skilfully driving in the slipstream of the noble Lord,

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Lord Kilmarnock, in order presumably to try to overtake him a little later on. I did notice that this was what he was doing.
Lord Kilmarnock: I am most grateful to the noble Earl for his reply. He has, of course, shown his customary concern for the whole problem of the 16-to-19 year old age group, for which he has a well-established reputation and which we do not dispute in any way at all.
He criticised me for introducing the question of unified vocational preparation in isolation. He said it was too narrow a front; but I should just like to say that it was deliberately intended to be narrow, on the grounds underlined by the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, that I was striving to get at the mechanism the noble Earl had in mind for the continuation of these schemes once he has possibly knocked away some of the underpinning which is provided at the moment by the industrial training boards.
I must confess that I am still not entirely sure what mechanisms are in mind. However, as the noble Earl will have detected, this was to a large extent a probing amendment. We know that there is at the moment a lot of thought in the air about this whole field and there are also, as the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, pointed out, some more all-embracing amendments to come forward which would, on the whole, take care of my narrower sector of concern. So on those grounds I am prepared to beg leave to withdraw this amendment, but I shall certainly want to read the report of the debate very carefully before deciding what to do at Report stage. It rather depends on how further amendments fare, and also on whether any further clarification of the Government's proposed mechanisms for the continuation of these schemes emerges in the course of the debate. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
7.41 p.m.
Lord McCarthy Lord McCarthy moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 2, line 38, at end insert—
("(4) The Minister may not amend or revoke an existing industrial training order unless he is satisfied that such action is unlikely to reduce the quality and quantity of training being undertaken in the industry covered by any training boards concerned.").
The noble Lord said: In moving this amendment, I have to say that, of course, this is asking for general criteria. Therefore, the first part of the noble Earl's set of objections to the previous amendment does not stand in this case. The object is to inject certain criteria into the Bill, so that we have some idea of what factors will be taken into account by the Secretary of State in deciding whether or not to abolish a particular industrial training board. I am trying to use the kind of criteria which I think ought to be most acceptable to the Government, because the statement that the Government should not abolish an industrial training board unless it is unlikely to reduce the quality and quantity of training in the area covered by the industrial training board, is, in broad terms, what we have been told time and time again by Government spokesmen, here and in another place, in regard to what they consider will happen.
In the Official Report, at column 105 of 30th June, the noble Earl said:
"We feel that in many sectors of industry adequate training arrangements can continue without the straitjacket of a statutory framework".
Indeed, the noble Earl has already said the same thing in reply to amendments tonight. Again, at column 106 he said:
"… statutory boards will be kept where they are needed to meet essential objectives".
Again, also at column 106:
"We do not want to be left with inadequate training arrangements".
Following doubts which were expressed on Second Reading by myself, by the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, by my noble friend Lord Scanlon and by my noble friend Lord Allen, the noble Earl said, at column 137:
"… we shall not get rid of statutory training boards in those key sectors where we believe that essential training objectives will not be met without them".
Again, at column 138:
"I am not convinced … that industry is not capable in very many cases of responding without levy to its training needs".
And, most particularly, in reply to the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, he said at column 139:
"… we are not going to get rid of statutory training boards where these seem to be necessary"—
that is to say, to meet the country's training needs.
The Government have never denied—the noble Earl did not deny it himself in his Second Reading speech when he referred to the New Training Initiative—that they agree with that part of the New Training Initiative which says that we undoubtedly need an extension in the quality and quantity of training. Therefore the aim of this amendment is quite simple. It is that the Government shall be prepared to say specifically, in the Bill itself, that the main factor which they will take into account is their belief that the quality and quantity of training will be maintained. If they say this, and if it can be shown subsequently that the quality and quantity of training is not being undertaken, then we shall have to say something on it and we shall have some bench-mark or some criteria. But unless it is in the Bill, unless the Government are prepared to make that statement, we shall know what their promises are worth. I beg to move.
Lord Rochester: I have little of substance to add to what the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, has said. I should like to take this opportunity to give an indication of how we on these Benches support the principle inherent in the amendment which he has just moved. We should much prefer, as my noble friend Lady Seear made plain at Second Reading, that industrial training boards were preserved, not necessarily in their existing form but as the well-tested and broad foundation of sound training on which we should continue to build. Certainly, before we allow them to disappear, let us make sure that standards of training are not going to suffer in terms of their quality or their quantity.
The Earl of Gowrie: I am reluctant to repeat myself and, as the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, very fairly implied, there is some overlap between his amendment and the previous amendment, though, of course, his is

1315
more general and less targeted than the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock. Just as I had considerable sympathy with the motives behind the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, so I am able to extend that sympathy to the present one. We have made it clear that we wish to be sure that essential training needs will be met before any ITBs are abolished. We shall want to be quite sure of the adequacy of any voluntary arrangements to meet such needs. When my right honourable friend first asked the MSC to review future training arrangements, he spelled out quite specifically the criteria on which his formal decisions would need to be based. These included the likelihood of shortages of trained manpower, and we should hope to see economic improvement, an upturn, and such shortages as an indication of upturn. Indeed, even at the present time there are, in key sectors, considerable skill shortages.
He also needed to consider the emerging demand for trained manpower in new technologies, the need for adequate quality of training, including agreed standards—and we had some debate about standards rather than time-serving at Second Reading—opportunities for vocational preparation for young people, which takes us back to the previous amendment, and wide opportunities for craft apprentices and for adult training. The MSCs report will, I am sure, have examined the proposals for voluntary arrangements against these tests. We have made clear that we will not abolish statutory boards where we think that the tests and these essential training objectives will not be met. It would be quite right, therefore, for Parliament to try to hold the Government to these intentions and to insist that necessary training should not be damaged in the process of reviewing the training boards. This is a big economic affair, a big social affair, and it is of understandable national concern.
Our argument is simply that it is not right to accept this amendment, really for a narrow reason and for a broad reason. The narrow reason is that the amendment is inappropriate in requiring that no change should ever be made, if it is expected that the effect will he to reduce the quality or quantity of training. There are instances when you might wish to reduce training of the highest quality. If you came to the conclusion that your economy was—I must be careful what example I use, so as not to excite anybody—more or less being wiped out in confectionery, you might wish to reduce the quality of training in the confectionery industry, because you could not compete in that area any more. Happily for any party with an interest in the confectionery industry, that would not be the case, and I use it only as an example. But under this amendment the Secretary of State would be bound to continue training splendid apprentices manufacturing Smarties when the Smarties market had totally collapsed. The more general objection is that which I made earlier, about statute. Very often a suspicious Opposition—and rightly, because one is paid to be suspicious in Opposition—
Several noble Lords: No!
The Earl of Gowrie: Well, in fact, some are paid and some are not. But very often a suspicious Opposition will say, "We will try to get this on the
1316
statute because it will tie the Government's hands". However worthy that motive may be, it does have the uncomfortable effect of involving the proper concern that Parliament has with the intricacies, delays and expense of litigation. The likelihood of the quantity or quality of training being maintained seems to us to be a matter more appropriately debated in Parliament than in the law courts. Orders changing the scope of a training board and orders abolishing a training board are subject to a negative resolution of both Houses, so any Member can pray against such orders and any Member can initiate a debate. I believe that that is entirely right. If my right honourable friend moves any orders following the present review, I have no doubt that in practice they will be prayed against and debated. We do not want to see this kind of issue hung out in the courts and subjected to lengthy and contentious legislation. For those two reasons, I would ask your Lordships' Committee to reject the noble Lord's amendment,
Lord McCarthy: In reply, I am very disappointed with what the noble Earl has said. He has a narrow reason and he has a wide reason. It seems to me that between his two reasons one cannot get anything through; that there is no way through. The narrow reason is better than the wide reason. It is quite true that one could have the case in which one wanted to run a particular industry down, and, if the noble Earl had said he wanted to take this aspect away and think about it and perhaps suggest a change of wording, that would have been different. But no. It is the wide reason that is the crucial reason; the noble Earl does not want anything on the statute which specifies what the criteria shall be.
Of course the noble Earl the Minister has sympathy. When the noble Earl expresses sympathy, he reminds me of the Walrus:
"I weep for you,' the Walrus said:
'I deeply sympathise'.
With sobs and tears he sorted out
Those of the largest size,
Holding his pocket-handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes".
The noble Earl sympathises but he does nothing.
7.53 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 4) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 42; Not-Contents, 47.

CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Hooson, L.

Amherst, E.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Jeger, B.

Bishopston, L.

John-Mackie, L.

Blease, L.

Kilmarnock, L.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Kirkhill, L.

Bowden, L.

McCarthy, L.

Chitnis, L.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

MacLeod of Fuinary, L.

Collison, L.

McNair, L.

David, B. [Teller.]

Mayhew, L.

Galpern, L.

Northfield, L.

Hampton, L.

Oram, L.

Hanworth, V.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Hatch of Lusby, L. [Teller.]

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

1317

Rochester, L.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Ross of Marnock, L.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Scanlon, L.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Seear, B.

Tordoff, L.

Simon, V.

Underhill, L.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Wilson of Langside, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Avon, E. [Teller.]

Kinross, L.

Baker, L.

Lawrence, L.

Balerno, L.

Long, V.

Belstead, L.

Loudoun, C.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Bridgeman, V.

Lyell, L.

Cathcart, E.

Mackay of Clashfern, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Margadale, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Mottistone, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Mountevans, L.

De La Warr, E.

Newall, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Norfolk, D.

Dundee, E.

Northesk, E.

Elles, B.

O'Hagan, L.

Elton, L.

Reigate, L.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

Rochdale, V.

Gisborough, L.

Sandys, L. [Teller.]

Gowrie, E.

Skelmersdale, L.

Greenway, L.

Stodart of Leaston, L.

Gridley, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Haig, E.

Swinfen, L.

Henley, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Inglewood, L.

Trenchard, V.

Kinloss, Ly.

Resolved in the- negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
8.1. p.m.
On Question, Whether Clause 1 shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord McCarthy: We must oppose clause stand part because this is the heart of the Bill. The object of this part of the Bill is to change the position so that the Manpower Services Commission no longer proposes what happens to industrial training boards and the Secretary of State disposes, a relationship which was established under the previous Acts. We have to say why the 1973 relationship was the correct one and why it is that the Government have still failed to explain their reasons for change.
A previous Conservative Government established the Manpower Services Commission which was charged with developing the overall national training policy, with setting the priorities for an overall training policy, and with doing this on a tripartite basis. Indeed, a tripartite basis for planning and introducing training is the only possible effective basis. If one is to provide the money one must have the employers, because the employers must agree that what one wants to do with the money is sensible, reasonable and what is required for the industry as a whole. If one wants to get the acceptance and co-operation of the work force, one must have the unions because in the end only the unions will be able to give their agreement to the kind of changes—for example, in the apprenticeship system—which we want to see. And of course one must have educationalists and one must have the Government.
The whole foundation of the Manpower Services Commission was a very worth-while expression at that time of the commitment of the Conservative Govern-
1318
ment of that time to the principle of co-operation and, in this context, of tripartism. Therefore, going back upon that context and upon the role of the Manpower Services Commission and writing down that role in a whole series of ways—which this Bill does, not simply in Clause 1 but in other clauses to which we shall come later tonight—is not simply putting training at risk. It is moving away from a system of co-operation and consultation which used to be, and which we hope will again be, the only way in which this country can move forward.
The Government have given us some reasons, but they are not satisfactory reasons. The Secretary of State said in another place that in the Government's view the question of the future of the industrial training boards could not be decided upon the basis of the Manpower Services Commission's report, Outlook on Training. After all, the Manpower Services Commission was asked to look at the future of industrial training boards. By and large, the Manpower Services Commisison said that the existing system should continue, but the Secretary of State said in another place:
"In the Government's view, that question"—
that is to say, the future of the boards in general—
"can be decided only on a sector by sector basis, having regard to the future training needs of particular industries".
Then the Manpower Services Commission was given the job of looking at particular industrial training boards on a sector by sector basis. But we have not waited for the conclusion of the Manpower Services Commission's review so we do not know what the commission will say.
We have asked the Government on many occasions, and I ask them again tonight, what the attitude of the Government will be to the sector by sector review which is eagerly awaited by all of us. Will the Government in general say that if the Manpower Services Commission's sector by sector review says that a particular training board should survive, they will go along with this? Or have the Government some other set of criteria which they will not put into the Bill and which they will not tell us about tonight? Which means that that which the Manpower Services Commission's tripartite body says should be the future of a particular industrial training board shall not be the case, because the Secretary of State will decide—and then the noble Earl says that we can pray against him in the House. So the Government have done this and have not waited for the sector by sector report.
In so far as one can find a general explanation for this, I suppose it came out once again tonight in the noble Earl's commitment to voluntarism: voluntarism is best. That indeed was said by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary in another place when asked a similar kind of question at the Committee stage. Voluntarism, he said, is best, in much the same way as they used to say that beer is best. The question, however, is not whether voluntarism is best but whether voluntarism will reach those parts that the statutory system reaches but which voluntarism is unlikely to be able to reach.
We have made the point several times in this House. The noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, said at Second Reading that we must not take this Bill too seriously. It was, he said, a flexible, modest enabling Bill. Yet nobody will tell us what are the criteria which are going to

1319
flow through this flexible, modest enabling Bill. Indeed, the only people who have really come forward (apart from merely saying that one believes generally in voluntarism, which does not get us very far) and made a thorough, general argument in favour of the kind of powers which are being taken in Clause 1 of the Bill are the writers Elliott and Mendel in the infamous Centre for Policy Studies' pamphlet from which it all began. They were the first people to set out to destroy the industrial training hoards and they gave a general argument. But since they are a priori economists their general argument had nothing to do with the facts. It was based upon general principles: taxes are bad; intervention is wrong; tripartism is evil. If you set off on that kind of Quango hunt to save public expenditure, you will come to the conclusion that you need a Bill of this kind. You will not wait for the sector by sector review and you will not tell people what are the criteria which you are going to use.
A short while ago I believe I said to this House that I thought the Government's economic policy was a bit like the Hunting of the Snark, searching for the mysterious M3. But the Government have now decided, as we all knew, that M3 was a boojum, you see, so it is no good looking for M3. So now we are attacking the supply side of the economy. Now we are making the labour market work.
One part of our policy is anti-union legislation and another part of our policy is to shoot institutions: bang, bang, bang—any institution in sight. This might make the labour market work. So it is not the Hunting of the Snark which is a comic poem. It is the Rime of The Ancient Mariner. It is a tragic affair. The ancient mariner, noble Lords will remember, shot the albatross because he thought it was a bird of ill-omen. But it was a bird of good omen. The albatross was trying to help. So the Government go around shooting 57 Quangos, the National Enterprise Board, the Clegg Commission and now we do not know how many industrial training boards.
We oppose this Bill and in particular we oppose this clause because we believe that in the true sense—not in the commonly accepted sense—the ITBs are in fact albatrosses; they are birds of good omen; they are trying to deal with the job. As the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, said, no mechanism is being suggested to replace them, and we do not believe that those who say that they are concerned with training and with the volume of training and the quality of training would really like to shoot all these birds. Maybe they will not shoot as many as we think (I certainly hope not) but they are in the grip—or someone somewhere behind them is in the grip—of a profoundly authoritarian dogmatic ideology: shoot, shoot, all the Quangos including the ITBs.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: Like my noble friend Lord McCarthy, I think it is obvious that Clause 1 is the core of the whole Bill. I must apologise to the noble Earl and to the Committee for not being able to speak at Second Reading, the reason being that I was abroad at the time. Nevertheless the noble Earl may recall that he had another Bill last year, the Employment Bill, and in some ways this resembles that Bill, in the sense that, while the Employment Bill created no
1320
employment, this Bill creates neither employment nor training and, as my noble friend Lord McCarthy said at Second Reading, the title of the Bill seems to have no relation to its content.
The noble Earl may also recall that he and I had a slight brush at the time of the debate on the Employment Bill about the reduction in the budget of the Manpower Services Commission, and at that time I was able to quote to him a press statement made by his own department immediately after the last election, to the effect that that budget was to be cut.
I can assure noble Lords that I have read the Second Reading debate and I find myself as puzzled by the reason for the production of this Bill at this time as many noble Lords and noble Baronesses did during that Second Reading debate. I am forced to come to the same conclusion as did my noble friend Lord McCarthy on that occasion and as he has repeated tonight—that the central object of this Bill is a tiny, peripheral part of the Government's economic policy which is, as he has said, to cut expenditure at all costs.
This seems to be madness. I am sure that the noble Earl is absolutely sincere when he tells us that he does not wish to cut the training programmes of this country; that he does not wish to see this country fall further and further below our competitors in the training of our work force. But he is having to do so. He is the agent of the Government that he represents in doing so, or attempting to do so. Are we not living in an era in which it is now, I should have thought, virtually universally accepted that at least one of the root causes of the economic decline of this country goes way back into the last century, when this country failed to match the training facilities in the wealth-producing sectors of the economy that our major competitors, particularly in Germany and America, provided. Are we not certainly doing precisely the same tonight?
The noble Earl recommended to us in the Second Reading debate—and this comes directly in relation to Clause 1—the document produced by the Manpower Services Commission, A New Training Initiative. This also puzzles me somewhat. Look at paragraph 40 of that document. You will see that in paragraph 40 the Manpower Services Commission suggests that there is unlikely to be a need for a substantial increase in spending on training. Yet we know that this week alone the Secretary of State for Employment is fighting a battle within the Cabinet to get £1 billion or £1,000 million—in order to ensure what? In order to ensure that by 1983, in two years' time, all school-leavers will be able to get jobs.
But beyond that, to take the words of the Manpower Services Commission itself, having said that it does not think there is likely to be any substantial need for an increase in expenditure, it is now saying that in this year alone it requires £93 million extra in its budget in order to include another 100,000 within the Youth Opportunities Programme. That is this year. Is this not a contradiction, and is the noble Earl able to unravel this contradiction?
The Earl of Gowrie: Yes.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: Then again, according to the Manpower Services Commission, only 40 per cent. of

1321
the labour force under the age of 18 will be in employment at the end of 1983 if present—
Lord Mottistone: Will the noble Lord allow me?
Lord Hatch of Lusby: If I may just finish this sentence, then by all means the noble Lord may intervene. Only 40 per cent. of the labour force under the age of 18 will be in employment at the end of 1983 if present trends continue.
Lord Mottistone: I know it is very unfortunate that the noble Lord was not here for Second Reading but does he not think it would be better if he did not inflict this Committee with a Second Reading speech and instead spoke strictly to the Question, That Clause 1 stand part? He has made passing reference to it, but the whole of the last few minutes of his speech have been on Second Reading and have had nothing to do with Clause 1.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: In my submission, t am speaking to Clause 1, because everything after Clause 1 stems from Clause 1, and we are talking about Clause 1 standing part of the Bill.
Lord Mottistone: But we have already had these sorts of speeches which we have had an opportunity to give at Second Reading. The noble Lord apologised—and it was good of him to do so—for not being here, but I really suggest that it is stretching the bounds of order in this House to make a long and involved speech about general subjects when one really is supposed to be speaking about the clause. It may have all sorts of implications but those are dealt with at Second Reading and not carried on through the Committee stage. I do not know whether my noble friend on the Front Bench would agree with me?
The Earl of Gowrie: I have to say that I do rather share that view, speaking in a personal capacity. Of course I do not in any way wish to gag the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby, who is as concerned about these issues as I am, but perhaps he could beam his general argument on to the principle of the clause and we should get on rather faster.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: What I am trying to do is to draw from the Minister who is to reply, the noble Earl, an explanation of why he is introducing this clause, giving the Secretary of State and the Government the power to reduce at this time the institutions which have been set up to promote training within industry. All that is contained in Clause 1. I am trying to probe the mind of the Government as to why these powers, all of which are contained in Clause 1, are now being taken to reduce the training and the institutions to promote training as the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, put it, to prod the employers into further training—just at a time when more and more training is needed in this country and when the economic future of this country depends on increasing rather than decreasing training.
I will make one final point on this subject, and it is just as directly related to Clause 1 as everything else I have said. May I just finish the point I was making when I gave way to the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone.
1322
I was pointing out that the Manpower Services Commission itself was forecasting that by the end of 1983 only 40 per cent. of the labour force under the age of
18 would be in employment. At the end of last year 70 per cent. of that same generation within the labour force were in employment. What are you going to do with this difference, the 30 per cent.? Are you going to leave them to rot? Are you going to provoke them into the kind of behaviour that we have seen over the last few years, or are you going to train them?
Let me ask the noble Earl directly. Do the Government have sufficient faith in their economic policy to train the labour force which they claim will be needed when their economic policies have had another year or two to run? Because that is the nub of Clause 1. All the actions that are being taken by this Government, through Clause 1 of this Bill, through the attitude that they are taking towards those universities like Salford and Bradford and Aston where technological training is being done, appear to suggest that they do not have faith that they will need the trained labour force which they claim their economic policies will require when they become successful. Perhaps I should declare an interest, as an honorary Fellow of Bradford University, and as having taught in a number of business schools in various overseas countries.
How can the Government argue that this is the time to undermine these institutions which their Conservative predecessors and their Labour party predecessors set up in order to try to redress the gross imbalance in the training facilities for wealth production in this country as compared with those of our major competitors? It seems to me that this is truly destroying the seed corn of the economic future of this country, destroying that seed corn in the very year when business failures are at a record level and when, surely, it would be agreed on all sides of this House that what this country needs more than anything else, if this record of failure is to be ended and reversed, is a new generation trained in the modern methods of industry, given the opportunity of specialising in building up new British industries. Clause 1 of this Bill, to my mind, denies all the vision and hope which can come from such an attitude.
8.24 p.m.
The Earl of Gowrie: I think I can clear up some of the noble Lord's difficulties quite quickly, or rather the specific difficulty that he says he finds in the Government's professed desire to improve training and the Bill, which enables the Secretary of State to wind up ITB's, if necessary, after taking the advice of the Manpower Services Commission and subject to the procedures of Parliament which I itemised earlier. The noble Lord, Lord Hatch, and the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, are both falling into what I would judge to be a common fallacy in the Labour party, which is to identify an issue too closely with the institutions that exist to serve it. That is a marked difference of view between us. Again I do not wish to take a contentious example, but it might be that there would be a situation where an institution existed to serve the blind—indeed, many such institutions exist and an excellent job most of them do—but the aim of people within the institution, or even Parliament, to reform a particular institution should not be looked upon as an

1323
attack on the blind. It is no such thing. It might be that a particular institution had outlived its usefulness, was not cost-effective or the rest.
This is a very pervasive and a very dangerous attitude, it seems to me, because it is quite clear that in almost every social field in this country there are large numbers of people—and I am not referring to ITB's at the moment or the Manpower Services Commission, or to any given body, but making a general principle—in forms of employment which exist in some way to look after other people with some problem or some interest or some issue. As such they are vocal and persuasive in defence of their own interests and rights. That is one of the reasons why we find in this country that we have, in our view, a public sector which is disproportionate, not to some absolute ideal or dogma or doctrine, but disproportionate to the amount of wealth being generated to serve it. It is, therefore, very central to this Government and to its overall policies to try to get the public sector more into line with what the economic activities in this country are actually able to supply.
That does not mean that we simply look at a quango, if you like, and, in the colourful phrases of the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, with his interests in late 19th century poetry, take a pot shot at it wherever or whenever we can. There may be instances in which a public body is doing an admirable task. But we think that the onus at least is on the public body and Parliament to judge whether one is essential. We do not see why these organisations should be self-perpetuating and inviolate and enshrined in statute. That is the nub of Clause 1.
The Secretary of State wants to spread—and I am now leaving the general principle and going to the principles of training—the areas of reliance on voluntary arrangements as far as possible. But he may not be able to spread them as far as he might like at any given point, because the essential criteria
which I outlined in the debate on the previous amendment might not be met. Parliament has a perfectly good method—as I have said—of bringing it to the Secretary of State's attention that he or she is not meeting these particular criteria and so have boundless other organisations in our economy.
Let me turn to the connection between this Bill and the Youth Opportunities Programme (YOP) and some of the work of the Manpower Services Commission. The part of the Bill which we are discussing is fundamentally about industrial training boards. We have gone over their role and function and we have said on many occasions that they are liable to continue that role and function in many important cases. The work of the MSC is different, although, of course, the MSC does supply a great deal of training. Where a given industry either by a voluntary method or by some form of Government, statutory or public organisation, like an industrial training board, is not supplying training, the MSC with Government money tries to come in and top up, as well as acting as a strong disciplinary force on Governments and on businesses to try and do better and to provide more training or to foresee the need for more training.
But in the case of the Youth Opportunities Programme the money which the Government give to the MSC is there to fulfil a particular acute, social
1324
and economic need which is that although there are very large numbers of jobs in this economy—larger numbers in fact than in any other comparable European country except Denmark—we do not have the numbers of new jobs, regrettably, to meet the number of young people who are seeking them. We are facing a very grave demographic or population explosion which will not go on indefinitely—it will ease, come one policy or another, in the mid-eighties—and we have the misfortune of seeing the sixties baby bulge (to which I must confess I contributed) hitting the labour market in a recession all over the world, and something must be done to try and service their needs.
We had programmes which were fundamentally cosmetic or fundamentally to give young people things to do, but we are now trying to improve the training quality in these programmes. This is rather a different field from the, as it were, professional training that we are talking about being done by the ITBs and which necessarily may deal in the future with a slightly older age group.
Therefore, this seems to me to be a perfectly coherent policy and a policy designed to try in the particular case I have just given to meet an acute social problem, and none of us in the Government underestimates how acute it is. Our only analysis is that this problem will be with us come one Government or another for some years yet. In fact, as the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, well knows, the work of the Manpower Services Commission has been commended by the previous Administration as well as by ourselves, who initially set it up, and we would see a continuing role for it, not least in the field of training. However, I think that otherwise noble Lords have been far too wide-ranging—and I apologise, therefore, for having to be wide-ranging back—about the general underlying principles. It would be better, it seems to me, for us to revert away from a second slice at Second Reading and to go back to the particular efforts which Members on all sides of the Committee are making to improve the Bill.
Lord McCarthy: The Committee would not expect me to agree with what the noble Earl has just said. He has not cleared up my difficulties and I doubt whether he has cleared up the difficulties of my noble friend Lord Hatch of Lusby. I must say that I do not like disagreeing with what the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, says, but I do not think that my noble friend Lord Hatch went too wide. I believe that this clause is the heart and the centre and the pulse of this Bill. What we are saying is that this Bill is designed to change the fundamental way of running industrial training in this country. The point at which to make that as sharp as we can is at this point in this debate on a Motion, That the clause stand part of the Bill?
The noble Earl says that we in the Labour Party, in particular in relation to this clause, are making one of our common fallacies: we are identifying aims with institutions—not at all. If the Government had come forward with an alternative set of institutions—as the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, said—if they had come forward with a set of mechanisms and if they had not simply said that they will tell us what will happen after it happens and that in the meantime we should have

1325
faith, then we would not be arguing as we are now. It is not a confusion of institutions with aims; it is the fact that the Government in this clause more than in any other part of the Bill are going back on the conclusion which all parties came to first in 1964, and then reiterated in 1973, that, even although this country had gone through a long period of economic upswing, voluntarism would not solve the industrial training problems of this country. This clause is going back on that and no institutions to provide an alternative way of carrying out these aims are being put forward.
The noble Earl has referred to an analogy with the blind. It seems to me that when he and his colleagues are discussing this matter the blind are leading the blind. It is quite true: I do prefer 19th century poetry to 18th century economics. This is laissez-faire run mad and that is why we shall divide the House.
8.38 p.m.
On Question, Whether Clause I shall stand part of the Bill?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 49; Not-Contents, 36.

CONTENTS

Avon, E. [Teller.]

Loudoun, C.

Baker, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Balerno, L.

Lyell, L.

Belstead, L.

Mackay of Clashfern, L.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Margadale, L.

Bridgeman, V.

Mottistone, L.

Cathcart, E.

Mountevans, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Newall, L.

De La Warr, E.

Norfolk, D.

Denham, L.

Northchurch, B.

Drumalbyn, L.

Northesk, E.

Dundee, E.

O'Hagan, L.

Elles, B.

Reigate, L.

Elton, L.

Rochdale, V.

Ferrers, E.

Sandford, L.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

Sandys, L. [Teller.]

Gisborough, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Gowrie, E.

Soames, L.

Greenway, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Gridley, L.

Swinfen, L.

Haig, E.

Trefgarne, L.

Henley, L.

Trenchard, V.

Inglewood, L.

Vivian, L.

Long, V.

NOT-CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

McCarthy, L.

Amherst, E.

McNair, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Peart, L.

Birk, B.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Bishopston, L. [Teller.]

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L. [Teller.]

Boston of Faversham, L.

Bowden, L.

Rochester, L.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Ross of Marnock, L.

Collison, L.

Seear, B.

David, B.

Simon, V.

Hampton, L.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Hanworth, V.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Stone, L.

Jeger, B.

Strabolgi, L.

John-Mackie, L.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Kilmarnock, L.

Tordoff, L.

Kirkhill, L.

Underhill, L.

Lee of Newton, L.

Wilson of Langside, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Resolved in the affirmative, and Clause 1 agreed to accordingly.
8.46 p.m.
Lord McCarthy Lord McCarthy moved Amendment No. 5:
After Clause 1, insert the following new clause:
("Employers' levy
. (1) Notwithstanding any provisions of section 4 of the Industrial Training Act 1964, for the purpose of ensuring adequate training in industry and in the cases referred to in subsection (2) below, the Minister may, with the approval of the Commission, by order impose a levy on employers in industry, and an order giving effect to this section may make different provision in relation to different classes or descriptions of employer.
(2) The cases referred to in subsection (1) are:—

(a) where it appears to the Minister and to the Commission that training provided within an industry is of a kind that is beneficial or essential to the manpower needs of another industry, or other industries, and where it appears equitable, or expedient in order to ensure the adequacy of such training, to require employers in such other industry or industries to contribute to the costs of such training, or

(b) where, in order to ensure that sufficient persons are undergoing training to meet the needs of industry, the Minister and the Commission consider it expedient to award grants to such persons as they consider suitable for such training notwithstanding that such persons may not be in the employ of the persons or company providing the training, or

(c) where it appears appropriate to the Minister and the Commission to make grants to persons under the age of 19 years to enable them to undertake courses of training which will enable them to enhance their career prospects, or

(d) where it appears appropriate and expedient to the Minister and the Commission to do so in the interests of ensuring an adequate supply of skilled labour to meet national manpower needs.

(3) No order shall be made under this section unless a draft of the order has been approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.").
The noble Lord said: This is a long amendment, but I do not intend to spend a long time on it. It is, in fact, our reply to the questions contained in paragraph 34 of A New Training Initiative. As I said on Second Reading, paragraph 34 of A New Training Initiative directs questions at employers, unions and educationalists, but does not direct any questions at the Government. We are directing this question at the Government. We are saying that, if it be the case, as A New Training Initiative says, that there is a whole range of training requirements which, quite reasonably, could be said to be not properly within the purview of or not sufficiently correctly carried out by the industrial training boards, obviously we need another mechanism.
Far from being identified with a particular mechanism, as the noble Earl has said this evening, we are suggesting another mechanism, a similar mechanism—a general levy. This general levy, as subsection (2) of the amendment says, would enable the Secretary of State to deploy provision for four broad purposes: for across-industry training subsidy; for across-employment subsidy; for grants to the under-19 year olds and, in particular, to create a properly balanced national skilled labour force. Those are the kind of things which one might reasonably say that industrial training boards find difficult to do.
There are many associations—not simply associations of trade unions but also employers' associations—which would favour a move of this kind—something outside the general purview of the industrial training boards, but particularly and specifically related to those areas of training need set out in A New Training Initiative. I beg to move.
Lord Mottistone: Do I gather from this that the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, is suggesting that there should be a levy on all employers in industry to satisfy certain needs which might be narrow, dealing with specific areas regardless of whether that has any relation to the efficiency, effectiveness or training capability of the particular employers' companies? Or will this be sufficiently narrow for the employers and their companies to benefit? Can the noble Lord explain that?
Lord McCarthy: The answer is, yes and no. Yes, of course I am proposing that there should be a power for a general levy. Yes, of course, the deployment of that general levy, or the training which would be financed by that general levy, might not benefit particular employers. That is the case with the industrial training board system as it at present exists. So, yes, that is true. However, I would not regard that as narrow; I would regard that as extremely broad and very necessary.
The Earl of Gowrie: I have always thought that the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, was one of the most sensible members of the Labour Party, in the sense that he has a close knowledge in practical terms of what industry is like and he does not base his work outside this House for industry, and inside this House talking about industry, on any fictional sense of their needs; or even, referring back to the last amendment, to any poetic sense of their needs. Yet now he wants to superimpose yet new central Government powers on top of the existing system of industrial training bodies.
The purpose of his new clause would be to give the Government powers and obligations to decide the scale of levy and to decide which employers to levy; to decide on, and presumably administer, the expenditure of the extra levy, whether on training grants or facilities or other courses. When we are talking about the noble Lord's levy we must remind ourselves that the levy proposed here is additional to the levies already fixed by training boards, and so there would be an extra burden on industry. It seems to me that the noble Lord is far too experienced about industry to think that it needs that kind of help from him at this, of all times.
The new clause also runs counter to the principle enunciated by the MSC review body that central prescription is just not the answer to national training needs, and that industry is in fact the best place to judge its needs and to mobilise resources to meet them. This might have been more relevant to the previous debate we had on whether the clause shall stand part, but it seems to me also to be fairly relevant here. An earnest of this is the enormous number of exemptions from levy that the administrative system is forced to
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decide, simply because in so many cases industry is taking the necessary steps to train for the future and indeed—because let us not pretend that no poaching, as it is sometimes called, or no movement takes place within industries—to take care of general social needs and economic needs for more trained personnel.
The noble Lord has also argued, if I followed him, that this new clause would provide a means of funding vocational preparation of the kind looked forward to in the new training initiative document. I acknowledge that the MSC have said that ultimately more resources will be needed to be devoted for training, and within overall resource constraints and the usual cautions of Ministers I would certainly agree with that view. But it is quite clear that both the resource question and the question of any need for supplementary legislation are subjects for consultation, as the document indicates. On funding, the question is really how any additional resources should be shared. At Second Reading I said that in my view everyone would have to take part of the cost: industry would; Government would (our total provision for training is up through the training elements in the special programmes and the like); and also the trainees themselves, even if their contribution was in the form of lower allowances, or lower wages, during the training part of their lives. This seems to me to be reasonable. But here in this new clause not only is the noble Lord adding to the statutory impositions which, for the reasons I have already given in earlier debates, the Government of course cannot accept, but he is actually loading industry with additional costs to those which presently obtain. On a point of principle, and also on a point of economic common sense, I suggest that the Committee rejects the new clause.
Lord McCarthy: In view of the fact that the amendment which follows is also an important amendment, and indeed in some ways a more important one, I do not intend to press this amendment. The noble Earl has not convinced me. When he says nice things about me, they are always
followed by nasty things. I suppose it is the same on this side. The main point is that we are not satisfied with voluntarism. But I am prepared to withdraw this amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Rochester Lord Rochester moved Amendment No. 6:
After Clause 1, insert the following new clause:
("Revocation
. Before exercising his powers under section 9(1) of the Industrial Training Act 1964 (as amended) to make, amend or revoke an Industrial Training Order for any sector or sub-sector, the Minister shall—

(i) publish criteria to define the aims or outputs for acceptable training arrangements in that sector or sub-sector;

(ii) consult with employers and trade associations, employee and trade union representatives, and educational bodies closely concerned with the sector or sub-sector, with the Manpower Services Commission and where appropriate the Departments of Trade and Industry, to ensure that the training arrangements, whether statutory or voluntary, within each sector or sub-sector are capable of—

(a) being the agent to oversee the collection and maintenance of manpower information relevant to training;

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(b) identifying incipient skill shortages and other learning needs, and encouraging training of the quality required to meet those needs;

(c) promoting training relevant to organisational change and new technology;

(d) promoting vocational preparation and training schemes for young people in conjunction with appropriate educational and other bodies;

(e) facilitating the reform of apprentice and other training arrangements;

(f) developing the training of managers, professional and commercial staff, and employee representatives;

(g) acting as an agency for channelling Government funds for meeting national training objectives;

(iii) ensure that the sector or sub-sector should have the means of achieving outputs by—

(a) having continuing access to sufficient finance and qualified staff with appropriate administrative support;

(b) reviewing progress towards the agreed training objectives;

(c) having sufficient field training staff to discuss with employers the means of achieving the agreed training objectives;

(d) undertaking regular consultation between employers and representatives of employees and education;

(e) providing or procuring any training advice, consultancy or direct training services requested;

(f) maintaining adequate local, national and cross sectoral links;

(iv) ensure that every major sector of the economy, including the public services, is provided with training arrangements as set out in sub-section 2 above;

(v) publish an Industrial Training Order, as provided for in section 1(1) of the Industrial Training Act 1964, to cover the agreed industrial training arrangements for each sector or sub-sector;

and where the Minister in the national interest, sanctions the use of these training arrangements in pursuit of objectives that go beyond the needs of the sector or sub-sector to which the arrangements apply, he shall accept responsibility for funding the training or related activities that he causes to take place.").
The noble Lord said: It is plain that the Government wish to see voluntary training introduced wherever possible, and this amendment recognises that position. The purpose of the amendment is to ensure that all major sectors of the economy, including the public services which are not now catered for, are provided not necessarily with a specific organisation or institution—and here perhaps I am able to go a little way towards meeting one of the points that the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, made at an earlier stage—but with training arrangements which may apply either to statutory bodies where they remain or, on the other hand, operate on a voluntary basis under conditions appropriate to the particular industry or service.
These arrangements would have to conform to certain criteria in the form of aims or outputs, and the intention is to encourage an approach to training which is not simply mechanistic or structural but is of an organic, problem-solving kind that focuses on objectives and achievements. These aims or outputs are set out in sub-paragraphs (a) to (g) in paragraph (ii) of the proposed new clause. Their introduction would have to be preceded by consultation between the Government and representatives of employers, trade unions, employees, educational and other relevant interests. I shall not read them all out, for I hope that they will speak for themselves. Suffice it for the moment to say that they are based on practical experience that has been gained in the last 17 years, and I hope that they will be thought by the Committee to be both comprehensive and reasonable.
So much for the ends that the amendment seeks to achieve. As for the means, these are contained in paragraph (iii) of the new clause. Again, I will not go through them all now. They depend, as do the present statutory arrangements, on consultation between representatives of employers, employees, and education, but at the same time they are designed to avoid the imposition of impracticable obligations by what might be regarded as an unnecessarily inquisitorial bureaucracy. I think that the only point about them that I would particularly stress now is the recognition of the need to maintain adequate local and cross-sectoral links because, as the Manpower Services Commission acknowledged in their review of the 1973 Employment and Training Act, and as employers up and down the country will testify, in the real world training needs are related more closely to the local labour market and they apply across sectors rather than being indentifiable on the basis of individual industries.
Lastly, in relation to the content of the new clause, duties are laid on the Secretary of State to ensure, first, that throughout the economy training arrangements are made which meet the prescribed criteria and, secondly, that, where in the national interest training is sanctioned in pursuit of objectives that go beyond the needs of the sector concerned, it is for the Government to finance the training for which they have thus assumed responsibility. Above all, these provisions are designed to be flexible, and they thus permit the redrawing of sectoral boundaries that are entrenched in the present training board system. They place responsibility for funding on the relevant beneficiaries and they allow, without forcing, sectoral training to be led by some group representing those bearing prime responsibility for it.
In framing the amendment, I have been greatly helped by a number of highly qualified people who together are, in my view, able to speak for many large and small employers, for trade unions—although those are bodies on which the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, is better qualified to speak than I—and for a number of training boards. Many noble Lords on this side of the Committee, as has already been made abundantly plain, would have much preferred, like the MSC in their review of the 1973 Act, to have built on the foundations already laid by existing training boards. There are others who will feel that in future people should simply be left alone to do whatever training they think fit without regard to any statutory criteria, and for them this amendment will have no attraction.
But I hope the majority of the Committee will think the amendment is realistic for two main reasons. The first is that it does not set out to oblige the Government to depart from the basic position they have taken up. In particular, I do not think it can reasonably be claimed that, if the amendment were passed, it would be impossible for the Secretary of State to decide to wind up a particular training board; there is nothing in the clause to stop him doing that if he chooses. The second is that the amendment seeks to ensure that, where training is in future carried out under statutory bodies or voluntary arrangements, we avoid going back to the period before 1964, when I should have thought it will be generally agreed that training was altogether inadequate.
The heart of the amendment is the desire to get as near as possible to a consensus in a matter that, in these troubled times, we must all recognise is vital for our future and which simply cries out, it seems to me, at least for a measure of agreement among us. That is how the amendment has come to be sponsored not only by Liberals but by a Labour Peer and a Conservative Peer, and perhaps I may take this opportunity to apologise for the absence—he asked me to do this—of the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, who, because of the lateness of the time at which we come to this amendment, is prevented from being present. It is also why I do not doubt from what the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, has already told us that it will have the support of Social Democrats and, I very much hope, of any Cross-Benchers who may be listening.
If there are any flaws in the drafting of the amendment—if it is thought to be incomplete or over-elaborate or if there are any other ways in which it could be tidied up—I am sure that that could be attended to easily enough on Report. I trust the noble Earl will sympathise at least with the purpose of the amendment—I think he has already made that plain—but I rather fear from some of the remarks he has made that he may not much like the idea of these criteria being written into the statute. I am, however, greatly concerned about the point raised earlier by my noble friend Lady Seear about the need for some satisfactory framework—that was the word she chose—where statutory boards are abolished, and I hope the noble Earl will find it possible to say a little more about the alternative he may have in mind over and above what he has already told us about those elements in society and those programmes which have a bearing on this subject.
I realise that it may have been rather generous of him in response to the amendment moved earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, not to have said more at that stage because, as was generally acknowledged, not least by Lord Kilmarnock himself, his amendment was only on a somewhat narrow, albeit important, point. What matters now is not alone the view of the noble Earl but, as I am sure he would agree, that of the Committee as a whole, and I hope the underlying principles and broad content at any rate of the new clause will be accepted by the Committee. I beg to move.
9.10 p.m.
Lord McCarthy: I support the amendment because it is absolutely true, as the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, said, that this is the closest we can get, and it is very close, to a consensus alternative mechanism. It is not a mechanism which is as radical and far-reaching as the previous one, which I did not press, but it is a consensus mechanism and a very good mechanism too.
The basic idea is that before the Secretary of State exercises his powers under the new Bill he must do a number of things. He must publish criteria for the training arrangements in the area affected. He must consult those affected, in order to meet particular requirements. He must ensure that there are sufficient resources to meet those requirements; and there are certain other specified aims and objectives—six in all.
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It seems to me that this is a perfectly moderate and reasonable attempt to get the Government to do two things. The first is to make some attempt to provide an alternative mechanism for a return to voluntarism. The fact is that there is a widespread belief on both sides of industry, and in all parties, that the situation in this country in respect of training has not changed so widely that we can expect to return to the 1964 situation and voluntarism will solve the problem. Therefore, first, the Government should go some way to agree some mechanism to replace voluntarism in areas where they wish to return to voluntarism by abolishing an industrial training board. That is the first objective.
Secondly, the Government are asked to sign up to certain training objectives, which are spelled out in the amendment. But those training objectives come from the New Training Initiative, the MSC document. There is nothing new, nothing radical, about those objectives. They are there because of the widespread fear that voluntarism will not be enough; and a fear that is placed in the context of the fact that in other clauses of the Bill that we have yet to reach the Government are committed to reducing the money which they themselves will spend on training, because it is no longer to be responsible for the administration of the ITBs. The fear also comes in the context of the announced cuts in the Manpower Services Commission budget by 1984. It is in that context, in the fact that the Government themselves are setting new wider objectives for industry but destroying many of the established mechanisms for achieving those objectives, that we ask the Government to look favourably on the amendment.
Lord Mottistone: I should like to add a few remarks. The noble Lord, Lord Rochester, told us that paragraphs (ii) and (iii) contained good basic principles. With that I would absolutely agree. But he did not speak about paragraph (i), and I am afraid that where I see a flaw in this exposition of very good principles, with which I think we should all agree, is that it is centralism by the back door. My whole experience in this field has been that criteria published by as remote a figure as the Minister are extremely difficult to apply at the working end. Good training must be carried out effectively on the ground with the people concerned. The closer the criteria is related to the needs of the company and the people within the company at the working level, the more effective it is. So if the Minister, sitting at the top of his ivory tower in Whitehall, produces the criteria, he is almost bound to produce either criteria so frightfully broad that they do not mean very much, or criteria, if narrower, that are irrelevant to the needs of the individual company and the individual people within it.
So it is a conundrum, and I feel that this is really the flaw not only of this amendment but of the entire concept. I have been very disillusioned by all the efforts that have been made. Where they have been effective is where they have been well applied at the base level, and, quite honestly, the various pieces of advice that come from bodies such as the Manpower Services Commission and its predecessors have on the whole been varied in their usefulness in inverse proportion to the distance of the body from the working end. It works like that.
Baroness Seear: I hope that the noble Earl the Minister will consider the amendment very seriously indeed. I feel sure that he is to say that it is quite unnecessary to have these criteria spelt out and embodied in the Bill because (he has said this already twice this evening) the Secretary of State will produce a negative resolution—a negative resolution, mark you!, not even an affirmative resolution—and we can then all pray. Well, I am all for praying, but I do not believe that on this occasion prayer will be very much good. As the noble Earl the Minister knows perfectly well, the resolution cannot be amended. Either we have to accept what the Secretary of State says, or reject the proposal completely. Therefore it is very unlikely that we would be able to bring about any alteration at all. It really is not quite up to the Minister's standard to pretend that that is any kind of defence or any adequate substitute for having criteria built into the legislation. That is the first reason why we cannot really accept the idea that there is no need to have criteria built into the legislation itself.
I suspect the real reason is that the Minister is devoted, or has to say that he is devoted—I am not so sure that that is not the real reason—to complete voluntarism and to the idea that complete voluntarism is going to work. In this amendment we have gone a long way down the voluntarist line, but we are trying to build safeguards to ensure that voluntarism really will operate. If it operates we on these Benches will be very content because we are not committed to any particular institution. We do not love institutions. Other noble Lords may love institutions, but we do not. We are known for not loving institutions. But we do love results; and we believe that you need to have criteria built in.
How can we challenge the Secretary of State, even if we did get round to praying at the right moment of time for the negative resolution, if there is nothing built into the Bill? He can listen to what we say and then go away and do exactly what he likes. If you have criteria built into the legislation, then at least he has to conform with that criteria; and when we pray we can pray to specific elements already embodied in the legislation. So we want to have a mechanism for challenging the Secretary of State when he brings his schemes forward. But it is this (I am bound to say) simple-minded belief in voluntarism that I find extremely surprising, much as I prefer a voluntary system if we can get one.
The Minister and other people have said, "Look, you do not need to do anything. Look at all the people who have got exemptions". We have got an exemption against a situation in which, if they let their training get slack, they can lose their exemption. If you remove the training board there is no mechanism for seeing that people keep to the standards under which they were granted exemption. This is a totally different thing from saying that they will keep those standards when there is nothing to stop them from letting them lapse.
Then, of course, as the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, knows perfectly well, what is happening at the present time is that a lot of companies are saying, "Of course, we love training; we have it at home, so to speak. We think it is a frightfully good thing—but we just cannot afford it; it is terribly sad; and we are cutting
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it out". I can quote your Lordships organisation after organisation which at this very moment of time, even before we have got rid of the training boards, are saying, "We cannot wait any longer; we are cutting down our training budget". This is a common experience throughout industry.
With the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, I hate the idea of the Secretary of State telling firms what they ought to do in detail. I entirely agree with him in saying that the best training is done when it is organised at local level and with very close understanding of what the needs of the company are. But we have not asked for that. We have asked the Secretary of State to consult with the employers and all the rest of them, and to make sure that there are training arrangements within each sector which are capable of doing these things—and "capable of "does not mean that they have got to do all of them. At local level it will be decided that this is a very useful check-list built into the legislation, that these are the things that they have to do, but in no sense are they a list of things in respect of which the Secretary of State is saying to every company, "You have got to get on and do them". So the criticism that it is centralist really does not stand up.
Lord Mottistone: I thank the noble Baroness very much for letting me intervene. The thing I was criticising was not the detail of paragraphs (ii) and (iii). It is paragraph (i)—that the Minister is going to produce criteria. That is what I do not like.
Lord Rochester: May I be allowed to respond to that point? I do not really think the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, can have it both ways. That is to say, on the one hand, as I understand it, he is talking about "Auntie MSC" and all that, and that he does not like direction from the centre, but when we come along with criteria which are essentially flexible and which permit a wide area of discretion, which allow for local arrangements, which allow for large and small firms and all the rest of it, he does not like that, either. I do not think he can have it both ways.
Baroness Seear: If I may finish before my noble friend or anybody else interrupts me, we do need to have criteria of this kind. May I make one further point as to why we need to have it spelled out in detail to be operated at local level? I am really back to the point I made earlier this evening about the need for mechanisms to make sure that the system is working. Everything that has been said by the noble Lord up till now has, it seems to me, a static note about it; that you get a report from the MSC and on the basis of this you decide what is going to be done. It is the essence of the training problem that it is in a continuous state of change, and you need to have a mechanism close to the ground which can be in very close touch with what are the changing needs and feed that knowledge of changing requirements into training requirements.
I remind the Committee—because I think I have reported this before—that discussing this once with the Swedish labour market board they made the point that they needed to check with companies three times a year to keep their plans up-to-date. You cannot

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have a plan which is based on a report that you had years ago, or even months ago. You must have a mechanism which is working closely with the companies. I see nothing in existing institutions. The Minister gave us a long list of worthy bodies in this field. In none of them do I see one that has that close contact with the companies so that they can really know what is going on and keep the constant movement, the change that is needed, if one is to be up-to-date and ahead of requirements, so that training has been carried out and so that one is ready with the trained people as they are needed. That is why we need this criteria and we need to have people at local level in the institutions who can follow through to see that the work is being done.
Lord Bowden: May we pause for a moment to remember what I believe to have been the best system of this kind that this country has ever had, because I think that we can learn a great deal from its achievements and from its tragic decline. I am referring to the extremely elaborate system of training at all levels, from the craftsman to the university graduate, which used to be at Trafford Park at Metropolitan Vickers. Until about 1956 or so it was true to say that almost all the best engineers in England—those, for example, who graduated at Lord Baker's school in Cambridge—went, if they could, to serve their time as apprentices at Trafford Park. They were the topmost echelon. We used to have a saying that all the best engineers could be divided into two categories; those who worked at Metropolitan Vickers, and those who used to work there.
The training they received was extraordinarily good. They went right through the shops, learning all about the organisation of that vast company. There was a general belief that no man could become a professional engineer unless he had been frightened out of his wits at least twice. The experiences that they had cannot be rivalled, for example, in any of the engineering graduate schools which have been built up to try to provide a rather pale reflection of the training that the graduate apprentices used to have. Beneath them were apprentices of all kinds, starting from lads who left school and were learning the ordinary trades of a skilled mechanical operator, a lathe operator or something of that kind. The whole spectrum was there and it was wonderful. It produced most of the really great engineers in this country for at least three decades. Members of the Committee will remember that it was founded originally by George Westinghouse in 1903 and it collapsed in about 1955. It was unrivalled for a very long time.
The reason I am telling the Committee this—and many Members will remember it as well as I do—is that it collapsed because for a long time it was reckoned that they could not expect to keep more than about 40 per cent. of the men who had been through the apprenticeship school. The rest went to man British industry as a whole. The accountants got at the system very much for that reason. They maintained that it was uneconomic for one single firm to be producing the engineers for British industry as a whole. They may have been right; but certainly the accountants got at the system and it collapsed and disappeared almost completely.
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The reason I am saying this is to make the point that, whatever system we have, it is extremely important that it be adequately financed and that the total responsibility should not be left to one individual firm. It is equally important that the responsibility for the nature of training that goes on should be accepted as part of the burden of running a large manufacturing organisation. I include in that, for example, Rolls-Royce. I would also include some of the more important of the nationalised industries. For instance, the Government dockyards have provided a most magnificent series of apprenticeships in their time and the details have always been left to the people on the shop floor in the factory, or in the laboratory or where-ever it might be.
For a long time people seriously believed that it was an economic proposition for a company to contrive to finance these things but no longer will accountants accept that, for reasons best known to themselves. It is certainly true at this time that the Government must be prepared to take the initiative and to accept the reponsibilities which are laid down in this amendment, much as I regret it in many ways.
Lord Auckland: I have first to apologise to the Committee because I was not in my place when the debate started because of an important engagement with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. But I have listened to most of the Second Reading debate on this Bill and also to the amendment the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, has posed. In addition, I have had experience of management consultancy and of running consultancy courses. I do hope that the Government will take note of at least some of the points contained in the rather lengthy amendment which the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, and his noble friends have put forward.
Obviously in times of financial constraint the maintenance of training boards, as a purely cosmetic exercise, must be questioned; but as a member of the all-party parliamentary chemical industry group, I particularly feel that in that industry this amendment has much relevance. I would particularly mention paragraph (ii)(f)—
"developing the training of managers, professional and commercial staff, and employee representatives".
The chemical and pharmaceutical industry is a much developing industry in technology, new products and other things, and it is absolutely essential that young people, whether they be graduates or from elsewhere, coming into the industry have a proper training. I speak with some diffidence here because, unlike the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, and others, I have not spent a lifetime in these particular industries; my own particular forte has been the insurance industry. However, I have visited enough of these establishments to talk to people at all levels who have stressed the need for some kind of training to continue to take place. I would therefore hope, particularly in the field of research, where we need to have a continuing process, that the training boards are given as much incentive as possible. In the development of new products, whether pharmaceutical, agricultural or any other products of that kind, it is essential that we in this country lead the world. In my view, this can be

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done only through the aegis of some practical type of training.
So while I have some reservations about the implications of the whole amendment which the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, has moved, I think there is much in the substance of it which the Government should consider, and I urge my noble friend, who is always very sympathetic to these causes, to give this very careful thought.
The Earl of Gowrie: I certainly agree with my noble friend Lord Auckland that there is much in this amendment which the Government should attend to. It in no way downgrades the amendment, or the very clear way in which it has been moved, if I say that very much of what is in it, and very much of what has been said, has already been considered by the Government and, where issues of principle are concerned, has indeed been accepted by the Government.
The nub of our difficulty—at the risk of wearying the Committee—is the problem that I mentioned earlier. We do not think it right to try to set out in statutory law a system of tests of the adequacy of the training arrangements specified. But we are convinced of the need for such training arrangements, and I have tried already to indicate, not only this evening but on Second Reading, our commitment to the principles involved.
The noble Baroness, Lady Seear, was much less than fair to us when she talked about complete voluntarism. We are not after complete voluntarism. We are after a mixed and plural system. We have made it clear that we would wish to be sure that essential training needs were met before abolishing any industrial training boards. We have also made it clear on a number of occasions that this is not a Bill which abolishes the industrial training boards system. It simply is a Bill which enables the Secretary of State to do so, subject to the parliamentary procedures which seem to me to be both conventional and reasonable, but on which the noble Baroness seemed to pour a certain amount of scorn. In another place, in the remit to the Manpower Services Commission, the Secretary of State has already spelled out very clearly the criteria which he would expect to have to bear in mind before he made any such decision.
I am very glad that the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, made the remarks that she did about the philosophy of institutions. I am aware that the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, and I have probably, some time back, despaired of each other in this regard. But I wanted to ask the noble Baroness, and indeed her noble friend Lord Rochester, what nice Liberals were doing with an amendment like this, because it seemed at variance with Liberal philosophy that one should generalise from industry to industry, or produce a straitjacket to which all industries would have to conform; we certainly would not wish that.
But there is a fairly wide issue of principle here, even if the difference of opinion between those in the Committee who have spoken so far and myself is rather narrow. There is an important issue at stake. It is a growing tendency in our society to believe that, if a Government do not make a law about some issue, they are in some way indifferent to that issue, that they do not care about the issue, or that they will not take
1338
any steps to see that the issue is pursued. I believe that that is a general principle which has grown up over the past 10 or 20 years and which has tended to clutter the statute hook, to raise false expectations and to create a great deal of difficulty for the courts.
In this particular case we are not talking about relatively professional or technical issues such as those which might be dealt with by an industrial tribunal. We are talking about the full panoply of the High Court and the judicial system. We do not consider it right that questions about the adequacy of training arrangements should be subject to review in the courts, which would be the net result of accepting this amendment.
We acknowledge, of course, that Parliament should take a close interest in these questions and should debate them if necessary. But it would seem to me to be almost too obvious to be worth repeating that, so long as Governments drawn from all parties decide to run a Ministry of Labour and to have a Secretary of State for Employment, it is hardly likely that that Ministry and the tripartite body sired by it—the Manpower Services Commission—will in some way become indifferent to training issues or will not be able to raise a considerable stink should the training system fall down in some way.
I believe that your Lordships' Committee will have to accept that on all the issues of principle and intent there is very little that divides us. The principle of enshrining points in statute in this way so as to give the courts difficulties is a major difference and one which, perhaps, we might need to vote upon. But even if that difference is accepted it should not be thought that as a result of this legislation, should it go through both Houses, the Secretary of State will go on some wild rampage, shooting down industrial training boards. That is not his purpose. His purpose is to spell out criteria, to examine the review by the operating body in the whole field (the MSC), and to decide simply where voluntary arrangements are working —and where, therefore, they should no longer be subject to institutional strait-jacketing. I should like to say how much I agree with the remarks made by my noble friend Lord Mottistone in that context. I hope that the Committee will take his remarks to heart and that, in view of what I have said, the noble Lord Lord Rochester, will not seek to press the amendment.
9.39 p.m.
Lord McCarthy: I do not want to misrepresent the noble Lord the Minister and I do not believe that the Liberal Party want to misrepresent him. We are not saying that because the Minister does not want a board he does not want to do anything. There are all kinds of things the Minister wants to do by laws. He wants to do something about strikes, which I do not want to do anything about—but that does not mean that I do not want to do anything about strikes in a different sense.
This is a question of priorities. It is a question of emphasis. We do not say—and the noble Baroness can speak for herself—that the noble Lord the Minister wants pure voluntarism. What we say is that he wants more voluntarism. Is that not right? The Minister wants more voluntarism even if it means less training.

1339
That is what the noble Lord the Minister has to tell us, does he not?
The Earl of Gowrie: I simply do not accept that interpretation. It seems to me to be semantic; it may be a fair debating point because I may not have made myself sufficiently clear or I may have used the wrong words. A way of reinforcing what I said by using slightly different language is to draw attention to the fact that the noble Lord said we were returning to a pre-1964 position. One or two noble Lords have suggested that that would be pure reliance upon voluntary arrangements and that as a result training would become inadequate. However, we have made it very clear—and I am happy to use this chance to repeat it—that we are not going to get rid of statutory training boards in those key sectors where we believe that essential training objectives—we have already debated how these are defined—could not be met without them.
The other point—it is one which I have not made before and therefore it may be more persuasive—is that in the many years of their existence, bearing in mind the very good work which in the main they have done, the training boards have secured significant changes. Many of these changes can now be expected to be permanent in many industries. It would seem to us that the statutory levy and grant are therefore no longer essential incentives for companies to train in all industries, but of course we shall retain them where the voluntary arrangements are not satisfactory.
In any case, right outside the purlieus of this Bill we have the whole panoply of the special programmes and the intervention at the margin which we do through the Manpower Services Commission. So it is useful that we should have a debate about whether in this rapidly changing industrial society we are going for the right kind of sectoral training or whether our training is fast-footed enough to keep up with new developments. All these things, the subject of no satisfaction, could be debated. However, I remain to be convinced that we do not have adequate institutions, adequate safeguards and adequate powers to do the job. What we now want to do is to get on with the job and worry slightly less about the liturgy involved in performing it.
Lord Kilmarnock: I do not wish to detain the Committee, but since the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, was good enough to mention my name I thought that I should confirm that I and my noble friends on this Bench are happy to support him in this amendment if he and his noble friends decide to carry it further. We did not put down our name to the amendment because there was "no more room at the inn"! There is one paragraph which attracts me in the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Rochester. It is paragraph (ii)(d), which refers to
"promoting vocational preparation and training schemes for young people in conjunction with appropriate educational and other bodies".
Surely that is exactly what the Government's plans to improve the Youth Opportunities Programme are about, and also the intentions which the Government have said that they will back in the new training initiative. We very much hope that they will get the
1340
employer response which the noble Earl relies on for putting these improved educational and training arrangements into effect. However, I should have thought that in (ii)(d) the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, was offering a useful and flexible instrument to the noble Earl.
I thought that it was rather unfair of the noble Earl to refer to the proposed new clause of the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, as a strait-jacket. It seems to me to have all the advantages of flexibility and some reserve powers in case employers do not fulfil the Government's expectations of them. On those grounds, both I and my noble friends will support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Rochester.
Lord Rochester: First I should apologise to the Committee and, indeed, ask leave to speak again because I was guilty of interrupting my noble friend Lady Seear and responding to the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, in the heat of the moment when I had no business to. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken, though I am somewhat sorry that the debate comes at this late hour. I am particularly grateful for the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Auckland, from the other side and for the support given to the amendment by the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock. I endeavoured to respond earlier to the criticisms made by the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, but perhaps I may add that the criteria about which he is concerned under paragraph (i) are not detailed matters spelled out from the centre. They are pretty open-ended and are themselves recorded, as I hoped I had made plain, in (ii)(a) to (g).
I am sorry about the response that the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, has felt obliged to make. I do not doubt for a moment the sympathy which he and his right honourable friend the Secretary of State have for training, but we are very much concerned about what there is to be in the case of sectors of industry which are not now going to be covered by industrial training boards, other than by voluntarism.
I do not think I need respond to the criticism about the strait-jacket, because that has been done for me by the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock. However, there was reference to "nice Liberals" and I feel that I must have something to say about that. We hope we are nice, but really that is not to be thought of as being synonymous with a sort of "free for all": quite the reverse. This is a matter of balance, as the noble Earl was right to remind us. We have to strike a balance here as to whether there should be statutory criteria, as we feel, to safeguard the future of training or whether, for the reasons he gave, there should not be. Both he and the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, felt that changes have been effected since 1964. They have indeed. The noble Earl and the noble Lord have rather more faith than have I, I am afraid, in those changes carrying on without any statutory support, even of this limited and certainly flexible kind.
I have said enough. Had the noble Earl given any indication in response to a suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Auckland, of being willing to consider this matter further I should happily have withdrawn this amendment. However, there is this fundamental difference between us, and given the wide sup-

1341
port that there has been for this amendment I must divide the Committee.
9.48 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 6) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 36; Not-Contents, 40.

CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Amherst, E.

McCarthy, L.

Auckland, L.

McNair, L.

Bishopston, L.

Peart, L.

Blease, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L. [Teller.]

Bowden, L.

Collison, L.

Rochester, L. [Teller.]

David, B.

Ross of Marnock, L.

George-Brown, L.

Seear, B.

Greenway, L.

Simon, V.

Hampton, L.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Hanworth, V.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Stone, L.

Hooson, L.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Irving of Dartford, L.

Tordoff, L.

Jeger, B.

Underhill, L.

John-Mackie, L.

Wilson of Langside, L.

Kilmarnock, L.

1342

NOT-CONTENTS

Airey of Abingdon, B.

Henley, L.

Avon, E.

Long, V.

Balerno, L.

Lyell, L. [Teller.]

Belstead, L.

Mackay of Clashfern, L.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Margadale, L.

Bridgeman, V.

Mottistone, L.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Mountevans, L.

Cathcart, E.

Newall, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Norfolk, D.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Northchurch, B.

De La Warr, E.

Northesk, E.

Drumalbyn, L.

O'Hagan, L.

Dundee, E.

Rochdale, V.

Elles, B.

Sandford, L.

Elton, L.

Sandys, L. [Teller.]

Gainford, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

Strathclyde, L.

Gisborough, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Gowrie, E.

Trenchard, V.

Haig, E.

Vivian, L.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
Clause 2 [Industrial training levies]:
9.55 p.m.
Lord McCarthy Lord McCarthy moved Amendment No. 7:
Page 2, line 44, at end insert—
("( ) Subsection (2A)(d) of section 4 of the said Act of 1964 shall cease to have effect").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 7. The object of this amendment is to take out the section of the Bill which reimposes the levy limit of 1 per cent. What we want to do is to go back to a situation in which there is no limit on the levy. The fact is that the 1 per cent. levy limit was imposed at the time of the 1973 Act. It was, in fact, a reciprocal to the decision in the 1973 Act to take up the administrative and operating costs of the boards. There was never any doubt about this and, so far as this House is concerned, it was stated quite clearly by the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, at column 243 on 7th June 1973. The noble Lord on that occasion said that although an affirmative resolution on the power to make a higher levy was possible, in normal circumstances the Government would not consider making such an order. The reason for that was, of course, that the Government were now taking up themselves the administrative and operating costs of the board. It, therefore, would seem to follow quite logically that if the Government are now handing back to the boards the administrative and operating costs, then they ought to release them from the constrictions of the limitations of a 1 per cent. levy.
Of course, during the greater part of the period since 1973, as may very well be said by the Government, we know that no, or very few—I think only one—industrial training boards actually applied and obtained a levy in excess of 1 per cent. Therefore, it has been asked in another place and in this debate generally: why do we need to lift this limit? The answer is quite simple—it is because we are now imposing administrative costs upon the boards. There are many industrial training boards which, if we take into account the size of their levy and the size of the operative and administrative subventions which they have in the past been receiving from the Government—for example, construction, furniture and engineering—have for most of their period of operation been operating at an overall expenditure of more than a 1 per cent. levy. So unless on present trends the Government wish to see a reduction in the money at the disposal of the industrial training boards being spent on training, we must expect to see a rise in the levy.
If the Government maintain the policy which the previous Government stated at the time of the 1973 Act and which I have quoted to the Committee, that in general terms, in normal circumstances, they would not consider making such an order, then, when we pass this clause and unless we vote for this amendment, this Committee will be consciously and deliberately deciding to spend less money on training. That is what is involved in this amendment.
The Manpower Services Commission in its review, Outlook on Training, considered the situation. It considered the problem and the Committee will know that there are many very good reasons why the
1344
administrative costs should be passed back to the industrial training boards in general terms. There may be problems about handing back administrative and operating costs to the ITBs in the present circumstances, and these are very much evident in the minds, of course, of the CBI, which has asked the Government to take time in passing back these administrative costs because we are in the middle of a depression and because they know, as we know—although the Government will not admit it tonight in the Committee—that the bottom is falling out of industrial training in this country. Therefore they are concerned that, if the administrative costs are passed back at this time, industry will find itself unable to maintain anything like the existing volume of training.
It was for that reason, considering all these problems, that the Manpower Services Commission, in Outlook on Training, said at paragraph 9.17:
"If the industrial training boards' operating costs are to become a charge on levy, some boards at least on their present expenditure levels will not easily be able to operate within a 1 per cent. limit. It would in our judgment be unreasonable to expect boards in this situation to have to secure each year an affirmative resolution".
As I have said, in the past the whole tendency has been to consider affirmative resolutions most unusual things to grant in this context. The MSC went on to say why. First, this was because of the uncertainty which training boards would be in from year to year and, secondly, because of the delay it would cause for training boards to get levies in addition to 1 per cent. Indeed, if we are fair, we all know that it was never really intended under this legislation that training boards should run to the Secretary of State for levies of more than 1 per cent.—say, 2 per cent. They were to be extremely exceptional circumstances, and, indeed, that is how it has turned out to be.
That is why the CBI has shown the concern that it has. That is why we move this amendment. In conclusion, if the Government say—if they follow what they have done so far in this debate, they will—that they can do nothing for us, let them tell us tonight what their policy would be if any industrial training board came along and wanted a levy in excess of 1 per cent. Let them tell us—if they believe that most industrial training boards will, in fact, be forced to operate within a levy of 1 per cent.—where they think the additional money will come from to maintain the existing level of training. I beg to move.
Lord Mottistone: I remember well back in 1971 when my training board, which had a levy rate of 0·5 per cent., sought to increase it. We started with 0·5 per cent. in order not to be too much of a strain on the smaller companies in particular and, to a certain extent, the bigger ones—because they were getting good grant and were satisfied with that—because we wanted to sell ourselves to industry so as to make sure that they listened to us and got the training message. On the whole, that is the way in which we did it. In 1971 the employees representatives wanted us to put up our levy to 1 per cent. and the employers did not want us to put it up at all. In the end the Secretary of State had to arbitrate, and we ended up with a rate of 0·7 per cent.

1345
However, the important point about this whole argument was that it did our credibility with, as I called them, our customer-companies—because the only way to play it was to treat them as customers for whom we were providing a service—harm at a time when we could least accept it. What is more, the fact that the engineering board had a levy of 2½ per cent., which was thought by many to be far too high—and in a sense it was—was one of the reasons that lead to the 1973 Act, with all that flowed from that, including the Government taking on the cost with which we are now landed and also the MSC, with which also we are now landed.
All these things came about because there was a loss of credibility of the training boards at that time, and the pressures from within industry, through Members of Parliament, were massive. I remember trying to pick out Members of Parliament to have a drink with me here in order to try to tame them. I did tame one or two, but I shall not mention names in this place.
The point about all this is that it is a very sensitive area and if you seek to go above 1 per cent. it will be counter-productive. As I see it there is a problem—and I am sure that my noble friend on the Front Bench will explain this so I shall do no more than touch on it. I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, that there will be a problem when this is pushed back on to industry. The Government have sought to do this by introducing this compulsory levy of 0·2 per cent. to bear the administrative costs. So what is left over will be what is available to pay grant to the good trainers.
Your Lordships may say that that is not enough; but I would say, from my own practical experience, that providing you pay something in the way of grant it is probably sufficient, because we had a disillusioning and difficult time of what I call "bribery grants". We were totally unsuccessful. We used to say to companies, "We will pay towards the costs of your young men in training, or in special areas, or whatever", and except in the areas where they had to do the training because the law said so, like the training of heavy goods vehicle drivers—where I always thought it was bogus for us to give encouragement anyhow, because they had to do it by different statute—we could never get them to take up the special grants to nearly the extent that we were prepared to give them.
Happily the training board that I had the honour to serve has lots of money, and it is not going to be worried about the sort of thing that the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, told us about; but there are many other training boards that will be. I should like to leave your Lordships with the thought that it is dangerous to push the levy up higher than a certain level—and 1 per cent. seems to be the accepted norm—or it will be found to be counter-productive because it will not get the support, there will not be any extra training, and the Government have made other arrangements to cope with the situation.
10.7 p.m.
Lord Lyell: As I, and I am sure the Committee, have grown to learn, the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy,
1346
moved his amendment clearly, swiftly and succinctly, but bowled two very fast balls at the tail end of his amendment. I shall attempt to repel them at the end of my brief remarks. The recommendation of the Manpower Services Commission Review Body that boards should be free to raise levy amounting to more than 1 per cent. of the payroll without any affirmative resolution by Parliament was, of course, given careful consideration at an earlier stage by the Government. Indeed, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State said in another place at Second Reading that we have concluded that it would not be right to remove the important control that is given by the affirmative resolution over levies that might be higher than normal.
As we have learned, up until now the 1 per cent. levy limit has not proved a serious constraint on the activities of boards. That was borne out by the helpful remarks of my noble friend Lord Mottistone. That also was recognised by the review body of the Manpower Services Commission with the valuable little booklet that the noble Lord mentioned. Indeed, only one board in the recent past operated a levy above 1 per cent. of the payroll, and that was pointed out by the noble Lord; and even that limit was breached for only a small part of that over all industry. The majority of the boards have levies which are significantly below the level of 1 per cent. We are aware that some boards are worried about requiring a higher rate of levy because of the need to meet operating expenses, but we are not convinced that this will be a problem to any significant extent. We have already made some provision for operating costs, in that a board will be allowed to raise up to 0·2 per cent. levy on a non-exemptible basis without going through the consensus procedure. The figure of 0·2 per cent. was set mainly with the question of operating costs in mind.
Of course, boards could also set tighter exemption criteria using the new exemption provisions in Clause 3 of the Bill. But in any case many boards have sufficient leeway in their present levy rate to make whatever adjustments they may feel necessary without going over the 1 per cent. limit. It remains open to boards to seek the approval of both Houses of Parliament by affirmative resolution for a levy that is higher than 1 per cent. of their industry's payroll, and of course it is always a matter of judgment whether to make such a provision subject to affirmative or negative resolution; but in the view of the Government it is right in this case to allow Parliament the greater powers of scrutiny that the affirmative resolution procedure gives.
The review body of the MSC argued for removing the obligation to seek affirmative resolution for a higher levy on the grounds that boards would in practice be more vigorously controlled by their industries, and in that context the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, quoted from paragraph 9.17 of the report; I was reading that while he was taking the Committee through it. It has been contended that employer members of the board would not allow proposals for a higher rate of levy with insufficient justification to go utterly unchallenged. Indeed, the CBI representatives on the body were unable to endorse that recommendation and the commission itself was not able to reach a firm decision on the matter. Both of those aspects give

1347
us no special confidence that adequate controls outside Parliament would exist, and the doubts expressed to the Government during the period of consultation following the recommendations of the review body reinforced our conclusion that we should retain the affirmative resolution procedure.
The noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, tempted me with the hypothesis—we could of course spend all night discussing hypotheses—of what would happen if the Government were approached by a training board which was seeking a levy above 1 per cent. That is tied up with the proposals in the Bill. The Government would he quite prepared in principle to propose to Parliament a levy above 1 per cent. if they considered that the board had a good case. All the board need do was come to the Government and persuade them that there was a reasonable and valid case, and then the Government would propose it to Parliament, and the rest would follow with an affirmative resolution.
Lord McCarthy: The version expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, of what I call the poachers' revolt in 1973 is not my version. The 1973 Act was not introduced because there was a great rash of levies over 1 per cent. Even the levy he mentioned was of only 0·7 per cent. The 1964 Act did not become unpopular because the levies were too high—not by my version of the events. There was a poachers' revolt. From the point of view of many people the trouble with the 1963 Act was that in effect you could not get exemption; there was no way out. If you did not train they took the money away from you. That is what I liked about the 1964 Act. Once we got rid of the 1964 Act and replaced it with the 1973 Act we got into all the bureaucracy which arises from the need to ensure that exemption is not a fiddle. That is why we have now got to a position where some kind of case can be made out for passing it all back to the boards; and that is my reply to the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone.
To the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, I say that not only did he not answer my question but he did not work out the arithmetic. As was said by the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, there is in this clause, it is true, a right for a 0·2 per cent. non-exemptible levy, but nobody has suggested that it makes £50 million, certainly not when industrial training boards are being abolished. The fact is that industrial training in this country will lose the money the Government put in when they were undertaking to operate and administer the boards at Treasury expense, and the non-exemptible levy is not going to cover it.
Finally, with respect, it is not true to say that the Manpower Services Commission in paragraph 9.17 was unable to come to a conclusion, or did not come to a clear conclusion. As the Manpower Services Commission is operating at the moment, under its present constitution the CBI representatives do not have to endorse every conclusion of the MSC in order for the MSC to come to a conclusion. Paragraph 9.17, as I quoted it, states quite clearly that if the operating costs are to become a charge upon the levy, some
1348
boards, at least on their present expenditure levels, will not easily be able to operate within the I per cent. limit. In that paragraph the Manpower Services Commission quite clearly recommended what I am putting before the Committee, and I see no reason to withdraw the amendment.
10.16 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 7) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 25; Not-Contents, 41.

CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Amherst, E.

McCarthy, L.

Ardwick, L.

McNair, L.

Bishopston, L. [Teller.]

Peart, L.

Blease, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L. [Teller.]

Boston of Faversham, L.

Ewart-Biggs, B.

Rochester, L.

George-Brown, L.

Seear, B.

Hanworth, V.

Simon, V.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Stone, L.

Hooson, L.

Tordoff, L.

Kilmarnock, L.

Underhill, L.

Lee of Newton, L.

Whaddon, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Airey of Abingdon, B.

Henley, L.

Avon, E.

Long, V.

Balerno, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Belstead, L.

Lyell, L. [Teller.]

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Mackay of Clashfern, L.

Bridgeman, V.

Margadale, L.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Mottistone, L.

Cathcart, E.

Mountevens, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Newall, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Norfolk, D.

De La Warr, E.

Northchurch, B.

Drumalbyn, L.

Northesk, E.

Dundee, E.

O'Hagan, L.

Elles, B.

Sandford, L.

Elton, L.

Sandys, L. [Teller.]

Gainford, L.

Selkirk, E.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

Skelmersdale, L.

Gisborough, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Gowrie, E.

Trenchard, V.

Greenway, L.

Vivian, L.

Haig, E.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Clause 3 [Exemption from levies]:
10.24 p.m.
Lord Mottistone Lord Mottistone moved Amendment No. 8:
Page 3, line 19, after second ( "employed") insert ( "by them").
The noble Lord said: With the leave of the Committee, with Amendment No. 8 I should like to take Nos. 9, 10 and 11, because they all relate to the same subject. My noble friend earlier twitted the Liberals for falling into what might be called the socialist centralist trap over their last amendment. I should

1349
like to twit the Government for doing exactly the same thing in the amendment to the 1964 Act, and I am seeking to put them back to where they were before. The plan they seem to have—and I cannot think who has convinced them of this, because it could not be more contrary to what I understand to be my party's general philosophy—is to widen the coverage of the grounds for levy exemption to have companies train for their industry and not for their establishment's needs. I quote from the explanatory notes, paragraph 12, relating to this clause:
"Such criteria might, for example, include the requirement that there might be a given proportion of trainees to skilled men"—?
that is not too bad—
"or they might require that the establishment should train beyond its own needs to a particular extent in order to gain exemption".
It is hard to introduce this theme. I know Members of the Committee opposite think that it is good, the industry has a lot of money and can train anybody and we must be clear that it is the people who are out of employment who need training; therefore, let us make sure that industry does all that. However, that is a theme which does not stand up.
The Committee will know that I am employed by two trade associations which look after the interests of the manufacturers of biscuits, cakes and confectionery. We have studied very hard to see what activities we need on an across industry basis which might lend themselves to the argument which these things cover. It is only in the areas of computer programming and operating that there are sufficiently common skills within the companies which would merit their having some central arrangement for training. For everything else—including maintenance engineers—a company training of a fair degree of complexity is necessary before the people concerned can be of any use to our companies. Therefore, they have to train for their own needs.
In this one area of computer programming this is a national problem which is not peculiar to particular industries. The scope of the basic training in application to particular firms' needs goes far wider than a particular industry. I would have thought there was a lot to be said for having TOPS courses in that particular area. It could easily fit within the TOPS scheme. I know that TOPS tends to work at a lower level; I do not see any reason why it should not work at this level. After all, TOPS was training croupiers at one stage in its heyday. It would be more applicable to that area to have centralised training. To say that people need to look more widely within their own industry for the reasons that I have described is not relevant to the real life.
If you say, "It is going back to the poaching days", I do not see what is wrong about poaching. There was a great theory in 1964 that the small firms poached from the big; but when one looked into it and a training board was established it was found it was the big ones which poached from the small. The well-trained people tended to be in the smaller companies because they received more personal attention. When we looked into this it was about a 50–50 basis. If it is a 50–50 basis, what is wrong with it? I think the Government have been badly advised on the parts of
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the amendments to the original Act that they have put in, which I now seek to put back to where they were before. I beg to move.
The Earl of Gowrie: I am sorry that there is some difference of view between my noble friend and myself on this matter, even though it may have the effect of making the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, and his friends feel that I am not in some way doctrinaire. Under the 1964 Act, as amended by the 1973 Act, levy exemption criteria may require compliance with national standards of training but the numbers to be trained must be related to the needs of a particular establishment.
Lord Mottistone: Hear, hear!
The Earl of Gowrie: The clause under discussion extends the possible—and I stress "possible"—criteria for exemption from levy to include the needs of the industry as a whole and not just those of the individual establishment. And that presumably is the bit to which my noble friend does not utter the words "Hear, hear!"
Paragraph 3 of Outlook on Training acknowledged that, because of this restriction, there are severe limitations on the capacity of the levy exemption system to secure an adequate quantity of training to meet the needs of a whole industry sectorally or the economy as a whole in transferable skills. Again, as paragraph 9 of the same document said, while significant benefits have been gained through the present exemption arrangements, there does arise the problem that in some industries which have a relatively high proportion of employees with transferable skills requiring rather lengthy training, it may not be possible for a board to ensure that sufficient people are trained if that board is required by statute to exempt employers wholly from the training levy.
So, in considering the form of any future training arrangements in these individual sectors, one of our key criteria will have to be the ability of whatever arrangements are proposed to deal satisfactorily with skill shortages in key occupations. Such shortages are most likely to arise in industries with a high level of transferable skills—computers have been mentioned. Clearly, if this is to be one of the grounds for retaining boards, then it is essential that the boards do have the necessary means at their disposal to deal with such a problem. If my noble friend's amendments were accepted, we could not be sure that this would be true.
Lastly, I would stress again—and I hope my noble friend will bear this very much in mind—that Clause 3(1) is an enabling provision. It does not mean that the boards are obliged to put forward proposals for exemption certificates based on these wider criteria. They can, if they consider it appropriate, still propose that their exemption criteria should go on being restricted to the needs of the individual establishment. I hope, that with that explanation and for the other reasons I have mentioned, my noble friend will not seek to press his amendments.
Lord Mottistone: Not at this stage. I am afraid that I have always found "transferable skills" a

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mythical phrase from the academic world which has not really rung true to me when trying to tackle this matter at the roots; and that is where it is all about. Also, my noble friend was good enough to say that, because this is an enabling Bill, it would not be necessary to put this into any orders or levy exemption criteria, or whatever. The fact is that it was not there before, either in the 1964 Act as originally phrased or as amended in the 1973 Act; so he cannot blame me for being suspicious that some busybody—no doubt from the Manpower Services Commission!—has fed it in at this stage. Therefore it is rather suspicious that somebody might use it, even though perhaps my noble friend, like me, might think it was a mistake. But I am mildly reassured and I shall read with great care exactly what my noble friend has said, and reserve the right to come back on Report with this, or something like it. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 9, 10 and 11 not moved.]
10.35 p.m.
Lord Lyell Lord Lyell moved Amendment No. 12:
Page 6, line 21, after ("(iii)") insert ("neither paragraph (i) nor (ii) above applies but").
The noble Lord said: I understand that there is a mild misprint in the amendment on the Marshalled List which is printed as follows:
"Page 6, line 21, after "(3)" insert "neither paragraph (1) nor (2) above applies but".
The difference is that the figures in brackets should be Roman and not Arabic. I was taken to task on another Bill, when it was hoped that the members of the department for which I was speaking could both read and spell. The amendment is technical, but I think that the Committee will see that it is much more easily understood if it reads as I have suggested it should be read.
That said, perhaps I may explain the purpose of this technical amendment. Clause 3 provides for a training board to propose a non-exemptible levy, subject to certain qualifications. If the proposals are for a non-exemptible levy of no
more than 0.2 per cent. of the payroll, then they are subject to the normal degree of ministerial and parliamentary control; that is to say, the proposals need to be approved by both the commission and the Secretary of State, and the levy order is subject to negative resolution of both Houses of Parliament. This proposal is primarily intended to enable boards to meet their operating expenses from levies. I stress the phrase "operating expenses" after our discussion on the last amendment with the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, about operating expenses. This is a change to the existing law, which is primarily intended to enable boards to meet their operating expenses from levy, although it might leave some boards with a little money over for such things as training grants.
If the non-exemptible levy is over 0.2 per cent. of payroll, then we consider that more controls are needed. Our aim is that for such a levy there should be either a consensus of employers in the industry or an affirmative
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resolution of both Houses of Parliament. At present, the Bill does not clearly achieve this. It probably requires affirmative resolution, even if there is a consensus of employers in the industry. That is what the amendment seeks to achieve. I beg to move.
Lord McCarthy: I am quite sure that if I could follow the noble Lord I would agree that the amendment is technical. As it is, it is incomprehensible. Whether it be Roman or Arabic, it is gibberish. But let us pass it.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 13 not moved]:
Viscount Hanworth Viscount Hanworth moved Amendment No. 14:
Page 7, line 7, at end insert—
("(6) In subsection (3) of section 9 of that Act (power to amend or revoke industrial training orders) for the words from "may provide" to "expenses of the winding-up" there shall be substituted the words "shall provide for any amount by which the assets of the industrial training board may be insufficient to meet its liabilities and the expenses of the winding-up to be defrayed out of moneys provided by Parliament"; and subsection (4) of that section shall be omitted.").
The noble Viscount said: This is a very simple amendment. The Government set up training boards, and when they are abolished considerable costs will be incurred owing to redundancy payments, insurances and so on. As things stand at the moment, the Government are proposing that the companies should pay for that. This seems extremely unfair. We must remember that companies will then be responsible for running their training schemes, and it is hardly a good start for them in doing so. Furthermore, we know the difficulties that industry is having at the moment and it seems wholly inequitable that the Government should have decided not to bear the whole of the costs of redundancy and anything else which are incurred when a training board is abolished. I beg to move.
Lord Rochester: I should like strongly to support this amendment. It may be a simple one, but it is a very important one. It is bad enough, as the noble Viscount has suggested, that industrial training hoards should in future have to pay all their operating costs, but it now appears that it is the Government's intention under the 1964 and 1973 Acts to require industry also to pay by means of a levy, from which there may be no exemption, all the costs of those boards which the Secretary of State decides to abolish. It is my understanding that those winding-up costs may be 1½ times the annual operating costs. The money is needed, as the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, has said, to finance generous severance payments and also inflation-protected pensions, which people in industry certainly do not enjoy for themselves.
In the case of the company for which I used to work it is my understanding that the cost of all this might amount to as much as £800,000 or £900,000. These are really crippling additional burdens for companies which are already very hard pressed in these difficult economic times. It was not they who set up these training boards in the first instance; it was not they who are to be responsible for the demolition of the

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boards which is now in prospect. If the Government can finance redundancies in our ailing steel and shipbuilding industries, for example, on what principle do the Government absolve themselves from responsibility for funding in this case?
The noble Earl the Minister has told us that the Government wish to move over to voluntary training wherever possible, but what inducement is there for firms to participate in the launching of voluntary training arrangements if they are faced with these winding-up costs? Surely it is only training itself which will suffer if this cost is applied, and I join the noble Viscount in imploring the Government to relieve industry of these additional costs by accepting this amendment.
Earl De La Warr: I should like to give my strong support to this amendment. I worked for many years in a large firm—not by many times as large as that in which the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, worked, but we had in common the fact that we did an enormous amount of our own training. I feel—although it might be slightly—subjective as the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, would feel in his own firm, that it would be quite intolerable if a training board that we did not ask for and did not want came to an end and the company had to pay the not inconsiderable costs of winding it up.
I agree entirely with what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, about the Government's ability to finance other big enterprises, and I see no reason why the Government should take a different view of this. I hope that my noble friend Lord Gowrie will bear in mind that the CBI have come out very strongly against this proposal; and I feel sure that on reflection my noble friend will come to the conclusion that he can do something, at any rate, to make those of us who feel very strongly about this matter happier than we are at the moment.
10.44 p.m.
Lord Mottistone: Perhaps I could just add two remarks. Surely a principle is invoked for companies which have never paid anything towards training boards. More recently they have been exempt. Earlier on they were getting substantially more in grant than they ever paid in levy. I would draw the attention of my noble friend to the concluding remarks of my Second Reading speech, at col. 132. That is my first point.
I have two questions which it may be my noble friend will be unable to answer immediately. First, it is not clear to me, having studied as hard as I can Schedule 1 to the Bill and the part of the Bill which we are now dealing with, what happens about superannuation for the employees of boards. What happens about redundancy money? What happens about any form of compensation? Is that covered? And if it is covered, who is going to pay it? That is what this is all about. The amendment talks about net negative assets which in the broadest sense could cover the disposal of premises—the lot. I understand from the CBI that their lawyers are a little worried that the question of redundancy payments
and compensation is not covered by the Bill as it stands at the moment. I should be grateful if my noble friend could look into it.
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The other point which occurs to us—because we are extremely fussed about industry having to pay for a winding-up, for the reasons which other noble Lords have advanced—is that they never asked for the boards; they never decided to close them down; they have never paid anything; so why should they start now? What happens if there is a surplus on a winding-up? Who gets that? Does that go back to the industry? Or do the Treasury put their grubby little paws on it? It would be useful to know the answer. Even if my noble friend cannot give me an answer now, perhaps he would write to me between now and Report, otherwise we shall have to come back to the point. In the meantime, I hope he can give us every reassurance, because it is the feeling on all sides of the Committee (perhaps not on the main Opposition Benches) that this is wrong in principle and needs to be looked at.
The Earl of Gowrie: I do like to create whatever happiness I can in this House: I am glad that my noble friend has suggested that my own hands are clean, even if he seems dubious about those of the Treasury. Nevertheless, I have to tell him, and the Committee, that the Government consider that they must have, in principle, the power to impose a terminal levy on employers. Of course we realise that many employers feel very strongly that there should be no terminal levies, and we shall take that into account when we come to take any decisions about the future of boards.
I would remind the Committee that we have been talking during this amendment as though boards were in principle going to be wound up. As I suggested earlier, in many cases that will not be so. There will be cases, I am sure—and the legislative possibility is there—where Exchequer funds can be provided to meet the net cost of winding up an industrial training board. Obviously I cannot give any commitment as to whether such funds would be available or in what cases they would be available, but there is nothing which precludes their being available. In many cases it will be possible to cover the winding-up costs of a board from its reserves. I cannot tell my noble friend Lord Mottistone off-hand whether the winding-up costs include the pension arrangements, whether indexed or otherwise (and in many cases they would be) of the board personnel. That would be easy enough for me to check on, so perhaps I could return to my noble friend, whether in writing or after receiving a note, on that point.
The substantial issue is not changed, which is that it would be possible to cover the winding-up costs of a board from existing reserves. But this would not be true in all cases; in many cases the reserves would not be sufficient to meet the winding-up costs. In those cases we feel that we need to retain the power to raise a terminal levy from employers.
This is not a new issue or a new and sinister power which the Government have. The power to impose a terminal levy has in fact been in the legislation unchanged since 1964. I do not accept that just because an industrial training board is created under statute it is inappropriate that employers should pay either its operating costs or its winding-up costs. In the case of most boards the net deficit on winding-up, as a percentage of the emoluments paid by employers in the

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industry, would be lower than the percentage of emoluments normally referred to in a levy order. So in less formal language most employers in that situation would be up on the deal. Nevertheless we will, of course, consider whether we can avoid terminal levies once we know which boards are to be abolished, but in my contention we need to retain the power in principle to raise the terminal levy if need be.
I now have a note about the winding-up costs. The situation is that so long as a board has a legal existence my department can pay to the Manpower Services Commission, and the Manpower Services Commission can pay to the board, grants in respect of any legitimate expenditure by the board. The power of the commission to make grants to boards is in Section 5 of the 1964 Act and it is in fact quite unaffected by the Bill. Thus, if the Government were prepared to make the money available in a given case the commission could pass on to a board which was about to be abolished money which would enable it to pay any of its expenses, including grants to employers, or redundancy payments to staff or any other lawful expenses—and those, I assume, would also cover the pension point.
As I was saying to my noble friend, I am not seeking for any sinister new powers but to retain existing ones, and it seems to me to be essential that we should have the principal power to raise the terminal levy, although we would take employers' feelings into account on this issue and in notable cases where this levy obviously would not be fair it would be possible to make direct provision for the winding-up costs involved.
Lord McCarthy: I did not want to intervene in this debate but after listening to what the noble Earl has said I feel that I must. The noble Earl says that even if the darkest cloud is in the sky, you must not cry, you must not sigh: you spread a little happiness as he goes by. And what does he do? He turns down this modest little amendment. With great respect, it is not enough to say that it has been in a statute since 1964. It was not intended that Governments would go around winding up industrial training boards, but that is the intention of this Government and he cannot tell us that he will not wind up any of them. So one cannot go back to 1964.
Secondly, of course when it was done in 1964 it was not intended that we should be in the middle of a depression. But we are in the middle of a depression and a very large amount of money could fall upon firms for no reason whatever but that the Secretary of State decides to wind up an industrial training board. Quite frankly, the answer that the noble Earl has given to this very modest amendment is not worthy of him. It could have come from "Yes, Minister". This is the Sir Humphrey answer: we have always done it, we are always doing it, and we do not intend to give you any reasons. I do not see why the noble Viscount should put up with that.
Lord Mottistone: Before the noble Viscount decides what to do about this, I think I might say that, unlike the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy—with whom I find myself almost constantly in disagreement this evening—I found there were certain features of what my noble friend said which deserve study, and personally I should have preferred to come back to this matter
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on Report.
Viscount Hanworth: Before I decide what to do, I wonder whether the noble Earl can elaborate a little. When he says the Government have to have power to raise a terminal levy if need be, at whose discretion is it going to be? Is it going to be discussed with the Treasury, in which case I do not believe anything will ever happen? Under what circumstances do they want to raise it? I should like to know before deciding.
The Earl of Gowrie: The position is that this is an enabling Bill. We are not discussing the winding up of a particular training board, nor are we saying what board might be wound up or when. We are giving powers to the Secretary of State, subject to Parliament, to make these decisions in accordance with criteria which have been published and when he and, by proxy, Parliament think fit. In these somewhat "clouty"—as I am prepared to admit—circumstances, the Secretary of State, in our contention, should have the power in certain circumstances to impose a terminal levy on employers, but employers will not usually be shy about raising objections to this if they think it unfair, and those would be taken into account at the time.
I cannot say more than that to the noble Viscount. I think in instances where the levy was obviously unfair, where there had been no net benefit of any kind through the system to the industry involved, it would be extremely difficult, not least politically, for the Secretary of State to behave in an arbitrary manner about this, and I should have thought that he would get into considerable hot water, whichever side of the House he happened to be sitting on. What I am resisting tonight is the idea—and I think I can fairly side with Sir Humphrey on this —that an existing power to make a terminal levy should be withdrawn from the Government by statute when we do not know the particular circumstances in which one would be imposed. That is all I am saying in resistance to the noble Viscount.
Viscount Hanworth: I thank the noble Earl for trying so hard to put the case across on this. In the absence of complete support from his Back Benches, I think the sensible thing would be to withdraw the amendment and think about it before Report. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 3, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 4 [Enterprise zones]:
10.58 p.m.
The Earl of Gowrie The Earl of Gowrie moved Amendments Nos. 15 and 16:
Page 7, line 8, leave out subsection (1) and insert—
("(1) No employer shall be liable to any levy imposed by an order made under section 4 or section 9(1)(b) of the Industrial Training Act 1964 in respect of any establishment situated wholly or mainly within an area designated as an enterprise zone under Schedule 32 to the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980; and for the purposes of any order made under the said section 4 such an establishment shall be treated as if it were not carrying on business.
(1A) No such levy as is mentioned in subsection (1) above shall be imposed by reference to emoluments paid or payable to an employee whose employment is carried on at or from such an establishment as is mentioned in that subsection.").
Page 7, line 19, leave out subsection (2) and insert—
("(2) An employer shall not be obliged to comply with a requirement imposed under section 6 of the said Act of 1964 (returns, information and records) in respect of an establishment or employee if—

(a) at the time the requirement is imposed the establishment is situated as mentioned in subsection (1) above or, as the case may be, the employee's employment is carried on at or from such an establishment, or

(b) the requirement relates to a period during which the establishment was so situated or, as the case may be, the employee's employment was so carried on.").

The noble Earl said: We now come to the exciting area of enterprise zones. These amendments are intended to remedy a number of technical defects in Clause 4 concerning relief from ITB levy and form-filling for establishments in enterprise zones. At this late hour I am not going to justify or argue the concept of enterprise zones. They are wholly experimental and the idea is that they should be treated as laboratories. But obviously it does not make any sense to have an enterprise zone and to have a laboratory experiment on relieving certain very limited and defined parts of our country from the system which normally obtains elsewhere, unless the freedoms given are fairly considerable. Relieving companies from ITB levy and form-filling is a small but nevertheless an important part of the package of aids and incentives in respect of the enterprises zone experiment.
The main defect that the amendments are intended to put right concerns the way ITB levy is calculated. As it stands in the Bill at present Clause 4(1) has the effect that no levy is payable in respect of a period when an employee is working in an enterprise zone. However, the only workable system is that the levy is calculated by reference to a past period. If the ITBs stick to that system they might levy an employer for an employee who was in the zone in the levy period but who was at another of the employer's establishments in the period when the levy was calculated, and that obviously would not do. I beg to move.
On Question, amendments agreed to.
On Question, Whether Clause 4, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
11.2 p.m.
Lord McCarthy: The noble Earl said that we were entering, I think, the "exciting" area of enterprise zones. I would have preferred what he said earlier on terminal levies—namely, the somewhat "clouty" "situation of enterprise zones. We have to debate for a moment or two the issue of enterprise zones so that we can see why it should be the case that industrial training legislation should not apply to enterprise zones. It may be small, it may be petty, but we have to debate for a moment what is the theory of enterprise zones.
Enterprise zones are, of course, an interference in free competition. They are unfair competition. They are an extension of the principle of unfair competition. They relieve employers of common responsibilities, common obligations: the obligation to pay rates, the obligation to observe health and safety provisions, the obligation to observe certain planning arrangements and restrictions, and so on. They are at one with those clauses in the Employment Act which set out to allow
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people to dismiss people unfairly. They are, in fact, ways of relieving people of their responsibilities.
The pure milk of the doctrine of free competition would have none of this, because it is unfair; it is unfair on those who are not excluded. Good old Hayek would have a fit. The ghost of Marshall is talking about consumer surplus. Adam Smith—if you ever read the entire book—would be against it. So why have we got it today and why have we got it for our industrial training boards? We have got it because we have a kind of punk laissez-faire, because people are prepared not really to be consistent about the principles which they observe.
I am not against restrictions on free competition. I do not take this pure view about free competition. But if you are going to have restrictions, if you are going to have what laissez-faire economists would call "unfair competition", do not pick on the weak; do not take away people's responsibilities: do it by regional employment premia or something of that kind. Do not say that people cannot have rights which they have in other areas, and do not say that people, if they are going to be put into these bucket shop enterprise zones, in addition to all the other rights they are not going to have, are not going to have the right to be properly trained. Therefore, I oppose this clause.
The Earl of Gowrie: The noble Lord must not get away with the notion that health and safety regulations do not apply in enterprise zones. Of course they do, as do most protections which pertain to individuals. I do not mind a bit of teasing about the pure milk, or whatever it was, of free competition. I have always looked upon myself as belonging to the Gaullist rather than the 19th century Liberal wing of the Conservative Party. I prefer to think of enterprise zones as help for the disabled. That is a principle to which all Governments have tended to subscribe. We have no intention in this Year of the Disabled of withdrawing our aid from them. Indeed, we have managed to keep it up.
I think that the simple answer to enterprise zones is that there are areas in this economy which successive Governments, successive plans, successive regulations and, above all, successive huge injections of cash have simply and utterly failed to benefit. Therefore, we are trying something out. The approach is experimental and the result is uncertain, but it seems to be more sensible to try something than nothing at all. It is foolish to try even a limited, narrowly-defined experiment unless you carry it through to some of its logical conclusions.
Relief from training levies and requirements to give statistics to training boards are only part of the privileges to establishments in enterprise zones, but they are surely a worthwhile part of the package. They give us a laboratory test, if you like, as to the working of the system in microcosm. I should have thought that the noble Lord, who has been critical of the system that we are trying to draw up, might welcome that chance to make, as it were, a laboratory test. Our original proposal was to take the establishments in enterprise zones out of the scope of training boards, but following a recommendation from the MSC we decided instead to keep such establishments within the scope of the 1964 Act, but to provide relief from the requirements on

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levy and statistics, so that the boards could still offer them training grants and advice.
In short, we are trying to see that enterprise zones have their cake and eat it, and this is really the point of the whole experiment. I think that the noble Lord, who is well aware of the acute difficulties—not least in employment terms—of the areas in which the enterprise zones are sited, should welcome the experiment rather than grouse about it.
Clause 4, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 5, 6 and 7 agreed to.
Clause 8 [The Industrial Training Boards combined pension fund]:
[Amendment No. 17 not moved.]
Clause 8 agreed to.
Clauses 9 and 10 agreed to.
Clause 11 [Short title, repeals, commencement and extent]:
[Amendments Nos. 18 and 19 not moved.]
Clause 11 agreed to.
Schedule 1 [Miscellaneous amendments to Industrial Training Act 1964]:
Lord Mottistone Lord Mottistone moved Amendment No. 20:
Page 12, line 28, at end insert—
(".—(1) For paragraph 3 of the Schedule to that Act there shall be substituted—
"3.—(1) An industrial training board shall consist of chairman and such other members appointed by the Minister in accordance with sub-paragraph (2) below.
(2) Before appointing the members of the board the Minister shall—

(a) as to the Chairman and as to one half of them consult such organisations or associations of organisations representative of employers engaging in the industry as he considers appropriate;

(b) as to one quarter of them consult such organisations or associations of organisations representative of persons employed in the industry as he considers appropriate; and

(c) as to the remainder, consult the Secretary of State for Education and Science.

(2) In paragraph 5 of that Schedule for the words "paragraph 3(b)" there shall be substituted the words "paragraph 3(2)(c)".").
The noble Lord said: Very briefly, if the Government decide to retain an ITB—we have been talking about the winding-up aspect but, as my noble friend has said, several are obviously going to be kept and these will create conditions in which industry has to pay net costs; for example, the provision of up to 0·2 per cent. of emoluments in Clause 3, which we spoke about earlier—what has been suggested (and my advisers in this case are the Engineering Employers' Federation) is that the balance of board membership should be adjusted to give employers' representatives a casting vote. As the Committee will know, at the moment and under the terms of the existing Act there is an even balance between employers' representatives and the employees' representatives, with no casting vote for the chairman and with no vote at all for the educational members. The object of this amendment is to give a casting vote to the employers. This will avoid an impasse being created and it will also put the final decision in the hands of those that are having to put
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up the money. I beg to move.
The Earl of Gowrie: I tend to believe with my noble friend in the good John Hampden principle of no taxation without representation. Therefore, when I was examining this amendment I had to be satisfied by my officials that employers should have a significant say in the disbursement of funds which they had provided. But my noble friend wants to go a little further than that. We have given careful consideration to the possibility of giving employers an outright majority on training boards but in our view that goes a bit too far in giving employers dominance on boards at the expense of employee and education interests, because my noble friend's amendment would give employers control over all aspects of boards' work and that could be used to frustrate training objectives.
We have said that we aim to retain boards in key sectors where essential national training objectives must be paramount, and it could be that in such sectors employers would not be motivated or organised to do adequate training without the intervention of a statutory board. Boards would therefore have to impose unpopular decisions on employers to secure adequate training. If they were completely dominated by employers, they might be unwilling to do so, leaving the burden of securing adequate training on Government and taxpayer.
We would also not accept that employee representatives on boards should have their position so diminished as this amendment would require, because employee organisations have a clear and keen interest in the work of boards. We would not want to risk any lessening in their support for the work of boards, and we would be worried that this amendment might also have that effect. I can say that employers now do have more of a say on boards than they did, and I would hope that that would be a sufficient earnest of our attachment to the principle of no taxation without representation, and that, in the light of that, my noble friend would not seek to press his amendment.
Lord Mottistone: I am reassured by what my noble friend has to say, but I do not quite understand when he says that employers have more say. Can he elucidate that? I think paragraph 5 of the explanatory memorandum talks about the present equal balance of employers' and employees' representatives, which is the normal way of deciding it, after consultation with the organisation of employers only. That does not give them any more power, because the relevant part of the 1964 Act still has an even balance between employers and employees. Though I think perhaps my amendment goes further than I would have thought, and I shall come back to it at another time, so long as you have an equal balance, the employers really have no more power on money matters than they have had hitherto.
The Earl of Gowrie: The point I was referring to was that, if you are going to have a levy in an ITB, there now needs to be a majority of employer members on the board in favour to get that levy. That seems a significant improvement in the employer position.
Lord Mottistone: I shall have pleasure in reading my noble friend's speech with great care, but I may come

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back to this on Report. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule 1 [Miscellaneous amendments to Industrial Training Act 1964]:
11.15 p.m.
Lord McCarthy Lord McCarthy moved Amendment No. 21:
Page 12, line 29, leave out paragraph 5.
The noble Lord said: If this amendment is defeated, the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, will have been crying before being hurt because paragraph 5 of Schedule 1 does what the noble Earl just said; it makes it clear that in any issue involving a levy, a
"matter shall not be decided except in accordance with the votes of the majority of the members who were appointed as mentioned in paragraph 3(a) … after consultation with organisations or associations of organisations representative of employers".
In other words, employers, and employers alone, will, if the Bill becomes law, decide whether there will be any money at all to run an industrial training board. The trade unionists can discuss, but they cannot raise levies. That, as I understand it, is the present state of the Bill, and that is what we want to change.
The prior situation was that trade unionists had as much right to vote as employers. Those who did not have a right to vote were the educationalists. The trade unionists were on the boards as people having a right to influence the raising of money. That is part of tripartism. Trade unionists were there because it was thought they would be the people who would be able to persuade the unions to accept the changes which would be involved in the training programmes. And the employers were there because, frankly, the training was to benefit them; the industrial training boards were to benefit employers by increasing training in industry as a whole and therefore they had a vote, but not an exclusive vote because they shared it with others who had a vote as well.
In Committee in another place the Member for Fareham moved an amendment which resulted in the situation we are discussing. He said that, although the Bill had transferred the cost of training to industry, if industry were to acquiesce in it, it must have the right to cast a veto. Without that right, he said, it might be involved in paying too much money and therefore it would be apprehensive and resentful. So paragraph 5 is one of the ways in which the Bill will reduce the amount of training because it will give the employers a veto, and they want it because they are afraid that otherwise it may cost them too much.
That is why, as people who come before your Lordships in favour of maintaining the existing volume of training, and if possible to increase its quality and volume, we are proposing this amendment. We think that, without it, the situation would be dangerous. We believe that in conjunction with all the other provisions, and with the fact that the intention at the heart of the Bill, as I argued on Clause 1, is to give the Secretary of State the opportunity to close down industrial training boards in circumstances where he would not have been able to close them down without the Bill—and, if that is not the objective, I do not know what those provisions are there for—that what is
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proposed by the Government here is the extra bit on top that will finally result in the collapse of training in this country.
That is the first main reason why we have tabled the amendment, but there is another reason, which I put forward cautiously, because I do not want to be thought to be suggesting that the noble Earl consciously and deliberately sees this as a reason himself. I said at the beginning that this Bill was an attack on tripartism, and that is what it is. It is being suggested that trade unionists will continue to serve on industrial training boards and give of their time and expertise and persuade their members to agree to all kinds of changes which industrial training boards are seeking to introduce—for example, changes in the modular system of apprenticeship training, and so on—and that they will do all that in a position of monetary eunuchs, where they cannot in any way influence the disposition and the raising of the funds, so that they will be second-class citizens.
I stress that I do not say that the noble Earl does this because he thinks that the trade unionists will not be subject to these conditions; and I certainly do not argue that they should not be subject to these conditions. On the contrary, so far as I had any influence over them I should argue that they should, in the interests of industrial training in this country. Nevertheless, it is a very dangerous and scurvy thing to do, and that is why we propose the amendment. I beg to move.
Lord Mottistone: I should like to interject because I do not honestly believe that the noble Lord need have any fears, and that my aims are not achieved. The paragraph states:
"… no such matter shall be decided except in accordance with the votes of the majority of the members who were appointed as mentioned in paragraph 3(a) …".
Paragraph 3(a) states:
"an equal number of persons appointed after consultation"
with employers' representatives and employees' representatives. If it is a majority, and there are (as was the case with my late board) nine employers' representatives and nine employees' representatives (18 people)—and they are the only people mentioned in paragraph 3(a)—and all the employers vote one way and all the trade unionists vote another way, which is what happened on two or three different occasions, there is no casting vote. The chairman does not have a vote, and there is nothing in paragraph 5 to say that he should have one; and the educational members never have a vote on matters of levy—financial matters.
The noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, says that he does not know what I am worrying about. I am saying back to him that I do not know what he is worrying about, because the powers in this area of the employees' representatives are just as strong as they were previously, and like the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, I hope that there will be no reason why they should not continue to serve on training boards, because I believe them to be the most important single element on those boards.
The Earl of Gowrie: The Bill is certainly not making an attack on tripartitism, but as I said in speaking to the fears expressed by my noble friend in the previous amendment, on good principles of no taxation without

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proper representation we are trying slightly to improve the employer position in one significant respect. It is an essential part of the Bill that the costs of training in an industry should be borne by the employers in that industry, whether there exists a statutory industrial training board, or whether there are voluntary arrangements; that is not different in either case.
Therefore, the effect of the Bill will be in due course to transfer all the costs of a board back to employers. Those are the operating costs, as well as the costs of providing training and paying grants; except of course any derived from Exchequer funds. On several occasions during the Committee stage the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, has criticised us for transferring those operating costs from the Exchequer in the main to employers.
But if we do that, it is only right that the position of employer representatives on the boards should be strengthened, so that employer representatives on boards should not be forced against their will to go along with the key decisions of boards about raising money from employers. That is why under the Bill there needs to be a majority of employer members on a board to get the levy.
The tripartitism point is also not really relevant here where board decisions on levy are concerned, because education members, who are the other part of the trinity, do not at present vote on the levy. We do not propose to disfranchise union members. They can still vote and influence decisions, and employers cannot carry decisions if they are opposed by all union members.
So it is a matter of balance, as these constitutional things so often are. But, as I said, it is right that the position of employer representatives should be somewhat strengthened, though not to anything like the degree which the previous amendment in the name of my noble friend wished, so that they would not be forced against their will to go along with key decisions on money matters. In view of what I have said, I hope the noble Lord will not seek to press this amendment, and if he does I must ask the Committee to resist it.
Lord McCarthy: I am afraid I must press this amendment. The position is as described by the noble Earl. In effect, the employers have been given a veto where money is concerned. You need a positive decision to spend money, and you cannot get a positive decision to raise a levy unless you have a majority of the employers. That, as I take it, is what paragraph 5 means, and that, as I take it, is what the Minister thinks paragraph 5 means. The noble Lord thinks it means something else, but on the basis that it means what the Government say it means, I must divide the Committee.
11.26 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 21) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 16; Not-Contents, 35.

CONTENTS

Ardwick, L.

McCarthy, L.

Bishopston, L.

Peart, L.

Blease, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L. [Teller.]

Ewart-Biggs, B.

George-Brown, L.

Rochester, L.

Henderson, L.

Seear, B.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B. [Teller.]

Stone, L.

Underhill, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Airey of Abingdon, B.

Gowrie, E.

Avon, E.

Haig, E.

Balerno, L.

Henley, L.

Belstead, L.

Long, V.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Lyell, L. [Teller.]

Bridgeman, V.

Mackay of Clashfern, L.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Mottistone, L.

Cathcart, E.

Mountevans, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Norfolk, D.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Northesk, E.

De La Warr, E.

O'Hagan, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Sandford, L.

Dundee, E.

Sandys, L. [Teller.]

Elles, B.

Selkirk, E.

Elton, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Ferrers, E.

Soames, L.

Gainford, L.

Vivian, L.

Gisborough, L.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
Schedule 1 agreed to.
Schedule 2 agreed to.
Schedule 3 [Repeals]:
[Amendment No. 22 not moved.]
Schedule 3 agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with the amendments.