Lords Sitting of 20 May 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 Norwich.

Lord Tordoff
Geoffrey Johnson Tordoff, Esquire, having been created Baron Tordoff, of Knutsford in the County of Cheshire, for life—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Lord Rochester and the Lord Evans of Claughton.

Foreign Aid: Selective Allocation
2.40 p.m.
Lord Barnby: 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, taking into account the widely published abuses in distribution of public funds allocated to foreign aid, they will now limit foreign aid to selective tied aid, giving priority to plans for increasing agricultural production.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Trade (Lord Trefgarne): My Lords, I am not aware of any widely published abuses involving British aid. If my noble friend knows of any, I hope he will send me the full particulars so that they can be thoroughly looked into.
Lord Gridley: My Lords, I wonder whether I might ask—
Several noble Lords: Order!
Lord Barnby: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether that is to be interpreted as meaning that there is not to be any reduction in overseas aid as a whole, in line with the need for contraction in every direction? Is my noble friend aware that the United States have, by reason of reports of widespread abuse, reduced their contributions of overseas aid, and that these desires for overseas aid are frequently due to bad relations with contiguous states, or improper internal financial arrangement, which result in forfeiting the support of the World Bank?
Lord Trefgarne: No, my Lords. My noble friend reads too much into the Answer that I gave. But it may be helpful if I tell him that no less than 84 per cent. of our bilateral aid is tied to British exports.
Lord Gridley: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether Voluntary Service Overseas is now in operation, and whether that is a service which benefits us and our friends from overseas?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, the benefits of VSO which my noble friend has described are certainly very real but I feel that that goes a little wide of the Question on the Order Paper.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: My Lords, if it were in order, are not the activities of International Voluntary Service also of value in this field?
Lord Trefgarne: Doubtless, my Lords.

London University Medical School Merger
2.43 p.m.
Lord Segal: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will ascertain from the University of London what progress has been made in the merger of Westminster Medical School with the medical school of Charing Cross Hospital, and what annual saving is likely to result.
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: My Lords, I understand that discussions are taking place within the University of London and its medical schools about the implementation of the various parts of the plans for the re-organisation of medical education, which were agreed by the University Senate and Court in recent weeks. The proposals are expected to result in savings to the university of some £3·3 million overall, but information about the breakdown of this sum is not available to me.
Lord Segal: My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord for his reply? Is he aware that any savings gained by the merger of these two medical schools will have to take into account the cost of accommodating an extra intake of at least 100 new medical students every academic year and that therefore the net savings which are likely to result are rather less than the £3 million originally estimated? Would this amount really justify the closure of an important and highly efficient medical school?
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: My Lords, I do not want to be unhelpful, but I think that the noble Lord should be asking this question of the university itself, not the Government.
Lord Annan: My Lords, is the Minister aware that discussions of a very friendly kind have been opened between the Westminster Medical School and the Charing Cross Hospital Medical School under the independent chairmanship of Sir Frank Hartley, a former Vice-chancellor of the University of London? Is the noble Lord also aware that the savings which it is estimated will be made by the merger of these two schools, provided that the reductions in staff and the savings in administrative costs are as set out and envisaged in the report which has been accepted by the university, will amount to some £1¼ million? Is the noble Lord further aware that the university's policy is that these savings in staff should not fall solely on one school

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but should be spread across the faculty of medicine within the university?
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: My Lords, I was not aware of the detailed information which the noble Lord has given to the House. I am grateful to him, and I am sure other noble Lords are also grateful.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the cost of training a medical student at the Westminster Hospital is £19,000 and that at the Charing Cross Hospital it is £25,700? How does the noble Lord think that there could be any saving? As Westminster medical students have for the last 10 years come top of all medical students in London, does not the noble Lord think that there will be a downgrading rather than any saving?
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: My Lords, I was aware of the figures which the noble Baroness has quoted. I am afraid that I am in no position to say whether her suspicions will be proved to be right or wrong.
Lord Segal: My Lords, does the noble Lord realise that the air of uncertainty which is hanging over the future of the Westminster Medical School is not contributing in any way to the wellbeing either of the hospital's patients or of its staff.
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: My Lords, I share the noble Lord's sympathy for the anxiety over this matter which is being experienced in many quarters.

Seat Belt Wearing: Comparative Statistics
2.47 p.m.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: 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 figures are available relating to car occupant deaths and serious injuries occurring before and after the introduction of legislation making the wearing of seat belts compulsory in Australia, West Germany, New Zealand and Sweden; and, if so, whether they will publish the figures.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment (Lord Bellwin): My Lords, figures for Australia and New Zealand are not available. Figures for car user deaths and injuries in West Germany and Sweden for the three-year periods before and after the operative date of compulsory seat belt wearing are as follows. In West Germany, before compulsion there were 21,486 deaths and after compulsion 21,190 deaths; there were 831,000 injuries before compulsion and 863,000 injuries after compulsion. That is against an increase in total car traffic in Germany of 8 per cent. In Sweden, before
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compulsion there were 1,844 deaths and after compulsion 1,809 deaths; before compulsion there were 41,400 injuries and after compulsion 40,300 injuries. That is against an increase in total car traffic in Sweden of 13 per cent.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his Answer. Would he not agree that it is disappointing that no official figures are available for Australia in particular? Is my noble friend able to make any comparison between those before compulsion figures for, let us say, West Germany and our own figures in the United Kingdom? Secondly, would not my noble friend agree it is reasonable to anticipate that a pattern similar to that which is shown by these figures from countries where there is compulsory seat belt wearing might well emerge if compulsion were to be brought into effect in this country?
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, the fact is that Australian figures are not available. We have written to them and we are trying to get as much information as we can from them. So far as comparisons with this country are concerned, we are unable to draw any comparisons because the legislation came into effect at different times during the 1970s.
As to the last point which my noble friend has made, we have to be very careful about the assumptions which we make from these figures. We do not know, for example, how many people were wearing scat belts before compulsion. We know that in West Germany, where the figures seem to be somewhat smaller than one might have thought, the compulsion is not enforced. There is no penalty. They have compulsion but they have no penalty for not adhering to what is required. Then there is no international definition of the word "injury". One can talk about the severity of injuries but there must be a great difference between a knock on the head and a broken back, so I think it is really not helpful to draw an actual conclusion from these statistics, interesting though they may be.
Lord Parry: My Lords, would the Minister accept that some of us draw from these figures the conclusion that considerable savings in lives and injuries have been made since the introduction of compulsory seat belt wearing elsewhere and that the time must come when some Government in Great Britain must grasp the nettle of the introduction of the compulsory wearing of seat belts in order to achieve similar savings in this country?
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, as to the latter point, I think we shall have many opportunities in the forthcoming Transport Bill to debate this, not least on an amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford, and, if I may, I should like to hold my fire for that occasion. We are not very far from that. However I would say again that it is important that we do not draw false conclusions from these figures. In fairness we should say that they are interesting so long as we are careful as to how we interpret them.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, those figures are disappointing. We might have expected a bigger improvement than has been achieved, even when taking account of the increase in traffic, but is the Minister aware that it is most necessary that there should now be a professional analysis of these figures and facts so that we are able to draw the correct conclusions, and will he ask the Transport and Road Research Laboratory if they will kindly make this analysis so that we may have the benefit of it when we are considering this important subject next month?
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, I think it would be even more helpful if we were to do as my noble friend suggests if we can get the additional information from the other countries. After all these figures relate to two situations only and, as I have explained, in one of them there is not even a penalty. So, while I endorse the fact that it would always be helpful to have more analysis, I think it would be slightly premature to carry it out merely on the basis of these figures. There is one other most important aspect to this: it is that there are so many other road safety factors that cause accidents that simply to assume that the wearing of seat belts is the only factor could be extremely misleading.
Lord Monson: My Lords, are there any comparative figures for deaths caused to motorcyclists, cyclists and pedestrians before and after the introduction of compulsion, given that there is evidence from New Zealand that subsequent to the introduction of seat belt compulsion, fatalities and serious injuries caused to motorcyclists and pedestrians went up quite sharply, possibly as a result of over-confident or careless driving by motorists who had been led to believe that wearing seat belts would protect them from the consequences of a collision?
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, I repeat, I am not anxious to get into a debate in Question Time. I shall have not only many opportunities but many obligations to do so before very long.
Lord Derwent: My Lords, is it not just as important to have some regulations about the actual safety of the seat belts themselves, because in many cases if small persons use a particular type of seat belt it catches them under the chin and breaks their necks? So far, we have heard very little about the design of these seat belts.
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, my noble friend raises an interesting point which I have heard talked about elsewhere and I am quite sure that if I again fall back on the need to discuss this at greater length and in greater depth than at Question Time your Lordships will understand.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, does the noble Lord appreciate that there are many noble Lords in the House who realise the logic and common sense of his replies and how dangerous it is to make quick assumptions in a question and answer session?

The Caucasus: Military Activity
2.55 p.m.
Lord Gisborough: 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 intelligence reports of increased Soviet military activity in the trans-Caucasus region.
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, we have no evidence of any recent unusual military activity in the trans-Caucasus region.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that Answer. Is he aware that there is a current report that there are no fewer than 26 Soviet divisions in this area? If this is true, would it not present a very serious threat to the oil states, and if it proves to be true will he draw the attention of the USSR to the concern of the West?
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, the noble Lord will appreciate that he cannot expect me at this stage to go into detail on this matter. I am afraid I can neither confirm nor deny his figures. I can only confirm that we have no reason to believe that significant changes in military activity have taken place in this region recently.
Lord Gladwyn: My Lords, is it not possible now to verify by satellite the movement of every single Soviet soldier and tank in any area? And, if that is so, surely we know exactly what is happening in the Caucasus.
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, perhaps I may say again what I said to my noble friend. I hope the noble Lord does not expect me to go into detail on this matter, and I can neither confirm nor deny his figures.
Lord Goronwy-Roberts: My Lords, for the purposes of this Question can the noble Lord define the region mentioned in the Question and in particular what state or states would, according to that definition, be contiguous to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics? Would it involve more than one particular state?
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, the noble Lord, in his usual clever way, has put his finger on one of the points why I cannot really answer this Question. It is impossible to do so.
Lord Shinwell: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that his noble friend the Foreign Secretary has been travelling all over the world? Has he not made any discovery about the trans-Caucasian area? And, even if we knew about military activity in that area, what would we do about it?
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, I am grateful for the noble Lord's intervention and I am sure he will appreciate that I would prefer not to be drawn into speculation on these hypothetical scenarios.

The Shops Acts: Trading Hours
2.57 p.m.
Baroness Trumpington Baroness Trumpington rose to call attention to the need to amend the Shops Act 1950 to permit more flexible trading hours; and to move for Papers.
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, my good fortune in having the opportunity to initiate this short debate to call attention to the need to amend the Shops Act 1950 to permit more flexible trading hours, is only tempered by my dismay that it should have coincided with the Prime Minister's speech to the annual Conservative women's conference. This unfortunate matter of timing has no doubt deprived me of several doughty female supporters from this side of the House. However, one good friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod of Borve, is speaking and I am indeed grateful. From my point of view, I am deeply sorry that I cannot listen to my leader; and I would dare to venture that I am equally sorry that she cannot listen to me!
The subject which we are debating this afternoon is well known to many of your Lordships. Indeed, it has been argued time and time again in both Houses, not least of all when the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, introduced a Shops (Sunday Trading) Bill in March 1979. The noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, introduced a similar Bill in 1976, and it seems to me appropriate that a woman should raise the matter yet again because, on the one hand, women would provide the greater part of any workforce involved in longer shopping hours and, on the other hand, the working woman and people with children would have most to gain from any amelioration of the present laws.
As things stand, shop opening hours are controlled by the Shops Acts 1950–1965. By and large, these are based on rules dating back to the beginning of the century, before refrigeration. The general principles of the law are quite clear: shops must close by eight o'clock on a weekday and nine o'clock on a Saturday, or some other day specified as the late night by the local council. A shop is not allowed to open on a Sunday except (amazingly) in Scotland and it has to close on one afternoon a week by one o'clock, which is the early closing day.
However, in practice things are complicated by a host of exceptions. I will run through the main exceptions to the general closing hour of eight o'clock on a weekday. Places can stay open as late as they like to sell meals or refreshments eaten on the premises; newly cooked provisions and cooked or partly-cooked tripe for eating off the premises; things like tobacco, sweets and ice cream, but only from theatres, cinemas, music halls and so on, and only to members of the audience; medicines, so long as the shop is open only long enough to serve each customer. This assumes that you can ring the chemist's door bell if the shop is closed. Newspapers, magazines and books from approved main stations; petrol and other supplies for cars, aircraft and cycles, so long as the shop is open only long enough to serve each customer; postage stamps; other Post Office business is also allowed. There is a special rule which allows shops to sell sweets and tobaccos up to half past nine, and other rules
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allowing shops to be open later at holiday resorts in the season, and at other places for exhibitions or special occasions. And, of course, there is a special rule for the sale of alcoholic drinks.
There are no rules about the times shops can open up, so it would be quite legal to close at eight, or even nine on the late night, and open up again at midnight. I suppose that if, on a dark and foggy night, you happened inadvertently to land your own plane on the M4 you could dash out, rush to the chemist, ring the bell for the door to be opened, so that you could buy a sedative to calm your nerves, buy a stamp in order to post a letter telling your wife that you would be late, buy a can of petrol for your aeroplane, provided the shop was only open long enough to serve you. I suppose you could even chew at some half-cooked tripe as you taxied off and resumed your search for Heathrow, where you could buy a newspaper. What a ridiculous state of affairs!
We all know the realities of life. Only last week, when my husband was ill with flu, our doctor arrived at 10 p.m. on a Sunday night; he gave me a prescription, told me where I could take it and suggested I do so immediately. I arrived at a large chemist's shop, quite full of customers. During the time it took to make up the prescription, I bought an eyebrow pencil, a box of kleenex and toilet water—all illegal! Quite often, when this House sits late, I am totally grateful to the shop in my neighbourhood which stays open until all hours and from which I can buy the wherewithal for a late snack. We all have our own particular examples of small shops in ever-growing numbers the proprietors of which understand the needs of the public for late night purchases and remain open. It may well be that we are paying slightly over the odds for the service that they provide. Why not? I cannot believe that they would risk prosecution and certainly inconvenience to themselves unless they were sure of customers.
My Lords, in these difficult times of high unemployment, we have said, on both sides of this House, how anxious we are to encourage small businesses. Only last week the noble Lord, Lord Spens, introduced a short debate on that very subject. It seems to me that greater flexibility in trading hours would be a very real help to the small businessman. At the same time an alteration in trading hours might enable the small businessman, or indeed larger businesses, to take on extra staff and work shifts, thus producing extra jobs for the unemployed. Competition is the name of the game, and what is wrong with that? From little acorns grow mighty oaks, I would remind some opponents of change.
I am in no way advocating sweat shops. Sweat shops can and do exist at present. Those who operate them are a legitimate target for the relevant unions. The same controls could apply and action should be taken were the law to be changed. The law governing bank holidays states that banks shall be shut. It does not apply to shops. More and more shops are opening on bank holidays because the demand for shopping by the public on those days exists. I deplore the fact that banks remain closed on Saturdays. It is a blow to the public and it is certainly not appreciated by the tourist, from whose spending this country gains so much.
My inquiries lead me to believe that those who work in a shop on a bank holiday do so on a purely voluntary basis. Why could not the same principle be applied to the shop which wishes to stay open late at night? The laws of the Shops Acts are outmoded and on the whole unenforceable, and in practice not enforced, and any law that is not enforced makes the law a donkey—a mule, if not an ass. The maximum fine for a firm offence for opening illegally on a Sunday has recently gone up to £50. But it is still only £5 for staying open late in the evening; hardly a deterrent for a shop doing good business then.
It is now three months to the day since Sir Anthony Meyer's restrained and excellent Bill in another place did not, alas, succeed. Frankly, I cannot understand why the wishes of a minority should govern those of the majority. I have received much help from consumer-orientated organisations, like Which?, the British Tourist Authority and the National Consumer Council. These bodies exist only for the benefit of thousands and thousands of members of the public. With one voice and on behalf of their members they ask for a change in the law. They are not asking for shops to be forced to stay open, merely that if someone wishes to open at a late hour he may do so.
My Lords, I am interested in the individual. I am not interested in any vested interest of corporations, be they trade unions or national commercial groups. I am not interested in blinkered religious ideas when we are now a pluralistic society. I am interested in convenience, if not convenience foods. I am interested in efficiency and enterprise, not in restrictive practices which make no sense whatever. It is about time we recognised how people want to work and live in the 1980s. There is no obligation for any shop to open, but I have no doubt whatever that if a referendum took place both the shopkeeper and the customer would wish to serve and be served.
The Minister in another place, during the debate on 20th February on Sir Anthony Meyer's Bill, said that during the past year officials of his department have been carrying out some examination of the operation of the restrictions which the 1950 Act imposes upon trading hours. This work, he said, was nearly complete, and he continued that the Government hoped before long to announce their conclusions. It is for that reason that I await with anticipation the speech of the noble Lord the Minister here today. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.8 p.m.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, I am deeply grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, on two counts; first, for giving us this opportunity to discuss a matter which has been in many of our minds for a very long time. Secondly, I am very deeply grateful to her for having dealt so thoroughly with the present state of the law, the absurd anomalies which arise from it and the very clear and urgent need for change. The noble Baroness's speech has enabled me to do two things, which perhaps may appear to be contradictory. First, to be brief, and, secondly, to broaden this debate into one or two areas which some noble Lords may perhaps think do not concern this particular matter. I assure them that, if they listen to me, they will find at the end of the day that they do.
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I agree with every word the noble Baroness has said about the absurdity of the present law and the need for reform. There is no need whatever for me to repeat the things that she has said. What I should like to say is this. I believe that we are in this country on the eve of major changes in the way in which society is structured. So far as unemployment is concerned, I believe that we have to look forward to a situation in which certain jobs will never return. I believe it is right to say that certain forms of work have become obsolete. I do not object to that. I think that if one can lift the burden of boring, monotonous, dull, and sometimes frankly dangerous, work from people's shoulders, so be it, provided that one takes some of the consequential steps.
There are two consequential steps which we must take. First, we must realise that it is not very sensible to have something like 3 million people unemployed and of the rest who are employed very many working Sundays, overtime, moonlighting and all the hours that God sends, and so I think that presently we shall have to move to a situation in which we divide work a little more fairly. That means earlier retirement, a shorter working week, more hours of leisure, more public holidays and more leisure for our community as a whole.
Some noble Lords will know that I spent three very happy and interesting years as chairman of the Countryside Commission. We conducted a survey in which we discovered that two-thirds of our population of all ages and from all social groups now opt, as of choice, to spend at least one day a month doing some form of open air, informal, recreational activity in the countryside. I welcome that. It works out at one day a month, but if they all spend that one day on the same day, on a Sunday, there are immediately difficulties. Some time ago I had the pleasure of discussing problems with the director of Yellowstone National Park—an enormous national park in the United States. He told me the number of people that they have to cope with in a year. I was able to tell him that the figure which he had quoted was almost exactly the number of people who at present pour into the Peak District National Park on a Sunday in August—and he thinks he has problems!
The English Tourist Board has recently conducted a survey which shows that the New Forest, which is a highly sensitive area of countryside in Britain, is within day trip distance of 20 million people. Indeed, they obtained that information from the people interviewed, the people who were actually there for a day trip. If all those 20 million people go on the same day, and they tend to do so—they tend to go on Sundays—then we can see the kind of difficulties which arise.
Countryside recreation is something to be encouraged, but the countryside is a resource which in Britain is in ever diminishing supply and in ever increasing demand. I believe that we must take energetic steps in order to spread leisure and to get away from the fossilised structure of a weekday and a weekend. We must move to a situation where the weekend is a moveable feast and we must not hold to the view that all kinds of activities are focused on to Sunday, quite apart from the very important argument which the noble Baroness has advanced about the need for certain people to do some shopping on Sunday. For example, a couple

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may wish to choose their furniture and it may be that the only time that they are able to be together is on a Sunday and they have a right to take the decision as to which furniture to buy on a Sunday which is the only day on which they are together. However, furniture is one of the items that they are not allowed, under any circumstances, to buy on a Sunday.
Therefore, I wholly accept the arguments which the noble Baroness has advanced with regard to this matter in general, but I would ask noble Lords to look a little further. I think that it is time that we started on a course of action which will change the whole pattern of social life in Britain and which will begin to move us away from the rigidity of work days and days which are holidays. We are on the eve of an explosion in leisure and if we are to cope effectively with that explosion in leisure we must make sure that our people spend their leisure time so far as possible spread throughout the week and, perhaps, spread throughout the year. I have the greatest possible pleasure in telling the noble Baroness that my noble friends and I fully support her in her efforts as regards this extremely important matter.
3.13 p.m.
Lord Jacques: My Lords, first may I thank the noble Baroness for giving us this opportunity to discuss an area of law in which there are undoubtedly anomalies and, indeed, some uncertainty as to its application and enforcement. I should also like to congratulate her on the way in which she introduced the debate. So far as the shopkeeper is concerned, no one can say that there is a consensus. However, one can say that a vast number—perhaps the majority—do not want a free-for-all. They believe that extended shop hours would increase their costs, particularly those for heating and lighting, and there would be premium payments for staff working unsocial hours. They are not convinced that longer hours would mean that more trade would be available. Indeed, if the costs of the extended hours were passed on to the consumer the real volume of trade might in fact decline. However, there is a consensus among shopkeepers on one matter, and that is that they believe that it would be wrong to have piecemeal change. They want to see a thorough review, proper consultation and a wide ranging law dealing with the whole issue.
So far as the shopworker is concerned, I would remind your Lordships that most shopworkers have to work on Saturday when most of their friends and relatives are enjoying leisure on that day. Indeed, as a past shopworker I can tell your Lordships that they have no desire to work Sundays, not even for premium payments. I would also remind your Lordships that 70 per cent. of shopworkers are women and a large number of these women are married and wish to spend some time with their families, especially in the evening, but more especially on Sundays.
Extended shop hours hit very hard the store manager. He is left with a choice of evils. He either has to work excessive hours or has to absent himself from the shop while it is open for trade. It is a very difficult choice to make and it is really a choice of evils. I would therefore ask your Lordships to have some sympathy for the store manager.
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I turn to the consumer. I believe that a substantial number—in fact, I would go as far as to say a majority—of consumers, as distinct from the organisations which purport to represent them, do not want a free-for-all. The majority of consumers do not see any special reason why shops should be open very late at night. The majority of consumers do not want Sunday to be the same as every other day of the week. What the consumers object to more than anything else is the anomalies which exist in the present law. They object to going to a shop on a Sunday morning and buying a newspaper and finding that they can buy this, but they cannot buy that. They think that it is a load of nonsense. So the consumer is very keen on getting the anomalies and also the uncertainties cleared away.
I believe that the time is fast approaching when the public will regard the anomalies and inconsistencies as unacceptable. In a move to get rid of them we could well be landed with a free-for-all which neither the shopkeeper nor the shopworker wants. I therefore say to both the shopkeepers and the shopworkers that now is the time to get around the table with the consumer interests and with the Government in order to thresh out a fair and reasonable compromise and to make the law so that it is free of anomalies and inconsistencies which are a blot on the present law. (I read those last remarks because I wanted to make sure that what I said was absolutely right.)
In the time left to me I should like to deal with two matters. First, I should like to outline the things that I hope we would not do in re-making our shop hours law; and, secondly, I should like to conclude by outlining very briefly the things that I hope we would do. First, I hope that we would avoid having lists of goods which one can buy and lists of goods which one cannot buy. That inevitably leads to anomalies—we know that from past experience. Secondly, if we have limitations there are bound to be some exceptions. I hope that we would keep the exceptions to a minimum because the more exceptions we have the more anomalies we are likely to have.
Thirdly, I hope that we shall avoid giving regulatory authority to local authorities. It cannot be right that where you have adjacent urban areas, one shop can remain open and another shop cannot be open because there happens to be a local government boundary line between them. Nor can it be right that a local authority can say, "Shops in one part of our area will close and shops in another part will remain open". These are matters with which we should deal as a nation and not by way of local authorities.
Fourthly, I hope that we shall avoid a free-for-all, particularly as regards trading on a Sunday afternoon. My elder son is an American citizen and has been a citizen of California for many years. I have had exceptional opportunity to study shopping in California. In California the department store opens after lunch on a Sunday. Many of the department stores commence their sales on a Sunday. They all advertise special offers for Sunday afternoon and give them the widest publicity. In some of the shopping centres there is more noise and bustle on a Sunday afternoon than on a Saturday afternoon. That is the American way of life; I hope that it will never become the British way of life.
A noble Lord: Why?
Lord Jacques: My Lords, why?—because I like a little quietness on a Sunday and I believe that my fellow citizens also like a little quietness on a Sunday.
I also hope that in making new shop hours law we shall avoid paying too much attention to the problem of the tourist. It is part of the spice of tourism that the tourist experiences a different climate, a different diet, a different custom and a different practice. Let us make the law for those who live here all the time. I do not believe that it would seriously affect the number of tourists or the amount that they spend. It might affect the continental weekender who comes across for shopping only when the value of the pound is low and when he can buy our goods at bargain prices. So we can forget him. In remaking the law there may be a temptation to discriminate between small shops and large shops. I hope that we shall avoid that, for inevitably that would lead to anomaly. Whether you try to discriminate in terms of number of staff or size of floor space, you are bound to get into difficulties.
I turn now to the positive side. My shop hours law would be simple. Shops could remain open until 8 p.m. on weekdays and 1 p.m. on Sundays. I would have no lists of what one could buy and what one could not buy. My exceptions would be as few as possible; for example, food and drink consumed on the premises, supplies required to keep transport going, including cars and aircraft, and the dispensing of medical prescriptions. That is about all that I would have as exceptions; certainly I would have very few more, because the more you have, the more anomalies are created.
That simple kind of law—8 p.m. on weekdays and 1 p.m. on Sundays—would do away with the one late night we have of 9 p.m. on one night a week. Not a great deal of trade is done between 8 o'clock and 9 o'clock and very few shops are open. The practice of our people has not changed in just one way since we framed our Shops Act, but has changed in other ways. For example, far greater numbers of people now watch the television; they do not listen to the radio. In these days of so many people watching the television, there is not the demand for shops to be open late at night, as they used to be, and 8 o'clock is late enough for anyone. If we had this simple law of 8 p.m. on weekdays and 1 p.m. on Sundays, it would also mean that the half-day closing would become optional and would be quite voluntary. I see no reason why it should not be.
I believe that the trade union in the distributive trade is well capable of looking after its members. All the shopworkers are, in fact, covered by wages council orders. At present the wages council orders provide for a 40-hour week with double time on Sundays. I should like them to go one step further and provide for a five-day week, unless there was agreement between the individual workers and his employer that it should be four days and two half days.
Finally, I would expect this simple legislation to deal with some of the less known anomalies. For example, there are travelling salesmen who take rooms in hotels and elsewhere, and who sell when other people are unable to sell. I hope that new legislation would bring them within the framework of the law. I make these what I call practical suggestions as a
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result of a life-time's experience in distribution, and I hope that they will be helpful.
3.26 p.m.
Lord Harris of High Cross: My Lords, I should like to join in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, for bringing this Motion before us and to congratulate her on the forceful but cheerful way in which she presented her arguments. I was duly impressed by the unusual agreement from the Liberal Benches, from the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, and I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Jacques. I always listen to his speeches with special care because he develops his argument with transparent sincerity and with a great deal of experience. I listened hard in the hope of finding something with which I could agree, and I can only say that I must go on listening and hoping.
I want to present a different view, particularly on the matter of Sunday trading. I should say at the outset that I feel under no great compulsion to dash out to shop after 8 o'clock or 9 o'clock in the evening. I can fully savour the nostalgic attraction of Victorian weekends when the family trooped off to church in their Sunday best and came home, devoting themselves to discussing the sermon, without such modern distractions—of which the noble Lord seems to disapprove—as television and do-it-yourself, or outings in the family motorcar. But, alas! times change.
I want to argue that one of the lessons we might learn from Britain's long relative decline is that we must be more ready to come to terms with change, even in aspects of economic and social development that we might find unwelcome. Above all, we should avoid the trap of accepting those changes that appeal to us, that suit our tastes, that fit in with our particular, if you like, religious proclivities, while resisting changes that appeal to others, although they may be a minority and there may be no consensus for the particular change.
It seems to me that much of the opposition to change in shopping arrangements smacks of this self-indulgent nostalgia or personal prejudice. I find it characteristic of much of the obstruction to new developments which has held back our industry over many years from serving new markets and exploiting new opportunities. I believe that our readiness to reform, if not to repeal, the Shops Act might be taken as a test of whether we are serious in all the speeches that we make about the need to improve social welfare, because that ultimately depends on our readiness to accept changes as the price of economic and social progress.
Even the defenders of the Shops Act are now on the defensive; they acknowledge that it is out-of-date. Its antique schedules, which list those things which cannot be bought on a Sunday—the forbidden fruit in the schedules—are a tribute to a vanished approach of the 1950s rather than the 1980s and 1990s. I shall not develop the examples, except that the best known one not so far mentioned is that on a Sunday it is legitimate to buy not only partly-cooked tripe, but gin or milk, but it is not legal to buy baby food or tinned cream.

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What objections are there to Sunday opening? For a start, what of the Lord's Day Observance Society? I am going to urge that before coming to a judgment some of us should have regard for our constituents. The advantage of being a life Peer with a territorial title or appendage is that one can select a constituency without the fatigue of actually being elected. My chosen base is High Cross, which is a part of Tottenham named after a market cross adjacent to the grammar school which I had the good fortune to attend some years ago. Upon investigating some early records I was delighted to discover that a monk or friar came to preach at the market place on every market day. From that I deduce that there is not necessarily any conflict between sermons and selling; between, if you like, God and Mammon.
As an economist I will go further and argue the point that a free market is always in the best interests of the consumer and is the best basis for trading. Dealings between willing buyers and willing sellers must benefit both parties in the transaction, or why otherwise would they trade together on a Sunday or at any other time? I wish to emphasise that the one interest that all of us in your Lordships' House share with our fellows in the other place, and with all their constituents, is that everyone of us is a consumer; a member of the 56 million-strong, fully paid-up consumer party.
This thought brings me to what I believe to be a more malignant source of objection to change in this matter—namely, USDAW, the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers. It seems to me that like to many trade union restrictions, the fear of freedom to shop is based on a superficial and shortsighted view of the best interests of the union members themselves. Surely it is becoming clearer every day that workers in any productive employment will best prosper in the long run by serving the changing demands of their customers. That is no less true for Co-operative Society shop assistants than it is for employees of British Leyland or of the shop that I saw advertised today in The Times by the name of Dickie Dirts. The last word on the subject was written some time ago by Adam Smith in his great work An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. I quote:
"Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interests of the producer ought to be attended to only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer. The maxim is so perfectly self-evident that it would be absurd to attempt to prove it".
My Lords, instead of proving it, I would simply ask USDAW if they believe that shops exist for the convience of shopkeepers and shop assistants rather than their consumers? Can they not understand that longer or different hours of opening would not necessarily lengthen the working week? Indeed, under the Shops Act, as the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, told us, an establishment can already open for more than 100 hours a week. Many shops—including Sainsbury's—open for more than 50 hours a week, and yet the average week's work by full-time shop assistants is something short of 40 hours. The explanation is, of course, perfectly plain; shift working and part-time working.
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What of the objections from such assorted interest groups as the Retail Consortium, the Butchers' Federation or the dear old Co-op? They remind me of the fearful but fortunately unsuccessful campaign against the abolition of resale price maintenance in 1963. In retrospect I believe we can see more clearly that it was the freeing of competitive pricing after 1963 that prepared the way for the revolution in retailing, including self-service, which brought undoubted advantages to the consumer in terms of choice, cheapness and convenience. This has been done without threatening the extinction of the corner shop wherever it can offer a personal service for which people are prepared to pay.
As the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, said, further changes inevitably lie ahead. There is a secular trend towards longer weekends, more holidays, freer motoring, and increased foreign tourism. It seems to me that all of these will call for adjustments in shopping, catering and a host of related activities. They all bring the prospect—a point the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, has missed—of increased employment in a flourishing and expanding service sector of our economy. But what is the use of longer holidays and all the rest if we as a nation acquiesce in the example of museums and art galleries, which have come to close down to suit their employees at the very time when more people wish to visit them? I suggest that a better example has been set by such ancient and modern noble Lords as the Marquess of Salisbury and the Duke of Bedford, whose country homes at Hatfield and Woburn Abbey ply their most profitable trade by catering for family outings when it best suits their customers.
I conclude that we should leave it to dukes and to other enterprising tradesmen to decide what services they will offer in the light of what people are prepared to pay for. Of course we need some regulation in the interests of the consumer, and indeed there is a long line of necessary laws concerned with weights and measures, safety and cleanliness, labelling and trade descriptions. For the rest I take my stand with the Consumers' Association, that we should leave shops and shoppers to trade together freely, as they do in Scotland at the present time, without the impertinent intervention of inspectors and their informers who in some areas, I am glad to see, have been driven to give up any pretence of enforcing this restrictive and redundant legislation.
3.37 p.m.
Baroness Macleod of Bone: My Lords, I am also deeply grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Trumping-ton, for initiating this debate this afternoon. Like the noble Baroness I am also very sorry to have missed the Prime Minister, but since the noble Baroness asked me to take part in this debate I have foregone that particular pleasure. I am also glad to follow such a brilliant economist as the noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross. I cannot emulate him for the noble Lord has a brilliant brain, but I shall try to be practical.
The more I read about the 1950 Act the more I feel that it needs to be amended because of its lack of flexibility. As my noble friend has told us, the Act's anomalies are plainly ridiculous and are seen to be ridiculous not only by consumers in England and Wales

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but also by tourists who try to spend their money here and who encounter different by-laws imposed by different local authorities in adjoining streets. The law is mainly unenforceable, which is in itself an unsatisfactory state of affairs. All is very different north of the border because the 1950 Act does not include Scotland and it may therefore be helpful to your Lordships if I give a very brief thumbnail sketch of what happens in the enlightened part of the United Kingdom.
Several Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Baroness Macleod of Borve: Provided retailers in Scotland do not exceed a six-day week, they are free to open and close as and when they like. They can sell alcohol, and they can open banks if they have them in their stores. The small shopkeeper, who runs his own business, often staffed by members of his family, can trade when he thinks fit and when it is most profitable for him to do so. The result of this flexibility seems to be that in Edinburgh and Glasgow city centre there are two vast Sunday markets. It is estimated that one of these attracts 30,000 to 50,000 customers every Sunday during the height of the season
Indeed, day coachloads from south of the border swell their numbers. Few shops are open, however, in the suburbs except the normal newsagents, tobacconists, et cetera, but on the edge of the towns there are large discount warehouses and cash-and-carry shops which do a brisk trade as they have their own car parks. Indeed, I understand that they are so popular that it is rumoured that the Celtic Football Club plan to turn their car park into a market on Sundays.
So far as the staff are concerned, no pressure is put on by any shop for them to stay at work on Sundays, but the generous agreement reached through USDAW and the wages council seems to offer financial incentives to them to work on Sunday. I gather that if they work for more than four and a half hours they get paid for 16 hours, and if they work for less than four hours they receive a salary for eight hours. This despite the fact that I understand that the prices do not vary between Sunday and the rest of the week. The reports from consumers, retailers, and staff alike seem to be that they are happy with the present system. The retailers can choose when to give a service and where, because they are lucky enough not to have this restricting law. Dare I say it?—perhaps what Scotland does today, England may follow.
3.42 p.m.
Baroness Phillips: My Lords, I should like to congratulate the noble Baroness who introduced the debate in her splendid, lucid and very amusing style. We are deeply grateful to her. This is of course what is known in most circles as a hot potato. You are never going to satisfy all points of view. I suffer, as indeed do possibly some of your Lordships, from being president of one group which wants changes and vice-president of another one which does not want changes, so I am undoubtedly going to upset one or the other with anything I say this afternoon.
I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross, that I should love to know this shop where I could get forbidden fruit, though I do remember what
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happened to Eve when she did so. I would say to my noble friend Lord Jacques that I feel that he is a little unreal when he seems to assume that no one works on a Sunday. How does he get his gas? His electricity? His telephone? His transport? His milk? There are already thousands of workers who have to work on a Sunday. I speak as the daughter of a man who served in the old Post Office, where they certainly used to have to work on a Sunday. While I would not suggest that we want to revert, I would only say to my noble friend that it is unreal to imagine that there is not already a host of people working on a Sunday.
The Shops Act, as we have already heard, is one of the most curious Acts on the statute book, and that is saying something considering some of the mass of legislation we have to deal with. The first clause, said a certain judge, tells what can be done, and the rest of the Act tells the reasons and the exemptions why it shall not be done. That seems to be a very fair description.
Why do we need more flexible shopping hours? Why indeed do we need change in the law? In the first place, the law, as we have already heard, is constantly brought into disrepute. The Shops Inspectorate want changes because they have not got the enforcement officers to carry it out. They can only make sorties every now and again, and therefore they feel that the law has fallen into disrepute.
The second reason is that, certainly in London and I believe spreading throughout the country, the ethnic groups already open on Sunday. I have said in this House before and I will say again that if any of your Lordships wanted to buy anything from an elephant to a flea I could take you somewhere in London where you would find a shop open to sell it to you. I am bound to say that after I have been to mass, as a good Catholic, I frequently call in at the ethnic shops and do some shopping, and I pointed out one day, "As a good Christian I am very happy that you don't share my particular religious beliefs".
But it makes it nonsense to suggest that we are talking about a law which is in force: the law is not in force. Therefore, that is one very good reason why we must look at it. The other reason is that there is a different social pattern of living. I felt that my noble friend Lord Jacques was almost living on another planet from his description of his Sunday. It is certainly not the Sunday that I know. All my neighbours are out in their gardens or washing their cars, and when they go off in them somebody has to man the petrol stations to sell them petrol. In other words, Sunday is different. Whether it is better or worse is beside the point, but it is different.
More women are working, and therefore they have not got the opportunity to shop even during the late hours. There is a tourist trade and we do want the tourists. The noble Lord said that tourists needed something different. Well you may need something different in another country, but I would suggest that what you do not want is frustration. If there is a vacuum there is always rapidly someone to fill it. Since one cannot cash money, we have had spring up all over the place these bureaux de change where they will do this. They do it at a higher rate, but any service that is wanted and needed someone will leap in to supply.

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It has been suggested that the customers do not want it. That is not my experience, and I have conducted a number of surveys among women's organisations. As I think the noble Baroness said, certainly people would probably be willing to pay a little extra. If you want a service, you are probably willing to pay for it. There have been various attempts to put the anomalies right. There was the attempt to change the definition of resorts. As you know, shops can be open on Sundays if they are in holiday resorts, but these have a narrow definition. It seems that they are only resorts at the seaside. Resorts now can be in places like the Lake District and Stratford-on-Avon. There are all kinds of places that are resorts, so that could be changed. You could increase the number of resorts, if you liked. You could change the number of things that could be sold, and the number of times in the year that they could be open on a Sunday. Change the law on early closing.
It is a curious definition that in fact under the Act you have to get permission from the local authority if you want to have six-day trading. You see how far out of date we are. I certainly do not subscribe to the point of view that if shops opened more you would not sell any more. Any woman knows this to be untrue. I recall once when my husband asked me, "Why do you have to work?" I said, "Well, after all, let's face it, if I didn't work I would spend more in the shops". He said. "Well, you do pretty well when you have only got the opportunity on Saturdays!" There is no doubt that if a shop is open you do spend more. It is one of the laws of life.
We could also amend the law—I am only making these suggestions in case we do not want to do the whole thing—on what can be sold. As the noble Baroness pointed out, it is totally ridiculous to go into a newsagents and not be able to buy a birthday card. It is totally ridiculous to go into a grocer's shop and find that you can buy one kind of food but not another, and so on. We have now had the views of traders over a long time. They have been expressed over and over again. We have the views of the professionals; the Institute of Health and Safety at Work, who operate this as the enforcement officers. We have the views of the multiples, who want certain changes. We have the views of USDAW, who seem to be opposed to any change.
But I noticed just this week in one of the house journals that at a Spar conference—Spar is one of the chains of small grocers—a certain retailer said, "The British retailers might argue that if they opened for longer hours someone else would have to do the same and the advantage would be lost. "But," he said, "this is already happening. The Asians are doing it under your very noses. Come into the 20th century." The Retail Consortium, I am happy to say, have slightly modified their views and now say there is a wider range of views on the question of amending the shops legislation. But they also make the sensible suggestion that there must be no piecemeal change. That I endorse, but I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, that the time to make some changes in this outdated legislation is now.
3.50 p.m.
Lord Mancroft: My Lords, I too join in congratulating my noble friend Lady Trumpington for the able way in which she introduced the debate, and in warning her, if she does not know it already, that she is on the primrose way to the everlasting bonfire. That bonfire consists of all the Bills, Acts, White Papers, Green Papers and pamphlets that have been produced in vain in the many years that have passed since the 1950 Act. I must plead guilty myself; I stood at the Despatch Box when I represented the Home Office trying to persuade your Lordships to pass the 1956–57 Shops Bill. It never became an Act, and that may have been my fault because I remember spending nearly 20 minutes trying to persuade your Lordships to understand why it took 38 lines of the draftsman's deathless prose to establish the principle that only a Mohammedan or practising Jew could operate as a barber in Scotland on a Sunday.
Another anomaly among the many that have been adduced today is that of the noble Baroness who complains that she cannot cash a cheque on a Saturday. Here I must declare a personal interest, in that I am a director of the British subsidiary of an international bank, and we opened our bank on Sundays and it is still open on Sundays. A large number of people, many of them our customers and many of them not, come and make use of our facilities. I thought when we started that we should have the heavens collapse on our heads. In fact, we had only four complaints. I will, if I may, give the noble Baroness the address of the bank after the debate.
As we have all said in the debate, the confusion is really quite insufferable. Down in the outskirts of the Empire where I live—behind the Chelsea Town Hall—we have many shops which are manned by Asians, including many Ugandan Asians. I should like to hear the noble Lord, Lord Harris, with all his economic distinction, trying to explain to a polite Asian shopkeeper why it is legal on a Sunday to sell a bottle of gin to a lady but illegal to sell a bottle of tinned milk for her baby, and in doing that I wish him the best of Ugandan luck. The Government, I understand from a debate in another place, are considering the whole of this matter and I am delighted to hear that, and there are a few points which I hope they will bear in mind apart from those which have been mentioned in this debate, which I will not waste time repeating.
This is still a sabbatarian country, but we now have three sabbaths. I respect that sabbatarian feeling strongly, but it has changed. When I was at school we were not allowed to play cards, not even Happy Families, on a Sunday. However, times have changed, changes are continuing but we still have a conflict of view. Those who take the extreme view—the Lord's Day Observance Society and the temperance movement (I shall not say a word to offend them), who are the extreme on one side—are militant minorities who have tended to trample too heavily on the views on the other side. We have leaned over too far to meet their prejudices.
Conscience and customs have changed. The noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, mentioned the workforce, and many noble Lords have referred to the danger

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of the sweat shop, about which we have been told by H. G. Wells and Dickens and which we appreciate full well. But there have been changes in public conscience and in union attitudes. The unions were very strong on this issue in days gone by, but a recent publication by USDAW shows that they have moved with the times to a marked degree. Self-service, with which the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, is particularly familiar, has changed the attitude of the shop worker a great deal. It has also, incidentally, damaged the corner shop very badly.
We should realise that this issue of shops is not a problem on its own. It is linked to other social problems of a similar nature; the opening hours of public houses are obviously linked to those of shops. Noble Lords will remember the trouble we used to have when Wales demanded opening on a Sunday; Welshmen used to go pouring across the border into Shropshire in the morning and back again in the afternoon. Those of your Lordships who are of my age will remember how day after day we used to listen in this House to Sunday cinema orders being made. We seldom hear of them now—largely because there are not many cinemas left—but that subject, too, is linked with the opening of shops. So is the opening of casinos and gambling.
Some rude remarks have been made about the tourist trade, which is also linked to the opening of shops. I was for 10 years president of the London Tourist Board and the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, followed me as chairman. He will, I think, bear me out when I say that one of the most frequent complaints we got from tourists was that our principal London shopping area, Mayfair, was shut on a Saturday afternoon whereas Fifth Avenue was open and doing a roaring trade. Let us not imagine that we are the only country that can be absurd, however. Your Lordships probably do not know—I discovered it myself only 20 minutes ago—that it is perfectly legal to buy an aeroplane in England on a Sunday but it is a criminal offence to do so in West Germany.
The attitude which we must now take must comprise reasonable consideration for the strong views, which I respect and admire, of the sabbatarians and the temperance movement, and for the views of others who wish to change with the times and want the present appalling confusion, which is so ridiculous and absurd, to be resolved. I warn my noble friend Lord Sandys of two hot potatoes he has coming his way, one small and immediate. There was a decision in Helmcourt in the High Court a few days ago by Mr. Justice Webster which shows that a decision given by my noble friend's department, the Home Office, is ultra vires on the subject of Sunday trading. There is going to be quite a row over that little potato.
The bigger potato is this: for four years I was chairman of the Tote Board, and I am at present chairman of the British Greyhound Racing Board. I have seen in both those organisations a growing demand for Sunday horse racing and greyhound racing. Sunday racing means the Sunday opening of shops, of betting shops, and that is going to cause real trouble and the Home Office had better get prepared for it very soon. I express no personal opinion—because I am an independent chairman and must reserve judgment—but I warn that it will come. People will say, "What
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is the biggest and most successful race in Europe?" It is the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe and it is run on a Sunday in Paris. Actually, I need not tell the House that, because half your Lordships are there when it takes place. Indeed, between the second and third races we would have a quorum large enough to take a couple of Unstarred Questions. That demand will arise and there will be considerable uproar about it. It is no good talking about staff being overworked; many jockeys and trainers are in Paris, anyway.
I remember on one occasion, when I was chairman of the Tote, a member of your Lordships' House—out of decency I had better not name him—coming to me on a Monday morning and saying, "What on earth is your Tote playing at? I tried to place a bet on the Arc de Triomphe on Sunday and nobody answered the phone. "I replied, "ft is illegal to open the Tote or take a bet on a Sunday. You should have put the bet through on Saturday; there is a Tote also at Longchamps and the figures would not have differed very much". I made a mental note to tell him about it the next year. On the Saturday before the Arc I therefore telephoned him, reminded him of what had happened the previous year and told him to place his bet. He followed my advice, made a sensible bet and took 150 quid off us, and I wish I had never opened my mouth!
I hope I have said enough to warn my noble friend that she is on the primrose way. I congratulate her on her courage and if she wants company on the way, I shall be happy to go with her, if only because she herself will provide such excellent company.
4 p.m.
Lord Simon of Glaisdale: My Lords, I, too, should like to be associated with the congratulations extended to the noble Baroness. I intervene because my first task as a Home Office Minister was to take over the Bill which the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, had been handling in your Lordships' House. He just managed to keep it afloat. I am glad to say that in my hands it foundered immediately. It was a thoroughly restrictive measure; but even though it foundered, as has been pointed out today so frequently and so cogently, the 1950 Act remains an anachronism, an anomaly, and an affront to common sense and to any economic good sense.
In general, on an issue such as this there are countervailing considerations which are conflicting and which have to be the subject of compromise. It seems to me that this issue is almost unique in that the only two valid considerations are perfectly reconcilable. The first is this. The customers—and, as my noble friend Lord Harris of High Cross pointed out, we are all customers—should be able to buy goods at any time convenient to themselves and at which the shopkeeper is willing to sell them. If there is not a sufficient demand—I venture to say this in answer to one of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Jacques—the shopkeeper will not keep his shop open at that time.
The second valid principle is that shop assistants should not be required to work excessive hours and under onerous conditions. Past experience has shown—it is true that it was at a time when the trade union was less powerful—that that matter could not be safely

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left to the forces of the market, but required statutory regulation. However, following from that, if, in the interests of its employees with their statutory hours, shop A finds it expedient to close at a certain time, there is no conceivable reason why shop B, having no employees, or having employees working only the statutory hours supplemented by the work of the shopkeeper and his family, should also be required to close. Of course, in the past—and I think that things are changing now—the representatives of the shop hands as organised also had an interest in preventing the kind of competition that has led to universal hours, however anomalous.
So the conclusions are two-fold, are they not? There should be no restrictions at all on opening hours; they should be left to the forces of the market, to the commercial good sense of the shopkeeper. On the other hand, the welfare, and the hours and conditions of work of the shop hands should be rigorously safeguarded. That is what happens in industry and commerce generally. What conceivable reason is there, in this particular class of commerce, for there to be any different type of regulation?
The noble Lord, Lord Jacques, referred four times to a free-for-all, and in each case it was in an opprobrious sense. Surely when we examine the matter we all really hold that the only limitation on freedom should be where it infringes the freedom of some other person. A free-for-all should not be regarded as an opprobrious expression; it should refer to an aim that we should embrace readily, freely and eagerly.
It seems to me that if the proposals of the noble Baroness were adopted there would be a number of advantages. The first would be that the family shops on the street corners would be free to provide for their customers' needs when the high street shops are closed. Secondly, the large shops would be free to work a shift system, as do many other branches of commerce and industry, for the benefit of their customers, for the more economic use of their plant, and for the spreading of their overheads.
There are two other advantages that I venture to mention. One was touched on by the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, and it concerns the ethnic minorities. Many of them have had a long tradition in small retailing. If we give them the opportunity to compete in retailing, in providing for the needs of their customers, that would be of advantage to the communities generally in giving them an opening and an avenue in which to rise, as well as in promoting within them a stabilising middle class.
There is another advantage which I do not think has yet been mentioned today, though it has been mentioned in other debates. One of the dangers to the countryside lies in the closing of the village shop. By being freed from the shackles of the Shops Act the village shop will be able to compete far more vigorously and successfully with the shops in the nearest town, and that, too, it seems to me, would be an advantage. So I trust that when the noble Lord replies on behalf of the Home Office he will show the new spirit in the Home Office, not the ancient, restrictive, obscurantist one, and that he will positively and encouragingly welcome what has been said.
4.8 p.m.
Lord Ponsonby of Shubrede: First, I wish to join with other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, on being lucky in the draw for short debates, on putting down this Motion, and on the very able way in which she introduced it. I am sorry that my noble friend Lord Boston of Faversham, in whose area of responsibility this matter lies, is unable to be present this afternoon to respond to the debate on behalf of the Opposition; and so the task has fallen to me.
This is the first opportunity that we have had to discuss Sunday trading since I introduced into this House just over two years ago a Bill, which was killed by the general election in 1979. On that occasion my noble friend Lord Boston, speaking on behalf of the then Government, said:
"Accordingly, the attitude of the Government towards the Bill before your Lordships tonight is one of neutrality".—[Official Report, 13/3/79: cols. 602–3.]
He was very much echoing the words of my other noble friend Lord Wells-Pestell in response to the Bill introduced in 1976 by my noble friend Lady Phillips, when he said during the debate on her Bill:
"May I say, on behalf of the Government, that the Government have traditionally been neutral to Bills seeking to amend the Shops Act, and this is precisely the position of the Government in respect of this Bill".—(Official Report, 24/2/76, cols. 690]
This attitude has now existed for almost 25 years. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, reminded us very forcibly of this in his very witty speech to your Lordships this afternoon; and, of course, this was reinforced by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon, when he spoke subsequently.
Of course, the reason for this has been that in 1957 the Government found the issue of shops legislation such a controversial one that since that date Governments of all political complexions have remained neutral. Indeed, I think one of the most interesting aspects of the debate we are having this afternoon will be the Government's response to it. Will they continue to sit on the fence, or will they show some ability to move from a completely neutral position on this matter?
I am sure that my noble friend Lord Jacques is right in saying that the only way we can proceed is by concensus, and also that we should try to deal with this problem on a national basis. As your Lordships have been forcibly reminded this afternoon by various noble Lords, there are many powerful vested interests concerned in any alteration of the present law on Sunday trading, and a number of these interests have been referred to by various noble Lords in the debate today, particularly by Lord Harris of High Cross. I am sorry that on this occasion no Member of the Bishops' Bench has put his name down to speak; and, indeed, that no leading trade unionist has wished to speak in this particular debate.
I think that from this and from the history we can gather that the passage of 25 years has shown, and still shows, that there is no consensus for change. At the same time, everybody is agreed that the law needs to be changed, A law which is not enforced is a bad law, and this has been pointed out particularly by my noble friend Lady Phillips, who has pointed to the problems of the shops inspectors. These inspectors are employed

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to do a particular job and wish to do that particular job efficiently, but they are constrained from doing so because of the state of the present law. That is a matter with which I am sure your Lordships would sympathise.
I think that two noble Lords felt that the way ahead was an absolute free-for-all, with there being no legislation about Sunday trading at all. I do not think that at our present stage of development we are ready to move to such a situation; and no Government, I think, would be able to enact that sort of legislation. There has been reference to the question of the tourist trade by a number of noble Lords, not least by my predecessor at the London Tourist Board, Lord Mancroft, when he referred, and rightly referred, to our reliance as a nation on the tourist trade. I think this is a consideration that we must take very much into account, and from time to time I am reminded of the difficulties which tourists face because they cannot do certain things which they would wish to do on a Sunday.
I hope that the Government will see that the 25 years of history really shows that the only way forward, if we are to achieve some change in the legislation, is for them to take an initiative. I know they have received warnings about this from the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, but I hope that despite those warnings the noble Lord, Lord Sandys, who is to reply to this debate, will feel that this is an area in which the Government might feel it right and proper to open consultations to see whether in fact they could find some way forward which would command support from all quarters. I feel that unless this course of action is taken we could be in the position, in another 25 years' time, of coming back and still finding that nothing had been done.
4.17 p.m.
Lord Sandys: My Lords, I am sure I speak for all your Lordships when I congratulate the noble Baroness on her choice of subject and on the way in which she has presented it to your Lordships this afternoon. For reasons which will become apparent in what I have to say, I believe it is most timely for your Lordships to have the opportunity to discuss this subject, and in particular to concentrate on the aspect emphasised by the noble Baroness in her speech; namely, the question of trading hours. The Government are conscious that my noble friend's action in raising this matter reflects a concern which she has had for some time that there should be greater flexibility in shop opening hours than the law at present provides, and that the time has now come to give greater attention to consumer opinion. I am sure that view has been reflected in almost every speech we have heard this afternoon.
I should like to begin by describing to those noble Lords who have contributed to the debate some of the background to the difficulties facing this Government and indeed many previous Governments by drawing attention to the anomalies contained in the present shops legislation. Indeed, I have been goaded into doing so because the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, has identified them in language which spurs me on to proceed on this line. The existing controls, and the discussion of them, tend to be dominated by the Sunday trading provisions and the anomalies to which they give rise. The Government are
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well aware, however, that it is not only the provisions relating to Sunday trading in the current legislation as embodied in the Shops Act 1950, to which much reference has been made and which many people believe do not reflect the proper balance between, on the one hand, the necessary safeguards for those engaged in the retail trade, to which the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, referred, and the needs of the consuming public, referred to by so many speakers.
These have changed substantially in recent decades. This has been attributable partly to changed attitudes and practices affecting the employment of women. Further, our membership of the European Community and the enormous growth in foreign travel, to which much reference has been made, have highlighted the distinctions, many of which can no longer be valid, between the practices and legislation in this country and those of our closer neighbours. The growth of supermarket and hypermarket shopping is also a factor which ought now to be taken into account.
The context of the legislation has also changed. When these provisions were first introduced it was appropriate to use legislation to afford proper protection for staff. This is no longer self-evidently the case. Our industrial relations have now become much more sophisticated and a wide range of procedures exist to supplement, and replace, legislation as the only form of control. This is a field which is now much more effectively covered by the established machinery for negotiation on conditions of employment. The Government are also aware of the substantial administrative commitment which the present legislation places on local authorities. There is no lack of appreciation on the part of the Government of the many grounds on which it may be argued that the present law is in need of amendment. We have had so many examples this afternoon that it is hardly necessary to reiterate it. The experience of the present Government, however, like so many of their predecessors, has so far been that there is insufficient agreement to facilitate further attempts at legislation. I am sure that will fall on the ears of many noble Lords with some dismay, but I must proceed with the argument because it is a much more complex story than is perhaps generally appreciated.
I think it may be helpful if I briefly recapitulate the main provisions relating to shopping hours contained in the 1950 Act. That Act requires that, unless a local authority makes an order specifying an earlier closing hour (not earlier than 7 p.m.) shops must close not later than 8 p.m. or 9 p.m. on one "late" day each week. Shops must close not later than 1 p.m. on one weekday in each week, which may be whichever afternoon the shopkeeper chooses. There are provisions by which certain transactions are exempt from the general closing hours and local authorities may exempt classes of shops from the early closing day requirements where a majority of traders so wish, and allow a degree of later closing in the case of holiday resorts. The noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, referred to this and the difficulty of the 1950 Act in identifying what those resorts were and whether they have changed since 1950. Most authorities have in fact already made orders introducing full six-day trading.
The Act also provides for specified break periods and half-day holidays for shop assistants with special

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provisions for persons under 18. In addition, the provisions in the Act relating to Sunday trading require shops to be closed on Sunday, apart from transactions of the kind specially exempted by the Act and subject also to certain exceptions where local authorities make appropriate orders in the case of seaside resorts. These particular anomalies have given rise to many strictures in speeches by noble Lords, and I am certain the Government will pay very close attention to the experience of so many in this field.
Legislation on Sunday trading dates as far back as the 15th century, but provisions relating to employment in shops followed those for factories and the origin of legislation governing shops is to be found in an Act of 1886 limiting the hours of work of young persons to 74 per week. An Act of 1912 consolidated the legislation relating to hours and early closing days and provided for one half-day holiday each week. By 1928, shop hours had been restricted to require closing by 8 p.m. or 9 p.m., establishing a situation very similar to that provided by current legislation.
The Shops (Sunday Trading Restrictions) Act 1936 set limits to the considerable increase in Sunday trading. The intervention of the war years then suspended discussion of the subject until the decision in 1946 to appoint a committee of inquiry under the chairmanship of Sir Ernest Gowers to inquire into the working of the Shops Act relating to closing hours, the regulation of hours, and health, welfare and safety of employed persons. The Gowers Committee recognised that, while statutory hours and the half-day closing had been of great benefit in protecting shop assistants from exploitation, the point was approaching when the needs of the public called for renewed attention. It also observed that there were too many exemptions in the law which created problems for mixed shops and that the existing law should be consolidated. Thus, the Shops Act 1950, the main provisions of which I have already described duly consolidated eight prewar shops Acts. I think it important to emphasise that it was solely a consolidation measure. The Act has since remained substantially unchanged apart from the relaxation in 1965 allowing a shopkeeper to decide on which days to close early and special provisions for shops at airports and at specified exhibitions.
A memorandum published in 1953 jointly by the Home Office and the Scottish Home Department led to the introduction in this House of a 76-clause Bill, referred to by my noble friend Lord Mancroft, who himself introduced it here. The provisions of that Bill concerned with trading hours proposed a tightening of restrictions by making the general closing hour 7 p.m. instead of 8 p.m., and removing some of the anomalies arising from the description of articles which may be sold after closing time. The Bill excited much controversy in its passage. It was decided in another place that it was impracticable for it to proceed during that Session—and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, himself had personal experience in this field. An interdepartmental working party was then established to look further into the Gowers proposals. As a result, recommendations relating to health, welfare and safety were implemented by legislation, but the way was not seen to be clear to proceed with the
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recommendations relating to shopping hours which had caused such concern and given rise to this debate.
The next stage was that, shortly before the publication in 1964 of the report of a committee under the chairmanship of the late Lord Crathorne, devoted to the law relating to Sunday entertainment and trading, the Home Office wrote to a wide range of interested bodies as to the need, if any, for further legislation on shop closing hours and, in the light of the response, firm proposals for comprehensive legislation were contained in a discussion paper entitled Retail Trading Hours published in 1965 jointly by the Home Office and the Scottish Home Department. The main proposals at that stage were that, except as specially permitted, no retail trade should be carried out, whether in a shop or from a stall, barrow or the like between the hours of 7 p.m. and 6 a.m., between 6 a.m. and 7 p.m. on Sunday or on any one weekday between 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. The shopkeeper was to choose his early closing day and one late evening closing day. These proposals were circulated widely and over 100 organisations sent in detailed comments, but the Government were unable to conclude that there was a sufficient consensus of opinion to prepare legislation on the basis of that discussion document.
My Lords, I pause here because this is precisely the problem which is before us now. I am sure that many of your Lordships have read the very interesting debate on this very subject which took place on 20th February, exactly three months ago, to which the noble Baroness referred, on a Bill introduced into the other place by the honourable Member for Flint West, Sir Anthony Meyer. The absence of consensus—although perhaps not so apparent today—in speeches made on the Second Reading of the debate in another place very apparent. I am sure many of your Lordships have, as I have, read portions of that debate two or three times in order to appreciate how very divergent are opinions on the subject.
Since 1970 a number of Private Members' Bills dealing both with Sunday trading and shop hours generally have failed to make progress. My noble friend and other noble Lords have referred to the debate in another place on 20th February last on a measure to relax restrictions imposed by the 1950 Act on weekday and Sunday trading and to provide further protection for shop assistants in relation to their hours of work. Those present at that debate on 20th February recognised that the law as it stands at present is anomalous—on that both this House and another place are in agreement—and indeed in many areas the legislation is unenforceable and there is need for change. But the opposition to the Bill from those representing the views of the shopworkers' unions and the retail trade showed that we are some way short of reaching agreement as to what needs to be done to replace the present statutory provisions.
I hope that this summary has not been too wearisome. It is necessary to place on record how the legislation stands at the moment and how the statute book has reached its present situation. The particularly contentious nature of this subject will convince noble Lords of the anxiety of successive Governments to secure a firm basis for revision of the law in a field which has so rightly been subject to much public criticism. This relates in particular to the anomalies in the present

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law, and the changes in social habits—referred to by many of your Lordships—and customs established since the last changes were made in legislation as well as the existence of other forms of control now effective in protecting the proper interests of shop staffs. It should be recognised that there are strongly-held and fundamental differences of view. These relate particularly to the question of Sunday trading. Quite apart from other considerations, the proposition that Sunday should be set apart as a special day is one which continues to command a very wide range of public support on grounds which are not purely sabbatarian. Your Lordships heard from the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, in a very notable and brief speech, his views on this particular field.
There is no doubt that it is this factor which has made the problem of modernising and rationalising the shops legislation such a contentious one. It is also the factor which has made it so specially difficult for Government as such to handle. It raises issues of individual conscience of Members, both of your Lordships' House and of another place, of a kind which have led successive Governments to take the view that proposals for amendment of this branch of the law ought properly to be left to the initiative of private Members and not made subject to party discipline. The Government have, however, been ready to provide assistance—in the form, for example, of drafting—for initiatives of this kind which have been launched on occasion.
Noble Lords will appreciate from what I have said that the Sunday trading issue has very substantially overshadowed the question of closing hours generally. It has been apparent in the course of the repeated rounds of public consultation that have taken place that the question of closing hours raises much less feeling than the Sunday trading issue. Even so, no consensus on the question of closing hours has yet emerged. It is apparent that there are still some, both in the union representing shopworkers and in the retail trade itself, who support the retention of the existing controls. It is not clear how strongly they hold this view. I, too, have seen documents emanating from USDAW which lead me to believe that there are grounds for thinking that their views are possibly about to change.
Most retailers do not in fact take advantage of the full hours at present available and, if there were a substantial relaxation, it seems unlikely that it would be taken advantage of by more than a fairly small minority who wish to provide a special service in appropriate districts. It seems unlikely that there would be any noticeable effects on competition or prices such as have been argued would result from changes in the Sunday trading provisions.
It is for that reason that the Government welcome today's debate. I hope that noble Lords will not be disappointed if I warn them not to expect too much from the current examination being made of this legislation. The object of that exercise is essentially to take stock of the latest position with a view to establishing what degree of consensus there might be for change. This is really the heart of today's debate. The debate in another place to which I have already referred has emphasised that, certainly in relation to Sunday trading, the lack of consensus is just as great as ever.
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It might be suitable to quote Voltaire at this juncture and to say, as Voltaire said, "Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien" or, to put in other words, we must be very careful we are not creating more problems than we are attempting to solve. Your Lordships contributions to the debate this afternoon, however, and the comments that may be provoked in the media and on the part of various organisations with interest in this field will help us to establish what degree of consensus there may be in relation to the question of closing hours. The Government will study your Lordships' speeches and other comments with attention. I think I hardly need to say, however, that the pressures on the Government's legislative programme do not permit me to offer any prospect that there could be Government legislation on this subject in the near future.
4.37 p.m.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I should like first to express my very real gratitude to those who have spoken this afternoon. The tone of this debate has shown a remarkable degree of like-thinking. The clock prevents me from taking up various points which have arisen from your Lordships' speeches. However, I was particularly interested in many of the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, who at one moment was, I thought, offering us freedom and then took it all away again. I do not agree that longer shopping hours will not increase trade. It is my belief that a greater opportunity for the family to shop together, with impulse buying, et cetera, will increase shopping. My noble friend Lady Macleod proved the success of the Scottish way of life, which has certainly not resulted in any harmful effects as envisaged by the noble Lord, Lord Jacques.
The noble Lord, Lord Harris, may be interested to see the pink paper to which the noble Lord the Minister referred which was prepared by USDAW for consideration, as I said, at their recent annual conference. It was passed by the conference and it advocates a more flexible approach to retail hours and the working week. USDAW's conference, which took place after the February debate in another place, gives me grounds for some optimism that the views of the consumer are prevailing.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, mentioned the village shops. A note passed to me just after he had spoken reads:
"We are now no longer able to get Sunday papers from our own local shop as, if they open one hour on a Sunday for this purpose, a girl has to be paid for not less than 8 hours at overtime rates, I believe".
Of course, if the shop could open legally to sell their usual wares, the owner could afford to pay the girl.
I must admit that I am disappointed, not to say depressed, by the negative tone of the Minister's speech. To quote, like my noble friend: "Plus ca change, plus c'est la même chose." This matter is not going to go away. I find it hard to accept that the Home Office is so loath to take the positive action which so many of us desire. But until the next time this subject reappears on the Order Paper in either House there is nothing I can do except to trip merrily down that primrose path with the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, hand in hand, and with as many other

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noble Lords as possible! I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

The Madrid Conference: East/West Trade
4.40 p.m.
Baroness Elles Baroness Elles rose to call attention to the delayed results of the Madrid Conference and the need for consideration of future guidelines for East/West trade; and to move for Papers.
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I beg to introduce the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. The wording of the Motion may have appeared confusing to some of your Lordships because it does not appear to fall into the neat categories of either trade or foreign affairs. Perhaps we have not looked closely enough or often enough at the relationship between trade and foreign policy, if there be any, and in particular in relation to the Helsinki Final Act, the interdependence of Basket 1, confidence-building measures, Basket 3, humanitarian provisions and Basket 2, economic and scientific co-operation. The failure of the Madrid Conference so far to reach any result or any consensus in a final statement has meant that there has been nothing said, in public at any rate, on the implementation of the proposals under Basket 2.
Perhaps it is as well to recall to your Lordships the first two objectives as stated in the Helsinki Final Act. I quote:
"The participating States,
'Convinced that their efforts to develop co-operation in the fields of trade, industry, science and technology, the environment and other areas of economic activity contribute to the reinforcement of peace and security in Europe and in the world as a whole,
'Recognising that co-operation in these fields would promote economic and social progress and the improvement of the conditions of life, …".
Those are the first two paragraphs which introduce Basket 2; but these intentions so far as the West is concerned were meant to be tied closely to the implementation of Baskets 1 and 3. In neither of these fields have we seen any evidence of any marked progress. There is continued and systematic violation of human rights, whether it be of dissidents or monitors of the Helsinki Agreement in the Soviet Union. There are still, let us remember, 85,000 Soviet troops in Afghanistan with apparently no intention of withdrawing, and there is still massive expenditure on defence and military equipment in the Soviet Union amounting to about 12 per cent. of GNP. As far as we are aware, there is no dramatic increase in the standard of living in East European countries, as was envisaged in the intention of this particular part of the Final Act.
From the facts available on East/West trade, admittedly not always easy to obtain because of the little or no information coming from Comecon countries—and here perhaps I might say that for the rest of my speech "Comecon" refers to the East European countries but excludes the three others, Cuba, Outer Mongolia and Vietnam—it would seem that it is the West which continues to trade regardless
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of human rights issues, and it is the East which pursues its commercial relations based on foreign policy interests. The reasons for these divergent attitudes are themselves different, of course. While trade for the East is part of its global policy, for the West trade is a matter largely of individual interest and judgment and is of commercial and financial consideration on an individual and not on a national or governmental basis.
So we have to look at it in various ways. First, any political decisions taken by Western Governments concerning trade policies must have the democratic approval of their electorates. The Soviet Union, as a state-controlled economy, has no such fetters on its decisions. There is no need, and indeed no forum, for debate of such issues. Secondly, in the West, while the European Community may attempt to evolve a common external commercial policy, this is frequently side-stepped by bilateral agreements either by individual member states or by private firms. It also includes investment by United States' firms through their European affiliates. I use the word "affiliates" in its broadest sense, and if anybody has read a fascinating book called Vodka Cola (and the title indicates what it is all about) they will see remarkable evidence of cross-investments by Western companies in Eastern European affairs.
Thirdly, it may be thought that the trade involved is minimal, but it has been growing steadily. I am afraid I shall have to bore your Lordships with one or two statistics, though not too many, I hope. Total East/West trade in 1970 was about 6 billion dollars, and by 1979 it was 64 billion dollars—remembering always that the human rights situation in the Soviet Union and in other Eastern European countries was very far from being improved. The United Kingdom's share of the total exports to the USSR was just under 1 per cent. in 1980 and imports were 1.5 per cent. But for the West as a whole it represents 5 per cent. of total exports and 3 per cent. of imports. However, the importance of East/West trade is not so much to the West as to Eastern countries, because 27 per cent. of Comecon exports go to the West and 39 per cent. of their imports come from the West.
Fourthly, much of the Western exports have been backed by low interest rate credits, which of course in themselves are competitive among Western nations. We all compete with our colleagues in the West to give credit backing for exports to Eastern European states in competition one with another. There is the differentiation between United States' interests, which are largely agricultural, in relation to Eastern countries; 80 per cent. of United States' exports are largely agricultural, whereas 80 per cent. of Western Europe's exports are manufacturing goods, plant, technology and equipment. So even if we tried and hoped to co-ordinate a consistent policy with the United States, which would indeed be in the overall interests of the West, we have to recognise at the outset that we do have divergent interests in this matter.
It is in this area of export sales of plant, technology and equipment that I should be most grateful for the consideration of my noble friend the Minister, who will be replying to this debate, because I know that he himself, in accordance with press statements, has been very active on behalf of United Kingdom interests, going to the German Democratic Republic and so on.

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I believe he is soon to go to Czechoslovakia with a trade delegation.
The form these agreements may take may bring advantages to our economy in the short term. I would ask the Minister: will they really prove to be so in the long term? In the short term, of course, employment is created and sustained and no one would disagree with that objective; but it is the nature of the contracts which give cause for concern, whether they be turnkey contracts, buy-back agreements, counter-purchase arrangements or straight barter arrangements. The effect of these types of contracts is to give away a built-in right to the purchaser to export back to the West, after a short period of delay, the goods originally manufactured here. I think we have seen this happening already in various other sectors of our industries, whether it be in textiles or shoes, in relation to our trading agreements with newly industrialised countries. We are now getting problems from Eastern countries of the dumping of textiles and shoes, and also relating to steel products from Comecon.
We have also a further difficulty in relation to Eastern European countries that we do not have with the NICs. The difficulty of monitoring these dumping allegations is reinforced by the lack of price systems in state-controlled economies, with low wage costs, strike-free labour and no direct way of estimating the cost of production. This is an area where pressure to provide private financial and commercial information within the framework of the Helsinki Agreement would be beneficial. The consequence of these contracts will be for the use of Western-originating plant for production and export to the West, so in the end causing further unemployment, if this danger is not recognised now.
Another aspect of our trade with Comecon concerns shipping contracts. They are also used to benefit Eastern European countries since they purchase goods cif and sell them fob, so guaranteeing contracts for their own ships. We in the West permit state-controlled agencies which make these arrangements, without having any reciprocal rights to establish similar agencies in Eastern Europe to look after our interests. There is not, to my knowledge, any Western equivalent in a Comecon country.
Another factor, but on which I do not wish to dwell and take up the time of your Lordships today, because it has already received much publicity in recent weeks, is the indebtedness of Comecon countries to the West, particularly in the case of Poland. There are, however, some questions which we should be putting to Her Majesty's Government in relation to security, in relation to finance and in relation to our European policies.
It has been pointed out in a recent publication by Mr. Vander Elst, called Capitalist Technology for Soviet Survival that the export of civilian technology undoubtedly helps the Soviet Union in its military and defence equipment, not only because of the concentration of expertise development in those fields, but also because most of the technology emanating from the West—for instance, in the field of electronics and transport, to name only two—contributes to defence technological production. We have only to look at the state of the Soviet chemical industry to see that it is the largest in Europe and the second in the world, which is very largely due to the input from the West.
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So that, even if the benefit is not immediate and instantaneous, it is so in the long term; and, of course, in the case of military and defence technology, is considerably assisted by industrial espionage.
We have to ask ourselves whether it can really be said that the nineteenth century belief in trade easing relationships and contributing to peace and democracy and a rise in the standard of living can be applied to the political development of the Soviet Union and other Comecon countries in the last few years. Indeed, it can be argued that the supply of Western technology—and, incidentally, agricultural products—on comparatively favourable terms contributes to the maintenance of these totalitarian regimes and to their political stability. I do not think that we should have any illusions that, by exporting to Eastern countries, we are helping to liberate the peoples of Eastern European regimes. There is, so far, no evidence whatsoever of that phenomenon, nice as it would be if it were true.
Following on the theme of Western commercial practice based on profit rather than on political objectives, the value of imposing embargoes by Western nations does not have the same force as an embargo imposed by a Comecon country, particularly the Soviet Union. We need only compare the effect of the grain embargo, when the Soviet Union immediately turned last year to other sources—to the Argentine, to India and other countries—for its shortfall. Indeed, the pressures by the US farmers on the American Government and the depression of the price of grain forced the present régime to lift the embargo; and the Community has also lifted the embargo. We in the Community also suffered from overfull stores of grain in intervention.
So any embargo on the sale of technology is immediately undermined by several other instances. I shall not go into the details of various sales of technological equipment and plant which have been going on during the last year regardless of any embargo. And still there are 85,000 troops in Afghanistan who have no apparent intention of withdrawing.
But if you consider the effect of the Soviet Union's embargo on the export of titanium in 1979, that was a very different matter. It had a very serious effect on electronics and related industries in the West, because, being a state-controlled economy, it is the state which decides and private interests do not intervene. The requirements of the West for certain raw materials for the maintenance of its economy puts a powerful weapon in the hands of the Soviet, and reinforces its determination to impose trade restrictions on South Africa—the only other major source of so many of these vital minerals. We only have to remember the statement made by Mr. Brezhnev some time ago, when he said:
"We wish to gain control over the treasures which, for the West, are a matter of life and death—the fuel of the Persian Gulf and the mineral resources of central and southern Africa."
The most recent development involving further dependence on the East is the sale of pipes, mainly by German firms, to bring natural gas from Siberia to Western Europe. Germany already depends on the Soviet for 15 per cent. of its natural gas and this is to be raised in the future, apparently, to somewhere around 30 per cent. While this, again, has immediate interest for the Federal Republic, particularly as it

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avoids to some extent the nuclear debate, it creates greater dependence on the East.
From these few thoughts, there may be some consideration of the following issues. First, we should not allow ourselves to become dependent on the Eastern trading bloc, either for energy supplies or for raw materials. Secondly, we should continue the development of energy resources from Western supplies, and ensure our supplies of raw materials from alternative sources; co-ordinate our credit policy within the European Community; recognise the comparative uselessness and ineffectiveness of trade embargoes; but work out some ways of exerting political leverage through our trade relations with Comecon.
Thirdly, we should be reviewing and possibly tightening up the Cocom list of sensitive products. As Churchill said, "I will not subsidise tyranny", and why should we? Fourthly, we should evaluate the policy of selling oil technology and equipment to the Soviet Union. Some will argue that a secure supply of oil to the Soviet Union really distracts its interest from the Persian Gulf, which is of strategic interest and concern to the West. Will an increase in oil supplies for the Soviet Union really stop it from putting on pressure in an area of the world in which the West has an interest? In conclusion we can say that we have the technology, we have the know-how, we have the ability and, apparently, we even have some brains. Must we throw them away at the expense of our own peace and security? My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
4.57 p.m.
Lord Banks: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Elles, for raising this important question this evening. Unfortunately, we have not heard very much from the noble Baroness over the last two years and the European Parliament's gain has been our loss. But I must say that it is very pleasant to be following her in debate again, as I did so often when she was speaking from the Opposition Front Bench. I hope she will forgive me if I do not confine my remarks to trade, but I hope to say a word about that before I finish.
The Motion draws attention to the delayed results of the Madrid conference and there certainly has been very great difficulty in reaching any agreement. That has undoubtedly been frustrating. Certainly, it has been disappointing, but hardly, I think, surprising. The Madrid conference has been dealing with important matters but, in a sense, it has been dealing with them at the fringe, at the periphery, of great power confrontation, and considering them against the background of an unpromising international situation: the heightening of tension following the invasion of Afghanistan; the recriminations about the modernisation of theatre nuclear forces; the delicate situation in Poland and the emergency of the new Reagan régime in America, with its hawkish stance. But there has been a question as to whether that hawkish stance will prove to be the same in practice—whether the rhetoric and the practice will match—and we are only now gradually finding out.
Undoubtedly, great-power relations have been soured and no one is quite sure how things will go. In these circumstances, it was perhaps unlikely that the
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Madrid conference would make much progress, and likely that it would be used largely as a means of exchanging propaganda. Even so, the holding of it provided another meeting ground for East, West and the non-aligned or neutral countries. It has kept the Helsinki Final Act before the 35 nations and, even though delaying tactics must have been very frustrating for those taking part, I believe it was worthwhile to hold it.
As the noble Baroness indicated, the conference has been concerned, among other things, with disarmament, but it is only one of the fora in which disarmament is being discussed and not the most important. There are the forthcoming talks on theatre nuclear forces which are to be held before the end of the year. We must hope that SALT 2 will eventually be ratified and that negotiations will begin on SALT 3. There are the deadlocked discussions in Vienna on mutual and balanced force reductions. There are the discussions in Geneva. There is to be the Special Session of the United Nations. So there is much talk about arms control. The Economist said recently that the Russians love to talk about arms control but are not so ready to do anything about it. I think that was a correct assessment of the situation.
The Madrid Conference has been dealing with confidence-building measures and it has had before it these two proposals: the rather vague proposal for a conference on the subject put forward by Poland and the more precise proposal, the French plan, put forward by France in association with the other members of the European Economic Community and eventually supported by the United States—a plan which called for a conference to be held to discuss confidence-building measures which would be obligatory and verifiable, which would extend from the Atlantic to the Urals and which would be followed, after a further review conference, by another conference which, as I understand it, would discuss reductions in armaments, although how that might impinge on the other conferences and negotiations I am not at all sure.
The Russians, of course, were unsympathetic to the extension of the amount of Russian territory included, from 155 miles inside the frontier to 1,600 miles, and hostile, as always, to the words "obligatory" and "verifiable", particularly "verifiable". That line of argument, we can say, was not justified but it was scarcely surprising. What was surprising was the Brezhnev speech while the conference was in progress which seemed to indicate that the Soviet Union was prepared for confidence-building measures to extend as far as the Urals, but still there was no commitment that these should be obligatory or verifiable.
The neutrals have made an effort at compromise. They have put forward a proposal for a conference which would cover confidence-building measures from the Atlantic to the Urals, including air and maritime space as well. And that would be obligatory and verifiable. It is coupled with humanitarian concessions: proposals for helping the reunification of families, helping family contacts, and so on. But human rights has been the casualty so far as these neutral proposals are concerned.
The West has made much play, I believe rightly, with the Eastern European failure to uphold the standards of the Helsinki Final Act. They have

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emphasised the position of the dissidents in Eastern European countries; they have emphasised the treatment of those monitoring the implementation of the Helsinki Declaration; and they have emphasised the plight of Soviet Jewry. So the conference has provided the opportunity to raise these important questions publicly.
The unpleasant fact, however, remains that the Soviet rulers and the West are never likely to agree on human rights. That is simply because they have a different concept of freedom. The only freedom that the Soviet leaders consider important is the freedom of the group, the freedom of the collective. To protect that freedom, the individual must accept a collective view. Dissidence is treachery. Deviation is treachery. That of course is a doctrine which is highly objectionable in our eyes. Nevertheless, we have to accept the fact that this is the doctrine to which the Soviet Union is committed. I believe, though, that they are undoubtedly influenced by world opinion in respect of particular cases and in respect, to some extent, of the overall severity of the repressive policy which they follow. But as to the rectitude of that policy there are no official Soviet doubts.
I believe that the West are right to raise these questions and to raise them strongly. It is right that we should check the Helsinki implementation at regular intervals. But I doubt whether it would be wise to forgo the possibility of progress on confidence-building measures because of violations of freedom, rightly condemned by the West, and because of an inability to agree to a form of words about future activities in the human rights field. Confidence-building measures are not a gain to the Russians alone. I believe that the Russians have implemented the provisions on confidence-building measures so far agreed. They have not implemented the measures agreed on human rights. There remains the great problem of verification, and that may prove an insuperable obstacle, but there is just a possibility that on confidence-building measures and on humanitarian measures some limited progress may even yet be made.
In conclusion, I should like to say a word about East/West trade to which the noble Baroness referred and in connection with which she raised some very interesting and important points. A powerful argument is built up—I do not want to suggest that the noble Baroness wholeheartedly supports this argument—against trade with Eastern Europe on the ground that it helps to prop up the Eastern régimes. Restriction of trade is regarded as a punishment for wrongdoing. Technology should not be given to the Eastern countries—this is a point on which the noble Baroness touched—because it helps them to improve their position, to become perhaps superior in the long run, and allows them to concentrate on defence the 12 per cent. per annum expenditure to which the noble Baroness referred.
I am not pretending that those are not powerful arguments. We should be foolish if we just swept them aside. But against those arguments may I say, first, in reply to a particular reference of the noble Baroness, that I still believe, with Cobden, that trade helps to cement peace and that the more nations cut themselves off in trade from others the more likely they are to find themselves in conflict with those others.
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Although I agree with the noble Baroness that of course trade with Eastern Europe does not—for the reasons which I have already outlined—solve our anxieties over human rights and is not likely to do so, nevertheless I think that it does help to some extent to open up a closed society.
There is next the question of oil technology to which the noble Baroness referred. It is likely that if we were to deny that technology to Russia we should make Russia more interested in Middle East oilfields and should be putting a pressure on oil supplies which might well have an effect on the world price of oil that might be very much to our disadvantage. It is, I believe, true that only one-third of the £10,000 million which was spent on machinery by Russia in 1979 came from the West. Although they might be much harder pressed without the West, the idea that the Russians could not exist and could not advance without the West is, I believe, untrue. I think it is unlikely, too, that the Russians would cut defence on economic grounds unless there were some very drastic decline in their economic position. In any event, the more parlous the Russian economy were to become, the more likely would dangerous and desperate measures become.
There is the whole question of to what extent we should in fact trade with any countries overseas and provide them with technology, and except in the military context I do not think that is peculiar to our relations with Eastern Europe. The Brandt Report suggests means of providing technology and of helping the development of the third world, but argues, too, that to do so would not in fact be against, but would be in favour of, the economic interest of the West. Of course there must be some restriction on exports to Russia and to Eastern Europe of those things which are of direct military value. That is common sense, and it may well be, as the noble Baroness suggested, that we need to have some revision of the guidelines in that respect. That said, I would welcome as liberal a trade policy as is possible towards Eastern Europe.
May I say in passing that I hope the present difficulties which appear to have arisen between Yugoslavia and the EEC with regard to beef imports will soon be solved in a manner satisfactory to both the EEC and to Yugoslavia. I think it is important that we should maintain and strengthen our ties with that country at this juncture.
To sum up, may I say that Madrid was disappointing and frustrating, but that was not surprising; it was peripheral and overshadowed by the world political situation. It was useful as a forum where the West could publicly condemn the violations of human rights which have breached the Helsinki Agreement, and the West must continue to speak out. But even now something may be agreed with regard to confidence-building measures and humanitarian provisions. The state of relations between the West and the East depends not so much on conferences—although they play their part—but on the assessment that the great powers and the NATO and Warsaw powers make of each other's intentions. In my view the West must maintain its defences, seek and seek again for agreement on the crucial question of arms control, and must pursue as far as possible a trade policy towards the East which is both prudent and liberal.
5.13 p.m.
Lord Brockway: My Lords, I join with the noble Lord, Lord Banks, in expressing appreciation to the noble Baroness, Lady Elles, for having initiated this debate. I particularly welcome her reference to East/West trade although I shall take a different view from hers. I regard the chapter in the Helsinki Agreement dealing with economic co-operation as being the most important as a contribution to bringing about better relations between East and West. It discussed proposals for common action at the frontiers, joint power stations, transport by air, land and water. Integrate economies in that way and the danger of war becomes much less.
Since the Helsinki Agreement there has been considerable development in economic co-operation. There have been 30 agreements on economic arrangements between Western Europe and the Soviet Union, and between 1976 and 1979 Soviet Union trade with Western Europe increased by 62.5 per cent. Those were considerable contributions towards economic integration. My regret is that the Madrid Conference has not discussed economic co-operation to a greater degree.
As the noble Lord, Lord Banks, said, most of the time of the Madrid Conference has been spent on the two issues of human rights and proposals for a disarmament conference. There can be no Member of this House who feels more deeply about human rights than I do. First, the right to live. There are 800 million people in the world on the border of death, according to Robert McNamara of the World Bank. When physical needs have been met, the freedom of personality, the freedom to express one's thoughts in writing, in speech, in every way, this is the very essence of a human society. I take this view so strongly that I have indicated that I am not prepared to go to the Soviet Union on the invitation of its Government while it treats its dissidents in the way that it does. But it is not only the Soviet Union. According to the survey of the United Nations, 82 countries are persecuting their oppositions, often by torture, and I am afraid I shall have to extend my boycott rather further than the Soviet Union.
There was very great danger that the Madrid Conference would break down on the issue of human rights. It was saved at the beginning only by the proposals of the unaligned nations. I never like to use the word "hypocrisy" about my political opponents, but I am compelled to say that there is now an immoral inconsistency in the attitude of the American Government towards human rights. At Madrid, there was denunciation of the Soviet Union for denying human rights; in other parts of the world the Reagan Government has thrown over the Carter Administration's convictions about human rights. Instead, because of its fear of communism and its desire for allies against the Soviet Union, it subordinates human rights and seeks alliance even with dictators who repress liberties as severely as the Soviet Union itself.
This was very well expressed only this week by a Reagan candidate for the State Department before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He said:
"The United States must back its friends and allies even if their human rights records are imperfect".
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As The Times remarked in its editorial on the Madrid Conference on 10th November,
"nobody is above criticism. Britain's record on human rights is not perfect".
The editorial referred particularly to our actions in relation to migration, and no one can say that the treatment of coloured persons in this country under the immigration Acts reflects human rights.
I want to urge that the best way to influence the Soviet Union towards better treatment of its dissidents is by contact and through economic co-operation. The Final Act adopted at Helsinki emphasised particularly respect for human relations. Even in this respect the Helsinki Act has had some influence in the Soviet Union. I am informed that 15,000 Soviet citizens have married foreigners since the Helsinki Act and that 10,500 have gone to live in other countries. In 1978 31,000 people left the USSR. Only 2 per cent. of those who applied for permanent residence in other countries were refused. Therefore, the action taken at Helsinki, continuing in Madrid and, I hope, to be maintained, is influencing the Soviet Union.
But, my Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Banks, said, it is not only the issue of human rights which can be helped by co-operation. It is also removal of fear and of war between East and West. The noble Lord, Lord Banks, has described in detail the French proposal for a disarmament conference, and I need not repeat what he said. There were other proposals before Madrid of a more drastic character, which I would have liked to see adopted. There is now real hope that the French proposal will be agreed to by both sides. The Soviet Union has agreed to extend observation and information about manoeuvres across the whole of Europe as far as the Urals. While the French proposals are very limited indeed, one hopes in other directions—next year the renewed United Nations conference on disarmament—that by parallel methods much deeper and more thorough measures may be adopted.
My Lords, I say in conclusion that there is one other reason why we hope the Madrid Conference will succeed. There is a danger still of it breaking down, but one hopes again that the draft document of the unaligned nations may save it. The additional reason for desiring that it shall continue is the Spanish proposal for an international agreement to combat terrorism. This proposal has been received at Madrid with extraordinary sympathy, perhaps deepened by the recent attempt to assassinate the Pope. I cannot mention the Pope without saying that one hopes that this great voice for peace in the world may recover and that he may be able to continue his contributions to ending conflicts between peoples. I believe that the maintenance of the Helsinki Conference, the strengthening of it and all that it stands for, will help the purpose for which he has so often spoken.
5.24 p.m.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, I cannot begin without echoing Lord Brockway's words about the recent atrocious attempt on the life of the Pope. I should like also to join myself in what Lord Banks said in welcoming Lady Elles's presence among us today, and to repeat how much we are indebted to her for raising the subject. I should also like to betray at this stage

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a shade of disappointment that we learn from what she said that discussion of the matter was not much further forward in the European Parliament recently than it was when I left two years ago. I shall return to that point in a moment.
It is fashionable, though it has not occurred today, to pull a long face about the Madrid Conference because of its apparent slowness, an attitude reflected perhaps in the phraseology of the Motion itself, which speaks of "the delayed results of the Madrid Conference". It is disappointing because we all want instant peace and improvement from every conference that ever meets. But, in fairness, it must be said that the whole Helsinki-Belgrade-Madrid series of East/West contacts in Europe has been no slower to produce results than any other series of contacts between East and West. Such things are by their nature horribly slow, horribly cumbrous and horribly uncertain. I would give the Madrid Conference, relative to others of the same sort, a rather clean bill of health as regards the speed at which the results are coming forward, as outlined by Lord Brockway and Lord Banks. I do not need to repeat what they have said in praise of the positive aspects.
It is a pity—as I think we can see now as the year has gone by—that the Helsinki Conference itself was not allowed to consider arms control in the full meaning of the word, only the peripheral issue of confidence-building measures. This, I think, was one of the few but obvious mistakes made by that outstanding Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, when he allowed the Russians to succeed in closing off the area of arms control from the Helsinki conference and putting it elsewhere. We have only to look and see what has happened to it elsewhere to realise how much we may have lost through its exclusion from Helsinki, and Belgrade and later Madrid. It is now being considered in the talks on mutual and balanced force reduction in Vienna, which are and always were, I fear we must admit, doomed to failure because they gathered the wrong countries to consider the wrong area and the wrong types of weapons. Hungary is excluded for no apparent reason, and the talks cover only Central Europe, except Russia—they do not cover any part of Russian soil—and only conventional forces and not nuclear forces. Each one of those three things singly would doom the talks to failure and all three together do so very clearly.
Arms control is also talked about in SALT. One could debate for hours about the reasons for the present breakdown of the SALT series of negotiations, but it is clear that they have broken down. I think I shall have to differ from my noble ally Lord Banks in so far as he hoped to see a speedy resumption of SALT. The Russians will not resume in that form until SALT 2 is ratified, and I fear it is now clear that we must accept that the Reagan administration, the present Congress, is not going to ratify SALT 2, and that is that. It is a question now of great ingenuity and forbearance on both sides among the super powers to find a new formula within which they can discuss strategic arms limitation. I hope not to make anything more difficult for them in their world-saving approach to this task by suggesting that they may find it easier, not harder, if other countries are allowed to sit beside them. It is one world; the world belongs to all of us and not only to the super powers.
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We then have the recent undertaking from the new Secretary of State, Mr. Haig, to seek to open talks with the Soviet Union before the end of this year on what are called "theatre" weapons. We can only wish that enterprise the very greatest good fortune and the speediest good fortune. But it would again perhaps not be sensible to refrain from noting that it will cover only a very limited field—certain types of nuclear weapons which are liable to fall on Europe—and noting that the use of the word "theatre" in the very title of the proposed negotiations is perhaps not a happy augury. The opposite of "theatre" is supposed to be "strategic". Europe is strategic to us; we live there. Anything that falls on one is strategic to one, whoever one is. Europe is strategic to Europeans. "Theatre nuclear weapons" on the other hand suggests something that will not fall on you, whoever you are, but which you can watch from the transatlantic stalls. The very use of the word is a hostage to fortune because it is likely to provoke an unfortunate political reaction. In Western Europe it has already done so and will increasingly do so.
The safest way to go about this—and here I address myself primarily to the Government—is for the British Government to be able gradually to wean the nations away from the use of the distinction between "theatre" and "strategic" and talk only about weapons systems of given performance characteristics, and every time to name the system so that people can look it up. What matters is what it will do, not where it is or who it is pointed at. You can never tell where it will be or who it is pointed at. You can tell what it will do, so let us call them talks about weapons having a range of more than such-and-such and an explosive capacity of more than such-and-such. That is the way to define weapons categories.
Both noble Lords who spoke just before me have praised the French proposal of confidence-building measures from the Atlantic to the Urals in a familiar French phrase—a phrase which is at last echoed in Moscow. It must be clear that, although the measures themselves are a very small thing compared with the real arms control that we want, the area is right at last and the countries to be concerned are right at last—that is, all the European countries and the addition of the United States and Canada, where relevant. This is a bold proposal. Although shallow in effect it is broad in the proposed area of that effect. For that reason it is a very hopeful one.
There is, of course, an extremely delicate matter to be surmounted; namely, that at about the same time as Mr. Brezhnev began for the first time to refrain from brushing aside proposals to do anything binding or militarily significant as far as the Urals, he raised the possibility of a claim to do the very same things to the same distance into the United States and Canada. On the one hand one may say, "Why not?—this is a most reasonable counter-proposal. If we proposed to look or to have a view of some sort of military activities in the Soviet Union as far as the Urals, it is only right that they should have a corresponding view 1,600 miles into North America". However, against that there is the fact that this would extend the proposal from a European proposal and would make it into a European/North Atlantic proposal. This would in some sense legitimate the historical claim of the Soviet Union to be a world power, but not a European power

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in the same sense as other European powers have claimed; the legitimisation of which would want watching very carefully. It depends on the context.
I turn to the second part of the Motion, about East/West trade. I said at the beginning of my remarks that I was disappointed. Three and two years ago made an attempt to write a meaningful report for the External Economic Relations Committee of the European Parliament on precisely this matter. My attempt came to nothing because it was so clear that the member nations were all at sixes and sevens in the extent to which they were prepared to control companies based in their own countries. The disarray was such that it seemed more tactful to me and to those of my party group that attention should not be drawn to it. It was as simple as that. I expect that the noble Baroness, Lady Elles, will confirm that that is still the situation. This is not a form of debate where the noble Baroness can say very much at the end, but perhaps she could touch on the question of whether there is a ray of hope coming out of the European Parliament towards the European Council of a uniform system of control of the following factors, because it is not everything that we want to control.
Of course, I do not think that anybody would ever wish to restrict trade as such with a given country because of the nature of its régime, unless one was at war with that country. Having said that, I think that one wants to look at the other side and say that it is not trade which, in itself, will liberalise a tyrannical régime. Why should it? The liberalising effect of trade with a tyranny arises from the number of merchants, exporters, importers and people who render services in one way or another—the number of people who go with it and the freedom with which they are allowed to wander around the territory of tyranny. I suspect that at the moment the number of people who are allowed to go with our trade into Russia and to go into Russia to obtain Russian exports to us, is not as big as one would like it to be, and they do not have as much freedom as we would like them to have if they are really ever to achieve the social effect so rightly outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Banks.
There are two particular points in my view of the many which could be seized, which I should like to mention. First, there is the phenomenon of the turnkey factories built by western multinationals. It does not matter whether it was Fiat who did it 20 years ago or ICI who did it just the other day. If those factories result in a presence—I do not say that they will be flooded—on West European markets of the same product which is made in the West by the same firm, but at a lower price because wages are lower in Eastern Europe, then it is absurd; it is almost silly and tragic that the Governments of those West European countries cannot agree on how to regulate and reduce that phenomenon. It ought to be regulated and reduced. We must find a way of doing it. It obviously can only be done through the machinery of the European Community.
Again it is a fact, whatever one may think ought to be done about it, that in giving favourable credit terms to the Soviet Union we liberate great tranches of their own real wealth for alternative application. The alternative application is within their sole national
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decision, and if we were not liberating tranches of their own wealth for them they might choose to devote less of it to their military build-up. That would only be good fortune for us; I do not think that it would be ill fortune for them either.
The right course to take to ensure this effect is extremely difficult and will depend of course on Cocom which has a chequered history and which is a cumbrous instrument. It could also depend in future on some European Community machinery. I am not against that. It is hard to define. I do not think that one could make any rule which would obtain even intellectual assent in this Chamber, let alone which would obtain political assent among the nations of the West in the foreseeable future. But we are conferring an unasked-for benefit on the Soviet Union. In many respects I have a subjective feeling that it would be better to stop doing that and to confer corresponding benefits on poorer countries which are our friends and which are making a shot at freedom and democracy.
5.39 p.m.
Lord Auckland: My Lords, my noble friend Lady Elles has opened this important debate with a characteristically cogent and apposite speech. I shall make my own brief remarks in relation to trade because, as my noble friend rightly said, the Madrid Conference itself has hardly been made very public. What will happen as regards the future of the conference is anybody's guess. Divergent opinions which inevitably exist between countries should not always be counter-manded by trade embargoes, always provided that the principles of business etiquette are observed on both sides, notably in the realm of finance and delivery dates.
At this juncture I should like to pay a tribute to our embassies in Eastern Europe which, very often under considerable difficulties, help people who go out on trade missions. There is one question which I should like to ask my noble friend, of which I have given him very short notice. It is certainly relevant to the second part of this Motion. It concerns the mysterious reason why one can dial direct to Prague and to Bratislava and yet not to Bucharest. So if any aspiring British businessman wants to make a direct call to the Romanian capital, the business of getting through is extremely difficult. I do not know whether my noble friend has any means of finding out why this anomaly exists and whether anything will be done about it, particularly in view of the subject that we debated yesterday.
I have visited both Romania and Czechoslovakia. I visited Romania on a trip organised by their state airline, Tarom, on which a number of parliamentarians, one or two people from the CBI and a number of travel writers went, mainly as an exercise in publicising tourism. We were certainly very well hosted. But when I asked why Romanian tourists were not at least encouraged to come to this country, the answer was rather non-commital. I think that the whole basis of this question is as to how the COMECON countries will behave, if I may put it that way, in their attitude towards allowing their nationals to visit this country, bearing in mind that they are all crying out for tourism, and indeed, exports to their own countries.

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As my noble friend Lady Elles said, it is very difficult to get precise figures about exports to some of these countries, although I have with me a very elaborate document from the Romanian chemical industry. According to figures which I have here, the 1981 to 1985 prospects of the development of the chemical industry exporting overseas shows an average growth rate of 5.8 per cent. to 9.5 per cent. In that connection when the Premier of Romania recently visited this country and had talks with our Prime Minister and with other Ministers, some of the figures contained in the Romanian journals were pointed out so that our own exporters could get more of a look in the door.
My noble friend has already mentioned the question of dumping, particularly of shirts and shoes. I discussed this quite recently with a Romanian official and he said that measures had been taken to counteract this. Whether or not that is the case, I do not know. But, if we are to encourage this trade, I hope that our construction industry and other industries which could operate particularly in Romania and, to a lesser extent, in Czechoslovakia could be given more encouragement. Of course, much of the encouragement must come from the host Government. A great deal of valuable work has been done by at least one of our large construction companies in the Danube basin. Is this still going on? Is our construction industry, which is on a down-turn at the moment, in a position to work in these countries, always provided that it gets the proper reward for it? It is no use working in these countries if there is no proper currency exchange.
The need to trade in this country is, of course, foremost and it has been said that trade with the COMECON countries will help to solve such grievous problems as human rights and will bring better relations. It is being a little idealistic to think that this will be the case in the short term. If it is so in the long term, fine.
In recent years we have had the visit of President Ceausescu of Romania, whom I have met, and a number of Ministers of both Governments have visited Romania. The other day I tabled a Question to my noble friend asking what was discussed when the Romanian Prime Minister visited this country, and he gave me, as far as possible, a very full Answer. I hope that the Government will consider very carefully the replies which the Prime Minister gave, particularly in the context of British trade and British exports having favourable terms. Are these terms as favourable as they might be? Therefore, I conclude by saying that this has been a valuable debate. Romania has closer links with the West than certainly most of the other COMECON countries, and this is important, but it must be established that the trade is on a two-way basis as regards proper funding and financing.
5.49 p.m.
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: My Lords, I, too, should like to express my indebtedness to the noble Baroness, Lady Elles, for introducing this very interesting subject. It is a pity that it is a short debate because the whole question of the relationship between commercial policy and political strategy is an interesting theme and might be looked at in an even broader context than East/West trade.
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I wish to declare my special interest in this matter because for many years I have been engaged in East/West trade. Indeed the bank which is good enough to employ me is probably the major bank when it comes to arranging credits to Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in order to facilitate the purchase of goods from this country. It might therefore be said that I have some special interest in expanding East/West trade, but I can assure your Lordships that my concern for the expansion of East/West trade does not diminish my deep concern for human rights and the establishment of a peaceful relationship between East and West. Indeed, it could be said that I regard the development of trade between East and West as a contributory factor to these ends.
It might be worth while looking at East/West trade to see what kind of goods are involved. A good deal has been said about the possibility of dumping and buy-back arrangements which will flood Western Europe, and Britain in particular, with goods from the Soviet Union. The total value of imports into this country from the Soviet Union last year was £786 million. Of that £786 million a large element took the form of raw materials such as timber, diamonds, and things of that kind. There is no measurable impact by goods exported from the Soviet Union into this country which would normally be supplied from domestic sources.
Even if one applied a trade embargo on exports to the Soviet Union I assume that we would still require to import timber, diamonds and certain other materials into this country. All that would happen is that there would be an even greater imbalance in our trade with the Soviet Union in so far as the imports into this country amount to £786 million whereas exports from this country amount to only £455 million.
Reference has been made to the fact that this trade has been increasing over the past few years. I can tell your Lordships that the reason why there has been an increase in the figures, is simply that we are catching up with the boom years of 1976 and 1977, when we did rather well with Russian contracts which are only now being fulfilled because they were for major projects. The number of contracts which have been concluded with the Soviet Union in the past two years has been diminishing; there has actually been a reduction in our trade with the Soviet Union which will be reflected in the figures two or three years from now. This is due to two factors. The noble Baroness, Lady Elles, said rightly that the Russians frequently inject political considerations into their commercial arrangements, but it has also been due to the fact that the strong pound made British exports rather less attractive.
A great deal has been said about credit arrangements for trade between the United Kingdom and Russia. It is true that the British Government borrow at a fairly high rate in the domestic market and export at a reasonably low rate to countries which enjoy the facilities of the Export Credits Guarantee Department. I am not sure that I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, who said that this was an unasked benefit. Let me tell the noble Lord, as someone who has sat on the other side of the table in dealing with the Russians and discussing major contracts, that it is not an unasked benefit. It is in fact a benefit that is available from

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most other countries, and in dealing with Russia and in offering her one's goods one must match the credit terms offered by some of our European partners—particularly France, who are about to review their export credit terms which are at present slightly below ours. In other countries, such as Germany, there is no such subsidy simply because the domestic interest rates there are substantially lower than ours and therefore there is no differential in offering credit terms at the domestic rates.
So far as the Americans are concerned, the EXIM Bank is not permitted to offer credit terms but invariably American companies with subsidiaries abroad manage to provide plant to the Soviet Union within the credit terms of the country in which such subsidiaries exist. While it is true that trade is subsidised by these arrangements, it is also subsidised to all other countries which apply export credit guarantee terms and there is no specific preference for East/West trade.
It has also been said that the main area of Russian purchases in the foreseeable future will be in the field of energy. The large contract to take gas supplies from Siberia to Germany is a massive contract; the development of the Baku oilfield and the development of the Barents Sea all provide opportunities for British exports which I hope we shall not neglect. We have been developing, particularly in the North of Scotland, a capacity to operate oil exploration in the very hostile waters of the North Sea and we have developed the technology which makes that possible. I hope that technology can be offered to the Russians because if the Russians produce more oil and gas from their domestic resources, obviously there will be less pressure on world energy supplies and this should be a contributory factor in reducing tension and perhaps prices.
If there is one thing that one can be assured of in dealing with the Russians it is that they behave correctly and punctiliously in meeting their obligations. If one looks at world trade in general, I believe one can say that, whether or not one approves of the Soviet Union's ideology, the Soviet Government is there and it is stable. The Russians' behaviour in respect of all commercial contracts concluded over the years has shown a record of regular and punctilious observance of their obligations.
The buy-back has caused a great deal of concern to many people in this country, and indeed this has been expressed in this House today. In the case of the ICI contract, to which the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, referred, the terms of the contract are that Davy provide the plant and ICI supply the technology, and ICI buy-back the methanol for which they have a ready market. It is a market that suits the commercial activities of ICI and does not diminish the prospects of employment in this country. All such contracts are judged on that basis. They are all strictly commercial.
By the same token, GKN declined to pursue the biggest contract that was ever offered by the GDR simply because the buy-back provisions would have diminished substantially the employment prospects for their people of this country. In that particular case the French plant suppliers gave the necessary assurances covering buy-back and that is now causing them immense embarrassment in view of the present decline of the motor-car industry in France. Companies
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which engage in bartering and buy-back provisions try to do so within solid and sound commercial considerations. The possibility of applying on our part any embargo or limitations on Soviet trade would be meaningless. We could make no unilateral gesture which would be of any use.
Yesterday's Financial Times reported a substantial new trading agreement between Brazil and the Soviet Union, by which the Soviet Union provides certain turbines to Brazil to develop their hydro-electric power in return for materials from Brazil. The world market is Russia's market, and we cannot make a gesture, even together with our European friends, that would make any contribution to achieving the ends which we might wish to see: the liberalisation of the Soviet State and the greater observance of personal freedom.
The experience of other countries of trying to observe even trade embargoes with small countries like Rhodesia, for example, proved how difficult it is to do that kind of thing even if it were desirable. Inevitably, because we are democracies in the West, it is extremely difficult to get uniformity of policy, and it is not likely to be achieved. In the case of some of our European partners the Russian trade is even more important, as the noble Baroness, Lady Elles, has said. It is more important to the Germans than it is to us. If you cannot get uniformity in credit terms—and we have tried to do that over the years—it is extremely difficult to achieve uniformity in refusal to supply certain goods.
I agree that it would be a nonsense if we did not apply the Cocom rules with regard to military supplies. But we might consider applying the same kind of limitations on military supplies to other countries as well. So, let us look at this realistically. In terms of employment, and particularly in the heavy engineering industry of this country, Russian trade and the development of East/West trade is very important. I do not believe that you should sacrifice principles at all times for commercial considerations. If I felt that any trade embargo would make any contribution to the achievement of world peace, or to the liberalisation of the Soviet régime, I would consider that seriously. But because I do not see that possibility, I think that we should simply face the fact.
Indeed, as I said at the outset, I believe that the development of trade relationships with Eastern Europe could be a contributory factor to opening up closed societies. I think we are in great danger in the West of regarding the present East/West relationship as a static relationship in which we are always bound to be opposed to the other country and we build up our military and our psychology accordingly. The peace of the world depends on our ability to break down that barrier between East and West, and I would hope that trade relationships might be one device in that direction.
6.3 p.m.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Elles, for having introduced this Motion. I hope she will forgive me if I say that it was couched in such general terms that one had to be prepared for all contingencies. As she herself indicated it is partly a matter of foreign policy and partly a matter of trade. I gathered from

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the general tenor of her remarks that in so far as East/West trade was concerned she was generally agin it. She seemed to me to want to circumscribe it by such conditions, and had such suspicions of it, that she rather thought it would be better for us, and probably better for future relations in the world, if we did not undertake it at all. I do not wish to exaggerate that, but I think on reflection she will probably agree that that was her general attitude.
At the same time, she expressed the undoubted fact that it had been difficult within the European Community to get an agreed formula of dealing with what at any rate appears to her to be a considerable problem. The reason for that, of course, is not far to see, because it is clear from the material that is provided by the European Council itself that the various countries in the EEC trade with considerably varying results with the Eastern countries generally. Germany, for example, even excluding her trade with the Democratic Republic, has a sum of 2,000 million U.S. dollars trade surplus with the East; France has a surplus of some 663 million dollars with the East generally, and surpluses are also run by Belgium as well. It is Italy, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark and Ireland that in fact run trade deficits with the East.
I am bound to say that while she was talking on the question of our exports to the Eastern states as though they were the only factor, and expressing some doubts as to whether they might have a more beneficial effect on those régimes and therefore bolster up régimes of which we did not approve, she must have forgotten that so far as the United Kingdom is concerned the boot is on the other leg altogether, because in 1979 our imports from the USSR alone exceeded our exports by some £460 million. Indeed, in 1980 the figure was £367 million. So there must be a lot of trading organisations and interests in this country, covering the fields so admirably put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, which find it extremely convenient to import goods from the USSR, let alone from the remainder of the Eastern states.
I start from the standpoint so admirably expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Banks, who said that the expansion of trade helps to open up a closed society. Those are views with which I wholly associate myself, and I suspect that Her Majesty's Government largely agree with that. The more contact, the more commercial and industrial interchange there is between East and West, the better it is. Of course, there are difficulties, and many noble Lords have touched on them. We complain, I think with some justification, that the attitude of the Eastern states is generally hostile to the whole concept of multilateral trading as we see it. But it is important to note that there has been some progress.
In the period from 1947 until, approximately, 1957 the Eastern states rejected both the principle of multilateral trading and also the institutions by means of which it was carried out; the institutional structure. The next stage was that they approved in principle of the idea, but rejected the institutions by which it was to be accomplished. But, more recently, they have given acceptance to both the principles and the institutions. The difficulty as yet is that they have not translated their acceptance of the principles and
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institutions into practice, but there has been some progress.
The principal difficulty arising from East/West trade stems from the very structures themselves. We in the Western world are accustomed to dealing one firm with another across national boundaries. In the Eastern states the trade, both import and export, is done in the main by special state corporations with which individuals from Western states have to make contact, and it is only at a later stage, if at all, that contact is made right down to the eventual consumer or the consumer organisation.
That is all very strange to us and of course it presents considerable difficulties; whereas under multi-lateral trade there is a certain consumer response within the economy—the consumer ultimately tends to determine the nature of production—in the Eastern states that consideration does not arise. Although the state government itself may have to be sensible in the broad and general sense of what is required by the consumer, it does not have to obey their demands. That gives a certain sterility to all East/West trade, and that is why it is, I think, largely confined, at any rate for the time being, to very large capital projects that do not have any immediate consumer impact.
The whole question of dumping by Eastern states has been mentioned. As the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, indicated, the incidence of this are comparatively minor in relation to the total volume of East/West trade, and I would point out in passing that, from the United Kingdom point of view, one would like to hear more complaints about dumping from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea and Brazil, because if any question of dumping is to arise to an extent that causes significant unemployment in the United Kingdom, it most certainly derives from that corner rather than from the Eastern states.
Another factor which is bound to have an effect on East/West trade—this has been emphasised by practically every speaker in the debate—lies in the different political attitudes and philosophies as between East and West. That is bound to have an effect on the whole climate within which multiple transactions take place. When considering the situation in relation to trade with the Eastern states, which of course exclude Cuba and China, I am often puzzled why there should be a polarisation of those particular Eastern states as defined, because if it is on the basis of ideological principle, I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Elles, that the Chinese Republic is more Marxist than the Soviet Union and the Eastern states will ever be.
Baroness Elles: My Lords, I established the debate on the basis of the signatories to the Helsinki Final Act, and it was for that sole reason that I confined it to the 35 states, and not for any other reason, other than the one the noble Lord has already raised.
Lord Bruce of Donington: I am grateful to the noble Baroness and I take the point, my Lords, and I am simply issuing a slight warning; namely, that when East/West relations are under review, it is perhaps wise to bear in mind that there is another significant part of the world which is more Marxist than the Soviet Union and its satellites and which falls in due course to be taken into account.

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Most speakers have raised the question of human rights and the subject was raised in the most significant and moving terms by my noble friend Lord Brockway, who for over 75 years, for three-quarters of a century, has been fighting for human rights in all parts of the world, whatever the political philosophies of the states concerned. I share his view that it is a vital subject in the present perilous state in which the world finds itself, with the East/West confrontation which has become so much of our daily fare that we begin to take it for granted. Anything that can help to lessen the tension, which holds such grave and disastrous possibilities for mankind, must be pursued as vigorously as possible.
My noble friends and I are convinced that the development of trade between East and West, however gradually that can be accomplished, is one way of biting step by step, little by little, into the tensions that are so menacing to all mankind. For that reason the development of trade is of the utmost significance. Goods and people cross frontiers. The more that trade develops, the more mutual interdependence develops between all countries of the world; the more they can trade with one another, the more thereby they become progressively dependent upon one another. That provides perhaps only the tiny beginnings of the precarious cement that may, in the passage of time, help to dissipate many of the antagonisms which exist today. Our attitude therefore should surely be to bear in mind that all the countries of the world are at differing stages of development. My late friend Aneurin Bevan used to say, "Never forget", speaking of other countries, "that they stand where once we stood", and it is true that we in the United Kingdom have far greater experience of parliamentary democracy than probably any other country in the world. Therefore, it is up to us not to adopt a policy of continued stridency towards those remaining parts of the world with which we disagree. Stridency in the other place, or in your Lordships' House, when arguing political matters, is quite another question, because it is undertaken within a context that we all understand. But in international relations it is far better to take a stance of patience, of pliancy, to give every kind of understanding to those in other parts of the world who, by virtue of their geography, tradition, and entire history, cannot always think the same as we do. We must be patient.
We must also take into account the question of language. As I have found, and as no doubt the noble Baroness, Lady Elles, has found in Europe, when words are translated from one language to another they do not always retain exactly the same meaning. We must remember that the language of the Russians is essentially an imperative and harsh language. Perhaps it would be best if all international conversations were to take place in French; but that is not a possibility.
Therefore, I hope that when we come to consider the whole question of East/West trade we should continue to exercise the same kind of patience as was exercised by my noble friend Lord Goronwy-Roberts in the conference of Belgrade and by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, in arriving at the settlement in Rhodesia. We should continue with patience and with pliancy, without in any way diminishing our resolve to stand for, and to continue to put forward, those ideals of
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human liberty and human freedom to which we all aspire, and which we are all trying to perfect.
6.22 p.m.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, in opening this most timely debate my noble friend Lady Elles raised a number of general questions about British trade policy. I do not think that anyone would dispute the fact that as a nation we live by trade. Overseas trade amounts to 30 per cent. of our gross domestic product—more than the comparable figure for any other major country. The exchange of goods is generally of benefit to both the supplier and the buyer and, as your Lordships will know, the British Government attach high priority to the efforts by British firms to win contracts in overseas markets.
Our trade with the Soviet Union, for example, has more than doubled in value terms since 1975. In that year our total trade turnover was just over £600 million. In 1980 the total was over £1.2 billion. Over the same period trade with Eastern European countries similarly showed a steady and significant expansion. In 1975 United Kingdom trade with the Soviet Union's CMEA allies totalled about £660 million. In 1980 that total had risen to over £1.1 billion. Although, as my noble friend has said, the United Kingdom's trade with those countries amounts to about only 2 per cent. of our world trade, it is a valuable source of orders for a number of key sectors of British industry, notably process plant and engineering. These are difficult markets, but the Government hope that British companies will continue to find mutually advantageous business in the Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe in the coming years.
However, I have to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, that the underlying trend in trade with the Soviet Union over the past two years or so is a little disquieting. Very few major contracts have been signed in that period, but we are now entering a new 5-year planning period and we would expect major Soviet purchases to pick up in the near future.
But trade with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe involves questions of a rather wider nature. In East/West trade I believe that our definition of mutual advantage requires more careful scrutiny than in the case of our trading relationships with the western and developing worlds. Mutual advantage itself is an imprecise term. In the East/West context the major additional factor in our interpretation of the term is that the development of commercial relations can be of political benefit if it encourages the Soviet Union to adopt a more constructive, and less antagonistic, attitude. In that sense East/West trade is a part of the strategic equation.
There is a further constraining element in successive Governments' interpretation of mutual advantage. It is that in partnership with our allies we have for many years restricted the sale of strategically sensitive technology to the Soviet Union and other communist countries in order to prevent the application of our exports to military ends. The Co-ordinating Committee, known as Cocom, (to which several noble Lords referred) which consists of a number of western countries and which was set up in the 1950s, has strict criteria for exports in this field to the Soviet Union.

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With those provisos in mind, it is clear that trade with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe cannot develop in a vacuum, irrespective of the general state of East/West relations. I believe that our exporters understand this. The Government take the view that it is for British exporters to determine whether, and to what extent, they should become involved in selling into the Soviet Union and Eastern European markets. We provide a full range of Government support for their activities in terms of export promotion. I recently took a mission to East Germany at the time of the Leipzig Fair. We recognise the need to keep the inter-governmental machinery, which has been established for British commercial relationships with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, in good repair, so that our exporters do not operate at an unnecessary disadvantage in comparison with their Western competitors. Noble Lords may be aware that to that end the next meeting of the Anglo/Soviet Joint Commission on economic and technological co-operation will be held in London from 27th to 29th May.
My noble friend Lady Elles, and I think certain other noble Lords, made reference to the economic measures that the Government applied in concert with our western partners after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. I think that it is important to be quite clear in our own minds about the intention behind these actions. In January 1980 we took specific economic measures in the fields of credit and sensitive technology, which we still maintain. Credit is now available only on a case-by-case basis, at rates in line with the international consensus; and we have tightened up the application of the Cocom controls on sensitive technology, about which I spoke a moment ago. The purpose of these measures was to give concrete expression to our strong disapproval of the Soviet action and to demonstrate that any similar Soviet acts of aggression in the future would meet with a western response which would not be confined to diplomatic moves.
The British Government and other western Governments have made it clear that a Soviet invasion of Poland, for example, would require us to respond with measures in the political and economic fields. Western countries have shared the view that the Polish situation must be left for the Poles themselves to resolve. Any Soviet attempt to intervene will meet with a common and united response. That has, we believe, demonstrated to the Soviet authorities the dangers and disadvantages of intervention.
The noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, referred to western involvement in the exploitation of Soviet energy resources. As the noble Lord will be aware, the Soviet Union has large reserves of oil, gas and coal. Many of these are, however, located in remote areas of Siberia or in offshore deposits. The harsh climatic conditions and the great distance from centres of population have presented the Soviet Union with many problems in attempting to exploit these resources. As a consequence, the Soviet Union has shown an interest in importing western technology and expertise, as well as western financial investment to help the exploitation of these reserves. British firms have in the past won valuable contracts in the energy field, and I trust that they will continue to do so.
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It is not often appreciated that the Soviet Union is the world's largest oil producer, as well as being a major producer of natural gas. In addition to supplying Eastern Europe, she also exports oil and gas to Western European countries. As your Lordships may know, negotiations are continuing on the Soviet plan to build a major new gas pipeline from North-West Siberia to Western Europe. Gas deliveries from the pipeline would of course increase the proportion of Soviet gas in certain Western European countries' energy imports. On the other hand, there is likely to be a reduction in Soviet oil exports to the West as the more accessible reserves dwindle and as Soviet production slows. Many European countries do not enjoy the benefits of indigenous energy resources and are far more reliant on imported energy supplies than is the United Kingdom. The implications of energy dependence which are raised in this context have, however, certainly not been lost on our Western European partners.
I propose to turn now to the Madrid Review Conference, to which noble Lords referred, but before I do so perhaps I could deal with the point raised by my noble friend Lord Auckland about the telephone service to Bucharest. It is of course the case that there is no direct dialling service between the two capitals at the present time, although, of course, an operator service is available. I am not aware that this causes any difficulties to exporters, but I am certain that the remarks of my noble friend will not be lost upon the Post Office or, indeed, the Romanian authorities, who, of course, must together make the arrangements for the enhanced facilities which my noble friend would like to see.
I turn now to the Madrid Review Conference, which is of course part of the subject of this debate and to which my noble friend referred. Under the terms of the Helsinki Final Act, the Madrid Conference was conceived as being the second of a series of regular meetings of the 35 participating states with the purpose of reviewing progress in the implementation of the political obligations they had undertaken at Helsinki. However, the Madrid meeting has taken place in the aftermath of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and against the background of developments in Poland.
In these circumstances, the Government's objectives have been, first, to register the damage done to détente by the invasion of Afghanistan; and, secondly, to conduct a full and thorough review of the implementation of the Helsinki Final Act. Thereafter, we agreed to reach agreement on a limited number of substantial new proposals in the areas of military security, human rights, contacts and information. Such an approach was realistic and was required to maintain the credibility of the CSCE process. It was necessary to reject the Soviet approach of "business as usual" and to avoid creating the illusion of progress by reaching rapid agreement on largely meaningless declarations of intent and goodwill.
Thus, the first six weeks of the Madrid meeting—up until its Christmas recess—was spent in reviewing the implementation to which I have referred. Together with its partners and allies and the neutral and non-aligned delegations, the British representatives in Madrid criticised the Soviet action in Afghanistan and the continuing campaign of repression and violation of human rights in the Soviet Union and in many East

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European countries. We consider that this review period was a success. The Soviet Union and its allies were left in no doubt of the strength of western governmental and public abhorrence of their recent actions.
Since reconvening in January, the Madrid meeting has been discussing the texts of new proposals (some 85 in all were tabled) and undertaking the drafting of a final document. We, together with our partners, have submitted a number of proposals aimed at improving the implementation of the final act in the areas of greatest interest to us. In particular, we have sought undertakings to promote the exercise of religion and conscience, and to permit individuals to monitor the activities of their own authorities in living up to the obligations signed at Helsinki. We are also seeking improvements in the areas of family reunification, dissemination of printed and broadcast information and better working conditions for journalists.
However, there has as yet been no agreement on any of these issues. The Soviet Union and its allies are primarily concerned to promote at Madrid their proposal for a conference on military détente and disarmament. For our part, we continue to believe that any conference to consider disarmament in Europe must take place within a framework which is likely to produce militarily significant and verifiable results. We do not believe that the Warsaw Pact proposal meets these requirements, and this is why we have supported the French proposal for a conference on disarmament in Europe to negotiate (in the now familiar words) militarily significant, verifiable and binding confidence-building measures applying to the whole of Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals. The Russians, in order to promote their conference, have blocked progress in the negotiations of all other areas under discussion in Madrid. They have still so far refused to commit themselves to a further Madrid-type meeting until they get satisfaction on their military security proposal. The conference resumed on 5th May, and although we are still hoping and working for a substantial, balanced final document which will include wording on all the areas we consider important, we are not prepared to drag the negotiations out unnecessarily. We shall keep the position under constant review.
I turn now to some of the points which have been made on the questions arising from the CSCE Review Conference. The noble Lord, Lord Brockway, gave some figures for Soviet emigration in recent years, but perhaps I may quote the recent figures for Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union. They were 51,000 in 1979; a mere 21,500 in 1980; and early indications this year suggest that the figure will again drop drastically. I wonder whether this record really indicates that the Soviet Union takes seriously its commitments under the final act on freedom movement and religious expression
Several noble Lords touched on disarmament issues and confidence-building measures. I would agree that an agreement on the first stage of a conference on disarmament in Europe to discuss confidence-building measures would mark a success for the Madrid meeting. It would be in the interests of all, East and West, but I reiterate that the criteria set out in the French proposal are all necessary if we are genuinely to enhance security in Europe. I would also underline the necessity to
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reach agreement not only on military security issues but also in the spheres of human rights, contacts and information, as well as economic co-operation. The final act is a unitary whole; it must be further developed as such.
Reference has also been made to the contribution made by neutral and non-aligned delegations at Madrid. We have welcomed the action of these delegations in tabling a draft concluding document for the conference. This forms the basis of the present drafting work. The noble Lord, Lord Brockway, also referred to the Spanish initiative on terrorism, particularly in the aftermath of the appalling attack upon the life of the Pope—and, of course, I share his views on that. The Spanish text, which is co-sponsored by Her Majesty's Government, has indeed been agreed at Madrid, and we hope it will find its place in the final document.
Several noble Lords have referred to the economic, scientific and technological provisions of the Final Act; that is, Basket 2. It would be true to say that at Madrid this has been an area where the greatest progress has so far been made precisely because this is, in CSCE terms, an area of little controversy. Language, trade policy and energy issues have already been agreed and discussions continue on provisions relating to better provisions of economic and commercial information and better access to the end user, which was specifically raised by one noble Lord. It would be a mistake to overemphasise the value of these provisions to the real practitioners of trade. Basket 2 and the follow-up were mandated by the CSCE to the European Economic Commission for Europe does no more than attempt to create a climate for businessmen to operate in. By itself, agreement at Madrid will not lead to an increase or a reduction in East/West trade.
My Lords, his has been an interesting and profitable debate. My noble friend and other noble Lords have raised important questions concerning the practice of East/West relations in which trade plays a natural part. There are significant political considerations which affect our, and indeed the Russians', attitude towards the development of East/West commercial relationships. These are in part reflected in the continuing debate at Madrid where the complex of issues under discussion reveals the close interaction between the themes which have been raised by your Lordships this evening.
6.42 p.m.
Baroness Elles: My Lords, I should like first to thank my noble friend Lord Trefgarne for his positive and helpful answer to the issues that many noble Lords have raised in our debate this afternoon, and for giving such a clear exposition of the position of Her Majesty's Government on the outcome of the Madrid Conference. If one were to say anything about the outcome of the Belgrade Conference, it was the fact that there was a Madrid Conference. One of the things we would wish to say from this House—and shared, I believe, on all sides—is the fact that we shall look forward to hearing a place and date for the next review of the Helsinki Final Act. That is probably one of the most important things to come from Madrid.

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I should like to thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate for doing so and for their kind personal remarks. Those noble Lords who know what the European Parliament is like know what a pleasure it has been for me to take part in a debate from these Benches in this House with your Lordships. To say the least, I have not had to speak through a microphone myself nor to listen through earphones to speeches which would have been, as Lord Bruce of Donington has said, very badly translated.
Many important issues were touched on by noble Lords and I should answer one or two of the points. On the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, a draft report is in process of emanating from the committee by Mr. de Clare on East/West trade relations. I do not feel that I can comment on the content of that because it has not yet been adopted by the relevant committee, but I am sure that the noble Lord can get a copy himself and, if not, I will be delighted to give him a copy of the explanatory memorandum and the draft motion. It touches on some points that he raised in his speech.
There is also another draft report coming before the Parliament of which I am the rapporteur on European political co-operation which touches on foreign policy aspects of commercial external relations of the Community which will contribute to the debate on East/West trade. I should like to assure the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, that nobody would be against East/West trade. It is something which exists. But I think that in a democracy we must be aware of the issues and the problems which arise and the considerations we have to take into account when propagating and propping up trade between countries—and one country in particular which has expressed so clearly her global intentions in the long term. That is not to say that we do not continue with East/West trade; on the contrary, many exports should be encouraged. The noble Lord spoke of imports to this country—and we had so many imports from the Soviet Union, they were raw materials largely. We must be aware that we must not become too dependent on a country which wishes to make us dependent on raw materials for our very existence.
These are some points which I think arose in what was a most valuable debate. I learned a lot from comments of noble Lords from all sides of the House and I should like to express my gratitude to all who contributed. With these words, I beg to withdraw my Motion for Papers.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

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