Lords Sitting of 5 April 1982

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES On the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Portsmouth.

The Lord Carrington—Resignation Tributes
Lord Peart: My Lords, the House will have heard this morning of the resignation of the Foreign Secretary, Lord Carrington. On behalf of these Benches, and I am sure all parts of the House, I should like to pay a tribute to the noble Lord for all his work as a Member of your Lordships' House. Obviously this is not the moment to comment at all upon the events which have led to his resignation.
What I want to say is that this is a sad day for your Lordships' House. Irrespective of party, we have all greatly admired him. He has been a Leader of the House as well as Leader of the Opposition. Apart from the war years and his service as High Commissioner in Australia, he has been an active Member of the House for over 40 years and has served us with distinction. Although, of course, we have often joined battle with him politically, we want to express our warmest thanks and best wishes to him. We hope that we shall see him here in the future. He can be sure of a most genuine welcome from all of us, whichever Benches we occupy.
Lord Wigoder: My Lords, it would of course be quite inappropriate to comment at this moment upon the unhappy events of the last few weeks. It is right that I should join with the noble Lord, Lord Peart, in saying that this is also a sad day for the Liberal Peers. This is a sad day, first, because the country has lost
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the services of a most distinguished and able Foreign Secretary. It is a sad day, secondly, for your Lordships' House because we have lost for the moment a representative in one of the higher parts of the Government who has, by his very position there, caused such esteem to follow upon your Lordships' House.
It is a sad day also for all the Members of your Lordships' House who, as individuals, have always found in the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, a person of such friendship, charm and courtesy. I am sure that all your Lordships' House will hope that the time is not far removed when the noble Lord will be able again to resume his position in the higher counsels of our state for which he is so well qualified.
Lord Shackleton: My Lords, my sorrow at the events of the last few days has been compounded by the loss to this country and to this House of Lord Carrington. I had much experience, as did my noble friend Lord Shepherd, of working with him as we have to work in your Lordships' House. The fact is that he has followed the great British tradition (and I wish it had not been so in his case) that, feeling he was the responsible Minister, whoever else may have been to blame—and we will not even discuss this—he must go.
His services here have been almost immeasurable. Not long ago I had occasion to speak at the Oxford Union on the future of the House of Lords. I was defeated on the simple ground that my chief opponent, a Left-wing Member of the Labour Party, said: "If only they abolished the House of Lords, Lord Carrington could he Prime Minister". We think of his humour, his wisdom, his quickness and his skill as a speaker. I remember on one occasion my daughter had heard us debating. She said, "Daddy, you made a very good speech", and then she said, "I wish you could be a bit more like Lord Carrington".
He brought a wisdom, and he brought a caring for the House. It was possible to deal with him as a man of great honour; a man of humour; a man of understanding. He served this House both in Government and in Opposition, and we all deeply regret his departure.

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The message of every Member of your Lordships' House, and certainly of previous Leaders of this House, is one of thanks to him and of appreciation, and we hope he will in the future have an opportunity to continue the great service he has already given to this country.
Lord Windlesham: My Lords, as one who worked closely with the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, both in Government and in Opposition, I should like from this Bench to endorse everything that has been said in tribute. His resignation is highly regrettable on personal grounds. The noble Lord has been, I think many people would agree, one of the best Foreign Secretaries of recent years, irrespective of party; nevertheless, his resignation is worthy and indeed characteristic of the man we know and respect. I should like to leave this thought with your Lordships today, as we react to the sudden news of Lord Carrington's resignation, that it is by acts of selflessness of this sort that the British parliamentary system, confused though it often is, maintains its honour.
Lord Aylestone: My Lords, on behalf of my colleagues on this Bench I should like to add a brief word. When history is written I am sure that the name of Lord Carrington will go down as one of the outstanding Foreign Secretaries of this country. We have the highest regard for him. We are sorry that we are losing him as Foreign Secretary, but I am sure the whole House will agree with me that he has proved to be what we always knew him to be—a man of very high integrity and great honour.
Lord Brockway: My Lords, I was the Member of this House who defeated my noble friend Lord Shackle-ton on a Motion of the Oxford Union suggesting that if the House of Lords were abolished, the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, would be Prime Minister. I simply wish to comment that even the severest critics of this Government deplore his resignation, how much we regret that the suggestion was made in another place and that we feel confident that, in the present situation, his advice would have been able to solve the situation in a peaceful way. We deeply regret his resignation.
The Lord Bishop of Norwich: My Lords, I am sure I speak for all the Members of this Bench in saying what a shock and sorrow it has been to us. We were not only interested but in prayer for him during the winning of the glittering prize of the Zimbabwe long discussions. It is with great sorrow that I echo, on behalf of my brother bishops on this Bench, everything that has been said in all parts of the House. We wish him well.
The Earl of Halsbury: My Lords, I believe it would be the wish of some of my colleagues on the Cross-Benches that our voice should not be silent on this sad occasion. Naturally, I shall not go into the reasons which have led to the present very sad state of affairs; it is our tradition that it must be so, but it is sad to feel that at a time of national emergency, the Government should lose one of its staunchest and best members. We cannot have it both ways. As a friend, I deplore his going on this occasion.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Baroness Young): My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Peart, and all other noble Lords who have paid tribute this afternoon to my noble friend Lord Carrington. As noble Lords have said, this is not an appropriate moment to dwell on the immediate issues concerning his resignation, but I have been deeply moved at the real sense of expression of the great loss of my noble friend, who will be greatly missed in all parts of your Lordships' House.
As noble Lords will know, my noble friend is not in his place today because he is reading the lesson at the memorial service to the late Lord Butler. I think it right to say that it is rare indeed to find a man who commanded such respect and affection in all parts of your Lordships' House and who has done so for so many years. He was a man of international stature and he will not be forgotten for his part in the settlement and giving of independence to Zimbabwe, and in that work the whole of your Lordships' House basked in some of his reflected glory.
That is not surprising, for my noble friend Lord Carrington put this House very high on his list of priorities. I am sure noble Lords will recall that only last Tuesday he returned from Brussels to make a Statement to your Lordships' House, and I am glad—I think we all must be—that the House sat on Saturday that he might have an opportunity to speak to your Lordships from the Front Bench.
I am particularly pleased that so many of your Lordships have paid tribute to his great personal qualities. He was a very good friend to me. We all know his kindness, his friendship and, above all, his great sense of humour. I feel it a personal loss that he, who always called me the "bossette", should not be able to do so again. But it was, I think, in the selflessness of his going that he was true very much to his own sense of duty and honour.

Spectacle Lenses: Low-Cost Imports
2.48 a.m.
Lord Rugby: 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 make a statement about the cheap foreign imports of lenses from which the opticians have allegedly made £6 million profit out of the National Health Service, and about the source of these imports.
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: My Lords, the unintended profits referred to are believed to have been made mostly on spectacles containing single-vision lenses. From the overseas trade statistics and information from the industry, it is estimated that the United Kingdom imports roughly 35 per cent. of such lenses used.
Lord Rugby: My Lords, may I be assured by the Minister that, under the disciplinary powers conferred on the General Optical Council under the Act, they in fact exercise those powers to prosecute their own

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members if necessary, where they are guilty of fraudulent practice?
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: I feel I should set the matter in some perspective, my Lords. The noble Lord is concerned about the £6 million which had been unintentionally overpaid to opticians. On the other hand, the department owes the optical industry something like £70 million for underpayments, of which about £191/2 million has now been paid. Negotiations are proceeding on both counts.
Baroness Jeger: My Lords, does the Minister recall that on 18th February he told the House that the Director-General of Fair Trading was examining the whole position and that talks were going on with the Optical Whitley Council because many of your Lordships felt that a fee of £4·50 for examination and £4·20 for dispensing was rather inadequate and perhaps a temptation to find expenses in other ways? It would reassure many of us who are concerned with the matter if the Minister would say what point the talks have reached.
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: My Lords, I feel sure that the noble Baroness knows that new fees have been fixed since 1st April. The fees that are now being fixed are interim fees while the negotiations are going on for a full settlement of all the outstanding issues.
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that many of us who are interested in this subject are not specially critical of the opticians for making too much money? We are critical of the Government for allowing them to have a monopoly. Is the noble Lord aware that the glasses that I am now wearing, and through which I see extremely well, cost 10 dollars in New York across the counter? Why should the British public be deprived of this perfectly reasonable outlet for their money in order to improve their sight, or to make it worse, as they prefer?
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: My Lords, it might be going a little far to say so, but one might hope that when this large amount of money is repaid to opticians—and £70 million is a lot of money—there will be a fair chance that the charges for private spectacles will not go up, or possibly may come down.
Lord Monson: My Lords, following what the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, has just said, can the Minister confirm that there is no legal impediment whatsoever to the sale of simple reading spectacles on board cross-channel ferries outside the 3-mile limit? If that is the case, would not such an innovation on the one hand help the consumer and on the other hand help the strained financial situation of the British Rail Sealink subsidiary?
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: My Lords, I feel that the noble Lord is ranging a little widely.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord what is the difference between cheap imported lenses and non-imported lenses?
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: My Lords, the difference lies in the fact that the cheap imported lenses make it possible for the opticians to make a profit. That is really where the problem has arisen, and where the opticians buy their lenses has nothing to do with the department.
Lord Hunter of Newington: My Lords, can the Minister tell us what is the present situation regarding the Office of Fair Trading, to which the Government have made a reference?
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: My Lords, unhappily, I cannot give a precise answer to that point. The Office of Fair Trading has promised to report during the course of this year.

Perivale, Middlesex: Roadworks
2.53 p.m.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will support the London Borough of Ealing in an endeavour to maintain traffic flow and avoid congestion at the point of the major roadworks now in progress on Western Avenue at Perivale, Middlesex.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment (Lord Bellwin): My Lords, it is an unfortunate fact that major improvement measures to busy roads that will ultimately benefit traffic flow and safety can cause problems while under construction. Every effort is being made to keep those problems to a minimum at Perivale. The Metropolitan Police and the London Borough of Ealing are both co-operating closely with my department to achieve this.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, is the noble Lord the Minister aware that the road works now taking place at Perivale, in Middlesex, are part of a massive programme, which 1 am sure will aid everybody in the end, but that, for example, when the flyover was being constructed a few miles away at the Greenford round-about, there was not merely massive congestion, but also a threat of danger to life and limb which would not have arisen had there been sensible and close liaison among the council, the GLC and the Department of Transport? Will the Minister please consider urging that there should be close liaison and that the views of local associations should be taken into consideration so that nothing in the way of a serious accident or unnecessary congestion occurs?
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, I shall be very glad to pass on the noble Lord's comments to those concerned. He may be interested to know that I understand that the contractor will soon be making available a third lane at the Perivale signals. This should come about within the next few weeks.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord the Minister for the serious manner in which he has treated this matter? The people who live in the area—and I am one of them—will be most grateful to him.

Mobility Allowance
2.56 p.m.
Baroness Lane-Fox: 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 at what level it is proposed that the mobility allowance should be fixed next November; how this compares with the figure in May 1979; and how many people are now eligible to benefit from the allowance.
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: My Lords, as from November 1982, mobility allowance will rise to £18.30 a week, tax free, compared to its May 1979 level of £10 a week, subject to tax. Over 217,000 people now receive the allowance.
Baroness Lane-Fox: My Lords, is my noble friend the Minister aware that this really is a most welcome increase, and that freeing the allowance from tax will benefit very many disabled people who go out to work and have other taxable income? Is he further aware that in this previously deprived area the rise means that by November the mobility allowance will have been increased by over 80 per cent. under the present Government, though, sadly, deprivation remains for those debarred the scheme on grounds of age?
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for her comments about the allowance which has, I think, received particular help from the present Government.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, we are very grateful for the increases which the noble Lord has announced, but can he relate them to the increases in costs of motoring which have taken place over the period in question?— bearing in mind that the costs of motoring, such as petrol and licence fees, have gone up by far more than the cost of living generally.
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: My Lords, I understand that the transport and vehicle group component of the retail price index has risen by 42 per cent. since May 1979; the mobility allowance has increased by 65 per cent.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, is the Minister aware that those old age pensioners who are disabled do not receive the benefits of cheap travel on buses and trains which other old age pensioners receive?
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: My Lords, it is true that mobility allowance does not give a passport for free travel, but I am not sure that I quite see the drift of the noble Baroness's supplementary question.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, perhaps I can make it clearer by asking the noble Lord whether he is aware that old age pensioners do not receive the mobility allowance? If they have a disability they are also at a disadvantage compared with their peers—other old age pensioners who are not disabled—since they cannot receive the benefits of cheap travel on buses and trains which other old age pensioners have. Perhaps the noble Lord is not aware that I have received many letters from old age pensioners who have disabilities.
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: I apologise, my Lords. The position is that when the last Administraton brought in mobility allowance it was on the basis of pension age as the upper limit—60 for women and 65 for men. Since then, gradually, the age limit for women has risen from 60 to 65, and both sexes who become eligible for the allowance before the age of 65 can continue to be eligible for a further 10 years, up to the age of 75. But at this stage it is not possible to scrub the limit altogether, because the cost of that would be £400 million pounds.
Baroness Jeger: My Lords, may I support the noble Baroness, Lady Masham of Ilton? I do so in no party sense, because these rules have been accepted by successive Governments. I find that there is an increasing sense of unfairness among people who receive the mobility allowance; they fear that when they reach pension age it will be taken away. If the noble Lord will confirm that it will not be taken away, so that the only people who will be deprived by the rule
will be those who apply for it after pension age, that would be of interest to many people in this House.
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: My Lords, the noble Baroness has put the case absolutely correctly. Anyone who qualifies for and receives the allowance before the age of 65 will continue to receive it until the age of 75.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, is there not something rather unfair in a situation in which a person who breaks his back in a traffic accident when aged 64 years can go on receiving the allowance up to age 75, whereas someone who sustains a broken back in a traffic accident at age 651 receives nothing whatsoever? There seems to be no equity in that particular proposition.
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: My Lords, what the noble Earl says is perfectly true.
Lord Leatherland: My Lords, as one who many years ago passed the age of 75, may I ask the noble Lord whether it is unfair that the allowance should stop at age 75?
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: My Lords, at the moment those who are eligible will continue to receive the allowance until the age of 75. As I understand it, it will be seven or eight years from today that the first of those people will become 75. Perhaps between now and seven or eight years hence it might prove possible to whichever Government are in power to extend the limit from age 75 to, say, age 76.
Lord Leatherland: My Lords, does it not appear to the Government at present in power that this injustice should be remedied?
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: Not at the moment, my Lords?

STATEMENTS: THE ARGENTINE AND NORTHERN IRELAND
Lord Balfour of Inchrye: My Lords, I beg leave to ask a Question of which I have given private notice.
The Question is as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what advice, instructions, or regulations they are giving or introducing to cover those companies or organisations who are trading or have contracts with the Argentine?
Lord Denham: My Lords, with the leave of the House, my noble friend Lord Trefgarne will answer this Question in the form of a Statement at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m.
This will be followed by my noble friend Lord Gowrie repeating a Statement to be made in another place, on the political development in Northern Ireland.
Lord Balfour of Inchrye: My Lords, may I ask the Minister one question? Do the Government anticipate that these measures will have an immediate and significant effect on the economy of the Argentine?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I think that the noble Lord should ask that question after my noble friend has made the Statement that he will be making at about 3.30. That will be the appropriate time to put it.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that I, too, sought to raise a private notice Question on the Falkland Islands task force and the noble Baroness has indicated that that Question was not in order? In these circumstances, I will seek to ask the Question in another way on another day.

Child Care (No. 2) Bill [H.L.]
Lord Avebury: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to abolish local authority resolutions assuming parental rights and make provision for the making of care orders in cases where a child is already in the voluntary care of a local authority; and for connected purposes. I beg to move that this Bill he now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be read a first time.—(Lord Avebury.)
On Question, Bill read a first time and to be printed.

Saint Thomas' Burial Ground (Southwark) Bill
Read a third time and passed.

Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill
3.5 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Belstead): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now again resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Belstead.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD ABERDARE in the Chair.]
Baroness Ewart-Biggs Baroness Ewart-Biggs moved Amendment No. 125:
After Clause 34, insert the following new clause:
("Control of self-operated laundries
.—(1) A council may resolve that this section is to apply to their area; and if a council do so resolve this section shall come into force in their area on the day specified in that behalf in the resolution (which must not be before the expiration of the period of one month beginning with the day on which the resolution is passed).
(2) A council shall publish notice that they have passed a resolution under this section in two consecutive weeks in a local newspaper circulating in their area.
(3) The first publication shall not be later than 28 days before the specified day.
(4) For the purposes of this section premises shall be deemed to be used as a self-operated laundry when facilities are provided to the public on those premises on payment for washing or dry cleaning clothes or other articles by machines operated primarily by the customer.
(5)(a) In an area in which this section is in force, the occupier of premises used either partly or wholly as a self-operated laundry shall, in order to ensure that the plant and machinery installed in the premises for the purpose of the business are so fitted and maintained as to avoid risk of explosion, leakage of fluids or vapour and danger to the persons operating or in the vicinity of the plant and machinery, cause such plant and machinery to he inspected at least once in every fourteen months after the specified day by a competent engineer appointed or approved by an insurance company or agreed between the occupier and the council and the occupier of the premises shall send to the council a certificate (hereinafter called" a certificate of inspection") by an insurance company or by such an engineer certifying the result of the inspection.
(b) If:—

(i) before the expiration of fourteen months and fourteen days from:—

(a) the specified day, or

(b) in the case of premises which are not used as a self-operated laundry before specified day the date on which the premises are first used as a self-operated laundry, or

(c) (except in the case of the first certificate of inspection to be made in respect of premises) the date on which the last certificate of inspection was sent by the occupier of the premises to the council; the occupier of the premises fails to send a certificate of inspection to the council, or

(ii) a certificate of inspection sent to the council fails to show that the plant and machinery upon the premises are so fitted and maintained as aforesaid;

the council may make application by way of complaint to a magistrates' court who may order the closing of the premises to the public until a certificate of inspection is received by the council showing that the plant and machinery are so fitted and maintained as aforesaid.
(c) Any person who contravenes an order made by a court under paragraph (b) of this subsection shall be liable to a fine not exceeding two hundred pounds and to a daily fine not exceeding twenty pounds.
(6)(a) As from the specified day if in the opinion of the council any substance is used on the premises in connection with any dry-cleaning process which is likely to be dangerous the occupier shall, if so required by the council, display such precautionary notices as may be agreed between the council and such bodies as appear to them to represent the trade or business of self-operated laundries or as failing such agreement may be reasonably required for the purpose of warning the public.
(b) Any person who contravenes any provisions of this subsection shall be liable to a fine not exceeding two hundred pounds and to a daily fine not exceeding twenty pounds.
(7) In this section—
"council" means the council of a district or of a London borough or the Common Council of the City of London;
"specified day" means the day specified for the purpose of subsection (1) above").
The noble Baroness said: I beg to move Amendment No. 125. The suggested new clause is designed to achieve a measure of control over self-operated laundries or laundrettes for the protection of the public. It has been drafted on an adoptive basis so that only those local authorities who choose to exercise the powers will do so. This is a control which was formerly held by the cities of Manchester and Salford and I have received representations from the AMA, from the city of Manchester and from the Institution of Environmental Health Officers who are anxious for this control to be restored.
I think that the first thing that must be recognised when deciding whether this control is necessary is what are the ingredients of a self-operated laundry or laundrette. Some noble Lords may not be familiar with what the inside of a laundry or laundrette looks like, so that perhaps I should remind the Committee that inside a self-operated laundry or laundrette one finds a lot of high-powered machinery, a lot of children and no supervision. The machinery consists of units which can provide all or any of the hazards of electrical power, revolving components, steam-raising equipment and noxious fumes. Many laundrettes have been in operation for several years with the consequential deterioration of the equipment and many may have changed hands at regular intervals.
I recently visited my own local laundrette which I no longer use regularly, to find out what hazards the owner of this laundrette thought there were. Besides those I have mentioned, he described the hazard of a magnetic catch of a spin dryer which was defective and which would allow the door of the spin dryer to open while the machine was in operation, with the resultant danger of a child's limb or that of an unsuspecting grown-up being sucked in with consequent serious injury.
What he said was corroborated by evidence provided by the local authority associations in the form of a list of horrific injuries incurred by children over recent years. These were always due to an arm being caught by spin dryers and with faces damaged seriously. To understand why children particularly are at risk, it must be realised that the laundrettes represent something of a social centre. Mothers of small children who have a lot of washing and who lead rather solitary lives, go to the laundrette and take with them their small children. When they get there they find their friends and begin to talk, and during this time they momentarily leave the children to their own devices. Then, at a later stage, when
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the children have become bigger and the mothers may have gone back to work, the older children will go with the family wash to operate the machines and do the washing.
It must be remembered that there will be children always in laundrettes, and this is an overwhelming reason for doing everything possible to ensure that such machinery is kept at the highest possible level of safety. Bearing in mind that it is essentially children's safety at risk and bearing in mind that such certificates of inspection for which we are asking would be merely comparable to those already required from owners of office and shop premises containing self-operated passenger lifts—which, after all, do not present anything like so great a risk as machinery in the laundrettes—I feel strongly that it seems reasonable to afford this measure of control to local authorities, drafted as it is on a purely adoptive basis in order to try to ensure that the premises and plant of self-operated laundries and laundrettes are maintained at the highest possible level of safety.
Lord Belstead: The noble Baroness has made a strong case in self-operated laundries and the Government agree with the case that the noble Baroness has made. But local authorities have sufficient powers, I think, under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and the Health and Safety (Enforcing Authority) Regulations 1977 (No. 746) to ensure that self-operated laundries are safe and without risk to the health of members of the public who go to them and to any staff who may be visiting the premises and, pursuant to the speech of the noble Baroness, to any children who may be on the premises.
The regulations enable local authorities to enforce the 1974 Act in self-operated laundries and in respect of coin operated dry cleaning units in lauderettes and similar premises. Among other things, lauderette operators have a duty under the 1974 Act to maintain the plant, machinery and installation in a safe condition, and local authorities have more appropriate and effective powers in the form of improvement and prohibition notices under Sections 21 and 22 of the Health and Safety at Work Act to deal with problems than an application to a magistrates' court for a closure order, which is the road down which the noble Baroness has gone in drafting her amendment.
I therefore would not want, on behalf of the Government, to agree that we should simply duplicate one public Act, the Health and Safety at Work Act, together with the regulations by putting a major provision in another public Bill—namely, this one. I would question, on the merits of the case, whether any thought has been given to weighing the costs and benefits to be derived from provisions such as those in this clause. There could be a quite significant cost to a local authority in operating a certification scheme which could more profitably be used elsewhere.
For all those reasons, although I do not agree with one word of what the noble Baroness said about the desirability for seeing that safety is adhered to meticulously in laundries and self-operated launderettes, I think that the powers are to be found in the 1974 Health and Safety at Work Act and also the 1977 regulations.
Lord Hawke: Could the Minister or the proposer of the amendment say whether they have any statistics as to the number of explosions or other harmful occurrences that have taken place in these laundrettes?
Baroness David: I wish to support the amendment. If I could reply to the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, the extent of the problem can be demonstrated by the following actions under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 in the city of Manchester. There, there are 101 premises in operation; prohibition notices had to be issued in 26 cases and improvement notices in 66. About three-quarters of the number of premises had to have action taken about them.
The benefit of our amendment is that it puts the onus on the launderettes to see that they have the certificates. I do not understand what the Minister meant about putting costs on the local authorities. I should have thought that, if anything, it might have reduced costs. If it is the launderettes which have to get certificates and produce them, that is their job. The local authority would have to act only if they failed to produce those certificates every 14 months or so. In the event of them not being able to do so, then there might be a court case.
I should have thought that there were a great many benefits in this. We know from the lists of mishaps with which we have been supplied that there have been a great number of accidents. I was told by my daughter recently that she had a great shock one day when she opened her washing machine and the cat jumped out. This was not in a public laundrette. So, strange things can happen. Coin operated laundrettes function very often without anybody being in charge. Also, a number of authorities have felt that they needed these powers. As recently as last year, East Sussex achieved these powers. That matter was presumably debated at some length. So I ask the Minister to think again about this amendment, and maybe take it back and reconsider his answer.
Lord Belstead: May I add one word before the noble Baroness, Lady Ewart-Biggs, decides what is best to do about this amendment? I am certainly very ready to look at the cost point which the noble Baroness, Lady David, made. I feel I have not made the case as well as I should have done on that aspect. If the noble Baroness decides that she is prepared to withdraw the amendment, I certainly would be very happy to look at that. So far as the illustration of the noble Baroness, Lady David, is concerned, I remember many years ago on a foreign holiday turning on a tap in a hotel bedroom and a frog came out of the tap. It is true that unusual things can occur when you either open doors or turn on taps.
But the advantage of the existing powers under the Health and Safety at Work Act legislation over the line taken in this amendment would be that there is greater speed. An inspector appointed at the moment by an enforcing authority—meaning the local authority in a case of this kind—has power under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 to issue a prohibition notice if he considers that there is a risk of serious personal injury from the way in which a self-operated laundry is being carried on; and he also is empowered to issue an improvement notice if he considers that relevant
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statutory provisions are being contravened. To enact provisions to deal with similar situations through a magistrates' court, when immediate corrective action can be taken by a local authority under existing legislative powers, would be doubtful as to advantage.
Lord Davies of Leek: The social significance of launderettes is probably lost to many people. They are of paramount importance to women who have to work. After the end of a day's work, they use these places. Sometimes my housekeeper has had to take laundry to a launderette. She has found vandalism and machinery which is tattered and torn. May I ask whether the local authority has what the noble Baroness has built into this amendment?
Let me read what I consider is relevant. This is on page 2. The Committee can follow me and correct me if my argument is incorrect. I am paraphrasing. It says that if, before the expiration of 14 months and 14 days, in the case of premises used as a self-operated laundry before the specified date, the occupier of the premises—and I am referring to paragraph (c), and these are the relevant words—fails to send a certificate of inspection to the council, or a certificate of inspection that is sent to the council fails to show that the plant and machinery upon the premises are so fitted and maintained—and now here comes the relevant part about the council—then the council may make application by way of complaint to a magistrates' court which may order the closing of the premises or a fine not exceeding £200 and a daily fine not exceeding £20.
My point is: How much power has a local authority to close premises that are vandalised, unhygienic and neglected and looked upon from a money-making point of view? I am grateful to the noble Lord for saying that he will look at the cost, because of the social significance to working mothers and single men, widowers, and others, of the modern launderette. It is important that these necessary domestic machines are available hygienically, are not vandalised and are safeguarded by local authorities.
Lord Hawke: If I was in the unfortunate position of having to use these places, I would far sooner have the existing system than the one proposed by the noble Baronesses. In the existing system, the inspector from the council can visit at frequent or infrequent intervals, just as often as he likes. Apparently in Manchester he has been round quite often and declared closed quite a number of premises which seemed to be working all right. But to leave it to the proprietor to get a certificate so that when anybody complains he will wave a certificate at them and say that it is valid since it is 13 months and 29 days since its last inspection, is really not good enough. The person who has to inspect this equipment is a service engineer employed by the owner, and so long as he is going round there it will be kept in reasonable order; but to leave it to a certificate from some insurance inspector at 14-monthly intervals is I think quite frankly a hit of a nonsense.
Lord Swinfen: I wonder whether the noble Baroness can tell us why she has chosen the period of 14 months rather than one year? It seems to me that the latter would he rather more sensible.
Baroness David: I must be quite honest and say that this was an amendment put down in the other place which we have put down again. I did rather wonder about 14 months myself; but I suppose it is a regular period and that is really what matters. I am very grateful for what the Minister has said about this so far as the cost is concerned. I wonder whether he is also able to make an offer to meet the Health and Safety Executive to discuss the merits of the proposed amendment. I understand there was a meeting with them about the ultra-violet tanning amendment which we put down earlier. The meeting about that had a quite satisfactory outcome, so I wonder whether he might consider a meeting on this aspect as well as considering the cost. Perhaps I may also say to the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, that Manchester had within its Bill the amendment we have put down.
Lord Belstead: Certainly I will take into account anything that the Health and Safety Executive have to say on the subject.
Baroness Ewart-Biggs: I should like to thank the noble Lord the Minister for the assurances he has given both as regards looking at the cost and as to arranging for a meeting between his department and the Health and Safety Executive. In those circumstances I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Belstead: I said that I would take into account what they have to say. That means I should be very ready to get in touch with them to see what their views were. I think it is a matter for the local authorities to get in touch with the Health and Safety Executive if, on their side, they want to.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
3.23 p.m.
Lord Underhill Lord Underhill moved Amendment No. 125A:
After Clause 34, insert the following new clause:
("Hackney carriages
. Notwithstanding the provisions contained in Part II of Schedule 14 to the Local Government Act 1972 in relation to the applying of section 171(4) of the Public Health Act 1875 to their area, a local authority may licence hackney carriages to ply for hire only in specified parts of their area and to stand and ply for hire only on specified hackney carriage stands within their area as may be stated in the licence.")
The noble Lord said: I beg to move this amendment. The Local Government Act 1972, referred to in this amendment, included provision for the new district councils set up then to deal with the licensing of hackney carriages. Local authorities have always had the option of whether or not to license hackney carriages, and the 1972 Act retained that option. But one problem was what transitional arrangements there should be to cope with the enlarged local authority boundaries, and one aspect concerned the licensing of hackney carriages.
Schedule 14, Part II provided the new district councils that had been set up with three alternatives. Option 1 was to establish the whole of the new district as a single lincensing district and hackney carriages would be able to ply for hire in any part of the district. Option 2 was that they could disapply licensing provisions, thus discontinuing any licensing of hackney carriages within the new district. Option 3 was that they could retain the status quo inherited from the former
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constituent councils. This would mean that hackney carriages would continue to be licensed within the former constitutent boundaries where the provisions had been adopted by the former councils, but in that case they could ply for hire only within those former boundaries—that is, in separate parts of the new district.
Option 1 could be exercised at any time after 1st April 1974, and still can be; but Option 2 had to be exercised before 1st April 1975. In both cases there had to be the approval of the Secretary of State. Generally, I understand that authorities inheriting licensing functions looked either at Option 1 or Option 3. Option I would dezone the inherited licence zones or districts. Option 3 would mean the retention of the former licensing districts, thus retaining the existing zones.
There are arguments on both sides. Those in favour of de-zoning would argue that in the district councils the old boundaries were defunct and all hackney carriages should be able to ply for hire in any part of the new district. It is claimed that that would provide greater flexibility and the councils' administrative arrangements would be made much easier. On the other hand, those who were against dezoning argue that hackney carriages are licensed to provide a public service. This is important in small townships as in larger towns, but if there was de-zoning hackney carriages would tend to converge on the larger towns where opportunities are better, and services in the smaller towns would be lost.
The dilemma facing local authorities is that the process of de-zoning is statutorily irreversible. Once done it cannot be undone: nor can it be done in part only. It would appear that local authorities have not rushed into de-zoning but that, where they have de-zoned, problems have occurred, and these are greater in those districts where there are one or more larger townships with several smaller towns which are geographically distinct. I am informed that, in the large districts of Leeds and Bradford, hackney carriages from the smaller townships are deserting their former ranks in the city centres. This means that service to the public in the smaller towns is being seriously diminished.
Smaller towns should be enabled to achieve a balance suitable to the needs of their areas. This amendment does not argue for or against de-zoning but seeks to provide a new option to be made available to the local authorities. The amendment will give local authorities which de-zone or are considering de-zoning the opportunity of reviewing the needs of the hackney carriage service throughout their districts. Some councils may be very happy at the way de-zoning operates; others by means of this amendment will be able to control the operation of hackney carriages to limited areas or to specified ranks where a need is established.
I emphasise that each district would be free to determine the best balance within its area to suit the needs of the public and also the needs of those in the hackney carriage trade. The amendment provides a formula for a practical solution to give an additional option to deal with the problem which the 1972 Act failed to anticipate. It is so common sensible that I hope the Minister will find it possible to accept it. I beg to move.
Lord Belstead: The noble Lord, Lord Underhill, is seeking to present this amendment as a choice which will enable local authorities to think again about their rules and regulations on the zoning of where taxis may operate in their local authority districts. I know the noble Lord would agree with me that we must think about the consumer in this. If I may say so, I do not think that this amendment will benefit the consumer. This is a proposal to empower additional restrictions on the taxi trade which would limit its ability to respond to public demand and to provide the service that the public wants. We are being asked to accept a really quite far-reaching change to the general law on the basis of difficulties that, I understand from the noble Lord's speech, have arisen in Bradford; and with that I agree. The noble Lord also mentioned Leeds. I have certainly heard that mentioned in preparing for this afternoon's debate, but I am not aware that the Home Office has received any direct notification that Leeds takes that view as well.
I shall not go over the basis for the difficulty, as the noble Lord sees it, because he explained that very clearly. But I should like to refer to the situation in Bradford, and say that Bradford City Council passed its resolution to enable taxis to ply for hire throughout the whole of the Bradford metropolitan district in August 1980. This was confirmed, as it had to be under the law, by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary in October of that year, after he had considered objections.
The main argument put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, is that taxis from outlying parts of the district are tending to gravitate to the centre of Bradford, if I may use that as an example, and are less easy to obtain in the outlying districts. They are presumably doing that because they are doing better business by acting in that way. The amendment would have us over-ride the principles of supply and demand, and would allow the district council to confine certain taxis to areas where there is less demand.
I appreciate the concern which the noble Lord has expressed. Nevertheless, I do not think that this is the way to go about solving the problem. If the real problem is that there are too many taxis in central Bradford, for instance, and not enough elsewhere, this should be resolved by market forces and not by restrictions imposed by the local authority. If, on the other hand, the problem is a shortage of taxis, then surely the answer is for the local authority to increase the number of licences. The Government are committed to doing everything we can to remove unnecessary controls and restrictions, especially over small businessmen and transport undertakings, and, with respect, this amendment would have the contrary effect.
There are just two more points which weigh against this amendment. First, although I understand that the intention behind the amendment is to allow a local authority to divide its district into separate zones, it would, in fact, empower councils to attach whatever geographical restrictions they chose to individual licences. Local authorities could restrict vehicles to very small areas or even to individual taxi ranks. They could even create a two-class trade—half restricted and half unrestricted. I would almost go so far as to say that I do not think that that is the intention of the noble Lord, Lord Underhill. To that extent, I think that,
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in a way, this amendment is defective, because I do not think that it is carrying out the intention of the noble Lord.
The second point which weighs is that, even although the amendment would make it possible to limit the area in which taxis might ply for hire, they would be compelled to accept hirings to any part of the district at a controlled fare. Therefore, having completed such a hiring, a taxi would have to return to its own limited area before it could seek another hiring. I do not think that that would be particularly popular with either the taxi drivers or the general public, because nothing is more irritating—and it occasionally happens at railway stations in the metropolis—than to find a taxi coming in, depositing a passenger, and then, for some reason which is probably a valid and necessary one to the driver, going off without picking up another fare.
Finally, may I just add this: The Home Office has been conducting a review of taxi law. It has not been entirely easy—there are difficulties of detail and some difficulties of principle—and I would ask that the outcome of that review should be awaited. I ask that in the context that, as I have said, so far as my right honourable friend's department is concerned, we have not heard of any problem in a district other than Bradford, and that is with over three-quarters of the 300 or so district councils which license taxis now having decided that what they want is a single system of control applying throughout their districts. It is on those grounds that I ask the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, to agree to reconsider this amendment.
Lord Underhill: I am disappointed with the Minister's reply. I must clear up one point, because in his opening remarks the noble Lord said that we must think of the consumers. In case that implies that I am speaking on behalf of the taxi trade, let me make it absolutely clear that on this occasion I have had no contact at all with the Taxi Drivers Association. I have not been asked by them to raise the matter and I have not checked it. I was asked to raise this matter by one of the local authorities concerned who are very troubled about the situation.
The noble Lord said that this would not give consideration to the consumer. But that is the situation now, because under the 1972 Act a district council can have the option of de-zoning or of continuing the previous zoning. Therefore, it is there already. So I am not proposing to introduce anything at all new. I am not even suggesting that there should be de-zoning or that there should be zoning. What this amendment is endeavouring to remove is the situation where, once you have made the decision, you cannot alter it. That is what the law provides. The noble Lord has not dealt with that position. Surely, it is a ridiculous position that, if the 1972 Act gives you an option, the decision is irreversible. That seems to be nonsensical from all practical standpoints, particularly the standpoint of local government. In this amendment we are endeavouring not to favour zoning or de-zoning, but to give authorities the option of reconsidering what they may already have decided. That seems to be most sensible.
I hoped that if my amendment was defective the Minister might have taken a look at it and introduced

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one on behalf of the Government. But I repeat that, from a local government standpoint, it seems absolutely nonsensical that once you have taken a decision you cannot change it. If the Minister will not accept the amendment, I shall read very carefully the report of what he has suggested and see what might be done at Report stage. But I will consult. I mentioned Leeds, because Leeds was mentioned to me, and this morning, before I came here, I checked with a councillor at Bradford who assured me that Leeds is also having problems. But I will make further inquiries about Leeds, if I decide to do anything at Report stage. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 35 agreed to.
Schedule 6 [Minor amendments];
Lord Bestead Lord Bestead moved Amendment No. 128A:
Page 82, line 40, at end insert—
(".In section 48(2)(b)(iii) of the Health Services and Public Health Act 1968 (which requires a copy of a certificate to be sent in certain cases to the proper officer of the relevant port health authority constituted in pursuance of section 2 of the Public Health Act 1936) the words "constituted in pursuance of section 2 of the Public Health Act 1936" shall be omitted.").
The noble Lord said: This is a drafting amendment. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Bellwin Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 129:
Page 83, leave out lines 29 and 30 and insert—
("Schedule 4, paragraph 12(2), 15A(3), 15A(6)").
The noble Lord said: This, too, is a drafting amendment revising an item in the schedule. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Belstead Lord Belstead moved Amendment No. 129A:
Page 83, line 31, leave out paragraph 7.
The noble Lord said: This is also a drafting amendment going with Amendment No. 128A. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Denham: This is probably the appropriate moment to resume for the Statement. I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

The Argentine: Trade and Contracts
3.39 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Trefgarne): My Lords, with your Lordships' permission, I will now answer the Private Notice Question tabled by my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye by repeating a Statement that is being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Trade. The Statement is as follows:
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"It was announced on 3rd April that the Government had frozen all Argentinian financial assets held in this country, that ECGD would not provide new export credit cover for Argentina and that exports of military equipment and arms to Argentina had been prohibited. Other economic measures are being urgently examined, and we are consulting our European Community and other allies. British citizens are advised not to travel to Argentina, and British companies to withdraw their non-essential British staff. British firms must decide what action they should take in relation to existing commitments in the light of the present circumstances, the measures which have so far been announced, and of the terms of their own individual arrangements with Argentinian firms. They are advised not to enter into new commitments.
"The Prime Minister told the House on 3rd April of the Government's intention to despatch a substantial naval task force to the Falkland Islands. I should like to take this opportunity to announce to the House that Her Majesty assented to an Order in Council enabling the Government to requisition any vessels that may be needed under the long-standing contingency plans available to meet national emergencies of this kind. The P&O liner "Canberra", whose captain is an officer in the Royal Naval Reserves, is being transferred to naval control this afternoon. Other ships will be requisitioned and chartered as necessary."
My Lords, that is the Statement.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, we on this side of the House would like to thank the noble Lord for having repeated the Statement, the contents of which are quite inevitable following the extremely grave events that were reported to this House and to another place on Saturday. We on this side of the House entirely support the Government in their intention to freeze all Argentinian financial assets in this country. At the same time we should like some clarification of Statutory Instrument No. 512, which we believe was laid before Parliament on 3rd April and which is supposed to come into effect, concerning gold, securities, payments and credits. Perhaps the position regarding those could be clarified.
We note from the Statement that the Export Credits Guarantee Department will not provide any new export credits for Argentina. This raises the question of what is going to happen to existing outstanding liabilities of the Argentine which the ECGD have already insured. May we take it that the obligations of the ECGD up to and including 3rd April will be honoured? And can we have the further assurance that in the event of substantial losses being incurred by the ECGD as a result of these measures, no increase in premium will be passed on to other exporters in order to pay for any deficit that arises? In other words, will the noble Lord give the House an assurance that any deficit on the ECGD fund that arises from this situation will be borne directly out of the Consolidated Fund rather than passed on to the exporters who continue to do business with other parts of the world?
It is quite clear from the Statement that other measures will have to be taken, and the noble Lord has already

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mentioned some of them. May we take it that there will be urgent consultations not only with our EEC partners, whose joint action will urgently have to be sought in concurring with whatever measures we decide upon in supporting those measures, but also far outside the EEC itself, in conjunction with our allies?
We note that British companies are advised to withdraw their non-essential British staff. The term "nonessential" is of course a little vague and I cannot expect the noble Lord to enlarge upon it, but I should be surprised if British companies employ non-essential people in the enterprises which they are conducting. Will the noble Lord undertake to keep the House fully informed of what further steps are likely to become necessary as the situation develops?
Finally, the noble Lord can be assured that we on this side of the House will support whatever measures are necessary in the economic sphere to bring pressure upon the Argentinian Government, even though some of these may, at any rate temporarily, be to the disadvantage economically of this country. Will he give an assurance that the military objectives so forcefully put forward in the other place on Saturday will in fact be pursued with the utmost rigour, should it become necessary to do so?
Lord Mais: My Lords, may I from these Benches say that Her Majesty's Government have our complete support in any action which they may have to take. But in the light of industry generally, can we be assured, in so far as any assurance can be given, that companies which at the moment are heavily committed in the Argentine both in the supply of goods and in construction and other works, will receive some instructions as to how they are to proceed? In other words, are they to carry on, or are they to withdraw? And will they have some assurance as to compensation, or otherwise, for what could in many cases amount to very heavy losses?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, may I thank both noble Lords, in particular the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, for his helpful and constructive reception of this Statement. My thanks are no less due to the noble Lord, Lord Mais, although he did not go into the same detail. May I deal first with the points put to me by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington.
Regarding the noble Lord's question about the statutory instrument, that instrument was made, laid and came into force on Saturday last. It was made under Section 2 of the Emergency Laws (Re-enactments and Repeals) Act 1964. Section 7 of that Act provides that the order may be annulled by a resolution of either House. The order clearly therefore does not require formal approval by your Lordships' House or the other place.
So far as the position of the ECGD is concerned, I understand that the ECGD has firm commitments amounting to £290 million in respect of Argentina, that there are further offers outstanding of £60 million and that applications are being considered for a further very substantial sum. In fact, United Kingdom investments in Argentina amount to about 8 per cent. of total foreign investment in that country. They have a book value of about £200 million but the real value may well be higher. We are unaware of any significant Argentinian investment in the United Kingdom.
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The noble Lord also asked me to give an assurance about increases in premiums which may or may not prove to be necessary following these events. I am not in a position to give the noble Lord the blanket assurance that he sought. The noble Lord will recall that it has been the policy of consecutive governments to ensure that the ECGD traded in respect of its credit insurance arrangements more or less in balance on a year-to-year basis. As the noble Lord knows, that has not always proved to be possible, but that has been the target and we would wish to maintain the general principle so far as ECGD is concerned. I certainly take note of the point which the noble Lord has made. Further measures, which were referred to in the Statement, will indeed need to be discussed and agreed with our European Community partners, by and large.
As for the noble Lord's question relating to the staff of British firms, the Statement made it fairly clear that it would be wise for British firms operating in Argentina to reduce their personnel there to the very minimum. Turning to the final point made by the noble Lord about the military action which we fear may prove to be necessary, I can assure the noble Lord that it is the Government's clear intention to restore control of the Falkland Islands to this Government, as was said by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister and Lord Carrington on Saturday. I believe that I have covered the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Mais, in his supplementary question and I hope that I have been able to clarify the Statement to the benefit of your Lordships.
Lord Balfour of Inchrye: My Lords, may I repeat the question I asked before? Are the Government satisfied that these measures will have an immediate and significant effect on the economy of Argentina in general? In particular, the noble Lord the Minister did not mention aviation. Can we be assured that the Argentinian aircraft in this country are impounded and will not be allowed the continued service of our aerodromes?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, as to the effect of these measures upon Argentina, it may be helpful if I say that some 20 to 25 per cent. of Argentinian reserves are believed to be held in United Kingdom banks or by way of stocks and securities held in this country. It is therefore certain, I would say, that this will have a very significant effect on Argentina's economy.
As to my noble friend's second point, about air services, I understand that Airlineas Argentinas, which is the Argentinian airline, normally operates two services to the United Kingdom. The two most recent services were in fact cancelled for reasons best known to the Argentinians. Certainly it is not our intention that any further services should be operated. The operating permit will he suspended if necessary, and British Caledonian Airways have also suspended services to Buenos Aires.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, will the Government look again at their own wording in this Statement, perhaps later today? Will they put themselves in the position of a British firm and see whether the sentence "British firms must decide what action they should take", and

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so on, could not be made a little more helpful? Are the Government satisfied that they have continuing arrangements which will make it possible for firms which are truly puzzled about what they should do and in fear of their futures, to get advice quickly in terms which are quite understandable and in terms which the Government will stand by?
Also, on the last part of the Statement, about the taking of the "Canberra" under naval control, are the Government satisfied that there are enough merchant ships left flying the British flag for them to be able to meet their needs in this emergency, given the enormous number which have passed under flags of convenience in recent years? Will the Government in due course draw a lesson from this? Will the Government go further than speaking of "restoring" the Falkland Islands to their proper allegiance and of maintaining them in the Falkland Islands as long as the inhabitants wish?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, as for advice to British firms, it is not possible to go further than the Statement does in terms of specific advice, because circumstances will vary from company to company. A total trade embargo with Argentina is certainly something that we could consider, but we would need to do that in close concert with our allies in the European Community and elsewhere. In any event, an embargo by the United Kingdom acting in isolation would probably not have any major effect and it is therefore crucial, I believe, to secure the support of our friends and allies in this matter.
With regard to the "Canberra" and the possibility of needing other ships, I can say that one other ship has, I believe, been requisitioned and that a number of others have been chartered for this operation. We have no doubt whatever that an adequate number of vessels will be available as required.
3.54 p.m.
Lord Shinwell: My Lords, my question is directed not at the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, but at the Government's Chief Whip. I want to ask this question, because there is a danger that we might be entering into a kind of debate, and this is not the appropriate occasion for that; so many questions have yet to be answered. I should like to ask the Government Chief Whip, is there likely to be another debate on this subject before the Easter Recess? Is the vacation to take place as arranged, beginning on Wednesday next? These are very important questions and we want to know where we are. The House should be in almost constant attendance while we are awaiting events in the Argentine. Will the noble Lord inform us whether there is likely to be an occasion for another debate? Otherwise some of us want to ask some very direct questions.
Lord Denham: My Lords, I do not know whether it is proper for me to answer the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, at this point. This is the kind of matter which is always arranged after discussions through the usual channels. I can assure the noble Lord that such discussions will take place.
Lord Morris: My Lords, I should like to ask my noble friend Lord Trefgarne, will Her Majesty's Government constantly bear in mind their strategic principle and eschew all short-term economic expediency?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, the Government's position with regard to this matter generally was very eloquently and adequately described by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister when she spoke in the other place on Saturday, and indeed by my noble friend Lord Carrington when he spoke to your Lordships on the same day. 1 suggest that my noble friend reads the Hansard reports of those two debates.
Lord Beswick: My Lords, will the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, be good enough to clarify what he said about the European Economic Community? I understood him to say that further measures will have to be discussed with our partners in the Community. What about those measures already taken? Are they to be followed? Will similar action be taken by our fellow partners?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I believe that will be a matter for the national Governments concerned. External trade, as the noble Lord will know, is a matter in which the European Community has competence, as the expression goes, and therefore it is right and proper that we should discuss matters of that nature with them. The matters to which the Statutory Instrument refers, and about which the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, was asking me, fall within our own national competence.
Lord Davies of Leek: My Lords, there is a technical point about insurance. Would an underwriter's agreement made 24 or 30 hours ago still be legally correct? Would he still be called upon to undertake his underwriting if it was with Argentinian business or with other concerns of Argentina? May we have some information on that point?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I speak without a specific brief on that particular point, but I imagine the position is that if a premium has been received, then the contract is in force but that a claim could not be paid until these restrictions were lifted.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, are the Government keeping in close contact with the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva? I believe that the committee has offered its services on behalf of the Falkland Islands population. Is it not vital that there should be an impartial humanitarian body to protect the interests of civilians in the hands of an occupying state? Would the Minister not agree that safeguarding innocent civilians is paramount whatever else happens?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I can confirm that the International Committee of the Red Cross has made an approach to Her Majesty's Government along the lines which the noble Baroness has described. We naturally welcome that approach.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, may I press the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, on the whole ECGD question? Would he not agree that it would be very unfortunate indeed if these events were required to be paid for by ECGD policyholders and by exporters generally, who have already suffered enough? Will he give this matter his most urgent attention? Will he reply to the request made by the noble Lord, Lord Mais, with regard to the position of compensation for firms which have suffered damage or loss as a result of these events?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I understand that it is not the practice to pay compensation in these circumstances. It is the case that in a situation such as this one costs will be incurred and will have to fall on someone, but defending our national honour is not something that we can do for free.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, could my noble friend answer the following questions? Will he please make representations to the French and Italian Governments that they should supply no spare parts to the Argentinian armed forces for French and Italian equipment which they supplied? Secondly, how many Argentinian merchants ships are there in British or British controlled ports? How many British merchant ships are there in Argentinian controlled ports? Please can we put an embargo on the Argentinian ones if the odds are on our side and not on theirs?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I can assure my noble friend that the Italian and French Governments have given us the utmost support in this matter, and I have no doubt will be considering acting along on the lines my noble friend suggests. I understand that at present there is only one Argentinian vessel in a United Kingdom port, but one or two are due either today or soon. I will certainly see that the point made by my noble friend is taken into account.

Northern Ireland: Political Developments
4.2 p.m.
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (The Earl of Gowrie): My Lords, it might be for the convenience of the House if, with the leave of the House, I now repeat a Statement being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. The Statement is as follows:
"Mr. Speaker, I will, with permission, make a Statement on policital developments in Northern Ireland.
"The Government have today published a White Paper setting out proposals for the election of an assembly which would provide a framework within which a devolved government might again be set up in Northern Ireland. These proposals are designed to meet two objectives. First, to provide at once a means for greater democratic participation by the people of Northern Ireland in their own affairs. Secondly, to give them the opportunity to evolve for themselves a form of government acceptable to them.
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"The Government propose that there should be an election later this year to a new Northern Ireland assembly. While consideration of the arrangements for a devolved administration will be its most crucial task, the assembly will from its first day have important scrutinising, deliberative and consultative functions. It will be able to report on a wide range of topics and its reports will be laid before Parliament.
"The assembly will establish committees corresponding to each of the Northern Ireland departments to monitor and report on their policies and activities."
"The assembly will from the outset be empowered to recommend arrangements under which the whole or part of the full range of legislative and executive responsibilities which were devolved in 1973, could be exercised by the assembly and by a devolved administration answerable to it. If the assembly send the Secretary of State proposals which have the support of 70 per cent. of the total membership of the assembly he will be required under statute to lay those proposals before Parliament for its consideration. He would also have discretion to present to Parliament proposals which did not command 70 per cent. support but which in his view enjoyed the support of both sides of the community in Northern Ireland. I would like to make two things clear: first, the parties in Northern Ireland will have wide discretion about the basis on which a devolved administration and assembly might be formed and operate—Her Majesty's Government are not seeking to impose any particular system; secondly, the Government would not recommend any arrangements to Parliament unless they believed them to be acceptable to both sides of the Northern Ireland community. Stable government can only come from such acceptability. If Parliament approves the assembly's recommendations, powers would be devolved by order in council.
"The assembly will have the option of moving to full devolution of powers from the outset or, if it seems easier to achieve agreement on devolving the responsibilities of only some Northern Ireland departments, to make proposals for partial devolution.
"The arrangements will be flexible in that partial devolution could lead on to further or full devolution. And if the agreement on which devolution was based collapsed and could not be re-established, it would be possible for the assembly to revert to its scrutinising, consultative and deliberative functions, with the Secretary of State taking back other responsibilities.
"Direct rule has served Northern Ireland well. It was, however, introduced as a temporary arrangement. It does not provide satisfactory political structures through which a divided community in Northern Ireland can make the necessary mutual accommodations to tackle its special problems. For Northern Ireland requires new political arrangements suited to its unique character. These must reflect the history of the Province and its long experience of devolved government, and must recognise and respect the differences of identity and aspiration which exist there. The proposals in the White Paper take account of these circumstances. At the

27
same time they are firmly based upon Northern Ireland's position as a constituent part of the United Kingdom for so long as that is the wish of the people of Northern Ireland.
"The Government are convinced that good relations with the Republic of Ireland are of great importance. These relations are for the sovereign Governments and Parliaments. It is for the London and Dublin Parliaments to consider whether the governmental meetings of the Anglo-Irish Intergovernmental Council should be complemented by an Anglo-Irish body at parliamentary level in which members of an elected assembly in Northern Ireland could take part. In addition, it would remain open to a devolved administration in Northern Ireland to make such bilateral arrangements and agreements with the Government of the Republic as it wished concerning the matters for which it is responsible.
"The problems of Northern Ireland are formidable. The evil of terrorism has struck at the lives and expectations of ordinary people, Catholic and Protestant alike, for far too long. The economic decline is more acute and more intractable than elsewhere in the United Kingdom. The Government believe that the defeat of terrorism, the recovery of the economy and the establishment of effective political institutions go together and support one another. An end to the political deadlock of recent years offers the best hope of a sustained improvement in the economy and in security.
"The proposals in the White Paper are fair and flexible. Like all proposals for Northern Ireland, they involve risk and controversy. The Government in no way underestimate the magnitude of the task or the strains any proposals will have to bear. But they also offer an opportunity which, with time and patience and the continued commitment and goodwill of Parliament, may be exploited to the advantage and relief of all the people in Northern Ireland."
My Lords, that ends my right honourable friend's Statement.
4.8 p.m.
Lord Blease: My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Earl the Minister, Lord Gowrie, for repeating in this House the Statement made by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in another place. The announcement made today by Mr. James Prior about the Government's new political initiative concerning Northern Ireland has been anticipated for some months, and especially during the past four weeks. There has been a continuous stream of statements, reports of meetings, and pronouncements by the Northern Ireland Office, and by politicians of various groupings, about the proposed devolved political powers and the structures of government for the Province. I would like to say that I am aware that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and the noble Earl have, in my view, worked earnestly and energetically to get the developments to this particular stage.
There have been the predictable political posturings and entrenched attitudes to these developments. Some
28
of these positions are understandable; they are born out of bitter sectarianism; some arise from the years of fear, terrorism, murder and destruction; some are perpetrated through the ugly exploitation of a few rabid politicians who play upon the differing traditions of the people of the Province.
From these Benches we welcome the flexibility of the proposals in the Statement, and the opportunity that the new political initiative should give to the people of Northern Ireland to find peaceable and positive solutions to the many and terrible problems of the Province. The proposals involve considerable risk and possible emotive controversy. While much of the responsibility for the way forward lies with the Northern Ireland people, at the same time the United Kingdom Government must continue to help in the creation of a stable political framework in which community peace, improved security and social and economic progress can be built.
It is difficult at this stage to make other than a few general observations on the statement about the political developments. I would assume that we shall have an early opportunity in this House to debate in more detail the White Paper and the proposed way forward by order in council. There are a number of procedural arrangements which I consider require considerable clarification. I would hope that in the interim the United Kingdom Government and the Northern Ireland Office will continue to seek to provide adequate and appropriate security and economic measures. There should be no letting up on both of those vital fronts in any way forward to a political arrangement.
It is also hoped that all the consultations, discussions and debate which ensue in the interim with the interested parties will be conducted with the greatest possible degree of openness and frankness. It is my opinion that for future peace and prosperity in Ireland there is nothing to be gained by secret diplomacy, private deals or ad hoc agreements.
While I hold that it is the responsibility of all the people of Northern Ireland to find a system of devolved government which will promote harmony, trust and respect for all, I equally hold that it is the responsibility of the United Kingdom Government to help and support every step towards the achievement of parliamentary democracy in the Province. There is a great need at this time for both traditions in Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom Government to work together with honesty, goodwill and respect for each other. If we fail together then the only persons to gain are the men of violence. I wish to support at this stage the Statement made by the noble Earl and I shall look forward to further exchanges as regards the possible arrangements for political development.
Lord Hampton: My Lords, I, too, should like to thank the noble Earl for repeating the Statement for his right honourable friend. I think that we are in danger of feeling a sense of anti-climax not only because of the tragic events in the Falkland Islands which dominate the political scene at the moment, but also because on so many occasions the Secretary of State's proposals seem to have been published in the papers with little tables saying how the Catholics react, how the Protestants react and that we should take no notice of it anyway. But it is essential that

29
we should turn to this highly important matter now.
We welcome the Statement because, as a party, we believe in devolved government. It seems to me, from the discussions that we have in this House on the orders, that it would make much greater sense if the people from Northern Ireland did not have to travel over here at considerable trouble but could discuss the matter in their homeland.
There is one matter that I should like to raise with the noble Earl. I am not certain whether I missed this point but I understood that the assembly would normally have the opportunity to comment on draft orders in council. I am sure that the House will wish to take careful account of these comments. I am not certain whether I heard the noble Earl mention that, but it may be that my attention was distracted for a moment. This has been described elsewhere in the press as rolling devolution. It comes by stages. There is no imposition. I think that the noble Earl will not be surprised if we say we shall encourage the use of proportional representation when we get to it.
The next point that I wish to make is that if unionists wish to remain in the United Kingdom, we believe it should be made clear to them that their co-operation in finding a way forward is essential. They cannot have it both ways. They cannot say that they are loyalists and then make everything as difficult as possible. I agree that direct rule has worked well, but for practically everyone it has only been second best. I believe that failure to proceed now would be a failure of the Northern Ireland politicians and the Northern Ireland people behind them, and not of the Secretary of State. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Blease, on the need for co-operation as regards this matter. We agree that there is a vital need for good relations with Eire. That is another matter which has to be kept in the balance. The tragic economic situation in Ulster emphasises the need for maximum co-operation and effort all round. Obviously details of how to proceed will have to be worked out with greater time to study the proposals in the White Paper, But we hope to be able to support the proposals wholeheartedly.
I should like to refer to the closing paragraph of the Statement which suggests the right mood. It says that the proposals:
"offer an opportunity which, with time and patience and the continued commitment and goodwill of Parliament, may be exploited to the advantage and relief of all the people in Northern Ireland ".
We very much hope to help that come about.
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, on a sad and worrying day I am really most grateful for the welcome from the official Opposition Front Benches which I have just received for my right honourable friend's Statement. That is very gratifying to us and I hope that the remarks of both noble Lords will be heard in Northern Ireland itself. The noble Lord, Lord Blease, said that there had been a stream of statements by politicians as well as leaks and speculation. I think that that is the ordinary hazard of the consultative process. In fact, I do not think that it was so much a problem of leaks as a question of the people whom we consulted going out and issuing press notices quite overtly and right away the moment we had finished talking to them. But that is part of the process, and we certainly make no criticism of that.
30
I am very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Blease, who has so much experience of the Province and is so widely respected there, welcomes the flexibility of the package. No British Government can impose their own views on the Province or the views of one side of the community in Northern Ireland on the other. Our proposals are designed to provide a framework within which the Northern Ireland people and their representatives can have the opportunity to devise the necessary arrangements for progress there. The noble Lord, Lord Blease, echoed me in saying that of course there was risk here. But there is also considerable risk in standing still. Where security is concerned, we have achieved some improvement, although not enough. We wish to sustain that improvement and we wish the progress necessary for the improvement to continue.
Until such time as the people of Northern Ireland and their elected representatives decide to make proposals to us by which powers could be devolved back, direct rule will, of course, continue, as the noble Lord required, with great attention to both economic and security issues. But I for one welcome enormously what the noble Lord said about both traditions in Northern Ireland having to recognise each other and having to work together. That is very much the spirit of the White Paper which we shall be publishing in a few minutes.
I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, that here, of course, there is not sufficient Parliamentary scrutiny or always scrutiny by the most appropriate people, of matters of very great concern to the Province. I can confirm to him that it will be for the assembly to comment on the draft orders and I am sure that Parliament as a whole and your Lordships' House will take their comments into close consideration. Direct rule has, I think, worked, but it is a second best and the people of that lovely part of the Kingdom with their great and productive traditions deserve rather more than second best.
4.19 p.m.
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that, owing to the rather foolish convention by which third and later speakers must ask questions and not make comments, I shall ask him several times "Whether he is aware of" things which I think he probably is aware of? Is the noble Earl aware, for example, that from this Bench we endorse entirely this latest effort to return gradually to devolved government? Is he aware that we have always taken the view that direct rule was not permanent but only temporary? Is he aware that we cannot produce effective politicians unless they are allowed to take part in government as well as politics? Is he aware that one of the difficulties in Northern Ireland over the past few years, since government was exercised at Stormont, has been that no responsible duties at all have been laid on politicians? Is the noble Lord aware that we found a number of very competent and effective politicians in the Stormont experiment, and that it is a great pity that it was sabotaged?
In view of the advisory and consultative form that the Secretary of State is proposing, has the noble Earl considered sending two members of each party to Hong Kong to see how they do it there? I returned

31
from there on Saturday, and it is remarkable that there they have a Governor, an administration and a number of specific consultative groups who are listened to very closely and for whom the Government have the greatest respect, and that form of Government works there extremely well. The noble Earl is aware—I shall not ask whether he is—that matters are much more difficult than that in Northern Ireland, but I think that it is an example which could be pointed out to the politicians with whom he has to deal.
Finally, I was very glad to see that the right of Northern Ireland to remain within this country is, once again, stated in the Statement. As a party which is entirely bipartisan at the moment, we fully support this move by the Government.
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, again, I am very grateful for that endorsement of my right honourable friend's Statement. It is particularly welcome, coming as it does from a noble Lord with considerable distinguished service and experience as a Minister in Northern Ireland, albeit in another political incarnation. I would also endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, has said about the competence of Northern Ireland politicians. We would just ask them now to face their own reality squarely and to start working together for the good of all. If I suggested in the Province that Northern Ireland politicians should go to Hong Kong, I might be open to misinterpretation, but I will certainly draw to their attention the point which the noble Lord has made.
Lord Shinwell: My Lords, is the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, aware that none of the somewhat long statements that we have heard from the Leaders of the Oppositions has elicited the important element in this problem, which is that in the opening Statement the noble Earl failed (nor did any of those who followed him deal with the subject) to state whether the new proposals, the new device, or apparently new device—because, as we are all aware, the proposal for a devolved government is far from being original—have received the majority consent of any of the sections in Northern Ireland? Or is it just an attempt on the part of a new Minister, who realises that his predecessors have failed to solve the problem, to solve it by producing what might be called a gimmick, just a leftover from a previous suggested solution? Is the noble Earl aware of all that, or does he come to the House making a Statement about what is to happen in the future, based on a White Paper, without making it quite clear to Members of your Lordships' House that these proposals have the consent of any of the majorities on either side, either those on the Orange side or those in the minority? Unless he can do that, I suggest that they are just wasting their time.
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, I think that the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, has slightly misunderstood what 1 said. I said very clearly that no British Government can impose their own views on the Province. Nevertheless, it is also true—and the noble Lord with his experience will be aware of this—that the views of one side of a divided community in Northern Ireland cannot be imposed on the other. That is one of the principal reasons why the power-sharing
32
experiment failed. As a result of that failure, the United Kingdom Government as a whole—the British Government—had to take back powers, and they are now simply spelling out the terms under which they would be prepared to devolve powers again should the people of Northern Ireland and their representatives wish to have those powers devolved back.
Certainly in the six months that I have spent in the Province, I have had wide representations of a desire for greater local autonomy and a restoration of responsibility. With his customary acuteness, the noble Lord is quite right in saying that the political groupings make statements in which they declare that they will not co-operate with each other. But if they are not prepared to do so, direct rule of course will continue, with the added bonus of more scrutiny of its procedures by regionally-elected representatives. However, my own view, for what it is worth, is that there is a great hunger on the part of the people of Northern Ireland to put some pressure on their representatives to make the necessary, perhaps limited, mutual accommodations, one with another, across the community divide in order to improve what is a rapidly deteriorating situation there.
Lord Monson: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that, according to a recent public opinion poll, no less than 74 per cent. of the population of Northern Ireland would be content with full integration with the rest of the United Kingdom? This fact has been known for some considerable time. Can the noble Earl say why no attention appears to have been paid to this majority point of view?
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, the Government are constantly paying attention to points of view, though, of course, one particular poll does not make a summer. But where the issue of full integration with the United Kingdom is concerned, the role of Northern Ireland as a constituent part of the United Kingdom has been made quite clear by legislation and by myself in my Statement. If the noble Lord means by full integration a form of extra or improved tier of local government in Northern Ireland, I can only say to him that that does not evade the responsibilities of elected representatives there to make the same mutual accommodations and confront the same dilemmas inherent in Northern Ireland's unique political history and character, as I mentioned only a moment ago.
Lord Vaizey: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that these proposals will be warmly welcomed by most responsible people who have been involved with the question of Ireland and Northern Ireland? Is he further aware that the reaction of politicians in the North of Ireland to these proposals will be a test of their sincerity and their statesmanship? Is he also able to say at this stage whether in the long run, assuming that the assembly is formed and begins to work successfully, it would be possible to hand over supervision of the police force?— which has been a major source of worry to both sides of the community—ultimately the test of the responsibility of the assembly in important matters?
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, the bulk of law and order responsibilities—for example, the Royal Ulster

33
Constabulary, the criminal law and prosecutions, and the treatment of offenders—are in the reserved category of powers and, therefore, they could, as my noble friend appears to imply, be devolved at some time in the future, though of course the British Government would have to be conscious on these matters, as well as on other matters, that the arrangements under which they were being devolved were broadly acceptable to both communities in the way in which the general devolution proposals also have to be.
Lord Blease: My Lords, before the noble Earl sits down, I asked him a question about possible time for a debate on the White Paper in this House. If he is not able to answer that at this time, will he use his good offices to request a debate on the White Paper?
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, I shall certainly draw that to the attention of my noble friend the Chief Whip. As the noble Lord will be aware, these are not matters for me but for the usual channels. The noble Lord makes his views and desires perfectly clear, and they will of course be taken into account.

Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill
House again in Committee on Schedule 6.
4.30 p.m.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal Baroness Fisher of Rednal moved Amendment No. 131:
Page 83, line 36, at end insert—
("Local Government
8. In section 33(1) of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976 (Restoration or continuation of supply of water, gas or electricity) at end of paragraph (a) add "in consequence of an instruction given by him or", and at end of paragraph (b) there is added" or instruction "and at end of the subsection add—
"Provided that in any case where a Council undertakes to be responsible for all future outgoings in respect of a supply the undertakers shall not be entitled to refuse to restore such supply by reason of any sum or sums payable by the owner or former owner remain unpaid."
9. In section 33(2) at the end of the subsection add—
"2A. Where a Council becomes entitled to demand and recover from a person a sum under the preceding provisions of this subsection, the Council shall also be entitled to demand and recover from the said person any expenses reasonably incurred by the Council (including their establishment charges) in exercising their powers under this section in relation to the premises."
10. In section 33(4) at the end of the subsection add—
"4A. Any payments made by a Council in respect of any premises and recoverable from the owner, together with interest thereon from the date of service on the owner of the premises of the demand referred to in subsection (3) of this section, shall, from the date when such payments were incurred until recovered, be a charge on the premises and on the appropriate estates and interests therein or, if the premises having the same owner, on those larger premises and on the appropriate estates and interests therein.
4B. For the purpose of enforcing a charge under this subsection a Council shall have all the same powers and remedies under the Law of Property Act 1925 and otherwise as if they were mortgagees by deed having powers of sale and lease of accepting surrrenders of leases and of appointing receiver.").
The noble Baroness said: I apologise to the Committee if my voice is not very good, but I have a streaming cold. In moving this amendment, it is important to draw the attention of the Committee to the fact that powers currently exist within the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976 whereby a local authority can make arrangements with the statutory undertakings—the water authorities, the electricity and gas boards—for the reconnection of supply where disconnection has taken place. I should like to make sure that your Lordships understand that the main reason for the introduction of these powers in the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976 was to allow local authorities to try to remedy the situation where tenants in private sector properties were left without heat, light, and possibly water not as a result of their own fecklessness, but as a result of the landlord—whether he is a resident landlord or an absentee landlord—having defaulted on paying his bill. There was no misdemeanour on the part of the tenant; it was on the part of the landlord.
It is still common in many multi-occupied properties that the landlord takes responsibility for the payment of bills, especially for electricity, through slot meters or includes the costs of electricity and other services through the rent. Many of the larger authorities, and at the present time many of the district councils, are using the powers under the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act. This legislation has proved valuable because it provides a national framework to remedy the distressing conditions in which the tenants find themselves when their power is turned off.
It is important for us to recognise—and it has been brought to our attention through the local press, the media, through television—how accidents occur in this type of property when electricity is disconnected. There are the obvious fire risks because people use candles when there is not any lighting. They tend to use oil stoves, which in certain circumstances are hazardous and can cause fires. There is a definite risk when disconnection occurs.
It seems to us completely unreasonable that, in order to get the reconnection of electricity, gas or water, the local authority—and the local authority is the ratepayer; I want to reiterate that—has to become responsible for the payment of the outstanding debt of the landlord who defaults. The ratepayer has to come to the aid of the unfortunate tenants in these circumstances, to make sure that they can continue to live in the properties. We think that that is an unfair burden on the ratepayer and the local authority. Our amendment seeks to remove this condition.
The remainder of the amendment allows for reconnection to take place where the landlord has merely asked for a disconnection of supply. Some landlords use the disconnection of supplies to rented accommodation in multi-occupied properties purely as a blackmailing element to get the tenant out of that particular property. We are saying in the final part of the amendment, therefore, that there should be power for the local authority to recover the administrative expenses from the owner when the ratepayer pays for the connection.
Long discussions have been taking place with local authorities and with the statutory undertakers. It

35
was pleasing that in another place in a Written Answer on 29th March it was said that information had been laid in the Library that a new code of practice incorporating changes regarding statutory undertakings and disconnections was to be considered and put into operation. Perhaps one of the draconian measures that was considered in that code of practice was the disconnection of the owner's own electricity if he defaults and does not pay the debts of the property that he has rented. I hope that the Government will he considerate regarding our amendment. It is an amendment that has to be moved because, unfortunately, there are landlords who do not honour their obligations and who place their tenants at great risk and distress. It is for these reasons that I beg to move.
Lord Bellwin: The object of this Bill is to include in public legislation these uncontroversial matters appearing regularly in local authority rationalisation Bills which are being promoted by local authorities as a result of the lapse of their legislation by the end of 1986 under Section 262 of the Local Government Act 1972. To that extent the proposed amendment is not consistent with the object of the Bill. Indeed, in so far as the amendment seeks to impose an obligation on statutory undertakers, I wonder whether it is even within the scope of the Bill.
I appreciate that local authorities are concerned about the amounts of unpaid bills that they may be required to pay. However, I could not accept that the existing freedom of the statutory undertakers to negotiate with local authorities should be restricted unless there had been full consultation with them. The amendment's second purpose, of making sums due a charge on the premises, would in practice not necessarily be a better way of recovering money than local authorities' existing powers to collect rents. Putting a charge on the premises would also be indiscriminate since it could affect others than the defaulting owner who is to blame and I am not persuaded that it could be justified in national legislation.
That provision of the amendment which would cover cases where an owner merely gave instructions for disconnection would also be an indiscriminate measure, which would allow local authority intervention regardless of the circumstances in which an owner had sought disconnection. While I am satisfied that a local authority should be able to recover sums which are properly the responsibility of an owner, I am not at present persuaded that the fourth purpose of the amendment can be justified, which would allow a local authority to recover its own costs also, over which an owner has no control. Having said that, I would add that the whole issue, as the noble Baroness, Lady Fisher, rightly reminded us, has recently been considered by the gas and electricity supply industries in the context of a report by the Policy Studies Institute on the industries' code of practice on the payment of bills. My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy has now received the industries' joint response to the report; and the changes they have undertaken to make to their code of practice were announced by him in another place on 29th March in reply to a Question by my honourable friend the Member for Fulham. The industries have agreed that where
36
the board or region concerned becomes aware that a tenant is at risk of disconnection because of his landlord's debt, they will inform the local authority of the position and advise the tenant to do likewise. Disconnection action will be suspended for 14 days to enable the local authority to use its statutory powers to intervene.
Where the local authority agrees to help, disconnection will not take place provided the local authority agrees to pay to the board or region from future collection of rents an amount which covers the cost of ongoing consumption and clears the arrears. The board or region will therefore not insist on a lump sum payment of the bill giving rise to disconnection. The industries have also agreed to take all legal steps open to them to pursue the landlord for the debt including, where possible, disconnection at his home.
Those positive proposals will benefit tenants by reducing the risk of disconnection. They will also assist local authorities by giving them time to act and will mean that no local authority has to find a lump sum from its own resources. I believe, therefore, that they should be given a chance to work. My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy has welcomed those and other positive proposals for changes in the industries' code of practice. He intends to maintain close interest in the whole operation of the code, and the gas and electricity consumer councils are to monitor implementation of the changes. In view of what I imagine the noble Baroness feels is a considerable and satisfactory advance on the position when the amendment was tabled, she may feel able not to press it.
Baroness David: I understand the Minister to say that the amendment was not within the scope of the Bill. It was of course accepted here by the Public Bill Office. The amendment is to existing powers under Section 19 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976. The 1976 legislation was itself drawn up with reference to local Acts, just as this legislation is, notably in that case the South Glamorgan Act. The basis of the amendment is to bring into that national legislation features which currently exist in Section 19 of the Greater London Council (General Powers) Act 1972. Although additional points are included which are not in the Greater London Council Act—recovery of local authority administrative cost and action on voluntary disconnections—the proposals are esentially based on local Act powers. In addition, the Bill seems an appropriate vehicle for amendng powers in an existing Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act. Perhaps the Minister would respond to that point, and I leave my noble friend to respond to the rest of what he said.
Lord Bellwin: In so far as the amendment seeks to impose an obligation on statutory undertakers, I said I wondered whether it was even within the scope of the Bill. The noble Baroness puts forward a powerful case for suggesting it is within its scope, and clearly others would adjudicate on that. However, the main thrust of my response was to the substance of the matter concerning those who tabled the amendment, who I hope will feel that the position now is a major advance on what it was previously.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: I accept what the Minister said; namely, that the code of practice that has been brought forward is a welcome step for people in whatever properties they are occupying, but it will have a direct bearing, as the noble Lord said, on multi-occupied properties. As I said, this matter has concerned local authorities and statutory undertakers and it has been a case of one playing off the other to get bad debts in, but it seems that we are now going in a more sensible direction. If I understood the noble Lord correctly, many thousands of pounds will be saved by local authorities if the code of practice comes into operation. In view of the Minister's remarks, I will withdraw the amendment at this stage on the basis that shall read what he said to see whether I need return to the matter on Report.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule 6, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 7 [Repeals]:
[Amendments Nos. 132 and 133 not moved.]
4.47 p.m.
Lord Bellwin Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 133A:
Page 85, line 47, at end insert—

("PART 1A

LOCAL ENACTMENT REPEALED IN CONSEQUENCE OF SECTION 8

1980 c. xi.

West Midlands County Council Act 1980.

Section 51.")

The noble Lord said: It might be convenient if I spoke at the same time to Amendments Nos. 133B and 135A, No. 135A was printed in a previous Marshalled List but not in the present one, and it has therefore had to be tabled as a manuscript amendment, but it is consequential and therefore, with permission, I will cover that in my remarks also.
On Second Reading my noble friend Lord Nugent pointed out that many provisions in recent local Acts would be superseded by the provisions of the Bill. He asked why, in those circumstances, repeals had been included in Schedule 7 only in respect of provisions which corresponded to Clause 1 or which were consequential on Clause 11. I replied that I accepted in principle the need to repeal local Act provisions which were either being replaced by mandatory provisions in the Bill or which modified provisions in public general Acts which were also amended by the Bill. I promised that the matter would be discussed with the local authority associations with a view to introducing suitable amendments. I added that where provisions in the Bill were adoptive, local authorities would generally be free to retain their own provisions. Amendments Nos. 133A and 133B fulfil the promise I made. The repeals cover only the two limited categories I mentioned they would.
To be frank, it was our early hope to deal with these repeals by order under Clause 36 after the Bill had completed its passage through Parliament. But, as soon as we began examining the position, we realised that there were certain repeals that should be made in the Bill itself; they are the ones with which these amendments are concerned. I am sure the Committee will agree that it is highly undesirable to allow provisions in local Acts which amend public general Acts to remain in force together with those which are identical, or virtually identical, to amendments in this
38
Bill. I will not say more at this stage. I hope the Committee will agree that this series of amendments represent a practicable and reasonable course which is open to the Government. I beg to move.
Lord Mottistone: I should like to ask my noble friend for an assurance with regard to these amendments. Having looked at the relevant parts of the Isle of Wight Act which are to be repealed as a result of these amendments, it seems to me that rather more is being swept away than this Bill provides for. I should like an assurance from my noble friend that he and his advisers have looked closely into this question to see that they have not in some ways washed out the baby with the bath water. I wonder whether he can reassure me that in these local authority sections which are being removed there is nothing substantial which the present Bill does not wholly replace.
Lord Bellwin: I hear what my noble friend says. So far as I am aware, I am able to answer in the affirmative, but, as always, my noble friend, quite properly, raises matters which concern the Isle of Wight, and I would assure him that I shall take further advice. I undertake that, should it prove that his fears are in any way justified, I shall write to him and tell him exactly what is the position.
Baroness David: Following what the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, said, I should like to ask the Minister whether he will consider withdrawing Amendments Nos. 133A and 133B until the Report stage, because I feel that there has not been adequate consultation with the local authorities and they have not been given ample opportunity to respond. I understand that, when they were notified of this matter, there were effectively only two days for them to consider it, and that seems to me totally inadequate. Since, clearly, we are not going to have the Report stage for another two or three weeks, it would be reasonable for the local authorities to be given another opportunity to look at the enormous list with which we are presented. It is much longer than the original list in Schedule 7. It seems to me that that would be quite a reasonable request.
Lord Bellwin: I confirm that we consulted the local authority associations on this issue, as I assured your Lordships we would do. They responded in a very swift and, if I may say so, a very constructive fashion, though understandably—and I take the noble Baroness's point—they were concerned about the short time allowed. Of course we should have liked to have allowed more time by using the order procedure under Clause 36, but, as I have explained, we do not consider that that course is practicable in relation to the local Act provisions in question. In principle, all the associations appear to recognise the practicality of what we are now proposing, though I must say that naturally they express some reservations, which the department has tried in discussions to satisfy. I cannot withdraw the amendments, but I am sure the noble Baroness will recognise that, if between now and Report there arise any specific troublesome points, we can always discuss them with those concerned. I should have thought that that was probably the way to proceed.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
4.53 p.m.
Lord Bellwin Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 133B:

("PART IIA

LOCAL ENACTMENTS REPEALED IN CONSEQUENCE OF SECTION 12

1980 c. x.

County of Merseyside Act 1980.

Section 29.

1980 c. xxxvii.

South Yorkshire Act 1980.

Section 44.

1981 c. xxv.

East Sussex Act 1981.

Section 91.")

PART IIB

LOCAL ENACTMENTS REPEALED IN CONSEQUENCE OF SECTION 20

1976 c. xxv.

County of South Glamorgan Act 1976

Section 56.

1979 c. xxiii.

Greater London Council

Section 5.

(General Powers) Act 1979.

Section 9.

1980 c. x.

County of Merseyside Act 1980.

Sections 11 and 12.

1980 c. xi.

West Midlands County Council Act 1980.

Sections 7 and 8.

1980 c. xiii.

Cheshire County Council Act 1980.

Section 10.

1980 c. xiv.

West Yorkshire Act 1980.

Sections 13 and 14.

1980 c. xv.

Isle of Wight Act 1980.

Sections 11 and 12.

1980 c. xxxvii.

South Yorkshire Act 1980.

Sections 11 and 12.

1980 c. xliii.

Tyne and Wear Act 1980.

Sections 7 to 9.

1981 c. ix.

Greater Manchester Act 1981.

Sections 17 to 19.

1981 c. xviii.

County of Kent Act 1981.

Sections 8 and 9.

1981 c. xxv.

East Sussex Act 1981.

Sections 4 and 5.

1982 c. iii.

Humberside Act 1982.

Sections 31 and 32.

PART IIC

LOCAL ENACTMENTS REPEALED IN CONSEQUENCE OF SECTION 22

1980 c. x.

County of Merseyside Act 1980.

Section 14.

1980 c. xi.

West Midlands County Council Act 1980.

Section 10.

1980 c. xiii.

Cheshire County Council Act 1980.

Section 9.

1981 c. ix.

Greater Manchester Act 1981.

Section 20.

1981 c. xviii.

County of Kent Act 1981.

Section 11.

1981 c. xxv.

East Sussex Act 1981.

Section 6.

1982 c. iv.

County of Avon Act 1982.

Section 4.

PART IID

LOCAL ENACTMENTS REPEALED IN CONSEQUENCE OF SECTION 23

1980 c. xi.

West Midlands County Council Act 1980.

Section 17.

1980 c. xiii.

Cheshire County Council Act 1980.

Section 24.

1980 c. xxxvii.

South Yorkshire Act 1980.

Section 35.

1981 c. xxxiv.

Derbyshire Act 1981.

Section 18.

1982 c. iii.

Humberside Act 1982.

Section 38.

PART IIE

LOCAL ENACTMENTS REPEALED IN CONSEQUENCE OF SECTION 25

1980 c. xiv.

West Yorkshire Act 1980.

Section 45.

1980 c. xxxvii.

South Yorkshire Act 1980.

Section 23.

1980 c. xliii.

Tyne and Wear Act 1980.

Section 14.

1981 c. ix.

Greater Manchester Act 1981.

Section 33.

1981 c. xxv.

East Sussex Act 1981.

Section 16.

PART IIF

LOCAL ENACTMENTS REPEALED IN CONSEQUENCE OF SECTION 26

1967 c. xx.

Greater London Council (General Powers) Act 1967.

Section 24.

1980 c. xiv.

West Yorkshire Act 1980.

Section 10.

1980 c. xxxvii.

South Yorkshire Act 1980.

Section 40.

1980 c. xliii.

Tyne and Wear Act 1980.

Section 15.

1981 c. ix.

Greater Manchester Act 1981.

Section 46.

1981 c. xviii.

County of Kent Act 1981.

Sections 24 and 25.

1981 c. xxv.

East Sussex Act. 1981

Section 15.

PART IIG

LOCAL ENACTMENTS REPEALED IN CONSEQUENCE OF SECTION 27

1976 c. xxxv.

County of South Glamorgan Act 1976.

Section 28.

1980 c. x.

County of Merseyside Act 1980.

Section 17.

1980 c. xiii.

Cheshire County Council Act 1980.

Section 26.

1981 c. ix.

Greater Manchester Act 1981.

Section 39.

1981 c. xviii.

County of Kent Act 1981.

Section 27.

1981 c. xxxiv.

Derbyshire Act 1981.

Section 17.

1982 c. iii

Humberside Act 1982.

Section 43.

PART IIH

LOCAL ENACTMENTS REPEALED IN CONSEQUENCE OF SECTION 29

1980 c. xiii.

Cheshire County Council Act 1980.

Sect on 94.

1980 c. xv.

Isle of Wight Act 1980.

Section 17.

1981 c. xviii.

County of Kent Act 1981.

Section 4.

1982 c. iii.

Humberside Act 1982.

Section 50.

PART IIJ

LOCAL ENACTMENTS REPEALED IN CONSEQUENCE OF SECTION 30

1980 c. xiv.

West Yorkshire Act 1980.

Section 82.

1980 c. xxxvii.

South Yorkshire Act 1980.

Section 90.

1981 c. xxv.

East Sussex Act 1981.

Section 90.

PART IIK

LOCAL ENACTMENTS REPEALED IN CONSEQUENCE OF SECTION 31

1980 c. xxxvii.

South Yorkshire Act 1980.

Section 94.

1980 c. xliii.

Tyne and Wear Act 1980.

Section 22.

1981 c. xviii.

County of Kent Act 1981.

Section 31.

PART IIL

LOCAL ENACTMENTS REPEALED IN CONSEQUENCE OF SECTION 33

1980 c.xi.

West Midlands County Council Act 1980.

Section 68.

1980 c.xiv.

West Yorkshire Act 1980.

Section 52.

1980 c.XV.

Isle of Wight Act 1980.

Section 47.

1980 c. xxxvii.

South Yorkshire Act 1980.

Section 83.

1981 c. ix.

Greater Manchester Act 1981.

Section 95.

1982 c.iii.

Humberside Act 1982.

Section 54.")

The noble Lord said: I have already spoken to this amendment. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Belstead Lord Belstead moved Amendment No. 134:
Page 86, line 27, at end insert—

("1936 c. 49.

Public Health Act 1936.

In section 2(2), paragraph (ii).")

The noble Lord said: This amendment is consequential on subsection (1)(b) of the new clause which was contained in Amendment No. 124. Section 2(2)(ii) of the Public Health Act 1936 limited the Secretary of State to constituting a joint board consisting of representatives of two or more authorities to be a port health authority, where the port health district consisted of two or more Customs ports. The new clause removes that restriction. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Jacques): We now come to the amendment which was omitted from the Fourth Marshalled List, although it appeared on the Third Marshalled List. It is now Amendment No. 135A.
Lord Bellwin Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 135A:
Page 86, leave out lines 28 to 30.
The noble Lord said: I have already spoken to this amendment. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 135 to 137 not moved.]
Schedule 7, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 36 [Consequential repeal or amendment of local statutory provisions]:
On Question, Whether Clause 36 shall stand part of the Bill?
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: I should like to speak on clause stand part. I listened to what the noble Lord said about the order procedure, and I want to reiterate some of the points which my noble friend has previously made. It is incumbent upon the Government to give to local authorities adequate notice when they are considering repealing or amending any provisions of a local Act. Two or three days' notice is just not good enough, especially when we consider that local authorities do not lightly decide to seek their own legislation. Over a long period of time local councillors and officials think earnestly about possible legislation which they consider would be effective in their own area.
If the Secretary of State considers that local provisions should be repealed or amended so as to fit in more easily with national legislation, due consideration should be given to the matter. It should not be dealt with merely by means of a cursory letter requesting a reply within perhaps three or seven days. There should be real consultation with local authorities. If local government is to mean anything, there must be working co-operation with national government. I am sure that the national Government will accept that many provisions on the statute book arose initially from various local authorities which became aware of problems or which wanted to better conditions in their own areas, and in the long run such provisions became national legislation.
Along with my colleagues on this side of the Committee, I feel that the concern of local authorities should be properly studied; as I mentioned on Second Reading, there should not be merely a token consultation. A local authority should be able to retain any local Act which it feels would be more beneficial in its area than would such national legislation as might be brought forward. In some instances where national legislation is put forward—such as the miscellaneous provisions now before us—local authorities might agree to a repeal, only in the distant future to wish that they had not given up a specific power which they had in local legislation. So I would ask the Minister to be very tolerant of the local authorities' wishes on any future repeal, and to ensure that the phrase "to consult" will mean real consultation, not merely a letter requesting an answer within seven days.
Lord Bellwin: I am sure the noble Baroness will accept from me that I, perhaps more than most, should like to believe that local authorities will not feel in any way badly done to, for whatever reason. I think it is also fair to say, in connection with this whole Bill, that there has been a great deal of con-
42
sultation. In fact, it is really what local authorities need; they need this particular legislation. I am informed that they were pressing for it long ago, and it makes good sense that it should be there because obviously we have to do something that will prevent them all having to come individually to make cases. They will now have powers which will obviate the necessity for that, so that will be what they are wanting.
This is bound to be the situation. I have now had the privilege (if that is the right word; I am not sure that it is) to deal with (I am not sure that is the right phrase, either) a great number of Bills in the last three years, and always this matter of consultation arises. Always one tries to do the best one can, and always, it seems, there is someone somewhere who feels that there ought to have been more consultation. I entirely take the noble Baroness's point that two or three days on anything is really less than desirable; but I hope she will agree that there can be situations which arise where that may in fact happen, whatever earlier period of consultation there may have been.
So I would say that, so far as concerns, in particular, the clause to which she has referred, in fact an order may not be made until the local authority has been consulted, and they will be given plenty of time for this purpose. I would imagine, too, that they will be taking the initiative. So while I accept in general what the noble Baroness is saying, I know that she has also seen so many Bills going through that she knows that these situations can arise, and it is not done with any motive at all other than from anxiety to get into the Bill in question the points that everyone needs to have covered.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: I take in some of the points that the noble Lord has made, but one presumes that consultation could have taken place earlier. I mean, in the repeals section we are repealing Acts before the ink in which they have been printed is even dry, to be perfectly candid. There is the Humberside Act 1982. We are repealing that under three clauses according to the latest schedule. The oldest one is the County of South Glamorgan Act, the most controversial one; the first one of the local government ones. In the case of all these, local authorities, with their officers and with their councillors, spent money and spent time, and used the parliamentary time; and one wonders, for what?
The consultation procedure, I should have thought, could have started even in 1981, to let the local authorities know that a miscellaneous provisions Bill was coming along and that it was hoped to accommodate this, that the other which they might be bringing forward. So I would have said that there should be consultation over a longer period, because I think there are already four Bills which will be going upstairs to a committee in the near future. I know that I have been asked to sit on the Epsom and Walton Downs Bill. Then I think there is the Nottinghamshire one; and I think Derbyshire is also going to a committee. I hope that their consultations have taken place, and that the committee will not be discussing things that have perhaps got into this miscellaneous provisions Bill. So while I would have said that on repeals we might have greater consultation, there should really be greater consultation on everything,

43
so that public money or parliamentary time is not wasted.
On Question, Clause 36 agreed to.
Clause 37 [Citation and extent]:
Lord Bellwin Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 137A:
Page 43, line 34, after ("11(2)") insert (",[Work undertaken by local authorities and development bodies under certain agreements with Manpower Services Commission](3)").
The noble Lord said: I have already spoken to this amendment. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 37, as amended, agreed to.
In the Title:
Earl Grey Earl Grey moved Amendment No. 138:
Line 4, after ("Acts;") insert ("to make provision for the licensing of existing and future sex establishments;").
The noble Earl said: The reason for moving this amendment is that the Long Title should reflect the important contents of the Bill and yet there is no reference to Part II of Schedule 3 in the purposes of this Bill. I feel the Title should be amended as I have suggested. I beg to move.
Lord Belstead: I take the point which the noble Earl, Lord Grey, is making in this amendment, but I have reservations about the precise form of the words proposed in it. It would seem to carry an implication, which does not accord with the general tenor of the discussions on Schedule 3, that local authorities are obliged to licence existing and future sex establishments. The Committee has been at very great pains to make the point that this is not so, and I think the contrary would be implicit if this amendment was made in exactly the words that the noble Earl has chosen.
I do accept, however, that technically an amendment to the Long Title may be needed to cover the proposed controls which arc set out in Schedule 3. While I hope, therefore, that the noble Earl may agree to withdraw his amendment for the reasons I have given, I will give an undertaking to take this point away and to look at it.
Earl Grey: I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, for being so helpful over this amendment. I think that in my amendment I did not make any reference to any obligation; I used the words,
"to make provision for the licensing of existing and future sex establishments".
But, in view of what the noble Lord has said and of his helpful remarks, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Bellwin Lord Bellwin: moved Amendment No. 138A:
Line 14, after ("registers") insert ("to exclude from the definition of" construction or maintenance work" in section 20 of the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980 work undertaken by local authorities and development bodies pursuant to certain agreements with the Manpower Services Commission which specify the work to be undertaken and under which the Commission agrees to pay the whole or part of the cost of the work so specified;").
The noble Lord said: I have already spoken to this amendment, and I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with amendments.

Antiquities Bill [H.L.]
5.9 p.m.
Lord Abinger: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time. If I may make one brief comment on it, I believe that the subject of the Bill, the better care of antiquities, has a wider than purely domestic interest. If I may put it like this, I think that we in Britain would be concerned and distressed if states like Egypt and Israel, or great nations like Italy and Greece, did not take proper care of their antiquities. Antiquities are not only part of a national heritage; they are part of the human heritage. The countries I have mentioned would have an equal right to hope and expect that we in Britain would take proper care of our portable antiquities, too. Unhappily, Britain is behind other countries in this respect in our legislation; but, while I cannot claim that this Bill aspires to being able to put a bad situation completely right, I would claim that it is at least a step in the right direction. The noble Earl who has spoken for the Government in our debates on the Bill has suggested that the Bill proposes a radical change in the law on property. I can only say with the greatest respect that I cannot agree with him. I would claim that the Bill seeks no more than a fairly modest extension of the existing law, the law of treasure trove.
I should like, in conclusion, to express my gratitude and thanks to noble Lords who have supported the Bill; my particular thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, who has given it staunch support and who has reflected the view of the British Museum; my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, who spoke eloquently in support of the Bill and with the authority of having been a Minister in the Department of the Environment; and, not least, my thanks to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, for his brief intervention. He suggested that in some respects the law of treasure trove is an ass. My wish might be that this Bill would seek to make it a little less asinine.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a third time—(Lord Abinger.)
The Earl of Avon: May I first acknowledge the time and attention that my noble friend Lord Abinger has devoted to this Bill and the contributions of others in this House who have generally supported the Bill or have sought to improve it. Its basic aim is to seek improved arrangements for the recording of archaeological finds and for their subsequent disposal. If, in the course of these debates, the Government have seemed rather less than wholehearted about the Bill, this reflects some doubts whether in practice these aims are achievable in this way. There are also some matters about which your Lordships have heard me express misgivings. These points have been mentioned in the course of debate and I have no intention of labouring them now. The Bill has many friends in this House and I would not want to cast a blight on

45
the proceedings. I end as I began, by complimenting my noble friend on the way he has piloted the Bill through the House and on the diplomatic way in which he spoke this afternoon.
On Question, Bill read a third time, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

Transport (London) (Amendment) Bill [H.L.]
5.13 p.m.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. The purpose of the Bill is to restore the position of the Greater London Council and the London Transport Executive to that which it was held generally to be prior to the judgment of the noble and learned Lords of Appeal. The importance of London's passenger transport can hardly be overstressed; 5½ million trips are made each day, some 55 per cent. of which are in connection with work. Central London alone provides employment for 1 million persons, 80 per cent. of whom commute by London Transport and British Rail.
We are not debating here the Greater London Council's low fares policy but it must be made absolutely clear that until the judgment, few if any had thought that the fares policy adopted by the GLC was unlawful. I have a 157-page discussion booklet on Labour's GLC election policy which was considered at a two-day conference as long ago as October 1981. This included a 22-page section on transport policy drawn up by a 19-member working party. The low-fares policy was argued and recommended in that document. This was publicised, but no one suggested the policy was unlawful. This was included in the GLC election manifesto and was one of the controversial items in the campaign. No one suggested that it was unlawful. A number of independent observers said that this was an imaginative effort to tackle traffic congestion, energy saving and to deal with environmental aspects in connection with London Transport. There may be some who have criticised the proposal, but no one has suggested that it was unlawful.
One important reason why the proposals were not considered to be unlawful was because there was general acceptance that they were within the powers under the Transport (London) Act 1969. That Act was quoted in some detail in the course of the judgment and it was stressed that there was a difference between that Act and the Transport Act 1968 which dealt with the provision of public transport outside Greater London.
When the London Bill was introduced in 1969 the Ministers of the day intended clearly to give wide powers to the GLC. I am pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, is in his seat today and is down to speak because I want to quote from a statement that the noble Lord made at the Second Reading in another place on 17th December 1968 (in cols. 1247–8). He said:
"The main power that the Council will have, apart from the power to appoint, will be to pay grants to the Executive for any purpose it thinks fit and to issue directions to the Executive. This gives the Council the right to prescribe the policy lines to be followed and to take financial responsibility for its decisions.
46
This is very important, because if the Council wishes the Executive to do something that will cause it to fall short of its financial targets, it will itself have to take financial responsibility for it. The Council might, for example, wish the Executive to run a series of services at a loss for social or planning reasons. It might wish to keep fares down at a time when costs are rising and there is no scope for economies. It is free to do so. But it has to bear the cost".
That statement was made on behalf of the Government of the day when the 1969 London Bill was introduced. The statement, your Lordships will agree, is clear and needs little or no elaboration.
I could give a number of extracts from the Minister's speech, but I will content myself with just one more statement which the noble Lord made in reply to that debate in another place. He said:
"if a democratically-elected authority decides that it wishes to spend its rates in a particular way for the benefit of its electors it is a rather unconstitutional theory that Parliament should tell the authority that Parliament knows best".
That, I am sure noble Lords will agree, is what democracy, the constitutional position and local government are all about.
I thought it might be helpful if I read through the debate on Second Reading when the 1969 Bill came to your Lordships' House. The noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, then Parliamentary Under-Secretary, on 10th June 1969 (in column 533), when dealing with the financial duties to be placed on the Executive and the procedure for controlling fares, said:
"The practical effect of this will be that Londoners through their elected representatives on the GLC will decide the pricing policies and levels of service for their public transport and will take financial responsibility for their decisions. This would appear to be an eminently reasonable approach".
I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, is not with us. He was speaking for the then Opposition and said:
"The future financial policy for London Transport will be strongly influenced by the fact that the deficit will fall on the ratepayers who elected the GLC. This, I think, is a thorougly sound constitution and I commend both the Government and the GLC in agreeing to it".
To be absolutely fair to the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, I must say that in a later part of his speech he hoped that any subsidy from the rates would be on capital expenditure and would not be on current revenue. The noble Lord was entitled to that policy viewpoint. But at no time did he challenge the interpretation which has been generally placed on the 1969 Act that the GLC have powers to pay from the rates towards current revenue.
Just a few words on what has happened with the low fares policy. It is claimed that it generated 10 per cent. extra journeys, 400,000 additional bus journeys and 140,000 additional tube journeys each day during which the policy was in being. A survey that was undertaken indicated that 40 per cent. of these related to work journeys; the other 60 per cent. were additional journeys through fares reductions. Surveys generally showed that high fares discourage employment in central London, and I must remind your Lordships that 60,000 persons outside the Greater London area travel into work each day by London Underground. A journey of only 30 miles return will now cost a husband and wife £6.40, and when we remember that same journey can be done by car for £1.60, there is obviously an encouragement not to go by public transport but to add to the congestion of London's roads.

47
Following the judgment, the GLC has considered it desirable and essential to obtain counsel's opinion on various matters. One such opinion dealt solely with what capital projects could be lawfully embarked upon in the light of the judgment. This has serious implications for the future of the London Transport system in light of the break-even requirement which has been laid down.
It is estimated that by the late 1980s fares will need to rise by 50 per cent. in real terms over the increased fares which started on 21st March this year. There will be 40 per cent. less journeys by bus and 17 per cent. less journeys by tube. The problems of London traffic congestion will be immense. There are already in hand, because of the judgment, reductions in bus service levels by thinning out, withdrawal of some routes and cuts in service frequencies. The tube will suffer also by cuts in service frequencies, closure of some 25 stations and possible withdrawal of branch lines and little used lines in the outer areas. It is claimed that in the first week of the increased fares (since 21st March) the number of journeys fell by 17 per cent.—that is, 800,000 fewer journeys in one day. Higher fares can mean less travelling followed by further cuts and restrictions. All this has a multiplying effect for the problems of employment in the Central London area, and a possible increase in London weighting because of the heavy prices. A 30 mile return journey on a monthly season costs £330 in the course of 12 months, and there are great problems.
Since the judgment, editorials in various papers and journals have urged the need for the Government to clear the present confusion and for the law to be revised. I will not take time in quoting from all those publications because there are possibly more important statements to be made. I refer to the opinion of counsel regarding the capital projects. This was a 38-page opinion, which the GLC obtained. I am not going to read the 38 pages but I should like to quote the last paragraph:
"In conclusion, for as long as the duty to operate London Transport's bus and underground systems upon business lines attempting to break even on revenue account in any two consecutive accounting periods remains the overriding duty which must prevail above and be given priority to the duty under Section 5 of the 1969 Act' to provide or secure provision of such public passenger transport services as best meets the needs for the time being of Greater London', it is the melancholy fact that the public transport systems in the capital are likely to deteriorate and to contract. Capital expenditure must necessarily reflect the prospective public demand, as well as the need to attempt to balance the books on the revenue account".
The concluding part of the opinion says:
"The Council is in the melancholy position of being prevented by law from 'securing the provision of such public passenger transport services as best meet the needs for the time being of Greater London'. That position results ineluctably from the existing consolidated revenue account deficit which will probably persist for at least another three years. If the Secretaries of State for Environment and Transport wish the Council and LTE to secure such public passenger transport services as best meet London's needs or if they wish to prevent the continual reduction in the scope and quality of such services and facilities, the law will have to be changed. In any event the conflict of legal opinions may be thought to call for its urgent clarification".
That is the end of a 38-page opinion by Mr. Roger Henderson, QC, dated 8th March 1982.
I wish to refer to one other opinion. This is interesting because it is a joint opinion by three counsel for the
48
Greater London Council and two counsel for the London Transport Executive. The opinion refers to known divergence of counsels' views on the proper interpretation of the Lords' judgment. I quote:
"The effect of this divergence is that counsel for London Transport consider that the GLC is entitled to provide a higher level of subsidy for the current year than is considered to be permissible by counsel for the GLC".
The joint opinion then sets out points on which the counsel are in agreement:
"We are also in agreement that it is most desirable that the principles upon which the GLC may grant subsidy to London Transport should be clarified by legislation … We therefore consider it necessary that legislation for the operation of the London Transport system should state unequivocally the principles upon which subsidy may be granted. Successive GLC administrations had approved budgets without challenge until 1980 on the assumption of a subsidy which included an amount which was decided to be necessary as a matter of policy in order to maintain a particular standard of service at given fare levels. If the continuance of this approach is considered desirable, it is necessary for there to be legislation which makes it clear that such policy objectives may properly be taken into account. It will obviously be a matter of consideration as to whether, if such legislation is introduced, amendments to other provisions of the Transport (London) Act, 1969, are desirable".
This Bill will go a long way to clarifying the situation set out in those two important legal opinions. It will provide grants which the GLC may make to the Transport Executive as provided in Section 3(1)(a) of the 1969 Act and will also include grants towards current expenses. The passing of this Bill would give the basis for effective planning for 1983, for capital projects and level of fares. I am assured, in the light of those two opinions, that urgent action is required on these matters for which planning needs to be started almost at once. It must be emphasised that the GLC would have the ability under this amendment to decide what is reasonable. Although the council will not be limited by statute, it would still—even if this Bill which I am introducing is approved—need to have regard to its fiduciary duty. My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be read a second time.
Moved, that the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Underhill.)
5.30 p.m.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, let me start by saying quite clearly from these Benches that we welcome this Bill and we thank the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, for introducing it. It fills a gap in the legislation which has been caused by the decision of the Lords of Appeal and the Government made it quite clear through the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, during the discussion on the Transport Concessions (London) Bill recently when they sought to confirm the position of London Transport in relation to the elderly and the disabled that it was not their intention to take any further action. Therefore, I think it is greatly to the credit of the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, that he has brought this Bill before your Lordships today.
I made it clear during the discussion on that earlier Second Reading that even this is not enough to solve the problem, but at least it goes some way towards helping transport in London in that it gives London equality with the rest of the country. Having said that, one could almost sit down and hope that the thing would go through. In my opinion, there should be very little

49
further debate. What is being asked for is a fair deal for London in relation to the rest of the country, but I have no doubt we shall not be able to leave it at that. I repeat that even this is inadequate to solve the existing problems although it does go as far as it is possible to go with this type of Bill—anything further would have to come from the Government side. If I repeat several things that I said during the Second Reading of the last Bill, I apologise to your Lordships, but I think they should be firmly on the record.
The first fact is that we are dealing with the capital city of this country, and that brings particular problems. It brings particular sorts of congestion and therefore perhaps a greater than usual need for a good public transport system. London has a very large number of commuters which other cities do not have in the same proportion. Some of those commuters pay rates and some do not. Not all of them can travel on London Transport—many of them travel on British Rail, particularly on the south side of the river. The problems of geography as well as the problems of finance bedevil this matter. Some of the ratepayers cannot benefit from the subsidies and some of those who benefit are not ratepayers.
The Minister was somewhat critical when I spoke on this subject before, and perhaps I did not make my position clear. I criticise the GLC for going too far too fast, and I think perhaps that has been at the root of some of the psychological reaction to the "fares fair" policy on the part of the Government and on the part of many ratepayers. I think they were wrong to expect to be able to recoup such large amounts of money—of the order of £125 million—from the ratepayers alone when, as I have said, many rate-payers are not able to benefit. Among those who do not pay but who do benefit are the large number of tourists who come into this great city of ours and the large number of business visitors, who naturally come to the capital city for a variety of reasons. A tourist tax is something which is outside the scope of this Bill, but it is something which has to be considered, it seems to me, if we are going to get the totality of this problem solved. However, in the end the cost of doing nothing is very high indeed. For a start, the sheer congestion has an enormous cost.
Many of us will have had various bits of information passed to us from a person called "Dave", to whom I have not been properly introduced. He sent me something about fare levels in London which I found quite interesting, and others may also have had that. I think, certainly, that many of the statistics given in that lead one to suppose that the extra cost of existing private vehicles under the new situation is of the order of £40 million. I do not know whether that figure is correct or not, but certainly the cost must be very significant.
The cost of accidents as a result of the extra congestion on the roads is another very significant figure. The estimate has been put as high as 3,000 more accidents in Greater London in a year and possibly between 30 and 40 fatalities, the cost of which I would not care to calculate. As the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, said, already in the short time since the fares rose we hear there has been a loss of something like 17 per cent. of passengers on London Transport. This increased congestion, increased pollution
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and increased frustration is only the beginning. I would remind your Lordships that the tourist season has not started yet and the congestion we shall have in the next few months is going to be horrendous.
Let me not pretend that throwing money at the problem is the complete answer. There is a need for greater efficiency, and the record of London Transport in many respects is not good. I am told that in the period between 1974 and 1981 there has been a decline in passenger miles of something like 6 million, while at the same time there has been an increase in staff of some 6,000. That seems to me to be a particular form of Parkinsonian law we could well do without. And it is not just the pen-pushers who are the trouble. There is a continued resistance to accept automation and a continued failure of management to press forward with it. There are far too many one-man buses that are being manned by two, but of course it is exceedingly difficult to achieve an improvement in productivity when the staff of London Transport are totally demoralised by being told that their services are no longer going to be required because of the increased fares leading to a rundown in services.
What the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, has told us about the reduction of services is really quite frightening—the closure of stations and the removal of buses. How could anyone in that situation feel they have a secure future? And if they do not feel that they have a secure future, how can they possibly participate in genuine discussions on productivity? So the staff have become demoralised and they need a new boost to their morale. This Bill is a start, and I hope the Government will not allow their prejudice against the present rulers of the GLC to affect their judgment.
This, as I said before, is a Bill about fairness. It is a Bill about giving Londoners the same rights and rules as other people; and justice demands no less. The Government may feel that the rights will be abused. They are perfectly entitled to that view, but I submit, as the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, said in quoting the noble Lord, Lord Marsh:
"That is a problem for the electors of London at the appropriate time".
Nothing is provided free in this world, and particularly is that true of transport. The question is: How shall we best pay for it in order to encourage an efficient, integrated public transport system in London, not only in the local interest but in the national interest? It cannot be achieved by charging economic fares: it can only be achieved by a subsidy of some sort provided either by the Government of by the GLC and preferably by both.
I note that the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, is speaking after me and doubtless he will suggest that this is another attack on the ratepayers and industry. I hope he does not take that view. On that point, I would suggest that even if the rate costs go up slightly there will be some compensation in terms of a reduction in the London weighing and there is an equation to balance there. I hope I do not anticipate his argument.
The Bill deals only with the position of the GLC in this very unusual circumstance. As I said earlier, I think that there is a need to tackle the whole of transport in the South-East region, but that, again, is not a purpose that can be tackled by this Bill. But

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I hope that the Government will give a fair wind to this Bill and that your Lordships will give it a Second Reading today.
5.40 p.m.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, in commenting on this Bill I speak as a London ratepayer in a small way. It so happens that, when the fares went down, I worked out that my increased rates just about balanced the extra value I would get from my own use of London Transport. Perhaps the situation is now reversed—I do not know. I have not had time to work it out. So your Lordships can take it that, though a ratepayer, I am a neutral one.
It seems to me—though I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, was properly advised by his learned advisers—that the amendment to the 1969 Act as effected by this Bill does not give the value that is required of it to warrant the necessary authority. It seems to me that the underlying section in the parent Act is Section 1, where the Greater London Council is called upon,
"to develop policies, and to encourage, organise and, where appropriate, carry out measures, which will promote the provision of integrated, efficient and economic transport facilities and services".
That, surely, is the real objective. Just to supplement Section 3(1)(a), to spell out what purposes might be covered, does not seem to me to add very much, because what it says is, "the Executive for any purpose ". Anyhow, that is as may be. I am not a lawyer and I do not understand these things. But I should not have thought that the Bill does what it sets out to do.
We had a comparison from the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, about the effects of the new high fares. He said that a husband and wife journeying in by car from 30 miles outwould have to pay £1.60, as against £6.40 to come a similar distance by Underground. I calculate that the minimum cost of running a car is what your Lordships and I are paid by the House for our own transport costs, which I think is 22½p per mile. That covers not only the £1.60 for petrol in the example given by the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, and it looks much more like £6·60—
Lord Underhill: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lord for giving way. I am not suggesting that people will buy cars especially to travel into town. They already have a car, and because they have one they will be tempted to use it and pay £1·60 instead of £6·40.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, if they go on doing that for any length of time, as anybody with experience knows, it will cost them the equivalent of 22½p per mile; and the AA's figures are much higher. So I do not think one should take that as a categorical statement about figures. As I work it out for the kind of distance that I travel, which now costs 40p instead of 20p, it costs about three times as much to travel by car and about four times as much to use a taxi. Your Lordships may say that, because a taxi takes only one person and there are all the other factors related to it, that is very reasonable, and that it would be better if the differences were six times and eight times. But I do not know whether that is a very easy
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calculation. The fact is that, by any calculation, the new increased fares are not disproportionately high, even though it might be a good thing if they were lower.
To turn to the effects of the "Fares Fair" policy—and I have always wondered: fair to whom?—the benefits seem to go to the non-ratepayers who are often tourists. I am sure that they are necessary here and that they spend lots of money in the capital, but people have different views about how many they want here at any one time. Then there are the out of London commuters, to which the noble Lord referred, and I should have thought that Londoners as a whole did not particularly welcome giving special treats to them. They may have to give a treat to a tourist, in order to bring him into the country, but I question whether we should give a treat to an out of London commuter. I expect that some of your Lordships are out of London commuters, and I do not want in any way to be unpleasant to your Lordships, but for a resident that is not necessarily a good thing.
Then there are the young people. It depends how young they are. There are quite a lot of people who are not ratepayers and who do very nicely out of that sort of thing. The young people and the not quite so young get much higher wages and salaries, relatively speaking, than they did 20 or 30 years ago. That is a fact, and they can afford more than they could when I was a young man. I understand that the old and infirm are not affected, so we can discount them.
I should now like to look at the penalties imposed upon the ratepayers. A very large number of domestic ratepayers end up evenly balanced, as 1 do. That must be the average situation, and it is nice to think that one is sometimes an average person. But the people who need to be considered—and here I must disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff—are the non-domestic ratepayers. They are the ones who get clobbered.
According to the rates information which I get from the Westminster City Council—I do not know to what extent this reflects itself on the GLC side, because it is rather difficult to identify the figures—332153; per cent. of the total rates are commercial and 6·4 per cent. are domestic. So that one-fifth of the rate income is domestic and four-fifths is commercial. That seems to be a bit hard. I do not suppose that the small businesses can afford to pay London weighting, though, of course, the big companies and the Civil Service pay London weighting. But the ordinary small trader around the place, who in many respects provides the life blood of this capital, is the person who is getting clobbered and going out of business. He is the one who will bear the main brunt.
One might suspect the London Labour Party of not being sympathetic to such people, and I wonder whether they realised when they formulated their great plan that that was where the real penalty would be imposed. I wonder whether they thought the increase would be paid by the rich ratepayers—the imagined Lordships, who are all supposed to be so much more wealthy than any of us are, except the ones who do not come to this place. It may be that they, thought they would clobber the wealthy millionaires, but I think they will find that they clobbered the small shopkeepers. So it is for that reason above every-

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thing else, that I do not think they had an undeniable right to make the kind of shift that they did.
One then wonders to what extent it is reasonable for any civic authority to have freedom to adjust the rates to provide something, if anything, to assist their local transport system. I think it is reasonable that they should be able to do something. I come back again to Section 1 of the 1969 Act which I suggest, to be effective, requires London Transport to operate with the minimum gross labour costs. Grants towards current expenses, which are referred to in the Bill before your Lordships, will not, I should have thought, encourage the diminution of gross labour costs. The noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, drew attention to this point. There is no doubt that London Transport and many other nationalised enterprises—if you can call them enterprises, because they do not usually turn out to be very enterprising—tend to have an awful lot of fat on the labour side. There was a frightening article in the Evening Standard about a workshop—think it was a tube workshop but it may have been a bus workshop—into which a reporter and a photographer managed to get where they found people waiting about doing nothing: having cups of tea, playing cards, et cetera. It was a gross waste of money. I am afraid that a further grant would encourage more of this. How properly to support, if support is necessary, a body which does not in the last resort have to rely on making the books balance is a great problem. It is the great problem of our era. It applies to any body, any organisation, which does not in the last resort have to rely on making the books balance in order to remain in business. I should not have thought any little grant like this would help them very much.
To sum up, I do not think that this Bill does what it sets out to do, and even if it did I do not think it would make life better for the people of London. Something much more radical is required. Selling off London Transport to private industry, in sections, is needed to get the efficiency and effectiveness which Section 1 of the 1969 Act requires. Therefore, I hope that when we come to consider whether the Bill should be given a Second Reading, we on this side of the House will decide not to give it one.
5.52 p.m.
Lord Marsh: My Lords, I listened with interest to the last comment of the noble Lord about the possibility of meeting at least part of the problem by selling off parts of London Transport to private enterprise. If he identifies buyers, I hope he will let me have prior notice. I shall then proceed to sell them the pigeons in Trafalgar Square.
The great problem that we have with London Transport is that inevitably it is a vastly expensive, complex undertaking. I find it a source of great pleasure that I am able to agree with almost everything which the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, said, because we have been friends for a long time. Having said that, I regrettably have to go on to say that I shall not support his Amendment Bill. On the arguments which he puts forward, all people would, I think, accept today the importance of an urban transport policy.
As a dedicated supporter of market forces I should be the first to accept that it is impossible to run an
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urban transport system without very large and heavy subsidies. The problem is that when one talks of subsidies and makes a case for them there is the danger of thinking that subsidies come from Governments, or local authorities. But subsidies come from people and there is a limit to how much they can pay, no matter how good the arguments which can be advanced. The problem, which has created this situation, is not that a decision was taken to subsidise Greater London's transport but that it is subsidised at a level which is insupportable, whichever party is in office. This is an argument which I would strongly promote.
May I pass on to some basic points. The noble Lord, Lord Underhill, quite fairly quoted from speeches which I made in the course of the debates on the 1969 Act. The interesting point, as the courts have revealed, is that it is just as possible to point to other comments which lead one to a totally opposite conclusion. The brutal truth is that the 1969 Bill was designed to appeal to a Labour-controlled Greater London Council which was positively enthusiastic about a high level of subsidy and that halfway through it had to be amended to make it acceptable to a Conservative-controlled Greater London Council—ably led, if I may say so, by the noble Lord, Lord Plummer—which was rightly suspicious of the whole concept and which was determined, above all else, not to get itself encumbered with an open-ended, ever increasing deficit. So the whole concept of the legislation changed in mid-air. if ever there were an argument against party political control of large, complex undertakings, the 1969 Act provides that argument.
To run briefly over what happened, as I saw it—and I know as much about these problems as anybody else in the House, because I created as much of these problems as anybody else in the House—in 1968 I was invited by the then Prime Minister to transfer from the Ministry of Power, after the completion of the Steel Bill, to the Ministry of Transport where I was to take charge of the 1968 Transport Bill from Mrs. Castle. I explained to the Prime Minister that I knew very little about the Transport Bill, that what little I did understand I disagreed with and that I would far rather stay at the Ministry of Power. As many noble Lords are aware, as always happens on these occasions I became Minister of Transport about an hour and a half later.
This is not the time to discuss once again the 1968 Transport Bill, other than to say that some of the key elements in the Bill led Mrs. Castle, logically as she saw it, to the 1969 London Transport Bill. Having created the passenger transport authorities and executives in the major conurbations, she was convinced, particularly since the creation of the new Greater London Council in 1965, that it would be totally illogical to have every conurbation in the country in charge of its own transport system with the exception of the biggest transport system and the biggest conurbation in the entire country. I am sure that she would not normally nominate me to speak on her behalf and I have not asked her permission, but I think that was her logic and one can see how it led to the separate 1969 Bill. She felt that control over London Transport should be transferred from central government to the new local authority.

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For reasons which I will come to, I believed that was a fundamental mistake. Indeed, I felt so strongly about the 1969 London Transport Bill that I went with a paper to the full Cabinet and asked my colleagues to allow me to withdraw the Bill. Looking back, I am not surprised that they refused. In 1967, the Government and the then Labour-controlled Greater London Council had reached agreement in principle. Although political control of the council had passed to the Conservative Party under the leadership of the noble Lord, Lord Plummer, negotiations were still continuing. But there was, as I said at the beginning, a fundamental difference which followed that change. The difference was that Mr. Plummer, as he then was, recognised very clearly the enormous dangers of accepting the enormous financial obligations of the London Transport Board. I remember quite clearly, and I have recently checked my memory, that he said over and over again, "I accept that it may be necessary to subsidise on the capital account but I will never be a party to an open ended subsidy on the revenue account". That was a fundamentally different view of the same Bill.
If I may say so to noble Lords, (outsiders may regard it as cynical though others here will recognise the inevitability of it) the fact is that in the course of the Committee stage I was speaking to two audiences. I was trying to persuade the Government supporters to continue in support of the Bill and I was trying to persuade the noble Lord, Lord Plummer, kindly to take it off the hands of the Treasury, who were delighted. They were as delighted to get rid of it as the Labour GLC had been to receive it. The argument then was not about transport policy but about how to get rid of this element of public expenditure by central Government and put it on to the back of the local authority. Quite why we wanted to do that I do not know, because we have shown no greater historical ability more ably to control local government expenditure than we control central government expenditure.
We argued all the way through on that basis and in the event there was a capital reconstruction. Assets worth £270 million were transferred for £27 million to the local authority, and the £27 million was in turn split with the National Bus Company. Again this was the danger. Eyes were fixed on the capital account. But it is the revenue account which is the danger every time in a transport undertaking. As I have already said, the Treasury were delighted to see the last of this monster. I consoled myself with the thought which the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, pointed out, that local electoral considerations would exert sufficient pressures to prevent irresponsible financial policies in respect of London Transport. That was a fundamental error. It is probably too wide a subject to discuss at the moment, but, in my view, local elections have very little to do with local issues. It can be quite fairly said that no one in London had any excuse for being in doubt as to what the policies would be in relation to London Transport if Mr. Livingstone and his colleagues came to power. But, of course, people did not vote in local elections for Mr. Livingstone and his colleagues; they voted the way they did because they did not like the Conservative Government. They did not vote about London Transport. This was the
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fundamental mistake in my view; that the one control we thought would be there—local elections—in reality does not apply for those reasons.
The result was that Londoners found themselves faced with a financial disaster which, even if the policy had not been reversed by the courts, would rapidly have reached a level which could not possibly have been supported by the London ratepayers alone. I believe it was just sheer chance that the courts intervened when they did. If one extrapolates the rate of loss forward, it is inconceivable that ratepayers could have paid it. Many ratepayers under our strange system are not necessarily wealthy people and the hardships were very real indeed—all the more so for those who suffered very large rate increases to pay out of relatively small incomes and who did not use London Transport services for which they were being charged through the rates.
I have no doubt that London Transport will always require very substantial financial support. I know of no rail passenger transport system anywhere in the world which breaks even. There are many reasons for that. That is even more so in the case of a system which depends on and is operated largely for commuter traffic because there is no way in which a complex, expensive organisation of that size can cover itself when it is only operating efficiently for probably five hours out of 24. This is one of the key reasons why no commuter system will ever make money or wash its face. But because a socially necessary service cannot provide a convential commercial return, that does not mean that it should not be run on conventional commercial criteria. Indeed, I believe that the strictness of the commercial criteria is all the more essential when one is dealing with what is essentially a socially necessary but non-profit making service than it is with a business making money but which occasionally loses some, because things can run away with you the moment you see such a service as a bottomless bucket into which you just keep on putting pennies.
This vast, complex industry cannot be run as the part-time interest of local councillors. Indeed, it is a nonsense to regard London Transport (this is the reason why I find myself unable to support the noble Lord, Lord Underhill) as a local issue in the same category as libraries, swimming pools, parks or open spaces. As other noble Lords have said, the London commuter area stretches, for a very large number of people, to a distance of 50 miles from London. It cannot be viewed in the same way as the West Midlands conurbation or Glasgow. It is a national undertaking. Most of those commuters come to work in establishments and undertakings which are of a national or even international nature. They are not working in London shops but in Government offices of the nation, in banks, in financial institutions, and in the head offices of large British and international companies. It is an international city, and a very expensive international city too. Why, in heavens name, should a low-paid manual worker in Wandsworth subsidise the travel expenses of a highly-paid executive living in Woking? There seems to be no sense in that in terms of equity. Why should people who travel five miles to work subsidise people who travel 50 miles to work? Why indeed, particularly when those people who are travelling 50 miles do so because they find it more pleasant to live 50 miles out of London and can afford to live 50

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miles out. In my view, there is no argument in logic for this concept.
I accept that in funding transport one needs to look at the total sum. I accept that there is a cost of congestion. I accept there is a cost of road accidents. I accept that there is the involvement of the tourist industry. But every single one of these things is a national cost and not a local cost in that sense. We tried a very expensive experiment with a major national asset. I conclude it is high time that the financial responsibility for this crucial element in what is the nation's economic life was transferred back to where it belongs, to national government, because it can only be seen as part of the nation's economic life, and because it is neither realistic nor fair to expect the people of London to carry this burden.
6.6 p.m.
Lord Pitt of Hampstead: My Lords, I am glad that I am able to follow the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, and I must thank him for making the case that the Government should be subsidising London Transport to a much greater extent than they are prepared to do. I agree with the noble Lord that London Transport should not have been transferred to the Greater London Council and should have remained under central Government control—or better still, that there should he a London Transport executive or undertaking covering not only London Transport but the London section of British Rail also. I believe that all these proposals are right.
However, that is not the position from which we are starting. The position we have is that the Greater London Council has policy and management obligations to London Transport. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, that the relevant section is Section 1. We have always thought that the relevant section was Section 1 and that this section not only gave the Greater London Council responsibility for policies but also the power to do something about these policies. It is only since the judges have stated that that is not so that we now have to do something.
It is all very well to say that some ratepayers benefit and that some do not; that some ratepayers benefit more than others; that some ratepayers are burdened more than others. The truth is that one cannot consider London Transport merely in terms of the bus and Underground services. One cannot consider it in isolation from the rest of the travel situation in London. London is a city to which people have to travel to work; to which people travel for entertainment; to which people come from abroad. Therefore, the question of how one arranges for people to travel around London is of the utmost importance.
They travel by many means. Some people walk and one must make provision for walking—that is what pavements are all about. Some people travel on bicycles, and if more and more people travel by bicycles, provision will have to be made to accommodate them. Some people travel by motorbike; I regard that form of travel as very dangerous but, nevertheless, people do travel by motorbikes. Some people travel by taxis and some by car, while others travel by bus and the Underground. It is obvious, and it has always been obvious, that the more people one can persuade to use buses and the Underground
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the better it will be for London in terms of travelling. There would be less congestion. There would be less need to build new roads. The logic of constricting London Transport in the way we are now bent on doing is that we cannot build more roads because we have already exhausted all the controls we can apply on cars coming into London, except one, which so far everybody has run away from, and that is supplementary licensing. Unless we are going to impose supplementary licensing for people who drive cars into London we have now exhausted the controls we can apply to those people driving cars into London and therefore we have to build more roads.
Roads are expensive, to central Government and to the ratepayers. Let us not minimise the point. When we are talking about what it costs to subsidise buses or Underground let us also talk about the cost of building more roads so that more people can use their cars. It is in that context that we must look at the whole system of London transport.
Of course, the question of low fares is a controversial one. I am not prepared to go into that debate at the moment. I personally think that it is as important that the services be satisfactory as that the fares be low, probably more important, but both procedures are necessary. You are required both to provide an efficient service and to provide a reasonably cheap service.
In terms of the cheap service, Lord Underhill was right in the way in which he presented the figure. The thing that matters to the person who has to make a choice as to whether he travels by bus or by car is what it costs. And of course Lord Mottistone is right; later on he will find that he was shortsighted in terms of the way in which he estimated his cost. The traveller will start by saying, "It will cost me X to travel by car and it will cost me X plus Y to travel by bus or underground", and he will travel by car. Therefore, in assessing what you charge those travelling by bus or Underground you have to bear in mind the possibility that if the charge is too high they will travel by car, create more congestion, and you find yourself in the position where you have to think in terms of new roads with all that that means. I cannot allow the debate to go in the way it is going, and has gone, where everyone discusses the problem of London transport in isolation, in terms of merely a question of what it costs to run the buses and tubes and what it costs people in terms of fares and ratepayers in terms of rates. There is a lot more to it than that.
It is the Government's job to see that the whole issue is viewed in perspective. So far—let us be honest with each other—the Government have signally failed; they have been so anxious to make political capital out of the fact that the judges give the present Greater London Council a knock on its knuckles. They have failed to appreciate the serious issue, but we are dealing with a serious issue and we must deal with it seriously. We must consider how best we are going to provide the sort of transport within this city which will enable people to go about their work, to go about their entertainment or anything else, so that they can get about in this city with the minimum amount of inconvenience.
As things are at the moment, we barely keep a day ahead of grinding to a halt. At the moment, by what are called traffic control measures—that is, you make a

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one-way street today or prevent a right-hand turn tomorrow—we have managed to keep ahead of grinding to a halt; by controlling the costs of people coming into London through parking restrictions, the cost of parking and so on, we have managed to impose some control. The question of supplementary licensing has been on the table for a long time and everybody has run away from it. It may well have to be faced. In the final analysis the question is how public transport fits into the scheme of things, and it is there the costs come in; what do you demand of those who use it in order to encourage them to use it. That is of the utmost importance.
Now we come to the Bill. I am not going to pretend that the Bill goes far enough, but it does help. It does indicate that the Greater London Council, in planning its transport policy, in discussing what should be done, can consider with the London Transport Executive what grant is necessary for revenue purposes and can make such a grant. That is what this Bill is enabling it to do and that is right. I know that Lord Plummer will say no, as he always said, capital grants, yes, revenue grants, no. It is quite a sensible stand to take. But even before the end of his regime we had moved from not merely making capital grants but also making revenue grants. The fact remains that when we eventually have to decide how to provide this service which is required we cannot just think merely of making capital grants; all of us who have anything to do with it know that revenue grants also are necessary.
If there is the problem of open-ended grant—I do not want to take time to argue that—that is where the control needs to be. My own view is that central and local government should always be in a position where they can together discuss and agree on levels of grants for these purposes. The problem we have had is that central Government merely wanted to run away from their responsibility in making their fair contribution to the running of London.
6.18 p.m.
Baroness Denington: My Lords, I apologise to your Lordships for inflicting on you one more speech beyond the list which is in your hands. I had not thought to be here today, but since I am I feel I must make my contribution to this discussion. It will be perfectly plain from all that has been said—and I was fascinated to listen to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, because I was on the council at the time when he was acting in his governmental capacity, and I remember the whole story, as does the noble Lord, Lord Plummer—that we are discussing a very difficult and, to my mind, national matter. I know we are talking about London Transport, but London, as we know, is the capital city, and the health of the capital city is a national matter. I think we are talking about the health of the capital city, and it is from that standpoint, and not from a political standpoint at all, that I want to talk.
The noble Lord, Lord Pitt, has mentioned, as have others, the traffic problem. The congestion problem in London is acute. Those of us who were on the old LCC and then the GLC, have lived with it for a long time. It is a matter of grave importance to the
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capital city that, somehow or other—and we have not found that it is for want of thinking or trying—we must find an answer to the congestion problem.
We have thought of supplementary licensing. How on earth do we enforce supplementary licensing? Can we have a blockade or a filter point on every road that comes into London and then have periodical checks? We could check every day, but even if we had periodical checks we would have a queue five miles long of vehicles waiting to come into London while we did the checking. That would be quite unacceptable. There has been talk of road pricing—it does not work. We have looked at everything. There has been talk of trying to have essential users only coming into London and trying to restrict the parking spaces under the office blocks which were built in the 1950s and 1960s when local government was insisting on having vast parking spaces. Now it does not want them at all because if people have parking spaces they drive in and congest the streets.
I was a member for a time—and it was a quite fascinating experience—of the South East Economic Planning Council. The industrialists who sat on the council pressed on us over and over again the enormous costs for industry of congestion, and particularly congestion in London. The council was pressing the Government—and if it were in existence it would still be pressing the Government—to get the M.25 built; it is still only built in bits and not yet finished. In my view the M.25, desirable as it is, will not do very much to reduce congestion in Central London because it is too far out. It is the third ring of a concept of two inner rings, neither of which are being built. We are going to get only the third ring and so it will not do that much to help Central London.
There is now very great concern about the loss of population from London. There is equal concern about the loss of jobs from London and the loss of industry and offices from London. I was concerned in the 1960s with decentralisation from London. Indeed, I was chairman of the New and Expanding Towns Committee of the GLC. Why did industry go out? It is perfectly true that it went out because when it wanted to build new factories it wanted green field sites which were easier to build on. The land was cheap and it could build a one-storey or at most a two-storey building very much more cheaply than in London. But the other reason why industry was driven out was that it wanted to escape the congestion of Central London, and not just Central London, but London generally, because of the on-costs of congestion. Industry went out because its employees arrived late at work. It said that it lost production time because of the difficulty of public transport. This is all information that came to me from the industrialists who moved. Employees arrived tired and worn out and suffered from ill-health because they were waiting for the bus that never came—and the bus never came not because London Transport did not want to run a decent service but because of the congestion. Again we come back to congestion.
Why did the people go out so willingly? Sometimes we hear that they were driven out. That is not true at all. Everybody who went, chose to go, and they went again because they were sick of conditions in London—sick of waiting for buses. They were only

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too glad to go. They also went out for a house and a garden because they did not want the flats that were being built in London.
So we come back to the fact that we have to get rid of London congestion. If London is to flourish and if we are not to see the essential Central London institutions—the banking institutions, the financial institutions and the international institutions—moving out, something has to be done about congestion and also about London fares, because 80 per cent. of the workers in Central London in these important international and banking institutions travel by public transport. While fares are going up and up, I think that we shall find that people will not bring in their cars, because they cannot bring in their cars, the streets cannot be widened. I need not go over that argument because your Lordships know that the streets cannot be widened. So I think that, in the end, unless we do something, the institutions will move out. To me this is a national matter. It concerns London deeply and it concerns London government deeply, whatever its political persuasion.
However, I beg the Government not to regard this for one single moment as a political matter. It started as a political matter with Bromley. Bromley has always hated the GLC, whether it is Tory or Labour. Bromley never wanted to be integrated in the local government reorganisation. That is where this matter started. But for goodness sake! I hope that everyone who is concerned with this vital problem will rise above politics and see that something must be done. Whether it be the Bill before the House today, or whether the Government come up with something else, I wish that the noble Lord, Lord Beltwin, if he does not like what is in front of him now, would get up and say, "We shall take it away but will come back with something". If only the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, would say that, it would be a step along the road to a solution. What the solution is, I do not know. It needs someone very, very wise to find it.
6.27 p.m.
Lord Plummer of St. Marylebone: My Lords, I should like to rise and support the words of my noble friend Lord Mottistone. Indeed, I support, wholeheartedly what the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, has said. At the time of our negotiations, which I must say I enjoyed very much, I was urged to accept a 75 per cent. write-off of London Transport's debt. But I pursued the matter with some opposition from the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, to the point where we got 100 per cent. I do not think that that was, in fact, a very clever thing to do, because it brings me to the point that local government, and indeed, the very efficient local government officers, are not really trained by reason of their profession to deal with a commercial undertaking. On the night when the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, and I finally agreed terms, I remember saying that I thought we ought to have a very much greater write-off than the 100 per cent. which in fact we got, and that was because it was not being looked at as a commercial undertaking, but was merely being looked at with the eyes of local government.
The trouble is that London Transport is looked upon as a rather nice new toy which the councillors can play with because it is rather like playing with trains.
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It is a much more serious matter than that. Indeed, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Denington, that it is a national matter and it is a very difficult national problem which affects the whole of the health of this great city conurbation.
I am very concerned, as I know the noble Baroness was at the time, with the problem of the low paid worker in London. The noble Baroness, Lady Denington, mentioned the new and expanding towns policy and how industry was asked to move out to the new towns. But I must challenge her on one point, which is, of course, that they went not only because they wanted a greenfield site, but because they were paid out for the site on which they were already in London and they took it with both hands. Very often those sites were turned into housing estates. Consequently there are a large number of low-paid workers who still have to move across London to get to their jobs, and they cannot be expected to do so if we have a very high fares policy.
How shall we deal with this? I firmly stick to my point of view that once you are on revenue subsidies, you are on a slippery slope and you cannot climb back up that slope. If you can stick to capital subsidy—and I agree that it is very difficult to do so—you have a measure of control over what you are expending. If you once get on to revenue subsidy you no longer have any control over the money that you are handling. I must say that the policies at County Hall at the moment cannot reassure us that they know what they are doing.
There are three parties involved in the subsidy to London Transport. There is the rarepayer; there is the taxpayer; and there is the rarepayer. All of them contribute very large sums indeed to the undertaking. All of this is bound up with another very large transport undertaking which works in the capital, and that is British Rail, where the subsidy very largely is provided by the Government. It seems to me that if you are to have a centralised transport policy in London, in view of the way in which the whole undertaking has been handled in the past year, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, that it would be better to put it back into Government hands.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, I hestiate to interject, but this seems a little difficult coming from a Government supporter. What will he do if the Government will not take it into their hands? Will London be simply left to rot?
Lord Plummer of St. Marylebone: My Lords, I think that recent events may well persuade the Government that in the control of subsidies they may well be advised to take it back into their hands in order to see that the money is well spent. I should mention that in the days when Mrs. Castle was persuading the GLC to take over London Transport she offered an alternative which was a passenger transport authority. That, would have had the power to precept on the ratepayer, but the ratepayer would have had no recourse as to the amount that the PTA asked. We thought that this would merely create what I would call another ILEA in London, and would be the worst of all worlds. Therefore, very reluctantly indeed, with the pistol at our heads, we proceeded with the negotiations to take it over.

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What it really amounts to is that there must be a reasonable balance between what the taxpayer pays and what the farepayer pays. Recently that has become so distorted that many firms are now leaving London and going off to places like Swindon, Bristol, Bournemouth, Milton Keynes and Peterborough as fast as they can. Indeed, it is quite clear that a low fare and high rates subsidy is causing a vast amount of unemployment in London, which is the reverse of what was expected. I hope that this whole matter will be reconsidered on a high level, and I fear that this amendment Bill which is before us today will not be of great help.
6.36 p.m.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede: My Lords, I rise to speak in this debate following two former chairmen and one leader of the GLC, so I fear that perhaps in some ways the debate is becoming slightly incestuous. In introducing this Bill my noble friend Lord Underhill has highlighted the problems of London Transport. His Bill, of course, enables us to restore to the GLC the powers which we all thought it had prior to the Law Lords' judgment.
I myself have been concerned with the problems of transport in London for a number of years, particularly during a period when I was chairman of the Central Area Board of the GLC, at a time when the noble Baroness, Lady Denington, was chairman of the Transport Committee of that council. As she rightly pointed out to us—it has always been a concern of the GLC—the vitality of central London is a matter of great importance to the nation as a whole because on this depends the success of London as a business centre and depends the convenience of its inhabitants moving about London, and for all these things to happen it is essential that traffic flows freely in the central areas.
As we have been reminded in this short debate by various speakers, the changes in policy towards London Transport have varied and changed over the years. Of course, this has very much coincided with the increasing problems brought about by the ever increasing number of people in and outside London who own cars. As the noble Baroness pointed out, it is curious to think that up until the early 1960s people were positively encouraged to bring their cars into central London by the fact that at that time those building new offices were encouraged—indeed, compelled—to provide a proportion of car parking spaces for their employees underneath the office blocks which they were building. As we know all too well, after a period of time this policy was seen to have been folly. The effect of it, of course, was that in the early 1960s congestion was slowing down the average speed for each bus journey, and as it slowed down fares had to increase further in order to help London Transport meet its bills.
We then moved into the period when parking restrictions were introduced, but the downward spiral of bus usage continued, and fares and congestion continued to grow. Then in the late 1960s more measures were introduced, with some success, in order to get the buses moving again, and priorities were established in the form of bus lanes further to
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increase the speed with which they managed to move around the capital.
These measures met with some success and were, for a time, helped by the hike in petrol prices which occurred at the time of the Six-Day War. Inevitably, the successes from these particular measures were limited and other ways of solving the capital's traffic problems had to be examined. In particular, it was seen that groups of users should be persuaded to change their mode of conveyance into central London, and the obvious candidate for such a change was the commuter who basically is somebody who brings his car into Central London, parks it, and does not use it again until he returns home in the evening.
Having tried the various measures which I have described and various noble Lords have spoken to, the Greater London Council eventually saw that there were two extreme solutions to these particular problems. The problem of solving it with a carrot or solving it with a stick. The carrot, the positive encouragement for people to use public transport; the stick, to stop commuters bringing their cars into Central London.
Both my noble friends Lady Denington and Lord Pitt have mentioned the question of the supplementary licence fee and the cordon proposal which would stop people from coming into Central London without going through a checkpoint, and would cause great congestion on the perimeter of that area. This has recently been highlighted in the press. This solution would not be one which would be acceptable to Londoners as a whole. This particular solution, which was highlighted in the press recently, was rejected by the Transport Committee chaired by my noble friend Lady Denington some seven or eight years ago.
It can be seen that the only solution to London's traffic problems is a carrot solution, a positive solution to encourage people to use public transport in Central London. As the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, pointed out in moving the Second Reading of his Bill, the cheap fares policy in a sense added proof to the ideas behind this particular solution by the fact that immediately it was introduced there was a 10 per cent. increase in the usage of public transport in Central London. As the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, pointed out and was underlined by the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, since the increases have come in, that increase which had been experienced has been followed by a decrease of approximately 17 per cent. in usage.
Unfortunately, this experiment lasted for a very short time. However, it had the unique effect of providing that a solution along these lines could help solve some of London's serious congestion problems. Also, we have been able—and this has been highlighted in the press a number of times recently—to make a comparison of cheap fare systems and the amount of subsidy paid to other metropolitan systems throughout the world. Indeed, these surveys have shown that the level of subsidy being paid in the transport system under the "fare's fair" policy was no more or no less than the average subsidy being paid to other metropolitan city transport systems. As the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, reminded us no commuter system in the world pays its way.

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There may well be arguments about how fares should be subsidised. The noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, in his contribution queried the fact that certain groups received the advantage of cheap fares. He came to the support particularly of the commercial ratepayer. One always ought to realise when one is making the sort of comment that the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, made that what one is actually talking about is a transfer. He compared his own personal situation of how he was paying more on rates and he got it back through cheaper fares. If one is thinking about commercial employers, or perhaps the shopkeeper is the best example, the shopkeeper would have to charge more for the goods he sells, albeit fractionally but the person who buys from him will have received the advantage of the cheaper fare to reach the particular shop concerned. Likewise, one can say with regard to offices and commerce as a whole that the employees of particular firms will have received the advantage of the cheap fares, and no doubt that could be reflected in the rate of wages paid at the end of the day. These are fractional, but if one thinks of it in total, this is exactly what has happened.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, might I intervene before the noble Lord moves on? It is fractional so far as the individual goods being sold are concerned; maybe it is fractional if you can persuade people to take less wages if your company is not doing well—that is rare; but it is not fractional when you are paying the rates as a commercial ratepayer.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede: My Lords, it is fractional if it is broken down. I should like to take the noble Lords, Lord Mottistone and Lord Tordoff, off on another point. I am afraid this is a hobbyhorse of mine. They both raised the red herring about the tourists not paying sufficient tax, and raised the question of a tourist tax. One always feels compelled to remind people who raise this point that the tourist, through the VAT which he pays on his hotel bill and the VAT which he may pay in other ways, produces many millions of pounds of tax revenue each year for the Government. That should not be forgotten.
Returning to London Transport, what we have so far as London Transport is concerned, basically, is that more of their total income is coming from subsidy and less from fares. As we have seen, for a metropolis this appears to be a more effective way of apportioning the total amount of money needed in order to run an effective transport system in a metropolitan area.
How a subsidy to London Transport should be paid has been raised by a number of noble Lords. Lord Underhill's Bill provides a stop-gap solution to this problem. It returns the GLC to the position in which it was before the Law Lords' ruling. But, as several noble Lords have hinted, this may not necessarily be the right and ultimate solution to London's traffic problems. The noble Lord, Lord Marsh, has said that the level of subsidies should not be paid by the ratepayers alone. He in fact advocated, and he was supported by the noble Lord, Lord Plummer, that London Transport should be handed back to national government. I think indeed that my noble friend Lord Pitt of Hampstead agreed with this solution.
Lord Pitt of Hampstead: My Lords, I indicated that I would not quarrel with that solution.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede: However, my Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Pitt of Hampstead, went on to say that it was of the utmost importance how people travelled around London, and underlined the importance how people travelled around London, and underlined the importance which I do not think was underlined by many other speakers, of having an efficient and effective system; of having a high quality of service. The question of a high quality of service can go hand in hand with the other points we have mentioned.
The noble Lord, Lord Plummer, raised the difficult question of how to ensure that money is well spent by London Transport Executive once they receive it. He reminded your Lordships that when the agreement relating to the 1969 Act came about, he rejected the possibility of a passenger transport authority, and I am sure he was right to reject that solution to the problem. The situation today, with an elected authority determining the policies of London Transport—an authority which spelt out, as my noble friend Lord Underhill pointed out, in its election address what it intended to do—gives an area of accountability.
However, I agree in some ways with my noble friend Lady Denington that the solution to the problem is not easy. I hope we shall not regard this as a political problem; it affects all Londoners and the vitality of London as a whole, and that should be of the greatest concern to us all. Lady Denington called it a national problem. I hope your Lordships will view it in that way. As I said, while the Bill is not the final solution to the problem, it is a solution which is available to us now, and I hope your Lordships will give it a Second Reading.
6.52 p.m.
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, I begin by saying that I, too, am not without some sympathy for what the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, said in moving the Second Reading of this Bill. Nevertheless, I must ask your Lordships to oppose it because I have to say that it is simply not the right way to tackle the problems of public transport in London.
Nobody could deny there are problems—very serious ones. Fares on London Transport have just doubled. I regret that as much as anyone. As has been said, transport is one of the major factors that people take into account when they decide where to live or work. They cannot change them overnight. They expect some stability. Of course, the cost of transport is liable to change, like anything else—because of world oil prices and many other factors; but people are entitled to expect that fares should not jump up and down because of the way transport is run and decisions are taken. The GLC has been responsible for running London Transport for 12 years. It is surely not without significance that for 11 of these 12 years, under both parties in County Hall, people knew where they stood; but suddenly, in the last year, all that has changed.
It is easy to say it is all due to the Law Lords and that all we need do is reverse their decision and all will be well. The GLC are trying to show that fares have doubled because they are no longer allowed to give

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London Transport a reasonable amount of subsidy. They have put out figures which take account of only part of the subsidy which London Transport gets. In fact, London Transport is still getting a massive amount of subsidy from taxpayers and ratepayers this year. Even leaving aside the £125 million needed to make good last year's deficit—and the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, said the experiment lasted only a short time; they managed to run up a £125 million deficit—they will be getting around £250 million now, nearly one-third of their total costs. Apart from last year, that proportion has remained fairly constant over the last five years. The noble Lord, Lord Pitt, said the Government should not run away from their obligations. There are those who say they should have run much faster.
Lord Pitt of Hampstead: My Lords, may I ask the Minister to compare the contribution the Government make to London Transport with the contribution they make to British Rail?
Lord Bellwin: I should have thought we were not talking about the same thing by any manner of means—
Lord Pitt of Hampstead: Why not?
Lord Bellwin—and if the noble Lord is suggesting that there should be some dramatic reduction in the subsidy to British Rail, then that is a point of view.
Lord Pitt of Hampstead: No, my Lords; raise the contribution to London Transport.
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, why have fares doubled? To put what has happened in perspective, we need to relate the new fares to what they were before they were cut last October. In fact, they are now about one-third higher in cash terms than they were six months ago. The last increase before that was in September 1980. If the previous policy had continued, there would have had to be some increase since then to take account of increased costs. The new fare levels are in fact about 15 per cent. above what would have been needed to keep up with inflation over the last 18 months.
Many people would say that fares were already too high. London Transport has been in a spiral of increased costs, leading to increased fares, leading to a loss of passengers, lower revenue and more fares increases. There are underlying problems which cannot be solved simply by increasing subsidies if the available resources are not used effectively. I quote from a Government White Paper on Transport Policy:
"subsidies transfer the cost of a service from the traveller to the taxpayer or the ratepayer. And the traveller is often a taxpayer or ratepayer himself. To use subsidies to disguise from people the cost of the services they are paying for is pointless".
That White Paper was published in June 1977 by the then Labour Government, and I agree with what it said.
The real problems which need to be tackled are how to tailor services to meet the changing demand for public transport, how to make it more responsive to the needs of passengers and how to make it more efficient. Over the last 10 years, the number of pas-
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sengers has fallen by about 20 per cent., yet London Transport still employs the same number of staff. The number of vehicle miles per employee has fallen over the past 10 years, whereas the National Bus Company and municipal bus operators have increased the number of vehicle miles per employee by about 15 per cent.
The passenger transport executives in the other conurbations have not done quite so well, but their costs are still much lower than London Transport's—by nearly £100 million a year for the number of bus miles run by London Transport. That is equivalent to half the extra revenue they will obtain from the recent fares increase. Of course I accept that London is different and that traffic congestion is much worse, and although the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, does not think so, the fact remains that fares would not be at their present level if costs had not gone up so much. One cannot simply ignore the whole point about what it costs. The policy of the present GLC administration would have made matters still worse, by running more bus miles and taking on more staff. Their policy would have cost an extra—I repeat, "extra"—£250 million this year. But there was no attempt to see how the money could be used to improve efficiency. For example, London Transport has said that to install automatic fare collection machinery would save substantial numbers of staff, but that was not part of the policy. London Transport have for many years tried without success to introduce one-man operation of tube trains.
My noble friend Lord Mottistone, the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, and others—though not the noble Lord, Lord Underhill—pointed out what I must repeat tonight; namely, that the problems of London Transport are like so much of our industry: change has been resisted for too long. I do not underrate the human problems involved; and it is not only the fault of the people who work for London Transport. These problems cannot be solved overnight. But it is totally misleading to pretend that they are all due to the wording of an Act of Parliament and that all we have to do is change the words and all will be well again.
I understand the desire of the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, to see the legitimacy of subsidy payments placed beyond doubt. I have said that the existing law allows a reasonable amount of subsidy, and the noble Lord asks, "How much is reasonable?" But that is not a problem. It has never been a problem in the past with reasonable people. The GLC is pretending that the Lords' judgment requires London Transport to break even next year. It pretends that the only choice is between its policy of doubling the amount of subsidy at the expense of the ratepayers on the one hand and no subsidy at all on the other. No other previous GLC administration took that view. No other previous GLC administration ever had to be challenged on this point. The House of Lords' judgment has not changed the law. It has not said that the subsidies given by previous administrations were unlawful. I repeat, because it must be fully understood, that the real responsibility for the present situation lies fairly, squarely, and solely with the present GLC administration.
I am not going to rise to any bait about becoming involved in the politics of the matter. The noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, and I think the noble Lord, Lord

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Pitt of Hampstead, and certainly the noble Baroness, Lady Denington, stressed that we should not allow politics to become part of the issue. Would that that were so. Would indeed that politics did not come into it at all; and certainly I am not going to make an issue of that tonight. But the fact is that there are those who would say that the behaviour of the present GLC administration over its fares increase has been the behaviour of people who are not concerned to take the problems as seriously as we are taking them tonight, but are simply using them—and indeed they have said so—to mount political campaigns. But I shall say no more about that now, much though I am tempted to do so.
I am sure that the majority of people must feel that these politicians should stop campaigning and drop their slogans; let us get together to find a solution to the problems. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State has had recent meetings with Mr. Livingstone, Sir Peter Masefield, the chairman of London Transport, and the unions representing London Transport workers. He has asked the GLC to consider whether the £250 million which London Transport is now receiving in subsidies is being spent wisely and whether Londoners are getting proper value from it. He has asked them to examine carefully how Londoners can get better bus and tube services with the resources likely to be available.
Officials of the Department of Transport and the GLC are undertaking a joint exercise to work out options for London Transport's budget for 1983 and to see what levels of service could be provided and how much subsidy would be required. It will then be possible to consider whether the degree of subsidy required would be legitimate and, if not, what changes in the law would be required. Here I come to the point made by both the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, and the noble Baroness, Lady Denington. I always like to say something to please her if I can; sometimes I do, though more often I do not, I fear. However, I am sure she will be pleased to hear me say that the Government are not ruling out the possibility of further legislation.
But I must make it crystal clear that there can be no question of giving the GLC a free hand to behave irresponsibly and to place massive extra burdens on London. Whether the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, would actually allow that, I am not quite sure. On a number of occasions he has asked me to say how much subsidy is reasonable. I have tried to cover that point. With respect, I suggest that his Bill does not give us the answer. We do not know how the courts would interpret it, and it would be wrong of me to take drafting points on a Bill of this kind. That is not the reason why I am opposing the Bill, but it illustrates the difficulties. If legislation should be needed to clarify the law, it would have to be drafted with very great care.
I conclude by referring to what is the real question. As was rightly said by my noble friend Lord Plummer of St. Marylebone and by the noble Lord, Lord Marsh (in a splendid speech), it is the level, the scale, the degree and the extent of subsidy that we are talking about. That is the issue. The noble Lord struck what was for me a very personal note when he referred to what happens in local elections. Do I not know how right
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he was about what happens in local elections, having been on the receiving end, and looking around the Chamber I see other noble Lords who are nodding agreement with me on that point. We have all done what we thought was a jolly good job, only to be turned out by the electorate, perhaps because our own party was in power at Westminster, and our efforts were all to no avail.
What we now need is a new approach whereby the GLC considers what services are required and what fares would make the best sense, and then decides how costs are to be met, taking full account of all reasonable economies. That cannot be achieved simply by changing the words in the legislation. In fact, there is a real risk that legislation at this stage, however well intended, would actually divert attention away from what really needs to be done while the lawyers try to work out what it means. Therefore, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, will understand why we do not want to see the Bill go further.
7.6 p.m.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, I am sure that at this hour, after a very interesting debate, your Lordships will not expect me to speak at any length, but I should like to thank all of your Lordships who have taken part. I noticed that among those taking part were three former chairmen and a former leader of the GLC, and I should like to thank them for their contributions. I also wish to thank the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, for his supporting words.
The noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, thought that Clause I was the important provision. That makes it clear that there should be an integrated and efficient service. The GLC, taking into account the legal opinion it has received, makes it quite clear that such a service cannot be provided unless there is a subsidy for the revenue account. Of course, it could be done quite simply if the GLC wanted to slash services and have less public transport; that could be done quite easily.
I appreciate what the noble Lord said about the commercial ratepayers. In replying to a debate it would be wrong to introduce new material, but there is considerable evidence of statements by employers in Central London that they are becoming increasingly perturbed over the difficulties facing their staff travelling into Central London, due to traffic congestion and the high cost of travel. That is what employers have stated.
I appreciate the generous remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, about how I had referred to his statements, to which, 1 am very pleased to note, he still adheres. I am sorry that he said that he cannot support the Bill.
The important question that we must consider tonight is, what are we going to do now?—not, what are we going to do in two, three, or four years' time? We have the problem now, and until we do something the transport situation in London will remain very difficult.
The noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, extended sympathy to me, but then called upon noble Lords to oppose the

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Bill. If we took at face value everything that he said, we would question subsidy for British Rail and subsidy for the National Bus Company—which, perhaps I ought to remind your Lordships, is still publicly-owned; the noble Lord praised its work—and we would do away with the transport suplementary grant, which enables county councils throughout England and Wales to make grants towards public transport, and for other purposes. Of course, everyone recognises that without those subsidies there could be no transport system in this country. I was very pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, emphasised the position of public transport throughout the world.
There have been appeals not to make this a party political issue. It seems that other countries do not do that, even though they have public transport, and have subsidies far higher than ours. The subsidies to the railway system and the capital public transport system in this country are the lowest in the world. They do not seem to make party political issues out of it, and I hope we shall not make a party political issue out of this tonight.
The noble Lord said that the Government do not rule out further legislation but he will not give any free hand for the present GLC to behave irresponsibly. I emphasised in my speech that the Law Lords' ruling, which confirmed the 1955 Act on the question of fiduciary responsibility, still obtains. Therefore, even with my Bill the GLC would still have to behave responsibly.
But what is overlooked in the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, is that the legal opinions to which referred—these are not the GLC opinions, not the London Transport opinions; these are opinions from learned counsel—say that the law must be changed, that something must be done quickly, because otherwise the existing interpretation of the law is going to make it absolutely impossible for the GLC and London Transport, as they make their plans during the next two or three months, to budget for next year. Unless the constraints on them are removed, then the budgeting will undoubtedly mean further cuts in services; and, as other noble Lords have said, cuts in services mean further congestion. Therefore, we are not considering only the benefit of the people who use public transport, we are considering employers, and we are considering everyone who benefits by the removal of traffic congestion from the streets of London.
Much as I should like to be able to ask leave to withdraw this Bill I cannot unless, frankly, the noble Lord can get up and tell me that very quickly the Government will resolve the position and clarify, the law, because all responsible opinion says that the law must be clarified and must be changed. If the noble Lord will say that the Government will do that, then I will not press this to a Division, but unless that can be done then I must ask the House to give this Bill a Second Reading.
7.12 p.m.
On Question, Whether the Bill shall be read a second time?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 46; Not Contents, 71.

DIVISION NO. 1

CONTENTS

Amherst, E.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Ardwick, L.

McGregor of Durris, L.

Avebury, L.

Noel-Baker, L.

Aylestone, L.

Oram, L.

Bacon, B.

Peart, L.

Banks, L.

Phillips, B.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Bishopston, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

Collison, L.

Rhodes, L.

David, B.

Ross of Marnock, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

Seear, B.

Denington, B.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Glenamara, L.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Gosford, E.

Stone, L.

Gregson, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Hampton, L.

Tordoff, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Underhill, L. [Teller]

Howie of Troon, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Jacques, L. [Teller]

Whaddon, L.

Jeger, B.

Wilson of Radcliffe, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Winstanley, L.

John-Mackie, L.

Winterbottom, L.

Kennet, L.

Wynne-Jones, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Airey of Abingdon, B.

Home of the Hirsel, L.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Auckland, L.

Inglewood, L.

Avon, E.

Kinloss, Ly.

Balerno, L.

Lane-Fox, B.

Bellwin, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Beloff, L.

Long, V.

Belstead, L.

Lyell, L.

Bessborough, E.

Mackay of Clashfern, L.

Broadbridge, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Buxton of Alsa, L.

Marley, L.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Marsh, L. [Teller]

Cathcart, E.

Mottistone, L. [Teller]

Chelwood, L.

Mountevans, L.

Cockfield, L.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Newall, L.

Colwyn, L.

Onslow, E.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Orkney, E.

Craigavon, V.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Crathorne, L.

Plummer of St. Marylebone, L.

Crawford and Balcarres, E.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Redesdale, L.

Ellenborough, L.

Renton, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Romney, E.

Elton, L.

St. Just, L.

Ferrers, E.

Sandys, L.

Fortescue, E.

Selkirk, E.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

Sharpies, B.

Glanusk, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Glasgow, E.

Spens, L.

Glenkinglas, L.

Stodart of Leaston, L.

Gowrie, E.

Swinton, E.

Grafton, D.

Trenchard, V.

Hailsham of St. Marylebone, L.

Windlesham, L.

Wise, L.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Resolved in the negative, and Motion for Second Reading disagreed to accordingly.
Bill, by leave, withdrawn.

British Nationality (Amendment) Regulations 1982
7.21 p.m.
Lord Avebury Lord Avebury rose to move, That this House calls on Her Majesty's Government to revoke the British

73
Nationality (Amendment) Regulations 1982 (S.I. 1982, No. 283).
The noble Lord said: My Lords, it will be within your Lordships' recollection that the problem of fees for registration and naturalisation came up a number of times during the proceedings on the British Nationality Bill, both in your Lordships' House and in another place. For instance, we discussed the matter on 21st July, when it was pointed out that over the years there had been a progressive increase in the number of civil servants dealing with nationality applications while at the same time their productivity had steadily declined. Since it was the Government's policy to recover the whole of the costs of the department dealing with the processing of applications for nationality in the form of fees, it was predicted that within a few years the fee would not be £150, as it then was, but something more like £300 or £400. At that point, the noble Lord the Minister contrived to avoid any mention of fees in the two speeches that he made on the amendment which was concerned with the extension of the relatively less expensive process of registration.
When the matter came up again the next time, on July 24th, the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, reaffirmed the Government's policy of recovering as much as possible of the administrative costs of nationality applications through fees. Then, on October 13th, we discussed two amendments, one in my name and one in that of the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, which, in the latter case, would have given the Government power to exempt particular classes of applicant and which, in the case of the amendment I moved, would have obliged them to waive the fees in respect of applicants in receipt of supplementary benefit or family income supplement. To this, the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, replied—and I should like your Lordships to mark the words—that the Government:
"would not wish to deter applicants by setting fees at an impossible level".
He pointed out that only about 30 per cent. of the cost was being recovered, that it was a small percentage, and that further increases were inevitable. We could not exempt certain classes of applicants because demands would then arise from others who might seem to be equally deserving of consideration and because the only way to make up the shortfall in income would be through increased charges on all the other applicants.
In the end, the noble Lord the Minister was honest enough to admit that he knew he had not been helpful. He must have had some idea of what was coming. The fees have indeed been set at what I consider to be an impossible level for many who aspire to British citizenship, and the latest increases which are provided for in the regulations that we are discussing represent an enormous jump, far higher than the rate of inflation.
Before coming on to the amount, I want to mention the two particular obstacles placed in the way of applicants and their advisers which have come to my notice. The first was in a letter from Mrs. Ruth Runciman, chairman of the East London Area Citizens Advice Bureaux, in The Times the other day. Mrs. Runciman said that advice agencies in East London, and, presumably, everywhere else, have been unable to get supplies of the application forms, that they have not been successful in making telephone calls to the Home Office to ask for more supplies and, when
74
special journeys to Croydon were made by members of her staff, they found that the nationality and immigration department itself had no supplies of the forms. If I was of a suspicious cast of mind, I might even say that the Home Office had been deliberately starving applicants and their advisers of these forms knowing that, as a result, they would have to pay the increased fees now under discussion.
The second point I want to make relates to the telephone inquiry service. A solicitor, one of the partners in the firm of Bindman and Partners, tried to telephone the inquiry bureau. First, the telephone rang for 20 minutes before a person answered and immediately hung up; she then dialled again (that was at 9.30 a.m.) and the telephone rang continuously from 9.30 until 10.32 a.m. before somebody picked it up. When she wrote to complain to Lunar House, the reply she received was that there were only four incoming exchange lines in the inquiry bureau compared with 25 on the immigration side and that that was thought to be sufficient when the equipment was installed because, the writer said, nationality was a much more complex matter than immigration and only the simplest of inquiries were thought to be able to be satisfactorily dealt with over the telephone.
That may be so, but I should have thought that anybody could predict that as a result of the British Nationality Act there would be an increase in the volume of inquiries, and that steps would be taken to deal with them and, in spite of the strict economies in the number and cost of civil servants mentioned by the writer of this letter, there would have been methods of dealing with it which did not involve any additional expenditure. Perhaps the noble Lord could tell us why, for instance, all the calls for both immigration and nationality departments could not have been routed through one exchange so that 29 lines would have been available for both purposes and any variations in the workload of one department rather than another could have been taken up in that manner.
Returning to the fees themselves, if one looks back over the last six years we see that citizenship has become the prerogative of the rich. The fee for naturalisation has risen from £70 in 1976 to £200 in 1982, an increase of 285 per cent. Registration at discretion—that is, of a Commonwealth citizen NA ho has been here since 1973—has gone up from £35 to £200, an increase of 570 per cent; while other registrations, including that of a woman married to a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies, have gone up from £25 to £70, an increase of 280 per cent. Minor children were registered for nothing in 1976; and it now costs £35. One can say that citizenship is, like the doors at the Ritz, open to all.
First, my Lords, I want to question the principle that the fees should bear some fixed relationship to the cost of the service. That is not the case in other countries. In the USA, the fee for naturalisation is five dollars; in Canada it is 25 dollars. Those were 1981 figures. Even in Britain many services are provided at public expense either freely or at a tiny fraction of the actual cost. One pays nothing, for instance to borrow a book from the local library or to visit the great museums; one pays nothing for using the public parks; one pays nothing for cycling on the roads and the dog owners pay only a tiny fraction of the licence costs, quite unrelated

75
to the administration costs of processing the application. Yet citizenship is surely far more important to any person than the privileges which I have just mentioned and which all of us enjoy.
Secondly, consider where the Government's policy is going to lead. Sir Derek Rayner said in his review of the nationality division of the Home Office that only about 40 per cent. of the costs were being recovered. So over a period of two or three years the fees would have to go up by a factor of two and a half if the total cost of the service is going to be recouped from the fees. That is £375 at 1981 prices for naturalisation, probably somewhere in the region of £450 if one takes into account the effects of inflation. This first instalment, one might say, is fairly modest in relation to an increase of that size. One may suspect that the Home Office is trying it out to see how much of a fuss there is. Therefore we ought to protest on this occasion as vehemently as we can so as to prevent an even worse outrage in 12 months' time.
Thirdly, one has to point out that if the Government really wanted to make savings, then Sir Derek Rayner did show several ways that it could have been done. The criteria for citizenship could have been relaxed so as to obviate the need for detailed inquiries or, in the case of longer periods of qualifying residence, the need to fulfil other requirements might have been eliminated. If someone had been here for 15 years, for instance, Sir Derek suggested that the good character requirement could have been waived. However, strict you make the test, some people are going to become citizens who are not wholly admirable. Your Lordships can think of people of that kind who have become Members of both Houses of Parliament. On the other hand, how many civil servants is it sensible to employ in what is essentially totally unproductive work for the sake of excluding a few bad characters from our citizenship? I agree with the Government when they try to reduce the number of pen-pushers in the Civil Service. The trouble is that certain areas of work seem to be sacrosanct, and nationality and immigration are examples.
Before leaving the question of efficiency, I want to ask the Government what happened as a result of Sir Derek Rayner's recommendation that a feasibility study should be undertaken of the use of computers for the storage and retrieval of the records of naturalisations, registrations and renunciations both in the United Kingdom and overseas. This would really be quite a simple application, and I should like to see the Home Office going for a system that would also record currently-being-processed applications. The system should be interactive, with the ability to respond to questions on-line, and for the information to be updated in real time.
The terminals on the system should be intelligent themselves so that they can be used for word processing, a particularly necessary facility considering that nearly 300 stock letters are apparently in use, according to Sir Derek's report. He said that there had been no continuing review of those stock letters. If the division had a computer system with text processing on intelligent terminals, the review of standard stock letters could be a continuous process. I ought to declare an interest as a manufacturer of computers. I have not seen copies of all the form letters used, but I wonder
76
whether somebody has not been trying to create extra work. There is a letter to the employer of an applicant, for instance, asking what the nature of his work is, how much he is paid, and whether or not his work is satisfactory. It would be interesting to know how how any of this could be relevant. I should be grateful if the noble Lord the Minister would enlighten us.
If the employer says he is paid £2,000 or £20,000, what difference does it make? If he is a labourer or a managing director, again, does it affect the success or failure of his application? If he is conscientious or lazy, in the opinion of the employer, what difference does that make? I should be very grateful if the noble Lord could confirm that the answers to these questions are actually used in the process of making decisions on a person's application for nationality and in what manner they affect the final decision.
But the major increase in the work of vetting applications over the last few years, as your Lordships know, stems from the decisions of the courts in 1977, that residence in the context of nationality law means lawful residence, and consequently it became necessary to check that an applicant was not only given indefinite leave to remain, but also that he did not secure that permission either by making false representations to an entry certificate officer of an immigration officer but following the case of Zamir, that he did not withhold information from the officer which might have affected his decision had he known it. This investigation has to be carried out in relation to an event of many years ago, so obviously it is fraught with great difficulty. Apparently, it is not enough for the applicant to make a declaration that he did not withhold any relevant information.
The mind boggles when one tries to think how the officer could discover that some essential fact had been concealed 12 or 20 years ago, when the applicant first entered the country. The nationality Act could have provided that inquiries of this kind were not to be made in respect of applicants with say, more than 10 years' residence in the United Kingdom, thus eliminating the cases which are going to present the greatest difficulty. But, as things stand, if those checks have to be made it means that the persons whose applications are comparatively simple are going to have to contribute towards the investigations of others which may cost several thousand pounds. I believe that that is patently unfair.
The unsuccessful applicant is also going to be making a contribution for the first time. The fee is payable in advance, so the state will have an interest-free loan of the money. If it takes two years to process the application—and that is a very modest estimate—then, taking the interest which is available on a typical two-year gilt of over 13 per cent., it means that the applicant is going to pay an extra charge of something like £50, and that sum must be added to both the nominal amount which is being paid by the successful applicant and also it must be treated as the equivalent of a fee which is paid by an applicant who is unsuccessful.
These enormous charges will undoubtedly mean that citizenship is arbitrarily denied to thousands of people who could satisfy all the conditions, as Mrs. Ann Dummett pointed out in her letter to The Times of 22nd March. For a couple with an 18-year old son or daughter, the total amount payable would be £500, a

77
sum well beyond the means of the average wage-earner, let along the millions of unemployed, the disabled or the retired. And as Mr. David de Gale said, also in The Times, on 3rd April, the applicant has to pay also for a public notice to be inserted in a news-paper, which in his case being a "cheap" local paper in Suffolk came to another £76.20. Mr. de Gale asks—and I put it to the Minister—what lunatics bring these things about and whether we actually pay them. The answer is that "Thatcherism" is the crazy and perverted doctrine of laying burdens on those who can least afford them, while making life easier for the fat cats who support the Tory Government. We do indeed pay Ministers very large salaries for devising these means of soaking the poor. When we get into office, we shall introduce objective tests of citizenship, which will be simple and cheap to operate, and the fees will reflect our principle that the privilege of citizenship ought not to be conferred only on the rich. My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That this House calls on Her Majesty's Government to revoke the British Nationality (Amendment) Regulations 1982 (S.I. 1982, No. 283).—(Lord Avebury.)
7.40 p.m.
Lord Pitt of Hampstead: My Lords, I must join in protesting against these regulations. Your Lordships will remember that during the debate on the British Nationality Bill I tried to get the Government—at the time of moving that amendment it never occurred to me that they would reject it—to accept the power to waive or reduce the fees in certain circumstances in which people are needy. It was rejected by the Government on the advice of your Lordships' House. There has been an increase of 40 per cent. in most instances, and in some instances of about 300 per cent., on the fees required on application for British nationality. Moreover, we have a new system under which people are required to pay on application and not when they have received their citizenship. As the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has already explained, it means that the Government are extracting an interest-free loan from these people and receiving money from them. I cannot imagine that nothing is done with the money and therefore since the money must have been used in some way or other it does constitute a loan to the Government for two years.
This is bound to create hardship for lots of people and, as the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has pointed out, lots of poor people come here. They came here to work, to settle, and they have to save in order to be able to register themselves, their wives and their children; and this sort of sum is a real burden. In terms of society, I would have thought that it would be better to encourage people who are living and working here, and settling here, to become citizens and therefore to take out British nationality. Therefore, one would have expected the opposite approach to the one which is being followed—in other words, they would be encouraged rather than discouraged.
However, the way in which the fees are weighted, and in particular the fact of having to pay in advance, must have the opposite effect. It will encourage people to delay rather than bring forward their taking out of British nationality. Perhaps when the Minister replies
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he will say that is what the Government want. I cannot believe that is what they want, because this is certainly not the best thing for society. Therefore, I am sorry that the Government are pursuing this particular line of approach. I hope that the Minister will say that the Government are prepared to re-think the suggestion I made about taking powers to waive the fees in some instances where the people concerned cannot really afford them and to reduce the fees where it is quite obvious from people's means that they cannot afford the full fee.
If that were to be the case, then much of what I am saying now would not have the same weight, but since these fees have to be paid and they are in fact the cost of becoming nationalised, the cost of being able to register yourself as a British national, I am afraid it is a step in the wrong direction. Not only will it slow the rate of absorption in terms of people becoming British nationals but it will increase resentment. I am not going to repeat what I said on a previous occasion to your Lordships about a youngster who came to me objecting very strongly that after having been prepared to die for this country through serving in Northern Ireland he was then called upon to pay £150 in order to register as a citizen of this country. Now he has to pay £200. I take it that particular chap probably overcame his resentment and paid up: I do not know. But since then the fee has been increased. I cannot be sure, but I hope that the Minister would see the wisdom of changing this approach and really trying to encourage people to become citizens as soon as possible, and, far from making it more expensive for them to do that, to try to ease the burden as much as possible.
7.45 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, this Motion, which calls upon Her Majesty's Government to revoke this regulation, will stand in effect on a Division as a veto on subordinate legislation. I would remind your Lordships that in the White Paper (Cmd.3779) in 1968 it was stated that on subordinate legislation the present power of the House of Lords on rejection was inappropriate and unsuited to modern conditions. This is the category of subordinate legislation, the delegation of power to make regulations, which is not subject to either affirmative or negative resolution in Parliament. This regulation is within the competence of my right honourable friend the Home Secretary by virtue of the will of Parliament.
I decline to follow the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, along the road which treats a debate on fees as serving as a vehicle for complaints about the operation of a telephone exchange, or indeed as comparable with dog licensing. Also, I do not know why we had a reference to "fat cats of any political complexion", together with cycling on roads and unspecified inefficiencies in administration and who takes the benefit of interests. But I do treat with great seriousness one of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Pitt of Hampstead. He said that the question of arbitrary denial is a real question. I agree with him. He gave the example of a man who has fought in Northern Ireland then having to pay £150 or £200.
Your Lordships may well think that this is an aspect of the implementing regulations which ought to warrant consideration in due course. The offending words in

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this regulation are that the fees shall be payable which are mandatory and not discretionary. I see the noble Lord nodding assent. There is no leeway for the exercise of discretion in cases of hardship or on compassionate grounds, and the noble Lord, Lord Pitt of Hampstead, has given but one example. This is a matter for further regulations. I, for one, will oppose this Motion on a Division, if one takes place, because the resort to this power of veto at, so to speak, one remove is neither appropriate nor wise in the present political climate. We must not be seen as seeking to frustrate the will of Parliament.
Secondly, the merits as to the increases in charges, in my submission, do not warrant resort to supporting such a Motion. Thirdly, I would respectfully suggest to your Lordships that the appropriate procedure is not to call upon Her Majesty's Government to revoke this regulation but to seek to secure in due course a further regulation which gives the exercise of discretion so that in cases of hardship or on grounds of compassion the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Pitt of Hampstead—with which I say again that I agree—could be met.
7.50 p.m.
Baroness Jeger: My Lords, I shall not detain your Lordships for long, but it is important that we on these Benches should associate ourselves very firmly with the views put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, which I was glad to see were supported by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway. It seems to us that, in a situation in our society where racial tension—
Lord Campbell of Alloway: Would the noble Baroness give way?
Baroness Jeger: Did I get it wrong?
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, on a point of correction, I am afraid that I was disagreeing—if I may say so with respect—hook, line and sinker with the noble Lord, Lord Avebury. I was taking one of the points of the noble Lord, Lord Pitt of Hampstead, which I did not know he was going to make, but which I thought was right and supported it. But I did not support the noble Lord, Lord Avebury.
Baroness Jeger: My Lords, I acknowledge that and thank the noble Lord for what he has said to make the position clear. I had thought that what my noble friend Lord Pitt had said was rather nearer to what the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, had said than, apparently, was the case in the view of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell.
But what I want to say officially from these Benches is that in the present situation, where racial tensions are at the heart of much discord and much difficulty in society, anything that can be done to reduce those tensions must be accepted. It seems to us that, in this very sensitive situation, the fact that it will cost a lot more money for people who have come from abroad to establish their citizenship cannot help to reduce those tensions.
It seems obvious that one of the ways in which we can help people who have come from overseas to settle
80
down and take their place in the community is to make them able to become citizens of this country and not to feel that they are strangers and aliens in our midst. When I read that the fees for application for citizenship are to go up to £200; that the fees for women who marry British citizens will rise from £50 to £70; that the fee for registration of minor children goes up from £25 to £35, all this seems to suggest the putting up of a barrier against these people from overseas settling down among us as citizens.
It also seems to us that it is very unfair to make a change whereby, instead of paying the money when they have been accepted as citizens, we are now asking people to put the money down in advance. This could mean that for one or two years the Home Office sits on the money, and I understand that if the applicant is refused citizenship he is paid back only the money which he put down, and that there is no consideration for the interest which he may have lost, or for the difficulties which he may have encountered through having, as it were, to sterilise his money while the Home Office thinks about his application. I hope that the Minister will say why this change has been made, because in all that I have read I have not seen any reason, other than fiduciary, for the Home Office demanding the money before the application is granted.
We also want to ask a little more about children. I understand that if a family is involved in this situation, children who are counted as minors will not have to he penalised drastically. But if there are any children over 18—who, under the law of our land, are adults who happen to be students they will also be expected to pay the whole £200. I hope that I am wrong, and maybe the Minister can enlighten the House. There are many families who have come from overseas, who have worked very hard and saved up a great deal of money in order to send their children to universities or polytechnics. If their child then becomes 18 years of age, will he or she still have to pay the £200? That would be very unfair.
I also want to support the protests that have been made about the difficulty of people making these applications. I recall that, when I was a Member of Parliament for a very cosmopolitan area in central London, I had more complaints about Lunar House and the Home Office than any other department of state. There were complaints about telephones not being answered, complaints about appointments not being kept, complaints about letters not being answered and complaints about forms not being available. I want to ask the Minister, who I know is very kind at heart, whether he could try to make these processes a little easier for some of these harassed people. Why cannot these forms of application for citizenship be available at post offices, at banks, at social security offices and at town halls—at all the places which are near to people? Why is there this withholding of even a form, as well as demanding the money? It is bad enough to be asked to pay £200, but if you cannot even get a form to fill up to put with the £200, that seems to be an excessive and mean attitude.
I do not want to go any further tonight. I understand all the difficulties, but I want to say that we very much support the noble Lord who has raised this matter tonight, because we think that the charge is excessive, particularly as regards children and over-

81
18 year-old dependants. We think it is outrageous that the Government should demand the money in advance, instead of waiting to see whether or not an applicant is successful. We also think that the whole administrative procedure as to the availability of forms, the accessibility of phone calls and the general attitude of the department leaves a very great deal to be desired.
7.58 p.m.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, first, I ought to make clear the effect of this Motion by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury. The regulations that we are debating this evening are not subject to parliamentary procedure and would remain in force if your Lordships voted for the noble Lord's Motion. However, the Government would take very seriously an adverse vote on this matter, and my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway was quite right to conjecture that the Government would wish to give effect to the wishes of your Lordships' House.
But if, as a result of an adverse vote, these regulations were therefore to be revoked, it would be a very serious matter. Some £3 million would be lost in additional fees and the losses would have to be made good on the Home Office vote. It would mean that some £3 million was not available for spending on other things. Your Lordships could conjecture, in your turn, as to what those other things should be—prisons, police support services, or grants to voluntary organisations. But wherever it came from, the money would have to be found.
In recent years, successive Administrations have raised the fees which we are discussing. In 1975 the fee for naturalisation was £40 and the fee for registration as an entitlement was £10. Then, in October 1976, those fees were raised to £70 and £25 respectively. Despite the complaints of the noble Baroness, Lady Jeger, those were percentage increases comparable to those we are discussing today.
Baroness Jeger: My Lords, surely those payments were made when naturalisation was granted. They were not demanded when the application was first put in.
Lord Belstead: That is a matter, my Lords, which I shall come to in just a moment. I shall not go through the increases in fees which continued to occur under the previous Government, and now, because in the speeches which have been made your Lordships have quoted them.
There are two important provisions which, as in previous regulations, reduce the impact of these fees on families. I think it is important to emphasise these. A wife applying jointly with her husband for naturalisation or discretionary registration has to pay £70 and not the full fee of £200. However many children there may be of a marriage, all the children will be covered by the same £35 fee if application is made for their registration together. But we are of course talking about children under the age of 18, if I may pick up the point which was made by the noble Baroness, Lady Jeger.
There was a suggestion from the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, that in some way I had been concealing from your Lordships the fact that it would be necessary to
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increase the fees which we are debating this evening. The noble Lord is habitually fair. I do not really think that is quite true. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary said in another place last June that there would have to be an increase in fees, but he added that he would undertake to see what he could do to keep costs down and to look very carefully at this point. For my own part, during the Report stage of the British Nationality Bill last October I said that we were a very long way from achieving our objective of full recovery of costs through fees. It was at that time estimated to be nearer 30 per cent. than 100 per cent. recovery.
In his announcement on 10th March of this year about the increases which came into effect on 1st April, my right honourable friend stated that the new system of payment with the application would enable the increases for new applications to be kept at a lower level than would otherwise be necessary. In a nutshell, that is the answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Jeger, who asked why it is that we are doing this. By introducing this system we expect to be able to recover all the costs on applications made in 1982–83. To have retained the present system of payment of the fee only when the application is granted would have meant very much larger increases in fees if costs were to be recovered.
I must stress that the fee will of course be refunded in any case where the application is unsuccessful. I say "of course", because the noble Lord, Lord Pitt of Hampstead, in attempting to ram this point home said that in effect an interest free loan is being made. May I respond to the noble Lord and remind the House that before 1976 unsuccessful applicants were required to make a payment. This is not now required of them and we do not intend in this increase in fees to require that of them.
Your Lordships' House will be aware that there are delays in processing applications. This means that under the present system of payment on approval of the application it can be anything up to two years, depending on the type of application, before the fee is collected. In that period costs will probably have increased still further. Thus, in the past the fee collected has represented only a small proportion of the cost of processing the application. In fact, in the seven years up to 1980–81 the highest percentage recovery of costs which we achieved was 44 per cent., and the average was 27 per cent.
One reason why the recovery of costs has been so low in the past is that the number of applications has increased dramatically. This has led to an increase in the waiting time for applicants and, hence, to the time taken before the fee was recovered following the process and approval of the application. I will give just a few figures to illustrate what I am saying. In 1977, some 32,000 applications were received and the staff of the Nationality Division of the Home Office was 184. Last year, the total number of applications received had risen to 70,000. During those five years the staff has been increased. It was 231 in June of last year, but not enough to be able to cope with so significant a rise in new applications. The majority of the applications were from adults claiming an entitlement on grounds of residence or marriage, or they were applications for the registration of minor children.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, in giving these figures could the noble Lord tell the House how many applications were in fact completed in 1976 and 1981 respectively and what this represents in terms of the number of applications per employee in those two years respectively so that we can see whether the productivity of these officials did in fact go down, as I claimed?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I will come to that, and if I do not entirely cover the point I shall endeavour to answer the noble Lord's question specifically before I finish speaking. The increase in applications for naturalisation and registration at discretion, where there is the greatest disparity between costs and fees because of the additional inquiries which are involved, was proportionately even higher than for other applications. In 1977, the intake of applications for naturalisation and registration at discretion was some 5,400. Last year it reached 16,300. May I again say to the noble Baroness, Lady Jeger, that one reason why we are asking for fees with applications is that these applications for naturalisation or registration by discretion take the longest to process because of the additional inquiries which have to be made, and increased delays with these applications have consequently led in the past to increased delays in recovery of the fees.
To try to streamline procedures and reduce costs and waiting times, the Government arranged a scrutiny under the guidance of Sir Derek Rayner into the handling of applications for citizenship. The report of the scrutineer, made available to your Lordships' House and another place last July, indicated that despite the pressures under which the staff were having to work the existing procedures were necessary and were operating with due regard for economy in manpower. Various recommendations which were made as a result of the scrunity have been followed up and productivity has in fact increased considerably as a result of simplification of procedures. Nearly 54,000 applications were completed last year as against 37,000 in 1980.
My right honourable friend is also hoping to make some additional staff available to the Nationality Division in this financial year. It is hoped that this may result in some improvement in waiting times, but this will of course depend on whether the present level of applications continues. I hope your Lordships will not mind my saying that I find a slight contradiction between the protests which have been put to me across the Floor of the House this evening, that costs are preventing people from applying, and this dramatic increase which has gone ahead over the last few years, continuing up to the present time, in applications for registration and also for naturalisation.
The suggestion has been made that insufficient publicity was given to the proposed increases in fees and also that individuals have difficulty in obtaining application forms from the Home Office. The first of those two complaints is one which your Lordships have not in fact made, and that I think I might leave to one side—simply saying that the Home Office did issue a press notice on 10th March and that the Nationality Division did write to all the community relations councils the day after suggesting that they draw the announcement to the attention of the ethnic majority organisations with which they liaise.
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So far as the second point is concerned, however, about individuals actually obtaining application forms, a point which the noble Baroness and the noble Lord both raised, I am not aware that any individuals have had difficulty in obtaining application forms from the Home Office. So far as I am aware, all such demands made direct to us have been met, but I admit that bulk orders from organisations such as Citizens' Advice Bureaux have sometimes not been met in full. If an organisation was short of forms, it had only to direct people to us or to convince us that they had a need for the full bulk orders for which they had asked. When the noble Baroness, Lady Jeger, asks me why the forms were not put in a whole variety of places all over the country, may I just answer that, of all the forms we issue to the agencies concerned, only one-third are used for actual applications.
A great deal has been said about the effect of increased fees on families. It has been suggested that for some the need to send in the fee with the application may effectively mean that people cannot afford to make an application. As I have said, provision is made for wives and children applying with the father, but, in setting the new level of fees and changing the procedure, it has been necessary to consider very carefully how to balance this whole aspect with the need to control public expenditure. Nationality fees have not been increased since 1980 but the cost of processing applications has continued to rise. The cost alone of staff and accommodation of the nationality division—and we really cannot disregard the cost—rose from £1·464 million in 1979–80 to £2·183 million in 1980–81, but the income from fees rose by only £350,000 to £1·009 million.
During this debate, your Lordships have proposed that the subsidisation of fees should take place and, indeed, I have noted the advice given to me by my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway. But, whatever may be the merits of subsidising these fees, there is the difficulty—it has come out in this debate—that there would be constant controversy as to where to draw the line. That is not just a bureaucratic and administrative answer. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, recommended—he had every right to do so—that the line should be drawn at those who receive supplementary benefit or who are in receipt of family income supplements. The noble Lord, Lord Pitt of Hampstead, on the other hand—perfectly understandably—gave the example of a man who has served in Her Majesty's Forces in Northern Ireland. In addition to this difficulty, additional administration would undoubtedly lead to higher fees for those who are paying in full.
I would like to add just two other points which are also relevant to what your Lordships have been saying. First, may I just remind your Lordships that a successful application is a once-and-for-all affair. Citizenship really must not be compared with other areas where a fee may have to be paid annually or periodically. Secondly—here I come on to ground covered by the noble Lord, Lord Pitt of Hampstead—the British Nationality Act and indeed all the other nationality legislation will not adversely affect the position under the immigration law of anyone who is lawfully settled here. There is no compulsion, either expressed or implied. The Government really have to approach with caution the suggestion that scarce resources should

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be devoted to a scheme for waiving fees for some categories but not others, especially where people settled here lawfully who are not our citizens are under little practical disadvantage.
It is a matter of priorities and I suggest that successive Governments have been right in declining to accord priority to expenditure on a scheme of that kind. Of course, in saying that, I am not disagreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Pitt of Hampstead, that we wish to encourage people to acquire citizenship, as it is an important way of expressing commitment to this country. I believe the figures I have given this evening show that people have been accepting this with both hands; I am delighted that this is so despite the fairly substantial fees which have been charged in recent years.
Parliament has entrusted the Home Secretary of the day with the responsibility of administering the nationality laws. We believe it is right, where applications are made, that inquiries should be instituted if necessary to see whether the statutory requirements have been met. This is especially so where an applicant must be of good character. Inevitably, such inquiries take time and cost money. Therefore, there must continue to be considerable costs involved, which we believe it is right should be met by the applicant concerned and not subsidised by the public at large.
The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, asked me two specific questions. One concerned questions to employers. These questions are desirable to build up a total picture of the applicant. They could produce information of relevance to the requirement that the applicant should be of good character. I realise that the noble Lord and the Government do not agree on that point, but that system was agreed by both Houses during the passage of the British Nationality Bill as being the way in which naturalisation applications should continue to be decided. The noble Lord also asked me about the use of a computer by the nationality division. As I believe the noble Lord knows because of his interest in this subject, we undertook a feasibility study which has now been completed and approved. A full study to design the new system is in train. I cannot today give details of this new system because its introduction will depend on the availability of the necessary resources, but we hope that it will be possible for the computer to print out certain documents, including citizenship certificates and some of the stock letters which the noble Lord mentioned—and which, I think, he is in receipt of from time to time.
Perhaps I might now sum up. The fees set in April 1980 have been maintained for a period of two years. One would not actually gather this from the debate this evening, but that is the longest period of such stability since April 1975. We have now raised the fees. Through the measures we have taken, we expect that in 1982–83 we can increase our income from fees to the extent necessary to eliminate the considerable annual deficit on this service and, in effect, its subsidy by the taxpayer. At the same time we have streamlined procedures and arranged for the provision of some additional staff. We hope very much that this will eventually lead to some reduction in waiting times. Our expectation is that the present level of fees can he held when the British Nationality Act comes into force on 1st January next year, although further
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increases could be necessary in April of next year. If the fees do have to be increased after 1st January they will then be subject, under the British Nationality Act, to the negative resolution procedure and there will be an opportunity for further debate in your Lordships' House, if any of your Lordships thought it necessary.
I know that there are points in this debate upon which we do not agree but I hope I have shown that the Government have acted reasonably in this matter. I ask the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, not to press his Motion. If the Motion is pressed to a Division and was agreed to it would have the very serious consequences which I tried to explain at the start of my remarks. If the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, does feel that he must press his Motion, I must ask your Lordships to vote against it.
8.18 p.m.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, your Lordships will understand that it is sometimes necessary to find a way of staging a debate which does not result in a Division, and there may be very good reasons why it should not do so. The form of Motion now before your Lordships may sometimes be the only way of raising a matter such as this.
I really do not need lectures from the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, on what kind of Motions I should put down on the Order Paper. I think that he made an insufferably pompous speech, if I may say so, and I am perfectly able to look after the drafting of Motions without any advice from that quarter. The noble Lord, obviously, was not listening to me because he said that he disagreed hook, line and sinker with everything I said, yet at one point in his remarks he was suggesting to the Government that on a later occasion they might apply their minds to the possibility of relieving certain applicants who might suffer hardship as a result of the payment of these fees. I hope that I have not got the noble Lord wrong. He is neither affirming nor rejecting what I am saying. He was agreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Pitt of Hampstead, that where poor applicants could demonstrably show that they were not in a position to pay £200, or more if their families were registered at the same time, the Government might give further consideration to some system of evaluating their means—it would have to be a means test, obviously—and of waiving the fees in those cases. Am I right or not? Is that what the noble Lord wants.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I wonder whether I could help the House. My noble friend, who is habitually fair and objective, was making a remark which was extremely helpful to the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, and was showing the Government that my noble friend, who is also of independent mind, had his own views on this particular subject. If the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, refuses to see any merit in anything my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway says, I am not particularly surprised that the noble Lord fails to understand what my noble friend says.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, I am not surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, needs the Minister to defend him. When this proposition was put by the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, to your Lordships—
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, if I may inform your Lordships' House, I need no one to defend me. The only reason why I did not rise to the bait a little earlier was that I thought it was not worthwhile to do so, that we were getting late and I did not wish to indulge in any form of personal exchange or acrimony, not because I cannot defend myself, but because I preferred not to do so.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, the noble Lord would have had some difficulty in defending himself, because he did in fact vote against the proposition of the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, on 13th October. He will find his vote recorded at column 331 of Hansard of that day.
If I may turn to the remarks of the Minister, first of all may I say that I do not think he took on board the very relevant point of the noble Baroness, Lady Jeger, that if we want people to integrate into our society, if we want them to feel part of Britain after they have been here many years, we should be making citizenship easier rather than more difficult. It does not seem to me that to answer that with a figure of the amount which it was going to cost to accept a proposition of this kind, is really helpful at all, because if the expenditure of £3 million—which is what the noble Lord says it would cost to leave the fees as they are—would result in a very large number of people, something like 150,000 people, feeling that they were genuinely a part of British society, that would surely be expenditure well worth while. Nor would it mean, of course, as the noble Lord is well aware, that £3 million would be the actual figure.
We have had this argument many times when Ministers have spoken in exactly the opposite sense. I do not want to widen the discussion, but, for instance, every time somebody points out that if we did not have Trident we could afford to spend more on conventional weapons, this is strenuously denied by Ministers at the Dispatch Box. You cannot have one rule of arithmetic which applies to defence and a totally different one which applies to the Home Office.
May I say that I was not attempting to suggest that the Minister had concealed the implications from the House at the time when we were discussing these matters on Committee and Report. All I said was that when it was first raised in Committee the Minister had been a little reticent about the actual level of fees. I agree—and I did mention this—that when we came to it on Report he made it quite plain that it was the Government's intention and their policy ultimately to recover the whole cost of the service in terms of the fees.
The service has undoubtedly become less efficient, when you look at the number of applications processed and the number of civil servants engaged in the task over a period of years. In 1971, the number of applications granted divided by the number of officers employed in the division was 361. It steadily declined from that point until 1977 when it had fallen to 130. When the noble Lord's colleague, Mr. Timothy Raison, said to me in correspondence that the reason for the drop in efficiency was the consequence of the courts' decisions in the cases of Zambia and others in 1977, I believe this could only have been partly true because the decline in efficiency of the division had preceded those decisions of the courts.
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My Lords, I recognise that, having put all the arguments this evening, I am not going to make any impression on the Home Office, that the fees are not going to be put back where they were before these regulations were published. I only hope that, as a result of listening to the arguments that have been put this evening, the noble Lord the Minister and the Home Office will think twice before they impose such swingeing increases when the matter comes to be reconsidered next year. With that I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

"The Arts in Schools "
8.25 p.m.
Lord Beaumont of Whitley Lord Beaumont of Whitley rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will make a positive response to the report of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation entitled The Arts in Schools.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. It is getting late, but I make no apology for introducing this very important subject at this particular time. I am only sorry that we are short of two speakers who would have liked to take part, two former Ministers for the Arts, one of them an ex-Secretary of State for Education. Unfortunately, the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, is ill and unable to speak, and I am sure we send him our best wishes for a speedy recovery. And it is very sad that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, has had to scratch at the last moment.
My Lords, my Question is to ask the Government what action they intend to take on the very fine and valuable report The Arts in Schools, produced as the latest of a number of reports on these kind of subjects by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. It is a major document and it deals with important and, on the whole, I think, neglected issues. I know that the present Secretary of State maintains that the Department of Education and Science in fact does take the question of art in education rather more seriously than the report makes out. I would fully grant that. But over a whole period of time I think it is true that there has not been enough emphasis on this particular side of education. The arts, of course, are not alone in this. It is part of the tradition that we have in this country, and it is common to many other countries too, that there is a great emphaiss on the academic tradition. I think we have been the poorer for this over a large number of years, in that both the arts side and the technological side have tended to be neglected.
This subject which we are debating tonight, and which is the subject of this report, is in fact the heart of the whole movement of education for capability which is being sponsored by the Royal Society of Arts at the present time, and which I believe has so much to offer to education in this country. I do not think that there is a great need to argue the case for the value of the arts to education. On the deepest level the arts are fundamental ways of organising our understanding of the world. I think there are few noble Lords who

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would want their own children to be educated without a knowledge of the arts, without the opportunity to learn to practise some of the arts.
What we want for our children surely we want for the children of this nation, because arts are not just a middle class icing on the cake; they are considerably more basic than that, as Professor Richard Hoggart pointed out a long time ago, and as has become more apparent since. I think we can see, particularly among ethnic groups, how concentration on the arts has helped with integration and with education as a whole. So we are not talking about arts for a particular class of people or a particular kind of people. We are talking about the arts in all schools and for all children. Not to attempt to involve our children in the arts is, as the report says in one place, simply to fail to educate them as fully developed, intelligent and feeling human beings.
One of the reasons why the arts have been neglected to a large extent in the past is that we still tend to think of education as education for something which is going to happen. Education is not just for the future: it is not a stage that children go through on their way to emerge at the end fully equipped. It is an ongoing process by which they live as they learn, and they learn in order that they may live. If our civilisation has any successful values and any success at all, it will become a civilisation in which people go on learning for the whole of their lives. Again, this is something which everyone in your Lordships' House experiences at some time in his or her life. My father-in-law always used to say, "You learn something new every day of your life", and that is, indeed, very true. Some of us learn more than others, but it is essential that we go on learning.
Therefore, we must think of the arts in school as not just the preparation for what happens afterwards, but as something which is deeply affecting children at the time it happens. But the future is important. The preparation is important and it is worth saying a word or two about it very briefly because the points that I want to make are, I think, self-apparent. None of us knows what the pattern of employment in the future will be, but we can make some intelligent guesses. Some of the things which we foresee happening will be things we shall look forward to, and some of them we can only feel rather pessimistic about. But both the optimistic and the pessimistic sides seem to me to make a case for the growing involvement of art in education.
On the optimistic side, if it is true, as many people tell us, that the growing sophistication of technology—the new industrial revolution—will need a highly educated people to operate it, surely it is the arts which foster both the innovation and initiative that we shall need to give impetus and inspiration to the people who are coming out of our schools. Equally, if unemployment, whether in regard to part-time or full-time work, should be one of the fates to come, we do not want to breed a population which will have no resources to put up with these hardships. The arts, and feeling for the arts and for creativeness, are one of the things by which people can creatively transfigure the time that they may find they have.
Much progress has been made in recent years as regards the introduction of arts into education. The document Curriculum: 11–16, written by a group of Her Majesty's Inspectors, has firmly marked out the
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aesthetic and creative experience as one of the essential areas of experience. In various parts of our educational system the arts have been taken up with enthusiasm and have been taught creatively, imaginatively and well. One only has to mention Leicestershire in the field of the visual arts or ILEA in the field of music to know that local education authorities have been able to make a great success of this field. But the picture is still very patchy even after everything that has happened over the last 20 or 30 years. There is, for instance, in the report, on pages 64 and 65, a mention of the study by Joan Freeman of aesthetically gifted children. She found:
"that, in some of her sample schools in Salford, there was 'a complete absence of measureable talent'. However,' … there were schools under the same authority, which had whole classes learning instruments and painting with fervour'.
"She found it difficult to believe that ' aesthetic talent is truly definable by school catchment area '"—
and so say all of us. It goes on to say:
"All of these ' aesthetically impoverished ' children were from economically poor areas: ' … and neither parents nor teachers were seen to be sufficiently motivated to foster anything that was not considered to be essentially education.' ".
That is the bad side of the picture. That is the reverse side of the coin.
To add to that complete desert which can be found in various parts of Britain, there is also very often the tokenism that is worse than useless. This very often comes in middle class areas where the arts are admitted to the curriculum but are regarded by everyone as not very important and by children and teachers alike as a holiday from the serious work of the school. That also is a blot on the picture and something which needs to be corrected. It is a vicious circle, and a vicious circle which can only be broken, I suspect, at the level of teacher training. It needs the enthusiasm and the toughness of teachers with real dedication to the arts actually to break into this circle and bring an enthusiasm which did not exist before.
I have painted so far, in very broad canvas, the picture of an increasing awareness of the arts in education. That has been so up to date. There have, of course, been problems. One of the major problems is that of assessment. That is in two forms. It comes, first of all, from the difficulty—which I think all of us in this House who are interested in education have debated time and time again—of the pressure on the educational system from the universities and the examination system working downwards, and the pressure on children to choose subjects which fit into the assessment and examination system.
On the other hand, there is the difficulty of devising proper examinations, if you like, but I think "assessments" would probably be more suitable, for testing children's progress in the arts. Here I should like to ask the noble Lord a question of which I have given him notice. I see that the noble Lord looks surprised. I did give the noble Lord notice; I passed a letter, but it may have got lost somewhere and, if so, I am sorry about that. However, there was an Assessment Performance Unit in the DES and it had a panel particularly dealing with aesthetic development. It was closed down fairly early in the life of this Government. My question was: what had happened to its work; had it produced a report of any kind—I do not think that a report has been published—if it did

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produce any work, is it possible that we could know something about it? Undoubtedly, whatever the answer to that question, more work is needed on the whole matter of assessment. Gulbenkian I do not think is particularly good on producing answers as regards that matter, and quite openly says that a great deal more work is needed. I hope that the Government will take this on board and will want to do something about it.
There is another minor point that I should like to raise and which I think the DES could do something about fairly quickly. That is the difficulty of the change-over from primary schools to secondary schools. So often when children come into secondary schools, the teachers do not know what has heen happening at the primary level and find it very difficult to find out. It is not like mathematics. You cannot just sit them down, ask them to do sums and say, "you have learnt that, and you have not learnt that". The aesthetic side is much more difficult and I should have thought that some guidance on that would be very helpful to many secondary schools.
So that is the picture to date. But we have the major problem of the recession, which we face in every field that we discuss in this House. I have already said that I think one needs the arts more than normally during a recession. Apart from anything else, they are extremely rewarding in terms of resources. They do not call for great amounts of material. We are not talking about building opera houses when we talk about arts in schools. On the whole, they need dedicated people, and dedicated people who would otherwise be on the dole and costing the state quite a lot of money anyway. I think that there is room for encouragement here.
There was one other question which I had set out in the letter to the noble Lord, which I delivered to the Government's Whip's Office. It was about college of education drama courses. Obviously, I do not expect the noble Lord to be able to answer it tonight if he has not received my letter, but perhaps he will write to me. As I understand the situation, in 1961 there were six drama courses in colleges of education, which I think is about the number that one would expect. By 1971, there were 110, which is a great flowering and very good indeed. In 1981, there were none. I think that that is right. There are no longer even six. If this is a result of the cuts, it is disgraceful and something ought to be done about it.
I think that I have said enough to introduce the report, which I am sure that noble Lords have already read and which I hope many more noble Lords will read, because it is an extremely good report and extremely important. I am delighted to have heard that the DES has sent out a questionnaire to HMIs asking for their comments on the report and that great interest is being shown there. I am sure that that is true. I only hope that it will result in some action. It is an important subject. It is not just the icing on the cake; it really is a part of the cake, because as Peter Brinson, the director of the Gulbenkian Foundation, has said, the title wealth of Britain lies not in her oil or coal or even her fields, but in the imagination of her people. We should be fostering this imagination, not least in these difficult times.
8.43 p.m.
The Earl of Gosford: My Lords, I have been asked by my noble friend Lord Jenkins to apologise for his being unable to be present this evening. He would like me to give your Lordships' House one brief message. He believes that the report is so admirable that he hopes that Her Majesty's Government will now give the money to carry out its recommendations.
I did not put my name down to speak because, due to pressures of my own work, I have been unable to complete the reading of this report. I must apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, that I have not supported him properly in this debate. However, there are one or two points that I should like to make which come out immediately from this document. After this debate, I shall look forward to reading the entire report. I feel already that this is another tour de force by the Gulbenkian Foundation and I am very impressed by the uncompromising stand that the report makes. It says things that I believe those who are artists and those who have been involved in the arts have been wanting to say for a long time and, indeed, have been saying for a long time.
However, when an organisation like the Gulbenkian takes the trouble to produce a report of this strength, we can only be grateful that it has taken the words out of our mouths. The fundamental point about the report is that the arts are fundamental to the school curriculum. They say:
"In our own view, teaching people about achievements and aspirations in the arts may amount to little more than providing courses in the history and sociology of the arts. Arts education, as we have indicated, involves a great deal more than that".
I like the way in which the report goes beyond the idea of art just as a leisure and decorative activity, which it most certainly is and most certainly can be. It goes into the psychological, the physical and the communicative aspects of it, and shows how very necessary it is, on an equal par with arithmetic, English, and all the other subjects that we have to learn at school. Out of this, it becomes its own vehicle for change. I should like to quote a couple of paragraphs which I think are fundamental to everything I should like to say about the arts and at which this report is getting:
"By 'rationality', we do not mean merely deductive logic of discursive reasoning. We mean the many different conventionalised ways in which, as human beings, we have learned to communicate—through noises, marks, and signs—our ideas and feelings to other people. Some of these do not require verbal communication at all: there are whole 'languages' of meaning which have no direct need for words. They are, nonetheless, exceedingly rich and complex forms of talking to other people".
They say earlier:
"The arts are not outpourings of emotion. They are disciplined forms of inquiry and expression through which to organise feelings and ideas about experience. The need for young people to do this, rather than just to give vent to emotions or to have them ignored, must be responded to in schools. The arts provide the natural means for this".
I think that the most difficult thing for a person who is trying to express himself early on in life is the realisation that he is exceptionally lucky if he finds an art teacher who can communicate with the other teachers in such a way that he shows that the art class is not just a corner for the dunces—those who do not particularly take on the ideas of mathematics or other subjects. When you take into account a man like

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Leonardo, you understand that that, of course, is all quite irrelevant. What we are trying to say, and what this report is saying so exceedingly well, is that the way to communicate is not necessarily through the traditional British school curriculum of the three Rs. The arts must be on an equal par.
I speak personally as an artist and someone who has come through the British education system. All the way through if you have an idea of expressing yourself other than in the ways of traditionally held examinations—and examinations that would get you to university, et cetera—you in some way were a person apart. This is reflected in the fact that in many jobs you are expected to have certain kinds of qualifications, and it seemed to me that the arts qualification was never of such a value as the other qualifications. I should like to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Elton, whether in fact this is now in the past—I would sincerely hope it was—and that an arts examination and an arts degree was in every way as valuable as a chemistry degree, a Latin degree, or a history degree. The same with O- and A-levels.
It is the abandonment of this old reasoning that so commends the arts in schools to us. I should like to end by quoting one more passage from this document:
"For the reasons which we elaborate throughout this report we are not prepared to concede that the arts can be options on the curriculum which can, under pressures of time, space and resources, be dispensed with. We are convinced that the forms of creative thinking and doing which they represent are fundamental to the curriculum along with other key disciplines: no more than they, but certainly no less. We maintain that the case we make for this is soundly-based. It makes sense not only within the framework of education in all of its forms but also with respect to the pragmatic and hardheaded realities of the current economic and political climate".
8.53 p.m.
Baroness David: My Lords, we are very glad that the Gulbenkian Foundation decided to commission this report and that the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, was so quick off the mark and put down this Unstarred Question on the report so very soon after its publication. There was an urgent need for this review. The introduction tells us how it was sparked off by a discussion in 1977 between Peter Brinson of the Foundation and Peter Newsom of ILEA; a discussion on the public debate that had been opened on education, and in particular because of references to the core curriculum and a recurrent emphasis on the three Rs. They were worried that these references seemed to exclude the arts.
The committee was set up at the end of 1978, and as it worked the economic situation imposed further economies on local authorities. The School Curriculum issued in March 1981 showed a concern that schools should respond to the changing social and economic circumstances. It gave a list of six broad educational aims with which one could not possibly disagree, but apart from the sixth, to help pupils to appreciate human achievements and aspirations, the arts got no mention at all. This was typical of other statements being made.
The continuing cuts in education expenditure do bear heavily on arts subjects, as some materials, in spite of what the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, has said, are cheap, but some are very expensive, like musical instruments, and some authorities seem to
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look on art and music as mere frills. These cuts are having effects on the quality and range of education as well as on its provision. The introduction to the report gives plenty of evidence for this, and HMI's report on The Effects of Local Authority Expenditure Policies on the Educational Service in England 1981, out only today—and I am grateful for a copy landing on my desk at lunchtime—provides plenty more evidence of this.
"In over one-third of authorities",
the HMI report says,
"and especially in the shire counties, inspectors report changes in the curriculum for secondary school pupils in the form of reduction in the range of courses offered".
Music, and particularly instrumental music, is mentioned again and again. Too few appropriately qualified staff are mentioned; most frequently in craft design and technology, history, art and design. Sometimes craft and design have vanished altogether from the curriculum.
The Gulbenkian Report is to be welcomed as it aims to redress the balance. It stresses the great importance of the arts in everyone's school life, and it is high time that the balance was redressed.
I think in the concern at the huge numbers of the young unemployed there has been a great deal said about the schools needing to prepare young people for the world of work and to give them qualifications that will satisfy possible employers. As the report says,
"In the secondary schools a premium is often placed on exam courses and academic qualifications. We believe this emphasis to be misplaced".
And so do I, and I believe from what he said that the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, would agree with that. A little later it says:
"Literacy and numeracy are an important part of education. They should not be mistaken for it".
HMIs in their Aspects of Secondary Education 1979 said exactly the same thing. They went on to say that both literacy and numeracy seemed to improve when taught as part of a broad curriculum.
This report is pleading for that broader curriculum. It is attempting to have the arts accepted as an integral part of the whole.
"The arts should permeate the whole curriculum",
it says. It is odd that over 20 years ago, when things were pretty good compared with now, at a conference called A Consideration of Humanity, Technology and Education, Sir Herbert Read deplored the increasing specialisation of education. He said:
"In our own time that divisive process has been elaborated and legalised into a rigid structure of vocational education. The ideal of education is no longer the development of the whole man".
Summing up at the end of that conference, H. J. Blackham said:
"We believe that neither the contribution of the arts to general education, nor the place of general education in the national life, has yet been properly recognised, and we want to form a body of enlightened opinion drawn from all walks of life which will bring general public opinion to share our conviction, and to see our vision of the role of the arts in general education and the role of general education in the life of our industrial mass society".
This, say the authors of the report, is a motto for them.
I was talking to a retired HMI for arts at the week-end and he had seen this report. He said that what it

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had in it is what he had been trying to preach and get over all the years he had been working. There is perhaps nothing very new in the report. Maybe it is a little disappointing for that reason, but if messages do not get received the only thing is to go on sending them until at last they penetrate, and we hope that the message in this report will penetrate.
The report makes a strong plea for prevailing attitudes to the arts to be changed:
"Many administrators, head teachers, parents, teachers and pupils have failed to see the value of the arts; in many cases we believe because of their own indifferent experiences of them at school. This pattern of indifference must be broken".
The report stresses that it is dealing with the value of the arts in all schools for all children. This is very important: all children, not just those with special talents. It asks for better co-ordination and continuity in arts education. There is too little contact, it says, between teachers working in the different arts and little co-ordination between the three main sectors of education: primary, secondary, and tertiary.
Among the valuable and excellent practical suggestions in Chapter 4 on provision in the primary schools—which both the authors of the report and HMI found disappointing, teachers' expectations of their pupils often being too low—is one that in the record and profile that is passed on to the secondary schools there should be a section on the pupil's artistic abilities and achievemnts, so there would be a greater understanding of the whole child by those who would be taking him on in the next phase—a point which the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, also picked on. I am glad the Schools Council is sponsoring a research project on pupil profiles, and I hope that that will appear before long because it seems to me to be the way forward.
I hope the Government will pay heed to the comments on teachers and teacher training. There is no doubt that there is not enough emphasis on art training in the training colleges. I shall rashly and tentatively comment on what is taught—as the noble Lord, Lord Elton, has special knowledge of this subject, I would say I am perhaps being somewhat rash. I suspect there is too much theory and not enough practice. I was glad to see that there is a recommendation that the DES should undertake a survey to examine what now remains of the provision for initial training of teachers in the arts, paying particular attention to the balance between and the relationship of practical and theoretical courses. Students should get out much more into the schools. The HMI asked for more specialist teachers in primary schools, and I wish to urge that. It is unlikely, indeed probably impossible, for the class teacher to be equally capable of covering the three Rs, physical education and all the possible arts—music, dance, drama, drawing, painting and so on. Well trained, practically trained specialist teachers are needed, peripatetic some of them may well have to be. As in all schools, I guess the attitude and influence of the head is vital. It would be nice, as is suggested in the report, if heads of art, drama or music departments were sometimes appointed as heads of schools; they might manage to get the prevailing atmosphere changed.
I wish to comment on paragraphs 75 and 76–75 on
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"Availability: a resource bank"; and 76 on "Accessibility; the ethos of the schools". Paragraph 75 says that the stimuli for creative activity are plentiful and that the school needs to make them available. It suggests stones, fossils, bones, owl pellets, claws, feathers, coral, crab cases, driftwood, ball bearings, cogs, scrap metal and so on. Excellent, and they are all for free; they can be found and it is very good for the pupils to have to go out and find them.
Paragraph 76 says how important display is, but I do not think it puts quite enough emphasis on that. It encourages the display of children's work but, in my view, does not make enough of the whole school environment. If the aim of education in the visual arts is to ensure the development of visual awareness and the appreciation of colour, shape, form, line, texture, pattern, design and craftsmanship—in one word, aesthetics—of all pupils, one of the ways to achieve that is through the appearance of the school environment, which should be colourful and made attractive and interesting by the careful display of exhibits of various kinds, such as plants and other natural material, pictures, sculpture, mural decorations, wood, metal or clay objects, embroideries and fabric hangings as well as found objects, such as I have quoted, of particular interest, and through a rich, varied and ever-changing background in the work areas to provide inspiration for practical work. The ever-changing matters; people do not pay attention to something they see every day. It needs to be constantly altering.
In encouraging appreciation and interest in the arts through the environment of the school, I wonder how many authorities still have a picture fund whereby the art adviser had a sum he could spend every year on pictures, usually by living artists, partly because they were cheaper and partly of course as an encouragement to living artists. Such pictures or sculptures, or whatever they might be, made up a collection from which schools could borrow and have an always changing display on their walls. I believe that was valuable. In the days when I visited many schools as a member of an education committee, I always thought I could tell the sort of school I was visiting by the impression I got from the entrance and corridors; a good visual impact usually meant a good and lively school.
I turn to what is, to me, a most important chapter, Chapter 7 which deals with special needs. The writers of the report choose four groups for whom they think special measures may be necessary if the arts are to make their full contribution to the education of those children. They are the specially gifted, the disabled, those with learning difficulties and those who belong to racial minorities. Where highly talented pupils are concerned—those who show special ability in any art form and who may wish to go on to further education and/or training—there will be a need to go more deeply into aesthetics and craftsmanship. It is often found that teachers enjoy teaching the more gifted pupils and are prepared to go to great lengths to help them to become sensitive, creative people who can produce work of real quality. But outside help may also be necessary.
The Gulbenkian Foundation has produced reports on Going on the Stage, Training Musicians and Dance Education, and we are grateful for those. And this is

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the point at which to speak of the National Youth Orchestra, the National Youth Theatre and the National Festival of Youth Dance. All need support because our most gifted children in the arts need stimulation by meeting others of like ability. Are the Government committed to that support? The orchestra, the theatre and the festival will flourish only in so far as they receive encouragement from the department, Ministers, local authorities and devoted advisers and teachers who are willing often to give up their Saturdays to teaching and encouraging.
I hope very much that the Minister can tell us that the Secretary of State and the department will not let all those excellent things ebb away. A lead must come from the top. As a nation, I suspect we have been readier to look for and help the exceptionally gifted in sport. I hope we can be as generous to those gifted in the arts. Consider what, in the end, the nation gains; our international reputation for productions of opera, our Royal Ballet and the National Shakespeare Company, which have worldwide tours and successes and are a tremendous tourist attaction, too.
Lord Inglewood: My Lords, would the noble Baroness agree that our cathedral choirs and the wonderful tradition particularly of boys singing—and they are trained in special private schools—is something which is the envy of Europe? She did not mention that when speaking of the opera. They started long before the Arts Council was ever heard of.
Baroness David: I agree, my Lords, that our choirs, and some of the cathedral choirs—I appreciate, of course, that they are trained in special schools—are of tremendous benefit to the nation, and I know that the choirs of St. John's School, Cambridge, and King's Choir School have travelled all over the world to sing. I think that music has to have special attention; I would grant that.
I have spoken about the first group—the gifted. I now turn to the second group, the disabled, and I am glad to say that, with Warnock, the authors of the report think that these children should be integrated in the ordinary schools. I use the term "disabled" to cover many types of children; not only the physically disabled, and those in wheelchairs, who need special provision, but also disturbed children, for whom music and painting can perform miracles. The report gives examples, touching examples I thought, of how difficult, unresponsive children had been brought out of their shells and into active participation in the group by acting, and how their truancy from school had consequently been stopped.
When I was in Belfast six weeks or so ago I was very moved when I went to see a YOP drama course. There were 17- and 18-year olds taking part. Some of them had been delinquent, and of course they were all unemployed. They were practising, in fairly tatty surroundings, for a street drama. But they were so lively, they had such good teachers, and they were so unselfconscious that it impressed upon me how good drama can be for those children who are perhaps not getting on well in school in the ordinary way, as we think of it. I wondered whether perhaps unemployed actors could help with drama courses, particularly with the YOP courses; though that is not exactly what we are talking about tonight.
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It is difficult to draw a line between the disturbed and those with learning difficulties, who are the third group mentioned in Chapter 7. Both groups can be helped wonderfully by teachers in the arts departments. It is, I believe, becoming more and more certain that music can help the dyslexic and those with speech difficulties. A number of very interesting experiments are going on, and there is no doubt that the inarticulate can become very expressive with paint.
The fourth group are those who belong to racial minorities. There are concentrations of over 20 per cent. of immigrant children in a number of local education authorities, and sometimes as many as 50 per cent., or even more. Yet—and I quote from a paper prepared by the Commission for Racial Equality:
"The presence in such numbers of children from ethnic minorities, who very often had extreme contrasting culture, was not considered to warrant any consideration with regard to general curriculum development in the schools. Their needs were seen merely in terms of (i) intense language exposure, and (ii) behavioural correction under the guise of educational subnormality"
The report—The Arts in Schools—emphasises not only how important it is for appropriate cultural provision to be made for these pupils, but also how important it is for all students and all staff in our schools to have that provision and to understand the cultures of the racial minorities, and thereby bridge gaps. Out of that understanding of another culture can come a richness and diversity of artistic resources and a broadening of opportunity. In schools and in curricula where the arts are not highly regarded, the art forms of non-Europeans are likely to suffer most. But what riches there are if only advantage is taken of them! Many schools are doing very well. I visited a school in North London 10 days ago, and in one class I looked in on a dozen or so children, mostly black, were having a lovely time with a steel band. They certainly could have done with more space, but they were really enjoying themselves and making a gorgeous rhythmic sound.
So I hope that when the Minister replies we shall hear that the special needs of the racial minorities are receiving particular attention where education in the arts is concerned, and that the richness and diversity of the many cultures are going to be made use of. I hope, too, that the report can be drawn to the attention of the Youth Service Review, which is now taking place, and that the review can concentrate on it a little, and say what it is going to do about the arts.
Above all, we want to know whether the Secretary of State and the department are going to respond positively to the report and give it real support, not merely lip service. Are they going to listen to the HMI Report, which is out today, and which is asking for a great deal more for the arts, particularly for music. Are the arts to have their proper place in the curriculum and an equal status with other major areas? Most particularly, are resources going to be made available?—because without a proper allocation of resources the commitment will mean absolutely nothing.
9.13 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Lord Elton): My Lords, this is indeed an important report, and a timely one. It is published as local education authorities and schools in England and Wales are reviewing their

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policies for the school curriculum. I believe that it will be widely read and will influence thinking, and that it will do so deservedly. The same may also be true of this debate, and I am sure there will be many outside this House, as well as in it, who will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, for introducing it. I would join with him in sending my sympathetic good wishes to my noble friend Lord Eccles, whose contribution would have done so much to increase the value of this occasion.
The report itself makes a cogent case for a secure place for the arts in the school curriculum. This is reflected, as the noble Baroness has rightly said, in the report from the Inspectorate, which reached her desk and mine today. The point that the report was anxious to drive home—I am speaking now of the Inspectorate's report—was that schools and local education authorities have to plan sensibly for the curriculum as a whole in order to avoid reductions in important areas such as the arts. This is the message also of the White Paper, the discussion paper, The School Curriculum, and the Government's Circular 6/81, which was issued last October.
The noble Baroness raised a number of points, to some of which I shall return. One of them which caught my ear, perhaps out of context, appeared to be that she felt that students in teacher-training colleges should get out more into the schools. My recollection of teaching in a teacher-training college is that it would be difficult for them to do so for the reasons of the administration of the courses and the dispersal of the supervising staff, but that a very great deal of their time certainly was, and I believe still is, spent in the schools. It may just be that the number of students studying the subjects in which the noble Baroness is interested is relatively small and that she does not encounter them, perhaps, as frequently as might otherwise be the case.
Returning to the report which is the subject of this debate, many noble Lords will have been impressed, as was I, by the quality of the argument, particularly in the early chapters of the report, which deal with the contribution of the arts in education and with the nature of creativity. There is room for debate about the weight which might be attached to particular considerations in this as in other areas of the curriculum, but for my part I believe the report makes a fundamental point when it explains that the committee of inquiry are not just pressing for the arts for their own sake—and I quote:
"Our concern is broader—with the development of those basic human qualities and capabilities, including the power of creative insight and activity and a concern with relationships and questions of value, which give rise to the arts in the first place".
In other words, I agree, as do the Government, that literacy and numeracy are not the only constituents of a proper and full education.
The school curriculum is first and foremost the responsibility of local education authorities and schools themselves; the Government cannot and, indeed, should not dictate what they should do. However, we have issued guidance for England and Wales in The School Curriculum, to which I have already referred, which was published last year. This makes specific reference to the need for subjects like art, music and drama to permit pupils to avail themselves of opportunities for enriching their personal experience; it identifies aesthetic subjects
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as an essential part of the primary school curriculum; and it makes it quite clear that pupils should retain opportunities for aesthetic activity up to the end of their compulsory schooling.
I believe that the authors of the Gulbenkian Report are wrong—and I think that the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, agrees with me in this—in concluding that the absence of detailed discussion of the arts in the Government's guidance is an indication of indifference on the Government's part, or that it will be taken as such by local education authorities and schools. But lest there be any doubt, let me make it quite clear now that the Government fully accept the case that the arts are not merely a desirable but an essential component of the education offered in schools. This means not only fostering the talents of the artistically gifted, important as that is, but providing opportunities for all pupils—and the noble Baroness I think emphasised this—at appropriate stages of their school careers, to participate in artistic activity and to learn about the arts.
There are, of course, schools and local education authorities—and they have been mentioned this evening—where the arts already play a prominent role in curriculum thinking and planning, and others which enjoy a high reputation in particular arts subjects. The report gives examples of good practice, and it also tackles squarely the obstacles to be overcome before such practice can be extended more widely.
In the primary schools, it rightly draws attention to the findings of Her Majesty's Inspectors that a broader curriculum need not be at the expense of achievement in the basic skills of reading, writing and mathematics. Quite the contrary: the evidence suggests that children do better in these skills when they can be practised and extended through a wider range of work.
Talking about performance, the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, was kind enough to give notice to somebody of a question and that notice sufficed for the occasion. I can say in reply that the Assessment of Performance Unit of the Department of Education and Science did indeed have an exploratory group on the assessment of aesthetic development. This group completed its work and submitted a report last year. It is now being considered by the unit; and the report I understand makes recommendations for the assessment of children's work in the arts and sets out the group's model for assessment, which they consider could be applied to all arts subjects. No decisions have yet been taken on publication or on the case that the report makes for assessment in this field because it is still being considered. As to the particular exploratory group, it completed its work and for that reason it has closed down.
Many class teachers lack confidence in their own ability to teach effectively in the creative subjects. The same is very often true in science, which has also been neglected in many primary schools. The report's recommendations for the appointment of teacher leaders, co-ordinators or consultants and for greater encouragement and support for teachers are similar to methods already being used to improve the teaching of science. Her Majesty's Inspectorate's report Primary Education in England called for greater use of teacher consultants in primary schools. We hope, therefore, that teachers and those involved in primary schools will

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talk through these conclusions, and consider how far they are practicable in their own areas and their own schools. There is a limit to the number of teacher consultants that can be appointed and also the size of school in which they are appropriate. We cannot expect change to occur overnight. But I believe that close consideration or this proposal will prove to be fruitful.
At secondary school level, the report's authors make a number of interesting suggestions, which again need to be talked through. I believe they are right to draw attention to the fact that, if authorities and schools adopt a piecemeal approach to coping with the effects of falling schools rolls and of expenditure reductions, the arts are vulnerable. The Government's policy is designed to encourage them to plan the curriculum as a whole, so as to ensure that pupils are not deprived of opportunities in all the main areas of experience.
Many teachers, as the report points out, do not necessarily have the knowledge or experience to participate confidently in curriculum planning and policy-making beyond their own subject specialisms. It is important that they whould see this as part of their professional responsibility. Everybody knows his own subject; you have to become more senior before you are involved in time-tabling subjects other than your own, and relatively appreciably more senior before you recognise the effect of balance between the subjects and the way that balance is affected by your decisions. The planning of a curriculum is a specialised pursuit and it is important that teachers should see this as part of their professional responsibility. Whatever support the Government and local authorities may give—and their contribution is clearly important—the strength of the arts in education depends on the ability of heads of schools and their staff in individual schools to develop an ethos within which they can flourish, and to arrange timetables and the allocation of resources in such a way as to encourage effective teaching.
What a wealth of resources the noble Baroness read out. Whether the school in question was in a belfry or on the beach, I could not discover; but there was a limitless supply of materials; and the world is made up of arts material for those who know how to use them, Picasso was perhaps the first to show. But one must not fall into the trap of thinking that because a subject deserves curricular time, it can displace others which also deserve it. The school timetable is limited and the time allocation between subjects has to be a compromise. The point is that the compromise should be intelligent and suited to the needs of each pupil.
I was particularly interested to read the report's views on the need for co-operation in matters of policy among specialists in the different art forms, and its rather brief reference to what it calls "third sessions", by which it means the important role of voluntary extra-curricular activities in promoting interest in the arts. These are important matters, not often discussed in this context. The view of teachers on them will be of great interest. I hope this report will be widely discussed among teachers and not only teachers whose primary or only interest is in teaching art.
The authors of the report have made in all 32 recommendations—too many for me to deal with in detail this evening. Many are rightly directed at local education authorities, but I wonder if I may pick out
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one or two where the Government are playing, or can play, a part. I am pleased to see, for example, the report's support for the use of profile reports in schools. I do not see developments in this field as being restricted to the arts. I see a strong case for some form of pupil profile, or record of achievement, for all school-leavers and probably in all subjects. Such records are, in our view, potentially useful, not only as an aid to selection for employment or further and higher education, but to provide an incentive for young people in their later years of compulsory education, and as a means of recognising achievements and qualities which cannot be assessed in formal examinations. The noble Baroness and other noble Lords emphasised earlier tonight that an examination can be a very useful framework; it can also be a very dangerous straitjacket. Therefore this is an area of considerable importance.
What would we see forming a part of records of achievement? They might include evidence of educational attainment, and that by no means need be only examination achievements. I think it important that some reference be made to an individual's level of ability in basic skills, at least of numeracy and communication skills. But there would be scope for evidence on a broader front, where this was thought appropriate by the school or individual concerned. They should also include references to other achievements, whether or not these took place in school or in the wider community. And they should reflect an individual's personal qualities: punctuality, enthusiasm, imagination, sociability. We could all add to the list of qualities which we would find it helpful to know about.
It is in that kind of document that the arts could figure. It is clear to me that there would be ample scope here for schools and pupils to give free range to a record of their achievements and interests in the arts and this could extend to appreciation as well as to performance. I believe that it is important to tutor the eye as well as the hand in the arts.
The report asks for a full investigation. There are already useful initiatives being taken in various parts of the country by schools and LEAs. Some work is in hand in the Schools Council. I believe that more needs to be done before progress can be made on the wider scale which we would wish to see. The Government are already considering the way in which this might be tackled.
It is perhaps unfortunate that relatively little space is devoted to the enormous potential of the ethnic minority arts in our midst for enriching the experience of all children. I was interested and sympathetic to the way that the noble Baroness, Lady David, devoted proportionately more of her speech to the subject than the report did to its own reflections.
The points are there, but I should like to see them given more prominence, so that all teachers who read this report—and I hope many will—will be prompted to consider whether their approach to the arts excludes whole areas of our mutual cultural heritage. This is, of course, a matter which bears on the whole curriculum, and many noble Lords will know that the question of education in a multiracial society is one to which the Government are giving careful consideration in the light of a number of recent reports. I remind your Lordships of the Swan Report, the

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Home Affairs Committee's report on Racial Disadvantage, the Scarman Report, and the Report of the Education, Science and Arts Committee. There may be here a whole untapped well of talent. As the noble Earl, Lord Gosford, said in a most interesting contribution, the arts provide a channel for communication at a depth not always reached by those who articulate and express themselves in the more conventional and examinable forms.
An especially interesting section of the report is that which deals with practising artists and education. No one would oppose the suggestion that there should be co-operation between arts funding bodies and education authorities, and that contacts between children and artists should be fostered—often with surprising result. There is already a good deal of commitment and co-operation on both sides, between arts bodies and the education service. Improving co-operation is not simply a question of the level of resources, but of ensuring that they are used sensibly and to maximum effect.
On one particular point, the examples of good practice cited in the report concentrate mainly on the performing arts in schools. Although the report does not devote a great deal of attention to the contribution which museums and galleries can make to the teaching, the understanding, the practice and the love of art, I am sure noble Lords would agree that we should not overlook this aspect. I regret that the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, is not present to contribute his great experience in this field to this debate.
The museums and galleries of this country are the repositories of many of our national artistic treasures and a source of pride and joy to us all. But these institutions are not static, and they are not passive. Not only do their collections expand but their staff devote their energy and skill to interesting displays, to stimulating programmes of special exhibitions and to the production of catalogues, brochures and written material of all kinds. Above all, in the context of this debate, they devote themselves not only to informing and educating us all in the broad sense of that term but also to serving the schools. I should like to see more made of that.
Baroness David: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord will allow me to ask one question which I had intended to raise earlier. This concerns the slides from the Victoria and Albert Museum. There was trouble and it was thought that the whole service was going to stop. I am not quite sure what the latest news is. After what the noble Lord has said about museums, it would be very interesting if we could hear what is happening.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I will endeavour to bring that into my closing remarks. I began that passage with a reference to the performing arts and that reminds me of the other point put by the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, of which he gave some advanced warning. I think I can reassure him on this by saying that some 45 institutions offer drama as an option within initial teacher training. Provisional estimates for the 1981 admissions suggest that about 300 students entered either postgraduate or undergraduate initial teacher
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training courses with drama as a secondary specialist subject. A further as yet unknown number are pursuing drama in the context of training for primary schools. Part-time or full-time in-service training courses in drama for teachers were offered in the current academic year at some 13 institutions with a total enrolment of over 150 students; so I think that the thing looks a great deal more healthy than perhaps the noble Lord feared.
Noble Lords might think it understandable that during this period when public expenditure and public service manpower must come under review, the museums and galleries education services were themselves to be looked at closely. I am confident, however, that wherever such scrutiny may take place the value of the services offered will certainly not be lost from view.
The final sections of the report are concerned with the contribution which can be made by the arts funding bodies, the media, the youth service and teacher training. I must say something about the Government's policy towards the youth service and the role of the voluntary youth organisations, because I believe the report paints an inaccurate national picture in Section 236 in describing the service as one suffering from neglect, expenditure cuts, dwindling support and a loss of adolescent participants.
The Government attach a high priority to the informal social education of young people, and therefore to the youth service. Indeed, even during this period of financial restraint we have taken the view that expenditure on the youth service should be maintained, and have taken steps to help local authorities to do so. This is reflected in the recent rate support grant settlements. The grants made centrally by the Department of Education and Science towards the headquarters expenditure of the national voluntary youth organisations have also been maintained. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the voluntary youth organisations who are making a significant and vital contribution towards the wellbeing of our young people in these difficult times. The report, I think, does a little less than justice here.
It is fair to say that the service has adapted significantly in recent years to meet present-day requirements. The balance of provision has swung heavily towards work with the older age groups, and particularly with the young unemployed. For example, I understand that the National Association of Youth Clubs alone has about 300,000 members aged 16-plus. To sum up, I do not accept, as the report implies, that the youth service is wasting away through neglect. We look forward to receiving the report of the review group on the youth service this summer and shall be giving careful consideration to their recommendations.
The report makes a particular recommendation that the National Youth Bureau should consider establishing a standing conference for the arts in the youth service. Although the National Youth Bureau receives substantial help from the Government, it is an independent body which reaches its own conclusions on which activities to support through its council and its executive committee. I cannot, therefore, answer for it or say how far the bureau would see an appropriate role for itself in supporting the arts. However, I can say that several national voluntary youth organisations already have well-established activities relating to the arts.

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In addition, many arts-orientated activities provided by the youth service are funded at local level.
I should like, in conclusion, to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, for drawing the attention of this House to the report. Where the recommendations make claims for additional resources, progress may well be constrained by the overriding need to control public expenditure. But there is much in the report which is not dependent on increased expenditure by local education authorities, and I hope that they will give the recommendations addressed to them the very fullest consideration. For their part, the Government have noted those recommendations where they are called upon to take the lead, and will be considering these carefully in the context of their educational policies as a whole.
The noble Baroness hoped for an immediate commitment on numbers of specific issues. It is too early for that. It is, indeed, too early for a response to the report of the inspectorate, which we have only just received. But I can say that I am sure that in these considerations my colleagues in the Department of Education and Science will take note of the sage and worthy views expressed by noble Lords today. I will be writing to the noble Baroness about the slides, which fall within the purview of my honourable friend the Minister for the Arts and not directly of the Department of Education and Science.