Lords Sitting of 28 April 1982

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Hereford.

RAF Involvement in Youth Training Schemes
Lord Balfour of Inchrye: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in view of the wide interest of British youth in all matters concerning aviation, it is proposed to associate the Royal Air Force with the proposed Home Service Force, the expansion of the Territorial Army and the new Teenager Scheme; and, if so, what form will such association take.
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, the Territorial Army, and the new Home Service Force which is linked to it, are administered by the Army and would form part of it on mobilisation. The broadly equivalent organisation in the Royal Air Force is the Royal Auxiliary Air Force, and this is being expanded with the formation of three more regiment squadrons for airfield defence over the next two years; men from the age of 17 are eligible to join these squadrons. I take the noble Lord's reference to the Teenager Training Scheme to mean the Youth Adventure Scheme in which spare capacity in the training machines of the services is being used to provide short periods of adventure training for young people. The Royal Air Force is fully involved in this scheme, and the first course began at RAF Cosford on 19th April.
Lord Balfour of Inchrye: My Lords, may I thank the Minister for that reply, and, in view of my satisfaction, I have no further questions to ask.

European Elections: Voting
2.37 p.m.
Baroness Elles: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what measures they are now prepared to take to enable British citizens resident in the nine other member states of the EEC to vote in the 1984 European parliamentary elections.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Elton): My Lords, the Government are considering the European Parliament's proposals for a uniform electoral procedure under which nationals of member states would be able to vote in European
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Parliament elections irrespective of their place of residence within the Community.
Baroness Elles: My Lords, while I thank the Minister for that reply, will he appreciate that there are only two member states which do not already have regulations to deal with this problem, and that one is the United Kingdom? Will the Goverment please put forward proposals as soon as possible in order to implement this part of the resolution of the European Parliament?
Lord Elton: My Lords, my understanding is that at the last such election the Republic of Ireland did not have the system to which the noble Baroness refers, and that Denmark and Belgium did so only for those out of the country temporarily. And in the first direct elections in Greece in 1981 only those resident in Greece were entitled to vote. So we are not entirely alone in this.
Baroness Elles: My Lords, I did imply that there was one other country. Will the noble Lord take on board that there are at least a quarter of a million British citizens resident in the European Community outside the United Kingdom who are very anxious not to be deprived of their civil and political rights to take part in any election which affects them individually?
Lord Elton: My Lords, Her Majesty's Government are aware of this concern and indeed of the fact that there may be about 300,000 United Kingdom citizens living in other member states. This matter is under review.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, will the noble Lord give an assurance that the Ministry will keep in mind the position of many of these individuals in EEC states who may have been there for a very long period of years and have very little desire to come back to this country fairly soon?
Lord Elton: My Lords, the fact of their having lived so long abroad is one of the difficulties in devising a system to allow them to vote in a particular constituency in the country of their nationality. The French, as I think my noble friend has inferred, do have a system for this, but I understand that their nationals can elect for which constituency they will vote and this lends itself to fraud and a good deal of dubiousness about the votes cast.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, will not this problem go away once we have a uniform system for voting for the European Community Parliament? The sooner this happens, surely, the better. Then English citizens can vote in France, if that is where they live, and vice versa.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I take note of what my noble friend says. My experience of problems is that on the whole they do not go away.
Baroness Elles: My Lords, will the Minister kindly consider the possibility of giving proxy votes to residents within the Community? This might be one

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way of solving the difficulty of being attached to a particular constituency.
Lord Elton: My Lords, the matter, as I say, is under review. What my noble friend says will be taken careful note of, and indeed anything else she likes to say to me will he taken on board.
Lord Leatherland: My Lords, can the Minister tell us whether that means that those who have run away from the difficulties now prevailing in this country are to get the same privileges as those of us who have stayed here to see them through?
Lord Elton: My Lords, I understand that my noble friend would like those who have run away from the difficulties in this country to be pursued by them.

Rear Fog Lamps
2.42 p.m.
Lord Strathcarron: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they propose to take to discourage the use of high-intensity rear fog lights in conditions of good visibility at night.
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport is concerned to bring home to motorists that rear fog lamps may only be used when bad weather seriously reduces visibility. Darkness does not prevent a car on normal rear lights from being easily seen unless coupled with dense fog or similar conditions. Supporting material for the Highway Code is being amended and publicity material is being prepared to put across this message.
Lord Strathcarron: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that very helpful reply. It will be a comfort to those motorists who are constantly blinded by what amounts to the anti-social behaviour of drivers who leave these lights on when visibility is good.
Lord Davies of Leek: My Lords, while concurring with the noble Lord's thanks to the noble Earl, is he aware that, though those of us who do a lot of night driving do not want to put more burdens on the police, there should nevertheless be more publicity about the wattage of some of the fog lights which are being used and which are purposely more intense than they should be? Could attention be drawn to this fact, because it is a menace on the highways at night?
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, I am grateful for the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, and I shall certainly bear his point about wattage in mind. Television and radio publicity material is being used at the moment, and we are hoping to get the message across.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, can my noble friend tell us what steps can or might be taken to discourage the practice of wiring-in high-intensity rear lights with the brake lights? Secondly, what steps can be taken to discourage the use of what might be described as decorative additional rear lights which sometimes appear in the back windows of motor cars?
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, I shall, indeed, consider what my noble friend Lord Lucas of Chilworth has said. We have, for instance, recently considered amending the regulations so as to include a visibility distance of 100 metres. Opinions among those we consulted were divided on the merits of this change and we shall not be pressing it for the moment. But distances are used on the Continent, and that may be a way of answering my noble friend's points.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, can my noble friend say whether discouragement of these intensive lights will be mandatory or advisory?
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, there are regulations at the moment and, as I said in my original Answer, we are also taking advice about changing the Highway Code on this matter.

Kingsley School, Chelsea
2.45 p.m.
The Earl of Kimberley: 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 obtain from ILEA confirmation of the fact that the entire premises of Kingsley School, Glebe Place, Chelsea, is used for educational purposes by young Libyan children.
Lord Elton: My Lords, the Department of Education and Science is in contact with the proprietors of the school now in these premises about its registration as an independent school. That registration will involve an inspection by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Schools covering both the premises used and the education provided.
The Earl of Kimberley: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that Answer, may I ask whether he can confirm that the building does not have diplomatic immunity? Can he also confirm that, when it is inspected, every single room on the premises will be inspected so that there is no possible question of subversive activities going on there? Finally, can he please confirm that, if the school is going to be inspected regularly, it is not warned when those inspections are going to take place?
Lord Elton: My Lords, I can confirm that the premises are not an embassy. As to the inspection by Her Majesty's Inspectorate which is necessary for the registration of the school, that will be of the premises of the school and will be to establish whether the

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accommodation and the teaching are fit enough to make it an effective school. There will also, of course, be an inspection by the people responsible for fire precautions. I understand that part of the premises is used for residential purposes for which there is planning permission. If there were a change of use, it would of course be necessary to get planning permission for the change.
Baroness David: My Lords, as ILEA is mentioned in the Question, will the Minister agree that ILEA behaved absolutely properly in following Government guidelines in the sale of a redundant school and did everything that it should do and nothing that it should not do?
Lord Elton: My Lords, I think that I am happy to give that sweeping nihil obstat. What I can say is that the authority sold the property to a property development company and it was then re-sold. So far as I know, both sales were entirely proper. ILEA has no standing in the matter now because the responsible authority for independent schools is not the local education authority but the Department of Education and Science, which of course is the department which fields the inspectorate which will inspect the school.

Business
Lord Denham: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I should like to say a brief word about the first short debate today standing in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Longford. The House will see that there is an exceptionally long list of speakers for a two and a half hour debate. Perhaps I may remind the House that the accepted practice is that the opening speaker should speak for up to about 15 minutes and that the Minister in reply is entitled to rise at least 20 minutes before the conclusion of the debate, including in this a short time for the mover to wind up. I have to say that my calculations are that this leaves other speakers an average of six and a half minutes each. If any noble Lord should take longer than that, he might well be depriving later speakers of their rations.

Prison Conditions
2.48 p.m.
The Earl of Longford The Earl of Longford rose to call attention to the position in the prisons; and to move for Papers.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. I must begin by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Elton, on his transfer—what I would regard as a promotion—to one of the most arduous positions in the Government. We all recognise his merits, and of course I am eternally grateful to his father whose famous book England Arise had more influence on me than any other book in converting me from conservatism to socialism.
I always understood that there were 20 minutes for the opening speaker and I thought that I was doing rather well by deciding to keep my remarks to 15 minutes, to which I shall keep them. However, on
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behalf of those who have taken part in debates on penal reform, I should like to express all our good wishes and thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, who did such splendid work here in his ministerial capacity.
We have been warned about the time, and therefore I shall come quickly to the point. It is now generally admitted that the overcrowding of our prisons and the resulting squallor is a disgrace to our civilisation. The Home Secretary has repeatedly emphasised the gravity of the situation and has expressed the hope that judges could be persuaded to pass shorter sentences. It is recognised that sentences here are, generally speaking, heavier than those passed in similar countries. The inspector-general's report lays bare once again that sorry state of affairs. In my short speech today I shall deal with remedies.
Last May the Home Office produced a Review of Parole in England and Wales, with a foreword by the Home Secretary, which raised great hopes among those concerned with penal policy. The well-informed calculations at that time were that under those plans the prison population could be reduced by 7,000 people. The proposal which aroused most interest was the automatic extension of the parole system to short-term prisoners. In the introduction of that important report Mr. Whitelaw was careful not to commit himself to that particular proposal. But he allowed it to be widely understood—and anyone who glances at the press will realise this—that he was strongly sympathetic. In the event, all such hopes were shattered, though not I trust for ever.
The proposals actually brought forward in the Criminal Justice Bill have been widely criticised as being more likely to increase than decrease the numbers in prison, but if they do decrease the numbers, it will not be by many. We have not been given—and I cannot think that we are likely to be given—any convincing reasons why the Home Office proposals of May 1981 were abandoned. It is widely surmised that the painful experience that the well-meaning Home Secretary underwent at the Conservative Conference forced him to the conclusion that he could not carry his own party with him—and, it might well be, his own Prime Minister. If that were so, we could feel sympathy for him and continue the respect we feel for him as a man.
But the official reason is different. We are told that the Home Secretary has been convinced by the judges that the proposals were impracticable. Here I shall speak with extreme meekness and mildness. If I manage to annoy anyone, it will not be through any wish of mine. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chief Justice recently made a notable maiden speech. I am very glad to see that he is present today. I am afraid that in all debates of this sort the judges have been rather conspicuous by their absence. However, the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chief Justice has honoured us by his presence today. I did warn him that I might be quoting him. When he spoke in this House the other day he left no doubt in our minds about the part played by the judges in defeating this Home Office proposal. He said:
"The judges were unanimously opposed to it".
The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chief Justice then said:

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"I am very glad to say that the proposal was dropped".
It is worth quoting the reason that was given us by the noble and learned Lord as to why the judges were so hostile. He said:
"the actual term served in prison would be precisely one-third of that which the judge imposed … The judge consequently would have been in a hopeless dilemma in many cases; should he obey the dictates of Parliament and pass the sentence that was originally in his mind, knowing that only a third would be served, or should he increase the sentence—contrary to the wishes of Parliament? "—[Official Report, 24/3/82; col. 988.]
So faced with that dilemma the judges came to the Home Secretary and persuaded him to abandon this progressive idea. I have been careful to quote exactly the words the noble and learned Lord used; therefore, so far, I hope that no one can accuse me of misinterpreting the Lord Chief Justice.
But now I offer just one or two very unprovocative reflections on which Members of the House must be their own judges. Is this not another way of saying that in many cases, under these proposals, the judge would feel that he was in conflict with the wishes of Parliament?—though I recognise that, as the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chief Justice explained to us, a judge would at all times consider that it was his duty to carry out the wishes of Parliament if they became the law of the land.
To avoid a misunderstanding which may have arisen on the previous occasion, I am not accusing the judges of any impropriety. I am simply emphasising the point that they are not favourable to the kind of proposals for reducing the prison population which are regarded as a sine qua non by enlightened people outside the judiciary, including, it would seem, the Home Office as recently as last year. I shall not pursue this matter of how the judges could be persuaded to alter their attitude, or what one does if they wish to impose some veto. I shall not pursue that matter for today, as I say, I am a dove of peace. However, I am just raising this question and placing it fairly before the House. How can those of us who believe in the ideas of the Home Office proposals of May 1981 prevail against what appears to be the attitude of the judiciary? That is the problem—what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lane, might call the dilemma.
The options open to us are not, in principle, different from those I indicated last November, though various refinements and combinations can be worked out. I know that the distinguished expert speakers will unfold a number of ideas later on. What I called last November, and still call without disrespect, "Whitelaw Mark 1 "—that is, the Whitelaw Plan, or at any rate the Home Office Plan, of May 1981—is still, in my eyes, the front runner, but there are possible alternatives and amendments.
There is the suggestion of an amnesty, of the kind introduced by Sir Winston Churchill when he was Home Secretary in 1910. According to one newspaper, in France they have introduced an amnesty which has reduced the prison population from 43,000 to 29,000. So it is not regarded as an absurdity in Europe. There is the extension of remission from one-third to one-half of the normal sentence. There is the removal of mentally disordered prisoners from prison as, for example, suggested by the prison officers. There is the case, which grows ever stronger, for
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legislation which reduces the level of maximum sentences. There are, indeed, all sorts of combinations.
The Howard League, the oldest and most famous of penal reform societies, produced a most impressive booklet, Freedom on Licence. They took the Home Office White Paper as an absolute minimum and went well beyond it. I wish that I could describe their proposals at length, but I hope that my much revered friend, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner—I hope that he is still President of the Howard League; he has been for many years—will perhaps explain their ideas to us more fully. One of the most striking features of their plan would be the establishment of a court of appeal to which appeals would be directed against decisions of the Parole Board. There are many possibilities, even under our existing arrangements. All these plans must be judged by one primary yardstick: do they bring about a substantial reduction in the prison population? Mr. Whitelaw has indicated more than once that if there was no significant reduction in the prison population, he would take legislative action. I call on him as a man of honour to honour that commitment now.
Before I close—and I still have five minutes due to me—I should like to say a few words about long-sentence prisoners, and life sentence prisoners in particular, whose numbers have increased from 133 in 1957 to 1,750, on a somewhat new basis, at the present time; they increased to 1,481 two years ago on the old basis. My views on this subject were set out at some length in the debate which I initiated on 26th March 1980. I shall recapitulate one of my conclusions now. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lane, told us recently, the idea that prison is likely to improve a man is no longer held by serious persons. We must assume that normally the longer a man spends in prison, the more he will deteriorate; that is not always the case, but it is usually the case. Recent Home Office research has also discredited the idea that the longer the sentence, the greater the deterrent effect on others. In the case of life prisoners, there is the special agony of hopelessness, of not knowing whether one will ever be released.
I repeat a proposal that I offered to the House two years ago, with a good deal of support from eminent persons. I urged then, and I urge once more, that a prisoner should have the right to have his case heard by an independent tribunal within 10 years of his arrest, and that after five years he could apply for such a tribunal, which might or might not be immediately granted him. I am not, of course, dogmatic about the 10 years or the five, but I am as convinced as I can be of anything in human affairs that the principle is morally irresistible.
I must give way to other speakers. I am heart and soul with those who denounce the overcrowding of our prisons. But, as a notable ex-prison governor said to me recently, while there is a great degradation in three men in a cell, prolonged imprisonment is an even greater degradation. I hope that the miserable conditions in our local prisons will not blind us to the mental torture which we inflict on long-term prisoners, to whom we hold out no prospect of human happiness as one dreary year passes slowly into another.
Why is it that there continue to be so many elements of cruelty in our treatment of prisoners? Prison is a

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punishment, inevitable in many cases; and punishment involves pain—mental, one would say, rather than physical. But so much of that cruelty is palpably unnecessary by any Christian standard. The cruelty does not spring from the inhumanity of individuals in the prison service. They are average human beings like ourselves, with a large proportion of dedicated, caring persons among them.
The decisions reached by Ministers, officials and judges are frequently cruel, but they are made by public spirited men acting in what they believe is the national interest. It all comes back to this fear of the attitude, real or alleged, of the general public which, in view of the lamentable increase in crime has become, beyond question, more and more hostile to prisoners. Each of us must do what we can to correct that ignorance. Our debates here play a not insignificant part. I wish the new Minister everything good in all he seeks to achieve in that direction. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.2 p.m.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, not for the first time the noble Earl, Lord Longford, has called for an immediate and substantial reduction in the prison population. That plea will find an echo in many quarters, and I believe not least in the Home Office and the present Home Secretary, whose enlightened views on the matter we all applaud. But there are very few options that will enable us to accomplish this end. One of the choices to which the noble Earl referred in passing, and which would be of major significance, would be the idea that remission should be increased from one-third to one-half, bringing it into line with the practice in Northern Ireland.
When we discussed this on a previous occasion the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, said that it was not considered feasible to introduce parole in Northern Ireland and that was the reason for the difference between the two systems. If that was the only reason the Government had for declining to pursue the idea, then they have not been trying very hard. Like many others, I am not happy about the operation of the parole system in England and Wales. If we had to forfeit that system as the price of introducing the 50 per cent. remission in England and Wales, I would be prepared to accept it. But it does not necessarily mean that, because parole could still apply to the balance of one-sixth of a man's sentence. Then at least, if there was any injustice in the award of parole, it would apply to a smaller fraction of the sentence than it does now.
Effectively, parole turns out to be a means of varying the amount of time that a prisoner actually serves overriding the judicial process. Yet two prisoners sentenced on the same occasion for precisely the same offence may nevertheless remain in prison for different lengths of time, depending on their fortune with regard to parole. In particular, a prisoner who is put on category A is denied parole altogether in practice. The process of deciding a man's security classification is even more obscure than the parole machinery.
I asked the previous Minister if Members of your Lordships' House would be entitled to sit in on meetings of the local review committees which decide on parole. I was told that this was not possible. Therefore, it is
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an aspect of the prison system which is not open to public scrutiny. Now that the Home Office is trying to open up the system more it may be that this is a matter they can reconsider.
I give one example to show how apparently unjust the parole system can be. Two defendants appear on a charge of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. One is charged additionally with theft and the other with armed robbery in which a guard was shot. The armed robber got 15 years, which was reduced to 13 on appeal. The thief was given 10 years, reduced to eight on appeal. The robber was also sentenced to eight years concurrent for seven offences of armed robbery and charges of the use of offensive weapons. The robber actually served four and a half years because he received parole, which was about the minimum possible, while the thief has served six years so far. He is still in prison and his release date is expected to be mid-1983, by which time he will have served seven years. This indicates the sort of disparity one may have in the actual term of imprisonment that a person suffers as a result of the operation of the parole system.
It may be said that if remission was increased as we have advocated the courts would tend to counter the effect by giving longer sentences. That is why, in my opinion, the recommendations of the Advisory Council on the Penal System for a general reduction in the maximum length of sentences ought to be considered by the Government despite the fact that they have been rejected once. If you take them in conjunction with the 50 per cent. remission, I think the two together make a package which ought to be looked at by the Home Office.
It is true that the great majority of sentences fall well below the permitted maxima, and I also understand that the average length of sentences has begun to decline as a result of the urgings of the Lord Chief Justice and of the Home Office. It would be interesting to know, if the noble Lord has any figures, exactly what is happening now on average length of sentences. If the maxima were reduced I believe it would clearly signal to the courts that Parliament wants them to cut sentences still further than they have already. It is the only way that Parliament has of making its views known formally, since of course the courts do not look at Hansard. In fact, some of the reductions that were proposed by the advisory council were very substantial. If you take theft, for example, the proposal was from 10 years to three years, so that the man to whom I referred earlier would probably have served two or three years instead of the seven he will actually be in prison.
There are many other categories of persons in our prisons who should not be there. I have not time to mention them all. There are the prisoners of overseas origin who complete their sentences but who remain in custody while the Secretary of State is looking at a recommendation for deportation. In this connection I should be grateful if the noble Lord could tell me what has happened to the Government's consideration of the draft treaty on exchanges of prisoners which has been under consideration in the Council of Europe since, I think, last July. That could effect a small reduction in our prison population because there are some 500 persons of overseas origin serving sentences

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long enough to warrant return, whilst there are 350 British prisoners abroad who might be eligible for repatriation under the provisions of this draft treaty.
Incidentally, I was surprised to learn, in view of our support in principle for the draft treaty, that we do not have any arrangements within the United Kingdom for exchanging prisoners between England and Wales and Scotland. The Scottish Office have agreed to consider this matter in response to a representation I made to them. I should be grateful if the noble Lord would let me know what progress has been made on that front.
The case of the mentally ill and disordered offenders has been mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Longford. It seems to me that because of the Mental Health (Amendment) Bill it may well be that we have an increase in the population of the mentally disordered in our prisons, because one of the provisions in that Bill is that a person cannot be transferred under Section 72, or sent to a special hospital by the courts under Section 60, unless it is believed that he is susceptible to treatment. Therefore, there may now be more persons with severe personality disorders in our prisons than there have been in the past. That is all the more reason why we should make strenuous efforts to increase the accommodation available in hospitals like Broadmoor for transferring the remaining 170 prisoners who, as the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, told us are still awaiting transfer to the special hospitals.
I am afraid that I have already reached the end of my time, and there are so many other suggestions that I should have liked to make. As I have reached the end of the six minutes, I should like to conclude with a reference to the report of the late Chief Inspector of Prisons for England and Wales. It is a forceful critique of the state of affairs in our prisons. The late chief inspector did not mince his words. He said in paragraph 2.15:
"Our examination brought home with great force the appalling conditions in which the inmates of these prisons are required to live and the inadequacy of even the most basic facilities to cope with so many people".
The situation is intolerable and your Lordships and Parliament as a whole must do something about it immediately.
3.11 p.m.
Baroness Faithfull: My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Longford, has many times raised in your Lordships' House the question of the position in our prisons, and yet again we debate it today. I feel that the noble Earl wishes to tell the Minister, "The time has come," as the Walrus said, "for something to be done". As a tribute to the late Lord Butler, I wish to take up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, about mentally-disordered prisoners. Why, after all this time, when the money has been available, have there not been the secure units set up in all regions? I suggest that the psychiatric profession, the doctors and psychiatrists, with whom I have worked and for whom I have the greatest admiration, have not accepted their responsibilities in this area. Ideology unrelated to reality can be uncreative, and many of the psychiatrists have said, "We cannot treat prisoners unless they wish to be treated. We cannot treat prisoners in secure accommodation". As a result,
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the psychiatrists do not treat the prisoners and they are left in prison to be looked after by prison officers who are not trained in this sphere. In making that point, I appeal to the psychiatrists of this country to think again.
Secondly, as a trade unionist I belong to a trade union and have always supported the trade union movement. However, I must say that at present in many areas, in the prisons in particular, the trade unions are so anxious to look after their own that they do not think in terms of the community. Therefore, the trade unions have made it difficult for the staff who might work in secure units to work in those units, and the conditions have been such that it has been impossible to set up secure units. I appeal to the trade unions, particularly those involved, to think of the greater community rather than just the small area of their own officers.
Thirdly, I would bring to the notice of the community their responsibilities. The Prison Research Trust under the chairmanship of Sir Monty Finniston has been trying to make it known to the community what goes on in prisons and what is happening, and thereby to bring to the community at large a sense of responsibility. That is of vital importance because wherever a secure unit has been suggested or set up, the community has opposed it, saying, "We do not want it in our area". I therefore commend to the House the work done by that trust.
My fourth point concerns buildings. In this country, because of our prison policies, many buildings are empty; schools, hospitals, churches and wards in mental hospitals are empty and not being used. If I am to speak for only about six minutes, it is not possible for me to give the figures, but I assure the House that many mental hospitals have been reduced by 500 or 600 beds and I should like to know what is happening to them. Is it beyond the wit of man to keep a central register of empty buildings so that they could be used as hostels, secure units and—dare I suggest it—prisons? Let us improvise and have imagination and creativity and use the buildings we have instead of spending money on new ones. It could be done if there was the will to do it.
My fifth point concerns the prison medical services. I wonder if it is realised by the House that prison staff who work in the sick bays have three months' training. They have to administer drugs and look after the mental patients. A state registered nurse is not allowed to administer drugs until she has done three years' training; and a doctor, if he is to do psychiatry, trains for one year after his initial five years. Yet we ask our prison staff to look after the mentally ill and administer drugs after undergoing only three months' training. Many of them are splendid people who I know personally, but I suggest that further thought needs to be given to their training. In view of certain difficulties that have occurred in prisons, while it may be the case that prison officers have not handled a mentally disturbed prisoner well, why should they be blamed, considering that they have had three months' training, as against the training needed by a psychiatrist? It is surely understandable, and therefore I plead with the Minister to do something about medical training.
With half a minute left to me, I suggest that our

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prisons would be emptier if we adopted more constructive policies towards our children. If the work done with children and juvenile delinquents followed a more positive policy in the community, then perhaps, as they grow up, our prisons would be emptier.
3.17 p.m.
Lord Elystan-Morgan: My Lords, I join with those who have congratulated my noble friend Lord Longford for initiating this debate on a matter of pressing public concern. I also join wholeheartedly in the congratulations and good wishes tendered to the Minister on his translation to a distinguished but nevertheless difficult post.
One factor which gives this debate its significance is that it is exactly a month ago that the first report of Her Majesty's Inspector of Prisons for England and Wales was published. It is a report which pays a deserved tribute to the splendid work done by those employed in the prison service. But what makes it an historic document, in my judgment, is the scathing condemnation it has for the conditions of overcrowding and of the poor régime in many local prisons. The question of prison régime is, of course, one of vital importance, a point eloquently made by the May Committee, but I hope I shall be forgiven if, for this debate, I concentrate on the other, even more acute, problem in our prisons; namely, the state of overcrowding that stultifies the prospects of a balanced regime and which all too often suffocates the morale of staff and inmates alike.
It is overcrowding that created a crisis so menacing that it demands our instant and best efforts to combat it. That is the very factor that has caused prison officers to set 1983 as a deadline for a dramatic improvement, otherwise drastic steps will be taken by that body. The prison population at the end of February was 43,764. The Home Secretary has calculated that by the early summer, that figure will rise to some 46,000. The budget proposals in another place for this year were on the basis of 46,000 being reached this year. The report, to which I referred, says that in May 1981 there were 4,900 prisoners who were three to a cell and over 11,000 who were two to a cell, and those were, as we appreciate, cells built in the Victorian era for a single person.
The report stresses the point that in six local prisons that were visited the total accommodation planned was 3,548, but the actual number of inmates on the dates visited was 5,674—an overcrowding factor of over 60 per cent. Referring to overcrowding generally, the inspector's report, at paragraph 3.08 states:
"By no stretch of imagination can these conditions be regarded as humane or proper. They are unacceptable. They certainly fall short of the standards suggested by Rule 5(3) of the European Standard Minimum Rules".
As against the figure of 43,000–44,000 at present, and 46,000 expected within a few months—the figure that the report calculates as the maximum tolerable figure for the total prison population is only 37,000.
I seek to make no party points; the issue is not one of party politics, for everybody shares in this responsibility. The effort to meet the problem of prison overcrowding must not be seen as a dainty hobby, or as a sympathetic sentiment; it must be a crusading
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campaign, relentlessly pursued to success. In the very short time remaining to me I should like to suggest that the problem should be tackled on at least four fronts. The first is the sentencing policy of the courts. That lies directly outside the scope of Parliament. It is now five years since the Advisory Council on the Legal System—a powerful and distinguished body—in its interim report, urged the case for shorter sentences. Since then the message has been spelt out firmly and clearly by the Lord Chancellor, by the Lord Chief Justice, and by other members of the Criminal Division of the Court of Appeal. No doubt judges and magistrates have reacted in a constructive way. There can however be no set tariff. The decision as to a sentence must remain that of the sentencer, who has to exercise a wide discretion dealing with the particular case. There can be no set level, and of course some sentences have to be of substantial length, so as to mark the shock and horror of society in relation to certain offences.
Nevertheless I plead for the closest monitoring by the Lord Chancellor's Department to ensure that the pattern of sentencing is constantly kept under scrutiny and that suitable advice is given to those who sit in judgment. I plead also that the widest publicity be given to an alternative to prison: the community service order. In 1980, 78 per cent. of such orders were successfully concluded, and it is also worth remembering that the average cost of a person who is made the subject of such an order is £420, as opposed to the average of £7,800 per annum which is the cost of keeping such a person in prison.
The second area of effort is in relation to situations where people are sent to prison not because they have so transgressed as to receive a condign punishment or a punishment that is a deterrent to others or to themselves, but simply because society has no other means of dealing with them. I refer in particular to the habitual drunkard who goes to prison on account of being unable to pay the fines that are imposed upon him. I have not details of the numbers involved, but it is calculated that in Pentonville, for example, at any one time between 10 and 15 per cent. of the prison population is made up of such persons. Time does not allow me to elaborate, but indeed there is an impressive unanimity of experienced opinion that calls out for making this an offence no longer carrying the sanction of imprisonment.
With the habitual drunkards one must also consider those inadequate persons—to whom the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, and the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, have already referred—very often on the fringe of mental disturbance, who are in prison not because prison is the proper place for them, but because society has nowhere else to put them. As I think the Court of Appeal put it three years ago, Her Majesty's prisons must not be used as dustbins for social inadequates.
The third front is in relation to parole. An undertaking has been given in another place by the Minister of State at the Home Office that further anxious consideration will be given to the question of reducing the threshold of parole from 12 months to six months. This is a case that has been articulated by many. There would still be the full discretion of the Parole Board. There would still be the qualification that there must be a third of the sentence served, if that be longer than six months. However, it is worth reminding the

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House that in 1980 over 10,000 persons applied for parole, 5,077 were granted it, and only 455 during the course of the 12 months had their licences revoked. Such a move would have the effect of reducing the prison population by many thousands.
Fourthly, there is the question of a building programme. All that time allows me to say of this is that though the Home Secretary has announced that between 1981 and 1985 the building of a number of new prisons will be commenced, so as to cater for 5,000 new places, it is worth remembering that it takes about eight years from the time that a prison is first planned to the time when the first inmate goes within its walls. As the report clearly shows, the fabric of our prisons is such probably as to make the 5,000 new places necessary merely to keep abreast of the present situation, without being able to improve it. The scale that must be aimed at must be far more imaginative than it is at present. The Home Secretary has a difficult task. It is not his responsibility alone, it is not the responsibility of Government alone—it is the responsibility of the whole community, if we are to avoid what is now a crisis, and what would very soon become a catastrophe.
3.26 p.m.
Lord Hunt: My Lords, we can be grateful that the Motion is on the Order Paper today, especially at a time when our thoughts are so largely focused on events 8,000 miles away. It serves to remind us that certain home-grown problems do not go away because of greater, further, and more distant problems, and, as the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, said, the position in some of our prisons here at home continues to be in what he described as a state of crisis. I was slightly surprised that the noble Earl, Lord Longford, did not use that term as the title for the debate, instead of the word "position". It is a crisis which, for want of a solution over so prolonged a period, has become what I should describe as a chronic disorder. I am among those who believe that nothing will alter the situation for the better, not only in regard to the state of our prisons, but also in regard to the incidence of crime, except intervention by Parliament to shift the emphasis effectively from imprisonment towards containment and rehabilitation in the community.
The present Criminal Justice Bill contains very little provision to reduce the adult prison population. Clearly this is not the time to debate the Bill, but I should like, very briefly, to touch on two points. The proposed partially suspended sentence may make a small impact, but I am extremely doubtful whether the hopes entertained in the Home Office that the reduction might be up to 4,000 are realistic. Experience with the fully suspended sentence gives absolutely no grounds for optimism of that order.
There is something to be said for the proposal for executive release, by which the Home Secretary may, as an emergency measure, grant an amnesty to prisoners in the last part of their sentences. I shall not say more about this, because my noble friend Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge has some very interesting and constructive ideas about it.
But I regard those measures, and any others that might come forward, as crisis measures, designed to
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relieve overcrowding, rather than change the criminal law and bring in penal reform. We should be seeking radical change in that respect, rather than tinkering with the deplorable and predictable results of current policy. What is needed is an attitude—an attitude matched by measures—which seeks to deal more constructively and more humanely with offenders, and which holds out a better prospect of enabling some of them at least not to re-offend. Imprisonment does not do that, and I am merely saying what the great penal reformer Alexander Patterson told us about that many years ago.
Seen from that perspective, the proposal for automatic parole for offenders serving sentences of three years and less could be seen in a new light. It could be seen not as diminishing the intention of the court, not as a crisis measure, but as a composite sentence. There would be a lot to be said for applying such a concept, not only in regard to short determinate sentences but, with exceptions, right across the board.
My suggestion would therefore be that determinate sentences should be served as a "package", in two equal parts. The first half would be served in prison, with loss of liberty as the necessary punishment; the second part would be served in the community, under supervision and on conditions requiring, in appropriate cases, the offender to make some reparation for the harm that he has done. The courts would be empowered to make exceptions to that normal process in cases where, in their view, public safety might be seriously at risk. That would be the sole criterion. They could order such cases to be reviewed by the Home Secretary before the second stage of the sentence was reached. But such cases would be exceptional, for the simple reason that risks of that kind can be deferred only by prolonged imprisonment. In large part the fully determinate, two-stage sentence would replace the parole process and, for the great majority of prisoners who go through that process, would avoid the delays, the anxieties and the sense of unfairness at being refused without reasons being given.
As regards the traditional grant of one-third remission of a determinate sentence for good behaviour, unlike the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, I would make one-sixth available to be earned in prison and one-sixth in the community. Just to give an example of a composite sentence of eighteen months imposed by a court on that basis, six months would be served inside (assuming that one-sixth remission has been earned) and six months in the community, on the same assumption that good behaviour has earned another three months' remission.
To sum up, my Lords, composite sentences would have several important advantages They would greatly reduce the prison population, but they should be introduced not primarily for reasons of expediency—the reduction of the prison population—but rather as an enlightened measure of penal reform. It is worth reminding your Lordships that when the parole system was introduced in 1967 it was introduced on that same enlightened note. It was not introduced for the purpose of reducing the prison population. Secondly, a composite sentence would not detract from the authority of the courts, as I have explained, because theirs would be the decision which cases to reserve for executive review before the second stage of the sentence.

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Thirdly, it would spare the great majority of prisoners from the undesirable features of the parole system. I have a long and deep commitment, as your Lordships will imagine, to the parole system. It was hailed in 1967 as a great leap forward in penal reform. Now, I believe, is the time to make another advance of comparable magnitude. Finally, the composite sentence would, as I said at the beginning, effectively shift the balance of a sentence from imprisonment towards reform and rehabilitation in the community.
It is an idea which I recognise will not be easy to "sell" politically. Its success would eventually depend to a large extent on its reception by the judiciary and its interpretation in the courts. Not least of the implications would be on the probation service. But against this should be set the enormous savings in the cost of keeping individual prisoners inside, to the tune of £177 a week; the huge savings in the planned prison building programme, and consequential savings in the increased staffing of the prison service; and savings, too, in the cost of much of the administrative machinery of the parole system. It could be done; and I suggest that, given the serious condition of our prisons, it should be seriously considered.
I am not asking the Minister, when he comes to reply —and let me belatedly say how glad I am to see him in his present post—to give me any considered view about this. If he did, I would not believe it to be a considered view; but he might like to make some preliminary comment.
3.35 p.m.
Lord Lane: My Lords, this is a vast subject and six and a half minutes is not enough time in which to deal with it properly. May I confine myself, therefore, to the two criticisms which are made of the judges? One is a general criticism—namely, as I understand it, by the noble Earl, Lord Longford, that judges are passing sentences which are too long; and the other is a more specific criticism—namely, that the judges vetoed a liberal proposal by the Home Secretary for penal reform or else threatened to retaliate if it became law. They are both completely unfounded.
First of all, it is only by the efforts of the judges over the last 18 months to 2 years that sentences for non-violent crimes have come down drastically, and it is no fault of the judges that to some extent their efforts have been overtaken by the increased lawlessness in the country. It is easy to forget how recently it is that the realisation has come upon people that prison does few prisoners any good. If any people still have their copies of the 1969 edition of Sentence of the Court, under the signature of James Callaghan, who was then Home Secretary, they will find that page 40 reads as follows—and this is 1969:
"The disadvantages of short sentences of imprisonment are especially marked as it is impracticable in the space of a few months to give a prisoner any effective remedial treatment".
It is sometimes forgotten that the two harshest penal provisions—namely, corrective training and preventive detention—found their way in by Section 21 of the Criminal Justice Act 1948, which was passed by a Government of which I believe the noble Earl, Lord Longford, was a distinguished member. I am
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not sure; my parliamentary history is not very strong. So much for the first complaint.
The second complaint—namely, that judges have vetoed the liberal proposals of the Home Secretary—has even less foundation. The proposals upon which the judges were consulted were that every sentence of three years or under should be divided into three: a third should be served in prison, a third should be served on what was called supervised release, and a third should be remitted. That means, of course, that every sentence is automatically divided by three. In many cases, therefore, the judge would be in a dilemma. There are those cases where the judge is bound to pass a longish sentence in order to protect the public. What is he to do in that case? Is he to fail in his duty to the public by passing a sentence which he knows will be divided by three, and therefore be insufficient; or is he to break his duty to Parliament and pass a sentence which would in effect nullify the third-third-third rule? That was the dilemma which the judges put forward, and that was the dilemma which apparently impressed the Home Secretary.
What is not mentioned is something which the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, emphasised, and for which I respectfully applaud him; namely, that the judges suggested there should be power to non-apply that rule in specific cases, particularly where the public required protection. That suggestion was turned down flat. But if that suggestion were adopted, I would respectfully agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, that there is no possible objection to the scheme. In other words, there must be some form of discretion, be it non-application by the trial judge or some form of parole consideration interposed between the passing of the sentence and the release of the prisoner.
That is all I wish to say about the judges, my Lords. Please do not blame the judges: the fault lies in successive Governments, who have failed to spend any money on prisons year after year after year. It is not the fault of the judges, and I do not see why they should take the blame.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, before the noble and learned Lord sits down, may I put this point to him? The judges are no more infallible than anybody else. We all take our chance, when we come into public debate, of being criticised, and the judges are being criticised by me and many others. But the noble and learned Lord did not quote me correctly in saying that it was I who suggested that the judges had vetoed anything. I was very careful not to use that word. I quoted him as saying that the judges persuaded the Home Secretary to abandon his proposals.
3.40 p.m.
Lord Gardiner: My Lords, no doubt there are long-term implications in this subject which very much deserve to be considered—questions of cause and effect and so on. The main point that I wish to make is that we are now in a state of crisis in the prisons in which anything may happen at almost any time. At Wormwood Scrubs, 60 prisoners were injured and 14 prison officers; and this sort of thing may happen at any time where you have some 17,000 prisoners in cells built for one, occupying them with two or three others, with

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merely a bucket at night. Too many of them are there for 23 hours out of every 24, and many are not even getting their hour's exercise. Only last week the Home Office published a list of 14 prisons in which prisoners do not get even their hour's exercise. Some get only three-quarters of an hour, and still more only 30 minutes. This is just the sort of explosive situation which we have had facing us for some time.
The only immediate step to be taken to meet the situation, I submit, is to take out a substantial number from the existing prison population. We are not short of alternatives in that field. First, there is what my noble friend Lord Longford has called "Whitelaw, Mark I". This was Mr. Whitelaw's original proposal under which he was going to take 4,000 out of the prisons. I rose in my place here, I warmly congratulated him and said, "At last we have a Home Secretary, the first Home Secretary, who is really going to take action to reduce the size of the prison population ". Then Mr. Whitelaw withdrew that. That was his decision, which The Times in a leading article on 1st December described as a weak decision. It said it was a weak decision on Mr. Whitelaw's part and one which could have a profoundly negative effect on dealing with the crisis in our prisons. It pointed out that his substituted proposal was more likely to increase the prison population than to reduce it.
Then, secondly, on Mr. Whitelaw's original proposals—and I have been asked by my noble friend Lord Longford to mention this—the Howard League got to work on a detailed scheme, which is much too long to refer to in detail but which is to be found in one of their booklets called, Freedom on Licence. Summarised in a sentence, it would provide that prisoners sentenced to three years or less would automatically be eligible for release on licence after one-third of their sentence, so would prisoners of three years to seven years, subject to certain qualifications. Prisoners sentenced to periods in excess of seven years would be subject to parole reviews after one-third of the sentence, as now. Life sentence prisoners would be entitled to a first review of their cases after three years, with a right of appeal. One of the most attractive features of the plan would be the establishment of a court of appeal to which appeals could be directed against decisions of the Parole Board. That is the second suggestion.
The third suggestion is the simple one of increasing remission to one-half instead of one-third. I do not know what is the objection to this. In the last few months there have been three strikes at three different prisons, with prisoners barricading themselves in, all for the same thing. They were all saying, "Why should we be treated worse than you treat your IRA prisoners in Northern Ireland?" Why, indeed? In Northern Ireland this has been tried out and is now in force. There is remission of one-half. It has been found to have no ill effects at all. It is something which could be done at any time and it would take 4,000 out of the prisons. The Howard League proposals would take out something over 7,000, which is about the required amount to bring the prison population down to the certified accommodation.
The fourth suggestion was made by that very experienced judge, Lord Justice Waller, who suggested parole for those sentenced to 18 months or less.
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Then it has been suggested that there should be an amnesty for those who ought never to be there at all, such as drunks, prostitutes, fine defaulters and the offence of sleeping rough. One might put in a plea, perhaps, for the release of those who have been wrongfully convicted. I do not know how many of your Lordships saw any or all of the three recent "Rough Justice" films. I have yet to find anybody who saw them who does not agree that the three prisoners concerned, all of whom have served for years and are serving sentences still in prison, were obviously innocent.
There is one more not very conventional suggestion. Some years ago I attended the first conference on detention of the British Institute of Human Rights. The chairman of the conference was the noble and learned Lord, Lord Kilbrandon, whom we all hold in high regard. In his introductory remarks, commenting on the state of the prisons he said:
"There may be in this country a remedy in the hands of the judges. The judges might say, 'We are authorised by law to impose the punishment of deprivation of liberty but we are not authorised by law to impose the punishment of mental, physical and moral degradation. Unless there are places where we can order persons to be confined, deprivation of liberty being the only penalty imposed, we shall cease to send people to prison because when we do so, we are doing something which is beyond the power which has been given to us'."—
a judicial strike in the opposite direction. That is a possibility.
Here are all these possible alternatives. The only person who can do anything is Mr. Whitelaw. I have the greatest sympathy with everybody, certainly with the prisoners, in conditions which, if we kept an animal in them, my noble friend Lord Houghton of Sowerby would have complained a long time ago. I have great sympathy with prison officers who have a difficult task to do and who are by the pressures of prison life pretty well reduced to being turnkeys. I have sympathy with prison governors, who having to choose between denying prisoners their rights under the prison rules and having difficulties with their staff, prefer, not unnaturally, not to have difficulties with the staff.
And I have sympathy with the Home Office. I recently attended a Howard League conference at Bristol at which there were probation officers, magistrates, prison officers, and so on. We said that we were making proposals to the Home Office in this field. The chairman of the Prison Officers' Association said: "There is no use in your making proposals to the Home Office. The Home Office do not run the prisons. We run the prisons. I can tell you that no material change will be made in the running of the prisons unless I agree with it. If you have proposals to make, you had better make them to us and I will let you know whether I agree with them or not". This made me, perhaps for the first time, sympathetic with the Home Office.
Only Mr. Whitelaw, the Home Secretary, can act on any of these proposals. Some require no legislation; they could be done overnight. He is a man who is, quite rightly, very popular in all quarters; he is a very experienced man, a politician of great charm. He makes very fine speeches: the only thing he is short on is action. That is the one thing we need now. He alone can do it. The time for talking has gone. We must act.
3.50 p.m.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale: My Lords, I do not for a moment underrate the problems we are discussing, but I have been trying hard to discern some chinks of light in the gloom. I suppose that is a natural reaction from somebody who has served for some years in Her Majesty's Treasury. To begin with, I detect an increasing awareness of the problems of overcrowding, of outworn buildings and of prisoners being kept in unacceptable conditions, and a wider appreciation than ever in the past of why something needs to be done. The basic problems are not really new. I recall 1960. There were then 7,000 prisoners sleeping three in a cell; but it was very difficult to persuade anyone to listen. I must say that, thanks largely to the policy of openness in recent years pursued by the much maligned Home Office, there has been quite a change, which is all to the good.
Then there is the fact that the prison department itself is better equipped and is accorded a higher status than ever the old Prison Commission was, notwithstanding the myths which still surround that body. The professionals are more closely integrated into the policy-making machine and there are now non-executive members of the Prisons Board appointed from outside. The whole set-up is much better than it used to be.
Another plus is the appointment of an independent chief inspector. It is indeed sad that the first incumbent died so soon; and it is a great tribute to him that his first report, to which reference has been made, and the reports on individual inspections which are available to all, have a cutting edge not always found in inspectors' reports. For one and a half centuries the Home Office has had a great tradition of inspectorates, and perhaps the Home Secretary might think a bit more about this new prisons inspectorate when he is next brooding about the future of the Metropolitan Police. My only comment on the prisons inspectorate is that it might be as well if at any rate one member of the chief inspector's staff came from somewhere outside the prison service.
I should like to put very briefly just one or two questions. First, as regards prison officers, the present climate must be good for recruiting, but is the Home Office allowed to take in enough? Is it still held to a ceiling below the authorised staffing level, which itself is a pretty conservative estimate of the minimum numbers needed to run the prisons? What about facilities for the staff? Both the May Committee and the chief inspector comment on the poor provision in some establishments for messes and clubs, lavatories, recreational facilities, and so on. Have steps been taken to reallocate some of the resources so that the staff get a rather greater share? Has anything been done to meet the criticism of the chief inspector that some of the non-uniformed staff have been left feeling that negotiations have concentrated too much on the POA, and that they have been left out in the cold?
What about the problem of occupying the prisoners' time, and especially providing work? The difficulties are enormous and speak for themselves. It is a very important topic. I wonder whether there has not in recent times been rather too great a tendency to favour industry in prison, what I might perhaps describe as the Tory virtues of profitability and productivity?
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Would it not be right to shift the emphasis a little towards the need to go for labour-intensive industries which provide occupation, even if at no great profit?
In these very few minutes I have touched on about one-tenth of the points that I should have liked to raise. But may I end by saying that I am sure that the Minister and the prison department carry the good wishes of this House and of a great many people outside it in the very formidable tasks which lie before them.
3.54 p.m.
Lord Wells-Pestell: My Lords, there are few subjects which give people an opportunity to discharge a lot of pent-up emotion. One is the subject that we are discussing here today. This is of supreme importance. I acknowledge that because the conditions in prisons at the present time are perfectly scandalous. Having said that, I think we have to ask ourselves whether we are providing, or are in a position to provide, an alternative which will ultimately reduce the prison population. We have a piecemeal thinking in this matter. We need to take an absolutely new look at what we are trying to do. It is no good blaming the magistrates; it is no good blaming the judges. They work according to Acts of Parliament in which the penalties are laid down. It is their responsibility to see that the appropriate sentence is imposed having regard to the nature of the offence.
For 34 years I sat as a lay magistrate in a number of London courts, in quarter sessions when they were in being, and, in recent years, in Crown Courts. I know something of the care that is exercised by magistrates—lay and stipendiary—and by judges before they impose a sentence. Very few people realise the enormous number of social and other reports that are before the court before finally sentence is imposed.
I do not take very kindly to the idea that the Excutive should make the decisions in this matter. It is the job of the Executive, including Parliament, to say what the appropriate penalty should be for a particular offence. If we say that we must reduce the number of people in our prisons, we have to ask ourselves how we can do this and at the same time provide safeguards for the community, because the community has a right to safeguards. It is no good shutting our eyes to the fact that prison today houses a large number of basically anti-social people. We have to acknowledge that many of those people have to be kept in prison for a considerable time.
I am sure this sounds to my noble friend Lord Longford quite negative and a little reactionary. I am neither reactionary, nor am I against change. Prisons are limited in the sense that no training takes place in them. Today, a person sent to borstal is in and out in something like seven months. There is no training at all. Prison and borstal have become places of nothing more nor less than punishment. We ought to ask ourselves whether we should be doing something for the individuals so that while they are in detention they are getting some training to equip them to face the responsibilities outside.
It is important that we should look at what we already have. I do not despair quite so much as some of my noble friends about the future. If only we could look at what we have. I do not think we need to

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spend a tremendous amount of time thinking of alternatives to what we have at the present moment. One of the first things we should do is to take a very close look at the probation service. It can provide not just one or two but many alternatives to prison.
What is involved is not just a probation order with supervision, where the probation officer gives help and guidance, and case work. This is provided as a matter of course. One of my noble friends referred to the value, importance and success of community orders. Nobody has said anything about the number of day training courses and centres that exist at the moment—or for that matter the probation hostels. Then there is the deferred sentence, which many of us feel should be followed by a period of supervision. It is no good discharging people from prison at an early date, whether they are on parole or whether they are discharged for some other reason, unless we have a system whereby they can be supervised and helped to find their way back to living in the community. The probation service is able to direct offenders from custody and fit them for normal everyday living.
We have been told that it costs about £400 to keep a person on probation and something like £6,500 to keep a person in prison. This means that for every person in prison we could have 16 people in the community under supervision. That can be said of borstal and of young persons in young persons' centres. We need to see what can be done to expand the probation service. Last year we spent £344 million on the prison service. If we spent one-tenth of that sum in other ways we could do so much more in keeping people out of prison, but under supervision and control.
4.2 p.m.
Baroness Sharpies: My Lords, five years ago the noble Earl, Lord Longford, initiated a debate on the penal system, and on that occasion I raised two points to highlight the difficulties facing prisoners' families. Today, I feel I must express considerable disquiet that so little has been done to help those families since 1977. Prisoners are being sent to prisons further and further away from home. Many prison governors, as your Lordships know, are allowing more visits than hitherto; but that is not always of great help to families because the Home Office pays for only one visit every 28 days, so that out of the very limited income these people enjoy, if that is the word, they cannot make more than the one journey to which they may be entitled within a period of 28 days.
The continued contact between a man and his home is vital if there is a hope of his rehabilitation on release. When my noble friend replies—and incidentally I should like to congratulate him on his new job, which I dare say will present many difficulties—will he say that, when more funds become available, at least one extra visit per month could be paid for by the Home Office? This might prevent homes breaking up, as I am sure they do otherwise. I have visited many prisoners' wives during the last 15 years and have seen what can happen. I do not think such a scheme would be extremely expensive for the Government, and in fact it might ultimately cost less than the actual break-up of the families.
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For families visiting prisoners, the visit itself is extremely traumatic, and especially so where old prisons are concerned. The conditions are deplorable and space is at a premium. I have seen them. Many of them are terrible. Could my noble friend reassure me that the new prisons planned for the future will have better facilities? I think that then visits would become tolerable, that the stresses and strains which families suffer—and which must be especially hard on young children—could be alleviated to some extent, and it would assist the family to remain as one unit. I hope that my noble friend will be able to help me on this matter.
4.4 p.m.
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: My Lords, I must congratulate the noble Baroness on being the shortest yet, followed closely by the Lord Chief Justice and the noble Lord, Lord Allen. There is no time for courtesies. I want to thank my old and valued colleague, Lord Longford, for raising this Question with unexpected moderation. I should also like to say in particular how pleased I am that the Lord Chief Justice has honoured us, and I wish some of his colleagues would do the same when we have these very important discussions on this appalling problem two or three times a year. I should like to congratulate him on being the second shortest speaker; and I should like also to tell him that I am not in any sense a critic of the judges.
I am concerned with one thing only, and that is that there has to be something put up which can be acted upon and which makes sense. We have had a very constructive suggestion from my noble friend Lord Hunt, but it does of course mean a large expansion of the probation service and a certain amount of money on facilities. We have been asking for this for 20 years, and I do not think we are any more likely to get it this year than we were last. I do not think that that is going to produce an immediate solution. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, has put up four suggestions, any of which, modified this way or the other, would do what is necessary as an immediate thing.
I am going to put up a fifth. The advantage of mine is that first of all it comes out of the May Report. which to the most critical will be a commendation, In addition, it does not curtail judicial independence. It does not depend on human judgment at all; it works quite automatically and it would not cost a penny. The suggestion is that Parliament each year should put a ceiling on the prison population and instruct the Home Office to make an automatic reduction of all sentences which are due to end in the current year, to bring the prison population down to the authorised figure by the end of the year. The power to do this, as has been pointed out, is contained in Clause 26 of the Criminal Justice Bill, which will come to us shortly.
Each year the Home Office would make a statistical examination of what reductions were necessary and they need not be the same for all lengths of sentences. It could be decided, for example, to reduce short-term sentences of under six months by a week; from six to 18 months by a fortnight; from 18 months to four years by a month; and over four years by two months. These figures are purely arbitrary and others would do

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as well, but I have chosen these because they are small enough to make no real difference to the sentences passed by the courts. A week off a sentence of four or six months is negligible, as is a fortnight off a sentence of 12 or 18 months, and so on. One of my statistically minded colleagues in NACRO has done a rough calculation which shows that remission at this level would reduce the daily population by something from 1,500 to 2,000. This is hardly enough. It is not a crisis measure; it is a self-regulating measure which could be used permanently. I personally would favour doing something more extreme to begin with: perhaps three times as much—say, three weeks on a sentence of under six months, and so on—which of course is not entirely negligible in relation to the sentence of the court and therefore there is an objection there. But that would give a reduction of something between 4,500 and 6,000, which would bring us within reach of the Chief Inspector's figure of 37,000. This will cost one thing only: a few hours' statistical calculation. It will not cost anything else at all—no money—and there will be no interference with the decisions of the courts, in my opinion. It will give no power to the executive to vary anything, and prisoners at each length of sentence will be treated exactly the same. You could, of course, exclude anything you wanted: you would have to remove lifers and you could remove certain types of offence, and anything else. I personally am in favour of doing it overall because I believe the difference would be negligible and the effect would be electric.
This is a scheme which I mentioned quietly in our debate a couple of years ago on the May Report, and the noble Lord, Lord Belstead—we miss him but we welcome his successor very warmly—said he would look at it and write to me if there was anything to say. He did not, so I suppose that there was not. That was a complicated debate on a complicated report, and I made no complaint. But I ask in this debate, which is specifically concerned with this subject—and my recommendations arc specifically relevant—for a longish and careful letter from the noble Lord, which I know I can get, and I wish it to be considered really carefully. It works and we must find something which does work. Unless something of this kind is done, we shall get into very serious trouble. Not to accept a rope of this kind seems to me, for a drowning man, to be an act of ultimate depression.
4.11 p.m.
Lord Brockway: My Lords, I suspect that I am the only Member of this House who has been sentenced to prison in this country by the courts. I was a conscientious objector in the first World War and was imprisoned for three years. I therefore speak today with some sensitivity. There is no need for me to describe the degradation and brutalisation that is in our prisons today, because many speeches have referred to them and they are described in moving detail in the Report of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons. There is the overcrowding with three in a cell, hardly able to move; conditions of sanitation which I refrain from describing to this House; the absence of occupation, so that thousands of them have nothing to do and are
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locked in their cells for 22 or 23 hours a day. Those conditions have been described. I want to turn to the remedy.
The Home Secretary says that a change cannot be a priority, because of the cost and our present economic situation. I suggest that the test of a civilisation should be how it treats the lowest in its society. We are committing a crime against fellow human beings which is greater than the crime that many of them have committed against us and that led to their imprisonment. We are not guilty of willed, physical torture, but the conditions, the degradation and the brutalisation, are mental and spiritual torture for which we are responsible; destroying personality, deteriorating character, bringing despair and causing enmity against the society which treats people in this manner. They are coming out of prison worse people than when they went in.
There are two options as described in the report of the Chief Inspector. The first is increasing space and the second is decreasing population. The Government say that they will be building new prisons in 1985. The Chief Inspector says that that will utterly fail to meet the problem. Even if, in three years' time, conditions could be changed, I suggest to this House that it is intolerable that the inhuman conditions in prison should remain for three years.
I welcome the pressure which is being put upon judges and magistrates for shorter sentences. It is not proving very effective. I renew today the appeal for a selective amnesty of the surplus 7,000 prisoners. For many of them, prison is not a proper treatment and they should not be there at all. Such a step is the only effective remedy—many others have been discussed —of reducing the prison population to allow prisoners to live in human conditions, instead of the inhuman conditions of which all of us should be ashamed. I hope very much that the Government will consider that proposal.
4.16 p.m.
The Countess of Loudoun: My Lords, the prison population is too high. That is a definite fact which has been confirmed by all speakers today. Many of those prisoners are social rather than criminal cases; for instance, prostitutes and alcoholics. They can, and should, be dealt with outside the penal system. These people are socially inadequate and ill, and their treatment in other institutions and by other means would be more beneficial to them and less costly to us.
But it is on the mentally disordered offender that I wish to say a few words. Surely it is wrong in principle that mentally disordered offenders should knowingly be sent to prison. It happens because the law provides that they may be compulsorily sent to a hospital only if one will accept them, and often no hospital will do so. On my last visit to Rampton special hospital, with the Parliamentary Mental Health Group, I met prisoners who were there only because there was nowhere else for them to go, and some of them had been waiting tip to two years for transfer. The Butler Committee on Mentally Abnormal Offenders brought out an interim report in 1974, which recommended the provision of secure psychiatric units in each of the 14 regional health authorities in England and Wales. Money from central Government funds was allocated for the

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financing of these. As I understand it, some interim units have been established. I should be grateful if the Minister would confirm the number of these that are now operational and the number of places available in them.
In the booklet Too Many Prisoners, which was brought out in June 1980, by the Parliamentary All-Party Penal Affairs Group, of which I am a member, it was stated that three regional health authorities had not even submitted proposals for regional secure units for departmental approval, and that nearly 90 per cent. of the money allocated by central Government had not been used for the establishment of these units, some of it having been used for purposes other than mental health services. I should be grateful to the Minister if he could give us some idea of the present position. We need these secure hospitals, ones that are obliged to take the disturbed offenders in our society, not only so as to relieve in some small way the overcrowding in our prisons, but so as to show a measure of justice and mercy to those who should be sent there and nowhere else.
4.19 p.m.
Lord Soper: My Lords, I shall not rehearse in this short debate the observations on the general question to which I have given some attention in previous debates. But I am grateful to my noble friend for his pertinacity in continuing to raise this very important issue. I shall confine myself to the vexed question of overcrowding, but I should like to make a preliminary observation about my own experience—not as immediate as that of my noble friend who has been speaking of his own experience within prison life, but as a chaplain for many years in Pentonville Prison—of the fatal flaw in the whole prison system and about the necessity—as I see it, the peremptory necessity—to provide alternative custodial or semi-custodial opportunities for those who now languish in our old-fashioned and inadequate prisons.
I would make one comment on the viciousness of the prison system in what it does to the personality of the long-term prisoner. The longer he endures the artificiality of prison life, the less able is the prisoner—even if he is not repentant but is prepared to have a go at a better life—to accommodate himself to the real world which he has been very largely prevented from understanding and with which he has lost contact.
One of the most lamentable aspects is the overcrowded situation in which prisoners from time to time see their families. It is almost impossible, in my experience, in the crowded conditions of the block prison for any kind of reasonable conversation to take place between prisoners and the wives and children whom they love and for them to have some kind of privacy. It increases the artificiality.
I also believe that the impact of prison life is much more likely to be effective in the first few weeks than it is in the prolonged sequence of prison. My own experience, such as it is, is that the hardening process increases by leaps and bounds from about the fourth week of imprisonment. Therefore, I welcome the schemes which have been advertised this afternoon for taking more and more people out of prison life sooner and giving them some kind of semi-custodial opportunity to recover their sense of the reality of the world
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in which they ought to live and the necessary moral attitude which they ought to take to it.
I would specifically say a word about that after-care about which the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has so felicitously spoken to us this afternoon and in particular about the treatment of the drunk and the alcoholic. I am more than glad that we no longer send the ordinary drunk to prison; it was ridiculous. But the idea of the fine is by no means a corrective, and in many cases, in my experience and in the experience of others who have knowledge of these matters, is totally ineffective. What the drunk needs is some kind of rehabilitation, some kind of opportunity to recover the real world from which he has become estranged because of his drinking. This is particularly true of the drunk's poor relation, the alcoholic.
I notice that the Department of Health and Social Security, in conjunction with the National Council of Voluntary Organisations, has been criticising—and very properly so—the fourfold voluntary associations and is threatening them with the withdrawal of subventions in order to set up a unified organisation in place of the four: the National Council on Alcoholism, the Alcoholic Education Centre, the Federation of Alcoholic Rehabilitation Establishments and the Medical Council on Alcoholism. I hope your Lordships will allow me, as a social worker, to say that I believe there has been a great deal of inefficiency in the multiplication of these efforts.
What we would recognise is that the detoxification centre is the beginning and not the end of the process and that there should be a uniform attempt to deal with it. If you begin with detoxification you are beginning a process. You are not ending a particular complaint. From the evidence which has been provided by the Northern Counties of two of the detoxification centres—take some little umbrage that they did not mention the one with which I was associated, and still am, in Kennington—there is no doubt that if you are properly to deal with that extra-custodial opportunity you must provide something beyond the mere medical detoxification of the alcoholic. You must give him a chance to recapitulate some of the things he has lost and to enter once again into that real world of responsibility from which he has been estranged.
On the abomination of overcrowding, which is more eloquently set forth on page 18 of the Home Office Report than even on page 307, anybody who has any imagination whatsoever, let alone those who have experience of these matters, will believe that you cannot expect people to wait. If personal considerations are paramount, it is no good telling a hungry man that there is the prospect of a good harvest next autumn. People need to be cared for immediately.
Here are one or two practical suggestions which could be undertaken almost immediately. They are suggestions which have been made before in your Lordships' House. How heartily I welcome them, though I do not fully understand them. How heartily also I welcome the fact that, were there a unified voluntary association, particularly for alcoholics, we could do far more than is being done now to provide that second stage, which is I believe the beginning of the reformation of the prison system and the annihilation of that prison system into something infinitely better later on.
4.26 p.m.
Viscount Ingleby: My Lords, I have only one question to ask the Minister. Will he take a fresh look at the request by IRA prisoners who are in prisons in this country to be transferred to prisons in Northern Ireland so that their families can visit them without long and expensive journeys? Family visits to those who are in prison must be an essential lifeline. I feel that this is something which should not be made difficult without very careful study. It is not only the prisoners themselves but their families also who are being penalised. I understand that for this reason British soldiers convicted of offences in Northern Ireland serve their sentences in this country. May I ask the Minister to ask his right honourable friend the Home Secretary to have a second look at this matter.
Lord St. Just: My Lords, I believe that the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, is on to a winner in suggesting the possibility of turning the wards of mental hospitals into accommodation where prostitutes and alcoholics can be sent. It is no good putting them in prison. I am convinced that, probably with a little thought, it would be possible to have such people transferred to these wards, which at the moment are closed down.
I have only one other point to make. I have spoken about it. over many hours, to one or two leading people in the Home Office but they have never been able to give me a satisfactory reply. Why is it not possible, from the point of view of stopping overcrowding in prisons, to build camps (as happened not too long ago during one of the crises which occurred) in areas of the country where is would be possible for their families to visit the prisoners? With a little initiative, it would probably be possible for housing to be made available there for prison officers. These sort of camps do not take long to build. They could be surrounded by barbed wire. It is not the perfect answer but it is perfectly practicable. We certainly could not have, as happened a short while ago, the army guarding them. Prison officers would have to do it.
I suspect that the reason why this suggestion is always turned down is objections from the Prison Officers' Association. They are not prepared to go to some area in the countryside which is a long way away from a big conurbation. I believe that this might be a practical way of overcoming such appalling overcrowding. The idea of three prisoners in a cell fills me with horror. At any rate, it might provide a temporary solution.
4.29 p.m.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I do not know whether this is a miraculous occasion; I do not believe that the House has ever imposed upon itself such a collective self-denying ordinance to reach this point so far ahead of the predetermined length of a short debate. I must congratulate your Lordships and consider whether I shall do more to inspire jealousy by exploiting the extra time, by going to a greater length myself, or risk hostility by not replying to every point made in the debate. In fact, it will not be possible for me to reply to every point raised in the debate, for a number of reasons. One is that I cannot consider all the
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points and give a considered judgment on them in the light of advice taken. Another is that I have been expecting throughout the debate to compress what I had already prepared to say to the point of its vanishing while keeping a framework within which to slot my replies. Your Lordships must therefore bear with me if I stumble rather over a patchwork of pieces of material. As a result, your Lordships will between you be receiving a great number of the longish and carefully considered letters of the kind which the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, solicited from me.
The noble Earl, Lord Longford, has done a service to the House this day in drawing its attention to the condition of our prisons system. It is a service which I might also say he is accustomed to doing since he has initiated debates on aspects of the prison service some 13 times in the last 8 years. I am none the less grateful to him since I think it is not only right but important that the public should be kept aware of the massive problems with which Her Majesty's Government are struggling in this field.
These problems are not of our own making, or even of recent origin, as the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, was good enough to acknowledge from the Front Bench opposite. They were described graphically in the first annual report of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons under the new arrangements for independent inspection established by my right honourable friend: those arrangements themselves are a quite significant move in bringing the public more into confidence in the running of the prison system. The report shows a chronically overcrowded system in which the population to be housed exceeds the available accomodation; a prison estate which largely comprises sturdy but over-used Victorian establishments and unsuitable accomodation converted from other uses and nearing the end of its life. The problems, my Lords, are inherited.
It is an odd reflection, is it not, that the 40 years from 1918 to 1958 were among the most eventful and, in some respects, the most productive and fruitful of our history. Leaving aside external events such as a world war and the end of our Empire, in our domestic history we experienced—and survived—an economic slump. We founded a new, universal system of education in schools. We started on a large increase in the provision of university places. We had introduced national health insurance, and insurance for pensions in old age; we had, in a word, laid the foundations of the welfare state—and who should know it better than the noble Earl, Long Longford? One of my more agreeable and earliest educational memories, when I was still in short trousers, is of being assembled in a long upper room at my prep school with many others to listen as the noble Earl preached the message of the Beveridge plan with an enthusiasm that I have never forgotten. It was a noble undertaking he told us about and the world is better for it.
But the odd reflection is this, that during the whole of that dynamic time which followed the date of the release of the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, whose enthusiasm has carried him from the Chamber, when so much was done to modernise our society, so much was done to look after the poor and the people at the bottom of the heap, not one new single prison was built and not one single borstal was built either. In

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passing, it is significant—is it not?—that this is probably the only Chamber in which one could have both an ex-convict and a Lord Chief Justice addressing themselves amicably to the same problem.
I reproach nobody for the situation I have described; far from it, I am merely pointing out the enormous backlog that had by then accumulated. It was—as the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, has said—the responsibility of everyone. During that time, such resources as were provided new in those years were often of the wrong kind—wrong, unsuitable buildings such as country houses, schools, and service camps converted to prison use to meet a short-term need.
To two of my noble friends, Lady Faithfull and Lord St. Just, I will say that a very high proportion of the expense of running the prison system goes in staff pay. In 1982–83 it is in the order of £340 million, or about 70 per cent. of the budget. The most expensive places to run are those which were not designed to he prisons. Of those, I suppose the most expensive in terms of manpower are camps. So there is an inherent drawback to the sort of solution that both my noble friends proposed, although my noble friend Lady Faithfull is right in drawing our attention to the Government's determination to reduce increasingly the number of people held in large mental institutions—and certainly those buildings built in the Victorian era for that purpose more closely resemble prisons than do most other institutions which are not prisons—and I will bear in mind what she said.
While the prison population remained relatively stable, the ill-effects of that policy of non-building were masked. But since then there has been a doubling of the prison population, as the result of the rapid rise in crime over the last 25 years. And for that the prison service was seriously under-resourced. The increases in the service's manpower over the last decade or so have been largely absorbed by the growing requirements of security and control. The danger is that in trying to keep within the bounds of time I shall discard positive points as well responses to direct criticism. I would like to say, therefore, that as the published reports of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector on Featherstone and Cookham Wood Prisons make clear, there are several new establishments which provide a decent and humane environment for both staff and prisoners; as his report on Leyhill Prison will show, much constructive and valuable work is done wherever conditions make it possible. Indeed, I have seen it at work elsewhere myself. That does not mean that there is not a blight elsewhere and that it is serious. I was at Pentonville last week and it is serious there, as it is at Manchester, which was the subject of an award-winning television series, and at Leeds and Birmingham.
The capacity of the prison system had to increase and has increased: for example, from 1959 to 1981 over 13,000 places were added and total accommodation rose from 25,000 places to 38,860. The effect was, however, that of running very fast in order to stand still because, in the same period, the population rose from 26,000 to 44,000. The net result, therefore, was an increase in the shortfall of accommodation from 1,500 to 5,600. Moreover, prisons have continued to occupy a relatively low place in public expenditure
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priorities. Even between 1974 and 1976 the Government of the day cancelled or deferred projects which would have produced some 5,000 places by the early 1980s. We are, as the noble Lord said, all responsible.
The problems have been decades in the making; they cannot and will not be solved overnight. In solving them, we need to look at the system as a whole; to achieve a balance between the different components of the system which has been lacking in the past. The Government's strategy is aimed at such a balance and in particular the need to achieve a greater degree of alignment between the resources of the prison system and the demands made on it.
That strategy has three major elements; first, to increase wherever possible, and subject to general Government policy, the resources available to the prison system; secondly, to make the most effective use of those resources which are already available; and thirdly, to limit the demands made on the system to those necessary for the safety of the public.
The most important of those demands is clearly the size of the prison population. Many of your Lordships have urged that what we want is not more prisons but fewer prisoners, and how heartily we agree. The Government believe that there is scope for a reduction in the prison population while continuing to protect the public. What is more, that belief is shared by the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chief Justice who, in a notable speech to this House only a few weeks ago, pointed out that the courts are aware of the growing recognition of the limitations of imprisonment as a sanction; and that they are conscious of the far-reaching implications of the present level of overcrowding in our prison system and of the dangers inherent in the breakdown of the system. If I may quote from his remarks, he asked first:
"Is it possible to keep a man out of prison altogether? If so, well and good".
That is a sentiment warmly endorsed by the Government and indeed by many of your Lordships, including the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, to whose proposals I shall return. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chief Justice went on to say:
"If he has to go to prison, then how short can the sentence be?"
The days when King James regarded the judges as lions under the throne were brought to an end by the departure of that king. To put it in a less dramatic and historical sense, to ignore the advice of the judiciary who provide sentencing policy is rather like planting pansies in December against the advice of the gardener.
We have already seen evidence of a movement towards shorter prison sentences. Its impact on the prison population has indeed been mitigated by the increasing numbers of offenders coming before the courts. But it has happened; and the situation in our prisons today would be even worse if it had not. The report on the work of the prison department for 1981 will see the light of day tomorrow. Your Lordships will see that in the last six months of 1980 the average length of sentences passed on males aged 17 and over by magistrates courts was between one and two weeks shorter than over the same period a year earlier and that average sentences passed by Crown courts fell by two months over the equivalent period. But, of course, as always, there are countervailing pressures. As a

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result, we still have people living two or three to a cell who otherwise would not have done so.
How, then, can this movement be sustained and reinforced? Not, the Government believe, by permanent blanket increases in the executive reduction of prison sentences. Shorter prison sentences may be appropriate in some cases, but not necessarily in all. A number of suggestions have been brought forward by your Lordships in the course of debate as to how the prison population might be reduced. Your Lordships will forgive me if I do not tie to each proposal the name of the noble Lord who brought it forward; with 18 to 20 speakers one minute each takes up 18 to 20 minutes.
The Government's decision not to introduce a scheme of supervised release first canvassed in the review of parole last year was taken only after careful consideration of a scheme, the effect of which would have been to widen the gap between the nominal and effective period of imprisonment in every case over the main sentencing range. The response that the Government received, quite properly, from sentencers indicated clearly that this rigidity would mean that they would be bound to increase the overall length of sentences, at least in cases where protection of the public was their objective. This would have run counter both to the Government's wider policy of increasing the flexibility of the courts in dealing with such cases and to the spirit of the movement towards shorter sentences in appropriate cases. It would, of course, have undermined the effectiveness of the scheme. An automatic reduction in sentence lengths, we believe, in whatever form, would impose a rigidity which the Government believe is both misguided in principle and in the end likely to prove counter-productive in practice.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, if I may intervene, that was not the opinion of the Home Office and appeared not to be the opinion of the Home Secretary when the matter was first put forward last May.
Lord Elton: My Lords, when a matter is put forward for discussion there is little point in doing that unless attention is paid to the criticisms or endorsements of the policy which arise as a result of the discussion. What I have said is that the Government have considered the response and, in the light of the response, have changed their mind, and that is what a prudent person should do, in my view. It is by increasing the flexibility of the courts in the application of the sentencing principles outlined by the Lord Chief Justice that the Government believe they can most effectively support the movement towards shorter sentences in appropriate cases. That is why they have implemented Section 47 of the Criminal Law Act 1977, which provides for the partial suspension of prison sentences. The great advantage which we see in this provision is that it allows the courts greater flexibility to fix, at their own discretion, the period of custody within the overall sentence length. It is my belief that this provision will prove effective in bringing about a reduction in the prison population. The Criminal Justice Bill will shortly come before your Lordships' House. The noble Earl, Lord Longford, asked for legislation—he will then have an opportunity to
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discuss it, as indeed will the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, who will join in with considerable weight in the light of what he has said.
The Government have been anxious, too, to promote the expansion and development of alternatives to custody. Many noble Lords have spoken in support of this. May I come to the other broad proposals. With regard to the proposal for amnesty, the Government have no proposal for amnesty. A prison amnesty would be a new departure in this country in modern times. It might have some attraction as a way of marking a great national event, but we would hesitate long and hard before introducing it. It would be chance whether particular offenders benefited from it; carefully considered judicial decisions would be set aside; and one amnesty would encourage the expectation of others. The deterrent effect of sentence would be damaged.
As to increasing the rate of remission and conditional release, as a means of reducing prison population, increasing remission from one-third to a half is a blunt instrument. It is open to the same objection as a supervised release scheme, in that it imposes a mandatory cut in sentence lengths and therefore has a similar risk of leading to longer sentences in certain cases. It is estimated that the initial effect of the introduction of half remission would be to reduce the prison population by about 4,000, but this assumes that sentencing practice would remain unchanged. In practice, therefore, the savings that would be achieved by the introduction of half remission are uncertain and of course the general underlying trend towards shorter prison sentences would be jeopardised. That is an important consideration.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, sentencing practice did remain unchanged when 50 per cent. remission was introduced in Northern Ireland.
Lord Elton: My Lords, as to Northern Ireland, it is generally agreed that the half remission scheme combined with conditional release, which operates in Northern Ireland, has been a success. But that scheme is a substitute for parole, which does not operate in Northern Ireland.
Lord Avebury: I know that.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I dare say the noble Lord knows it, but that would not be the impression gathered by those reading this debate, if we do not state it. I doubt if we could rely on the same public acceptance of the scheme, at least as an alternative to the consideration given to cases prior to release, and the subsequent supervision arrangements under the parole scheme, in the wider context of our criminal justice system. Moreover, the liability to recall under the scheme lasts for longer than does parole. Consequently, the longer-term reduction in the prison population would be very much smaller than a straightforward increase in remission, and might be less than 1,000, and even such an estimate is subject to the same degree of uncertainty as those for increased remission, because of doubts about the likely reaction of the courts to any scheme which made a mandatory cut in effective sentence lengths.

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As to the lowering of the parole threshold, at present a prisoner serving a determinate sentence may on the recommendation of the Parole Board be released on licence after having completed not less than one-third of his sentence, (time spent in custody before sentence counted) or 12 months (time spent in custody before sentence not counted), whichever is the later. This Government are not opposed to the idea of extending the benefits of parole to shorter sentence prisoners by reducing the minimum qualifying period, but parole is essentially a selection process. If well-informed judgments about a prisoner's suitability for release on licence are to be made, a minimum period of time is required after sentencing and reception into a prison for him to be observed and reported upon. The Home Secretary has, therefore, decided on a further detailed study to see whether some way cannot be found, without endangering the principle of selectivity, which must be retained intact if the parole scheme is to retain the confidence it has so painstakingly built up over the years, and without making unacceptable demands on the available resources, of achieving the desired end.
In view of the opportunity presented by the Criminal Justice Bill, the Government have decided to seek a power to reduce the minimum qualifying period for parole by statutory instrument subject to parliamentary approval, though I must make it clear that we are not entering into any commitment at present to exercise that proposed power; we shall keep the question under review, and, if on further consideration we decided that some reduction in the minimum qualifying period was justifiable and practical,the existence of the new power would enable us to work it without having to wait for another opportunity before Parliament.
There is a great deal more that I could say. We have a certain amount of time in hand but I think that it would be unfair on your Lordships if I were to extend my speech unduly. Therefore, I should like to extemporise by saying that the Government are very much seized of the adage that prevention is better than cure. A great deal of work is being done in looking at alternatives to custodial treatment both in the adult and the juvenile field—and in the latter of course it is the Department of Health and Social Security as well as the Home Office that is involved. In that respect I should like to say how greatly impressed I was by a number of schemes of intermediate treatment that I saw before I moved to this department. Moreover, it was in that manifestation of my career that I also recognised the worrying problems of mentally disordered prisoners in prison.
The Government are seized of this problem. Those of your Lordships who took part in the debates on the Mental Health (Amendment) Bill will also realise the very great difficulty of trying to impose upon hospitals a duty to contain people whom they cannot treat. They do not want to be prison officers—that is a job for the staff of the prisons. One partial recourse—and this was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, my noble friend Lady Faithfull and more particularly the noble Countess, Lady Loudon—is to the secure hospital places. The Government wish to see better provision made for mentally disordered offenders. The programme for the establishment of regional secure units is now well under way. Local persuasion is necessary,
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of course, to accelerate it, but that is taking place. One unit is already open and, on the basis of present planning submissions, 170 permanent places will be available by the end of 1982, and by 1985 there are expected to be over 500 places available.
As regards the number of plans submitted, my advice is more recent than that of the noble Baroness. When I left the department there was only one authority outstanding, and I believe that the submission in that case was imminent. But there will continue to be a need for ordinary psychiatric hospitals to admit some mentally disordered offenders. As regards their treatment in hospital, I would say that I have also seen the effective working of the secondment arrangements between the National Health Service and the prison service whereby prison officers who work in the hospital wings get experience in special hospitals and elsewhere of dealing with violent mental patients.
I hope that the most valuable result of this debate, or one of them, will be its effect as a piece of salutary education for a new Minister looking at a complex and important field. I should not like to close without reference to the, I think, estimable work being done by the staff of our prisons at all levels under conditions which are not good, but my goodness! they would be a great deal worse were it not for the dedication of those people, which affects the physical environment, and also their personal dedication to the task, which means that around the country more and more of them effect a personal and constructive relationship with those people in their charge. In spite of the great pressure of numbers which militates against humanity in the system, I believe that they bring a humanity which is to be applauded in many places.
I have not elaborated on the building plans or the budgetary plans. They are available to your Lordships in print. I could have used this occasion simply to put forward the Government's programme in the best light and show that we are—as we are—making a manful assault upon a problem of staggering proportions for which we were not responsible originally, as none of us was. However, I thought it better to try, in a halting manner, to reply to your Lordships' principal cares as they became evident in the debate. I shall find in reading what I have said that it was entirely inadequate, and that will provoke a shoal of long and careful letters.
Lord Wells-Pestell: My Lords, before the Minister sits down, I wonder whether he would deal with one matter. Bearing in mind that one of the cheapest and quickest ways of doing something about the size of the prison population is to extend the use of the probation service, will he say that the Government are, in fact, in favour of encouraging the courts to use the probation service and the Probation Act more in the future than they have done in the past? Will he say whether the Government would consider providing the very small sum of money necessary to do that?
Lord Elton: My Lords, I tried to make it clear that the courts appeared to me to he at one with the Government in seeking not to send people to prison if it is possible not to do so. One way of keeping people out of prison is to make use of the probation service.

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In looking at that service, which I shall do with great care, I shall bear the noble Lord's remarks very closely in mind. If it is necessary for me to make any revelation of policy to the noble Lord, which I am not aware that I can, I shall write to him.
4.55 p.m.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, many years ago, I was placed on more than one occasion in the situation in which the noble Lord has found himself. I was asked to represent a department at very short notice and to take a measure of responsibility for everything that was being done, or not done. So far as I am concerned, I acquit the noble Lord for the manifold failures of the Home Office. No one will blame him. He comes down here and it is his task to defend them. However, I am afraid that I regard his reply as profoundly disappointing not through any fault of his, but because I consider the policy and the attitude of this Government profoundly disappointing. But before I deal with that matter, I should like to congratulate the noble Lord on the delightful way in which he has handled this task.
Several noble Lords: Hear, hear!
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, I think that a new Minister who starts as well as that is going on to greatness and may even finish by sublimating the ideals of the Home Office. However, that is maybe a little further on.
As the noble Lord has said, I have quite a few minutes in hand. I do not intend to use them to the full because I do not think that that is the intention of a short debate. Even if the mover is lucky enough, owing to the extraordinary self-abnegation of other speakers, to have something like 15 minutes in hand, I do not think that it is the intention of those who arrange these debates that he should have the chance to make another speech. Therefore, I do not intend to speak for more than a very few minutes. I should like to congratulate all those who have spoken on the almost masochistic restriction of their oratory today. I hope that when we have the next debate, somehow or another they will speak at still greater length because the points that were made were so important that it seems a pity that in some cases they were made in two or three minutes. However, that is very much to the credit of all concerned.
I shall not attempt to comment on most of the speeches, but I should like to comment on just one or two which raised topics which are not raised often enough perhaps in these discussions. The noble Baroness, Lady Sharples, went back to the question of prisoners' wives. That subject tends to be neglected and I hope that it will not be neglected quite so much in the future. Also the noble Viscount, Lord Ingleby, in his modest way, did not reveal that he has been at very great pains and at much inconvenience to visit at least one, and perhaps more than one, IRA prisoner in some rather remote prison. So when he talks about IRA prisoners, he knows what he is talking about. Again I hope that his remarks, which I heartily endorse, will be carefully attended to.
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I realise that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, for example, have put forward very carefully worked-out proposals which I certainly do not intend to do more about today than express general sympathy. As the Minister said, there will be an opportunity for most of us to talk at some length on all these matters when the Criminal Justice Bill comes here, and I hope that that will provide an opportunity for those expert noble Lords.
There have been other speeches. The noble Lord, Lord Soper, as always, spoke on the spiritual side, and the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, from the Liberal angle. The mentally disordered cannot be referred to too often, because, when all is said and done, our treatment of them is shameful. We cannot bring ourselves to face the problem posed by the fact that such people exist. We cannot bring ourselves to face the problem that some people, quite a lot of people, are in prison. They are, admittedly, mental cases, but the National Health Service will not accept them because it does not think that they can be treated; so they are left to rot in prison.
Many other important points have been raised today. The noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, will always be listened to with special attention. I should like to say a few words in reply to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lane. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, that we are making progress in persuading the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chief Justice to come and address us, because over the last quarter of a century in debates of this kind we have had very few contributions from learned judges on matters of penal reform. We have had contributions from them during debates on matters such as capital punishment, but on penal reform you could number on the fingers of a truncated hand the contributions from judges in this House in the last quarter of a century. So now is a new beginning.
I would only venture to say to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chief Justice that he may have slightly misunderstood me. When he reads what I said in that short intervention he will see that I was not saying quite what he said I said. I was so careful, I was really too careful; I felt more strongly about this than I ventured to say because the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor was on the Woolsack. Now, in his absence, perhaps I can speak more bluntly. I was afraid that I might provoke the noble and learned Lords the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice into rising to their feet at the same moment, which would have given rise to a sort of chaos. There was a time when I provoked the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury and the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York to rise to their feet, and there was a great question as to who should give way to the other. So while the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor was on the Woolsack, I did not want to speak too positively.
What I was trying to say, and what I must repeat to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chief Justice, is, in a sense, an extension or clarification of something said by my noble friend on the Front Bench Lord Elystan-Morgan. It is that we are all to blame. I wish that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chief Justice and the judges would accept that. Up to now

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the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lane, has not accepted it; he has said that the judges are not to blame but that the politicians are. Let us agree that the politicians are all to blame—not just this lot, but all politicians—and I have been in and out of Government for quite a few years. However, the judges are to blame.
If I were asked how they are to blame, I should say that they have been passing sentences which, by the standards of other countries, are too severe—I want to put that as plainly as possible—are known to be too severe and are recognised to be too severe. It is recognised that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lane, has been trying to persuade them to impose shorter sentences, and to his credit he is regarded as a most enlightened Lord Chief Justice. He is setting out to try to alter the habits of the other judges. That is all to his credit. But if there was no need to alter their habits, why should he set out on his task? Why should there be this dramatic change in the attitudes of the judges, which we were told about, if they were doing the job perfectly well before? That is my point. I hope that a word to the wise is enough.
I do not need to make another speech. I think that this debate could do some good. I am very glad that we shall have a chance to go into all these matters more thoroughly when we deal with the Criminal Justice Bill. I think that the situation is quite shocking. The Government of the day must accept immediate responsibility. The noble Lord said something about this being not of their making. The making may be the responsibility of others, but I am afraid that its continuance is the responsibility of the present rulers.
I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Elton, for the genial, delightful and witty way in which, as always, he has replied to us. My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion for Papers.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Youth Unemployment and New Technology
5.4 p.m.
Lord Molloy Lord Molloy rose to call attention to the future effects of youth unemployment and to the development of new technology; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I think I should say at the outset that, in addition to the obvious paradoxical element in the title that I have given to this debate, there is another even more important element. I think that, to a degree, the title reflects our inability to operate a section of industrial and commercial activities in a fully efficient manner. I believe that that must be so when we have to consider the wonders of technological advancement, and the many things that we read about or that we seek which are vitally important. At the same time we must be concerned that among the 3 million unemployed of our fellow citizens there is a large sector of young people.
Of course, unemployment is not merely a matter of figures and numbers, but it is an actual blighting of life for individuals and families as well as a grotesque economic waste for our nation. The element of youth unemployment in that is, I believe, a scandalous neglect of our seed corn. Many of our unemployed
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youth and young part-timers lead a sort of twilight existence in the labour market. They are experiencing prolonged spells of joblessness, with brief spells of unsatisfactory employment. Among them in particular are young men and women who have high technical qualifications, who are the products of some of our universities, and who I should have thought must have a slot somewhere in our industrial and commercial life.
According to an OECD document entitled Causes and Consequences of Youth Unemployment, evidence suggests that these early labour market problems for young people do not disappear with the passage of time; that each unemployed youngster appears to have to continue, even in later life, earning a low wage or a low salary. I do not know why that should be. I have merely read the evidence of the OECD document that this sort of thing is happening—this is the peculiar result of unemployment—not only in our country but in many of the OECD countries as well.
I believe that we must ensure that the evil maintenance of this bad start is not continued, for we are talking not merely about the future of technological scientists and educationalists, but also about the future parents of future Britons. I believe that such a state of affairs must be a loss and, indeed, a threat to our nation.
There are literally thousands of our young people who have never even had experience of employment. That, by itself, must be bad, but I believe that it is our responsibility to look a little further at what that means. There are young people in our society who have never had a job, who have never had a commercial position and who have never been provided with the opportunity to start to earn their own living. That is the final bad result. What is equally bad is that time has been wasted in sending them to school; the time of teachers has been wasted in teaching them; it has been a waste of time their swotting for examinations; there has been a waste of time for those who would have developed into craftsmen and apprentices.
Throughout this argument there seems to be a labour of love from the time a little boy or girl goes to his or her first school, right through to the comprehensive or grammar school, on to technical college and ultimately to university. For a young person to end up on a scrapheap, often after devoted love being sacrificed to teach him, is not merely sacrificing a labour of love on the altar of inefficient economy; it is also a grotesque thing to happen in any civilised society. I believe further that it also constitutes a risk to the future of our nation as a great trading nation. That thought is pretty grim to have to contemplate.
Therefore, there seems to me to be a challenge facing Britain. That challenge is to provide young people with as many opportunities as possible to develop their preparation for a working life. That is what new technology means. It does not mean any more the young chap, or young woman, sitting alongside Tom, or Nellie, learning the trade. Those days are gone. It means knowing full well that they may have to know a bit more than the middle-aged craftsman, who does not know how to operate and work with some of the products of modern technology. The young apprentice, or the young learner, coming in, will know a hit more than the skilled craftsman.
This is what I mean when I say that they are not even being allowed an opportunity, by being at a place of gainful employment, to prepare for a working life. That means that we have to take full account now of the skills needed both in commerce and in industry. If we can do that in a planned and sensible way then it might well be that much of the waste going on will at least be reduced or even stopped, and the future skills and abilities that British industry and commerce are going to require in the future can be taken full cognisance of now. That is also very important.
I believe that the new technology field is one of the paramount features of such consideration. Let me hasten to add that this does not mean that our basic, traditional skills should be in any way demoted, for they are still the bedrock upon which so much of the future industrial innovation, and indeed the success of the new technology, will depend. The scientist, the technician, and people of their skills and abilities, will always need their laboratory and their instruments. They will need some fitter, some engineer, to make them. The surgeon needs his scalpel. The man who produces with his skill that scalpel, and the man who produces the steel from which that scalpel is made, and the miner who digs the coal for where the steel is made which makes the scalpel, the designer, the striver in the steel works, the fine artist who fashions this wonderful blade for the consultant, would be wasting their time if the consultant could not use it in his capacity as a great surgeon.
There is this interweaving responsibility, what I have called the pyramid of endeavour, right the way through. Perhaps one of the great workers in scientific technology might depend on the ability of a bus driver or a train driver to get him to work. The doctor, when he is not feeling too well, the nurse in the hospital when he may have to go there—in all this new technology we have been shown more than ever before the pyramid of life and endeavour to which we all ought to be contributing. Alas! those who are not part of this pyramid are those who are not contributing, and not through any fault of their own. This is another element that we have to look at.
I have been examining these things and trying to understand them over the past few years, talking to trade union audiences, in universities, and so on. I am still amazed and still really do not understand how it happens. I do not really understand when I switch on television, born of the mind of Logie Baird, how that picture actually gets there, and that it can be distorted if the cat knocks down the internal aerial. I do not understand these things. However, I respect and admire the brilliance of the mind that thought of them.
Terms like "micro-electronic technology" today make words like "computer" and "TV", sound old-fashioned. The silicon chip; the automatic brain; data processing; microprocessors; hardware and software. I have a faint idea of what all that means. We have the transputer, and then of course biotechnology. All these conjure up thoughts and dreams of a new world of leisure and plenty, or a horrid automated society with misery for millions in the interim period of its development, when they can see themselves more and
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more, because of some wonderful result of the thoughts of a genius, being thrown out of work. They will have no admiration. What frightens me and gives me concern is that not only will they have no admiration for whoever it is who has deprived them of their livelihood, they will have a bitterness which will lead to anger. This is one of the thoughts that responsible people should be considering with regard to the development in the future of the new technology.
I believe that the latter picture that I put before your Lordships could have even more horrendous results. People get upset or hurt, whether it is through the loss of a loved one or the loss of a home, and having to move out. I have experienced it. I know what it is to help my mother to pack the tin bath with the crockery; get the pram out. My little sister had to carry the baby. Do you know what the crime of my parents was, my Lords? They had not found a way of life to remunerate them with enough money to pay the landlord. My father, a skilled marine engineer, always told me that the hardest, toughest job in his life was during the depression of the 1930s: it was not working gainfully, but searching and looking for work.
I do not want that sort of thing to come back, because I believe that the young people of our nation will have different ideas. We have seen that demonstrated in some of the troubles we have had in our inner cities. I deplore it, but I try to understand it. It is tied up with what I am submitting for the consideration of your Lordships this evening. However, it need not be. We have to start with some basic understanding. I do not think that that understanding will come from hating and saying, "I will have nothing to do with the modern, new technology". That is an absurdity. We have to find some other form of understanding. That understanding must provide us with some sane, ethical code to guide us on our way.
In my submission that code should be on the following lines. New technology is a challenge to industry and to the nation. It is really not a question of accepting the new technology, of rejecting it, or fighting it; the issue is how to maximise its benefits and minimise its costs, and ensure that its benefits are shared equitably. Some might say that that is a grand ideal, and of course it is. But all education, if it has no ideals, is not education. All planning for a decent, civilised society of big industrialists—the men who are in charge of our great industries, both in the private and in the public sectors—if they have no ideals is followed by trouble. We as legislators have to accept the same principles. I hope that what I have just outlined is at least something that will help us on our way.
Britain's industrial revolution led the world in genius of invention and, regrettably, in subsequent misery and industrial slavery for millions. It took generations to shed most of the evil of the latter. Today's technology is different. In the past, technological and technical breakthroughs came at a fairly slow rate; they took time to spread. When Stephenson built his Rocket he did not go charging all over the country like a television signal. Railways lines had to be laid—indeed, they first had to be made—gradually from one place to the next, and that in its turn made its contribution, first conveying materials and then people.

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In the perspective of today's new technology, that was a long, slow process.
I could give many other examples, such as the petrel engine, electric motor, spinning jenny and so on. That slow process allowed the economy at least to adjust itself. But the social upheavel, the uprooting of communities, the migration of the workforce and the creation of factory life inspired—if that is the right word to use—one of England's greatest poets, Blake, to call them dark satanic mills. It was a blot on that semi-civilised society. There is a danger not of that sort of development but at least of something similar if we do not hold firmly, with a strong intelligent grasp, to the development of new technology.
I say that because the spread of the development of modern technology will not permit of gradual refinement. The speed of development is as phenomenal as the initial invention. I will give an example. In the early 1950s, it was estimated by British and American technologists and scientists that it would be possible to construct a human brain using millions of little valves, and it took five years to calculate that the housing for that human brain would be as large as Greater London. By the 1960s, the housing could be reduced to the size of the Albert Hall. Today it can be done in a smaller space than the average human brain itself. That indicates the massive speed with which the wonders of new technology are outdated, sometimes within a few months. With the transistor replacing the valve there have been many other innovations. They may be wonderful—indeed, they truly are—but equally they can be dangerous. That is proved by the fact that whereas to make a human brain in the 1950s would need a housing the size of Greater London, by the 1980s, using circuits of micro-processors, it could be made smaller than the real one.
The genius of the inventors demands new skills and abilities in the field of operation. The apprentice will be required to be fully trained even before any production is started. That being so, it seems to me that we are suffering from an abysmal myopia when we are compelled to acknowledge that thousands of our young men and women with initial ability and educational standards are languishing in the barren, blind alleys of unemployment. I do not pretend to know the answer. I simply appeal for us to recognise the dangerous implications of inaction and for some ideas to be looked at, even if they are rejected, if in consequence thereof better and more practical ones are ultimately embarked on.
The changes taking place in the structure of the employed population create a need to respond to them. Against a background of already unacceptably high unemployment, fears of further deterioration are stimulated by techincal progress. Those fears are exacerbated by increases in the number of young people helping to swell the unemployed and dole queues. Yet the seeming paradox is that a higher rate of economic growth is needed to guarantee effective demand; our growth is slipping and not really improving, yet the answer to the dilemma we are in is greater and higher economic growth. Modern technology will assist us to achieve that because the increased output of modern technology is one of the ways by which we can accomplish that objective.
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The new technology will require customers and consumers. It will be denied those if it contributes to further unemployment.
The worst of all worlds would be if the new technology in nearly all its forms failed and economic recovery and its maintenance was doomed. Our nation would be in a very parlous situation. However, I believe that with vision and planning there need be no delay. We should, therefore, start at once to develop the particular skills associated with micro-electronic technology. Let Government, industry and the trade unions get down to identifying those of our unemployed youth who possess the basic knowledge to make it worth our while to pay them to learn. It may sound impossible, but what I am in essence saying is that if we were facing a great emergency, within a few months we should know, from among the unemployed the length and breadth of this island, the sort of people we needed to pick out quickly to save us from that great catastrophe. We should select now from among the unemployed youth, so as to get them to understand and play their part in learning how to make the new technology function.
With that in mind, I suggest we should perhaps have a brand new form of technical college, specifically designed for training on futuristic lines, so keeping up with what the future means. One can be discussing the future today and next week, with modern technology, the future almost becomes the past. In earnest co-operation with our industrialists and trade union leaders, we could provide, with industry, their own training establishments in anticipation of the requirements of the skills of the future. Time does not permit me to indulge in the detail of my submission, but I believe that a radical and imaginative plan will be needed to meet the needs of the new technology, and therefore the unions and our great industrialists should set about modernising the apprenticeship system and we should be providing people with training so that they may easily enter the world of new technology. The TUC, CBI and our universities should co-operate with the Government to evolve an on-going method of training and teaching.
New technology need not be a threat but a benediction in many fields; for example, in medicine, education, communication and all forms of commerce and industry, light and heavy. But at all times people must be at the centre and never on the periphery. Perhaps then, with that ideal, our country will provide the civilised response to what the Welsh poet W. H. Davies asked when he wrote:
"What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?"
Certainly I hope it will not mean succumbing to the delirium of watching TV for hours on end, but getting to know the real world, to which new technology can also contribute. In what I have outlined, I sincerely believe that if any country in the world can do it, it is my country, Great Britain; that our endeavours and achievements will not only enrich the lives of our own people but also make a necessary and valuable contribution to assisting the much poorer lands of this earth. It is an exciting challenge. I believe our nation has the capacity to respond. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
5.29 p.m.
Lord Rochester: My Lords, I am sure that I speak for the whole House in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, for having introduced this Motion. If I may say so, I particularly admired the humanity and humility with which he related these complex problems to his own experience. If he will allow me to say so, I was just a little sorry that since this short debate covers such a very wide area, each of the two parts of the Motion was not more evidently related to the other. But in his speech the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, has made plain to us the connection in his mind between the two parts of the Motion, and in my own contribution I shall do what I can to link the development of new technology—about which, like the noble Lord, I feel a certain humility in talking at all—if not to youth unemployment alone, at least to unemployment in a wider and more general sense.
First, I should like to say that, given the present economic circumstances in which we find ourselves and the problem that these pose as to how to find adequate resources to finance all the good things that we should like to see done, I hope that we shall all be willing to acknowledge that at least in the immediate future any British Government, whatever their political complexion, will be bound to find it difficult altogether to eliminate the problem of youth unemployment. In my view, it therefore behoves us all, first, to approach the problem in a positive manner—as I think the noble Lord himself very largely did—and, secondly, to seek as much common ground as possible in trying to alleviate it.
For my part I have no doubt that we should aim to see that at the earliest practical date some combination of training, work experience, and further education is made available to all 16 and 17-year olds who do not remain in full-time education. That is certainly the aim of the Manpower Services Commission. I think that it is also the Government's long-term objective, and this is perhaps the moment to pay tribute to what the Government have so far found it possible to do in working towards it in their new youth training scheme. Indeed, I should like to welcome also the response that is being made to that initiative by employers up and down the land.
Two important reasons for adopting such a policy are that the job prospects of unskilled workers are all the time worsening—this was a point that the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, brought out very well—and that if, as a nation, we are to stay competitive, and thus minimise unemployment, we must have a workforce which is as well trained and as flexible as that of our competitors. A policy of that kind would also of course have the great benefit of taking several hundred thousand youngsters out of the labour market altogether for a period of two years. However, for my part I am prepared to concede that within the financial resources now available to us, it may not yet be possible to implement quite such a comprehensive policy. Nevertheless I believe that more can be done than is at present contemplated by the Government under the youth training scheme, in particular by including within it employed as well as unemployed young people.
I come to my next point. I do not believe that any comprehensive training programme for young people will work unless it has the support of all the main
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interests involved—by which I mean Government, employers, trade unions and educationists. For that reason I very much hope that the Government will prove willing to accept the alternative arrangements to their youth training scheme which the Manpower Services Commission is reported to have agreed on. These would have the effect (among other things) of raising the amount of the allowance to be paid to youngsters on the scheme and would do away with the controversial proposals to withdraw supplementary benefit from I6-year olds who do not take part in it. Yet that would not add to the overall cost of the scheme.
Similarly, I hope that the Government will look favourably on the institutional framework for training young people that the MSC is reported to have worked out, paying due regard, as is done, to the parallel needs for some national advisory machinery which would bring together all the interests involved, or a regional structure which would enable training to be related to local needs and local labour markets.
For my part, I welcome in particular the leading role which, in the view of the MSC, employers should be called upon to take, because I know from my experience as chairman of one of the commission's district manpower committees that what will be needed most is competent management: that is, the ability to get people actually to do things. I realise that on points such as these the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, when he replies will not be in a position to commit the Government at this stage, because I think I am right in saying that the Manpower Services Commission finally reached these conclusions only yesterday. Nevertheless, I shall be grateful if he can respond in as positive a way as possible to the general approach to the problem that I have sought to advocate.
The only other thing that I want to say on the future effects of youth unemployment as such is that I am increasingly concerned—this point, too, was touched on indirectly by the noble Lord, Lord Molloy—about the proportion of long-term unemployed (that is, those who have been out of work for more than 12 months) who are aged under 25. They now account for more than a quarter of the total numbers involved. The scheme best able to cater for them has been judged to be the Community Enterprise Programme. The MSC recommended that there should be 60,000 filled places on that scheme in the year 1982–83, but the Government have decided that there should be only 30,000. I believe that in order to cope with the problem even 60,000 places are not nearly enough.
My understanding is that in Cheshire, where I live, the Employment Service Division of the MSC has been told that, far from encouraging the filling of even a few more places under the scheme, no further action should be taken to fill places on it. Presumably this is to make way for the new Government initiative, which was announced in the recent Budget by Sir Geoffrey Howe, to run alongside the Community Enterprise Programme, aimed at giving those who have been unemployed for some time the opportunity to work for the benefit of their own community. I have been able to give the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, a little notice of this point, and I shall be grateful if, when he replies, he offers me such enlightenment on it as he can.
If I may turn briefly to the second part of the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, relating to the develop-

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ment of new technology, I would say that I am not one who believes that in the long term new technology will necessarily increase unemployment. Of course in the short run it will involve displacement of people, but, for example, in process industries, on which perhaps I am best qualified to speak, the introduction of new technology in the erection of new plants could well result in the employment of more people in the building, engineering and construction industries, and in my view it is by no means certain that it need ultimately produce a net loss of jobs overall. What I am entirely clear about is that the consequences for employment of turning our backs on new technology would be far worse in the long run than the effects of welcoming it. As a trading nation, it is our ability to compete internationally that will primarily influence our employment prospects.
Since the last war our share of world markets has more than halved. In the United Kingdom during this period unemployment has greatly increased. Yet new technology has been introduced on only a relatively small scale, and cannot therefore be held to blame. In contrast, much more use of it has been made by our more successful competitors—for example, Germany and Japan—yet in neither of those countries is the unemployment rate nearly as high as in the United Kingdom. In short, we simply cannot afford to reject new technology, and here, I think, I am at one with the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, as I hope I shall be with a number of noble Lords who will follow me.
Indeed, on that point too, should like to pay a tribute to the recognition on the part of the TUC that if we cling to outdated technology we shall not prevent job loss; we shall simply lose our share of such new jobs as are created. Talking of the TUC, I have noted that a former trade union leader of great distinction, the noble Lord, Lord Scanlon, is to follow me, and because it is relevant to this debate I should like to pay tribute, if I may, to his work as chairman of the Engineering Industry Training Board, not least in seeking to relate apprentice training (touched on, again, by the noble Lord, Lord Molloy) more to the achievement of standards than to the serving of time.
I spoke earlier of the vital need for a concerted approach in the field of training among Government, employers, trade unions and educationists. I very much hope that if the Government accept the MSC's proposed modification to the youth training scheme, as I fervently hope they will, trade unions generally will in turn accept wholeheartedly relevant standards of competence as a measure which should determine the attainment of skills. My Lords, I welcome the opportunity that this debate has given us to see how far we can find common ground in tackling the problems posed by youth unemployment and the development of new technology.
5.43 p.m.
Lord Scanlon: My Lords, a combination of Government policies and a deep recession has been superimposed on the longer-term structural decline of British industry. This has driven the jobless total beyond the 3 million mark; but most importantly, the number out of work for more than a year has doubled to over a million in the space of 12 months—and even
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these figures really understate the jobs shortage. They do not include many people, especially married women, for instance, many of whom have a desire to work but have not registered as unemployed. Nor do they include those kept off the register by short-time working and special Government measures. When these groups are taken into account, the real jobs shortage is over 4 million, and rising.
Young people under the age of 25 constitute over 40 per cent. of this jobless total. Two hundred thousand of them were out of work for more than a year at the beginning of 1982—three times the figure of 12 months earlier—and another 192,000 were kept off the unemployment register by special measures. That is not to denigrate the special measures; it is simply an indication of the extent of the jobless youth of our country. In some inner cities, youth unemployment has climbed to the staggering figure of between 40 and 50 per cent. of the total unemployed within those cities. Unemployment among ethnic minorities has risen faster than the national average. In 1981, the number of jobless black workers increased by over 46 per cent., compared with an increase of 37 per cent. in the national average. This is compounded by discrimination against job applicants from ethnic minorities, again particularly young black people.
Previous speakers have referred to such unemployment as representing a huge cost to society, not only in terms of individual suffering but also in lost skills and productiveness. The scale and speed of this skill wastage has reached record proportions. But there is another aspect of the problem which concerns the very future of Britain as an industrial nation. New technology is giving rise to profound changes in the occupational structure. Many old skills are now no longer relevant, and the demand for new skills is beginning to grow. This demand can be expected to accelerate in any economic upturn, creating the prospect of severe skill shortages. And yet, instead of making increased provision for training in new skills, the Government are dismantling the statutory framework of training and handing over responsibility to employers, who are themselves having to cut back training in response to the recession. This has resulted in many young people missing out on training opportunities altogether, and many other workers have lost their jobs and had to take on less skilled work, while the remainder have little, if any, chance of re-entering the labour force without updating their skills or acquiring new ones.
We recognise that it would be wrong to underestimate the difficulty in moving rapidly towards full employment. The counteracting pressures are formidable. In addition to the damage done by Government policies to job prospects, the world economy is still in recession; our manufacturing base has been weakened over decades by a chronic failure to invest; and much of the new investment that has taken place is highly capital-intensive, and therefore not productive of new employment.
However, recognising all these things we do not and must not accept the dangerously complacent view that, somehow, in some way, society must learn to live with a sort of permanent "reserve army" of jobless people. So long as there are needs to be met and people with the ability to fulfil them, the scope for useful and productive employment is unlimited. New

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technology can and must be made to work for us, and not against us, by releasing people from hazardous and repetitive tasks and allowing us all to spend less time at work. The present pattern of exchanging the school desk for the dole queue is not only economic nonsense; it can and will have serious political and social consequences unless we speedily terminate it and provide constructive alternatives.
Investment in training is as important to the future of our country as investment in machinery and innovation. The neglect of training over recent decades is part of the vicious circle which has so typified our economy of low investment, low wages and low productivity headed by a policy of de-industrialisation. Training provision now lags far behind that of our main competititors abroad. Almost half our young people leave school without getting an apprenticeship or vocational preparation of any kind compared with less than 10 per cent. in West Germany and less than 20 per cent. in France. Only 30 per cent. of British workers have any intermediate qualifications compared with over 50 per cent. of German workers, and the tragedy is that there is no real sign of any improvement in this situation.
In addition, occupational change imposes a great challenge to our training arrangements. By 1985 white-collar workers will outnumber manual workers. There is likely to be a steady decline in the demands of traditional skills such as, for instance, machine operators, fitter mechanics and sheetmetal workers. At the same time, the economy will need growing numbers of professional engineers, technicians, draughtspeople—and here may I say that computer-aided design in draughtsmanship is as great a technological revolution as has happened in any other part of our economy—and, in addition, systems analysts and computer programmers.
These changes reflect the basic shifts that are taking place between manufacturing and services and between knowledge-based and traditional industries. Occupational skills are having to adapt to processes rather than products and to cross-industry needs rather than industry-specific needs. This implies that the focus of training will have to shift in the future from craft skills to cross-sector transferable skills, and it is unlikely that our present training system is adequate to this task.
May I now turn to what the noble Lords, Lord Rochester and Lord Molloy, referred to as the initiative of the Government's White Paper. May I join them in congratulating the Government in announcing in that White Paper the general, laudable principle that all school-leavers should be given the opportunity of continuing education or some type of full-time vocational training. But training for what, and how? Please accept that criticising the Youth Opportunity Programme and the work experience programme is not to denigrate in any form the opportunity it gave to youngsters to relieve the tedium of unemployment, but it was a costly business and one has to admit that it realy had more to do with reducing the unemployment figures than with any long-term, worthwhile training. We hope that the training that is now envisaged will be of value not only to the trainee, to the recipient—for even if, at the end of the training,
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there were no job for him, it could be used as part of his qualification provided that the training was of the right type and right quality—but also to employers, to industry and to the country.
However, the unfortunate blots on the escutcheon were the two conditions that the Government seem to insist upon in fulfilment of the terms of their White Paper; that is, the degree of compulsion and the inadequate training allowances. Both these problems will seem to have been overcome if the Government accept what is now reported in the press as being the unanimous decision of the task group which was set up comprising of representatives of the CBI, the TUC and the MSC. That report indicated that, initially, at any rate—and, if it has been correctly reported, I would subscribe completely to that view—it should apply to unemployed youngsters and by 1985 apply to all young people under the age of 18. To try to do it all in one swoop at the beginning would, in my view (and, I hope, ultimately in the Government's view), compound confusion and put stress on quarters where presently there is no need for such stress.
I should now like to turn to what the report seems to omit or is unclear or indefinite. I must again qualify my remarks by the statement, "If the press report is correct". I turn first to the matter raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, that of training to standards. I do not propose to weary your Lordships by recounting the efforts that the Engineering Training Board has made, and is continuing to make, to try to obtain the agreement of employers, of trade unions and of academics, to change the whole approach of status in industry to one of achieving that status by the achievement of standards rather than by the lapse of time. This report makes no mention of three important issues: will there be standards, and, if so, who will determine them? Who will see they are maintained? Who will give the accreditation at the end of such training? I know that these may seem detailed points, and we shall await with interest the reply of the noble Lord opposite, but I believe they are important issues which must be considered in the setting in which I am trying to place them. The report also suggests the establishment of upwards of 50 local boards, and that the MSC staff should be reinforced by recruits, if necessary seconded from industry, from education and from other sources.
I take liberty to disagree at this stage with the noble Lord, Lord Rochester. Do we really need such an army of either autocrats or bureacrats when we have within our midst the expertise, the knowledge, the know-how, and the ability to cope with all the proposals made by the MSC in the report? I believe that we have this ability within the existing training boards—that is, those that have remained on a statutory basis—and that there are scores of people from those boards which have been disbanded who are likely to join the ranks of the unemployed unless we can utilise their expertise. Therefore, I would make the appeal to look at this very carefully and to ensure that the training boards become an integral part of training for the school-leavers which is such an imaginative step and could help relieve the horrifying total of the jobless youth of our country.
Finally, the scheme, as I have said, must be initially for school-leavers, but it must be over and above

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those recruits to industry that employers would normally take on. They must not be seen as an alternative to the intake; they must be seen as additional to the intake. They must not be seen as a source of cheap labour but as a means of augmenting existing labour ready for when there is an upturn in the economy.
I hope that the noble Lord will take note of these measures: first, the Government must undertake some steady, controlled reflation of the economy, for without it a substantial inroad into this massive total of unemployed—and particularly the youth unemployed—is not possible.
Secondly, the Government must accept the MSC recommendations with regard both to the elimination of the compulsion element and to the new proposals for the training amounts indicated in their report. The Government must insist that ITBs and other voluntary counterparts are brought into the whole machinery of operating the new training initiative. To do less would only exacerbate the gloom and despair so readily prevalent in the youth of this country. To accept these suggestions will do much not only to give them hope but to help them play a real part in the restoration of this country's economy.
Lord Rochester: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, I hope that he will forgive me for intervening in this way for there is so much on which I agree with him. I do not want to cross swords with him, but rather seek a point of clarification. I was naturally very interested in what he had to say about the institutional framework and the superficial difference at any rate between himself and me on this point.
As he will recall, I was, like him, very much opposed to the ready dismantling of industrial training boards. I see that in the case of those industries where industrial training boards remain it is possible to have some framework of the kind that he suggests, but what of those industries where they are no longer in existence? Will not some institutional framework be required there, and will it not have even more application in view of the point that he himself was making of the need for training nowadays to take place not only within individual industries but across industries on a cross-sectoral basis?
Lord Scanlon: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for seeking clarification on this matter. I readily concur with his view that what is done is done and that those industries for whom there will be no statutory board are faced with difficulties. My plea was to utilise the expertise of people within those industries who were, and to some extent still are, employed by the training boards that will eventually be dismantled. I have been present at conferences when the Secretary of State has made it quite clear that he will not issue the order cancelling the existence of those training boards until he is satisfied about voluntary arrangements. If he is satisfied, in my view he could well utilise those voluntary arrangements within those industries and, where the statutory board exists, the expertise of the statutory board.
6.5 p.m.
Earl Alexander of Tunis: My Lords, like other speakers, I too am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord
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Molloy, for bringing this important and far-reaching subject to your Lordships' attention. However, I hope that your Lordships will forgive me if I do not stay to the end of this debate as I have a long-standing engagement. But I shall certainly read with much interest the Hansard report tomorrow morning.
I should just like to make one comment on the title of this debate. I would have thought that it would have been more positive if it had read, "future effects of youth employment" and not "unemployment". Some of your Lordships might have read the extensive report in the most recent issue of Time magazine. It makes it quite clear that the American youth are very much familiar with all aspects of home computers. I hope that following this debate, and following the speech which the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, will be making, this country will catch up with America.
I understand that the Government are well aware of the problem and indeed the potential in this field. Perhaps to assuage Lord Molloy's concern—which we all share—the Department of Industry, together with the Manpower Services Commission, are providing young people with information technology centres. These are designed to give training and work experience in micro-electronics and computing. I understand that the Government gave approval for about 30 information technology centres. It is intended that many will be in inner city areas of Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester and London. I understand that a further 70 will be formed, making about 100 by the end of this year.
Information technology centres will introduce young people to activities such as computer programming, tele-text editing, word processing (I really do not understand what that means), computer maintenance, control systems and electronics. In order to create a realistic working environment, information technology centres will also develop, produce and sell new technology items. The Notting Dale Technology Centre, for example, develops and produces electronic aids for the handicapped. It is hoped that some of the products developed will result in independently viable "spin off" business being created. Programs are tailored, I understand, for the trainees individually and can last for up to one year.
In other words, this is a significant step forward which should—and I believe does—have support from all parties as well as, of course, the various businesses and commercial interests which it is bound to affect in the years to come.
6.8 p.m.
Lord Vernon: My Lords, there is probably no one in this House who is not concerned about this subject which has been raised with such deep feeling by the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, this afternoon. We on this Bench believe that a high priority should be given to reducing the present level of unemployment and especially unemployment among the young.
In the course of a speech during the Hillhead by-election, Mr. Roy Jenkins put forward specific proposals to achieve this reduction, the aim of which would be to provide jobs for 1¼ million people over a one- to two-year period, including 200,000 new jobs for young people.

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The effect of unemployment is demoralising for people of all ages; but it is infinitely worse for those in the early morning of their careers than it is for those in the evening of them. If anyone has to go to the wall it should be the old rather than the young. For that reason, I personally believe that a start should be made soon towards reducing the retirement age for men to 60, as it is for women. The present position is in any case grossly discriminatory and it is also anomalous, bearing in mind the much earlier date at which men, on average, die. We must, however, be frank with ourselves: in the era of high technology into which we are moving and about which so much has already been said, we shall never again be able to eradicate unemployment in the sense that we did in the 1950s and the 1960s. There just will not be the jobs.
We must also face the fact that with our very dense population, built up over the last 150 years or so to meet the demands of labour intensive industries, our task is going to be harder than for some other countries. Of course, it is possible to hide unemployment by creating bogus jobs, whether in industry or in the Civil Service. That is clearly what happens in the Soviet Union, which maintains that it has no unemployment.
It is, of course, not only the Soviet Union where unemployment is hidden. I saw the other day some interesting figures relating to extra-mural activities by Italian civil servants, in which your Lordships might be interested. First, those with a second job formed 54 per cent. of the total; secondly, those often absent from duty because of few checks made, 45 per cent. of the total; thirdly, those selling goods within Ministries during working time, 33 per cent. of the total; fourthly, those taking early or late holidays (and thus a longer holiday because of superiors' absence at main holiday time), 27 per cent, of the total; lastly, those who hardly ever report for work because no checks are made, 19 per cent. of the total. Those figures are taken from an academic study conducted in Rome and quoted in the Lloyd's Bank Economic Bulletin for February 1982. Perhaps to a limited extent the same thing happens here—I do not know—but it is surely not a precedent that we should seek to follow.
It would be wrong not to give credit to the Government and to the previous Administration for the steps they have taken through the Youth Opportunities Programme and the new Training Initiatives to lessen the impact of unemployment on the 16 to 18 year-olds. Training is obviously of vital importance and it is a field where at present we lag behind our European competitors, as has been made clear by the noble Lord, Lord Scanlon. But training is surely more rewarding and psychologically more effective if it goes in hand with a job. It is one thing to be trained in certain skills; it is infinitely more valuable if a person, in addition to having such skills, can point to a period of utilising them for an employer who, even if he cannot continue to offer employment in the longer term, may at least be able to provide a working reference.
Therefore, I hope that the Government will give consideration to the proposal made by Mr. Jenkins that employers should be offered a subsidy of £30 a
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week for every school-leaver they employ under the age of 18, provided that certain periods of off-the-job training are linked with the subsidy. In order to avoid creating a high level of unemployment at 18, the subsidy could alternatively be paid on a graduated scale, giving more to employers of 16 year-olds than to the 18 year-olds. The Government, of course, may say they have gone some way towards meeting an employment subsidy along the lines suggested by the £15 per week job creation subsidy devised by Professor Walters. However, they have not gone far enough, and in any case the conditions attaching to the Walters scheme appear to have run into severe criticism from the CBI and the TUC.
If one looks at the league table, if one may so call it, of employment of the under-25s in the major Western European countries as at December 1981, it appears that the United Kingdom has 1,109,000, which constitutes 38 per cent. of out total unemployed, as compared with West Germany with 360,000, which is 21 per cent. of their total unemployment. France has 917,000 in the under-25 age group and Italy has I million; but in both these cases the percentages of total unemployed are around 45 per cent., which is substantially higher than our own, according to the figures I have seen provided by Eurostat. Moreover, when one considers that there is compulsory military service for up to two years in those countries—taking perhaps half a million of this younger age group out of the labour market in any year—the comparison with our European partners is not unfavourable. That does not mean, of course, that we should be complacent.
That brings me to my final point. Compulsory military service has certain obvious advantages: not only does it give a measure of training and discipline to youths who might otherwise be roaming the streets, but it also takes a substantial number of persons in the 18 to 20 age group off the labour market and so provides more opportunity for others. We in this country have always set our faces against compulsion and I would guess we shall continue to do so; but that makes it all the more essential that our voluntary government training schemes should contain a mixture of carrot and stick. I for one—and I realise that I am not at one with the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, and the noble Lord, Lord Scanlon—strongly endorse the condition built into Mr. Tebbit's scheme that supplementary benefit should not be payable to those not participating.
Before concluding, I should like to add this: in preparing for this debate this afternoon, I have become bewildered by the number of different schemes for providing job subsidies and training which at present operate. The benefits and conditions attached to these schemes vary, and some have been wholly or partially overtaken by others. Would it not be in the general interest, and not least in the interest of those participating in the schemes, if the Government were to codify them all in a single table, intelligible to the public at large? I should be grateful if the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, could consider this suggestion.
6.19 p.m.
Lord Energlyn: My Lords, I listened with a certain degree of bewilderment to the noble Lord, Lord Scanlon. He, unconsciously, I feel, underrates the

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standard of intelligence of our young people. He once said—rather humorously, I suppose—in your Lordships' House that he regarded academics as "educated beyond their intelligence." Whether from that sterns his philosophy this afternoon, I do not know, but the important thing is this: we are still the best educated people in the world. I say that without fear of challenge. When we are talking about training people for this and that, no country in the world has such a fertile source of ability as we have in Britain.
Those young lads whom we see on television, who are sailing happily south to defend human rights, for which we in Britain stand, are an example of the standard of intelligence and integrity of the young men and women of this country. So I cannot stand by and hear anybody criticise them on that premise. They are the most versatile young people in the world. What I am going to suggest is that, being myself a pure scientist, I think I can speak with some degree of knowledge of what invention really means—
Lord Scanlon: My Lords, I am sorry to intervene, but I thought the noble Lord was going to say what it was that I had said in criticism of the youth of this country.
Lord Energlyn: My Lords, I had a general feeling from the noble Lord's speech that these young people need to be intensively trained. That is right, is it not? There is a need for intensive training.
Lord Scanlon: Indeed there is, my Lords, in order to meet the challenge of the new technology and to master it.
Lord Energlyn: But with respect, my Lords, the noble Lord generalised. What these people are capable of doing is, within one week, learning a particular skill which the technologists require. But the point is that in the technology of today and tomorrow we shall employ fewer and fewer people. That is the picture of technology. Technology creates unemployment. It is designed to replace the human being in carrying out tedious forms of labour.
What I should like to suggest is that there is an area of technology which no noble Lord has yet touched upon, which is the technology of salesmanship. It is simple to invent something. It is simple to manufacture something. The most difficult part is to know whether it is worth anything in the markets of the world and, if it is, to be able to go out and sell it. We were the great merchants of the world and what I am suggesting is that, if you want to train anybody, you should train salesmen in the technology of salesmanship.
Today, it is not a case of a nice fellow going out and trying to sell something to somebody. A man has to go out with specialised knowledge of the product he is trying to sell, which means that he has to understand the technology behind that product. He must also be in a position to go back to his employers, or the source of the product, and say, "I need a hack-up. It is no good my telling a customer that we have this item for sale. The customer says, How marvellous! How much? And when can I have it?'". If that salesman cannot guarantee delivery, he is wasting his time. So
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what I am saying is that there is an area of tuition in which we are sorely at a loss, and that is in the training of salesmen. What could be more appealing to a large numbers of young men and women—I am talking not about hundreds but about thousands—than sending them out into the world to sell British products? British is best!
I now turn to research and development in relation to any form of labour-based potential. Most people have been amazed that within days we have been able to convert a pleasure steamer into a hospital. Most people have been amazed that we have been able to convert a ship, built for another purpose, into an operational naval unit with helicopter decks and so on. They did not appear by magic. All the research and development had been carried out to do that job, but it was not until this emergency took place that the R and D of these naval research departments, which I assure your Lordships is superb, was brought into use. Let us not lose sight of that marvellous piece of technology that we have at our fingertips, ready to use, which nobody else in the world has.
We should aim at production and at exports—exports created by salesmen—and we need to get those exports across the oceans of the world. We should rebuild our merchant navy, which is another source of employment for our adventurous young people. But this time, one would have the advantage of the enormous advances which our naval engineers have made in creating new rudders, new propellers and in all kinds of materials for the fabrication of fast-moving ships.
I now turn to other labour-based industries. I could quote a number, but time will not permit me to do so. But I will select one which is very close to my heart; namely, the coal industry. Here we have an indigenous industry which for too long has been forced to serve the needs of this country, when the whole wealth of this country before the war was built on the export of coal. Since the war, we have built into this country mining technology which the world demands and for which it pays handsomely. In one year, we are capable of producing coal to the tune of 40 million tonnes in excess of our own requirements. In the world market, that is worth £400 million of anybody's currency. Therefore, I would integrate the merchant navy into the export of coal. But to export that coal requires a knowledge of the technology and the transportation of coal, and we need in the National Coal Board a virile, new group of technologists, trained in the technology of selling and transporting coal.
I must also praise the Government for having done a most imaginative thing. I commend to the noble Lords, Lord Molloy and Lord Scanlon, a very interesting document on economic development by district councils. In four or five marvellous pages it gives the whole picture of the impact of the finances of district councils on the development of community endeavours. As I understood him, the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, was trying to integrate industry with social life, decent standards of life, et cetera. I am hopeful of being able to contribute to something like this, because I have been invited to become a participant in the development in one of these imaginative enterprise zones.
When I first read about an enterprise zone, I thought that it was just another development of a trading

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estate, but I very rapidly learned that it is nothing of the kind. The Minister has, with vision, put into this picture a concept of community development—not a soulless trading estate—and I shall be taking part in the development of one of these enterprise zones in Swansea. We cannot go on without considering the whole area of South Wales. Here we have some fascinating challenges from derelict land. The Government have, very wisely, increased the money available for the restoration and refurbishing of derelict land. I could talk for half an hour about that, because it is a marvellous idea.
We have the possibility of getting young people back on to the land. There could be nothing better than to revive and build up our agricultural and horticultural industries—a healthy, out-of-door way of life. Young people do not want to become industrial robots producing transistors by the million or motor-cars by the million. They want to get out into the air and to live. They want nothing better than to be in the fresh air. We in South Wales have an enormous potential. It is no wonder that the Japanese have gone into South Wales. There they have an imaginative labour force prepared to work with anybody, so long as they can have a decent way of life. In this area we are hopeful of fulfilling some of the ideas which the Minister has in mind.
In conclusion, I hope I was not discourteous to the noble Lord, Lord Scanlon. I appreciate his point, but I do wish he would turn over another page and, with his remarkable ability, appeal to the youth of this country to go out and say, "We are British, and British is best".
6.31 p.m.
Baroness David: My Lords, I, too, should like to thank my noble friend Lord Molloy for introducing this debate and, as the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, said, for the humanity with which he did so. I am sure we all got the feeling that he himself has about the waste which goes with youth unemployment.
I think it is good for us to focus our attention again on what is the most distressing aspect of the present recession: the horribly high figures of youth unemployment. We heard yesterday that the figure for all unemployed is now up to over 3 million, boosted by 11,000 new school-leavers. It is daunting to look at the figures of the young unemployed—the under 20year-olds—over the last 20 years. In 1960, in Great Britain, there were 33,000; in 1970, 67,000; in 1976, 225,000; and in January 1982, 548.300. In 1960, the figure of 33,000 was 8.1 per cent. of all unemployed; in 1982, the under 20-year-olds made up 18 per cent. of the total figure. These figures do not include the half a million people nationally who are on Department of Employment special schemes. The Manpower Services Commission predict that over 630,000 places will need to be found in 1982–83–80,000 more than last year—and that 65 per cent. of the young people available for work are likely to be unemployed in 1984–85. The Cambridge Economic Policy Group, which has predicted fairly accurately in the past, puts the total figure at the end of 1985 at 4,350,000, which could mean the under 20-year-olds being near 800,000.
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It is clear that we shall have a high level of youth unemployment for a considerable time. While acknowledging that the Government have taken some steps to try to ameliorate the situation, our view is that those steps are inadequate and that the plans put forward in their White Paper, A New Training Initiative: A Programme for Action go nowhere near providing the necessary training for the age group. My noble friend Lord Scanlon said that we hope those plans will be superseded if the Manpower Services Commission has accepted what the task group proposed. This, of course, is reported in the press today, so we cannot take it for certain. But I hope very much that this is so.
My noble friend Lord Scanlon has spoken of the needs of industry for properly trained and skilled people. I endorse all he said and do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Energlyn. I agree that we probably have the best educated people but I believe that we still lack a great many skills. This has been so for some time and is likely to go on, unless we initiate these training schemes. I should like to ask the Minister whether he could tell us how the voluntary arrangements, to replace the industrial training boards which have been abolished, are progressing. We need to equip all young people with the skills they are going to have to use in the modern world. It is essential that all those who leave school at 16 should have a further period of proper training, whether they are in employment or not, as the Labour document Sixteen to Nineteen: Learning for Life proposes, so that our 16 to 19-year-olds will not remain the least well trained, the least well educated, of any European country. The figure of 44 per cent., as it was in 1977, of young people of that age who went on to no further education or training bears this out. That does not happen in any other European country.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, I was not quite sure of Lord Molloy's reasons for linking youth unemployment and the new technology: whether he feared that the new technology would mean less and less jobs overall, and therefore less for the young, and wanted to know how this was to be dealt with, or whether he saw in the new technology opportunities for new industries and new development. I am glad that this was his line. We have to admit that in some areas the new machines are reducing the number of jobs, but in some cases they are not. I understand that the banks have managed to provide more services for their customers because of the new technology and that they have not cut their staff. So there are opportunities, too.
Tomorrow's jobs, an article in the Economist said, will come from small firms cashing in on the microchip revolution. Growth in employment will probably come from a revived, small-scale, entrepreneurial local sector, supported by new institutions and by local enterprise trusts. Some firms are beginning to recognise this trend as an opportunity. In March, for example, the British Steel Corporation, the Cooperative Bank, Pilkington Brothers, Sun Life Assurance and Control Data UK, a subsidiary of the fourth largest United States computer company, subscribed £200,000 each to set up a new enterprise called World Tech Ventures. The idea is to set up and support new business ventures in areas such as the North-West, the North-East, Scotland and Wales, badly hit by

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de-industrialisation and the ensuing unemployment problems.
Regeneration—a new company—is transforming old industrial buildings, some owned by the British Steel Corporation, into complexes of low rental, small workshops for craftsmen and light industrial users. So there are hopeful signs. The British, I do believe, with Lord Energlyn, are very quick to seize on new inventions and to take up new opportunities. I am sure they will put their native wit and imagination into all this. But, as I said before, we need the trained, skilled people. Nowadays all young people must have a proper acquaintance with information technology, with computers, with micro-electronics. They have got to be "computerate".
I want to turn your Lordships' attention to what is going on in the schools, which has not been mentioned before and which is just covered by the framing of the motion. Is training going on adequately in our schools, and is there adequate preparation so that when young people come out of school they are adequately equipped in this way and are "computerate" and marketable? I acknowledge the efforts which are being made by the Department of Industry Education Unit, with its 50 per cent. grants towards the cost of micro-computers for secondary schools, and by the Department of Education and Science with its microelectronics programme. But let us suppose that a school accepts the 50 per cent. for a micro-computer and produces the other 50 per cent. out of its capitation fund. Is one computer adequate for a school of 1,500 pupils? One computer with one keyboard does not go very far.
I wonder whether it is wise to extend the programme to primary schools—all 21,000 of them—until such time as the secondary schools have enough equipment for all 11- and 12-year-olds to have the chance to have a go and understand how to use, and how to make use of, that equipment. It may be found with primary school children that it is not wise to start quite so soon. I should like the Minister to comment on that point. I should also like him to comment on how much access secondary schools are getting to outside computers. This is important, because you do not want schools to be too inward-looking.
As to obtaining more equipment and enough software, with local education authorities so pinched for money there may well be difficulties. The HMI report, which was published last month, says:
"Nearly one-quarter of the returns from secondary schools and sixth form colleges noted specific shortages of equipment, most frequently in science, craft, design and technology. Audiovisual apparatus and other electronic equipment also featured in some reports, although in some other schools these were observed to be available but under-used".
Some schools have been quite enterprising and have established links with industry and local firms from whom they have received gifts of equipment. One school with which I am in touch, in Cambridge, received 15 computers from Sainsbury's. Then there are the parental contributions. I was told at the weekend that, of the 250 computers on order in Cambridgeshire, 40 were coming from the DOI grant and the rest from parent-teacher associations. It is nice for some schools, but in some districts parents cannot provide that sort of money.
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The HMI report had something to say on this and quoted figures for parental contributions; £9,000 per annum in a large London primary school, £15,000 per annum in a metropolitan grammar school, £1,000 per annum in a shire primary school of 121 pupils. The HMI said that the income was used mainly for large, expensive items of equipment but that some was used for equipment directly related to curricular activities. The HMI reported more than 40 observations referring to schools in areas of unemployment and subject to other deprivation, where the heads felt unable to seek help or where the fund-raising produced very much smaller sums. I feel anxious about this. What is the Government's attitude—to those that have shall more be given? We want all children to have an equal chance, and I hope that all pressure will be brought to bear for proper capitation allowances from central Government in the block grant, and from local authorities in their budgets. It is just in the area of the provision of computers and so on that there could be huge differences and some could be badly deprived.
Besides the need for enough equipment in schools and colleges, there is an equal if not greater need for properly trained staff to cope. Are the teacher training colleges of the university departments of education coping successfully in training in microelectronics, computer sciences and so on those teachers who will shortly be emerging? Has the Minister information as to what is happening in colleges? I am aware of the £9 million that the Government are putting into the whole programme and that a grant of between £300,000 and £400,000 was given to Birmingham University and Birmingham LEA to mount a course to train 15 teachers. They were given full-time release to go on this course for a year, so that they in turn could instruct and lead other teachers. I believe that these 15 teachers are now in full-time jobs giving in-service training all over the country, but the money from the DES is not enough to mount more courses of the Birmingham variety. Is there a hope that the MSC might help in this way and that industry too could help? Indeed, I believe that industry is helping and that the CBI has produced funds under its "Understanding British Industry" scheme. So there are ways of getting around this problem.
I want to stress again that all children and all young people need to be aware of and understand the use of the new technology. It should not be for the exam children alone, but for all. Equally, all teachers right across the curriculum should be aware and understand. It is as important to the historians, geographers and linguists as it is to the mathematicians and scientists. All teachers and all pupils should know how to find and handle information. The HMI comment on equipment being there but unused suggests the need for more in-service training of teachers, and there is evidence that, where this training is laid on, teachers will give up free time and attend courses at weekends.
If there has been a failure at school, then that must be put right later, and no doubt the Minister will tell us that the Government are doing that with their ITECs —Information Technology Centres, where the young unemployed are taught advanced computer and electronic skills. As the noble Earl, Lord Alexander of Tunis, spoke of these, there is no need for me to go on about them. One such centre was opened at Wallasey

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last week and two more have opened at Gateshead and Coventry. All that is fine, but I should like to ask whether the same work could not have been done at local authority colleges of further education if they were not having to cut down on their staff because of local authority cuts? Is setting up something new economically sensible when these colleges already exist? Is this not a duplication of the provision? Is it not just a case of opening up new centres merely to make a splash, to get some publicity and to appear to be doing something—or is it really the case that it is absolutely impossible to make this provision at technical colleges?
I can only end by emphasising yet again the horror everyone feels at young people facing unemployment for a very extended period. If one talks to them, one knows how angry they are. They want proper jobs, and if they do not get them, their energies are not used up and they may turn to crime and disruption. It is hard to bring positive proof of links between unemployment and crime, but, in his report on the Brixton riots, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman, clearly accepts that one can lead to the other. Of the disturbances he said:
"Most disturbances occurred in inner city areas which share many of the features of Brixton; a high ethnic minority population, high unemployment, a declining economic base, a decaying physical environment, bad housing, lack of amenities, social problems (including family breakdowns), a high rate of crime, and heavy policing".
I believe that Government policies have increased the number of unemployed, but I am not so unreasonable as to say that the Government are entirely responsible, as unemployment would have increased anyway because of the trends which have beers clear for some years. But I do believe it is up to the Government to provide training, particularly for those 16-to 19-year olds leaving school and those who have had a job but have become unemployed. I should also like the Government to provide—or to make it possible for local authorities to do so—areas for sport, outdoor activities and leisure facilities. Again, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman, referred to the lack of leisure and recreation facilities in Lambeth and Brixton. He commented:
"The exuberance of youth requires imaginative and socially acceptable opportunities for its release if it is not to be diverted to criminal ends".
Even with a proper training programme—a two-year one, which I hope we all want—I fear that there may still be high unemployment among the under-20s. I should like the Government to consider again the possibility of a 9- to 12-month period of service to the community—not military service, let me say at once—but general service given between the ages of 16 and 25. I must stress that I am speaking now in a personal capacity and not as the official spokesman. Enrico Colombatto, in an LSE discussion paper on nationwide social service, states that such a scheme could provide between 847,000 and 1,768,000 jobs in social service and health service jobs, in environmental conservation and in conservation projects in urban areas—and I would add, in sport and physical recreation jobs. Such schemes would provide full-time employment for supervisors, team leaders and skilled craftspeople who could direct inner city rehabilitation projects. A
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number of jobs that are truly needed to be done and that would not otherwise be done for some considerable time would in this way get done.
This scheme (and for me this is the chief reason for being so keen on it) would enable young people of all sorts and kinds to get to know about other people from all walks of life and about each other. It would be a real lesson in living and in giving. I believe it is important for future legislators, future captains of industry and future top grade civil servants to have rather more awareness than they have had in the past of how the other half lives. I hope that, when the Minister comes to reply, he will be able to give some constructive responses to this debate.
Lord Energlyn: My Lords, before the noble Baroness, Lady David, sits down, I wonder whether she will be so kind as to clarify in my mind—and I am sure in the minds of others—her concept of education? If I may say so, the noble Baroness put forward a number of contradictory beliefs. At the end of her speech she said that she wanted these young people to have the broadest possible education of life. At the other end of the spectrum, she said that, above all else, they must learn how to use a computer. The picture one gets is of freedom on the one hand and of computerisation on the other. I submit that this is not education but a form of teaching—and a very dangerous form of teaching, because the end product of that form of teaching will be intellectual guinea-pigs.
Baroness David: Well, my Lords, I do not think I agree with the noble Lord. I am not going into a definition of education in this short debate, but I could perhaps have a discussion with him at some other time. I do not think that learning specific skills and also having a wider learning about social skills and life generally are so incompatible as he thinks.
6.50 p.m.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, I think the whole House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, for introducing so eloquently and with such passion his Motion this evening. Certainly I found it to be especially timely and especially interesting, because it behoves all of us in your Lordships' House, and I believe throughout the country. to have the greatest regard to the unemployment situation, hut above all the employment prospects of young people when we seek to help them today. I am very glad to say that in devising and developing special employment measures for the young there has consistently been a determination to look beyond the immediate employment needs. I would like to give to your Lordships one or two indications of the range of measures which the Government are taking and how these measures are being constantly brought back to the important criterion of relevance to present and future employment conditions which are so fundamentally shaped by technological development.
Before turning to the Government's precise measures to help the employment prospects of young people, I would like to say a few words about the problem of youth unemployment and how we need to bear future employment prospects in mind when seeking to tackle it. At the latest count of the unemployed by age, in

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January this year, there were approximately 220,000 young people under the age of 18 unemployed, and this represents a 15.6 per cent, increase over the comparable period ending January 1981. I would accept that the current figures for school-leaver unemployment show that in recent months the level has been around 50 per cent. higher than during the same months last year. I would not want to disguise the fact that these are serious figures, or indeed to deny that they merit the very closest attention and scrutiny. But we should first get them in perspective and see what we can say positively about them. I believe there are positive measures that we can take, and positive things we can say, about these figures.
My Lords, it may come as a mild surprise to your Lordships, but of the roughly 600,000 16-and 17-yearolds leaving school in 1981 for work, around half had jobs by the end of October last year. Around 300,000 had left school or college and had got a job. Of the remainder, about 200,000 were in the Youth Opportunities Programme and about 100,000 were unemployed. Even at this time of historically high unemployment, 50 per cent. of school-leavers had, within a few months, got jobs through their own efforts and with the help and advice of their local careers service. I would ask your Lordships to note the numbers in the Youth Opportunities Programme. I believe that is an achievement, and with your Lordships' indulgence I will return to it briefly later.
Things are improving more generally in relation to youth unemployment as a whole. Figures are collected quarterly, and last October the total was around 26 per cent, higher than in October 1980. But in January 1982, as I said earlier, the total was only around 16 per cent. more than in January 1981. I would not want to play with figures, especially without computers, even in your Lordships' House, but these figures are important to an understanding of the total scene of youth unemployment and, above all, the associated problems of which the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, has spoken in his Motion, and about which indeed many others have spoken this evening.
The message that I would repeat again and again is that the only way we are going to create more permanent employment for everyone is through restoring the competitiveness of British industry. I think that point was made very forcefully and robustly by the noble Lord, Lord Scanlon. Certainly this objective means containing inflation and generally creating the right conditions for industry and enterprise to flourish. The Government's present economic policies have these aims in view, and unless we get the basis right for our production of national wealth we can spend a long time theorising about this or that measure to improve young people's employment prospects, but not actually succeed in doing anything about them.
My Lords, there are three especially important points: first, we must contain public expenditure; secondly, we must restrain pay increases; and, thirdly, we must learn to live within our means. Once we have got the economy on course we need to be sure that our help to the young unemployed not only benefits them but is also related to economic needs, and above all is capable of lending impetus to that economic recovery.
I would like to turn briefly to the opportunities which we provide for unemployed young people. The
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Youth Opportunities Programme started as a means of helping disadvantaged young people with relatively short periods of work experience or work preparation, so that they could be helped back into employment by being able to compete on equal terms with their fellows for available jobs. In the first full year of its operation, 1978–79, it had 162,000 entrants. In four years this programme has grown between three and four times its original size, and in 1981–82 it had around 550,000 entrants. At present there are about 210,000 young people on the programme, and in the last financial year the Government will have spent well over £400 million on it; and that is around £450 million, if we include the Community Industries Scheme. This figure compares with just over £200 million in 1980–81; that is, the last financial year. Let us not forget that this is a Government which have been accused—I do not think this evening they have been too stridently accused—of heartlessly squeezing public expenditure and of not caring about the problems caused to people, and especially young people, by unemployment. Rather we believe that, with the figures I have given your Lordships, this is a Government that know how to choose the right priorities, especially in this field.
The reason for the growth in the Youth Opportunities Programme is no cause for self-congratulation in itself, but the fact of it certainly is. In four years well over 1 million opportunities have been created for unemployed young people. These young people will have all kinds of differing abilities, and these opportunities will have been created through the concerted efforts of employers, local authorities, voluntary bodies, trade unions, and of course the hard work of the MSC officials. There may be criticisms of certain aspects of the programme. The trainees may have reasonable grounds for complaining about the lack of training or the level of the allowance. I think the noble Lord, Lord Scanlon, raised one of those points in the course of his speech. We believe that very few people have ever complained about the programme as a whole, or indeed have failed to recognise its unique achievement in giving the country a vocational training base and a powerful instrument for changing attitudes to training.
We would not go so far as to say that youth unemployment has been solved by the Youth Opportunities Programme. There have been no miracles, nor indeed were there ever intended to be. A training programme alone, no matter how effective, is not going to change economic conditions, and in the space of a few years. This Government have always recognised that recovery depends on people, everybody, working hard; indeed, the policies of this Government have been designed to encourage individual initiative and to avoid comfortable and easy answers today that will prove no solution for tomorrow.
My Lords, when you are running something that depends upon the collaboration of many different parties, those 1 mentioned a moment ago, the path is not always smooth, and what may appear to be reasonable to one party may seem unnecessary or indeed unwarranted to another. But certainly what I want to impress most clearly upon your Lordships is that the sum of all the complaints about delays and substitntion of regular employees by trainees,

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and about inadequate training for those on the programme, is very much less than the sum of the achievements of the Youth Opportunities Programme.
The achievement of this programme is that it has provided hundreds of thousands of young people with some basic skills, with useful things to do, and, I believe most importantly, with hope based on improved self-confidence. I thought that I saw the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, looking keen. If he wants to interrupt I shall, of course, give way. In this way it has helped to mitigate the effects of unemployment on young people, but it hag not, perhaps, provided the quality of training that is necessary. If these young people are to contribute effectively to our future prosperity or, indeed, to secure their own future employment prospects, then they must be trained effectively.
The Youth Opportunities Programme has always been changing throughout its fairly short life. It has consistently sought to come to terms with the future employment needs of young people. It has had a difficult time balancing the need for quantity of places with quality of training, but it has succeeded in providing improvements in both areas. Many of the training aims outlined in the Government's White Paper on training which, as your Lordships are aware and have spoken of, was published last December, are already being met to some extent in the present programme—for example, release to off-the-job training, linked schemes to ensure greater diversity of work experience and work preparation, recording of progress and, indeed, the development of model schemes. One very valuable example is what I understand is called the index training scheme which is carried out in the town of St. Helen's in Lancashire.
Of course there must come a time when it is proper to sit back and to think carefully how best to contribute to meeting the employment needs of young people. The Youth Opportunities Programme has laid a sure foundation as a training programme, and we now need to link it closely with the Government's wider training objectives to ensure that a full year's training is provided for every unemployed 16-year-old school-leaver. It is time to make the important transition from the programme being there generally to help the young unemployed, to a sharper and more defined aim of becoming part of the vocational preparation system for all young people. This is the essential message of the new training initiative. Our White Paper set out the ways in which we intend to give substance to that message. The future development of a skilled and flexible workforce to meet the needs of modern industry depends upon its success.
Our White Paper which is entitled, A New Training Initiative: A Programme for Action, as your Lordships are aware, was published last December and it contains far-reaching proposals for industrial training, particularly the major proposal designed specifically to help unemployed young people. Our aim is that the Youth Training Scheme provides a full year's foundation training for all unemployed 16-year-old school-leavers. We shall build on the experience which we have gained from the current Youth Opportunities Programme, to provide a better trained and, above all, a more adaptable
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workforce which will be able to take full advantage of job opportunities as the upswing in our economy occurs.
However, at the same time we have also welcomed the Manpower Services Commission's proposal to set up a high level task group to look at the possibilities of a wider and more general scheme of foundation training for all young people, both employed and unemployed. That is the Government's ultimate objective. The task group report was considered by the commission yesterday, 27th April. The report was received and has just been submitted to the Secretary of State. I understand that the commission has, indeed, endorsed this report and we expect to publish it shortly.
In this event I am sure that your Lordships will agree that Ministers have not yet been able to consider the task group's report adequately or, indeed, had much of an opportunity to read its recommendations. But there is a major difference between its proposals and those of the Youth Training Scheme, because all young entrants to work would now be brought within the scope of the new scheme. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State will look constructively at what the task group suggests and will need to consider carefully points where the emphasis is different from that in the White Paper. Nevertheless—and this is of fundamental importance—I understand that there is a great deal of common ground between both my right honourable friend and the Manpower Services Commission.
Many of the developments already taking place will be carried forward. But what happens during the next 12 months on the Youth Opportunities Programme will be crucial to the success of any new programme. The intention is to provide courses that are much longer than the present average of 23 weeks on the Youth Opportunities Programme. In fact most courses will, we hope, last approximately one year. The priority group of young people will be minimum age school-leavers who become unemployed. These are the people who have manifestly failed to make the transition between school and work, and whose need of help is greatest. Without help they would stand little chance of getting suitable, if indeed any, vocational preparation. This is the group which we must guarantee a place.
But what is needed for young entrants to employment in this particular age group is the effective integration of skills, knowledge and experience through planned and supervised work experience, and properly designed opportunities to reflect on this in terms of off-the-job learning and further education. As many of your Lordships will be aware, the White Paper conveniently identified five main elements: induction and assessment; basic skills; occupational based training; guidance and counselling; and finally, record and review of progress. Moreover, learning and training needs to take place off-the-job and a period of at least three months was proposed in the White Paper. This will place demands on providers of further education.
Of course, very substantial expenditure is involved. The Government have earmarked for the Youth Training Scheme—which they have said they will consider making available to the alternative proposal that the task group makes—around £875 million in 1983–84. But in the first full year of the scheme's

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operation—that is 1984–85—more than £1 billion has been earmarked. This is on any scale, but particularly in respect of the figures that we have been speaking of this evening and, indeed, in respect of the scale of the problem, enormous expenditure. Our main motive is to improve the training content.
I have discussed the development of the Youth Opportunities Scheme into the Youth Training Scheme and the emphasis that both these programmes place on helping the priority group of the young unemployed. But we should not forget the very large numbers of young people who are now going straight into jobs, and all too many of them are going into those jobs without adequate training for their jobs or for their future careers. The White Paper recognises that effort is needed here, too, with recommendations about the reform of craft and technician training, the development of the Open Tech to make the new technology more accessible by "distance learning" techniques to people working independently and, above all, the expansion of vocational preparation for young people in work.
I should like to turn now to the second arm of the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Molloy; namely, new technology. One of the main aims of providing foundation training for young people will be to give them a basis upon which they can build and develop new skills as the need for them arises. It is no longer possible for anyone to assume that he will be doing the same job throughout his working life. All of us— young and old—live in an age of rapid technological changes. The noble Lord, Lord Molloy, drew the marvellous analogy of valves and the human brain with the size of Greater London, Trafalgar Square, the Albert Hall and now smaller than the actual human brain.
That is one very interesting and lucid example. This clearly demonstrates the age that we are living in. Indeed, to follow it, job requirements are changing all the time. What we need, above all, is flexibility, and a readiness to adapt and take advantage of the new opportunities as they arise. This involves in particular much greater flexibility in training provision both for young people and for those who already have some experience of employment.
It is not entirely easy to assess the likely quantitative effects on employment of the introduction of new technology. But it is extremely important to a try to arrive at a balanced view. I think it is fair to say that most of the more recent evidence on this suggests that gradual rather than simultaneous application of new technology in all sectors is likely, and that this should, on the whole, allow time for employment effects to be absorbed, that in manufacturing industry overall growth in demand should have more effect on employment levels than technological innovation in itself, and that rapid adoption of new technology offers an opportunity of avoiding high unemployment in the long term. But, at the same time, we must recognise that there will be certain areas of employment in which job opportunities will decrease, and certain groups which are particularly at risk.
It has never been found very easy in the past to adapt to changing techniques and work patterns. The question that I think all of us in your Lordships' House have asked ourselves this evening is: how are we to get
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it right this time? The labour market's instinctive response to change has often been simply to seek to protect itself from the effects, which, as often as not, has been done by attempting to hold back innovation. Methods may have become more subtle over the years, but the Luddites of the 19th century had much in common with those who today use restrictive practices to slow down or, indeed, to prevent the introduction of new techniques and new technology. What we have to work for and to encourage now is a much more positive approach throughout industry and, indeed, throughout the country, which allows all those concerned to take advantage of what this new technology can offer every one of us.
If this is to happen, all those who may be affected by new technology—and, in practice, that means the whole workforce—will have to be well informed about it. For their part, the Government have set up a number of programmes designed to promote better understanding and awareness of the subject, ranging from the microelectronic applications project, which aims to raise awareness of microelectronics at all levels of industry, to our Micros in Schools programme, to which the noble Baroness referred in great detail—and we are very grateful to hear of her experiences in this particular area. Under this particular programme, every secondary school in the country will have its own microcomputer by the end of 1982—that is, this year. Of course, employers too have been doing more and more to explain to their employees how and why changes are being introduced and to involve them in the process of change. If we are to move forward and to make use of the opportunities offered by technological advance, we must continue to encourage and to promote the spread of information; only in this way can we dispel exaggerated fears.
I should like to return briefly to the aspect of training in the area of new technology. The process of adaptation can be assisted—and at the same time those groups which may feel most threatened by the introduction of new technology can be helped—through individual training and, indeed, individual retraining. Some of the skills and qualifications which are, or which will be, required are already in short supply. At the same time, some people face a declining demand for the skills and experience that they have acquired in their working life over the years. It is no good thinking that a massive public training programme would solve these particular problems. The prime responsibility for training must remain with the employers, who are in the best position to know what training is needed. The function of publicly-funded training is to act as a mere catalyst towards the meeting of present and future training requirements.
I should now like to try to answer some of the questions and to deal with some of the fascinating points that have been raised by your Lordships in the course of this debate. I shall attempt to answer most of them, but if I miss any, perhaps I may write to your Lordships and cover the matter in that way. I apologise if I miss anything, but time is getting on and we all want to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, will say when he winds up the debate on his Motion.
The noble Lord, Lord Molloy, opened the debate on his Motion with considerable vigour, fire and skill. I

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would certainly agree with three aspects of his speech. The challenge to provide young people with as many opportunities as possible for their working life is one which the Government accepts in their White Paper; indeed, we are considering how to deal with this particular challenge in the report of the Manpower Services Commission, which we have just received. We accept the noble Lord's appeal, and we are in no way inactive when it comes to thinking of ways in which to adapt new technology for training and skills for the future. So far as we are concerned, new technology will not fail through lack of thought or innovation, or indeed, investment on the part of the Government.
The noble Lord, Lord Rochester, was kind enough to give me notice of the point that he wished to raise about one aspect of the Community Enterprise Programme. As your Lordships will be aware, the Community Enterprise Programme has been expanded from 25,000 places in 1980–81 to 30,000 places in 1982–83. The Manpower Services Commission had planned on the basis that they would have 60,000 places, but the Government decided that the greatest priority should be given to the problem of youth unemployment, and only a modest expansion of 5,000 places was possible, given the limited financial resources available. Because of this, there is considerable and frustrated expectation among the sponsors who have drawn up schemes which simply cannot go ahead because of the absence of finance. These schemes may now only receive support as existing schemes close and, therefore, the complete opposite applies. There is too great a demand for CEP places and these are almost certain to be fully subscribed.
The noble Lord, Lord Rochester, raised a particular point about the Community Enterprise Programme near his home in Cheshire. That is a local matter and perhaps he would let me write to him with the details, which we shall endeavour to discover from the Manpower Services Commission.
The noble Lord, Lord Scanlon, in a fine and robust speech, raised several points. The first was on the White Paper. I am afraid that we cannot comment at this early stage on the task group's report. Ministers are considering it and we shall study the report; we hope to publish our comments in due course, when we have had some opportunity of studying this very valuable second arm to the report.
The noble Lord, Lord Rochester, and the noble Lord, Lord Scanlon, both spoke about the need to reform the country's training system. The White Paper, which the Government has published, sets out a comprehensive programme, covering not only foundation training for young school-leavers, but also the replacement, by 1985, of time-saving age-restricted apprentices with training to standards and, indeed, with better access to training for adults. The MSC is working with all those concerned—and among these I would classify employers, unions, educationalists, standard-setting bodies, et cetera—to implement these plans, though I am afraid that it is a little too early to give detailed answers to the specific points which were raised by the noble Lord, Lord Scanlon. We shall, of course, study very closely his comments and, if there
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are any further details that I have missed, we shall be in touch with him by letter. I hope that he will accept that.
The noble Lord, Lord Vernon, raised several points. The first point the noble Lord asked me was about reducing the statutory retirement age to 60. The Department of Education and the Department of Health and Social Security have looked at this, but it is phenomenally expensive. The cost seems to be about £3.6 billion a year, and the effect on unemployment of younger work people is most uncertain. That is the main thrust of this afternoon's debate. The Government's job release scheme directly links each retirement with a reduction of unemployment, so no one can get the job release allowance unless the employer appears to take on an unemployed person in his place.
Many other points were made, especially by the noble Baroness, Lady David. I am afraid I have not any detailed replies, or indeed anything special, to give the noble Baroness on the, I think, four points she raised on voluntary arrangements instead of the industrial training boards, on our views on primary school and secondary school computers, and, above all, the cost of—did the noble Baroness mention it?—outside computers for secondary schools.
Baroness David: If they were making use of outside computers. If they were linked with them.
Lord Lyell: I am obliged to the noble Baroness for her clarification. There are the educational aspects, and above all the educational aspects of the ITeCs. I wonder whether I could study the noble Baroness's speech and write to her in close detail.
I was particularly grateful for the contribution of my noble friend Lord Alexander of Tunis, who I regret is not in his place. He said he had a previous engagement. My noble friend is, I think, one of the few Members of your Lordships' House who will be directly involved in youth education and training in a few years time, since it was not until I sat down in your Lordships' House and on the bench that I discovered that he and his wife had had a daughter. I hope your Lordships will associate with me in sending my noble friend and his wife our congratulations. I think that probably is the long-standing engagement to which my noble friend referred. I think he put it extremely well.
My noble friend raised the point, or warned me, that there was a fascinating article in a well-read American magazine about teenagers and tiny tots of the ages of six and seven practising with computers in schools. This magazine went on to say that to many children playing with computers, and indeed working with simple word processors, is as simple as riding a bicycle, playing football, playing the piano, or solving a Rubic's cube. I got on a racing bicycle last year and nearly fell off twice. I have never yet solved a Rubic's cube and cannot play the piano, so I do not think there is much hope for me in starting computer training. I would leave the other aspects of retraining ourselves to the imaginations of your Lordships.
I would say in conclusion that our plans for young people are part of our comprehensive scheme to develop at last the training arrangements which this country needs. This cannot, on its own, solve the problem of young people's unemployment, or indeed of adult

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unemployment, but it can help to create a climate in which we make progress, and by taking full advantage of the opportunities provided by technological development regain our competitive position in world markets.
7.24 p.m.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, I have no intention of detaining your Lordships with a second contribution. May I just say a sincere thank you to all those who participated in this debate; to the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, whose contribution I thought was almost completely congruous to mine, except that he put his finger on an important point of finance for all the things which we both have in mind, and which also fits into my economic theory of Keynes and Galbraith. This is, to spend and prosper.
Of course, we would expect and got a knowledgeable speech from the noble Lord, Lord Scanlon, although I am hound to say that I am sure he would acknowledge that the mill cannot turn with the water that is past. There has to be a much fresher approach from management and the trade unions. We cannot go on requiring eight or nine trade unions to build a motor-car. We cannot expect the Government to do everything. There has to be much more definite and forward-looking action from both sides of industry, from the universities, and from all those who can contribute. Every time there is something tough that needs to be done we cannot shield behind the excuse that it is the fault of the Government or that the Government must do it. We have to move forward now—and this also means an enhancement of democracy—to much more involvement of many more people.
I would say thank you to the noble Earl, Lord Alexander, for his small but vital contribution. He thought that employment and new technology was to be preferred to unemployment and new technology. I do not argue with him. Plenty of young men and women on the dole will have views on that matter. I think I agreed with almost everything that the noble Lord, Lord Vernon, said, except that I am diametrically opposed to his veiled proposition of making redundant the Good Samaritan.
I certainly concede to the noble Lord, Lord Energlyn, what seemed a remarkable job in the conversion of the "Canberra". There was a classic example of necessity being the mother of invention. But I would much prefer that sort of thing to be done for some other reason. I hope that what is going to be the spur of our new technology is not threatening to go to war with someone. That would be the supreme banality.
What also fascinated me was when the noble Lord, Lord Energlyn, mentioned something that I confess never even thought of, although I ought to, and that was the new technology being applied to agriculture and horticulture. I do not mean these ghastly, terrible plastic flowers, and all that form of rubbish. However, I can well understand the need for new technology if only to honour and respect those who made things grow on the tough, salty Gower coast where I played as a boy, and where I thought that every potato, every carrot, and every apple was indeed a miracle. The noble Baroness, Lady David, of course concentrated on education, which was right and proper, because that is the base from which we shall move forward.
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All I will say to the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, is that if Front Bench speakers have to be marked for their ingenuity, their concentration, and for their work on any subject, and I am the prefect on this side of the House, his homework was first class and he gets a "well done" mark, and for his general response to the debate (although I dislike using foreign terms) I would say it was a reply par excellence.
May I conclude with this: I believe that the British people are neither slow nor dull. They are agile in mind and in spirit. It is up to us to provide our young British youth with the opportunities that they richly deserve. If we can accomplish that, I am sure that we shall obtain the approbation of the good, the applause of the wise, and the thanks of the future.
Lord Sandys: My Lords, would the noble Lord like to withdraw his Motion?
Lord Molloy: Of course, my Lords; I beg leave to withdraw my Motion for Papers.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Orchestras: Government Support
7.29 p.m.
Lord Strabolgi Lord Strabolgi rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are prepared to give more support and encouragement to orchestras in the United Kingdom.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. The problem of providing more help and encouragement for the orchestras of the United Kingdom is becoming more acute. This is particularly the case since their finance comes from several sources. These sources are mainly, as your Lordships are aware, the Government, through the Arts Council, and the local authorities, backed up by sponsorship. There seems to be no clear line of responsibility, with certain difficulties in the way, when, as I shall hope to show, these interested bodies conflict, as they sometimes do.
The Government have increased the Arts Council grant for the live and performing arts by 9 per cent. The Minister for the Arts, Mr. Paul Channon, whose heart I know is in the right place, has done well to squeeze that out of the Treasury; the right honourable gentleman's name stands rather high in the list of Arts Ministers who have been successful in getting funds from the Treasury, and I know from experience what a difficult job that is.
I know the Arts Council is independent of ministerial control in the way it spends its allocation, but I wonder if the council's policy is as helpful as it might be so far as the orchestras are concerned. There have been complaints from the orchestras that they are not always fully consulted by the Arts Council. Moreover, the Arts Council want to see an increase in contemporary music being played as well as being commissioned. At the same time, though, the Arts Council are anxious for the orchestras to attract more concert-goers. I am sorry to say that, on the whole, those two aims are mutually exclusive. If large new audiences are to be attracted, they will want to hear classical music that is approached easily and, frankly, much contemporary music, however laudable, has little popular appeal.
The Arts Council seem to interpret their mission as being to bring contemporary arts to the people, although there is nothing, so far as I can see, in their charter about that; the charter talks about bringing the arts in general to the people. Yet the only musical touring activity the Arts Council assists is the Contemporary Music Network, which has a limited appeal and draws only moderate audiences. It is clear, if one analyses the Arts Council accounts, that the proportion of the grant applied to the Music Department—if one excludes music and dance and touring—has declined gradually over the last 15 years, making music the Cinderella of the arts compared with drama, and I hope the Arts Council will try to rectify that. If the council insist on more contemporary music being played, they should provide a substantial additional subsidy to balance the consequent drop in box-office income.
The Association of British Orchestras, in their evidence to the Select Committee of another place, also opposed the concept that they should be required, as a condition of grant aid, to perform a specific quota of British music. Rather do they see themselves, rightly in my view, as guardians of a musical heritage that is international in scope. The Government's financial squeeze has meant that local authorities are no longer able to be equal partners with the Arts Council in financing orchestras. At the same time, I understand that the Treasury has forbidden the Arts Council to make up any shortfall. The losers are, therefore, the orchestras and the concert-going public, as the prices of seats continue to rise beyond the means of the average music-lover.
I welcome at a time of financial stringency the decision of the GLC to increase their arts budget by about 34 per cent. for the coming year. That includes an increase of over 9 per cent. for the London Orchestral Concerts Board, and the chairman of the GLC Arts Committee has said that more may be provided during the year. The GLC have given a generous grant for the London Symphony Orchestra's season at the Barbican. Let us hope that that will be continued, although I realise that the GLC consider that the South Bank should be their main responsibility. I welcome as well the most generous support that the City of London Corporation is giving.
But as a country, Britain lags behind her continental neighbours in official support for music and opera. On the Continent, the larger countries provided much bigger subsidies, with audiences paying about 20 per cent. of the cost, the rest Coming from official sources. Here, the situation is reversed; the official sources—that is, the Arts Council and local authorities —provide only 20 per cent., with the audience plus business sponsors having to provide 80 per cent. of the total. A small country such as Austria provides a subsidy of £15 million for the Vienna State Opera, compared with the £9 million that Covent Garden gets annually.
In the case of the Hallé Orchestra, the local authority, which is Manchester City Council, has reduced the grant by £30,000 and is increasing the charges for the Free Trade Hall by £50,000 a year. That Orchestra plays a very important part in the cultural life of the North-West. The alternative facing the Hallé Orchestra is to increase ticket prices by 25 per cent., which is
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more than the public can be expected to pay, or to cut down the number of concerts, to the detriment of Manchester's musical life. The Arts Council is not allowed to fill the gap, as I said, when the local authority is forced by the Department of the Environment to make savage cuts of that kind. A fine orchestra with a great tradition is therefore in danger.
Then there is the question of the Scottish National Orchestra. Local authority support has decreased and the Arts Council have said that the SNO should cut down the number of players. The effect will be that the SNO will cease to be a front-rank orchestra. Over 90 players at least are essential for many major classical works, such as much of Berlioz, most of the Mahler symphonies, much of Richard Strauss, Stravinsky and Verdi's Requiem Mass. The orchestra is an essential part of the cultural life of Scotland and attendances at SNO concerts in Scotland totalled nearly 180,000 last year. The children's concerts drew a total audience of 20,000. Since the reorganisation of local government in Scotland, the responsibility for funding with the Scottish Arts Council has passed to the regions. The effect of that change, combined with the Government's squeeze, has meant that support for the SNO has fallen substantially in real terms.
On the question of VAT, the all-party Select Committee of another place recommended that arts organisations should he exempt from VAT by 1985 and that until then they should be taxed at five points below the standard VAT rate. VAT is becoming an ever-increasing burden on the performing arts, particularly since the rate was raised from 8 per cent. to 15 per cent. in June 1979 by the present Government. The result has been to inflate ticket prices substantially, although grants have not been increased in line with costs. It would be interesting to know how much is received by the Treasury in VAT from the arts compared with the amount of grant given in support. Certainly the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, after their popular concerts in the Fairfield Hall at Croydon, paid more in VAT than they received in subsidy, and that was part of their evidence to the Select Committee.
We are the only EEC country that levies VAT on cultural services at the standard rate without any relief or exemptions whatever. Other countries, particularly France and Germany, have been able to distinguish between various forms of entertainment. It is to be deplored that the Government continue stubbornly along this philistine road in defiance of the 1977 EEC directive which commits us to exempt theatres, concerts and other cultural events from VAT. VAT has never been levied on books. Early in World War II, when the then Government proposed this (or purchase tax as it was then), the Members of another place threw out the proposal—and rightly so. No Government, of whatever party, have ever dared since to reintroduce it. I hope that one day the other arts will be able to join literature in gaining exemption.
I believe it is true to say that if it were not for commerical sponsorship, the orchestras would not be able to maintain the required standards. On the other hand, there is some natural reluctance on the part of sponsors to back contemporary music if this does not have any general appeal to audiences. But sponsorship does free resources from an orchestra,

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so that it can finance the performance of other works.
But this is sometimes nullified if the Arts Council and the London Orchestral Concerts Board have cut the orchestra's grant because the orchestra has been performing too many popular works—and here I am using the word "popular" in the widest sense. Beethoven and Mozart are both popular audience-pulling composers—and rightly so. Boulez and Messiaen are not.
I think that if we are to encourage more sponsorship, the Government should consider giving more tangible recognition. There is already the ABSA/Daily Telegraph annual award for the best and most imaginative sponsorship of the year. Perhaps we need something also on the lines of the Queen's Award, so that sponsorship has official recognition. Nevertheless, my Lords, I am glad to say that there is a healthy growth. The Association for Business Sponsorship of the Arts tells me that the number of sponsoring companies has doubled during the last five years. There are now almost 100 companies sponsoring nearly 1,500 artistic projects. Many of these are musical projects, where concerts and operas have been sponsored by all kinds of industrial and commercial companies, both large and small. These are banks, insurance companies, oil companies, tobacco companies, brewers, wine importers, and retail stores—to name just a few of the companies providing funds to enable musical events to take place throughout the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland.
I understand that it is the policy of the Minister for the Arts to encourage as much commercial sponsorship as possible, and this I welcome. But there are problems. I am told that the most regular problem faced by corporate sponsors is that of failing to achieve media recognition in the press, and particularly on the BBC and the IBA. This tends to discourage some sponsors after an initial trial period, since media recognition plays an important part in attracting sponsors to a particular project. On the whole, newspapers are giving more credit, when reporting a musical event, than they did five years ago, but some editors still delegate the decision to the critic writing the piece.
The BBC's official attitude seems to be that credit is available, which is a concession to arts' sponsors, but, in the event, it is left to the individual producer to decide, and many producers have an ingrained distaste for giving any kind of corporate credit. The IBA ruling is much the same, I gather, although the independent channel has been slightly more generous and sympathetic.
The BBC, I agree, has been fairly liberal in giving credit when reporting sporting events, but the corporation still prefers, for some obscure reason, to continue to apply a stricter policy over the coverage of musical events. This must be holding back many potential music sponsors. Indeed, according to press reports yesterday, one important sponsor of the Edinburgh International Festival, concerned about lack of acknowledgement from broadcasting companies, has pulled out entirely.
Perhaps the Government could let the House know what could be done to encourage the media, of course without interfering with their independence, to adopt a more flexible attitude and policy, so that decisions on
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credits are not invariably left to individual producers and critics.
My Lords, I hope that the noble Earl who is to reply will let the House have the Government's answers to some of these questions. Music is surely the greatest of the performing arts, and the art that gives most pleasure to the greatest number of people. It is, however, in my submission, deserving of more help and recognition from all concerned than it has received in recent years. I beg to ask the Question standing in my name.
7.45 p.m.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, I am sure that your Lordships are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, for introducing this subject tonight. It is perhaps not a subject likely to command the headlines in the morning papers, or even to get more than a minute or two on "Today in Parliament", but I believe that it is an important function of your Lordships' House to discuss matters of this kind which are indeed significant in the life of the country. I apologise for the absence of my noble friend Lord Beaumont of Whitley, whom I am sure would have spoken from these Benches, but he had a previous engagement, and I have been thrust into the breach. I make no claims to be an expert on the subject, beyond having been interested in music for a number of years; but I have no great expertise in it. Already twice tonight I have been asked what instruments I play, and I think that they are less frightening than some of the instruments which the noble Earl, Lord Longford, threatened to produce in your Lordships' House some weeks ago.
We may be accused of taking a somewhat elitist view of this subject, and one can see that from a purely populist point of view. Nevertheless not only is music, and in particular symphony orchestras, important to the cultural life of the nation—and I believe that symphony orchestras are a focal point, the pinnacle of the cultural life of the country—but it is also part of a very important industry. The music industry of this country is important. It has a good record—if your Lordships will forgive the pun—for exports. I believe that the record industry commands 25 per cent. of the American market, for instance, which is no mean achievement, and it values its trading at a total of £1,500 million. Although symphony orchestras are a part of the industry, I repeat that they are the pinnacle of the musical achievement of this country. The industry employs 40,000 people.
Music is equally crucial to the cultural life of our country, and I speak as one who was introduced to music in Manchester, through the Hallé in 1943, when John Barbirolli came back from the States and rebuilt that great orchestra. Therefore, I felt particularly sad when I heard what the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, said about the Hallé, and it would be a desperate situation if that orchestra were again to fall into disarray. I remember that at the time when Barbirolli came hack from the States the orchestra had been forced into a position where musicians were having to double between the BBC Northern Orchestra and the Hallé in order to eke out a living. Thanks to support from the city fathers in Manchester, thanks to the work of the Hallé Concerts Society, and thanks indeed to the

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inspiration of John Barbirolli, the orchestra was rebuilt so as to become one of the great orchestras of the world.
From that small beginning as a boy going to the Kings Hall, at Belle Vue—not a particularly great concert hall; it was designed for circuses rather than for music—it has become a great joy of my life to listen to music, though as I have said, I am no great expert on the subject. I am quite sure that music has similarly given great joy and great satisfaction to many young people, and has set them on the road towards a broader, more tolerant, view of life than they would otherwise have had. So personally I have a great respect for the symphony orchestras of this country.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, I am informed that we are providing only about 20 per cent. of the funding for orchestras from public sources, while the Berlin Philharmonic and the Amsterdam Orchestra with the unpronounceable name receive about 80 per cent. The percentage of money going from the Arts Council to orchestras, compared with the amount going to theatre and opera, has declined; and as someone pointed out to me recently, this is because the Arts Council believes that there are "no new vibrant ideas" coming from symphony orchestras. I suppose they could perform Verdi's Requiem seated on coffins, or they could perform Beethoven's Ninth in the nude. That might make it vibrant, but it would not make it more musical. The fact is that there are only so many things you can do with a well-known symphony or with a well-known concerto.
Of course, you can introduce experimental music, but the noble Lord has shown the problems of that in relation to everyday concerts. I believe it is possible, but I think it is only possible in what one might describe as a stable situation, and the situation for many of our orchestras is very far from stable. They have to be far too peripatetic, and it is very difficult for them, particularly in London, where, of course, the situation has now improved with the LSO having a home of its own. It is difficult for an orchestra to build up a regular clientele unless it has a home of its own; and I believe that this is an area where, if more money is going to go into orchestras, the Government should consider putting some of that money.
We are short of good concert halls in this country. In London we now have two (three if you include the Fairfield Halls), but that is for five orchestras, if you include the BBC Symphony Orchestra. You may well say, as has been said, that there are too many orchestras in London. It has been suggested that there is a demand for three-and-a-half orchestras in this great city, and we have four, again excluding the BBC Symphony. One possibility would be to build a large concert hall in the north of London to expand the undoubted surburban audience which exists in that part of the country and to provide a home for one of the remaining orchestras.
In the North, again, in Manchester, we have the Hallé and the Northern Symphony Orchestra. It seems to me that the BBC might be persuaded to move the Northern Symphony Orchestra to Leeds; and similarly the Scottish Symphony Orchestra from Glasgow to Edinburgh, since in Glasgow also they have two major orchestras. I understand that in Cardiff and in Nottingham work is being carried out on two new
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concert halls and that some sort of local funding coupled with a subsidy is being contemplated. If that is so, then it is greatly to the credit of the sponsors; because one of the problems we have at the moment, of course, is that the Arts Council is giving less money—or I believe no money—for London orchestras to tour the country. If so, that, again, is a great deprivation for those areas which are outside both the Metropolitan area and the conurbations, such as Manchester.
I also understand that the British Council has reduced its number of tours abroad. Although there has been some criticism of the British Council's selection of places to tour—one feels that they are perhaps chosen on a political basis rather than on a musical basis—nevertheless I think the experience of British orchestras being able to get overseas and to show what British music is about has been a valuable one in the period since the war.
My Lords, there is no doubt that new methods of funding need to be looked for. I can well understand that the Government are not going suddenly to dip their hands into that bottomless purse that all of us on this side of the House pretend they have. But I hope that some method of finding new sources of funds can be achieved. Of course, one area for this is the area of musical tapes, or of blank tapes. The whole question of piracy of records would take too long to discuss in detail in your Lordships' House tonight, but there is no doubt that it poses a serious threat to the livelihood of musicians, and the only way round that problem, certainly so far as we are concerned, would seem to be some sort of levy on blank tapes, which money could then be devoted, at least in part, to the artists.
The orchestras are at the moment surviving, as the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, has said, on sponsorship. There is nothing wrong with sponsorship, in my view, although I must declare an interest here in that I am indirectly associated with a company sponsoring the London Symphony Orchestra to some considerable extent. One of the joys of my annual round is to go to the youth scholarship auditions and awards and see these young people being tutored in the workshops by the principals of the LSO and to see the almost immediate effect on their playing of being in the hands, even if only for a few minutes, of men and women who spend their lives in a large symphony orchestra. Not only do the children get an awful lot out of it; it is a delight to see the pleasure which the musicians themselves get out of it, and I think they are greatly to be commended for the work that they do.
Nevertheless, sponsorship is fickle, particularly in these days of industrial hardship. Even our major companies are having to look carefully at their grants and donation budgets, even if they consider such expenditure as part of their advertising programme, which I must say my own particular company does not. It is not easy to justify to the shareholders, and to the auditors, perhaps, some of the large amounts of money which are necessary for the sponsorship of the major symphony orchestras.
So there is a real need for further public funding, and even if that is not going to come immediately I hope the Government will at least express a belief in the need for it and a real desire to seek different ways, new ways, of supporting other forms of funding. In America, of course, one might believe that in

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that great free enterprise society everybody paid for their tickets at full price. In practice, of course, the American orchestras survive on sponsorship, but on sponsorship based on tax deductibility. Perhaps the Government might look at that at some stage in the future.
I endorse everything that has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, on the subject of VAT. But whichever route it is—and it is going to be a combination of many of these—I hope that, tonight, the Government will give some indication of serious sympathy for the problems which trouble this great cultural heritage that we have.
7.58 p.m.
Lord Vaizey: My Lords, I should like to join with the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, for raising this important matter in your Lordships' House tonight. Like him, I think it is a tribute to the Minister for the Arts that he has managed to get an extra 9 per cent. this year. He is a distinguished Minister, of course, but there have been other distinguished Ministers, including one sitting behind the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, tonight—Lord Jenkins of Putney, who I think was a very distinguished Minister indeed, and who I am glad to see is taking part in this debate.
I support the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, in almost every respect. I think the only difference I would wish to have with him is on the rather vexed topic of contemporary music. He very neatly pointed to the trouble, which is that if you want to attract an audience you have to play Beethoven and Mozart, whereas if you want to keep up with the times you play a contemporary composer and the audience does not come; so you are therefore, as it were, in a cleft stick. But I must candidly say that I think that the Arts Council are right. In these islands we have a very distinguished tradition of composing, more especially, I think, probably, in England and Wales than in Ireland or Scotland; but it is a distinguished one, and one which has been very greatly reinforced in the 20th century, as a matter of fact. It would be a great pity if the young composers coming forward in increasing numbers, and of high quality, were not given some opportunities to hear their works performed as full orchestral sound. I think that is rather a central point and it would be a pity if it were lost because of a rabid pursuit of audience numbers.
I should like to draw attention to one aspect of the matter which the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, did not dwell upon but which was implicit in the Question. I happened to be chairman of the Gulbenkian Committee on the training of musicians. We sat for some time and produced a unanimous report. It is one of the few reports of which I can proudly say that 95 per cent. of the recommendations have been carried into practice, mainly because, I suspect, we set as one of our parameters (to use a fasionable technical planning word) that we would not ask the Government for any more money. So the Government did not know how to respond to this report. They had prepared a brief to say, "We approve of your report but we cannot allow you any resources". We were able to say, "We did not ask for any".
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The principal thing I learned on that inquiry was the high quality of our orchestras—and they are of world class; they may not be the greatest in the world but they are in the first rank. What is quite amazing is the genuinely high quality that almost all of them have. That is due largely to the very high technical quality of the musicians, which in turn appears to be due to their training. Nevertheless, we pointed to serious gaps in their training. One serious gap was the point between leaving a music college and becoming a fully-fledged member of an orchestra. We were told that the way they used to do it was through a local orchestra and up into a medium-sized orchestra. I think that one of the things which have happened with the coming of gramophone records and television, and now tapes, is that the local orchestra which used to play on the pier has disappeared. That step in the ladder has gone.
We recommended that there should be established a national centre for orchestral studies where promising young musicians could be trained in orchestral playing to a very high standard. This was partly to replace the BBC academy in Bristol which, for some reason or the other, had not been particularly successful. This enterprise went ahead and there is now a national centre run by a distinguished musician, Nick Tschaikov, and financed by the Association of British Orchestras, the Musicians' Union, the BBC and the independent programme contractors to television. Goldsmith College has given it an academic and physical home in New Cross. It is doing increasingly well. People who have the opportunity to go to the concerts it gives in Greenwich Borough Hall or in St. John's, Smith Square, will find that it is doing a first-class piece of work. It is filling in a gap that was very keenly felt.
I come now to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, who said, rightly, following the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, that the Greater London Council regards the South Bank as its "baby", and the Corporation of the City of London generously supported this magnificent development in the Barbican—and it is a really splendid development. The National Centre for Orchestral Studies have a lease of the Blackheath Conservatoire of Music, which is about six miles to the South-East of London, on the borders of the London Borough of Lewisham and the London Borough of Greenwich. It will cost about half a million to turn the conservatoire, an extremely distinguished building, a neo-Tudor building of the 1890s, into a first-class orchestral centre.
An appeal is now about to be launched to raise the money to finance it. I must declare an interest because I am president of the Blackheath Society, and this place belongs to the Blackheath Society which goes around renovating old buildings. The idea is that this would provide a concert venue for the very large population which lives in South-East London boroughs such as Bromley, Bexley, Greenwich, Lewisham and so on, and it would be possible to kill two birds with one stone: to provide a good, new, purpose-built orchestral hall which already exists but is not of first-class national quality, and to give a home to the National Centre for Orchestral Studies.
I shall not expect my noble friend to get up tonight and say that it has been in his mind—and he has had a word with his right honourable friend in another

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place—to give half a million to the National Centre for Orchestral Studies. But I should like to seize the opportunity to put in a word about this because it will becoming along and is something to which everybody will be asked to chip in: the Arts Council, the GLC, the London boroughs and the big companies, opera- and concert-goers, and so on. Ultimately the strength of the orchestras to which the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, and the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, paid such high tribute, relies on the quality of the training of the musicians. That is what must be safeguarded. It is very interestingly being safeguarded by the fact that the employers, the Association of British Orchestras, and the union have come together to finance and to supervise training. If only the rest of British society could co-operate along those lines, this would be a happier and nicer country to live in.
8.8 p.m.
Lord Somers: My Lords, every noble Lord interested in the arts will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, for having asked this Unstarred Question. I am sorry that more have not demonstrated their gratitude by being here in the Chamber. Unfortunately, that is the fate of those who ask Unstarred Questions. They generally have to face an empty Chamber.
The noble Lord spoke of the gap between what British orchestras receive in the way of grants and those which Continental orchestras receive. It is certainly terrible that we are so much behind. The expenses of an orchestra are very heavy. They have, among other things, the hire of halls, they have travelling expenses, they have to maintain a van to transport their instruments from place to place. They have the hire and purchase of music which they require from time to time and then they have to pay the players' fees. The noble Lord said that there were about 90 in an orchestra. That figure may vary. It depends on the programme. If it is an early classical programme you may have no more than 60 but, certainly, if you are doing a programme which includes, say, Wagner, you will have quite 90.
All that is expensive. That, incidentally, is one of the reasons why some modern composers cannot get their works performed. It is because they ask for quite unusual instruments, the players of which have to be employed from outside and mean extra expense for the orchestra. It is a practical problem. Then one must remember that the rehearsals, of which there must be one before every concert, are counted, as far as fees are concerned, as concerts.
Let me not imply that the orchestral player does not earn every penny he gets. He does. Orchestral life is a very hard one. During the concert season, it is not very likely that an orchestral player will see a great deal of home life at all. He has a concert every night, a rehearsal almost every afternoon and is constantly travelling around various parts of the country. He certainly earns his money. There is no doubt that the orchestras do not find the financial position easy. Their expenses altogether come to about £1 million a year. Their earned income from the sale of tickets amounts to about £300,000. Incidentally, I should like to say how much I agree with the noble Lord in
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what he said about VAT. It is a most unfair charge on concert tickets to have the current rate, or to have it at all for that matter.
The noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, said that there was a great need for more concert halls. I agree. I hope that if we build any more we shall consult an expert on acoustics. Frankly, the Festival Hall has never been successful in that way. I believe there is every hope that there may be a concert hall in North London. It has been suggested that when Alexandra Palace is rebuilt there will be one there. What it will be like for sound I cannot say.
A lot of people talk about there being four London orchestras and that is much too much. But they are not London orchestras in that sense. They are based in London, certainly, but they are national—in fact, international—orchestras. They play all over the place and it is nonsense to say that simply because they are based in London it is too many to have. We want all that they can give us at present in the way of concerts.
The noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, raised another interesting point. He was saying that the Arts Council are very desirous that audiences should be larger but at the same time that more contemporary music should be played, and that the two seemed to contradict each other. Being a contemporary composer myself, I have found that very true indeed. But, of course, the trouble is that we are a nation who really only like to hear what we already know. That is a pity. That can be overcome by gradual, possibly not very noticeable, education. After all, every composer in the world was contemporary while he was alive. Even Bach was a contemporary composer during his lifetime. I believe he had some very rude remarks made to him over the horrible noises that he was making on the organ. So one has to realise that until one hears modern music and gets to know it—I am not saying all of it is worth hearing a second time, some is not—one cannot say whether it is worthwhile or not.
Possibly the mistake that the orchestras make here is in compiling their programmes which are either of completely classical or completely contemporary music. If they were to mix the two a little more, and include one contemporary work in a programme of classical music, they might get people who could sit it out and see what it was like.
The noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, said something about there being a gap in the training of orchestral players. I can assure him that that is not so. They are pouring out of the Royal College of Music, the Royal Academy and the Guildhall every year. However, they cannot of course just walk into orchestras like that; they have to wait until there is a vacancy. An orchestra cannot employ more than a certain number, particularly outside the strings. In the wind or brass, they can have only two oboes, two flutes, two bassoons and two clarinets. They do not want any more. They want some reserves, of course, but they cannot employ more than a limited number. Therefore, I do not think that there is any gap in their training. The gap is simply in opportunity.
These orchestras are tremendous value. They provide employment when it is possible for young orchestral players. They make it possible for composers to hear their own works well played—again, when that is possible. They keep the public in touch

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with music of the best kind. We should be very, very much poorer without them and I hope that everybody realises that.
The noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, commented on professional commercial sponsorship. That is excellent and most orchestras today depend on it. But it can only go so far. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, who said that things are not getting any easier for the firms these days. If the present trend continues I do not think that it will be possible for orchestras to bank on getting commercial support, though I hope that possibly it will go on to at any rate a certain degree. I sincerely hope that the Government will do something to make the position of orchestras a little more secure.
8.17 p.m.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, it is a great pleasure for me to support my noble friend Lord Strabolgi in his Unstarred Question. He and I had a very pleasant relationship when I was Minister and he was the spokesman in this Chamber, and I was delighted to receive the generous comment from the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, who was kind enough to commend our efforts over that interesting period of two years. He himself has made a valuable contribution to this discussion. He has a special knowledge of the subject and of course he is married to one of our most distinguished art critics. He moves in an artistic sphere and therefore is well able to contribute from a background of knowledge of the subject. Every noble Lord who has spoken has contributed to the debate from specialised knowledge or his own area of appreciation. In listening to it I certainly have benefited and we are all grateful to my noble friend for asking the Unstarred Question.
Many years ago I remember seeing a fairly early sound film called "A 100 men and a Girl" which had Deanna Durbin in it. I was young at the time—not too young but younger than I am now! It impressed upon me the size of an orchestra. This was about the figure—and of course one can get below that—but the truth of the matter is you need at least 100 people to draw on if you are going to have a major orchestra. That is the size of the problem. If you are going to employ 100 people it cannot be done easily or cheaply.
Our major orchestras are remarkable institutions. They are co-operative organisations. They work together; they create their own persona; they quite frequently engage very distinguished conductors and are an example, I think, of self-help. Where we have such an example, I think it is up to us to see what we can do to help them.
I am not sure whether I am right but I hope that noble Lords will agree with me that London is still the muscial capital of the world. When one looks at the Sunday papers and sees the massive amount of musical possibilities available to London, it seems to me we are extremely fortunate in that on any day we can go and select from an enormously wide variety of music. It is highly desirable that we should do what we can to sustain that situation in a difficult time.
One problem is the recession in the recording industry at the present moment, and that is a great problem because our orchestras, to a greater degree than any others, depend on their recordings. One of the problems of the recording recession is that the
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recording companies, who have done that very well-known thing in the entertainment industry of benefiting the classical from the pot-boiler, from the pop, are now running down their classical albums because there is not so much profit coming in from the pop side. So one of the main sources of revenue for orchestras is declining. It is this, among other things, which has helped to create a sense of crisis which has possibly motivated my noble friend in raising this Unstarred Question tonight.
The noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, suggested that one of the ways of dealing with this that we might consider was the way which was suggested in a debate in this Chamber a short time ago—the idea of putting a levy on home taping. I hope that the Government, following that debate, are looking at that proposal. It seems to me this would be a way of obtaining extra revenue for orchestras which is well worth examining. It may be one way of dealing with the problem by tackling the source of the trouble.
I should also like to say that I agree with those who have said that the Minister has done a great deal better than some people thought he might have done, following, as he did, in the footsteps of a somewhat charismatic predecessor. I think he is to be congratulated, especially as he has had some rather difficult Treasury Ministers to deal with. Treasury Ministers are always difficult, but I have a shrewd suspicion that these particular Treasury Ministers are rather more difficult to deal with than most. As has been said already, British orchestras are self-supporting to a much greater degree than many others. I think they deserve Government help and I hope they are going to get it.
I should like to make one point about value added tax. My noble friend suggested that exemption was the right course, and in saying that he followed the suggestion made by the Commons committee on the subject. With some temerity, I venture to suggest they were probably wrong there. I believe that what is necessary in this area is not exemption but zero rating. I shall not go into the reasons for that, but anyone who has had problems of handling value added tax will know it is very much better to pay 1 per cent. tax, or even a slightly larger rate, than to have total exemption. Noble Lords will not want me to go into the reasons for that, but I think it will be readily accepted by people who have dealt with value added tax.
Music is an excellent field for business sponsorship. It does not have the controversial elements which sometimes enter into other things. I would not say that music is non-controversial: on the contrary, the public, if it has views about the music, stays away.
I have much sympathy with the modern composer. It has been said that musicians have a hard time of it, but the modern composer has an even harder time. The musician is in work, but quite often the modern composer is pushing out music all the time and has problems in getting it performed at all. So I rather hope that the Government will think of the possibility of helping the Arts Council to assist in the performance of a certain amount of modern music. Business sponsorship, which is most valuable, could concentrate on the more popular area and the Arts Council support could be geared in the direction of more modern composers. That might be a good combination.

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My noble friend said that in certain circumstances the Arts Council were not allowed to give money. I rather suspect it may be the case that they have not got the money rather than that they are actually told not to find it. It may be that if the Arts Council were given more money they would be ready to pass it on, and I hope the Government will give us a hint that they may look favourably on that.
Finally, I should like to say one word about the amateur music area. For various historic reasons, there does not exist in music the same hard and fast distinction between amateur and professional as exists in the drama world, which I know rather better than the musical world. There is a mixture of professional, semi-professional and amateur in music which provides an enormous amount of pleasure not only to those who listen to it in different parts of the country but also to those who perform it.
That is not to be despised—the thrill which amateur orchestral players get out of participating in music making. I have followed the fortunes of the Wands-worth Symphony Orchestra since their formation about 15 years ago under a gifted conductor, Keith Stent. With the injection of a little professional strength, with a professional leader provided by the GLC or the ILEA—I forget which—and one or two leaders of different sections, with about five very good professionals, this orchestra has raised its standard over the past 15 years and is now capable of giving a concert which can be enjoyed by anybody. That is something which, quite apart from the major scene, gives an enormous amount of pleasure all over the country. I should like to repeat my appreciation to my noble friend and I look forward with great interest to the noble Earl's reply.
8.28 p.m.
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, I am pleased to be able to respond to this debate about the state of orchestras in the United Kingdom and to comment on the public support and encouragement which they are given. I am slightly surprised to be called by my noble friend Lord Vaizey "an ornament on the Front Bench". As somebody who has already today talked about rear fog lamps, recruiting for the RAF reserve and now orchestras, I must be rather a talkative ornament!
I share with other noble Lords the gratitude of the House to the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, for raising this topic this evening. I would agree with the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, that it has certainly been a most worthwhile debate, with a lot of excellent contributions, and not least his own. I believe we have a record in this country of orchestral development of which we can really be proud, and a system of public funding which meets a wide range of needs.
Above all, our orchestras maintain a remarkably high level of achievement; indeed I should like to pay particular tribute to the dedication and hard work of all who perform in them. The reputation of our orchestras is high at home and abroad. This country enjoys a very wide range of orchestral music, and there is strong support for orchestras among a very substantial and dedicated concert-going public. In spite of the difficulties, many of which have been
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touched on this evening, we can have a justifiable pride at both national and local level in our achievements.
The difficulties, as has been recognised, are largely matters of amounts of funding which can be made available at the present time, which as we all know well is the case in so many fields of public support. My right honourable friend the Minister for the Arts, about whom many noble Lords have made generous remarks this evening, is deeply committed to a programme of support for the arts, and it has generally been agreed that this programme, in spite of our present financial difficulties, has enabled the development of our artistic life to be continued by a wide range of arts organisations. But I must emphasise that he does not control, nor would he wish to control, the grants to individual orchestras. This is a matter for the Arts Council, exercised through the London Orchestral Concert Board and in other ways, as well as for the local authorities and for other public and private interests. In particular, I pay tribute, as did the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, to the growing, and very important, contribution made by business sponsorship.
I acknowledge the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, about the various sources from which funds come, but in a way this must be inevitable if maximum advantage is to be taken. For the Arts Council itself, there are many pressures, and the given level of funding will never be enough to meet all the requests it receives. However, central Government support, through the Arts Council, should not be seen as the only, or necessarily the most important, source of finance for our musical life. Nevertheless, the Arts Council has demonstrated, and continues to demonstrate, a deep commitment to the basic needs of orchestras in this country, within the funds available. Its total grant allocation for music in the current financial year, most of which will be for orchestral support in one or another form, is well over £5½ million. Whatever may be said about the individual problems of the moment, the fact that so many orchestras of repute are able not merely to keep going but to flourish is evidence that the overall needs continue, by and large, to be met. Here I pay tribute to the expert intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Somers, and I was fascinated to hear his remarks underlining both the work and the financing of orchestras.
If I may, I should now like to turn to some individual components of the orchestral scene which have been raised this evening. I recognise what has been said about the problems of the Hallé and the Scottish National Orchestra. The Government equally recognise that local authorities are having to make reductions in their total expenditure and that it is ultimately the responsibility of each authority to determine where economies can best he made. However, my right honourable friend the Minister is constantly urging local authorities not to discriminate against the arts by asking them to bear more than their fair share of reductions. I hope this point will be very much borne in mind by those concerned in all their negotiations. We trust that at the end of the day arrangements can be arrived at which allow all our orchestras to continue the proud traditions they have established.
It is a major achievement that, in our great cities, the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Hallé Orchestra, the Northern Sinfonia, the Royal Liverpool

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Philharmonic, the Bournemouth Symphony and the Bournemouth Sinfonietta are all full-time contract orchestras. They are funded by a combination of means, and attract sponsorship in varying degrees. In turn, they provide concert facilities for wide regional areas. I hope that this point will not be lost on those responsible for local support, in both the public and the private sectors.
In his interesting contribution, the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, managed to tread very delicately while suggesting one or two moves in the regional areas, which is a path which, I must confess, I hesitate to follow. The several suggestions that we have had tonight on halls are very interesting. I carefully noted them and will sec that they are investigated.
So far as the Government's position is concerned, the regional orchestras have attracted high Arts Council priority in the last two years. The increase in the Arts Council's grant to regional orchestras in 1981–82 was more than 19 per cent. compared with the previous year; the increase in the allocation for 1982–83 is just under 10 per cent. over the previous year. I believe that such figures demonstrate a clear commitment to supporting regional orchestras, at a time when the Arts Council's grant itself has been under considerable restraint. This level of funding does not mean, however, that the council does not look carefully at the quality of the product it is supporting: it does that. A regular assessment is made of orchestral performance, with a close eye on standards, repertoire, including the contribution to the development of contemporary music, and on overall financial management.
The Arts Council deliberately earmarks a proportion of its grant to the London Orchestras Concert Board to encourage the performance of contemporary music, since it feels strongly that it is its duty to support works by living composers. In some way to answer the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, it believes that only when audiences are able to increase their familiarity with contemporary music will they begin fully to appreciate and enjoy it. The whole course of history has shown that works by contemporary artists have frequently been unpopular in their own time, but that support has subsequently been justified. However, I am sure that the council will take on board the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, this evening. There is a constant dialogue between the Arts Council and individual orchestras, since the council is represented by an assessor on the board of every orchestra that receives a grant. In this way, the council is very well aware of the needs of individual orchestras, and I think helps greatly towards liaison.
If I may turn for a minute to the London orchestras, the four London-based orchestras—the London Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra—are supported by the London Orchestra Concert Board which represents the Arts Council, and by the GLC, both of whom provide specific funds to the board. I should like at this point to pay tribute to the efforts of these four orchestras to obtain profitable engagements, foreign tours, recording contracts and other sources of income which are essential to help with their promotions, in addition to the funds provided from public sources. The main part of the orchestral board's assistance is given in the form of concert guar-
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antees. These will vary according to circumstances; for example, in the 1982–83 season the Royal Festival Hall figure will be £5,000 per concert. The Government believe that this approach, taken together with the sponsorship opportunities which the orchestras are well able to engender, is the right one to sustain the present level of concert activity.
If I may now come to the orchestras in Scotland, the Scottish Arts Council supports the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the Scottish National Orchestra, which has been given an above average increase in its grant for the current year. The BBC supports the BBC Scottish Symphony, and there are also the orchestras of the Scottish Opera and the Scottish Ballet, both supported by the Scottish Arts Council. I do not think it can be said that this is in any way a paucity of provision, even though there may be problems about the adequacy of the funding from time to time.
The noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, referred to the possible effect on the Scottish National Orchestra of local government reorganisation. While this reorganisation—which, incidentally, has not yet come into effect—will remove the statutory obligation on regional authorities to provide support for cultural activities, there is no reason why they should not continue to do so voluntarily and, indeed, I hope very much that they will. As to the transfer of responsibility to the district councils to support the arts, it will, of course, be for each council to decide what level of support it provides, and I would urge them to ensure in taking their decisions that the arts do not bear a disproportionate share of any economies.
At this stage, I should like to pay a separate tribute to the major contribution to the orchestral life of this country which is made by the BBC. In the words of the corporation's own memorandum to the Select Committee
"The BBC's direct and indirect patronage of music—both in creation and performance—is in all probability the most substantial of any broadcasting organisation in the world: and … in extent the BBC is the most far-ranging of any musical employing agency".
The BBC is almost certainly the world's largest single employer of professional symphonic musicians. Apart from its orchestras in Scotland and Wales, it maintains, of course, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra. In addition to the many hours of broadcast music by BBC orchestras, they perform both at their home bases and tour extensively to ensure that live orchestral music is heard. This is a public service for which the country as a whole is greatly indebted to the corporation.
As well as the symphony orchestras that I have described, there are a number of chamber orchestras which are based on freelance players; for example, the English Chamber Orchestra, the London Mozart Players and the Orchestra of St. John's, Smith Square, close to us. All contribute to the richness of our musical life; and I should like specifically to mention, in addition, the London Sinfonietta, whose policy is to perform and promote contemporary music. It has in this respect reached a standard of excellence which makes it unique in this country and possibly in Europe. Again, these orchestras are financed through the London Orchestral Concert Board by public money, which is perhaps an indication of the importance that is attached to their work.

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I should like to say a word about the training of orchestras, especially as my noble friend Lord Vaizey has spoken on the subject. We are fortunate in that our educational system continues to produce a steady flow of first-class young musicians into the musical profession. There are two post-graduate orchestras devoted solely to training professional orchestral musicians: the Orchestra of the National Centre of Orchestral Studies, a full symphony orchestra based at Goldsmiths' College, and the Royal Northern College of Music Sinfonia, a chamber orchestra based at the Royal Northern College in Manchester. Both of these orchestras received direct financial support from the BBC and the Musicians' Union, and indirect support through bursaries awarded by the Arts Council. Both are newly established, but the indications are that they do a very good job in preparing students to enter the profession and that their value is much appreciated by the professional orchestras.
A further mark of our musical strength is the variety of youth orchestras throughout the country, attached to and funded by local education authorities. The National Youth Orchestra draws on the cream of young musicians and is rightly held in very high esteem both at home and abroad.
As I bring my remarks to a close, I should like to come to the subject of sponsorship. Music continues to be the most heavily sponsored of the arts, and it continues to receive valuable supplementary income from a wide range of business sources. It would be invidious of me to single out particular examples of sponsorship for commendation, but I am sure that many examples will be known to members of this House. A properly organised sponsorship deal can provide considerable benefit to both parties: an extra source of income for the orchestra and an association with a quality product for the business. Such activities are greatly to be commended.
My right honourable friend the Minister has recently begun a series of regional sponsorship meetings to emphasise the need for a much greater level of local sponsorship. This could have particular importance for regional musical activities. The same principles of sponsorship apply but the difference is one of scale. A number of regional orchestras already receive substantial income from sponsorship, but I hope that this will increase as the benefits of such an arrangement are more widely understood and accepted.
The noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, has raised with me on more than one occasion, credits for sponsorship. As far as the BBC is concerned, I understand that there is a general policy to give a sponsor one credit at the beginning and end of each broadcast and an additional visual credit at the beginning and end of televised transmissions. Although this policy appears to have been followed on many occasions there have been notable omissions, and these have given rise to disquiet. I am sure that bringing to public attention in debates such as these the increased importance and value of sponsorship is essential. As to the national press, I
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understand that there has been disquiet for some time about the inconsistent treatment of sponsored events, particularly the lack of credits in critics' reviews. This problem has been brought to the attention of editors in the past and it is helpful if all of us continue, as we have this evening, to use every opportunity to raise the matter.
As for the subject of VAT, I have noted what all noble Lords have said, but at the moment this is the subject of the Select Committee's Report which is now under consideration, and I do not think I can comment on it before the Government have responded to that report. Nor do I think I ought to be drawn down the path suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney. A comment was made about the Arts Council not being allowed to make up the local authority shortfall. I am not aware of this. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney, said, I think that this is just a question of a lack of funds.
There is one other matter which I should like to mention. One or two comparisons were made with foreign orchestras. The difficulty about comparing like with like in these cases is the number of orchestras which we have in this country as against those in some other countries which have been mentioned. And, finally, it is a question of what we can afford.
I hope I have said enough to indicate that, despite some of the difficulties which have been mentioned, there is major provision for orchestral activity in this country which sustains a great deal of work. I shall read the debate in detail and draw the numerous interesting points which have been made—from taping to the redevelopment of halls—to the attention of my right honourable friend. Financial difficulties are bound to continue in individual cases and it would not be appropriate for the Government to make up the withdrawal of grant from other sources. But a great deal can be achieved by the combined efforts of central funding bodies, local authorities and business sponsorship.
This is the direction in which we must continue to move. It is a remarkable tribute to the effectiveness of the system we have evolved that such an abundance of live music of a very high standard continues to be performed by so many different orchestras in this country. I believe that this represents quite remarkable value for money and the efforts of my right honourable friend will continue to be on sustaining what has been achieved.
I conclude by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, for giving the House the opportunity this evening to discuss our orchestras, and for enabling me to re-assert the Government's continued support and encouragement.

Hertsmere Borough Council (Rowley Lane) Bill
Reported from the Unopposed Bill Committee with amendments.