Lords Sitting of 16 February 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 Gloucester.

Charities and Local Authorities
Baroness Faithfull: 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 can be taken to prevent charities in the social services sector from closing down or curtailing their work due to lack of use by local authorities.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Lord Elton): My Lords, it is for the local authorities themselves to decide how far they will use the facilities provided by voluntary organisations; voluntary organisations do consequently need to know what facilities the local authorities require, and how they might adapt to the growing need for non-residential services. As a first step we have offered the services of the Department of Health and Social Security to help the National Council of Voluntary Child Care Organisations to mount a conference on this. We are considering what more we might do to help other groups.
Baroness Faithfull: My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for that reply. Is he aware that, despite the very good work done by many voluntary organisations, the local authorities, by virtue of the cut-back in expenditure, are finding themselves unwilling or unable to use the voluntary sector and, therefore, in many cases clients are not receiving the best kind of service that they might otherwise do? Can my noble friend comment on that?
Lord Elton: My Lords, in general local authorities do share our perception of the importance of the contribution of voluntary agencies. I would direct the attention of my noble friend to the report of the Association of Directors of Social Services published last October. Also, in 1980–81 grants by local authorities to voluntary organisations were £22½ million as against £l5½ million the year before. It does not sound entirely like cuts to me.
Lord Gridley: My Lords, in view of the Minister's reply, can he inform me why, at a time of economic difficulty, the local authorities are not making greater use of the charities in this connection?
Lord Elton: My Lords, the answer to that question—if it were full—would be extremely long and complex. But I did try to hint to your Lordships in my principal Answer that sometimes voluntary organisations are
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not adapting themselves to the changing needs of local authorities. Some of them are doing so. I think that I shall not single out for mention individual charities, but some of them have made great progress in the changes in the provision they make, and they do not have these difficulties.
Lady Kinloss: My Lords, would the Minister not agree that VAT is an unfair tax on charities, because commercial companies can recover their VAT on their expenses and local authorities do not pay VAT on the same kind of services as provided by the charities?
Lord Elton: My Lords, I am well aware of the issue to which the noble Lady refers. It is an issue, of course, for Treasury Ministers, but it is also much too close to the Budget for me to give any reply which would colour her expectations.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, in the light of what has been said, will the noble Lord say more about the conference to which he has referred and which may, in view of the questions which have been put to him by noble Lords, assume a rather greater importance? When is this conference to be held? Will it be representative of the whole of Britain, or will it be restricted to England? Who will be represented in the conference and what will be its terms of reference?
Lord Elton: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Lord for his interest. It is intended to bring all agencies concerned with this problem, both voluntary and local authority, together with the help of the department, so that we can assist them to adapt their provision to the changing needs of local authorities. It will take place early in the summer. I can be more precise to the noble Lord in a week or two when I shall write to him.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the charities referred to in the original Question have to work with the staffs of local authorities? Indeed, they work as a team. What is really happening is that because the local authorities are being, in my view, unjustly hurt by, and have to endure, cuts in a very sensitive area, their staffs are reduced and there are not enough to liaise with the local authorities.
Lord Elton: My Lords, the noble Lord always introduces a predictable perspective into the problem he sees. I did say in my second answer that the local authorities themselves had provided £7 million more last year than the year before. That may have been more or less difficult for other reasons, but it still represents an increase.
Baroness Faithfull: My Lords, I should like to ask my noble friend the Minister whether he could bring to the notice of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in another place, the fact that, for instance, the Minister reported in the House last week that the NSPCC were to have a grant of £250,000, but in VAT they are paying £130,000 to £140,000. Moreover, from the point of view of the partnership with local authorities,

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would he not agree that, for instance, Dr. Barnardo's pay £500,000 in VAT and if they did not have to pay that they would be able to supply the local authorities with a better service?
Lord Elton: My Lords, I have already declined to follow that fascinating avenue so close to the Budget. However, I would correct my noble friend. I think that the grant to the NSPCC was £200,000. Perhaps my noble friend will recall also the grant to Mencap of £100,000; to MIND of £100,000, to the Spastics of £100,000 and to the National Schizophrenia Fellowship of £10,000. Your Lordships sometimes tend to concentrate only on the shortcomings of the Government; I think that in this respect we have not done too badly.

UN World Disarmament Campaign
2.42 p.m.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: 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 are their present observations on the recommendations of the expert group to the United Nations General Assembly that a world disarmament campaign be organised under the auspices of the United Nations.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Trefgarne): My Lords, the resolution adopted by the General Assembly invites Governments to submit their suggestions and comments on implementing the report to the Secretary-General by 15th April. We shall do so, in concert with our European partners. Meanwhile we are exerting ourselves to provide full, balanced and objective information on arms control and disarmament matters to the British public.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, in view of the widespread belief that Her Majesty's Government are more interested in nuclear rearmament than in disarmament, will the noble Lord take whatever steps he can to disprove that belief?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, anybody who has listened to the exchanges on these matters in your Lordships' House in recent weeks would, I think, hardly have arrived at that conclusion. Certainly we accept the importance of disarmament matters and, indeed, we accept the importance of the dissemination of disarmament information on a wide scale, as I implied in the last sentence of my main Answer.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, can my noble friend tell the House whether the proposed disarmament campaign might have some effect on the arrest of peace campaigners in East Germany and also on the disappearance from time to time of dissenters in Russia?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I must confess that I do not think it will have the slightest effect.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that there has already been organised in this country a world disarmament campaign, to which many important bodies and several political parties have affiliated, including my own and that of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I am aware of the campaign to which the noble Lord refers, which, I think I am right in saying, is led by the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, and the noble Lord, Lord Noel-Baker. But I do not think that that campaign is a unilateral campaign, which I believe is the preferred course of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney.
Lord Brockway: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the world disarmament campaign in this country has had negotiations in New York with the Experts' Committee set up by the United Nations General Assembly, and that those negotiations have led to the likelihood that the Experts' Committee will propose to the United Nations an international campaign to secure world disarmament, as demanded by the Assembly in 1978?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I am not aware of the discussions to which the noble Lord refers, but of course Her Majesty's Government have constantly supported proposals which would lead to balanced and verifiable measures of disarmament in whatever fora.
Lord Clifford of Chudleigh: My Lords, will the noble Lord bear in mind, from an historical point of view, the effect of the Peace Pledge Union in encouraging the last war, and will he point out the similarity between that and the CND movement, to which the noble Lord referred?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I think that the shortcomings of the various disarmament moves which took place prior to the Second World War were shortcomings which we seek to avoid now and, so far as I am aware of them—and I confess that it was long before my time—those shortcomings were that they were neither balanced nor verifiable.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, is my noble friend not aware that we would all much rather spend money on disarmament, on hospitals, on roads and on other things of social use, but that, when we see what has happened in Afghanistan, Poland, and Angola and the Berlin Wall—which is a horror and an affront to all human dignity—we must keep our own proper defences in good and upright order?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, my noble friend is, of course, right when he implies, as he does, that we have to take the Soviet Union's actions into account, and not their words.
Baroness Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that those of us who were around

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during the Peace Pledge Union and the rest of it would not for one moment accept that they were unbalanced in any sense at all? They were very strongly backed by the majority of people in this country. Further, although one accepts his sincerity and the belief of the Government in trying to get disarmament, can I ask him not to adopt this political attitude of trying to separate the unilateralists from the multilateralists? Would he accept that he gives the impression that that is more important to him in answering these questions than in trying to attain the most important thing of all, which is world disarmament?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I think that there is a very distinct difference between unilateral disarmament and multilateral disarmament. This Government support measures of balanced and verifiable multilateral disarmament. We do not support the approach which the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney, with all sincerity advances, that we should disarm unilaterally.
As to the various disarmament measures which occurred before the Second World War, I do not think that the noble Baroness remembers them either.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, is the noble Lord in a position to give the House any news of the probable date when the strategic arms reduction talks will begin? —which have been delayed by the United States as a result of events in Poland.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I am afraid that I am not able to give the House a date when those talks will recommence. That, of course, is a matter for the Soviet Union and the United States to decide between themselves. The United Kingdom is not directly involved in those talks, as the noble Lord will know. But I hope that it will be before too long.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, as my name has been brought into the matter, is the noble Lord aware that I am on the executive of the world disarmament campaign—the multilateralist body—as well as being connected with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament —the unilateralist body? Is he not further aware that this proves that multilateralism and unilateralism are complementary to, and not in competition with, each other? As I cannot hope to convert the noble Lord to unilateralism, will he do what he can to convert some of his noble friends to real multilateral disarmament?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I have no need to convert my noble friends to genuine multilateral disarmament because they already believe in it. As to the assertion that the noble Lord adheres to both schools of thought, I am afraid that that puzzles me all the more.

Prisoners: Possible Amnesty
2.50 p.m.
Lord Brockway: 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 declare an amnesty for all prisoners not guilty of violent offences on the occasion of the birth of a child to the Princess of Wales, similar to the amnesties granted by other Governments on historic occasions.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Belstead): My Lords, the Government have no plans for such an amnesty.
Lord Brockway: My Lords, may I ask the Minister: does he not agree that something must be done about the overcrowding in English prisons, which governors have described as dustbins and the prison inspectorate has said are deplorable and degrading? Has the noble Lord noted the report today by the Prison Reform Trust that three men in a cell are so crowded with furniture that they can hardly move? Is there not a serious danger of unrest not only among prisoners but prison officers'? Would not this be an occasion to seek a remedy of that situation?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, the noble Lord asks whether something should be done. The difficulty is that an amnesty of the kind envisaged by the noble Lord would set aside the sentence of the court in an arbitrary way. Also it would of course do nothing to reduce the numbers of those receiving custodial sentences thereafter. Therefore, although I agree with a certain amount of what the noble Lord said in his supplementary question, I think that his own plan would be neither desirable nor effective.
The Earl of Cork and Orrery: My Lords, can my noble friend say what Her Majesty's Government expect in the way of violent offences on the occasion of the birth of a child to the Princess of Wales'?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, the further difficulty with this particular plan is that it picks out non-violent offenders as qualifying for an amnesty. Over half the prison population today are serving offences against property, such as burglary and theft; hardly appropriate for immediate release.
Lord Wigoder: My Lords, can the noble Lord say what would be the effect on the crime rate of announcing an amnesty several months in advance?
Lord Belstead: Not good, my Lords.
Lord Hunt: My Lords, will the Minister accept that I am no less concerned, along with many of your Lordships, about the overcrowding and dilapidation that exists in many of our prisons? But would he not agree that it would be quite inappropriate to involve indirectly or directly members of the Royal Family in ameliorating this deplorable situation, however desirable the result and no matter how joyous the event?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hunt.
Viscount Massereene and Ferrard: My Lords, would my noble friend agree that the commonsense method to do away with overcrowding in prisons would be to build more prisons? It would also provide employment. It seems to me a very simple problem.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, that is what we are doing; but we are just starting to do it, and, although it may be simple, it is going to take some time.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, would the Minister agree that recently published research by the Home Office itself indicates that dangerousness is not a predictable characteristic, and that therefore to single out persons who commit certain classes of offence as being less eligible for consideration for early release is not a satisfactory means of protecting the public against serious harm? In view of that, does not the Minister think that the non-eligibility of category A prisoners for consideration for parole is a serious matter, and that there should be some means whereby these prisoners could get their categorisation reviewed so that they might qualify for earlier release?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, there is of course a provision for early release—Clause 26—in the Criminal Justice Bill which is in Committee in another place, but only as a last resort to be decided by both Houses of Parliament and in order to prevent what, in effect, would be a breakdown in the prison system. That includes obviously—and I say "obviously" because that is the Government's view—consideration of what sort of classes of prisoner might be included in that unhappy event. Clearly the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, and the Government do not agree on this particular point, and I suggest that we should wait to discuss this further when that Bill arrives in your Lordships' House.
Lord Brockway: My Lords, may I ask the Minister, is it not the case that a number of Governments have on historic occasions granted amnesty to a large number of prisoners? Is there any evidence at all that, when they have done that, crime has increased in their communities?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, of course, this has been done recently in France. I reply in the negative: I am not aware that crime has decreased.

Peace and War: Relative Costs
2.55 p.m.
Lord Shinwell: 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 present an estimate of the financial cost which would be incurred in the event of conflict arising from aggression by another nation over a period of six months, as compared to the cost of a similar period of peace.
The Minister of State for Defence Procurement (Viscount Trenchard): My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, will understand my difficulties in attempting to answer this Question. Much depends on what assumptions one makes about the nature and intensity of the aggression we would face. It is worth noting that, in the early years of the Second World War, expenditure was of the order of 40 per cent. of national income. With today's much more powerful and sophisticated weaponry I would imagine the figure could be even higher. This contrasts with our present defence budget of around 5 per cent. of the gross domestic product. It is obvious that, if we failed in our aim of deterring aggression and preserving the security of our peoples, the cost to the nation would be enormous.
Lord Shinwell: My Lords, is the noble Minister aware that I regard that as a very ambiguous and unsatisfactory Answer? It seemed to be a collection of non sequiturs. I only wanted to ascertain from the Minister whether the Government stand by their defence policy, or do they feel weak because of opposition both from their opponents and from their friends? What I am trying to demonstrate in this Question is that first of all I want to help the Government. I want to wipe the floor with those people who refuse to allow the country to provide defence organisation and expenditure in peacetime in order, if possible, to create a deterrent against a great conflict which would prove to be devastating, and mean ruin, bankruptcy and privation for our country.
Viscount Trenchard: My Lords, I entirely agree with the noble Lord. I hope that he will read my Answer to his Question in Hansard, the direction of which was designed fully to support the sentiments that he has just mentioned. On any figure that I can give on cost it is all too evident that the cost of war is very many times the cost of keeping the peace by deterrence. Perhaps the noble Lord will read my Answer. I do not think it was as ambiguous as he suggests. Of course the tragic consequences of war, beyond any possibility of counting in terms of cost in money, must be added. So we are quite determined to keep up our defence and to play our full part in deterrence.
Lord Robbins: My Lords, would the noble Viscount agree that the answer to Lord Shinwell's Question, as reformulated, would be over 50 per cent.?
Viscount Trenchard: My Lords, I think that any calculation is extremely difficult. One just does not know what sort of war one would be facing, but I have given figures which indicate that the cost of war in terms of money must be at least 10 times the cost of our 5 per cent. of GDP spent on defence at the moment.

Social Security (Contributions) (Mariners) Amendment Regulations 1982
3 p.m.
Lord Elton Lord Elton rose to move, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 25th January be approved.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, under the Social Security Act 1975, mariners on board merchant ships are in general liable for national insurance contributions in the same way as other employed persons. Because they serve at sea, sometimes on long voyages which begin and end in different tax years, the Act gives the Secretary of State power to make regulations modifying certain of its provisions in their application to mariners, including those relating to contributions. Such regulations are subject to a draft having been approved by a resolution of each House.
As your Lordships know, national insurance contributions are usually collected with income tax under the PAYE arrangements. However, since the inception of PAYE, certain mariners have had their tax collected under a special system known as the Marine Tax Deduction Scheme. The mariners concerned are those who are paid their earnings as a lump sum at the end of a voyage, or series of voyages, instead of at regular weekly or monthly intervals like other employed earners. The special scheme has naturally also been used to collect their contributions. However, because it is disproportionately expensive to administer, and the numbers paying tax under it have sharply declined, the Inland Revenue have revoked the regulations providing for it with effect from 6th April 1982 and brought all mariners within the scope of PAYE. In consequence, the parallel regulations covering contributions fall also to be revoked and new statutory provisions are needed.
The draft regulations before the House apportion the earnings included in the lump sum paid at the voyage end to an "earnings period" within the voyage. Where a new tax year starts during a voyage or there is a relevant change in the mariner's circumstances—that is to say, one which affects his level of contribution, for example, if he achieved his 65th birthday while still at sea—the draft regulations create a fresh earnings period. The draft regulations continue the broad effect of the existing regulations subject to certain modifications. The main difference is that earnings will in future be apportioned to earnings periods according to the amount earned in each, and not on an average basis, as at present. This will fit in with the new tax arrangements. At present, employers who operate the Marine Tax Deduction Scheme make a return at the end of each voyage period. A further effect of the regulations is that in future they will make a return at the end of each tax year only, like any other employer, except that if a voyage begins and ends in different tax years, a separate return at the end of the voyage period will be required.
The draft regulations have been considered by the Social Security Advisory Committee and their report indicating general approval to the provisions was laid before Parliament with the draft regulations. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services also laid, with the draft regulations, a statement in accordance with Section 10(4) of the Social Security Act 1980. Your Lordships will see from the statement that the one recommendation of the committee—about the insertion of a specific provision on leave pay—has been put into effect.
This is a quite technical piece of legislation. Rather
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than deploy the whole of its technicality to your Lordships, I thought the House would like to have the generalities, and if there are particular points to be taken up, I will do the best I can to elucidate them in reply to what noble Lords have said. To do otherwise would take me at least 25 minutes. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 25th January be approved.—(Lord Elton.)
Baroness Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord very much for that explanation of what is a highly technical matter, may I ask him a few simple questions. First, how many mariners are likely to be affected by this? Secondly —this is important—does this affect the interests of men who are employed in foreign ships or ships with flags of convenience? Thirdly, has the National Union of Seamen been fully consulted about it? If the Minister needs time to consider the matter, I shall perfectly understand the position.
Lord Banks: My Lords, I join in thanking the noble Lord for his explanation of the order. He has made clear that these regulations governing the collection of national insurance contributions from mariners are made necessary by the change in the method of collecting income tax; the abandonment of the Marine Tax Deduction Scheme and its replacement by normal PAYE. As the noble Lord said, the order is technical and non-controversial. I join the noble Baroness in asking how many are likely to be covered by the regulations. I gather that the numbers covered by the Marine Tax Deduction Scheme have sharply declined recently. The Government appear to have dealt satisfactorily with the points raised by the Social Security Advisory Committee, including the question of the treatment of leave pay, and we on these Benches support the approval of the order.
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, I too thank the Minister for explaining the draft regulations, but may I ask him to clarify paragraph (6) (a) and (b) in which I think I detect that if a voyage straddles two tax periods and the end of one tax period is less than a week (say, four days) and the beginning of the next tax period is also less than a week (say, four days also) the mariner in question would, if the contributions are always rounded up to the week, be paying something like an additional week's contribution.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I thank noble Lords for the reception they have given to the order. I understand the number of seamen involved is thought not to be more than 15,000. The National Union of Seamen were taken into consultation. As for the question of flags of convenience, I shall have to write to the noble Baroness; as indeed I shall have to write to the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, on his point. I hope the House will be satisfied with those explanations and approve the order.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill
3.7 p.m.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. First, I must apologise to the House in that the print of the Bill has been available only since Thursday of last week. It is a detailed Bill and I realise that the short time available to study it has been inconvenient. The Government have also had to work overtime to update the briefing on the Bill as it now appears in your Lordships' House. However, if the Bill receives a Second Reading today, I shall certainly undertake to make notes on the clauses of the Bill available within a few days to those of your Lordships who would wish to have them.
The main purpose of the Bill is to enact in public legislation those provisions in post-1974 local Acts or Bills which have proved most popular, useful and generally acceptable. Since local government was re-organised as a result of the Local Government Act 1972, all the metropolitan authorities and a number of county councils have successfully undertaken the mammoth task of reviewing all the inherited local legislation applying to different parts of their areas and re-enacting those provisions which seemed worth retaining for the future, adding of course any necessary new powers. A number of other authorities have not yet re-enacted their local legislation. Those planning to do so still have until 1986, when all the remaining pre-1974 local legislation will fall. Some authorities are, I believe, hoping that, as a consequence of this Bill and its predecessor, the 1976 Act, they will not need to promote any local legislation at all; certainly those that still have to legislate will find themselves promoting shorter and less expensive Bills. Also, this Bill, by making large amounts of local legislation unnecessary, will remove a good deal of work from both Houses of Parliament.
The local authorities have played a major role in shaping the Bill through discussions which began even before the 1976 Act was passed. It would be going too far, I think, to say that the local authority associations are completely satisfied with the Bill as it stands. Many of your Lordships who will be speaking in today's debate have first-hand knowledge of local authority matters and will be giving your views, but I know that authorities should like to see one or two more provisions in the Bill. While both my noble friend Lord Bellwin and I will continue to maintain as co-operative an attitude towards any new proposals as the Government did in another place, I do not think that there can be many more provisions which meet the criteria set out when the Bill was first introduced. The criteria were that provisions should be well-precedented in recent local legislation, and should be necessary and uncontroversial. If individual local authorities want powers which are novel or necessary for their particular area, they need to come individually to Parliament to ask for those powers.
Where a provision has proved unexpectedly controversial, as, for instance, Clauses 4 to 6, which deal with closing hours for take-away food shops, we have worked out amendments which, I hope, will satisfy all parties.
Similarly, the question of the licensing of pop
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festivals was raised in another place. We are certainly listening to the views of the local authorities on this matter, and my noble friend and I will listen with care to the views expressed today by your Lordships. Where amendments which meet our criteria have been introduced we have had no hesitation in accepting them. Clause 31 (the control of fly-posting) is one example.
We have also introduced into the Bill Clause 2 and Schedule 3, which I admit do not entirely follow the criteria for its provisions. However, there has been complete agreement between the local authority associations and the Government about the need for a proper measure of control over what are known as sex shops, and indeed there are a number of authorities which have already completed their post-1974 legislation, which would have sought some form of control had the problem which they now see existed when they were promoting their Private Bills.
I should now like to look at the contents of the Bill. Clause I and Schedule 1 contain a code for the licensing by district councils of public entertainments which involve music and dancing or boxing, wrestling, judo or karate, and which take place indoors. The code is one of the few mandatory provisions of the Bill. This is because we believe it to be essential in the interests of public safety, which is the main aim of the licensing scheme, to have uniform controls on a national basis. We believe that licensing should be in the hands of the district councils, which in all the circumstances we consider are the most appropriate authorities to look after the whole range of matters which must be taken into account when issuing licences.
As to Clause 2 and Schedule 3, your Lordships will know of the great concern about the spread of sex shops and about the lack of any powers on the part of the local authorities to control the number and location of these premises. This concern led the Association of Metropolitan Authorities, many individual local authorities, and Members of both Houses of Parliament to urge the Government to extend nationally the licensing controls proposed in the Greater London Council (General Powers) (No. 2) Bill, proposals for which the Government had already expressed their support in principle.
The provisions now added to the Bill differ from the GLC's proposals in only a few points of substance. They will enable district councils and London boroughs to introduce by a resolution of the council the licensing arrangements which are set out in Schedule 3. The premises subject to control are sex shops and sex cinemas, but the Government have said that they wish to reconsider the inclusion of cinemas in the light of the Cinematograph Bill introduced by my honourable friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Lloyd), which received its Second Reading in another place last Friday.
The licensing scheme empowers local authorities to determine the number and location of these places in their areas, and the grounds for refusal are widely drawn. For example, an application could be rejected if the local authority considered that it would be inappropriate to grant it, having regard to the character of the locality, or to the use to which other premises in the vicinity are put, or if the authority considered that the number of such establishments would be

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excessive in the light of what it thinks appropriate for the locality, and in considering that point the local authority must have regard to objections.
When these provisions were considered in another place there was, I think it fair to say, a considerable measure of support that these premises should be brought under control. The concern that was expressed focussed on three main matters: first, the extent to which a local authority's decision on the number of shops it thinks appropriate for an area might be undermined on appeal; secondly, the extent to which it was right to refer to certain activities on the face of the Bill; and, thirdly, whether the proposals ought to enable local authorities to ban these places altogether.
As to appeals, I gladly repeat what my right honourable friend the Minister of State said in another place; namely, that we have undertaken to consider the point. If necessary, we shall endeavour to bring forward amendments on the matter at a later stage. On the second point, I entirely understand the concern that has been expressed that licensing arrangements might appear to condone the activities of these establishments. Therefore, let me emphasise that Schedule 3 does not make lawful anything that is at present unlawful. Paragraph 25 of the schedule says so in plain terms, and we intend to ask your Lordships' House to give approval to moving the paragraph to the head of the schedule, to bring the point home even more forcefully. If granted, a licence would signify no more than that the local authority had approved the general use of the premises under the control of Schedule 3.
But we are considering whether we can go some way to meet the particular anxiety expressed in another place about appearing to condone the sale of items which encourage sexual violence and cruelty. I think the crucial point is that the definitions in the schedule must be wide if we are to ensure that premises do not escape the licensing controls. Therefore, I cannot guarantee that these words can be removed completely from the schedule. However, we shall see whether we can achieve our objectives by the use of a formula which is less open to understandable objection.
On the third point, about the ability to ban, I have no doubt that many of your Lordships should like to be rid of these establishments entirely. However, I think that that would have to be done in terms of the general law relating to obscenity and allied matters. In this Bill we are seeking to provide local authorities with a very substantial measure of control over these premises. We have proposed in particular that local authorities should have a control over numbers. Provided that a local authority directs its mind to a particular application, and the circumstances of the area to which the application relates, under these proposals there is no reason why the authority should not be able to conclude, if it thought it appropriate, that the area ought not to have any sex shops at all. Clause 3 and Schedule 4 introduce the third licensing system contained in the Bill—this time for street trading. It is adoptive, and provides a flexible system whereby different degrees of control can be exercised over fixed and mobile trading.
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Part IV of the Bill—that is, Clauses 4 to 7—seeks to give district councils powers to restrict the nuisance which can be caused by the late-night opening of take-away food shops. In the light of the criticisms expressed in Committee in another place, and following consultations, the Government tabled substantial amendments to Clause 4 and 5 which were accepted on Report in another place.
Clause 4 gives a district council power to make a closing order requiring a take-away food shop, which is open between the hours of midnight and 5 o'clock in the morning, to close for all or some of that period, but only if the council is satisfied that this is desirable in order to prevent unreasonable disturbance to residents in the neighbourhood. I would emphasise that the council may invoke this power only if residents in the neighbourhood of the premises concerned have actually complained about being unreasonably disturbed. To safeguard the interests of the operators of these premises the keeper will have a right to make representations to the council before an order is made, and if the order is made he may appeal against the decision to the magistrates' court, and then to the Crown Court. Once an order has been made he may at any time apply to the district council for the order to be revoked or varied.
My Lords, the Government recognise that take-away food shops provide a much needed service to the community, and it is not our intention that they should be subjected to any unnecessary or unreasonable interference in giving this service. But during the past few years the Home Office has received many complaints from Members of both Houses, from local authorities and from members of the public about the absence under existing legislation of adequate powers to control noise and other environmental nuisances caused by late-night opening. During this period three major local authorities—the Greater London Council, Greater Manchester and East Sussex—have successfully promoted Private Bills to control these shops by a system of registration, and a number of local authorities have intimated their intention of seeking similar powers.
In this Bill the proposals are less restrictive than those in the private legislation which I have mentioned. These proposals do not seek to apply a licensing or registration system of control, and, as I have said, the district council's power to make a closing order may be exercised only if there is actual evidence of "unreasonable disturbance"; and in exercising this power the councils will be subject to the oversight of the courts.
The main change made to this part of the Bill in another place was to put back the earliest hour for a closing order from 11 o'clock to midnight. The National Federation of Fish Fryers, which represents the operators of 4,000 fish and chip shops, have said that they are now content with our proposals and, with the additional safeguards which have been inserted, they consider that the provisions represent a reasonable balance between the interests of the operators and their customers, and those of people who live in the vicinity of these shops. The Take-Away and Fast Food Federation, on the other hand, have lobbied strongly for the hour to be put back even further.
My Lords, this is a matter of judgment, and the Government feel that there should be discretion for

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the district councils to decide at which hour, from midnight onwards, it would be appropriate to impose a closing order. Bearing in mind that the making of an order can be triggered-off only by complaints being made, I hope the House will agree that our proposals have got the balance about right.
I am glad to say that there has been general agreement that the remainder of the Bill contains necessary and useful provisions; and, if I may, I will only list the sections into which it is divided and just describe those clauses which were added on Report in another place. Part V of the Bill contains two fire precautions measures; Part VI repeals the Theatrical Employers Registration Acts; and Part VII contains general provisions relating to the prosecution of offences against by-laws. Parts VIII and IX contain adoptive codes for the registration, first, of acupuncturists, ear-piercers, electrolysists and tattooists; and, secondly, of traders selling food from stalls and containers.
Part X contains three measures relating to the control of highways, including a new clause, Clause 21, which is designed to release the police from the need to obtain the written consent of the Attorney General before prosecuting for offences relating to works in the street. This, we think, will improve the enforcement of the law on the siting of roadworks. Part XI contains a number of public health measures and one new clause. This is Clause 24, which relates to the approval of plans deposited in accordance with building regulations and enables approval to be provisional or by stages of plans which would otherwise have to be rejected or accepted outright.
There has been pressure for this more flexible procedure, not only from the local authorities but also from the building industry. It is a practical measure which we think will save time and trouble on both sides, and it replaces unsatisfactory provisions in the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. The final new clause comes in the miscellaneous part of the Bill, Part XII. It is Clause 31. I have mentioned it already, and it deals with fly-posting.
My Lords, those are the main provisions of this Bill. I hope your Lordships will take the view that it is in the interests of local authorities, Parliament and the general public that these provisions should be enacted as speedily as possible. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be read a second time.—(Lord Belstead.)
3.27 p.m.
Baroness Birk: My Lords, perhaps I may first thank the Minister for the way in which he has explained so clearly the purposes and provisions of the Bill, and also for his promise to put the Notes on Clauses in the Printed Paper Office; we appreciate that. This is a bitty Bill, and I am afraid it has to be dealt with in a rather bitty way. We on this side of the House wholeheartedly endorse the objectives of reducing the pressure of legislation on Parliament and saving local authorities the trouble and expense of promoting their own local Acts. Many of the provisions in the Bill are to extend valuable powers throughout England and Wales, and these are to be recommended.
Therefore, it is a pity that the Government are simultaneously weakening local government and local
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democracy through their fierce financial control, and last week we saw in response to the Burns Report the product of a halfpenny rate proposed by the Government to assist local industry, which will, I am afraid, effectively reduce the opportunities for local industrial promotion. But, be that as it may, in welcoming the Bill in principle I am sure noble Lords are aware that valuable local Acts have very recently been obtained by some local authorities, including all the metropolitan counties. They have been obtained by dint of much trouble and expense. But it is unavoidable for metropolitan authorities because their existing local legislation has been repealed by the 1972 Local Government Act. It would therefore be unfortunate if the Bill, so worthwhile in other respects, were to enact provisions more restrictive than those to be found in recent local Acts. As the Minister pointed out, some of the local authority associations are still unhappy about some of the provisions or omissions, but these, I think, are things that can be dealt with at Committee stage.
This Bill, as its Title proclaims, is a miscellany. I shall not attempt to explore in detail each of the many and varied provisions which it contains, and, again, we shall wish to reserve detailed comment until Committee stage; but there are many parts of this Bill which we welcome most happily. For instance, controls over street trading and controls over refreshment premises and over the take-away shops are some examples. But there are some problems and some omissions to which I should like to refer. Part I deals with the licensing of public entertainment and it imposes a mandatory system applying throughout England and Wales, except for London. The Minister said that he thought that there should be uniform control on a national basis. But I would raise the question here that the introduction of a mandatory power is surprising as, in recent local Acts, district councils have been given the right to choose whether or not to adopt local licensing powers or leave them to the magistrates. This is the case in Acts covering Greater Manchester, Merseyside, the West Midlands, and West Yorkshire, and all of these have been enacted within the last couple of years. Some districts have expressed great concern about taking on these powers because resources are needed to exercise them.
The Association of Metropolitan Authorities has received a number of representations from authorities on this point. Oldham pointed out that there were 200 premises licensed for music and dancing in its area and that extra staff would be needed to carry out the necessary administrative procedures and additional resources for the inspection of premises and enforcement.
In London and the Home Counties (where I am a magistrate), the licensing magistrates deal with the liquor licensing and the local authorities deal with music and dancing. That works well. The complete power of licensing magistrates in other parts of the country also appears to be working well. There are different conditions from place to place and in some areas a local authority would be in a position of licensing itself, for the use of its own premises—which I think should be avoided if possible.
I suggest that, for the time being, why not leave things as they are, if they are working properly? I do not expect an immediate answer; but it is something

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that the Government should take into consideration. Do not disturb what is working well! I should like the Minister to tell me in reply what consultations have been carried out with the Magistrates' Association and the Justices' Clerks' Society who, I think, feel strongly about this.
Secondly, on the entertainment side, the Bill as drafted will not give local authorities control over open-air entertainment such as pop concerts. The effect will be to remove such powers in many metropolitan areas and it will mean that, in heavily built-up areas such as Sheffield, Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham, the local authority will lose its power to refuse or impose conditions on outdoor events. This may subject residents to unreasonable noise and disturbance and also the organisers may make no attempt to provide adequate hygiene, sanitary and first aid facilities. Such controls already exist in London, and they will not be affected by the Bill. Although there are very good reasons why many outdoor events should be allowed without any control at all—and I am thinking of church fetes, political meetings, scouts and children's events, and so on—there is concern about pop festivals. It would be a pity if—and it could work this way—because the local authority was not involved, people on whose land they were asking to hold such events were inclined to turn them down because the authority had no control. Alternatively, where pop festivals are held, any of us with experience must realise the importance of laying down conditions so that they are run properly, not only for the people around but for the participants in the pop festival.
Would it not be sensible for a local authority to have prior notification and be able to lay down some guidelines? I would be against any measure which might make it impossible for young people to have pop festivals, but I think there is a half-way house which might be possible.
The Bill's public licensing entertainment provisions would seem an ideal opportunity to implement some long-overdue recommendations of the Royal Commission on Gambling which reported in July 1978. The local authority powers to impose conditions on the grant of permits for amusement centres or arcades could be, and should be, strengthened along the lines recommended by the Royal Commission. Also, since then, we have had the eruption of the "space machine", and powers of control over amusements machines without prizes such as "Space Invaders" are greatly needed. There has been a massive growth in this type of entertainment over the last couple of years. More and more children spend more and more time and money on them, and it would be a pity to miss the opportunity to legislate, if it can be slotted into this Bill.
My Lords, the most controversial and headline-snatching provisions of the Bill are those in Part II relating to sex shops and cinemas. The purpose outlined in Schedule 3 is not to alter definitions of obscenity or change the law. A new obscenity law with greater relevance to the contemporary social scene is badly needed. That is something that all Governments find it hard to come to terms with, but it is not a matter for this Bill. This is concerned with the rapid proliferation of sex shops and sex cinemas,
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which have now spread from London to the suburbs and to other parts of the country. The majority of people who do not use them resent them when they exist in large numbers in their own neighbourhood, and some people resent them altogether. However, there is a demand for their wares and, so long as they do not break the law, there is nothing illegal about them—although many may find them distasteful, which is a different point.
What is at issue is whether shops which specialise in the sale of sex material should be controlled. What are the alternatives? They could be banned altogether, but, as the Minister said, not under this legislation. Anyway, I would personally consider that that would be wrong and interfering with individual freedom. They can be left to multiply freely; but the increase in the last few years and the expressions of opinion in another place and by its Members' constituents show that this is causing a great deal of unrest. They can be controlled: using the planning mechanism is one method which many people favour. This would mean changing the planning law and, although that would have some advantages, it would be cumbersome and I am doubtful that that avenue is the right method to deal with this problem.
The provisions in Schedule 3 were originally promoted by the AMA and they were introduced by the Government in another place at Report. The Government are seeking control by licensing. The Williams Committee reported in 1979 and said:
"We see no reason to dignify pornography with the trappings of a licensing system".
That is more or less what the Minister was talking about earlier. This aura of giving the equivalent of a "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval" or a municipal version of a Royal Warrant bothered MPs and no doubt would bother a number of noble Lords. I do not think that bringing up paragraph 25 of the schedule to the top, will make a great deal of difference to the impact. It may be more logical in the drafting of the schedule, but I do not think it will have the effect that the noble Lord seems to think.
Personally, I would prefer the word permit "to license". I think it has a less encouraging sound to it. I would ask the Minister whether he would consider this small change. Displaying "Licensed by the Westminster City Council" (or whatever it is) across the top of a sex shop gives it a little panache; but to have "permitted by" would be rather different in effect.
We must consider too, the social and ethical implications of the Act, and how what is in Schedule 3 will strike people when they read it—not necessarily in the Act but as it will be reported and quoted. I do not think there is any doubt that people find parts of the schedule offensive, although the intention was not to make them offensive. I was delighted to hear the Minister say that the Government will have another look. May I press him a little towards that course and towards some change there? The particular reference is to paragraph 3 (1) (b) (ii), which speaks of:
"acts of force, restraint, violence or cruelty which are associated with sexual activity."
It may be that the Home Office lawyers feel that there is a need to define it in this way. People will consider,

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rightly or wrongly, that it gives a sanction for these activities, and they perhaps will see it as straight lawyers drafting bent legislation.
This is not giving or taking away the sale of the "goods" or the "bads", whichever way you look at it. I would argue that it is in fact unnecessary, redundant and confusing, quite apart from any of the subjective feelings one may have about the wording. The objective of this clause of this Bill—and it is a local government Bill—is to control the numbers and location. The Bill should restrict itself to this objective. Spelling out the definition is, I would say, quite unnecessary. If that sub-paragraph ended:
"other things intended for use in connection with or for the purpose of stimulating or encouraging sexual activity",
that would still cover heading (ii), and one would be able to do without that definition. It would also ease a great deal of the uneasy feelings and dislike of that particular provision.
There are other reasons as well, because, if you draw up an exclusive list like this, there is always the danger that something will be left out or that later on people will want to include something. Anything in the second heading would, I really believe—and so do a great many other people, including lawyers—be caught by the first heading. It is also important to simplify legislation as much as possible. This I believe complicates it quite unnecessarily, apart from all the other reasons against it.
If the Minister is going to say: "Ah, but how difficult it is going to be because it will have to be left to the courts to interpret", the magistrates are perfectly able and competent to come to a decision on this. They are used to looking at "hard porn" in a judicial capacity and making a decision on it. When the Indecent Displays Act was going through another place, they found that they could not define the word "indecent", however many tries they had. At the end of the day, Ministers said that the courts would know and the courts would give their own interpretation. I very much hope that we are going to see some movement on this point, because it is a very great pity that this should have been brought in in this way. As it was probably all done rather hurriedly, maybe the Government will feel themselves in a position to rethink it quite considerably.
This also ties up with why it would be unnecessary to spell things out in this way, because how are these shops going to be checked and monitored? It will require staff and money. I know that, as to finance, the Explanatory Memorandum says that any administration work should be paid for by the licence fees extracted from people who are given licences for the sex shops. But, if this is so, I should like to know what fees are envisaged. If they are going to be of such a monumental size, that may be all right for the large chain stores and shops, but there are presumably some individual small shops, and if one is licensing shops and they are accepted as legal, then in this as in any other area it would be very unfair if one pushed out a small trader.
I should like an answer to the question: Where will the money and the personnel needed come from? If the Government have those resources to give to local government, then I would prefer to see them used for schools, social services, housing and other things
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which are very urgently required. If, when all this is spelt out, there is no way of implementing it because of a shortage of resources, then the law would yet again turn out to be an ass. I should like the Minister to take this back and look at it.
I am confident that many noble Lords feel as I do about this matter, and, with the wealth of legal and other experience in this House, we should be able to send back to another place a schedule the wording of which is effective without having attached to it an offensive and quite unnecessary shopping list.
As the Minister has referred to the Private Member's Bill on sex cinemas, I will not go into that now, except to ask him: is it intended that this Bill, which is now receiving Government support, will supersede the paragraph in the schedule on sex cinemas? How is it going to work? Will the Acts come into operation at the same time if they are going to be separate Acts? How in fact are the two going to work together?
If I may now turn briefly to the more prosaic "nitty-gritty" of the Bill, I want to ask the Minister why, in the clause dealing with acupunture, tatooing, ear-piercing and so on, provision of ultra violet tanning centres for public use has been left out of this good company. There are a great many fears by doctors of what is happening where unskilled people are sometimes dealing with this activity. These sun tanning centres are increasing quite considerably in number. Women and men go along to these places to get a tan either before they go on holiday or instead of going on holiday. It is something which I should have thought could be fitted into this part of the Bill.
On Part XI, I am sure that Clause 27, reforming the control of demolition procedures, and Clause 28, dealing with the protection of damaged buildings, are acceptable in principle. Ancillary provisions are needed for the protection of adjoining buildings and leaving the site safe. Listed buildings are once again left out. In my experience as a Minister I was always being told, "This is not the place for it", whatever the Bill was. But the problem concerned with the demolition of listed buildings is very important, because what is happening is either they go or the papers about them end up on the Secretary of State's desk. Clause 28 is welcome so far as it goes, but I would ask the Minister to explain why local authorities should not be able to recover their costs of undertaking works to prevent unauthorised entry or to prevent the building becoming a danger to public health where a closing order has been made. That would be more logical and fairer to the local authority.
There is a housing matter which is not dealt with at all in the Bill. I hope that the House will agree that it should be. I refer to the reconnection of electricity, gas or water where an owner of a house or a previous owner has failed to pay the bills. The tenants can be left without heat, light or water. This is obviously intolerable. It is a serious problem in inner London where there is still a large concentration of privately rented property in multiple occupation. Local authorities can come to terms with the statutory undertakers for reconnection. But why should local authorities be involved in the responsibility for payment and collection of arrears on defaulting owners' outstanding bills, many of whom have received the money from tenants together with their rent, and some have "done a bunk"

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or just refused to pay the bills? The situation is very unfair on the tenants and also on the local authorities.
I was delighted by the provisions concerning fly-posting in Clause 31; they represent something that many of us have wanted for a very long time. In general, the effectiveness of many of these provisions will depend on the sanctions which ultimately back them. It is an unfortunate sign in these inflationary times, and I must ask the noble Lord what provision exists for the updating and inflation-proofing of fines for various offences of default. For example, in Clause 26 there is laid down a maximum fine of £250. With inflation as it is, and increasing, this will be quite a small amount.
I have sounded a few notes of caution and criticism but I have not entered into comprehensive detail because Committee is the place for that. We shall be tabling some amendments designed to enhance the provisions of the Bill during the Committee stage, and I am sure we shall join with other noble Lords in suggesting alterations to the "sex schedule"—unless the Government come in first, as I hope they will, and do that themselves.
3.52 p.m.
Lord Evans of Claughton: My Lords, from these Benches we welcome the Bill in broad terms as a follow-up to the 1976 Act of the same name, and no doubt the predecessor of further miscellaneous provisions Acts. Most of the clauses are precedented by local legislation. It is largely an uncontroversial measure, with the exception perhaps of Part II, dealing with sex shops and cinemas, and Part IV, which deals with the control of refreshment premises.
Broadly, I think the Bill is to be welcomed because it will give local authorities an opportunity of cutting down on their own expenses, and will give Parliament less trouble and less expense in dealing with vast numbers of Private Bills. The main criticism of the Bill will be not so much what is included as what has been left out. I know that the Association of County Councils is concerned about providing a degree of extra control for fire authorities over decisions made on applications for building regulation consent and over the installation of auto-dialler fire alarms; the extension of existing powers over lost property in Clause 34 to aerodromes and aircraft, which for some reason from the Bill are specifically excluded, and the extension of the powers to control one-day sales.
I believe, too, as has been mentioned earlier by the noble Baroness, that open-air entertainments outside London should be required to be licensed in the same way as they are within Greater London. I should be glad to know why the Government do not seem to feel that the same kinds of regulation should apply to the provinces as apply to London, because the nuisance these kinds of entertainment can cause will be known to your Lordships, if not personally, from reading newspaper reports. I personally would support any amendment to bring outside entertainments into the same type of control.
The concern of the Association of Metropolitan Authorities, which I share and which has been mentioned by the noble Baroness, is that Clause 1 is mandatory, so that all district councils shall be required
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to license places of entertainment involving music, dancing, boxing, wrestling, or similar activities. I believe that, like the other clauses, it should be adoptive and I hope we shall have an opportunity of testing this at Committee stage. Local authorities are quite able and well qualified to make the decision as to whether such procedures should apply in their areas.
Again I return to a theme that I have mentioned so often in your Lordships' House: the more freedom we give to local authorities to make their own decisions the more healthy local government will be. I think that this clause also should have been adoptive, although I understand the points that the noble Lord the Minister has made. Nevertheless, this seems to be an unnecessary additional burden to throw on local authorities, which may not all need that kind of legislation. Indeed, I think that while such decisions need to be made they should be taken by the local magistrates. It is a quasi-judicial administrative kind of decision and I would have thought that the local magistrates were those best qualified to make that kind of decision and to deal with such matters, as they so often do in local licensing areas at present.
Part IV, as has been mentioned already, is another area of controversy, and the Government have already extended the period for making a closing order on refreshment premises from the original hour of 11 p.m. till midnight. Since the clause is permissive or adoptive, at this stage I believe that the time now suggested—midnight—is suitable. I believe the people best suited to judge the needs of their own area are the local authorities and local councillors. They are the people who know the kind of problem that may exist in any locality which has late night refreshment places. At this stage it is my view, although I am open to be persuaded otherwise at a later stage, that the local authorities should be able to make their own decisions about these matters. The clause, as amended, seems to me to be about right.
Finally, one cannot avoid the issue of the new Clause 2 introduced in another place, dealing with sex shops and sex cinemas. As the noble Lord the Minister has said, this part has to do with sex cinemas and will probably be dealt with by the Private Bill at present going through another place. Personally, I find the whole matter distasteful, but that is not a good ground on which to base one's attitude towards legislation of this type. If we based our legislation on what I, as a middle-aged solicitor, found distasteful or unpleasant, we could finish up with legislation which is puritan, restrictive and illiberal in terms of modern society. What might be unacceptable to me might be perfectly reasonable and acceptable to someone 20 years younger. What is unacceptable in the North might be acceptable in the South, or vice versa. Most of all perhaps, what is acceptable in the metropolis or in a big city might be totally unacceptable in a market town. So one could go on making comparisons between areas where this kind of activity might be acceptable and between parts of a town where it might be acceptable and other parts where it might be unacceptable.
During the Committee stage I should like to probe some of the definitions in this new clause and schedule, to many of which the noble Baroness has already drawn attention. I think local authorities should be

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able, if they wished, to make their own decisions about these matters for their own localities. Of course, speaking as someone who was a councillor for many years, this puts a heavy burden on a councillor up for election and faced with a vocal, active, and possibly minority lobby, seeking to prohibit this kind of use. Many of the sex shops, sex cinemas and so on, would not have attracted the opprobrium, the attention and indeed the custom they now enjoy had it not been for noisy and well-publicised picketing by opposing groups of citizens. There is in the area where I live a quite anonymous shop to which I have never really paid any attention. It has the words outside: "The Private Shop". But it started to be picketed by large numbers of irate citizens soon after it opened, which of course caused the whole of the populace in that part of the Wirral to take an interest in those premises. That is the problem which this kind of legislation will create, and I take the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, that the idea of a licence may give it a seal of approval and, if we are going on with this, we might try to seek some less supportive kind of way of describing the means by which these premises are made legal or prevented from being illegal.
As I said, there will be localities and conditions where local authorities will, quite rightly, find such premises totally unacceptable. There may well be others, in parts of towns not usually frequented by members of the public or not within a residential area, where it might be possible to have such premises without causing difficulty within a locality. But, at the end of the day, it is right that local authorities should make this kind of decision and that this kind of premises, however distasteful they may be to some of us, should not be banned out of hand. But this is a difficult and controversial area, and no doubt it will continue to be so in your Lordships' House, as it is in the country generally. However, speaking about the Bill in general, I think it should be welcomed. It does a very great number of very useful things which will be broadly welcomed and, from these Benches, I should like to give the Bill a warm welcome and hope that it can be approved, but amended in some ways at Committee stage.
4.1 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of London: My Lords, I think it will not surprise your Lordships if I say that in speaking to this Bill, which in general terms I welcome, I wish to refer specifically to Clause 2 and Schedule 3. This clause and schedule place many, and particularly those on these Benches, in a difficult position. On the one hand, if we support this clause there are those who—and, as I shall argue, not without reason—say that we are giving a public stamp of approval to sex establishments. On the other hand, if we oppose the clause, there are those who maintain that we are thereby acquiescing in the uncontrolled spread of such establishments.
As I shall be supporting control in a certain way and in certain circumstances, may I first make it clear beyond any shadow of doubt that I wholly deplore the existence of such places, mainly on the grounds that they convey and feed upon a debased and inhuman attitude to sex. They depersonalise it, isolating the physical satisfaction of the sexual instincts as an end
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in itself. They represent an attitude to women which I find deeply offensive, portraying them as little more than playthings for men. No Christian can, I believe, be opposed to sex as such. It is an integral part of the world which God has created and of which we are part. But for human beings it should be associated with the highest characteristics of man's nature and not with the lowest.
I am well aware that it is sometimes argued that a certain use of pornography may have a therapeutic effect in some cases of psychological disorder, but I believe it is a grave error to allow the kind of sex establishment with which this clause deals to shelter under a kind of therapeutic umbrella. The fact is that these establishments pander to the lowest instincts of man, and to give a degree of approval on the supposition that they will help is to fly in the face of what Christians call original sin.
It is often argued that people are good enough and discerning enough to reject evil and to embrace the good, but that is to flatter us all. One of the main purposes of legislation is to help us to be better and make it more difficult for us to be worse, and we all need its help. If I may—and perhaps this will give some comfort to certain Members of this House—quote the 39 Articles of Religion, even for practising and professing Christians,
"the infection doth remain in them that are regenerate",
and none of us is strong enough to be able to acquiesce in incentives designed to allow the infection to spread. We also have to take into account the fact that the purpose of the sex industry is profit, naked and unashamed. So I hope that in those few words I have made my own position regarding these establishments reasonably clear, before I go on to say something about their control.
I would first ask your Lordships to consider the shape of the Bill. Clause 1 provides a system of licensing for what is, intrinsically, harmless and potentially beneficial,
"… places used for public entertainments involving music, dancing, boxing, wrestling or similar activities outside Greater London".
Clause 3 likewise provides for licensing what is perfectly acceptable under proper control—street trading. Clause 4 deals with the control of refreshment premises —laudable places, albeit needing some control, which provide, in the words of the Psalmist:
"food out of the earth and wine that maketh glad the heart of man".
Clause 13 deals with tattooing and ear-piercing. I do not want to be tattooed myself, nor am I consumed with a desire to have my ears pierced, but I do not think there is anything morally wrong in desiring so to be adorned. This clause simply provides for registration, so that those who wish to avail themselves of these services shall do so at the hands of a reputable practitioner. So if you look at the Bill as a whole, you see that, with one notable exception, it provides the means of control for what, otherwise, are perfectly reputable and decent activities.
Clause 2 is just one clause among a whole list of them. It provides for the licensing of something which I believe to be morally wrong, and which a great many people believe to be thoroughly undesirable. In the context of the rest of the Bill, it is, I believe, inevitable

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that people will regard these establishments and the attitude to sex which they purvey as, somehow, thereby being made acceptable in our society. I am very grateful for what the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, said about the implications of the word "license", and I very much support what she said. But I would go further and say that, within the context of a Bill which is otherwise dealing with the control of what are perfectly decent and laudable activities, this clause will be given quite a different connotation from that which I believe the Government, certainly, and many other people wish it to have.
I was going to say something about the provisions of Schedule 3, paragraph 3(1)(b) referring to,
"acts of force, restraint, violence or cruelty which are associated with sexual activity",
which give me cause for concern. But I am grateful for what the noble Baroness has said, and I shall not develop that point further. However, I hope that the Minister will, as she hopes, take account of the possibility of the revision of that schedule.
It is vital to distinguish, on the one hand, between legislation which is designed to control what is morally neutral, to try to ensure that it is used for the good of society, or what is good but which can be corrupted, to try to ensure that the good is encouraged and the corruption minimised, and, on the other hand, legislation which fulfils the regrettable necessity to control what is intrinsically bad or undesirable. At this stage of the Bill, I do not want to go into any detail, but my general position is this. I accept that control of sex establishments is necessary, but I believe that it must be effected—and I believe that it can be effected—in such a way as to make it clear beyond doubt that it is control of what is an undesirable thing, not simply its approval under certain conditions. Clause 2 as it stands with its heading will certainly not do this but will have the reverse effect. I would prefer that the matter could be dealt with under planning. I find it very odd and unsatisfactory that a church can run into difficulties over planning consent when it wants to put up a notice board to announce the times of services but that apparently the planning laws cannot control the setting up of sex establishments.
If it has to be done in a Bill like this, then I believe something could be achieved by rephrasing headings. For example, to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, instead of "Licensing", with its connotation of approval, why could it not read "Restrictions on sex establishments"? The fact that such a change were made would help to draw attention to the fundamentally different nature of what is being controlled. I hope that the heading of "Control" will not be used, as Part IV is headed "Control of refreshment premises". I no more want sex establishments to be put in the same category as refreshment premises than I want them to be put in the same category as places for music and dancing, as they are at present.
I believe that the question of whether we are controlling what is neutral or good, or controlling what is essentially undesirable, bears upon the question of the power of the local authority. In the first place, I think it is right for an authority to have to justify each case if it declines to give approval. That is in the case of something which is morally neutral or good.
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But the case of what is undesirable, I believe that it is wholly reasonable for a local authority, taking account of public opinion, to be able to say it just does not want that kind of thing to take place in its area and therefore to have the option of refusing each and every application if it wishes. For this reason I support the suggestion that one of the grounds for refusal of licence should be that a substantial number of citizens object. I welcome what the Minister said in this respect and I thank him for it.
I am well aware that in the debate in another place the question of the unsatisfactory state of the obscenity laws has been raised, but I do not believe that we can put off a decision about this matter until they are dealt with. I understand that the Government have no immediate proposals in this respect. To refuse to accept some restrictions now by the exclusion of Clause 2 would, I believe, inevitably be taken as acquiescence in the present state of proliferation. What I believe is essential is that control is effected, and is effected in such a way as to make it clear that it is control of an undesirable activity which is not conducive to the good of society. For this reason, while I do not oppose the provisions for restriction or control I would press for Clause 2 to be amended substantially to take account of the points which I have made.
4.14 p.m.
Baroness Stedman: My Lords, I, too, would like to give a general welcome to this Bill because it will take away from local authorities the need to spend money on raising their own Private Bills. May I take up two of the main points which were raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Birk. The first is the licensing of music and dancing. There seems to be a growing objection to the provision which will transfer the licensing of public music, singing and dancing to local authorities.
There have been very strong recommendations from the Justices' Clerks' Society that while the aim of public music and dancing legislation is essentially to maintain law and order, particularly with the late night discos that go on these days, law and order is primarily the concern of the magistrates and not of the district councils. Many, if not most, of the premises which are licensed for music and dancing also have a liquor licence. This licence is granted by the magistrates.
The problems of noise, of disorder, of the supply of liquor are interwoven, and under the proposed procedure both the applicant and any objector would have to make their case before two different tribunals, with the attendant delay and expense—to the local authorities for the music, singing and dancing licence and to the magistrates for the liquor licence. The function has been taken over by the local authorities in Manchester and Bradford and those local authorities have had to set up departments to issue the licences, whereas the justices' clerks normally run their music and dancing administration along with their liquor licensing administration. They will not be able to reduce their staff if this part of licensing is taken away from them. But I am told that in Bradford the music and dancing licensing was performed by one member of staff in the justices' clerks' department and that now the local authority employ four members of staff to do the same job. At the same time they take up a lot of

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the time of the justices' clerks' staff in dealing with queries about the liquor licensing position of holders, or prospective holders, of music and dancing licences.
The magistrates' courts sit on most days and they are therefore in a position to issue occasional licences—at short notice, if necessary. The local authorities cannot be in this position unless they delegate their power to their paid officials. That procedure surely cannot be as equitable as a hearing before the magistrates. Another aspect of the proposed licensing is that over recent years the local authorities have expanded their interests in the provision of leisure sports and cultural centres. Therefore they themselves are major holders of public and dancing licences. They will consequently be licensing their own premises. I do not think that that can be seen to be just.
There is also the question of appeal. There is a right of appeal now, I understand, against a magistrate's decision, but it does not appear to be suggested that there should be any appeal against a local authority decision if local authorities take on this work. I support the view that the licensing of premises which are used habitually for public music, singing and dancing ought to remain vested in the licensing committee of the magistrates' court. If that view is not acceptable to the noble Lord, may I ask him whether he would be prepared to consider that magistrates' courts should remain the licensing authority of premises which arc also licensed for the sale of intoxicating liquor? I support the noble Baroness in her plea to leave things as they are, but if that is not possible then I shall return to this point at the Committee stage of the Bill.
Also, on Schedule 1, there is the question of licensing entertainments which take place wholly or mainly in the open air. No doubt it is the pop festivals which come under this section. I should like to speak now as the chairman of the working group on pop festivals—one of the chores I was landed with in my days at the Department of the Environment. This group met for almost two years, first under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, who issued a report on the free festivals, and then under me. We reported on the problems in 1977.
We spent many hours and we heard a great deal of evidence on the possible approaches to the problem by changes in the law, by planning procedures and by licensing. We felt that a licensing system could be expected to make it an offence for anybody to be concerned in the organisation or management of, or knowingly to allow his property to be used for, an event which was unlicensed or which broke the terms of its licence. These provisions would assure compliance in most situations where the organisers would be identifiable and would be willing to co-operate. But our problem—and I guess the problem is still there today—is that the so-called free festivals took place often without the landowner's permission and with no identifiable organiser, or with organisers who changed from day to day so that one could never catch up with them. We eventually reached the conclusion that a national licensing system to cover free festivals would be costly and would be complicated to administer. It would often be difficult to enforce because there would be no individuals on whom to serve any notices, and it would be as likely to increase tension in some cases as it would to decrease tension in others. Most of the
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committee then believed that the balance of the argument lay against the introduction of a licensing system. Some of the committee members felt that, despite its shortcomings, a licensing system might be worth while.
What concerned us most was that if some local authorities were granted the power to license pop festivals then those same powers should be available to all, so as to avoid the situation in which festivals unwelcome in one area could simply move over the border into another area. I should like to know whether the noble Lord can give assurances now that this is the line the Government still take and that local authorities either all have the power or that none of them does, and that together with that power the Department of the Environment are still urging local authorities to make available sites for recreational activities which might be available for pop festivals as for other activities from time to time.
I shall be followed today in this long list of speakers by the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, and the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, who are both presidents of their local authority associations. I will content myself with saying that the Association of County Councils have expressed their disappointment because over the past four years they have made many representations and suggestions to the Government on items for inclusion in the Bill—and the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Claughton, referred to some of these and no doubt the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, will enlarge on them when he comes to speak. The Association of District Councils are also disappointed that enabling powers for local authorities to assist industry and commerce have not been included in this Bill. There is no doubt that district councils want to play a very constructive role, working with local industry and commerce. They want to encourage and support economic development in their areas. They had hoped that the Government would give them the powers and resources to respond more effectively to this problem. There is no guarantee that time will be found in the very near future for another Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, and therefore I hope that the Government will consider the pleas made by local authority associations and will feel able to widen the scope of this Bill before it leaves your Lordships' House.
4.23 p.m.
Lord Sandford: My Lords, I see that we shall have to be careful that the Social Democrats do not steal our clothes! Before elaborating on that I should like to join with others in thanking my noble friend, Lord Belstead, for his lucid introduction to the Bill and the Government for the things which they have included in the Bill. I am only sorry that I shall spend most of my speech criticising them for what they have left out.
The first two lines of the explanatory memorandum state:
"This Bill provides for matters which are commonly dealt with in local Bills promoted by local authorities.…"
Many of those local Bills have provided individual district councils with the powers they need to assist the economic development of their areas. That activity—the economic development of their areas—has been for at least the past two years the highest

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priority of the members of the Association of District Councils. I hope that all Members of your Lordships' House would agree with that choice of priority.
I am sure that Her Majesty's Government share the view that general public legislation in this field of economic development, or the powers of local authorities to assist in it, are gravely defective. It was because they shared this view that in the spring of 1980, nearly two years ago, they asked Sir Wilfred Burns to investigate the matter and to report. His committee was set up in May 1980 and with commendable briskness they reported in June. For some inexplicable reason that report was not published until April 1981. If the noble Lord who is to reply can give us any explanation of that delay, it would be interesting; I have a feeling that it has something to do with the machinery of government.
I recall that when I visited the City of Bristol in the early summer of 1981, I was told that they were then being advised to wait in the promotion of the local Bill which they had in mind, in which they sought powers in this field, because, following the publication of the Burns Report, public legislation was on the way. Indeed, in June 1981 my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment confirmed to the association that he saw the need for this public legislation.
So it is quite natural that there should be keen disappointment that this Bill, designed for this very purpose, has failed to cover the need for these powers. But hopes have recently been raised again by an answer given by my right honourable friend the Minister of State for the Department of the Environment, last Thursday, 11th February, in another place (col. 666, Official Report) in a Written Answer to a Question. That statement has something to commend it, so far as it goes, although it does not go far enough.
Our expectations are by no means fulfilled, and for two reasons. First, my right honourable friend did not make it clear, either one way or the other, whether the Government's intention as he expressed it then will actually be incorporated into this Bill. Secondly, because the intentions expressed by my right honourable friend in his Written Answer fall a long way short of what any member of a local authority feels is called for. The specific point is that the scale of assistance which local authorities can give in the general field of economic development is limited to the product of a ½p rate. My noble friend Lord Mottistone made the point last Wednesday, during our debate on rate reform, that members of the Confederation of British Industry, considering the burden of the rates upon them, felt that they do not get a fair return in the services provided for the rates levied on them.
The situation is well illustrated by the position which would be created if these powers were all that were to be made available to us. Take the district of North Devon. This is an assisted area with heavy unemployment. That district would be empowered to spend no more than £40,000 per annum—the product of a ½p rate. That same district is collecting from its industrial ratepayers only—not from the whole of its non-domestic rates but from industrial ratepayers only—no less than £728,000. So that is £40,000 in return for a rate burden on industry of £¾ million.
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Take the case of Corby, which is a special development area. That district would be empowered, under the proposals announced by my right honourable friend last Thursday, to spend a sum limited to £35,000. That is to assist an industry which is in a very poor way in Corby, and which has to face a rate burden of £3⅓ million. Let us take a Welsh district—that of Wrexham, which is another assisted area. Industry in that district is contributing £3,351,000 to the rates, but the authority would be limited to spending £52,000 on economic development in that area.
I reckon that anything that my noble friend said about the sense of injustice felt by the Confederation of British Industries is well demonstrated by those facts. My questions to my noble friend arising from all this, are as follows, and there are three. First, are Her Majesty's Government intending to provide what is wanted in this field, and what was described by my right honourable friend in another place last Thursday, in this Bill? Secondly, why do they need to have further consultations about the matter, as my right honourable friend indicated in another place last week, when they have already held those in connection with the Burns Report? Thirdly, would he consider for this Bill a version of the clause which the Association of District Council Councils drafted for Wilfred Burns, and which was incorporated as an annex of that report, setting out the need of the association in this respect, as a substitute for inclusion in this Bill, if the Government do not have any proposals of their own? So much for economic development.
I turn now, briefly, to Clause 2 and Schedule 3—sex shops and so on. This provision was only included in the Bill on 3rd February, and I have not yet had time to discuss it or consult with members of the association at first hand about it on any great scale, but I have already had some discussions. I think the first point to make is that all local authorities, if they are given controls and powers to exercise by Parliament, need those controls to be effective. It is probably true that there may be some among the 333 district councils who, as the noble Lord, Lord Evans, was saying, may be prepared, may even want, to permit the establishment of a sex shop in some area where it is likely to cause little offence. But my impression so far—and this, I admit, is based on a rather limited consultation— is that a great majority of district councils will want to exercise their control so as to eliminate this debased and debasing activity altogether. So I want to be quite clear about the point which my noble friend made at the outset of this debate. Is it a fact that a district council that takes this view will be able to exercise the controls Parliament is proposing to give it in the following way? When a proposal to establish a sex shop comes up, will they obtain from their electorate, if they can, and I think they will be able to do so, a view that their electors do not want that shop in that area, and then, on that basis, to resolve that the character of that particular area is such that one sex shop is too much? If they have to go through that rather labyrinthine process in every instance, so be it, but I want to be quite clear that that procedure is open to them. Otherwise, this control will be very unwelcome.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, before my noble friend

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sits down, is he aware how very grateful the CBI will be, and indeed I am, for his amplification of the point I was making in last Wednesday's debate on rates, that business ratepayers on the whole are not getting what might be described as value for money? I am deeply grateful to my noble friend for making that point yet again.
4.33 p.m.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, first, I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, for the fact that, owing to a number of other engagements, I shall not be able to be present for his concluding speech. I echo other noble Lords who welcome this Bill as being helpful. But may I say that, when I first saw Clause 2 of Part II, relating to the licensing of sex establishments, my immediate reaction was that this would give a cloak of respectability to both sex cinemas and sex shops—a cloak of respectability to carry on the activities described in paragraphs 2 and 3 of Schedule 3? It seemed to give approval to a system of licensing which I thought would be highly undesirable. However, when I read carefully the various paragraphs of Schedule 3, I appreciated that that schedule does set out the possibility of considerable control, and, what is more, the laying down of conditions by the local authority, and these are set out in paragraph 12 of the schedule. Therefore, I have concluded that any provision that assists in control of these establishments or assists in laying down conditions as a piece of legislation is well worth while.
May I say that I differentiate between the proper establishments for dealing with birth control and family planning materials and this particular type of activity as described in Schedule 3? The exploitation of sex has been mentioned by other speakers. The large profits are the attraction in this sort of thing, as they are with drug peddling, and I put them both in the same category. Naturally, we shall need to look at the various details in Committee, but I think that I have made my position clear. It is really an extension of the legislation which was before your Lordships only last year in the Bill which was introduced in this House by the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, the Obscene Publications Act 1981.
But, even if I am in a minority—I hope not—I believe that this should not be permissive; I believe it should be mandatory on local authorities, bearing in mind that the terms of the schedule do give an authority freedom as to how it will carry out laying down certain conditions. Why also is Part VIII dealing with registration in connection with acupuncture, tattooing, ear-piercing, et cetera, also not mandatory? I had the good fortune to sit on a Select Committee on a local authority Bill which sought these powers. Your Lordships' approval was given for powers of this kind to be put in the Bill. I can recall all the evidence we received, including medical evidence. This is a provision which deals not purely with local circumstances; it deals with what is a health matter. Therefore, I can see no reason whatever why this should not be a national obligation and made mandatory.
I think there will be general agreement on the need for control of late night opening of take-away food shops. I think noble Lords will give general approval to the conditions in Part IV. If these shops are com-
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mitting a nuisance, action must be taken. I was pleased to hear the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, emphasise that these are providing a very useful and much desired service. Businesses must not be destroyed by a minority of residents against the general wishes of the people in the area. Naturally, we must take account of the noise—cars revving up, banging of car doors—and in addition the litter that is left, not only in nearby areas, but by people on their way home from these take-away shops. I know the stuff that is occasionally tossed over my garden fence—Chinese take-away wrappings and also fish and chip wrappings. Have the Government considered in connection with take-away food shops—not just the late-night ones, but in general—whether something should be done to add to our control of litter? The 1958 Litter Act frankly seems to be useless. Only last Saturday, when I was shopping with my wife in what is a reasonable area, we found that a path which leads from the residential road to our main shopping area, a path bordered with grass and plants, was one mass of takeaway material. Now we have nice packaging, it is a great improvement from the old fish and chip papers that we used to enjoy many years ago, but more of it seems to be dropped. I am wondering whether the Government cannot do something to add to what I regard as the useless provisions of the 1958 Litter Act, even if it is only making compulsory the display of adequate posters and signs in these shops. This is a nuisance which affects not only the people who might be affected by noise: it is a nuisance which affects people some distance away from the shops.
I was pleased to see in Part V the provisions regarding fire precautions. Let me say briefly that, as one who served in the National Fire Service for five years, I am particularly pleased to see Clause 10, which provides for luminous signs for the easy identification of switches dealing with high voltage signs. I am pleased that those particular provisions are to be made mandatory.
Clause 32 provides for the notification of temporary markets—something which I think most noble Lords will approve. But it excludes any control whatever of one-day sales which are held in various parts of the country in various types of hall. I note that the county council associations are very keen that something should be done about this. Many of them are bona fide sales which serve a very useful purpose. But there is always the opportunity—in fact there have been experiences—of a shady individual selling shoddy goods. He has a one-day sale and then he is gone. Nobody knows where he has gone because there has been no registration at all. I hope that the Government themselves may consider introducing a clause or an additional subsection to this clause rather than leaving other nobly Lords to deal with it in Committee.
I was pleased to see the various provisions dealing with street trading and sales from stalls and containers. Those who enjoy watching football matches as I do, particularly on a week night—and I shall miss my favourite team playing in the Cup replay tonight: that is not where I am going—will be aware of the large numbers of containers for hot dogs being landed from a parent vehicle and the obvious need for careful control in the interests of hygiene and health. Having said that, I hope that the controls will not be enforced

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in such a way that they in any way tend to interfere with the legitimate sales from mobile fish and chip vans or other mobile shops, or with genuine street trading. A few miles from where I live is possibly one of the largest street trading areas in the ountry—High Street, Walthamstow. Street trading is generally part of the life of the town, and I hope that, although we must have these controls, they will do nothing to interfere with proper, genuine trading of that kind.
Finally I turn to Clause 31 which deals with the control of fly-posting. The noble Lord will correct me if I am wrong—and I shall find out from Hansard tomorrow whether I am correct—but I understand that the present legislation enables action to be taken in the form of a prosecution against either the publisher or the person who gains from fly-posting. I hope that the provision in Clause 31 will not be an alternative to action to be taken under the previous legislation. One other point arises—namely, that the local authority has power, if it so desires, to remove or to obliterate posters which are put up by fly-posting. This is a cost to the local authorities. Where the name and address of the individual is known, surely there ought to be inserted in the clause power for recovery, because local authorities should not be put to the expense of having to employ people—their own staff or others —to cover up what are regarded as illegal posters, and yet not be able to pass on the cost.
With those few points of general approval of the Bill, I point out that a lot of work will have to be done in Committee.
4.44 p.m.
Viscount Ridley: My Lords, first I should like to apologise to the House and to my noble friend Lord Belstead for being unavoidably absent at the beginning of the debate, but I look forward to reading what my noble friend said. My intervention on this Bill will be brief, but I hope helpful. It will have nothing to do with pop festivals or sex shops—my experience of either being somewhat limited. But in my research as regards what I might have to say this afternoon, I came across an Act, passed by Parliament in 1650, which is entitled:
"An Act for suppressing the detestable sins of incest, adultery and fornication".
Those sins, my Lords, were at that time to be punishable by instant death, whereas anybody convicted of,
"keeping a bawdy house shall on first offence be openly whipped, set in the pillory, marked with a hot iron on the forehead with the letter 'B', and committed to prison for three years without bail".
One hopes that that Act has by now been repealed by subsequent legislation, but it is nice to speculate what the authors of that piece of legislation would have thought about a modern sex shop had they seen one.
I am concerned with much more mundane matters in this Bill concerning the need to replace Section 262 of the Local Government Act 1972 with general powers for local authorities to deal with certain local problems. That section provides that all local Acts—and there have been a great many—expire at the end of 1984, although the date has now been extended to 1986. It had been hoped that this Bill would avoid the need for councils to promote legislation after that date, especially
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in non-controversial cases and where the powers which are to be sought are not contested but would, if continued, provide important safeguards.
I therefore ask that the Government will look favourably on amendments which we hope will come forward to include a great many powers for local authorities already possessed by some, if not by all, councils. The reason I ask for this is that in some respects this Bill is defective by what it does not include, as other noble Lords have said, and the more clauses that can now be agreed the better, and the less will be the need for Private Bills in the future. It is important that this should be done not only because of the immense pressure on parliamentary time, of which your Lordships will be very well aware, but also the cost. For example, the cost of three county council Bills which received Royal Assent at the end of last Session were as follows. The Kent Bill cost £200,000; the Derbyshire Bill cost more than £100,000 and as regards the East Sussex Bill the fee for the parliamentary agents alone was, I understand, over £60,000 and the total cost is likely to be well over £100,000. I understand that Berkshire feel that if this Bill is not amended they may need a Bill of their own which will cost quite as much as did some of the Bills which I have quoted.
After 1972 the Government exhorted local authorities to promote rationalisation Bills to replace the private Act powers which are due to disappear. It had been intended to provide a Bill which obviated the need for private powers. Local authorities understandably, in view of the costs involved, expected a general Bill which would cover all the various details generally needed and acceptable to Governments. There was a 1976 Act, as your Lordships are well aware, but that was not the final answer. It was hoped that the Bill now before us would provide all the answers; but if it does not—and it does look as if it is defective—then I hope very much that we may be allowed a third bite of the cherry before the legislation expires. I hope that when my noble friend Lord Bellwin replies, he will be able to tell us whether or not this is the final piece of legislation. I hope very much that it is not.
I would have given examples of the type of thing which county councils are talking about and hoping for, but the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Claughton, has already quoted from all my sources. May I, as a fellow sufferer, say in passing how nice it is to hear that he has recovered from the gout which he had last week. I shall not repeat what he has said. I do not believe that any of these matters are, or should be, controversial and all should be readily agreeable to the Government. They have, indeed, mostly been the subject of much discussion between local authority associations and Government officials, and in due course I hope that the House will agree to include some of them; but they are, of course, details which we shall come to in Committee. I say that because I am quite certain that it would save a great deal of time and public money if we are able to meet them. In general I give a warm welcome to the Bill.
4.49 p.m.
Lord Robertson of Oakridge: My Lords, I should like to offer some remarks on Clause 2 and Schedule 3. I appreciate the Government's response to the local

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authorities' request for powers to control the proliferation of sex shops by a system of licensing. But I would like to mention three reservations. The first concerns the question of local authorities having the power to limit sex shops. I would like to see that power extended to giving discretion to ban them altogether if they should think fit and if this reflects public opinion. Certainly I should not like to see local authorities having to get involved in expensive and time-consuming legislation to fend them off.
Secondly, as has been made very clear, we are concerned merely with a measure which gives local authorities a degree of control over the retail outlets for the trade in sex articles. In no way can the measure be treated as a means of reforming or improving the existing obscenity laws. Accordingly, any attempt to define what sex articles are acceptable and what are not acceptable is out of place and would almost certainly be counter-productive. It is for this reason that I believe it is wrong to have included in the definitions the words in paragraphs 2 and 3 used to describe sadistic material. I have given much thought to this point and, however I look at it, I cannot avoid the simple conclusion that it must be wrong to license sadistic material. Whatever riders are put in the measure and, indeed, whether paragraph 25 comes at the beginning or the end of the schedule—licensing sadistic material confers a degree of approval on it. I can understand the reasons for the inclusion in the definition of these words; namely, that our weak and unsatisfactory obscenity laws could give rise to a situation where it would be quite possible that these things might not otherwise be controlled.
This brings me to my third point which is the need to follow up these provisions with a general reform of the law on obscenity. I much admired the speech of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London and felt that there was one bright instance where we had the clear and authentic voice of the Church. In particular, I admired his assessment of much pornography as evil. I would add only one point. When I study some of the worst items of pornography—which I have just occasionally—I get a sense of welling up of the evil that is inside me—that it wants to come to the surface. I believe that this is what happens to many people and when it does come to the surface, real trouble materialises. Control of retail outlets will not deal with this problem. In order to deal with it, we need a reform of the obscenity laws, and action on this is essential. If we do not make efforts to deal with the evil that is in and around us, we shall stand condemned just as much as those who produce and distribute this literature.
In a curious way this was brought home to me at lunchtime when I listened to a talk on the character, Eli. Noble Lords will remember that he was Samuel's mentor. Noble Lords will also remember that he suffered and had to share the same judgment as his wicked sons because, although well-meaning, he did not take effective steps to stop their wickedness. What is needed, and needed urgently, is a clear, adequate and enforceable law to control all aspects of the pornography industry. As a basis, material should be prohibited that fulfils the following conditions: first, that which appeals to a prurient interest; secondly, that which lacks serious social merit; and, thirdly, that
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which is patently offensive in the treatment of sexual conduct.
Without such a law the measures now proposed even if amended and improved before they become law, will not fully achieve all that is needed. I appeal to the Government to follow up this measure with a reform of the law on obscenity.
4.54 p.m.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, I am very pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Oakridge, with his lucid and compelling speech on the subject of sex shops. I shall have a few words to say about that in a minute. First, I should like to congratulate the Government on introducing this useful miscellaneous measure which is, I believe, supposed to complete the 1976 Act and cover the position of local authorities when all local Acts finally expire. Of course, this is something much to be desired.
In recent years many noble Lords will have seen the spate of local government Bills—many of them jumbo Bills—coming before Select Committees, and will sympathise with the point made by my noble friend Lord Ridley, of the heavy cost to the local authorities and the ratepayers, as well as the heavy burden on the time of Parliament. So, if that can be obviated in this way, it is very much to be desired. I hope that this measure will meet most local needs, although it is already evident that it will not meet them all. We shall hear various noble Lords move amendments in Committee.
There are just three short points that I want to mention before dealing with the major subject of Part II of the Bill, sex shops. One of them was referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Birk. It was the reluctance of local authorities to take on the duty of licensing for music and dancing. I understand that that reluctance is matched by the magistrates, who are reluctant to lose the function. So it will be interesting to hear from my noble friend on the Front Bench in due course how it is that neither is satisfied and why they propose to make a transfer.
Of the other two points I wish to mention, one concerns the street trading code. The Bill makes a provision for an appeal against a refusal of a licence to trade in a "licence street", but it makes no provision for an appeal against a refusal of a consent to trade in what is called a "consent street". This seems a technical omission and I hope that my noble friend will be ready to make an amendment at the Committee stage.
The third point is with regard to repeals. Many provisions in recent local Acts will be superceded by provisions in this Bill. But, apart from the repeals in Schedule 7, the Bill leaves other local Act provisions unrepealed. I wonder why, and whether this could be covered. Obviously it would go some way to meet the objections of my noble friends Lord Ridley and Lord Sandford.
I should now like to say a few words to noble Lords about the licensing of sex shops. I personally welcome this provision. As a Christian, I sympathise with the right reverend Prelate's wise and cogent words on the moral issue, but to me practical politics demand that I should recognise the reality, that there are now

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literally hundreds of these sex shops—hundreds in London and I daresay hundreds by now outside. Therefore, a measure of control is reality, and that is what this does. Good luck to the Government for having the courage to come forward to do it. It must be encouraging to them that in the Commons there was general approval of this measure, although there were a good many reservations on details.
Of course, the outcry against sex shops, particularly in the Provinces, has become so loud that I think it may even be heard in the Home Office now. No doubt that is why this measure has come forward. I am sure that this is right. I am relieved to see that the schedule provides that existing sex shops must apply for licences just the same as new applications and that they will have no pre-emptive right of getting one. To me this seems to be right.
In contradistinction to the right reverend Prelate, I think that control by licensing is technically correct. Planning control is concerned with a change of use of premises, whereas the establishment of a sex shop in existing shop premises only involves a change of goods sold, and not a change of use. Therefore, licensing by the decision of elected local councillors, who are the best judge of what is suitable in their localities, seems to me to be the right answer.
I have already referred to the general support in the Commons, but what will also have been noted by all noble Lords is that the Commons had little opportunity to debate this important measure. It was added as a new clause on Report stage and discussed late at night. Therefore, there really has been no opportunity for the Government's proposals to be amended in detail. Therefore, here in our House, as often happens, we have a special responsibility in the Committee stage to look at this in detail and ensure that this long and complicated Schedule 3 is as good as we can make it by the time we have finished with it.
There are three points I should like to mention now, one of which has already been referred to by many speakers; that is of course the definition of a sex shop and a sex article in paragraph 3 of Schedule 3. I shall not quote the particular sub-paragraph because it really is most objectionable. There is no doubt, as the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, said and the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, that it is astonishing to find in a Government Bill references to sadistic material, and that we are being asked to approve of a licensing scheme which will approve of these particular articles, pictures, and material.
I welcome Lord Belstead's undertaking to reconsider these definitions, but I noted, as I am sure did other noble Lords, that he was not particularly sanguine that he was going to find an improvement. What this implies—and I am sure all noble Lords will observe this—is that in existing sex shops this material is present. My noble friend may well take the same line as his right honourable friend the Minister of State did in the Commons, that these words are needed in order to cover everything stocked by the sex shops. Then my noble friend will have to explain to the House why prosecution is not taken under the 1959 Act, which clearly makes this material illegal. I agree with the noble Baroness that it is objectionable to ask the House, by implication, to approve of this and put it in
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a Bill.
Let me add to my noble friend that really putting paragraph 25 of the schedule at paragraph 1 is not going to give it any more force than it has now. Obviously the right solution, as other noble Lords have said, is a new Bill to strengthen the Obscene Publications Act 1959. My noble friends and I have been considering this difficult problem for some time and we have drafted something which I shall shortly, if I am allowed to, put before your Lordships. I hope that this may make a contribution in this immensely difficult field where we have to try to achieve some control in a field where opinions differ a good deal, where we can perhaps achieve something which would make illegal, get control, and perhaps reduce in volume (because, goodness knows! the volume at present is really appalling) what is called hard pornography. We must talk about that at some other time.
The other point I wish to refer to is the procedure for appeal on a refusal of licence. Where a local authority has refused an application to set up a sex shop the applicant may appeal to the magistrate's court, with a further right of appeal to the Crown court. I believe that an amendment is needed here. I think that my noble friend is aware of this point. I think he indicated that he was prepared to concede it. The precedent we have in this particular field is the setting up of betting shops under the Gaming Acts. The same machinery existed there. Appeal to the magistrates' court, and a further appeal to the Crown court. Of course, by the time the appeal has got to the Crown court it is getting pretty remote from the influence of local opinion. The result has been, because most of these appeals were betting shops and went to the Crown court, that an absolute rash of betting shops has been allowed to be set up all over our urban areas. Far more than anyone could think to be necessary. But, where there is enough money about, of course people will go to appeal.
There is a danger that, unless we give the local authority a stronger position than the schedule does now, they will not be successful in resisting the appeal in the Crown court, and we shall have a similar experience with sex shops as we did with betting shops. This is very much related to a point asked by my noble friend Lord Sandford in a very clear question. I think my noble friend Lord Belstead indicated that where a local authority judged that by the nature of the locality, and in all the circumstances, a sex shop was not suitable, while they had to consider each application on its merits, they could give a negative answer. We shall wish to hear my noble friend say that again, and make it a little plainer on the face of the schedule.
The final point I wish to mention briefly, a point again that was discussed in the Commons, is the fine. The fine has been set at £5,000 which, on the face of it, sounds a large figure, but those who are knowledgeable in this matter indicated that this really is a bagatelle in this field where so much money is being made. Indeed, as the noble Baroness will remember, the Front Bench speaker from the Opposition in the Commons suggested that imprisonment should be part of the punishment. But this was generally felt to be undesirable in the present circumstances where custodial sentences are so much to be deprecated. But I believe

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that we should ensure that the fine is something more substantial, perhaps recurring or perhaps a larger figure. Again this is a point we could look at on the Committee stage.
May I conclude by saying that the Committee stage is obviously going to be important here. I and my noble friends will be putting down some amendments which we hope will improve the schedule and strengthen it, and I do not doubt that other noble Lords will too, so that we can ensure that when the schedule leaves us it will be as effective as possible in controlling something which gives a good deal of anxiety throughout the country.
The Lord Bishop of London: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, may I ask him a question? I do not know whether I misheard him earlier in his speech, but I thought I heard him say that, contrary to what I had said, because sex shops existed some form of control was necessary. Would the noble Lord accept that I did in fact, having made clear my position on sex shops, accept that control is necessary and what matters are the terms on which it is provided and the context in which it is done, so as to be the permission of what is regrettable and undesirable rather than the licensing of what is perfectly acceptable?
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, I must thank the right reverend Prelate for making that further explanation. If I did not do him justice, I apologise. I do not think our minds are far apart on this.
5.8 p.m.
Baroness Ewart-Biggs: My Lords, I too should like to thank the Minister for his presentation of this Bill, which seems to be a Bill which has a mixed range of issues but which are, many of them, closely affecting people's everyday lives and relate especially to the changing pattern of life. First, I should like to comment on certain of the clauses in this Bill which appear to me to affect today's youth. I feel strongly that any division between the generations is a dangerous situation and an unhealthy one for society, and that it is becoming increasingly important to try to look at new legislation from a young person's point of view with regard to how it will affect him, or her, in the sort of life that the changing world is offering them.
I myself have three teenage children, and I am as concerned as most parents about pressures and anxieties to which today's world exposes them. Therefore, it seems essential to try not to exacerbate such anxieties by controls which they could see as being unreasonably directed against them. With this particular consideration in view, may I comment on Clause 1, which relates to the licensing of places used for public entertainments. As my noble friend Lady Birk pointed out, this Bill would remove from metropolitan authorities the power of decision over the outdoor entertainment, which obviously mainly means pop festivals.
There can be no doubt in any of our minds as to the effect a pop festival must have on the locality in which it is held. Such festivals, by their very definition, require maximum attendance and maximum noise, neither of which are at all conducive to the quiet life of the local residents. So it seems entirely right that local authorities, representing the interests of those
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residents, should have the power to decide about them. Equally, it should and must be their responsibility to combine a respect for the sensitivities of their local residents with a certain open-mindedness towards the youthful recreation and entertainment. Noble Lords with great experience of this have already given their views and there is little I can add, but I feel strongly that it is not only wrong but also self-defeating for authorities to take a uniformly hostile attitude towards this teenagers' style of entertainment on the grounds merely of disturbance.
I remember clearly the first time one of my children said he was going to a concert. I fondly thought he was referring to Beethoven and Bach at the Albert Hall. Since then of course I have learnt better and appreciate that when teenagers talk about a concert they can only mean a pop concert, and there must be a tremendous number of teenagers like that. We must therefore accept that this is an important and major source of modern-day enjoyment, relaxation and entertainment for the young. Indeed, when compared with some other pastimes young people with too much time on their hands might indulge in, listening to loud music is to my mind a good way to let off steam and can be highly preferable to many other activities. Very often agreement could be reached between local authorities and the organisers of festivals on how to find that balance between the interests of local residents and the interests of the young music fanatics.
In relation to Clause 4, which deals with the question of take-away food shops, again I would point out that these shops now have an important place in young people's lives. The pattern of eating for children has completely changed compared with the days of cottage pie and stew. They have been replaced by the food they get from take-away shops, and really the worst they can do in such places is make a noise and perhaps also make a mess, which again seems to be a much more innocuous way of entertainment for them than many other things in which they might indulge. I believe, therefore, that take-away food shops should remain open as late as possible, with the relevant safeguards, because they not only provide what is needed by people with regular jobs, but, as I say, provide a harmless form of entertainment for teenagers.
I also applaud Clause 15, which requires the registration of enterprises concerned with tattooing, ear-piercing and so on. There is no doubt that a great number of young people, some of them very young and now of both sexes, wish to have their ears pierced. It has become completely acceptable for boys of 16 and 17 to have an ear or both ears pierced, and they are the last possible people who would look towards the cleanliness of the establishment they might go to. While the Bill is concerned with requiring the registration of those engaged in those activities, as my noble friend Lady Birk said, the Government might consider imposing the same requirements for establishments providing ultra-violet sun-tanning and possibly even sauna baths; I should have thought that both those services required a high degree of expertise and should also conform to the rules of cleanliness required by the clause.
On an entirely different point, but again very much affecting the young, concern has been expressed that the Bill does not contain any provision about glue-sniffing.

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Perhaps it is too controversial a matter and this Bill is not a suitable vehicle. Nevertheless, I urge the Government not to miss the opportunity at least to look at this heartbreakingly tragic habit which is indulged in by some of Britain's least fortunate children.
Clause 31 has been mentioned by various noble Lords. It provides for the control of fly-posting. We should all welcome it, but in my view the provision could go even further, for example to control the results of the use of spray-cans on walls and buildings. Some graffiti daubed in huge lettering can be extremely offensive and I should be interested to know the Government's thinking on that. After all, the Bill would seem a highly appropriate place for such control.
Regarding the controversial part of the Bill, that dealing with sex shops, I admire the Government for taking on the issue and grasping this particular nettle, and although obviously the Bill is not a perfect vehicle for dealing with the problem, nevertheless they are not letting pass the opportunity of trying to improve on the present situation. I suppose that, as this is such a highly moral issue, we should perhaps ask ourselves why we dislike sex shops so much; why do they appear so offensive to us and why do they instil in so many of us a sense of outrage and disgust? I expect that we would all answer that question slightly differently. For my part, I judge them from the following viewpoints: first, I do not like the way they look; secondly, I am totally opposed to the fact that fortunes are made out of a trade concerning the degradation of women; thirdly, I abhor the fact that the sensitivities of so many are being hurt by the presence of such shops in their localities; and fourthly, I am appalled when I think of the coarsening and brutalising effect the exhibition of the kind of wares which they trade must have on young people who no doubt frequent them. After all, a 12-year-old can easily pass for 18 nowadays and I should think that quite a few children pass through these shops, not least because they are curious.
I suppose that if my first requirement were met and sex shops could be transformed from sleazy, down-at-heel-looking premises filled with shifty, unhappy-looking people into highly decorative and brightly painted places full of open-faced, laughing people, then my further objections might slightly diminish. But I am afraid we cannot necessarily count on that happening, so for those of us who find it difficult to wish to ban any institution for which there appears to be a place in society, all we can do is very much welcome the Bill and try to help to see that it contains the necessary provisions to diminish the ill-effects that such an institution can have on the rest of the community.
In that context, there are a few points I wish to make. The first is to support my noble friend Lady Birk in relation to the very word—its use has been referred to by many noble Lords and I believe it plays an important part for all of us and the general public at large—"licence", for it will always convey a form of legitimacy. We have driving, dog and television licences, all of which convey that it is all right and totally acceptable. I urge the Government seriously to consider replacing that word, and perhaps "permit" would be a very much better one to use in that it has a slightly different connotation and could
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be used in precisely the same way. It would imply that the person wishing to get this permit had to earn it, had to warrant that he deserved it.
In relation to the fine proposed, I know there has been much discussion about the level of the fine, but I should have thought it was most important to ensure that whatever sum is fixed, it should be index-linked, otherwise it might very soon represent a completely false amount. A small point about which I should like information concern Schedule 3 (2); exactly what is meant by "relevant locality" for the establishment of sex shops? I do not understand where such a locality could occur and whether there is not an ambiguous quality about that phrase. Again, I support my noble friend Lady Birk and others who have spoken about the words used in the definition of "sex cinemas" and "sex shops". I feel most strongly that to include such words, which are quite horrific, would seem only to bring about a greater emotive quality and abhorrence to that which already exists without seeming to serve a very great purpose. There are so many useful aspects to the Bill that very much relate to the changing pattern of life that I strongly support it.
5.19 p.m.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, I warmly congratulate my noble friend Lady Ewart-Biggs for having brought into the debate a breath of fresh and youthful air. We so rarely here the voice of the young in your Lordships' House. The rarest thing is to hear it directly; it is still rare to hear it indirectly. But this afternoon surely we have heard a message from young people that we have not heard earlier in debate.
That brings me to my first point, that basically this is a Bill to curb the liberties of the subject. It really ought to be called Local Government (Miscellaneous Curbs of the Liberty of the Subject) Bill because it is all to do with licensing; it is all to do with what local authorities already have in the way of powers, or what they want or need to enable us to love our neighbour as ourselves by stopping him from doing the things to which we object. We are all good at that, and I confess to being in this business myself in a small way because I object to people being cruel to animals.
This point enables me to refer to an incident in the progress of the Bill in another place which interested me greatly. It was the attempt that was made to incorporate in the Bill the provisions of the Pet Animals Act 1951 (Amendment) Bill, which I have on two occasions introduced into your Lordships' House, which received a Second Reading in this House for the second time the other day, and which is down for Committee stage on Thursday.
There is a lot in the Bill about street trading, but market places are excluded on the ground that they are not streets. In any case separate statutes apply to market places, and the Pet Animals Act 1951 is one of them. The question raised in another place was whether we could dispose of the matter of the sale of pet animals in market places by incorporating provisions in this Bill. The point was debated for a short while, and the Minister of State indicated that it might receive fresh attention before the Bill completed

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its passage through another place; but it did not. So I shall explore the possibility of following that up in the later stages of the Bill.
Now I can pass to the new centre of interest in the Bill, the so-called sex establishment and sex shop. I told your Lordships the other day that the Report stage of the Bill in another place would be occupied mainly with the question of sex shops and possibly pet shops, but it turned out that it was all sex shops. Overnight the Bill had been transformed from being an unexciting parliamentary exercise into making the sex shop the superstar of our current legislation. Sex is going to dominate the subsequent proceedings on the Bill; but perhaps it ought to, because it received little enough consideration in another place. They swallowed the lot on the Report stage in one go, and there are many aspects of the relevant schedule which require close examination, but did not receive it in another place. So I hope that we shall scrutinise these provisions of the Bill with some care.
With regard to the general issue of the inclusion of these provisions in this or any other Bill, I suppose that what many noble Lords, including myself, say in your Lordships' House on the issues of the day is predictable. For example, with great respect, I could have said largely what the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, was going to say, and no doubt he is now thinking of what he expects I am going to say. Well, probably we are not replenished often enough or bountifully enough in order to get the new point of view, and that is why the speech a few moments ago of my noble friend was so interesting and so pleasant to listen to.
Your Lordships know that ever since I have been in this House I have opposed everything that has come up here to make way for moral censorship, to decide what we shall see and what we shall read. I believe that we must be on our guard against repression and against suppression, while at the same time we must respect the views and feelings of others who may reasonably ask for some safeguard against unnecessary offence. I am not unreasonable in these matters, and I am sure that your Lordships generally are not unreasonable. I thought that the spark of civil liberty shone bright and clear in your Lordships' House, but I am not so sure about it now. That is why one must speak on the question of where these things are leading to, and I shall come to that a little later.
At this stage I would say that had the clauses and schedules regarding sex shops been introduced into the Bill in your Lordships' House we could have taken strong objection to their being brought here directly without much more consultation and consideration elsewhere. The fact that they were introduced into another place at the very latest hour must at least recognise the point that that is the elected Chamber and the Members there have responsibilities to constituents, which we do not have. Nevertheless, we must be ever watchful of our civil liberties in this House, especially when, to deal with evils, Members of another place sometimes rush in a state of panic to introduce reforms which are being heavily pressed from their constituencies.
The people of this country always tend to look for cures. Very rarely are they interested in causes,
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unless they become a little frightened, unless it is Brixton or Toxteth. Then of course they want to know how it all came about, how it happened, and we have committees of investigation into the root cause of things which disturb our peace of mind greatly. But when the public are being merely censorious they do not care about causes; all they deal with are manifestations, and all they think of is stopping them, leaving it there, not going more deeply into the cause of what is believed to be an evil development.
The hub of the sex industry is in Fleet Street, and sex shops are among their retail outlets. Promotional support comes from some of the multinationals, such as the cosmetics and toiletries industries, the seductive products of which I need not dwell upon. Even the cigarette manufacturers help to stimulate sexual desire and activity by associating smoking with romantic love and manly vigour. What is the "Marlboro country "all about? I cannot leave the religious institutions out of it, either, for they never stop talking about the possible evil consequences of what, in a newspaper the other day, I saw described as the most exciting pastime in the world. This is what we are up against; this is what sex shops are expressing in commercialisation and in merchandise—the stimulation which has been put there through other agencies.
I do not think that we in this House have any claim, by either history or composition, to be the apostles of puritan England. In any case I doubt whether we are really qualified to tell the young what they should do about sex. My noble friend Lady Ewart-Biggs is much more qualified in that respect than I am: but I would say that for the most part young people are finding out for themselves. I would add that those who try to help in a practical way all too frequently get abused as being promoters of promiscuity. We have heard all this in your Lordships' House: people who are trying responsibly to guide young people through these pressures, through these complexities and conflicts, are abused as being the purveyors of the means of promiscuity. I think it is deplorable. The truth is that throughout the ages the pursuit of sexual guilt, which has been implanted in all of us, and sexual deviation, which has been reviled down the ages, is relentless and severe in punishment.
Restraints upon liberty and the right to do as we like are unavoidable in a complex and congested community. Our lives are not entirely our own, for we have to learn to live together. I will make big concessions to the cause of social justice, and even bigger ones to the cause of social harmony. But I will make no concessions to bigotry. I lived with it too long as a youth. Nor will I make concessions to the reimposition of the excesses of moral fervour, which I have also experienced in my lifetime. Every move we make in the direction of Part II of this Bill has to be examined from that point of view.
Motives are as important as deeds. Motives indicate where we are likely to be asked to go next; and after each step along this path we should stop, look and listen. If we listen hard enough just now, we hear tramping down the corridor from another place, another Bill which has already been welcomed before it has arrived. These new measures of restraint and control are following too closely upon the Indecent Displays Act last year for the comfort of those of us

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who are ever vigilant in these matters. So I say, watch for the next move. The Bill has already had its Second Reading in another place.
As long as I can I shall go on sounding the warning that I think your Lordships' House must heed: that it must not connive, co-operate or conspire with reactionary forces if it is to retain its standing in the community as the guardian of civil liberty in this country.
The Lord Bishop of Norwich: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down may I ask him whether, when he used the phrase "the spark of liberty to be maintained" earlier in his fascinating speech, which we have listened to with the greatest care, he was referring to the definition in Schedule 3, at the top of page 54, which says that "sex articles" concern:
"acts of force, restraint, violence or cruelty …"?
Did he really mean that by allowing those the spark of liberty was maintained?
5.32 p.m.
The Earl of Halsbury: My Lords, unskilled as I am in the complexities of local government legislation, I have to confess that Clause 2 and Schedule 3 are in fact the star which attracts me to perform in your Lordships' House this evening. Studying the Bill as I have, it appears to me to be the central Government response to a local government request to put a mischief under control in their districts. Accepting it on that basis, one must not criticise it for being what it is not. It is not new criminal law on the subject of obscenity and pornography; it is a response to a local request. Therefore, we cannot presume that that response will be uniform throughout the nation. That would be tantamount to telling local government what it is that they are to resolve under Clause 2 of the Bill.
The way that central Government have gone about it is somewhat circumambulatory, and their circumambulatory approach via the route of licensing has of course led to misunderstanding on the basis that licensing always appears to imply condonation. This particularly applies to the objections which have been raised on the references in the schedule to sadistic and masochistic and deviant forms of sex. I shall come to the details of that later. But I should like to begin by expressing my wholehearted agreement with the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of London on the need to make it clear, through the wording of the Bill, that it is possible for local government to resolve, in effect, "We shall have none of this in our area at all", and in Committee I hope to introduce some amendments to the beginning of Clause 2 on the lines of, "Provided it shall be lawful for a local authority, having so resolved "—that is, that Schedule 3 should apply—" to resolve also that no licences should be granted in consequence, and that such resolutions should not be subject to appeal to the Crown Court as provided for in the schedule."
That would, in effect, write into the very beginning of the Bill that a local authority is master in its own house and will not have its intentions interfered with by a permissively-minded Crown Court. This applies particularly to the criticism made by Lord Sandford,
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who pointed out the intellectual dishonesty of proceeding to place what is in effect an embargo, not straightforwardly but by chivvying the applicant from pillar to post until he finally runs out of the district altogether. What sort of leadership is that? I very much prefer the proposal of the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of London.
Now I come to this question of sadism. I want those who perhaps disagree with me on this matter—and I have talked it over many times with my noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford, with whom I have been fighting shoulder to shoulder for many years—to consider what would happen if the modifications which the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London would like to see, and which I should like to introduce, are enforced. It would mean that the embargo which the local authority sought to place on having any kind of sex shop at all would not apply to sex shops which went in for sadistic material. So, instead of being (as it were) restrictive, the Act would all of a sudden become permissive in relation to that class of material. That is why I think that it ought to be in the Bill, and why I would support its inclusion.
I naturally support the views of the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, in introducing the Bill, that it would be lovely to move paragraph 25 of the schedule up to the beginning; but, by some manoeuvre or other, could we not put it in Clause 2 of the Bill, making it quite clear that it has a very high status and that nothing would be enfranchised that would be contrary to any other law?
I am speaking last in the debate, and I do not want to take up the time of the House, but I would encourage the Government to take no counsel of their fears. The request for this legislation may mark a turn of the tide. The permissive tide, of which my old friend Lord Houghton of Sowerby is such a staunch advocate, may hopefully be retreating. I believe that immorality does not really make us happy and that indulgence in obscenity leads only to disgust, as expressed so eloquently by the noble Baroness, Lady Ewart-Biggs.
My Lords, the Provinces are much less permissive than the metropolis. They regard, rightly, the condition of part of our capital city as a disgrace to the nation, and I agree with them. The Bill is their opportunity to set the nation as a whole a good example, and I should like to see us strengthen their hand in Committee when the time comes.
5.40 p.m.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: My Lords, in standing here for the very first time, I do so with a great deal of trepidation, especially as we have been considering in such great detail sex and sex shops. I will not dwell on that aspect at great length, but in commencement I should like to thank the noble Lord for introducing the Bill and for introducing it in such a simple way that we quite quickly understood the various clauses, bearing in mind that he apologised to us that the printing of the Bill had been delayed.
I think it would be unfortunate if this Bill, so worth while in some respects, were to enact provisions which are more restrictive than those to be found in recent local Acts; and these local Acts have primarily been promoted by the large metropolitan authorities and, in the words of my noble friend Lady Birk, by dint of much trouble, expense and, of course, parliamentary

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time. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Claughton—and I hope that I do not misquote him—who stressed (as was stressed in the debate last week) that local government is not about uniformity; local government is about government in the localities. Therefore, because the various parts of the country will have different problems to face and different controls that they wish to put into place, there is a greater need for optional requirements; and this is why 1 would support the noble Lord, Lord Evans, on this point, bearing in mind that in many instances the metropolitan authorities have the same problems as London. I think that this is sometimes forgotten when the Government try to get uniformity.
Many noble Lords have made a point of paragraph 1, Schedule 1—the provisions covering licensing of public music, singing and dancing. I am concerned about this legislation being brought in to this particular Bill. As other noble Lords have said this afternoon, in the large metropolitan authorities where much crime takes place, it arises very often from those establishments that have drink, music and dancing licences. I serve as a magistrate in the City of Birmingham. Over 400 magistrates are on that bench; so that by no stretch of the imagination can one say that we are a small, bigoted group of people who want to influence another, larger group of people. Those 400 magistrates see the results daily—and the magistrates in Birmingham sit every day of the week, including Saturdays—when we have brought before us the serious crimes, the "actual bodily harms", the stabbings that take place, especially in the city centre establishments that have drinking and music and dancing licences. I think that the views of the Magistrates' Association and the views of the Justices' Clerks' Society must be taken into consideration. I hope that when we come to the Committee stage of this Bill we shall find the Government willing to accept amendments.
I say this in the kindest of spirits, for it is only since 1980 that these Acts have been put on the statute book. If we look at page 85 of the Bill we see the extent of the repeals. We see the West Midlands County Council Act, the Cheshire County Council Act, the West Yorkshire Act, and so on down the page. All these Acts will be repealed under this legislation. I should like to ask the noble Lord whether these authorities mentioned in the schedules have been consulted: whether there has been discussion by these local authorities publicly in the council chambers; and whether they have consented to the repeal of their legislation.
My Lords, if I may go on quickly to late-night opening and take-away food shops, I go along with the legislation about the control of noise and nuisance. I should like to support my noble friend Lord Underhill when he described much of the nuisance as arising from the packaging and litter, which is a source of great concern to the people in the surrounding locality. One of the first things which happens with late-night closing and take-away shops is a lowering of the standards of the neighbourhood—not because of what is being sold inside the premises but because of the filth and litter that arises from the sale. Perhaps we can look again into this and other points at the Committee stage.
I listened with great interest to what the noble Baroness, Lady Ewart-Biggs, had to say. I should
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like to emphasise the point that she made with respect to bill-posting. What annoys many people is the use of the spray paint canister—and I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Ewart-Biggs, spelt this out quite clearly—where whole buildings can be desecrated. One goes to tube stations in London and to the underpasses in many large authorities and one sees the effect of paint spraying. One would have thought that some legislation on this could have come along with the bill-posting legislation.
I have a small question on ear-piercing. When it says that people have to be licensed, does this mean that those jewellers—and there are many of them in large cities who provide an ear-piercing service, for, obviously, if one sells earrings and one can get people to have their ears pierced, the two go together—will have to become licensed under the Bill?
I was interested in the problem which faced both the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London and the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Claughton, when we started to discuss what some people describe as the "star turn" of the Bill; that is, the provision dealing with sex shops and sex cinemas. It seems as though the right reverend Prelate has a problem in that he has to satisfy both points of view with his congregation just as it seems the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Claughton, has to satisfy both sections of his electorate. I can understand that the Government have taken into consideration and have taken on board a problem which is a very serious problem. As we have heard today, this is something which has serious moral overtones—and no politician likes to come down on one side or the other on moral grounds. The Government are to be congratulated by trying to meet in the Bill an anxiety which has been ef great public concern for the last two or three years —as has the spread of these kinds of shop, not only in the capital city but up and down the country.
I am not going to go into any great detail about the debate on sex shops. I think that many noble Lords have given their opinions today and that the Committee stage of the Bill will be long, detailed and controversial upon that particular subject. I would go along with my noble friend Lady Birk about our making use of another word, "permit". I also suggested to her another wording which might perhaps be: "Subject to regulations laid down by …" and then followed by the name of whichever is the local authority.
Finally, as a matter of principle, I am concerned about the provision in Clause 36, which is designed, as far as I can read, to empower the Secretary of State to repeal or amend local provisions which appear to him to be inconsistent with, or to have become unnecessary in consequence of, any provision of the Bill.
We on these Benches would like assurances as to the consultation process which the Secretary of State will undertake before he exercises these powers. We seek clarification as to what is meant by "inconsistent" and "unnecessary". Is wholesale repeal of local legislation and provisions to take place? If so, the obtaining of the local legislation will have been a complete waste of time, as I have said, in the main for the metropolitan authorities, which had a much quicker time-scale that they had to agree with than did the Association of District and County Councils.
General legislation will have been allowed to override local legislation, and I see this—and my Party

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see this—as another move forward to centralism. This was one of the points of the debate that we had last week on local rates. No doubt some noble Lords on the opposite Benches will share our concern that local—and in most cases more extensive—and better provisions should not be lost after token consultation. These are my observations, and I conclude by saying that with my noble friend Lady Birk I look forward to the Committee stage of the Bill and the amendments which we shall he putting forward.
5.52 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment (Lord Bellwin): My Lords, before I begin to wind up on this debate, may I congratulate the noble Baroness who I understand was speaking from the Dispatch Box for the first time? As always, she spoke very forcefully and if I could not agree with everything she said—indeed, had I done so it would have been the first time—at least one always has great respect for her background and knowledge when she talks, especially in this area.
It gives me great pleasure to wind up on this Bill. I consider it a very useful measure in a very valuable process: the elimination of many thousands of obsolete or unnecessary provisions in local legislation. The result should be a body of local legislation which is relevant to present needs, greatly reduced in bulk, accessible to those who need to use it and capable of modification in later years when further local Acts are passed.
The first Bill of this kind was introduced by the Opposition when they were in power in 1976, and they initiated discussions on the content of the Bill currently before the House. The Government were pleased to continue the work thus begun and bring it to fruition. I should also like to take this opportunity of thanking the local authority associations for their help and cooperation in preparing the subject-matter of the Bill.
A number of points have been raised during this debate which can be discussed in greater detail in Committee. However, I can offer some comments on them now.
Clause 1 and Schedule I have raised the issue of fees for charities but as so little was said on that I can pass quickly over that and come straight to the first point that was made by the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, when talking about licensing of public entertainments. This aspect has been criticised on a number of grounds. The first criticism was that it is mandatory and not adoptive. Secondly, that it transfers licensing powers from the licensing justices in some places which they consider unnecessary. Thirdly, that it will add to local authority costs. Fourthly, that it will permit local authorities to licence themselves. Fifthly, that it does not permit the licensing of pop festivals and removes existing local authority powers to do so.
If I may tuck the first four of those together, since they are bound up in the purpose of this scheme, in the Government's view the main aim of music and dancing licensing is no longer simply or primarily to maintain law and order, although this is without question still one of the aims of the licensing system. We see it very much more as a means of ensuring the safety of the public from fire and the adequate construction and
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arrangement of the premises, and a measure of how seriously we take the need for proper safety standards is the fact that we are making the licensing code mandatory. Two local authorities, the district and county council, are concerned with structural and fire standards, and it is from those two that we selected the licensing authority. In the end the district council seemed the more appropriate because it would be better able to judge local feelings and the risk of noise nuisance in a particular area.
May I now come to the issue of licensing pop festivals. The criticism there comes from a power to licence open-air events, particularly pop festivals. If I may deal first with the recommendations of Baroness Stedman's report (if I may refer to it as such) that a national licensing scheme is preferable to a patchwork system of controls. This is a conclusion which the Government never accepted. If, as the working party's report concluded, licensing brings with it a number of problems, including enforcement, there can be little virtue or logic in extending it throughout the country. Nor are we worried about the comparison with London. Pop festivals of the size and type which take place in the open countryside simply do not take place in London. The public entertainments provisions which are in force there and which were designed to cover indoor entertainments may work well there.
The question of the repeal of existing local Acts is more difficult and the Government are very alive to the feelings of local authorities who stand to lose current powers if no amendment can be made to this Bill. Therefore, although I can give no undertaking, I want to say that the Government are doing all they can to try and find a solution to the problem. A point was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, concerning licensing public entertainments. In general, she was concerned that there was, as she said, no right of appeal against the refusal of a licence. There are extensive rights of appeal to the magistrates' court and subsequently to the Crown court under paragraph 15 of Schedule 1.
Now if I may refer to the subject of sex shops— which I must say makes quite a change from rate support grant, which is my normal field of activity!— may I say I have listened with great interest to the views expressed this afternoon about the proposals in the Bill which would allow local authorities to control sex shops and sex cinemas by means of a licensing scheme.
I think it is fair to say that, in considering the general question of whether such controls were desirable, most of those who spoke were aware of two conflicting currents. Without exception, concern was expressed about the present lack of controls over those premises: in particular, about the manner in which they can appear overnight in the most unsuitable of locations. Those who spoke recognised, I think, that the proposals in the Bill would afford local authorities with a very real measure of control over these establishments, and ore which would be widely welcomed by those authorities grappling with this problem.
I should like to emphasise that in introducing these provisions the Government are responding to widespread concern in the country as a whole. This concern does not come simply from local authorities or local authority associations: it comes from individual

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Members of Parliament and from many members of the public who have written to my honourable friends in the Home Office in strong and forthright terms about the serious social consequences they see stemming from the unrestricted spread of sex shops. The Government are entirely convinced of the need to respond to this concern and indeed they believe it would have been quite irresponsible not to have done so. The proposals were widely welcomed in principle when they were first debated in another place and we have every reason to believe that they will receive a similarly strong measure of support in your Lordships' House. But of course some, including those who have clearly said they supported the proposals, expressed disquiet about the principle of licensing shops which, as the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of London has said and indeed as another speaker also mentioned, are found morally objectionable.
The Government fully understand these reservations, but we think it is essential to stress, as did my noble friend earlier today, that licensing would not afford any legal protection or immunity for a sex shop or a sex cinema. My noble friend Lord Belstead said it, and I repeat it now for emphasis: nothing will be made law ful which is at present unlawful. We are acting to control something and not to allow something which is not allowed at present; but it is impossible to control something unless one is prepared to acknowledge that it exists. The objections of principle to licensing have in the end to be weighed against the practical advantages of providing local authorities with effective powers where at present they have none and in the light of the difficulties in controlling these establishments by any other means, be it planning legislation or the vexed matter of the general law on obscenity.
This Bill is clearly quite inappropriate, in our view, for a reform of the law on obscenity such as the right reverend Prelate and the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Oakridge, would like to see. We feel it would have been wrong for the Government to have attempted to do this either directly or by the back-door method whereby the local authorities could ban these establishments completely on moral grounds, irrespective of local circumstances.
As regards the Government's own long-term intentions on obscenity legislation, I think I must say very firmly that the reality of the situation, as we heard in the views expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, is that there are very wide differences of view both in another place and in your Lordships' House on the philosophical basis of any such legislation. In this peculiarly contentious field, I suggest that it would be fatal to attempt to legislate in the absence of some general consensus on what society should seek to achieve. We all accept that the line has to be drawn somewhere, but there are as many views on where the line should be drawn as there are Members of your Lordships' House. It will be clear therefore why the Government see no early prospect of legislation in this field; but to defer any action on sex shops until the prospects for general legislation were firmer would surely be to deny many members of the public any immediate remedy for their legitimate complaints.
Turning now from the principle of licensing controls to their practical application, it has been questioned—
The Earl of Halsbury: My Lords, if the noble Lord will permit me, before he leaves that can he make any comment at all on the proposal made by the right reverend Prelate, as endorsed by myself and as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, on the simplification of procedure whereby a local authority could say:" In our district, no sex shops"?
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, I believe there is provision in the schedule for objection, and I will cover that point before I sit down, if I may. There is provision for objection to sex shops' applications for licences. The local authority will take the content of these fully into account in considering whether to grant a licence. There is no need for explicit grounds for refusal or the grounds that people object. There is no reason why a local authority should not come to its conclusion that a sex shop is not desirable— the discretion will be theirs. That is the right they will have, and, unless I am missing the point very much—and I do not think I am—this is indeed one of the objectives of what we are proposing. I hope that in fact will satisfy the point made by the right reverend Prelate and the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord to clarify this point? It is a very important one and it would be most helpful were he able to be a little more explicit. Is he saying that a local authority can decide on prohibition as far so these establishments are concerned in its own local authority area? That is the point, and it is one on which I think we should all value the advice of the noble Lord.
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, I am not certain of the extent to which that can be done. I think the answer is "yes", providing they take into account the particular circumstances of their own area; but it may well be that this is something I shall have to make more clear than I am doing at the moment. I will certainly write to those who have raised the point and also to any others of your Lordships who may feel it is somewhat obscure. Certainly it is important that it should be made clear.
Baroness Birk: My Lords, before the noble Lord leaves that point—this was something that I left out of my speech because of time—are the Government taking into account that a local authority may decide that it does not want sex shops in its area, but sex shops, as they are now, are legal, so are there no rights for the people who want to have sex shops in that area? The Minister will be aware that it was suggested in another place that if there were sex shops in Brighton, Worthing could say that it did not want them. I think that we are getting near a form of repression over this, if we are not very careful.
Lord Sandford: My Lords, this is much the most important single point of the whole clause. I think that local authorities must be absolutely clear as to what their powers are going to be before they willingly accept this measure of control from Parliament. It may well be that the approach which the noble Lord, Lord Harris, has just suggested, of deciding in advance that they are not going to have sex shops anywhere in the district is going to far. But I would want to be quite clear that

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a local authority was going to be empowered to take the view that in respect of each particular application it could come to that conclusion.
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, so far as I am aware, the answer to that last point is "yes": that is my understanding of it. Should that not be so, then I will make it clear; but that is my understanding of the matter. Perhaps I may now turn to another point which was mentioned by the noble Baronesses, Lady Birk and Lady Ewart-Biggs, when they suggested that perhaps another term, "permit" might be used rather than the word "licence". I would respectfully suggest that this would not meet the point because it is surely wrong to think of licensing as signifying a seal of approval or as a permissive measure. It would be wrong to introduce amendments which might seem so give credence to this view of the concept of licensing. The term "licence" is a standard one which is used in virtually all the control systems embodied in this Bill, and it would be inconsistent to substitute in this particular case another word—I was going to say "for semantic reasons", but I understand exactly the point which the noble Baronesses are making. I feel that, for the reasons given, it is something upon which we could not embark.
Turning from the principle of licensing controls to the practical application, my noble friend explained in moving the Second Reading why it would not be proper in a Bill of this kind to consider providing local authorities with power to prohibit sex shops as a matter of general principle. He emphasised, however—I think that it bears repetition, and this confirms the point which the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, raised—that, if a local authority decided that it was inappropriate to have any sex establishments in a locality and refused an application on that ground, this power, combined with the other grounds for refusal provided in paragraph 11 of Schedule 3, would enable local authorities to exert a high degree of control.
As my noble friend mentioned earlier, the Government are also considering the question which has been raised as to whether the Bill ought to be amended to ensure that a local authority's view as to the appropriate number of sex establishments in a locality cannot be the subject of an appeal. Of course, we shall take fully into account the views which have been expressed about this. But, whatever is done on this issue, there is little doubt, first, that controls are needed; and, secondly, that the Bill provides these very effectively and in a way which does not recognise illegality or pre-empt any future action in this field.
By some obscure Freudian design, the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, was the only one of your Lordships who managed to get both animals and sex into his speech. The Government are fully aware of the concern which has been expressed about the sale of pet animals from stalls and barrows in street markets. There have been a number of attempts in Parliament over the years to amend the Pet Animals Act 1951 so as to prohibit their sale. A Bill proposing this is currently before the House, as the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, knows, since it is his Bill. It received a Second Reading on 28th January and is to be considered in Committee on Thursday, 18th February.
During the Second Reading debate, my noble friend
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Lord Belstead took a full part in discussion of the Bill. Therefore, I do not propose to go over all the considerations which he suggested should be taken into account in assessing the case for the Bill. These are set out in the Official Report. But I should like to make the following very brief observations. The 1951 Act already places an onus on local authorities to have regard to the welfare of the animals, before a licence is issued to anyone selling pet animals from stalls and barrows in markets. Local authorities are empowered to arrange inspections, and if they are not satisfied they may refuse to renew a licence. In addition, there is other legislation—primarily, the Protection of Animals Act 1911—which is intended to safeguard the welfare of these animals. Apart from Club Row market in the Borough of Tower Hamlets, there have been few complaints, and I am not sure of the extent to which these have been substantiated.
The welfare of animals is a matter to which it is right that we should give continuing careful consideration. However, the proposal to ban completely the sale of pet animals from licensed stalls and barrows in street markets is not wholly justified, when considered against the wider considerations. The issue will, of course, as I have said, be discussed further in the context of the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Houghton.
On the point raised by my noble friends Lord Sandford and Lord Ridley about the Government's proposals on additional powers for local authorities to assist industry following the Burns Report, may I just say this? This matter was, indeed, discussed in the debate of the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, on Thursday of last week. There has been a consultation paper put about. I think that the reason why we have put out a further consultation paper is that the specific proposals which the Government make in this direction outline five options, and, although I hope that these will not take long, we nevertheless felt it right that we should put this forward in the way we have done. When we receive the response we shall, of course, react quickly.
I feel that, particularly in the areas of the inner cities and so on, where there is a very great need—perhaps greater than in some other areas—for these powers to give the additional½p, it would be of great help, because I would remind my noble friends that in those cases it would be additional to the powers which already exist under Section 137 of the 1972 Act. But I think that we shall come back to that in due course.
I should perhaps refer quickly to one or two other points that were raised during the debate—
Lord Sandford: My Lords, before my noble friend leaves that point, can he say whether the Government intend to include in this Bill these provisions to which he has just been referring, or are they still undecided?
Lord Bellwin: No, my Lords. The powers will not come into this Bill, because, clearly, we could not delay this Bill any longer. Although I entirely take the point that the response to the conclusions should also not be delayed, I nevertheless have to say that those steps will not be put into this Bill. The noble Baroness, Lady Birk, referred to Clause 28 and was concerned about the protection of damaged buildings

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and the recovery of costs. The local authority cannot recover costs in relation to buildings subject to closing orders or undertakings, because it is thought that such a power would impose an unfair burden on owners who had already lost the use of such buildings by virtue of the order or undertaking. To that extent, the clause restates the existing position in Section 8 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976.
My noble friend Lord Ridley asked whether this will be the last miscellaneous provisions Bill. In view of the relatively short time left to 1986 when, as was said earlier, so many of the powers which local authorities have will fall, I should think that this will probably be the last one before then; and this is in relation to the effects of Section 262 of the 1972 Act.
On the other point which my noble friend Lord Ridley made, about the input of the local authority associations, some of the associations had a greater input than others. But matters which they raised, which were excluded, were exchanged because they often did not meet the criteria, or were only about problems affecting single individual authorities, and we have particularly tried in this legislation to cover situations concerning the generality of authorities.
The noble Baroness, Lady Birk, asked about the reconnection of services to premises where the owner had not paid his bill. I think we should want to consider what she said as to that, and I will take it away to think about. The noble Lord, Lord Evans, said that Clause 34 should be extended to cover aerodromes. There is existing enabling legislation for this purpose, as my honourable friend the Minister of State recently explained in a letter to the Association of County Councils. On Clause 26, the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, asked how the limit of £250 on the cost of works would be kept abreast of inflation, and I would say that it will have to be reviewed from time to time. The noble Lord, Lord Underhill, raised a point about powers of recovery. I thought that it was an interesting point, and we shall certainly consider it before Committee stage.
My noble friend Lord Nugent was concerned about the repeals. We accept in principle the need to repeal local Act provisions which are replaced by mandatory provisions in this Bill, or which modify provisions in public general Acts which are also amended by this Bill. We shall discuss this with the local authority associations, with a view to introducing suitable amendments. However, where provisions in the Bill are adoptive, local authorities are generally free to retain their own if they so wish, and these provisions will therefore remain in force.
In conclusion, I thank everybody who has contributed to a very interesting debate. I hope that the Bill will have a smooth, and—dare I say it?—a swift passage, though I have some doubts about that. But if we do not hope then all is lost. Then it will be able to fulfil its objective of eliminating uncertainty for local authorities. It will save them expense and it will save Parliament the time involved in the repeated consideration of similar provisions in numerous local authority Bills. I commend the Bill to the House.
The Lord Bishop of Norwich: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, I wonder whether I may ask him
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one historical and factual question. I am not sure that he will be able to give me an immediate answer, but I think the question is relevant. Regarding the principle of licensing about which the noble Lord spoke so eloquently, when street corner betting was a problem licensing appeared to be the way to deal with it. My factual question is whether the volume of known betting has increased or decreased since the licensing of betting shops. Similarly, when the problem of back-street abortions became a great moral issue, did licensing increase or decrease the number of abortions? Would the Minister therefore ponder this question philosophically in relation to the licensing of these tawdry, cruel and unpleasant sex shops?
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, I am sure that the right reverend Prelate knows that I ponder everything philosophically. To what effect and with what result is a matter of opinion. Would that the right reverend Prelate had asked me for some statistics, relating to block grant, or something of that kind, when I could have shown some knowledge. In the circumstances, I shall have to answer by saying that I do not know the answer to the right reverend Prelate's question, but I will certainly look into it and I understake to write to him about it.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Junior Hospital Doctors (Restriction of Hours) Bill [H.L.]
6.22 p.m.
Lord Wells-Pestell: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. Recent events appear to have overtaken it. On Friday last I was listening to the eight o'clock news on BBC Radio 4 when I was informed, along with countless others, that discussions had taken place, presumably between the junior hospital doctors and the Department of Health and Social Security, regarding shorter working hours. On Saturday morning I saw in the Guardian:
"Britain's 25,000 junior hospital doctors yesterday negotiated a cut in working hours. The Department of Health agreed that they should not have to work more than 90 hours a week. At the moment, 28 per cent. of them work for more than 104 hours a week, not all of it on their feet (for some of this time they are only on call) and 72 per cent. work more than 80 hours".
I introduced this Bill and it received its First Reading on 17th December. At no time since then have I been given to understand by anybody, least of all the department represented by the noble Lord the Minister, that there had actually been discussions with regard to a shorter working week. Had this been so, and had been told that this was likely to come about, I should not tonight have troubled your Lordships with the Second Reading of this Bill. It would have been helpful if I could have been told that these discussions had taken place.
However, now that the Bill is before the House, I hope that we shall be able to concentrate our minds on the question of shorter working hours for junior hospital doctors. I am glad to see that half of the noble Lords taking part in this Second Reading debate are distinguished members of the medical profession—

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six out of 12, if my arithmetic is right. I think I can say that they have held very high office in the medical profession. One is a present Vice-Chancellor of a university, while another is an immediate past Vice-Chancellor. Between them they have been past Presidents of something like six Royal Colleges. 1 mention this because, so far as 1 can tell, no junior hospital doctor will speak tonight in this debate. I should like to feel that these noble Lords will be able to put the point of view of the junior hospital doctor.
The Bill seeks to restrict the hours worked by junior hospital doctors in order to improve patient care, to safeguard patients and, for that matter, to safeguard doctors themselves against the effects of over-tiredness and stress due to long spells of duty and insufficient sleep. It may be that not all noble Lords will agree with the details of the Bill. However, I am sure we all recognise that the long hours which junior hospital doctors are expected to work must be—there is evidence of this fact—detrimental to patient care.
So far as time permits, I want to demonstrate the problem and to indicate that the situation has worsened and has received very little attention. This is in contrast to other occupations, such as the transport industries, where the danger to passengers of drivers working long hours has been recognised and employees' hours restricted.
I am aware of the cost involved if the objects of the Bill now before your Lordships are to be implemented. recognise that it would be difficult for the progressive reduction of hours to be accomplished in the time set out in the Bill. Nevertheless, the suggestions embodied in the Bill could be thoroughly discussed in Committee, as could other ways of reducing the long hours undertaken by junior hospital doctors.
The problems of junior hospital doctors and the associated effects on patient care were brought to the attention of the Social Services Committee in another place when they reported on perinatal and neonatal mortality. This is the second report of the House of Commons Social Services Committee, HMSO 6/63. The committee subsequently investigated medical education. In this report, the committee's fourth, they noted:
"Junior doctors in this country are now on duty or on call for an average of 90 hours a week, and in many cases more than this".
Details of junior doctors' contracted hours, given in a Written Answer in another place by the Secretary of State for Social Services in February 1981, showed that in most specialties over one-quarter of junior doctors are contracted to work 104 or more hours a week, and that in two specialties, both surgical, more than one half of junior doctors are contracted to work for over 104 hours. The Social Services Committee of another place, to which I have already made reference, commented:
"Not only does this represent exploitation of junior medical staff but a doctor who has been on duty all day and all night cannot possibly be providing the best service to the patient".
The fact that doctors work only a proportion of their contracted hours has been used to argue that restrictions are unnecessary, but anybody who knows the workings will realise that it is of paramount importance that something is done fairly soon. Hours
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actually worked vary tremendously between specialties. A junior doctor in casualty may work harder at night than during the day, whereas a colleague in psychiatry may be called out only once a night, if that. In addition, a population's health is not scheduled to deteriorate at an even rate, and whatever the specialty, the demands on doctors' services vary considerably. In my submission, the fact that, on average, doctors work only a proportion of their contracted time is not a valid argument against restriction. It is important to recognise that situations can and do arise, so I am told, where a doctor may work almost continuously for two days and a night, during which time numerous decisions affecting patients' health are made.
I acknowledge that it is difficult to quantify the effects of this on patient care. Many doctors relate incidents where, because of tiredness, incorrect decisions have been made but corrective action has proved possible later. However, this is not always the case. The Health Service Commissioner's report on investigations completed in April to September describe the case of a senior registrar's delay in responding to an emergency call to attend a birth in the early hours of the morning. The baby was stillborn. The explanation for the delay was that the senior register fell asleep again after he had put down the telephone. The Health Commissioner concluded:
"The failure of the senior registrar to go promptly to the patient had a tragic result. It has not been denied that the stillbirth was avoidable. Overpowering fatigue is a familiar torment of those who work in the caring services, but duty is not to be denied and the senior registrar should have come when called".
This was the statement made by the Health Commissioner.
Many doctors, because of the high degree of professionalism and responsibility expected and accepted, may believe along with the Health Commissioner that long hours go with the job. I am sure that that will be argued this evening, although I hope it will not. The second study, to which I have already referred, demonstrated the doctors' stress came as much from subjects trying to conform to what was expected of them as the fact that they had been awake for a long time. This can have fatal consequences for doctors as well as for their patients.
Last year—1 have the name but I will not mention it—a senior house officer in a Manchester hospital killed himself. His parents said that he was terrified of making a mistake while overtired and blamed his suicide on that. Most doctors' experience is different; they find reserves of concentration and energy which enable them to react quickly and relatively efficiently in emergencies. Once the emergency or period of duty is over, however, they react in expected ways to the long working hours. There are several reports of doctors who have been involved in car accidents because they have been found to be tired. In 1976, another doctor whose name I will not mention fell asleep while driving and killed himself. He had been working continuously for more that 24 hours. The increase of sophistication of medicine over the years has added to the causes of stress in junior doctors. Many of the specialties existing today did not exist 10 or 20 years ago. Modern perinatal and neonatal care, and cardiology, demand fast accurate decisions alongside a great deal of technical competence.

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Stress has also increased because the means of contacting doctors have been improved. The system of bleepers was introduced in the early 1960s. Prior to that time a request for a doctor was given by a light; but if the doctor was busy with another case, the light was not immediately noticed. Bleepers have changed all that. Improvements in medical technology and communications have improved patient care enormously. Meanwhile, the same improvements have increased the pressure on doctors because their hours of work have not changed to take account of the extra demands which are being made upon them.
While most people have benefited from improvements in the standards of living over the past 20 years, the position of junior doctors has stayed the same. I might say that it has even got worse. This relates not only to conditions of work but also to non-employment activity. Twenty or 30 years ago, it may have been acceptable that a junior doctor, because of long working hours, could not contemplate starting a family until he had become a consultant or a general practitioner. But that situation will not be, and should not be, acceptable today. Real incomes were such that many people had to postpone having a family. Improvements in living standards, particularly over the past 20 years have permitted fuller participation in family life and leisure activities, but I suggest that these general improvements are denied to a large number of junior doctors and their families. It is not good enough for us to say, "This is the sort of thing they knew was going to happen. They knew that this was the sort of thing they would have to put up with. It happened in our day and we are all right as a result of it."
The striking aspect of the junior doctors' situation is that there has been little official assessment of the effect of these long hours on patient care and doctors' health. I believe that the little sympathy which has been shown towards junior hospital doctors, or understanding of the contribution they make, has caused them a great deal of unhappiness. There are numerous other situations in which regulations on working conditions have been imposed to minimise risks to life, backed by extensive medical research This is particularly true of the transport industries, where passengers' lives arc at risk. Part IV of the Transport Act 1978 and the subsequent amendments limit the hours of work for a driver of motor vehicles or locomotives to eight hours a day, with a maximum of 48 hours a week—because beyond that, perhaps, they would be considered a liability to the lives and limbs of other people. There are also provisions for rest periods and for limits on periods of continuous driving. If we find it necessary to do that in respect of the transport industries, I want to say with the greatest respect that it is all the more important that we should do it in our hospitals.
The risk to air passengers from aircrew overtiredness and stress has been recognised almost since planes began to fly. The Civil Aviation Act 1949 set up the Air Navigation Order which requires that an airline operator produces a scheme for the regulation of the flight time of the crew members. This scheme must be approved by the Civil Aviation Authority which itself puts restrictions on hours to he complied with by the
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operators. The Civil Aviation Authority's regulations stipulate maximum duty hours, which vary according to the type of work. Pilots are under more stress, as your Lordships know, when taking off or landing. So hours are more restricted for shorthaul flying, and by the type of duty, on standby, on call or actually flying. Restrictions on doctors' hours could similarly take into account the type of work and duty performed. As yet doctors' work has not even been systematically studied. This is one of the things I hope the members of the medical profession who are speaking tonight will say is essential and should not be delayed any longer.
Most of the research on aircrew stress has been done in connection with military aviation. It is recognised that in time of national emergency aircrews must perform at peak efficiency, the cost of failure being great. In recent years several aspects of the nation's health have come under scrutiny, and the costs of correction weighted against the costs of neglect. Cigarette smoking is one example. More broadly, the basis of the National Health Service has always been some notion of national accounting of the costs and benefits of improving everyone's health. It seems all the more surprising, therefore, that the way medical services are provided in terms of working conditions of junior doctors, has never properly been scrutinised.
The Bill calls for reduction of hours in the first instance to 60 hours a week. It is an indictment of how we treat doctors at present that if we expected the same numbers of hours to be worked we would require, with a 60 hour week, a third more doctors. While it is realistic and while many of us will feel that this has to be done, I accept that it cannot be done immediately. But what I want from the Government, and therefore from the noble Lord the Minister, is some understanding of this problem, some acceptance that there is a problem, and what is more, some assurance that something will be done, and done speedily.
I want to draw your Lordships' attention to the fourth report of the House of Commons Social Services Committee dealing with medical education, and I quote from paragraph 121, which states:
"It strikes the Committee, as outsiders to the profession, that the hours that many junior doctors are expected to work and be on call—in many cases well over 90 hours a week—are indefensible. They represent exploitation of these doctors and, more seriously, a considerable risk to the patients they treat. We believe that the reduction of the doctor's contracted week, initially to a maximum of 80 hours, should be one of the Government's top priorities, and that the existing agreement to achieve this for junior doctors should be enforced. To this end we recommend that the Government should study different patterns of shift work and work sharing between different firms in a district".
The number of junior doctors on call could be reduced if cross-cover was arranged between specialities. There is an overlap in the training for certain specialities. I was going to quote geriatrics and general medicine. It is not necessary in terms of patient care to have two teams on call at the same time. Similarly, the number of wards covered by one person could be increased when doctors arc on call. I hope those members of the medical profession who are going to speak tonight will not think I am being presumptuous in saying that, being a non-medical person.
Better organisation of surgical care could reduce the number of doctors on call and the amount of work done by ancillary services. At the moment a patient goes into hospital the day before an operation. and will often

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only be seen in the evening, by which time the surgeon or consultant has already done a day's work. The patient is checked, both to ensure that he or she is generally fit and to sort out the details of the operation. Sometimes the operation, for medical reasons, has to be deferred, and that means that the next day's schedule is disrupted, and the day's work on in-patient care has been expended unnecessarily. The suggested remedy for this is that the patient goes in as an out-patient during the day before the proposed operation. Checks can be made during the working hours, and the time the patient attends the hospital prior to the operation is reduced, thus minimising expenditure on ancillary services. If the patient is found to be unfit for the intended operation, additional savings are made on the ancillary services. The patient does not have to suffer the stress and disruption to normal life associated with an unnecessary stay in hospital, and operation schedules could be more efficiently organised.
I suggest that further savings could be made without harm to patients if non-specialist doctors could do the general checks on the patient, leaving the specialists—shortage of whom exists in some subjects—to attend to problems specific to the proposed operation. In some hospitals improvements in efficiency have already been made in this or similar ways. There are indications that the changes are occurring because of the cuts in the Health Service. Some surgical teams, for example, have been forced to reorganise their work because of reduction in the number of available beds. But efficiency varies between hospitals and between firms within hospitals, and this is a matter which I think should be looked at.
At present about one-quarter to one-third of the junior doctor's time is spent waiting between clinics, or for consultants to do their rounds or on call. If further improvements in efficiency continue to be forced by reductions in Health Service finance, the number of hours actually worked will increase. The hazards to patients, and to doctors themselves associated with stress and fatigue, if doctor's contracted hours are kept the same as at present will also greatly increase.
This is not to say that improvements in efficiency are undesirable. Indeed, a reduction in junior doctors hours would increase the pressure to re-assess and change methods of work. The restriction on hours, however, would safeguard junior doctors' working conditions, and consequently safeguard their patients. This is not a matter which can be argued fully on an opening speech, and it would not be right for me to do so, or during the time of a short debate. It does need a careful investigation of what is really happening to junior hospital doctors. Again, I hope those who are taking part, who have many years of experience and a profound knowledge of what goes on—as distinct from what some of us think goes on, and I acknowledge there is that difference—will be able to support the view that we ought to be looking at this matter very carefully.
Lord Elton: My Lords, if the noble Lord will be so kind and if the House would permit, there is not a moment after the noble Lord has said, "I beg to move", when I can say, "Before the noble Lord sits down". I want to put one thing right. There was
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no question, at the conference to which the noble Lord referred, of any sort of negotiation. It was not that kind of meeting. I shall be referring to it in my speech and to the reasons leading up to it. But I would not like your Lordships or the noble Lord to feel that it in any way changes the parameters within which this debate is being held. It was not that kind of conference, and that was a misleading report, if I may say so. I must not make this a long interruption: I will expand on this later.
Lord Wells-Pestell; My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord the Minister. I hope that he will expand on it, because it seemed to be very dogmatic. I shall confess that I was a little grieved that something like this should be going on—at least I thought that it was going on—when I might have been told about it. But if the noble Lord—I am coming to a conclusion—can say something which will give some of us hope and some of us encouragement that something will be done in the very near future about junior hospital doctors' hours, together with some kind of inquiry, some kind of investigation, into what the present position is and how it can be changed for the better, then I think that many of us might feel that this has not been in vain. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Wells-Pestell.)
6.51 p.m.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, I think that the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, has rendered an important service by bringing forward this somewhat cautious little measure, if he will forgive me for so describing it. I describe it as "cautious" because, as the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, himself explained, its provisions are to be phased in over a period of years so that the full impact of the noble Lord's Bill is not actually felt until 1st January 1991—in other words, the noble Lord is proceeding by what I think Sir Winston Churchill once described, "the inevitability of gradualness".
But by 1st January 1991 much water will have flowed under many bridges. Many who are now junior hospital doctors will have become perhaps comparatively senior doctors in other capacities, and the junior hospital doctors of those days in 1991 may very well be working in hospitals of a very different kind from the hospitals which we now know. They may be working in forms of medical practice which are very different from the forms of medical practice with which we are now familiar, and they will also be working in a society in which there will have been, by then, a great change in our attitude towards the work ethic as a whole, and in which there will have been very many changes in the working pattern throughout life as a whole.
Nevertheless, I repeat that, whatever the fate of his Bill, the noble Lord has rendered a service by allowing us to debate a matter which really is of considerable public importance. I genuinely believe that, by ventilating this particular matter, it is possible that certain action might be taken administratively. It is also possible, perhaps, that the noble Lord the Minister who is to reply might be able to give us information regarding a number of current developments which

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are, in point of fact, relevant to this issue and which are already having an impact on our hospitals and which, perhaps, might help or might even hinder developments along the lines to which the noble Lord has referred.
The noble Lord has said, and rightly, that it is a fact that every day somewhere in Britain, perhaps in many places in Britain, there are junior hospital doctors who are performing important, intricate, even dangerous work when they are, frankly, in a state of exhaustion. If that is the case then it is something which, frankly, should not be allowed to continue—the noble Lord's Bill or otherwise. It is something which could be dealt with in other ways and, indeed something which perhaps ought to be dealt with in other ways.
But having said that, I must also look at the reality of the picture as I see it. While I do know as a matter of my own personal observation that there are junior hospital doctors working very, very long hours indeed, and doing real work, I also know as matter of personal observation that there are many junior hospital doctors who, frankly, are doing very little real work at all. I must go further and say that I am also aware of many junior hospital doctors who are working quite long hours and doing a lot of work, but work which, with respect, is often totally wasted, because it is duplicated and repeated by others.
What I am trying to suggest is that one of the main problems with which we are faced is the uneven pattern of hospital staffing and, if I may say so, sometimes, and in some parts of Britain, quite luxurious overstaffing of certain teaching hospitals while certain other outlying hospitals in the regions are desperately under-staffed. Moreover, in those areas junior hospital doctors are often carrying very, very heavy burdens indeed. What we are to do in the end to make sure that we attract sufficient doctors to posts in certain of those outlying hospitals in the regions, I really do not know, but I think possibly we may have to consider some kinds of inducement to doctors to work in what might be called "less favoured areas" or in the kind of areas in which they are not automatically recruited.
The teaching hospitals undoubtedly have a basic inbuilt advantage in that a post within one's teaching hospital is often regarded as a necessary prerequisite or preliminary to a later successful career as a consultant. Therefore, those posts are sought after irrespective of the inducement so far as the work is concerned or the remuneration or other matters. Indeed, I think it is right to say that at the moment, just as in the days past when the elderly doctors to whom the noble Lord referred were themselves junior hospital doctors, the principal inducements to young doctors to take certain posts are a consideration of the kind of experience they will gain, the kind of teaching they will receive and the degree of responsibility that they will be allowed to exercise. It is only by exercising responsibility that one really learns. It is those kinds of inducement which, I think, recruit doctors to certain posts. In a sense that is saying that this is not an area in which one can leave recruitment wholly to what is usually called "market forces". The market forces are somewhat different in this particular field, and the result is that certain areas are left perhaps impoverished in so far as filling vacancies and being adequately staffed is concerned.
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So one of the main problems here is not the total number of junior hospital doctors, but the way in which they are distributed throughout our hospitals. That is something which I think ought to be looked at, and looked at fairly urgently. But I see some danger signals on the horizon, and on these matters perhaps the noble Lord the Minister will be able to comment as we proceed.
As I understand it, the Government have already announced that there is to be an increase—a welcome increase—in the number of consultant posts. But I also think that it is true that the Government have announced that while that increase in the total number of consultant posts is being brought about, there is also to be a moratorium on the establishment of new junior hospital posts. I am bound to say that it seems to me very, very difficult indeed to talk about cutting working hours while one is, at the same time, operating a moratorium on the creation of new posts. I do not think that the one can go on without the other.
Another difficulty which I see at present is that, as I understand—and I am informed that this is a matter about which the noble Lord, Lord Richardson, perhaps may have more knowledge and may comment later when he comes to speak—there is at the moment, or has been, a reduction in the number of pre-registration posts. Noble Lords will remember that pre-registration posts are resident hospital posts as house surgeons or house physicians which young, newly-qualified doctors are required to do before they are finally liberated as free to practise without restraints.
There was a certain amount of cynicism in days gone by about the establishment of the pre-registration posts. I qualified in the very early days of the war, at a time when the teaching hospitals were paying house surgeons almost nothing and working them very, very long hours indeed, but recruiting those doctors because they felt they needed to be there in order to be close to the professor and close to future advancement. But once the war came and people were not quite sure what kind of advancement it was going to be—it might in many cases be advancement into the grave, as so it proved with some of my colleagues—doctors started thinking about their own personal prosperity and comfort, and they sought jobs not in the teaching hospitals but out in the municipal hospitals, in which perhaps they got more experience and more responsibility, but in which they were being paid a great deal more money.
I still have in my possession three letters written by the Dean of Clinical Studies at one of our teaching hospitals to the medical superintendents in three municipal hospitals who were then paying quite reasonable salaries, as things were, to junior house surgeons and house physicians, whereas the teaching hospitals were paying almost nothing—I think it was 10s. 4d. per week. This letter from the Dean of Clinical Studies pointed out to the medical superintendents of these three municipal hospitals that the teaching hospital was having great difficulty during those early wartime years in recruiting surgeons, and then went on to suggest that it would be helpful if the municipal hospitals reduced the rates of pay to their house surgeons. In other words, that was perhaps the way to feed people back towards the teaching

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hospital. That matter was exposed and did not get very much further.
But when the pre-registration posts were introduced at a later period—and I should say at the outset that no doctor in his right mind would stand up and seriously say that a newly qualified doctor, having passed all his exams, ought to be totally free to practise outside, alone, unfettered without, first, having had a reasonable range of hospital experience in resident posts; and I fully accept that principle—so that it was compulsory for doctors to do these posts before they could be regarded as fully and finally qualified and registered by the General Medical Council (about which the noble Lord, Lord Richardson, knows so much), there was the feeling that this was the creation of a kind of slave labour because it was, in fact, the creation of posts which it was compulsory for people to take.
With regard to pre-registration posts, once you have those posts—which really are work—which doctors are required to do before they are finally registered (so they are in a sense compulsory), as an employer you then, clearly have a very important duty with regard to the safeguarding of working conditions and rates of remuneration. You are in a totally different area, in which market forces of no kind exist or apply at all.
However, I am told that at the moment, despite the fact that we now have an increased intake, or at least an increased output from our medical schools of more newly qualified doctors, there is, in fact, a reduction in the pre-registration posts, so it is becoming difficult for some of these doctors to get the pre-registration posts which they need for final registration.
There is another point of difficulty with regard to the precise terms of the noble Lord's Bill, or at least with regard to doing something about this here and now. I refer a little more to the patients' point of view. I have talked to patients on this particular issue, and on this issue of patients being treated by doctors who are, frankly, exhausted. It is a fact that a patient in a hospital not for a prolonged stay but for a stay of a fortnight or three weeks, or whatever, for an operation or for whatever else it might be, develops a relatively close relationship on an almost daily basis with the house surgeon, the house physician, or perhaps the junior registrar, or perhaps even the senior registrar. They get to know him or her quite well. They arrive at a situation in which they feel free to talk and to understand. The patients arrive at an even more important situation in which they genuinely believe that the doctor generally and fully understands all their anxieties, and there is a total understanding between them and the doctor.
Once one has regulation of working hours by statute in the kind of way envisaged by the noble Lord, the difficulty is that one then has the immediate problems which arise from the hand-over situation, as between one doctor going off duty and another taking over. When one talks to patients, as I have, they tend to say that they would rather have a very tired doctor whom they know very well, to whom they can talk and who they know understands their position, than another doctor who is totally fresh and rested, but who they
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have never seen before at all during their hospital period.
When we are considering changes of the kind that the noble Lord envisages—and many of these changes are necessary—I think that we must go on to consider the importance of continuity of care on a daily and continuing basis for the patients in hospital—care, not only by the nurses, but by the junior hospital doctors whose relationship with the patient is so much closer than is the relationship of, perhaps, the consultant who has overall clinical responsibility for the case.
Finally, the noble Lord has pointed to the fact that speaking in this debate are many elderly doctors. As we look back to our days as house surgeons or house physicians, I think that we can all say: "Yes, we worked very long hours. We were glad to work very long hours. There were all sorts of reasons why we worked very long hours. "Confidentially, we might be prepared to admit that some of the work that we did during those very long hours was not quite so exhausting or arduous as one might think. Sometimes we were playing bridge and doing other things while we were on call. It is also true that we were paid very little. But all of us in my age group, and that of other noble Lords here who are medically qualified, must guard against the tendency to feel that because we went through it in that kind of way, others must do the same now.
Frankly, it is that kind of attitude which kept the nursing profession in thraldom, and for so very long. Embittered ward sisters of the past, who had been ground into the dust by their seniors when they were nurses in training, tended, when they became sisters themselves, to say why should not their probationers go through it as well. Fortunately, nursing has grown out of that restrictive phase, perhaps because of the presence at long last in the nursing profession of a sufficient number of male nurses who take a different kind of attitude. But the result is that nursing has changed with the times. So must medicine change with the times. I think that elderly and conservative-minded doctors must be prepared to forget about their years of dedication in house posts years and years ago, and realise that we cannot now allow to continue a situation in which individual junior doctors are required to do dangerous and important work while they are in a state of exhaustion. That is something which should not go on.
How we deal with it, I am not quite so sure. I am not entirely sure of the noble Lord's intention with regard to his Bill. If he wishes to press it, I should not oppose it; but I think that I would want to look at it very carefully in Committee. I do not believe that it is wholly right to try to bring the philosophy or the machinery of the shop floor into medical practice and deal with matters of this kind by statute. I think it is right that they should be mentioned, but I think that they can probably be dealt with in other ways.
I hope that in his reply to this debate—this very important debate that we will have had by then—the Minister will be able to tell us what the Government are actually doing now—not on 1st January 1991—in order to safeguard the interests of patients, which is the overriding consideration, and also to safeguard the interests of some of the doctors who are working too hard; at the same time recognising that while

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there are some junior hospital doctors who are doing very little work, there are others who are having their work wasted; and that the real need is to look to the overall staffing of our hospitals and to ensure that it is ironed out and evened out, rather than that we persist with the kind of disparities which we have at the moment as between certain teaching hospitals and certain other outlying hospitals in the regions.
7.9 p.m.
Lord Hunter of Newington: My Lords, I too should like to pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord WellsPestell, for his concern for the medical profession, and also to pay tribute to what he has done for that profession in a number of ways in the past.
Junior doctors contract for a basic 40-hour week. Thereafter they contract for a stand-by, or on-call, duty in blocks of four hours, called units of medical time. They are paid at 30 per cent. (that is, A units of medical time) or 10 per cent. (B units of medical time) of the basic rates depending broadly on whether the doctor is required to be in hospital, immediately available, or at home, but still on call. The rates of pay for UMTs are set out according to the recommendations made by the Independent Review Body on Doctors' and Dentists' Remuneration. I understand that they are looking closely at the overall remuneration in their current review, which is due in April, and have undertaken a survey of juniors' hours of help.
Between 1949 and 1969 the population of this country increased from 43·8 million to 48·8 million. The number of general practitioners fell during that period; the number of consultants doubled; the number of junior hospital staff was increased four-fold. I am sure that there have been considerable further increases since. It is disturbing to find that after this substantial increase junior doctors are still contracted to work 80 to 100 hours, and the majority—and may I quote the requirement—are,
"required to be physically present or on standby in the hospital available for work as urgently as the situation requires".
That is the requirement for the A standby; they must be ready to go in the hospital.
In the beginning of this new method of payment about six years ago it was estimated that perhaps 40 per cent. of overtime would be required for these A units of medical time, and 60 per cent. would be required to pay for doctors from outside the hospital but on call and,
"for telephone advice, consultation, and occasional non-urgent calls".
That is the background to the situation. But of course the formula for calculation (which is boring but it is necessary to understand it) which young doctors are advised about—not by the Government—is that there are 168 hours in the week, and that that divides into 42 four-hour units. The doctor then is advised to subtract 10 standard units from this, leaving 32. Then he divides that number on the rota with the number of other doctors in his category. Therefore, there is very little flexibility in the staffing, and flexibility is not mentioned.
He gets additional payments for study leave, what is called continuity of patient care, teaching and research, and administrative duties. This was a sincere attempt, I believe, at the time to get a work-sensitive contract
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for junior doctors. But of course, as has been said, to give one example, there are in the medical specialties at the present time 10,156 basic units in England, and the A plus B—the additional payments—of 12,713. Of these, 99·4 per cent. are A units. In other words, the doctors are apparently on near-emergency call. This is a situation to which I should like to refer again.
Taking from the noble Lord's Bill the proposal that by 1983 doctors should work for 60 hours, I have done a little arithmetic on the possible consequences, assuming that the duties required are the same as at the present time. The result would be that we should require 120 additional staff in the medical specialties. One can see that if we extend that to all medical staff we should be thinking in terms of new medical schools and new teaching hospitals, and things of that kind. Therefore, some other solution has to be found.
How does this system work? One rather extraordinary effect of it is that senior registrars often get paid more than the basic consultant salary. I do not know what work studies have been done to determine the staffing of different types of unit, but I would support what has been said that the different types of unit require to be examined. For units such as dermatology and neurology, for example, in the period in 1980 to which I referred for the UTMs, in dermatology there were just over 2,000 basic units and 2,500 A and B units; 61 per cent. of them where the doctor was on urgent call.
There must be many ways of covering a dermatology department. It could be done by an experienced senior registrar in general medicine. He could surely stand in for the almost unheard-of emergency. But then of course the problem arises, because, if you do not give them reasonable remuneration, you will have difficulty in recruiting dermatologists. The matter is serious and the profession must co-operate fully in finding a means of using and spending these resources better. What is required is an urgent investigation into flexible rostering. I believe that it is possible—and I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell—to get an average of 80 hours a week by doing this. I understand that it is the profession's view that it could be brought about by changes in patterns of working and full co-operation between different categories of staff concerned.
It is a tragedy that junior doctors are paid in the way that they are, but the experience of the last six years suggests to me at least that all junior doctors should be employed for something in the region of 60 hours, and that the additional payments over and above that should be very exceptional or only for those who are on the most urgent duties.
7.17 p.m.
Lord Perry of Walton: My Lords, I am perfectly sure—we must all be perfectly sure—that this Bill has been actuated by the purest of motives. The need to avoid patients being treated by over-tired doctors and the need to safeguard the health of doctors are admirable motives for any Bill. The dilemma is that the two problems are not new, and that they are not amenable to legislation. To attempt to legislate is asking for trouble.
Almost all the points I would wish to make have been made already. I shall be extremely brief. The

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only way to solve the problem is to have enough staff to carry out the job properly, or to have a better distribution of staff, as has been mentioned already. I was a junior hospital doctor many years ago during the war. At that time the problem was even more acute than it is now, because of the temporary war difficulties.
One of the things that existed then and that has been lost in the National Health Service was that there was in fact some one person in charge who could handle the situation, and whose word was law. There seems to be no one in charge of our hospitals at all now except committees. I do not think that they do the job very well. The second point I want to make which has already been made is that "on call" can mean lots of different things. It is only some doctors, some of the time, who are tired by being on call.
The third point I want to make has also been made. It is that if you had only 35 hours of work per week you would require five doctors for any one ward, and that would provide very little continuity of care. While sympathising with all the reasons for bringing forward this Bill, we ought to not accept it. This is not something that we can legislate for. We must hope that the profession, as has been mentioned, will take reasonable steps itself in response to the noise that we make about the problem, rather than the laws we make about it.
7.20 p.m.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, I am conscious of the distinguished noble Lords who have spoken and will speak in this debate, men who have made a massive contribution both to the National Health Service and the whole field of medicine. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Wells-Pestell and, unlike the noble Lord, Lord Perry of Walton, I believe he has brought to the attention of the House tonight a matter of vital importance to many people who are not doctors, consultants or registrars. Ordinary people know what terrible anguish and grief can be exacerbated if it is thought that the loss of a loved-one has occurred because someone has been over-tired, over-worked or has not been in tip-top form.
Therefore, I say with great respect to all the distinguished people concerned with medicine that this issue is not the prerogative of consultants, registrars and the whole range of medicine; it involves every soul in this land of ours. That was behind the great dream of Aneurin Bevan when he created the National Health Service, a service which needs our every consideration, especially these days when billions of pounds are spent on weapons of death in all sorts of Christian and non-Christian countries. When we in this country created the National Health Service, we put on the statute book the finest picee of legislation ever witnessed not only in the history of our nation but in that of any other, and great successors of Aneurin Bevan have given of their utmost to improve it.
Having said that, it is clear that the NHS still has its weaknesses, one of which has been revealed tonight by my noble friend Lord Wells-Pestell. Let me make it clear that I have no connection with any of the great professions in the NHS, except that I have been involved with, and still am concerned in, the Confederation of
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Health Service Employees, the activities of which range right the way through the service, including doctors and consultants down to nurses, SRNs, state certified midwives, ambulancemen, student nurses, ancillary staffs—in short, the whole structure of hospital administration in Britain—and it is against that background that perhaps I too have a small contribution to make.
My noble friend Lord Wells-Pestell said that no doubt there would have to be a cost involved in putting into practice his proposals in the Bill. That may be so, but I suggest to him in the friendliest possible way, and to the House, that a cost is already being paid: every time a junior doctor is over-worked and someone's pain is prolonged or a return to health is delayed, that is a cost being paid, and we cannot wait to arrive at the frontiers of understanding only when our own soul is smitten with grief; in other words, when it is us or someone close to us who is suffering. Then we want the mountains moved and any inadequacies of government removed. In this case we cannot wait till then. There are savings to be made now, and that is one of them. There are also savings to be made in relieving the strain on anyone connected with medicine, from the raw recruit nurse right up to the consultant. These people are, and must be, devoted men and women and it must be a crime if we permit that sort of devotion to a noble profession to suffer unnecessarily.
It has been my experience from talking to a range of junior doctors that they feel unhappy about the present situation. Sometimes they must go home with the niggling thought that perhaps they have not given of their best. Would be it that all other professions were as conscientious as those who work in this noble profession. It has been submitted to me, for example, that even the work associated with the administration of drugs has changed dramatically in the past 20 years; the junior doctor has to be on his toes at all times because the tiniest slip can mean disaster. A slip on the part of a bricklayer, engineer or motor mechanic can be despairing, but in this profession an error can have the most bitter effects.
For those reasons we have every right, wherever we see a possibility of removing an element of risk, to do so. That is why, unlike the noble Lord, Lord Perry, I believe my noble friend has pointed the way for us to follow. After all, it can sometimes happen in the work of a hospital doctor that a patient with whom he has a close relationship—the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, mentioned this—can arrive at a particular crisis and then, within the heart of the young doctor, there is a crisis because he knows he is suffering the effects of overwork. Thus, all factors must be taken into consideration.
It seems almost a paradox to have to talk in this way, and it may be that the Safety at Work Act, now the law of the land, should look very closely at the way in which some of our hospitals are administered. Let us remember that the tiredness and strain that goes on in a hospital sometimes goes right through an entire staff shift, affecting not only the junior doctor but nurses, sisters and staff nurses; they may all be aware that the doctor in charge "is not up to it tonight" in that he is not fully in charge. Conversely, the junior doctor may know that his assistant staff nurse—and remember, we are talking about very important people, particularly when the results of the genius of our

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doctors often depends on the equal ability of our nurses to nurse—is under added strain, and anything of that sort can mean an increase in risk.
My noble friend also mentioned the strain in the private life of junior doctors, and of course that too can have a great effect. He gave the example of a junior doctor who was involved in an accident, and unfortunately in the case he cited there was loss of life in a motor-car accident. That was an extreme case, but how many other cases are there in between, even those involving unhappiness at home? One sees some of that as one moves among those working in this noble profession. As a parliamentary assistant—not an adviser, although perhaps as an adviser in terms of legislation—to the great Confederation of Health Service Employees, one becomes acquainted with matters of that kind. They may not even be on the periphery of medicine, but they are bound to be related; and I believe that if the strain of the job is carried into the home, we have a responsibility to remove it. If we do not, our National Health Service will be stained by administrative insouciance.
I regret to say that it has always been stained by meanness. Since its inception, Governments have never given it all that it should have, and to a degree the nation, through Parliament, has taken advantage of the great medical profession, its loyalty and its devotion. We should take whatever opportunity there is to remove some of the things that irritate people in this great profession, whether they be nurses, doctors, even administrators or ancillary staff, and of course the junior doctors, who can make the most fatal error of all. If our National Health Service is still a golden achievement in the field of medicine, for the world to witness, we cannot allow in that great service any element of risk that we can administratively remove.
But there is another point that we must examine. In this new age of technology we are moving very rapidly towards a situation where a junior doctor will have to be part mechanic, part scientist, as well as a doctor. So, paradoxically, the risk through tiredness will increase, because of the new technology. These points must be looked at, bearing in mind that perhaps not so many young people will be going to university to read medicine, unless the policy relating to that is reversed. There will be fewer people entering the medical profession, fewer junior doctors, and ergo there will be more possibility of strain.
I hope that your Lordships will approve of the Bill presented by my noble friend. I hope, too, that we can make our contribution to removing strain from the junior doctors, which would also remove strain from nurses and ancillary staff, because they are all inter-linked. It would also remove apprehensiveness from those people who are ill and their relatives. If we can do that, we shall make a valid contribution to this great service. If we can do that by means of the initiative of my noble friend Lord Wells-Pestell in presenting the Bill to us, we shall make a contribution not only to the junior doctors but to the entire health service, thereby providing an even finer, better service for all the people of our nation.
7.33 p.m.
Lord Richardson: My Lords, I cannot avoid a feeling of sadness over the fact that the noble Lord, Lord
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Wells-Pestell, said that he was slightly hurt because he did not know about the conference that took place last Friday. So many of us—the noble Lord, Lord Hunter of Newington, referred to this—have many reasons to be grateful to him for what he has done for the medical profession. Thus each one of us feels—I certainly feel—that we might well have pointed out to the noble Lord what was announced in the British Medical Journal before Christmas; namely, that on the initiative of the CMO at the Department of Health there was to be this conference, and within our profession it has been widely known that it was to take place.
It was a closed, private conference, but statements that could be announced publicly were agreed, and the noble Lord the Minister will tell us about that, if he so chooses. But I am most reputably informed —and this is remarkable—that it was agreed by all the doctors there, whatever their rank and whatever their particular interest, that some limitation in hours of work for junior staff should be implemented as swiftly as possible. It was also agreed that the so-called one-in-two—that means 24 hours on the whole time, a day's work, then a night in bed, and then starting again—should be phased out immediately, with a one-in-three system being introduced very shortly, and that the objective should be one-in-four. So there was achieved a unanimity of purpose.
The noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, pointed out that there were no junior doctors in this House. I am afraid that I could not convince your Lordships if I posed as one, even for the purpose of advocacy, but I have with me a letter, which I received this morning, from the chairman of the Hospital Junior Staff Committee of the British Medical Association, a body that was, of course, much concerned with, and highly active at, the recent conference.
At the beginning of his speech, the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, said that, had he known about the conference, he might not have brought the Bill before us in the form that he has done. He then went on to speak most valuably, so I felt, about the importance of looking at the whole problem of the junior hospital doctors' work, their working hours and circumstances. In other words, there were two aspects: first, the numerical one contained in the Bill; and the other, the wider considerations of the problems and the needs of the junior hospital doctors.
I can, at any rate, speak for the particular body that represents the junior hospital doctors of the British Medical Association, and which is an autonomous body within the association. They say that there is general support throughout the whole of the medical profession to reduce the hours worked by junior doctors to a reasonable level. They go on to say that a maximum of 80 hours a week is what they feel is a reasonable level, taking into account (as we have heard this evening) the question of on-call time.
They then go on to talk about a large-scale reduction in hours, and they come to a point about which I wish to speak principally; namely, the training of junior doctors. They say:
"The large-scale reduction in hours proposed in the Bill would eliminate all the training content from juniors' posts.…"
That is probably true. If it should come about, it would be very serious indeed; it would have enormous implications for the whole of the medical profession,

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the health service and the public. The Hospital Junior Staff Committee goes on to say:
"They do not believe that the current problem can be resolved by legislation at the present time although legislation may be required if satisfactory progress cannot be made in discussions with the DHSS".
We all agree that prolonged hours of duty and strain are dangerous and undesirable. After nearly 50 years in hospitals, having worked with almost 200 junior staff who were directly responsible to me, I cannot go all the way with the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, in the awful pictures that he drew, though I found much of interest in many of the points that he made about the things that nowadays contribute to the strain of being a junior doctor. If I may say so, he made a very good point when he said that increasing technology, the increasing application of science, adds to, rather than detracts from, the mental effort and perhaps the necessity for physical dexterity among junior doctors. Certainly his point about drugs was extremely important—something with which my generation, at our beginnings, was hardly concerned.
Again, mention was made of nursing staff. The junior doctors make the interesting remark (which is slightly contrary to how it was put in this debate this evening) that because of the rota of times that nurses now follow, and the reduction in their hours and the alteration in their structure following the Salmon Report, they cannot rely in the same way on wards always having a senior nurse experienced and well-trained, as was the case when I was a young man. I have always maintained that only two women have in fact made me run—I am a lazy man. One, of course, is my wife and the other was my ward sister. If she rang me and said, "Dr. Richardson, such-and-such a patient is very ill", I ran.
My Lords, we agree, then, that something should be done. But I want to come to the real purpose of the lives of these junior doctors. Their real purpose is to convert their long years of academic training, teaching and learning, into practical activities. The junior doctors cannot be lumped together when we are thinking about their hours of work and their type of work, because there exist different levels. There is the pre-registration house job, to which the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, referred. I greatly hope that there is no shortfall of pre-registration posts. At one time it looked as if there might be a danger of that, and it was averted without very great trouble. It would be an appalling scandal, and quite intolerable, if it were to happen, because unless these people can do their pre-registration job they cannot pass on to full registration and the privileges that follow from it.
I must not be too wordy, my Lords, but to these young men and young women, in the first year of their experience, when they are really feeling their power and the possibilities of their profession, the hours that they work are less important than the experience that they get. I have no doubt at all that most of them feel—in fact, some of them have actually said this to me-" If my job is duplicated with another, with two doing the work that I am doing, it will be so much less a good job that I would not like to recommend it to my friends". They need the experience. As they go up the ladder various other factors enter into their training, such as
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clinical research work, more basic research work, work in intensive care, the follow-up of patients, the follow-up of patients in hours which are socially acceptable to the patient but may be socially difficult for the doctor. All these times that they have to work, and the varying periods for which they may be working—and research is, indeed, work—are really not susceptible to any rigid limitation of time, any more than is the practice of medicine itself.
My Lords, doctors do work long hours. They expect, and should expect, to work long hours. This does not mean that I am going back for one moment on my belief that round about 80 hours, give or take, is the correct number for the junior doctors, and within that sort of timing they ought to be able to fit in the requirements of the different levels. I agree with the idea that a great contribution could be made by organisation, by putting aside the rigid concept of "my" house physician; "He sees 'my' patients, he does not see anybody else's", and so on. This could contribute quite considerably to leading to intelligent and workable rosters that could give these young men and women their proper training and their proper experience and, at the same time, not exhaust them.
I feel that by initiating this debate the noble Lord has done a great deal of good, because your Lordships may be able to urge forward the process of reducing the hours of work of the juniors, which may lead to an examination—and the noble Lord, Lord Hunter of Newington, hinted at this—of the contracts that these young men and women hold. In some instances noble Lords would be very surprised at the type of discipline that is said to be standing, straining to rush off to see an emergency—the type of discipline that has probably never seen an emergency since being a student, with somebody else demonstrating it. These things need looking at; and their type of work needs looking at. It is so different. Dermatology has been mentioned—a very good example—between specialties.
So I feel that one of the purposes of the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, has been most amply served by this evening's debate, but I also feel that the junior hospital staff were absolutely right when, on January 19th of this year, they issued this statement:
"The Hospital Junior Staff Committee is opposed to any legislation seeking to reduce the hours of work of junior doctors at the present time".
I hope your Lordships will agree with them.
7.47 p.m.
Lord Davies of Leek: My Lords, we have had an interesting debate, and undoubtedly we have had the privilege of listening to people who know what they are talking about in this area of social work and social legislation. The House will be glad to hear that I do not intend to talk for very many minutes. Nevertheless, there are some caveats that I should like to enter. I do not know whether my noble friend is going to push this Second Reading to a Division, but first of all I want to pay a tribute to him for the years and years of work that he has given to social medicine, to hospitalisation and to social welfare. Not knowing how many people were going to speak on this, and being a layman in this direction, nevertheless as soon as I saw that my noble friend was moving this I was willing to come in and support him.

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I also then read in the Guardian, and listened at the weekend, about the changes that have been made. But because I have been privileged to listen to practising medicos who have worked in hospitals for many years I understand better now what that message meant. Nevertheless, despite the privacy, I think my noble friend Lord Wells-Pestell would have been entitled to some direct line to him to let him know exactly what was going on; and the Minister said when he interrupted that an explanation will be made.
Having said that, what are my caveats? A rolling rate of change is happening not only in the medical profession: it is happening in engineering, in micro-technology and in my own profession of teaching. There were people in my profession who were not as dedicated as they may have been, and there may be people in medicine who are not so dedicated. But whatever we may think about it, the overall thing in this change is that now we have something that Aneurin Bevan did not envisage. We have the growth of private hospitals side by side with the National Health system, of which I am very proud. It was one of my great moments, at Princetown University some years ago, to talk about the growth of our National Health system when America was having her great debates. I know that many Americans came over and they had free operations. I remember one American lady in tears of gratitude at my own home when, having been struck down by appendicitis she was operated upon freely, when in Chicago it would have cost that lady a small fortune.
We are now looking at two echelons of medicine. Private medicine is developing. I do not want to pass any party remarks about it now, but I want to ask whether regulations apply to private entry into medicine as well as into the National Health Service. What would happen to the legislation if we make legislation? Would we be better off if we took note of what we have just heard? Apparently, the junior medical men have said, "Look, we don't want masses of legislation about this". I have spoken to one or two hospitals about the different centres of administration that have been set up. I much regret the change that was made in the administration of the hospitals some years ago; and many of our specialist consultants and general doctors were looked upon as leaders in the chain of responsibility. From the lower echelons to the higher, they were spending and wasting much of their time on committees discussing, sometimes aridly, administration. That we want to avoid. Over-administration is one of the things which is ruining much of Britain's initiative at the present time. My first question therefore is this. Would the same controls activate in the private hospitals as in the National Health Hospitals or the public hospitals, or would the private zones have the right to be free from any controls at all? Would that be the situation?
There are two other points. The point is well made that in, say, engineering and in anything in which people desire to achieve success, application is essential. Long hours of work, if it does not upset the health, is part of that dedication of learning a job. To get into one's own being. The whole gamut of the profession in which one is entering means dedication. At one time, when somebody took up medicine, it was considered a calling—just as in teaching and on the religious side.
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You cannot make medicine and you cannot make teaching the same as a day-to-day job. People who enter it must have some drive and some desire. With some levity, may I say that I regret sometimes overworking among those junior hospital doctors who have been privileged to play Rugby for my own country. I do not want them to be kept too busy on the days when we are playing against France, Scotland, or England at Twickenham. I should like to see flexibility there. I am prepared to recognise that, because of the profession, the regulations should be made inside their profession itself.
My Lords, I would wish to pay tribute to the nursing profession. To the nursing profession, the young junior doctor also owes a great deal. I myself unluckily—although I seem to be healthy enough now—have been in hospital many times, sometimes through accidents and sometimes through thinking I was stronger than I was. At those times, I was grateful for the attention I had night and day on special occasions by the junior doctors and to see how well the nurse in charge helped the doctor. This is the opportunity for the reassessment of the whole of the services of the junior doctors to medicine. I think the debate tonight has been worthwhile.
7.55 p.m.
Lord Hill of Luton: My Lords, we are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, for provoking the very useful discussion that we have had today. I am particularly grateful to him for having provoked that superb speech from the noble Lord, Lord Richardson, which brought to us a wealth of experience and judgment and so raised the level of the debate.
I am going to limit my remarks to two points. I know that it is said that yesterday can teach us nothing. I took my first house job rather more than 55 years ago. We were not paid, we competed strongly for those appointments, we wanted them for the completion of our education, for the responsibility it brought us. For most weeks of that time, we were on duty, if by "duty "one means hours worked and hours waiting on call, I suppose, for 168 hours a week. We rarely went out and when we did so we arranged with a colleague to stand in for us. We enjoyed it enormously. We felt that it was essential to our professional life. It was also the centre of a very lively enjoyable, professional, community.
I do not remember, I confess, being dog-tired. It may be that one remembers only the more pleasant things and forgets the nights of exhaustion. I do not believe that for a moment; they were great days and when we finished one job we put down our names for another. I would not have it believed that to be on duty for 24 hours is as destroying as it sounds. We worked hard on duty, we played cards, we played billiards, we read, we worked, we even occasionally went to a neighbouring hostelry, having arranged with the porter to call us if we were needed. Do not let the picture of the past be forgotten even though it is now defined as the bad old days. I doubt whether the young house officers—and I am speaking only of the house officers and not of the higher grades covered by this Bill—are very different from those days. Nevertheless, the world is different. We accept that there is a problem whether we like it or not. It is no good

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quoting 50 years ago in an attempt to pretend it is not here.
My second point is that I do not think this Bill is workable. Its objective—and I know that it has to be approached by stages—is 35 hours a week, working and waiting to work. I do not know what the proportions would be; but the total is 35 hours a week including 10 hours for refreshment. That is what the Bill says. What possible use is 25 hours a week in the educative process? How many changes of doctor does it involve for the individual patients? It seems to me that, however hard we try to solve this problem, it is not by legislation that the solution will be found.
It contains some absurdities when one examines the figures involved. What happens at the end of the 25 hours? Mind you, there is an exemption clause. If there is a state of emergency proclaimed by Her Majesty, then all bets are off and hours limitations go. If there is a major accident procedure or its equivalent being put into operation—I am not certain what that is, but it does not cover an outbreak of infectious disease —what is the young medical officer of the infectious diseases hospital to do when his limit has been reached? What is a hospital to do?
My mind goes back to my first house job as house physician to the children's department of a teaching hospital. In those days—thank God not now—every summer brought a great wave of children, babies, suffering from what is politely called D and V—a killing disease demanding immediate treatment to replace lost fluids. What was one to do having reached the limit of the day, to throw down the work and go? I am sorry, but this is inconsistent with proper care of patients.
Therefore, I say, though there is a problem to be solved—and some progress is being made, as the noble Lord, Lord Richardson, told us—for Heaven's sake do not let us pretend to solve it by legislative clauses that name hours of work. In other words, when you must stop and give up. That means great discontinuity of treatment for patients. I am afraid that his way of doing it has all the properties of a nightmare. I accept the arguments for the existence of a problem; I do not feel competent to express a view as to the size of the problem for my contract with hospitals has hardly existed for almost 50 years. But I know that to try to solve this kind of problem involving patients by legislation, by Act of Parliament, is a nonsense.
We are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord WellsPestell, for introducing the subject and usefully opening up this discussion; but do not let us believe for one moment that by passing an Act of Parliament we can solve a complicated problem of this kind. It is a problem which involves human beings, patients and doctors, in circumstances which would need to have that degree of elasticity that would permit the best medical service to be rendered and not a reference to an Act of Parliament to see whether you have reached your 25 hours or other limit, whatever it may be.
8.3 p.m.
Lord Porritt: My Lords, like my noble friend Lord Richardson, I feel I must declare an interest, in that I speak to you as an ex-junior hospital doctor—very
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"ex" I admit—but rather like my noble friend Lord Hill with still a very keen remembrance of those days. And how good they were! If they were that good—or bad as you may think today—it is rather extraordinary that here are we three still standing up despite the life that we lived as junior hospital doctors all that time ago. It perhaps speaks a little for the old régime.
I will deliberately refrain from any comparison between the junior hospital staff—very definitely overworked in pre-NHS days—and the junior hospital staff of today, apparently still overworked. I do not think that it would achieve anything at this moment, although I believe that the comparison would raise some very fascinating questions about the practical and cost-efficient care of patients. I think the comparison would still be worth making. It might be conducive to a pretty radical rethink of methods of achieving what we have been talking about so much: maximum patient care.
I too should like to thank my noble friend Lord Wells-Pestell because—I will be frank—he has opened up this extremely interesting discussion much more than I expected. I was very disappointed when I saw the form of this Bill. I hoped that I should be able to support it, but when I saw its shape I realised that I could not possibly do so. This did not mean that we did not all agree with the principle behind it all, the principle of improved patient care, and the Bill as it stands—and I agree with my noble friend Lord Hill that it is impracticable and I do not think can possibly go much further—has opened up an extremely interesting periphery and vista.
There are so many sidelines connected with this problem that it merits very long and detailed consideration. There are certain aspects, most of which have been mentioned, which appeal to me enormously, one of which the noble Lord, Lord Richardson, mentioned but did not go into. That is the education side of the matter. If we cut down the working hours of these young men to the bone, not only will they have no time to give continued service to patients, but they will certainly have no time to learn, to be taught, to be trained and to get experience. Those are vital parts of a doctor's activities at that stage in his life.
That is one point that I should like to stress. Another is this. It is a waste of time to consider the Bill as it stands. My noble friend Lord Hill has already given your Lordships a little mathematics and it seems quite ridiculous that a doctor will get full pay—whatever the pay is—for doing half a day's work. That is what it boils down to. If we fulfil this scheme, we will have to treble our junior hospital staff to keep going with these reduced hours. That would be so even if we doubled our consultants, which the DHSS has apparently rather vaguely suggested might happen at the end of the 1980s. We should still need twice as many junior hospital officers as we have now.
Who is going to pay for that? At the present moment, the personnel side of the NHS costs considerably more than the whole of the cost of the rest of the service put together. If you are going to put up that personnel bill by hundreds of new hospital doctors and consultants, you are going to increase that bill to an impossible extent. That is why I do not think that the Bill as it stands is practicable. We have been

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very lucky and we ought to thank the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, for opening up this discussion. I hope that it is not finished by a long way.
We have heard of the most fascinating discussion at the DHSS between the young doctors themselves and their committee at the BMA, and the practical results that appear to have come out. I hope that we shall hear a little more shortly. This is the way in which this problem should be tackled, by mutual agreement. It is not 35 hours: they are talking round a figure of 80 hours. That is practical. Something could be managed around that figure, but certainly not around 60, 40 or 35 hours. That is just not on from a practical point of view. I hope that this get-together between the department and the junior doctors will continue and will produce results.
It has been thought that, if we are to get better service and not work our young doctors so much, we ought to work the consultants more. That is an interesting thought. There is no reason why the consultants should not work more if they have time to do so. But, is it not a terrific waste of time for a highly trained and a specialised consultant to do routine work? That is not his job. He is wasted if he does that. He is there to train his juniors—and juniors go up to quite a senior level, I can tell your Lordships. He is there to be the leader, to be the teacher and to do the bigger work. To bring him in to do routine work in the wards is not good medicine.
The other point which my noble friend Lord Hill so rightly brought up is that the junior doctor must be given a little sense of competitiveness; a little incentive. He must be pushed to some extent to get the best out of him and, equally, to do the best for him. That is why I think the number of junior hospital staff must be such that it does not automatically open up the higher ranks. He must have to work for his promotion and he must feel competitive with his contemporaries. So, while I cannot in any sense support this Bill as such, I very much wish to join those who have thanked the noble Lord, Lord WellsPestell, for initiating this debate, whatever happens to his Bill, because I believe and hope that this will lead to much greater things on a much wider scale inside the NHS.
8.11 p.m.
Baroness Stewart of Alvechurch: My Lords, as a former chairman of governors at a London teaching hospital, I welcome the opportunity my noble friend's Bill has given us to consider the heavy responsibilities and long hours of work of junior hospital doctors. I do not recall, when I was in the hospital, any complaints being made by them, but I am sure that their exacting duties, which were of such great importance to their patients, left many of them worn out at the end of many working days. I am sure, too, that the majority of hospital patients are deeply grateful to the hospital doctors and to their nurses for the treatment they receive. When considering my noble friend's Bill, we must bear in mind that fatigue can be a dangerous symptom and it may affect a doctor's judgment relating to his patient's needs. Doctors, of course, are aware of this and will normally avoid snap decisions.
In considering this Bill, we must also bear in mind that even today the medical schools find it difficult to
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produce the numbers of doctors which are required to cover all the work that is expected of them, and allowance has to be made for sick leave and for study leave which may be required by young doctors in order to pursue higher examinations. We shall undoubtedly need more medical school doctors, and I hope that improved working conditions for doctors in the hospitals may lead to an increase in the number of young men and women wishing to train as doctors.
Although a reduction in the hours of work of junior hospital doctors is essential, it must be achieved with the full co-operation of the medical profession and, even more importantly, it must not lead to a deterioration in the service given by junior hospital doctors to their patients. I think we all agree that continuity of patient care is of very great importance. I understand that the medical profession would agree on moving from the 88·3 hours average working week to a one-in-three rota, which would represent about 80 hours a week. That would be a very considerable improvement on the present position and I hope that it will come about in the not-too-distant future. I hope, too, that all the proposals made in my noble friend's Bill will be given careful consideration.
8.14 p.m.
Lord Hunt of Fawley: My Lords, perhaps I might just tell a very short story against myself, bearing in mind what the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, and others have said so well about the effect of a severe lack of sleep on almost everything one does. Some years ago, I was a house surgeon in a teaching hospital in London. I had been on duty and up for two nights without any sleep at all. On the third morning, full of coffee, I felt full of beans. I went down to the surgery, where a lady was sitting on a bench with her skirts drawn up, her varicose veins very prominent and with her notes on the table. I wanted to say: "Are these your notes?" but what I actually said, after this lack of sleep, was: "Good morning, madam; are those your legs?"
I am quite sure that I could never have said such a fatuous thing as that had I had a good night's sleep the night before.
8.16 p.m.
Baroness Jeger: My Lords, this has been a very informed and useful debate and we are all grateful to my noble friend Lord Wells-Pestell for making it possible for us to take part. I was particularly interested to hear the remarks of some, if I may so call them, older doctors, because I do not remember in my young days those junior doctors always being so exhausted that we never had any good times at all; and I am very sorry that occasionally a note of gloom has come into the debate about the lack of resilience and staying-power of many of the young men and women who are working with such dedication in our hospitals. I say that not because we ought to take advantage of them, but because I think it is very important to try to get a "wide focus" look at this problem.
In the first place, I must say that, whatever the noble Lord the Minister is going to tell us about the conference last Friday and the report in the Guardian, there seems to me to have been some lack of courtesy somewhere—and I am not saying where—in that nobody thought fit, either in the department or in the House, to inform my noble friend about this matter which so closely affected

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his Bill. We cannot all read the British Medical Journal and it seems to me that it would have been helpful had we known more about that conference. Now, I feel that things have largely been put right because we have heard so much about it from the most informed source, and we are all better qualified now to discuss the matter.
I must say to your Lordships that I feel this is largely a matter for the profession. There are all sorts of things wrong in the way we use medical manpower and nursing man and woman-power. For one thing, the very name "junior doctor" is misleading because to the general public it usually means someone who is just qualified. The fact that it includes all doctors in the hospital up to registrar level is not well understood outside, and it really is not a felicitous or accurate description.
I should like to make one point that has not so far been mentioned about the hours that the so-called junior doctors are working in hospitals. I have found among many women doctor friends that the hours of hospital work are a serious disincentive to their staying on that ladder of promotion. I am sure that one of the reasons why we have comparatively few women consultants—and that is true in some specialties more than others—is that a woman doctor, however well qualified, wanting to have children and to have some time with her family, will feel that the hospital situation is not compatible with that sort of life because of the long hours. Therefore she is more likely to go into part-time work or perhaps into general practice, which may perhaps be the best thing that any doctor can do. It really is a very strenuous time either for a young man or a young woman—a time when this is not just a kind of student phase in their lives but might go on for many years, because there are certainly always going to be many more junior hospital doctors than there are registrars or consultants.
I should like to follow up a question which was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley. I, too, had heard about the increase in consultant posts, but is it a fact that there has been a reduction in the preregistration posts? At one time, there was quite a log-jam and there was a great deal of discontent among doctors in several hospitals.
What we have to do is to go carefully through the report of this debate. No Government have solved these problems. I am not introducing any party points at all; we could have a very "party" debate on the National Health Service, but that is not for tonight. We need to put our heads together, to think more about how we use our doctors and about the whole set-up of hospitals in this modern age. Hospitals are very complicated workplaces. If they had not existed, I am not sure whether we should have invented them. One thinks of the multiplicity of disciplines that have to go on, such as cooking, washing, laundering and operating places of skilled technology, places of asylum—and I use the word "asylum" carefully, because it is often under-estimated especially in our mental hospitals.
A doctor must deal with such a variety of situations that more thought about the redistribution of the work burden is as essential as the shortening of hours—and I say this with great respect to my noble friend Lord Wells-Pestell, who I know will agree with me. In any work situation, what you do in the time you are at work is as important as how long you are there. You
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can feel that you are wasting your time when the hours drag, and there is not half the stimulus that there often is in working quite hard for a different number of hours.
I should like to ask the noble Lord the Minister whether he can tell us tonight anything about the number of doctors who are unemployed or underemployed in this country. I do not have any figures with me, because it is not easy to get them, but I have heard of the difficulties that some young men and women are finding, and I know that often it is because it is difficult to move around the country. I am sure that there is always a vacancy somewhere for somebody, but it is not always in the place where you want to work.
The arguments have been very interesting and very serious, and I would end by saying this. It seems to me that the challenge is with those who say that my noble friend's Bill is not workable; that we cannot improve by legislation a situation which we all agree is serious; to say how we can do it. It is not good enough to use as a "get-out" the fact that there are statutory difficulties. So everyone who said to my noble friend that this is not possible by legislation, now owes it to him and to the House to get up and say how it should be done, because the whole mood of this debate is that this should be done.
8.24 p.m.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I think I should start by saying that the Government very much share the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell. My colleagues and I fully accept that the hours of work of some junior hospital staff are excessive. Indeed, the average junior doctor is contracted for nearly 90 hours a week. Although, as has been made very clear this evening, contracted hours include both time spent on-call and hours actually worked, we consider that this figure is too high. We are anxious that it should be reduced and have started to consider steps to do so.
That brings me to the conference and, in retrospect, I regret that I did not mention this to the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, in conversations that we had prior to this Bill. But I must make it clear that the people attending the conference, although they came from a representative range of institutions—and I shall later be speaking about those—attended as individuals. Contrary to what I believe the noble Lord, Lord Richardson, who made a most admirable speech, believes, there was no agreed outcome, though the chief medical officer said that he would produce an account of the conference which would be circulated, and I think it will be found that what is circulated bears a close resemblance to what I shall tell your Lordships.
But I regret that I did not mention this only for this reason: that the success of the conference and its prestige were greater than I had supposed, and therefore I shall have to give it slightly more weight than I would otherwise have done in this speech. But the fact remains that it was, in no sense, a bargaining or negotiating conference. The people were not plenipotentiaries and the speculative account, which was as surprising to me as it was to the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, has perhaps given an apprehension and and understanding of the conference which is, frankly, misleading.

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I very much hope that I have not unwittingly caused offence, because I value the open relationships which it is possible to keep in this House, particularly on matters which we do not treat as straight politics. I should not like it to be thought that I deliberately withheld from the noble Lord information about the conference which, it is true, was known in the profession, but which, none the less, seems to have been built up to appear to be something which it was not. I do not want to belittle its importance and I shall return to the conference.
But, first, let me say that our argument in this debate is not, therefore, with the spirit of this Bill, that juniors' hours should be reduced from excessive levels, but with the way in which this should be achieved. Some noble Lords have made it clear that they are very familiar with the way in which junior doctors work and how their hours are determined, and I must say that some noble Lords seem to have taken great pleasure in the experience. Junior hospital staff are contracted to work a basic 40-hour week. Generally, although not exclusively, this will be from Monday to Friday. Thereafter, they are contracted to perform stand-by or on-call duties. A doctor who is contracted for 90 hours a week will, therefore, spend 50 hours a week on-call or on stand-by. Being on-call or on stand-by can be very inconvenient, but it is not necessarily very tiring.
The amount of time which doctors actually spend working when they are on-call varies between grades, specialties and "firms"—and, as your Lordships will know, in this context a "firm" is a group of doctors led by a consultant. However, various surveys—and the subject has been surveyed—have suggested that an average of about 30 to 35 per cent. of on-call and stand-by time is spent in working. In some specialties it can be considerably less than this. For example, I think that the number of urgent turn-outs in dermatology or, indeed, neurology in the middle of the night are minimal, but we are not, of course, looking only at dermatologists and neurologists.
On average, then, junior doctors will actually be working for perhaps 62 hours a week, which sounds a lot and by comparison with other sorts of work it certainly is a lot. But medicine is not, as noble Lords have already said, just a job like any other. Doctors, whatever we consider to be the maximum they can work, cannot simply work from nine to five. Patients need round-the-clock care and they need it from doctors who are familiar with their case. The noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, emphasised the benefits that result from that. Long hours are part of the practice of medicine. I doubt whether there is anyone who enters medical school who does not realise this fact before he goes in, and I am certain that he knows it when he comes out.
Medicine is more than a trade. As the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, put it with his customary eloquence, those who answer its call do not expect an easy life while they acquire their skill. This has a great deal to do with the profound respect in which the profession is held by other people in the community. Fatigue, however, is, without doubt, experienced by some doctors, with results such as those mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Hunter of Newington, and others.
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I ought, however, to point out that every patient in a National Health Service hospital is under the care of a named consultant. It is the responsibility of that consultant to ensure that the medical care provided for that patient is adequate and, in particular, to decide whether treatment can safely be left to the junior doctor on duty. Equally, it is the responsibility of the junior doctor to call in a more senior doctor or the consultant if he feels he is unable to cope. It is this which provides the safeguard for patients from junior doctors who, unlike the noble Lord, Lord Hill of Luton, are not entirely indefatigable.
I do not want, none the less, to suggest that no improvement is possible. Indeed, I have already referred to the steps which we have taken to look for improvements. However, I must stress that the kind of figures mentioned in the Bill are quite impracticable, even as a distant target. This is not because we wish to exploit young men and women but simply because an adequate standard of care cannot be provided by doctors who go off duty at a fixed time, regardless of the needs of their patients. The noble Lord, Lord Hill of Luton, was very precise about that. That is no more today in the nature of their chosen profession than it was 50 years ago.
There is another important point which I ought to emphasise. Junior doctors are doctors in training and the course of training which they follow is laid down, not by Government but by completely independent professional bodies: the General Medical Council and the Royal Colleges. Posts limited in the way proposed in the Bill would not, I believe, be recognised by these bodies as providing adequate training. To become masters of their craft, doctors need to see a wide range of different cases. They need to see individual cases develop over a time-scale which has to be set not by the clock, or by regulations, but by the patient. The clock has an apparently malevolent influence of its own. I understand that in medicine, as in some other professions, the most interesting as well as the most urgent developments have an uncanny habit of turning up in the wee small hours of the night.
There is another consideration, by no means the least. Doctors need to learn to make crucial decisions at inconvenient and uncomfortable times because that is very often the condition, when they are trained, in which they are going to have to operate. They have to learn to respond to emergencies, even though they have just woken up or have been on duty for a long time. This is what they will be called upon to do when they are fully trained. So I do not think that it is an exaggeration to say that, if the Bill were passed, postgraduate training in this country would fail to reach the standards of which we are now justly proud.
The Bill also seems to me to have a number of other rather serious defects. There would, for example, seem to be no restriction upon a doctor contracting, of his own choice, separately with two different health authorities to work for longer than the stipulated periods, thus defeating the Bill's objective. Clause 1(b) and (c) seek to put defined limits upon the amount of work which may be done in any one day and the amount of time which may be given for refreshment.
This seems to me—and others have pointed it out—to be similar to the way we deal with safety in transport. The noble Lord himself drew on that analogy. But

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it is not so easy as that and the analogy is not so straightforward. Driving rosters can take account of the need for scheduled stops, but you cannot do that for doctors. A patient cannot always be left at the end of a 10-hour day. The result would be that doctors would then be required by their professional undertakings to put in "voluntary"—and I use the word in quotation marks—overtime, for which no payment could be provided. I do not think that this was the intention of the Bill. However, it seems to me to be an unseen but unavoidable consequence which would be neither right nor fair.
I hope I have made it clear that the Government recognise the very real problem to which the noble Lord's Bill is addressed, but they do not regard it as a practical solution. As the noble Lord, Lord Richardson, himself said—and he put it much more trenchantly than can I—the Hospital Junior Staff Committee, by far the largest of the various bodies which speak for junior doctors, recently considered this Bill and passed the motion which he read out: That it was opposed to any legislation seeking to reduce the hours of work of junior doctors at the present time.
So what is the way forward? I agree entirely that we cannot simply say that this legislation is not suitable and duck out of the responsibility. To a layman, the obvious solution would be to employ more junior doctors so that each worked fewer hours. The problem with that is that these doctors are training for consultant posts. To employ more, without creating more consultant posts pro rata, would produce ever larger numbers of doctors with highly specialised skills, acquired at great expense, and with no opportunity to use these skills. The junior doctors themselves have expressed very strongly their support for our policy of reducing the number of junior posts while increasing the number of consultants. They have done so in their evidence to the Social Services Committee, in their comments on the report of the Social Services Committee and in letters to the Secretary of State. This policy will improve their career prospects and I am convinced that it will improve the quality of patient care.
This brings me to the point at which I should reassure the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, and others (including the noble Baroness, Lady Jeger) that the number of pre-registration posts is not in process of reduction. It is carefully controlled to relate to the number of our medical school graduates. As the latter has increased, so has the former. As to the moratorium on junior posts, certainly there is a moratorium on junior posts, but the overall numbers in the profession are planned to expand—but by consultant, not junior, expansion because of the distortion of the career pattern of doctors in hospitals and of the inordinate length of time that it takes juniors to reach consultant appointments under the present system.
The answer to the problem lies in a careful examination of the organisation of medical work in hospitals, I quite agree—in making more efficient use of all doctors. In some cases, juniors may be able to take out-of-hours cover for more patients, but for a shorter time. In others, the burden of out-of-hours work may be redistributed between juniors and consultants.
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In some cases, the work involved may be so specialised that only a very few doctors in any hospital are capable of providing the necessary cover. Sometimes a consultant may disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Richardson, and judge it right that only the doctors within his "firm" should give cover to his patients—though if he has read the noble Lord's speech with care 1 think he will take very careful thought before he disagrees with him about anything. These doctors know the patients best. This again was the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley. In other cases, a doctor from one "firm" may be able to cover for several.
The situation is not clear-cut. It is not susceptible to uniform, cut-and-dried solutions. It follows from this that any approach is likely to be piecemeal and not across the board. There must be flexibility to allow for the particular circumstances of individual specialties and individual hospitals. This is basically a task for the profession itself. Legislation is too blunt an instrument. There must be preparation in the way of seeing what is going on now. On the question of the study of doctors' hours, we hope to see published later this year a full survey of the working of junior hospital doctors undertaken by the Office of Manpower Economics on behalf of the Doctors and Dentists Review Body.
The question of the distribution of doctors also arises. At this point may I say that, while it is true that some posts are less attractive than others, this is not the main reason for the disparity in staffing between teaching, hospitals and others. Junior doctors are, let us again remind ourselves, in training, and inevitably training in the more specialised and recondite areas of the subject is available only in the specialised teaching hospitals. For this reason, the training bodies generally expect a fair part of the training to be spent in such hospitals, and therefore there is bound to be some sort of concentration in them.
I said that I would return to the matter of the conference which was arranged by the chief medical officer on the subject and was held last Friday. I myself was not present, but I have received a full report. I hope that noble Lords will find a brief account of the proceedings helpful. It does not include an agreed statement, but I have already said that an account will be prepared and circulated. In summary, I believe that it will say that the participants came from all sections of the medical profession and in NHS management, but they spoke as individuals rather than as representatives—and that is really rather crucial to my position on this. I am told that their discussion was frank and realistic for precisely that reason. It means, of course, that neither Government nor any other organisation are committed by the conclusions of the conference. Certain themes attracted such general support, however, that they might lead to a fair degree of consensus in the profession at large, and this is the factor of which I was not aware last week.
First, there was general recognition that there is a real problem to which a solution must be found. As one speaker put it, the conference was not about whether something needed to be done but what needed to be done. There was also wide agreement as to what the immediate aim of any such action should be. Virtually without dissent, I understand, the partici-

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pants felt that the first step should be the abolition of the so-called "one-in-two" rota in the acute specialties; that is, the arrangement whereby a doctor is on duty every second night and evey second weekend. For the longer term, the goal might be no rota more onerous than one-in-four, although most of those present felt that one-in-three rotas would be acceptable as an interim target. This bears out what was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Stewart of Alvechurch.
To translate this into more familiar language, this interim target of a one-in-three rota corresponds to slightly more than 80 hours per week on duty, while the long-term target of one-in-four rotas corresponds to 72 hours per week on duty. The face of the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, may be lengthening at the disparity between that target and his own, but at least this is the profession speaking. I should repeat that these targets are for the acute specialties—those where emergencies are common and rapid action is essential. Another point to emerge was that not all specialties are like this. There are those when the demands on a doctor out of hours amount to little more than an occasional request for advice over the telephone. With these specialties, even a one-in-one rota—that is, notionally being on call for all 168 hours a week—is not an onerous responsibility.
If I may draw a conclusion from all this, it is that the concept of excessive hours for a doctor is a very different one from that for most other workers. The reason for this is perhaps the second major theme to arise from the conference. British medicine is based on the concept of continuity of care; the idea that an individual doctor accepts personal responsibility for a patient throughout the patient's treatment. Certainly that is how many patients see it. To the layman, the importance of this may not be apparent, but I am told that speaker after speaker stressed that if this concept was lost it would be the patients who would lose out and that the loss would be very real.
The final theme was that targets can be set nationally but that implementation must be very much a local matter. Noble Lords have already referred to the unevenness of distribution of resources, both between types of hospital and between different parts of the country. Arrangements that will work in a large hospital, moreover, will not work in a small hospital. Even hospital geography—the arrangements of the wards and the placement of the doctors—can be relevant.
Most important of all, it was felt that changes in the present arrangements must be discussed fully and agreed among the doctors concerned. In brief, the conference has identified the difficulties and has even suggested a way forward. Above all, I believe it has built up a head of steam in this matter which has been compounded and multiplied by the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, in introducing this very timely debate on the Bill. Further progress is a matter for discussion in a number of places; within professional organisations such as the Royal Colleges, in the negotiating meetings between the department and the profession, and locally in National Health Service hospitals.
I should at this stage pay tribute to the distinction of the contributors to this debate. It is one of the more alarming things about coming to the Government's Despatch Box, which one regards as a pinnacle of unassailable virtue and authority, suddenly to
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discover that one is dwarfed by the experience and stature of those with whom one engages in debate thereafter.
The noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, has drawn your Lordships' attention to an issue of very great importance in a timely and forceful manner. At one time or another, almost all of us spend a part of our lives in hospital in the hands of doctors. The trust with which we do so depends on the character of those who work in the profession and also upon their skills. The conditions under which those skills are acquired are not satisfactory. They do place very great strains on those who train for the profession. The Government recognise this problem and are already addressing themselves to it, This useful debate has thrown further light on the subject. It has highlighted the need to look at the distribution of doctors, both geographically and between specialisms, and the distribution of work between specialisms. It has evoked from the noble Lord, Lord Hunter of Newington, statistics that will be read with great interest in the colums of Hansard tomorrow, and it has evoked from other noble Lords speeches of interest and authority which it would be difficult for any other Chamber to have concentrated in one period. This debate will be noted with interest both by my colleagues and by professional and other members of the department whose concern it is to reduce the hours at present worked by junior doctors to a more statisfactory level. They also will be indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, for the service he has done in introducing the Bill and calling for this very useful discussion.
None the less, in view of the practical difficulties inherent in the Bill itself, and more particularly in view of the fact that it will pre-empt a full and proper discussion of this problem and attempt to solve it with an instrument which I fear, whatever was done with it in later stages, would remain inappropriately rigid, I hope the noble Lord will feel that the service he has done to the profession and to your Lordships' House is sufficient and that it will not be necessary to proceed further.
8.48 p.m.
Lord Wells-Pestell: My Lords, I am grateful to everyone who has taken part in this debate on the Second Reading today. I believe that this is the wrong time to deal with matters which have been raised by various individuals but I am grateful to everybody. I did not know that my noble friend Lord Molloy was intervening, but I am glad to hear him because of his experience with the Federation of Hospital Service Employees —and sometimes we forget that they have a point of view.
If there is anyone I should like to have done battle with it would by my old friend the noble Lord, Lord Hill of Luton. I would like to take him to task for a number of things he said but, as 1 have said, I do not believe it will serve any useful purpose. I am grateful because we have been given a lot of specific information which is new to many of us, but which is of supreme importance to the understanding of this particular problem.
The one thing I feel very strongly about is the number of times it was said by people, including the Minister, that legislation is not the way to do this. I agree with

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the noble Lord, Lord Richardson, that we ought to do this by arrangement. But what I want to say very strongly is that if it cannot be done by arrangement, then there is a responsibility upon Parliament to see that patients are protected. The best way of protecting patients is to see that junior hospital doctors do not work extraordinarily long hours. If they do and the department cannot deal with it, the BMA cannot deal with it and the doctors themselves cannot deal with it, then I believe it is a matter for legislation, and I would have no hesitation in coming back again if this was necessary.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Elton, for his opening remarks. I would not accuse him at any time of not treating one fairly; I have had a long enough experience and association with him to know that he would not do this deliberately. But I did feel that, knowing as much as we do now, it might have been possible to deal with this matter in some other way.
I think the only other thing I want to say is this, that I am not, even now, convinced in my own mind that there is going to be a consistent, well-thought-out, determined policy to bring down hours. I do not think it is good enough for the department to say there will be discussions going on here, discussions going on there, discussions going on somewhere else. I do not know whether the noble Lord can give an assurance that this matter will be co-ordinated by the department, because in the last analysis it will be the department who will have to agree to any reduction in hours. I would like to feel that this is going forward, not haphazardly, not when various groups decide to meet, but under the leadership and guidance of the department, so that within a comparatively short space of time there will be something emerging. I do not know whether the noble Lord would like to intervene before I finish.
Lord Elton: My Lords, with some temerity, I would say that I have experience of predicting the length of time things take in Government and have been wrong. I would not like to come to the House and say that this problem will be solved in a particular span of time. I have said that we recognise the problem, we want to solve it and we intend to play our proper role in it. I have tried to make it clear that it is not entirely the Government's role to solve it, because standards of training and so on are matters for other bodies than Government and the Government should not issue edicts to them. But we shall certainly be at the centre of the operation, and with Lord Wells-Pestell's riding whip to it, we shall not be able to spend a long time about it.
Lord Wells-Pestell: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lord for those comments. We do know that if a Government department is not enthusiastic about something there is nothing like a Government department for dragging its feet, and it does it extraordinarily well, as the noble Lord knows. I shall watch for the dragging feet. Meanwhile, with the approval of your Lordships' House, I therefore beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Second Reading.
Motion for Second Reading, by leave, withdrawn.

Personal Savings and Housing Markets
8.53 p.m.
The Earl of Kinnoullrose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they intend to review their policy towards the increasing competition on the personal savings market and the housing market and their own requirements to raise funds on the open market.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, after the stimulating debate we have heard this afternoon, I venture briefly to bring before the House a subject, I would submit, of equal importance to the community, that of the national savings market and its direct link to housing finance. I apologise to the House immediately for persisting with this subject at such a late hour, particularly on a rail strike day, but it is my third attempt to hold this debate, and if I withdraw now I feel that other noble Lords who have kindly indicated that they wish to take part may wonder at my credibility or staying power. I should like to thank those noble Lords who indicated that they would be here, and I see are here, and particularly my noble friend, who I hope will give us a stimulating answer. I should briefly declare an interest, in that I am associated with a building society. I will not mention its name in case I am accused of advertising. I am speaking in a personal capacity and in no way is that society, or indeed the Building Societies Association, to blame for any of my remarks.
My Lords, the purpose of the Question is not just to make an idle moan to my noble friend on behalf of the building societies, who some may mistakenly believe are still the fuddy-duddy of our financial institutions. Nor is it to claim that catastrophe is just around the corner, because the January figures do not support that, as my noble friend would be quick to point out. The purpose has a serious note. It is a warning that if Government policies towards who gets what share of the national savings cake go unchecked, the result could lead to an effective destruction, I suggest, of a vehicle that has performed a magnificent service to the community over the past two centuries, has been primarily responsible for raising home ownership to 55 per cent. now in this country, and I hope higher in the future, and has been a great stabilising influence on the home mortgage market in an often highly unstable and volatile money market.
There were two clearly identifiable policy changes that the Government made in 1980 which led to the building societies being squeezed for funds. The first was the lifting of what is delicately termed the "corset" on the banks which had previously restricted their ability to attract interest bearing deposits. This led to fierce competition for deposit and savings markets, while the banks kept a canny eye on their vast pool of current account holdings, which of course was costing them nothing.
The second policy change was the Government's decision to raise part of their borrowing requirements from the national savings market—15 per cent. in 1980, rising to over 30 per cent. in 1981. Critics may ask: What was wrong with these two policy changes, which surely stimulated competition, which provided Government borrowing more cheaply, while from the January figures the building societies appear to be doing well? In my book there is indeed nothing wrong with healthy competition; it is good for the industry and usually beneficial to the consumer. For investors indeed it was

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a boom time, if anyone had any money. The market saw a proliferation of goodies being offered. Banks offered interest on current accounts. The Government offered a series of index-linked high yield certificates, and building societies started to compete fiercely with everyone, including themselves, with a wide variety of term shares.
But to take a view on the fairness of competition between the three main parties seeking the major slice of the personal savings market, the picture, I suggest to your Lordships, is much more unbalanced. In the first place, the Government by definition are out on their own. I do not belittle their achievement in raising their huge targets, except to say that it was not cheap money. To a higher bracket taxpayer their 23rd issue certificate offered a gross return of no less than 25 per cent., a little above, I would suggest to my noble friend, market rates. How this equates in cost to a gilt placing by Government is something I hope my noble friend will indicate later on, because of course it is very relevant to Government policy on borrowing.
As to the banks versus building societies, they are of course old well-respected protagonists. The battle has indeed hotted up of late, not only for investing funds but also for the mortgage market, where the banks have made sizeable inroads. No one could argue that the mortgage market has suffered. Indeed, the borrower has gained, and this should last while funds exceed mortgage demand. On the investment side competition is more hampered, not because the building societies are afraid to compete, but because they have severe restraints within which they can operate in a now highly sophisticated market. My noble friend's department is, of course, well aware of this, and indeed new major building society legislation has been brewing for some years. It would be helpful tonight if my noble friend could tell us when this legislation is likely to emerge, and if, indeed, it is some way off, whether the Government would consider certain amendments now in order to assist the building societies.
On the figures published for the last year it may seem that building societies are holding their own on investments. In practice they were down last year on the net new money invested with them. I hope that that is not an indicator of the future, for it is vitally important that this movement is not strangled for funds in the future. In an expanding house market the requirement for funds will increase substantially as the average mortgage case increases. If at the same time industry seeks more investment funds from the banks then the pressure for mortgage business on building societies, and, indeed, the responsibility on building societies, will be that greater.
I do not cry "wolf" tonight to my noble friend, but I do seek an assurance that Her Majesty's Government are keenly aware of keeping a balance of not personally plundering the honeypot of savings market, of creating an atmosphere of fair competition, of maintaining an environment within which the building societies can continue to play a role they know best, of encouraging the further growth of home ownership.
9.1 p.m.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, the House will
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be grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, for bringing this important subject before us and for the thoughtful speech which he has just made. Indeed, his Unstarred Question opens the door to a wide-ranging debate and I wish that it had been possible for him to have made his speech rather earlier in the day so that other noble Lords could have heard his contribution and, indeed, taken part in the debate.
I have given some thought to the wording of his Unstarred Question and it seems to me that it raises three issues and I should like to deal with them as briefly as I can. The first issue is competition in the personal savings market, housing and Government borrowing. Dominating all this are the grave consequences of the Government's economic policy. While these have had effects far beyond the issues raised here, they have also been the major element in these matters, with which we are more closely concerned in the noble Earl's Unstarred Question.
Personal savings are a vital national resource which should be devoted towards the building of the nation's future. Most people save for their retirement and old age. The money they save should be used to ensure that the country can, in fact, sustain them when they reach retirement. This, in my submission, is not an unreasonable expectation. That means that personal savings should be channelled through the financial markets to some organisation which will use the funds to build our future—building societies, as the noble Earl has just said, to build houses; companies to install new machinery or buildings or the Government to provide the infrastructure to build roads, houses or provide education and training.
However, what have the Government in fact done? I do not want to introduce an unnecessarily controversial note at this time of night because it may upset noble Lords, but I am bound to make this point because it relates directly to the Unstarred Question. The first thing that the Government did was to relax exchange controls with the result that a vast amount of money flows out of the country—not even to set up new plant abroad but just to buy foreign stocks and shares. I took the view that it is extremely difficult to find justification for such a step at such a time. I am no great expert in this field, but is it not the case that the Government have further distorted the savings market by their selection of their money supply target? I think that that is a point to which the noble Lord the Minister might direct himself when he replies.
The Government's means of money supply—sterling M3—happens to cover in its counterparts some kinds of personal savings like bank deposits and exludes others like building society deposits. The result is that the Government have tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to restrain the growth of the items that lay within their own totally arbitrary definition of money. They have chosen three instruments for achieving their money supply targets—deflating the economy through reducing expenditure and raising taxes, deflating the economy by raising interest rates, and issuing new forms of national savings. They have also had a major impact on savings generally. Because personal income has been depressed through falling employment, personal savings have been themselves depressed. High and volatile interest rates have caused great instabilities in the flow of money to

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different financial institutions, especially building societies. It is the building societies, in fact, which have suffered most.
Let us consider briefly the grim effect of this on the housing market in which the noble Lord is, I know, extremely interested. In November of last year even before the bad weather started, the number of housing completions fell to less than 13,000—the lowest number since the early fifties. In the whole of last year 199,000 homes were completed. The number of houses started—153,000—was also a record low. Then there was the appalling effect on council house building. In making their obeisance to their public sector borrowing requirement the Government have decimated the council building programme. I am bound to say that this is a matter of deep regret and sorrow to me personally. I always took the view when I was a Minister—and I had responsibility for housing in Wales for quite a time—that it was right to keep a balance as between the public contribution to the housing market and the private contribution. I took the view that 50-50 was about right. But now we have gone into some vacuum where there is great uncertainty about the future and, of course, the waiting lists are accordingly very long indeed.
The Government's policies of high interest rates have undermined the private housing market as well. Indeed, 350,000—that is, one quarter of all building workers—are now unemployed while the housing situation deteriorates. Meanwhile, we have the irony that building societies are finding it more difficult to raise money while the banks are moving more and more into the housing market. I think that that is the fact which the noble Earl recognised in his speech. Perhaps the Minister will tell how this effects that Government's monetary targets. I think that it must take them severely off course. Again, I am not an expert, and if the noble Lord, with his authority, can correct me, I shall certainly withdraw, but that is the impression I have.
The third instrument that the Government have tried to use to further their policy is the greater use of new national savings of various kinds. This is wholly to be applauded. National savings is a reliable way of securing people's savings and normally a way of ensuring that they are used for some constructive purpose which will lead to the development of the economy and the standards of our society. To what extent, however, are the present Government trying to secure national savings in the apparent belief that by funding the national debt in this way they will reduce the growth in their money supply? Yet, in spite of the considerable success of their sales of national savings, it does not seem to have helped them a great deal in their aims. The money that they are able to borrow in this way is not, tragically, going to any useful national purpose; it is going to finance unemployment. So while we can commend what the Government have done in the savings market, we can only regret their apparent reasons for doing it.
In conclusion, let me turn to another aspect. The extension of indexed "granny" bonds to a wider set of borrowers is also welcome. This comes within the noble Earl's Unstarred Question. The provision of a way of guaranteeing people's savings against the effects
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of inflation is to be commended. Surely the aim should be to achieve a position where everyone's pension is index-linked. As the Scott Report so widely concluded, the only thing wrong with index-linked public service pensions is that they do not apply to everyone.
To see the issue as one of competition in the savings market seems to me to be misconceived. The main issue is how to encourage saving and ensure that it is put to good use. The notion of competition is somewhat misleading. The vast bulk of people's savings goes into pension funds and life assurance. I cannot see that as competition; the money is committed to those institutions. People are offered no choice. Of the rest, which goes to banks, building societies and so on, the issue of competition is again confusing. Flows to and from one kind of savings institution seem to be highly responsive to interest rate charges or the development of new instruments. But these fluctuations are not the new savings of the mass of the population; they are to an enormous extent the wealth of the men who manage their portfolios so that they can extract the last ounce of interest out of financial markets.
If I had confidence that these financial markets would serve the whole nation selflessly, I might take a modified view. But over the years they have served one section of the community very well indeed. They have done well out of the policies of the present Government with their high interest rates and abandonment of control on both domestic and overseas lending. I am not sure that this has been beneficial to the nation as a whole—to everyone. I respect the noble Earl's sincerity and the skill with which he has made his case. I think that he has made an important contribution. His knowledge, especially of the workings of the building societies, was I think very helpful to the debate. But I do not think that the Government need a new policy on competition in financial markets. What they need is an entirely new approach to saving and wealth. I do not know whether they have the vision to do what is necessary; namely, to channel the wealth of this country, including the savings of its people, into rebuilding the country, in putting its people back to work, and not to look constantly for the best return irrespective of the social values.
The people of this country have suffered a good deal in recent years and they will respond to policies which they believe to be right and, even more readily, to policies which they feel to be fair—fair to every section of the community. Until that kind of leadership is provided, I do not think that this country will make a significant advance. The manipulation of money in the markets is not something which gives them hope or confidence. I can only hope that the Government will, as the menacing clouds of a general election loom in the sky, change their course and seek to manage our affairs rather more prudently. In saying that, may I once again thank the noble Earl for giving us the opportunity to say these things.
9.17 p.m.
Lord Hill of Luton: My Lords, without difficulty, I shall resist the temptation to follow many trails laid by the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, and confine myself to the subject raised by the noble Earl. Indeed, there is only one aspect of it on which I feel strongly. I do not

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complain that competition from the banks and from national savings has come to building societies. I think that in the long-term it will have a bracing and energising effect on building societies. They cannot expect to continue without competition, and I do not in any way object to that competition.
I want to look at the particular line followed by the Treasury since it decided to finance the PSBR by national savings. Think of the number of certificate offers that are out today. I do not pretend to be comprehensive, but I know that certificate numbers 14, 16, 18, 19, 23, retirement certificates, second index-linked certificates are on offer today. I may have left some out. I admit, privately, that I have named those in which I have got a very modest portion. I know that they are still alive and receiving.
National Savings is a very strong competitor from time to time. My complaint about them by the way is that they do not tell you when in fact your particular certificate has reached the end of its earning life. I do not regard their public presentation of what they offer and the aid that they offer to those who have subscribed as particularly helpful or particularly satisfactory. But such are the tax-free interest rates offered that one has to overlook that relative inefficiency in presentation because of that tax free offer.
Bearing in mind the appeal that these certificates must make to the high taxpayer, I wonder how much tax is lost to the Exchequer by the selection of this method of attracting investment. It must be pretty big. It must be taken into account in looking at the national balance sheet that emerges from a consideration of the inflow and the outflow from such certificates. What I want particularly to do is to illustrate the way that this form of investment—of which there can be no criticism of any size—proceeds to attract money.
I have been looking at what happened in the later months last year; September, October and November. What happened as a result of the offers that were made? I will give you the offers that were put. On 7th September age restriction on purchases of second issue index-linked abolished. Previously confined to the over-50s. On 19th October maximum holding of index-linked certificates increased from £3,000 to £5,000. On 1st November National Savings Bank investment account rate increased from 13 per cent. to 14·5 per cent. That is not tax free except for the first portion of it. On 9th November new 23rd issue of conventional certificates offering 10·51 per cent. free of tax.
What happened in that corresponding period of three or four months to the net receipts of the building societies? July, £290 million; August, £244 million, not a high level but that was the kind of level before September; September, £334 million; then October, that is when the attractive pennies dropped to the investors in building societies, £154 million; in November, £65 million. In other words, the timing of these public offers seems from time to time so designed to secure a substantial fall, mostly due to withdrawals, from building societies.
It is not much to ask, but when the Treasury is considering the issue of certificates would they bear in mind that there is another form of saving which is deeply in the public interest; that of saving in building societies to make possible home ownership and, what is
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more, for this is a newer activity, of linking with public authorities for providing the resources for public housing. This seems to me to be either thoughtless or inconsiderate.
I do not criticise their seeking this money in this way. I should be a hypocrite if I criticised the rate of interest they offered. I do not object to the competition with the banks, but I think that the Treasury should have an eye on the importance of a steady level of net inflow to building societies. So often it comes at a time when, as a result, they have substantially to reduce their commitments for some months ahead for they cannot guarantee, they cannot be sure, that after the main impact of these new issues the net income will rise. It usually rises after a while, but none can be confident it will. So the one criticism I would offer is the lack of consideration of the Treasury in the timing of its issues, bearing in mind the importance of the building society movement in the social life of this country.
9.20 p.m.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, I am a vice-president of the Building Societies Association—
Lord Hill of Luton: I am, too, my Lords, but I forgot to mention it; perhaps my noble friend world put in a word for me.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby:—as is my noble friend Lord Hill of Luton. The noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, is chairman of a building society in which I am an investor and have been a borrower. I have an interest in other building societies, mostly on principle, not necessarily because they offer me the best opportunity of a return on my money. I have been in building societies all my life, and my father before me. When people ask me as an investor to support my society, I yield something of myself, my history and my emotions to that society, yet it is really a meaningless entity; I do not feel I belong to anything, nor do they think I belong to them.
I fear that the building societies could easily lose their way, or go the wrong way, and, when I meet my building society friends in private, they hear my point of view in shocked silence, but I will not repeat my criticisms of the building societies here tonight: as my noble friend Lord Hill once said, "not in front of the children", and I reserve my candour for more private occasions.
Homeownership is the most favourable and privileged investment today, and I need not go over the several headings of advantage in buying a house on mortgage through a building society; so many millions of people have done it and know the value of it, and I doubt whether anybody has ever regretted it. I am, however, concerned with the investor. He has not had all the consideration he should have had from the building societies and from society in general. It is the building society investor who provides the money for the favourable investment of the house-purchaser. He lends his money at the present value, it is repaid over a long period in a depreciating currency, he derives no benefit from rising property values and therefore has no hedge against inflation. The return he will get on his investment will mostly be lower than the going rate of inflation, so that he finishes up with his investment and all his

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accumulations from it being of less value than when he started. And, if he happens to be exempt from income tax, he will suffer a discount of 26 per cent., the composite rate, from the interest earned on his investment and will be denied by law any opportunity of getting the money back from the Inland Revenue. I remember when a Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer amended the Finance Bill to stop the building society investor who was tax-exempt succeeding in court in a claim for the return of his income tax deduction. It would have ruined the whole structure of the building society arrangements with the Inland Revenue had he succeeded.
The truth of the matter is that the interests of the borrower are politics, the interests of the investor are not. An increase in the mortgage lending rate is politics, a lowering of the return on the investment is not. It takes six investors to finance one borrower, and yet the investors are regarded as incidental to the major political concern of all the parties, especially the Labour Party. The borrower must come first.
Indeed, on one occasion when the market rate of money rose, a Labour Government were so anxious on political grounds to avoid an increase in the mortgage lending rate that they came to an arrangement with the building societies that they should not put up the lending rate, and, in order that they should not feel the disadvantage of an unfavourable position in the investment market, the Government pumped money into the building societies to fill the gap. But all the investors in the building societies at that time were cheated of the market rate on their investment in order that the borrower could get lower than the going rate. That is how the borrower is treated in a political crisis, to the disadvantage of the investor. I regarded that as a quite lamentable episode.
As I have been saying for years, the unsophisticated investor in this country has been cheated ever since the war. He has been cheated by the Post Office, the Co-ops and the building societies. The poor investor has paid dearly and disproportionately high for what he values most and understands best: security and easy withdrawal. That is the clue to the investments in building societies on the part of very many people. For good measure it relieves them of being troubled by the pettifogging attentions of the income tax man. Many a time I have tried to persuade tax-exempt investors to get out of a building society and go into local authority loans at a substantially higher rate of interest, but the moment they know that the interest will be tax deducted and that they will have to get the money back from the Inland Revenue, they shy from it. However, something could be done to avoid the tax-exempt investor going to a building society rather than securing benefit elsewhere.
So I say to the building societies look after your investors; they are the grass roots and the great standby of the building society movement. And it is a movement, or it ought to be. When I hear the building Societies Association talking about "our industry", I know that they have it wrong. They are not in business, and they are not an industry. They are a financial service, and they are built upon concessions, granted to encourage thrift societies, seeking support from the working-classes in the last century. That was their foundation, and to a very large extent it is still their
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support. They began as mutual thrift clubs, with members qualifying for loans as the common fund mounted up; and no one got a loan who was not an investor. I am glad to see that some of the building societies are returning to that first principle, as the banks are in fact doing, too, in saying, "Save first, borrow later". That is a pretty good principle, I think, on which to work.
I do not approve of building societies going from rags to riches, from the thrift club to the financial institution, without a thorough review of their role, control and management. They have ceased to be under the shareholders' control. Their boards are virtually self-appointing, self-perpetuating oligarchies. You try to get on the board of a building society and see what happens! You cannot even get hold of the names and addresses of the constituents. No, they are not banks, thay are not joint-stock companies with equity shareholders, they are not investment trusts: they are building societies, and they claim that noble and honoured name by reason of their origins and the principles upon which they first worked. Let them remember that.
Three institutions are competing for people's savings—building societies, banks and the state. Each have their claim, each their purpose. The question is: What is their purpose, their aim, and what is the relevant importance of the precedence to be given to it? Here I think my noble friend Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos dealt skilfully, with knowledge, with the question of the use of the nation's resources. After all, there is a sort of pool of disposable incomes, of money yielded up for use elsewhere. How is it to be used? We cannot afford to put everything into housing, however desirable that might be.
The reason why there is a lot of money "sloshing about" at the present time is that the banks are under-spent on their allocation for industrial investment. They are looking around for a home for it. But if the Government were in a position to stimulate industrial investment or felt the moment was right to do it by matching grants to industry alongside their own investment, the tap would be turned off by the banks overnight, because bank money would go where it is more suitable for it to be, and that is into industrial investment, where the return is over a much shorter period, generally, than investment in mortgages for housing on a 25-year term.
But it is Governments who are supposed to be in control of the national economy, not the building societies and not the banks. I know we are told, "The financial institutions rule—OK?", but they should not be doing it and most Governments make sure that they do not. There has to be some priority for the mobilisation of the nation's resources and some influence used upon the flow of funds for purposes which will suit the national interest at that particular time.
I do not think building societies have any serious immediate anxieties. I do not think that they should become rivals of the state. The size of the housing programme, the growth of the housing stock and the amount of the nation's fixed investment is to a large extent part of the wider economic management, which is what my noble friend said. I think that the building societies have been too ready to assume a sense of grievance at what the Government have been doing

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to attract the people's savings. They may feel disappointed, but I am not sure that they have a grievance. Although they have restraints and restrictions on their ability to appeal for funds and in the use of funds, they have all the privileges that those restrictions confer on them.
If there is to be a wide expansion of the Government housing programme the building societies will come in and probably Government money as well. I think that expansion of the building societies for, as it were, self-gratification is not economically justified. I think that if the Government had deliberately minimised the capacity of the local authorities to finance house purchase, then the building societies should not feel that they are entitled to an expansion of their services in consequence. The building societies would always have considerable sums at their disposal on the maturity of mortgages and repayment of capital sums.
I, myself, think that there is no need for the building societies to get running scared of the banks. The building societies will be all right—they have been there too long—if they stick to their role. There is nothing to replace them. No Left-wing Labour Government dare talk about nationalising the building societies—not if they read the history of 1931 when Philip Snowden lost the Labour Party the election by his Post Office savings scare. That is something that no Government will put their hands on. On the contrary, they are likely to be cosseted and taken care of.
No, I hope that the ambitions of the building society directors, unrestrained by their shareholders, will not make them too big for their boots or spread their desires for financial influence and power beyond the range of their original concept and the conditions upon which they are allowed to function in a relatively privileged position in the money markets today.
9.37 p.m.
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: My Lords, we have had an interesting short debate on this subject which has ranged widely. I do not promise to go into all the alleys which have been opened up. My noble friend's Unstarred Question raises a number of related issues. He speaks of the Government's policy in the personal savings market on the one hand, which, of course, principally concerns the approach to national savings. He talks also of finance in the housing market—and ties this in with the whole question of the Government's funding policy.
These are large topics for a short debate. But my noble friend is, if I may say so, quite right to raise them together. It is vital to see the relationship between national savings and funding policy in general so as to understand the impact of the use of different mixes of funding instruments. But there is another aspect of this. It is important that we should encourage the habit of saving. It is not only of real value to the economy as a whole but of real value to the individual. It enables him to build up a modest amount of capital for himself and it gives him a measure of security in times of difficulty. National savings, therefore, not only help the Government: they provide a valuable service to the individual.
It may be useful if I briefly recall the principal facts about the Government's activity in the national
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savings area over the last couple of years. In 1980–81, the Government announced a target of new inflows of £2 billion into the whole range of national savings instruments. That target was achieved—indeed, exceeded. For 1981–82 a target of £3 billion was announced in November 1980. It was later revised upwards to £3½ billion. With only a few weeks of the year remaining, it seems likely that once again the target will be reached. I understand that we are almost there at this moment.
These are large sums, and to attract them the Government have offered a wide variety of instruments to the personal saver. I do not propose to detail all the changes of the last couple of years, but the existing range of conventional and index-linked certificates, premium bonds, save-as-you-earn contracts and national savings bank accounts undoubtedly provides a number of attractive homes for personal savings, as the noble Lord, Lord Hill, made very clear to us.
For many years the market share, as it were, of national savings in the personal savings market had declined. In 1970–71, for example, 6·9 per cent. of personal sector assets were held with the Department for National Savings. The building societies accounted for 10·5 per cent. By 1979–80 these percentages had become 4·7 for the Department of National Savings and 18·2 for the building societies. And in spite of the £2 billion target the national savings share fell further in 1980–81. Figures for this year are not yet available, but even if they show a rise for national savings we shall still be a long way from the proportion DNS held until the 1970s.
What the Government have done, therefore, is not new. But what was the reason for these developments, and what effect have they had on housing finance? The principle advantage of funding the public sector borrowing requirement in this way is that it reduces the extent of the Government's reliance on the gilt-edged market, and hence eases the pressure on long-term interest rates. The reduction of interest rates is of course a major objective of policy. The high level of long-term interest rates we have seen in recent years has created a major problem for companies and has also incidentally kept companies out of the long-term debenture market.
The main reason rates have been as high as they have is that successive Governments have sold gilt-edged stock in the quantities needed to meet heavy borrowing requirements. It is important to try to reduce the pressure this puts on the long-term capital markets. The best way to do this of course is to reduce the borrowing requirement so far as is practicable, and I need not expand here on the measures the Government have taken to do so.
But another useful method is to fund the deficit, at least in part, in other markets. National savings is the most important alternative. Every pound attracted into national savings is a pound less to be borrowed in the gilt-edged market. A measure of the success of the national savings initiative is that sales of national savings have increased as a percentage of total net debt sales to the non-bank private sector from 12 per cent. in 1979–80 to a planned 35 per cent. this year.
But the Government fully recognise that they cannot allow themselves a completely free hand. The Government clearly enjoy a number of special advantages.

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Governments must, therefore, act in this area with proper regard to the effect on their competitors. If the Government were to compete over-aggressively for funds in the personal savings market, this could have adverse consequences for building societies who are heavily dependent on this market, and through them on housing finances in general.
The Government have kept these considerations very much in mind and I do not believe that in the event higher national savings inflows have, through their impact on other savings media, damaged the housing market. An important point to note here is that 1980–81 saw a substantial improvement in the financial position of the personal sector, in contrast to the corporate sector, and particularly a sharp increase in the level of discretionary personal saving. It therefore made sense to direct the funding effort to where money was accumulating. The financial surplus of the personal sector remained at a historically high level in 1981–82. Hence the Government have been able to attract inflows into national savings on an unprecedented scale without imposing an unacceptable squeeze on the building societies. The national savings instruments have completed vigorously but not unfairly, and the building societies have remained able to attract large inflows.
The Government propose to maintain this renewed emphasis on the role of national savings. It is a natural and proper development. For some years the national savings presence in the savings market had been allowed steadily to decline: indeed it was coming to be looked on almost as a relic of the past. The Government have now, in relative terms, restored the national savings' share of the savings market to its former levels before the decline occurred.
I should like to say a few words also about the other development in the housing market in recent months —the rapid growth of lending for house purchase by the banks, and particularly by the major clearing banks. The speed at which their lending for house purchase —which has been to some extent, as my noble friend remarked, facilitated by the removal of the "corset"—has grown in the last year has been quite striking, though it is worth remembering that the level of banks' participation in the housing market is not unprecedented: their present share of mortgages outstanding is not much above the level at the end of 1973.
This development brings additional competition to the housing finance market. Greater competition means more choice for customers, but of course it does represent a challenge to the building societies. It has been encouraging to see their response. A number of leaders of the building society movement have recognised the effect of this competition in ensuring the maintenance of a keen competitive edge.
It is too early to say how the building societies will respond to the challenge, or what the shape of the housing finance market will be in the future. It may be that the trend towards mergers will continue. Perhaps there will be a degree of rationalisation. But the Government are confident that the societies will respond in the most appropriate way. It is worth noting, in fact, that the outstanding stock of building society mortgages is up 15 per cent. on a year ago. They have an impressive record of assistance to the United Kingdom
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housing market and are certain to continue to make a major contribution to that market.
My noble friend asked me whether there was going to be legislation on the subject of building societies. As the previous Financial Secretary to the Treasury said in another place, the Government have no immediate plans to introduce legislation governing building societies. I understand that various bodies such as the Bow Group and the National Consumer Council have suggested that major legislation should be introduced governing societies to deal with such issues as their future role, their constitution, including the powers of the members, and the framework of prudential supervision. Societies are, however, facing changing times, and there is no consensus in the building society movement about the legislative changes they would like. Before seriously considering future legislation, the Government wish the public debate to continue from within, and also outside, the building society movement.
What does all this mean to the consumer? There is no doubt that the personal saver has benefited from the competition. The range of choice has clearly widened appreciably. The Department for National Savings now provides a large variety of instruments expressly designed with the interests of personal savers in mind. House purchasers, too, have benefited from the increased competition. They may pick and choose from a range of institutions offering different financing packages. There is also, in the Government's view, an overall benefit to the economy.
One of the major problems that we face is the overwhelming dominance of Government issues in the longterm capital market. Over the five years 1977 to 1981, the Government raised 90 per cent. of the long-term debt provided by the United Kingdom capital market. If the national savings initiative can help the Government reduce their dependence on that market so that there is more room for companies, it will be of general benefit.
The noble Lord, Lord Hill of Luton, chided the Treasury for their timing in their national savings instruments. I have to say to thim that these instruments have to remain competitive. The timing of changes is determined by movements in general interest rates and the savings markets. The changes in national savings instruments are not made without regard to the consequences.
The noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, asked one or two rather difficult and technical questions, which I shall attempt to answer. The noble Lord referred to the ending of exchange controls. I suggest that that goes rather wide of the Question on the Order Paper. I would refer the noble Lord to the most recent edition of the Treasury's economic progress report, which analysed the issues in considerable detail. The noble Lord also asked about the number of houses being built. Like much of the rest of industry, house building has suffered from the recession, but there are encouraging signs for the future. The number of new buildings started increased steadily during 1981. Over the year as a whole, starts were 20 per cent. higher than in 1980 and over 120,000 new buildings were started in the year. The public expenditure plans for 1982–83 will allow local authorities to start and improve significantly more dwellings than in the current year.
I hope that I have answered all the questions I have

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been asked, but if I have not I shall, if I may, write to noble Lords. I should like to finish by saying to my noble friend that his Question concerns whether Her Majesty's Government will review their policy in this area. I think it is clear from what I have said that, in formulating their national savings objective, the Government keep very much in mind the condition of the housing market and the other factors to which my noble friend drew attention.