Lords Sitting of 25 October 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 Lincoln.

Military Strengths of East and West
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, in view of the conflict in evidence on the respective military strengths of East and West, they would propose to the United Nations Security Council the appointment of a commission of unaligned experts to reach conclusions for the benefit of the START and Vienna negotiations and the United Nations Committee on Disarmament.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, it is for the parties concerned to resolve any differences. In the START talks this means the United States and the Soviet Union. As far as the MBFR negotiations are concerned, the NATO allies have repeatedly demonstrated their willingness to discuss force strengths co-operatively with the other parties. It is up to the East to show a similar willingness.
Lord Brockway: My Lords, is the Minister aware that when I went on a peace mission to Moscow we had to listen for one hour to a Minister in the Kremlin trying to prove that Soviet forces were not greater than the American forces, and I retorted that we would have heard exactly the same in reverse if we had gone to the Pentagon? Does this not illustrate the problem that, while there is this difference of opinion about the strength of forces, negotiations for arms reductions are bound to be prejudiced? Would not an uncommitted examination he useful to resolve this problem?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, after answering a Question of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney, on Thursday, how could I possibly forget that the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, went to Moscow recently on a peace mission? All proposals for neutralising blockages should be examined carefully and on their merits, but I am afraid I am bound to say that I see this as a well-intentioned idea but a non-starter. It is very difficult to see how a group could be assembled which was both genuinely independent and sufficiently experienced to resolve an inevitably complex matter. Furthermore, it is difficult to see that the Eastern bloc would be any more willing to co-operate in a constructive manner with some sort of independent arbitrator. The bugbear, as I and my noble friends have said on numerous occasions, is verification. We are perfectly open on this side of the Urals as to what is going on, but would that the Eastern bloc were the same!
Lord Avebury: My Lords, would the Minster agree that, so far as land-based warfare in Europe is concerned, the balance has shifted decisively in favour of defence with the advent of light and accurate infantry borne anti-tank weapons? Does this not mean that arguments about the exact strength of forces on either side of the Iron Curtain have become irrelevant and that we should settle down to negotiations to dismantle the theatre nuclear weapons on either side, because so far as the West is concerned they are unnecessary to repel an attack by the Warsaw Pact?
Lord Skelmersdale: No, my Lords, I do not think these things are irrelevant at all. What I would say, however, is that the more the numbers of conventional forces are in balance the less likelihood and the less need there would be for nuclear forces.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, as the noble Lord has mentioned the Question I put to him the other day, may I respectfully ask him if he has not misunderstood the purport of my noble friend's Question? He is not suggesting that the function of negotiation on policy should be usurped. The proposal, as I understand it, is that a factual attempt should be made to establish what are the real nuclear strengths on both sides. Is the noble Lord not aware that my noble friend has pointed out that each side is saying that the other side is stronger, and he is suggesting an attempt to establish the facts? Would the noble Lord not agree that this is a good idea?
Lord Skelmersdale: No, my Lords, I do not think I misunderstood the supplementary question put by the noble Lord, Lord Brockway. What I was saying is that this is not the right way to go about resolving the difficulty.
Lord Derwent: My Lords, what is an "unaligned expert"? Is it somebody suffering from a disability?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I am not quite sure, but I note that Cuba is currently at the head of the non-aligned nations.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, will the noble Lord be good enough to be rather more precise in his replies to the questions put to him? Is he aware that the average man is dismayed and confused by what is said about the various disarmament conferences that are taking place—Vienna, Geneva, the United Nations initiative? All these are taking place. Will the noble Lord recall that his noble friend Lord Trenchard—I think it was last December—said that the Geneva talks had got off to a good start? What the man in the street wants to know is whether they are likely to get off to a good finish. Will the noble Lord be good enough to say whether verification is the only problem? While the House realises that there is a limit to what Her Majesty's Government can do, and that the matter is primarily one between the great powers, nevertheless on several occasions it has been said from the Front Bench opposite that we do have an influence in the matter. Will the noble Lord be good enough to ensure that Her Majesty's Government now exercise their influence to ensure at least that there is more clarity in the situation than exists at present?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I am sorry if I have caused confusion to the man in the street, or indeed to noble Lords; it certainly was not my intention so to do. There are, of course, three main negotiations going on: one is the START talks which are about nuclear forces; another is the MBFR talks which are specifically about non-nuclear forces; and the third is the INF, so-called, which is a NATO allies nuclear talk.
What I was trying to say was that START and MBFR, the two negotiations asked about in the Question on the Order Paper, were only appropriate to the parties involved: in other words, for START, the United States and Soviet Russia, and for MBFR the NATO allies and the Warsaw Pact countries.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that the quintessential of the submission in the original Question of my noble friend Lord Brockway is probably the most vital issue facing mankind and is too great an issue to depend on even the most erudite civil servant's brief or on fifth rate jokes? Does the noble Lord also agree that if there is one nation in the United Nations Security Council that could command support because of its experience and loyalty to that organisation, it is the United Kingdom? No proposal whatever regarding the future of mankind should be ruled out, as the noble Lord ruled out this proposal, as a non-starter. Will the noble Lord reconsider that and also seriously consider the points that I have submitted?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I do not think that the United Kindom could be possibly involved in this discussion - this committee of experts - simply because by the very nature of our geographical position and our nuclear forces we are an involved party. I apologise for using the expression, "non-starter", which may or may not he a parliamentary expression, but none the less it is a symptom of what I feel in this instance.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: My Lords, is there not something to be said for probing the possibility that a committee of - non-aligned is unattractive - non-committed experts could be invited to consider this matter? There is total conflict on each side of the fence on this issue. It would be an interesting probe to see the good faith of one side or the other if this idea was launched to see what the response would be?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I fully agree with the noble and learned Lord, but the great problem is to find these experts who are non-aligned. If they could be agreed by both sides as being non-aligned experts we would be a great deal further forward, I agree.
Lord Denham: My Lords, I know that the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, has been trying to rise for some time. I think I should draw the attention of the House to the fact that the clock is running six minutes early and that we have been 10 minutes on this Question. Perhaps after the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, has asked his question and my noble friend has answered it we can go on to the next Question.
Lord Brockway: My Lords, in his original reply the Minister referred to the difficulty of finding nonaligned experts. Does he remember that, on the instruction of the United Nations General Assembly, the Secretary-General found 12 scientific experts to discuss the question of nuclear weapons, headed by a scientist from Sweden? Could not that example be followed?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, yes, it could well be, but, as I have sought to say throughout, these nonaligned experts must be acceptable to both sides.

Helicopter Safety: North Sea Oil Rigs
2.46 p.m.
Lord Balfour of Inchrye: My Lords, I should first like to ask my noble friend whether he is aware of the grief which we feel, and which is shared by all sides of the House, at the accident which occurred yesterday on an oil rig in the North Sea, and that we should send a message of sympathy to the bereaved families?
My Lords, I beg leave, to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in the interest of the operational safety of crews and passengers flying to and from North Sea oil rigs, they will enforce those provisions of the Air Navigation Order 1980 which lay down the requirement to carry a cabin attendant in all helicopters with 20 or more passengers but for fewer than 20 leave the decision to the Civil Aviation Authority.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, first, I am sure the whole House will wish to be associated with my noble friend's expression of sympathy on the tragic accident that occurred on one of the rigs in the North Sea yesterday.
In answer to my noble friend's Question, statutory responsibility for air safety rests with the Civil Aviation Authority, and I am advised that the authority does enforce those provisions of the Air Navigation Order 1980 which require all helicopters on a flight for the purpose of public transport and carrying 20 or more passengers to include a cabin attendant in the crew. Furthermore, where it appears to be desirable to do so in the interests of safety, the authority will direct operators of helicopters carrying fewer than 20 passengers to include a cabin attendant in the crew.
Lord Balfour of Inchrye: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his Answer, but it does not go quite far enough. Will the noble Lord envisage a dark night in the North Sea, an emergency landing, strong seas running, a 35-knot wind, and the need for a crew member to leave his post and come aft, but a trained cabin attendant is not on hoard? Are these dispensations sufficient, even, when there are fewer than 20 passengers? Should not the authorities review them with a view to doing away with dispensations, on the ground of safety precautions? These dispensations are prepared by worthy civil servants and officials who are desk-borne and do not actually fly aircraft. Those people who do fly aircraft are determined that

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operational safety is increased by the carriage always of a cabin attendant.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, I am sure that the House will agree that all your Lordships would be in very safe hands in the conditions envisaged by my noble friend, since I understand that my noble friend, in his early youth, was a pilot. Alas, your Lordships will note that the Government Front Bench is not full of pilots, but certainly there is one here today. I would not necessarily care to envisage all the circumstances which have been detailed by my noble friend, but I assure him and your Lordships that we believe that the existing provisions covering safety are more than adequate. I would stress to my noble friend the outstanding safety records of the main helicopters which are used in the North Sea. Indeed, I am sure that your Lordships will be interested to know that so far there has been no fatal accident involving the carnage of passengers to and from the rigs in the North Sea concerning this one major helicopter, the S.61, in approximately 500,000 hours of flight; whereas the average as regards the worldwide use of S.61s in these conditions is in the region of six fatal accidents so far. I understand that the North Sea has an outstanding safety record.
I would also stress to my noble friend and the House that all operations are carried out according to the operations manuals agreed by representatives of pilots and the department. I hope that my noble friend and the House will not believe that they are all deskhound—most of them are very active. Moreover, at all times the safety of the aircraft and the passengers is the sole responsibility of the pilot.

Drugs: Price Differences
2.51 p.m.
Baroness Dudley: 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 why some drugs which are sold to the National Health Service in the United Kingdom can be purchased for under one-quarter of the price in other countries.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Lord Trefgarne): My Lords, such large differences in price are exceptional. I do accept that some medicines in some countries are cheaper than they are here. But others are more expensive. The differences are due to different economic and fiscal policies, local price control schemes, exchange rate fluctuations, effectiveness of patent protection, and market forces. Price differences from country to country are not of course peculiar to medicines. On the whole the prices of medicines in this country compare well with those in Western Europe.
Baroness Dudley: My Lords, is it not true that in some cases they are 10 times more expensive here than they are there? If we could do something about that, would it not save the National Health Service £80 million a year?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, my noble friend may be referring to a case that attracted some publicity recently—namely, the case of a drug called Zyloric which is apparently available in Spain at about a quarter of the price at which it is available in this country. It was a special case. That drug has been available in Spain for about 12 years and it was introduced into that country in 1970, at which time it was more expensive in Spain than it was here. But since that time price controls in Spain have prevented any price increases apart from two recent ones, and the sale of that drug in that country is now unprofitable for the manufacturer.
Lord Wallace of Coslany: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the question of the cost of drugs is one that needs thorough investigation so far as the Health Service is concerned, because it is a field where there could be considerable savings without affecting patient care? Secondly, is the noble Lord aware that I can give some slight evidence to support the noble Baroness? I use a proprietary medicine occasionally, and recently in Malta I bought a small tube for the equivalent of 30p; it is an item manufactured in Great Britain and it costs me in the United Kingdom 59p.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I am sorry to hear about the noble Lord's unfortunate experience, but our own method of controlling price and profit levels is, of course, the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme. It does not control the price of individual drugs which are fixed by companies, but it ensures that excessive profits are not made. British pharmaceutical companies make a very large contribution to our exports—the balance of payments in our favour in pharmaceuticals is about £600 million per annum—they invest heavily in research and development and employ about 70,000 people. It is important that they should be given a proper return on their investment, and, of course, we take these benefits into account in operating the scheme.
Lord Wells-Pestell: My Lords, I should like to ask the noble Lord about the basis of the comparison upon which he states that the prices of drugs here compare favourably with those in western countries. Is he comparing drug with drug, or is he taking an average?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I am looking at the cost of drugs right across the spectrum. Some drugs in this country are more expensive than they are elsewhere; some drugs in this country are less expensive than they are elsewhere. I was taking a broad look at the position when I made the general assertion which I did just now. Perhaps I should add that, of course, in some of the countries of Europe—not all of them—they do not have the large pharmaceutical manufacturing industry which we have in this country and we have to take the interests of that industry into account when operating our scheme.
Lord Chelwood: My Lords, should we not also bear in mind that pirating drugs without spending any money on research at all is very simple in many cases and that, as my noble friend indicated in his second reply, most pharmaceutical companies spend up to 10 per cent. of their annual sales on research, which is the only source of new products?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, my noble friend is quite right that the source of funds for research purposes in the pharmaceutical companies is from the margins they make from the sales of their products. It is also the case that, without the necessary controls upon the manufacture and sale of pharmaceuticals, one cannot he certain where the drugs come from, whether they are counterfeit, whether they are contaminated or, indeed, whether they are the product they say they are.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, I should like to ask the noble Lord whether he would be prepared to examine the possibility of perhaps establishing a guidance council from the British Pharmaceutical Society to aid the Government and the National Health Service in such matters as we have been discussing this afternoon?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, the noble Lord has put his finger on what I believe is a very important point. I wonder whether he has seen the work done by Professor Turner at Bart's Hospital where he has prepared what is called a formulary to give advice to doctors and others about the best and most economical drugs to prescribe in any particular case.
Lord John-Mackie: My Lords, would the noble Lord like to consider the question that arose over agricultural chemicals, which I think has some bearing on the question of the noble Baroness? When we went abroad to buy these chemicals we found that sometimes we could buy them at a price up to 50 per cent. less than the price at which they were sold in this country. Since then the price in this country has been brought down by 20 per cent., 30 per cent., or 40 per cent. in many cases. If the same happened with drugs, we would find them cheaper in this country.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, with respect that goes slightly wide of the Question on the Order Paper, but, speaking from personal experience as regards my own cat which had to go to the vet recently, we found it very expensive.

NHS and Personal Social Services
2.58 p.m.
Baroness Lane-Fox: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the total expenditure on health and personal social services represents an increase in real terms compared with 1978–79.
Lord Trefgarne: Yes, my Lords, In 1978–79 total Goverment expenditure on the National Health Service in England was £61 billion. Last year we spent over £11 billion. This represents growth in services of about 5 per cent. in real terms and there will be further growth this year. Over the same period net current expenditure on personal social services grew by some 7 per cent. in real terms.
Baroness Lane-Fox: My Lords, in thanking the Minister for that reassuring reply, may I ask him to
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confirm that, under this Government, more is being spent in real terms on the National Health Service than in any year of the previous Labour Government or, indeed, of any previous Government?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, my noble friend is quite right. If I may underline what I said just now, we are spending more now in real terms on the National Health Service than ever before.
Lord Wallace of Coslany: My Lords, following the very helpful supplementary question to the Government by the noble Baroness, which almost reminded me of a planted question, I should like to ask the noble Lord what "real terms" means? "Real terms" to me means an expansion of services, yet the Government say that they are spending more and the services are getting less and less. The noble Lord should have a look at the South-East Metropolitan Regional Health Authority's proposals to reduce services by millions, and the proposals of other metropolitan authorities as well. So "real terms" in the sense that we regard it is a meaningless term when the Government use it in the way in which the noble Lord has used it.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, there is no region in the country which, in real terms, is suffering a cut in the funds which we are making available to it. By "real terms", I mean that we are providing more money than just the increase in inflation would necessarily require. That is what I mean by "real terms", and the increase in real terms over the time during which we have been in office is about 5 per cent.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, can my noble friend give comparable figures for Scotland? Does he have them?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I confess that I have been asked that question before in your Lordships' House and I do not think that I have been able to give a satisfactory reply. The figures for Scotland are separately collated. I do not have them in front of me, but I shall write to my noble friend.
Baroness Jeger: My Lords, although the noble Lord has given us total figures, will he not agree that there are more old people and, sadly, very many more unemployed people, and that, therefore, the benefit per head is, if anything, reduced, especially in view of the Government's failure to reinstate the 5 per cent. abatement, which was imposed on benefits in 1980?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I am not sure whether the question of unemployed people is particularly relevant, but I take the point about the question of elderly people. Certainly in some areas, there are more elderly people as a percentage of the population than there were before, and the distributions of funds that we make take that into account.
Lord Banks: My Lords, can the noble Lord say by what percentage the real value must increase in order to provide the same services for the increasing number of people? Can he say how much the increase per annum must be in order for us to stay where we are?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, the demographic changes, as they are called in the jargon of health service economics, are taken into account in the allocation of resources to the various regions. As for the increase in elderly people, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Jeger, referred and which I think is at the back of the mind of the noble Lord. I believe that would account for about 2½ per cent. of the 5 per cent. increase in real allocations to which I have referred.
Baroness Lane-Fox: My Lords, for the benefit of the many of us on all sides of this House who care deeply about conditions of work for nurses, will my noble friend confirm that 1980 to 1981 saw a reduction in the working week from 40 hours to 37½ hours for nurses and midwives in normal circumstances, giving scope for earning more for unsocial hours?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, my noble friend is right when she refers to the reduction in the nurses' working week, which took place about the time she mentioned. That was, of course, one of the reasons, but not the only reason, why the number of staff in the health service—and particularly of nurses—has increased since that time.
Lord Wells-Pestell: My Lords, is it not a fact that there are considerably more doctors unemployed now than there were three years ago?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I have seen figures which purport that, but there is no shortage of doctors in the health service.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the question of unemployment that was raised by my noble friend Lady Jeger is, of course, very relevant to the items that he has been quoting? Is it not a fact that, owing to increased unemployment and generally to the increased poverty and deprivation which has now come upon us since the Government have been in office, the demands on the social services have become much greater and are much greater than the percentage increase of the expenditure in real terms, to which the noble Lord referred?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I am not sure that the noble Lord is right in that. I was replying earlier to the particular question of the health service and the relation of unemployed people to demands on the social services. But, of course, I agree that unemployed people very often find themselves in need of what the social services can provide. That is why we have seen an increase in the demands upon the social services and why we have responded to that increase with increased funds is real terms of about 7 per cent.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that what matters to the ordinary patient is not the amount of money that is spent on the National Health Service, but the ease with which he can get access to treatment and the length of time it takes him to get an out-patient consultation or to have an operation for a condition which is uncomfortable or painful, such as hernia or varicose veins? Can the noble Lord say whether the increase in the level of resources, which he
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say has been provided, has led to a reduction or an increase in the length of time that people wait for treatment?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I am happy to say that the lengths of the waiting lists prior to the commencement of the present industrial action have been significantly reduced since we came to office. Unhappily, it is the case that since the recent industrial action started, the lists have lengthened again, but that, of course, is one of the inevitable consequences of this action.

The De Lorean Company
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question of which I have given Private Notice. The Question is as follows:
"To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will make a Statement on the affairs of the De Lorean Motor Company in Northern Ireland".
Lord Denham: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I am arranging for my noble friend Lord Gowrie, who is on his way from Northern Ireland, to answer this Question in the form of a Statement at a convenient moment after half-past four this afternoon.

British Transport Docks Bill
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Aberdare): My Lords, the two Motions standing in my name on the Order Paper are similar to those that I moved last week and are simply to enable private Bills to continue their way through Parliament in the next Session. I beg to move the first Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, that the promotors of the Bill have leave to suspend any further proceedings thereon, in order to proceed with the Bill, if they shall think fit, in the next Session of Parliament, provided that notice of their intention to do so be lodged in the office of the Clerk of the Parliaments not later than three o'clock on the day before the close of the present Session, and that all fees due thereon up to that period shall have been paid:
That, if any of the Bills are brought from the Commons in the next Session, the agent for the Bill shall deposit in the Private Bill Office a declaration, signed by him, stating that the Bill is the same, in every respect, as the Bill which was brought from the Commons in the present Session:
That the proceedings on such Bill shall in the next Session of Parliament be pro forma only in regard to every stage through which the same shall have passed in the present Session and that no new fees be charged in regard to such stages: That the Standing Orders by which the proceedings on Bills are regulated shall not apply, in the next Session of Parliament, to such Bill in regard to any of the stages through which the same shall have passed during the present Session.—(Lord Aberdare.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered that a Message be sent to the Commons to desire their concurrence.

London Transport (Liverpool Street) Bill
Lord Aberdare: My Lords, I beg to move the second Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That this House do concur with the orders made by the Commons set out in their Message of Wednesday last.—(Lord Aberdare.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered that a Message be sent to the Commons to acquaint them thereof.

Code of Guidance Concerning Sites of Special Scientific Interest
3.7 p.m.
The Earl of Avon The Earl of Avon rose to move, That the Code of Guidance laid before the House on 5th July be approved.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, I beg to move that the Code of Guidance for sites of special scientific interest, a copy of which was laid before this House on 5th July, be approved. The code is the joint responsibility of my right honourable friends the Secretaries of State for the Environment, for Scotland and for Wales and the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. It has been prepared in accordance with Section 33 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and is intended to assist all those who exercise functions under Sections 28 to 32 of the Act or who are affected by the exercise of those functions. The code will apply to England, Scotland and Wales, and will be published in Welsh as well as in English.
The idea of publishing such a code of practice, conduct or guidance, as it was variously called, first arose at a stage during the debates on the Wildlife and Countryside Bill when it was envisaged that notification by landowners of intended operations should he voluntary. The code was to make it clear exactly what sort of co-operation was desired.
As a result of later changes in the Bill, including obligations on landowners, the function of the code was extended to include, first, an explanation of the various statutory provisions relating to SSSIs embodied in the Act as well as giving guidance on procedures; secondly, on the way in which voluntary co-operation would still be very valuable over and above compliance with the legal obligations: and, thirdly, on the importance of conservation of special habitats. The consultation draft of the code was prepared in collaboration with the Nature Conservancy Council, the National Farmers' Union, the Country Landowners' Association and Timber Growers (Great Britain) Limited, and perhaps I may take this opportunity to repeat the expression of the Government's gratitude, which was made by my honourable friend in another place last week, to these from outside Government who gave their time so readily in putting the document together. The public consultation exercise on the basis of this draft took place from February to April this year. About 150 organisations were consulted and as a result of it we received a number of helpful and constructive suggestions which enabled us to produce the improved text now before the House, which was finally laid on 5th July. The Government regret that pressure of other
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parliamentary business prevented this debate from taking place before the summer Recess as we had originally hoped.
The content of the code follows closely the indication given during the Committee debates on the Wildlife and Countryside Bill, particularly by my right honourable friend the Minister for Local Government and Environmental Services. He then said:
"The code will govern procedure. It will stress the importance of SSSIs and the need for conservation and outline the consultation procedures that owners and occupiers will be urged to respect…. The code would govern NCC's duty to notify sites of special scientific interest, the ways in which sites of special scientific interest are selected, the relationship between the code and existing consultation procedures, agricultural and forestry activities, agricultural and horticultural capital grant schemes, forestry grants, stressing the presumption that grants are put at risk if prior consultation and agreement with the NCC is not reached before work is started, and the financial advantage that might accrue from SSSI ownership and management."
The result is, I am afraid, not easy reading. While we have done our best to avoid unnecessary complexity, the inescapable fact is that the statutory provisions in the Act and the various related grant arrangements are themselves complex and it was essential to explain them comprehensively. I believe that the text we now have is as concise and as straightforward as is consistent with this requirement, and I trust that all those who use it will find that the effort of concentration it will call for is repaid by a clear understanding of the role they are expected to play.
The code begins by emphasising the importance of SSSIs and the fact that their conservation and proper management is vital to the maintenance of Britain's diverse wildlife. Government departments have been specifically mentioned at this point because the private sector co-operation with the voluntary spirit which is essential to the proper working of the SSSI provisions in the Act cannot be expected if Government do not set the example.
The code goes on to set out the procedure by which the NCC notifies SSSIs to all those concerned. It deals separately with the provisions which apply to SSSIs already in existence before the passing of the Act and those which apply to "new" SSSIs. SSSIs notified before the passing of the Act—of which there are about 4,000—remain extant, but as a basis for the new requirements on notification by owners and occupiers of intended operations the NCC is now required to inform every owner and occupier of the whole or a part of an SSSI of its location, the nature of its scientific interest and the operations which could cause damage to it and may not, therefore, be carried out without prior notice. This exercise of re-notification has already begun but it involves a great deal of detailed work and will take some time to complete. I understand that most notifications should be made during the course of this financial year, but in some cases where survey work cannot be carried out before the spring, it will take somewhat longer. The code contains advice to owners and occupiers on how to proceed in the period before they receive formal notification.
In the case of new SSSIs, the Act requires the NCC to give notice of its intention to notify a site and to consider any representations or objections before making a final decision. This is the essential difference between "old" and "new" SSSIs. The code tells

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owners and occupiers that they should not carry out any potentially damaging operation during the proposal period without consulting the NCC.
The code then describes how the NCC will go about listing potentially damaging operations, the registration of SSSIs as a land charge and the procedures to be adopted where owners and occupiers cannot be traced and when SSSI status is to be removed. A separate paragraph is devoted to statutory undertakers, whom the NCC will inform of all SSSI details that may concern their operations.
Once the NCC has notified an owner or occupier of the particulars of a site, he is then obliged to consult the council if he wishes to carry out any operation that has been specified in the notification. Section III of the code sets out the procedures for such consultation and also those which apply when farm capital grant or forestry grant is to be claimed. The farm capital grant procedures dovetail with the arrangements which have been successfully operated by the agriculture departments since October 1980 and which have resulted in a large number of cases being satisfactorily resolved at the local level without the need for formal objection.
Two aspects of this part of the code deserve special mention. First, the Act specifies, in Section 32, that the NCC must offer to enter into a management agreement where agricultural grants made under Section 29 of the Agriculture Act 1970 are refused in consequence of their objection. The point to be made on this is that there are other similar farm capital grants (for example, under EEC arrangements) not covered by that Act; and that because the essential features of grant applications to which there is a conservation objection are the same whatever type of grant is involved, the NCC have agreed that they will offer a management agreement where any kind of farm capital grant is refused in consequence of their objection. The same applies to crofting grants and, as my noble friend Lord Mansfield explained to the House last Wednesday, to grants that may be applied for under the integrated development programme for the Western Isles of Scotland.
Secondly, the procedures reflect a greater involvement for the Agricultural Development and Advisory Service (ADAS) in the process, which is in line with their commitment to further conservation. The ADAS service has regular contacts with farmers, whose confidence it enjoys, and its co-operation with the NCC will he of very great assistance. In forestry cases also, although under no legal obligation to do so, the NCC has said that it will normally offer to enter into a management agreement where forestry grant and/or felling permission is refused on conservation grounds. The next section of the code, on information helpful to the NCC, has been included to encourage owners and occupiers to assist in the NCC's need to have up-to-date information on the scientific interest of a site, on ownership details or on operations undertaken by third parties.
Section 5 deals with conservation options. It explains the purpose of management agreements and the circumstances in which the NCC will offer them. The Act also requires Ministers to prepare financial guidelines on which the compensation provided by management agreements must be based in certain
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circumstances. A public consultation exercise has been undertaken on a draft of these financial guidelines. The closing date for receipt of comments was last Friday. We have received a number of important comments, which we shall need to consider carefully. However, we recognise the need to finalise the guidelines as speedily as possible. When this has been done Sections 32 and 41 of the Act will be brought into force. For any management agreements that may be made in the period before the guidelines are settled the NCC is including appropriate provision for the financial terms to be reviewed when the final version is available.
The last section of the code deals with the provisions for special protection for certain areas. Section 29 of the Act provides in specified circumstances for my right honourable friend to make orders, which we are calling Nature Conservation Orders. These orders, which come into operation immediately they are made, prolong the period during which specified operations may not be carried out without the consent of the NCC. The House will be interested to know that my right honourable friend has just made the first such order, on the recommendation of the Nature Conservancy Council, to safeguard a heathland SSSI at Baddesley Common in Hampshire, which contains a unique combination of plants and related fauna. The code explains the procedures related to such orders and to the compensation to which they may give rise. It also covers the circumstances in which compulsory purchase may be used—very much a last resort—and the matter of offences and penalties.
That then, in brief, is what the code is about. It is a comprehensive procedural guide to that part of the Wildlife and Countryside Act which deals with SSSIs, to the various associated administrative processes and to the role for voluntary co-operation. Once it is approved the code will be printed and distributed free to all owners and occupiers of SSSIs by the NCC as part of their re-notification exercise. It will also be available through HMSO at a price of about £2.
Perhaps I may at this point refer to a matter which goes beyond the text of the code, but which is doubtless in the minds of many noble Lords today. That is the question of the resources, both of money and of staff, which are required by the NCC to ensure that its functions under the new Act and under the code are carried out. These are not easy questions. We live in times when it is imperative to scrutinise very closely all claims on the public purse and to ensure the maximum economy and efficiency in the use of resources. Decisions as to future years remain to be made and I cannot anticipate them today. Nevertheless, there are a few comments which it may be useful for me to make.
First, reference has often been made to a figure of £600,000 which is said to have been allocated to the NCC this year for the consequences of the Wildlife and Countryside Act. That is rather misleading. It is true that this year's allocation to the NCC, at £11¼ million, was some £600,000 more than last year's in real terms. But the Government have not said that £600,000 is the maximum that can be spent by the NCC on matters arising from the Act. It is up to the council to deploy its total allocation as it thinks best; and it is worth noting that it already had an ongoing programme of site protection.
The extent of financial commitments arising from the Act is notably difficult to predict. Reference has been made to the fact that 8,700 hectares of SSSIs were damaged in 1980—about half of that was agricultural—but there are indications that the situation has greatly improved. Much of what was done was doubtless due to ignorance, which it is the purpose of the Act and of this code to remove. Nevertheless, the best estimates possible must be made and these estimates and all available evidence will be carefully considered by my right honourable friend when he determines the council's allocation for the coming year.
The staff of the NCC is also heavily involved in implementing the Act. In that connection I should like to remove the impression, which seems to have gained some currency, that the recently announced Rayner review of the NCC is aimed at cutting its staff. The terms of reference require the staff needs of the NCC to be examined but they in no way prejudge whether the number of staff should be cut or increased. The review is in fact aimed at increasing efficiency and it is particularly apposite at this time that such a review should be made to ensure that the staff resources of the council are used to the best possible effect.
To conclude, and to come back to the Code of Guidance, the willingness of owners and occupiers of SSSIs to operate the voluntary arrangements set out in the code, as well as to comply with the legal obligations which it explains, is critical to the protection of our national heritage of wildlife sites. I am sure that most of those who have such a site on their land and who are clearly told of its importance will feel privileged and will be readily disposed to co-operate in preserving it from harm. Failure to do so, whether deliberately or by inadvertence will, I hope, be rare and should certainly be minimised by the code, which I commend to the House, as well as to all those whom it will concern. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Code of Guidance laid before the House on 5th July be approved.—(The Earl of Avon.)
3.22 p.m.
Lord Melchett: My Lords, I am sure the House is grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Avon, for his explanation of the code and its provision—somewhat shorter and clearer than the code itself, I think it is fair to say—and I wish to raise a number of points with him, in particular the question of resources, which he mentioned in some detail. At the outset I would like to comment briefly on the Wildlife and Countryside Act itself. Your Lordships will not need reminding, any more than the Minister will, that it was a controversial measure; it was controversial when we debated it in this House at great length and it is continuing to be so now that it is passed into law. I have been concerned, as I am sure some other noble Lords have, about attempts, as I see them, to some extent to rewrite the history of the Act.
It is common for Ministers, once they leave office, to rewrite the history of what they did when they were in office, and I am sure all of us are guilty of that. But it seems a little soon to start rewriting the history of this Act. By "rewriting its history" what I mean is that the Government and some other interest groups have been
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attempting to say that, because it was so thoroughly debated—because 1,200 amendments to it were tabled in your Lordships' House and because it took so long to go through Parliament—therefore it is a thoroughly agreed measure and nobody should subject it to any further criticism. In fact, of course, the reverse is the case. It was subject to so many amendments, it took so long to go through Parliament and it was changed to such a great extent in both Houses, because there was so much all-party disagreement to its provisions; and that all-party opposition to the measure's provisions continued right up to the very last votes in your Lordships' House.
I suggest that many of the criticisms—I shall touch on a few of them—that were made in all parts of the House when the measure was going through are already proving amply justified. It is therefore unfortunate, to say the least, that people should attempt, so soon after that very controversial series of debates, to suggest that the Act should be considered as being quite beyond and above party controversy simply because it is the law of the land and that those who hold different views about what provisions are needed to protect wildlife sites, as certainly noble Lords on this side do, should in some way not express that opinion. Indeed, it has even been suggested that to express the opinion that greater controls are needed—as the Labour Party believes; we have said in our party policy that greater controls are necessary to protect wildlife sites—in some way puts the whole Act in jeopardy. That seems almost to amount to saying that any other political party which expresses a contrary view to the Government, just by expressing that view, will wreck the Government's legislation. If their legislation is that fragile, it is hardly worth having. A number of us—as I say, certainly in the Labour Party—believe that quite different legislation is needed to protect the countryside heritage, and we shall continue to press to see that legislation implemented.
Having said that, we welcome the arrival of this voluntary code. As the Minister himself suggested, it is a little legalistic and rather late, which we very much regret, and it is certainly not firm enough in places. But I hope very much that the House will approve it today.
Like the voluntary conservation organisations, who also opposed many of the provisions in the Act when it was proceeding through Parliament, the Opposition want the code of practice to work. But whether or not it does is largely in the Governments's hands, because the key to the success of the Government's system, although it is referred to by the Government—the noble Earl used the word several times—as a voluntary system, is that it is in fact a system based on the payment of large sums of money. It is voluntary in the sense that at the end of the day, unless the Nature Conservancy Council uses its powers of compulsory purchase—which it has had for a great many years, since well before the Act—a landowner or farmer is still free to destroy a site of special scientific interest. But if the "voluntary" system works, they will be given very expensive payments worked out by a very complicated system, to which the noble Earl referred in relation to the financial guidelines which are still under consideration. I hope he will impress on all his colleagues in the Government who are involved in the

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mattter the importance of getting those guidelines completed and finalised in the very near future.
Before returning to the question of resources, I wish to consider one other problem which is covered by the code and which the Minister also touched on, and that is the question of new sites of special scientific interest where the Wildlife and Countryside Act introduced the new procedure of a three months' consultation or warning period, as it has been called, and owners and occupiers are given a notice by the NCC that they intend to designate their land as an SSSI. In another place the Minister, at column 303 on 19th October, said that the code "urged" owners and occupiers not to carry out any potentially damaging operation during the proposal period. In fact, the code is a great deal weaker than that, and paragraph 7 of it says:
"Owners and occupiers who have received notice of a proposed notification should not, in advance of the NCC's final decision, carry out any operation specified in it without consulting the NCC".
"Should not" does not seem to me to amount to a very strong urging. The code adds insult to injury by at least leaving the door open for somebody actually receiving a grant from the Ministry of Agriculture after destroying a proposed SSSI during this three-month period, and it seems to me to he a scandal that the code does not make it perfectly clear that no grant aid will be available if a site is destroyed during this three-month period. As some noble Lords will remember, this matter was raised in the debates on the Act. In another place the Minister, Mr. King, spoke on 13th July last year, at column 922, to an amendment which attempted to close the loophole by ensuring that in the three-month consultation period operations on the site were banned, so that things were frozen. He said that the amendment,
"seeks to prevent a situation whereby the moment the NCC even hints that it is thinking of having an SSSI, out come the bulldozers and the drainage equipment and away we go".
The Minister went on:
"there is no evidence that immediately any farmer or landowner is approached his worst instincts are aroused".
I think that it is worth looking at what has actually happened at a number of sites since July last year. I refer first to West Sedgemoor, in Somerset, an area of a proposed SSSI which has received considerable publicity, and which a number of noble Lords, including some who are to speak today, have visited and taken a personal interest in. In the spring of this year under the new procedures in the Act the NCC notified the area as a proposed SSSI, and the three months' consultation period came into effect. Well, contrary to what the Minister said would not happen, out did come the drainage equipment, and away they went. At least away went three landowners, who started a damaging pump drainage scheme, affecting 40 to 50 acres in the heart of the moor. It was not illegal, because of the loophole. Nevertheless away they went.
Next, I refer to a site in Dyfed, in Wales. A valley mire with old grazing meadows, rich in wild flowers, including orchids, was identified by the NCC before the Wildlife and Countryside Act came into force, but notification awaited the new procedures under the Act. The owner of the land had actually agreed with the NCC that it should be a SSSI. But unfortunately he died, and his heirs called in the Farmers' Union of
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Wales. Quite sensibly, a meeting was arranged between the various parties, including the Farmers' Union of Wales and the NCC. However, the Farmers' Union of Wales subsequently cancelled the meeting. Contrary to the Minister's assurances, somebody's worst instincts had in fact become thoroughly aroused, because the NCC discovered that most of the 26-acre site had been ploughed and harrowed.
Another site, also in Wales, comprising an area of acid heath and marsh, was notified, using the new procedures, on 31st July this year, without any consultation. Again during the three-month warning period the landowner burnt and rotivated an area of three to four acres. That was at the end of August, and just before the three-month consultation period had elapsed.
It may be that the noble Earl can reassure me that those three cases are simply 0.1 per cent of all the new SSSIs notified under the Act, that I am talking about the tip of an iceberg, and that in fact the vast majority of new SSSIs have gone through without any problems of this kind arising. In fact I think the reverse is the case, and the problem has arisen on nearly all the new SSSIs that have been notified. It really is a scandal: and I should like to give your Lordships an example of some of the "nearly missed" cases. There is a proposed SSSI which was on the market in Shropshire—an important area—and after the local county naturalists' trust had managed to buy it, it was discovered that a solicitor, acting for another potential owner, apparently had given them legal advice that the sensible thing to do, if they managed to buy it—as they could well have done—would be to spray off the whole area immediately to avoid what were called complications regarding SSSI status.
It is clear to me and, after what I have said. I hope to the noble Earl and to your Lordships generally, that an amending Bill is needed to close this loophole. It is an absurdity, and it will bring the procedures under the Act into total disrepute if the NCC finds itself unable to create any new SSSIs without sites being destroyed in the three-month period. I really think it regrettable that the Minister should have been quite so ready 12 months ago to dismiss as a fantasy what in fact has since happened all too frequently.
Turning to the question of finance and staff for the NCC, I move into an area—if I have not already been in one—where there is very widespread agreement. I dare say that the NFU has provided a number of your Lordships with a brief, and the union as well as a number of conservation organisations all agree that the NCC is seriously under-financed and needs more money if the Wildlife and Countryside Act is to have any chance of working.
I should like to give your Lordships an example of what I have in mind. The noble Earl mentioned the £600,000 that the Nature Conservancy Council received for the current financial year. I do not think that he mentioned that the NCC actually asked for an additional sum of between £950,000 and £1,130,000. It received from the Government £600,000—around half of the maximum extra that it had asked for. The noble Earl says that that is not the total sum that the NCC can spend on the Act. I assume he means that it can switch resources from other operations to which it does not have to give the same kind of priority. It is of course also true that the Wildlife and Countryside Act

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does not give the NCC new duties only so far as SSSIs are concerned. Your Lordships had a particular interest in marine nature reserves, which exist only due to a vote moved by, I think, the noble Lord, Lord Craigton, which put into the Bill a provision, which was then accepted somewhat reluctantly by the Government in another place, that there should be such things as marine nature reserves.
The other day I discovered that the NCC is unable to finance a survey to find out where along areas of the coast there should be marine nature reserves, and without such a survey there is really no chance of our having a sensible network of marine nature reserves. A few might be created in sites that are already well known. But the NCC is actually unable to start such a survey for two years. The noble Earl may think that the NCC has swilling around plenty of money, which it can simply transfer from one place to another, but here is a new statutory obligation for which it cannot do the basic survey work for a further two years. To suggest that there is lots of money for use on the Wildlife and Countryside Bill is, frankly, a fantasy.
An extra £600,000 might sound quite a lot. But there is one voluntary agreement, a solitary one, which covers one quarter of one SSSI in the North Kent marshes, and that will cost one-sixth of the £600,000–4100,000 a year. So to save a quarter of one SSSI will take a sixth of the total extra income that the NCC has been given this year.
The NCC staff has already been cut by about 10 per cent. in the last two to three years. It has lost 55 members of staff, and now a review is being conducted by Sir Derek Rayner. The noble Earl introduced the interesting concept which I must say had not previously struck me, that Sir Derek Rayner had been appointed by the Prime Minister to go around lavishly distributing new civil servants, to increase numbers of staff available to quangos such as the NCC in order to carry out their tasks. I have really no evidence whatsoever of that. As I understand it, Sir Derek Rayner has been appointed by the Prime Minister to cut staff, and every review that he has conducted has had that consequence. If the noble Earl can point to precedents where Sir Derek has actually substantially increased the staff of quangos, I am sure that the NCC, among others, would be very relieved to hear of it. But that really is stretching a point, if the noble Earl does not mind my saying so. Sir Derek Rayner's review team has been set up to cut staff, and that is what it is going into the NCC to do.
For the noble Earl to say, "Well, the terms of reference leave it open", really is disingenuous, because he knows as well as I do that the terms of reference leave it open due only to an extremely stiff fight put up by the NCC and its chairman, to insist that the terms of reference were changed from the original ones which the Government intended to impose. From the original terms of reference imposed by the Government, it is clear that they had absolutely no intention of the review doing anything other than cut staff, and I hope that the noble Earl will have the honesty to admit that when he replies to the debate.
In another place the Minister, in discussing the Rayner review, said, again on 19th October, as reported at col. 333 of the Official Report:
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"The NCC's morale and determination to implement urgently and competently the vital work for our countryside and inheritage is impressive".
Morale in the NCC is at rock bottom as a result of the Government's decision to institute this Rayner review, and that is not surprising. They have lost 10 per cent. of their staff in the last couple of years: they have had a host anew obligations and duties placed upon them: and now they are obviously going to lose more staff. For a Government Minister to suggest that the morale is good is an absurdity, and it just shows, if the Government believe that, how out of touch with the NCC they really are.
The fact of the matter is that the NCC already have no money left this year, and they are already desperately short of staff where it is most important. They have no money left for land purchase. There are a number of cases where voluntary bodies need to buy land which has come on the market, sites of special scientific interest, because of the programme of renotification. The county naturalist trusts need to buy, to save them, 10 sites which have a total value of about £200,000. The RSPB has been offered between about 100 and 150 acres in West Sedgemoor, which I mentioned earlier. Again, the total cost might he around £200,000. In both these cases the Nature Conservancy Council, as I understand it, is unable to offer grant aid to the voluntary movement to help them make these purchases because the NCC has run out of money for land purchase—and that halfway through the current financial year.
For the noble Earl to say that he cannot give any commitment for next year is all very well, but what are the Government going to do about this year? The NCC are already out of money, and they are also out of staff in many areas, as I have said. They do not have people on the ground in a number of counties—in Warwickshire and Cheshire (in Cheshire, the nearest member of staff, an assistant regional officer, is in Shrewsbury). Lincolnshire, Kent and Norfolk are all short of assistant regional officers. These are the people without whom, on the ground, the Nature Conservancy Council have no chance of making personal contact with farmers and landowners, and without that personal contact everybody agrees—the NFU have confirmed this, and I think quite rightly—the Wildlife and Countryside Act, the procedures in the voluntary code and so on have really no chance whatsoever of working.
It is not just that the NCC cannot do the job on marine nature reserves, that they have run out of money for land purchase and that they are desperately short of staff on the ground. One of the most important aspects of the Wildlife and Countryside Act was the renotification of SSSIs: that everyone would be told again that they had an SSSI on their land, and they would be given details of operations which might damage it. We were assured in Parliament that this would be done quickly, within 12 months of the Act becoming law, and, obviously, this was a major factor in the debates that we had and the way that the votes went, indeed, on different amendments. If everyone was going to he renotified reasonably quickly and given the information, one of the criticisms, which came particularly from the farming and landowning side, would be answered.

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Far from that being the case, the NCC are actually going to take 2½ years to renotify these sites. The noble Earl said that most of them were going to be renotified in this financial year. That is six months longer than we were told would be the case; and "most of them", as I understand it, is actually 60 per cent.—slightly over half. Forty per cent. will not be renotified in this financial year; and at current estimates—and estimates have already proved to be grossly over-optimistic—the last of them will not be renotified until March 1984. The Minister in another place appeared to contradict this when it was raised by one of his own supporters, Sir Hector Monro, and I hope the noble Earl will be able to correct what seems to me to be a rather misleading impression and confirm that with the current numbers of staff and resources that the NCC have renotification will in fact not be completed until March 1984.
There was a unanimous view expressed in another place that the NCC needed more resources, both in staff and in cash, to make this work, and I very much hope that that will he the unanimous view of those of your Lordships who are going to speak today. I hope that, even if the noble Earl cannot this afternoon commit his department or the Treasury to more money, the Government will go away with a very clear message that unless they do come up with the goods nobody can seriously expect their legislation to work in the way that they hope it will.
3.45 p.m.
Lord Beaumont of Whitley: My Lords, I, too, should like to express my thanks to the noble Earl for the speedy and clear way in which he expounded the code of practice; and I should also like to add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, because by covering the ground as thoroughly as he did I think he earned your Lordships' gratitude, if only for the fact that it will enable me to keep my speech down to a very short one indeed.
The bodies which are mainly concerned with nature conservation in this country—and at this stage I think I ought to emphasise that when we are talking about such bodies we are not just talking about the organisations which organise lobbies here, which issue pieces of paper and which bombard us with letters—in fact represent a very large proportion of the population of this country. Indeed, the membership of some of these bodies is quite enormous in itself; but the people of this country as a whole, I am quite sure, are on the side of the efforts to try to retain the beauty of our countryside and the treasures of nature which otherwise might disappear. One of the troubles that we face is that in so many cases we are dealing with problems which, if there is abuse by the people who are in charge of the countryside, will lead not just to damage but, in fact, to permanent harm. Damage is done to these sites which cannot be put into reverse, and day by day and year by year we lose some of the glories of our countryside.
There seems to be fairly general agreement about the problems which will arise from the Act and, therefore, to a certain extent, from the code of practice. There is first of all the loophole whereby owners and occupiers can, if they so wish, damage a site proposed as a new SSSI during the three-month
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consultation period without committing an offence. We have had a number of examples of such sites, some of them given by the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, and I do not propose to go over them. I would merely say that there have been a sufficient number of them to show that any complacency about this field has no place at all.
Then, secondly, there is the problem of whether Section 29 can be used to deal with the loophole I have just mentioned. Section 29, dealing with the nature conservancy orders, is something for which we must be very grateful; and it is very timely for today's debate that only in the last few days, as the noble Earl, Lord Avon, said, there has been a Section 29 order put on Baddesley Common. But I think we need to know—and here we seek an assurance from the noble Earl which I hope he will he able to give us at the end of this debate—that Section 29 orders will be used promptly in a wide variety of situations; that is, not merely in the case of the so-called super sites, but anywhere where there obviously appears to be a real threat to an SSSI.
Thirdly, there is the matter of further funds for the Nature Conservancy Council, which the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, went into in some detail. The NCC, as he made clear, is short of staff; and, indeeed, it has had to employ expensive contract staff over the last few months in order to supplement numbers. There is no real saving in the ceiling which is at the moment applying to the staff which the NCC can employ. The additional work which they are being given by this Act and by this code of practice will mean a hump of visits to 13,000 owners and occupiers over the next year or so. Then, after that, there is a grey area over the next few years when they start to receive responses to the notifications of changes on SSSIs.
The only people qualified to deal with these are the land agents, of whom there are about a dozen at the moment, which figure is already under strength. The NCC estimate that they will need double the number of land agents within two years. There will probably be four or five times the present number of management agreements which need to be drawn up and, as a result of all this, if we keep to the staff who are at present employed by the NCC it is quite clear that a growing number will be tied to desk work because there will be so much of it to be done. There will be a shortage of officers out in the field—which is a thing that none of us would like to see.
These are matters which are very disturbing and worrying to everyone on both sides of the House and in all the various camps connected with the countryside who want to see this Bill work and, particularly, to those who want to see it work by voluntary means. To those of us who have been dubious as to whether it ever would work by voluntary means it unfortunately fulfils our worst fears.
There is a basic flaw in this Bill and it is a flaw which is not in any way cured by this present code of practice. The fact remains that greed is a vice from which we all suffer to some extent. There is no gift of God which means that living a life in the open air, living a useful life and being a farmer ensures that you cannot suffer from that kind of greed. It is not farmers alone, it is all of us who have to be restrained from the danger that we can do to the environment that surrounds us.
But that environment is being damaged, and it is

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being damaged because we have not got the enforcement that is needed to make certain that what Parliament wants and what the great majority of people in this country want is enforced. I think that at the moment it is clear that we are not in a situation on which we can change. We are lumbered with this Bill and we are lumbered with this code of practice. But there are things that the Government can do. They can enforce the Bill as we have it; they can produce the resources and, having really willed this particular end, they must, it seems to me, furnish this particular means. I hope that this afternoon they will say that they can do so.
3.53 p.m.
Lord Sandford: My Lords, I would like to express my welcome for this code of practice, but for reasons very different from either of the two previous speakers. I would like, nevertheless, to share with them my admiration for the thoroughness and the painstaking way in which the departments involved and the voluntary bodies consulted have co-operated together to produce this code, and I would like to thank my noble friend for his comprehensive yet succinct explanation of it. I welcome it for two limited reasons. First, because it corrects the absurd defect in the 1949 legislation, for which Parliament must take the blame, of not requiring the Nature Conservancy Council to notify anybody other than the local planning authorities of their designation; and it rectifies the mistake which the NCC have compounded and continued ever since of not having the sense to see that if designated SSSIs were not notified to the land owners and occupiers of the land they can hardly expect the system to work. Both those defects are rectified in this legislation and, to that extent, it is a step forward.
I must say I was intrigued by the strenuous efforts of the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, to try and sustain, to continue or even to intensify the party political differences which he apprehends in this area. I believe he will be totally unsuccessful in that, for reasons which I will come to in a moment. But underlying those reasons is my hope that nothing like Section 29 will be used except on the rarest occasions, because what matters much more than this or any other legislation, and more than any other code—this code or the subsequent codes coming along on financial guidelines—is a voluntary approach, a commonsense approach through personal and local dialogue over the issues that are involved. I base my hope on this approach on the success that this approach is having and has had over the past two years or 18 months in the national parks where one might expect the conflict between access and conservation, on the one hand, and agriculture, on the other, to be at its most intense, and in the area of the administration of capital grants where the incentives to farmers to improve their land and engage in potentially damaging activities is at its strongest.
This system for the administration of capital grants in the national parks and the SSSIs is a system which was introduced before the Wildlife and Countryside Act and it is also the system which the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, did his best to urge your Lordships to resist and to throw out. I quote now from the Annual Report of the Peak National Park as to the way this is
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all working. Last week, when we were discussing the integrated development plan in the Highlands I quoted Dartmoor. The report reads:
"The end of the year marked 18 months of dealing with notifications of proposals for which farm grant will be claimed from the Ministry of Agriculture. During the year [the year of the report) about one third of the notification proposals"—
and there were 534 in all—
"were modified by agreement"—
not by management agreement but by verbal agreement—
"with the farmers to meet National Park interests".
That is what has been known as an ADAS tea party—just ordinary, verbal, local, personal discussions.
"One of the most significant agreements was with a farmer whose original proposal was to fence across the middle of a moorland block to separate his flock from his neighbour's. The fence would have enabled him to increase his stocking to the probable detriment of a site of special scientific interest. Following long negotiations with the farmer, his landlord and the neighbouring farmer, it was agreed to complete a stock-proof boundary around the entire moorland block. Within this boundary both farmers would limit their stocking to an agreed level, consistent with maintaining the diverse and rich moorland flora. A small area of largely abandoned old inbye land would he improved allowing the farmer to keep the same number of animals as he had originally proposed, but managed in a different way.
"The events of the past year show how well co-operation with agriculture can work. Where necessary, most farm grant notifications were modified by agreement to meet National Park interests. No proposal has so far gone the full course of objection to the Minister of Agriculture."—
that is with 18 months' experience, 534 proposals in the current year—
"Of the three objections raised in the 18 months since the new procedures came into effect, two were withdrawn by the farmer pending further discussions, while the third is currently with Ministry staff who are attempting to find a solution acceptable to all concerned."
All that is before this legislation has come into force in the light of the farm grants administration system introduced for the national parks. Now we have this code of guidance to back it up, and we also have coming into force at the same time Section 41 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act.
There are two paragraphs in this report indicating reasons for doubt as to whether this works. It then goes on:
"However, Section 41 also requires the Ministry of Agriculture to use their farm capital grant scheme to further, so far as is consistent with agriculture, the conservation of the countryside and the promotion of its enjoyment. This offers [yet] greater scope. The next step will be the introduction by the Government of a 'Code of Practice' for these compulsory agreements. Its contents will determine the extent to which the board's fears are realised."
This is the stage that we are now in, my Lords.
The Ministry of Agriculture's new duty under Section 41 which comes into force following the introduction of these guidelines, is to advise on conservation and diversification. Those are two aspects which have to be borne in mind, side by side with the main purpose of agriculture, food production, and on which the Ministry of Agriculture has now new duties.
This is satisfactory so far as it goes, but we have to pay a lot of attention in Parliament—at least as much as we do to the starting of the NCC, and I would say more—to the degree to which the Ministry of Agriculture develops its capability to exercise this statutory duty. I believe more depends on that than depends on

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the starting of the NCC, because the Ministry of Agriculture's new responsibilities cover the whole of conservation, not just nature conservation—landscape conservation and all sorts of other conservation, field monuments, and also diversification by farmers on their farms. At the present moment, the staff within ADAS for the discharge of this duty consists of six regional socio-economic advisers. There are only six officers who have a full-time responsibility in this field. It is true that there is the whole of the rest of ADAS, some of whom can and will exercise functions in this field.
My question to my noble friend is: What can he tell us at this stage about the Ministry's plans for developing this capability? It is not good enough to say: "Yes, ADAS will take this on hand. ADAS are doing it". They certainly are, but they have to do very much more, and one wants to have some idea at this stage of what more they have in mind in the way of organising themselves, girding up their loins, to get on with this matter.
I think that they need three things: they need some additional assistance, some more staff to concentrate on this field of activity. They need some more leverage—that is to say, other bodies and organisations through which to work—and they need to have a local framework in which to operate. One of the reasons why the administration of farm capital grants and its reconciliation of conservation has gone so well so far, is that most of it has happened in national parks where there is a national park authority with staff of its own, there is a national park plan with a conservation policy spelt out, and a satisfactory framework.
The staff of ADAS can use the agricultural colleges. If they do, that brings in a responsibility for the counties. They can use local planning areas and local planning staff to co-operate with them. That will bring in the districts. They can—and I hope that they will—use the county secretaries of the NFU and the CLA. I hope that noble Lords who will speak later will have something to say about that. They can and are using the farming press. It is now quite customary for farmers to refer to wildlife habitat where in the past they would have been talking about rough shooting.
It is possible to use the farming and wildlife advisory group. This is a voluntary organisation and there may be limits to the amount of weight that you can put on a body which does not have statutory foundations. Another alternative is to use the rural equivalent of local enterprise trusts, groupings of the private sector and the local authority, which are already being very successful in urban areas in promoting new jobs and generating fresh life into the local economy.
These are the questions which I should like my noble friend to deal with, perhaps in outline or summary, when he comes to wind up. They are the questions to which we must all be giving attention in the ensuing months. Meanwhile, I wish this admirable code, so far as it has something to contribute to this matter, every success when it is in force.
4.6 p.m.
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: My Lords, I think that the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, combined with the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, has raised all the
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possible objections not so much to the code, as to the Act itself, so I shall not go through these again. I am concerned over one or two small points, but chiefly over the big ones. I think that we all share this concern. I think Rule 3 of the Prison Rules says that prison authorities shall turn their prisoners into better citizens as a result of prison. I have a feeling that paragraph 2 of the draft code, which is a very full and admirable paragraph, may end in the same disastrous way as Rule 3 of the Prison Rules has ended. It says:
"The conservation and proper management of SSSIs is vital to the maintenance of Britain's wildlife in all its forms"—
it says "vital"—
"and owners, occupiers, Government Departments, statutory undertakers and others concerned are urged to co-operate by following the guidance contained in this code, in addition to complying with the legal obligations which it outlines."
My Lords, one could not possibly ask for more. What is entirely absent is the machinery for monitoring this, for seeing that it is done. This point has been made repeatedly and I shall not make it again. If the code is to be operated as it is stated the Government intend it should be operated, I think that the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, was very grudging in his praise, because it will he a splendid result. The truth is that it is pretty clear that it is not going to be operated for a good long time.
If a responsible body, which is a quango of the most responsible kind, asks for £1,200,000 and is offered £600,000 and if, having cut its staff by 55, which is 10 per cent., it then has a further Rayner review, one only hopes that we shall not get recommendations of the kind that we had for the theatre museum which were rejected by everybody with any sense in this country. So one is left a little uncomfortable about the Government's real intention here. However, they have said everything for which anybody could ask in paragraph 2. I can assure the noble Earl that we shall hold him to that week by week as things go on. He will find himself apologising more and more often.
I am much less worried than some other colleagues about the voluntary principle. My own feeling is this. When I used to farm years ago, before many of the younger Members here were born, the National Agricultural Advisory Service—as ADAS was then known—was very much disliked by farmers and many farmers refused to have them on the farm, and the situation was very difficult. It is now perfectly all right; they are generally recognised as people who are there to help the farmers. It is very good, as the noble Earl has told us, that ADAS is going to be brought in closely with the NCC to help with monitoring and looking after the results of this Act.
A couple of small points. The NFU have asked—and I think that they are absolutely right—that not only should the notification, which is obligatory under this code, be made but also there should be personal visits. This, of course, depends on staff. However, this is probably as important a way of making sure something happens as any other, and if the Nature Conservancy Council have not enough staff to accompany their notifications by personal visits they are going to meet far more resistance than there is any reason for them to have.
The noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, raised the question of Section 29, concerning a year's compulsory delay. We are a bit worried, because it has

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been said that the Department of the Environment still holds the view that Section 29 orders should be used in only a small number of cases. I think Section 29 orders should be used in those cases where things are going wrong. One hopes that the number will be small but it is very important that there should not be a general ukase of this kind, saying, "You must be very careful about how you use it." We all know why that is—it costs a lot of money, and that is part of the old problem.
The noble Lord, Lord Melchett, mentioned the subject of the agricultural grant and the failure to obey an order. We say, as indeed I think most people concerned with this say, that in such a case the agricultural grant should be withdrawn. I should like to know what the noble Earl has to say about that, but I do not feel as gloomy as my quondam political and present social friend, the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, about the possibilities here. I think it can be made to work and I do not see why it should not go very well. Subject to the paragraph I have read out, which is in every way admirable, I think, we will do what we can to help the noble Lord enforce this.
4.12 p.m.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: My Lords, I very much welcome this code and its encouragement of the voluntary approach, particularly in relation to landowners and farmers, as stated in paragraph 22 of the code. I have one question. My noble friend said that the Nature Conservancy Council is bound, under Section 32 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act, to offer a management agreement when the agriculture grant is denied. My noble friend also confirmed that paragraph 17 of the code means that it is the intention of the Nature Conservancy Council to offer management agreements when the capital grants originate elsewhere, and particularly in the EEC. What I want to know is: What is the position of the National Park Authority? Will my noble friend encourage that authority to take a similar view to that of the Nature Conservancy Council?
There is also the vexed question of money. I hope and believe that the Government will do all in their power to make sufficient funds available for management agreements, but, as has been said before, I doubt whether enough can be made available to satisfy all demands for all sites of special scientific interest and particularly enough to satisfy—and here perhaps I tread on dangerous ground—the arch-conservationists. After all, the Government have to make a decision on priorities for spending their money. If it comes to a question between seagulls and old age pensioners, I have a feeling that most of us would come down on the side of the old age pensioner, although I am not quite so sure that some—and particularly perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Melchett—feel quite so strongly. So we come back to the hub of the matter that 90 per cent. of conservation must be done by voluntary help from farmers and landowners. Perhaps, in this context, my noble friend would say that he hopes that orders made under Section 29 will be few and far between, because I personally believe that the voluntary system will work perfectly satisfactorily in the very great majority of cases and the number of failures will be in direct proportion to the
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financial state of the individual farmer concerned and also to the amount of stupid and, indeed, irrational criticism thrown at the industry by the irresponsible.
There will be mistakes; there have been mistakes; there always will be in any matter—I believe even the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, must have made a mistake at some time or other in his life—but the farming industry is determined to make the Act work through the voluntary approach.
The first essential to enable this to happen—this was brought out by my noble friend Lord Sandford—is that there must be these informal get-togethers or "tea parties" between the Nature Conservancy Council, ADAS and the farmers.
I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, must be so old as to remember when there was this criticism of NAAS, as I think it was then. As he probably tried to point out, he must be much older than I am, because, as he also pointed out, that certainly is not the case today. I cannot stress too much that the "clipboard approach", followed by statutory notices appearing on the farmer's desk is the worst possible thing that could happen. The best way, as I have said, is to get together informally so that this need never arise or arise only in very occasional circumstances. Therefore, I very much hope that we will have an absolute minimum of Section 29 orders.
Secondly, and almost as important, is a will and a determination on the part of not just farmers but all those who are engaged in the countryside to make sure that the Act will work. Nothing induces failure more than believing that it will fail, and I am sorry to say that this does seem to be the view of certain people and organisations (though I may have misinterpreted them) who have been trying to do this during the last year or two. Therefore, for the sake of our countryside, I ask that those who criticise would be occasionally a little more constructive. If they are as determined as we are in the farming industry to make the voluntary approach work, it will; and the nation will get reasonable conservation—even comparatively cheaply, dare I say. If the voluntary approach breaks down because of the incessant sniping by certain people and certain organisations—yes, even the media and even certain noble Lords—the result will be the expensive destruction of our countryside.
4.16 p.m.
Lord Middleton: My Lords, 18 months ago we debated at length Part II of the Wildlife and Countryside Bill, and this is not the time to repeat the arguments. I am glad that this is the view of noble Lords today. Broadly speaking, however, as my noble friend Lord Stanley has just reminded us, owners and farmers agreed with the Government that cooperation rather than coercion would be more effective in achieving good conservation. After the enactment of the Bill the CLA was acutely aware that responsiblity for conservation lies, as it always has done, squarely on the shoulders of owners and occupiers. It has therefore addressed itself in the past year to informing its members and reminding them of their continuing responsibilities. My organisation was privileged to serve on the informal working party on this code of guidance and I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Avon for his kind remarks about this

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participation. We hope that, having been laid before Parliament, it will be a helpful contribution towards making the Act effective.
I welcome the intention of the Government to issue the code to owners and occupiers of SSSIs. The document, although perfectly clear to those who are familiar with Sections 28 to 32, is rather long and may not be in a form which is easily read; so the CLA have produced an advisory paper giving guidance to their members on the provisions of the Act. They are also preparing a short and simple document for wider distribution, giving the key points concerning SSSIs.
In addition to spreading the written word, I myself have taken every opportunity, in speaking to landowners, to remind them of their duty to make the Act work. I have visited some sites where difficulties have arisen or were envisaged. I know perfectly well, from these visits and from what I have heard, that there are a small number of cases which could be cited by opponents of the voluntary principle as evidence that it is failing.
It is quite like old times to hear the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, in such good voice. Only three weeks ago, he astonished the North of England by his performance in the role of the Macheath of the public highway network. Last Wednesday, he played Lammermuir, or, if it was not Lammermuir, it was some other uncultivable part of western Scotland, and today he returns in a part which he played with much ability 18 months ago. When it comes to the conservation of a special site, such as we are now discussing, I thought that the song he sang today was reasonable and helpful. It was agreeable to hear his constructive remarks, despite his disagreement about the basic principles of the Bill.
Noble Lords will remember that this disagreement was robustly expressed during the passage of the Bill, when he and the critics of voluntary conservation said that tampering with sites by farming and forestry operations was inevitable because the provisions in the Bill were not tough enough. They feared, too—and this has been reiterated today—that there would not be sufficient money to support the NCC and to finance management contracts. This criticism is being voiced over and over again in the press and through the medium of broadcasts and television programmes. The article on 17th October in the Sunday Times headed "Fiasco of the Wildlife Law" was typical. This kind of criticism is strident, it is unceasing and I believe it is also premature and defeatist.
I believe it is wrong to pass judgment on the Act before it has had a chance to prove itself, and I do so for the following reasons. First, for all that was said in last year's debate about the Act having no teeth, I believe that, if persuasion has not been successful, the escalating powers of the NCC to impose a conservation order and, in the last resort, to make a compulsory purchase order are sufficient. The noble Lord, Lord Melchett, referred to destructive operations carried out during the three months' consultation period and I find myself in some sympathy with him about what he said. But let us not forget that Section 29 was brought into force only last month. If Section 29 could have been used—and here I do not seem to be on quite the same track as my noble friend Lord Stanley—as a deterrent against the odd instance of
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what I might call pre-designation activity, which I think we agree is deplorable and against the spirit of the Act, then those who said that the section was not made effective soon enough may have been right.
Secondly, it is said with justification that none of the statutory powers to which I referred, and which are available to the NCC, can be used unless they have adequate financial support from Government. I am not aware that up to now the Secretary of State for the Environment has been asked for, and has refused, sufficient means to work the Act. It seems to me that a Government which set up an elaborate framework for voluntary conservation depending upon agreements and management contracts and which then refused to provide the finance to operate the system would be running into trouble. That, I do not believe is the intention of this Government. There is a widespread public concern about conservation which no politician can ignore.
Thirdly, I believe that the Nature Conservancy Council are becoming more aware that the new duties laid upon them by the Act demand a new expertise. I remember saying to your Lordships that you could lead a farmer in a sensible direction, but you could never push him anywhere, and the worst way to start to tell a farmer that his farming operations, and indeed his livelihood, possibly, may be restricted in the interests of conservation is to send the kind of daunting letter that I have seen. The NCC's duty to notify, which I remember demanding and which was embodied in the Act, must be performed sensibly. Where it is not, it seems that it is where the NCC's officers are under pressure. The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, voiced his misgivings—and rightly—on this point.
Reference has been made this afternoon to NCC staff numbers. There are, I believe, no less than 535 on the NCC's staff and I sometimes wonder whether a reallocation to permit the employment of a few people who are used to talking to farmers, such as retired ADAS officers, might be worth considering. I welcome the code of guidance. As the document in front of us says on its front page, "Goodwill is necessary". Organisations such as the CLA will be untiring in ensuring the goodwill of farmers and owners. This is a good Act. It can work and it must be made to work. Its critics should give it a chance.
4.26 p.m.
Lord Chelwood: My Lords, like all noble Lords who have spoken. I, too, welcome the appearance of this Code of Guidance on SSSI's, with its detailed advice on ways in which the conservation of our natural heritage can be reconciled with the other legitimate interests of land ownership, management and good husbandry. I do not know whether my noble friend Lord Stanley regards me as an arch-conservationist. I do not think I really am one. But I certainly see no reason at all why there should be any fundamental clash between those who take a special interest in conservation and those who own or occupy SSSIs, with a little give and take on both sides.
Much has already been said in this Chamber and elsewhere about the new conservation responsibilities under the Act of owners and occupiers, agricultural departments and water authorities, and about the need

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for adherence to the letter of the statutory provisions to be matched by an equal commitment to their spirit. This, surely, is what the code is all about. As we all know, the Act itself is far from perfect; of course it is. There are, naturally, loopholes and opportunities for exploitation by the unscrupulous and, unless this code is widely followed, I fear that more stringent controls on activities in SSSIs will surely need to be introduced. But I, for one, very much hope that that can be avoided and that the pessimists can be proved wrong.
My noble friend Lord Middleton said a word about the complexities of the code which we are discussing today, and which we shall no doubt pass, and I was very glad to hear that the CLA has already taken on the job of producing a simplified version of some of the more complicated parts of it. I strongly welcome that. My noble friend Lord Avon himself said that the code was not easy reading.
Some noble Lords already know that I am a member of the council of the NCC and, of course, the NCC bears the main brunt of the workload arising out of the new SSSI provisions in the Act. So I should like to draw the attention of the House to one very important area where the code is less than expansive. As the largest single landowner, the Government have the responsibility and the opportunity to set a good example in the way in which they manage their land. I welcome the fact that the Minister speaking in another place touched on this question and made some very helpful remarks about it. Nonetheless, I think that the code itself is less than forthright. For example, the absence from the code of a clear directive to public authorities on the conservation of SSSIs is disappointing and is surely an omission. And what is the reason for the lack of a positive response from the Forestry Commission to the NCC's extra-statutory commitment to the extension of the Sections 32 and 41 principles governing agricultural grants to forestry operations? This, I think, is disappointing, particularly when it is viewed in the light of the new and very constructive dimension to the relationship between the council's staff and those of the Ministry of Agriculture. That is something which I have noted and greatly welcomed.
May I say a brief word about something which has not been touched on; namely, what I might call the other side of the coin. Farmers who are prepared to forgo increased agricultural production in the national interest have certain advantages, of which very little has been said. That is what I mean by the other side of the coin. I am thinking of the capital transfer tax and capital gains tax concessions which are already available to the owners of land of high scientific, scenic or historic value. So far as scientifically important land is concerned, the main incentive at present is exemption from capital transfer tax on land notified by the Nature Conservancy Council as a site of special scientific interest or declared a national nature reserve, provided that certain management conditions are met. In addition, sales of such land to approved bodies such as the National Trust and the Nature Conservancy Council benefit from the capital gains tax concession. Land can be accepted in lieu of capital transfer tax, and maintenance funds created for the purpose of managing the land properly are now also exemptable.
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Welcome as these incentives are, they do not go far enough. I think many noble Lords will agree with me. To date, only a very small number of owners of sites of special scientific interest have applied for capital transfer tax exemption. Perhaps many of them do not know about it. The more obviously attractive provisions for management agreements with the Nature Conservancy Council in the 1981 Act might well reduce the flow or stop it altogether.
The Nature Conservancy Council have recommended to the Treasury that improvements should include an increase in the capital gains tax concession—usually called the douceur—on land sales. This is only 10 per cent. at present, as opposed to 25 per cent. for works of art. They also recommend the expansion of the list of approved recipients of land to include the voluntary conservation bodies such as the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the County Naturalists' Trusts. These are sensible suggestions which would be very inexpensive and very helpful. I do hope therefore that my noble friend will have a chance to comment on this, at least to the extent of saying that urgent thought is being given to it, and that, with luck, we may hear something about it in the next Budget.
Finally, I must, like everyone else who has spoken, say a word about the Nature Conservancy Council's resources. Here I express my own personal views. In seeing the Wildlife and Countryside Act through Parliament and accepting many of the changes proposed from all sides of the House, the Government have quite clearly demonstrated their absolute commitment to nature conservation. I recognise that. But the Act and the code together represent a commitment to the offer of funds to the Nature Conservancy Council which must be honoured if there is to be any hope for the future of a voluntary system based on the principles of co-operation and consent in the countryside.
These facts came out forcefully in another place—on all sides of the House and from almost everybody who spoke—when the code was being debated. The Government were criticised on all sides for their equivocal attitude towards the funding of the Nature Conservancy Council—as, indeed, they were in both Houses during the passage through Parliament of the Wildlife and Countryside Bill. Not an extra penny piece has been made available to the Nature Conservancy Council to pay for staff shortages in the field, which are very serious indeed, or to cover the cost of management agreements into which we are hound by law to enter—beyond, that is, the £600,000 provided for in the Bill which is now an Act. This sum of £600,000 could take no account, of course, of the cost of all the extra duties imposed on the Nature Conservancy Council during the passage of the Bill through both Houses as a result of its amendment, yet the sum was not increased. This is very disappointing indeed and I think that it is already beginning to create quite serious problems for the Nature Conservancy Council, which is the subject of a great deal of criticism—some of it I think quite well justified.
I am glad none the less to note that in another place Mr. Neil Macfarlane stated that the Rayner exercise through which we are now going and to which I do not object in principle is not necessarily a cost-cutting exercise but would also review the Nature Conser

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vancy Council's complement in the light of their present workload. It is surely just as important to find out whether the Nature Conservancy Council's present and anticipated resources match their statutory duties as to find out whether we can improve our efficiency and cut certain overheads.
So I say in conclusion that I hope my noble friend can give a positive assurance—a more positive one than he has been able to give yet—that the necessary funds will be made available to enable the Nature Conservancy Council to carry out their duties effectively and so avoid the present risk of destroying a national asset that can never he replaced.

The De Lorean Company
4.36 p.m.
"The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (The Earl of Cowrie): My Lords, I hope it will be for the convenience of your Lordships if at this point I repeat, in the form of a Statement, the Answer to a Private Notice Question given in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland on the subject of the De Lorean Motor Company Limited. My right honourable friend said:
"As I announced on 19th October, because no investor had come forward to take over De Lorean Motor Company Limited, the Receivers were proceeding to a final rundown of the company's Dunmurry plant. I greatly regret the loss of many jobs to Northern Ireland. I understand that since then a number of interests in both the United Kingdom and the United States of America have been in touch with the joint Receivers to explore the possibilities either of purchasing the stock of cars held in Belfast or of acquiring the entire business as a going concern. No detailed proposals have yet been referred by the Receivers to the Government. Any such proposals would be considered on their merits".
My Lords, that ends my right honourable friend's Statement.
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl for reading that Statement to the House. It tells us rather less than we understood from the Daily Telegraph, but we prefer a little accurate information to a lot which is not. So I am grateful for what little we have been told. The Statement says that a number of interests are exploring the possibilities of acquiring the entire business as a going concern. May I ask the noble Earl whether that means that liquidation can be stopped and that it is not an absolute certainty? I think we should all like to know the answer to that question, because the worry now in this House, as everywhere else, is more about unemployment in Northern Ireland than even about terrorism.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede: My Lords, I join with the noble Lord in thanking the noble Earl for repeating the holding statement made by the Secretary of State in another place. I am sure all noble Lords hope that detailed proposals will result from the present discussions. I think noble Lords should remember that
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we are speaking not just about jobs at De Lorean but about jobs in a number of other factories and enterprises in Northern Ireland. Therefore the complete collapse of the De Lorean Motor Company would be a calamity for Northern Ireland. I need hardly add that jobs are desperately needed in West Belfast.
Lord Banks: My Lords, I should like to join in thanking the noble Earl for repeating the Statement made in another place. We, too, regret that the noble Earl is not able to give us better news than the morning press suggested might be imminent. We must hope that an offer of the kind reported in the press may in fact be forthcoming. I should like to join with the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, in asking the noble Earl whether he can give any indication of how much time is left for such an offer to be made. Clearly such an offer would be welcome because of the economic situation in Northern Ireland and the considerable amount of Government money invested in the project.
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, I certainly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, that it would be irresponsible for the Government to raise expectations at this juncture which might in the event not be fulfilled. Therefore I can say to the noble Lord, Lord Banks, and to the House that the process of the running down and liquidation of the company (the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, also asked me about this) will continue. However, should any realistic possibilities open up of new investors coming along, then of course the Government would consider every proposal on its merits. I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, about how badly jobs are needed in Belfast generally and perhaps in West Belfast particularly. I would like to pay the Government's tribute to the very great achievement of the people of this part of a beleaguered city in moving very rapidly from having no tradition of motor manufacturing to a tradition of motor manufacturing whose failure was not much to do with them, if I may put it that way.
We must, of course, live in hope but at the same time it would be quite wrong for the Government not to recognise the realities or not to put, as it were, any time extension on the procedure. It may be that the fact that the sands are running out so quickly will concentrate the minds of those who may still be interested in the project.
Lord Beswick: My Lords, I am sure that the whole House will welcome the rather warmer words which the noble Earl used in his supplementary answer, as compared with the original Statement. It is, of course, absolutely essential to consider any proposals on their merits, but it would be encouraging if the noble Earl could say that they will be considered at any rate, with a degree of sympathy. Also, may I ask the noble Earl if he is aware how much his words will be appreciated, when he said that the effort—although not creditable in certain ways—was no discredit to the great effort put into it by the people of Northern Ireland?
The Earl of Cowrie: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Beswick. Again, I must repeat that I

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did not want to give any false prospectus or any bogus encouragement. The Government will have to look at proposals on their merits, as I said. I must reiterate, however, that the Government have decided—rightly in my view—not to put any more public money into a fund which has absorbed a very great deal of public money, unfortunately without visible dividends for the public and without any real job security for those who were engaged in the manufacture of the cars. We can always live in hope that private investment will note the achievements of the people at the Dunmurry plant, note the excellence of the equipment and the rest of it, and will make decisions on a commercial basis—which will be very welcome in Northern Ireland.

Code of Guidance Concerning Sites of Special Scientific Interest
Debate continued on the Motion.
4.43 p.m.
Lord Davies of Leek: My Lords, if we have now finished with the Statement I will with the permission of your Lordships' House make my contribution for about three minutes to this very important little debate concerning sites of special scientific interest. I find it interesting that the National Farmers' Union, in the brief that it has sent out to many of us, states:
"The National Farmers' Union believes that the new system promises to be successful in protecting the nature conservation interests of the SSSIs whilst at the same time giving a fair deal to the farmers concerned. However, much will depend on the patience, goodwill and co-operation of all parties and the provision of adequate resources by Government."
The approval of the code, the NFU says, is recommended. The noble Lords, Lord Middleton and Lord Chelwood, to whom the House owes quite a bit for the effort they have made and their assiduity in attending to the NCC meetings and helping to produce this code (and some of us are grateful to them for that) said that attention has been drawn to the need for the farming fraternity not merely to have peremptory notices by post but that they should be visited by people who are trained to understand the farming industry and even to understand landowners in some cases. We want to get rid of bureaucracy. There are no more telegrams, unfortunately, in rural Wales or rural Scotland and although intimation may be given by post, I believe this should be thought out in depth. Visits are necessary to create goodwill.
In the minute or so that is left I want to draw attention to paragraph 13 of the code on Section 28, which deals with the removal of SSSI status. It states:
"The NCC may decide that an SSSI or part of an SSSI, no longer merits that status because of a reduction in the scientific value of the land due to natural or other causes. In such cases the NCC will inform all owners and occupiers, the local planning authority, the Secretary of State and other relevant bodies that the land in question is no longer an SSSI and arrange for cancellation of the entry in the local land charges registry."
That is an important caveat. We want to make sure that it is used fairly and squarely. We have not spoken about this, but the mining industry—it is open-castmining—and the new oil and gas pipelines going through Britain, Scotland and even Europe, could very well influence the application of this code and its
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practices to places of special scientific interest. I do not want to elaborate because this House understands very well. I could speak for 10 minutes on that one point, but having made the point, the House will see that there is a reality about this; when does the need for natural gas or the need for open-cast coal overwhelm the demand for places of special scientific interest? It is not an easy question to answer but it is a question about which the House could be alerted.
I will now sit down with just this tribute. I was fortunate enough to be brought up in different little mountainous parts of Wales. I want to pay tribute to the small landowner and small farmer who, over the years, by hedging, by ditching, and by cleaning streams which sing over the pebbles and the hills, have kept those places beautiful. It has created—particularly in parts of Wales, Scotland and the Pennines—places of beauty which have brought balance of payments money to this country. Much of the beauty of Britain today is due to the rough hands of the farmers of the past who have kept it beautiful.
Several noble Lords: Hear, hear!
4.48 p.m.
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, this has been a wide ranging debate on a document that will exercise a strong influence over the way in which the provisions of the Wildlife and Countryside Act for the protection of habitats are implemented. I am grateful for the various kind remarks by noble Lords on my introduction. I believe I am right in concluding that so far as concerns the formal question of the approval of the draft Code of Guidance (while some noble Lords might have preferred to see something shorter or easier to understand, and I have already touched on the reasons for its complexity), I gather there is general agreement that the document should be approved. I noticed that the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, did suggest that we have been "lumbered"with it, which I thought was, perhaps, less than generous. I also noted that Lord Middleton's organisationation has already produced a simpler guide, which may be of use to us all later.
In the course of the debate we have listened to a number of matters of concern to noble Lords about the provisions of the Wildlife and Countryside Act. Cases have been mentioned in which despite these provisions, a site has been damaged—and concern has very rightly been voiced over these cases. I would like to say to the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, that I agree absolutely there is absolutely no case at the moment for complacency. Indeed, it is a matter for great regret that some people, although acting within their legal rights, should refuse to extend the voluntary co-operation which underlies the provisions of the Act. Examples have been given, especially by the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, and seen where, after the NCC has given notice of its intention to notify an SSSI, harmful work has been carried out on the land within the three-month period which must elapse before the formal notification can take place.
The code, as noble Lords will be aware, comes out firmly against such action, and I hope that its publication will help to stamp it out. Paragraph 7 of the code states that owners and occupiers should not carry out any specified operations during this period without

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consulting the NCC. Both the NFU and the CLA have pledged their support for the code and the voluntary principle and have a vested interest in seeing that the Act works, since they do not want even stricter controls. Both my noble friend Lord Stanley and the noble Lord, Lord Middleton, touched on this point.
The noble Lord, Lord Melchett, mentioned West Sedgemoor. Perhaps I may just say that although three farmers in West Sedgemoor have indeed damaged 40 to 50 acres, some 70 owners and occupiers are involved altogether in some 2,500 acres. While, of course, we much regret the damage, it is clear that the great majority of those concerned have voluntarily cooperated. In Wales, notice of over 20 new sites has been given and only in two cases has there been any trouble.
So far as grant is concerned, the only sanction an agriculture minister has is the right to refuse grant. The Minister of Agriculture has made it clear in the context of West Sedgemoor that if a claim is received for works carried out in this period he will carry out the agreed consultation procedure with the NCC and consult the Secretary of State for the Environment. The Agriculture Minister's decision will be based on the situation before the work was carried out. I agree that the sort of action of which we have given examples does need to be most vigorously discouraged, and I am sure that the Government can look to all responsible organisations to support the plea for voluntary restraint in such situations.
But we should not he too alarmed, nor conclude too readily that the Act is failing. The number of such cases is small and, what is more, very few cases of damage to existing SSSIs have been reported since the Act came into force. The NCC advised during the passage of the Wildlife and Countryside Bill that in 1980 some 15 per cent. of all SSSIs—and that was several hundred sites—were damaged, although it amounted to only 0.7 per cent. of the total land area which was affected. While we have no comparable study for the past year, the number of cases reported has been no more than a handful. Maybe there are some which have not come to light, but there are many people on the lookout for damage to SSSIs, and unless I am much mistaken the position is already greatly improved. This is no doubt due in large measure to the greater awareness which already exists as a consequence of the Act; it will be further increased by the publication of the code. I do also know that a number of cases are being resolved satisfactorily at the local level.
A different kind of situation which has also caused anxiety is that in which after consideration by Ministers a conservation objection is not sustained. I do not believe that this is the time to discuss individual cases, but I want to make it clear that, in all cases where such an objection is raised by the NCC, my noble and honourable friends in the Department of the Environment and the Agriculture Department do consult together and give the fullest consideration to the Council's views. I will not undertake that the conservation case will invariably predominate over all other interests, since that would be to prejudge the ministerial consideration of the merits of individual cases; and it so happens that in two recent cases the objection has not been upheld. But there has already
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been one decision the other way, and there will surely be others; each case will be very carefully considered on its merits.
The question of finance for the NCC has also been mentioned by a number of noble Lords. I made some remarks on this subject in my opening speech. May I now repeat that my right honourable friends will consider carefully all available evidence and information and the best estimates that can be made of the likely scale of activity under the Wildlife and Countryside Act in reaching a decision on the financial allocation for the coming year, and in particular we will take note of the points that have been made in this connection in today's debate by the noble Lord, Lord Chelwood, with his great knowledge of this particular matter. So far in this financial year, the NCC have not had to withdraw any objection to a damaging proposal on resource grounds. Although the NCC's funds for this financial year are now fully committed, this is, I am led to believe, a normal state of affairs, because it is by this time of year the only way in which the NCC can ensure that they spend the available monies. However, they are willing to consider further cases as they arise and if necessary to approach Ministers for funds. As my colleague Mr. Macfarlane said in another place, we are always willing to consider approaches from the NCC. This, of course, still holds. We shall look forward to the bid, which should be coming forward any moment now, for the next financial year from the Nature Conservancy Council.
The noble Lord, Lord Melchett, mentioned the Rayner Review. It is true that the original draft of the terms of reference would have required the scope of staff reduction to be considered. However, these terms were put to the NCC for consideration and were changed in the light of their comments. I must reject the imputation that although the Government agreed to make this change they intend to proceed as if they had not done so. The Rayner studies have, indeed, resulted in staff cuts where inefficiences and scope for economies have been found, but it is not right to assume in advance that this will be the case with the NCC. Not even the original terms of reference made that assumption.
May I say a word here on renotification? The NCC hope to complete the exercise as soon as possible after the start of the next field season, when the remaining surveys will be completed. The NCC had to strike a balance between immediate impersonal renotification, with the possibility of misconceptions and unnecessary anxiety, and full consultation with all owners and occupiers. To draw up meaningful lists of potentially damaging operations the NCC has had to take a personal contact in most cases. This, I know, will please the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek. This has proved to be a very time-consuming operation, and I am led to understand has no doubt taken a lot more work than the NCC originally envisaged. I am told that the NCC are slightly below complement in the assistant regional officer and land agent cadres. The problem cannot be resolved overnight, since most of the work arising out of the Act demands experience and knowledge of the sites. In making their bid for additional resources, the NCC will be taking into account a probable increase in workload, but the level of response to the SSSI notification exercise is still an unknown factor. I am sure that the current review of

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NCC staffing will suggest ways in which their problems may be eased.
My noble friend Lord Sandford talked about the role of ADAS. Over the past two years there has been a great commitment of ADAS resources on conservation and an increase in training in conservation matters. This has been reflected in the farming community by greatly increased requests for advice on habitat management and other conservation matters, including socio-economic advice. There is good liaison between ADAS and NCC officers on the ground, and ADAS plays a major role in the farming and wildlife advisory groups. The MAFF advisory literature increasingly includes conservation advice and some booklets are entirely devoted to this subject. Their wildlife and countryside conservation committee meets under ADAS chairmanship. The committee, which consists of representatives of Government departments and conservation bodies, meets about twice a year to discuss subjects of mutual interest.
My noble friend Lord Sandford mentioned the six socio-economic advisers. These are specialists in this type of advice on which a front line officer can fall. There are also other specialists in a variety of conservation, landscape and other matters who are responsible for training and for responding to requests for guidance. This advice is available not only to other Ministry officers but also to any local government or other body which seeks advice or guidance.
My noble friend Lord Stanley asked about the national park authorities. It is a condition of the farm capital grant schemes that a farmer in a national park must seek the agreement of the NPA before starting work. This applies whether or not the grant is sought under Section 29 of the Agriculture Act 1970 or Section 2(2) of the European Communities Act. The consultation procedure therefore applies to all capital grants. It is for the national park authority to decide whether it will apply Section 41(4) of the Wildlife arid Countryside Act to grants other than those sought under Section 29 of the Agriculture Act 1970. I am sure that if they listened to my noble friend they would be encouraged so to do. I should also like to say to my noble friend Lord Sandford that I will of course read with care his other comments and see that they are brought to the attention of the appropriate authorities.
A word on capital grants. It should be remembered that eligibility for a management agreement for an SSSI does not depend on a refusal of proposals which will be eligible for capital grant. As is made clear in paragraph 25 of the Code of Guidance, owners or occupiers may seek an agreement at any time. Most capital works eligible for grant have no implication for damage to SSSIs. Only about 4 per cent. of agricultural holdings have an SSSI on any part of the land.
I am advised that since October 1980, in the few cases where the NCC has had reservations about capital grant proposals, there has been a willingness by the farmers concerned to discuss the issues involved and as a rule, either to drop the proposals which could cause significant damage or to accept NCC suggestions for modifications of the agricultural works to avoid damage without recourse to management agreement. I hope, as do many other noble Lords, that this spirit of co-operation will continue.
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There were some comments made about Section 29. I believe that the way forward on the use of Section 29 is being developed in consultation with the NCC in the light of recent discussions. It is likely to stress the fact that on very many SSSIs no threats will arise, but where they do they should normally be dealt with on a voluntarily agreed basis, and that consideration of the use of Section 29 will be a last resort. It is expected to avoid specifying any category of SSSI for which Section 29 will, or will not, he considered appropriate or giving any generalised commitment in advance of individual proposals from the NCC, which in each case will be considered on its merits.
My noble friend Lord Chelwood raised a point on taxes. I can assure him that my right honourable and learned friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer is aware of the position. I believe that the Wildlife and Countryside Act is a good Act and that the protection of SSSIs is a fundamental part of that Act. I recommend this Code of Guidance to the House.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Motor Vehicles (Tests) (Extension) Order 1982
5.1 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment (Lord Bellwin)The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment (Lord Bellwin) rose to move, That the order laid before the House on 23rd June be approved.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the order which is before the House today forms the last part of a package designed to meet the requirements of the European Community directive on roadworthiness tests. Your Lordships may not be very familiar with this directive, so perhaps I could quickly run through the main points in it, before explaining why the Motor Vehicles (Tests) (Extension) Order is needed, and how it affects testing arrangements in this country.
The purpose of the roadworthiness directive is to harmonise the arrangements in all the counties of the European Community for testing goods and passenger vehicles. It covers all motor vehicles with more than eight seats, excluding the driver's seat, used for the carriage of' passengers. It covers, motor vehicles and trailers used for the carriage of goods with a maximum weight exceeding 3,500 kg; and taxis and ambulances. The directive goes on to require that tests on these categories of vehicles should be carried out one year after the date on which the vehicle was first used, and then after that on an annual basis. It also lists the items which should be tested, but leaves member states to decide how tests are to be carried out, and by whom. In other words, the directive lays down certain minimum standards; it is quite modest in its scope, and is, I think, a useful road safety measure for the Community as a whole.
We are fortunate in this country, that we already have extensive testing arrangements for the vehicles covered by the directive and, in the main, these arrangements already meet, or in some cases even exceed, the requirements of the directive. However, we have had to make two significant changes, in order to comply with what the directive lays down. The first was the introduction of a formal annual testing scheme

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for public service vehicles, which replaced the old informal inspection system. Your Lordships may remember that the legislative foundations for this were laid in the Transport Act, 1980. The detailed arrangements for the new scheme were laid down in the Motor Vehicle (Tests) Regulations 1981, which came into operation at the very end of last year. They were subject to the usual negative resolution procedure.
The second change which we are obliged to make concerns the age at which vehicles have to be tested for the first time, and that is the reason for this extension order. In order to comply with the directive, we have to ensure that from 1st January 1983 all taxis, ambulances, and large passenger vehicles, as well as public service vehicles, have their first test by the time of their first birthday. This order introduces that new requirement. Goods vehicles are not included in the scope of the order, because their annual test already starts at one year old, and no change is needed.
The form of the order is governed by the provisions of the 1972 Road Traffic Act. Section 44 deals with compulsory test certificates for certain specified classes of vehicles and provides the foundation for the MOT tests. It makes it an offence to use a vehicle on the road without a valid test certificate, if it comes within the MOT test scheme and if it is over a certain age. When Section 44 was written, the age specified was 10 years, but the Act provides that a shorter period can be substituted by statutory instrument. As noble Lords will know, this power has been used several times, and the age for the first test under the MOT scheme has been gradually reduced to its present three years.
The last Motor Vehicle (Extension) Order was made in 1966. This new order revokes the 1966 one, and brings down the age of the first test from three years to one year for the roadworthiness directive vehicles. The House will note, however, that paragraph 5 of the order provides for the three-year period to continue in force for all vehicles except taxis, ambulances and passenger vehicles with more than eight passenger seats. This means that the testing of private cars, motorcycles and light vans is not affected in any way by the order.
I imagine that some of your Lordships may feel some concern about the apparently rather short deadline. The effect of the order is that from 1st January 1983, any vehicle which falls within one of the specified categories and is more than one year old on that date must possess a test certificate. I can, however, reassure the House on this point. The intention to bring in the order was widely publicised a year ago and the new arrangements for testing vehicles have been operating throughout the year.
Generally speaking, there is very little change at all, with vehicles being tested at the same places, by the same people and to the same standards. Apart from the new testing arrangements for public service vehicles, and the difference in the age at which some vehicles must be presented for their test for the first time little else has been necessary. I am sure, however, these two changes are very worthy ones and will encourage an improvement in the maintenance standards for the vehicles affected. There is no radical revision to the testing systems already operating in this country, and on that basis I commend the order for approval by this House. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Motor Vehicles (Tests) (Extension) Order 1982 laid before the House on 23rd June be approved.—(Lord Bellwin.)
5.8 p.m.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, I am certain that your Lordships will wish to thank the Minister for so clearly explaining the points in this order. Anything that will assist safety standards should be encouraged. I am almost tempted to join in the discussion in the light of what the noble Lord said that national States will be free to determine how the testing shall be done and by whom, but that will be trespassing on your Lordships' time. However, in view of the Government's decision in the recent Bill to transfer the testing from our very efficient arrangements, I am tempted to do so. As the Minister said, in effect the order makes no change to the arrangements this country already has for heavy goods and public service vehicles. It extends them to other classes and this will add in general to safety conditions.
Lord Airedale: My Lords, William Shakespeare was no doubt right when he said that:
"All's well that ends well".
The department certainly chose for itself a hard and stony road to travel over to get this order. That may be gleaned from the last paragraph of the explanatory notes to the order, which state that the order of 1981, with a similar title, not having been approved by Parliament, was never registered.
The 1981 order came before the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments who questioned the vires of it. They invited the department to submit a memorandum. The memorandum stated four grounds upon which the department contended that the order was intra tires, none of which grounds appealed to the joint committee. The committee invited the department to come and give oral evidence. I shall not weary your Lordships with all four grounds that were contended for, but with only one.
An assistant solicitor in the department giving evidence before the joint committee said that one could see that the order was intra tires when one looked at what the Minister had said in the Committee stage of the enabling Act. When confronted with the proposition that it is well known that the courts in interpreting legislation may not look at Hansard, the witness relied upon half a sentence of the judgment of Lord Reid in a House of Lords case of 1969 called Regina v. Warner. The words which the witness quoted were as follows:
"I am bound to say that this case seems to show that there is room for an exception where examining the proceedings in Parliament would almost certainly settle the matter immediately one way or the other".
Those words, taken by themselves, certainly seem to support what the witness was contending for, but when one looks up the case to see what Lord Reid really said on this point one finds that Lord Reid was saying the exact opposite. I shall tell your Lordships what Lord Reid did say. It is not very long and it reads as follows:
"...the layman may well wonder why we do not consult the Parliamentary Debates, for we are much more likely to find the intention of Parliament there than anywhere else. The rule is firmly

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established that we may not look at Hansard and in general I agree with it, for reasons which I gave last year in Beswick v. Beswick… This is not a suitable case in which to reopen the matter, but",
and he then says the words quoted by the witness. At the beginning of the next paragraph Lord Reid makes the situation perfectly plain when he says:
"As things are we must do our best with the material available to us".
It is a sorry day when a witness from a Government department quotes a snippet of a judgment of a judge who, in fact, one finds when one looks up the case, is saying the exact opposite to what the witness is relying upon. That is why I say that the department have chosen a very stony path, but they have got here in the end.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Driving Licences (Community Driving Licence) Regulations 1982
5.14 p.m.
Lord Bellwin Lord Bellwin rose to move, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 22nd July be approved.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, these draft regulations have been the subject of a report by the Joint Scrutiny Committee, which commented that their purport calls for elucidation, and that the necessary elucidation is supplied by the memoranda submitted by the Department of Transport.
I am conscious, therefore, that this instrument is rather technical in its drafting. This is probably inevitable in a draft which uses the powers in Section 2(2) of the European Communities Act to amend existing main legislation—the 1972 Road Traffic Act—as distinct from the more radical approach of rewriting this main legislation, which would necessarily have taken up more parliamentary time.
However, I owe it to the House to explain both the impact of these regulations, and the European obligations to which they give effect. Essentially, the regulations make it possible for a person who has lived and held a licence to drive in one country of the Community to move to another member state and obtain a driving licence there without first taking a driving test. This is the central provision of the directive on driving licences which was adopted by the Council of Ministers on 4th December 1980 and which comes into effect on 1st January 1983. A further provision of the directive, the issue of new licences in common format, will be introduced in this country on 1st January 1986.
The directive was many years under negotiation. I should like briefly to recount this background because I think it will make clear why the directive does what it does in the way it does, and why it does not do some other things which people have suggested it should do. The initial proposal in the early 1970s was that all member states should issue the same driving licence. This remains the very long-term object which is stated in the directive, and accounts for its title:
"on the introduction of a Community driving licence".
But the title has caused confusion because the actual provisions fall far short of this. In fact it emerged in the course of negotiations that there were major discrepancies among national practices in regard to driver
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licensing which militated against achievement of the most ambitious aim.
After prolonged negotiations the Community finally got down to the essential question: how to remove undue obstacles to the freedom of movement of workers, as guaranteed by the Treaty of Rome, without compromising the essential aims of national driver licensing. The Community identified driving competence and medical fitness as the key areas where harmonisation of minimum standards was both desirable and realistic. That is what the directive of December 1980 sets out to achieve. However, it was accepted that, for the future, there must be adequate minimum medical and driving test standards. The directive did not rule out individual states maintaining their own higher medical standards, and indeed expressly provided in Article 8 that they might be imposed on applicants for exchange licences. In fact, neither the driving test nor the medical standards affect practice in Britain, because in essentials our standards are at least as high as the directive prescribes. The other member states must adopt these minimum standards not later than 1st January 1983, if they have not already done so.
Another reason why negotiations on the draft directive were long drawn out was that the United Kingdom had special supplementary licences for heavy goods vehicles in several classes for which there is an exacting driving test, and similar vocational licensing for public service vehicles. These schemes set high standards of competence in the interests of road safety, on account of the known hazards presented by large, heavy vehicles with complex controls and in some cases special handling characteristics. We insisted—rightly—on maintaining stringent safeguards on access to these licences. Our partners however were able to point out that the directive's contribution to freedom of movement of workers would be incomplete if it did not extend to vocational driving. This roadblock, if I may so call it, was finally removed by the device which has been used in this and in other countries when a new licensing scheme is introduced and it is not practical to test all of those who are currently driving. In 1970 when the heavy goods vehicle driving licence was introduced, it was granted to many thousand drivers on the basis of certificates of recent driving experience. I should like to stress this, because it means that in fact many of our HGV licence-holders entered the scheme without taking the British HGV test. This does not remove the quite legitimate grounds for concern about admitting drivers from other Community countries to the scheme, but it does, I hope, place the matter in perspective. We are talking of at most a couple of hundred drivers a year coming without equivalent tests into a scheme which contains about a million and for which tens of thousands of tests are conducted annually.
Moreover, what was negotiated in the directive was an arrangement which provides more stringent safeguards than were possible when many thousands were admitted to the new HGV scheme in 1970. It has been agreed that the applicant must first obtain the British ordinary licence by surrendering his current Community licence. He must then apply to the independent licensing authority in the local traffic area and satisfy him on three counts. First, the licence he

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surrendered must be valid for heavy goods vehicles in the country of issue. Second, he must produce a certificate from former employers showing exactly what types of vehicle he has driven in the last three years, and for what periods within that time. And third, except for passing a British test, he must meet the same requirements as other applicants by providing a British medical certificate and declaring any driving convictions. He must satisfy the licensing authority on these matters. If he has been a self-employed driver he must produce evidence comparable to an employer's certificate which like that certificate can if necessary be checked. If he cannot satisfy the licensing authority about his experience or on any other count laid down in this or other legislation, he will not get the licence without a test. Exactly the same applies to applicants for exchange who want public service vehicle drivers' licences.
I will not conceal that this is a quite novel task for the licencing authorities, though one for which their experience with the road traffic industry well qualifies them. The Secretary of State was therefore interested to hear from the Transport and General Workers' Union, which had some misgivings whether the exchanges could be conducted with due regard to the need to maintain standards. The union has been invited to provide any information to which they have access which would help the licensing authorities to consider and verify these applications. I am glad to be able to extend this invitation publicly to other representative organisations on both sides of the industry.
I have given your Lordships an account both of the background to the directive and the present regulations, and of the way the exchanges will work in the most difficult field, that of vocational licences. Perhaps I could now give a short explanation of' the actual text which is before us.
As your Lordships will know, the Secretary of State is the licensing authority for the ordinary driving licences issued at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Centre in Swansea and the Chairmen of Traffic Commissioners in Traffic Areas for heavy goods vehicle drivers' licences. Existing road traffic law states that these authorities may not grant a full licence unless the applicant has either held such a licence previously, or passed the appropriate test. There are special provisions for both visitors and new residents to drive for up to a year on foreign licences, but there is no right for new residents to drive heavy goods or public service vehicles, and after a year they must pass the test even to continue driving a car. The directive requires, and these draft regulations provide, that the holder of a currently valid licence issued in another state of the European Community may surrender it within the first year of becoming resident here, and obtain the corresponding British licence.
Under Regulation 1, the first exchange licences will date from 1st January 1983, although issue will begin once this instrument has parliamentary approval. The licences which can be exchanged are defined in Regulation 3 as the national licences issued in other Community states. The definition is so framed as to cover the licences issued for dependants of the British armed forces serving in BAOR—the British Forces Germany licences.
Regulation 4 is a technical provision, designed to avoid any discrepancy over rights to drive during the first year of residence between our existing legislation, which concerns Great Britain, and the directive, which applies to the United Kingdom. For the purposes of this directive, this also includes Northern Ireland and Gibraltar.
Regulation 2 permits the grant of ordinary licences for the groups which most nearly correspond to the categories for which the foreign licence is valid, and for the grant of those additional groups which automatically go with certain groups on the British licence. Regulations 5 and 6 provide for the subsequent issue of vocational licences. In recognition of the need to make a separate application for these and provide additional information, they allow a further six months, making the qualifying period 18 months from the date of becoming resident. These regulations also lay down the minimum periods of experience—six months within the 18 months preceding the date of becoming resident in the United Kingdom, or one year within the previous three years. The licence will be based on the British class within which vehicles have been driven for these minimum periods.
I have spoken at some length on the detail of the regulations and of the arrangements we are making to ensure that the safety of our roads is not compromised. Let me finally put this into its broader perspective. Movement of people is a feature of the world in which we live, and this is now to a very large extent accomplished by personal means of transport—by car. Hundreds of thousands of people enter and leave this country every year as visitors with their own transport. But we are here concerned with a few thousand who depart or arrive with the intention of settling for more than a year.
The largest group of beneficiaries of the directive is, in fact, likely to be the dependants of British servicemen and women who have been on a tour of duty in Germany. Rather smaller numbers of people move here each year from other Community countries with other Community driving licences, and will be seeking to convert their licences. This is, of course, a two-way flow. The directive contributes a new and valuable element to that freedom of movement to live and work which is a tangible aspect of our participation in the European Community.
As for the more distant future, the directive seeks more detailed harmonisation of the standards for driving tests and licensing with a view to improving road safety throughout the Community. This must be right. I should perhaps add that the British driving test is viewed with great interest by the authorities in other countries, because it is thorough and relevant. Even without the stimulus provided by the directive, we should be seeking efforts to copy it; and I believe the commitment to harmonisation will accelerate that progress. If the continuing process gives rise to any proposals for modifying our own system of driver licensing, we shall of course consult both this House and all those organisations which have an interest in these matters.
As the House will have observed, this is not an area where rapid change is likely or indeed desirable. But I am pleased to be able to move the approval of a

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measure which marks a step of real benefit to individuals within the Community. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 22nd July be approved.—(Lord Bellwin.)
5.27 p.m.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, as noble Lords will observe, this is a set of rather complex regulations and we are very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, for explaining them so clearly to us. Any regulations which have, as their objective, easing the movement of people and assisting them to work and take up residence are to he encouraged. But we must ask ourselves, is this particular harmonisation necessary and desirable and, if it is, is it adequate? Does it in any way militate against Britain's safety standards?
We have a number of items to assist us in this discussion. I have read the debate in the other place on the original directive, which took place in November 1980, as well as the guidance note which was issued to various organisations in June this year, and also the detailed memorandum which is contained in the Thirty-Second Report of the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments. However, the noble Lord's explanation has enabled us to understand many of those points more clearly. He mentioned that one argument for this is that as regards Britain the main beneficiaries will be those who are serving in BGF and their dependants, many of whom will have had tests undertaken by military driving examiners and have a BGF driving licence. Although that may be very useful, does it require a Community directive to provide for it? If that was something that we wanted to provide for, surely it could have been dealt with by some other means.
On looking through the various propoals, it would appear that a person from another EEC country who takes up residence here may, as we all know, drive on his or her existing licence for 12 months and during that period that person may exchange his or her national licence for a British licence without having to take any tests. Are we satisfied that tests in other EEC countries are satisfactory? How do they compare with the British standards? Is not the harmonisation of those test standards something which is essential if this particular set of regulations is to mean anything?
The Minister has said that minimum standards are set for driving tests and health. He also says that in general the British standards are commensurate with those and in many cases exceed them. In the debate in the other place the Under-Secretary of State confirmed that it will be possible for a person to fail a driving test here, but, when living in a Community country, may possibly obtain a licence there and on moving back to Britain the licence may be exchanged within 12 months for a full British licence. The question therefore arises: Can that be justified, particularly if the driving test standard in another member state is much lower than the standard in this country?
I note that the Secretary of State in a debate on the directive in the other place in November 1980 commented that in Britain we have a practical test of ability but that several of the European systems place an emphasis on a theoretical test. That is a point that must be considered when considering the different
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standards of test in the different national countries.
Then, as the Minister has said—and this is mentioned in the 32nd Report of the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments in paragraph 2—
"The main obstacle to agreement on the draft directive was the existence in the UK of vocational licence schemes for drivers of heavy goods and public service vehicles."
The guidance note from the Department of Transport issued in June this year, to which I referred, says:
"Unlike most of her partners in Europe Britain has separate heavy goods vehicle and public service vehicle licensing arrangements."
The Minister emphasised that in these connections Britain has a high standard of competence. I am certain that your Lordships will be concerned that in any measures now put before us there is to be no lowering of those standards in this country.
We know that the draft directive says that it does not provide expressly for a situation where a separate licence is issued for those particular vehicles, and we do issue those special licences. I recognise that in these regulations there are a number of proposals for safeguards for heavy goods vehicles, particularly the question that a person must either have passed an equivalent test or can show experience of driving similar vehicles in their own country. But this means that within a period of 18 months residence here a person could obtain in exchange a heavy goods vehicle licence in this country without any test whatever. I note that when this matter of the directive was debated in the other place the Opposition proposed an amendment that:
"no heavy goods vehicle, or passenger service vehicle, licences shall be granted to persons who have not passed tests of standard equivalent to those in the United Kingdom."
I know that the Minister said that there may be only 200 applications a year, but 200 applications of persons who have not passed any standard to drive any goods vehicles commensurate with that in this country is something with which we should be concerned. The same conditions for the exchange of a heavy goods vehicle licence are to apply in the case of an application for exchange for a public service vehicle licence.
As has been stressed in Britain now there is provision that the licensing commissioners may require an applicant for a public service vehicle licence to take a driving test. They may require him to do so. Paragraph 9 of the memorandum of the Department of Transport states.
"It would be inconsistent to require a person who holds a valid licence of another member state to take a test."
But I would ask the Minister if the commissioners are not satisfied with the evidence of driving experience, notwithstanding what has been said in the guidance note from the department, will the commissioners have the authority to require a test to be taken so as to ensure the safety provisions of driving public service vehicles?
The Minister referred to correspondence from the Transport and General Workers' Union. This is quoted in some detail in columns 461 and 462 in the debate in the other place on the regulations. I understand that, although the union has offered to obtain information they were very concerned about the effect of these regulations on driving standards, particularly as in some European countries a number

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of persons who are engaged in heavy goods vehicle driving are self-employed.
I recognise that the Government share concern with everyone for safety provisions and have endeavoured to bring a number of those points in these regulations. However, I note that the Secretary of State in the debate on the directive said that in the short term the directive adds very little to Britain's safeguards, but that it does cut out a lot of red tape, and that in the longer term it could contribute to better safety standards generally. It would appear to me, in the light of our own standards in this country, that it will only lead to better standards generally if there is some harmonisation in test standards throughout the Community.
May I just raise two other points. I understand that the British licences issued in exchange will be free of any endorsements, even though the existing licence from another member state may have endorsements upon it. The Under-Secretary of State in column 460 in the other place said:
"With the discrepancies between the various national laws, I think that would he impractical"—
I think she is referring now to these being transferred to the British licences—
"But I shall take advice about it".
Later, when asked whether, where appropriate, details of penalties could be put on the British licence for our totting up procedure she said in column 472:
"I simply do not know without conferring with the Home Office, whether that would he practicable".
It may be asking a lot of the Minister, but is he able to say whether or not there has been consultation with the Home Office so that we may have an answer to that important point? If a licence from another member state being exchanged for a British licence has a number of endorsements, it would be wrong for them not to be transferred to the British licence.
Finally, in the memorandum from the Department of Transport, paragraph 15 indicates that for the purposes of a common transport policy of the Community Gibraltar is included in the term "United Kingdom". It goes on to say that as there are no powers there is:
"an intention to take the next opportunity to include such exchanges in primary legislation presented to Parliament".
If the Government therefore intend to have primary legislation introduced in Parliament to meet that point would not this also he an opportunity to make other bilateral arrangements for the transfer of driving licences with other states in addition to those of the Community? There is value in the exchange in the Community proposals but surely, even if we do not want a wide-sweeping provision, there ought to be some bilateral arrangements with other states. With those points, I generally commend the regulations, but there are some problems attached to them which I hope I have been able to explain.
5.39 p.m.
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, for quite properly raising again certain aspects of what is proposed. I am glad to try to give some clarification to him. It is true, as he said, that various criticisms have been made on the scope of
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enforcement. I have to stress that it is no part of the aims of the directive to improve the enforcement of the traffic laws in this or any member state. This is concerned with the issue of driving licences and does not touch on their endorsement or withdrawal for offences under national law except by implication.
However, I should make it clear that if a person applying here for an exchange has a current disqualification in this country the licence can, and will, be refused. If a person's licence has been withdrawn in the country which issued it he, or she, will not get an exchange because he, or she, will be unable to produce a valid licence. In the case of applicants for vocational licences the normal application form must he completed stating any recent convictions. The licensing authority may take these into account in exactly the same way as convictions in Britain declared by a British applicant.
Further than that it is not possible to go. Road traffic laws are not identical even between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, let alone among other Community countries. For foreign courts' convictions to be recorded on our licences would be to give them jurisdiction to order the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Centre to enter those matters in its driver records. Even if that were to be enacted—and I stress that it would represent a major and controversial step in an area of basic constitutional importance—such a transfer of endorsements would not be practicable unless there was an exact correspondence between national laws so that everything which was an offence in another Community state was an offence in British law. For my part, I cannot foresee the day when that will come about. I think it must follow that the enforcement aspects of the British licensing system remain apart from those aspects to which these regulations are directed and with which the directive itself is concerned.
The noble Lord, Lord Underhill, expressed anxiety about the standards of other Community driving tests. It is true that, from our point of view, many of them leave room for improvements. It is also possible that when the further discussions on harmonisation foreseen by the directive have started, they will reveal some respects in which we can improve our own requirements, although we have reason to believe that in all major respects our tests are the most thorough. What the directive offers is a framework within which we can press our partners for a general levelling up of standards, and I believe there are already signs of that. There can he no question of a levelling down.
This levelling up is of real benefit because it means that the standard of driving in the Community will be slowly but surely improved. That affects safety on the roads everywhere, above all for those who encounter visiting drivers from other member states on the roads here and those who take their holidays on the Continent or drive there on business, all matters which are a fact of life already. Allowing quite a small number of Community licence-holders to have our licences, regardless of what tests they have taken in the past once they become resident here, is, I submit, a small price to pay for setting in motion this major force of improvements. Let us not forget that a large proportion, probably the majority, of those who exchange licences will he our own citizens returning from periods of residence on the Continent.

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The noble Lord was also properly concerned that there should be no lowering of standards concerning vocational licences. I went in some detail in my opening remarks into the safeguards for the exchange of vocational licences. There is a balance to he struck here. The directive is a hard-won compromise between the commitment to free movement which we accepted on accession to the community and our right to maintain our high standards in the interests of road safety. That directive is a commitment and the emphasis is now on the administrative arrangements to ensure that this balance is kept in the assessment of individual applications. I have made it clear that the Department of Transport will pass on to the licensing authorities any useful information to assist them in this task.
The noble Lord asked what would happen if the commissioners were not satisfied. If they are not satisfied, they can refuse a licence. The driver can then take a test or, of course, appeal to magistrates, and I assume that they would then take his or her experience into account in considering the matter. I hope I have covered in the main the concerns expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, quite properly expressed by him because, as we have both said, these are complex matters. They have been evolved over a period of time, they are an attempt to move in what I think it fair to call the right direction and I am sure they will take us further down the road of harmonisation in all matters of this kind.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Rampton Psychiatric Hospital: Morale
5.45 p.m.
Baroness Macleod of Borve Baroness Macleod of Borve rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are aware of the morale at Rampton Psychiatric Hospital and whether they will give a date before which the police presence in the hospital will be removed.
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I hope noble Lords will forgive me if I thank in anticipation all those on all sides of the House who are taking part in this debate. I understand that I shall not have the right to thank them afterwards, so I am doing so now.
Like many Members of this House, I have many other outside interests, and two of them are pertinent to my Question this evening. For over 25 years I have been a magistrate and for an equal length of time I have worked with leagues of hospital friends, and it was in that capacity that I was invited to visit Rampton again some 18 months ago and I have been there on several occasions recently. On 22nd May 1979, Yorkshire Television showed a programme about Rampton Hospital which was to have three important repercussions; first, the police were at once put into the hospital, and they are still there; secondly, the Boynton Committee was set up; and thirdly, confidence in the hospital at all levels was shattered and a trail of havoc has followed. At no time did the people making the film go into the hospital.
Rampton is one of four special hospitals. It is an austere building set in austere countryside in Nottinghamshire. In 1961 there were 975 patients.
Today there are 662, 497 male and 165 female; 42.6 per cent. suffer from mental illness, 22.8 per cent. from psychopathic disorder, 18 per cent. from subnormality and 16.6 per cent. from severe subnormality; 265 patients are unrestricted and 397 are restricted and therefore cannot he discharged without the consent of the Home Secretary; 81 per cent. of males come from courts following convictions, 34 per cent. of women are from the courts and only 26 per cent. are restricted. At the beginning of this month there were 1,037 members of staff, of whom 683 were nursing staff, 447 males and 236 females. Nearly all the staff are members of the Prison Officers' Association.
The criteria for admittance to a special hospital is that a patient is dangerous, violent or has criminal propensities. When their treatment is finished they are transferred to National Health hospitals or hostels. Unfortunately, at this time 111 patients are awaiting places. I am told that recidivism is very low, which is a comforting thought.
The Boynton Committee was set up in the autumn of 1979. As a result of very hard detailed work while living in the hospital, the report contained over 200 recommendations. It also contained specific references to the dedication and care of the nursing staff and the help given by the voluntary leagues of hospital friends. The report was also of the opinion that the school of nursing should be maintained.
Recommendations already implemented include the appointment of the Rampton review board of six members, who are making a big impact in the life of the hospital, and the setting up of the hospital medical team, who have day to day responsibilities; that came into operation in June 1981. There was also the appointment of a medical director, who took up his post last spring, as well as other medical appointments. Improvements for the patients include provision of their own lockers and the making available of interview rooms on 13 wards to date, with the hope of more to come. Transistor radios apparently were very important, and patients are allowed to use them in bed. Ties do not have to be worn, except on the admission ward. Auto-shavers are in use, and, to hide the bare walls, pictures, peg boards and posters have been put up. Those are only a few of the very many improvements which have recently been made. The League of Friends gives considerable help by visiting and by arranging coaches for visitors from long distances, and it is now arranging very well-publicised horse-riding lessons. These are very much appreciated.
As I have said, Boynton also made a point of the retention of the school of nursing. Therefore the morale of the nursing staff was recently lowered again when they were told by the General Nursing Council that the school must close. I am told that the intake to the school is unusual, in that mature people often join, perhaps after early retirement in the social fields, and they find a rewarding vocation in nursing the mentally ill. I hope that the Minister will use his considerable influence and powers of persuasion to see that the unit is retained.
In one of my semi-judicial capacities I was able to meet eminent psychiatrists. I have written to several of them, and they have been kind enough to give me their professional opinions. I asked whether they thought that patients' evidence of alleged incidents that may

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have happened up to 21 years ago could be relied upon. The replies from all but one ranged from, "Probably not", to "No". One said that he thought possibly an incident could be remembered. One doctor gave the view that six years was the maximum period of memory retention. However, all agreed—which is very rare with psychiatrists—that, because of the nature of the illness, patients are prone to exaggeration, suffer from delusions, often go out of their way to make trouble, and can frequently be vicious.
We know of course that even the non-violent patients assault nursing staff. When I visit wards I am aware that I am closely guarded in case of an attack. Although attempts have been made in the past to institute a code of practice for nursing in the special hospitals, so far it has not been found possible to formulate one which covers every contingency at Rampton. That might be one reason why nurses have been charged by the police, and indeed have even had to stand trial.
Of course as a magistrate I agree that offenders must pay the price for their offences. I am also aware that there might be a substandard apple in a barrel. But, my Lords, in my submission it is not possible for a police officer, who is not trained in psychiatry, who does not have the day to day responsibility of coping with, treating, and trying to cure patients—who often are very sick and violent—to differentiate between what might happen in the streets outside and what occasionally can happen when dealing with patients. For instance, the problems of stopping a violent street brawl and stopping violent patients from fighting must be similar, but the difference is that the police officer is not likely to be charged with assault, while the nursing officer might well be charged. It was because of—and only because of—the lack of a code of practice that nurses recently withdrew escort duties, but the review board, with all the interested parties, is now working on this matter and normal duties have been resumed.
The police have been in the hospital for over three years. The net result to date is that there have been charged with offences 21 nurses, six of whom retired or resigned before trial. Charges have been of ill-treatment of patients under Section 126 of the Mental Health Act 1959, and a small number of charges have been preferred under Sections 18 and 47 of the 1861 Act, which are for offences against the person. All charges relate to alleged incidents between 1961–22 years ago—and 1979. Four nurses were found not guilty at Crown Court. Two were found not guilty at magistrates' courts, and two charges were dropped by the department of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Last Friday at Nottingham the learned judge dismissed most of the charges against four of the nurses, saying that there was insufficient evidence and that the alleged offences were too long ago. Three other nurses were convicted by a jury, and the learned judge awarded nine months, suspended for two years, against two of them and three years, suspended for 18 months, against the other. All six nurses earlier found not guilty have been reinstated at the hospital.
Meanwhile, the nurses are carrying on their very difficult duties with care and devotion, but they are ever mindful that each one of them may receive a summons to attend Worksop police station to answer
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a charge relating to an incident that is alleged to have happened many years ago. Meanwhile, also, some of the patients are taunting the nurses with threats of "telling on" them to the police. No one can go on working under those conditions of considerable tension. Staff are now weary, deeply disillusioned, frustrated and tired of the endless stress.
I am glad to know that the Secretary of State and my noble friend the Minister on the Front Bench have recently been to Rampton. I should like to say, for what it is worth, that I have enormous admiration for everyone working at the hospital. In asking the Minister to use his good offices in the right quarters to withdraw the police from the hospital. I am sure that a new spirit, a new hope, a new confidence in a new challenge will make Rampton Hospital the great place of care and healing that it has always been.
5.58 p.m.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, I am mindful of the fact that this is not a short debate, but an Unstarred Question, and therefore it behoves me not to make a speech, but merely to elaborate a little upon the noble Baroness's Question, and perhaps add one or two questions of my own. I thank the noble Baroness for drawing the attention of your Lordships' House to this matter of vital public importance—and it is a matter of public importance, not of importance merely to those at Rampton.
In thanking the noble Baroness for her initiative in seeing that this very important matter is noticed and is discussed in your Lordships' House, perhaps it would be appropriate if I also make clear that though the noble Baroness and I are at one on this particular Question, we do not necessarily see eye to eye on all the various matters involved in the history of the events. Indeed, I would say that I differ a little from the noble Baroness in my attitude to the original film by Yorkshire Television—I think it was entitled "The Secret Hospital"—shown in May 1979. I do not for a moment say that everything that was said or suggested in that programme was true. Indeed, we now know that a great deal that was said and suggested was not true. But in my view events and public opinion at that time were such that it was perhaps necessary for somebody to draw attention to the whole matter—and Yorkshire Television did that.
Following that, as the noble Baroness has said, we then had the Boynton Inquiry. I welcomed the Boynton Inquiry, and indeed I warmly welcomed many of the matters in the report. Here, perhaps I might take the liberty of reminding the noble Lord the Minister who is presently to reply of two very brief sentences in the Boynton Report which seemed to me to be very important. They are brief, and I will quote them. In the report (Cmnd. 8073) on page 22, paragraph 5.12, we see this stated by the Boynton Inquiry:
"We think that Rampton operates too much as a closed and secretive institution".
We also see, if we look at the detailed recommendations at the end of the report—and the noble Baroness has referred to these—that Recommendation 203, on page 152, says this:
"Less emphasis can and should be placed at Rampton on the provisions of the Official Secrets Act".
My Lords, I should merely like to ask the noble Lord

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who is to reply whether progress has in fact been made since those days on those matters, because I share the view of the Boynton Report that it really is very important indeed that institutions such as Rampton, Broadmoor and so on should be exposed to public scrutiny as much as is possible, bearing in mind the need for the staff to be able to get on with their work.
So I hope that progess has been made with opening up these institutions to public scrutiny, but I would go on to say that doing those things—and I think it is necessary to do those things—certainly does not in my view require a permanent police presence. As the noble Baroness has rightly reminded the House, the events into which the police were very properly and correctly inquiring took place a very long time ago, and very few of the present staff at Rampton were in any way concerned in those events. Indeed, many of the present staff at Rampton were not working in the hospital at all.
Perhaps I could go on to say that it seems t o me that the police have more urgent and pressing matters to get on with than merely living permanently in Rampton Hospital. They have very important work to do. Indeed, I might suggest, if this is not digressing too much, in relation to the deplorable events which took place at a public meeting of the police with the Home Secretary and the Metropolitan Commissioner of Police in London recently, that to my mind the behaviour of the police then was not really related to resentment about low pay. I think it was related in many ways to the tact that the police as a whole are desperately overworked; and while they are desperately overworked I think it is very important to see that numbers of policemen, from whatever force they may come, should not be tied up indefinitely in continuing an operation such as that which has been going on for so very long at Rampton.
Indeed, too, the situation and the climate of opinion have changed. I think, as I said before, it was right that the police went in and carried out a thorough investigation. But they have had long enough to complete that, and I take very much the point that was made by the noble Baroness: it is not helpful to members of staff doing a highly difficult job in extremely difficult circumstances to have the constant feeling of a police presence somewhere looking over their shoulders and looking over their work. I repeat that I think it is necessary that these places should be open to public scrutiny; but, of course, that is going on now. We shall be dealing with another measure in your Lordships' House in a day or two, the Mental Health (Amendment) Bill, which sets up a mental health commission and sets up machinery whereby hospitals will be under continuing scrutiny from the point of view of public interest.
Therefore, I think there are a number of developments which have taken place since those days in 1979 which surely make it important that the police presence in Rampton should be removed at the earliest possible moment. I hope that in replying the noble Lord the Minister will be able to tell us why it is that after such a long time they are still there; and I hope that he will, perhaps, tell us that it will be possible for that police presence to be ended very soon. And if that is as a result of the initiative which the noble Baroness has taken today, then I would join with so
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many other noble Lords in your Lordships' House in thanking her for having done what she has done.
6.5 p.m.
Lord Renton: My Lords, we should he grateful to my noble friend Lady Macleod for initiating this debate. Quite apart from the merits of the debate, it is, so far as I know, the first debate in which as many Peeresses will be taking part as noble Lords. That is a fine demonstration of sympathetic sex equality in your Lordships' House. My Lords, I was chairman of MENCAP at the time, 3½ years ago, when this matter came to light, and we were extremely worried because, in addition to the psychopaths, some of them very violent, and the mentally ill at Rampton, there are a number of people there who are simply mentally handicapped to various degrees. Indeed, quite a number of our parent members have or have had mentally handicapped sons and daughters there, including our founder member.
My Lords, it became abundantly plain, when investigations were started after Yorkshire Television did their rather sensational filming of this, that the problem arose through a minority of the staff who were in charge of the most violent patients perhaps exceeding the force that was necessary. It is not for me to question, and I do not question, the action taken by the Director of Public Prosecutions and the results of the cases in the courts. I was most relieved, however, to hear my noble friend Lady Macleod say what has happened in the case (which we should not discuss any further) so far as discharges from certain charges are concerned.
My Lords, Rampton has a very wide range of people there for treatment. Some, as I say, are suffering from various degrees of mental handicap, and you go right through various degrees of mental illness to the truly violent psychopaths. It has seemed to us at MENCAP that perhaps not enough care has been taken to separate those three categories, and I suggest that all the information which has come out points at the real necessity for a complete separation of those three categories of people—the mentally handicapped, the mentally ill and those with violent criminal tendencies. I do not think that that is a counsel of perfection. I would have thought that as a practical matter it was something which needed to be done. Perhaps by now it been done—we do not know; we may hear this evening. But it is certainly something which should be done, and which, if it has not yet been done, then I hope it soon will be.
So far as the police are concerned, whatever the original complaints against the minority of staff in the 1970s, there can be no justification, in my opinion, for keeping the police there indefinitely. I hope I am not being emotive when I say that it cannot help the staff in this very difficult and demanding work indefinitely to have the police breathing down their necks. Unless it is really necessary, it should not happen; and I cannot believe that it is necessary any longer, after all that has happened in the last three years. So I hope that we shall hear from my noble friend Lord Trefgarne this evening that the suggestions made by my noble friend Lady Macleod have been heeded by the Government and by those responsible for the administration of our criminal law, for whom I have such

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admiration. I hope we can call this a closed chapter before long.
6.10 p.m.
The Countess of Loudoun: My Lords, it is now over three years since I visited Rampton with the All-Party Parliamentary Mental Health Group, since which time the staff there have been coping with the difficulties caused by the continuing police inquiries and the court cases, some still in progress. Rampton has an enormously difficult and demanding task to fulfil. It has to deal with a population that almost all other institutions and services have failed. On June 1st 1982, there were still 106 people on the "approved for transfer" list at Rampton, despite there having been a more positive response from local hospitals recently, 174 patients having left the hospital in 1981. Rampton has its Eastdale unit for rehabilitation which could offer eleven more places were the funds available but there is no similar unit at all for female patients and the other special hospitals have none either, to my knowledge.
May I ask the Government what the present situation is with regard to the interim secure units? These units were planned to relieve the pressure on the special hospitals but to do this effectively more of these secure units need to he established. Without these, the ordinary psychiatric hospitals will continue to evade their responsibilities for dealing with difficult or unlikeable patients under the Mental Health Act. Since the establishment of a new hospital management at Rampton with the appointment of a medical director, Dr. Alfred Minto, and a review hoard with management responsibility for the hospital, a distinct mental handicap division of approximately 250 men and women has been set up under the care of three newly-appointed consultant psychiatrists who are responsible for both medical and psychiatric care.
Now, Rampton Hospital wants very much to get on with its job. Its medical director, Dr. Alfred Minto, is very keen to bring Rampton into the mainstream of current psychiatric thought and progress and is actively organising seminars, lectures and such to further this purpose. The hospital needs help to reduce its sense of isolation and, with this in view, useful links with neighbouring universities have been established, such as with the School of Social Work at Leicester University. I understand from Mr. Herschel Prins, the director of this school, that they now have various joint activities with Rampton including the placement of social work students. This training and education programme could be extended into the post-qualifying field to include the utilisation of Rampton's facilities; but to do this adequately it needs a continuing injection of funds. This is crucial. Let us not dwell on the past with all its mistakes but look to the future—a brighter one, I trust. I should like to pay tribute to all the dedicated officers and staff at Rampton and I wish them well.
6.13 p.m.
Baroness Lane-Fox: My Lords, as I am sure your Lordships will agree, to perform many tasks in the nursing profession calls for the very finest qualities. Psychiatric nursing in particular makes huge demands and asks for almost superhuman strength of character.
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Any one of us who has seen the quiet and patient concern and understanding shown by those psychiatric nurses who really find a vocation in such hospitals is left inspired and admiring. Obviously, it would be impractically idealistic to expect all nurses to reach this standard of dedication, but the unselfishness displayed really does deserve the best support of those of us lucky enough to be neither patients nor nurses in those hospitals.
Many of us have felt very disturbed about the difficult conditions for staff at Rampton; so now we are deeply indebted to my noble friend Lady Macleod for giving us this chance to talk about it and for her fact-filled speech. In addition, I should like to back up the remarks made by my noble friend Lord Renton as to categorisation of patients. For a long time I have felt that categorisation of schizophrenic patients alone is something that has not been attended to nearly enough. I hope his appeal today will be heard in wider circles.
In all our thoughts must be anxiety about the morale of nurses working in such taxing circumstances. It seems quite astonishing that so few nurses have thrown in the sponge and left the hospital for good. Nevertheless, it is interesting to know how many of those who have been involved in court cases have later been reinstated. Undoubtedly the morale of the staff at Rampton deserves to he well and truly boosted. These people are carrying out duties that few of the rest of us could claim to have the care and compassion to do. Therefore, the least that we can do is to back up my noble friend lady Macleod in her requests to the Minister.
6.17 p.m.
Baroness Faithful!: My Lords, I must thank the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod, for asking this Unstarred Question today, but I have to ask the indulgence of your Lordships because I cannot speak directly to the Motion as it is now eight years since I went to Rampton. But, having said that, four patients to whom I was social worker came to see me within the last few months and I am in touch with them. They are now all, except for one, out in the community and working. I think that that is a tribute to the work done at Rampton.
That is not to say that they have not got some complaints. It would be quite unnatural if they had not; but the complaints were something quite different. The complaints concerned the siting of the hospital. Oxford to Retford and on to Rampton is a terribly difficult journey and the great complaint of the patients with whom I was in personal touch was that they were losing touch with their families. Their families could not visit, their families could not afford to visit and, when they did visit, it had very often to be with one of us social workers because often that was the only way that the family could get to Rampton. If patients are unable to be in touch with their families, they become more disturbed than they are already. I think that we have not looked closely enough at what it is that really disturbs the patients at Rampton. They are disturbed. But not to be in touch with your family, to be miles away from your family, and not to be visited by them, causes great concern. Very often it is only to their families that they will tell

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anything that they are deeply worried about. Therefore, my Lords, my question to the Minister, alongside the Unstarred Question which the noble Baroness has asked, is this: Is there any possibility that there could be regionalisation of the special hospitals, particularly Rampton? As the noble Baroness has said, we have four hospitals in this country; but Rampton is particularly and peculiarly difficult to get to.
The noble Baroness spoke with warmth of the League of Hospital Friends, and I support her tribute to them. Canon Mason, the chairman, arranges outings for the patients and, where possible, he arranges for patients' families to come along. But this cannot be very often. At Broadmoor there are 800 visitors visiting patients who have no family to visit them. There are three such visitors at Rampton. The reason why there are three of these visitors at Rampton is because of its remoteness and the fact that it is right out in the country. Despite the points made by the noble Countess, Lady Loudoun, who told us of the interest taken by the universities, university people come and go. What is needed is consistency, and what is needed is the same person visiting year after year. So my question to the Minister—and I repeat it—is this: Is there any hope of setting up smaller hospitals in different parts of the country and regionalising the special hospitals? This would be an asset not only to the patients whose families could keep in touch with them, but to the staff and thus to the running of the hospital.
6.21 p.m.
Lady Kinloss: My Lords, it is just over three years since I visited Rampton in October 1979, but it was an unforgettable experience. The distressful state of mind of many of the patients was equalled only by one's admiration for the devotion and skill of the staff. It is because of this that it is most fitting that the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod of Borve, should have asked this Question this evening.
For more than three years publicity has been directed against certain members of the staff who may or may not have felt or displayed temper under extreme provocation. Some have paid the penalties of the law for it—others have a cloud hanging over them. Surely it is high time that this was brought to a conclusion for the sake of both nurses and patients. It is to be expected that mentally ill or mentally handicapped patients will have delusions about ill-treatment on the part of the staff and then forget what they have said. Is it possible that the memories of mentally ill or mentally handicapped patients can be relied upon over a short period, let alone a long one? We all know how difficult it often appears to be for details to be remembered by apparently sane witnesses.
What has happened to the code of practice for Rampton? Why has it not yet been formulated? I believe it is under urgent discussion, but could not the medical director promulgate a set of draft guidelines with the proviso that they could be modified or disused after the final code of practice has been agreed? The reason why the nurses recently withdrew from their escort duties but have since continued those duties was because of a lack of a code. One has to remember that nurses have from time to time to deal with violent patients and must be allowed to use such force as is
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necessary to restrain them, to protect not only themselves but others, and to prevent the unfortunate patients from hurting themselves.
I am glad to know that the review board proposed by Sir John Boynton in his report on Rampton has been set up and is operating. I was also glad to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod, say that it is giving great help. Could the Minister say whether it is likely to continue after its three years (I think that is the period) are up? Could the Minister when he replies also say whether nursing auxiliaries are or can he employed at Rampton? It seems to me to be wholly reasonable that no nurse should ever be alone with violent patients in view of the danger both of possible violence and of unfounded allegations. It is here perhaps that nursing auxiliaries could be of real help, where the highest degree of nursing skill is not involved.
My Lords, I should like to ask the Minister who is to reply what opportunities the staff have for transfer to other institutions. After several years nurses might well feel that they would benefit from a change of scene within their profession. Every week one reads in the newspapers of the posting of members of the armed services and others. Such changes could perhaps be beneficial to both the nurses and the patients, and maybe a grant or payment to help them with the move would be possible.
In The Times of last Saturday, 23rd October, there was a report about Rampton. Three nurses were acquitted of the charges. The offences were alleged to have taken place in 1961 and one nurse is now stated to be 71 years old. The judge said:
"There was no supporting evidence for the allegations, and since the events were said to have taken place 21 years ago, recollections could be dimmed."
Would the Minister say whether there are many such cases outstanding of stale charges? If there are, is it not time that there should be an end to it? How can there he peace at Rampton if nurses continue to be kept in suspense and under suspicion? How can the nurses under these circumstances be expected to impart a sense of security and confidence to the patients who are at Rampton precisely because they need those things?
6.16 p.m.
Lord Auckland: My Lords, although this is a very important Question directed towards a relatively narrow point and has been asked by my noble friend Lady Macleod with her usual sensitivity and compassion, this particular very disturbing Question raises wider issues, although I do not propose to go into that situation this evening.
I have not visited Rampton or any of the other special hospitals; but obviously, anybody who has served on the committee of a mental hospital will take a very deep interest in the situation at Rampton Hospital. One of the great problems of this hospital—and although I have not visited Rampton I am reasonably familiar with some of the territory around that area—is that it is six miles from Retford, which is the nearest main line station. The weekend services to Retford, particularly the Sunday rail services, are not particularly frequent. That means that people coming from the London area, for example, or from the South of England who may have

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relatives and friends at Rampton, find it difficult for weekend visiting. I understand from the admirable Boynton Report that Monday is the other day for official visits. This may be somewhat more convenient for travelling, but obviously it is not so for those who have other jobs to perform.
A few weeks ago there was a very disturbing series of television programmes on the women's prison at Styal in Cheshire. I only mention this because two of the women in this programme, who were looked after with great devotion by the wardresses of that hospital—and there was no question of any ill-treatment there—were, certainly so far as I could tell, confirmed psychopaths who should certainly be in an institution such as Rampton. But as my noble friend has already stated, there are a number of inmates or patients in Rampton already waiting to be transferred to other establishments. Here is the very difficult anomaly which must face any mental health tribunal, review board or indeed Her Majesty's Government. I should like to ask my noble friend: what consideration has been given to this point?
Two hundred and two recommendations were made in the outstandingly clear report from Sir John Boynton. Obviously, in an Unstarred Question, one cannot go into details about these, but one concerns the matter of night duty. I accept that many of these recommendations have been acted upon or are, hopefully, in course of being acted upon. I should like to ask: what is the present situation regarding night duty? Twenty years of consistent night duty, which is stated as having taken place so far as some nurses are concerned, seems to be an inordinately long time, particularly with such disturbed patients.
The League of Friends at Rampton and elsewhere perform the most marvellous job. Indeed, one wonders how any hospital, be it a general hospital, a psychiatric hospital or a special hospital of any kind, could function at all so far as the welfare of patients is concerned without the League of Friends; and so I should like to pay a real tribute to them.
Finally, I should like to ask my noble friend the Minister whether he can to tell your Lordships how many of the 202 recommendations regarding Rampton Hospital, as instanced in the Boynton Report, have been acted upon or are in the process of being acted upon. My noble friend, happily, has mentioned some of the more important points, such as transistor sets in rooms and improvements in bus transport and so on. I would hope that facilities will be made available for more of your Lordships and Members of the other place who have not yet visited these places to do so, because I believe that Members of both Houses of Parliament have a duty, and particularly those of us who are interested in this question of mental health at whatever level, to make ourselves acquainted with these establishments where very hardworking and hard-pressed nursing staffs are looking after extremely difficult patients who are frequently violent through no fault of their own.
6.34 p.m.
Lord Wallace of Coslany: My Lords, first may I say that the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod, in thanking her supporters, as she expected, in advance, has
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certainly got the results she asked for. Because so many Members have spoken, giving very briefly their expertise, my job from these Benches is to speak as briefly as possible in order to give the noble Lord as much time as he needs and deserves to reply.
Let us face it, the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod, has painted a serious and worrying picture which must give cause for concern, and in raising this issue for us tonight she has done a good service. I would particularly agree with her that it is a mistake to close or to envisage closing the school of nursing. This does have an effect on the morale of the nursing profession because a school of nursing does confer prestige on a hospital, and nurses are naturally very proud and conscious of the prestige of their profession. I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, that surely something could be evolved without having to call in the police.
I would also agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull—and how right she is—and also with the noble Lord, Lord Auckland, that the lack of visitors and distance from family can cause worry and unrest in addition to other things, and this does not help the patient's condition. That, of course, applies not only to Rampton, but to Her Majesty's prisons as well, as your Lordships will realise.
I should like to take this opportunity of paying tribute to the mental hospital staffs and particularly to the nurses, not only at Rampton, but generally throughout the country, because we must recognise that theirs is a very difficult job calling for extreme patience and skill. I recollect some years ago visiting a Durham hospital and going through the women's section (where a male has to be closely escorted) with a matron. It was very touching indeed to see some women touch the matron's cloak and give every sign of happiness in so doing. That impressed me so much that I cannot forget that particular picture.
Let us also recognise that some patients, because of their illness, can be unpredictable in behaviour and sudden violence may arise which puts the nurse at risk. This is something they always have to be prepared to face as part of their job in the course of their duties. I well remember many years ago having to help a male nurse whose skull had been fractured by a patient suddenly hitting him over the head with a chair. So it is not only a question of patient care; it is a matter of looking after the staff as well. In special hospitals, such as Rampton, obviously the risk of patients becoming violent is even greater, because of the special category of patients.
As has already been indicated, there is at present no code of practice and I agree that it would be extremely difficult to formulate such a code: but some nurses have to work in difficult conditions and at greater risk than their colleagues in other mental hospitals. As we are to evolve a code of practice generally for our mental hospitals, I am wondering whether it would not be possible in the proposals in the Bill which is still before Parliament to extend it to special hospitals, because in this case a different code of practice would need to be evolved.
I should like to ask the Minister for some reassurance on another point. Although I am open to correction on this, I understand that tribunals which will be set up under the new Bill would not apply to special hospitals, I hope I am wrong here, but if they

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can be brought forward for special hospitals I think it would ease the present position. I think that such tribunals, in the case of special hospitals, would have to be separately staffed in order to deal with the problems they would face. I would say in passing that it seems incredible that witnesses should be asked for evidence of incidents going back some 20 years. It looks as though there is some lag on tribunals in this case, which would he eased if we brought in special tribunals for the future.
Patients have rights, and legislation which is before Parliament will advance them. I refer specifically, of course, to the new Bill; but we must not overlook the fact that staff have rights too, and protection must also be extended to them. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, will be able to indicate the present position and say what steps, if any, the Government are prepared to take to improve the matters which have been so well outlined by the noble Baroness.
6.40 p.m.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I must, of course, start by thanking my noble friend for bringing this Question to the attention of your Lordships. I should like, before responding to the debate, to pay tribute to the valuable work which she does as national Chairman of the Leagues of Hospital Friends, but particularly for the interest she has shown in Rampton Hospital and the encouragement which she has given to the staff working in the hospital during a very difficult period. The League of Friends of Rampton Hospital, under the chairmanship of Canon Mason, have given considerable support over the years to patients at the hospital, to patients' visitors and to the staff, and I gladly include them in this tribute. I know something of the great lengths to which my noble friend has gone in giving her personal support to Canon Mason and his colleagues and to all at the hospital.
Since I took up my present ministerial appointment, in which I have a particular concern with mental health services, I have visited a large number of hospitals and other units, to get a first-hand impression of the work which they are doing. I have a particular concern with the special hospitals and I did, in fact, visit Rampton Hospital, as part of my preparation for this debate, on Friday, 15th October. This provided me with a most valuable opportunity to meet the local managers of the hospital, and staff representatives, and to visit many of the wards and departments where I was able to talk to a large number of patients and individual members of the staff.
I think I should first make some general comments about the special hospital service as a whole, before moving to the particular situation at Rampton Hospital. There are four special hospitals, the others being Broadmoor Hospital in Berkshire—probably the best known—and two hospitals situated just north of Liverpool, which I have also visited recently. These are Moss Side Hospital, which has been in use since the 1930s, and the completely new Park Lane Hospital, which is still being built, although it already accommodates some 200 patients in facilities which I believe are as good as could be found anywhere in the world. The buildings at the other special hospitals obviously do not compare with these, but the care provided in them is, of course, of an equally high standard.
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The four special hospitals are provided in accordance with Section 4 of the National Health Service Act 1977, which places on the Secretary of State for Social Services a duty,
"to provide and maintain establishments for persons subject to detention under the Mental Health Act 1959 who, in his opinion, require treatment under conditions of special security on account of their dangerous, violent or criminal propensities".
Since the point is sometimes misunderstood, I think I should emphasise that this is the only basis upon which people are admitted to special hospitals. Most of the patients have been sent there from the courts, but the special hospitals are places of treatment and not in any sense of punishment. In fact, nearly 25 per cent. of all the patients in these hospitals were not admitted in connection with any offence, but were transferred from other psychiatric hospitals or admitted direct from the community.
There are hundreds of thousands of people who at any one time are suffering from some form of mental disorder. Seven thousand people are compulsorily detained under the Mental health Act. Of these, only 1,750 are in the special hospitals. We are thus concerned with a tiny minority of mental patients who, for some time at least, require to be treated under conditions of special security. Unlike all other hospitals in the National Health Service, these four hospitals are the direct responsibility of my department, and the 2,800 staff who work in them are employees of my department. The hospitals are, as I have said, provided under the terms of the National Health Service Act, and the care and treatment given in them is part of the total spectrum of health care which the National Health Service provides.
I turn now to Rampton Hospital. This hospital is situated in a rural area near Retford in Nottinghamshire. My noble friend described it as austere countryside. But I must say that I thought it was rather beautiful when I visited the district the other day. Originally opened in 1912, the hospital was responsible from 1920 onwards for the care of mentally handicapped people under secure conditions, when it operated under the direction of the former Board of Control. Since 1959, the hospital has been the direct responsibility of my department. The number of patients in the hospital has fallen significantly in recent years. At the present time, as my noble friend said, there are about 650 patients—three-quarters of them male and one-quarter female. There has also been a substantial shift in the types of patient in the hospital; less than half of the total are now suffering from mental handicap. I will deal with the point raised by my noble friend Lord Renton in a moment.
At Rampton Hospital, as in all the special hospitals, a full range of therapeutic treatment is provided and there is a variety of industrial and other occupations. Care is provided by a number of disciplines, including doctors, nurses, psychologists and social workers. In total, there are about 1,000 staff employed at the hospital, some 670 of whom are nursing staff. I think it may be helpful to quote these figures—some 650 patients cared for by 1,000 staff—to indicate to your Lordships the scale of the task which is undertaken in this hospital.
On 22nd May, 1979, as my noble friend reminded your Lordships, a film about Rampton Hospital was

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shown on independent television. The film, which was entitled "The Secret Hospital", included many serious allegations of ill-treatment of patients by members of the staff at the hospital. The then Secretary of State, my right honourable friend Mr. Patrick Jenkin, referred these allegations to the Director of Public Prosecutions, who arranged for the allegations to be investigated by the Nottinghamshire police. It is the protracted nature of these inquiries which has given rise to the concern expressed by my noble friend and other noble Lords and Baronesses who have spoken this evening.
Mr. Jenkin also announced his intention to institute a thorough review of the organisation and facilities at the hospital. A review team was subsequently appointed under the chairmanship of Sir John Boynton. In October 1980, the review team produced a comprehensive report, which was published in full and which included more than 200 separate recommendations. If your Lordships will allow me, I will deal with some of those recommendations in a moment. But, for now, may I just refer to the central one, which was the establishment of a special health authority, to be known as the Rampton Hospital Review Board, to take over responsibility for the local management of the hospital and to ensure the implementation of the Boynton team's recommendations.
The review board assumed its responsibility in September 1981. The chairman of the board, who devotes two day a week—as well as a lot of other time—to the management of the hospital, is Mr. Leslie Teeman, a leading businessman in the East Midlands. Mr. Teeman and his colleagues on the board, originally five and now six, undertook a challenging task when they accepted their appointments. Changes were needed at the hospital, but it was not a case of starting from scratch. As the Boynton team had acknowledged, and as the members of the review board came to recognise, there was already much that was good about Rampton Hospital, a fact which has received all too little recognition in the various public comments. The staff of the hospital were providing dedicated care for some of the most seriously mentally disordered patients in the country. All of those staff had been bruised by the general accusations which were then flying about. Rampton Hospital is a human institution and it is not surprising that the morale of many staff in the hospital had been undermined, initially by the sensational accusations being made, and subsequently by the extensive, but entirely necessary, police inquiries at the hospital.
Thus, the task facing the review board was to help restore confidence and morale; to build on what was good—and, as I have said, there was much that was good in this hospital—and to seek to make changes where needed in the light of the Boynton recommendations. This task called for high qualities—of patience and understanding, as well as imagination, vigour and determination. I am very glad to acknowledge the sympathetic and enthusiastic manner in which the members of the board have set about their task. One of the national characteristics, from which we so greatly benefit in this country, is the willingness
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of able people to undertake public service often in difficult circumstances. The service which the members of the Rampton Hospital Review Board are giving typifies so much of what is best in our society and all of us owe them a debt of gratitude and the assurance of our full encouragement.
My noble friend has drawn the attention of your Lordships to the effect on staff morale at Rampton Hospital of the protracted police inquiries. I can assure her that my colleagues and I are fully aware of the problems which have arisen. Both we and the chairman of the review board, while recognising the difficult task facing those responsible for conducting the investigations, have drawn the attention of the prosecuting authorities to the effects of the protracted inquiries on staff morale and thus on the effective management of the hospital, and the consequent need to complete the investigations as soon as this could properly be done. My right honourable and learned friend the Attorney-General acknowledged this problem when he replied to an adjournment debate in another place on this subject on 2nd March this year.
I think it is important, however, while recognising the difficulties, that we should take great care to avoid saying anything which might have a further adverse effect upon morale. The review board members are seeking to restore both the morale and the confidence of the staff of the hospital. I believe, from what I saw on my recent visit, that they have achieved a great deal and I hope that I, too, was able to make a modest contribution when I was there. We must give them positive encouragement in this important aspect of their work.
My noble friend referred particularly to the effect on morale of the loss of the hospital's status as a nurse training school. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Coslany, mentioned this, and at least one other noble Lord or noble Baroness. The decision to withdraw approval from the school was taken by the General Nursing Council, which is, of course, an independent professional body with statutory responsibility for such matters. I am aware of the background to the GNC decision, which I do not, of course, question. I do, however, agree very much with my noble friend's view that the existence of an approved nurse training school in a hospital is an important influence for good; and there is no doubt that the withdrawal of approval from the school was a further severe blow to management and to staff at Rampton Hospital.
A great deal of work has been done at the hospital since the approval was withdrawn to deal with the various matters which have given rise to criticism. I understand that the nursing management of the hospital will shortly be submitting an application for reinstatement of the school's approval. This is a matter entirely for the GNC to decide but I wish to say in plain terms that all of us concerned with the management of the special hospitals very much hope that in the light of the new circumstances the application will be successful and that basic nurse training approval will be restored at Rampton Hospital just as soon as possible.
I turn now from the particular concern of my own department with its responsibility for the management of the special hospitals to the question of police presence in Rampton Hospital. The special police inquiry team which has been carrying out the inquiry

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into allegations against some members and former members of the staff at the hospital was set up following the request to the Director of Public Prosecutions in May 1979 to which I have already referred. I am aware that my noble friend has been in correspondence about these matters with my right honourable and learned friend the Attorney-General, and I have of course consulted my right honourable and learned friend about the response which I should make on this aspect of my noble friend's Question.
Let me first make clear the Government's attitude to abuse or neglect of patients. We are aware that in the special hospitals and in mental hospitals in the National Health Service an enormous amount of care and treatment of the highest standard is given to patients by the dedicated staff who work in those hospitals. But we also know that mistreatment or neglect can occasionally occur, and I say unequivocally that where there is any evidence of such mistreatment or neglect it will not be tolerated.
It is also sometimes alleged that some members of staff cover up the misdeeds of colleagues out of a misdirected sense of loyalty, or bring pressure on others not to complain if they see any wrongdoing. Our position on this also is absolutely clear. I can do no better than to quote the words of my right honourable friend Mr. Jenkin when, as Secretary of State for Social Services, he addressed an international psychiatric nursing conference in September 1980. He said then:
"Management must support those who complain; there must be thorough investigations; and victimisation or intimidation of those who are doing their duty must be ruthlessly stamped on."
I am sure that all of your Lordships would endorse those sentiments.
So our attitude to any wrongdoing against patients is clear. It is totally unacceptable and must be rooted out wherever it occurs. But we recognise that the kind of exhaustive inquiries which may he needed to establish the truth regarding allegations of wrongdoing can have a depressive effect on the hospital concerned, not only for those against whom allegations might lie but for the general body of the hospital's staff who have to carry on the daily business of caring for patients against a background of suspicion and often ill-informed comment. It is this problem to which my noble friend has drawn the attention of your Lordships in the case of Rampton Hospital.
The position at Rampton Hospital is that, following the reference of this question to the DPP and the setting up of the special police inquiry team, more than a thousand separate allegations were received. The police team was thus faced with a mammoth task of investigation to enable the prosecuting authorities to decide whether there were cases in which the evidence required prosecutions to be brought. The allegations made were of many different kinds. All of them had to be looked into. Some were very serious, others trivial. The vast majority of the allegations received have not been substantiated, or were of a character which could not have given rise to any question of prosecution. But in some instances the prosecuting authorities were satisfied that the evidence did justify charges. This is not the occasion to comment on the nature of particular allegations. That
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would be quite wrong, especially as some trials are still to take place, but your Lordships will wish to know that, of the cases so far concluded, one person has been convicted of the single charge made against him, three people have each been convicted of one or more of the charges made against them, and are currently seeking leave to appeal; nine people have been acquitted of all the charges against them (three of these were involved in the recent case in which the judge, after hearing the prosecution evidence, directed the jury to acquit the defendants); and the charges against two people have been dropped.
My noble friend, who has taken a close interest in these matters, now asks explicitly for a date after which there will be no more police presence at the hospital. I understand completely why she seeks that undertaking, but I am afraid I must tell her that an undertaking cannot be given in that form. There are two main reasons for this. First, so long as criminal proceedings are continuing—and it may be some time before the remaining charges now outstanding will have all been finally disposed of—the police may have to visit the hospital to obtain information required by those responsible for conducting the prosecutions in connection with the charges which have already been brought.
Thus we must expect that the police inquiry team set up to investigate the allegations at Rampton Hospital will continue in existence until the last of the outstanding charges has been disposed of I should emphasise that responsibility for the inquiry team rests, as it must do, with the Chief Constable of Nottinghamshire who has been responsible for conducting these investigations on behalf of the Director of Public Prosecutions. It will be for the chief constable to decide if and when the inquiry team should be disbanded. But I can inform your Lordships that the inquiry team which, at the peak of the investigations, included 20 police officers has now been reduced to six, with two supervisory officers. This is a clear indication that, as we would all hope, this matter is now nearing its end. Thus, the first reason why I cannot give the undertaking which my noble friend seeks is the essentially practical one, that the work which this police inquiry team is doing is not yet completed and will not be completed before the outstanding charges have all been disposed of.
The second reason why I cannot give the undertaking is more fundamental and is a matter of principle. The assurance being sought is that beyond a certain date the police will pay no more visits to the hospital in relation to the matters which the special inquiry team was set up to investigate, except possibly for some limited purpose. I am told by my right honourable and learned friend the Attorney General that some allegations are still being made. Generally, these are not revealing any fresh matters of substance. But if some matter should be brought to notice which indicated that a serious offence might have been committed, clearly the police must be free to investigate it. We have no grounds for supposing that any such matter remains uninvestigated or undiscovered; but it would be quite wrong in principle to give an undertaking in terms which could be seen as preventing the police from properly investigating any serious allegation which might arise either at Rampton Hospital or elsewhere, no matter how unlikely the

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possibility of any such allegation might seem at present. There could be no question of Ministers seeking to interfere with the actions of the police in such a matter.
I hope the House and my noble friend will recognise that I have chosen my words with care and that there are sound reasons why I cannot, on behalf of the Government, give the undertaking which she seeks. I hope, however, that the explanation which I have given her will serve as some reassurance both to her and to the management and staff at Rampton Hospital that we have now reached a stage where we would expect that any continuing police presence in the hospital is likely to be limited to inquiries relating to charges which have already been brought or to any fresh matter of substance that might be brought to notice. I believe that goes a very long way towards meeting my noble friend's point. But I am, in fact, able to go even further—and I am very glad to be able to do so.
My noble friend is probably aware that the police inquiry team recently questioned, under caution, five more members of the staff at Rampton Hospital. Four of them have since been told that they are to be charged and the fifth has been told he will not be. I am now able to tell my noble friend and your Lordships, on the authority of my right honourable and learned friend the Attorney-General, that those charges are the last which are to be brought as a result of the information obtained by the police inquiry team over the last three and a half years. No further charges are to be preferred as a result of those investigations. As I have indicated, if any new matters of substance should be brought to notice, they must be properly investigated, but I am sure that my noble friend will have been glad to receive the information I have just given. It will. I know, be widely welcomed by the management and staff at Rampton Hospital.
I have already spoken at some length and I hope that your Lordships will forgive me if I do not deal with individual points which have been raised in this debate. But I will certainly write to noble Lords who have raised them with a full response. The end of the ordeal which the hospital has now been suffering for more than three years really is, at last, in sight. As I said earlier. I have recently met and talked to many people in the hospital. I have seen clear evidence of the valuable work undertaken by staff in the hospital, often under very difficult circumstances—work which few of us would want to share. The tribute which I wish to pay to them is in no sense rhetoric or formality. Society asks these people to undertake on its behalf one of the most difficult jobs that anyone can be asked to do. We rarely show any recognition of the value of this work, usually preferring to sensationalise or criticise; but my colleagues and I certainly do recognise its value. We wish to give to staff and management the support they deserve and to encourage them to look to the future with a positive resolve to continue to care for their patients with commitment and dedication and at the same time to keep fully abreast of new developments in treatment and care.
Before I end, I want also to repeat my tribute to Mr. Teeman and his review board. They took on their task at a time of great difficulty for the hospital and have rendered a considerable service, not least to the
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patients. We are indeed most grateful to them. I have sought to make the most of the timely opportunity provided by my noble friend to deal with the understandable anxieties prevalent at Rampton Hospital. I have been able to give some new assurances which I hope will be widely read—not least at the hospital itself.

Insurance Companies Bill [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons on Friday last, agrred to with amendments; the amendments were printed pursuant to Standing order 47 (No. 230).
Criminal Justice Bill
Returned from the Commons with certain amendments agreed to; with another amendment agreed to but with a consequential amendment to the Bill; with certain other amendments agreed to with amendments; and with the remaining amendments disagreed to but with amendments made in lieu thereof; the Commons amendments to be printed pursuant to Standing Order 47 (No. 231).
Cornwall County Council Bill [H.L.]
The Queen's consent signified and Bill reported from the Select Committee on unopposed provisions with amendments.
County of Lancashire Bill [H.L.]
The Queen's consent signified and Bill reported from the Select Committee on unopposed provisions with amendments.
Epsom and Walton Downs Regulation Bill [H.L.]
Reported from the Unopposed Bill Committee with amendments.
Nottinghamshire County Council Bill [H.L.]
Reported from the Select Committee on unopposed provisions with amendments.
British Transport Docks Bill
The Examiner's certificate that no further Standing Order is applicable: Ordered to lie on the Table.

Southern Water Authority Bill
Returned from the Commons with the amendments agreed to.
House adjourned at three minutes past seven o'clock.