Lords Sitting of 7 December 1983

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

The Truck Acts
Lord Harris of High Cross: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what proposals they have in mind for the repeal of the Truck Acts.
The Minister of State, Privy Council Office, and Minister for the Arts (The Earl of Gowrie): My Lords, in the new year the Government will issue for consultation proposals to provide up-to-date protections on deductions from pay. Subsequently the Government will take the earliest opportunity to repeal the Truck Acts and related legislation and simultaneously to enact new provisions concerning deductions and the protection of employees.
Lord Harris of High Cross: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for that encouraging reply. I wonder if I may question him a little more on the timing of the Government's repeal. In the first place I should like to ask whether the Government have gone through the preparatory stage of denouncing the ILO Convention No. 95, which is necessary to clear the way. Secondly, bearing in mind that every week that we delay in removing these antique statutes £1,500 million in money is shunted around the country on pay day and exposed to wage snatches and that kind of hazard, will the noble Earl press his colleagues to move forward with all possible speed in this matter?
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, I share the dislike of the Truck Acts that is felt by the noble Lord, Lord Harris. I can confirm that the ILO Convention No. 95 has been denounced by the Government. That was done on 16th September of this year, and we therefore cease to be bound by its terms on 16th September, 1984. We can introduce new legislation after that. We must of course get it right, and that is why we shall be initiating consultations early in the new year.
Lord Blyton: My Lords, is the noble Earl the Minister aware that in the last century the Truck Acts had to be passed to prevent the exploitation of the working class? Surely in this age we are not going to see a Conservative Government abolish the Truck Acts and leave working people absolutely open to exploitation by their employers?
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, I have no doubt that the Truck Acts served a useful and desirable purpose
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in the last century, but that is not to say that they are of any use in the present century.
Lord Orr-Ewing: My Lords, will my noble friend bear in mind that it may take some time for the Truck Acts to be repealed by both Houses of Parliament? Would it not be a good idea, pending release from our obligations under the ILO, to get on with the job so that we are ready to bring in the new legislation immediately we are released from the ILO undertakings? Also, in view of the fact that he is the Minister with responsibility for civil servants, will my noble friend say whether the Civil Service is setting the pace by paying staff by cheque? Will he also say what incentives he is providing to that effect?
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, it is precisely because we want to make some haste in this matter that we are to issue consultation documents in the new year. In respect of the Civil Service, the Government are seeking to encourage the use of cashless pay and simplified payroll systems throughout the economy. All new entrants to the non-industrial sections of the Civil Service are required to accept monthly pay by credit transfer as part of their conditions of service. Most non-industrial civil servants are already paid monthly by credit transfer. There has also been a recent inducement scheme encouraging staff to transfer to cashless pay on a monthly basis, the inducement being £100 to each individual who so transfers.
Industrial civil servants are, of course, constrained by the Truck Acts and there is therefore no present possibility of compelling staff to accept a transfer to cashless pay.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, can the noble Earl indicate to the House whether the people responding to the consultative documents, such as the trade unions representing the low-paid workers, will receive better consideration of the points that they put than they did some time ago when the present Government were scrapping legislation that had been placed on the statute book years ago? That legislation, which was in fact passed by Conservative Governments, protected the low-paid workers, and it was scrapped in what some believe was a contravention of the ILO agreements existing at the time.
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, the views of trade unions and others will of course be fully taken into account.

Drug Addiction
2.41 p.m.
Lord Boothby: My Lords I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to combat the rising level of drug addiction in the country, particularly among young people.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Elton): My Lords, the Government are

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taking steps to prevent the illegal importation and supply of controlled drugs within the United Kingdom by improved enforcement action by H.M Customs and Excise and the police. We are seeking to reduce supplies at source by increasing our contribution to the United Nations Fund for Drug Abuse Control and by offering additional aid for law enforcement activities in Pakistan. We are making a further £6 million available over the next three years for new initiatives in the treatment and rehabilitation services for drugs misusers. In addition, we are looking at ways of dissuading young people in particular from misusing drugs, following the recent completion of a report on prevention by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs.
Lord Boothby: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that encouraging reply. May I ask him whether the Government realise that the bumper crops of the opium poppy all over the Far East, but particularly in Pakistan, have made it increasingly difficult to control the import of drugs to the West, and that the traffic has increased three-fold in the past three or four years—particularly, for example, in the Irish Republic and in Scotland where it is now reaching dangerous proportions? May I further ask the noble Lord whether Her Majesty's Government will strengthen the anti-drug forces in this country as well as making contributions abroad, including Customs controls? Will they restrict prescriptions for certain drugs under the NHS, and within that to a limited number of doctors, so that a sharp eye can be kept on the number of prescriptions? In conclusion, may I ask the noble Lord whether he realises that the number of drug pushers in this country is really getting frightening? I do not know what steps can be taken, such as more police, but the number of pushers is increasing. A new lot have landed just close to where I live and I sometimes go down to look at them—not to purchase, but to watch their activities.
Lord Elton: My Lords, if I may begin with the end of my noble friend's supplementary question, may I encourage him to inform the police of the activities that he watches. I am sure that that would be helpful. As to his wider questions, I can tell him that the Goverment of Pakistan are already well aware of the problems resulting from the illicit importation of heroin, which has been illicitly produced in their country. They are making substantial efforts with the support of many countries in the world, including ourselves, to stop the manufacture and export of illicit heroin. We have offered £180,000 in the first instance as aid for law enforement activities in that country. We are very much seized of the threat of this evil trade and the best reply I can add to what I have already said to the noble Lord is that the number of officers in Her Majesty's Customs and Excise, who are specifically allocated to the investigation of drug trafficking, has been increased by 40 per cent. over the past five years.
Baroness Sharpies: My Lords, can my noble friend say whether there is much difference now in the street prices of heroin and cannabis?
Lord Elton: My Lords, I am afraid that I cannot give the figures that my noble friend wants, though I will try to do so. But I can tell her that the street value of heroin seized in 1982 was £33.3million. Regrettably, I cannot tell her the equivalent price of cannabis.
Baroness Macleod of Borve: My Lords, may I thank my noble friend the Minister very sincerely for giving us a very helpful and encouraging reply to the Question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Boothby. May I ask him whether the £6 million, which will be enormously helpful to all those who are trying to help in this field, is likely to be given to helping, via hostels, those people who are now drug addicts? If so, that would be of great assistance.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I think I had best write to my noble friend, because it will be employed in a number of ways which can best be described by my colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Security.
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, are the Government taking any steps to gather any further information on the tragic effects of glue sniffing?
Lord Elton: My Lords, earlier this year the Government consulted statutory professional and voluntary bodies on the scope for additional Government initiatives on solvent abuse and on whether legislative controls would assist the work of local agencies. This month the Government will announce the outcome of that consultation. The Government also consulted retailers in November on the question of voluntary restraint in the sale of solvents. We are pursuing further the possibility of drawing up guidelines for use by the retail trade.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, is the Minister aware that throughout the country many parents are worried that their young people may be involved with drugs, and can he give some advice on what they should do and from whom they should seek help?
Lord Elton: My Lords, the anxiety is shared by Her Majesty's Government. The first thing that parents should do, in my view, is to keep in close touch and communication with their children, so that they can notice any changes in their characteristic behaviour. If parents are worried, and if the children are of school age, they should consult with the school and, in any case, with the medical authorities. I should add that that is a personal contribution. but I think it is sound.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that we on this side fully support him when he talks about the menace of this evil trade, and that we will support the Government in any measures that they may take to fight this evil trade? In the light of the questions that have been asked in the House this afternoon, does he think there is a case for a full inquiry into all the implications of this trade and its growth and into the need to disseminate information about it throughout the country, especially in the schools? Does he not believe that such an inquiry—although we are aware that the Minister and his colleagues have a great deal of information—would be helpful at this stage, before things get worse?
Lord Elton: My Lords, the whole area of illicit drug trafficking and its results is a matter of close personal concern to my right honourable and learned friend, who is well seized of the problems. Nonetheless, I will bring the noble Lord's suggestions to his attention.
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that, while it is good that there is a 40 per cent. increase in those Customs and Excise officers who are specifically dealing with drugs, the officers themselves are very concerned about the general drop in the numbers? Because they are scattered throughout the ports and other entries to this country, there can be loopholes for drugs to come in out with the places where there are anti-drug officers.
Lord Elton: My Lords, the question is specifically about the Customs and Excise effort against drugs, which has increased by 40 per cent. If the noble Lord wishes to address himself to the wider implications of Customs and Excise policy, that, I am afraid, is another question.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, in view of the case heard before the General Medical Council in the past 10 days or so, would it not be relatively easy for the Government to tighten up on the abuse of drug prescriptions, particularly in the health service?
Lord Elton: My Lords, doctors who prescribe controlled drugs irresponsibly may be made subject to direction by the Home Secretary restricting their ability to prescribe such drugs. The Home Secretary has issued recently three such directions.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, in his reply to me the Minister said that parents should go to the teachers; but a great deal of drug abuse happens after the children have left school. If it is to the teachers that parents must go, to whom must the teachers go?
Lord Elton: My Lords, I am afraid that I am not being of much help to my noble friend. The important point is that children's lives should not fall into two or three separate parts but that the people who are pastorally concerned with them should know the whole child, which means close consultation between the parent and the teacher. There is another area of activity, but how that is pursued must be a matter for every family to resolve itself. If, however, there is a drug abuse problem, medical and other resources are available to parents. I shall certainly give to my noble friend in correspondence closer directions as to these resources, and if she cares to put down a Question for Written Answer, your Lordships will be able to share the information with her.

Airguns: Safety
2.52 p.m.
Viscount Thurso: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what measures they propose to take to curb the careless
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discharge of airguns, such as has recently caused several cases of wounding, one of which resulted in the loss of an eye, in Scotland.
The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Lord Gray of Contin): My Lords, the careless discharge of air weapons is a matter of concern to the Government, to the police and to the public. My right honourable friends the Secretaries of State for Scotland and for the Home Department have, therefore, recently launched a national publicity campaign on the matter. This draws attention to the risks involved, to the safe use of air weapons within the law, and to the merits of belonging to a recognised shooting club. It will run until Christmas, and I am glad to say that the police, who are taking a leading part, are receiving full co operation from members of the Gun Trade Association and from many sporting and other organisations.
Viscount Thurso: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord the Minister for his helpful Answer. May I ask him whether he is satisfied that the regulations are sufficiently strong and wide enough to control the danger which arises from the careless discharge of air weapons? Does he have in mind any specific measures which might be added to those which are already on the statute book or in regulations?
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, I can tell the noble Viscount that the problem is not one of inadequate controls, but rather of difficulty in enforcing the controls. These are already more restrictive than is generally supposed. For example, a firearms certificate is needed for the purchase or possession of the more powerful air weapons, and there are age restrictions on the purchase and use of all air weapons by youngsters. At present the Government have no immediate plans to change the existing regulations.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord the Minister recollects the recent debate in this House about violent crime and remembers that on that occasion suggestions were made from this Front Bench about the inadequacy of the licensing procedure for all these weapons? Does the Minister agree that a further inquiry into the matter by the Government is necessary?
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his comments. My attention has been drawn to what was said in the debate to which he has referred. We recognise the concern about the adequacy of the controls on shotguns, but the general link between armed crime and the private possession of firearms is not clear-cut. We are not aware of any direct, unambiguous evidence that tightening the controls would have a significant effect on crime levels. As I said in my earlier reply, the Government at present have no proposals to change the existing regulations, but we are, of course, constantly overseeing the situation and we shall take any necessary action, if and when the occasion arises. In the meantime, no proposals are afoot.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether he is aware that to date the campaign which has been launched has had a very

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limited effect, and that by this time next year we shall probably, have forgotten about it, anyway? In view of that fact, will my noble friend consider issuing leaflets informing people about the law, the power of the weapons, and the need for care at the point of sale, and with each sale, of airguns? Furthermore, will my noble friend hold talks to that effect with the manufacturers?
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, I can tell my noble friend that such literature has already been made available. The leaflet, Gun Sense is Good Sense, is now available in many shops which sell firearms. The police and various other bodies al co-operating in order to try to ensure that the leaflet is as widely available as possible to those who might be purchasing airguns of any description.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, will the noble Lord the Minister forgive me and not think me discourteous if I ask him one further question on a matter which I know is of great concern to the House? He stated that there was no unambiguous evidence about a connection between the licensing of firearms as at present regulated and crimes of violence. In view of the ambiguous nature of that reply, does not the Minister consider that it might be worthwhile to carry out an experiment to see whether strengthening the licensing laws results in a reduction in crime levels?
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, this matter has been very exhaustively examined by successive Governments over the years. The evidence which has been available to them confirms my earlier remarks. I cannot add to the answer which I gave earlier to the noble Lord.
Viscount Thurso: My Lords, will the noble Lord accept that there are two very simple ways in which the danger from air weapons—I stress air weapons, as opposed to firearms, rifles, and so forth—could be reduced? First, it could be made compulsory that before discharging an air weapon a person should be required to have the written permission of the owner of the ground. In the case of a public park the owner would he the local authority. Secondly, if written permission were given, the person who gave it would be jointly liable for any damage caused by the discharge of the weapon. That would very simply bring under control a great deal of the careless discharge of airguns.
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, of course I attach importance to what the noble Viscount has said, but the evidence does not bear out his comments. Indeed, very many of the cases on land of the kind to which he refers are the very types of case in which the greatest precautions are taken. I am afraid that I cannot agree with the noble Viscount. I do not believe that his suggestion would be particularly advantageous.
Viscount Thurso: My Lords, I hesitate to come back on this question, but the noble Lord the Minister has been in your Lordships' House for only a short time and obviously has not had the opportunity to hear me before on this subject. I would ask him whether he is aware that one of the situations where the greatest
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danger exists arises in a public park or along the foreshore? The average boy or member of the public thinks that in such a place he can shoot without let or hindrance. He believes that all he is shooting at are tin cans; but the danger from discharge is doubled by the fact that if he is on a foreshore where there are rocks, a shot can ricochet. Will not the noble Lord perhaps consider the matter again and write to me?
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, I am afraid that the best assurance which I can give to the noble Viscount is that I shall study very carefully the record of our deliberations. I cannot give him any further assurance.

The "General Belgrano"
2.59 p.m.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the Wall Street Journal was correct in reprinting on 29thNovember the statement that the Prime Minister had before her on 2nd May 1982 reports of the Peruvian peace proposals and of the Argentine junta meeting on them, together with copies of the order that the "Belgrano" return to port.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Young):No, my Lords. As my right honourable friend the Prime Minister said in another place on 1st December, the information in this article is totally and utterly wrong.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, will the noble Baroness accept that she herself, on behalf of her right honourable friend in another place, stated that the news of the Peruvian peace plan did not appear before the Prime Minister until three hours after the "General Belgrano" was sunk? If the noble Baroness, on behalf of her right honourable friend, is now saying that the Wall Street Journal was wrong in both its Asian edition on 3rd October and in its European edition on 29th November, then is her right honourable friend going to take the Wall Street Journal to court and sue for defamation of character—or is she going to leave the record as it is?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I will confirm to the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby, and to the House, what I said at some length on an earlier occasion on 13th July. I said then that news of the Peruvian proposals did not reach London until more than three hours after the "General Belgrano" had been sunk in the evening, London time, on 2nd May 1982. On the noble Lord's second point, the Wall Street Journal is a reputable newspaper and it is entitled to publish what its editors wish. However, I am bound to say that I was very surprised that they chose to publish an article which included malicious, totally unsubstantiated and offensive allegations about my right honourable friend the Prime Minister.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, is the noble Baroness not aware that the article was first printed in

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the Asian edition on 3rd October, when no comment was made from the Government on this side? The article was then deliberately reprinted 59 days later in the European edition. Are the Government not taking any action against the Wall Street Journal for what is defamation both of the character of the Prime Minister and of the British Government?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I have indicated what my response is. The fact that the article was printed twice does not make it any better, and we regard the whole matter with a sense of surprise and outrage.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that Her Majesty's Government, although responsible for many things, are not responsible for the Wall Street Journal?
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, but will the—
Noble Lords: No!
Lord Hatch of Lusby: Will the noble Baroness please answer the second part of my question? Will the noble Baroness answer whether the Government intend to take any action against the Wall Street Journal for printing what is alleged to be a pack of lies?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I have already answered that question and I am not going to add anything further.

Business
Lord Denham: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 this afternoon my noble friend the Leader of the House will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement that is to be made in another place on the European Council, 4th to 6th December. That will be followed by my noble friend Lord Long, who will repeat a Statement on the murder of Edgar Graham.
It may also be for the convenience of those Members of your Lordships' House who are members of the Procedure Committee to know that it is proposed that the meeting arranged for 4 o'clock may have to be postponed but will be held as near to that time as is compatible with those Statements.

House of Lords Offices
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Aberdare): My Lords, I beg to move that the Second Report from the Select Committee be agreed to.
The Report read as follows:
1. Administration Sub-Committee
Lord Gibson was appointed to the Administration Sub-Committee in the place of Lord Reilly.
2. Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod
The Committee were informed of the wishes of the Administration Sub-Committee to retain for a further year the services of Black Rod, Sir David House, as their Agent after his present appointment expires on 19th January 1984.
The Committee agreed to this proposal.
3. Refreshment Department
A statement of accounts for the financial year 1982–83 was laid before the Committee and approved.
4. Parliament Office
The Clerk of the Parliaments informed the Committee that he had promoted Mr. J. A. Valiance White to be Principal Clerk of the Judicial Office and Taxing Officer for Judicial Costs and Mr. C. A. J. Mitchell to be Chief Clerk, Public Bill Office to fill the consequential vacancies resulting from the death of Mr. J. V. D. Webb on 23rd October 1983.
The Committee were also informed of the appointments of Mr. Edward Christopher Ollard and Miss Mary Elizabeth De Groose as Clerks from 17th October 1983.
5. Revised scales of pay and allowances
The Committee confirmed the application to staff of the House of Lords of the following Civil Service memoranda:—

CM/615 Pay of the Higher Civil Service.

CM/620 Subsistence and meal allowances.

CM/621 Revised rates of pay for Cerical and Executive Officers.

IM83/4 Revised rates of pay for industrial staff.

CM/622 London Weighting.

The Committee also authorised a revision in the temporary allowance paid to the Secretary to the Chairman of Committees and the payment of an allowance for extra responsibilities to one Executive Officer in the Accountant's office.
6. Official Shorthand Writer
The Committee approved a revision in the scale of fees payable to the Official Shorthand Writer.
7. Computer Development Office
The Committee were informed of a proposal to provide additional staff for the Computer Development Office and authorised payment of a proportion of the total cost.
8. Superannuation
The Committee were notified of the following awards:

(a) Pension and lump sum to Sir Peter Henderson, KCB. Clerk of the Parliaments, who retired on 27th July 1983.

(b) Death Gratuity to personal representative of J. V. D. Webb, former Principal Clerk, Judicial Office who died on 23rd October 1983 and Widow's Pension to Mrs. E. A. Webb.

(c) Pension and lump sum to Mr. G. P. Wilkins, Higher Executive Officer, who retired on 1st November 1983.

(d) Pension and lump sum to Mr. A. R. Alder, Principal Doorkeeper, who retired on 24th October 1983.

(e) Pension and lump sum to Mr M. W. Payne, Doorkeeper, who retired on 21st October 1983.

(f) Pension and lump sum to Mr. B. G. Bunting, BEM, Doorkeeper, who retired on 14th November 1983.

(g) Pension and lump sum to Mrs. M. Carr, Waitress, who retired on 15th August 1983.

(h) Pension and lump sum to Miss V. Forrester, Plateroom Assistant, who retired on 15th August 1983.

(i) Short service payment to Miss L. Bell, Servery Assistant, who retired on grounds of ill-health on 1st September 1983.

(j) Preserved pension and lump sum to Mrs. A. Pull, Senior Personal Secretary, who resigned on 28th January 1983.

(k) Notional Transfer Value in respect of Mr. J. Robinson, Reporter, who transferred to the House of Commons on 18th April 1983.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

The Ethnic and Religious Minorities
3.4 p.m.
Viscount Buckmaster Viscount Buckmaster rose to call attention to the situation of the ethnic and religious minorities in Great Britain; and to move for Papers.
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, as I contemplate the vastness and complexity of my task in introducing this debate to your Lordships' House this afternoon, I see myself in my mind's eye standing at the edge of a large swimming pool with the deep end marked "E" for ethnic and the shallow end marked "R" for religious. Just as in any swimming pool, it is impossible to say precisely where the deep end finishes

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and the shallow end begins, so it is with the two subjects we are considering this afternoon. By that, I mean that ethnic and religious problems merge almost imperceptibly. We have, for example. the Pakistanis whose problems here stem both from their racial origins and from their deeply held religious beliefs as Moslems. On the other hand, we have the West Indians who, as Christians, will not concern us when we come to consider the shallow or religious end of the pool.
Another very important point about our swimming pool is that the chlorination system is almost wholly ineffective—particularly at the deep end. By that, I mean that widespread prejudice and ignorance about the minorities make the waters of the deep end so cloudy that few would venture into them with relish. Yet I am delighted to see a number of noble Lords poised on the springboard, ready to dive in. I greatly look forward to their contributions because I know that they will be able to perform in those murky waters so much more ably than I, who have spent the greater part of my adult life in the third world.
Let me set the scene with a few statistics. The group we shall be mainly considering this afternoon is one which the Home Office in their wisdom describe as New Commonwealth and Pakistan. The total number within that group is roughly 2¼ million, representing about 4 per cent. of the population of this country. The term "New Commonwealth and Pakistan" includes the Commonwealth states of the Caribbean and of East and West Africa, the whole of the Indian sub continent, and the Commonwealth states of the Far East such as Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore.
The three principal groups we have to consider this evening are the Indians, who number roughly 719,000; the West Indians. 520,000; and the Pakistanis. approximately 283,000. But all those figures are somewhat on the low side. For example, there are thought to he in the region of 40,000 Pakistanis living here, who have now taken on British nationality. The numbers of that group are increasing rapidly. In accordance with a survey drawn up in 1979, it is estimated that by 1986 the number of the New Commonwealth and Pakistan group will reach 3¼ to 3½million.
There are, of course, other groups. The Arabs, for example, number some 120,000. There are also the Chinese. Japanese, and so on—but I do not believe that we need concern ourselves with those to any great extent.
The distribution of what one might call the NCP group, as your Lordships probably know, is fairly straightforward. The bulk of them are in Greater London, the Midlands, and the North. There are around 1 million of them in London and 1¼ million in places such as Birmingham, Bradford and Leeds. Of our London boroughs, there are four where they account for something in the region of 25 per cent. of the population. The four are Ealing, Lambeth, Hackney and Haringey. In Brent, the proportion of the NCP group is as high as 33 per cent.
An interesting statistic that I discovered recently was that in Bradford, no less than 45 per cent. of the Asian population is under 15 years of age; and in one ward
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in Bradford no fewer than 90 per cent. of children under five years of age are from the NCP group.
We must now consider the areas from which those people come. I believe that is of great importance in understanding how they fit into our society today—and that applies to the second and third generation immigrants as well as to those who have come here more recently. The variety of their backgrounds is truly staggering. First, there are the Arabs. They are a relatively small group in this country but nevertheless they are growing and in many ways are of some importance. Some of them are still reeling from the all too rapid impact of the 20th century onto a 14th or 15th century infrastructure. One therefore gets the most staggering transformations from rags to riches, camels to Cadillacs, and hovels to Hiltons. Indeed, I am not exaggerating when I say that when I visited the United Arab Emirates last year I found a man I had employed as a humble boatman 25 years ago owning two Mercedes and four houses, two in Britain, and a major share in the Hilton and three other hotels, That is one extreme At the other extreme we have many from the sub-continent who are living—let us face it—in conditions of degradation and despair.
Even worse, there are those who come from countries like Uganda, Iran and some of the countries of Eastern Europe, where terror, torture and senseless slaughter are all too apparent. From the comfort and security of our homes, and what I might perhaps describe as the serenity of your Lordships' House, it is impossible to realise the full horror of these happenings. I have been to some of these areas, and I am in contact with people from them who come to Britain. I have seen it; I know it. Therefore, I hope very much that the Home Office, in considering the applications of such people to come here, will do so with all the consideration and tolerance for which they are well known.
Another very important aspect in the context of backgrounds is that so many of the people have had to exchange their rigid moral upbringings—for example, the austere, almost puritanical, ways of the Arabian Desert, the East African tribe, or the Caribbean homestead—for the perils and pitfalls of the permissive society.
Let us now look at the people themselves; and there I have found that many of them have qualities of which we ought to be aware, even if we cannot emulate them. The finest Christians I have found anywhere in the world have been Ugandans. Among the East African tribes one sees a degree of courage which is seldom met elsewhere. For hospitality, who can beat the Arabs of the desert? For business acumen, I would put the Lebanese well above any others. And perhaps for warmth and radiant personality in the face of appalling difficulties I would put the Afro-Caribbeans. So some of these people have much to offer us: a new insight, perhaps, of cultures and religions other than our own; a brief encounter with new dimensions of terror or poverty; the enfolding warmth of an extended family; a smile that comes from the very depths of the heart; a taste of honey—yes, indeed, but of myrrh and aloes, too.
I now come to the kernel of my speech, to the nub of the problems we shall be discussing this afternoon.

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What issues should concern us? May I put it to your Lordships that we should consider the implementation, or otherwise, of the Race Relations Act 1976. We should look particularly at the progress, or otherwise, made in implementing the recommendations of the Scarman Report on the Brixton troubles of 1981, debated in your Lordships' House on 3rd February 1982. Here may I say how deeply honoured I am that my noble and learned friend Lord Scarman has agreed to take part in this debate. There are other areas, of course, that we should consider, like the recent survey prepared for the Metropolitan Police, which I shall come on to later.
What are the contributions, positive or negative, that the ethnic minorities make? We see them all over London. We see them driving buses, running supermarkets, employed in hospitals and so on. What a splendid contribution some of them make. I am thinking particularly of many of the Asian shop keepers, who keep their shops open until 1 or 2 o'clock in the morning. They make money—yes, indeed they do—but they do not fritter it away; they do not squander it on fast women or slow horses. They send it back home to the third world. Your Lordships may know that in supporting these people you will be helping to alleviate third world poverty. There is also, of course, the other side of the coin. Some of your Lordships may say—and it may be said widely in the country—that there are too many of them here, that they take up jobs which might well be done by Britons, and that they are engaged in petty crime.
As for my own views—and I hope I shall be as objective as possible, as befits a speaker from these Benches—my researches in the last few weeks, limited as they are, have taken me to London, Bradford and one or two other areas. I find myself looking at a baffling kaleidoscope of facts and impressions. Very gradually one or two images are beginning to emerge. The most vivid of these is that over the past few years tolerance and understanding towards these groups have grown—slowly, imperceptibly. One sees it, for example, in schools, in colleges, on the shop floor and in the shopping arcades.
Let me give just two or three examples. The other day I met a Nigerian who had lived here 15 years ago. He came back to Britain, and he told me that he had noticed a very marked change in the general attitude towards black people. A Zambian who travels extensively in Europe told me that Britain was the most tolerant country towards black people of any he had met. We know that the GLC is making tremendous efforts to understand the racial minorities and to cope with their problems. In Bradford, the city council are doing all they can to blunt the sharp edge of racial deprivation.
I think we might perhaps say that Brixton was a watershed. Before Brixton we were groping; we were not fully aware of these problems; we did not know how to solve them. Now I think we are working on the right lines, thanks to the admirable report of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman, which I may say—and I hope he will he happy to hear it—is greatly appreciated in Bradford. They have studied it with great care, and they are doing their utmost to implement its recommendations.
Despite this generally encouraging picture. I am afraid to say that there are rumblings of discontent in various areas. There was an interesting survey produced by the GLC not long ago drawing attention to the extent of racial harassment in various areas. A survey produced by the Home Office in 1982 stated that the Bengalis of East London were no less than 50 times more liable to be attacked than any other group.
But whatever the extent of harassment or racial misunderstanding, I think it is clear that relations between the ethnic minorities and the police are not wholly harmonious, as your Lordships will have seen from the survey produced for the Metropolitan Police, with its very disturbing conclusion that so many of the West Indians and other black people lack confidence in our police. The Metropolitan Police and the Bradford City Police are making great strides to put this right; I know that. For example, in Bradford. particularly, they are concentrating on the recruitment of more policemen from the ethnic minorities. They are carrying out realistic training programmes, and so on. In that way they are bringing in speakers from outside, from the minorities themselves, to train their police groups.
In regard to unemployment, Bradford again is perhaps a pointer to a very disturbing situation. No fewer than 93 per cent. of 16-year-old Asian school-leavers in Bradford are unable to get a job. As regards crime. I know that statistics are not all that easy to come by, but it seems that the West Indians are more engaged in crime than any others. One reason for that, of course, apart from unemployment, is that their tribal backgrounds have been disrupted; in particular, the matriarchal society, to which they have become accustomed, has been largely destroyed. A different side of the picture is given in a recent book by Roy Kerridge called Real Wicked Guy which indicates that they can make a very positive contribution—and indeed are doing so.
As I see the clock ticking out against me I must do a rapid crawl from the deep end to the shallow end of our pool to consider the religious minorities. Many noble Lords will ask: why include religious minorities at all? Surely we are one of the most tolerant countries in the world. We do not stop Moslems from saying their prayers five times a day. We allow them to slaughter their animals in their own religious way with the animals' heads pointing towards Mecca. If a Hindu wants to walk a sacred cow down Piccadilly there is nothing to stop him, as far as I am aware. But there are problems which arise when religious practices clash with our own legislation. I am thinking of the problems encountered by the Sikhs who, as your Lordships probably know, are obliged to wear the turban. It is an absolute religious necessity. Fortunately, they won their right to wear turbans when riding motorcycles and in schools. In the same way, the Moslems have certain needs which I shall deal with in a moment. Perhaps I should say in passing that the Moslems are by far the largest religious community in Britain, other than the Christians. They number 1¼ million. There are more Moslems in this country than there are Methodists and considerably more than there are Jews. But before I come to the Moslems I shall say a quick word about the non-white Christians in Britain

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because they hold very strong views. Their numbers are increasing outside this country and we should bear in mind that many of them regard the type of Christianity which is found in some of our churches as way out, weak-kneed and wishy-washy.
I should also like very briefly to deal with the problem of religious education, although the debate is not primarily about that. It is splendid that so many of our schools in London, the Midlands, Bradford and elsewhere are encouraging our children to get to know other cultures and other faiths, but I feel very strongly—I hope the right reverend Prelate and the noble Lord, Lord Soper, will support me—that we are a Christian country and that our children should be taught Christianity in our schools, preferably by a believing Christian. One gets the impression—I may be wrong—that in some of our ILEA schools other religions are taught as possible alternatives to Christianity. What does one find? They may start off with Christianity on Monday; Islam on Tuesday; Sikhism on Wednesday. Buddhism on Thursday; and perhaps a little touch of Zoroastrianism on Friday to add a little zest to the proceedings. How can any 10 or 11-year-old child cope with such a situation? That glorious canticle Te Deum ends with the words
"Let me never be confounded".
Are we not confusing and confounding our children? I very much hope that we are not, but I fear that we are.
What about the Moslems? On a previous occasion I bored your Lordships with along dissertation on Islamic theology and I have no intention of doing so again. But I emphasise in the context of this debate their insistence on what we might call the three Ds—self-discipline, decency and dignity. In that context it is easy to see how they find our permissive society totally abhorrent. The ILEA and the Bradford education authority have made excellent provision for some of the special needs of Moslem children in their schools. For example, there is provision for them to pray at specified times; there is the provision of ritually slaughtered meat, and so on. But what the Moslems really want, more than anything else, is single-sex schools. They do not want racial integration but they do want single-sex schools because they see what goes on in some of our comprehensive schools—and they may well he justified. They see such things as teenage sex, teenage abortions, giving the Pill to girls under 16, and so on. All this they find totally abhorrent. They are also keen to get a little more co-operation from some of the local authorities on the provision of places of worship and special cemeteries.
I opened my speech by a swimming pool. I shall close it in a kitchen. A short while ago I tried to make a cake. It was quite a simple fruitcake with currants and sultanas in it. But, however hard I tried, the currants and sultanas went to the bottom of the mixture. One can perhaps see a likeness in that with our religious and ethnic minorities here if we equate the currants with the West Indians and Africans and the sultanas with the Asians. I fear that is what is happening in some areas. They are forming mini-ghettoes. They tend to congregate together until they coalesce in a compact lump like the currants in my cake.
However, we are now approaching Christmas and I think we must turn from cakes to Christmas puddings. Here we have another interesting parallel. I would not suggest that we can mix all our ethnic minorities in the same way that we can mix the ingredients of a Christmas pudding. They must retain their separate identities; but a certain amount of mixing, blending and mutual understanding is obviously essential. Mixing a Christmas pudding is a difficult operation. It requires patience, skill and a certain amount of knowledge. Above all, it requires the co-operation of the whole family.
Here we see important differences. When we mix our Christmas puddings the first person on the scene is grandpa. He is a bit reluctant. He has mixed many puddings before and every year there are more currants in the mixture. I am afraid that he, and many people like him, have been brought up on the "Ten little nigger-boys" rhyme. He tends to regard black people with hostility and suspicion. Now we come to mum and dad. Oh, yes, we get an improvement there. They are certainly quite good mixers. Dad is fitting in very well. We see considerable co-operation now between whites and blacks on the shop floor and elsewhere. What a change that is from the 1950s and 1960s when the first Caribbeans came to this country and their presence led to strikes in many factories. Mum is getting on quite well, too. She probably has a Nigerian friend in the bingo hall.
But it is when we come to the children that we find the real mixers. How wonderfully enthusiastic they areas they take up the heavy wooden spoons and stir the mixture! Do we not have a wonderful parallel there with what is happening in the ILEA—the glorious mixing and blending of races. One sees the children going to the museums in South Kensington—black, white, Asian, Pakistani and Cypriot—all mingling happily together. In our ILEA schools we have 147 different languages.
As we think in terms of racial blending, intermingling and the development of tolerance and understanding. I put to your Lordships one final thought—mutual inter-dependence. I beg leave to move for Papers.
3.30 p.m.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords. may I say on behalf of the Opposition, and, indeed, I believe, on behalf of the whole House, how grateful we are to the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, for bringing this matter once more to the attention of the House to allow it to be debated. It is a matter which weighs heavily upon the conscience of our nation, which has such a wonderful history and tradition of liberal thinking and tolerant conduct.
We debate this matter with the benefit of the presence of many distinguished Members of your Lordships' House who have great experience of these social problems. I believe that the House is very glad to know that the Church is represented in this debate by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chichester and by my noble friend Lord Soper, and that the law is so magnificently represented by the noble and learned Lord. Lord Scarman and the noble Lord, Lord McNair. As I see the noble and learned Lord, Lord Salmon. I cannot help recollecting the memorable

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words which many of us will never forget which he uttered at the time of the Notting Hill riot trials. He spoke for the whole of England when he said that our streets are to be kept for those who peacefully walk upon them, whatever their colour, race or creed. It is against that background that we are conducting this debate.
We have to realise what the problem is. I cannot do better than quote the very words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman, in his report following the Brixton riots of April 1981. At paragraph 9.1 he said:
"The evidence which I have received … leaves no doubt in my mind that racial disadvantage is a fact of current British life. It was, I am equally sure, a significant factor in the causation of the Brixton disorders. Urgent action is needed if it is not to become an endemic, ineradicable disease threatening the very survival of our society".
Those words were pregnant with meaning. I believe that it will be useful in this debate to concentrate not upon expressing the fact that we abhor racial discrimination (which I know is the view of the whole House) but very much on such actions as we can think of and such programmes as we can create to do something to alleviate the problem.
I say this very frankly. I was delighted to note that in one of the first public speeches made by the present Home Secretary after his appointment to that high office he expressed himself in no uncertain terms when he said that he was,
"unshakably opposed to discrimination on any grounds.… I am determined that members of every ethnic minority should enjoy the equality before the law and equality of opportunity which are the priceless heritage of all our fellow countrymen".
I want to deal with five aspects of this matter where I hope that we can concentrate our attention. Obviously I shall leave out others but I have no doubt that other speakers will mention them. The first aspect that I want to mention is the relevance of law and order to the problem. Unless the ethnic minorities in this country are convinced that law and order are operating justly and without discrimination, their respect for law and order will be absent. I am talking about the well behaved among them—and there are many—and those who are still capable of being influenced as adolescents—and there are many. The result of the absence of that respect is something with which your Lordships are only too familiar in regard to other debates that we have had on delinquency, crimes of violence, and so on.
The first comment I have to make is this. There is not the slightest doubt but that our judiciary is something of which this nation is rightly proud. I say here and now that the equality before the law of every one of our citizens is a sacrosanct principle. I should not be completely honest with your Lordships if I did not say that in my younger days in the law, when appearing in the lower courts (magistrates' courts and county courts), I came across examples—in a minority of cases. I assure your Lordships—in which I found to my dismay that discourtesy was being handed out by some magistrates and county court judges to witnesses who did not have benefit of a white colour. The examples were few but they were very distressing. As I say, I am not even talking about those who were accused before a court. I mention this only in order that the word may go out, if it be necessary, that it is
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most important in regard to respect for law and order that such behaviour should never occur in our courts of law. I accentuate the fact it is only rarely that I have seen it and that others have experienced it.
Having said that, I turn to what the noble Viscount referred to. The report was commissioned as a result of the great courage of a former Commissioner of Police. He was a man of great integrity who invited the study of relations between the Metropolitan Police and the community it serves. He had the help of the Policy Studies Institute in so doing. The report was published only a few weeks ago. I have no reason to believe that the story of the metropolis and its police is very much different—very much better or very much worse—than the story that could be told of the police in any of our inner urban areas.
A part of that report caused great distress. I repeat that it is to the credit of the police that this report was sought and has been published. This is what it says on page 332:
"In detail the findings are complex, but they certainly show that in some respects there is a dangerous lack of confidence in the police among substantial numbers of young white people and a disastrous lack of confidence among young people of West Indian origin. One third of white people aged 15 to 24think the Police often use threats or unreasonable pressure in questioning and one fifth think they often use excessive force on arrest and that they often unjustifiably use force on people held in police stations. Among people aged 15 to 24 of West Indian origin, 62 per cent. of them think the Police use threats and unreasonable pressure in questioning, 56 per cent. that they often unjustifiably use violence on people held at police stations, 43 per cent. that they often fabricate evidence and 41 per cent. that they often make false records of interviews".
At the end, the report reads at page 351:
"Although it has less effect on policing behaviour than might be expected, the level of racial prejudice in the Force is cause for serious concern. No simple and straightforward solution to this problem can be offered, especially since many police officers do not see that racial prejudice makes it more difficult for them to achieve their policing objectives".
That report, at the end, made two important recommendations in regard to training and in regard to contact with the community generally and matters of that kind. Bearing in mind the shortness of time at my disposal and the limits to your Lordships' patience, I merely intend to ask the noble Lord the Minister, when he replies, to tell the House whether or not those recommendations seem to be of a good, positive nature and whether, in fact, it is going to be seen that they are carried out. In that connection one does want to know, especially in the light of the findings of this survey, what, please, is the Government's thinking about the future of the Metropolitan Police? Who is to control them? Who is to look after their policy? Who is to look after their training as a matter of policy? Is that still to continue with the Home Secretary and the Government thinking? What is to be the control of the public of London in regard to such matters?
I believe that all members of your Lordships' House will remember the recommendations of the Scarman Report and, bearing in mind that the noble and learned Lord is contributing to this debate, I intend to say no more about them except that I shall be so interested to hear from the noble Lord the Minister to what extent those recommendations, especially in regard to the police, have been carried out.
I move to my second area of concern and that is the matter of employment. The noble Viscount. Lord

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Buckmaster, referred to that point and, if I got his figures right, said that, on leaving school, 90 per cent. of Bradford's West Indian youngsters were unemployed and could not find jobs. One does not hear figures of that kind without a grave feeling of disquiet, but one inquires of oneself: what is the situation in regard to the whole country? At page 334 of the report from which I just quoted, dealing with the relations between the Metropolitan Police and the community services, one finds this:
"The latest national survey by PSI shows that the unemployment rate among young men and women of West Indian origin is of the order of 50 percent. and all the evidence suggests that racial discrimination, especially in recruitment to employment, continues at a high level".
I wondered whether there was anything very recent that I could bring before your Lordships to show again how much of a problem this is. I note that on the 27th October 1983 there was a Written Answer in another place to a Question that was put down by Mr. Andrew Bennett to the Secretary of State for Employment. He asked:
"What was the unemployment rate among the ethnic minorities in October 1983?"
Mr. Alan Clark replied:
"The latest available data, from the 1981 labour force survey, shows that in the second quarter of 1981 17 per cent. of the ethnic minority working force in Great Britain were seeking work."
Is not this one of the greatest problems that we have in connection with the ethnic minorities? How can we give them hope? How can we talk to them in terms of being useful citizens when one cannot even give them the usefulness of thinking that they are part of the working population of this country and that they have something useful to contribute?
Here I do look at the Government and say to them—and I do assure your Lordships of the sincerity of this—without in any way endeavouring to score points, every time there is a debate on employment one gets the answer: what we have managed to do is to bring inflation down. All I am saying is we may be containing something that inflates but we are creating something that inflames; and if you have that sort of principle, are you not creating many more evils than you ever create even if you have some measure of increased inflation? We shall not in any way manage to look at or solve this problem until we look at this dreadful area of unemployment among the ethnic minorities.
I turn swiftly to the third area and that is one of education. I had hoped that the noble Baroness, Baroness Faithfull, would have been able to contribute to this debate, because I remember so well that she was a member of the Rampton Committee. I can remember on, I believe, the debate that took place on the Scarman Report she made a very memorable speech, but it may even have been on the Rampton Report itself. I know that in that debate—and I believe in her speech—she brought out in your Lordships' House the points that young West Indians especially were labouring under many disadvantages that had to be appreciated. The 1971 census showed that 68 per cent. of West Indian mothers were working, as against 48 per cent. of the national total, and that, so far as fathers were concerned there were twice as many West
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Indians working on night shifts as there were white men working on night shifts.
We have not got to go very far to see the reasons for lack of parental care. Those of us who have tried to assist in connection with rehabilitation and other matters affecting West Indian immigrants know perfectly well that it is had enough that there is sometimes a complete language gap—sometimes, indeed, very much of a generation gap; if we get this added on, we can well realise what difficulties there are.
I turn to the Minister and I ask whether in fact the Government has any special programmes in regard to dealing with the four points that I remember the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman, made which are relevant to these issues: the under fives, teacher training, language, home and school liaison and whether the education cuts, indeed, are not eating into any improvements that may have been achievable in this area.
I turn briefly, if I may, to my fourth area, which is Government services. Your Lordships may wonder why it is that I have even included that area. I do it for this reason. There are few of us in this House. I believe. who would endeavour to argue that immigration control of some kind or other is unnecessary. Governments of all kinds have had to think in terms of measures of immigration control; but what one has to do is to see that that immigration control is conducted with fairness, with courtesy and with understanding.
I am not going into the political difference that exists between my noble friends and the Government on the wisdom of the British Nationality Act. I promise I shall say no more than that there is that difference. But in regard to immigration control at our airports and other places of immigration, it is a fact—an unfortunate fact—that all too often people who come into this country, be it as tourists or as visitors, who have black skins and who are applying for immigration or for permission to come here for a limited period, are not treated with that courtesy and understanding, or with every degree of promptitude, that is accorded to those who are not coloured in the same way.
This is unfortunate—and, again, I am not making a general accusation of any kind. I too often see complaints of this nature. In those circumstances, I have to mention it if we are dealing with this problem of ethnic minorities and how we should encourage respect for our system, our law and order, and those controls that we have upon those who come into our country.
I come now to the very last area, and that is the state of law and its enforcement. There are areas here that have to be looked at very carefully if we are to say that we are satisfied with their present state. I have here—and I promise that I am not going to read them to the House—examples of literature which are being circulated, put through letter boxes and. in some cases. handed out to our children, which I would not wish to quote in your Lordships' House. They are examples of the most distorted, wicked, racial incitment that any Member of your Lordships' House would ever wish to see in this country of ours. What I propose to do is to hand them after this debate to the noble Lord the

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Minister so that he can see them. I merely say that for one reason or other, in spite of reports having been made, prosecutions cannot be brought, or are not brought. One has to examine whether or not our legislation really does not have to be looked at a little more closely in this connection if prosecutions cannot he brought in such instances.
There is the question of the marches. I would love to know, as I am sure would your Lordships, the Government's present thinking in regard to the Public Order Act, and what is being done about those marches which have just one object in view—to incite racial fear and racial hatred. Some of the marches are being stopped. At whose discretion? Is it the chief constable? Is it the Home Secretary? Have we got things right in that connection? What is being done about the Commission for Racial Equality and its powers of investigation? Those powers are very important. But the report made by Peter Newsam, of that commission, in July 1983, very properly quotes remarks made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, when he was the distinguished Master of the Rolls. The noble and learned Lord said:
"Already the machine is so cumbersome. …it is almost grinding to a halt. That is the result of the parliamentary provisions that the Commission have done their best to go on with but which are so difficult".
I ask the Government again: what is being done in answer to the plea that was made on behalf of the commission to simplify and, indeed, amplify its powers of investigation? And what is the Government's thinking about the Race Relations Act? Are the Government satisfied that the Act is doing what it ought to do? Or is their view that its powers and its implementation could be more complete?
As always, your Lordships have been most patient and most tolerant. I hope that the same patience and tolerance will be extended throughout the debate to the racial minorities in our midst in our new society—a society which all of us pray will re-echo the glories of our past, the tolerances of our past, and make us, as we all want to be. a family within our nation.

European Council: Athens
3.56 p.m.
The Lord President of the Council (Viscount Whitelaw): My Lords, I will now repeat a Statement made in another place by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister on the European Council in Athens.
"With permission, Mr. Speaker, I shall make a Statement on the European Council in Athens on 4–6 December at which my right honourable and learned friend the Foreign Secretary and I represented the United Kingdom.
"At its previous meeting in Stuttgart the European Council had agreed that it was essential at this stage to consider the long-term future of the European Community and to tackle certain fundamental problems—in particular, agricultural surpluses, effective control of Community spending and a fairer distribution of the burden of financing the Community.
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"We were all agreed that the Stuttgart package had to be taken as a whole and that decisions on each item depended on agreement on the rest. Unfortunately, the Community was not ready at Athens to take the necessary decisions. A number of member states wished to follow past practices and adopt a number of unsatisfactory compromises.
"On agriculture, the main issues discussed at Athens were price policy and the limitation of open-ended guarantees, action to curb the milk surplus, import and export policy, the proposed oils and fats tax, and monetary compensatory amounts.
"There was a considerable difference of view on price policy, on the volume of milk that might be subject to quota and superlevy and on various requests and proposals from some countries for exemptions. The United Kingdom is among those member states which consider that a rigorous price policy is essential; that any other arrangements for milk, such as a superlevy, should be non-discriminatory; and that the surpluses of many other Community products need to be dealt with as well. Four member states. including the United Kingdom, made clear that the proposal for an oils and fats tax was unacceptable. On monetary compensatory amounts, the differences between France and Germany were not resolved.
"With regard to the unfair budgetary burden, there was some recognition that a lasting solution must be found which would put limits on the net contributions of member states—limits which are related to ability to pay. This would be implemented by correcting the VAT contribution of the member state concerned in the following year. The majority of countries wished to establish a lasting system on the above lines which would be part and parcel of any decision on new resources. Unfortunately, although preparatory negotiations on this matter had made considerable progress, not all member states agreed to this approach and, accordingly, no decisions could be taken.
"Similarly, with the problem of increasing Community expenditure, the will to control it effectively was just not present at the Athens meeting. Even the ideas recently advanced by the French Government were not accepted by all countries as a basis for discussion. I made it clear that there must be strict guidelines for agricultural spending which must be embodied in the budgetary procedures of the Community.
"Unless the agricultural and financial issues can he resolved, the resources for new policies such as co-operation in research and development are very limited indeed, though many of us recognise that in the long run they are very important and that room should be made for them.
"International questions such as Cyprus and the Lebanon were not discussed in plenary session but were, of course, much discussed outside it. No official statements were issued on these or any other matters.
"It is regrettable that the European Council was not able on this occasion to make the necessary progress for the next stage of the Community's development. I had made it clear that I would not

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consider an increase in own resources unless there was agreement on a fair sharing of the budgetary burden and an effective control of agricultural and other expenditure. There was no such agreement and therefore for the United Kingdom the question of an increase of the Community's resources did not arise".
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount for repeating the long and complicated Statement, which the House will surely wish to debate as soon as possible. While disagreements at EEC summit meetings are not uncommon, will not the noble Viscount agree that this latest disagreement in Athens is one of the worst setbacks ever known in the Community's history? In addition to the admitted failure of the conference, the Statement which the noble Viscount has just read makes it clear that the Government have lost the agreement which was secured at Stuttgart six months ago. Can we he told why the French Government in particular changed their minds on this agreement in the meantime?
Against that background I should like to seek to summarise what seems to me to be the crux of the Statement. First, is it the case that the Government are totally opposed to the new French proposal that Britain's budgetary contributions must be dealt with on a temporary basis only? Secondly, is it the case that the problem of the over-production of milk and other farm produce must be tackled now and that a stable price policy is essential? Finally, is it the case that the size of the Community budget is not to be increased, otherwise the EEC will be in dire financial difficulties next year? Is it the Government's policy that, if there is failure on those three vital matters, Britain's payments, or at least some of them, will be withheld and that Britain will certainly not increase her gross contribution to Brussels?
In addition to making specific proposals on individual items such as milk and the MCAs, can the noble Viscount say whether the Government have put forward a clear and concerted policy for the long-term revision of the common agricultural policy? Does the noble Viscount agree that until the CAP is reformed, there is no hope of a successful outcome to the continuing difficulties?
Lord Diamond: My Lords, I, too, should like to thank the noble Viscount for being good enough to repeat the important Statement that was made in another place. The Statement reveals a situation which, though not completely disastrous, is indeed most unwelcome and, I believe, not wholly unavoidable. In other words, I believe that it was to some extent avoidable. Is it not the case, certainly with the benefit of hindsight—and I recognise that point—that rather than attempt to decide so many important issues—issues upon which it was known there were deep differences of view and policy—it would have been better to try to reach solutions to them one by one, rather than bite off more than the summit conference could possibly chew?
Is it not the case that these proceedings have revealed that this country must, indeed, contribute
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something more imaginative and creative than an attitude of pure inflexibility? I am bound to ask the Government where they intend to go from here? I assume that this was not part of a deliberate, planned stay of progress, but part of a way of negotiating what was desired. I assume that the Government were acting frankly in an attempt to secure what logic entitles us to secure. I am encouraged to go on to ask the noble Viscount whether he does not feel that, as between friends negotiating at a negotiating table, what is required is reliance more on logic than on leverage, especially as the logic of our case was so sound?
I shall not repeat the request for information which the noble Lord. Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos, has already made and which I, too, should have wished to make, but I should like to make it clear that no matter what lack of success may attend the policies and negotiations being pursued by Her Majesty's Government, we on these Benches remain totally convinced that the destiny of this country lies in Europe.
Viscount Whitelaw: My Lords, I am grateful to both noble Lords for their reception of the Statement. Perhaps I should begin with some general comments in answer to what they have both said, and thereafter deal with the details. As the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, said the failure to make progress at Athens was a setback and, as the noble Lord, Lord Diamond. said, it was unwelcome. No one can deny that. However, perhaps it would be wrong to exaggerate it.
As the time when decisions must be made draws ever closer—because the funds are running out—there will be a greater realisation that those decisions have to be taken. I have heard it said that in some cases time is, therefore, somewhat on the side of the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, the outcome was very disappointing.
I am equally very glad from the Government's point of view to reinforce what the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, has said. Of course we shall continue to negotiate. Of course we are determined that a sensible arrangement for Community financing and for the CAP should be found, and we shall play our full part—I say this in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Diamond—in an imaginative and creative manner. Most certainly we shall do so. We have no intention of going back on our deep commitment to the European Community and all that it stands for, particularly at the moment in political terms, and certainly in economic terms. The disagreements are disappointing, but they have to be resolved, and I think that there is a mood to resolve them.
I now turn to the details. The noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, asked me why the agreement was secured at Stuttgart but not followed through at Athens. I must tell the noble Lord that one would have to ask the participants in the conference why it was not carried through and why, perhaps, they have gone back on some of the things that they previously said. However, I do not think that one would gain by going over that ground. We want to go forward to the future.
The noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, asked whether the United Kingdom was totally opposed to the French idea of our problems being solved yet again on a temporary basis. The answer to that question is, yes,

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we have made it clear that we believe it is essential to get a clear settlement which will continue for the future.
The question of milk was raised by both noble Lords. We have stood firmly for the basis of the price mechanism which would in fact restrict production and encourage consumption. We believe that that is the best way in which to deal with the milk problem which, as the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, with his great knowledge, will appreciate, is the major problem of the common agricultural policy.
The noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, asked whether, if there is a failure in the negotiations, the United Kingdom will withhold payments. That must be a hypothetical question, and I hope that it is one that will never have to be answered. Her Majesty's Government are determined to proceed to secure an agreement and to continue with the negotiations. I hope that we shall reach that agreement with our friends and allies in an imaginative and creative way. I think that all realise the need to do so.
The noble Lord, Lord Diamond, suggested that we should be more imaginative and more creative. I would say to the noble Lord that that is fair as far as it goes, but we have our rights. We have stated our positions. We would be prepared to make agreements. Provided that we obtained new own resources we would be prepared to go along, so long as at the same time we were able to get a sensible budgetary settlement for ourselves. I take the view that that is something with which this country would agree and which, indeed, would certainly be agreed within this House.
Equally, if we go forward with this agreement, we must get arrangements which will curb the over-spending in the common agricultural policy and, indeed, make sense of it for the future. Therefore, although it is right to he imaginative and creative, I think that it would he unwise to depart from very clearly held positions which actually accord with the best interests of our country, as well as those of the Community, because we believe that in the end the two go together.
4.12 p.m.
Lord Home of the Hirsel: My Lords, my noble friend's Statement was necessarily very concerned with financial and economic matters. Is it not the political cohesion of Europe which will matter supremely in the critical months and years ahead when Europe's reconciling diplomacy may make all the difference between war and peace? Therefore, can my noble friend give the House the assurance that the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary will urge their colleagues to deal with these economic matters speedily so that time is not lost?—for when time is lost I am afraid the political influence of Europe will correspondingly decline.
Viscount Whitelaw: My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Home. I think that it would be accepted in this House and by a very wide section of people in this country and all over the world that no one speaks with more authority on these matters than he does. It is very welcome to be able to say to him: Yes, the Government totally agree with what he says;
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the importance of political cohesion in Europe is crucial. I would agree with the underlying point in his remarks that that political cohesion is damaged unless financial agreements can be reached, and can be reached speedily. Yes, my right honourable friend the Prime Minister and my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary will certainly pursue the line which my noble friend has so properly put before this House.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, would the noble Viscount not agree that, despite the determined and strong endeavours of the Prime Minister, the Statement that he has had to read out is a lamentable defeat for the British Government, if not for the British nation? In view of all that he said about the CAP, its excessive spending and other items, would he not agree that it now seems that we have been debating this sort of thing for a couple of years? Then we always want to hurry to reassure those who it seems are beating us, chastising us and threatening us, that nevertheless we will stick with them, that it does not matter how hard they hammer us. Further, will the noble Viscount not agree that there is now a growing number, if not a majority, of British people who think that this absolute adherence, not to Europe, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, but to a part of Europe, is by itself something to which we should not every time have to bow the knee, on the grounds that there is very little assurance for a flock of sheep on the way to the butcher?
Furthermore, if we are to be treated in this manner, we must take a more vital stand; indeed, we may have to revert to a pre-war stand when we were being pushed around. I believe that it is fair to say—and I hope that the noble Viscount will agree—that the Government (as, indeed, have previous Governments) have given so much and have shown so much patience. Indeed, the Government under my noble friend Lord Wilson got little back for the patience and the understanding that they showed. Our present Government are getting little back for the understanding that they have tried to show, and at least should receive some appreciation from the British people that they realise that unfairness is being shown. Therefore—
Noble Lords: Speech!
Lord Molloy: My Lords, I know that it is a speech and it is a very important one. Therefore, if we are to stay in the EEC, it is about time that the other members tried to understand the problems being explained by our Prime Minister and our Government, as has been done in the past.
Viscount Whitelaw: My Lords, in answer to the noble Lord, I do not think that I would wish to go the way of some of his expressions. I do not accept that this disagreement, which I have described as regrettable and indeed unfortunate, is a lamentable defeat. We did not lose anything. If the words "lamentable defeat" mean anything to me, they mean that we actually lost something and, whatever else, the fact of the matter is that we did not lose anything. We did not gain anything and nor did anyone else. The tragedy is that the Community did not gain, but it cannot be a lamentable defeat unless we lose something. That is the first point.

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As for all this business about being beaten about and all the rest, I can only say to the noble Lord that I hear other views about my right honourable friend the Prime Minister. I have never heard of anybody beating her about, pushing her around, or all these other expressions. I have heard it said that she was pushing them around, but never the other way round. Therefore, I think that we can be assured that she will stand up for our interests; and that is right.
However, surely the noble Lord will also accept that among a community there are strong views and differences of opinion. It is the purpose of negotiators to resolve these. Frankly, I do not think that rude and perhaps somewhat ill-chosen comments about those with whom one is trying to negotiate are wise. On behalf of the Government, I certainly would not wish to indulge in them. I believe that, as my noble friend Lord Home said, we must make sure that we gain the political advantage of European cohesion. We have to work to that end. That is what the Government are determined to do.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, I should like to ask a brief question of the noble Viscount. Would he not agree that, to some extent, the damage that has been suffered by the European idea in this country and no doubt elsewhere is due to the fact that much limelight is thrown upon Prime Ministers and Presidents when they gather together in this way? Would there not now be a case for leaving the negotiations on milk prices and matters of that kind to junior Ministers and to officials, and for the Leaders of Europe to come together only when they are assured that they will be signing something already agreed?
Viscount Whitelaw: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord and I think we would all agree that there is a good deal in what he says. Perhaps one of the tragedies of the position in Athens was that a great deal of preparatory work, which is what he requests, had been done in the time leading up to the meeting. Probably one of the major tragedies was that, when there was hope that that preparatory work was leading to a basis of agreement, somehow in Athens that basis of agreement disappeared again. Indeed, that was probably the greatest damage of all. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary and all my other colleagues will continue these negotiations, as they have done before. If your Lordships knew how many of my colleagues appear to be permanently out of this country attending various meetings on this score, you would be amazed at the amount of negotiating work that is taking place. It must go on. I hope that next time the ground work will have been laid and then advance will be made from the position when the Prime Ministers and Leaders get together.
Lord Gladwyn: My Lords, will the Government agree that, if there is to be agreement under a French presidency next year—as we all hope and, indeed, as I myself believe there will be—to some extent all members of the Community will have to change or modify their present attitudes? For instance, Mr. Mitterr and will obviously have to go back to his earlier proposal for a reform of the CAP, and push it strongly;
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he will have to abandon his present insistence on a temporary solution of our budget difficulties. The Danes, the Irish and the Italians must accept certain sacrifices for the general good. The Germans might be more forthcoming on MCAs.
Finally, I suggest that our own Prime Minister might, as a general contribution to this accord, be rather less intransigent in her actual demands for a very great reduction in the contribution that we make to the budget. The sum of £500 million or £600 million is not enormous for a country which pleads poverty on the grounds that its production is very low owing to our own incompetence, but which its colleagues on the Continent think is very rich owing to the enormous sums it receives from North Sea oil which benefit its balance of payments. Consequently, if Mrs. Thatcher. as a contribution to the general accord, could reduce her demands to some extent in that respect I should have thought it would be a great contribution to the general agreement.
Viscount Whitelaw: My Lords, I think it would be unwise of me to follow someone of' the noble Lord's great diplomatic eminence and skill in the advice he is giving to other countries. I have no doubt that they should consider it. I think they would take it better from him than perhaps they would take it from me, and I do not think therefore that I would wish to proceed on that line. Regarding his remarks about my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, it is exactly what I was saying to the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, before: at one moment she is said to be being beaten about the place, and then the next moment too intransigent.
I must say to the noble Lord that I do not accept the argument about intransigence. In fact, we have said we are prepared to reach an agreement; but we say that if we are going to have an increase in own resources it is surely reasonable that we should get an agreement on the amount that we are going to have to pay, and a sensible and long-term agreement and not a short-term one. Surely it is in our interests and the interests of all the countries in the Community that a sensible arrangement of the common agricultural policy is worked out because unless it is the Community will perpetually be in extreme financial difficulties. I do not think it is intransigence to try to get an agreement on those lines.
Baroness Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe: My Lords, can the noble Viscount tell the House whether the whole question of the enlargement of the Community by Spain and Portugal, which is so relevant to the financing of the Community, was discussed either in plenary session or perhaps, as he described, outside it?
Viscount Whitelaw: My Lords, it was a great disappointment, as my right honourable friend the Prime Minister has said. that no progress was made on enlargement. It is very unfair on the countries concerned that no agreement was made. It was one of the disadvantages of no advance, and still it is important that that goes forward as soon as possible.
Lord Boothby: My Lords, I shall not keep your Lordships long. I should like to ask the noble Viscount the Leader of the House whether we should not bear in

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mind our own responsibility for the collapse of the EEC, which is clearly facing us at the moment? I was a member of the original Council of Europe at Strasbourg which consisted of members of their own Parliament, and which therefore meant something. That Council of Europe was smashed by us, by the British Foreign Office, under Mr. Eden.
As I was at the receiving end, I asked Mr. Eden whether it was his intention to destroy the existing Council of Europe, and he said, "Yes, it was". He did not agree with it. Therefore, we have our responsibility. Then when Mr. Heath took us into the EEC he made us sign the Treaty of Rome which we had played no part in framing, because we took no part in the Messina negotiations. The result is that we joined the Treaty, which I always felt was unworkable, without having had any say in what should be done.
Now, what can be done to retrieve the present disastrous situation?—and it is disastrous. I think that we require to renegotiate the Treaty of Rome, and play a full part in it ourselves. I do not think that the EEC, with its present farm policy and its present financial policy, can ever work. It was the late Field Marshal Lord Montgomery who said to me, "Until we get the political situation straightened out, and as long as we have nothing but an international civil service of enormous size and no power, and a talking shop in Strasbourg, we shall never get real strength or union in Europe". How right he was! And that is what we have today. I want the Government to consider seriously whether they should now scrap the whole thing, and start on a new conference altogether, in which we should all play a full part, and negotiate a much more effective treaty of union than the EEC can ever be.
Viscount Whitelaw: My Lords, I think I can assure the noble Lord briefly that this Government are determined to play their full part and to take their full responsibility in the future for seeking to make the Community work, and to make any adjustments which are necessary to make sure that the Community works for the good of Europe and, I believe, for the good of the world. That will be our purpose.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, will the noble Viscount agree that part of the trouble is that many of the original countries in the Community do not regard us as being wholehearted Community members, and that it is the failure to overcome this which has been one of our greatest mistakes or failures? Really we are in the position of the Scots mother—it is a story with which the noble Viscount will be familiar—who was watching a squad of recruits drilling. She said, "Isn't it awful. They are all out of step but our Jock". I think that we sometimes adopt an attitude which puts up the backs of our partners in Europe despite the strong and sensible case that we have.
Viscount Whitelaw: My Lords, I must simply, I think, note what the noble Lord said. It is certainly not our purpose to do that. We are most anxious to show that in all these matters—and I believe we have shown over a period of time—we are wholehearted members of the Community and are determined to make it work. We have consistently said so. This Government made it clear at the time of the last election and
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previous elections that that is the case. We shall continue on that basis. If there have been mistakes over the past by any British Governments in this field, let us learn from them, and let us make sure that we are wholehearted Community members in the future.

The Ethnic and Religious Minorities
4.27 p.m.
Debate resumed.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, has given us the opportunity to talk about a substantial cross-section of the British population bearing in mind that, strictly speaking, one could even include the adherents of the established Church as being in a minority now as well as the other denominations he mentioned, such as the Methodists, the Jews, and of course the Catholics.
The situation of religious minorities is, however, a subject which requires special treatment, in my view, concentrating in particular on the questions of education which the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, mentioned. While ethnic minorities have educational problems of their own such as, for example, the need for language classes to help people newly arrived in this country from places where they do not speak English as their first language, I think that the traditional emphasis on that aspect of disadvantage has tended to obscure the fact that racial handicaps tend to continue affecting people whose ancestors came here two or three generations ago in practically every facet of their daily lives.
The question of racial disadvantage is one to which the majority community should also give attention as a matter of self-interest and not out of sheer altruism. If the minorities get the short end of the stick all the time, as they definitely have done in the past, then it leads to unrest and tensions as we saw first in Bristol, and then predictably in Toxteth, Brixton and other places. If there is one thing about which we can be certain as we survey the vast field laid out for our consideration by the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, it is that further riots of that kind will occur in future because the underlying causes have not been removed, in spite of all the lip-service that has been paid to the report of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman.
His report dealt with the social conditions which predispose a community towards disorder. The noble and learned Lord pointed out that the areas where riots occur shared certain features—high unemployment, a declining economic base, a decaying physical environment, bad housing, and lack of amenities. These characteristics still exist together in an explosive mixture. The fuse that sets it off, the lack of any sign of economic opportunity, is still burning away.
Initiatives are being taken in some parts of the country to redress economic disadvantage. I should like particularly to mention the work in Birmingham of Mr. Gus Williams, who has waged a one-man war against racial deprivation with his imaginative schemes for giving young people a better chance in life. Mr. Williams has developed there attractive training

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courses in a variety of vocational skills such as printing, graphics design, television repair, and catering. In this way he gives pride and hope to the participants, role models to their peer groups, and, ultimately, some regeneration of economic activity in areas which seriously need upgrading.
However, Mr. Williams believes that too much of the energy and skills available are channelled into the tussle with central and local government so that not enough is left over for the implementation of such projects as the one that he runs. He would like to see a greater degree of self management and voluntary initiative, with funds coming from a widened Section 11 of the Local Government Act 1966, as has been advocated for some years. Mr. Williams considers from his own practical experience that in this way a dent could be made in the unacceptably high levels of black unemployment, which have been alluded to by the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster.
May I ask the Minister what has happened to the Statement by the Secretary of State for Employment, as promised by Mr. Alan Clark in reply to a Parliamentary Question, which has already been mentioned?
It is the other aspect of Lord Scarman's report on which I should like to concentrate. The noble Lord examined the relations between the police and the black communities, and he reached the conclusion that prejudiced behaviour, while uncommon, did incalculable damage. He said it was therefore essential (and I quote paragraph 4.64) that,
"every possible step be taken to prevent and to root out racially prejudiced attitudes in the police service".
He went on to make recommendations on the introduction of careful checks in the recruitment of officers and in training, supervision and disciplinary arrangements. I quote again:
"The police cannot rest on the argument that since they are a cross-section of society, some officers are bound to be racially prejudiced. Senior Metropolitan police officers accept this".
But, two years later, progress does not seem to have been commensurate with the need, to judge from the formidable report of the Policy Studies Institute, which the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, mentioned. That report says that racist attitudes and languageare monotonously pervasive among the police—and not just at lower levels; it goes right the way up to inspector and chief inspector. That is common knowledge among black people, and it has been alleged by some observers in the white community, such as Derek Humphry in his book, Police power and black people. But it has never been accepted, as it is now, by the police themselves as a legitimate criticism. To that extent I agree with those noble Lords that there has been some advance.
The Commissioner, Sir Kenneth Newman, has said that generally he accepts the PSI findings, and he does not seek to deny the authenticity of the many horror stories on which the conclusions are based. Your Lordships will have read in newspaper accounts, if not in the report itself, that it is common practice to refer to black people in grossly offensive terms, which I do not propose to repeat. They indulge in the most revolting racist jokes; and they display crude and
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irrational prejudices, as in the case of the chief inspector who said that Asians are incapable of telling the truth. In only one of the 10 divisions that the PSI studied was a clear lead given by senior management in combating racist attitudes and language, and in cultivating good relations across the board with minorities.
One might think it hardly surprising that relations between the black communities and the police are so bad when the black people can hardly fail to be aware of what the police think of them. Yet, surprisingly, the researchers said that those who made racist remarks acted fairly and impartially when dealing with black members of the public. I must say that this conclusion is difficult to reconcile with common sense, with the disproportionate number of young black people stopped and searched and with the anecdotes of the researchers themselves. The researchers believed, from the experience they had in talking to the police, that irregularities in the treatment of suspects were a reflection of racial hostility, and that seems to contradict the notion that racist attitudes never carry over into professional conduct.
Incidentally, the general standard of conduct of officers as described here, quite apart from racism, is quite unacceptable, and I think the Commissioner ought to make it clear that he intends to change things. It is not good enough to say, as he did on "The London Programme", that male society has certain macho characteristics and that the police force reflects those characteristics that are general in society as a whole. That comes close to the view that was condemned by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman, on which he said he had the agreement of senior officers.
A police force is not a rugby club or a corporals' mess where loutish behaviour and heavy drinking can be indulged in without causing harm to the outside world. The Commissioner ought to say that to his force loudly and clearly. He has sent a video round to police forces in the metropolis, but it does not contain any overt condemnation of conduct of the kind that was described in the PSI report.
If I may venture one criticism of this report, it is that it is long on analysis and short on conclusions, especially in comparison with that of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman, who said at the beginning that efforts must be made to avoid racially prejudiced people entering the police service. He recommended that work being done by the metropolitan police to establish scientific ways of identifying racial prejudice should be rigorously pursued, with the support of the Home Office, and the results incorporated in the procedure for selecting recruits.
Two years later the PSI now calls for the development of,
"structured questioning methods or aptitude tests"
to assess the qualities that are of value in the police force, without actually mentioning racism, although one gathers that what the team is saying in a roundabout way is that racists, sexists and people with a fondness for heavy drinking should be weeded out.
When we were debating the Scarman Report last October the Minister said that he did not expect to find any objective tests by which racism could be detected

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in probationers, and he said that research work done here and in the United States had shown that no such tests exist. I have looked in the literature but have been unable to find anything that leads one to this conclusion. If the noble Lord the Minister was right, what was recommended by Scarman and what is now suggested by the PSI is a waste of time and effort; we should not attempt to weed out the racist at the recruitment stage. I think the sort of overt racism which is described in the report ought to be fairly easily detectable in a two-day period of testing, such as is now given to recruits by the Metropolitan Police. It was the reaction of Sir Kenneth that research is being conducted into scientific testing of attitudes, so obviously he believes that in the end research will enable one to discover and weed out this kind of person at the recruitment stage, and that a lot of public money will be saved if we can avoid those people joining the police force in the first place.
The noble Lord, Lord Scarman, made certain important recommendations on training. He said that, above all, the central theme should be the need for the police to secure the consent and support of the public. Surprisingly, the PSI had nothing specific to say about training, although clearly it should be designed to improve the knowledge and understanding of minorities by the police and to remove the extraordinary misconceptions from which some officers suffer.
The Police Training Council working party, in its report of February 1983, had this to say:
"it does not seem to us wise to rely entirely on the capacity of the well-trained officer to mask his private attitudes".
In this report the Police Training Council working party made a number of highly relevant proposals, and it will be interesting to know to what extent they are being implemented by the Metropolitan Police.
Perhaps the Minister will be good enough to tell us whether any general conclusions have been reached on those recommendations. As there are far too many of them to discuss in detail this afternoon I shall limit myself to just two questions. First, do all officers up to the rank of Chief Inspector receive training and, bearing in mind the crucial influence of a senior officer's attitude on his subordinates, how is the training being conducted, and by whom? Secondly, is it now accepted that attitude training is necessary, and what steps are being taken to put a stop to the overt racism which appears to be endemic from the observations of the Policies Studies Institute?
I want now to mention the question of consultation and accountability. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman, said that a statutory framework should be developed for local consultation between the Metropolitan Police and the community at borough level. That has not happened yet, although it is on the way, as your Lordships well know. To be honest, it is a task that is fraught with enormous political difficulties since some boroughs have adopted a foolish policy of refusing to have anything whatever to do with the police. They do not appear to realise that if many officers are racist in their attitudes—and sometimes in their behaviour—that is the product of a closed police culture, which is simply reinforced by boycotting. On the other hand, in Lambeth the lessons of Brixton seem to have been taken to heart. Inspector Nigel Yeo,
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who was the community liaison officer at Brixton police station, says this:
"It is generally considered that the better relationship between the police and the public, coupled with greater community involvement in crime prevention and policing associated with the community police consultative group, have helped the people of Lambeth not least in the field of crime prevention".
The London Association of Community Relations Council in their annual report for 1983 refer also to,
"a modest but real measure of success in improving police-community relations".
There are disagreements of course between the political parties on public accountability of the police in Greater London, and some of us should like to see elected representatives having powers over the operational strategy of the police. But while we are waiting for the opportunity to put these changes into effect it is surely illogical and childish to forgo the chance of having any influence whatsoever on the police, as they have done in the London Borough of Hackney. I hope in the end that the council there will take the sensible advice offered by Councillor Victoria Lubbock and others and try out arrangements for consultation over the next 12 months. They have nothing to lose in Hackney but their ideological chains in carrying out such an experiment in consultation to see whether it does not benefit the people of that borough, as I believe it would throughout Greater London.
In the meanwhile, Clause 96 of the Police Bill gives the Secretary of State the power to issue guidelines on how the statutory arrangements are to work; but these have yet to be issued. The previous edition which was published in June 1982 was, if I may say so, vague and woolly. Since then the London Association of Community Relations Councils has proposed that what has been accepted in Lambeth, which does involve some degree of accountability on strategy, should be adopted for London as a whole. If I may say so to the Minister, I hope that this will be the formula adopted by the Secretary of State. Whatever he does, he should at least publish these guidelines before the Bill leaves Parliament, because after that there will be no opportunity, as of right, to discuss them. They are not in the form of a statutory instrument, which would have given Parliament the right to throw them out if they were wholly inadequate.
I now turn to a matter of equal importance: that is, the operation of the Race Relations Act, 1976, in which so much hope was reposed at the time of its passing. I think it must be admitted that very little progress has been made towards racial equality as a result of that legislation, and in the normal course of things we also would have welcomed the consultation exercise which has now been instituted by the Commission for Racial Equality. But we feel that the political climate is not appropriate at this time because the political will for change which would be needed to make it effective is not there, and we rather fear that the Commission for Racial Equality itself has no stomach for radical change. We think that instead of merely tinkering with the Act at the edges, the review should have been seen as an exercise in reappraising the needs of the communities, the nature of the problems to be tackled and the resource as well as the legislative approaches to their solution.

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The consultation document issued by the CRE fails in three ways, it seems to us. It does not recognise the need to move towards a greater degree of self-determination by ethnic minority communities and individuals in deciding their own goals and priorities. It leaves out of account altogether the dimension of racial disadvantage, when it has been recognised since the White Paper of 1975 that any attempt to deal with the problem of discrimination is bound to fail unless it is accompanied by a wider strategy for attacking disadvantage. It ignores the major factor of racial harassment and racially-motivated violence against people and property. We therefore ask the CRE to give further thought to the general situation of minorities as the context into which this legislation has to fit, and to consult with minorities about the principles that ought to be followed before they come forward with any final proposals for the amendment of the Act.
I should like to know from the Minister, if I may, what the next stage is to be. Does he envisage that the CRE will bring forward some definite proposals as a result of the consultation exercise? Following that, will the Government publish their own White Paper or will there be an intermediate stage of a Green Paper and further consultation?
Subject to these considerations, there are one or two observations that we can make about the consultation exercise. We have reached the conclusion that ethnic record-keeping within a structured monitoring system is necessary to ensure equality of opportunity in employment, and we welcome the limited initiative the Government have taken on this matter, although we believe that they are moving too slowly.
On affirmative action, we do not see that the CRE has provided enough of a base for discussion. The existing provisions are clearly inadequate and under-utilised, and I notice that the noble Lord the Minister did not reply to my noble friend Baroness Seear when she asked for details of the use that had so far been made of Section 37. The entire question needs to be identified as an area in itself, requiring its own public debate. In the meanwhile, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman, did identify the scope for positive action to redress the balance of racial disadvantage and a start should be made immediately with some pilot action programme.
We sympathise with the CRE's aim of reducing the complexity of the formal investigation procedures. In the case of a strategic investigation, the commission ought to be able to show that it has reasonable grounds for it, but this could be in general terms and not related to any specific cases of discrimination. For the named investigation where a particular firm or body is under scrutiny, there should be reasonable belief that breaches of the Act have occurred.
On individual cases of discrimination, we agree with the proposal that a discrimination tribunal should be established to hear cases instead of the courts, with provision for the tribunal to be chaired by a judge of the High Court, sitting with assessors, in cases of exceptional difficulty.
The CRE's consultative paper appeared in July and the closing date for submissions was the end of last month. We consider this exercise to be a critical test of
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the Government's intentions in respect of ethnic minorities. If they respond promptly and positively, and if they declare not only that legislation has a high priority for them but that resources will be made available, where that is shown to be necessary for the attainment of racial equality, then we in the Liberal and Social Democratic Alliance shall support them with all our strength; however, if they drag their feet, allowing the pressures to build up again towards more disorders on streets and the very much larger penumbra of discontent over the lack of positive commitment to an ideal in which every party, after all, claims to believe, then we shall take the issue to the ethnic minorities themselves and mobilise them to political action.

Mr. Edgar Graham
4.50 p.m.
Viscount Long: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I should like to repeat a Statement that is being made in another place by my honourable friend the Minister of State for Northern Ireland. The Statement is as follows:
"Mr. Edgar Graham, a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, was murdered at ten-to-eleven this morning outside Queen's University, Belfast, where he lectured. He was approached whilst talking to a colleague on the pavement by two youths on foot who fired a number of shots and then fled. The Provisional IRA have claimed responsibility for the murder. A full police inquiry was mounted immediately.
"I know that the whole House will join me in extending sympathy to Mr. Graham's family, as also to those right honorable and honourable Members who were his colleagues. It will also join me in expressing total condemnation of this outrage.
"Edgar Graham was the kind of young man who is needed in Northern Ireland politics. His intellectual gifts would have enabled him to make a good career in any number of fields; he chose to devote them to the process of democracy. At 28 he was already a senior figure in his party, including being Secretary of the Ulster Unionist Council.
"I can speak with personal knowledge of his political skills and penetrating mind as the Chairman of the Finance and Personnel Committee of the Northern Ireland Assembly. I therefore express my own feelings in addition to those of the Government in lamenting his untimely death".
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Lord Blease: My Lords, in the troubled history of Ireland, this is another sad day for the people of Ulster. Another young Irishman has been brutally murdered—an Irishman who chose to serve his community, as an elected representative. I am very conscious of the fact that on an occasion such as this, words fail to express our innermost feelings over the loss of yet another young life; tragically, such occurrences are all too frequent in our Province. At the same time, our feelings, our hearts, cry out to place on record our abhorrence, our condemnation and our repugnance over this politically futile and evil deed.

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From these Benches—and I wish to associate with my remarks my noble friend Lord Underhill, who until now has had duties outside the House—we join in the Government's expression of sympathy for the family and friends of Edgar Graham. We share their sorrow at this time. We also share the deep-felt concern and growing anxiety of the people of Northern Ireland at this time, and we plead that all acts of revenge, retaliation, and sectarianism should be left aside. We appeal to all that the rule of law and order should be upheld and supported, and that the perpetrators, the evildoers, of this and all such vile acts may soon be brought to justice.
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: My Lords, the two parties on these Benches associate ourselves fully with everything that has been said, and I shall not say it again. One is really lost for words. Month after month we are getting up from these Benches and responding to Statements about barbarism of this kind, first from one side and then from the other. My old friend Lord Fitt will speak later; he knew the murdered man well, so I shall make no personal comments.
However, I should like to ask a question or two. First, I take it that Mr. Graham had permission to carry a gun, and that he probably carried one. I understand that he had no protection, and I should like to know to what extent Assembly Members get protection. It is worth asking, because protection works. Very few people of this type are murdered when they have armed detectives watching them, because then the man who intends to commit the murder knows that he would himself be shot. That would satisfy everybody, so far as it goes.
I also understand from my old friend Lord Fitt that there was some hint that this particular Assembly Member was in special danger at the time. In circumstances of that kind, would it be possible to afford temporary protection? I ask these questions without expecting an answer now, but perhaps I can have a letter about them later, because they seem to me to be matters of importance.
Anybody can get up and shoot someone else in the street, and run away; it is too easy. No number of Royal Ulster Constabulary officers, or anybody else, can stop it. But if there is a guard, the fact that the man who shoots knows that he will himself be shot has a splendid deterrent effect. I think that I speak for all of us in expressing horror.
I am glad to see that, in a sentence in the statement which was handed round, but which the noble Viscount did not read, the Government say:
"This cold-blooded assassination reminds us not only of the true nature of those who carry out acts of terrorist violence, but also of all those who advocate or support such violence".
I wonder whether we have reached the stage where it is an insult to Great Britain to allow people to vote for candidates who openly support the IRA and their murderous activities. I do not expect an answer to that point today, nor have we time to discuss it, but I think that we all ought to think about it very carefully.
Lord Fitt: My Lords,—
Viscount Long: My Lords, I am so sorry, but I must answer the two noble Lords who spoke from the Front
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Benches. I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Blease, for his kind words on this tragic incident which happened this morning. Of course, all the security forces will do their utmost to uphold law and order at all times, and they deserve many congratulations on the hard work which they put in round the clock in so doing.
The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, asked me three or four questions, one of which was about protection for Mr. Graham. Yes, my Lords, he was licensed to be armed, which means that he was also trained for protection. But, of course, protection is extremely difficult when you are shot from behind, or without warning.
The noble Lord also asked about the security of other Members of the Assembly. I can assure him that, though the RUC puts a great deal of effort into advising individuals, it is just not possible to offer round-the-clock protection to everyone who is potentially at risk. Therefore, it is most important that everyone who is at risk should take the advice given to him. Mr. Graham was given some advice in the last three or four days, because there was arumour that he was being watched. At this stage, I cannot answer the noble Lord's last question, but I should very much like to write to him and give him the answer.
Lord Fitt: My Lords, does the noble Viscount agree that the sinister motive for this latest dreadful murder has, as was intended, been seen to lie in the fact that young Edgar Graham sought and received a mandate from his community for his political point of view? Therefore, his murder will be seen as a direct attack on the people who voted for him and whom he represented in the Northern Ireland Assembly. Indeed, Mr. Graham was to come to this House tomorrow to put forward his quite legitimately held point of view, as he had been doing since he was elected.
His murder today is yet another indication that the IRA is deliberately trying to push the Catholic community and the Protestant community into conflict. It is trying to bring about a civil war. In this connection, does the Minister accept that, as a Roman Catholic, and an Irishman. I find it particularly obscene to see in the press and on television Roman Catholic priests associating openly with men who wear masks and who brandish guns, as we saw in our newspapers this morning? Will the noble Viscount accept that one of the priests at the graveside oration yesterday for one of the IRA men—I deeply regret the death of anyone in the conflict in Northern Ireland—said that there is surely some law of nature which is violated and offended when Irishmen are struck down in the town land of their brothers, in their own ancestral fields, and among their kith and kin? Will the noble Viscount apply the same standards to young Mr. Graham, who was shot down today in the city in which he was born and bred, and in which his bereaved relatives still live? Will he accept that there can no longer be any acceptance of double standards—that murder is murder, as was said by the Pope when he visited Ireland in 1979? Finally, will the noble Viscount accept from me, as one who has lived with this terrible situation for so many years, my heartfelt sympathy for all the bereaved relatives?
Viscount Long: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, for his intervention at this sad moment. He has asked me a number of questions. I shall look at what he has said and write to him. One fact is quite clear our security forces must remain in Northern Ireland at all times to see that murder becomes a thing of the past. Whether it be Protestants or Catholics, the IRA must not be allowed to get away with anything. It is very difficult to keep in being all the time a round-the-clock security system. It is even more tragic that outside that wonderful university—Queen's University, Belfast—such a young man should have lost his life—a man so young that he had the whole world before him. I agree with the noble Lord. It is indeed a very sad afternoon.

The Ethnic and Religious Minorities
5.2 p.m.
Debate resumed.
The Lord Bishop of Chichester: My Lords, we now return to the debate on the Motion of the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster. I welcome what has been said on the Motion by other speakers. It is particularly helpful that we should have an opportunity to discuss this subject in an atmosphere which is not clouded by some recent riot or some recent serious racial trouble. May I apologise for the fact that I have to leave the House for another engagement shortly after six o'clock, and that I may therefore be unable to stay for the end of the debate.
About 14 years ago I went to live in the West Midlands. I was invited to become an assessor for the religious studies examination run by the Department of Education and Science at the University of Birmingham. When I went round the various colleges of education in that area I was not a little surprised to find that a great deal of space and time was allotted by this course to the study of non-Christian religions. It did not, however, take me very long to realise that there was a very great need for this study because of the nature of the population of the schools into which the majority of those young people being trained as teachers were to go, and that it was absolutely essential, if they were to go as religious education teachers into those schools, for them to have a deep understanding of the religion in which many of their pupils would be brought up.
That touches a little on one of the questions relating to education which the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, raised. There was in his speech, I thought, a suggestion that there might be some danger of compromising Christian witness if comparative religion were introduced into these syllabuses. No doubt there is some danger, but I believe it is a risk that we have to take if there is to be a proper understanding and a proper relationship between teacher and pupil. To look at it from another point of view, in areas where there are no large ethnic communities children receiving religious education in schools should be made aware of the presence of other religions in this country so that they adopt a sympathetic attitude towards them. This is important, in view of the enormous mobility of our population.
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I turn from my experience in Birmingham to my experience when I went to West Sussex. I found there that a very unhappy situation surrounded the preparation of a new, agreed syllabus for religious education in the county. This syllabus had been agreed by the statutory conference of teachers and representatives of the Churches, who were happy to take over the syllabus already in use in Hampshire and very shortly afterwards adopted in East Sussex. But that syllabus was rejected by the county council because certain influential people argued that it was not sufficiently Christian. I do not intend to go into the merits or demerits of that syllabus. The point which it leads me to want to make is that we must recognise that racism, as a problem, exists at least as seriously and is as deeply embedded in areas of the country where there is no racial problem of the kind which exists in Birmingham and Southwark, and that we need to give very serious attention to it.
A few years ago the parish church of Brighton, St. Peter's, held a 24-hour vigil of prayer for racial harmony. This, one would have thought, was a positive, peaceful, constructive event, yet the National Front demonstrated outside the church against the holding of this vigil of prayer. Unfortunately for them, they made a mistake about the actual part of the building in which the vigil of prayer was being held and demonstrated instead outside the hall in which a meeting of the Brighton Ornithological Society was being held. However, that does not detract from the point.
There is real space in education for guidance to be given from the centre to local authorities. I hope that the Department of Education and Science will get together representatives of the Churches and of the other faiths to discuss this problem. As I have said, we do not have a large ethnic minority in Sussex, but it is 98 per cent. Asian—about 8,000—almost all of whom are concentrated in Crawley. But the racist problem is there.
The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, produced a packet of literature. I could have done the same, if I had thought. It so happens that a very large number of the headquarters and the publishing houses of the most virulent racist organisations are to be found in Sussex. A residential session of our Bishops' Council was held last year on the subject. I was horrified by the specimens of literature which were produced and set out for us to examine.
Since a good deal has already been said about the police, may I say that I have nothing but admiration for the work of the community relations officers of the Sussex police. They are, I believe, very well aware of the problem, and they are giving serious attention to it.
As the subject is so wide, perhaps I ought to mention certain religious minorities, which cause a great deal of anxiety in many quarters—"the Moonies", and other such sects. They constitute, perhaps, a special kind of religious minority which is disruptive and which has very grave and sad effects on the family. Some of the saddest correspondence and the saddest meetings I have had have been with parents whose children have been drawn into that kind of movement and almost totally removed from their parents. That is not something which is a prominent part of the situation

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we are debating today, but it is an aspect we must not ignore.
I will now turn to two aspects of the religious problem in a positive way. The first concerns the non-Christian religions in this country. It was Cardinal Mercier who said, in relation to Christian unity, that we shall never unite until we love one another; that we shall never love one another until we know one another; and we shall never know one another until we meet one another. I believe that something similar needs to be stated in the field of relations between the great world religions. Therefore, one welcomes the presence among us of representatives of those other great world religions because it is one thing to read and hear about them but it is quite another to meet people, to get to know their way of life, and to hear about their beliefs from their own lips.
Without in any way compromising the unique claims of Christianity, I believe that we have somethings to learn from other faiths. I mention two in particular. First, there is the example of commitment. It is the case that wherever one finds a mixture of religion and nationalism, or a racial group supported by its religion, then the whole sense of commitment is a complex one and it is not just a simple religious commitment. Allowing for that, I believe that many of the other religions do set us an example of commitment, and the extent to which their religion affects and shapes their social as well as their personal lives, which we need to take very much to heart.
The second is spirituality; an understanding of the centrality of prayer and meditation in the spiritual life. I am not referring so much to techniques such as transcendental meditation, about which there is certainly more than one view, as to the fact that religion without substantial and regular personal prayer will die. I believe that the other great world religions do perhaps say something to us about that aspect which, certainly in our Western Christian society, we have been in considerable danger of letting slip. The coming together with those other religions will help us to underline what we have in common; and it will help us also to assess more clearly the significance of the points on which we differ.
I turn now to the non-white Christians, who are overwhelmingly black and West Indian. It must be a disturbing fact that whereas in the West Indies most Christians belong to the mainstream churches, yet here, for the most part, the West Indian immigrants have not found their home in the mainstream churches but have formed their own, mostly Pentecostal churches. Incidentally, they have the highest growth rate of any Christian body in this country.
There can be little doubt that racism in the active sense has contributed to that situation, but we also need to ask ourselves what is lacking in our own churches which is responsible for that phenomenon. I would venture to suggest that there are the two factors which I mentioned earlier in relation to the non-Christian religions—a lack of commitment and a lack of spirituality. I am not saying that we ought to be scrapping our organs and replacing them with steel bands, because that is simply a superficial element. What has been happening is a call to us to re-examine the quality of our own religious life—the depth of our
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commitment, the depth of our spirituality, and the extent to which the principles which we profess really shape what we do.
There are important conclusions to be drawn from all this about the training of the ministers of all Churches; preparing them to work in a multiracial and a multi faith society. There must also be a similar training of teachers, which was the point with which I started. This affects the outlook of every one of us. We may live in a part of the country, as I do, where ethnic and religious minorities scarcely exist. But we all belong to a society in which they are of increasing significance, and we have to think constructively about them.
I end with the words of the Archbishop of Canterbury in an address he gave to the Birmingham Community Relations Council last year. He said:
"We are in fact a multiracial society, and the choice we have is between working to make this fact a matter for pride and celebration, or drifting into a situation when this fact is a matter for lament and despair".
5.17 p.m.
Lord Soper: My Lords, in thanking the noble Viscount for introducing this topic, may I express my intention to follow in the steps of my right reverend friend and to talk about the religious element which belongs to this highly complicated question—professionally, because I am sure that religion is of paramount importance; pragmatically, because the attempt to differentiate between ethnic and religious problems here is, I believe, a waste of time inasmuch as so many of the existing problems are an intermingling of ethnic and religious principles or prejudices.
I will not talk, although I might be encouraged so to do, of Methodism. Strictly speaking, I suppose that we are a minority movement; at least in quantity if not in quality. But surely this is a most difficult problem even to face. Those who embark upon any attempt to envisage a future for religion in general and for Christianity in particular are embarking upon a very tempestuous voyage.
Much of the problem is yet unsophisticated, and many of the issues have not as yet been designated, let alone treated. May I therefore set the scenario of the present religious situation with regard to minorities against the background so often canvassed these days and described as the "Victorian values".
This is an age in which the missionary enthusiasm of the 19th century has now paled considerably. But that missionary enthusiasm was wedded to the proposition that outside the Christian faith there was the darkness of heathenism. It was the business and the opportunity of the Christian Church, if by evangelical hosepipe, to baptise the rest of the world into a belief in Christian values and the way of life of Jesus Christ and his Church.
It was not an unfair criticism of the immortal David Livingstone that he very much regarded the Kingdom of God as something approaching, at least, the British Empire; and in the recessional hymn of Rudyard Kipling (which I hope has been taken out of the new Methodist hymnbook; I must look into that) the idea that God gave to the British Empire dominion over palm and pine—and that is something that we must

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never forget—points to an age which has in so many respects almost totally disappeared, at least from mainline Christian endeavour, though I believe that Billy Graham is still committed to the proposition that outside the Christian faith all is utter darkness.
It is imperative in my judgment to see the change that has taken place, if we are properly to appreciate the opportunities which confront us and indeed the difficulties which assail us. May I give some illustrations of this problem. In the last 100 years it was and has been the pride of the Methodist Missionary Society to conduct its evangelism in what was then Ceylon and is now Sri Lanka. It is a fact that the proportion, taking due account of the increase in population in what was Ceylon, of Christians has remained more or less static, and the assumption that another nudge in the evangelical effort and great companies of people would turn to Jesus Christ is as untrue of the general situation in Ceylon, as it was, as it is most other places. There have been revivals in Hyderabad; for instance, Pastor Harris on the west coast of Central Africa; and indeed there have been evidences in the Outer Hebrides and other places of occasional opportunities which have been seized for mass conversions, but they have been largely temporary. I think nobody could doubt the fact now that the prospect of an evangelical breakthrough such as our fathers anticipated is more or less out of date and should not be further canvassed as a practical proposition, at least in the terms in which it was advocated 100 years ago.
May I give a personal illustration of the change that has taken place. I am a loyal disciple of John Wesley in one respect—I venture into the open air. Not so many Sundays ago I was confronted in Hyde Park with Buddhist missionaries who had come over from the East in order to provide some last minute opportunity for us in the West to turn from our violence and continue to live. They had begun quite properly in the North of Scotland and had worked their way south, and there they were in Hyde Park. Your Lordships will not be surprised that they knew considerably more about Buddhism than I did. Here is a phenomenon which only expresses something of what my very reverend friend has already indicated, that we are now in a totally different situation with regard to the propagation of Christianity than were our fathers when they were not confronted, as we are, with situations that are promoted by people who believe in other kinds of religion, and are in some cases spiritually minded, as we are tempor-secularly minded, and in some cases have exhibited qualities, as some of the Buddhists have, which have put our arrogance and violence to shame in the Christian faith.
It is therefore I think imperitive that, if we are properly to approach the problem as to what should be our reaction to these minorities in the religious field so closely associated with the minorities in the ethnic field, we should divide up as best we can into rough categories as to what these particular minorities represent. They represent in the first case the great historic world-renouncing faiths, Hinduism and Buddhism. The cross-fertilisation of impact from Christian sources has modified that world-renouncing faith in some of its characteristics, notably the
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immolation of Buddhist priests in the interests of the fight against oppression in Vietnam.
However, in general principle there is still within the minority movements that can be called ethical and spiritual a tendency on the part of many to withdraw from the practical problems, and this is particularly illustrated from the so-called Christian standpoint when you remember the general basis of the negro spiritual—
"I got shoes, you got shoes,
All God's children got shoes,
And when I get to Heaven going to put on my shoes,
Going to walk all over God's Heaven."
I remember singing that as a boy.
Though again there has been a vast change—and the Rastafarians are excellent examples of that transmutation from a purely other wordly faith of pie in the sky rather than "ham where we am"—nevertheless the situation still prevails that there are a great many of these non-Christian faiths which are still world-renouncing. I shall come a little later to what seems to me to be the appropriate method by which we at least have to seek to deal with this problem.
On the other hand, there are the world-embracing faiths. I wonder whether your Lordships will be scandalised if I remind myself of an argument to which I was subjected some time ago: a very erudite man who said that Judaism was the original world-embracing faith; Christianity was a heresy of Judaism; Islam was a heresy of both Judaism and Christianity; and communism was a hotchpotch of the lot. That is of course at least a pleasantry, but it commands some very powerful recognition of a golden thread that runs through all those religions. It is the positive assumption that something is to be done about the state of the world in which the believer finds himself. This requires a very different kind of approach from the approach that ought to be given to those of ethnic and religious world-renouncing faiths.
There is a third group. Inasmuch as my noble and reverend friend has already mentioned them, I will not digress to talk much about these absurd faiths, many of them as unpleasant in their general reactions as they are quite intemperate in their propagation, and thoroughly disastrous in such thinking as they pretend to command. But the fact remains that in many respects, and particularly to illustrate from the Rastafarians, those beliefs which are intellectually beyond contempt can command the kind of allegiance which is all the more powerful because it sidesteps the need for thinking. It gives totalitarianism in religious practices the kind of edge which has been all too deplorably discovered over the last half century in political matters.
What is to be done—if anything can be done—in this melée and medley of religions which have now sprung out of the ground, so to speak, and become minority movements in this country, though in the country of their origin they were majority movements and still are? May I first of all put two negatives. I have no use whatsoever for the idea that we can return to the baptism by hosepipe and entertain the belief that evangelism by dogmatic assertion is going to bring all these other religions under the heel of a dominant Christian church and in tutelage to the Christian faith.

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I think, for the time being at least, the only evangelism which is likely to be effective is that which plays very softly the general music of totalitarian or dogmatic theology, and instead—as I said here only a few weeks ago—gives an advance copy, so to speak, in its institutions of what the Kingdom of God is going to be like, and invites people to find themselves within that new environment. That I believe is a far more powerful incentive to conversion than all the theology that can be commanded by the historic evangelist. Therefore, I do not believe it is still a sensible or even a commendable policy for us to cherish and to cuddle to ourselves the proposition that one more step in the evangelical jamboree and we shall be within sight of a world converted to Christianity.
I am equally opposed to the concept of integration, if it at least means absorption. One has not really integrated a Pakistani if one teaches him to speak with a Birmingham accent. There is an idea that we must somehow flatten out the various characteristics of people of other colours, other creeds and historical backgrounds so that they may become more or less the same thing and exercise the same kind of practices, domestic and otherwise, that we cherish and believe to be part of our own tradition. I believe that this is a non-productive effort and in any case such processes of absorption pay little respect to the manifest differences that go to make up the many-coloured variety of human life of which the right reverend Prelate who preceded me gave ample evidence in talking about the way in which we owe so much to other religions for clarifying the best things in ourselves and for providing the economy whereby we can discharge and get rid of many of the ideas which those other religions can show to be unworthy.
Therefore, I conclude by making one or two suggestions in the realm of what seems to me to be practical politics. Of course I have to speak of education. There is nothing so deplorable as people who have no religious faith, and who are in any case fairly cynical about religious faith, being required to direct spiritual education in our schools. That is an absurdity and it is a monstrosity. I wonder whether the Government have considered a project which I believe has had some success in Australia. The clergy and ministers of the various faiths provide the kind of information and teaching in the general school curricula which previously would have been under the direction of the headmaster or one of the teachers.
I do not entirely subscribe to what the the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, said about the necessity to maintain a Christian evidence. I believe that Christian evidence is much more likely to be subsumed in a transformation of character and attitude, politically and economically, than in the assertion of dogmatic statements. But what seems to me to be obvious is this: one can no longer expect those who are dubious and more or less neutral in their own attitude to religion to provide a basis of understanding so that those who are so instructed may at least know when they get a little older what they are to disagree with. This is a colossally difficult task, and that is why I introduced what I have to say by confessing to the difficulties which seem to oppress us as we look out on this unprecedented religious situation in the modern world. I believe that it is necessary that
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those who come to decisions about religion should at least have the furniture of an informed mind with which to make that decision.
Finally, I do not believe that one can ultimately relate true religion and the constituent elements of what we call the nation state. In very many respects religious enthusiasms are polluted when they are married to the most predatory and violent institution to which man has ever committed himself—the nation state. It is in that regard that, looking further a field and with an ambition which strides far beyond my capacity to express it, I venture to commend to your Lordships that nothing would make a better difference for good to the present situation regarding ethnic and religious minorities than the prosecution of the idea that the human family is not to be segregated within the nation state, surrounded by barbed wire and propped up by war and suitable and unsuitable marriage alliances, but that the nation state must give place if there is to be a hope and an expectation of a world in which these various faiths can live together and can mutually germinate within their various and individual professions ways and means whereby it is at least possible to look, as I do, for a day when Jesus Christ will be regarded not in theological terms as the Saviour of the world so much as the one who, in economy, simplicity and directness, brings to purpose that which Aldous Huxley in his famous book on other religions indicated in his final chapter.
We were invited to remember the last words of the Te Deum. I do. I do not believe that Christianity will be confounded, and our faith will be so confounded, if we entertain a humility and an attitude of respect to those who hitherto have found themselves within the frameworks of Christian belief or non-Christian belief which in their judgment offer a way to God and a personal expression of satisfaction. May I remind your Lordships that the penultimate words of the Te Deum are:
"Oh Lord, let thy mercy lighten upon us: as our trust is in thee".
I believe a much greater humility on the part of the Christian Church can yield a spiritual dividend incomparably greater than anything else we can do. Therefore, I venture not only to entertain it but to offer it to your Lordships' House.
5.36 p.m.
Lord Scarman: My Lords, as a lawyer, I feel a very great humility in rising to address your Lordships' House after the passionate assertion of faith which we have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Soper. If he will allow me to say so with the deepest respect, I most sincerely and profoundly agree with what he said as to the necessity of all men living together in a plural society without the constrictions of walls, barriers, fortresses or wire fences. He will allow me to say that I do not apply that physical description to the nation state but I do agree most firmly with him that wherever those walls and barriers are to be found between men they must be broken down. They are to be found in some places within the United Kingdom. They are to be found within some places in the inner cities. It is that type of moral ghetto which we must see is never established in the free and tolerant society which we have been lucky enough to inherit from our ancestors. I am stimulated into making those remarks, unusual

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for the rather dry and dusty ladies and gentlemen of my profession, by the fact that I am following two fine speeches by two fine men of God.
I should like to congratulate the noble Viscount on initiating this debate and on the wide-ranging speech with which he introduced it. It is a very wide and deep subject. However, I am beginning to wonder whether the time for review and discussion is not fast coming to an end and whether we should not, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, and the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, had in mind, move now from discussion to action.
Of course I have been interested to hear a large number of quotations from the Brixton report. It is a matter of some significance that its findings, I shall not say have proved absolutely right in every respect, but, by and large, have so far stood the passage of time. That being so, I would join the noble Lords, Lord Mischcon, Lord Avebury, and others in saying to the Government that we are now of necessity moving into a period where, unless action is taken, our plural society may well become a splintered society. A plural society is healthy for all sorts of reasons which have been developed tonight—in matters of religion, culture and variety. I think that a splintered society foreshadows the disappearance of that society.
I do not intend to detain your Lordships long. There are many matters this evening on which one could talk at length and, I hope, with advantage. I shall look at two problems only. They are related. Those problems are, first, the plight of the young black people in our inner city areas, and. secondly, the problem of police-community relations.
It could be said with a certain degree of truth that the very eye of the storm is to be found where one finds young black people frustrated, deprived and suffering disadvantage, both economic and social. We find them in our inner cities. Today these youngsters are almost all British born—as British as you and I and the rest of us. They have been through the British educational system. They are emerging and looking for jobs and for a future. Notwithstanding that career in this prosperous country—because so we still are—they perceive themselves (perhaps not always rightly) as suffering from disadvantage, and they associate that disadvantage with their race and the colour of their skin.
First of all, they do suffer disadvantage. They face the hideous and, to them it must appear, insoluble problem of finding a job. Their homes are not good because of poverty and the areas in which they live. Of course they face from time to time—although not all the time—the exhibition towards them of racial prejudice. Whether their disadvantages—which of course are shared by white young men—are racial or not, or whether racial prejudice is as common as some people say, nevertheless they meet sufficiently with the fact of disadvantage and the fact of racial prejudice shown towards them inevitably to associate the two: hence not only their frustration but their alienation from the society in which they were born. That is the social problem.
An immense amount is being done about it. No doubt we shall hear from the noble Lord replying on
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behalf of the Government what is being done. I know from my own observation and research that a very great deal is being done to alleviate disadvantage and a certain amount to disperse or get rid of racial prejudice. But we have to persuade them that it is being done. We have to get it across to them that if they will help themselves, we—the establishment—are there to help them.
I said in the report—and I shall say it again and then leave this part of the subject—we must at all levels of government, from the centre down to local government and the parish pump. have some sort of co-ordinated policy and direction to ensure that, for these young blacks during their education, and I hope their higher education (although that comes to very few of them), and their search for jobs, there are available on a centrally co-ordinated basis positive help and action—people are frightened of those terms but we must face them—to see that they have genuine equality in our society. By equality, I mean just this—equality of opportunity. They want liberty. By liberty, I mean the liberty that goes with social and economic position. They also need what was called in the eighteenth century fraternity and what I would now describe as brotherly love on the part of the whole of our society.
If that is done, and if the Government give a lead, there will be a positive and healthy reaction from these young people. It is already beginning. A lot is being done. Part of the message to which I am speaking is getting across. If one goes to Peckham or Haringey (I mention just two places to which I have been: I dare say there are others) we find young black people getting together and organising themselves into working groups to offer services to the community in which they live—and offering services for reward. If there is that amount of will generating, action is being taken. But it has to be heightened, deepened, co-ordinated and permeating every level of government.
I say now a few words—and a very few words—on police-community relations. An immense amount of progress has been made here. The best piece of evidence of the improvement in relations between the police and the community is that since 1981 there have been no disorders of a character or on a scale comparable with those in Brixton, Toxteth, Manchester and Wolver hampton in 1981. Both sides of the balance are entitled to credit. The police have certainly done an immense amount, and I am sure we shall hear tonight something of what they have done. The young black people have also exercised a good deal of self-control, perhaps—one does not know; I wish I did—under the leadership of their elders. That is to the good. The police have devoted themselves to a programme of training, to developing consultation with local communities, to improving the supervision and monitoring of their own forces and to a much more open approach to their operations than they did before 1981. As the noble Viscount said, 1981 has been a watershed, particularly in police attitudes. All this, undoubtedly has played an important part.
What is now needed? I think I can just preface the few remarks I make on this by saying this: what is now needed is the sort of attitude that the Commissioner for the Metropolitan Police has shown in the way he received the voluminous report on the police commis-

1129
sioned by his predecessor in the last few weeks. He received it, he accepted it and he is in the process of making highly intelligent, very well-reasoned responses. That in itself is a sign of the progress that we are making. I say no more about that.
What would I like—and excuse the personal pronoun—to he done in the immediate future in addition to much that I know is being done? I can say it straight away. First of all, let us ensure that racially prejudiced conduct by a policeman is a specific disciplinary offence. The police have resisted this, but I observe in what Sir Kenneth Newman has been saying that work is being done on a code of ethics. Good. If an effective code of ethics comes forward, that will meet the point of a disciplinary offence, provided the code has teeth. That is what one has got to look for, because a contravention has got to be visited with severe punishment and, in proper cases, even with instant dismissal.
There are two other matters. I would hope that we shall get soon—I have not studied the Police and Criminal Evidence Bill yet and I am not, therefore, making a point on that Bill—a truly independent system for inquiring into complaints against the police. This cannot be brushed aside; it is of great importance; and if it can he allied with a conciliation process for minor complaints, so much the better.
Thirdly, we must recruit members of the ethnic minorities in substantial numbers into the police force. I know the problems: there are problems of hostility amongst the young blacks, but those must be overcome. One really comes back to this: we have to build in our society a bridge of confidence between our society and the young blacks suffering their disadvantages and frustrations in our inner city areas, and, if we fail there, it will not only be the police who have trouble: it will be the nation.
Finally, I must apologise to the noble Viscount that I have a public engagement and I shall be doing him and the House the quite unintended discourtesy of leaving very soon.
5.54 p.m.
Lord McNair: My Lords, when you look at the list of speakers and you find that the luck of the draw compels you to speak immediately after the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman, you feel a certain alarm; but my alarm turned to something like panic when I heard the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, unconsciously perhaps confusing me with my father, describe me as "another distinguished lawyer". May I say in self-defence that although my veins are awash with legal blood, not enough of it ever reached my head to enable me to study the law.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, may I merely explain to the noble Lord that I at all events realise that the mantle of his very distinguished father has fallen upon a distinguished son.
Lord McNair: My Lords, that was very gracefully put. I hope that the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, will not think I am stretching the terms of his Motion too far if I speak about one of our ethnic and religious
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minorities which, because it is not homogeneous and not immediately visible, we are very apt to overlook. I want to speak about the refugees in Great Britain.
I am directly descended from a Hugeunot refugee who came to this country in the 17th century (that is on my mother's side) and I now find my grandchildren having as school friends children from Vietnam who spent many months at sea before somehow being rescued and brought to these shores. I mention these personal details simply to illustrate the fact that refugees are not an invention of the 20th century, and that their plight makes demands upon our conscience which we are very unlikely to he able to discharge within the 20th century. This is an old story with no foreseeable end.
The currently accepted round figure for the total number of refugees in the world is 10 million; but of that appalling number, it is only the minute fraction who are in this country, or liable to come to this country, who are relevant to this evening's debate. I am happy to say immediately that this country has an honourable record of hospitality and generosity to refugees, from which I am equally happy to say we have enormously benefited.
The noble, if defunct, Lord, Lord Macaulay, writing at a time when everything seems to have been much easier than it is today, and before many of the complexities of modern life had been found necessary, described Britain as "the sacred refuge of mankind." Mutatis mutandis, I hope that is as true today as when he wrote it; but it does require a really tremendous effort of imagination for anyone living in a country such as ours to imagine himself a refugee, to think the thoughts and feel the feelings, and to dream the dreams—and perhaps the nightmares—of the refugee. To see the truth of this, one only has to look at the definition of a refugee in the 1951 Convention. He or she is:
"a person who, owing to a well-founded fear of persecution on the grounds of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, cannot return to his country of nationality."
I find it quite impossible to imagine how any citizen of this country could ever fall under that definition. After all, what do we do with the sort of people who in other countries might become refugees? We let them work (or, at least, compete for employment); we let them say whatever they like within the law; we let them worship whatever God they choose, or refrain from worshipping any; we let them vote; we let them stand for Parliament—and even get elected to Parliament; and some noble Lords may feel that we even occasionally admit them to membership of this House. We do not persecute them, which is why, in the matter of refugees, this is a recipient country; a country of asylum and not a country of origin. We should not feel too complacent about this, but we should thank our lucky stars that it is so and take very great trouble to see that it remains so.
We should not be complacent either about our present performance. Our current economic climate and our over-sensitivity, as it seems to me, on the quite different subject of immigration, lays us constantly open to the temptation to behave more and more restrictively towards asylum seekers. The purpose of my speech today is to suggest one or two ways in which

1131
we might more fully and more helpfully discharge the obligations that we took on as signatories of the Convention. That document of course could only lay down broad principles. It would have been impossible for it to stipulate the precise mechanisms in all the widely differing signatory countries. In this country, responsibility for processing applications and for granting or refusing asylum rests with the Home Office. They are dealt with by the refugee section of the immigration and nationality division. However, it seldom seems possible to complete the process in fewer than about nine months. During this agonising period of waiting, the applicant is probably dependent on the Department of Health and Social Security for his survival. I shall concentrate chiefly on the Home Office sphere of responsibility. Of the DHSS, I say in passing that I hope it has studied closely and sympathetically the British Refugee Council's report enitled, "Asylum Seekers and the DHSS Regulations".
Many of the problems that asylum seekers and their advisers encounter seem to arise from what seem to me the unfathomable complexities of our immigration laws. What is called the immigration status of a refugee seems to depend upon exactly how he arrived here. In the nature of things, a man in fear of his life will get here by any means he can, even if it is not strictly legal. It seems to me wrong that he should then be consigned to an immigration status that may, for example, gravely prejudice his right of appeal if his first application is rejected. Refugees should not be confused with immigrants. Surely, either asylum seekers should be separated from the present immigration rules or the system should be so amended as to provide all asylum seekers with equal rights in the processing of their claims and in their treatment in the pre-asylum period.
Can I now say a word about access to advice? The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe recommended in 1981 that:
"The applicant shall receive the necessary guidance as to procedures to be followed and shall be informed of his rights. He shall enjoy the guarantees necessary for presenting his case to the authorities concerned and have the right to be heard … as well as the possibility to communicate freely with the office of the UNHCR and to approach avoluntary agency working for refugees".
In practice, it seems to be largely a matter of luck. Those interviewed by the immigration service at Lunar House, Croydon, fare relatively well. There are very few complaints. But for many asylum seekers, their first and inevitably alarming confrontation with British authority is an immigration officer at the port of entry. Here, I am afraid, there is quite a lot of evidence that some immigration officers are lacking in training, in linguistic back-up, in knowledge of the sort of conditions that produce refugees or even, in some cases, in common courtesy. Would it be possible to ensure that asylum-seekers are interviewed by experienced officers of chief immigration officer level who have received training in basic refugee law and who have been provided in advance, if possible, with background information about the conditions in the asylum-seeker's country of origin? Should not the asylum-seeker be informed in writing, with verbal translation where necessary, where he can seek advice?
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And if he is detained, could not an appropriate agency be immediately told of his name and his whereabouts?
I referred earlier to the right of appeal against rejection of an application for asylum. On this subject, may I make two requests? The first is that the Home Office should give detailed reasons for its refusal. It is difficult to appeal against a decision if the reasons for it are not known. Detailed reasons might sometimes be of assistance to the applicant in making an application to some other country. Secondly, should not all asylum seekers have equal rights of appeal—even so-called illegal entrants or over-stayers? Do we hold it against a man that in fleeing from persecution, he has contravened some of the minutiae of our law of which he is probably ignorant in any case? The period between filing his application and the ultimate Home Office decision is a time of great difficulty for the asylum-seeker. Some of his needs are met, not always very generously, by the DHSS. But he is also forbidden to work. It is not uncommon for this phase to last as long as nine months or so. Would it not be more sensible, as well as more humane, to say that at least after six months of compulsory unemployment, he could take a job if he could find one?
If I had ordered this speech more skilfully, I could have put many more questions and suggestions to the noble Lord, who is to reply. He can perhaps feel grateful for my incompetence. I have deliberately left out most of the DHSS questions. I can perhaps make one general plea to the Department of Education and Science. Refugees and/or their children clearly have an extra need for education. They are, in several ways, disadvantaged in their access to our educational system. I wonder therefore whether the Department could consult with the appropriate and knowledg able agencies to work out improvements in the situation. As the noble Lord, Lord Elton, well knows, I have not given him notice of any of my questions, and I humbly apologise. I assure him that the great admiration that I have for him will in no way be diminished if he is unable to answer these questions off the cuff.
That would have been the end of my speech had I not seen in The Times yesterday a ghastly report from Singapore. I have to admit that this matter is only marginally relevant to the Motion, but it cannot be ignored. As noble Lords will know, the UNHCR worked out with the Government of Vietnam what was called the orderly departure programme, which was designed to discourage people taking to the boats and to regulate the exodus of refugees from Vietnam. This programme is breaking down. It is running out of money. The countries of first asylum in South East Asia are running out of places to which they can send refugees on. They are running out of acceptances in countries of resettlement. The camps are full to overflowing. In fact, we are witnessing what refugee-concerned people have come to know as compassion fatigue. The boat people are no longer fashionable. But they are still taking to the boats. However, now several shipping lines are deliberately avoiding sea routes where they are likely to encounter boat people. But not so the pirates. Since 1980 we read that 2,300 women have been raped on the high seas by these pirates; 1,400 people have been killed and murdered; and, of course, we shall never know the number who have simply drowned.

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So my final sentence is as follows. Have Her Majesty's Government made, or are they thinking of making, any favourable reply to the requests which they must have received from the High Commission, either in terms of money or, better still, in terms of a more liberal quota of admissions for the boat people of Vietnam?
6.11 p.m.
Lord Swann: My Lords, I, too am grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, but, unlike him and unlike the other noble Lords who either have spoken or are going to speak, I can count myself only a novice in the matter of ethnic minorities. My initiation, which was sudden and bewildering, took place only a little over two years ago, It came about because nearly five years ago, in the final months of the last Labour Administration and as a response to the 1977 Report of the Select Committee on Race Relations and Immigration, the then Government set up, under the chairmanship of Mr. Anthony Rampton, a committee of inquiry into the education of children from ethnic minority groups. The membership of the Committee was completed by the next Conservative Administration. The terms of reference were quite wide, ranging beyond the educational system. And, because it was suspected that West Indians did particularly badly at school, the committee was asked to make an interim report directed specifically at that problem. They set about their task, I know, with much vigour. They paid a great many visits, they sought much evidence and, early in 1981, they presented their report.
The aftermath was not happy. The chairman and several members of the committee resigned. The press savaged the report and the Government's response, to say the least, was muted. It was at that stage that I was asked by the then Secretary of State for Education to take on the chairmanship, and as a brand new Peer, brimming with a sense of social responsibility, I did so. But I have not found it an easy task.
Members of the committee felt, and still do feel, that the poor reception of their interim report was unfair, and so do I. It contained a large number of detailed recommendations and without doubt it has led to a greater consciousness within the educational system of the problems. However, it is worth spending a few moments to see why it had such a poor public reception, because this highlights some of the misconceptions that exist and some of the problems that have concerned us in preparing the final report.
The interim report gave much prominence to figures of school attainment by black children, derived from six local education authorities with high ethnic minority rolls, which did indeed indicate very marked under-achievement by blacks. The report went on to summarise the mass of evidence the committee had received which pointed to racial discrimination, particularly in schools. But, in spite of mentioning a variety of other factors which might also contribute to under-achievement and which were to be examine din detail in the final report, it came to be assumed by the public, and perhaps by teachers as well, that the interim report was laying the blame solely on the educational system, when in fact it was not doing so.
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Moreover, the situation was exacerbated by the statistics of school attainment which also showed that, whereas blacks were doing badly, Asians were apparently doing just as well as the indigenous whites. Hence it was argued by the press that racism could not be the cause of poor black achievement since Asians are also the target of much racial discrimination; and the low IQ of blacks was cited, in some places at least, as the likely real cause—that is, it was alleged that blacks were simply not capable of doing so well as whites.
Some two and a half years on, we are still wrestling with these and other problems. We have received a lot more evidence on and from other ethnic minorities, primarily Asians, who of course represent not one ethnic minority but several, and on quite a number of smaller minorities. And we have managed to assemble some further statistical evidence.
We have commissioned from the National Foundation for Educational Research lengthy reviews of the research that has been done over many years on Asian and on the smaller minorities, just as the Rampton Committee commissioned a review of the research that had been done on blacks. But it has to be said that published research is not always as good or as illuminating as one might wish, and we have been able to commission for ourselves some research directed specifically at the questions we were asked to answer. Some of that has been quite exceptionally valuable. I have to say that we had great hopes of one research project—an investigation of the factors that lead to success or failure on the part of ethnic minorities within the educational system. But that, alas! we had to abandon for a variety of reasons. Therefore, we have had some disappointments.
But in spite of the complexity of the problem, I like to think that we have made some progress. We have now finished taking evidence and, with the help of our long-suffering and hugely dedicated secretariat, we are beginning to put our thoughts together, and I hope that it will not he too many months before we present our report.
Your Lordships will realise that this debate comes too early for me to be able to tell the House what our conclusions and recommendations are or will be. Some have yet to be formulated, others yet to be agreed, and, even where we have both agreed and drafted, I obviously cannot say what we have agreed.
However, in conclusion, I can perhaps make a few very general remarks. The public have a great tendency to want to believe statistics when, for whatever reason, it suits them to do so—whether they be statistics of economics, or crime, or, in this case, of school achievement and IQ. Simultaneously, the public think that there are lies, damned lies and statistics. Speaking as a scientist, I have to say that this is mischievous nonsense, because statistics, if they are properly measured, are objective data, but whether they mean what naively they seem to mean is quite another matter. And nowhere is this more true than with the statistics that relate to such complex social and psychological issues as school attainment and IQ.
It is, for instance, well-established that the school attainments of white children are, in fact, highly dependent upon their socio-economic status. Socially

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deprived children do much worse than the children of the well-off. And, of course, by all the standard criteria of social deprivation, blacks are on average far worse off than whites. So raw statistics do not tell us whether blacks are under-achieving beyond the underachievement of comparatively deprived whites. Similar considerations, incidentally, apply to IQ figures sometimes supposed to be immutable and full of meaning. That, of course, brings us back to the well-known concept of a cycle of deprivation—namely, that deprived children do poorly at school, and this in turn leads them to yet further deprivation. I hope, but it is no more than a hope, that we may be able to illuminate the problem a little and disentangle, or start to disentangle, the complete web of possible factors involved, ranging from racial discrimination in the world at large and the job market and housing in particular, to the influence of education, and much else besides.
It will be evident from what I have said that the school performance of Asians or I should say most Asian groups, for some we believe are not doing so well—remains unexplained, for, on average, contrary to general belief, they are also more socially deprived than whites on many of the standard criteria. We hope to be able to say something about this phenomenon too.
All these matters are central to an understanding of the problems that beset our ethnic minorities. But I have deliberately not touched on the equally central problem of the proper nature of education in a society which has become increasingly pluralist, but a society nevertheless where the much vaunted British sense of fairness does not—alas!—reach much beyond a fair skin. Nor have I mentioned all the lesser concerns ranging from separate schooling to pre-school provision, to home and school interaction, to religous education, and so on.
I anticipate that we shall produce a very long report with a lot of background information, much opinion and, where we can find them, some objective data. Most of this is necessarily for the specialist reader. But we have already decided that there should be a chapter, which can scarcely be a short one, which will summarise our whole argument, so that this time we hope that the report will not be misunderstood and, outside the teaching profession, largely ignored. I hope that in due course your Lordships may find it worth reading.
6.22 p.m.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, I wish to concentrate for a short time only on one aspect of this issue, the aspect of employment, mainly because this is the only subject on which I am in the least qualified to speak, but also because I believe that if we could improve the employment position many of the other problems would begin to fall into place, for it is central to the whole question of race relations in this country.
First, I should declare an interest because of my association with a small organisation, Charta Mede, which exists to promote, on however small a scale, improved employment prospects for members of ethnic minorities. It has already been mentioned in the speeches that we have heard that the unemployment
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figures for members of ethnic minorities are considerably higher than those for whites. It is difficult to be dogmatic about this because the figures in which such statements ought to rest are really not very adequate. But such information as we have certainly makes it undoubtedly clear that, whatever the degree of difference, members of the ethnic minorities are undoubtedly at a very considerable disadvantage in regard to obtaining jobs.
However, this is complicated—as are so many of these figures, as the noble Lord, Lord Swann, has just pointed out—by another element, which in some ways is an even more alarming point, and that is that the members of ethnic minorities are to a much greater extent concentrated in semi-skilled and unskilled jobs in comparison with whites. Of course, people in semi skilled and unskilled jobs are far more likely to be out of work and to continue to be out of work in the foreseeable future than are people at other levels of employment. It is really this question of the employment status of blacks that is particularly important, and which is at the centre of the whole issue of employment.
Again, the figures cannot be totally relied upon, but the labour survey of 1981 suggested that the percentage of male Pakistanis and Bangladeshis over the age of 16 in the semi-skilled and unskilled grades was just over 40 per cent., and that the percentage of African/Caribbean males over 16 years of age was 37 per cent., compared with 20 per cent. for white British. That is an alarmingly high percentage in categories of skill for which the employment prospects are extremely bleak.
This is a matter of central importance, not only for the members of the ethnic minorities but for our society as a whole. If this continues and they are unable to get into the skilled grades—into the supervisory and managerial levels—and if they continue to be grossly over-represented among the unemployed, then as the years go on we shall have a concentration of unemployed who are also black and racially disadvantaged. We shall have inside industry, when they do get employment, a concentration of them at the lowest level of employment. We shall have white supervisory and managerial staffs with blacks at the lowest level. That is a recipe for disaster both in society and in industry as a whole. So I attach the very greatest importance to the issue of employment and all that goes with it—the educational side, the training side, and so on.
There are two approaches to dealing with this problem, and I want to talk about some practical action which could be taken here and now. In the first place, there has been a healthy development of small black businesses. Surely this is something which should be encouraged. Neither for black nor white is the development of small business the total answer to the employment problem, and it never will be; but it makes a contribution, and it is a contribution that should be encouraged. There is some evidence that those attempting to establish and run black businesses are having a good deal more difficulty in getting assistance through the loan guarantee scheme than their white counterparts.
The first question that I should like to ask the Minister is whether he will look into this and see

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whether, in fact, it is the case that it is far more difficult to receive this kind of assistance if one is black and trying to establish and maintain a business than if one is white; and, if this is so, whether he will see that some action is taken about it. Because it would be most unfortunate if this initiative to encourage black businesses, which has got going in recent years, were to fade away or he greatly discouraged because of the lack of financial assistance which in any small business starting up is of crucial importance in the early years before the business is fully established.
The second point, of course, is in relation, not to people who are running their own businesses but to those who are in employment. At last the code of practice issued by the CRE, and now approved by Parliament, is due to come into force in April next year. Surely this gives us an opportunity to make a fresh start, to give an impetus to improving the employment position in a number of different ways. I want to suggest a few of the things which might be done so that we can take advantage of the fact that the code is about to come into force; and it should be drawn to people's attention that a number of actions need to be taken.
The first point I should like to make has to do with the commission's ability to carry out investigations and to make public the findings of those investigations. I can only say that when an unfavourable report comes forward, as in the case of the Massey-Ferguson investigation, the telephone bells of those of us concerned with these questions begin to ring and we are told, "We have been reading the Massey-Ferguson report, and it seems to us that we are doing much the sort of thing as Massey-Ferguson were doing; will you tell us whether this is so, and, if so, what we ought to do about it? "Noble Lords may say that people ought to have known this in the first place, that they ought not to have needed the prod of an unfavourable report in some other enterprise in order to make them wake up and act. But the fact of the matter is that there has been very little drive behind the need to improve employment prospects; that businesses—and I fully recognise this—have had a great many other things on their plate to worry about; and that the difficulties of the CRE in carrying out investigations have meant that to a large extent employers have thought that they will not get involved in inquiries of this kind.
I have heard otherwise perfectly responsible and sensible people in industry say, "What is the chance of being caught, and what is the price if we are? "The trade unions have done extremely little to stir employers up. In those circumstances, with so many other problems confronting them, it is not surprising that the employers have done extremely little. But it must be the experience of those of us who are in any way connected with this that the evidence of action by the CRE means that they take notice and start asking questions about their own practices, which they would not do unless some prod of this kind was given. I would very much support what I believe the CRE are asking for in their proposals for change: that it should be much easier for them to undertake investigations and to carry out those investigations.
The second point I want to make has regard to the whole area of indirect discrimination. I do not believe that today there is a great deal of overt, direct discrimination
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of the cruder kind that we knew 10 years ago. You do not see notices, "No blacks should apply", and so on. But I know that we are riddled with indirect discrimination. I have done a certain amount of talking on this subject. I have found only one audience that even knew what indirect discrimination was. The vast majority of people think that it is a particularly devious and under-handed kind of discrimination, whereas it is in fact the discrimination which is so deeply embedded in the practices of the organisation that most people concerned do not even know that it is going on. This applies in business, where there is just as much discrimination against women as against members of the ethnic minorities.
The need is urgent to investigate whether in any organisation there is indirect discrimination; whether there are being laid down characteristics and requirements which are not justifiable in terms of the job, and which make it difficult for members of ethnic minorities to get those jobs. I again support the suggestion by the CRE that there should be liability for damages even if the indirect discrimination is not intentional, because most of it is not done intentionally. But added to the fact that people can say, "I have no intention to discriminate, and it cannot he proved that we are doing this", there is a safeguard in their own minds and they are not prodded into investigating as to whether or not discriminatory practices are in fact going on. It is certain that in a great many organisations they are, unwittingly and undetected. That is the second point, from the suggestions put forward by the CRE to which I should like to draw the Government's attention.
Then, when we move to the implementation of the code—which, after all, is only spelling out what is already implicit in the law—there is the whole question of recruitment, which is riddled with indirect discrimination. I want to make one or two particular points—and this ties up to some extent with what the noble Lord, Lord Swann, was saying—about the fact that it is true (and I think most people would agree that it is)that many West Indian children are switched off so far as school is concerned. Of course, I know that quite a number of white children are switched off so far as school is concerned, too. However, they come out of school without the qualifications and the examination successes which are appropriate for their abilities and their potential. They may not even themselves be aware of what that potential is if school has not meant a great deal to them.
This gives further force to the arguments which a number of educationists have been putting forward but which have not been put into practice to a large extent, for profiling rather than reliance on school examination results. I have two examples of the way in which this can work out. Not long ago I was looking at the intake for a good scheme, a two-year training programme, for technicians in a certain organisation which I shall not name. They had laid down certain CSE requirements for entry.
A number of West Indians applied for this scheme and practically all were turned down without interview because they did not have those requirements. There is a two-fold question here. One is whether those requirements were needed in the first place. The second is whether those West Indians, although they did not

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have the requirements, had the level of ability to take the training. That is what we need urgently to look at.
In a small scheme with which I have been connected myself dealing with only 10 West Indian youngsters, the collection of CSEs and O-levels between them is skimpy in the extreme. But when they were given another form of testing they all came in the top 25 per cent. of ability. You would never have gathered that by looking at their school record. So the question of entry requirements is really very important indeed.
The next point I want to make is about training. People are extremly critical about the Race Relations Act 1976, but it contains Sections 37 and 38, which allow for reverse discrimination in training for occupations in which a particular ethnic minority is greatly under-represented. These designated training courses have been undertaken. But I would urge strongly that they should be far more widespread in their application. This is all the more true if I am right in saving that the school-leaving results of many of these youngsters do not represent their potential. The entry into these schemes should he based on some form of testing, or profiling, which does not rely too heavily on school results.
The only other thing I should like to say follows the point made by my noble friend Lord Avebury about the Government's example in this regard. On a previous occasion I asked the Minister to what extent the Government themselves were using Sections 37 and 38 as an employer, because, after all, the Government are a big employer. I never give proper notice before I speak, for which I must apologise, but I did ultimately have a letter which I am hound to say did not tell me very much. It was quite a long letter. What I gathered from it was that very little was happening. It may be that I did not ask the question clearly enough. May I ask it more clearly tonight?
The previous Government produced an equal opportunities policy in, I think it was, 1973—at the latest, 1974. It is hard to see that this policy has produced much in the way of results. I know that the Government will tell us that they have been conducting experiments in monitoring in Leeds, but this is 1983, very nearly 1984, 10 years since that policy came out. Where in the higher levels of Government service are we finding members of ethnic minorities? To what extent have the Government on any occasion put in a training scheme for members of ethnic minorities for jobs in which they are not represented?
It is easier for Governments to do these things than for employers harassed, as they are, by the recession. It is not surprising if employers say, "Why should we be expected to do this when so little example is set to us by the Government as employers?"
6.39 p.m.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, in the course of his speech the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster—whom I wish to thank for introducing this vital issue, as it was described by the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, in her engaging speech—made the point that the probability is that despite all the problems we have, ethnic and religious minorities in this country are better off than their counterparts in all other countries. If proof of
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that were required, all I would advise people to do is to read the debate that has been held on this issue in your Lordships' House this afternoon. The probability is that sometimes in both Chambers, in this House and in another place, the arguments on issues such as this can be bitter and the cut and thrust is a little deeper. What is remarkable is that this argument is not so much about ourselves, but about those who have come to live here. That reflects tremendously on the attitude of the people of this country.
It was inevitable that the issues of the police, education, housing and employment would bear the main burden of discussion. However, there is another angle which has not been mentioned; that is, the relationship between health and language. I am not talking about whether doctors should be able to speak English when they come to live in this country. That is absolutely necessary. Rather, I am concerned about people who have come here and raised families, but have never been fully able to grasp the language, and about the difficulties that they and their doctors have when illness occurs. As has been intimated by the BMA, this is an aspect concerning minority groups that the Government might want to consider.
We must congratulate the Government on the urban programme of £270 million, and it is to be hoped that in some parts of the country this factor has been taken into consideration. What is regrettable is that on the one hand the Government are sensible and generous with the urban programme, but spoil it all by cutting rate support grants, in particular for housing investment. What is more, the cut in rate support grant has hit most of all those local authorities which have the biggest problem of racial deprivation in the country. This must be understood.
The Government did not do it deliberately—but they did it. They enhanced discrimination. The noble Lord, Lord Morris, does not appear to hear me; I shall whisper this: the Government ought to be ashamed of it. This is fundamental. I have been to Liverpool, and to Cardiff, among other places. At one time it was customary for those of us in SouthWales to wonder why people of so many ethnic origins—Jews, Catholics, Arabs, blacks, Chinese, and Japanese, all living in Tiger Bay—could show the rest of us an example. They were usually made fun of by those fifth-rate BBC comics who couldearn—not earn, but receive—more in five minutes than some of those others could earn working for Britain all their lives. A remarkable example arose when the rumours of the disturbances first got round. It is true that the police were armed in the Tiger Bay area of Cardiff. But later, within one generation, that area became an example. After the Jews first came to Britain, within a generation or two they were producing individuals who could make—and who have made—a massive contribution to both the economy and the culture of our nation.
I want to ask the Government about the grant situation, in particular under Section 11 of the Local Government Act 1966. Will they take on board the possibility of issuing new guidelines not only to those who now have problems, but also to those who might have problems as time goes by?
Much has been said in this Chamber about the Greater London Council, and not all of it has been

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very complimentary. I shall pay it a compliment tonight. To begin with, there is no authority like the GLC. It has undertaken a wide-ranging programme of consultation with many different ethnic communities. We are proud to have on our Front Bench this evening someone who is a member of an ethnic minority as well as a distinguished member of the GLC, and before that the LCC. I refer to my noble friend Lord Pitt of Hampstead. The GLC has adopted an equal opportunities policy for employment, backed up by a positive action programme. It has provided considerable direct assistance to ethnic minority groups through its grants programme. It has supported a large number of ethnic minority arts ventures. It has assisted the development of ethnic minority enterprises and, what is more, has advised many London boroughs on all aspects of anti-racism and race equality policies and practices.
I am hound to say, in all fairness, that while that record is extraordinarily good, much of it was carried out by Conservative predecessors in the GLC. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why what happened in Brixton and South all was confined to those two areas. I shall later say a little about Southall, but I think we should acknowledge that the laws we make in both these Chambers of Parliament are sometimes carried out to the full and involve a massive contribution by the local authorities that have to put them into practice.
On the issue of unemployment, perhaps the one thing that causes the greatest upset is that in our great inner cities, whether in Liverpool, Cardiff or any of the London boroughs, we see every day the lamentable sight of youth on the loose, because there is nothing else to do. There are some of us, such as myself, young enough to know how that kind of thing happened in the 1930s. We have a standard of living in this country which is terribly attractive to people from other parts of the British Commonwealth: yet at the same time we must acknowledge that a million of our young people are unemployed. It is about time that we took this situation seriously.
Another point is that through either insanity or inability we have not been able to reconcile the new technology with full employment. This must be something of which we must take cognisance. We are proud of our inventors and the wonderful things that can be done. We live in a world where man can walk on the moon, but we still cannot cure the common cold. We certainly have our priorities wrong. If there is one country that I believe can put that right, no matter what Administration is in power, it is my country.
I now want to talk briefly about one ghastly error that the police once made. We have heard magnificent speeches earlier this evening from my noble friend Lord Soper, and from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman. Both were of the highest quality, and were totally different. Both noble Lords certainly enthralled me with the contributions they made. I wish to be critical in the constructive sense, similar to the religious sense of my noble friend Lord Soper, and the practical sense of the contribution of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman. Let me explain briefly what happened in Southall. I shall do so, hoping that it will never happen again.
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Southall is overwhelmingly an Indian town. There have never been any problems there whatsoever. There are people of various religions. We must understand that even within ethnic minorities there are sub-minorities. There are Sikhs and Moslems in Southall—no problems. Indeed, there are coloured Roman Catholics—no problems. A number of them decided they would have ademonstration, almost like a gay carnival. Nothing of a serious nature ever happened. But some police officer somewhere was so ignorant, so destitute of understanding when this great protest took place. People went to see because it was so colourful. There had not been one blooded nose in the entire 30 years that people had gone there. Someone suffering, I think, from some form of rheumatism, a senior police officer—sent down a few hundred tough, hard, special patrol group policemen. Within half an hour of their appearance scuffles and fights started, and a New Zealand schoolteacher was slain. That was a very serious situation because why were these things all so pacific? We were lucky in Southall in those days in having two brilliant police officers, Mr. Bernard Dee and Mr. Arthur Fanning, who had managed the situation for nearly 15 years and had brought about an almost ideal situation between a large ethnic minority and the previous people who had lived in that area.
We ought to be proud of this and I cannot understand why police officers of that calibre are not used to train younger police officers of the day because they had the experience of maintaining the peace that was there and of introducing all sorts of innovations of which policemen were a central part. Policemen were asked to come and do all sorts of things in the schools by the Asian and coloured minorities. And that was ruined by one absurd decision, because the talents of these two first-class police officers were not used to the fullest extent that they might have been. But they made a very considerable contribution.
From the Government's point of view, I suppose that they have made a contribution in education, too. This is the age of the cuts. Also they are not concerned with our future, and that is a had thing because, in my opinion, once you start cutting back on any form of education you are jeopardising the future. Let us take just one example: the threat to the North London Polytechnic. It was a superb polytechnic that had made a magnificent contribution and was known throughout the country and throughout the world. One can only conclude that somebody who secretly had a grudge against London and against Britain did what they did to the North London Polytechnic. One wonders how many others, from kindergarten to comprehensive and on to polytechnic, have suffered from this situation. Here again, the agony is that this policy hits the overcrowded areas with the biggest racial mix.
On the other hand, we have to be fair. We can take a great deal of encouragement from what successive Governments have done to help to prevent or curb any vicious form of racialism because, as the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, has said, although many of us on all sides of this Chamber are upset that certain things occur, and we know there is a great deal still to do, a great deal has been accomplished by Governments of both complexions. I think that should go on the record as well.

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The comparison is easy to make. We have only to look at the United States of America with their 11 million black men, where there are still evil and ugly examples of Klu-Klux-Klan's violent racialism. calculated—not in a moment of great excitement in a clash, but deliberately worked out—and defeated only by the hideous, appalling policies of South Africa. Therefore we can understand that people do not want to rush to South Africa or to some of the southern states of America. But they know that they can have a square deal and can be encouraged at least in this country. So despite all the things that we are apprehensive about, I think we want to remember that by and large we are not doing too bad a job. But we must not be too complacent and we have to remember that there is still a great deal to be done.
In Great Britain racial disadvantage is a fact of life. It is slowly diminishing, and one can see this particularly in the younger generations coming along. However, we still have to work to ensure that ethnic origin will not in any way determine one's economic status. And, if I may say so, the minorities must also be prepared to accept certain aspects of integration into this ancient society of ours because they, too, must not discriminate either against one another or against a people who were for centuries born here. I think it is far better that should be said in a debate like this, possibly by a person with my feeling for ethnic minorities, than by anyone else. I know that no charge will be levelled against me for being in any way hostile to the people who have come from other countries to this country in my lifetime. I know that they are capable of making a contribution to our society, as we have shown in the past when other groups of people have come here.
In conclusion, I want to say that we must have an ideal to work towards. I have always believed that it does not matter if you do not really achieve it; but if you have an ideal you can move along generally in the right direction. I should like us to continue the work that we are doing so that we shall become one people, diverse in origin and religion but nevertheless one nation. With our united aim, all of us can make life worth living for us all.
Lord Morris: My Lords, I must ask your Lordships' indulgence, and indeed forgiveness, for leaping up in the gap on the list of speakers. However, I am provoked to make just one short comment, I wish neither to develop that and, still less, to draw a conclusion from it. It is simply that I do find it sad and not a little disturbing that not one of my noble friends on the Back-Benches has seen fit to contribute to this very important debate.
6.57 p.m.
Lord Walston: My Lords, we are coming to the end of this debate and I hope that the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, is happy about it. We certainly owe him very much, not only for his introduction of the debate but for the fact that we have been privileged to listen to so many really outstanding speeches. Also, I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Morris, has intervened in the way that he has. I am only sorry that he did not say more, because the only sad aspect of this
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debate is that, apart from the noble Lord who is to reply for the Government, there have been no speakers from the Government Benches. I am sorry to say that I think there is some significance in that. I do not think it is purely fortuitous that none of those who are interested in these matters happened to be free today or that they all had important and pressing engagements. I do believe it signifies that there is no real depth of feeling among the party opposite, and I am sorry to say this and to introduce a note of party politics into a debate that has been singularly free of it. But there is no real depth of feeling concerning these matters and these injustices of which we have heard and, without that depth of feeling, we shall never make the progress that those of us who are here this evening want to see made.
My mind goes back some 21 years to when I introduced into your Lordships' House a Bill of which the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, was the godfather—he being then in another place—a Bill to outlaw racial discrimination. It was an interesting debate, which repays some reading at the present time. But reading the report again, as I did the other day and casting my mind back, I could not help having a great feeling of optimism—rather different, perhaps, from what has been expressed by most noble Lords who have spoken this evening. That is because in those 21 years enormous progress has been made.
The Bill was rejected by your Lordships on the advice of the then Lord Chancellor, Lord Kilmuir, on the ground that it was unnecessary, it was impracticable, it did not work and everything would be all right without it. But we now have something which is very much stronger than that very modest Bill attempted to be. We have demonstrated to everybody in this country that racial discrimination, discrimination on grounds of ethnic origin or of religion, is disapproved of by the country as a whole and by Governments of all complexions.
I should like to say that it is hated by them and by us all, but I am afraid I cannot say that—I hope the time will come when I can say that—and, until there is real abhorrence of this attitude, the progress will be slow. So I start on a somewhat optimistic note, but I am certainly far from complacent because so much more remains to be done. Prejudice still exists, and prejudice will always exist, but I think we have to live with that.
I confess to prejudices. I probably have many that I do not recognise, and I say quite freely that, if I meet somebody whom I do not know and who speaks to me in a Scottish accent, my prejudice says. "This is an honest chap. I believe what he says". I do not want to say anything behind the backs of the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, or the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, but, if I am introduced to somebody who speaks with a Welsh accent, I immediately say "Shouldn't I watch him a little bit? Does he really mean what he is saying?" Those are prejudices. They are not based on any of the statistical data about which the noble Lord, Lord Swann, spoke, which must be looked at carefully. Where the prejudice comes from, I do not know.
We should be deceiving ourselves if we believed that we could abolish prejudice. But what we must do is to make sure that it does not exist in any official actions, in any public actions, and it must not be present in

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such a way as to act to the detriment of those against whom, or on behalf of whom, we have those prejudices. I am quite certain—and one noble Lord spoke of this—that the more we get to know each other, the more those prejudices will disappear. We must judge people on their own merits, just as people who understand wine will judge it by its taste and not by the label on the bottle. It is the essence of snobbishness to judge people by their exterior and not by their worth. We must fight against that attitude.
This discrimination—and this has come out in many noble Lords' speeches—is most apparent in employment, and particularly is it apparent at this time of high unemployment. We all know—and there is a vast amount of supporting statistics for this—that it is the ethnic minority who suffer most when there is high unemployment. I shall not weary your Lordships with many statistics at this stage, but between 1975 and 1982, while unemployment overall rose by some 300 per cent., unemployment among the black population rose by 500 per cent. They were hit very nearly twice as hard as the rest of the population as a whole.
Possibly rather more significant, a survey which was carried out in 1981 by the Commission for Racial Equality found that 44 per cent. of white fifth-formers were able to get craft apprenticeships when they left school, whereas only 15 per cent. of West Indians and 13 per cent. of Asians were able to acquire similar craft apprenticeships. I am sure that that is not because the employer said, "We will not have blacks," or, "We will not have Asians", but it is the type of indirect discrimination to which my noble friend Lady Seear referred in her most interesting speech. Employment, therefore, is one of the main factors which we have to combat and of which we must he aware.
I shall not speak at any great length, as many other noble Lords have done so, but I should like to touch on the role of the police in this matter. They have an enormously important task, because they are in contact with all the people in this country, particularly with ethnic minorities, and they are fully aware of their job, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman, rightly pointed out to us. We must not underrate their difficulties, because they have enormous difficulties, and in the main they fulfil their tasks well. But there is no question that, as was brought out in the report to which other noble Lords have referred, there is among some members of the police force, particularly at the lower levels, a racially discriminatory trend.
I do not believe that it is possible in recruiting young policemen to be able to assess, by any tests, whether or not they are liable to that sort of attitude. But I believe very strongly that young policemen, in common with young people from all walks of life, are enormously susceptible to the opinions of those immediately above them in authority—not the great big bosses at the top, not the managing directors, the chief constables or the major-generals, but their immediate superiors with whom they are in contact every day. Until the police force is able to ensure that those who have the job of looking after the young recruits, the young constables, have no tendency to discrimination, and are not in any way racialists themselves, we shall continue to get what was so disquietingly pointed out in this report.
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It is particularly disquieting to read on page 385 of the report that:
"Senior officers seldom try to set a different tone, though they do on occasion, and there were some cases where they initiated racialist talk and kept it going".
This is something—whether there is a disciplinary code or not—which must be stamped out now and stamped out ruthlessly, because not only will its continuation seep through the police force as those young men get up to higher levels, but it will also continue to sour relations between those whose job it is to imbue a respect for the law in the population and those whose temptation is to look on the representatives of law as their natural enemies.
There is one further aspect on which I should like to touch, and which I do not think has been mentioned; that is, the importance of small businesses in the matter of ethnic minorities. One of the most stabilising factors in our society is the gradation between the unemployed, the job-seekers, the self-employed, the people who have their own small businesses and all the way up to our big enterprises. Until we can make that gradation available to our ethnic minorities, we shall not solve the problem of creating a really homogeneous and stable society.
In June of this year a survey was carried out under the auspices of the Runnymede Trust, entitled Black Business Enterprise in Britain. It looked at Brent and showed that there has been some growth in small businesses, particularly among Asians. But it also pinpointed the difficulties that have to be overcome by people who are attempting to set up businesses. I shall read one or two extracts from their recommendations. On page 9 of the survey they recommend that:
"An awareness programme on the lines of the government's Business Opportunities Programme should be introduced at a local level to inform black minority entrepreneurs and their advisers about financial and other aid from both the public and private sectors and the conditions for securing such aid."
The report goes on to recommend:
"The Government should urge the banks to use the loan guarantee scheme more frequently to create additional lending to black minority groups … Seminars and courses for starting in business and developing established businesses should be offered by local colleges and enterprise development organisations and should be orientated to black communities … In predominantly black neighbourhoods, bank services should be marketed to black firms and the training of bank managers should be introduced to sensitise them to the needs of black firms".
Those are small, cheap, easily implemented recommendations, but they would have a considerable impact upon this problem and in very large measure would help to build up the kind of community for which we are looking.
May I now make one or two suggestions for positive action which both the Government and local authorities can and should take to encourage and help minorities to play their full part in the life of this country? I would underline what the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, said about the GLC. I know nothing about local government, and certainly I take no stand at this stage on the desirability or otherwise of the proposed actions concerning the GLC, but in this respect the council has done not only very good and useful work but work which no other local authority within the London area is in a position to do. Credit should be given to the GLC for that, and other local authorities should he encouraged to follow its example.

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The Government should also, as the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, mentioned, increase the recruitment and promotion of ethnic minorities in the civil service. This country has had coloured minorities for a long, long time. A few members of the ethnic minority groups are employed by the Civil Service, but the proportion in the higher grades is lamentably low. The Government have a direct responsibility for the Civil Service. I come back to my initial remarks. If the will is there, if we in this country are determined to abolish racial discrimination, it can be done. It is only when half-hearted lip service is paid to the abolition of racial discrimination that feet are dragged and nothing comes of it. So there must be Civil Service recruitment and promotion and increasingly the appointment of coloured people to Government bodies of different kinds—not the "statutory black" whom you have to have, but the promotion of coloured people on merit. Plenty of them have proved their merit. There must also be an increasing number of justices of the peace.
To reinforce what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, and other speakers, very firm instructions should be given to our immigration service to treat all would-be immigrants, whether or not they are refugees, with politeness and humanity. My noble friend Lord McNair made this point very strongly and eloquently. It is many years now since I stood beside immigration officers and watched them deal with people who had just alighted from aeroplanes which had brought them from India and Pakistan. While I stood there I saw no example of rudeness but I saw little example of humanity and understanding.
When I spoke to the immigration officers afterwards I gained the very strong impression that it was rather a game to them—that there were many illegal immigrants who were trying to prove their claim to enter this country and that, as they had no such claim, the officers' job was to prevent them from entering this country. They said they knew they caught some of them but that others got through. It was a form of game to them which was taken seriously but not with understanding and humanity. I hope that that attitude may have changed. If it has not changed I hope the Government will ensure that it does change straight away.
Most members of the ethnic minorities in this country, in contradistinction to the position 21 years ago, have been born in Great Britain. They are native-born citizens of this country and subjects of Her Majesty. They are just as British as those who came over with William the Conqueror, as those, like the ancestors of my noble friend Lord McNair, who came over with the Huguenots and as those who came over as refugees from Nazi Germany and oppression on the Continent. They must be treated as British. We must understand with our hearts as well as with our heads not that they are foreigners who should be treated differently but that they are our fellow countrymen.
7.18 p.m.
Lord Pitt of Hampstead: My Lords, we are very grateful to the noble Viscount for giving us this oportunity to look at the situation of ethnic and religious minorities in this country. This is a very important subject and I am glad that we have had a
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good and constructive debate. I hope that the Minister will not mind if I say I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Morris, that it is a pity that none of his Back-Benchers was there to support him.
How to make it possible for people of different races and different cultures to live together in equality and friendship is one of the biggest problems confronting the world today. This country has a splendid oportunity to make a contribution to the solution of this problem. It is extremely important that this opportunity should be seized with alacrity. The opportunity has arisen because of our imperial past. During the Second World War many black British citizens came to this country to fight for the motherland. Many others came to work in the factories which produced the sinews of war. At the end of the war many of them took their "demob" in this country and found that this country needed their labour. They therefore encouraged those of their comrades who had returned home—many of them to unemployment—to return to this country because their labour was needed. They came here and they found that that was true—and they sent similar messages to their relations and friends.
In that way, the post-war migration started as a trickle, became a stream, and—as many people say—it later became a flood. However, it is important to remember that those people came here because their labour was needed. In other words, there was a strong pull factor. There was also a push factor, in that there was heavy unemployment in the countries they left. But it was the pull factor that mattered. Thus employment was not a problem in the 1950s and the early 1960s.
Admittedly, many of those who came had to take jobs beneath the level of their qualifications. Thus we had graduates working as bus conductors and railway porters—but they had jobs. Housing was then the problem because there was a shortage of houses; it was in that area they experienced the greatest discrimination. But they endured that discrimination and they managed by many means to join together to buy houses which they shared and to rent rooms to each other. and even to endure the many racketeer landlords. They endured it all because they felt that the conditions would be better for their children and grandchildren.
Unfortunately, matters have not worked out that way. Those who came in the 1950s and early 1960s had jobs and many of them were even able to continue in those jobs until retirement age. In fact, there is now a substantial section of the elderly community who are members of the ethnic minorities. But for their children, many of whom were born here, and for their grandchildren, who were all born here and who are growing up here, the situation is, unfortunately, quite different.
Numerous local surveys have shown that it is two to three times as hard for ethnic minority youths to find work as it is for young whites. A survey of black and white school-leavers in Lewisham showed that young blacks were three times as likely to be unemployed as young whites. The survey found that educational attainment did not appear to be the critical factor in accounting for the different success rates in the job search. The report concluded,

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"It is difficult to escape the conclusion that discrimination, he it intentional or unintentional, was an important factor in accounting for the difficulties faced by the black sample in the search for work. Black school leavers have in the past been accused of lacking motivation and of having unrealistic aspirations, of not looking for jobs through the most effective channels, and of not being prepared to travel for work. None of these accusations was borne out by young people interviewed in this survey. The young blacks we interviewed were looking for jobs just as hard and efficiently as their white peers but were still being markedly less successful".
Research also shows that ethnic minority school-leavers are less likely than white school-leavers to be successful in gaining a craft apprenticeship, even when they leave school with similar or even higher basic qualifications. The noble Lord, Lord Walston, has already quoted the CRE survey in Birmingham. That showed that while 49 per cent. of white boys were successful in gaining craft apprenticeships, only 15 per cent. of West Indians or Asians were able to do so. Thus it is racial discrimination which is the basis of our problem. It is against racial discrimination that we must battle. Racial discrimination in employment is still widespread, despite the fact that it is illegal.
Racial discrimination in employment is crucial, and I make no apology for dealing with the matter in spite of the fact that it has been dealt with before by the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, and the noble Lord, Lord Walston. If a man is discriminated against in the employment he obtains, it also affects the type of housing he can afford. If there is also discrimination in housing, that will probably restrict the area in which he can live. These together will probably decide the type of schooling which his children will receive. That in turn will determine the sort of jobs they can hold. Thus, there is a vicious circle.
It does not stop there. If that cycle goes on long enough, it will be accepted as the norm, and then I can tell your Lordships what will happen and what is already happening. One will find that there are clever academics who will set out to prove that such people are in the position they are in because they are inferior intellectually and in other ways. That is a recipe for social discord and social disaster.
We must take every possible step to eliminate racial discrimination, particularly in employment. All employers should be encouraged to develop equal opportunity policies. Many of them are doing so at the present time and should be encouraged. And others should be encouraged to follow suit. The Government have a particular part to play in this. I have said that before and I make no apology for repeating it. It is a shame that the Government do not play the part that they should.
The Government are the largest employer of labour. They have influence on the policies of local authorities. The Government own the nationalised industries, and they are the largest provider of contracts. Equal opportunity policies in all those fields will create the climate for equal opportunity policies to become the norm. It is about time that the Government took that on board. The local authorities are already doing better than central Government in many cases. My noble friend Lord Molloy has already told us about that and about what the GLC is doing. There are other local authorities who have taken such policies on board. It is the Government who hesitate to take it on board.
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The other important initiative—which the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, and the noble Lord, Lord Walston, also mentioned—is the encouragement of black businesses. Here, I wish to put some questions to the noble Lord the Minister, but he will probably have to write to me about them. The Government can do a lot more in this sphere. The experimental stage of the loan guarantee scheme is scheduled to end in April 1984. As far as I can gather, decisions will then be taken on the future of the scheme. A recent study has shown that none of the banks—note the word "none"—had used the scheme to assist any of the 120 Asian and Afro-Caribbean businesses that were surveyed. The Home Affairs Committee of the other place did in fact recommend that the Government should monitor the participation of ethnic minorities in the scheme. I must therefore ask the Government what steps they are taking to urge the clearing banks to use the loan guarantee scheme more frequently in order to create lending to black minority groups? Also, what steps have been taken to urge local authorities to lend all or part of the remaining 20 per cent. which is not guaranteed under the scheme? Again, what steps have the Government taken to monitor the participation of ethnic minorities in the scheme, as they were requested to do by the Select Committee in the other place?
Drawing on the American experience, the Commission for Racial Equality has recommended to the Department of Industry—that is Trade and Industry these days—that a specialist unit be set up within the department to formulate and administer programmes that will assist the development of black business. This could be modelled on the Office of Minority Business Enterprise which was set up within the United States Department of Commerce in 1969. I am sure the Government know about this. Can the Government tell us what they have done or propose to do about this?
I said earlier that some local authorities are doing better than the Government. Some local authorities fund experimental projects under the partnership programme. In fact, the London Borough of Hackney—which, as the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, told your Lordships I represented for 16 years in County Hall—has been doing so. Will the Government say what steps they are taking to encourage other local authorities to do likewise? These are all straight forward steps that the Government can take.
The Manpower Services Commission sponsors training courses for ethnic minorities starting up or expanding small businesses. Will the Government say to what extent they are encouraging the MSC to develop and expand this sponsorship. The Department of Industry can expand its small firms sources by opening offices in disadvantaged areas of inner cities, financially supporting business advisory services, and including among its advisers people with experience of the problems faced by black businesses and who are sensitive to their needs. Has that been considered?
There is a great deal of expertise in this field on the other side of the Atlantic. I hope that the Government will study carefully some of the successful methods used in the United States. I cannot agree with the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, here. He has obviously only known the United States of 20 or 30 years ago because

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things have moved forward there to a tremendous extent and they have done so because the Government have acted. As a consequence, we now have black people in all areas of activity in the United States. We now have lots of black congressmen. There is not one black MP. We now have black people in the Senate. Right! we can have black Ministers in the Cabinet! What is more, the mayors of most of the large cities are black, and a black man was nearly elected as governor of the largest state in the United States of America. None of these things would have been possible without Government action.
I have concentrated my speech on the problem of employment because, frankly, I regard it as basic. But there are many other important areas. It is essential that black people should be, and be seen to be, ordinary members of the society. I am speaking in the presence of a former chairman of governors of the BBC. It is to the shame of the BBC, particularly because they were ahead of the IBA in being established, that they have never done the job that they could do, despite foolish people like me trying to point it out to them. All that was ever required over the past 20 years was what they are now starting to do; that is, presenting people of colour as ordinary members of the society. When they are presenting a play where a character can be black or white, and it would not matter, all that was needed was that they made sure that they had black characters; people would then have accepted them.
I know what I am saving because I had an experience in 1949 which registered with me. I was then an assistant to a Dr. Stoute in Chiswick. He was black; he came from Barbados. Dr. Stoute came to me one day and said, "I have a joke for you". I said, "What is that?" He replied, "I visited a patient in this block of flats and there were two kids playing in the courtyard. The first one said to the other, 'There goes a black man'. And the other one said. 'Don't be a fool; that's no black man, that's the doctor!'" I have always thought that that acceptance would have been readily available, not only for doctors but for all other people, if they were presented in that way to the man in the street. That is what the BBC could have done for the past 20 years and has not done. I must confess that they are beginning to do it now. Another confirmation of the point I am making is that my son told me one day that somebody said to him, "You talk posh like Trevor McDonald". Those are the things that register with the man in the street. He accepts Trevor McDonald as someone to look up to. That is what you want, a lot of such activities.
I remember in 1970 having a discussion with Reggie Maudling, who was then Home Secretary; I was then Deputy Chairman of the Community Relations Commission. Reggie said, "The day half the English football team is black and we are winning, you and I will not have to talk about community relations often". We have not reached the stage where half the team is black—and as a matter of fact the team is not doing very well either—but we do have several blacks in the squad. Of course, nearly half the English track and field team at the last Olympics—and I am sure it will be the case at the next—are black. We already have several in our cricket team.
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There are other areas in which we want to have black people. I have already mentioned the other place. We could have more blacks here, too. There is also the important part that I think the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor could play. There are plenty of good black lawyers with experience who could be appointed to the Bench. What we want to see are a few black judges and a few black stipendiary magistrates. These things can be done. What is more, it is my view that this country would benefit tremendously from having a few black diplomats.
I have spoken for long enough, and, since many noble Lords have already raised the question of the police, I shall not. I was sad to read the report. For the past 20 years I have been telling the police that this sort of development was inevitable in the way they were proceeding. I was not only telling them, but also their bosses at the Home Office, of what has gone on. All I can say is that I hope that at long last they will grasp the nettle. It is the police that the man in the street meets first, and if the situation is bad with the police it spoils the whole community. It is about time the Home Office understood that.
Finally, I want to say that I have often been asked about the future of race relations as I see them. I have always answered in the same way, and I will do so again tonight. In fact, we can go two ways. We can end up having a society of which we can all be proud, or we can end up having a terrible society. The penultimate line of the Trinidad national anthem is:
"Here every creed and race finds an equal place".
I am not asking your Lordships to change our national anthem to include those words, but I am asking that we pray to achieve it and work to ensure that we do.
7.42 p.m.
Lord Elton: My Lords, the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, has focused attention on what is, without doubt, a subject of very great importance to the future development of the whole of our society and which, as the right reverend Prelate, the Bishop of Chichester, said, is not by any means restricted to areas of high ethnic minority settlement. I have spent most of this morning crossing things out of my speech to make it shorter, and, thanks to the stimulating nature of the contributions by your Lordships, most of this afternoon writing things back in to make it longer. I only pray that as a result I have achieved a proper balance.
The world and this country have changed since our fathers' days and. as the noble Lord, Lord Soper, reminds us, we must change with them. Britain is both a multiracial and multicultural society. As the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury has said in a passage which was quoted by the right reverend Prelate, we can either work at it until it becomes something in which we can take pride and delight, or we can neglect it until it drifts into something which we must lament, and of which we must be ashamed. This is a matter to be seen in proportion.
About 4 per cent. of the population—some 2 million people—belong to ethnic minority communities. Their representation in the Olympic teams is a striking triumph in that context. Their

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cultural and religious heritage is rich and diverse, but they share with us all one common feature—they belong to this country. Almost half of them were actually born here, and many more were brought up in this country and know no other home. They play an increasingly important part in every area of the life of this country. What is more, as we have seen in the Falklands, and as we still see in Northern Ireland, they are prepared, if necessary, to defend it. They belong to us. If anyone doubted that, they should have listened to the impressive contribution to this debate of the noble Lord, Lord Pitt of Hampstead, in which he paraphrased the words of the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury.
The members of the ethnic minorities in this country are committed to it, and it is right that the country should be committed to their well being and to ensuring that they are able to play a full and proper part in its life. The Government have that commitment. The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, reminded us that my right honourable friend the Home Secretary, when he visited Bradford in the summer, placed on public record his determination that members of every ethnic minority should enjoy equality before the law and equality of opportunity, which are the priceless heritage of all our fellow countrymen.
Noble Lords remarked upon the absence of my noble friends who usually sit behind me and it is, of course, always a lonely feeling if one does not have all one's friends with one. But if I needed support, and if there had been a Division and heads were to be counted, they would have been here. What is more germane is that if they had not agreed with me, and if they were not in support of the Government's commitment to their racial policy, they would have been here. Their absence, in fact—and in a strange way—reflects credit on this side of the House.
We are committed to equality. As the noble Lord, Lord Pitt of Hampstead, so clearly and eloquently demonstrated, we do not have it now. If that equality is to exist in fact as well as in form, it will take more than mere enforcement of the law, and it will not be achieved overnight. We have to address ourselves to private attitudes and prejudices which are sometimes very deeply held among both the majority and the minority of our people. Much prejudice arises out of fear, and much fear arises out of ignorance. A great deal of both can be dismantled quite easily in our schools where our children can learn not simply from the staff, but from their fellow pupils who are the best qualified teachers of all.
That process has begun, but it will take a generation, and it will not immediately reach beyond the areas in which the ethnic minorities are settled. Moreover, the process of settlement still continues and time is needed for a balancing process. It is not simply a process of assimilation, as the noble Lord, Lord Soper, reminded us, because that implies a removal of the cultural and religious distinctions of the minority that are crucial to their identity. It is, rather, the process by which totally different people become compatible as neighbours and happy as friends without diminishing their individuality. That is what we wish to achieve.
I take the noble Viscount's point about the deprivation that exists in some third world countries,
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but I do not believe that that vital aim is achievable without a carefully controlled immigration policy that will prevent the process becoming overloaded, and which will reassure those by whom ethnic minorities of any kind are still perceived as a threat.
Everything I say must be seen in the ring fence of that control, from which a great number of our fellow citizens draw considerable comfort and which enables them not to see their ethnic minority fellow citizens as a potential threat. The fence is important, but it should be sustained with courtesy as well as firmness. It usually is, and where it is not I shall be obliged to the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, and the noble Lord, Lord McNair, for information or an indication of where I should look. In the same spirit, for illustration of what I understand are scandalous examples of racial incitement I shall look with close interest at the documents which the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, has passed to me for consideration.
Racial discrimination is still a grim fact of life for far too many of our fellow citizens. This Government do not, any more than their predecessors, turn their back on that sorry state of affairs. Legislative provision against racial discrimination is contained in the Race Relations Act 1976, which makes it unlawful to discriminate against anyone on the grounds of race, colour, nationality or ethnic or national origin. It established the Commission for Racial Equality, and gave it a statutory duty. That duty is to work towards the elimination of discrimination; to promote equality of opportunity and good relations between persons of different racial groups generally; and to keep the working of the Act under review and submit proposals for amending it to the Home Secretary. Earlier this year the commission issued a consultative paper seeking views on its tentative proposals for amending the law. Your Lordships referred to this, and the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, asked about the next stage. Following this consultation the commission will be submitting its firm proposals to the Home Secretary, I understand, probably in the new year. When they are received they will be given very careful consideration. As they are not yet firm, I cannot comment on them.
The 1976 Act does not apply to discrimination on the ground of religion, but the judgment in the recent case of Mandla v. Lee made it clear that religion is one factor, and an important one, to be taken into account when determining whether or not a group constitutes a racial group for the purposes of the Act. As a result, it has been established that Sikhs are such a racial group. This decision was warmly welcomed by members of the Sikh community and by all those, including the Government, who are concerned to promote good race relations. Your Lordships will also know from the legislation exempting Sikhs from the compulsory wearing of motor-cycle crash helmets that the law recognises and caters for such minorities.
The law can define the boundaries of acceptable behaviour, but personal and institutional attitudes have deeper foundations. These, too, can be expressed in law, and the derivatives of law. The Code of Practice for Employment of the Commission for Racial Equality was recently approved by Parliament and comes into force on 1st April 1984. It contains guidance for employers on, for example, the importance to Moslem employees of observing prayer

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times and religious holidays. It recommends that employers should consider whether they can reasonably adapt work requirements to meet cultural and religious needs.
Encouraging employers to consider the cultural needs of their workforce is an important element in establishing mutual respect and understanding and thus eliminating the ethnic stratification (if I can so call it) of businesses, about which the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, has warned us. May I thank the noble Baroness for putting her question on Sections 37 and 38 of the Race Relations Act so clearly? I shall try to see that my next letter to her on the subject is both shorter and more informative than the last. The loan guarantee scheme, to which she referred, is open, and is intended to be open, to all sections of the community. We are eager to see that this is so. I shall take careful note of the various suggestions made by noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Pitt of Hampstead, as to how this could be encouraged.
As to the comments of the House of Commons Select Committee on the loan guarantee scheme, the Government responded in detail to the committee report on racial disadvantage issued in July 1981 in a White Paper issued shortly after that report. I refer noble Lords to that.
Before barriers can be removed at work, it is essential to eliminate discrimination at the point of employment. That is particularly important at the present time, as the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, said. Her noble friend Lord Walston illustrated that vividly. The CRE code of practice gives practical guidance on this vital matter. One of its recommendations is that employers should monitor equal opportunity as a matter of course. Ethnic monitoring will show whether equal opportunity policies are working as they should. That is why the Government instituted a pilot study in Leeds last year. Following its success we have introduced permanent voluntary arrangements for recording the ethnic origin of non-industrial civil servants in two areas—the North-West and the County of Avon. This was only last month and no results are yet available. But it is a significant move forward and we hope that our lead will be followed by other employers.
While I am on this subject I would say that the central theme in all MSC temporary employment and training programmes is equal access and usage. In the youth training schemes, for example, the MSC has set up, in consultation with the CRE, a number of enabler posts to help minority groups to participate more actively in sponsoring schemes. The MSC has also increased provision for work-related language training. It is estimated that over 5 per cent. of entrants to the youth training scheme are from the ethnic minorities. Figures from the community programme are not likely to be available before mid-1984. The chances of a person getting a job are often largely determined by his education. As the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, has reminded us, I recognise that examination results are not the only, or sometimes the best, indicators of ability. Members of my family have had occasion to persuade me of this in the past.
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In education, too, the Government are committed to the principle of equal opportunity founded on respect for the family and the religious background of all pupils. The importance of this is illustrated by the fact quoted by the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, that 147 languages are spoken in the ILEA district alone. In the area of education we find regrettable evidence that some, although by no means all, ethnic minority children are not achieving their full potential. This and many other practical questions are at present under review by the committee of inquiry into the education of ethnic minority children chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Swann. The Government look forward to receiving its report shortly. That appetite has been sharpened by the noble Lord's contribution this afternoon. I can tell him that the recommendations of the interim report, produced under the chairmanship of Mr. Rampton, were brought to the attention of the education service as a whole by the Department of Education and Science in a wide ranging consultation which also covered the report of the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee on racial disadvantage.
I turn briefly to the religious aspects of education. The object must surely be to keep faith with the spirit of the law written in the 1944 Act. We must put before our children the scripture and values of Christianity and the aspirations of a Christian community; and we must do so not only in assembly but in the life of the school as a whole. But we must do so against a background of both understanding and tolerance of others, for, although it may aspire to be a Christian community, the school—and certainly the county school—cannot always proceed as though it were a community of Christians. Manifestly, often it is not.
Where a school has pupils (perhaps even a majority of pupils) whose allegiance is to another faith, the range and content of assembly must be such that their convictions and values are respected, and even reflected, in it. They must feel that this community gathering is something in which they have a proper share and a valid part to play. Had the members of the National Front referred to by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chichester received a better balanced education they might have had a better balanced attitude to the rest of mankind. I am certain that one of the most important influences to be exerted will be exerted by the teachers who are committed Christians, regardless of the subject that they teach. Teaching is an honourable calling for Christian men and women, and the profession stands in great need of them.
The Government continue to increase their support for work to meet the special needs of ethnic minorities, not only in the field of education but throughout local government activity, by means of grants to local authorities paid under Section 11 of the Local Government Act 1966. Since we came to office, Exchequer payments under Section 11 have increased. They were £29 million in 1979; they are now estimated at £70 million for the current financial year. The greater part of this money goes into education, but local authorities are encouraged to identify areas outside education as potential fields for grant. They are also encouraged to adopt a strategic approach to meeting the needs of their ethnic minority communities and to consult with

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those communities before applying for grant. I am glad to say that this consultation is taking place.
I ought perhaps to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, that the guidelines under which this aid is available were issued in a new and more flexible form as recently as November last year. If he finds them too general, it is, I think, perhaps because particular cases are so variable and we do not wish to put unnecessary restraints on the scheme by making the guidelines too rigid.
It will not surprise your Lordships when I say that a disproportionate number of ethnic minority communities are found in areas of urban decay, unattractive environment and poor housing. Responsibility for tackling urban deprivation in the inner cities rests with the Department of the Environment, where my right honourable friend Sir George Young has been given special responsibility for race relations aspects of his department's work. His programme of visits has taken him to most of the places in England with substantial ethnic minority communities, including Birmingham, Bradford, Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol, Leeds, Coventry, Leicester, Nottingham and a number of the London boroughs. He has talked to ethnic minority community leaders and project organisers and to key people in local authorities. He has instituted a whole range of informal discussions about ways in which Department of the Environment policies can be made more sensitive to the needs of minorities and has disseminated existing good practice both by personal discussion and by publication in departmental booklets.
The urban programme itself is one of our major weapons against inner city deprivation. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, for his acknowledgment of its scale. It has increased from £215 million in 1981–82 to £270 million last year and £348 million in the current year. That is also bound to have direct bearing on the ethnic minority communities in those areas. Within the programme we have increased the level of support for projects designed specifically to meet the need of the ethnic minority groups. In 1981–82 it stood at £8 million. It rose to £15 million last year. The programme currently supports over 1,000 projects directly benefiting ethnic minority communities with a value of at least £27 million. A number of these projects cater for the needs of religious minorities. The programme does not fund exclusively religious projects, however, but it helps schemes that meet wider needs such as social, cultural and advice projects that are attached to mosques, temples and other religious buildings.
The local authorities play a crucial role in combating racial disadvantage, both as employers and deliverers of services. In 1982 we therefore set up a joint working group with local authority associations to identify and disseminate good practice in this field. It published its report in July of this year. That report has been generally welcomed, not least for the clarity with which it identifies and examines the major issues. We commend it warmly to local authorties and will draw their attention to it again shortly.
When we consider the position of the ethnic minorities in our societies, sooner or later we are
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bound to start talking about their relationships with the police. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman, is a massively important practitioner in this, but he is very far from being alone. Following his report on his inquiry into the disorders in 1981, training in community and race relations was reviewed by a working party set up under the Police Training Council. The report, referred to by several noble Lords, was published in March and there is a copy in your Lordships' Library. A number of its recommendations for the further development of training in community and race relations have already been adopted. Others are in the process of implementation.
Recruit training will be both improved and lengthened from the beginning of next month. New recruits will receive about seven months' training before they are allowed to patrol unaccompanied, and they will undergo a carefully planned programme of further training during the rest of the two years' probation. I should like to say that we do pay very great attention to the selection of tutor constables to accompany them in their early duties.
Not least of the new departures is the establishment of a new national training support centre at Brunel University. It will train the trainers directly and it will provide training materials and advice to forces. The result of this will be a radical change in the training of police officers at all levels in community and race relations. It will have far-reaching and beneficial results. But police forces are not waiting for this to happen. They are already taking steps to improve their own training programmes; and at national level the Commission for Racial Equality is closely involved in the race relations context of training courses.
Many forces have established a specialist community relations department. A number have appointed police/community liaison officers whose tasks specifically include that of developing both formal and informal contact with leaders and members of the ethnic minority communities. The Government have encouraged the setting up of local consultative groups to establish a pattern of formal and regular liaison between the police and representatives of the local community. Some of these already have a record of which they can be proud: that in Lambeth, to which the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, drew particular attention, is a notable example.
We believe that consultation arrangements should be put on a statutory basis. We are making provisions for this in the Police and Criminal Evidence Bill which will soon come, before your Lordships for consideration. I look forward to your Lordships' comments on it then. I think I should not dilate on its provisions now. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman, I am sure will contribute.
His generous recognition of what the police have already done to put their house in order was most welcome. Recent improvements of selection procedures, in which he showed a great interest, include their extension to two days in length, giving a much clearer insight into the motivation and attitudes of candidates. The normal age of recruitment has been raised to 22 years. The initial test pass mark has also been raised. The search continues for a reliably indicative test of racialist attitudes of the sort which the

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noble Lord, Lord Walston, and others—and indeed I myself—would welcome.
I said that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman, was not alone in his analysis of police/minority relationships. What other growing volume of research is showing is this: there are instances of bad relationships between the police and minorities. Things are very far from perfect. But the fact is that they are not anything like as bad as some people make out. That was made clear in the Home Office Research Unit Report on Ethnic Minorities, Crime and Policing, referred to by the noble Viscount, which dealt with the experience of West Indians and whites in the Manchester area and was published in 1981. More recently, it was made clear in the Policy Studies Institute Report on the Metropolitan Police. That massive document is a work of no little merit.
In this context, very briefly I ask your Lordships to recognise just four things about it. The first is that the report was commissioned by the police themselves and that they committed themselves to publication before it had even been written. In what other country in the world could that have happened? I think it is a great endorsement of the standards of the forces by which we are policed.
The second point to recognise is that the bulk of research on which the report is based was started between 2 and 2½ years ago; all of it was completed about a year ago and there have been a lot of changes in the past two years. Many of them anticipate recommendations in the report itself.
The third aspect to recognise is that while there is a regrettable level—and it is a regrettable level—of racial prejudice in the force, it has a surprisingly small impact on the way policemen deal with members of the ethnic minorities. They appear consciously to try to counteract it and they actually exert themselves more, it seems, for black members of our society than white; and those minority members who have experience of most kinds of police work—though not all—are broadly very satisfied with the service they get.
The fourth thing to note is that the police themselves, and the commissioner in particular, recognise the importance of what the report says and are committed to acting on it. That determination is shared by my right honourable friend, the Home Secretary, who is in close and supportive contact with the commissioner on all these matters. I regard these as encouraging developments and I see no reason to remove control from the Metropolitan Police, from the commissioner working to the Home Secretary of the day. To hand them over to locally appointed and, frankly, political committees, as some would suggest, would I think court disaster. We are not persuaded that the formidable and flexible existing powers in the police discipline code would be strengthened by a specific offence of racially prejudiced behaviour. Such behaviour can already be caught and punished. The commissioner's proposed code of professional ethics and conduct is intended to provide a powerful management tool to underpin rather than to replace the discipline code. Police forces are keenly aware that their officers must be representative of the community they serve. In the first 10 months of this year their
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number—and the number of ethnic minority police officers in England and Wales—increased from 459 to 575, an increase of 116. Those numbers are small but they show a very encouraging trend.
I can do no more than acknowledge Lord McNair's intervention on behalf of refugees. If he looks at the Hansard of either 1978 or 1979 he will find that their cause is closer to my heart than it is to the terms of the Motion on the Order Paper; I will, nevertheless, write to him. I have dwelt at length on the police, not because of the topicality of the recent report but because they have a symbolic importance, which the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, has seized on, beyond even that which results from their important place in society. All our resources and all our subjective experience combine to tell us that there are substantial numbers of people in this country for whom the dominant fact of life is that they belong to, and are recognised as belonging to, an ethnic group that is distinct from those who comprise the majority.
Most of these people are young; most of them are black. They are the people eloquently and sympathetically described by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman. They see themselves as existing in a framework of law and convention that they believe to be alien and hostile. They believe that they live under a permanent cultural and economic threat. Their numbers are not enormous, nor are their perceptions typical, but they are important. It will take time to reassure them: to reassure them of their equality (for instance before the law); to remove their disadvantage and to reconcile them with the country which is their home. We have, in Lord Scarman's words, to "get it across them" that a very great deal is indeed being done, and this will take time.
Meanwhile, all the resentment and fear must find a focus and the natural focus is the representatives of law and order walking about in uniform—the police. The police therefore have a critically difficult as well as a critically important role to play in this. They have to diffuse much of the tension generated by forces outside their influence. Just as we should be profoundly concerned with the problems I have described—and to which I have ascribed a whole range of constructive approaches—so I believe we should be profoundly encouraged by the rigorous and open self-analysis to which they have subjected themselves, and by the far-ranging steps which they and the Government are taking to fit themselves better for this important task.
I have described the position of the police and of the Government. These, with great respect to the noble Lord. Lord Avebury, amount to a great deal more than lip service. But responsibility in these matters goes far beyond the police and the Government themselves. It rests with us all. We are grateful to the noble Viscount for the opportunity of this discussion.
8.10 p.m.
Viscount Buckmaster: My Lords, I am extremely grateful to your Lordships for your wide-ranging and moving contributions to the debate this evening. I have benefited enormously from them. I should like to thank, in particular, the noble Lord the Minister, whose performance was as adept on the springboard as at the mixing bowl, and also my noble and learned friend Lord Scarman, the noble Lord, Lord Soper, and

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the noble Lord, Lord Pitt. May I say how extremely pleased I was to hear my noble and learned friend Lord Scarman say that he agreed with the main conclusion in my speech, which was that racial barriers are beginning to break down, that understanding is beginning to develop, and that tensions are beginning to lessen. That impressed me enormously.
A great deal remains to be done. When I was interviewing people, whether in Bradford or Brixton, Wolverhampton or Wandsworth, a great many of the Asians and West Indians I met continued to say that there was a lack of understanding in all spheres of their relations with the police and white people. I am afraid that this will take a long time to break down. I might perhaps put to your Lordships briefly the view that the effort required is not all that great when one considers what can be achieved by a friendly word, a smile, and a handshake.
I was greatly moved by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Soper. If I may perhaps correct one impression I gained from his speech, I would say that I am very tolerant about religion. I have studied Islam. I have studied Judaism. I believe that they should be taught in our schools, but I still feel, with great respect to the noble Lord, that confusion can result if too many religions are taught in different ways.
This has, indeed, been a memorable day for me, even if, in my dreams tonight, I find myself mixing the Christmas pudding in the shallow end of a swimming pool. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion for Papers.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Mental Hospital Closures: Epsom
8.13 p.m.
Lord Molloy Lord Molloy rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will re-examine the decision of the South-West Thames Regional Health Authority to close six psychiatric and mental hospitals and homes in Epsom, Surrey.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Unstarred Question standing in my name involves a small group of hospitals, psychiatric and mental, in Epsom, Surrey. The story really starts in March 1982, when a DHSS inquiry was instituted into under-used and surplus property in the National Health Service as part of the Government's so-called efficiency drive. The inquiry team was chaired by the assistant director of works operations at the DHSS, and included the group property adviser to the Imperial Group PLC, a partner in a firm of chartered surveyors and four NHS professionals. Their report in January 1983 was designed to force health authorities to dispose, not just of surplus land and buildings but also those identified as under-used, as an essential part of their strategic planning process—I emphasise, "their" strategic planning process. Half a dozen people, it seems to me, were given massive power. I hope that the House will take note.
I regret to say that Mr. Norman Fowler welcomed the report and said that the Government were determined to see the disposal of property surplus to requirements. The stated intention of the South-West Thames Regional Health Authority to finance a new
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pattern of services for the mentally ill and the mentally handicapped from the sale of hospitals and hospital land within their region is the first substantial application of the Government's policy. I want to examine briefly the arguments that have been presented, in the main, by the RHA's working parties in their consultative documents, Future Pattern of Services for the Mentally Ill and Future Pattern of Services for Mentally Handicapped People. I wish to outline my major criticisms of these proposals. It is also incumbent on me to outline as fairly as I can the proposals submitted by the RHA.
The RHA's mental illness working party was set up in November 1980and charged with examining the psychiatric needs of the population of the South-West Thames region having regard to guidance issued by the Department of Health and new patterns of care, and to make recommendations on what changes and developments should take place in the service and their priority in the next 10 years and in the longer term, taking into account the known limitation on revenue and capital resources.
In drawing up a regional policy and strategy, the working party was asked to look at the needs of specialist groups such as children, drug addicts, alcoholics, the elderly and the severely ill, and to make recommendations on the future of the region's large hospitals. The working party was chaired by the district administrator of the East Surrey Health Authority. He was a member of the group which drew up the DHSS plan in the first place. It also included, I understand, a number of consultant psychiatrists. But there were no trade union representatives on the working party; there were no representatives of doctors, teachers, midwives, specialist nurses and so on.
The RHA's mental handicap working party was set up last year to produce a regional policy for services for the mentally handicapped, and to recommend a strategy for implementing this policy. The working party had before it the proposals of an earlier working party which it re-examined in the light of national policy and advice. Here, again, this working party had several people on it, but for some mysterious reason it lacked any representatives of the major trade unions within the NHS.
The mental illness working party identified four broad objectives for a new pattern of service to all groups: first, to develop an effective commitment to preventive measures and the education of the public in the understanding of mental health and available services; second, to enable the mentally ill person to maintain an independent life in his own home for as long as possible; third, to allow the mentally ill person who cannot be maintained appropriately in his own home to receive treatment or accommodation close to his home wherever possible; and, fourth, to integrate the general and mental health service and to provide a comprehensive service in each district.
The mental handicap working party set itself four similar objectives: first, to reduce the incidence of mental handicap by prevention; second, to investigate, diagnose, assess and treat disability as early as possible; third, to identify and implement the most appropriate forms of care in order to enable the individual to enjoy as complete a lifestyle as possible while also taking

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account of his or her own views; and, fourth, to provide a comprehensive locally based service in each district in conjunction with the local authority, social services, education services and voluntary services.
The mental illness document states clearly:
"The development of community based services must be the first priority because it creates a service close to people's homes, reduces inappropriate admission to hospital and can be achieved without the need for expensive capital investment which, if available, has a long lead-in time".
I believe that this is a fair assessment of the working party's proposals and arguments.
The mental illness working party considers that the necessary funding for the new pattern of service could be obtained through proceeds from land sales, joint financing, minor capital allocation and even the use of revenue on a non-recurring basis as a result of under-spending or delayed implementation of agreed developments. In particular, the working party believes that sites will have to be identified which offer the greatest potential for releasing resources for re investment in the new type of district based service.
The mental handicap working party recommends that each of the region's 13 districts should have set up a district planning team by January next year to plan and co-ordinate services appropriate to their districts. That I believe is a fair assessment—indeed, some of it is a laudable assessment—of the moves to be made over the years to come.
The working party's proposals rest on four central arguments and opinions, which I believe can be summarised as follows. In line with the stated objectives of the Government, the DHSS and the health authorities, care must switch to the community. The Mental Illness Working Party view sees more locally-based psychiatric services as both necessary and inevitable, and they take the view that they must be maintained.
Central Government will not provide any extra finance for any of this new pattern of services. It is very important to take note of that point. All these wonderful proposals are being put forward, but just imagine the situation if we were considering the Navy, the Army or the Air Force and there was no money. People would go and shake a tin and get a couple of coppers from people passing by. They would say, "Help the RAF"; "Help the Royal Navy"; "Help the British Army"; "Help the police". That is what we used to do in 1936 and 1937 at all our carnivals and fetes to maintain our hospitals, because the death rate in the South Wales valleys was one of the highest in Western Europe. It is no good people saying that all that happened long, long ago. If you are going to put forward that argument it is no good celebrating Christmas in a couple of year's time because it happened 2,000 years ago. It is no good submitting that type of banal argument. This is a very serious problem although it affects only a small part of the country.
In those circumstances the central financial contribution can only be made by the sale of large hospitals. Retaining them would only increase the cost per patient as numbers further declined and would not represent the best use of the RHA's resources in land use terms. That is the argument of the RHA. I want to
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state it as fairly as possible. The Mental Illness Working Party's proposals, more clearly developed in their financial strategy than those of the Mental Handicap Working Party, declare:
"A major factor in implementing the policy is the release of resources, particularly capital, from the large hospitals.".
That, very roughly, is the position of the RHA.
I shall submit the criticisms of the working party's proposals as briefly as possible. These proposals represent a major step towards asset stripping the NHS. The sale of 570 acres envisaged by the working parties would dwarf previous known hospital land sales in England. There is nothing to compare with it. The property speculator mentality that has inspired these plans is clearly revealed in the language of the Mental Illness Working Party when they refer to the sale of the sites. Let me tell your Lordships how it reads. It says:
"The development potential of such a site close to the new M25 with ultimate access to Heathrow, Gatwick and the Channel ports could be enormous. The demise of most of the large psychiatric hospitals in and around Epsom is bound to have an enhancing effect upon residential land values".
That is a particularly vulgar way in which to describe how to get rid of a number of hospitals and land. Suppose the Minister for Defence, Mr. He seltine, came along and said that he was willing to lend out a couple of regiments if anybody wanted to invade somewhere, or that the RAF was willing to lend out a few bombers to bomb somewhere. People would say that it was ludicrous. Why is it ludicrous to do that when we are doing it as regards the most poignant clients of the DHSS—the people who are mentally crippled and people who are mentally ill?
The Environment Secretary is going to be brought into it to work what I can only describe as a little fiddle—to cheat. That is fair and straight enough, is it not? There is nothing hinting about that. I have never hinted about anything in my life—even when I was in a concentration camp I was not prepared to give any hints of sycophancy, and I am certainly not going to start now at my age. The Environment Secretary has to decide whether under this Green Belt proposal he could re-zone all of this for development and meet the desires of the RHA. This is a Minister getting in on the act. I hope that we are not going to get a lot of talk about law and order from the party opposite in future.
I point out that the financial basis which the working parties propose for the new pattern of services apppears even weaker when consideration is given to what guarantees are on offer—that the money realised through the sales will be spent on services for the mentally ill and the mentally handicapped in the region. The introduction to the mental illness consultation document attempts to gloss over this problem. It says:
"The principal on which the policy is based is that the total revenue expenditures on mental illness services is not reduced in real terms and any resources arising from the sale or development of land currently used for mental illness purposes should be devoted entirely to the service."
These and similar expressions by the Mental Handicap Working Party are no more than pious hopes. The reality is that the Government have already announced plans that will ensure that the increased expenditure on the NHS does not keep pace with demands of new medical technology and the

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sharply rising number of elderly people, particularly those over 75.Those caring for the mentally ill and the mentally handicapped have ample experience of the lack of political will of Government to defend the vital services they provide and, given the flavour of the document to which I have just referred, they produce a reduction in the morale of staff. I believe that that is rather important.
Both working parties take the trouble to emphasise that they are not offering blueprints for the future patterns of service. I hope that that is noted by the Minister. This lack of direction and adequate strategic planning adversely affects the care of patients who will continue to require full-time residential provision. The Working Party on Mental Illness recognises that rehabilitation of many institutionalised patients is not a realistic possibility.
Staff as well as patients face disorientation during the open-ended transitional period. That could be really serious because it seems to me, on the figures with which I have been supplied, that to these difficulties must be added real worries about future employment for the 5,000-plus staff working in the six hospitals. In his foreword to the Mental Illness Working Party document, one of the members insists that:
"management, the trade unions and staff must attack our problem together in order to make sure that the service takes on a new form and does not become a crumbling ruin with no hope for the patients and no future for the staff"
There is a very serious warning there.
When the working parties refer to community-based services, they are very largely referring to services that do not exist at present in the region. In neither document is the extent to which the community care envisaged would be within the ambit of the NHS or be added to the demands placed on overstretched and under-funded local authority social services clear. There is also stress laid on the contribution of voluntary organisations. This raises the prospect of those bodies being asked to take on a burden that the National Council for Voluntary Organisations has acknowledged that they simply cannot in any way sustain.
As I draw to a close, I should like to refer to the Richmond Fellowship inquiry report, which I believe is a very valuable document to everyone who is interested in this rather poignant aspect of our National Health Service. The report says:
"Many people do recover from severe mental illness and are pleased with the care they have received. However, it is clear to members of the inquiry that services generally fall woefully short of achieving the quality of life for the mentally ill and their families that was envisaged when the run-down of the large hospitals began with such a fanfare".
I submit to the Minister who is to reply that one really cannot just dismiss out of hand that comment from that particular source.
It is not a question of simply being mean or indeed—if I may say so at this time of year—of the apotheosis of the Scrooge attitude on the part of the Government. In many ways it is being downright cruel. The desperation, the pain and even the fear of mental illness, I believe demand humane responses. I also regret very deeply that organisations such as the BMA and its special sectors and the Confederation of
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Health Service Employees—the trade union that embraces so many of the mental hospital staff—were not in some way involved. They have always tried to be involved. It has been the desire of the confederation—and in very many ways its history will show how it became deeply involved in matters that have nothing to do with conditions of work and/or pay—to try only to improve the situation of a special group of hospitals, including the psychiatric hospitals, and it has made an outstanding contribution as a British trade union.
All we read in the newspapers is about trouble—strikes or threats of strikes—but the Confederation of Health Service Employees has been given credit by successive Secretaries of State, including the present one, for its realistic attitude towards contributing to a better health service for us all, particularly in this poignant field of mental illness. I greatly regret that it was not consulted, but it is not too late. I should be most grateful if the Minister or his right honourable friend in another place would be prepared to talk with Mr. David Williams, the recently elected General Secretary of COHSE, because I believe that the confederation has a real contribution to make and that it can help and assist the Government with its knowledge in many fields and this one in particular.
8.31 p.m.
Baroness Macleod of Borve: My Lords, I am sure that we are all most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, for asking Her Majesty's Government:
"Whether they will re-examine the decision of the South-West Thames Regional Health Authority to close six psychiatric and mental hospitals and homes in Epsom, Surrey".
I believe that the noble Lord very briefly touched on that Question, but only very briefly. I do not propose to answer him in any detail, except to say that we are grateful for the opportunity to allay the fears which perhaps he has again created, and to counter the ignorant rumours in parts of the press.
I submit that, so far as I can make out, his premise is incorrect. I have carried out some research; I have done a great deal of telephoning today to try to find out which of any hospitals in that group are likely to be or will be closed. I can only say that there is a possibility that Banstead might be closed, but ample provisions have already been made for the transfer of patients to another nearby hospital.
We all worry about the care of psychiatric and mentally ill patients. Indeed, we all wish that there were no such patients in our society, but that is wishful thinking. We all agree that, both in and out of hospital, we must provide the best care that it is possible for human beings and financial giving to provide. Much is being done by the voluntary sector, but, more importantly, by those in the hospitals themselves. To my certain knowledge, a great many of the wards are being updated. The patients are being given more comfortable furniture; they are given better food; there is a better ratio of staff. But, of course, we are talking about six very old hospitals. They were specifically built there so that they would be out of other people's way, so that nobody should feel that he was obliged to go and see the patients within the hospitals. But that was in the Victorian era when nobody wanted to know and the less said about those patients the better.

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I come from the Hertfordshire area, where we also have four large psychiatric hosptials. In my capacity as chairman of a large voluntary organisation I happen to know something about most of these hospitals. I shall not take up too much time, but we must all realise, as I am sure we do, that modern medicine and technology have made it possible for a great number of these patients to be able to live in the community.
I should like to refer to Napsbury, because it is one of the largest psychiatric hospitals in Hertfordshire. I happen to the be president of the housing association, and I should like to tell your Lordships very briefly what happens there. It is a very large hospital. It was orginally for 1,100 patients but we now have 750. There are two flats into which are put men and women whom the nursing staff and the medical staff think will be able to get on together. By day, those patients all work outside in the community. They return to the flat at night. One of the patients looks after the other five; he or she cooks for them and looks after the flat generally. In the fullness of time, when it has been decided that they can live together, they are sent outside the hospital walls into the community in the full knowledge that if anything goes wrong they can return. They work outside the hospital and live in a house which takes no more than six mixed gender ex-patients. They all work; they all contribute; they all believe that, once more, they are part of society.
In many cases this has been made possible only by the new technologies and medicines. However, the Napsbury Hospital covers nine boroughs which have all made houses available to the housing associations and they have encouraged us to place ex-patients back in society. We now have eight houses, and I can assure your Lordships that all the patients are leading happy and secure lives. This scheme has been in being for about five years, and I think that in all that time only one patient has gone astray.
However, when patients are returned to the community, unless it is via a system of this sort, of which I personally cannot speak too highly, the local authorities have to help with funding and looking after some of these patients. Can the Minister say whether there is any funding in the pipeline for these patients when they are discharged? I should also like to know, although it may be too early days yet, whether the 1983 Act is being observed and whether the local authorities are aware of their obligations under that Act.
I hope that at the end of this debate my noble friend the Minster will be able to tell us that there is very little truth, if any, in the idea that this particular regional health authority is likely to close six hospitals which is mentioned in the Question. I conclude by paying my tribute to all staff, who, I know, are working in very difficult circumstances—the medical staff, the nursing staff and the ancillary staff, all of whom contribute towards the working of vast hospials. We can all pay our tribute to them for their patience and forbearance, and for their care of patients within their hospitals. But, as I said at the beginning, one can only hope that the day will come when far fewer patients have to be kept as in-patients in the hospitals. For that reason, and having got that off my chest, I am grateful to the
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noble Lord, Lord Molloy, for giving us this opportunity to air this subject this evening.
8.40 p.m.
Baroness Robson of Kiddington: My Lords, I, too, should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, for allowing us to have this debate about the plans considered by the South-West Thames Regional Health Authority. I had better announce my interest in the authority, as I was its chairman until January 1982. I was in fact chairman when the mental illness working party was set up. I am also grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod, for putting the question in its historical context, and for pointing out to us how these hospitals first came to be created, and why they were situated there. In addition, may I say in regard to the Question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, about the six psychiatric hospitals at Epsom, that only four of them are administered by the South-West Thames Authority and Horton and Banstead are administered by the North-West Thames Authority.
During the years that I was chairman of the South-West Thames Regional Health Authority mental illness patients living in the big institutions in that region—and it is one of the regions which has the greatest number of mental illness and mental handicap patients in the whole of England—numbered 12,675, and now, in 1983, there are 6,843. That is half the number. That is a great achievement, because it means that through enlightened policies we have been able to get people out of the institutions and move them back into the community.
I also should like to endorse the devotion shown by the staff who have been running the hospitals. Any noble Lord who has been down to Epsom and gone round some of the hospitals, will know how impossible it is to make them feel like a home, due to the way they have been built. It is only the devotion of the staff which has enabled them to go on running.
We are talking tonight about two reports by two working parties set up by the South-West Thames Authority. Both working parties have made recommendations to the RHA, and at its meeting in November the RHA accepted the recommendations as the long-term strategy for the region. No one would assume that this will happen overnight, but I should like to tell the noble Lord the Minister what he can do to help us make it happen more quickly. Nobody in their right mind believes that it can happen overnight, but no health authority can work without a strategic plan. You have to work towards something that makes sense.
The department, the medical profession, all of us agree that in modern times it is possible and right for the large majority of these patients to live in the community in which they belong, and not to be incarcerated miles away from anybody, all on their own. That is recognised policy for the future. There is nothing wrong with the South-West Thames Authority adopting that policy as its strategic plan. The whole emphasis in the working parties' reports is on better treatments for the patients.
I like many of the proposals in the working parties' reports. I like the idea of the core house, and the cluster of varying degrees of dependency in the community. I

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like the idea of creating for people who have been institutionalised for such a long time that they cannot go back into the community, much smaller units, which are more homelike and friendlier. I like all of those things.
I am worried about certain matters in the reports. First, I would hope that in the implementation of the solution patients from the hospitals will not be moved more than once, in particular the long-stay patients who cannot go into the community. To them the unit is home, however much we may think that it is a rather ghastly place. We could create better places for them, but I do not want them to be moved more than once.
Secondly, as the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, has said, an enormous amount of money will have to be spent in the community to create the right back-up services and conditions before the patients can live in the community. That will not be any cheaper. It will be more expensive, but it will be better for the patient, and, after all, that is what we are after. Therefore, we have a chicken and egg situation.
Enormous sums of money are tied up in the land values at Epsom, but the regional health authority will not realise that money until it has created alternative community services for the patients. If the Government are as dedicated as are all of us who have been involved in the health service to getting the patients out into the community, they should make available bridging loans for health authorities. The loans would enable the authorities to create the right conditions and move the patients into better surroundings. Then the loans could be paid back. That is the way to do it. Unless we move in that direction, we shall never get people out of unsatisfactory institutional buildings.
I know quite a lot about this matter because, apart from having been chairman of the South-West Thames Authority, I am a member of the Hammersmith and Fulham joint consultative committee. At the last few meetings between the local authority and the district health authority we have been scratching our heads as to how we can create the right conditions for receiving back the patients from Banstead when it closes. We have three years in which to create those conditions. But without financial help from the Government prior to the patients arriving, we shall not achieve what all of us want to achieve, and I should like to ask the Government to look into that particular problem.
8.48 p.m.
Lord Auckland: My Lords, it is not a good reflection on parliamentary democracy that we are discussing an important Question of this kind with only 12 noble Lords and noble Baronesses in the Chamber. Although the Question—and I should like to add my gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, for enabling us to discuss it—specifically mentions Epsom, the whole issue of mental health is implicit in it.
I intervene briefly in this debate because since 1954 I have lived in the Epsom area. For 18 years I was on the house committee of one of the hospitals to which the Question relates—St. Ebba's Hospital. Although with reorganisation of the health service I was, so to speak, out on a limb with many others on hospital management committees and house committees, both
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my wife and I still take a close interest in the hospital. Every Christmas we seek to visit as many wards as we can—and there are a great many of them—and join in the Christmas carol singing, which we hope to do again shortly.
An account has been given of the history of these hospitals and my noble friend, Lady Macleod, has rightly said both the St. Albans/Watford area and the Epsom area were designated in Victorian times when little or no treatment was given for mental illness and the unfortunate people, then classed as lunatics—which, thank God, we do not do now—were sent to these places so that they were out of sight and out of mind of the public.
I have studied the document produced by the South-West Thames Region, but I do not propose at this hour to go into technical details. I am not qualified to do so as I no longer officially serve on the region. At this stage I should like to pay a tribute to the good work which my late friend Lord Grenfell did when he was chairman of the hospital management committee of Queen Mary's, Carshalton. It is apposite to mention his name in this debate for the work which he did was quite outstanding.
These hospitals are now largely under-occupied. As I understand it, St. Ebba's Hospital is under-occupied compared with 20 years ago. There has been considerable upgrading of the wards and the general facilities there and also at other hospitals. Incidentally, I see from this document that at the Manor Hospital 96 more purpose-built six-bedded units are to be built.
I find it difficult to comprehend that six of these hospitals are to be closed. There may be a case for closing one or possibly more of these hospitals in due course; but as my noble friend Lady Macleod and the noble Baroness, Lady Robson of Kiddington, quite rightly said, with their vast experience of hospital work, it is absolutely vital that the needs of patients are considered. Although in some cases these patients still live under conditions that are far less than desirable, it is their home. Many have no families. Even more tragically there are patients—St. Ebba's is an example, where patients have been living there for a long time—who have families but their families never visit them.
As I see it, as a layman, we have this dilemma. We want to get more patients into community care outside the custodial care of the secure unit mental hospitals. But there are problems; first, of recruiting suitably sensitive people who can care for such people who have been virtually rejected by their families. That point must be considered. Secondly, on the other side of the fence, nobody wants to see these people living in conditions which, at best, are often highly depressing.
I should like to put one or two questions to my noble friend. Assuming that there is something substantial in the background of Lord Molloy's Question, what will be the position of the staff in these hospitals—the nurses, the doctors, the cooks, the speech therapists and all the other staff who are so essential in these establishments? Perhaps the Minister will confirm, too, that whereas there was a time not so long ago when the catchment area for St. Ebba's Hospital was the Paddington area, it is now local. They are no longer dependent on patients from Greater London,

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but many of the patients live locally and this is an important point. It means that there is bound to be more under-occupancy.
I have not mentioned this before in your Lordships' House, but if there is to be development and if there are 600 acres of land available there, there is a convincing case for some kind of development, but it should be development within the health service remit. It should perhaps be workshops. St. Ebba's is fortunate as it has an industrial unit, but I am not sure that is so of all the mental hospitals there. Perhaps there should be more recreational facilities. Matters of this kind are important when one is considering developing the land. The staffs of these hospitals come from many countries. We have just been discussing an important debate on ethnic minorities in this country. Many of these people work in our hospitals—and very good work they do too. Their position as well as that of the patients must be considered.
No praise can be too high for the staff of all grades who work in these hospitals in the Epsom area. Over the years I have had a chance of seeing them at work, both at in the daytime and at night. The lot of the patients is their first consideration. I am sure that my noble friend the Minister when he replies will take that on board. I believe it is very important that the Government come to an early decision on the remit of Lord Molloy's Question, whether it is entirely factually correct or not.
9 p.m.
Lord Wallace of Coslany: My Lords, I should first like to thank my noble friend Lord Molloy for raising the Question on the Epsom hospitals. However, one must frankly admit that we have moved into a general debate on the mental health service and indeed we are really indulging now in a follow-up debate to last week's Unstarred Question of the noble Lord, Lord Beswick.
The proposals dealing with the Epsom mental hospitals appear as part of a national pattern, as the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, indicated. The purpose is to get rid of large and, in many cases, very old mental hospitals and to replace them with smaller units, allied to community care, of which the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod, has spoken so movingly. I entirely agree with her about the system of house or homecare, and care in the community, being carried on. I have quoted in two previous debates my own experiences of such a scheme in Norwich, where voluntary organisations, local authorities and the health service, have all worked together to provide what to me was a revelation of care for these people, bringing them back into the normal world which many of them have not known for some time.
That policy, on the surface, appears to be forward-looking and progressive; but a considerable number of difficulties arise, including of course, as the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, has pointed out, the provision of adequate finance. Naturally the first problem that arises is the disturbance to staff and patients—and patients not released will take some time to settle down in new surroundings. But, as the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, also pointed out, this situation is capable of being eased by the skilled
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nursing care of staff who are known to their patients. We have to face the fact that if you close a mental hospital and open new units of accommodation built to the best standards—smaller units—it will take a long time for those patients to get accustomed to their new surroundings. The hospital wards and areas they are familiar with have become part of their lives, and many of them have known nothing else. It will take a long, long time before they settle down. Therefore change in itself is unsettling and it is a problem that we have to face up to.
Staff, on the other hand, face in one sense greater problems because, as the noble Lord, Lord Auckland, hinted—and we may get a more satisfactory answer later—there may be some redundancy among all grades; and not only redundancy but disturbance of family life because of an enforced move to a new area, together with the uncertainty caused by rumours due to lack of communication.
In other words, I am saying that at all stages of any change there should be full consultation procedures taking place between management and staff. My noble friend Lord Molloy indicated that this has not taken place. That is very much to be regretted because hospitals are the most fertile source of rumours, as I and many of your Lordships know full well.
There is the problem of land disposal. I think the Minister will be telling us where the money goes after the sale is completed. I believe it goes to the health service but no doubt he will confirm this when he comes to reply. However, it appears that a theory exists that the sale of surplus land would meet the cost of the new units. There are a lot of snags to be overcome before that can be achieved. In the first place, the new units have to be provided—and this has already been stressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Robson—before the old hospitals can be demolished and the land disposed of. Most buildings that are being disposed of would be unsuitable for other use, and thus public expenditure would have to be incurred before any compensating money from land sales has been received.
Planning permission would be necessary before private development could take place. In passing—although we are dealing generally with a national situation—I understand in Epsom there is an additional problem because the town is very favour ably placed in a Green Beltarea. Although the hospitals may be pretty tatty these days, if they are demolished there will certainly be great problems afterwards over what is to be done with the land. I like the suggestion that was made by the noble Lord, Lord Auckland, that the land would be ideal for recreation areas, and so on. But if that were the case, you are not going to get much money from private property speculators; so you have to face up to that. So far as Epsom is concerned, that is certainly a restricting factor. Even if planning permission is received for property development, it must be borne in mind that although this exercise might be designed as a form of saving, in fact such development means more public expenditure on schools, roads, health service facilities, transport, sewers, shops and many other services not always thought of by planners until afterwards, as many of us know only too well in any newly developed area.

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Reverting to the planned new units, it does not follow that administrative costs will be reduced, and in any case if a large number of patients are released adequate measures of community care cannot be provided cheaply. In many cases they are not adequate at the present time to meet existing needs. I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, who pointed out that a great deal of spending is needed, and a restriction on local authority spending will very severely interfere with the ideal of providing community care. I have no objection to the abolition of outdated mental hospital facilities and their replacement by units of accommodation suited to modern needs, together with an increased system of community care. There is a very old mental hospital at Darenth Park, which is close to where I live and with which I am very familiar—as a visitor, not as a patient. It is partly demolished. I saw a nurse on television who said that the patients will be very disturbed when they are moved and that it will take time to put them right.
So to assume that this can be provided by land and property sales is too optimistic. In any case, as the House has already been told, it will take a long time to achieve. The fact must be faced that community care facilities provided on an adequate scale will considerably increase expenditure, particularly by the local health authorities. I was reading about an area—I think it was Wandsworth—where they were going to demolish a hospital to provide land for new units. But because the health authority does not have the money, they are having to sell the land for property development instead, and there will be no new units. I do not know whether that report is accurate, but it is in today's Guardian.
Finally, I come back to what is to me a very important aspect: that is, staff involvement. The avoidance of rumours, misunderstandings and resultant unrest can only come from full consultation with staff at all levels. Surely it is possible for the Government to arrange for staff representatives to be involved in the planning of any changes. These people at least have experience of working in the system, and therefore they have knowledge and experience to provide. This is a lesson not only for the mental hospital field. It is a lesson for the whole of the National Health Service, which is going through some troubles at the present time, mainly due to lack of communication, with resultant rumours and unrest among the staff.
Changes may be on the way in the mental health service, but before drastic action is taken I advise the House and the Government not to put on one side the advice and experience of those very dedicated people who serve and care for patients every day and in every way—often far beyond the normal scope of their duties. They deserve the highest praise. As I indicated, many of them are not even British subjects. Many of them have come from overseas. I have seen many Spanish nurses and coloured nurses who are devoted to their patients.
I do not know how they have the patience to cope, and sometimes they even face physical danger. Some years ago, I had to deal with the case of a male nurse who had been hit over the head with a chair by a patient and that finished the nurse's working life. So we have to face up to all those facts, and they are not
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pleasant to think about. I appeal to the Government to take into account those people who are involved in the service, and that can only be to the advantage of the Government and the whole service. I hope that changes take place. I should like to see these new community units and community care extended. It is a great ideal, but it will not be done on the sale of land or achieved in five minutes.
9.11 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Lord Glenarthur): My Lords, I think we shall all be very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, for raising, with his usual eloquence, a subject which I know concerns him a great deal, and many others of your Lordships as well. I hope that in replying I can reassure him and others about the South-West Thames Regional Health Authority's plans for providing psychiatric and mental handicap services in that part of the country.
Perhaps it would be helpful if, by way of back ground, I were to start by reminding your Lordships of the reasons for the location of mental illness and mental handicap hospitals in areas such as Epsom. This matter was touched on by my noble friend Lady Macleod. Around the turn of the century, when these hospitals were being built, there were two main aims in caring for the mentally ill and mentally handicapped—whose differing needs were not always distinguished at that time. These were partly to protect society by providing custodial care behind locked doors and high walls and away from centres of population, and partly to protect the patient by providing him or her with a secure shelter. A large hospital in the country met both these objectives.
As I am sure your Lordships will agree, mercifully and thankfully attitudes towards the mentally ill and mentally handicapped have changed a great deal since then. The emphasis now is on avoiding segregation and institutionalisation, and on enabling as many people as possible to live as normal a life as possible within the community. As the House will know, and as has been stressed this evening, the main thrust of mental health policies of successive Governments from the 1960s onwards has been to move from psychiatric and mental handicap services based in these large isolated hospitals to a locally based service in the community, in which health and local authorities collaborate to provide a wide range of services to meet varying individual needs.
But we fully recognise the continuing need for in-patient treatment for some patients, both on a short to medium basis during an acute phase of illness and for long term care in the case of a minority of patients whose needs can be met only in this way. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Coslany, the noble Baroness, Lady Robson of Kiddington, and my noble friend Lord Auckland referred to this need. They spoke of patients feeling that these places are home. That, to me, is quite clear. I have seen them, and fully agree. But the vast majority of people with mental health problems only rarely, if ever, need the degree of treatment and support which can be provided only on an in-patient basis. For them, what is important is a wide range of services which would enable them to live

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as normally and as independently as possible in the community.
One of the problems we now face is the concentration of these large, old, isolated hospitals, particularly in the home counties, with a steadily reducing number of long-stay patients and a pressing need to provide more appropriate types of care within each health district. It is precisely this problem which the South-West Thames Regional Health Authority is now looking at. The regional health authority set up two regional working parties to advise them on the future pattern of services for the mentally ill and mentally handicapped. The reports of these working parties were published earlier this year. The noble Lord, Lord Molloy, referred to them. They attracted considerable press interest, but they also attracted a certain amount of misleading speculation, I am afraid. Following extensive consultation, their main recommendations have now been adopted as regional policy.
This does not mean that a number of large hospitals will be closed overnight and patients discharged into the community without adequate care. What the South-West Thames Regional Health Authority will now be doing—along with other health authorities up and down the country, and in conjunction with the social service departments concerned—is to look at ways of providing alternative and more appropriate forms of care. These will range from hospital in patient care at one end of the spectrum to, at the other, a range of support services enabling more people to live independently in their own homes.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, if this kind of thing has to go on, would the Minister ask regional health authorities not to put advertisements in newspapers saying how much nicer it will be to live down there when all these mentally ill patients are moved? This is what the South-West Thames Regional Health Authority did. It is highly distasteful to put something like that into advertisements for the sale of land. They can say that it is desirable land, but not that it will be much better in the future because when mentally ill people are no longer there the price of property will increase, which will be to everybody's benefit.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I am not quite sure to which advertisement the noble Lord is referring. If he will show me any particular advertisement which he thinks is distasteful, I shall certainly take up the matter with those concerned.
Lord Molloy: Certainly.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I am convinced that the region will agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Robson of Kiddington, who suggested that patients should not be moved more than once when it comes to their turn and it is suitable for them to move into community care. This is a very important point which I am quite certain will be strictly adhered to wherever possible.
Now might be an appropriate moment to talk about funding, a point which has been raised by various Members of your Lordships' House. The noble
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Baroness in particular asked about bridging finance. The "care in the community" initiative which was announced some time ago will make joint finance arrangements between health and local authorities more flexible, and will provide £15 million over the next five years for new projects. I hope that authorities will take full advantage of this additional source of funds to help to develop local, community-based mental illness and mental handicap services.
In the short term, the South-West Thames Regional Health Authority has set aside special capital and revenue reserves to develop mental health services. In the long term, income from land sales is expected to finance the new pattern of services—and not only land sales but the closure of hospitals and all the revenue that is trapped in those hospitals. I do not like quoting my own speeches, but when I spoke last week on the Richmond Fellowship report I was able to give the example of Banstead Hospital, where it was costing over £500 per patient per year for heating alone. That is a fairly staggering figure.
So far as local authority obligation is concerned—and my noble friend Lady Macleod of Borve raised this point—yes, there has been a duty placed on local authorities to provide after-care for mentally ill people since 1959. The Mental Health Act 1983, which my noble friend specifically asked about, also repeated that point in respect of some formally detained patients.
As the working party on mental illness services highlighted, there is a particular problem around Epsom because of the presence of those six large mental illness and mental handicap hospitals; five of which are clustered within about one and a quarter miles of each other. Those hospitals provide mental illness and mental handicap services to nine districts. As we have heard, all but two of them are managed extra-territorially and provide services to districts many miles away.
Given the steadily reducing population of those hospitals and the urgent need to release the vast resources which are locked up in them so as to provide locally-based services and alternative forms of care, it is only sensible—in fact, it is vital—to look at the role of those six hospitals to see whether, by sensible planning, there might be a better way to provide services and at the same time provide better and more appropriate care for the patients.
Clearly, that is likely to mean that some of the existing hospitals in and around Epsom will not be required in the longer term. South-West Thames has no definite plans yet for closing any individual hospital and disposing of the property and land. The only firm proposal so far concerns the closure of Banstead Hospital, to which my noble friend Lady Macleod of Borve referred. That hospital is managed by the Victoria Health Authority in North-West Thames and, following the closure of Banstead, the proposal is to transfer patients to Horton Hospital. The short answer to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, is that there are no plans for the wholesale closure in the way that his Question describes.
The noble Lords, Lord Molloy and Lord Wallace of Coslany, and the noble Baroness, Lady Robson of Kiddington, referred to the role of staff. I should like to

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associate myself entirely with all they said about the caring and sympathetic way in which the staff at those hospitals look after their patients. It is, to someone who comes to it for the first time, particularly striking to see their dedication and the enthusiasm they show for their work.
Although the South-West Thames Regional Health Authority has no specific proposals to close any particular hospital, as I said, it fully recognises that the skill and experience of existing staff will be needed for the new pattern of services which will emerge. Decisions about the future of employees in particular hospitals will have to be considered carefully when proposals are being drawn up to close a particular hospital, to transfer services to another hospital, or to provide alternative forms of care in smaller units or within the community. I can assure your Lordships that the health authorities concerned will consult staff interest fully when drawing up proposals. I believe that point was one to which my noble friend Lord Auckland also referred.
The noble Lord, Lord Molloy, described the selling off and the disposal of the hospitals in due course as "asset stripping". That is a very wild assertion, if I may say so. There is absolutely no question of "asset stripping". There are no proposals to close any of the hospitals in Epsom which are managed by South-West Thames. But, as I said, the population of those hospitals is steadily declining and it is the regional health authorities' intention to review the future of those hospitals, to ensure that available resources will be used in the most effective way.
The National Health Service's estate is large by any standard. I do not have a figure for the total amount of money that it is worth, but it must be into hundreds of millions of pounds. It is important that its size is regularly reviewed to take account of changing needs. That means, as it always has done, that the NHS will need to buy and sell land. It is not sensible for the NHS to hold on to land that is no longer needed. It is of course far better to sell it and use the proceeds to finance other priority needs of the health service. Like it or not, we are in the property business and we must treat that property with care; we must treat it in the way that others would treat it if they were hanging on to the sort of values we are talking about.
Regarding the unions, the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, asked particularly about COHSE; and he also mentioned consultations with doctors and others. The noble Lord will be aware that COHSE, under the chairmanship of Mr. Mallinson, who contributed so much with his statesmanlike approach, produced a report which supported the development of community psychiatric services in the interests of patients. There were a number of medical representatives on the mental health and mental illness working parties. The regional health authority has consulted all interested parties on the reports, and the full consultation procedures will be followed before any specific proposal is implemented. The recent report of the inquiry into underused and surplus property in the NHS and South-West Thames's own working party report on psychiatric services referred to the concentration of the large hospitals around Epsom and to the problems of disposing of surplus land in the Green Belt area. The green belt area was a point raised by the
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noble Lord, Lord Wallace, when he also spoke about the question of planning permission. I shall return to both those points shortly. These two reports recognised that the development potential of the Epsom estate could be considerable and recommended therefore that there should be co-ordinated action on the part of the several health authorities concerned to review the future of hospitals on this site.
My honourable friend the Minister for Health recently met the chairmen of the South-West and North-West Thames Regional Health Authorities to discuss how best to tackle these issues. They agreed that the two chairman should oversee a review of the Epsom estate which would take account of the long term service planning issues, the interests of the patients now in these hospitals and the property considerations which are aimed at maximising the benefits to be released for the NHS from a carefully considered and phased disposal of parts of the estate. This work will now need to be set in hand as a matter of urgency, but it will probably be some time before firm plans for rationalising the Epsom estate as a whole are put forward. Proposals for changes in services will of course be subject to the usual consultation procedure.
I should stress to your Lordships that if a redundant hospital is closed and the land sold it should not be viewed as a lost resource; indeed quite the reverse is true. Revenue savings, such as I described earlier, will be used to support and develop other services and the same applies to the proceeds from sales of surplus land. Perhaps I could take this opportunity of setting the record straight on this particular matter. My noble friend Lord Skelmersdale inadvertently and quite uncharacteristically I think made a slightly wrong assumption when he answered a question yesterday in your Lordships' House. So far as the proceeds are concerned the correct position is that when surplus NHS land is sold the proceeds are retained for National Health Service use, and we follow the principle that, wherever possible, the services of the district health authority which has disposed of the land should be those which benefit from the sale of the land. I know that my noble friend has written to all those concerned with this particular matter.
To turn to green belt land, to which the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, referred, where a hospital located in the green belt or other rural area is no longer required, health authorities should, in full consultation with local planning authorities, explore all the possibilities for acceptable alternative uses. If such a use is found, they should prepare plans for redevelopment and seek planning approval from the local planning authority, at present using the non-statutory procedure, but the noble Lord will be aware of the change to which my noble friend Lord Skelmersdale referred yesterday during the Question concerned.
Generally speaking, planning approval is not given for the construction of new buildings inside a Green Belt area except in very special circumstances. However, the opportunity to remove a large hospital complex from a Green Belt area and its replacement with a building more in keeping with the surrounding area which can actually improve the local environment without putting additional demands on the local infrastructure as well as providing an additional

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opportunity to relocate psychiatric patients in the community may—I say may—be regarded as very special circumstances. But this is very much a matter for the local planning authority in the first instance and ultimately for my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment.
I hope that in answering the noble Lord's Question I have been able to reassure him about the South-West Thames RHA's plans for developing mental illness and mental handicap services in this part of the country. There are still significant numbers of mentally handicapped and mentally ill patients inappropriately placed in hospital and we should fully support proposals by the South-West Thames RHA to remove such patients into a more suitable environment in the community. There do not seem to be many of your Lordships who have spoken this evening who would dissent from that ideal. At the same time both we and the region recognise fully that, for a minority of patients, hospital in-patient care will remain the most appropriate and necessary form of care. It is therefore vital that the need to develop community services is balanced with the need to maintain high standards of care for those who need care in hospital.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, I wonder if I may—
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, if the noble Lord is addressing a question to my noble friend before he sits down, then he is in order to do so. Apart from that, he is not in order to respond to an Unstarred Question.

Education (Grants and Awards) Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.
House adjourned at twenty-seven minutes before ten o'clock.