Lords Sitting of 26 January 1983

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

LORD McINTOSH OF HARINGEY
Andrew Robert McIntosh, Esquire, having been created Baron McIntosh of Haringey, of Haringey in Greater London, for life—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede and the Lord Wells-Pestell, and made the solemn Affirmation.
BARONESS NICOL
Olive Mary Wendy Nicol, having been created Baroness Nicol, of Newnham in the County of Cambridgeshire, for life—Was, in her robes, introduced between the Baroness David and the Lord Underhill, and made the solemn Affirmation.

Information Technology Year
2.43 p.m.
Lord Sandys: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will make a Statement on the success of Information Technology Year.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, Information Technology Year has been an outstanding success in raising the general level of awareness of new technology among businessmen and the general public, and in encouraging its wider application. An opinion poll conducted at the start of the year showed that only 17 per cent. of those interviewed were aware of IT; by the end of the year this figure had increased to 62 per cent.
Lord Sandys: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that very encouraging reply. Can he tell the House whether it is the Government's intention to follow this up, especially with regard to industry?
Lord Glenarthur: Yes, of course, my Lords. We have made significant progress in encouraging the application and use of information technology. During the year a number of new schemes were introduced by the Department of Industry to help industry develop and use new products. These include schemes for flexible manufacturing systems; computer-aided design, manufacture and test; micro-computers for GPs, launched by my noble friend Lord Trefgarne; software products; the small engineering firms' investment scheme and fibre optics.
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It might also be helpful to your Lordships if I say that nearly 80 information technology centres have been approved, with more opening up soon, to reach a total of 150. In the future, of course, the Government will take maximum advantage of what has been achieved in IT awareness during 1982. There are many ways in which this can be done, and possibly one of them will be by using the skills and expertise of regional committees which did so much to promote the success of IT 82.
Lord Leatherland: My Lords, I should like to ask the Minister whether, despite all that he has said, the fact still remains that there are well over 3 million unemployed in this country?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I think it will be through information technology, among other things, that the level of unemployment will probably be reduced, because this country has a wealth of expertise in the area, and through developing it we will probably be able to reduce the number of unemployed.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, can my noble friend give any idea of the relative sources of information technology hardware British made, as opposed to perhaps Japanese and foreign made?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, there is a great deal being done in this country at the moment to promote hardware. I cannot give the names to my noble friend at this particular moment, but I would certainly be happy to supply him with them in due course. It might also be worth bearing in mind that many advances are being made in software as well as hardware, and there is a trend towards the design of these things being software-led and not hardware-led.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, the Minister did not mention universities, polytechnics or other colleges in the list that he gave. Can he tell the House what part they have played in these activities, bearing in mind, of course, that the production of technologists and engineers by the universities will be of paramount importance over the next few years. and also bearing in mind the savage cuts which the Government, through the UGC, have imposed on these colleges?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, at the younger end of the education scale nearly 6,000 secondary schools have applied for 50 per cent. funding for a microcomputer under the Micros for Schools Scheme, and virtually every secondary school now has at least one micro. In addition, my right honourable friend the Prime Minister announced the extension of the scheme to primary schools from 1st October 1982, and over 3,500 of these schools have already applied. I can also tell the noble Lord that, under the Department of Education and Science's microelectronics education programme, provision has been made in the current financial year for some 11,000 advisers and teachers to receive training for microcomputers in education.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that at the moment there are almost 4,000 university lecturers on the dole? Is he aware that the technological universities, such as Bradford and Salford, have had cuts of 40 per cent. imposed on them in the last two or three years? Is he aware that those universities are to have a further heavy cut imposed on them, and is he aware that the polytechnics are to have a cut of 10 per cent. imposed on them this year? Is that the way in which to encourage information technology, or any other kind of technology?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I really think that that question is rather wide of the mark. If the noble Lord puts down a Question on that specific subject I am sure that it will be adequately answered.
The Earl of Bessborough: My Lords, I am sorry that I have not given my noble friend notice of this question, but would he not agree that it is very important that we should continue this work within the European framework, and especially the European Strategic Programme for Research in Information Technology—the ESPRIT programme?
Lord Glenarthur: Yes, my Lords; I quite agree with what my noble friend says.
Baroness David: My Lords, is the Minister aware that one computer in a secondary school, which may have as many as 1,000 pupils, or even one computer in a class of 30, is not really of very much use? It is not much use having the computer if you do not have the softwear or the staff. Of course, the same goes for primary schools; one computer is not enough. What the Government have done is really just a gimmick.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I do not think that that is the case at all. I quite agree with the noble Baroness that to have more than one computer is highly desirable. Nevertheless, these machines cost money and someone has to decide from where the money has to come. The suggestion of its being a gimmick is simply not the case at all. I think I said in answer to an earlier question that there are those who believe that in the future people in this country will be either computer literate or computer illiterate. That is why it is so important to start our young people off very early with the skills and the knowledge of this scheme.
Lord Blyton: My Lords, I lived a long time and I remember that at one time we spoke about rationalisation; now it is the development of technology. Is not the basis of it all that we should produce more with less labour involved in the process of producing it? Does not that mean more unemployment, bearing in mind the 4 million unemployed that we have today?
Lord Glenarthur: No, my Lords; I do not agree with the noble Lord. I believe that it is through the development of technology that we shall be able to compete in the world and be able to create jobs. I believe that there are various parts to any strategy which might exist and I think I can say that our information technology industry and business in general need a modern and
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comprehensive information technology infrastructure, just as previous industrial revolutions demanded a transport infrastructure of roads, canals, railways and that sort of thing.
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord can tell the House how far the universities are able to benefit financially and help their funds from money raised by the sale of technology and new prototypes to industry? Is not this a help to university funds, or to what extent are they able to do this?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I do not think I can give the noble Viscount an answer to that without due notice. The Government have announced their intention to increase the programme of recruitment by the universities of additional researchers and lecturers, particularly in the field of scientific research. An additional provision of £13 million is also to be made in 1983–84 for the expansion of research and the training of qualified manpower in fields related to IT.
Lord Somers: My Lords, can the noble Lord tell us how soon it will be possible for scientific research to have been carried forward so that people no longer need to use their brains?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, there are those who believe that in due course computers may be able to think without being programmed, but I think we are a little way off that yet.
Lord Rochester: My Lords, this Question has already gone on a long time, but is the noble Lord able to give us briefly any information about the development of the Open Tech, which I think was not among the agencies to which he referred when replying to the noble Lord, Lord Sandys?
Lord Glenarthur: No, my Lords, I am afraid that I have not got that information, but I shall find out and write to the noble Lord.

Prisoners: Transfer to Northern Ireland Prisons
2.55 p.m.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the spirit and intention of Prison Rule 31 is not contravened by the prolonged refusal to transfer certain prisoners from British to Northern Ireland prisons.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Elton): No, my Lords. The Government make considerable efforts to enable prisoners to maintain their family relationships, but in deciding where a prisoner should serve his sentence we also have to take account of many other factors, including the requirements of the prison system, the nature of his crime and the consequences of any transfer. It is not

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always possible for prisoners to be located near their homes, even in Great Britain, and there are particular obstacles to a transfer to Northern Ireland if a prisoner has committed an offence on behalf of a paramilitary organisation and there is no clear evidence that he has severed his link with that organisation.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord the Minister for his reply. May I ask him whether he accepts that Prison Rule 31 obliges the Government to pay special attention to the interests both of the prisoner and of his family? Would he agree that transfers would reduce the risk of family and marriage breakdown? Finally, do the Government still stand by the declaration of the Home Secretary that each request for a transfer will be considered on its merits?
Lord Elton: My Lords, indeed I am very much aware of the importance of considering the family interests of all prisoners within the prison system, but there are other considerations, both of justice and of the management of the prison system in this country and the prison system in Northern Ireland. In these cases I think that those considerations supervene. The Home Secretary does. however, look at each of these cases on its merits.
Lord Wells-Pestell: My Lords, will the Minister give an indication as to whether the Government or the prison authorities provide facilities whereby members of the family can visit prisoners at regular intervals?
Lord Elton: Yes, my Lords, indeed the Government do. Where a prisoner's family or nearest of kin are on supplementary benefit or a low income, they are eligible for assistance to travel to take up their visits. Provided the prisoner is in prison for three months or more, then they can do this once a month. If it is necessary to stay overnight, then there is also assistance by way of subsistence; and this is as available to the relatives in Northern Ireland of prisoners in this country as it is to the relatives of other prisoners.
Lord Hunt: My Lords, would the Minister accept that I was very glad to hear his expressed concern for the families of prisoners and for doing anything possible, no matter what the crime, to limit the damage to family relationships, particularly in the case of families with children? However, is the Minister aware that a journey by a family from Northern Ireland to, for instance, one of the two prisons in the Isle of Wight which hold a number of IRA prisoners involves a family in a journey by sea, by rail, and again by sea, with bus journeys at both ends, which requires at least 26 hours' travelling time each way, and longer when such families live in distant places like Derry and Fermanagh? Would the Minister not agree that this really does impose a heavy hardship on young families and wives travelling with them? Does it not limit the frequency of family visits? In these circumstances—this is my last question—would the Government consider funding such visits by air?
Lord Elton: My Lords, we are, I think I have already said, aware of the importance of relationships with the
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family, both to the prisoner and to the family. We are also aware of the difficulties of transportation over long distances. I have given an indication of the financial help which is available for this; and it is also possible for prisoners to accumulate an entitlement to visit and then go for a short period to a place more accessible to Northern Ireland for them to receive those visits.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, are we to assume from what the Minister has said that the number of cases where a transfer is refused is kept to the minimum? Will he confirm that transfer is refused only in the serious cases to which he referred in his first reply? Who makes the decision, and on what basis is the decision taken?
Lord Elton: My Lords, the Question and Answer relate to those prisoners convicted of terrorist offences committed in this country. That is the subject to which I addressed myself in answer. The considerations relate both to the management of the prison population in Northern Ireland, among whom tension is at the moment somewhat increased because of a campaign to segregate Republican and Loyalist prisoners, and also to the management of the prison system in this country. In each case matters for decision are put first to myself to advise and then to the Home Secretary.
Lord Brockway: My Lords, may I ask the Minister whether, when he is considering the possibility of families visiting their relatives in prison, he has in mind that some members of these families are ill and that it is impossible for them to make the journey from Northern Ireland to the Isle of Wight? Will he also consider the point that some of these prisoners have a deep longing to return to what they regard as their homeland? Is it necessary to add that psychological punishment to the punishment of imprisonment?
Lord Elton: My Lords, the noble Lord referred to the difficulty of travelling from Northern Ireland to the Isle of Wight, and I have said what steps we have taken in mitigation of that. As to the deep longing of the prisoners concerned to return to what they regard as their native land, I have to say that one must look at both sides of the coin. These are prisoners who have been convicted of crimes in association with terrorist organisations which deal massive blows against the happiness and, indeed, the survival of families in this country.
Lord Kilbracken: My Lords, may I ask the Minister to say how he reconciles all he has said with the fact that British soldiers serving in Northern Ireland are, in almost all cases when convicted of offences there, sent to this country, to Britain, for imprisonment?
Lord Elton: First, my Lords, soldiers in Northern Ireland are not convicted of terrorist offences; secondly, the soldiers in Northern Ireland have gone there in pursuit of their duties under orders; and, thirdly, the people we are talking about have committed crimes in this country of their own volition.
Lord Kilbracken: My Lords, when the noble Lord says "in this country", is he suggesting that Northern Ireland is not part of it?
Lord Elton: My Lords, there are two countries, one Province and one Principality which comprise the United Kingdom.
Viscount Ingleby: My Lords, would the Minister give consideration to the case of Sean O'Docherty, a young man who has publicly renounced violence, broken with the IRA and apologised to all his victims?
Lord Elton: My Lords, in spite of the public protestations of Mr O'Docherty, there is no convincing evidence to suggest that he has broken his links with the terrorist organisations; and he continues to refuse to comply with prison rules, which bears out my suspicions.

Starred Questions: Standing Order 31
3.2 p.m.
Lord Belhaven and Stenton: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask the Leader of the House whether she considers that Standing Order 31, which states that Starred Questions are asked for information only, is being complied with by noble Lords who ask supplementary questions prefixed by "Is the noble Lord aware?" and other similarly devised prefixes in situations where the noble Lord asking the question is giving information to the Government rather than eliciting information from the Government.
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Young): My Lords, Standing Order 31 is supplemented by guidance in the Companion to Standing Orders on pages 69 and 82, where it is stated that the essential purpose of Starred Questions is to elicit information from the Government and that they should not incorporate statements of opinion or the demonstration of a point of view. As my noble friend may know, this whole matter was discussed at some length on the Floor of the House last Wednesday. I suggested then—and I believe I had the agreement of the House—that the Procedure Committee should consider the matter at its next meeting. I can now tell the House that the committee will meet on Tuesday next, 1st February. I understand that the point raised by my noble friend will be considered, and in the meantime I suggest we should await the report of the committee.
Lord Belhaven and Stenton: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that Answer, and I may have to break my rule to tell her that I put my Question down long before our discussion last week. Does she think Ministers could help, when certain noble Lords are flagrantly out of order, by answering, "My Lords, that is not a question'"?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I entirely agree with my noble friend that he did table his Question before the
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discussion which took place on the Floor last week. It is of course open to Ministers to reply in the terms he suggested. It is always a matter of judgment as to the appropriate time to use such a reply.
Lord Shinwell: May I ask a question for information only. my Lords?
Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Lord Shinwell: My Lords, as we have no Mr. Speaker in this House, may I ask who is to determine whether a Question indicates a desire for information or is seeking to convey information?
Lord Denham: The House.
Lord Shinwell: My Lords, is it not a fact that with a matter of public interest which should be brought to the notice of Ministers, one direct way of dealing with it is to put down a Question? May I urge the Leader of the House to be very cautious before accepting the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Belhaven?
Baroness Young: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, is quite right in saying that we do not have a Speaker in this House, but he has been a Member long enough to know that it is the House itself which regulates these matters. It is the duty of every Member of the House to look at the Companion to Standing Orders, and the House places an obligation on each Member to consider and keep order.
On the particular point of substance in my noble friend's Question, this is a matter which I have suggested should be looked at by the Procedure Committee. It is not, I would say with repect, for me to give a ruling on that matter. In relation to all replies, it is a matter of judgment, and I think it is important that it should rest in that way, with the individuals replying.
Lord Alport: My Lords, would my noble friend agree that the information which is given by Members through their Questions is sometimes far more interesting than that given by Ministers in their Answers?
Lord Glenamara: Would the noble Baroness care to say whether this Question asks a question or makes a point?
Lord Monson: My Lords, would the Leader of the House agree that any noble Lord who merely wants information can normally obtain it perfectly well by means of a Question for Written Answer, and that one of the main functions of an oral Question is to ensure that the Legislature can keep the Executive on their toes?
Baroness Young: It is true, my Lords, that we have in this House, as in another place, the opportunity to put down Questions for Written Answer, and I notice that noble Lords make great use of that facility, which I believe is of great benefit. But there are matters which should quite properly be asked by means of Starred Questions. Indeed, it is, as I have indicated, a matter of

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judgment as to whether or not the purpose of the Question is to elicit information or to make a point, and sometimes it is difficult to tell which it is. I believe it would be undesirable to have a general debate of the subject on the Floor of the House until the Procedure Committee has looked at it.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, when the committee considers this matter will they bear in mind that in order to seek information it is first necessary to give information about the information one is seeking?
Lord Clifford of Chudleigh: My Lords, is it not a truism that no politician ever asks a question to which he does not already know the answer?
Baroness Young: I think that is often true of politicians, my Lords, but there are some Members of your Lordships' House who put a special self-denying ordinance on themselves not to ask those sort of Questions and others who genuinely seek information.

Amusement Centres: Planning Appeal Decisions
3.7 p.m.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many appeals against refusals by planning authorities in Greater London to permit change of use to amusement centres have been allowed in the last three years and how many have been dismissed.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I regret that the information requested is not readily available.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, in seeking further information on the point, and bearing in mind that what we are talking about is the provision by which appointed inspectors are allowed to exercise the Secretary of State's power to override the decisions of elected representatives on local councils, may I ask the Minister to say whether the Government consider it satisfactory that statistics should not even be collected on the number of times they do so compared with the number of times when they allow the democratic decision to stand?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I think the noble Lord misunderstood my Answer. The present clerical statistics system is designed to show the overall performance of the planning appeals system. Statistics are published quarterly and annually which indicate the number of decisions issued both by inspectors and the Secretary of State, with the median processing times for the four categories of appeal—that is, transferred inquiry and written representations cases and Secretary of State inquiry and written representations cases—and the success rate for each category of appeal. We now have a computer-based statistical system being developed which will provide such
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information as the noble Lord asked for in his original Question rapidly and inexpensively once the data base has been built up. Conversion of current appeals is expected to begin in April 1983. For reasons of economy, appeals already decided are not being recorded on the system.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, are the Government content not to be aware at present of how many times out of 100 the appointed inspector is over-ruling the democratically expressed wishes of the people of a given planning authority?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, this is not in all cases an appropriate way of discovering the facts which the noble Lord wishes to press me on, which is one of the reasons why the computer-based system will be introduced.

EEC: Fisheries Council Meeting
Lord Denham: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 this afternoon my noble friend Lord Ferrers will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement that is to be made in another place on the Fisheries Council on 25th January.

Health and Social Services and Social Security Adjudications Bill [H.L.]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Lord Trefgarne): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the amendments for the Report stage be marshalled and considered in the following order—

Clauses 1 to 5,

Schedule 1,

Clause 6,

Schedule 2,

Clauses 7 and 8,

Schedules 3 and 4,

Clause 9,

Schedule 5,

Clauses 10 and 11,

Schedules 6 and 7,

Clauses 12 to 19,

Schedule 8,

Clauses 20 to 23,

Schedule 9,

Clause 24,

Schedule 10,

Clauses 25 to 27.

—(Lord Trefgarne.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

The Fishing Industry
3.11 p.m.
The Earl of Kinnoull The Earl of Kinnoull rose to call attention to the need for development plans to encourage a strong home fishing industry in the context of the common fisheries policy; and to move for Papers.
The noble Earl said: I beg to move the Motion standing in my name. The subject of the fishing industry has cropped up almost monthly for almost as long as I can remember, in the form of statements of little progress on the Brussels negotiations, but it is a strange fact that the industry has not actually been examined in the form of a debate for some time. I feel somewhat of an intruder, or a dogfish, entering the subject, compared with the long-time fishing heavyweights of the House. My noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy watched over the Scottish interests of nearly two decades; and there are also the twin kinsmen opposite, the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, and the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie. I am sorry to say that the undisputed champion. the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, is unable to take part today.
My connection with the industry stems from having the luck to be involved with the Royal National Mission for Deep Sea Fishermen. It is a charity which is a century old, and it has 21 mission centres around our coasts and in our ports. It is a chastening experience to visit the centres and to learn from the dedicated superintendents, who look after the welfare of the fisherfolk and their families, of the almost regular tragedies and accidents at sea, of the fortitude of the families, and of the uncertainties of employment. It is also a revealing insight into the calibre and resilience of the men who have perhaps one of the toughest and most hazardous jobs that one could name.
It is a strange quirk of timing that this short debate should coincide with the long-awaited final Statement on the conclusion of the common fisheries policy, which my noble friend will be repeating this afternoon. Whether we shall be able to grasp the full significance and intricacies of the agreement, I have my doubts, except perhaps on what terms the Danes finally settled.
The significance of reaching an agreement for the industry is clearly momentous. Seven years of uncertainty have sapped its direction and its confidence in its future, and it is to be hoped that the agreement will prove to be the turning point in what is now a sadly depleted fishing fleet. For the Government, the marathon negotiations must stand as a record in recent times. There have been years of bitter discussion, fervent protection of national waters, ardent preservation of historic rights, intransigent attitudes over quotas, and even a phoney fish war, culminating in the arrest of a Danish MEP, masquerading as a fisherman, in a boat filled with more seasick members of the press than fish. It was encouraging to see that the dubious political lead that that member gave was not followed by the Danish fishermen themselves.
Without anticipating what will be set out in the Statement that my noble friend is to repeat, I would say that I regarded it as a remarkable tribute to his right honourable friend to hear in a radio interview yesterday two leaders from both the Scottish and the English fishing federations each stating that he thought that the agreement was a good and fair deal for the industry. It is a far cry from the shouts and accusations of "treachery" and "sell-out" hurled at various Ministers over the last tortuous three years. The
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industry's reaction to the agreement must be a reward in itself; and I hope that it proves to be.
There having been won the security of what one hopes will be a long-term framework in which, one trusts. the industry can plan its future, there arises the question: how is the industry placed today to meet the immediate challenge, as well as to build up for a healthy future? Does it have the capability and resources now to maximise the fishing rights reserved in the agreement, the quotas, and the access to waters? As my noble friend well knows, and as indeed the House knows, the truth is that the fishing industry is split between the inshore boats, earning a fair living, and deep-water boats—the company-owned or skipper-owned boats—which are the main thrust of the fleet and which are facing very severe financial hardship.
The numbers of deep-water boats have been rapidly depleted in the last 10 years, not just because of the loss of the Icelandic waters but also because the price of fish and the support price of fish fell well below the running costs of the most efficient of the companies. In 1973 there were registered and in service 500 boats of over 100 feet in length. In 1981 the total was down to half that number, and by the end of 1982 the figure had dwindled to fewer than 100. In 1971 the freezer fleet consisted of 127 boats. Twelve years later there were only 20 boats operating, and the most modern have been sold off. Following two receiverships just last week, there are now only 16 boats operating.
On top of those gloomy figures, we see that the average age of our deep-water fleet is over 28 years, while across the water our friends seem to be enjoying a period in which they are expanding their fleets. Further—and I think that this is equally important —our net imports of fish are running at over £100 million a year. None of that will be news to my noble friend, for the industry keeps him well informed of its plight. Nor would I charge him, or his department, with standing idly by, since over the last three years the Government have thrown a lifeline to the industry in the form of support grants averaging just under £20 million a year.
But the question now is: what of the immediate future? It is one thing to bring back a good agreement from Brussels; it is another to make certain that our industry has the capability to take up the fish quotas in the agreement. It is one thing to remove uncertainty and to provide a framework for a long-term future; It is another to survive the short-term decline in order to gain the benefits of the long-term plan. It is one thing to take up the Community grants for modernising one's fleet, but unless the short-term climate changes, or is safeguarded, owners may be tempted to opt for the decommissioning grants and get out.
I understand that the Government are in the process of producing a discussion document for the industry, as to its future size and capability. I hope that when he winds up my noble friend will have something to say as to when the document will be available. Perhaps he could couple that information with what proposals the Government have in mind to assist the Sea Fish Industry Authority in its drive to improve the home marketing of British trawler fish. It is an area which I believe few would disagree could be vastly improved.
Improvements in presentation, grading, quality control and continuity of supply would surely help to bring back the popularity of fish to the British housewife. which has sunk, per capita, to an all-time low. I believe that it is urgent work which would greatly assist the industry, and any Government support would be money well spent.
The withdrawal prices or support prices for fish is another cause which I hope the Government will pursue. The present Community payment bears little relation to the normal operating costs of a reasonably efficient trawler company. It is well below those costs, and for some reason it is kept there. Perhaps this is a matter that will be dealt with in the Statement that my noble friend is to repeat; but, if not, I hope that he will support the pressure to raise the support prices.
In a debate of this kind a general recognition by my noble friend that Her Majesty's Government recognise the short-term problems that remain with the industry and will continue to support it to secure the long-term future is perhaps of most value to the industry. I hope that my noble friend will be able to say something in that vein.
Perhaps the most vital aspect of the practical working of the common fisheries policy lies in the policing of the waters, for unless there is adequate supervision, the whole quota system will become a meaningless nonsense, and the high hopes of conservation control will be dashed. The duties of our own fisheries protection fleet will, one assumes. be considerably increased, and I hope that my noble friend will have the time to confirm that the fleet will be strengthened to meet those extra duties. Perhaps also he will advise us what the British scientific studies are showing and what arrangements are being made to monitor the fish stocks in our waters. I suspect that other noble Lords will be pursuing with my noble friend what arrangements are being made in third-country waters, notably, the Faroes and Norwegian waters.
Finally, I should like to draw the attention of my noble friend to the splendid part that six of our trawler fleet played in the recent Falklands war. As I understand it, they carried out a role of minesweeping duties as well as assisting troop movements. All these vessels, I was glad to see, have returned safely to their home ports. It perhaps emphasises that a strong fishing industry not only has a valuable commercial role to play in our economy but also has a strategic potential in times of national crisis. The waters around the Falkland Islands are, as the Shackleton Report emphasised, a potentially very rich source of fish, notably squid, which is very saleable in Japan. Last year I noticed a report that the Polish fishing fleet had fished 130 tonnes of squid in the Falkland waters—I assume before March.
It would be a splendid move if the Falklands government could see their way to invite the British industry to advise, direct, manage and expand the fishing in these waters. I hope that my noble friend will consider this. Our fishing industry was in the past a great industry. Today, hopefully, is the moment when the tide will turn from decline to growth and prosperity. I await with keen interest my noble friend's statement and what other noble Lords have to say. I beg to move for Papers.
3.22 p.m.
Lord Stodart of Leaston: My lords, I can imagine no more suitable and appropriate day for my noble friend Lord Kinnoull to have raised this particular subject. I dare say that it may well have been fortuitous but, in view of what we are going to hear from my noble friend within a matter off moments, I think that the whole House must be deeply grateful that we are holding this debate on this particular day. I listened to him with very deep appreciation when he referred to the decline in the number of trawlers of the deep sea fleet. It is to my mind, nothing short of tragedy to one who visited Hull 10 years ago to see the harbour full of trawlers ready to go to sea, to go and see what there is at Hull today.
The same departments in Scotland and England administer two very great industries, agriculture and fishing. No one who has held responsibility, as I have been privileged to do, in one of those departments, can fail to have won an enormous admiration and respect for those who indulge in fishing, but the basic responsibilities of these two industries are profoundly different. We all know and all applaud the spectacular achievements of the farming industry in increasing both production and productivity. These views were well voiced in all quarters of the House on Monday night. But, when it comes to fishing, applause for efficiency to my mind is tinged with some misgiving; because what some people very justifiably claim to be really 100 per cent. efficient methods of fishing make one wonder what is going to happen to the stocks.
I found it immensely difficult not to encourage those, who 10 years ago, wanted to fish with beam trawlers. The beam trawler, which was in those days confined, at any rate in this country, to the port of Brixham, is, to use an agricultural metaphor, something like a very heavy agricultural harrow which so disturbs the seabed that nothing can escape. I think that today it is difficult not to encourage those who man the purse seiners or who go in for pair trawling. All these methods are highly efficient. Certainly, 10 years ago, when beam trawling was done extensively by the Belgians and the French, there were considerable cries from our own industry that great dangers awaited us if we continued to use them. I think that the conflict still exists, and must exist, between promoting technical and economic efficiency and the risk of depleting our fish stocks. Of one thing I am quite certain: in no circumstances would the efficiency with which each country did its fishing be a good yardstick for agreement among EEC member states on how much fish they were allowed to catch.
We are waiting with keen anticipation to hear what my noble friend is going to say about the agreement. I am going to be bold enough to anticipate that he is going to tell us that the extremely skilful negotiations by his right honourable friend the Minister, the Secretary of State for Scotland and by Mr. Buchanan-Smith have been successful. But one thing worries me. One may get agreements on the size of mesh, on closed areas, on quotas for each country, all, let us say, with conservation in view. But will each country enforce these measures properly and uniformly? Is there the will in each country to do so? Because if there are disparities in standards of enforcement, then consid-

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erable disruption is almost bound to follow and therefore continued vigilance will be required. I would just say to noble Lords that I can well imagine that after the long, long period of negotiation on fisheries business a certain weariness may well come over all those involved once the common fisheries policy is a reality. There may well be a desire to forget about it. I think that would be totally disastrous, particularly for the United Kingdom.
May I conclude with a word on marketing. We debated agricultural marketing two evenings ago, and the particular statute included fish other than sea fish. I referred a few minutes ago to fishing and agriculture being under the same departmental umbrella. Indeed, the Treaty of Rome treats fisheries as part of agriculture. Now my noble friend in his speech referred to this particular, that practically every branch of agricultural produce is supported by an intervention price. Can I ask my noble friend whether that applies to fish, and, if so, are the relative levels at which intervention or withdrawal operates comparable? Very broadly speaking, the price of agricultural intervention is related to the costs incurred by a reasonably efficient farmer. There is no more vague description than that. I could not use a more general term than "a reasonably efficient farmer". But can one say the same thing about those who catch fish? I have a suspicion—I hope my noble friend will be able to dispel it—that one cannot say this. As I bracket the fisherman with the hill shepherd as the salt of the earth, I shall very much regret it if my noble friend has to confirm that I am right.

EEC: Fisheries Council Meeting
3.27 p.m.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Earl Ferrers): My Lords, if it is for the convenience of your Lordships, I should like to repeat a Statement now being made by my right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in another place. The Statement is as follows:
"With permission, Mr. Speaker. I wish to make a Statement on the Council of Fisheries Ministers yesterday in Brussels, at which I represented the United Kingdom together with my right honourable friends the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Minister of State.
"I am pleased to inform the House that a full and unqualified agreement was reached on a common fisheries policy, precisely in the terms reported to this House as agreed between nine of the 10 member states in December.
"The agreement reached yesterday had the full approval of the three main fishing organisations.
"The agreement will last for 20 years and therefore will provide a very firm long-term basis for our fishing industry to take advantage of the substantial benefits they receive from it.
"The quotas we have obtained are above our actual catches in the years 1973 to 1978, which is
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the period that was used as a basis for calculating quotas. The quotas agreed for the seven main species of edible fish, which are the species of dominant importance to the United Kingdom fishing industry, provide Britain with 37·3 per cent. of the stocks in European waters: a figure higher than our actual catch for most stocks even in exceptional years.
"The quotas that have been achieved are in stark contrast to the offer of 31 per cent. incorporated in the first proposal with which I was confronted when the United Kingdom was in a minority of one.
"But perhaps the most important aspect of agreeing such good quotas and the technical measures on conservation is that these are coupled with an agreement on an effective enforcement system. Consequently, we now have the prospect that fishing stocks over the coming decades are likely to increase rather than deteriorate, therefore giving our industry the potentiality of growth instead of decline. Each member state will enforce these measures in its own waters but subject to Commission supervision to ensure that such enforcement is effective.
"The council clarified the position on western mackerel by an agreed statement that rights to fish will he accorded only to those who have established a traditional fishery. There was a specific renunciation of any claim to western mackerel on the part of Denmark.
"It was also made clear that the 2,000 tonnes of North Sea cod, which were made available to Denmark from Norway and were outside the quota agreements, was a commitment limited to three years.
"On access, the agreement provides British fishermen with a better dominance of our coastal waters than anything that they have enjoyed in the history of the British fishing industry. Previously existing historic rights in our six to 12 mile limit, some under the terms of the London Convention and others in the Treaty of Accession, have been reduced or altogether extinguished along nearly three-quarters of the coast line where these rights previously existed.
"We have also obtained valuable rights in the six to 12 mile limits in French, Dutch, German and Irish waters.
"Contained within the package are important proposals on structures, where over a three-year period the Community grants will be available up to a total of £140 million. The bulk of these funds are allocated to measures which are of particular interest to the British industry.
"Agreement was also reached on the Community's 1983 reciprocal fishing agreements with Norway, Sweden and the Faroes, as well as on fishing in the Skagerrak and Kattegat. These arrangements are all satisfactory, and agreement has the very important benefit that our vessels can, from today, restart fishing in Norwegian waters.
"I am pleased that, after four years of difficult negotiation, we have obtained this agreement, and I would like to record my gratitude to the leaders of

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the fishing industry who have attended every meeting with me and who have discussed and agreed what we have negotiated. They have welcomed the agreement because they share with the Government the view that this provides the basis upon which the fishing industry can obtain a secure future, to the benefit of fishermen and to the benefit of Britain.
"There is no doubt that fishing is an area in which it is vital to have a common agreement throughout European waters if growth, as opposed to decline, is to be the future of fishing. I believe the agreements reached yesterday are good for Europe and good for Britain."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
3.38 p.m.
Lord John-Mackie: My Lords, we thank the noble Earl for repeating the Statement made in another place by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. We are very glad to have it and very glad that at long last we have a common fishing policy. We can only hope that it does not run into some of the troubles that the common agricultural policy has run into, which have been very difficult to solve.
However, if The Times is to be believed this morning, the Minister was, in my opinion, a little too ebullient in his talk after the meeting. I thought that he should have been a little more humble, if I may say so, and not have treated it as some sort of victory as he did. His words, were, I think, "British Conservative achievement", or something like that. After all, some of the other nine countries must have had some say in the matter. One would have thought from the reports that it was all done by Britain, but there are nine other countries in the EEC. Would it not have been a nice gesture to the Danes—who, after all, have been great friends of this country and fishing is one of the Danes' major industries—if he had given a pledge to see whether he could cancel the fine of £30,000? That would have been a nice gesture after the meeting instead of the champagne.
The Danes, after all, are not too happy about it. I should like to quote to your Lordships one particular instance. Mr. Karl Hjortnaes, a Danish MP, who appears to be the Social Democratic Party's fisheries spokesman, said:
"There is little cause for rejoicing".
Mr. Laurits Toernaes said:
"It is only with reluctance that we accept the political reality of the CFP".
If we take a look at what the fishing industry in this country says about it, Mr. William Hay, the president of the Scottish Fishermen's Federation, referred to Mr. Walker, the Minister of Agriculture, saying that it was a superb agreement, and added:
"If we had a 'superb agreement' we would have a 200-mile limit and as much fish as we can catch".
He also said:
"I do not think this should be seen as a victory or defeat for anyone. We have achieved a CFP and have something to build on".
That is a little more statesmanlike than the Minister's ebullience that we heard of from the reports. One of the negotiators put it very well when he said that the whole situation and all the discussions that have been
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going on over the years were too political for fishermen and too technical for politicians. That in many ways sums the situation up.
May I ask the Minister a question or two on the actual agreement? He emphasised the situation as regards mackerel. Under the agreement, the Danes do not get 20,000 tonnes of mackerel, but there are some reports that there is a loophole here and that they could fish in our western waters. Therefore can we be assured that they will not be allowed to fish there and that there is no loophole?
The noble Earl told us about the extra 2,000 tonnes of cod given to the Danes over and above their percentages. I feel that that must reduce Britain's percentage share, as she is getting the same percentage of a smaller total. I should like to know—and the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, has asked this question—when we can have the Commission's paper on the subject so that we can study it more fully and see the particulars of how it is to be policed. The other question that I should like to ask is whether he has any knowledge of how the £140 million is to be divided. Could that be divided by the same percentages that we have in fishing, or how is it to be divided?
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. I should like to be a little more generous than my noble kinsman was to the Minister of Agriculture. I think that he should be allowed a little champagne and a certain amount of ebullience. If I had been locked up for as many nights as he has I would have been rather glad that some agreement had been concluded. The main point which must be made is that at least we have; an agreement, and something on which to build. That is enormously important. It is true also that we are better off. Nobody can imagine that we could have enforced a 200-mile limit off our own shores without being part of the EEC. Now we will have better control of our coastal waters. This is all very much to be welcomed.
I should like to ask practically the same questions as the speaker from the Labour Front Bench, but put them slightly differently, perhaps. First of all, I should like to know from the Minister whether the Shetland fishermen's organisation can be pacified. I know that they will not he satisfied, but is he satisfied that their fears are groundless? It really is quite important, because in far-off places this is of supreme importance to them. I should also like to know whether the £140 million, which nowadays does not appear to be a lot of money, is going to be divided among the whole Community.
The other point on which I should like the Minister's opinion—and it is very difficult to answer—is this. How effective does he think that the controls will be? I personally have no doubt about the Danes. They are the most efficient destroyers of the life in the sea, but they also have a very good reporting system. One can believe their figures, and I believe that they will keep an agreement. I would not be quite so sure about some of the more southern of our neighbours who have fishing rights. I think it is very important that the EEC inspection is added to the national control which is going to enforce the rules.
Also, I should like the Minister to say whether he thinks that this agreement will really do very much for

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Hull. It appears to me that the character of our fishing fleet will completely alter, and the inshore boat will be all-important. It is unlikely that Hull, for example, will ever come back to anything like its former prominence in deep-sea fishing. If the Minister will give us his view on this, I shall be most grateful.
3.46 p.m.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, that possibly his noble kinsman was a little ungenerous. I am bound to say that I do not deny my right honourable friend the opportunity to open a bottle of champagne when this agreement has been arrived at after years and years of hard negotiation. The noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, really did get it wrong if he thought that my noble friend was gloating over achievements which have been made by Britain at the expense of others. The achievement was a European achievement. It was the fact that member states with differing interests, conflicting interests, had nevertheless, and despite those conflicts, been able to come to a common accord.
When negotiating there has of course, to be give and there has to be take. At the end of this great conclusion the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, quotes others as saying: "Well, of course, we would have liked it a bit better". I dare say that everyone in each member state of the Community could have found somebody to say that. The fact is that this is an achievement for Europe and an achievement whereby these very difficult problems have at last been resolved. They have been resolved by agreement; they have the agreement of every country in Europe, and they have the agreement of the three main fishing bodies.
The noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, asked whether there was a loophole in the agreement with Norway. Our percentage of the total catch of North Sea cod is unaffected by the arrangements for Denmark, which last for only three years. I do not think that there will be any loophole there. He asked when the paper was likely to come from the Commission. I am bound to tell him that I cannot say when that will be.
He also asked, as did the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, how the £140 million is to be divided. He will not be surprised if I cannot tell him that, either, because the fact is that agreement has been reached that the Community will provide £140 million to be divided between the various states for certain approved projects. It is impossible to say in advance how that will be allocated and what percentage or proportion of that will come to the United Kingdom.
The noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, asked whether this agreement will help Hull. I am not prepared to comment on that. What this agreement does is to give all parts of the fishing industry a secure future because they know what the rules of the game are. It will be within the rules of the game how various ports, fishermen or types of fishing improve or are affected by the agreement. It will be imprudent to single out a port and say that the result of this agreement is going either to benefit or not to benefit that one particular place. I think I have answered the questions of the two noble Lords opposite, and I am grateful to them.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, there was a very important point which the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, put; that is, where is the 20,000 tonnes of mackerel to come from? The Statement says that it will not come from western waters, but I understand from the report in the Guardian that this is to be available to the Danes.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, that is a reciprocal arrangement between the Commission and Norway, and it is outside the actual common fisheries agreement.
Lord John-Mackie: My Lords, before the noble Earl sits down, may I point out to him that I said that I was quoting from an article in The Times, written by a reputable correspondent. It says that the noble Earl's right honourable friend in another place claimed that,
"the 'superb agreement' was a great British Conservative achievement".
That does not seem to me to be missing out the politics; nor do any of the other reports.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I was not there when that was said, and I do not know whether the noble Lord agrees with everything that is seen in the papers. But if it was a Conservative achievement—and I would not wish to throw politics into this—it is actually a fact.
Lord Walston: My Lords—
Lord Denham: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, has been trying to get in and I wonder whether we might hear him next.
Lord Boothby: My Lords, I apologise for interrupting and I also apologise for arriving a little late, but I have studied these negotiations all the way through, and I have read with great care the Statement which the noble Earl has made. All I want to say is that, as one who has sat in one or other House of Parliament for just on 60 years, my chief interest, apart from foreign affairs, has always been the fishing industry, and I have seen both through some very bad times.
I just want to say today that I am quite satisfied, having read this paper, that the inshore fishing has been saved for at least the next 50 years. It is the best agreement that we have ever had; and not only that, I think that our European neighbours will come to realise that it will do their inshore fishing industries just as much good.
Courage and impetuosity often go together. Courage and patience seldom do, because they require fortitude, which is a rather rare quality. Successive Governments in this country have now shown that fortitude and that courage and patience through all these difficult, tiresome negotiations which, on more than one occasion, nearly threw us out of the Common Market. But they continued for years without flinching, without running away, and without giving away anything; and I think at the end we have scored a tremendous victory.
It would be invidious to mention names, but I must pay a special tribute to Mr. Peter Walker, with whom I have been in fairly continuous touch in recent months. I have never seen such guts and such patience

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exhibited by any other Cabinet Minister during the whole of my time in Parliament. I think that mention should also be made of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, who came to the rescue of the industry at a most critical moment when we joined the Common Market and when they very nearly succeeded in getting the right to fish up to our beaches.
It is not often that a Member of Parliament sees all his aspirations fulfilled. Today I have; and I am glad to have lived to see it. I should like to extend my warmest thanks and congratulations to the Government and to the two Ministers concerned—the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Let me assure them that they will receive both regards and thanks, regardless of party, for what they have done. That goes for all the fishermen around our coasts and all the others upon whom they depend for a living—and they are very many. It is a happy day for me.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, to hear one who has spent so much of his life involved with the fishing industry, and who has been 60 years watching its progress, say, as the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, did this afternoon, that it is a happy day for him is a very moving experience. He has not been uncritical during those 60 years. He has himself made very many pertinent points, and I think that the most pertinent was when he said that these negotiations required courage and patience, and they required fortitude, which is unusual. There is quite a philosophical thought behind that, for which I am most grateful. I will certainly see that the noble Lord's congratulations, made, as they were, in such personal, specific and generous terms, are passed to my right honourable friends.
Lord Walston: My Lords, as I am the next to speak in the debate on the fishing industry, I will do no more from these Benches than to thank the noble Earl for his Statement, to congratulate him and his colleagues on it, and to say how much we welcome it. But I shall have further questions, which I think will be better dealt with in the actual debate, especially as the noble Earl will be replying to it.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I also thank my noble friend for repeating the Statement and I welcome the agreement on a new fisheries policy. There were some comments on the policy in the press today, and the Opposition Front Bench referred to at least one. I should like to add another, which is Mr. Gilbert Buchan, who was, for many years until recently, the leader of the Scottish fishermen and who described the policy, according to the press, as a victory for common sense, which seems a very apt description.
I also am due to speak in the debate which has been interrupted, so I will save my particular questions on this new agreement for then. But may I ask my noble friend now whether he can deal with a more general matter, which is the anxiety of fishermen's organisations about whether this satisfactory agreement can be carried out, and whether we can ensure that the arrangements for quotas, for example, will be observed faithfully and precisely?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that. It will probably be most helpful if I deal with it in my speech, when I hope to explain in more detail exactly what this common fisheries policy agreement means.
Lord Ross of Marnock: My Lords, any agreement that we have within the Common Market is bound to be a compromise. This one is an acceptable compromise and let us not shout too loudly about successes, victories and who has won. It is an acceptable compromise which the industry very much needs, because if we are to have 20 years of stability we shall now be able to start the planning. That could not be done—and Governments on all sides said that it could not be done—until we could see the way ahead with a common policy.
The Minister said in his Statement that we have an effective enforcement system. I do not think anyone can justly say that. What would be the position if Mr. Kirk came storming into our waters again? Who would enforce the agreement? We would stop him, but where would he be tried? Would he be tried in Britain or in Denmark? As I understand it, he would be tried in his home port. I do not think that we would have much confidence in that. Secondly, I do not think there is any other fishing country in the EEC that has the experience we have in relation to quotas and enforcement, and this is the great weakness so far as the agreement is concerned. Can the noble Earl pledge to us that Ministers will continue to strive in this field?
My noble friend Lord Boothby mentioned one name and I will mention another, that of the man who has worked on this for 10 years—Mr. Buchanan-Smith. He has been representing both countries in this regard and he is entitled to some credit for what he has achieved. He had a lot of stick to take because he was the man who signed the original agreement in regard to fishing about ten years ago. So could we have this assurance about the attention the Governmentare now going to pay to building up what will be an effective enforcement system? I would doubt whether we have one at the moment.
4 p.m.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Ross, is quite right to refer to the enforcement system, because it is a very important part of the arrangements. Before going on to that, perhaps I might just thank the noble Lord for the generous remarks he made about my right honourable friend in another place, because he has been deeply involved in all these negotiations and the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Ross, will, I know, be welcome to him.
The noble Lord referred to Mr. Kirk and what happened when he came. In fact I think that was an excellent example of exactly how our enforcement system does work, because as soon as he came into our waters and dropped his nets, before he even caught a sprat, let alone a mackerel, he was hauled into a British court because he had infringed what were then British regulations. Now that we have a Community system it will be the responsibility of each member state to continue to police its own waters, and such trials as take place will be in the country concerned. It is up to the country concerned to look after its own waters.

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On top of that there will then be a Community policing system to ensure that all the member states are policing their own waters correctly. That additional policing arrangement was made at the specific behest of my right honourable friend, for the very reasons which have been suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Ross, and others—that people may not police their waters adequately. If we are going to have a properly enforced Community system there must be properly policed waters and it will be up to the individual member states to look after their own waters; and the Commission will ensure that they do so.
Lord Glenkinglas: My Lords, like so many others, I should like to congratulate my noble friend and his colleagues for a successful end to a very long negotiation. It is true that we have got effective conservation within Europe and agreement within the European countries; but I should like to ask my noble friend whether, in view of what he was saying just a minute ago, he is convinced that we have the same sort of effective action within our own waters. My noble friend Lord Stodart mentioned the damage that has been done by pair trawling and seine netting to stocks of fish all round the European coasts. I yield to nobody—not even to the noble Lord, Lord Boothby—in admiration for his own inshore fishermen, but when they come to the Clyde and the Minch and clear out all our herring, then I am not quite so sure that I am keen on them. I hope that my noble friend will impress upon his colleagues the importance of conserving our own fish stocks as well as those of Europe as a whole.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I entirely take my noble friend's point. I suppose that if you were a purist you would say that the more boats you had the more likely you are to catch everyone. In the same way one could say that if you had more police it would be a good thing; but we have to work within the realities. In fact we have a very substantial force of aircraft and ships which police the waters and, on the whole, it has been very successfully done. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Ross, that probably we have the best policing system in the world, and certainly in Europe.
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: My Lords—
Lord Denham: My Lords, we are in a rather peculiar position because we are debating the very subject which this Statement is about, and I wonder whether possibly it would be better to revert to the debate. Of course I am in the hands of the House.
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: My Lords, my name is not down for the debate and I wanted to ask two simple questions. First, there is before the European Court a case initiated by Mr. Kirk, as to the legality of quota arrangements within the Community. Does the new agreement which has just been signed mean that his case now falls, or will it be proceeded with? It would be most unfortunate if the Court found against him.
Secondly, I was not quite sure of the answer which was given in connection with the guarantee fo 20,000 tonnes of mackerel from all sources to the Danes. Does
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that mean that if the Danes do not secure the appropriate quota they will have access to Western waters?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, with regard to the last point, the Danes will have their agreement which is a reciprocal agreement between the Commission and Norway. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, also referred to the particular case of Mr. Kirk. So far as I understand the position, the case is concluded. If it is not concluded it is sub judice and I would be obliged not to refer to it.

The Fishing Industry
Debate resumed.
4.6 p.m.
Lord Walston: My Lords, after that interesting interlude, perhaps we can now return to the main debate. It could not have been chosen for a more suitable day, and we are fortunate to have the opportunity of discussing this very important matter at rather more leisure and in rather more detail than can normally be done after a Statement, no matter how important it is.
There can be no doubt in anybody's mind that the British fishing industry is in a bad way and has been suffering from serious problems over many years. It is worth pointing out, however, that it is not only the British fishing industry which is in this state. For instance, some figures I have just refreshed my mind with from the report of your Lordships' Select Committee on fisheries in August 1980 lead me to say that it is mentioned there that the French fishing industry has reduced in numbers between 1973 and 1979 from 34,000 to 24,000. One can imagine the very serious problems that presents for certain areas of France and indeed for the French Government itself. Other countries in the Community have similar problems.
The causes of these difficulties within the fishing industry—and I am obviously referring specifically to this country—do not stem in the first instance from our adherence to the Common Market. The first cause, I would suggest to your Lordships, is the fact that over a long period of time there has been gross over-fishing in the North Sea, in the waters round the British Isles, round the French coast and also round the Spanish and Portuguese coasts. So the first and biggest reason for pleasure at this agreement, and for the congratulations which I repeat again to the Minister and his colleagues for having achieved it, is that for the first time we have now arrived at a state where there is proper control of the actual fishing to avoid depletion of stocks within all the Community waters. That will give an opportunity now for the fish stocks to increase, so that in a number of years we shall be back to where we were in the spacious days of the 1920s and the 1930s. That is a very great and a very significant achievement.
I should like to ask one specific question of the Minister which concerns inspection. I think he has dealt adequately with inspection at sea, with patrol vessels and so on, and I am sure that we can happily leave that matter, so far as we are concerned, to our own fishery patrol vessels which have done, and are

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doing, a magnificent job. However, there is the question of inspection on landing at the different ports in different countries. Again referring to the report of your Seclect Committee, we recommended there that inspection should be at least supervised, if not carried out, by further inspectors from countries other than those where the fish are actually landed. One cannot get away from the fact that a local inspector is obviously friendly with all the local fishermen and people in the place. It is very difficult for him to do his job properly when he lives, drinks, eats and plays with them. It is essential that there should be a fairly substantial body of outside inspectors to come round and make certain that the job is being done properly. I note that there is a proposal that there should be inspectors of inspectors, and I should be grateful if the noble Earl could slightly elaborate that point.
Quite apart from the problem of overfishing, the second cause of difficulty for our own fishing industry stems from the adoption by Iceland of a 200-mile limit. That was the beginning of our troubles. It enormously restricted our traditional fishing grounds and made life virtually impossible for the deep sea distant water trawlers, most of which had been built fairly recently and at very considerable cost. After the Icelandic cod war they found themselves with nothing to do. It was that which, above all, was the cause of the difficulties for our distant water trawlers. We must not feel that because of this agreement that problem has been solved.
I cannot help feeling that some of those trawlers, which are now rather old, even though they have not been used a great deal, could have been used if they had belonged to perhaps more adventurous people fishing in even more distant waters. We see the Japanese fishing in the South Pacific. I do not want to revert to the problem of the Falklands, but there are plenty of fish in those parts, where others fish. The New Zealanders have large quantities of fish in their area, and other European and Asiatic countries are fishing there. With their highly experienced crews and their extremely well constructed hulls, I do not know why some of our deep sea trawlers have been unable to make use of that opportunity. It is this over-investment in unused and unwanted vessels which is to a large extent responsible for the problems in which our deep sea fishermen now find themselves.
Furthermore, we have been suffering—or, if one is a consumer, one could say we have been profiting—from the importation of cheap fish from overseas. Because of the relative strength, which is now diminishing, of the pound over the Canadian dollar—not the United States dollar so much—it has been possible for cod from Newfoundland to find its way into our markets at prices with which our own fishermen are unable to compete. At the same time—this is another factor which we cannot turn our backs on—Dutch and Belgian fishermen are able to land even plaice from the North Sea in our own ports at prices cheaper than our own domestic fishermen can land them. It is not because they have cheaper fuel. That may have something to do with it, but it is not a very significant factor; and it is very difficult to get the exact figures. It is because they have smaller crews, a different system of payment and a form of co-operation among those who form the crew, rather
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than a paid crew in the way in which, in most cases, we ourselves have. Furthermore, they have a more efficient method of marketing. One of the matters to which, when we have this great new effort for marketing, I hope the Government and the new marketing organisation will give their attention is that it should cover not only agricultural and horticultural marketing but also the marketing of our fish.
Let me now turn briefly to the entirely different problem of inshore fishermen. As your Lordships well know, their problems are in no way similar to those of the deep water fishermen. They are the people who go out daily and who normally stick within the six-mile limit—and certainly within the 12-mile limit. The 12-mile limit arrangements will undoubtedly be of very great help to them. It is possible that the noble Baroness, Lady Hornsby-Smith, will have something to say about this matter, because she knows far more about it than I do, but we must not forget that the Cornish fishermen regard the purse-seine fishermen who come down from Scotland or from Hull as just as much foreigners as the fishermen of France. They do not mind what passports these people carry. What matters to them is that they do not come from their own fishing towns and villages. They come with their larger boats and modern equipment, they scoop up their huge catches in a matter of a day or so and then they disappear, leaving behind very little for those who, before the advent of such people, would go out and have weeks, if not months, of profitable fishing—profitable not only for themselves but profitable also for the community in which they live.
That is the final point I should like to make. We must not look on fishing solely as being a problem as to the right sort of trawlers, the right sort of fuel costs, the right sort of capital investment. We must look at it also as being the major source of employment in certain areas for a very large section of the community. There is no doubt that, as modern methods are more widely adopted, whether in fishing or in any other operation, fewer people will be employed. The old artisan, craftsman type of activities will inevitably disappear. This is happening in our small fishing towns and centres, and it will happen increasingly. We cannot just look at it, say that it is inevitable and turn our backs on it. We cannot cope with it simply by having an efficient common fisheries policy. It must be dealt with on a regional basis, from regional funds or social funds.
I hope the Government are aware of this problem, that they will be able to tell us that they have it very much in mind and that at the same time as promulgating the various ideas for spending the £140 million, however it is divided, in the fisheries industry they will also undertake to look at the problems of those communities which are suffering as a result of the changes in the systems of fishing.
4.16 p.m.
Baroness Elles: My Lords, I should like to join other noble Lords in thanking my noble friend Lord Kinnoull for having initiated this debate today—in particular for his prophetic powers, if not his good fortune in having the debate on what I believe can be called an historic day for British fishermen. All of us in this House will have been extremely moved by the

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speech of the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, who after 60 years of protection of British fishermen has given his undisputed accolade to the common fisheries policy which came out of Brussels yesterday. I can think of no better guarantee that the common fisheries policy must be in the interests of our fishermen than that the noble Lord felt able to make the speech which he made earlier his afternoon.
The achievement of Her Majesty's Government, together with other member states' Governments, in patient but persistent negotiations over the last months is very considerable. It will not only, as we hope, contribute to the wellbeing of our fishermen. As a member of the European Parliament. I hope also that greater recognition of the benefits of membership of the European Community will result from the conclusion yesterday of a common fisheries policy. I trust that it has exploded once and for all the word that used to go round earlier in this decade that membership of the Community would bring ruin to British fishermen. I hope that that myth has now come to an end.
Perhaps I may be permitted to say a few brief words about Kent Kirk, to whom my noble friend referred, because he happens to be a colleague of mine in my group in the European Parliament. I should like to assure my noble friend and your Lordships that he is a professional fisherman. He owns two fishing boats and is leader of the fishing association in his home town of Esbjerg. It may be that his charm and good looks do not help him when he appears as a rugged fisherman, and this may be one of the reasons why people criticise him rather more than they would do, except for the housewives. But let us remember that he did brave a Force 10 gale in order to prove his point. I should like to add that none of our group approved of the point he was trying to make but we did admire his courage and the way in which he went about trying to prove something with which we disagreed. I just wanted to say that in view of his professional standing.
Like most, if not all, of our major industries over the past 10 years, if not longer, the fishing industry has suffered seriously from external events. This has not been too much emphasised in our debate this afternoon, but it is a point worth making. The fishermen of this country have been affected not so much by Government policies or Community policies but by events such as the introduction of the 200-mile exclusive economic zone which barred to British fishermen zones which they had originally fished; the closure of access to Icelandic waters; and serious over-fishing. particularly by Soviet ships up until 1977, imperilling our fish stocks—about which our own Government and those of other member states seemed unable to take action until there was a proper common fisheries policy on which the Community as a whole could act against third countries.
Now we have heard from my noble friend the Minister that there will be prospects of agreements with third countries which will enable our fishermen to benefit. It is fair to say that the industry itself, with Government assistance, has managed to keep going. Again, this must not be underrated. Indeed, if the figures mean anything, the steep decline in long distance fishing and the use of large boats has been
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compensated for in similar terms by an increase in smaller boats—about 1,500 in the past 10 years. The catch also appears to have remained fairly static, allowing for exceptional weather conditions from time to time. I understand that the fishing catches of 1938, 1973 and 1980 do not vary all that much in their totality. Similarly, the number of fishermen engaged in the industry between 1970 and 1980 was roughly the same, although there are more part-time fishermen now than there were in 1970. Although sections of the industry have clearly suffered, I believe that the fishing industry as a whole has not suffered in the way that the British people have been led to believe.
This radical readjustment has been partly due to the initiative of the industry itself, partly to the Government, and partly to grants from the European Community of some £20 million over the past five years. Admittedly, that is not a geat deal, but these funds have been allocated not only to the construction of new boats but also to the adaptation of wharves and construction of fish-processing factories. I quote these figures for only one reason, which is to show that the industry itself has not sat back waiting for events to overtake it. Of course we can get quotes about fishermen being disappointed, but we must give credit to the industry for the fact that it has been trying to meet the problems facing it, and indeed facing all fishermen in Community waters. There have been changes internationally as well as in the United Kingdom. Like all industries, the fishing industry needs security, capital investment and skilled men—and I believe it can now claim to have all three at its disposal.
As we have heard and read, the fisheries policy now guarantees a fishing area of up to six miles from the coasts of member states in which no foreign fisherman can fish. I shall be grateful if my noble friend the Minister, when he comes to reply at the end of this debate, can confirm unequivocally that the oft-quoted threat of foreign fishermen fishing up to our beaches is not only untrue but impossible in accordance with the new common fisheries policy. Even the thorny question of historic fishing rights which exist in some parts of the country between six and 12 miles has now been successfully negotiated on a bilateral basis by the Secretary of State for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food—and with the French, no less. That is quite a achievement.
The TAC, which is so often attacked because we possess 60 per cent. of Community waters, is giving a 37 per cent. share of fish to the United Kingdom, which, as my noble friend the Minister set out in his Statement, will enable British fishermen to land more fish proportionately than they have done in the past few years. It is occasionally forgotten even by experts that fish, in common with men and women, do sometimes travel and do not always stay in the waters in which they are intended to remain.
The conservation measures are especially welcome following the heavy over-fishing of some species of fish. A point which is often brought up in Scotland—it is one which my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy may raise—is that, where there is a considerable shortage of salmon, this is often said to be the fault of the Common Market. Perhaps my noble friend will confirm that salmon is not covered by the common

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fisheries policy but will be subject to individual agreement by the EEC with third countries.
The fishing industry would appear to have a magnificent opportunity for an assured future for its men and allied industries, but, although the Government can provide the framework, there are still some difficulties. From the point of view of the Government, adequate policing and effective control of our waters is one aspect, and it is one that has been raised by noble Lords. But there is a specific problem which we have experienced in the European Parliament and, with permission, I shall raise it in your Lordships' House. It is the problem of foreign fishermen registering their boats under the British flag. This will affect the calculation of available catches. This is something that the Government will have to examine, to see whether there should be some new form of legislation to deal with that particular problem.
Another important responsibility for the Government will be not only obtaining a fair share of the £140 million—and I am given to understand that we are to receive about one-third of that—but also making the best and most effective use of that money. No doubt the Government will be in immediate consultation with the industry and, I hope, with ports where there is considerable unemployment, to see how that money can best be used to effect an efficient fishing industry.
This new package imposes obligations on the industry itself to use all its commercial and financial judgment and acumen to ensure that these resources are not squandered. Very often we tend to think of fishermen as a race apart. In their courage and their physical strength they probably are a race apart, but they are part of an industry of this country—part of the food industry of this country—and as soon as the fishing industry takes part in the development of an overall food industry for Britain great benefits will follow not only to the fishermen but also to the industry as a whole.
My noble friend Lord Kinnoull raised the question of the marketing of fish. I am quite certain that a closer study of the market is essential. We all know how difficult it is to buy ordinary wet fish in London or anywhere else in the country. It seems to have gone out of fashion, possibly in favour of fish fingers—at least my grandchildren seem to like them. This certainly does not help when one is trying to sell fish. We do not want to fall into the horror of having a surplus of fish as we have done with agriculture surplus under the CAP. Although that may sound silly at this stage of the game, we may find in 10 years' time that we have a lot of fish and that we may have to throw some of it away. Indeed, as noble Lords will know, some of it has been thrown away already.
Not only marketing is important: so also are distribution, transport, advertising methods, and the question of encouraging people to eat more fish. If one is to have a successful common fisheries policy, one must encourage people to eat the products of the fishing industry. Let us look not only at our own markets but also at export markets. Even to the European Community we are now exporting less fish than we import—something around £25 million-worth in 1980. Here is an area where the fishing
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industry should be looking very closely at methods of developing and expanding its markets.
Let us also remember that the TAC figures show that the TAC has an amount equivalent to the total amounts given to France, Germany, Belgium, Holland and Ireland. So there is no reason why we should not be able to make these markets available to our own fishermen, provided the fish are marketed, priced, produced and packaged properly and in a modern way.
Finally, I should like to thank my noble friend for raising this vital subject and my noble friend the Minister for having read the Statement, although I have had the benefit, as some other noble Lords have not, of hearing the Government's Statement. I congratulate Her Majesty's Government on concluding what I believe is a satisfactory policy to enable the fishing industry to look forward with security and confidence to the future.
4.31 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I would like to thank my noble friend Lord Kinnoull for bringing this subject, such a topical one, before your Lordships today and for introducing it in such a well informed and clear way in his speech. I welcome the agreement which was reached yesterday upon the new common fisheries policy. It has come after 10 years of very hard negotiation. We have been told that it has been guided by the overriding principle of conservation and I am sure that the whole House would approve of that principle. This means that total catches of different species, in particular areas, over specified periods, will be agreed, based upon scientific data and assessments.
The agreement as a whole is being welcomed already and greeted by fishing communities with a sense of relief, because it brings an end to the uncertainty which has bedevilled the industry for so many years. Soon fishermen should be able to start making plans ahead instead of having to live from day to day. Some fishermen's organisations though, I suggest, will be expressing anxieties. This is bound to be. For example, they will ask how will the agreements on quotas and other restrictions be observed and enforced correctly.
I have three questions to put to the Government. First, I would ask if my noble friend at the end of the debate can tell us something about the methods of monitoring, policing and enforcing which they have in mind. There will be unlimited access for EEC vessels to the EEC "pond", as it is called, but as regards access to certain areas fishing will be limited to vessels belonging to individual members of the Community. First, there is the coastal band between six and 12 miles from the shoreline—that is our base line in the case of the United Kingdom. Then there is also the Orkney and Shetland box, where there are restrictions, I understand, for foreign vessels except for vessels under a certain length, which I believe is 80 feet. I assume that in both these cases, the band and the box, the system will be one of licensing of individual boats, but I would be grateful if my noble friend could confirm this. I believe that such a system of licensing is the only reliable system in which fishermen themselves have confidence in those circumstances.

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Outside those areas but within the EEC fishing limits—that is to say, in the Common Market "pond"—it seems that there will be no check on numbers of vessels belonging to member states. Here control, it seems, will be through checks on the landings of fish at ports and spot checks on vessels at sea, no doubt looking into not only the catches on board but also the size of mesh of nets and other matters of that kind. I suggest that it must be a reliable system if it is to gain the confidence of our fishermen. Otherwise, the United Kingdom will lose the benefit, which has been gained from this agreement, of having 37.3 per cent. of the seven main edible species as quotas in the EEC fishing area. The prospect of flourishing fish stocks in the future will also recede if there is not a reliable system of enforcing the agreement.
My other two questions to the Government relate to Spain and Portugal, who are expected to join the EEC in the foreseeable future, probably within the next six or seven years. What will the arrangements be when those two countries join? Spain has a considerable fishing fleet which will certainly have an impact on the agreements under this fisheries policy. From the press we understand that this agreement, which has just been reached, is to last for 20 years. Spain is expected to join within the next five years.
I would also like to ask about the present position, and this is my third question. Are the Government content that, according to the latest statistics, 60 Spanish vessels are registered as United Kingdom fishing boats? All that a Spanish boat has to have are United Kingdom nationals as skipper and as mate and a United Kingdom address. They are now registered at ports all round the United Kingdom. My noble friend did assure me last week that they are not receiving subsidies; it really would be too much if they were receiving subsidies from the British Government. But it does look as though they will be entitled to part of the quotas for British fishing vessels. How many more Spanish vessels are likely to join the 60 already registered here, using this flag of fishing convenience? This is regarded as a great inconvenience by the British fishing fleet, and it illustrates an enormous loophole in the system of quotas.
In contemplating the future development of the home fishing industry, there are two matters to which I would draw attention. The first is that the deep water fleet, the large trawlers, have been drastically reduced in numbers since the mid-I970's. This was caused by the international acceptance of 200-mile fishing limits. It was not caused by membership of the EEC. In the past most of the fish caught by British fishing boats and landed were caught many miles away from this country. That was the traditional system. First, Iceland attempted to change that system by unilateral attempts to extend her fishing limits before general agreement on extension had been reached by the other maritime countries. But by 1976 the United Kindom, with other countries, legislated the extension to 200 miles because by that time it had become customary international law. There were too many large trawlers then built and designed for distant fishing for the United Kingdom; they could not all return to home waters and compete with other boats there. That is the
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reason for the depressed emptiness of the chief ports concerned, Hull, Grimsby and Fleetwood, today.
I refer next to our inshore fleet working in those home waters—and here I am using the terminology I am used to; that is to say, I am not referring to the inshore fleet simply as small boats making daily excursions and operating within six miles of the shore; I use it in the sense in which it is normally used by Government departments and in international negotiations as the fleet which operates in our own home waters, where vessels go to sea for as much as a week at a time. In numbers the inshore fleet is about the same. It has not changed over recent years. Indeed, the numbers of the Scottish part of that fleet have actually increased recently. They now form at least half, if not more, of the whole United Kingdom inshore fleet. There has been this extraordinary transformation in our fishing industry, and in its shape, over the past ten years. It has not been a painless one. The remaining large vessels in the United Kingdom designed for distant water fishing should now be given every opportunity to take up their fair proportion of the quotas in agreements which the EEC reaches with other countries—for example, with Canada, for fishing on Canada's distant grounds.
Turning to matters close to our own shores, I ask the Government to address themselves now with urgency, to arrangements within the 12 miles of our own coastline and to the box, or boxes, and any other nationally regulated areas which are agreed. In 1978 the Commission proposed that there would be local fishing plans. In the United Kingdom much thought and work has been devoted to devising certain local fishing management schemes. The Government should now give urgent attention to these within the new fisheries policy.
I add this comment, that the idea of local schemes, proposed by the EEC some four years ago, carried with it the notion of the very small fishing boat—the lobster boat and the half-day fishing excursion. But nowadays, in the remote areas where there are fishing communities dependent upon fishing as their main industry and livelihood, there is a combination of boats, so that there can be a small boat which is operating on that basis—in Scotland it would usually be by the crofter fisherman system—and at the same time neighbours living in the same fishing village can be operating the most modern fishing boat costing more than £1 million; for example, a purse-seiner, which carries lethal catching power. All these categories must be considered and catered for. We cannot penalise the efficient, and at the same time we must make sure that those who are dependent on the industry for their livelihood have a reasonable opportunity.
Lord Boothby: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord a question arising from what he has been saying? Does he not agree that now we are on friendly terms with the Danes we should suggest to them that they should seriously consider going easy on the catching of immature stocks, with small fishing vessels, which they are doing all over the place and which I myself am convinced is the main cause of the decline of the herring fishing industry?
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, knows more about the fishing industry than many of us will ever know. I take this opportunity of thanking him for the kind words he said about me earlier today. Of course he is right. There have been continuing discussions with the Danes over the question of their industrial fishing. So much of their fishing is for small fish and not for edible purposes. The pout box and other arrangements have been devised with that in mind. I also draw attention to what the noble Lord said about the importance of convincing the Danes on this, and of reaching agreements about it.
I close by congratulating the Government on achieving a satisfactory end to a very long chapter. Now I urge them to work with urgency and vigour to create the systems which are needed to give effect to this new agreement.
4.45 p.m.
Baroness Hornsby-Smith: My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, for having introduced this debate in so timely a fashion. It has given many of us who have a close interest in the fishing industry an opportunity to bring its many problems before your Lordships' House.
I also join in congratulating my right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food on his non-stop battle to obtain a fair deal for the British fishing industry. I have known my right honourable friend for 35 years and when he gets his teeth into something he does not let go until he has a fair bite for Britain.
I also thank the Minister of State, in particular, because I think that Mr. Buchanan-Smith has been among the first of a succession of Ministers to recognise that we also fish down south and has been ready to visit the South to see for himself He has held many discussions with the port owners and the trawlermen in the South-West, and they are very appreciative indeed of the fact that he has taken such a real interest in them.
My interest obviously stems from personal experience in the South-West and, in particular, with inshore fishing, because I have been a director of Sutton Harbour, Plymouth, for 18 years. In the South-West we have suffered in the past from the sturdy—some people have called it pig-headed—independence and isolation of each individual fishing port. Against the well-organised Scottish, North-Eastern and North-Western fishing organisations, the voice of the South-West rarely reached Westminster. This afternoon we have eight Scots speaking, apart from the noble Lord, Lord Walston, who drew timely attention to the problems of the inshore fishermen in the South-West, and I feel that it is only fair that I, too, should speak up for them.
As a result of the parlous state of the industry, with the laying-up of many trawlers and the depredations of foreign trawlers flouting the regulations, I am now pleased to say that the South-West has got together and presented a united case. But, over the past seven years, as one trawlerman put it, "it has been just one damn thing after another". First, there has been straight poaching within our 12-mile limit. I accept
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that the Government have taken steps to provide better and more vigilant patrols. These have helped, but poaching has not been eliminated and fishing boats from overseas put in late at night when, certainly during the winter season, the ports may not be staffed and when fishery inspection officers are not on duty. They also put in, and out, at seven o'clock in the morning, without paying berthing dues, putting some of their fish on trucks which is then immediately taken off on the first ferry to France or wherever.
More seriously, we have the huge trawlers and factory ships lying just outside the 12-mile limit which are buying direct from United Kingdom trawlers, As the noble Lord, Lord Walston said, the purse seiners from the North came down and they sold direct. In the main these "Klondikers", as they were called, came from the Eastern European countries, although we had Portuguese, Spanish and even Egyptian ships lying just outside the 12-mile limit. They are notified of a catch by a little gentleman who sits in a hotel room in Falmouth. The trawlers are told that such and such a ship just over the 12-mile limit will take their entire catch. The location is given and they are told to "go to it".
The largest proportion of a fishing port's income comes from landing charges. Nowhere is this more important, where there are no great commercial docks and transportation, than in the inshore fishing docks. For centuries fishing boats have paid incredibly low berthing charges. At present at Sutton Harbour we have an excellent fishing harbour and fish market with all the most modern facilities. The charges for a trawler are 75p a foot a year. Therefore, a 40-foot trawler pays £30—that would not pay one of our staff on the docks for two days. But, by tradition, when the fishermen do well on a catch, the port does well. Currently we get 2p in the pound on all the fish auctioned at our market. So a £5,000 catch from our type of trawlers brings £100 into the port on a morning when they come back with a catch of that size. Therefore, landing charges are the basic bread and butter of a fishing port. Already over the last six or eight years we have lost 50 regular trawlers at our port. and the number is still diminishing.
I know that recent regulations—and I congratulate the Ministry—are more stringent on the "Klondikers", but the new levies being raised with these "Klondikers" in lieu of landing charges imposed on these foreign ships are going to the Ministry: they are not going to the port. I fully appreciate, and the Ministry have explained to me time and time again when I have protested, that it would be administratively extremely difficult to allocate a particular ship's catch to a particular port even though the ship may be berthed there overnight. But it is of vital importance if 70 or 80 per cent. of your income comes from landing charges. Moreover, that fish counts against our quotas because it is caught by United Kingdom ships within our 12-mile limit. It is, therefore, very important that we should try to help the ports in some other way if it is not administratively possible to see that these landing charges come back to where they really belong, because the alternative is that we shall not have any local inshore fishing harbours worth talking about in five or 10 years' time. We are delighted that the quota has increased to 37·3

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per cent. But we are concerned about how much of that quota, genuine United Kingdom fishermen will, in fact, bring in.
I now turn to the "foreign fiddles". We are by nature a pretty law-abiding nation and our network of enforcement officers is in many ways far more comprehensive and impartial—some of our neighbours overseas are very good at turning blind eyes to their own people—than those of many other countries. As a result, by and large, our fishermen keep the law far more regularly than our foreign competitors. Time and time again, as my noble friend mentioned a few minutes ago, ships from abroad have used, and are still using, illegally small mesh nets, and they are wrecking the whole of the EEC effort to conserve our fishing stocks. The noble Lord, Lord Walston, so rightly said that, because of that, we have over the years fantastically depleted our fishing stocks. Indeed, we have had to place a ban on the fishing of herring at certain periods because of such depletion.
This morning I sought the advice of two South-Western experts. Both were emphatic that, if the losses through small nets and the depredations on conservation continue, in 10 years' time there will not be any mature fish stocks left to fish. Magistrates do not seem to have appreciated how desperately important the situation is for the whole of the fishing industry—not only for us, but for the EEC as well. In a recent case there was a fine of £600, but a trawler of the size in question could bring in anything from £3,000-to £10,000-worth of fish in one catch. In my view, a £600 fine is derisory.
Finally, I turn to the phoney foreign registered companies who have found a loophole in our Companies Act. I raised this issue four months ago in your Lordships' House. I have received two very long and very detailed letters from my noble friend Lord Cockfield and I am grateful to him for the comprehensive, nature of those letters, although I cannot wholly agree with them. I accept that it would possibly be extraordinarily difficult to alter the Companies Act, with all its multitudinous ramifications, in the interests of one particular industry. However, it is a vital industry which stretches from the Hebrides down to Land's End and all around our coastline. We must take stronger measures to prevent those boats being registered as if they were genuine UK fishing boats.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, for kindly bringing to my attention the Lloyds List for 4th January. I should like to quote one paragraph:
"Spanish fishing companies whose ships have operated off Ireland for centuries, found that their ships were being excluded and they decided to exploit the weak British fishing vessel registration requirements to maintain their operations. British companies were able to operate the ships, but the British connection can be as little as 5 per cent."
I have had some first-hand evidence down south. There is a gentleman living in most modest surroundings who is technically one of the UK registered owners of two vessels worth at least £250,000 each. It is a £100 company with £5 paid up. He is also the English skipper, who, by law, has to go to sea with the ship. However, this is a Spanish ship with three skippers and three mates. It has the English
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one who goes and puts the documentation in at Plymouth, Southampton or wherever. He goes aboard with his mate, he sits down and he does precisely nothing thereafter until the ship comes back to port. Then there is the skilled skipper who is the navigator and who brings the ship from Barcelona or some other port in Spain; he also has a mate. Then there is the highly skilled trawlerman who is the skipper on the fishing side. He also has a mate who knows all about trawling. They are all paid the due rates and they all get their bonus. One can appreciate the size of their catches, and all those catches—which go in the main back to Spain or to other ports of their choice—will stand against our fishing quota and that 37·3 per cent. Therefore, I beg my noble friend to look more closely at these phonily registered boats. Today it is the Spanish, but, if they get away with it, it would well be the French, the Egyptians, the Portuguese or those from Eastern Europe. All the success of my noble friend's negotiations will be nullified if these foreign fiddles are allowed to continue.
I have spoken strongly because I feel strongly about this matter. Whenever I go to Plymouth I am assailed with the question, "What are you going to do about it?"—and by "you" they mean the Houses of Parliament and not me personally. I hope very sincerely that we shall be able to deal in particular with these encroachments by boats which take our fish against our quota—fish that the British market will never see.
Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran: My Lords, I hesitate to interrupt the noble Baroness, but she has mentioned my name and I wondered whether, in the letter from the Minister to which she referred, the Minister replied to those facts which I presented to the noble Baroness from Lloyds on this matter. Was that included in his letter?
Baroness Hornsby-Smith: My Lords, that would have been in the third one, and I have not got that far.
5 p.m.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, I should like to express my gratitude to the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, for introducing this debate. The fact is that you cannot go two yards in this House without tripping over either a landowner or a farmer, or both. But fishermen are a little scarce. Fishing is a very important industry, and we are very grateful to the noble Earl for raising this matter. My connection with fishing is precisely that of many people, in that I have fought and represented a constituency in which fishing is a major occupation. In the main they are the seine netters whom the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, described, and also the crofter fishermen. Of course, their delight is to take the Member of Parliament or candidate out in a boat on a fishing trip, invite him down below and then see whether they can make him sick with a mixture of sweet tea, tobacco smoke and excessive heat. But that is all part of the training of a good politician, and very good for one.
However, they are extremely direct people. If this debate has shown anything, it has shown that there are many snags to overcome; and the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Hornsby-Smith, gave the grossest

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example of the sort of thing that can make a nonsense of this successful agreement. In the constituency of Caithness and Sutherland we also have a very good example of their dislike of incoming fishermen from far away parts like Orkney, in that the crofter fishermen who lay their pots along the coast of Caithness for crab and lobster, and who go out daily to try to preserve the fishing, can suddenly find a foreigner from Orkney, and a seine netter, coming along and dropping 100 pots, coming hack a couple of days later, picking them up and disappearing, to return a year later.
I believe that this fisheries policy must be a developing one, and it must develop within our own legislation. Twenty years ago I said to my friends who were crofter fishermen, "Some day you will have to rent a bit of this coast, look after it properly and farm it in order to keep your lobsters". At that time they said, "Ah, man, the sea is free to all". But they have changed their tune now because they know perfectly well that, with the development of what the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, called the lethal purse-seine netter, a great deal has to be done to conserve the stocks and to conserve the communities around our coasts who fish in a perfectly satisfactory and competent manner. If they are to be preserved, some agreement and some system needs to be reached whereby, for example, an area of coast is licensed to the lobster fisherman who is competent at laying pots from a small boat, just as the fisherman in a big boat with 100 pots on board is competent.
If you talk to any fisherman he will tell you about the number of times a foreign boat has had to put into Wick, Aberdeen or Peterhead, and along the quayside there are nets piled up with meshes so small that they would not let a fly through, let alone anything else. That is why we must have a system of control which will be seen to work by the fishermen as well as by the Government. One is alone on the sea, and our own chaps are not averse to nipping inside the three-mile limit if they think that the cruiser is not about. I very much doubt whether the intelligence available to our patrolling vessels will be as good as it was in the case of Captain Kirk, when half the press of Europe were on board sending daily messages as to his position. Therefore, much work has to be done on that.
The point made by the noble Lord, Lord Walston, was a good one. He said that perhaps we need an international body which will be the controlling and the recording agents in the various ports. In Scotland we have that glorious product, whisky, and the exciseman, who holds the key to the stills and other things, really is the brother of the manager. I think that there is something to be said for a community body to oversee the development.
What has been said on all sides of the House is absolutely essential: that we must ensure that the rules of conservation are not broken, that areas are sacrosanct in the periods when fishing is not supposed to take place and that young stocks get a chance to survive, to grow and to give us the sort of supply of fish which we require. I think it is admitted on all sides that the fishing fleet will change in character and will become more of an inshore fishing fleet, and there will be fewer deep sea trawlers. If we succeed in developing
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in this way and making the system work, then I think we can be assured of a supply of fish.
The noble Baroness, Lady Elles, made a fascinating speech. I disliked it because she said all that I wanted to say, but very much better. However, she put her finger on the point when she said that we had to do something about marketing. In some areas it is enormously difficult to buy good fish. In the old days the fish train from Aberdeen was more important than the express, because the fish had to be got to market. Today fish are transported by lorry, and very few fish, if any, go south by train. Therefore we must look at the system of transport and try to get the fish onto the customers' tables tasting like fish does if you have a high tea in the town of Fraserburgh. It is well worth visiting Fraserburgh to experience that.
However, it is shocking that, in these days of modern transport, the eating of fish per capita in this country is declining. Famous chains of fish shops are declining, and something must be done about this. In the old days, round the farms of Aberdeenshire there were ladies walking with their creels on their backs carrying the fish that had been caught the night before, and in that way fresh fish was brought to the farms. A few people still do this in a van, which nearly always has an annoying horn which plays a tune when it enters the middle of the farm when you are trying to sleep during an afternoon, if you ever do such a thing. But it is the sort of enterprise that we need to encourage to get the fish about, because it is a product which is good and which people like. For goodness sake, why the devil can we not get fish to where people will buy it?
I turn to the industrial side of the fishing industry; to the fish required for that famous institution, the British fish and chip shop. Here we need the best of freezing methods. It makes an enormous difference if the fish are frozen immediately and as fast as possible with a good blast freezer. If we did that, with the advance of technology, that fish could probably reach the shops almost as fast as the fresh fish. Certainly an immense effort will have to go into marketing, and I hope that Food from Britain might eventually include fish from the sea as well as that from fish farms. I see no reason why it should not.
I have said enough. It has been a very interesting debate. The unanimity of opinion that the opportunity is there has been quite extraordinary; but it is only an opportunity, and a great many things have to be worked out before it will work.
5.10 p.m.
Lord John-Mackie: My Lords, as my noble kinsman has just said, the unanimity in this debate has been tremendous and it does not leave one very much to say at the end except to agree with almost everything that has been said. Before doing so I should like, with everyone else, to congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, on initiating the debate and his good luck in initiating it on such a day. It shows the character of the man when he started by expressing sympathy for the men out of work, those losing their jobs, and the tribute he paid to the societies helping these men. That showed a nice human concern, and I thought it was a good opening to this debate.

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The whole business was started, I think nearly all are agreed on this, with the loss of the Icelandic waters to our long-distance fishing fleet. I have seen the figures—I forget which noble Lord produced them—and something more than four out of five boats were laid up at the end of that period. I do not think that the fishing fleet has ever recovered from that. In my home town of Aberdeen, which is built of granite paid for by fish, it would have been a disastrous situation for that town if the oil had not come along at the same time. Nevertheless, there are in the harbours round about Aberdeen rusting trawlers that will never be used again.
There is tremendous scope for doing something about it now that we have this fishing agreement, for which I pay tribute to the Ministers who got it, and especially to my late Member of Parliament and neighbour in Scotland, Mr. Alec Buchanan-Smith, for the work he has done. Having got this agreement the thing to do now is to get ahead and see what can be done to resuscitate the fishing industry. As my noble kinsman and others have said, it will require a considerable effort. It will not just happen. A lot has to be done.
There is great scope for spending the money that we are going to get from the £140 million. I think the noble Baroness, Lady Elles, said that it was to be 30 per cent., which was not quite the 37·5 per cent. I suggested it might be. However, it is still a considerable sum. The refurbishing of boats that can be refurbished and the building of others will create employment. That will be a great help in many of the areas where we have high unemployment.
Again it was emphasised that there could be a surplus of fish, and occasionally there is a surplus of fish at the present moment. Therefore, processing plants would require to be given some money in order to be able to handle not only the processing of fish for human consumption but of course processing for animal foods such as fish meal, and so on. There is a strong case for our having a look at what the Russians and the East European countries are doing and having some processing ships ourselves, especially if we were to follow the example (I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Walston, who mentioned it first, and then someone else) of looking for waters other than the ones we have at present—even going to the Falklands Islands, where it would be necessary to have a support processing ship to handle the fish. That should be looked at carefully.
We import an enormous amount of fish meal. As most farmers in the House will know, it is one of the best proteins, if not the best, that one can use for animal feed, provided it is used properly. I am sure that a lot more fish meal could be made in this country. I should like to think that some of the factories could be in areas where they are required for employment. There is a suggestion that one should be put on the Isle of Barra. I hope that that would come to fruition because there is unemployment there. It would employ up to 20 men, and that would be excellent for that area.
I was surprised when I was given the figures of a deficit in our imports and exports of fish. It is running
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at the rate of £246 million a year. It is an enormous figure. Surely we could redress that a bit now that we have a long-term policy for our fishing industry. If that figure could be redressed the other way it would be an enormous saving; a quarter of a billion in foreign imports. I thought that the noble Earl might have mentioned—and I mention it in this respect for increasing our fish supply—that there is tremendous scope for fish farming. I am not sure that it comes into the picture in this debate today, but I saw a film the other day. about fish farming in Ireland. The amount one can produce in tonnes of fish a day with small and not too expensive equipment was most impressive.
I return to a point that everybody has mentioned, and that is the question of marketing. I know that only inland fresh water fish comes under Food from Britain, but there is tremendous scope for either bringing fish from Britain under the same umbrella or else having an equal umbrella somewhere to carry this out, although in the Minister's Statement and in the EEC Statement it says that marketing is going to be assisted as well. I, like my noble kinsman, lived within sight of fishing villages in the North-East of Scotland, and of course a fresh fish from these boats, eaten the same day or the next day, is so different from the stuff we get nowadays in this part of the world. A better system of getting fresh fish to the shops all over the country is very necessary indeed.
I come to a point that has been raised by practically every speaker, and that is the question of policing, enforcing, and monitoring. The noble Lord, Lord Stodart, started with that. He was worried about the disparity that there might be in standards, and practically everybody else mentioned this. I hope that the noble Earl on the Government Front Bench will take note of that because it has worried everybody who has spoken today, especially the noble Baroness, Lady Hornsby-Smith, who was worried about the Spanish ships using every conceivable method of avoiding the regulations. I am sure that something should be done there.
My noble kinsman mentioned vans. There are people trying to get fresh fish to customers in this country. I have a friend in my local village of Nazeing (a village I am sure you all know) whose wife started a small business which became very successful. He was employed on something else in the town but he said, "If she can do that, I ought to be able to do something better". He started getting fish down from Grimsby and then dispersing it, by one van to begin with. Now he has a big lorry coming to a selected point, emptying into about half a dozen vans, and dispersing it round South-West Essex. It has been a huge success. It shows what can be done in marketing. That is something that should be looked at carefully not only from the EEC's point of view but from our point of view inside this country.
I do not think that I can say much more. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, mentioned the Spanish ships, and that must be looked into. This is the second time within a couple of weeks that he has mentioned this, and I feel that something ought to be done.
The last point I should like to make was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Elles, and that is the question of the

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EEC. I should like to agree with them both. Here we have an agreement that I do not think could possibly have been achieved without being members of the EEC. It is something with which I thoroughly agree. I am a dedicated European, and I am sure that it is a point in favour of the EEC. I have not anything more to say except that we look forward to hearing some of the replies to the questions that everybody has put to the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers. I think that we have given him a fairly big job.
5.20 p.m.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, this has been an interesting and important debate. Everyone has a natural sympathy for fishermen. They live a hard, tough and rugged life, and for who they are and what they do they earn respect for themselves. What has been said this evening in all quarters of your Lordships' House has been a clear indication of our concern for their future and the way in which they earn their living.
I congratulate my noble friend Lord Kinnoull on his capacity for clairvoyancy. The timing of this debate has been remarkable, in that it comes the very day after the conclusion of the agreement with the European Community on a common fisheries policy. This has been a particularly difficult subject on which to get agreement with the other member states, and I suggest it is a cause for approval and satisfaction, even rejoicing, that the Community has at last been able to find a common accord and a common agreement. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Mackie, that the agreement on the common fisheries policy does not end all the problems for the fishermen. Of course it does not, and the debate has shown that. Nevertheless, it removes one massive area of uncertainty which affected all fishermen.
A great deal of midnight oil has been burnt in trying to achieve this common policy, not just in this country but in other countries, too. My noble friend Lord Kinnoull was right to say that during the whole period of negotiation there was inevitably an aura of uncertainty, and in the protracted negotiations the atmosphere of uncertainty has been difficult for our fishermen. My noble friend wanted to know if we understood the short-term problems of our fishermen. I need only ask him to reflect that over the last three years we have understood their problems sufficiently well to give them a special grant in aid of £57 million to help them over a period of recognised substantial difficulty. That uncertainty is now over. It should enable our fishing industry, as well as those of other countries, to proceed with a certain knowledge of what are the parameters of the new common fisheries policy.
When my right honourable friend took over the negotiations he found a Europe in which eight other members of the Community had, almost between themselves, come to a fishing agreement, of which the United Kingdom was not a part, at a meeting in Berlin which the Minister of Agriculture of the day decided not to attend. We were isolated. Now we have an agreement from which the United Kingdom is not isolated but of which it is very much a part. It is an agreement which has been accepted by all member states; and not only is it agreed by all member states, but it also has the approval of the United Kingdom
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fishing industry. At the beginning of his attempts to negotiate a sound fishing agreement my right honourable friend gave an undertaking to the fishing industry that he would not accept any agreement which did not have their approval. This agreement does, and it is therefore appropriate to see what these years of negotiation have achieved.
My noble friend Lord Kinnoull said in opening the debate, when he was at the disadvantage of not having heard the Statement, that he doubted if he would understand the Statement. I do not think that was necessarily a reflection on his intellectual capacity but merely an indication of the complexity of the issue. I will, therefore, explain what it has achieved.
Before 1964 our fishermen had exclusive rights to fish up to three miles only. After 1964, under the London Convention, the exclusive rights went up to six miles; and between six and 12 miles there were exclusive rights except for those other countries which had an historic record of fishing there. They had rights to continue to fish there. Those rights to fish between six and 12 miles were extended on our accession to the Community. Now we have the same exclusive rights up to six miles; and between six and 12 miles there are even fewer rights of access for other countries than those which existed before our accession to the Community.
If I may try to put it in a clearer way, our 12-mile limit, if drawn out in a straight line, would amount to 2,667 miles in length. Under the terms of the Treaty of Accession, member states had rights in 1,999 miles of that length. In the agreement which has now been reached, these rights will either be eliminated or reduced in no less than 1,441 miles of that length. A major improvement in our waters has therefore been achieved in 72 per cent. of what is known as our 12-mile limit, in which rights have historically existed for other countries to fish. I can confirm, in answer to my noble friend Lady Elles, that there is no question of foreign vessels fishing, as it is sometimes graphically put, right up to our beaches.
The United Kingdom has also obtained important rights for our fishermen in the six to 12-mile limits of other member states. A box has been obtained around the north of Scotland where commercial fishing by larger vessels will be licensed so that important stocks in that area can be carefully conserved and, over the years, enhanced. My noble friend Lord Campbell asked particularly about this box. A conservation measure has been agreed by the member states which has the effect of applying limitations on the fishing effort in an area of sea around the north of Scotland. It is effective by limiting the number of larger vessels—those of over 26 metres between perpendiculars—which may fish for human consumption commercial species in the area. Each vessel will have to be licensed individually. The box provides protection for the coastal fisheries in the north of Scotland, and it represents a considerable achievement. Of course, vessels can fish for industrial species, and small vessels can continue to fish there without a licence.
There has also been agreement on quotas. Of the seven main species of fish, six provide more than 80 per cent. of the United Kingdom's landings. Our share of the seven main species, at 37 per cent., is above the

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level of our share of the catch every year since 1974, and substantially above our share of the catch in 1980, when it was 33 per cent. It is now 37 per cent. Indeed, for most stocks our quotas are now as great as, or greater than, the exceptionally high level of fishing in 1981.
To illustrate this, the average United Kingdom catch of North Sea cod in the years 1973 to 1978 was 85,000 tonnes, while the quota provided for in this agreement is 114,700 tonnes. The quota percentages which have now been agreed will continue from year to year. We have secured for the United Kingdom 47 per cent. of the Community's permitted catch of North Sea cod: 60 per cent. of the permitted catch of West Coast herring; and 59 per cent. of the permitted catch of West Coast mackerel. With the conservation and enforcement measures which have now been agreed, it is likely that the stocks will increase over the years, instead of declining. These percentages will, therefore, give the industry a reasonable prospect of increased landings. These arrangements provide a guarantee of at least 20 years of security for our fishermen in the fishing areas which are of vital importance to us.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, is the Minister able to tell us what control and check there is on industrial fishing which, I understand, will be allowed in the north of Scotland box?
Earl Ferrers: Industrial fishing does not come within this agreement, my Lords. One of the most important demands of our fishermen was to have a sensible system of enforcement in which member states could not overfish their quotas and could not infringe the access provisions. That has been repeated this afternoon almost universally.
My noble friend Lord Stodart asked if policing would be uniform—would the states lose their enthusiasm to police, he wondered—and the noble Lord, Lord Walston, was worried about that, as were the noble Lord, Lord Mackie, and his noble kinsman. The new agreement provides a system which would ensure the effective control of fishing in the Community. The United Kingdom in fact provided the first proposals for these regulations, and under the agreement each member state will be responsible for ensuring that the Community fisheries rules are obeyed in their own waters. The United Kingdom will be responsible for enforcement within our own ports and fishing limits.
However, in addition to that, at the United Kingdom's insistence, the Commission is to establish a special unit, the specific task of which will be to ensure that member states are fulfilling their enforcement responsibilities. Inspectors from the unit will make regular visits to all the member states concerned, and they will have the power of on-the-spot inspection. There are inspectors from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries in Scotland. There are district inspectors and fishery officers at main ports, and they cover an area of the coast.
My noble friend Lord Kinnoull asked what were our protection resources? Without going into a great deal
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of detail, I would say that they include a mix of seven Island class and two New Castle class off-shore patrol vessels of the Royal Navy, and seven-ton class coastal minesweepers. Other Royal Naval vessels can be used from time to time as appropriate and convenient in order to maintain a proper level of inspection. Occasional air surveillance is also provided by naval aircraft and helicopters when required. The Department of Agriculture and Fisheries in Scotland has two 230-ft ships, two Island class vessels, and two other vessels; and two 20-metre fast patrol launches will be coming into operation this spring. The RAF provides maritime patrol by Nimrods, which currently fly 160 hours per month. The Ministry of Agriculture has a contract for the operation of two civilian aircraft when necessary, and the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries in Scotland has the same. That is a fairly substantial fisheries protection line-up, and when my noble friend Lord Kinnoull asks whether it will be increased, I am bound to tell him that it is not our intention to do so.
There will be substantial penalties available under the United Kingdom law for offences against the Community fishing rules. A fine of £50,000, as well as confiscation of the very costly gear, will add up to a fairly substantial incentive not to over-fish. There will be a new régime for conservation, which will meet very important United Kingdom requirements. It will establish on a permanent basis the vital Norway pout box. Our own previous national measures are now put on a Community basis, and this will, again, give the fishing industry a prospect of increasing, rather than declining, stocks of fish.
My noble friend Lady Elles asked about salmon. The conservation regulation bans fishing for salmon outside 12 miles. Our own national rules continue to apply within 12 miles. Apart from the Greenlanders, who have a special exemption, there is no fishing outside 12 miles for salmon in the waters of the Community.
There will also be what is known as a structure package, which will include substantial grants for scrapping, modernisation, and construction of boats. The grants will be made available to our fleet. The Community will finance 50 per cent. of all scrapping grants, up to a maximum of £360 per tonne, and will provide 25 per cent. modernisation grants for approved projects. These Community grants for improving and building vessels will be additional to our own national grants, and of course we shall be discussing all of this with the industry and the Community, as my noble friend Lord Kinnoull requested.
So for the first time we now have a Community which has agreed on a common fisheries policy, an agreement on access, on quotas, on conservation, an agreement on policing, an agreement on grant-aiding the modernisation of the Community fishing fleets, and an improved marketing regulation. Our own industry welcomes these improved arrangements. and I really believe that they ought to bring stability to the market. We intend to discuss the marketing arrangements annually with the fishing industry in order to secure a stable and prosperous future.
I think that it was my noble friend Lady Elles who

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referred to the importance of exporting fish. Of course, this is absolutely correct. It is very important that we should export fish, and we already do so to a very large extent. When I say "to a large extent", I think that I am right in saying that it is in the order off £155 million of fish that we export, and the Sea Fish Authority will be concerned about, and will look for, increased export opportunities. But of course the real effort must come from the individuals who want to do the trade.
My noble friend Lord Stodart of Leaston was concerned about withdrawal prices. There are Community withdrawal prices in the main species of interest to our fishermen. My noble friend asked, are they the same throughout the Community? The withdrawal prices are the same in European units of account (ECUs), but of course when they are translated into national currencies by the green rates there can be differences. They are set each year, taking into account a number of factors that are set down in the Treaty of Rome and in the Community's marketing regulations for fish. Therefore, the situation is similar to that in regard to agriculture.
The Government's aim has been to get guide prices set at realistic levels. We accept that in some cases they remain lower than we would wish, but fixing prices for fish involves a measure of compromise between conflicting views on where prices should be fixed; and in that regard it is just like agriculture. The guide prices for cod, for example, have been increased by 58 per cent. since 1979. The Commission is considering setting in hand an in-depth study of guide prices and their effect on prices in the open market. The aim is to provide a better basis for the decisions. We welcome this proposal, and I am confident that it will help in our efforts to see that guide prices are set at realistic levels.
My noble friend Lord Kinnoull asked, was there to be a consultation document? Discussions with the industry on what needs to be done to restructure the United Kingdom industry, and how to set about that, using the European Community schemes which have now been agreed, will begin as soon as possible.
My noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hornsby-Smith, referred in terms of genuine anxiety to the foreign vessels that are registered in the United Kingdom. I was interested to hear about the triplication of skippers, which I did not know about previously. The noble Baroness, Lady Hornsby-Smith, drew that to our attention, and I think that it is very valuable information. This is a very genuine worry; I accept that. These vessels come largely from Spain, and my right honourable friend is pressing ahead urgently with plans at national and Community level to find a solution to the problem. I hope that the solution is not too far away, and in the meantime we are monitoring the situation very carefully.
Reference was made earlier to the position with regard to North Sea cod—the 2,000 tonnes for Denmark. This is a stock that is shared between the European Community and Norway, and catches for the two parties are mutually agreed annually. The EEC total is further subdivided between the member states. Our percentage of North Sea cod is unaffected by the special limited deal with Denmark for 2,000 tonnes
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over three years. Our percentage will last for 20 years at least. With regard to the mackerel for Denmark from Norway, the agreement is that up to 25,000 tonnes will be found for Denmark from the annual agreements with third countries; but Denmark have renounced all their claims to western mackerel; that is, the stock in which the United Kingdom fishermen are primarily interested.
My noble friend Lord Kinnoull referred to the role of the trawlers in the Falklands. The five freezer trawlers which went to the Falklands played a very valuable role and I should like to pay tribute to those men who were involved. I have no doubt that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Defence is aware of the important part which these fishing vessels and others like them can play, have played and may play in the future in any similar role. My tribute would go out to them and to the men who manned them for what they did.
My noble friend asked whether there was any possibility of encouraging fishing within the Falkland Islands. I think I can best reply to him by quoting the words of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when he said of the Shackleton proposal for exploratory off-shore fishing and the establishment of a 200-mile fishing limit,
"The implications of such a limit, not least its policing and the degree of commercial interests in fishing need to be carefully assessed".
He went on:
"We want to see the possibilities of fishing explored much more widely. We are considering how best to do that. There should be further studies before we put any money into that venture. We hope that it will turn out to have good prospects. But that remains to be seen".
My noble friend also asked—as did another noble Lord, whose name, I regret, escapes me—about the position with regard to monitoring the reserves of our fish. The International Council for Exploration of the Sea, which is a scientific body, makes annual reports on the state of fish stocks and these are being monitored very carefully.
As a result of all this, I think it can be said that for the first time for many years fishing will have a secure future, a future in which fishermen will be able to make rational and responsible decisions in the full knowledge of what the rules of the game will be. It will also enable the Government, and all Governments in the future, to pursue policies which will enable our fishermen to try to earn a reasonable living. it has been a long, hard slog to get to this point. At times, many wondered whether it would ever be possible. I think it is no small triumph, not just for the United Kingdom, but for the Community as a whole, that persistence and understanding have paid off and that there is now agreement between all.
It is far too easy to vilify the Community and its shortcomings; it seems to be a fashionable thing to do. But this agreement shows yet again that conflicting interests can, by patience, understanding and negotiation, he translated into harmony. I should like to add my tribute to those which have already been expressed to my right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture, to his Minister of State and to the Secretary of State for Scotland for the very substantial

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part that they have all played in ensuring the success of both the Community and our fishing industry.
5.43 p.m.
The Earl of Kinnoull: My Lords, I am extremely grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part, both for enriching the debate and for the brevity and quality of their contributions. There is a little time left on the clock but your Lordships will be relieved to hear that I do not intend to take it up. The timing of the debate, sadly, I can take no credit for; I wish I could. But I think the limitation has made it the more stimulating. I was concerned after we had spent 40 minutes on the Statement that it was somewhat eating into our time, but, of course, it did not actually affect it.
I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Elles for putting the record straight over Captain Kirk. I am glad to hear that she did not support his efforts. I, too, wondered about his temerity in putting out to sea in a force 12 gale and drew the, obviously wrong, conclusion that no sensible fisherman would go out in such seas. I should like warmly to congratulate my noble friend Lord Ferrers on the achievement of the agreement today, and for the very helpful and sympathetic reply he has given. I was very glad indeed to see the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, present to hear that Statement, and to hear the moving tribute he made to it.
I believe that the message that goes out is that there is a lot to be done within this agreement to see that it works in practice and does not just look good on paper. I wish the industry well and trust that the high hopes expressed today about the agreement are achieved. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

The National Health Service: Conditions of Employment
5.45 p.m.
Lord Molloyrose to call attention to the need to improve conditions of employment for staff in the National Health Service; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg leave to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper and to say immediately that I believe that it behoves us all in Parliament, as well as the Secretaries of State and Ministers of State, constantly to ask ourselves of our great National Health Service: How good is the service at the moment, and how much have we adhered to the command of Parliament when on 5th July 1948 Aneurin Bevan introduced this great service which was,
"To promote the establishment in England and Wales of a comprehensive Health Service designed to secure improvement in the physical and mental health of the people of England and Wales and the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of illnesses and for that purpose to provide or secure effective provisions of services in accordance with the provisions of this Act"?
Of course, there was a similar Act to apply to Scotland.
In this connection I take the view that a vital element in Great Britain's National Health Service is all those who work and serve in it. The purpose of this
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debate is to draw attention to the conditions of service under which they work and to hope that some of the irritations which I believe exist, and which are brought to the attention of your Lordships' House, will be noted by the Ministers who have responsibility. I believe that we ought to do this pretty regularly. We cannot, on the one hand, say that we are proud of this great service, a service of which the rest of the world is jealous and which many have tried to emulate, without saying that Britain created it and that we in Britain have a responsibility, to maintain its fundamental principles and look after the staff that serve it.
The National Health Service, with regard to its manpower resources, has to compete for staff with other services in industry. In consequence, I believe there is a responsibility on those at all levels of management to see to it that there are proper career prospects for those who contemplate joining the service and that when they do join the service every effort is made to see that they have job satisfaction. I believe that there must be fair and just remuneration at all levels and that we must endeavour to remove irritations. These may appear trivial to us, but to the people working in the service they are irritants which they believe can be removed.
I should like to give two small examples. Time will not permit me to go into details. First, we in this country are proud of our great emergency services. When there is a fire, the fire service is involved, the police are involved, and sometimes poignantly also involved are those who man the ambulance services. Upon them often rests the ultimate responsibility, when the fire is put out and order is restored, for the succour of the injured and the prevention of death. Yet the ambulancemen in this tripartite service feel most aggrieved because their remuneration is at a much lower level than that for others in the service.
There is a similar situation with regard to the nurses' pay. Why is it that agency nurses recruited from outside, with possibly the same qualifications, are paid a higher rate than the nurses who go directly into the National Health Service? I submit that there is something wrong. There is the rake-off for the agency, which takes a week's or a couple of weeks' initial pay, but the agency nurse is paid more than the National Health Service nurse. I submit that, in all fairness, this should be looked at.
My next point refers to part-time staff. Most part-time staff in the National Health Service are women and the overwhelming majority are ex-full-time staff with qualifications; and of course they play a vital and most important role. But there are dangers and problems because of this to all staff. It has been drawn to my attention that particularly some managements are inclined to tailor the duties of the full-time staff to suit the part-time staff. I frankly admit that this is a very tricky situation, but I believe it is getting so serious. We have two excellent parts of the service; part-time nurses with full qualifications and full-time nurses with full qualifications; but, despite certain attitudes, surely local managements can work out a scheme which would be acceptable to both. This situation could be eased if there was much more genuine, real consultation and examination at hospital level.

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We must acknowledge first that both the part-time nurse or sister and the full-time nurse or sister are required. We must take advantage of their abilities to serve and use them to the full, but I believe that this can be best done by effective and planned use, by sensible hospital management. I should like to submit this proposition to the Minister who will reply. As I have already said, a large majority of the part-time nurses and sisters are married women. Some of them have children. Why can we not go back to the days of the initial conception of this great service when in the larger hospitals at least crèches were provided so that these women could take their small children with them and have them looked after? Bearing in mind their contribution to the sick, the maimed, the wounded and the ill, I believe that that is something which is well worth doing.
I turn now to the proportion of nurses in training. This varies from year to year and because it varies from year to year it is bound to have an effect when ultimately a state enrolled nurse, a state registered nurse, or a state certified midwife becomes qualified to operate in her capacity, or his capacity, in full sway. Sometimes there are tricky moments or, more than moments, there are tricky months when the supply is not quite ready to fill the gaps. This fluctuation is causing concern, I believe, because the gap between the trainee nurse and the student nurse becoming a state enrolled or state registered nurse can create difficulties for the service. I believe that that is something which should command our attention.
I was saying a moment ago that much of the part-time staff consists of married women, who nevertheless are very important to the service. Of course, because they are married women, from time to time many of them have babies. That has been going on for millions of years, not only in the Health Service. The fact of the matter is that when we look at the statistics marriage and childbirth account for no less than half of these magnificent women leaving nursing. I believe, therefore, that recruitment should be a constantly on-going thing. There should be much more propaganda and explanation. There should be much more—to use the word in its proper sense—enticement for young people to enter the service.
I turn briefly to the situation regarding general practitioners. There seems to be very slow progress in assuring this great service that it will always have sufficient GPs for the future. I leave it at that, but it is a very important aspect of the NHS. I have to say that there is a danger of our not having enough general practitioners in the not too distant future. It would appear that the medical staffs in hospitals have a much more encouraging result in their recruitment than that for general practitioners.
Allied to these problems is the location of medical schools. From my researches I must give credit to those concerned in Scotland. The Scots seem to do amazingly well, but here in England and Wales it is not so good. A high proportion of medical staff are trained in London. I want to say immediately that the teaching hospitals in this great metropolis are excellent. But I believe that there is a need to give much more consideration to the provinces. They are entitled, and indeed I believe they want, to provide their centres of
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excellence. This is another thing which is very difficult. This particular aspect is not necessarily the responsibility of the NHS. But whose is it? Where does the responsibility for liaison rest so that we can see more teaching hospitals and more centres of training in the provinces as well as in London?
I refer now to the labyrinth of responsibility for administering and financing training. First we have the General Nursing Council. Then we have the Central Midwives Boards. Doctors and dentists train in various medical and dental schools, all funded by the Department of Education and Science, via the University Grants Committee. Opticians and pharmacists are also graduate professions. Therefore, it is easy to see that the situation is somewhat confusing, particularly when one considers the supplementary and allied grades to medicine such as, for example, dieticians, physiotherapists, remedial gymnasts, orthoptists, chiropodists, radiographers, and speech therapists—all vital segments of this great service where the initial source of training is incredibly varied and involved.
It involves certain NHS schools, local education authorities, universities, polytechnics and colleges of further education. In some instances such training is a mixture of two or three of such establishments. I concede immediately that there is no real chaos, but I believe that there is a need to abolish the confusion that arises from time to time, and that perhaps there is a case for a more logical system of training in the interests of both the staff of the NHS and the staff of all those who train them when they are pupils.
Briefly I want to refer to an issue that concerns consultants. I must confess that I do not know a great deal about it. I have tried to follow some of the arguments that have been put to me. Although I do not understand these arguments fully, they are put to me by people who know a great deal about the subject. I therefore feel it is right and proper to draw this issue to the attention of your Lordships' House. It is that much irritation is caused by what is called the distinction award system. Even to people with knowledge who have spent a great deal of their lives within the National Health Service the consultation distinction award system has a peculiar mystery about it. Let us unravel it and find out what it is all about. That can only be done by the representatives of the Government. There is a feeling in the service of favouritism, and sometimes injustice.
I shall not take up time talking about the drugs bill. All I ask the Minister is this. Is it true that almost 50 per cent. of the cost of the NHS goes on drugs? He will probably be aware of the massive press and TV campaign that has been going on, and of comments and specific programmes on the wireless, on TV and in our newspapers, all revealing—and there is only one way of expressing it—an appalling, distressing scandal on the issue of drugs for the National Health Service. I believe that this must be investigated, as it is causing public concern.
I turn now briefly to the issue of morale. Morale in our National Health Service, both in hospitals and special units, has been affected by the attitude of the Government in their policy regarding closing hospitals and special units. I shall tell your Lordships what the staff suffer from—and I speak with some authority: I

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am very close to a vast range of them. It is rumours to close a hospital, proposals to close a hospital and actually closing a hospital. This is very serious indeed. It is not only bad for our people, it is bad for the nurses, doctors, consultants and specialists that serve in these hospitals.
When there is a rumour that one hospital is going to be closed, there is in microcosm the whole sector of our National Health Service, anxious, worried and wondering whether they now are going to be dispensed with and join the dole queue. I am bound to say this Government seems bent on increasing the numbers in the dole queue every month that goes by. It will be a very sorrowful thing if we put people who work in this service in the position that they should be worried. I am empowered to say that if she had been able to attend the House the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, would have made a similar point regarding morale, and how morale is being affected by the threats of closure, or actual closure, of many of our hospitals.
I wish to conclude by saying that this great service of ours in the field or preventive and curative medicine is naturally linked to caring with compassion. It is unique, not in Britain's history but in mankind's history, and can only be of tip-top excellency through the devotion of the staff that serve it. I believe that all in this House and in another place, and all who value and are concerned and involved with Britain's National Health Service, have a responsibility to be concerned about the welfare of its staff, and that they should command our constant attention at all times.
6.3 p.m.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, has raised a matter of immense concern to all noble Lords who have the interests of the National Health Service at heart—and I like to hope that that means all noble Lords in the House. In that case, we should all be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, for raising the matter. Before I cover rather different points than those which were raised by the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, I should like to underline one or two of the matters to which he has alluded.
First of all, he referred to the question of the number of general practitioners and the importance of ensuring that we perpetually have an adequate number of general practitioners. All I would say at this stage in that connection is that it seems very odd to me that at the moment there should be something like 300 or 400 would-be general practitioners unemployed —the Minister will know the actual number—when in point of fact it is extremely difficult in certain urban areas for patients to get on a general practitioner's list at all. That is a matter which we can pursue at some length, but it is worth underlining.
I should also like to emphasise what the noble Lord said about morale. He is right, morale at the moment has sunk fairly low. There is a lot of uncertainty, doubt, fear and speculation. I cannot offer ways in which morale could be restored overnight, but in my recollection morale seems to have sunk a little in the service ever since the days when we actually had a Minister of Health responsible for the National Health Service, and sitting in the Cabinet, with Cabinet status. I tend to believe that the movement and the establish
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ment of this conglomerate of a Secretary of State for Health and Social Security with responsibility for pensions, and for all sorts of matters which are very much Treasury matters rather than health matters, has not had an altogether good effect. I recollect one Minister of Health—almost the last who was solely Minister of Health; Mr. Enoch Powell—who spent a lot of time every year sending out a personal letter to all National Health Service employees with the object of raising their morale. I noticed that later Ministers did not do that. Perhaps they had run out of things to say. I feel that had we still had a Minister with specific responsibility for the National Health Service, perhaps morale might have remained a little higher than it now is.
We are dealing here with Britain's largest and most complicated industry; an industry in which relations between managers and staff are generally good. In that industry the "we" and "they" attitudes are much less marked than in industry as a whole. The great majority of staff at all levels have a sense of identification with the purpose of the National Health Service, and they take pride in their own contribution to serving people. That has always been a factor in recruitment. When jobs were plentiful, those in the National Health Service were generally less well paid than those on offer elsewhere, but vacancies were filled. To maintain or restore that situation we must attend to some of the anomalies of the kind to which the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, pointed.
We must surely do something to try to restore team spirit. I think a fairly savage blow was dealt to team spirit at the time that we had the settlement of the last dispute in which it appeared—only appeared—that the Government were seeking to drive a wedge between different workers in the industry; people who ought ideally to be working closely together in partnership.
There are many individual groups of workers who feel aggrieved in one way or another. The noble Lord, Lord Molloy, has referred to several; I shall refer to one other example. He touched on it briefly. That is the situation of auxiliary nurses. My attention has been drawn to a report in the Nursing Times of 22nd December which refers to a new report on the European region issued by the World Health Organisation which calls for improved status and improved recognition of auxiliary nurses within our health service here in Britain. I have not had an opportunity to inquire into the details of that, but if the World Health Organisation is sufficiently concerned to issue a report about it, surely we should be sufficiently concerned to have a look at it and see whether we can do something about it.
The noble Lord, Lord Molloy, has exercised a masterly restraint in making almost no reference to pay. I cannot continue to be quite so restrained, because I believe that while morale may be good in certain areas, and while there may be many causes for resentment, if there is resentment basically about pay, the way in which pay is settled and about anomalies in methods of pay, whatever is done about the other things, that resentment and dissatisfaction will remain. So we ought to turn our attention a little to pay. It is my view that the best method of ensuring fair treatment for public service employees on a

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permanent basis would be by establishing comparability based on job evaluation. That theme was developed very fully by Mr. Aubrey Jones in his publication, Reform of Pay Determination.
In thinking about pay, we must consider basic rates of pay rather than take-home pay. This contributes to the problem. Basic rates in the National Health Service have often been too low to permit recruitment of staff of adequate calibre, particularly male staff, unless those basic rates are enhanced by overtime and other payments. For example, the basic pay of a porter, in ASC Group 3, is very little over £60 a week for 40 hours: of course, his actual take-home pay is very much greater. Ideally, a higher proportion of earnings should come from improved basic rates and a lower proportion from enhancement for working at weekends and on public holidays. Surely overtime should be reduced to a minimum and used only in exceptional circumstances. It seems to me that, with something approaching three and a half million people unemployed, it would be far preferable to increase target levels and reduce the hours worked.
Attention has been drawn recently to an example occurring within British Rail. I am reliably informed that at the moment, because British Rail have ceased recruiting into certain jobs, they are paying more money out in overtime to certain existing staff members than they would in fact have had to pay to somebody newly recruited. If recruitment had continued, those people would in addition have been taken off the dole. So I hope that when we think about pay we shall think in the main of improving basic rates.
In this connection, I think we ought also to look at Whitley Councils. The Whitley Council machinery is very much at the heart of the whole pay structure in the health service. It is my view that the machinery has not worked all that effectively. Failures of the Whitley Council system have produced delays, anomalies and inconsistencies. In addition, I think that managers in the service have become exasperated by inept handling of negotiations at departmental level. Perhaps I may take one contemporary example, where at departmental level there has been interference with the Whitley Council negotiations in a new kind of deal. The Guardian, in referring to a deal which was done with junior hospital doctors some time ago in 1978, had this to say:
"The deal which was agreed for the juniors has cost twice as much as was expected, basically because various consequences which were predictable were never predicted. The result has been a fiasco, with some junior doctors earning more than consultants. That has created unnecessary bitterness and envy within the profession, distorted the staff structure and left the National Health Service with less resources for other services."
Let me now say a few words about the history of the Whitley Councils. At the outset, the bodies purporting to represent the staff concerned were allowed to settle among themselves the allocation of seats on the staff side of the appropriate Whitley Councils. No yardstick for membership seems to have been applied, and some tenuous claims for representation were accepted. In the early days, when the important thing was to get the system started, this was perhaps understandable. Subsequently, Ministers have always maintained that claims by staff organisations to be represented on a Whitley Council were a matter for the staff side alone
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and have refused to intervene when complaints of lack of proper representation have been made. Because no other organisation can gain a seat on the staff side of a Whitley Council without the consent of the existing members of that side, the existing staff organisations hold a self-perpetuating monopoly of representation on the Whitley Councils. Membership of the staff side of a Whitley Council confers recognition for other purposes which is denied to other staff organisations. For example, individuals can appeal against grading to regional or national appeals committes only through an organisation represented on the appropriate Whitley Council. At hospital level, staff representatives on joint consultative committees must be members of an organisation represented on the Whitley Councils.
We are clearly dealing with the whole question of pay and we must look at the whole Whitley Council machinery, which is in need of repair. I think I must say here and now that I personally do not believe that there is any way in which we can legislate to stop strikes. Some countries on the other side of the Iron Curtain have tried. There are some countries where there are no strikes at all, but if we looked we should tend to find that productivity in those countries was very, very low indeed, and I think attempts to stop strikes by legislation are doomed to failure. Neither can we legislate to make people happy and contented at work. But there would be less discontent if a method of pay determination could be found which was fair and equitable. That is the sort of matter on which we must focus our attention.
Many thoughts have been given to this. What should we do? I think it will be no secret to many noble Lords here that many of my colleagues on these Benches believe that in this country we should be moving towards a statutory incomes policy. Lest noble Lords should say, "We have tried that and it did not work", let me say at once that it has never been tried by anybody who believed in it. Mr. Wilson's Government, who did not believe in a statutory incomes policy, and said so, tried to introduce one. Later, Mr. Heath's Government, who also said they did not believe in a statutory incomes policy and were not going to have one, tried to introduce one. Is it any wonder that when one was introduced it did not work? So I still say that this is something we must look at. But, if not, we cannot legislate for just one sector of the community: the public sector. We cannot move in and have an incomes policy just for public sector workers and not for anybody else.
What, then, must we do? I shall try to be brief, my Lords. The Megaw Report, dealing with nonindustrial civil servants, has suggested a possible means of dealing with the whole matter of pay within the National Health Service—a means which they suggest should be applied to non-industrial civil servants. It seems to me that the methods recommended there might with advantage be applied to workers within the National Health Service.
If we are not going to follow that route, we must look for another, and I think it would be right to remind your Lordships of what my noble friend Lord Rochester said during the debate on the gracious Speech when he referred, on 10th November 1982, at col. 285, to a method he was thinking about. I will

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quote from what he said. He recommended the establishment of an independent standing commission,
"distinguished from a mere arbitrating body by being empowered to call for evidence other than that of the parties themselves. It could also be required to give reasons for the awards it made … Might not members of the Commission be chosen not by the Government of the day but by an electoral college established by statute? … That would ensure that it was independent, that there was continuity of office for its members and that it was acceptable to the Government, the main Opposition parties and to organisations representing both employers and trade unions. Only thus would it be reasonable to expect people in these key occupations to repose sufficient confidence in such a body to give the necessary prior undertakings that its findings would be observed.
"The right of such people to withdraw their labour would not thus be outlawed; rather they would voluntarily surrender that right in return for the privilege conferred on them. If subsequently they failed to honour the undertaking the privilege would be withdrawn … There would be the need for a corresponding commitment on the part of the Government to accept the findings of the commission, withdrawal by the Government being possible only after the passing of a resolution to that effect by both Houses of Parliament, who must remain the sovereign authority".
I do not say that that idea, which has not been fully thought out, would necessarily work, but, if we are not going to take up what Megaw recommended or move to a statutory incomes policy, we must look for an alternative, and if we do not do so I am quite sure that we shall be in very great difficulty.
I really must conclude, but I should like to say before I sit down that there is rather too much talk about the National Health Service being full of administrators. I wonder, my Lords. I think that, if we really look at all the administrators, we shall find that administrative workers within the Health Service are only about 5 per cent. of the whole. The vast majority of them are people like ward clerks, medical secretaries and people very closely involved with patient care. This idea that the health service is bursting with idle bureaucrats is misleading, I believe. If you want to find bureaucrats, I believe the place to look is the Elephant and Castle. If the Government would genuinely devolve power to the family practitioner committees, the area health authorities and the district health authorities, we should then find that the administrators we have got, who are very capable, would be able to do a very much better job if they had not got other people on their backs. We should also find that we could save quite a lot of money.
Finally, we really must iron out anomalies regarding superannuation, grading, recognition, opportunities to earn overtime, status and that kind of thing, and we must try in the service to recapture the team spirit. We must sort out and reform the Whitley Council machinery, which is creaking badly, and we must take steps to establish a new and genuinely independent method of pay determination in which all parties have confidence. That will not be easy, but it is essential that we should try.
6.20 p.m.
Lord Auckland: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, for having, in a thought-provoking speech, initiated this important short debate. Though my noble friends may not agree with all of his conclusions, that does not in any way
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minimise the importance of the topic which he has raised. I should like to correct one point which is often made quite erroneously; that is, that those of us who sit on this side of the House are against the National Health Service. That is very far from true. As many of your Lordships will know, I have served on hospital committees in both paediatric hospitals and mental hospitals. My late uncle, my father, my mother and others in my family did the same, both under the National Health Service and before it. I happen to believe, as I think most parliamentarians do in all sections of both Houses, in the need for a strong and effective health service.
I do not intend to go into the realms of private medicine in the course of this debate; that is not part of the subject under discussion. Suffice it to say that I believe there is a place for both private medicine and the National Health Service in this country; and, indeed, the two services exist in almost every country in the world, including the East European bloc. Having said that, I should like to ask my noble friend one or two questions of which I have given him very short notice, for which I have apologised.
One factor is that if a nurse, particularly a staff nurse, has a baby her job is kept open at the hospital for only 18 weeks. I know that this has been a longstanding arrangement and I can see certain reasons for it. I have an interest to declare here, because I have a daughter who is shortly to have her first baby and who is a staff nurse at a hospital not so many miles from here. Though I say it myself, she is a very conscientious nurse doing a course in obstetrics. The trained nurses are the really devoted ones, particularly if they have had a baby themselves. This gives them more experience, not only in obstetrics but in other forms of nursing. So I wonder whether, despite the fact that nurse recruitment is on the increase in this country, particularly in our teaching hospitals, there is a wastage (if I may use that word) of a lot of very good talent because of this rather inflexible ruling.
I turn for a moment to the problem of accommodation, which is very much linked with this subject. It is true that only a very small percentage of nurses live in nurses' homes; they are largely nurses from overseas. But there are some student nurses, particularly in the very early stages, who live in nurses' homes. Some of the homes are very modern and very well equipped, but others are very old. I have mentioned this point before, and I am sure that my noble friend has taken on board some of the points which I have made in previous debates. But I believe that this is a very important topic.
My understanding is that something like £600-plus a year is paid by a student nurse for accommodation charges in a nurses' home. The amount may vary according to the area or the condition of the home—and, certainly. the latter is something which should not be quarrelled with. But that charge together with the cost of food—which, admittedly, they agreed some years ago to pay for themselves—of laundry, which is another very important expense, and of shoe repairs, cuts very much into the salary which they are paid. There is an urgent need for this matter to be looked into, whether by the Whitley Council or some other body. I am not a medically qualified person, while there are a number of distinguished medically

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qualified noble Lords who are to speak in this debate, but I believe that this point is of some importance.
I should like to say one or two words about medical schools, to which the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, referred. It seems that, in our hospital building programme, we have only one new university hospital and that is in Nottingham. Are any more planned? I read in yesterday's papers—it was certainly in the Financial Times—about a fairly large amount of money being spent on hospital improvements. I believe that these relate to buildings, and that is fine. But I should like to ask my noble friend—I have not given him notice of this question—how much of this money will be spent on hospital equipment, kidney machines, chemotherapy machines and other equipment to deal with the scourges of kidney disease, cancer of the blood and so on. This is all linked with this question.
If the staff of these hospitals know that they will get modern equipment, which they can use for these diseases, then morale, which has been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, will improve enormously. I do not necessarily accept, from my experience of National Health Service hospitals, that morale is very low at the present time; it varies very much from hospital to hospital. But there is no doubt that in some hospitals there is a feeling of depression.
That brings me to the whole question of the recent dispute. Much has been said about that and I do not think anybody wants to rake over old embers. I would only make this one controversial point. I believe it was rather unfortunate that the pay of nurses and the pay of ancillary workers were linked together. That is not to say that the ancillary workers did not deserve an increase in pay, and I want to make that quite clear. But I believe that nurses' pay was, and is, of paramount importance. The increase which they have received is a reasonable one, in view of the prevailing economic condition. Far be it from me or anybody else to say that they are overpaid: they will never be; they never can be. But I believe that the settlement, painful as the situation was in trying to reach it, is in the present climate at least reasonably fair.
We have to look to the future and improve the channels of communication. Much of the problem lies here in that the nurses, particularly the senior nurses and the representatives of nurses on the various councils, are not themselves sufficiently informed about the situation. This is a problem which has faced all Governments, and I believe that the present Government could well look into it.
I conclude with a passage from the admirable Royal Commission, chaired by Sir Alec Merrison, in 1979–and heaven save us from any more Royal Commissions. We want action, not Royal Commissions. But this was a very sound one, and it said:
"One aspect of the National Health Service which is unlikely to change is the importance of its staff. By nature, the National Health Service is labour intensive and this places a special responsibility on it to enable its members to make an effective contribution".
I hope that at the Elephant and Castle, whoever is in tenure, that will be pinned upon the wall.
6.32 p.m.
Lord Hunter of Newington: My Lords, I, too, should like to express my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, for giving us the opportunity to debate this important matter and for expressing the great concern which I know he feels, and which many of us feel, about many aspects of it.
I spent a good many years attending the manpower committee of the National Health Service, which was concerned with medical staffing. This has always been a source of anxiety. The training of doctors and the provision of the right balance of experience, education and work presents difficulties. There is now—I think rightly—increasing control from the centre. As noble Lords may have read, it is proposed that consultant staffing should be increased over a period of time and that the trainee grades should be reduced to a level which gives doctors a reasonable prospect of career fulfilment. The noble Lord, Lord Molloy, mentioned the distinction award system. It will be helpful to your Lordships if I read a very brief section of the Pilkington Report of 1960, which looked at this system 12 years after it came into operation, because it summarises the reasons for the system:
"Two common methods of securing differentiation of income are not open to the consultant so far as his health service work is concerned. Unlike some professional men in private practice, he cannot vary his fees in accordance with his professional standing, and unlike the salaried employee in most fields he cannot look forward to promotion. In these circumstances, we consider the award system a practical and imaginative way of securing a reasonable differentiation of income and of providing relatively high earnings for a significant minority, to which the Spence Committee, who originally recommended this, referred. We therefore unreservedly support the continuation of the system."
Somewhere in the region of one-third of doctors are paid additional salaries for the reasons which have been mentioned.
I should like to say a word or two about the nurses, but first let me say a little about the background to the situation and the present state of the health service. In December 1979 the present Government set out their plans for devolving power to local health services. The document was called Patients First. There was to be minimal interference by any central authority. In contrast, two major select committees in another place urged more centralised policies. The Select Committee on Public Expenditure criticised the department's failure to evolve a coherent social policy, and, under pressure from the Public Accounts Committee, the Secretary of State in 1982 tightened central control of regional health authority spending by requiring annual reviews of long-term plans. The new district authorities, which had only begun to settle down to Patients First, would in future be strictly accountable to the regional hospital chairmen.
The implication of this seems to be that health authorities will have greater autonomy to decide how to follow central policy and that hospital medical and surgical services will be strictly monitored by the regional health authorities. But the line between administration and policy is not clear. Perhaps it does not exist. The health service is in a state of flux. Its hands are tied in many ways and it is struggling to make attempts to control expenditure by the whole of the service, including control of expenditure by doctors.

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The point about all this is that, on top of a second reorganisation of the health service in 10 years, the distinction between administration and policy remains unclear and that attempts at determining a priority list of clinical services remain in a somewhat primitive and ineffectual state. It could be argued that this affects the morale of the health authorities and the hospital staff. Uncertainty is infectious and it may have contributed to the events of the past year. The turbulence of reorganisation has sadly affected administrative staff. Some of the ablest, sick of it all, have taken retirement in their fifties. Applying for one's own job is not conducive to effective administration.
May I now say a word about the nurses? Sick and worried people turn to the National Health Service for help, sympathy and understanding. Many of them feel more able to talk to nurses than to doctors. And, if they are ill, it is the attention of nurses which is the most important of all. Such is the nature of things that the front-line staff of the National Health Service are doctors and nurses. Other staff are vitally important, though their jobs may be in a supporting role. Mainly, they do not take direct responsibility for the sick, nor are they trained to do so.
Traditionally, people looking after the sick do not take industrial action. The recent action is, I believe, a blemish on the reputation of health service staff. What happened is simple. If you have no responsibilities, or few, for the sick, you can convince yourself that you can do this. It is extraordinary how callous a caring society can be. The definition of emergencies and cases that can be delayed are made by people without medical knowledge. Doctors and experienced nurses are more often wrong in deciding this than they would wish to be. What of others?
The effect of industrial action in the health service was to make the jobs of doctors and nurses more difficult while they continued to take responsibility for the sick. This was only possible because the nurses refused to strike. So the strikers could continue in their action, safe in the knowledge that the nurses were looking after the patients. And the nurses, to my knowledge, never complained. They did their job. In spite of this, people died, and many suffered immensely.
Even now, waiting lists are twice as long as they should be. Do the Government intend to give any advice to the health service authorities that this backlog should have priority, even to the extent of delaying much needed improvements in the care of the elderly and the mentally handicapped? One wonders whether the Secretary of State is in a dilemma in discharging his responsibilities for social services. Care of the mentally handicapped is not a therapeutic service and should fall squarely on the social services. Does the noble Lord the Minister not agree?
One result of the dispute in the National Health Service was the establishment of a review body for nurses to settle their pay in future. My own profession has had its pay determined in this way for the past 12 years. The results have not always been to the liking of the profession but, by and large, this system is acceptable to most of us and preferable to the alternatives. I
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believe that most people in the National Health Service will welcome the extension of this system to nurses, thus recognising their status among the caring professions. Her Majesty's Government are to be congratulated on taking this particular initiative in the course of the dispute, and they have the right to be believed when they say, in reply to certain cynics, that they would not have set up such a body simply to overrule its findings. I hope and expect that the actions of the Government will match their words.
Finally, whatever the rights and wrongs of the arguments on either side of the pay dispute, there is one aspect that has received little comment. As a newsworthy item the dispute came to an end a week or so before Christmas. Since then there have been various reports of this, that and the other settlement reached for different staff groups. These should serve to remind us that although there was agreement at that time on the total amount of money to be made available for pay, the translation of that into new pay rates for the vast array of National Health Service staff has still to be accomplished.
As has been said in the House tonight, we often forget how complex a body of staff the National Health Service comprises. My understanding is that this process is virtually complete. It must be much to the credit of management side negotiations that this task has been completed in so short a time, especially with Christmas intervening. To a large extent, the negotiators are unpaid members of health authorities up and down the country, who have many calls on their time but who have clearly done a most responsible job in a very short time. I hope that the noble Lord the Minister will find a suitable way of thanking them for their efforts.
6.42 p.m.
Lord Perry of Walton: My Lords, we all agree that there is clearly a need to improve conditions of service in the National Health Service, but which conditions are most in need of improvement? I wish to emphasise only one point. There is an abundance of evidence that morale among all grades of staff is low. There are many reasons for this, some of which have been mentioned, and no doubt they vary greatly between grades of staff and between places. But despite the recent industrial dispute, I think that rates of pay in themselves are not the most important.
As the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, said, it has always been true that in the medical and paramedical professions or vocations satisfaction in the job done is far more important than the reward, monetary or otherwise, for doing it. But job satisfaction can be strained when staff are trying to do that job under difficulties which they see as being unnecessary. Sometimes they are doing the job in buildings which are decaying or are ill-cared for; sometimes they are doing it with inadequate equipment; sometimes with colleagues who are apathetic or frankly uncooperative. Furthermore, as the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, pointed out, National Health Service staff are at present working in a service which is seen to be under threat. Everywhere the local press is full of reports about local cuts in services and facilities, and there are frequently fears of redundancy. This

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situation is not calculated to build confidence and enthusiasm.
A further factor affecting morale was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Hunter of Newington, and that is the uncertainty engendered by the second major reorganisation of the service. One other really important point that has not yet been mentioned (but I mentioned it in the last debate on this subject in your Lordships' House) is that there are no leaders to help counteract these influences. In no hospital is there any one person who is fully responsible and accountable for all that goes on. There is, instead, a committee. Committees seldom give leadership.
We are supposed to have a comprehensive health service, but no one has defined what "comprehensive" means. Let me give an example, albeit perhaps a silly one. If a hospital is equipped in its emergency department to cope with two concurrent emergencies and three happen to occur at the same time to create three admissions, is there a failure to be "comprehensive"? The third patient will think so. But if a department is staffed to cope with three concurrent emergencies and for 99 per cent. of the time there is one or less, the cost to the public will be very much higher than it ought to be. In other words, there are two lines of accountability, and it is difficult to balance the one to the patient and the one to the taxpayer. To reconcile these responsibilities requires day-to-day decisions. This means a man or a woman, and not a committee.
Most organisations have found that the only efficient way of running themselves is to give one person the responsibility of making such decisions. If the confidence of the staff is lost, that person must be replaced; but if there is confidence, morale is restored and maintained. This is recognised and acted upon in business, in schools and in universities. Why is it not recognised in hospitals? However much we pay doctors, nurses and auxiliary staff, it will not substitute wholly for lack of leadership.
The same applies, as the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, said, at the very top of the service. It seems to me that there, too, there is a gap. The noble Lord suggested that when there was a Minister of Health that filled the gap a little, but I wonder if that is really enough and whether he could possibly give the leadership that is needed. If there were a restoration of leadership it might do something to reconcile the arguments about pay, if not everything. It would certainly do something to remove some of the irritations to which the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, referred. I hope the Government will give serious consideration to this particular facet of conditions of service in the National Health Service.
6.48 p.m.
Lord Rea: My Lords, the National Health Service now employs one million people, and it is one of the major sectors of Government expenditure. To keep this very large body of people content would be a major success in its own right, but we have to remember that this section of our population is paid in order to help the other 55 million of us achieve health or speedy recovery from illness where possible. While we are talking about working conditions of National
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Health Service staff, we must always view this aspect in the wider context—that they are there to give good service to the rest of the community. Good industrial relations, however, usually lead to a better product, and I am sure this applies also to the National Health Service, even though its products are so difficult to measure quantitatively.
Industrial relations in the National Health Service have gone through a bad patch in the last year. I believe that many workers in the NHS only reluctantly accepted the Government's terms, and were not particularly happy about the outcome. It could be said that the Government managed by using the old principle of divide and rule, aided by a bleak economic climate, to win this round; but I am afraid that more troubles may be brewing unless better measures —such as some of those mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley—are quickly and urgently undertaken.
In this debate I want to speak mainly about the position of doctors in the National Health Service, of which I have first-hand experience. I will touch briefly on the situation of hospital consultants and junior doctors, mention that of general practitioners, and then go on to discuss some ways in which savings and hence additional funds for the National Health Service might be found. These funds may go some way towards meeting the problems which I shall outline.
There is a great range in the rewards of the different professional group within the National Health Service. Doctors usually get about twice as much as other health professionals and three or four times as much as less skilled health workers. This is usually accepted, with varying degrees of reluctance, since doctors do make most of the expensive decisions and take final responsibility for patient care. They also have the most intensive and prolonged training. Nevertheless, resentment remains, especially if doctors in the National Health Service are also seen to be earning substantial sums in private practice, particularly of course if they use National Health Service facilities.
This led to the closing of the pay beds in 1976, a mistaken move, in my view, which I think has misfired somewhat and has been a factor in the subsequent expansion of private practice.
A further cause for resentment, and I may say some incredulity, is the unique British system of distinction awards, which has been mentioned by Lord Molloy and described by Lord Hunter. These amount to a substantial increase in salary for a group of consultants. As the noble Lord, Lord Hunter, said, about one-third of consultants hold these awards at any one point and about half will hold one at some point, usually towards the end of their career. At present A-plus awards at the top of the scale amount to very nearly the equivalent of a consultant's salary, so that those who are fortunate enough to get one of these awards practically double their income.
This merit award system was designed to retain in the National Health Service particularly able and eminent doctors who would otherwise have become part of the transatlantic brain-drain or continued in private practice. There is, however, nothing to stop a part-time National Health Service consultant from both getting a merit award and engaging in private practice. A maximum part-time consultant could

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earn, say, £20,000 as National Health Service salary, nearly £20,000 as a distinction award, and another £20,000 or so in private practice, making £60,000-odd. It is probably quite justifiable for very able doctors to earn this sort of money. Captains of industry earn far more. But it does seem to me a misuse of the original intention of the scheme, which was designed to hold especially able people for the benefit of the National Health Service. It seems to me that justice would be better served if this interesting scheme, unique in the world, could be restricted to those prepared to work all their time in the National Health Service; that is, full-time consultants.
The committee which decides who shall receive the awards meets in private and no list of award holders is published. However, some information is available and this shows that at present two-thirds of the merit awards go to those in the so-called glamour specialties such as thoracic surgery, neuro-surgery, cardiology, et cetera: the holders usually have positions in the major teaching hospitals in the big cities where there are often opportunities in any case for private practice. Only one-quarter of the awards go to those in the less popular specialties living in industrial or provincial areas where there is little opportunity for private practice. The system I feel should, if it is retained at all, show a reverse discrimination, encouraging able doctors to join unpopular specialties and to work away from the prestigious centres. Those places in themselves provide sufficient attractions for both fame and fortune.
I will now consider briefly the problems of junior hospital doctors. A new contract was negotiated some six years ago which I feel was a defeat for the Government of the day. Junior hospital doctors are now entitled to extra duty allowances; in other words, overtime, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, and the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley. They have become rather like any other industrial worker. One result has been that some registrars with responsibilities out of normal working hours can actually earn more than the consultants they are working with, whose contracts do not offer such generous overtime arrangements. To me this represents a step away from the traditional role of a doctor, who should assume the total care of his patients regardless of times of duty or other commitments.
I am fully aware of the dangers of junior hospital doctors having to make difficult decisions while working late at night, having already worked a 12-hour day. I myself have been in this position. But I do not think the solution should have been to pay them more for the extra hours worked, or for holding themselves on call. Surely the answer should have been to recognise that more hands were needed on deck; in other words, to create more junior hospital posts. Of course, this would have cost money and there would perhaps have been other snags to overcome, such as disproportion between numbers of doctors in the training and junior hospital posts and the eventual final posts available. But these are soluble problems.
There is now legislation to make sure that long-distance lorry drivers do not do more than eight hours at a stretch. Junior hospital doctors often make
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decisions which involve much risk to life, as do lorry drivers, I think all your Lordships would agree, and the Government, I feel, are perhaps shirking responsibility by allowing the very long hours which junior hospital doctors now have to work, even though they are compensated for it.
I will say little in this debate about general practitioners. Their interests as independent contractors are rather well looked after by the family practitioner committees, which I consider to be rather inward-looking bodies, shortly—if the Bill completes its Report stage next week—to have their status even further upgraded so that they are even more remote from the district health authorities and community health councils representing the population they serve. I would like to see some features of the distinction award scheme which applies to consultants applied to general practitioners. This idea was floated some 15 years ago, but general practitioners could not agree on how it should work, so the idea was dropped. I think the Department of Health itself should, in consultation with the profession, propose the criteria which should enable doctors to qualify for a special award, and these awards should go towards the provision of services which are likely to be of benefit to patients and relieve pressure on hospitals. Examples are general practitioners holding diabetic clinics or doing minor surgery in their own practice, or, in the preventive field, those who acquire special skills in child assessment, or undertake geriatric and hypertension screening.
Finally, I would like to look at ways in which doctors could save the National Health Service money, some of which could go towards creating the new posts and awards I have suggested, thus helping to remove the spectre of medical unemployment which is now looming, and also improving the service to patients. The Greenfield Report, which is to be published by the DHSS shortly, is reported to support "generic substitution" for general practitioner prescriptions. This means that if a general practitioner prescribes a proprietary drug, for example valium, (perhaps the best known of all) made by Roche—whose generic or chemical name is actually diazepam—the pharmacist will be entitled to substitute the cheapest form of diazepam which is marketed. Several manufacturers other than Roche now make this at a less cost.
Many general practitioners use the proprietary, that is, the drug manufacturer's name, because of the advertising influence of the drug companies, and because the names are more convenient or easier to remember. For example, "librium" is easier to remember than "chlordiazepoxide" or "valium" easier than "diazepam". Those of your Lordships who watched Panorama last week will have seen the intensive pressure that drug manufacturers put on doctors to prescribe their products. I receive five unwanted magazines each week, free of charge, each quite expensively produced and each of them employing staff and journalists. It has been estimated—but we await Dr. Greenfield's report—that about 10 per cent. of the cost of the general practitioner drugs bill could be saved by using this kind of generic substitution.
Incidentally, the cost of drugs prescribed by practitioners equals the cost of the rest of the primary

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care service. Doctors involved in the generic substitution scheme would still be enabled to indicate if they particularly wanted a patient to have a specific proprietary drug. There should be little controversy over this measure since hospitals already operate the system and many GPs are entirely in favour of the scheme.
I see that I have already spoken for 13 minutes, so I shall now come to a close. Some of the measures that I have suggested will lead to increased morale, possibly better distribution of talent throughout the country, and provide better services to patients, particularly preventive services. Most of the extra expenditure involved could be provided by the changes I have suggested, which would cause hardship to no one. If the drugs companies were to find the going a little bit thinner I, for one, would be relieved, because it might save the cleaners in my health centre having to empty heavy waste-paper baskets full of advertising material every day.
7.1 p.m.
Lord Harris of High Cross: My Lords, I join with other speakers in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, for this opportunity of discussing ways of improving conditions of employment for staff in the National Health Service. I fear that he will think it a poor return that I should, from the Cross-Benches, adopt a radically different approach from his own. Despite his enumeration of irritations and discontents, I believe that he tended, perhaps untypically, towards complacency in this matter.
On training, he spoke, if I remember correctly, of the "labyrinth of responsibilities" which was something short of what he called "real chaos". I believe that such criticisms might apply more widely throughout this over-centralised service. Plainly there is much discontent among the staff and many previous speakers have talked about the poor morale that has developed.
It was left to the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, to introduce the question of improving pay. I think we must face the fact that successive Governments, both Labour and Conservative, have badly mismanaged the whole issue of public pay. All the trade union talk about negotiations, comparability and arbitration has, in my view, served, like the patter of conjurors, to conceal the great levitation act of raising labour costs throughout the public sector without bringing great content in its train.
Nowhere are the deplorable results more evident than in the National Health Service. The official figures could hardly be more damaging. Since 1960, staff numbers have more than doubled from 565,000 to above 1¼ million. The average cost of each worker in 1981–82 was just under £7,000, and, of the total current expenditure of £11 billion last year, 75 per cent. was on wages and salaries.
I would guess that the National Health Service is the largest employer of labour, not only in Britain but in the whole of the free world, yet all the evidence points to a deplorable lack of skill in the crucial art of man management. The latest account I have read was provided in a series of articles by one of our most experienced and scrupulous of reporters, Mr. Graham Turner. The picture that emerged was of committee
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ridden, bureaucratic paralysis, with buck-passing between areas, regions and districts. The fundamental management rule of short clear lines of responsibility was everywhere set at nought. One Labour Party activist in a Midlands hospital was quoted as describing the administrators as "puppets controlled by other puppets." Mr. Turner also interviewed former National Health Service employees who were then working in army and naval hospitals as well as in private hospitals. They all said that they knew where they stood. They were more cost conscious and they preferred working effectively under purposeful management with a proper chain of authority including, I was glad to see, the matron.
What has all this got to do with the Motion before us? Conditions of employment include much more than pay. But, even if we are thinking of pay, it seems to me that the aim which should unite us all is to improve conditions of work without simply raising the cost to the taxpayer, which already averages over £12 per week for every family in the land. The chief method of improvement should be through increasing efficiency in the use of manpower. That is the way that competitive industry, even today, is reconciling higher wages with lower unit costs of production.
If the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, will sit back comfortably on his Bench to minimise the impulse to violence or apoplexy, I should like to offer an economist's solution. In addition to encouraging the spread of private health insurance, it would be to put out all non-medical work in the National Health Service to competitive tender. This may at first sight seem unacceptable, but I believe the logic is unassailable. The noble Lord, Lord Hunter, referred to a "complex body of staff". Very well. Why should politicians who are rightly concerned with health care wish to monopolise the completely different business of scrubbing floors, cooking meals, running laundries and even tending the often extensive grounds?
I know that the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, is a student of economics. I should like to remind him that more than 200 years ago Adam Smith diagnosed the secret of economic progress as the division of labour and the specialisation of function. Management calls for special skills. Above all, in a labour-intensive employment such as the NHS, it is necessary to measure the work, to motivate the staff, and to monitor the results to ensure satisfactory performance. There is no disgrace in the fact that doctors, nurses, even financial controllers and politicians lack these special skills. But in Britain we have a growing number of specialised service contractors who train and manage labour forces to do jobs more efficiently than when they are performed as part of an unwieldy conglomerate such as the NHS.
Your Lordships may recall that one contractor recently took advertising space to allow the Southend dustmen to say publicly how much more job satisfaction and pay they got from Brengreen than from the old Southend Council. Yet the saving to the customer in that case was £500,000 which equals 1½p on the rates. Another contractor, is called Pritchards and, I understand, has a company specialising in hospital services. Like Brengreen, it is a leading performer overseas, especially in America and the Middle East. It has recently renewed a contract to

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clean Stoke Mandeville Hospital. It would welcome the freedom to go above the Whitley Council rates of pay as well as looking forward to the exemption from VAT on the contracts. I hope the Minister may find time to refer to that matter.
The contractors commonly aim to save 20 or 25 per cent. of the labour costs. Indeed, the latest contract, which was reported in the papers just before Christmas, was for the new Redhill General Hospital. It was said that it would save £50,000 on a contract of £200,000 for the cleaning, thereby paying for 10 additional nurses.
These contractors already do cleaning for thousands of shops and offices, including Government departments. I hope that it will not upset the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, to know that the Palace of Westminster is cleaned by a private contractor. One estimate is that contracting out the non-medical services of the National Health Service could save perhaps £500 million a year, which would be available either to give back to the taxpayers or to spend on additional facilities within the service. All that stands in the way of a dramatic advance is the usual unholy mixture of Conservative indolence and Socialist ideology. In conclusion, I appeal once more to the Front Benches to declare a truce and join in this most constructive way to improve the conditions of employment throughout the National Health Service.
7.11 p.m.
Lord Wallace of Coslany: My Lords, I am not so sure that we would readily agree to do so, but that is a matter of opinion. First, let me thank my noble friend Lord Molloy for raising quite an important issue as regards which we have had some very excellent and authoritative contributions from noble Lords. As other speakers have indicated, there is no doubt whatever that the morale of staff in the National Health Service is today very low, particularly at hospital level. There are two main causes, and the first is the bitterness still existing over the recent pay dispute. Strong-arm tactics may have given the Government a victory, but they have left a legacy of mistrust which is, indeed, souring industrial relations.
Not only must the Government act quickly to make clear their proposals for a nurses' pay review body, but it is also essential that the intentions regarding the need for a review mechanism for the other health staff should be made clear as soon as possible. If, as so many people claim, hospital staff should not take industrial action because of the nature of their work and responsibility to patients, then in common fairness their pay review bodies should be adequate and fair.
To be successful and to achieve results, as in business, and more particularly in hospitals, teamwork and team spirit are essential factors. Any consultant worth his salt will freely admit that the results of his skills and ability depend considerably on effective daily backing by nursing and ancillary staffs, mainly in the nursing field. Reduced morale has a vital, adverse effect on teamwork and team spirit. As a result, patient care is bound to suffer.
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Another factor affecting morale is further reorganisation. In time—at least, I sincerely hope that this will be the case—it should adjust itself, but it will take time. Many senior nursing officers have been forced to opt for voluntary retirement after the traumatic experience of applying for their own jobs and failing to retain them. A similar situation has been faced by some hospital administrators. People in these categories are key figures, and in the main they are widely respected at all levels for their qualities of leadership. When, as has happened recently, these people are, in the mind of their supporting staff—nursing and ancillary—kicked out of their job, a mood of resentment and depression spreads downwards among staff. I know what I am saying is true, because I have seen it happen in a certain respect. This situation also arose during the previous reorganisation, which was a disaster and should never have taken place. Financial stringency and hospital closures, actual or projected, are factors fomenting the idea of the National Health Service, particularly hospitals, being deprived and neglected—hardly an encouragement for teamwork, and a fertile breeding ground for rumours to which hospitals are particularly prone.
One way in which to assist the restoration of morale is to encourage the setting up of joint consultative committees for all grades of staff, except doctors, at hospital level. Doctors are excepted simply, as one would naturally expect, because they wish to be separate and already have their own organisation. The setting up of such joint committees, consisting of elected members of staff together with representatives of the district health authority, could achieve a great deal to destroy rumours, to remove irritant factors and, more important, to yield constructive suggestions to improve efficiency and save money—improving, in the process, working conditions for all. Similarly, at DHA level joint consultative committees should have among their members representatives from the various hospital JCCs, providing contact right through from hospital to district level.
From my experience it does work, as I was responsible for the setting up of such an organisation at my local hospital after the previous reorganisation. I might add that there was some opposition from officials and the chairman of the AHA. But in the end we won. There was an improvement in morale, and many constructive ideas came forward to save time and money. I want to make it perfectly clear that there is no involvement in day-to-day management, but there is contact—and this is a very important factor—at all levels. I am glad to say that the new DHA has now set up a JCC at district level, with representatives from the hospital JCC. I am referring to the Bexley health district, which I submit is an excellent example to follow.
Yesterday's press announcement of extra cash for the NHS and the Minister's words in his Written Answer at column 119 on 24th January, that:
"The Government have once more been able … to expand services for patients. The additional 1·2 per cent. growth represents nearly £100 million more over the year".
sound fine, until one examines the small print. In point of fact, due to uneven distribution of finance many areas will be worse off, particularly London and the

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Home Counties, which means further cuts in services and facilities for training, delay in raising standards of accommodation, and more hospital closures.
I refer next to residential accommodation. Many of our hospitals are very old, and accommodation for resident medical and nursing staff verges on the appalling, as is the provision for medical staff on night duty, on call. However, residential accommodation in new hospitals is, in the main, a great improvement. In one case that I know very well it is absolutely excellent.
There is no doubt whatever that urgent action is needed for the older and often decrepit accommodation existing at older hospitals. My experience some years ago at one hospital, which is now demolished, was that we had nurses living in converted hen houses! I thought that that was an insult to the nurses, apart from the fact that we did provide temporary accommodation. There is a suggestion in today's press that staff residential accommodation should be taken away from hospital administration, and the responsibility placed elsewhere. If this is true, I hope it is not a suggestion for further privatisation, as charges to nurses and junior doctors are already high—in fact, in my opinion, far too high; a factor not generally taken into account when discussing nurses' pay.
My noble friend Lord Molloy mentioned créches or, as some of us know them, day nurseries. Some time ago I had to fight for one at a new hospital, but I am afraid economy measures came along and it had to be rescued from closure. However, fortunately, the people involved themselves managed to get an organisation together and to run it themselves. This question of day nurseries at hospitals is a very important point, because in point of fact many fully-trained and experienced nurses and members of the nursing staff are lost to the profession due to pregnancy alone. Some provision should be made for this. Naturally, an experienced nurse who is married would want a family. She may have one, and good luck to her! Incidentally, I should like to congratulate in advance the noble Lord, Lord Auckland, on the future birth of a grandchild.
As I say, this is an important factor, and we must provide the means and the way for these people to return to the service to help and guide younger nurses coming out of training; because these older nurses know their stuff, as many consultants themselves will readily admit.
I would also advocate the need for facilities to train in new technology in hospitals. Indeed, a great many remarkable developments are taking place. I would link it with the need for periodical refresher courses for GPs. The extension of postgraduate medical centres in hospitals to cover this is obvious, although some, but not many, are already fully geared to meet the need. The trouble is that such centres have to be provided partly or wholly out of voluntary funding, and raising such money today is not easy bearing in mind the intensive efforts of leagues of hospital friends to raise money for urgently needed hospital equipment, as indeed they are doing. By providing not only medical equipment but other items for the comfort of staff as well as of patients, the leagues of friends are giving valuable help in improving working conditions of hospital staff.
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I am not sure how many doctors are unemployed at the moment—and I here refer to qualified but unemployed junior doctors—but it is a fact that at the moment medical cover at some hospitals is short of requirements due, not to a shortage of available candidates but to a shortage of finance. This applies not only to junior doctors but to unfilled vacancies for consultants. This is a very important matter when we are talking about the backlog of cases to be dealt with which resulted from the unfortunate industrial action, and on on. When a regional authority says that there is room for another consultant, that is all right; but, unfortunately, when it says so it does not provide the money required. This is a very serious matter that must be faced.
I should like to say a few brief words about nurse training schools. Nurse training schools at hospitals are very important, and should be extended and treated as a necessity rather than as status symbols for certain hospitals. It is an accepted fact in hospital circles that if you have a nurse training school you are one up on someone else. I think that is entirely wrong. Nurse training should be at hospital level, and should be attached to most of our main hospitals.
There is also another question on training, which I have come across in the last few days. There is a very severe shortage of trained midwives. I wonder what thought is being given to training facilities to provide them, and to meet what is a possible emergency? I know of one extended maternity unit, which will be ready for use next year, where they will have the facilities but not the midwives to run it. So thought must be given to the provision of staff.
Other points come to mind, but this is a short debate and one naturally wants to give the Minister adequate time for reply. Whether or not he will thank me for that afterwards, I do not know. I frankly admit that I have been critical and pessimistic in my remarks, but I have tried to be constructive as well. I shall conclude by stating that, with all its imperfections and undoubted needs, treatment and care in our national health hospitals are equal to, and in some cases better than, alternative facilities available in the country. Certainly—and this needs to be said—there are not many countries in the world, if any, that can give the same high standards of treatment and care that we give in the National Health Service, irrespective of class, colour or creed.
I know that my family and I have benefited tremendously from the care and dedication of health service staff, and I am not the only one here tonight in that position. Before we embark on too many disruptive criticisms we should at least give credit where credit is due. The medical and nursing staff in our hospitals deserve a great deal of credit, particularly bearing in mind the frictions and the difficulties urged upon them by a higher administration. They deserve better, and I think that our responsibility is to give it to them.
7.27 p.m.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I add my voice to those of other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, for raising this matter tonight. The noble Lord's Motion is:
"To call attention to the need to improve conditions of employment for staff in the National Health Service".

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Implicit in his Motion and, indeed, explicit in his speech is that there are both general and particular matters to do with pay and conditions of health authorities' employees which require amendment or remedy. During this debate other noble Lords have developed particular themes or drawn attention to particular problems, which either directly or indirectly are associated with the general thrust of the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Molloy.
Before I deal with particular issues, I should like to go back to first principles. The National Health Service exists because duties are laid by Parliament upon Health Ministers. Section 1 of the National Health Service Act 1977 recalls the words of the 1946 Act, which brought the National Health Service into being in England and Wales. I paraphrase a little for brevity, but the essence of the matter is that it lays upon the Secretary of State a duty to promote a comprehensive health service which will secure the improvement of the physical and mental health of the people and the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of illness. Put more plainly, in practice it is for health authorities to develop, to the best extent that resources allow, services to prevent ill health and to cure and care for sick and handicapped people. That was the essence of some of the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Rea.
Despite their number and diversity, National Health Service employees, the health authorities and the Government have a common interest. Together we are concerned that, within the resources of money and facilities available, the health services provided should be as comprehensive, efficient and effective as possible. This involves striking a balance between the primary objective and raison d'etre of the service, which is the health of the people and the welfare of the patients, and its corollary, which is that the attainment of this objective depends upon employees who must be paid and provided with conditions of service which enable them to carry out their work and motivate them to do it well.
As for resources it is necessarily for the Government to decide how much the country can afford to spend upon its health services. Inescapably this depends upon the state of the economy. But, despite the recession, this Government's spending on the National Health Service has risen from £7¾ billion in 1978–79 to £14½ billion this year; an increase which outstrips the movement of the retail price index by almost 16 per cent. Much of this extra funding has provided increased pay for staff and shorter hours for nurses. At the same time, and over the same period, it is estimated that there will have been a real growth—a real growth, my Lords—of about 5½ per cent. in services to patients, and manpower is expected to have increased by about 7 per cent.
The public is entitled to expect that levels of pay in the National Health Service will be sufficient to attract and retain the many grades of staff required to provide health services. The Government accept and believe that they have discharged this responsibility. Some evidence of this is to be found in the fact that the National Health Service has recruited and retained an increasing number of staff ever since its inception in
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1948. Nor are there any general difficulties in recruitment and retention at the present time. This applies equally to general practitioners—although they are not, of course, National Health Service employees, but independent contractors—as to other groups.
What, then, are the arrangements for ensuring that the rates of pay and conditions of service are sufficient to attract the staff that we need to the National Health Service? In the case of grades who are employed mainly, or entirely, by the National Health Service, such as doctors and dentists, pay rests on the recommendations of the independent Review Body. In the case of many grades of non-medical staff—for example, clerical, domestic and catering grades for whom the health service is only one of many potential employers—pay is the subject of negotiations between unions and management in the Whitley Councils. These can take account of the market rates for similar occupations and also of the conditions of service, job security, and ease or difficulty currently being experienced in recruitment.
Turning to the future, the Government very much hope that as a result of two initiatives which they have launched, pay in the NHS will be put on to a more satisfactory and stable long-term basis. These should maintain morale in the Service, which is vitally important if we are to make the developments in patient care which we all want. The first of these initiatives is of course our decision to establish a new review body to report on the pay of nurses, midwives, and the professions allied to medicine.
We intend that the review body's first report should cover the pay settlement due on 1st April 1984. The Government will shortly be entering into wide consultations with the interested parties, including the professional bodies and trade unions involved, on a number of issues including the coverage and terms of reference of the proposed review body. Our view is that the new review body will be analogous to the Doctors' and Dentists' Review Body, which has worked well over the years and given satisfaction both to the Government and to the professions. I was happy to hear the noble Lord, Lord Hunter, confirm that view.
Of course, we shall have to reserve the right not to accept recommendations in full where there are compelling national reasons for this, but that would be the normal position with review bodies and we are not setting up a new one with the intention of ignoring its findings. I think that that was understood by at least one noble Lord who spoke earlier.
The second initiative is our offer, which I am pleased to say has now been accepted by the trade unions, to discuss more permanent arrangements for determining the pay of the other health service staff. We hope that discussions on this will begin shortly. I must make it clear that the new review body, for the nurses and professions allied to medicine, whose pay has been traditionally linked to that of nurses, recognised the special skills and responsibilities of these groups, and the review body principle cannot be extended therefore to other NHS staff. I am sure that your Lordships will agree that we must concentrate our minds on the future rather than rake over the past, and that it is vitally important both for the Health

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Service and for its staff that the initiatives which I have just outlined should both succeed.
Health authorities are, of course, expected to take account of all their statutory duties as employers, and in general the employment legislation of this country applies to National Health Service employees in the same way as to the employees of any other organisation. There are exceptions, and in these cases there are National Health Service conditions which parallel the generally applicable ones. The welfare of employees is of course affected by other statutory provisions besides employment legislation.
In addition to matters which are regulated by statute, the National Health Service provides, as do other good employers, a range of facilities which contribute to the welfare of employees, although they are not strictly bound to do so. Depending on local circumstances and needs these may include both residential and non-residential facilities, assistance with travel to work in outlying units, day nurseries, and recreational and leisure facilities. Where charges are made these are normally related to the actual cost of provision, or to charges made by other public bodies locally.
May I turn now to as many as I can of the points that have been raised during the course of this debate. The noble Lord, Lord Molloy, in his opening speech referred to the large number of part-time staff employed in the National Health Service as a source of aggravation—I believe he thought they were—to full-time employees.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, will the noble Lord give way? I cannot let the noble Lord get away with that. Let him read Hansard. I stressed how vitally important are people who have qualifications, particularly women, who have a vital role to play, but that management— and this was the gravamen of my case—do not seem to be concerned with fitting in the vitally important part-time worker with the full-timer.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I am happy to accept that clarification. There are indeed a large number of part-time staff, as the noble Lord recognises, in the National Health Service. Indeed, 38 per cent. of all employees are part-time, providing about one-quarter of the service's staffing resources. But there is no evidence to suggest that employment of part-time staff on this scale is a cause of friction. Indeed, their interests are strongly looked after by the trade unions active in the National Health Service.
The opportunities for part-time work afforded by the health service provide scope for employment to people who might otherwise find it difficult to take up a job, such as mothers who have children to look after. Part-time staff can afford additional flexibility to management in fixing rotas to provide, for example, a round-the-clock service seven days a week. Indeed, many full-time consultant posts are offered to part-time staff to encourage women doctors, in particular, to take up appointments. The noble Lord referred to the question of crèches. I understand that there are some available in the health service, although doubtless there are cases where more ought to be provided.
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The noble Lord, Lord Molloy, also referred to the question of the proportions of trained staff to those in training. I understand that the ratio of nurses and midwives, for example, under training compared with qualified staff is 1 to 2·6. There are of course many other staff in the National Health Service for whom there is a formal training qualification, such as medical laboratory scientific officers, catering staff and ambulance men, and the proportion of people in training compared with the trained will vary from group to group and from time to time. The number of staff who are in training depends not only upon the number already trained but on a number of other factors such as, for example, the length of training, the age pattern of those already trained, and the planned provision of the service to be undertaken by the trained staff. All these factors need to be kept under continual review.
The noble Lord then referred to the question of geographical balance in medical training. The Government have been concerned for a number of years to provide a more balanced distribution of medical school places across the country and this has led to a policy of expanding some existing schools outside London—for example, Sheffield, Newcastle and Leeds. We have, furthermore, built some new medical schools at Nottingham, Leicester and Southampton, and I recall visiting the medical school at Southampton recently on the occasion of their tenth anniversary. In addition, we are planning that there should be no expansion of places at London medical schools above what has been agreed as a long-established target. The results of this policy are evident from the 1982–83 pre-clinical intake into medical schools, where schools in the five central English regions—that is, Trent, Mersey, West Midlands, North-Western and Yorkshire—accepted over 35 per cent. of the total intake into English medical schools.
The noble Lord, Lord Molloy, then dealt with the question of hospital closures. He and I have discussed that matter across the Floor of your Lordships' House on more than one occasion. I will not again remind your Lordships of the very exhaustive procedure which exists in these cases. Suffice it to say that this procedure takes the fullest account of local considerations and in the event of a disputed decision the matter comes before Ministers, in general, for a final decision.
The noble Lord, Lord Molloy, then turned to the question of the training of the professions supplementary to medicine. Largely for historical reasons, the training of the professions supplementary to medicine—by which is meant, as the noble Lord said, physiotherapists, radiographers and the like—is carried out in a variety of institutions. In some professions the training is predominantly in schools set up and run by the NHS. In others, polytechnics, universities and privately-run institutions play their part. But there is a common thread running through these arrangements, and that is in the work of the Council for Professions Supplementary to Medicine. That independent council, together with its eight registration boards, is responsible for the regulation of professional education—the validation and inspection of courses and so on—and the maintenance of lists of those who have reached the required standards for

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state registration. Only those who are state registered can be employed in the NHS. I will not go into further detail on that, but I think the fears which the noble Lord expressed were not well-founded.
More than one noble Lord referred to the question of distinction awards. Distinction awards give consultants a powerful incentive to do their utmost for the NHS and its patients. They also give rewards according to professional renown without which many senior consultants might quit the NHS entirely in favour of private practice. The system is not the distribution of public monies by a medical cabal in its own interests, as has sometimes been suggested. The Advisory Committee is comprised of distinguished medical and lay men who have no personal interest in the awards they bestow, having, in the case of medical members, already achieved the highest levels.
The membership of the committee is public knowledge and it operates solely as an adviser to the Secretary of State. It controls neither the number nor the value of awards, which are set by the Secretary of State on separate advice from the Review Body. The names of award-holders are not published because patients might, quite unreasonably, refuse to be treated by someone who did not have an award, rather than because there is any intrinsic secret about who has them.
I come to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, who raised, among other matters, a point about the membership of the staff side of Whitley Councils. This is, of course, not a matter for the health department specifically. The essence of the system is that membership of the staff side is decided by the staff sides themselves and it is for newly emerging unions or professional associations to make their own case on its merits to the constituent bodies of the staff side.
The noble Lord then referred to some ideas about determining pay in the health service which I think largely amounted to a system for arbitration. I remember during the recent dispute the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, and others pressing me from time to time to accept that we should have put that dispute to arbitration. I accept that negotiating within fixed amounts creates particular problems, and, as will be apparent from this year's pay round, the initial decision of what can be afforded cannot, and indeed should not, always be maintained inflexibly, even if some of the money has to be found by authorities through greater efficiency or forgoing improvements in services.
However, we have made it clear that we do not feel able generally to return to the more or less open-ended arrangements of the past whereby, in many instances, comparisons with analogous groups of staff outside the NHS tended to determine the percentage increases which were eventually awarded. In the last analysis, as I explained to the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, in reply to his oral Question on 23rd November last, the Government cannot sub-contract their obligation to determine the sum of money available for pay purposes in the Health Services. Once the sum was settled, it was for the Whitley Councils to determine its allocation. As for the future, I have already explained Government's decision in regard to both nurses and midwives and the other staff groups.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, one of the irritants was that the Government did not apply that criteria to the police, the forces and many others; they applied it simply to those working in the NHS. As I say, the forces, the police and other Ministry-controlled institutions did not have that yoke placed on them. They selected to put that yoke only on the NHS.
Lord Trefgarne: Your Lordships may forgive me if I do not follow the noble Lord down that path. He and I exchanged our views on that matter and matters related to it ad nauseam during the course of the dispute, and your Lordships may think it better if the noble Lord and I agree to differ.
I turn to a question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, but touched on by others, and that is the problem of low pay in the NHS, a problem which I believe should be seen in perspective. The health service employs a large number of staff covering a wide range of skills and levels of responsibility. Pay rates must be competitive to attract and retain essential staff. There is no indiction that NHS staff generally are paid less than workers doing comparable work elsewhere, and in general there are no problems over recruitment and the retention of staff.
Many of the lower rates of pay are paid for relatively unskilled work or to new entrants, many of them school-leavers who will undergo initial training. The pay to those trainees will automatically increase as they gain experience and qualifications. The service, as I have said, also employs many part-time staff whose pay, of course, reflects the number of hours they elect to work. Gross earnings, rather than basic pay, represent the appropriate measure of pay in the NHS, and here I must disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley. The nature of the service which is provided affords many opportunities for enhancing basic pay, often within the standard working week. Manual workers, for example, often benefit from bonus schemes which help to promote efficiency. These additional earnings often significantly exceed basic pay. In the case of full-time ancillaries, average earnings exceed basic pay by 60 per cent. for men and about 36 per cent. for women. Higher earnings are not generally dependent on excessive levels of overtime being worked; the average for full-time male ancillaries is five-and-a-half hours a week.
The pay profile of the NHS in 1981 was not significantly different from that in the economy as a whole. Then, about one-fifth of all full-time adult employees in Great Britain earned less than £80 a week. Most are in the private sector and do not enjoy the job security or the prospect of indexed-linked pensions available to NHS employees. Low pay in the NHS is part of a national problem and can be overcome only by improving the performance of the country's economy.
I turn now to some points raised by my noble friend Lord Auckland; in particular, the question of nurses' lodging charges, which I know was raised also by at least one other noble Lord. Lodging charges are not determined by the Government but by the Nurses' and Midwives' Whitley Council. Their agreements have, technically, to be ratified by the Secretary of State, but it is I think misleading to imply that he is responsible for setting the level of charges. In 1981 the Whitley

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Council reached agreement on a revised system of charges, which for the first time related to the actual costs of providing the accommodation. It was also agreed jointly that fully economic charges would be phased in over four years (up to 1984) and the formula for determining what is a fully economic charge was fixed. The economic charge is recalculated each year in line with the RPI, and the resultant charges are agreed by the council.
Abatements in the charges—and this is important—of up to 40 per cent. are available for students and others under the age of 22—who constitute a large proportion of those who live in—and for those in lodgings not meeting the required standard. It is estimated that only 10 to 12 per cent. of nurses—that is, 50,000 to 60,000—actually live in. Very few ward sisters and nursing officers live in.
I have in front of me some figures which may be of assistance to your Lordships. For example, a third year student nurse pays £8·65 as a weekly lodging charge. That is the recently agreed increased charge, and I think that your Lordships will agree that it is a fairly good bargain. Reference has also been made to meal charges paid by nurses and others in the National Health Service. Your Lordships may like to have some examples of the meal charges, too. Breakfast, I see, is 39p, lunch is 69p, tea is 19p, and snack supper is 32p. Those figures compare very favourably with charges paid by your Lordships in your own Dining Room.
Some reference has been made to the question of accommodation for junior doctors, which is perhaps not the same point as that about nurses' accommodation, but it is related to it. I should perhaps mention that accommodation for junior doctors is free if they are on a one-in-three rota, and abatements also apply for doctors on rotas between one-in-four and one-in-seven. The charges are made only when doctors are voluntarily resident. I have some more details about nurses' accommodation, but perhaps that may be kept for another occasion.
My noble friend Lord Auckland also asked about funds for new equipment within the National Health Service and for upgrading hospitals, and nurses' accommodation, too. These detailed matters involve decisions that are essentially for district or regional health authorities. However, I would draw my noble friend's attention—if he has not already seen it—to the Written Answer that I provided to my noble friend Lady Lane-Fox on 24th January. I think that it actually appeared in yesterday's, or perhaps today's Hansard. In the Written Answer, we referred to the increased funds that are being made available to the National Health Service for next year. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, also referred to that point, so I have no doubt that he has seen the announcement that was made.
In referring to the announcement, perhaps I should underline it in the following way. Health authorities will be asked to give particular attention to the maintenance of the estate by improving the condition of existing hospitals, both to provide better conditions in which to care for patients, and to make more effective use of the resources available to the service. In addition, health authorities are asked to improve the quantity and quality of services, in particular services
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to long-stay patients, as well as community services, and to ensure that priority is given to regional services, such as renal dialysis. I hope that my noble friend will be satisfied with those assurances.
I now turn to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Hunter of Newington. I was grateful for what he had to say about a number of matters. Incidentally, I can assure him that all the major staff groups have now settled on the basis of a two-year pay deal, in accordance with the understanding reached between the Government and the TUC in December of last year. The only exceptions are ambulancemen and regional works staff, who I understand are meeting today for this purpose.
The noble Lord, Lord Hunter, also referred to the question of care for the mentally handicapped. The Government have taken major initiatives towards developing care in the community, which I think is what the noble Lord was seeking, in particular with regard to mentally handicapped patients. The Government do not see it as a question of "either/or" where NHS facilities and social services are concerned. What we want to foster is a constructive partnership.
The Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, has enabled a most useful debate to take place on an important subject. It has provided an opportunity for the discussion of specific issues of concern to particular groups of employees, and the wider and the more general issue of the way in which the National Health Service discharges its responsibility to be a good employer of its own staff. In what I have said, I have tried to strike a balance between comment on particular matters, and setting the basic issues in the wider context of the public interest and the primary purpose for which the Health Service exists.
The Health Service also has to strike a balance—a balance between providing services for patients, whose interests are paramount, and providing appropriately for the welfare of its own employees. It has been suggested that there is inherent in the system an enforced and unnatural polarisaition of interests, that the welfare of employees can be secured only at the expense of services to patients, and vice versa. I do not agree. The means cannot be set in opposition to the end. The National Health Service depends on its employees, who must be paid and provided with conditions of service that enable them to carry out their work and motivate them to do it well.
Before I sit down, I should like to deal with one or two points that I still have in front of me; in particular, a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Rea, who asked me about merit awards for general practitioners. On these proposals, GPs already receive seniority payments for long service to the National Health Service. It has never been considered by the department, or indeed the profession, that general practice is an appropriate field for separate distinction awards
The noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross, raised a most important issue in what he said about the management and control of manpower. We have introduced a system of up-to-date quarterly—instead of annual—returns on manpower figures for the National Health Service. Last July we required regional health authorities to provide revised non-

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medical manpower estimates for 31st March 1983, and we have also asked regions to provide by the end of February projections of manpower in each major staff group for 31st March 1984, derived from district health authorities' service plans for that year. Those projections will be used as a basis for agreement on manpower targets for each region for March 1984. In addition, my right honourable friend has announced his intention to set up a management inquiry, led by people from private industry, to reinforce the other measures taken to improve efficiency in the National Health Service.
I much agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Harris, in what he said about the possible merits in contracting out services. We are currently looking at the advice that we can offer health authorities on testing the cost-effectiveness of, for example, laundry, catering, and domestic services. The National Health Service already spends £160 million on contracts for a wide range of support services, but if, by extending the use of outside contractors, further savings can be achieved, that will release additional funding for patient care. We have considered that direct labour services and the private sector should tender competitively for services and that contracts should generally go to the cheapest. This is commonsense housekeeping, and makes the best use of limited resources.
In our advice to health authorities we shall be stressing the need for staff interests to be fully consulted before a decision to invite tenders is taken. Incidentally, the staff concerned will be invited to co-operate in the preparation of an in-house tender. Even where contracts are let, the hospital employees concerned will mostly be taken on by the contractor.
I believe that I have now covered as many of the points as I properly should, and I hope that the noble Lord will see fit to withdraw his Motion—
Lord Wallace of Coslany: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down—and I am not going to make a Second Reading speech—will he write to me in due course on the question of joint consultative conmmittees? It is very important.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I shall certainly write to the noble Lord.
8 p.m.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, I think it fair to say that we have had a very useful and constructive debate. I only wish I had the full right of reply for another 20 minutes, but, of course, I do not. I should like to thank the noble Lord the Minister for his very full response to the points that were raised in this debate, and to congratulate him on his anticipation. I am pleased in particular because of the seriousness with which the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, treats these debates when he has to respond to them. Also, I thank my noble friend Lord Wallace for his piercing examination of many points which I had not made but for which I am grateful; the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, for his experience and knowledge, which he makes available to us all and the noble Lord, Lord Auckland, with his considerable knowledge drawn through family contacts and family links very similar to my own.
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The noble Lord, Lord Hunter, went into the field of disputes. All I would say about that is that it is by no means a one-sided argument, as he seemed to imply. I believe the nurses have a very strong case. To the noble Lord, Lord Perry of Walton, with regard to his submission that we need leadership, I would say that this, I believe, is fundamental. We had never had the proper leadership of anyone in government with regard to the National Health Service except from the great man who created it—with the aid, I might say, of his then Parliamentary Private Secretary, now my noble friend Lord Bruce of Donington.
I give my thanks, too, to the noble Lord, Lord Rea, for his speech on behalf of the doctors for which I am sure they will be grateful—we most certainly were—and to the noble Lord, Lord Harris, whose economic arguments I always enjoy. Much in his arguments I agree with; much in his submissions I find bad; and, therefore, as always when I listen to him, I personally end up with a curate's egg.
If we are to appreciate the importance of this great National Health Service, I think that what we have also got to get down to is to speak in all things the language of priorities. When we do that in a right and proper manner then all those in the National Health Service will have their just deserts and the honour paid to them which they so richly deserve. My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Trade Marks Act 1938 (Amendment) Bill [H.L.]
8.3 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Campbell of Alloway.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD HAYTER in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Amendment of 1938 Act]:
On Question, Whether Clause 1 shall stand part of the Bill?
Earl De La Warr: I want to be very careful not to make a Second Reading type of speech although, really, as this is a one-clause Bill, it is a little difficult to resist the temptation. My noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway and other noble Lords were extremely unhappy at Second Reading about what we regarded as the failure on the part of the Government to give adequate, or, indeed, any, reasons of substance as to why they could not support this Bill. One of the central points made in favour of the Bill lies in the fact that when EEC legislation comes in United Kingdom service companies will want to be able to oppose service trade marks from elsewhere; but, as matters stand, they will be unable to do so as they will not be on the register as existing holders. That is what the

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legislation says, and that, as I say, is one of the main reasons why anxiety exists and why many people in service industries feel that something needs to be done now.
I said we were unhappy about the answers we received from the Government, and no more so than on this particular point. It was dealt with fairly shortly by my noble friend, who said:
"I would suggest to your Lordships that this problem is not confined to service marks nor indeed is it confined to the United Kingdom. The Government will not stand idly by and allow our service industries to be at a disadvantage". [Official Report, 22/12/82, col. 1114.]
Well, good! But that, I am bound to say, is just what we think the Government are doing. He went on:
"The Government have made constructive proposals for meeting this particular problem…".
Good! But could we perhaps be told what they are? Then we might be able to judge better the substance of the Governments reasoning—if reasoning it be. I feel I must add.
We are told by the Government that these proposals are receiving a very large measure of support. Good! But from whom? We are also told that there is now a strong possibility that the draft proposals will be changed. Splendid! But to what? These matters, had they been answered in detail, would have given us some clue as to what was in the Government's mind. I cannot forbear to repeat the triumphant conclusion:
"Therefore, at this stage we cannot say that registration facilities for service marks must he provided before there is a Community system, because the final form of that Community system is still unclear". [col. 1115.]
I see—or do I? I am not sure that that last sentence does not count as one of the least clear sentences in the Governments argument.
This is harsh stuff, because it is a very serious point and I have had to deal with it in rather a harsh way. But, believe me, I do not expect my noble friend to comment today other than to say, as I hope he will say, that he has taken my points on board and that, at a later stage in the Bill, he will seek to give the Government's arguments more precision and more thrust—indeed, perhaps to the point where the Government themselves may be convinced by what is said. If he will do that then I think that, at least, the degree to which we were dissatisfied at Second Reading will have been dealt with; and I hope that he in turn will deal sympathetically with what I now beg the Government to do.
8.10 p.m.
Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran: I cannot resist the temptation of having the pleasure of following the noble Earl, Lord De La Warr, in his remarks, but supplementing them to this extent. The Government in respect to the Bill—I shall not make a Second Reading speech—have said that the main reason why they reject the Bill is that the registrar for trade marks would not have the staff and he would be too busy. I should like to say as a prologue to the amendments that I shall move that the objects of my amendments, particularly Amendments Nos. 1 and 2 are directed to help the Government. I want to show the Government that these amendments of mine will assist them to
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overcome the main problem they have in mind in objecting so far to the Bill.
I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, will understand the point I am making. As I look round this crowded House I am afraid I do not find many persons who are as active as I have been for so many years in this exotic field of trade marks. My object this evening is to help the Government to overcome the only real case they have made against this Bill—that is, that the Comptroller-General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks will be overworked. I say that that is nonsense.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: May I mention a brief matter, an unusual matter, of which I have given notice to my noble friend the Minister? I have to ask my noble friend the Minister whether he is aware that I have received today a copy of a letter sent to my noble friend Lord De La Warr by the deputy Director General of the CBI, dated 24th January, in which it is said:
"It was with some astonishment that we read in col. 1116 of the Hansard Report of the Second Reading debate on 22nd December last year that Lord Lyell felt that the Government have not found a pressing need"—
that is, for service marks registration—
"on the part of industry".
Now, as I have said, I have given my noble friend the Minister notice of this letter, as indeed I had to, and, for the sake of the record, may I inform your Lordships that the letter came to me wholly unsolicited? Having said that, may I respectfully inquire whether my noble friend the Minister has any comment to make?
Lord Lyell: If I may, I will first thank my noble friend Lord Campbell for his kindness in giving me notice of the letter that he has, I understand, received. If he will be kind enough to let me have a copy of the letter, I shall see what answers I can give to my noble friend and, indeed, to the writers of the letter to my noble friend. I note that they quote me in col. 1116, and I think he mentioned and quoted my words on 22nd December in your Lordships' Official Report, I was found to have said this:
"We have not found a pressing need on the part of industry; we believe there is no pressing need from the Community".—[Official Report, 22/12/82: col. 1116]
I then concluded my remarks.
That is certainly the Government's view, but I shall study the letter which my noble friend mentioned and hope we shall be able to give him a satisfactory answer. I have undertaken that I shall certainly reply to him and I hope that he will be happy with our reply.
So far as the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, is concerned, he made a fairly strong argument but I remind him and the Committee at the outset that this is not a Government Bill. This is a Bill which was moved very eloquently and has been supported all round your Lordships' House, but it is primarily a Bill moved at the behest of my noble friend. Certainly the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, may make the point that he wishes to give assistance to the Government—
Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran: Yes.
Lord Lyell: Well, the noble Lord says this, but I stand by everything that I said on 22nd December and, if the noble Lord does not believe that that is an adequate defence against the criticisms which we have received in the House, that is the noble Lord's opinion but I am afraid that the Government's case rests.
So far as my noble friend Lord De La Warr is concerned, he has said that in his opinion the reasons for our refusal to accept the Bill were inadequate, and he quoted me at some length in cols. 1114 and 1115 of the Official Report of 22nd December.
I hope that the Committee and my noble friends Lord De La Warr and Lord Campbell will accept that I think that we may be in danger of reviving the Second Reading debate in going over the arguments which were raised at Second Reading. However, I undertake that I will study very carefully the point that has been raised by my noble friend Lord De La Warr. If I may communicate with him by letter, I shall attempt to do that, since I am afraid that at the time of speaking this evening I do not know when the next stage of the Bill may take place in your Lordships' House.
My noble friend Lord De La Warr went on to mention the draft proposals. These were dealt with at considerable length on Monday. I think they are a little outside the scope of the Bill and certainly outside the scope of what we are discussing this evening. My noble friend Lord De La Warr thought there might be a chance of convincing me with his oratory tonight or at another stage. I can always suggest that he lives in hope but cannot guarantee any hope at this stage or in the future.
I am grateful for the sympathy that my noble friends have accorded to me. I am also aware of the sympathy of many parts of the industry towards my noble friend Lord Campbell and his Bill, but I cannot say anything further on Clause 1, or indeed, on the entire Bill, than I was able to say on 22nd December. But I will undertake to reply to my noble friend Lord Campbell and his letter. I will study everything that has been said by my noble friend Lord De La Warr. I hope that I can give him some reply either in writing or at a later stage.
Schedule [Amendments of Trade Marks Act 1938]:
8.19 p.m.
Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 3, line 37, at end insert—
(" . Section 40 is amended in subsection (1) by inserting a
new paragraph (f) as follows—
"(f) the Registrar shall on the appointed day of this Act amended by the Act of 1983 establish a Register of Trade Mark Agents and shall provide a means of qualification for an individual to be entered on such register." ").
The noble Lord said: With the leave of the Committee, I should like to speak also to Amendment No. 2. As I said in my prologue a few minutes ago, the object of the amendment is to help the Government in dealing with the one case that they have against the Bill: that it will overwork the registrar.
Secondly, I am going to describe what it is that this amendment sets out to do. It sets out to provide that
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the registrar should furnish a register of trade mark agents. At the present time, the United Kingdom is in a most anomalous position in the whole of the Community. Anybody can set up as a trade mark agent. He can represent applicants at hearings and go along to the Patent Office. That can lead to a lot of trouble and waste of time. I have personal knowledge of a hearing where a trade mark agent with no professional qualifications whatsoever has been presenting a case and the poor hearing officer has to deal with this man who has not the skill and the knowledge of case law, which most professional trade mark agents should be expected to have. If there was a register of trade mark agents that would reduce to some extent the work at the registry.
I referred to my prologue a few minutes ago. The noble Lord, Lord Lyell, said on one occasion (I have forgotten when) that it will require 50 more members of staff to deal with these matters. I am saying that is wrong for this reason: if you have service marks capable of being registered, the Government would comply with what is known as the Nice agreement, and that, I am instructed, would lead to only six more classes of goods in the trade marks registry.
They have to make searches. Of course, if the comptroller-general has to make searches in respect of goods and services marks that is quite a lot of work. In my view, which is a professional one supported by a lot of professionals in the field, if the comptroller-general were to arrange for a search to be made in regard to service marks, and then allow the matters in dispute arising from marks for goods to be dealt with at the opposition stage, it would not be necessary to have more than 10 more staff at the maximum. The 10 more staff would he paid for from the fees. It would be self-financing. So the question of cost to the Community and to the Government would be eliminated. It would need a certain amount more work for the comptroller-general and his staff.
I now withdraw the word "nonsense" that I mentioned earlier on. I said nonsense in regard to the number of staff which the Government have said will be required. I think, on further consideration, that the number of 50 is "an exaggeration".
Now I come to the activities of administration. Sir Derek Rayner, who soon will be Lord Rayner, wishes to transform the administration of the Patent Office from its horizontal matters to a vertical distribution in order to economise and rationalise the administration. If one is proceeding on those lines, it will also be a great help to have a register of trade mark agents. Therefore, Amendment No.1 says that the registrar on the appointed day, which may be a long time ahead perhaps, shall establish a register of trade mark agents and provide a means of qualification for an individual to be entered on such a register.
Another reason why the register is of importance and helpful to the Government in their dealings with the Economic Community and the future of the EEC trade marks is that under the provisional drafts for the European Economic Community trade mark, they require a register of trade mark agents for the whole Community and the registrars in the patent offices of all the members of the Community will be asked to submit names. It is obviously a great convenience to

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have in this country a register of trade mark agents who are competent for the purposes of dealing with the work before the United Kingdom Comptroller General of Patents. Therefore, on the grounds of trying to comply in advance with the EEC Community provisions a register is the natural thing to have.
I need not dwell for very long on Amendment No. 2. It is a technical amendment. It says that an individual shall not either alone or in partnership or as a co-director act as a trade mark agent unless he is on the register, and a body corporate shall not act in that way unless it is a registered trade mark agent. Then in subsection (3) there is the penalty that if anybody does not comply with the provisions of the new section he will be penalised in a certain way and proceedings may be taken within 12 months of the date of the offence, and so on. Subsection (5) of my amendment is a let out—if I may use those words—for the present members, solicitors, registered patent agents, and members of the Bar in certain circumstances who are acting in this field and still may continue in dealing with these trade mark matters without having to be included on the register.
Naturally, I am not going to force this amendment to a Division. It is in the nature of a probing amendment. I was not quite clear what the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, said; it maybe that he is not going to speak again in the debate. I thought he might be saying that he was going to listen to us all and not deal with it. I do not expect him at the short notice that he has had to give a definite answer with regard to this amendment tonight. I ask him whether he would be good enough to consider what I have said. Perhaps it will be of some advantage in the attitude of the Government to the Bill which the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, has put forward.
8.28 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: As the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, most helpfully states, the object of this amendment is to help the Government and to provide a register of trade mark agents—both thoroughly reasonable and laudable proposals. But the Government do not wish to be helped. They have made that as plain as a pikestaff. The proposals as to registration I am afraid go outside the simple plain intendment. If one widens the intendment for this, then why not for that, and why not for the other?
The second amendment is allied to the concept of registration. I shall be brief but I must say that the Committee as always is much indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, for lending the benefit of his professional expertise, and in this instance in particular for drawing the attention of the Committee to the wishes of a very important sectional interest: namely, the Institute of Trade Mark Agents who in fact provided the draft of these amendments. But these amendments go outside the simple intendment of the Bill, which, as your Lordships know, is restricted to extending to services so far as is practicable the existing law relating to the registration of trade marks for goods.
As your Lordships know, this Bill is not concerned in any way with substantive amendments to existing law affecting the registration of trade marks for goods,
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and indeed, to be fair to the noble Lord, as I would always wish to be, he was the first to recognise that this Bill was not a suitable vehicle for carrying out the type of amendment which he has now proposed. On Second Reading on 22nd December 1982, at col. 1107, he said, rightly, that in due course amendments would be required to bring the Act up to date, but,
"this might he seen to later hut not during the consideration of this Bill."
That was his view then: that is my view now.
For these reasons I hope that, as the noble Lord has kindly indicated, he will feel able to withdraw his amendment, having particular regard to the observations of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman, made in volume 438, cols. 838, 939 and 111, and also, and very importantly, those made by the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, at cols. 101 and 102, as to the need for this Bill in the form in which it stands.
Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran: May I say with great humility that I do not want the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, to remind me of what I said on Second Reading, nor of what was said late at night by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman, and other Members. He and I differ on this fundamental matter. The noble Lord feels that the Government are like an immovable rock. That is a fairly fair paraphrase of what he said. I am sorry that a distinguished member of the Conservative Party thinks that his Government are an inflexible monster of this kind—
Lord Campbell of AllowayWill the noble Lord give way?
Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran: Certainly.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: I should like to this technical debate on a fairly even keel and really, with respect, that is going a bit far. I wonder whether the noble Lord—we are both members of the same profession, though of different political parties—can cool it a bit.
Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran: Thank you very much. I am delighted to have been interrupted in that most helpful way; but I understood that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway—and we shall see what he said in Hansard tomorrow—implied, even though he may not have said it in words, that the Government had made up their minds and could not be moved.
I think that Governments, and particularly this Government, can be moved when matters are put to them by people who know what they are talking about in a particular field—and I pretend to know what I am talking about in this field at any rate—and are trying to be helpful. I do think that the Government will consider what I have said, and I am sure that they will not consider it with the closed mind which the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, appeared to suggest that they would be bringing to this debate tonight. In these circumstances, I ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 2 not moved.]
Lord Campbell of Alloway Lord Campbell of Alloway moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 3, line 41, at end insert—
("10. Section 68(1) is amended by inserting in the definition of "trade mark" the words "or services" after the word "goods" in both places where that word occurs.").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move this amendment. This is a formal amendment to cure a drafting defect which arises from the omission of "services" from the definition of "trade mark" in Section 68(1), the interpretation section of the Act of 1938. It is an error of omission to which I drew your Lordships' attention on Second Reading and it is an error of drafting. It is requisite because Clause 1 of the Bill, by reference to the Schedule, is designed, in so far as practicable, as I have said already, to put services on the same footing as goods for the purpose of trade mark registration in implementation of the Nice arrangement—to which the noble Lord has been good enough to refer—as revised first at Stockholm and later at Geneva. This is a purely formal amendment and I beg to move.
Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran: I have pleasure in supporting the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, in this amendment.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Lloyd of Kilgerranhad given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 4:
Page 3, line 41. at end Insert—
("10. Section 68 is amended in subsection (1)—

(a) in the definition of "limitations" by inserting the words "or services provided" after the words "traded in" and by inserting the words "or business" after the word "market": and

(b) in the definition of "trade mark" by inserting the words "or services" after the word "goods" wherever that word occurs and by inserting the words "or business" after the words "course of trade".").

The noble Lord said: Paragraph (a) of this amendment is also intended to deal with an omission in regard to Section 68 concerning the definition of "limitation". I am sure that if there had been more chance of discussions prior to this Bill being lodged with the Comptroller-General of Patents and others, this error, or this omission, could have been avoided. Everywhere through the Bill it has been intended to put, as well as "goods", the words "or services". That is the whole object of the Bill. That is a very simple theme—that registration is possible for goods, as now, and also for services.
In regard to Section 68 of the Trade Marks Act 1938, there is a definition of the word "limitations". In the original of this Bill it says that:
"Limitations shall apply … as to use in relation to goods to be sold or otherwise traded in"—
and the word "services" has not been brought in there. Therefore the object of this amendment is to say that, after the passage in the original 1938 Bill which reads,
"the goods to be sold or otherwise traded in",
the words "or services provided" shall be added. That is just a minor amendment.
Then there is need for further clarification because there is a problem now, having regard to the House of Lords decision in the Aristoc v. Rvsta case as to whether "services" can be said to be "in the course of
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trade". This may be a somewhat technical point, and perhaps a semantic one, but, though you can trade in goods, can you have services in the course of trade as such? It is a fine point, and this amendment makes it quite clear that, if you insert the words "or business" after the word "trade", you will be all right and there will be no doubt.
This amendment therefore arises from the difficulties placed upon the business community throughout the British Commonwealth with which I have been concerned wherever you are dealing with services, where you are using contracts and you have to talk about trade marks in the course of trade. Where the marks are not registered, and where they apply not only to goods but also to services, and particularly to technical services, it is terribly important when you are dealing with a transfer of technology from one country to another. From a personal point of view, I have always said "in the course of trade or business", in order to make it perfectly clear so that nobody could take the technical point against you. Dealing with technical services, for instance, is not dealing with something in the course of trade. One usually associates trade with the transfer or exchange of goods and so on. That is what paragraph (a) is concerned with.
Paragraph (b) is largely covered by Amendment No. 3 of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, which the Committee has accepted. It is the same as that amendment, but coupled with the addition of the words "or business" after the words "course of trade". I do not propose to go into that in any detail. In the circumstances, with the leave of the committee, and having explained my position on this amendment, together with the fact that the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, has been accepted, I shall not move this amendment.
[Amendment No. 4 not moved.]
Schedule, as amended, agreed to.
Title agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with the amendment.

Cinematograph (Safety) (Amendment) Regulations 1982
8.42 p.m.
Viscount Colville of Culross Viscount Colville of Culross rose to move that an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the regulations (S.I. 1982/1856) be annulled.
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I draw attention to these regulations. Last summer, Parliament passed the Cinematograph (Amendment) Act, and I had charge of it in this House. It was an Act to deal with two matters. One of them was the whole area of bogus cinema clubs, which were escaping all forms of licensing, including the censorship provisions, which enable local authorities to control pornography and violence. I hasten to say that these regulations have nothing whatsoever to do with that.
The other aspect of the Act was to bring within the licensing provisions—and that includes the safety licensing provisions—video shows, which, we all thought. were not covered by the existing definition of

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the cinematograph exhibition. It is with the safety provisions that these amendments deal, and your Lordships may think that this is a very important aspect indeed. It was not very much discussed when the Act was a Bill, because I think we all agreed that this was fundamental in extending the licensing provisions to video.
The Act came into force in October. On 1st December, the responsible officials in the Home Office issued a consultation letter saying that they had had representations from a number of sources. These included the GLC, other local authority associations, the brewers and the manufacturers of video juke boxes. They were all saying that the existing safety regulations could not be applied in the case of some of the applications that had been made, and, consequently, licences could not be issued. The consultees were further told that Ministers in the Home Office had expessed the desire that urgent action should be taken. With a passing reference to the previous debate, there is no question here of an inflexible Government; and, of course, I am in no way criticising the Home Office for being able to move as a result of representations, and, indeed, to move quickly. On the contrary, I think that it is laudable. However, quickly they did move, because the regulations were laid on, I think, 30th December, and they come into force next Monday.
What I want to do is to ask my noble friend just what were the applications that caused this urgency and these problems, because if there is any question about the safety of the public who resort to an exhibition of video material then I think we should know what is the reason for a relaxation of regulations that have been in force, so far as I know satisfactorily, for some time. Furthermore, where did these regulations come from? What sort of premises are involved? Such research as I have been able to make does not indicate that there has been a spate of applications to district councils in the provinces. I assume, therefore, that it must essentially be a London problem.
Reading the letter of consultation, I see that the whole of the safety regulations are under consideration and are expected to be consolidated, with revisions no doubt, later on this year. I hope that my noble friend can confirm this. I have no objection to an experiment, such as is contained in the regulations which are now the subject of this Motion, provided that the proper lessons are going to be learned from it and are going to be applied when it comes to the consolidation.
I hope that my noble friend will, first, be able to tell me that in the light of the urgency which has been mentioned, and in the light of the very short period for consultation which was allowed, strenuous steps will be taken by the Home Office to see what in fact happens as a result of these regulations. What sort of applications are going to be made; what sort of applications are going to be accepted and licences issued; when the premises come to be inspected have they, indeed, fulfilled the claims of the applicants when they sought their licences; and what other lessons are to be learned from the whole process of implementing these new safety regulations?
I would seek to convince my noble friend that, unless some active steps are taken to ensure that the
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local authorities concerned provide the Home Office with the necessary information about these matters, the Home Office will not be able to see whether the provisions of these regulations have turned out to be satisfactory. The reason for this is that, if the regulations are to be consolidated this year. there will be no time for the courts, definitively or comprehensively, to look at some of the relaxations that are made in the safety requirements contained in the old regulations. There simply will not be time for these matters to be tested —ertainly not in a court of record. Therefore, the Government will not know unless they take steps now, starting on Monday. to find out.
I am surprised at one, at least, of the relaxations that have been made. I hasten to say that I am not complaining if the matter is confined to video, to a relaxation in relation to 16mm film, which is plainly irrelevant, or to a relaxation in connection with the rewinding of films and the projection rooms in which films (if they are truly films) would obviously have to be worked. These must be sensible. But I cannot believe that they are the sole reason why these relaxations have been made.
As the law stands at the moment, if you provide a cinematograph exhibition, which is now to be defined as including a video exhibition, for not more than three days in any one week, in an auditorium where not more than 400 people may be seated, you receive a relaxation, in any event, in relation to these matters. That is quite a large building. with quite frequent use. One can only assume that applicants have come forward who want to use their premises for more than three days a week and where there are possibilities that more than 400 people may be seated, and that for these reasons they wish to have a relaxation. The result is that Regulation 37 is being removed in the case of a video show. It means that the provision in Regulation 37 is withdrawn. This is a regulation which provides for fixed seating where there are to be more than 250 people in the audience.
I am not sure that these regulations are entirely suitable for the modern era. I do not know exactly how a video show in a discothèque or in one of the bars in a public house really fits in with the phraseology of these 1955 regulations, most of which date a great deal further back than that. But it is far from clear to me, on the basis of the material which I have seen, that there is a prima facie case for the relaxation of fixed seating if there are to be between 250 and 400 people seated in one part of a building, be it a disco or a public house bar, or whatever it may be. It is the cinematograph exhibition and the premises in which it is held that are to be licensed.
What are these places that have required this relaxation? And is there any chance that my noble friend is going to have a relaxation on the safety side of some of the clubs where films, now to be censored or to be subject to some form of regulation, have previously been shown on video and which were not previously caught by licensing but which will in fact have very much the same character as an ordinary cinema, save for the substitution of video tapes for the previous films? If so, we have a situation where there may be between 250 and 400 people seated in what would otherwise be described as a cinema and not subject to fixed seating at all. I want to know what are

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these places which have caused this urgent reaction by the Home Office to the applications of the various people to whom I have referred.
There is a further point. I have referred to my doubts about the applicability of some of the phraseology in the existing regulations to modern exhibitions of video tapes in various places. It is not made easier by the drafting of these regulations. If you have a video exhibition for which you are making an application for a licence and you look at the second of the regulations which are now the subject of this short debate, you find that the special dispensation which is being given applies where there is going to be a video exhibition, whether or not certain other provisions apply.
One of those provisions plainly applies to films and television exhibitions. I wonder whether the ordinary local authority adviser, on receiving an application for an exhibition, is going clearly to understand what it is that it is intended to deal with. For instance—my noble friend will. I am sure, be able to help me on this—is he going to be able to interpret these regulations so as to say that if a video exhibition is to be provided in the bar on Monday and on Thursday but a television exhibition is to be provided on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, the only requirements that are going to have to be fulfilled are those relaxed ones relating to the video, and that therefore people who were showing films and television and were previously caught by the more stringent rules will find, in relation to those exhibitions, that they are relaxed? I suggest to my noble friend that there is a strong case for a circular explaining the exact extent of this relaxation to be sent round to the licensing authorities, who are the district councils outside London (where it is the GLC) and who may not have either the number of applications or the depth of experience readily to understand exactly what it is they are going to do.
I hope that my noble friend will be able to answer these matters. The definition which he and his advisers have chosen is one which has abandoned what one would have thought was a fairly generous principle of not more than three days a week and substituted for it—I think only in relation to video, though I need to be reassured about this—a definition which says that this is to take place in premises where it is subsidiary or incidental to other uses. That is going to be as long as a piece of string. It is one of those definitions which has exercised the courts from time immemorial, or at any rate since there was statute law, because it is a definition which depends upon the facts of the case and upon the degree. There is room for much argument about the role which the bar plays in the corner of the room. Is it the primary purpose for which people are being attracted into that room? Or is the primary purpose the cinematograph exhibition, be it video or whatever it may be?
This is where a very loose and very flexible definition has been introduced in place of one which was quite clear and related to three days a week. That is the sort of thing which needs to be looked at with very great care when we are relaxing something as important as the safety of people who resort to public places that advertise video or other shows and invite
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them to pay their money and come in. Their safety must not be jeopardised by something which is hastily introduced, even if for a good cause, let alone something which is not subsequently properly looked at and monitored to see how it works. I beg to move.
Moved, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the Regulations (S.I. 1982/1856) be annulled.—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
Lord Birkett: My Lords. I rise very briefly to support the noble Viscount in his Motion. Your Lordships will recall that in the debate last summer to which the noble Viscount referred a great deal of attention was paid by many of your Lordships in all parts of the House to the question of fish that might slip through the various nets which were being invented at the time. I fear that there is a particular fish which will slip through this one, if we are not careful. The noble Viscount has already referred to it. It is quite a simple matter. It is the matter of public houses.
The Home Office letter of 1st December to which the noble Viscount referred very properly states that there are people for whom these relaxations are important and necessary. It would, I imagine, be unthinkable to impose upon a pub legislation demanding fixed seating and no standing in the auditorium. The very nature of the place is that it has no fixed seating and that everybody stands in the auditorium. However, it then goes on to say, very properly:
"On the other hand, if a public house set aside a back room for the showing of films, and the consumption of alcohol was merely a subsidiary activity, we believe that the benefit of the relaxations would not and should not be obtained and the full rigour of the safety regulations would apply".
I am sure that that is something with which we would all agree. What worries me, however, is that that sentence is preceded by the words:
"The precise application of the amending regulations would be a matter for the courts to determine".
Of course it would, but it is hardly a sentence which fills one with confidence. The point of legislation, surely, is to make absolutely certain that there can be no equivocation at all about the way courts decide. The clearer it is the less chance there is of such things slipping through the net. The distinction I am making, although it is in a very specific case, is a very important one: that the back room showing, which is plainly a cinema in disguise, whether it is showing video or whatever else, should not escape the regulations in the way I am sure we all agree that the pub itself should. If the Government can find a way of making sure that the intentions which I know they have in mind will stick, I shall be very happy to support them. In the meantime, I am equally happy to support the noble Viscount in his Motion.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede: My Lords, may I thank the noble Viscount. Lord Colville of Culross, for moving this Prayer and for explaining the purpose of these regulations. When one has an eminent lawyer explaining the purpose of the regulations and saying that they are not entirely straightforward and clear, one is immediately filled with doubt as to whether in fact the regulations are as clearly drawn as they should

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be, and whether there is this need for urgent action; that these particular regulations should come into force on 31st January. I, as other noble Lords, await with very great interest for the reply which the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, will be making to this debate. I would have thought that if these regulations are not as clear cut as they should be there will be some merit in the Government considering whether it might be opportune and profitable to withdraw the regulations at this time and consider whether they can be made in as concise a form as would appear to be necessary from the remarks of the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross.
We have also heard from the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, who will have very great responsibilities for the administration of these regulations. If he is worried about the premises which will slip through these regulations and is concerned that a backroom showing of video tapes will escape from these regulations, then I am sure that this is something about which the Government should be very concerned.
I am sure that the major concern of all of your Lordships will be the question of safety; that safety is something in which we as a nation and as a city can take particular pride in respect of the regulations which we have not only in this field but in other fields as well, so that visitors to this country who visit pubs and what-have-you will feel that the safety regulations are good and that they are less likely to have their safety threatened here than elsewhere.
I am sure that everything should be done to ensure that the regulations are properly promulgated to ensure that that safety is maintained. But if the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, supported by the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, is right and the regulations as they stand are imprecise, there would be merit in the Government looking at them again.
9.3 p.m.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, the Government are glad to have this opportunity to debate these regulations. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross, for the way in which he has explained the points he has raised. Although these regulations have been generally welcomed they have, it is true, attracted strong opposition from one quarter—namely, the organisations representing the cinema industry. In the Government's view, that opposition is ill-founded for reasons which I shall shortly explain.
Before doing so, however, perhaps I could first convey to your Lordships the regret of my noble friend Lord Elton that he is unable, because of another commitment, to take part in this debate. I can assure my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross that he will study most carefully in Hansard what my noble friend has said. Secondly, and on a more personal note, I should like to thank my noble friend for his courtesy in giving the Home Office and myself advance notice of the points he intended to raise tonight.
These regulations have their origins in the changes to the Cinematograph Acts 1909–1952 which were effected by the Cinematograph (Amendment) Act 1982. The legislation applying to cinematograph exhibitions is complicated, and it may be helpful if I
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were to begin by reminding the House of what the 1982 Act was designed to achieve. Over the years, and in the light of technological developments such as the arrival of video, it became apparent that there were two serious loopholes in the legislation that were causing concern. The first was that the definition of "cinematograph exhibition" in the 1952 Act was not sufficiently wide-ranging and, in particular, did not encompass exhibitions given by means of video. The second, and more damaging, loophole was that the legislation enabled a variety of commercial cinema clubs to evade the censorship and safety controls by claiming not to admit the public.
The Cinematograph (Amendment) Act 1982, which was introduced as a Private Member's Bill by my honourable friend the Member for Fareham, and ably piloted through this House by my noble friend, sought to close both those loopholes. By introducing a private gain test it brought within the scope of the cinematograph licensing procedure, and hence the controls on censorship and safety, the commercial cinema clubs to which I have referred. By amending the definition of "cinematograph exhibition" it also closed the loophole presented by the use of video. These two purposes were achieved by Sections 1 and 2 of the Act. Section 1 amends the definition of "cinematograph exhibition" and has the effect of requiring premises in which video exhibitions are given to be licensed for the purpose unless one of the exemptions in the Cinematograph Acts 1909 and 1952 apply. Section 2 then excludes from the exemptions in the 1909 and 1952 Act exhibitions which are given for "private gain" as defined in the 1982 Act.
The 1982 Act was concerned both with censorship and with safety. But tonight our principal interest is in safety. Safety standards for cinematograph exhibitions are laid down in the Cinematograph (Safety) Regulations 1955, as amended. The regulations apply to all cinemas and cinematograph exhibitions, with certain exceptions in favour of non-commercial exhibitions. They are divided into parts, and Parts I and III are mutually exclusive. Part III contains a less stringent code and applies to such premises as village halls, where exhibitions are put on occasionally. Part I of the regulations applies in all cases other than those which fall within the scope of Part III.
With regard to the first purpose of the 1982 Act—that is to say, controlling commercial cinema clubs—the safety standards embodied in Part I of the 1955 regulations, which were prepared with conventional public cinemas in mind, would seem entirely appropriate, and if a commercial cinema club could not achieve those standards, then it would be right that a licence should be refused and the club required to close until such time as the requisite standards could be met.
The second purpose of the Act, that of closing the loophole presented by the use of video, gives rise to greater difficulty from the point of view of safety requirements because it brings within the scope of the licensing procedure, and hence the 1955 regulations, a variety of premises, very different from conventional cinemas and cinema clubs, where exhibitions are given by means of video, and where very often the exhibition is incidental or subsidiary to some other form of

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entertainment or activity. These premises might include certain public houses, nightclubs, multipurpose community halls, discotheques and even amusement arcades.
If these premises put on cinematograph exhibitions for private gain they have to comply with the 1955 regulations, Part I or Part III as appropriate. As I have already explained, however, the regulations were drawn up mainly with conventional cinemas in mind and some of their requirements are inappropriate in the case of premises such as public houses. In any case, public houses and discotheques are already subject to fire precautions controls, whether under the Fire Precautions Act 1971 or under other licensing arrangements or indeed both. and it is unnecessary to apply a more stringent set of controls to them. This is a view which is held by the fire authorities. It was accordingly to find a way through these difficulties that the present regulations came to be drafted.
A review of the 1955 regulations has been in progress for a number of years, and the Home Office had originally hoped to deal with this problem in the context of that review, which is expected to be brought to a conclusion in the latter part of the year. I can confirm to my noble friend Lord Colville and to the noble Lord. Lord Birkett, that it is bound up to some extent with the timetable for a further consolidation measure which the Government in the past indicated they hoped to produce in due course. I am sure this will come about.
Following the coming into force of the Cinematograph (Amendment) Act 1982 on 13th October, however, it was represented to the Home Office by the Greater London Council, the licensing authorities, and, as my noble friend said, the manufacturers of video juke-boxes (in the technology of which I gather we lead the world) and the brewery interests that the problem was a good deal more urgent than that, and that unless the safety requirements of the regulations were straightaway relaxed they would not be able to grant licences to certain premises for the showing of films, despite the fact that fire precaution measures were judged to be quite satisfactory in relation to the principal use to which the premises were put.
Viscount Colville of Culross: My Lords, if I may interrupt my noble friend for one moment, does he mean films or does he mean videos?
Lord Glenarthur: We are talking about videos, my Lords.
Viscount Colville of Culross: My Lords, my noble friend said films.
Lord Glenarthur: They would not be able to grant licences, my Lords, to certain premises for the showing of films, despite the fact that fire precaution measures were judged to be quite satisfactory in relation to the principal use to which the premises were put. These representations were very carefully considered by the Home Office. In the light of them it was concluded that the problem was indeed an urgent one, and that the way to deal with it was to amend the 1955 regulations
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so as to prevent their full rigour from applying in the case of premises where the exhibition is given by means of video and where it is incidental or subsidiary to some other form of entertainment or activity.
At this point I should perhaps say a little more about the 1955 regulations. The requirements imposed in Part I are extensive and indeed onerous. Detailed requirements are made, among other things, in respect of the number, type and location of exits, seats which have to be securely fixed to the floor, persons who may be allowed to stand in the auditorium, numbers of staff to be on duty, general fire precautions and the provision of primary and safety lighting. However, Part III of the regulations provides for fewer and less rigorous safety measures to apply in connection with cinematograph exhibitions in premises used only occasionally, that is, on not more than three days in any week in the current calendar year. It was thought that the simplest way of accomplishing the purpose desired would be to provide that where cinematograph exhibitions are given by means of video in premises, or part of premises, which at the time are also used for another purpose or purposes to which the giving of the exhibition is subsidiary or incidental, then the premises should be treated for the purposes of the 1955 regulations as premises used occasionally, despite the fact that they do not qualify as such on grounds of frequency, and the provisions of Part III of the regulations (with certain exceptions) should apply accordingly.
The effect of the amending regulations would be that certain minimum requirements relating to exits, staff to deal with emergencies, adequate fire precautions and lighting to enable people to see their way out of the premises in case of emergency would still apply, but there would he no requirements for fixed seating and no restriction on standing in the "auditorium". It is thought that the standard of safety thereby required will be quite sufficient for the premises concerned, as well as being broadly equivalent to the standard which already applies in premises licensed for music and dancing or for the sale of liquor.
Against that background, perhaps I could now come on to the specific points raised by my noble friend. First of all, he sought a general assurance that if the amendment regulations are found to give rise to any difficulties in practice, the points of difficulty will be dealt with in the revised set of regulations which are currently in preparation. I am happy to give that assurance on behalf of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State. The present regulations are regarded as an interim measure, pending the results of the thoroughgoing review of the 1955 regulations to which I have already referred, and when we come to circulate the revised 1955 regulations for comment, we shall incorporate the substance of the amendment regulations in them and ask to be informed of any difficulties to which they have given rise. Any necessary refinements can then he accommodated in the final version of the revised regulations.
My noble friend's next point concerned the basis on which it is to be established whether an exhibition is incidental or subsidiary to other purposes for which the premises are used. Under the procedures embodied in the Cinematograph Acts the decision

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whether to grant a cinematograph licence rests with the appropriate licensing authority (the district council or Greater London Council), advised by the local fire authority on fire safety aspects. It is similarly mainly for the licensing authority to enforce the requirements of the safety regulations, again advised and assisted by the local fire authority. Perhaps one of the best ways of answering my noble friend's point would be to take a practical example. If a particular public house wanted to advertise and show video films in the main bar, and it was clear from the facts supplied that the film show was incidental to the main use of the bar as a gathering place for drinking, then the licensing authority in granting a licence would direct the licensee's attention to the provisions of the amending regulations. The licensee would then have to comply with those provisions, and if on subsequent inspection, whether by the licensing or by the fire authority, he was found not to be doing so, he would be liable to prosecution.
Unless it came to a prosecution—and this is a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Birkett—the courts would thus not be directly involved in the determination of whether an exhibition was incidental or subsidiary to another form of entertainment or activity; this would be a matter for the licensing authority alone to determine, in the light of the facts presented to them. Guidance to licensing authorities on the effect of the new regulations will, however, he available from the Home Office, in the form of an explanatory circular, which I think is to be issued tomorrow, the 27th January.
Turning to my noble friend's next point, he was concerned to know the reason for the exclusion of Regulation 37. Regulation 37 has two paragraphs. The first provides that where the audience exceeds 250 persons all seats in the auditorium shall, with the exception of certain boxes, be either securely fixed to the floor or battened together in lengths of not less than four or more than 12. This requirement would not affect most public houses, but it would affect some larger ones where very substantial numbers of people may be present in a bar where a video film is being shown as an incidental form of entertainment. It would also affect discothèques which show films incidentally to music and dancing. One cannot imagine a lot of fixed seats in discothèques. Many more than 250 people may be present in a discothèque, and to require fixed seating would be absurd having regard to the principal use to which the premises are being put. (It is certainly not required for that principal use; the main safety requirement for music and dancing entertainments is that there should be safe and ample means of escape from the premises.)
The second paragraph of Regulation 37 provides for Regulation 3 to apply to an occasional exhibition, with the exception of paragraph (2) of that regulation. The effect is that premises to which Part III applies must have seats so arranged as to allow free access to exits; no sitting may be allowed during a film show except in the seats provided; no standing may be allowed except in such places and within such numbers as may be specified by the licensing authority; where standing is permitted, sufficient room must be left in the gangway to allow other people easily to pass along it; and all gangways must be kept free from obstructions. Although in some respects those requirements would
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merely duplicate requirements already imposed on premises such as public houses and discotheques, it was felt that the requirements relating to standing were not fully appropriate to the circumstances applying in public houses and discothèques and might also present difficulty to licensing authorities. This was accordingly another reason for the exclusion of Regulation 37.
Finally, I come to my noble friend's point about the drafting of Regulation 35(2). This paragraph provides that where the conditions mentioned in subparagraph (d) are satisfied, that is, the exhibition is given by means of video and, while it is being given, the premises are used for another purpose to which the giving of the exhibition is incidental or subsidiary, then Part III of the regulations is to appply (with certain exceptions), regardless of whether any of subparagraphs (a), (b) and (c) of Regulation 35 also applies. My noble friend asks what would be the effect of the amending regulations in a case where a video show was given on one day of the week, and a film or television show on other days. I am advised that a single licence would be required for the premises but different requirements of the regulations would apply from day to day depending on the means used for the exhibition and the circumstances in which it was given. I hope that that answers the point that he raised.
Thus, if the exhibition was by film or television and was not an exempt exhibition, the provisions of Part I or Part III of the regulations would apply in their entirety. If the exhibition was by means of video, and was the principal entertainment on offer, for example, in a back room set aside as a video lounge, then again the provisions of Part I or Part III would apply in their entirety, depending on the frequency with which such exhibitions were held. If, however, the conditions of the new sub-paragraph 35(1)(d) were satisfied, then Regulation 35(2) would operate to apply the provisions of Part III, with certain exceptions, regardless of frequency. Against that background, I am able to give my noble friend the assurance he seeks, that there should be no relaxation in safety standards in the case of film or television exhibitions as a result of these regulations.
It has been claimed by organisations representing the cinema industry that these amending regulations, as well as having been rushed through without time for proper consultation, undermine the whole purpose and philosophy of the 1982 Act, which sought to expose all premises where cinematograph exhibitions are given on a commercial basis, to the full panoply of controls relating to censorship and particularly to safety. I hope I have said enough—and I have certainly said it at length—to indicate that that claim is ill-founded. The Government do accept that the regulations have been prepared against a very short timetable, and we certainly regret any inconvenience that may have been caused by this; but I hope I have adequately explained the reasons for the Government's haste, which was dictated by the urgency of the representations we had received.
So far as the broader philosophy of the 1982 Act is concerned, we do not accept that this has been undermined in any way. These regulations are not concerned with video exhibitions in general; we are not seeking to provide a relaxed safety règime wherever video is used. We are concerned here only

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with a narrow class of video exhibitions: those that are given in premises which, at the time, are being used for another purpose to which the video show is incidental or subsidiary. There is no reason of safety why, for example, a public house putting on regular video exhibitions in the main bar as an accompaniment to drinking and conversation should have to comply with the full rigour of Part I of the 1955 regulations. Apart from these regulations, which I commend to the House tonight, that would be the effect of that law.
Viscount Colville of Culross: My Lords, I shall be very brief, but I plainly must thank my noble friend for having researched this matter with some care. I think that my concern has not been shown to be wholly unjustified. I speak for nobody but myself. I wish to make certain that the result of the Bill that I conducted through this House was not going to lead to very great practical difficlties. Anybody listening to the speech of my noble friend will wish the very greatest of luck to the licensing authorities as they come to interpret this legislation in accordance with the facts of some of the applications that may be made to them. The only comfort that I have is what he said about considering the practical results.
I should like to make one point. I do not accept that one can rely on licensing under other legislation. If a public house is going to show films or television as a matter of public admission, it will have to comply with the justices' licence, of course, and it will also have to comply with the full rigours of at least Part III of the 1955 regulations. This appears to be standard procedure. It has been perfectly satisfactory so far; nobody has ever said that it was unfair. Only when it shows video, perhaps on a different day of the week, will it have a relaxation.
In those circumstances I cannot see any justification for relying solely upon the justices' licence. The same would apply in a disco if you sought to rely upon the music and dancing licence. No; what I take comfort in is that the Home Office recognises that this is experimental. It recognises, despite the fact that my noble friend said "film"—and so does the letter of consultation—that the intention is that these regulations shall not relate to films, that this will be made clear to the local authorities which are licensing these places, and that we shall stick strictly to what was in the Act, which was a very limited measure but dealt with important matters.
Upon the understanding that he has given me, that the Home Office will seek to find out information about the applications and the enforcement of the licences once they are issued, will consult upon the practicality of this form of relaxation and will incorporate any amendments that may be necessary in the light of experience in the consolidating regulations that will come quite soon before Parliament, I am content to leave it for this evening. However, I believe that we should be very vigilant about this for the sort of reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, mentioned; that anything to do with safety of the public when they are invited to go to an exhibition of this sort is something that we are bound to take very seriously indeed. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw this Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Southwark: Greenham Common Contracts
9.27 p.m.
Lord Harris of Greenwichrose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are aware that the London borough of Southwark has determined that companies which have been awarded contracts by the Government at Greenham Common should not be employed in any capacity by the council and that it is appealing to other local authorities to take similar action, and what action they propose to take to deal with this situation.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. The reason for this brief debate arises from a resolution adopted by the council of the London borough of Southwark on 22nd December last year. That resolution reads:

"(i) This Council supports the action of the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp in opposing the siting of the U.S. Cruise Missiles in Britain, and affirms its opposition to all nuclear weapons.

(ii) This Council notes that construction of silos and support facilities is already being undertaken by British companies subcontracted by Tarmac, who have been awarded the contract for all work on the missile site.

(iii) Therefore, in line with this Council's nuclear-free policy, it is resolved not to employ in any future capacity. Tarmac or any of the Companies so engaged.

(iv) This Council also undertakes to encourage other Councils to adopt this resolution, and support them in doing so.".

First, let me say that this evening I am not concerned with the views of the women who have been demonstrating at Greenham Common. I do not happen to share their views on nuclear weapons, but I certainly respect them. What I am concerned about is the action of the Southwark Council. I do not accept that a council has the right to blacklist contractors in this way. What, after all, is the offence that has been committed by Tarmac, and by the sub-contractors? By the terms of the resolution adopted by the council last December, none of them will in the future be awarded contracts by Southwark Council even if they submit the lowest tenders. Their offence is that they have competed for, and secured, contracts awarded by the Government at the base at Greenham Common.
I should like to make one rather obvious point at the outset. I believe that it is for the elected Government of this country, and not for the London borough of Southwark, to determine the defence policy of this country. It is for the Government and for Parliament to decide whether these installations should or should not be established, and not for any group of borough councillors. It is of course obviously easy to dismiss this episode as being entirely absurd; as being so silly that it scarcely merits serious discussion. It would be easy to adopt this view, but it would be wrong.
There are three reasons why the decision by the council at Southwark deserves our attention. First—and I put this, if I may, in the bluntest terms to the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, who will be responding to this debate—I believe that the decision is unlawful. I do not believe that a council can, by resolution, debar companies from the right to tender on equal terms with competitors simply because they have undertaken some work of which the council may

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disapprove. They are seeking to induce the contractors concerned at the base at Greenham Common to break their contracts with the Government.
In my view, such an attempt is unlawful. I should be grateful to hear whether the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, shares this view or not. I hope that he will not tell us that it is not for the Government to give a view on the law. In the circumstances of this case, it is highly desirable that they should, because unless they give a view on the law it is highly likely that a number of other local authorities will pass similar resolutions.
As the House will recall, the terms of the resolution adopted by the council of Southwark specifically called on other local authorities to adopt similar resolutions. There are many Labour-controlled local authorities in this country with responsible leadership who will refuse to have anything to do with this at all, but, as we are all well aware, there are a number, both in London and outside, which are controlled—let us be blunt about this—by the kind of extremists who run the council at Southwark and who will follow their example with the greatest enthusiasm. In these circumstances it would be wrong for the Government to remain silent on what they believe the law to be.
It would be wrong for a second reason. This brings me to the second argument I should like briefly to deploy. The Government must take prompt action to protect those companies to whom they decide to award defence contracts. If other authorities follow the example of Southwark—and, as I have indicated, unless some sort of action is taken a number of other authorities are going to adopt the resolution passed by Southwark: indeed, I understand that, as we debate this issue one substantial county council is in the process of considering taking exactly the same line—I think that. unless some form of action is going to be taken, contractors to whom the Government have awarded contracts will increasingly come under this form of coercion. It would in these circumstances be unacceptable for the Government to stand by passively and to allow financial punishment to be inflicted on companies and—let us not forget this either—on the men and women who work for those companies simply because they have succeeded in obtaining Government contracts.
Thirdly, I turn to the general question raised of the conduct of authorities such as Southwark. I served on a local authority in Essex some years ago, when I had the privilege of leading the Labour majority group on that council. I would have regarded it then as most remarkable that within a relatively short space of time a number of London boroughs, including Southwark, would be dominated by men and women who appear to be so remarkably reckless and irresponsible, and so entirely indifferent to the needs of the people who have elected them. It is no accident, I believe, that, while Southwark councillors fulminate against contractors at Greenham Common, thus involving themselves in issues entirely outside their own range of statutory responsibilities, they preside with remarkable complacency over one of the worst administered council housing systems in London.
In the relatively brief period during which the present group, from the left of the Labour Party, have
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dominated Southwark Council—for a period of nine months only—they have displayed a contempt for the rule of law which is a disgrace to the reputation of local government in this country. In a recent and well-publicised case during the Peckham by-election relating to the National Front, they deliberately defied the law, and they now propose to do exactly the same in Bermondsey, thus giving that particularly repellent organisation just the kind of publicity which it craves. They also, with calculation, endeavoured grossly to mislead a High Court judge who had heard an application for an injunction to remedy this unlawful action. And, in a case strikingly similar in some respects to the case at Greenham Common, so far as the Greenham Common contractors are concerned, they rejected a company's tender, it being the lowest available to the council, on the grounds that the company had incurred their displeasure during a dispute over privatisation in a neighbouring London borough. Then, just in case they had not damaged the reputation of their authority enough, councillors became involved in a physical brawl which required the presence of officers of the Metropolitan Police.
Southwark Council's defence to all these rather remarkable actions is the constantly repeated statement that they are simply representing the wishes of the people of Southwark. Even that is untrue. At the last local elections last May, for instance, the present Labour majority on the council had the support of 43·7 per cent. of those who voted, whereas the Conservatives and Social Democratic and Liberal Alliance had the backing of 52·7 per cent. of the electorate.
I, of course, recognise the dilemma which is facing the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, and the Government in this case and, no doubt, in many others involving authorities of this kind. They do not want to engage in undue interventionism in the affairs of an elected local authority, and caution in matters of this kind is highly desirable. I do not believe the Government should needlessly involve themselves in local disputes. But when a local authority behaves consistently with such arrogance and careless indifference to its responsibilities, the time for actions has clearly arrived.
We cannot allow local authorites, run by the sort of people who are now running Southwark, to establish enemies' lists—reminiscent, curiously, of some of the excesses we saw in the White House of President Nixon—and deny companies on those enemies' lists the right to submit tenders on fair and equal terms for public works contracts in the area of that local authority. Nor can we allow the majority of the people of Southwark, represented, as they are, by a tiny minority on the council, to have to pay higher rates because of the refusal of the local authority to accept the lowest tenders for contracts.
There are, as I have indicated, even wider issues involved in Southwark than the dispute which has arisen over the affairs of Tarmac Limited and the other companies which have been awarded contracts on behalf of the Ministry of Defence. Nevertheless, on the issue I have raised tonight, I hope we shall receive from the Minister an unqualified assurance that the Government are contemplating some form of action.
9.40 p.m.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, the House is surely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, for raising what is a serious matter. The noble Lord the Minister will not be surprised when I say that noble Lords on these Benches are averse to interfering in local government, in the day-to-day running of local government. There have been exchanges between this Bench and the noble Lord on interventions by the Secretary of State and others in local government matters. There was one only the other night, and doubtless we shall return to the matter when we come to the question of the Transport Bill. We believe that local authorities should have the freedom to act within what is their proper area. That should certainly be subject to the law. We also believe that they have a duty to get the best deal possible in their tendering and contracts, in their purchasing, on behalf of the local ratepayers. It is no part of their duty to act on the basis of trying to coerce central Government on matters of national policy.
As the noble Lord, Lord Harris, has said, there is a history in this sad borough of dubious decisions. Let us make no mistake about it; it is an unhappy place, with enormous problems. Like many inner-urban areas, it has considerable problems of urban decay. One might have felt that with all those problems. the council's time would have been better spent dealing with them and not meddling in matters outside the scope of its authority. I am advised that Southwark is the top of the league of London boroughs so far as empty council property is concerned. There are about 4,500 empty properties in the area. It is also top of the league in regard to hard-to-let council properties. I am advised there are about 14,000 such properties.
The noble Lord, Lord Harris, has mentioned a number of cases which indicate the attitude of this local authority, and perhaps I may spend a moment or two dotting the i's and crossing the t's on what he said. First, there is the question of the earth moving contract. As the noble Lord rightly said, it was not awarded to the lowest tenderer, on grounds that the company had worked for Wandsworth Council during the council dispute on privatisation. Your Lordships might feel that greater public debate in Southwark would enlighten the council more than it was enlightened when it came to this decision, since I understand that the people who got the contract also worked for Wandsworth Council during the dispute concerning privatisation.
Secondly, Southwark went back on an undertaking of a previous Labour Administration to rehouse down-town tenants in new homes in the Surrey docks. It continued in that attitude, even after findings by the Ombudsman on a number of occasions of maladministration. Again, as the noble Lord. Lord Harris said, I suggest that that indicates the council's attitude of mind to the law.
As the noble Lord also said, Southwark refused to accept the view of the court on providing a meeting room for the National Front. Nobody abhors the National Front more than do people who speak from these Benches, but the law is to he upheld, since if this kind of censorship is to be allowed, who knows where it will stop? The High Court was quite clear. Mr. Justice Forbes reprimanded the authority for its
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refusal to comply with the order that had been made, or the advice that had been given, and said that the council had flatly refused to discharge the duty placed on it. There is this thread that runs through all these actions.
I am told that there is far from open government in the borough. The council is constantly blocking attempts by anybody but its own small clique to obtain information on a whole range of issues. Again, as the noble Lord, Lord Harris, has said, although the ruling party has a large majority of seats. it has been elected on a minority of votes, and I shall not tonight delay your Lordships with a further exposition of methods of electoral reform that would put that right.
It seems to me that as a result of spending its time on these kind of things, the council is in danger of incurring serious penalties on its block grant. We read in the newspapers that there is a chance of this leading to a 40 per cent. increase in rates. It may be felt that none of these things is in the interest of the local ratepayers. We may disapprove from these Benches of measures that have been introduced by the Government in matters of local government finance. Nevertheless, those measures have gone through Parliament, and local authorities have a duty to act accordingly.
In a sense, none of these things would be of concern to this House, except on the fringe, were it not for the fact that the law itself is being brought into question. The Greenham Common episode is certainly the most blatant of these. I think it would be improper of me to relate this to another matter which is likely to come before the Committee of Privileges in another place, but there are similarities, again, in attitude of mind. But it would not matter what the particular subject was: Greenham Common is an irrelevance to this. If we are going to have local governments using their purchasing power to coerce their citizens and to attempt to coerce the Government indirectly on matters that have been properly decided by Government and by Parliament, then we are opening a Pandora's Box.
They are extremely foolish, these people, if they believe that this is an attitude of mind that can be adopted by only one end of the political spectrum. If we allow this sort of thing to go unheeded, then who knows where it will lead if there are changes of Government and if, for instance, the extreme Right were to get into power in any particular local authority—which heaven forbid!
My Lords, it is a serious matter, and I am sure that the Minister is going to take it seriously; but I hope that he can offer some positive answers to the noble Lord, Lord Harris, tonight.
9.47 p.m.
Lord Bishopston: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, has provided an opportunity for the House not only to ascertain the policy of Her Majesty's Government in relation to the Unstarred Question that he has asked but also to consider, among other things, the motive which prompted the noble Lord to table it. The speech that we have heard from him indicates that he is concerned on several grounds—as, indeed, is the noble Lord, Lord

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Tordoff—some of them quite irrelevant to the matter which is before the House tonight.
He has been critical of the London borough of Southwark in their policy. I like to see that his party believes in being in touch with local government, but I think I should like to ask him—and I will give way if he wishes to intervene—if he has been in touch with the council's officers on the matter to ascertain the council's policy and the reasons for it. Otherwise, it is really like putting people on trial without telling them that they are under scrutiny and without giving them a chance to answer. It seems that the noble Lord has not done so; and I think that is one of the points we can take into account. He has decided to pursue the matter without having gone to those who could have given him information and advice. Yet it is often recommended by his party, on behalf of whom he is apparently speaking, that members should at all times be in touch with their town hall and should find out what is happening and, indeed, what can be done.
In this case it seems that there was not the courtesy of a contact on a matter where he is critical of the London borough of Southwark. I found that I received co-operation when I contacted them to find out the background to all this. I think they were grateful when I told them there was a debate going on tonight in which they were to be criticised. The terms of the motion passed by the council on 22nd December are worth noting, and the noble Lord has at least given us the benefit of knowing what it is.
The noble Lord has, quite rightly, read the terms to the House. One may well ask why any council should pass such a resolution. In the last election, the local Labour Party manifesto, under the heading of "Southwark—a nuclear free zone" said, among other things, that the Labour Party in Southwark recognises that there is no effective way to protect its population against nuclear war and that a Labour-controlled council would call on the Government not to manufacture or transport nuclear materials of any kind within the boundaries of the borough. Some may claim that the council had a mandate to act in the terms of their manifesto.
Whatever the merits of the case, it may be that people should not be surprised that this is one of the consequences. One may ask: what is the merit of the council's view? The first part of the resolution is concerned with nuclear weapons. I use the word "concerned" because I think it is appropriate here, for millions of people of all parties and of none, of all denominations and of all walks of life are expressing concern. Indeed, in a week of two's time the General Synod of the Church will be discussing the book, The Church and the Bomb. However, the noble Lord has not mentioned what kind of concern activates the council in this way.
The Motion is concerned, as the noble Lord says, with Greenham Common where people of all backgrounds are showing their concern, many are suffering great discomfort, hardship and sacrifice, because they do not wish their families to suffer through nuclear weapons. One can argue whether that is the best way to go about it, but that is as they see it. It is a matter where they feel the British Government have no control.
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Indeed, I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, that his noble friend Lord Kennet, writing in the SDP booklet, Neither Red nor Dead: The Case for Disarmament, has said:
"The present Government has made a bad mistake in about American Cruise missiles on British soil. We have never before had foreign missiles on our soil without our own safety catch on them. If they are to come here at all (and we would certainly prefer to see the whole operation called off in return for the withdrawal and verified destruction of the SS 20s) then they must have a British safety catch".
I believe that on 18th January the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, from the Liberal Benches, with concern shared by all sides, had a question on cruise missiles and I rather thought from his supplementary question that he was not happy with the assurances about who would control them. The anxiety of the London borough of Southwark is matched by the expressions of the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, and indeed by the SDP's own publication.
One may ask why the SDP and the London borough of Southwark are so concerned on this matter. Again, if one looks in the publication to which I have referred, on page 4 the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, gives some horrific details of what may result from nuclear weapons, some of them not unrealistic.
Lord Bellwin: If the noble Lord will give way, may I respectfully suggest that this is quite a red herring that he is drawing across the debate? This is not the issue at all that is under discussion at the present time. If we are to have a debate on the rights or wrongs of nuclear deterrents I am sure there have been and will be plenty of opportunities to do so.
Lord Bishopston: I am speaking about a resolution which has been detailed to your Lordships' House that the council supports the action of the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp, and so on, against the proposed siting of U.S. cruise missiles in Britain. I am keeping to the subject a little more than some of the noble Lords who have spoken up to now and who have introduced matters such as empty houses and so on. This is in the resolution and I am only anticipating some reasons as to why the council should have passed such a resolution.
As I said, the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, having given details in that publication, goes on to say, anticipating the effects of nuclear fall-out:
"One H bomb burst over London means this"—
he made reference to some of these points—
"not for hundreds nor for thousands nor tens of thousands nor hundreds of thousands nor for a million, but perhaps for five million people".
Some would say—and I am not making this point—that, in the light of that kind of claim from the SDP Benches, this action of the council is perhaps modest. It may well, in the minds of those who have to pursue these policies, be a justification.
Reference has been made to the SDP situation on the council. I understand that at the last local election the Labour Party had 27 votes, the Conservative Party had 7, and that the 11 SDP candidates were not elected. I do not want to bring politics into this debate, but they have been brought into it. It may give us some indication of whether a by-election is pending. It might

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give us an indication of why the matter has been raised tonight. The fact is that the council is concerned about the most important things which matter to all ratepayers, and that is their existence.
To come to the more mundane matters, having dealt with what I think are quite relevant issues in relation to the resolution, there is the matter of the council getting value for money with adequate competition. This has not been mentioned. This is important, too. The position, I understand, is that in each of the categories for which Tarmac was on the approved list in 1982 there are now a number of contractors on the list for 1983. I can go through them if it is wished. There are eight items. On highway construction work there are 55 contractors and the lowest number of contractors is eight in respect of eight items.
There is an answer to the question as to whether there is competition which is in the interests of the ratepayers. I understand that there is no question of the council wishing to break existing contracts. There will be interest as to whether the Government have any powers or requirements about approved lists in competition. Undoubtedly the district auditor would wish to be assured about the competitive tendering and that the council's standing orders have been complied with. I am sure that the noble Lord the Minister will make a contribution in enlightening us on that. The council, as indeed any local authority, invites tenders but we all know that they do not have to put on the approved list everyone who applies. Indeed, it may seem that a local authority can leave off some without giving any reasons.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord a question? He very kindly invited me to ask one earlier. He is speaking for the official Opposition in this House. Can he simply answer this question: is he in favour of black-listing contractors on the grounds that they have secured Government contracts or not?
Lord Bishopston: My Lords, perhaps I may pursue my case and the noble Lord will get some idea as to the situation. I was in local government for many years before I went to the other House. I was leader of Bristol City Council, chairman of its finance committee, and so on. Therefore. I know something about the responsibilities of local councils. The noble Lord raising this matter tonight is what one might call interfering in local government. The noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, rightly said that parties do not like Governments interfering and outsiders telling other people what they ought to do. Here we are with the noble Lord, Lord Harris, telling the council what they ought to do. The electors have taken the decision, and if the electors do not like what is happening then undoubtedly the time will come when they will express their view.
As I say, the local authority could leave off the approved list some contractors without giving any reasons, so that, in the circumstances like the ones we are considering, the council might have saved itself a lot of bother caused to and undoubtedly by the noble Lord. When the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, quite
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rightly talks about open government, here is the council exercising local urban government, not just striking people off a list and saying, "Do not say why we will not have them", but telling us why they are doing it. All of us are anxious to know what goes on. They were honest and frank about it. Whatever one's views on their action, at least they are sincere to the point of wanting people to know about the issues which cause them concern.
When people talk about matters which are not relevant to a council's responsibilities and about dealing with other things, there are other situations—and I am indebted to the Conservative constituency Newsline, a recent copy of which is in the Library, which tells me under a heading "Devon Ban on CND" that the Devon Education Committee, under its Conservative chairman, Ted Pinney, has decided not to make its schools available to the CND. So it is not a matter of a terrible socialist council in Southwark doing something it should not. Maybe the Minister could comment on this as well. I express no view on this: I merely say that one should be careful when making criticisms. The noble Lord and his party, and indeed all parties, rightly insist that local people should elect members to their councils and let them get on with the job. That is, of course, what the London borough is doing, with no secrecy but with the fullest publicity; and that will be helped by the debate tonight.
Therefore, subject of course to the limitations of national legislation, about which undoubtedly the Minister will rightly have something to say. I think we would all agree that a local authority is in the best position to know its needs and how best they can be satisfied. I am sure we all await with interest the Minister's reply; but, whatever that reply may be, none can doubt the sincerity of the council in what they are doing.
10.1 p.m.
The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Lord Bellwin): My Lords, I have rarely had to listen to a more weird argument being put forward. I have been in this House nearly four years, and I have never heard truth stood on its head and facts so ignored as in the last few minutes. I am absolutely astonished.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, for bringing this matter to the attention of the House today and, if I may say so, for the very clear way in which he has put the issue before your Lordships. The whole House is indebted to him, for though we have had only a short debate it has been an illuminating one. The noble Lord, Lord Bishopston, has illuminated it for me very much during the last few minutes. It is illuminating because this is a matter on which there should be great public concern, not only because of the current interest in the developments at Greenham Common but because of the growing unease about the activities of some local authorities—and I stress that it is only some local authorities, because this does not apply to the vast majority. But, unhappily, that "some" is growing in number.
I must tell the House that it is my understanding also that the Southwark Borough Council has indeed

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passed a resolution which would commit them to a policy of black-listing companies which have been awarded Government contracts in respect of development at Greenham Common. I did not hear the noble Lord, Lord Bishopston, make the slightest reference to that—and that, indeed, is the whole thrust of what we are talking about. And not only have they done that, but they have proposed, as the noble Lord, Lord Harris, has said, to encourage other local authorities along the same path.
Today we are talking about Greenham. Really it is the principle involved, with its widespread implications, which makes this matter so important. Local authorities in this country have very wide powers and, as a result, undertake heavy programmes of purchasing and contracting in order to carry out their functions. It is absolutely essential that council members should constantly bear in mind that in carrying out these contractual arrangements they are using public money—money provided by the ratepayers and by taxpayers. It should go without saying that it is their duty to handle these resources responsibly, and to obtain full value for their expenditure.
This public money is not fairy gold, to be dispensed at the whim of the majority party. It is not a private treasure chest to enable them to place contracts with whomsoever they fancy—people who happen to satisfy or please the majority party in some way. Nor is it a resource to be denied to others to whom the majority party may take a dislike. It rests in the council's hands, on trust, to enable them to carry out their legitimate functions in the genuine interests of all their ratepayers and all their electors.
Of course, there are statutory requirements. Section 135 of the Local Government Act 1972 requires local authorities to make standing orders with respect to the way they make contracts for the supply of goods or materials or the execution of works. The standing orders must include provision for securing competition for contracts and for regulating the manner in which tenders are invited. Those standing orders are not subject to approval by the Secretary of State, nor has he power to prescribe their content. But my department has given advice and published model standing orders. And the aim of that advice has been to reinforce the purpose underlying the statutory provision; that is, to secure propriety in the way local authorities handle these matters.
The most certain way to ensure propriety is to use open competitive tendering. Of course, there will always be circumstances and situations where selective tendering can be advantageous and tendering in this way is, of course, an exercise of discretion by the council. But it has to be recognised that discretion can be abused and the practice of selective tendering by public authorities is acceptable only while those authorities are seen to be acting objectively, reasonably, fairly, and observing appropriate safeguards.
In the case which the noble Lord has brought to your Lordships' attention today, the generally accepted conventions are not being observed. The Southwark proposal is an example of how some councils are prepared to distort what is a generally satisfactory procedure, to promote objectives which have nothing whatsoever to do with the council's need
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for goods or services, nor with obtaining value for money in the use of public funds. Even worse, I am told that in order to pass the resolution—and we heard nothing of this from the noble Lord, Lord Bishopston, who made the inquiries that he told us about—they had to suspend standing orders, which require that five days' notice of motions must be given, and that any decision negativing one taken by council in the preceding six months must be taken only as a result of a committee recommendation. The council had earlier, at the same meeting, adopted a list of approved contractors, which actually included some with contracts at Greenham Common.
Furthermore, I have no hesitation in saying that what the Southwark Borough Council propose is wholly objectionable. It follows closely on the heels of the proposal on which the GLC have recently consulted trade associations and trade unions. It would seem that the GLC plan is to ensure that those who contract with the council must pursue policies in running their businesses which conform to the ideas of the majority party of that council on, for example, the racial and sexual composition of its contractors' workforces, and their wages and recruitment policies. In the Government's view, it is quite wrong for authorities placing contracts to become involved for political and ideological reasons with the pay and conditions agreed by contractors and their employees, or to impose requirements as to the make-up of a contractor's workforce. And the Southwark case is a further step down the road of applying arbitrary requirements upon contractors.
The noble Lord asked what action the Government propose to take. I must remind him that local authorities are independently elected bodies which have a great deal of autonomy. The Secretary of State can intervene in their affairs only where he has express power to do so. In this case, he has no direct powers. But the authorities concerned would do well to remember their primary duties to their ratepayers. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, for reminding us of this in the clear way in which he did.
Local authorities, too, have to bear in mind that policies of this sort, by restricting competition, may lead them to incur additional expenditure on their contracts, as the noble Lord pointed out. That would be of concern to their auditors, who, I am sure, will be watching events very carefully. They also need to consider the provisions of the Competition Act 1980. The Director General of Fair Trading has discretionary power under that Act to investigate trading practices that appear to him to be anticompetitive. Indeed, I understand that his officials are already pursuing inquiries into the tender conditions of some local authorities. I feel sure that, if the Southwark Council implemented the policy indicated in this resolution, the Director General would be interested to consider—indeed, my Lords, I will do everything I can to ensure that he does consider—against the background of his powers any matter arising from this policy which was brought to his notice.
I hope that the Southwark Borough Council will reconsider the course of action on which they have embarked—in their own interests, in the interests of their ratepayers and especially in the interests of the

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reputation of local government in this country. If they persist, and other local authorities are foolishly persuaded to follow them, the Government will have to consider the adequacy of the statutory provisions governing local authorities' activities in this field. As one nurtured in local government, I much regret having to say that. It is my wish, and that of the Government, to allow local authorities as much autonomy as possible in the management of their affairs.
What the Southwark Borough Council are proposing is thoroughly reprehensible and can only serve to bring local government into disrepute. Unhappily, it is but one more example of a trend in local government which is causing great concern. Scarcely a day passes without news of some new departure from standards which in my experience were once generally accepted without question in local government and taken for granted by the whole community. The guiding principle was that of service: service to the community as a whole, not just to those who voted for you, in an endeavour to do one's very best for the area and the services available to the people.
Now we hear far too much about sectional interests. We hear of disproportionate majority group representation on committees, of manipulation of agendas, of the denial of access to papers, and, incredibly, curtailment of the opportunity to debate in full council, and so on—all designed to prevent minority groups or individual members from playing their proper role in council affairs. We hear, too, of selection of officers by reference to their political leanings and even of the administration of services on a selective basis—for the wrong reasons—within the area of a single local authority.
This concern with narrow sectional interests is wrong in principle. So where will it end? I am convinced that this trend leads inevitably to worse local government and less service to the community. But the problem is what can be done about it. How can we restore and maintain that probity and integrity which has for so long been a proud tradition in local government?
I believe the most effective and satisfactory solution lies with public opinion and in the hands of local government members. They can, if they will, ensure that the traditional standards are maintained and the conventions observed. If they fail, there will no doubt be pressure to seek for other solutions. But whatever checks and balances may be built into the system, it can only be as good as the people who operate it. That is why I appeal to local authority members to be vigilant and swift to publicise and to condemn the abuses which are becoming more and more prevalent in local government today.
I take up my new office as Minister of State for local government concerned—no, I say more than that: determined to do all I can to further good relationships between central and local government. So long as local authorities work within the rules set by Parliament and within the overall parameters of government, which historically they always did, then beyond that the greatest possible degree of local freedom and local
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autonomy should prevail. What we have been discussing today must be abhorrent to the vast majority of people of all parties in local government who I know cherish the reputation and the standing of local government. This kind of irrelevance, this kind of political nonsense, has no place in the sort of future which all responsible people want to see.
I repeat that I hope those concerned will think again. This is not the way to do things. The Government are disturbed by these trends. All decent, thinking people are disturbed by these trends. It is no less than our duty to keep a very close eye on what is happening. I assure your Lordships that we shall be doing just that.
House adjourned at fourteen minutes past ten o'clock.