Lords Sitting of 30 March 1983

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

Lord Gallacher
John Gallacher, Esquire, having been created Baron Gallacher, of Enfield in Greater London, for life—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Lord Jacques and the Lord Oram.

University Grants Committee and Student Intakes
2.48 p.m.
Lord Jacques: 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 seven universities have been "fined" by the University Grants Committee for taking in too many students last autumn; and if so whether they consider that this is a satisfactory method of controlling university finance and in the interests of the students.
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, I understand that the University Grants Committee has decided to make an adjustment in its 1982–83 grant allocations to seven universities in the light of their levels of student intake. The Government are content that the committee should take what action it considers necessary to protect academic standards and the overall balance of provision.
Lord Jacques: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for his Answer to my Question, and I put to him two supplementaries. First of all, were the universities acquainted with the targets that they were expected to meet? At least one university says that it has been fined for something it knew nothing about. Second, is it Government policy to refuse admission to well qualified students just to meet a target?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, as I understand it and I have no reason to doubt it—all the universities were informed. In fact, UGC wrote on 10th December 1982 to 10 universities, and the other three obviously met the criteria. I understand that all the seven I mentioned in my original Answer were written to on 10th December. As far as Government policy is concerned, it is to try to provide education at this level for everybody, but a lot of people find difficulty in getting into the first university of their choice.
Lord Rochester: My Lords, I declare an interest as Pro-Chancellor of the University of Keele, which is one of the seven referred to in this Question. Is it not in fact the case that these universities are to suffer retrospective penalties for exceeding, in the year 1982–83, student intake numbers that were not specified as targets to which they would be required to adhere? Is it not also the case that in their evidence to the Select Committee in another place the UGC stated that if these numbers were exceeded they would wish to discuss the matter with the university concerned, and that no such discussions took place before these penalties were imposed?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, as I understand it they were indeed warned that this would happen—that the fact that they were prepared to take this number of extra students would obviously have an effect on what was going to happen to them for the next three years. I think it fair to point out that there is a lot of talk about penalties and fines, but in fact the UGC has decided to make an adjustment in grant which will not be more than the additional fee income the universities concerned are receiving in respect of the extra students they have admitted. So I do not think it can be described as anything too punitive.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, may I ask the Minister whether he approves of the logic of the UGC, which wrote to one of the universities in question to say that the money was being removed because they believed that the admission of these students would diminish that university's contribution to research? Does the Minister believe that the UGC is right in believing that there is an exact equation between the number of students in a class and the amount of research done by the teacher? If he does not believe it, could he call the attention of the UGC to the fact that this kind of logic is widely resented?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, I have no evidence of the letter to which my noble friend refers, but, although, I am not in a position to dispute this, I should be very surprised, because one of the points of the UGC's letter was that the whole point of this was to aid research. I hope that they took this into account.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, will the noble Earl explain to the House exactly how it would safeguard academic standards to withdraw grant from universities which have the temerity to take in a few additional students? Surely it will have exactly the opposite effect.
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, I do not think it is a question of a few extra students. In fact, the degree to which each university is over-recruited above the steady-state intake that the UGC estimates each institution needs in order to reach its target varies from 11 per cent. to 24 per cent.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: My Lords, may I, too, declare an interest as President of the University College of Wales, Cardiff, and also on behalf of my noble friend Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos, who has a similar position in regard to Aberystwyth? Is not the admission of these students by the colleges on whose behalf I speak an

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indication, at any rate in the view of the university authorities, that they were fit and proper persons to enter into and carry out graduate courses at the university? Is not the effect of this stringency to deprive hundreds of students, fit and worthy to be university students, of that opportunity?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, as I said earlier, I do not think that every student in this country can get into the university of their first choice. This happens on a very large scale.
Lord Elystan-Morgan: My Lords, will the noble Earl give us a piece of information which many Members of this House believe is central to the whole issue? How many well-qualified students in the current academic year have failed to find placement in any university in the United Kingdom?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, I think that I shall have to write to the noble Lord with that information.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Earl would honour me by answering my question as to whether the denial of opportunity to students already admitted into the university would be a penalty inflicted upon those students.
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, it might be a disadvantage to them. I would go as far as saying that.
Baroness Nicol: My Lords, will the Minister please clarify something for me? I find some of the answers a little confusing. Is it or is it not still the Government's policy to restrict the number of students, even at this time when 18 and 19 year-olds are at a peak? If it is still their policy to restrict the number of students, why are they claiming credit for the increased intake into polytechnics? Can we please have an explanation?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, this decision has been taken by the University Grants Committee, and not by the Government. But I think we should get this into perspective. I think it is 13·2 per cent. of the age range of 18 to 20 years old who are participating in higher education. This rate has increased steadily under this Government, despite the fact that the size of the relevant age group has been increasing. I think that it might not be a bad thing to point out that spending on higher education and research in 1979–80 was about £2½ billion. I use the expression billion as meaning one thousand million. The department's programmes provide for £1 billion more to be spent on higher education and research this year than was spent in 1979–80.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, the noble Earl has not dealt fully with the point on consultation raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rochester. Can the noble Lord say whether or not consultation can now take place, and whether there is provision for some form of appeal by the universities concerned?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, with respect to the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos, I really thought I had answered the question. The UGC wrote on 10th December 1982. It then considered the responses that
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it received from the universities, and wrote again to the seven on 23rd February. If they are to review their student numbers over the next few years, I am sure there is room for more correspondence.
Lord Rochester: My Lords, will the noble Earl accept that the information in his possession is not the same as that in mine? Is it not also the case that the University Grants Committee have threatened to impose further penalties for the year 1983–84 without deeming it necessary to indicate the number of admissions to be aimed at in that year?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, I think the whole thing in fact arose from what the numbers were going to be in 1983–84—or was it 1984–85? I think it was 1984–85. The UGC wrote to the universities concerned at the end of 1982 seeking information about their intakes for 1982 and their plans for reducing their 1983 and 1984 intakes consistent with achieving their targets by 1984–85. Having considered the universities' responses, the UGC decided that the intake patterns for these universities indicated that they were likely to exceed their targets by a substantial margin. The committee therefore decided to make a small adjustment in their grant. However, the UGC has said that it will be studying the intake numbers for October 1983 before making any revision of the 1983–84 recurrent grants announced in February

Vandalism on School Premises
2.58 p.m.
Lord Gainford: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what was the cost of repairing the damage done by vandals on school premises during the last period for which figures are available.
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, this is not collected centrally.
Lord Gainford: My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for that answer, which is unfortunately not very informative. May I ask him whether Her Majesty's Government would consider an investment in encouraging the media to pay a tribute to the many orderly schools that are very successful throughout this country, and not to create a false impression by publishing a few lurid events?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, I think that the vandalism is really the responsibility of the individual local education authorities. I should have thought that at the present time they would be rather loath to part with any of their money in order to sponsor anything in the local media. But I thoroughly agree with my noble friend that any good publicity about things that are going right is very worth while.
Lord Hunt: My Lords, in view of his reference to the local education authorities, will the noble Earl the Minister agree with me that a number of the acts of vandalism to school buildings and other property are not perpetrated by pupils or former pupils of the schools in question? Will he accept that there is a direct relationship between such acts of vandalism and unemployment among young people? Finally, can he give the House some assurance that such schemes as community policing, and other community-based projects for providing socially acceptable activities for young people, are having a beneficial effect on this very serious problem?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, I think that the noble Lord has hit one very good point on the head, in that the figures referred to in the Question are not collected nationally because it is very difficult to establish, first, what is, and what is not, vandalism, and, secondly, who is responsible. I can draw your Lordships' attention to a very useful document entitled, Vandalism in Schools and Colleges, which is Broadsheet No. 12, issued by the Department of Education and Science, and the Welsh Office, and which is available in your Lordships' House. It contains many very interesting points about involving the local community. I should like to quote just one of the points:
"Would local meetings with parents and other representatives from the community assist in devising and providing activities and supervision for young people out of school hours".
Lord Molloy: My Lords, would the noble Earl the Minister not accept that the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Gainford, is indeed vital, in so far as all parts of the media seem to concentrate on the deleterious effects of school activities? The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, also raised a very important point—and here I speak with considerable experience, having started such a scheme in the London Borough of Ealing, involving young policemen becoming associated with as many schools as possible in the borough. This had a beneficial effect on the students, and it acted as a deterrent to those who were trying to damage schools.
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, I think it is rather sad that I have to wait until the last day before the Recess before I can say that I agree wholeheartedly with every word that the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, says in one of his supplementary questions.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, may I ask my noble kinsman the Minister whether guard dogs are ever used to prevent vandalism? Is he aware that in the last few years many millions of pounds have been wasted by acts of arson on schools in the Doncaster area?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, I am afraid that I have not the least idea of the answer to the supplementary question of my noble kinsman; nor can I give any undertaking to write to her, because, as I said in my original reply, these facts and figures are not centrally collected.

EEC Directive on Water Quality
3.3 p.m.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: 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 are satisfied that water authorities will be able to fulfil the standards contained in the EEC directive on water quality when it comes into effect in 1985.
Lord Skelmersdale: Yes, my Lords, water authorities will be able to comply with the provisions of the EC directive relating to the quality of water for human consumption by July 1985. Certain derogations and delays are specifically permitted in the directive. The Secretary of State will not allow such derogations or delays where is is thought that public health might be endangered.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: My Lords, the noble Lord the Minister must be aware that the reports that have been coming from the Department of the Environment and the National Water Council show that there is very serious concern regarding nitrate levels in water. Evidence shows quite clearly that the nitrate levels are rising steadily, owing to an increase in the use of fertilisers. Does the Minister not recognise that there is a real need to monitor very carefully the findings and the evidence in his department regarding pure water supplies, to make quite sure that we are conforming to EEC nitrate levels, which in some water authority areas are now at the maximum level allowed?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her supplementary question. As I said in my original Answer, derogations are allowed under Article 9 of the directive. There is no doubt that in various quarters concern has been expressed over rising nitrate levels. These are treatable at a cost, and the medical evidence that we have at present does not lead us to believe that there is any cause for concern. But, naturally, we are watching very carefully indeed the progress of research in this particular respect. The use of nitrate fertilisers of course dramatically increases crop yields, but as yet it has not been shown to be a matter for serious concern in relation to water sources.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that while there is of course anxiety about the rising trend of nitrate levels in drinking water supplies, the standards set by the EEC are significantly higher than those set by the World Health Organisation, and that there is no certainty that there is a medical necessity to reach such a very high standard.
Lord Skelmersdale: Yes, my Lords; my noble friend, with his great knowledge of water, is absolutely correct. In the EEC directive that we are discussing the maximum permissible nitrate level is, I understand, 50 milligrammes per litre, whereas the maximum recommended by the World Health Organisation,

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backed up by our own Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, in its fairly recent seventh report, is 100 milligrammes per litre.
Lord Leatherland: My Lords, can the Minister tell us whether the effluent from the sewers in Scotland is channelled into the public water supply, and whether that has any harmful effect upon the population?
Lord Skelmersdale: I cannot answer that supplementary question without notice, my Lords. However, I would say that this particular directive is aimed not at water channels but at water which is actually consumed by humans; the so-called potable water.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, has the noble Lord's attention been drawn to the report in last Sunday's Observer newspaper, which stated quite categorically that the Government are seriously concerned, and unpleasantly surprised, at rapidly rising levels of nitrates, which are increasingly suspected of causing stomach cancer? Can the noble Lord say whether or not the Government are as concerned as the newspaper report indicated; and, if so, whether they will set up an immediate inquiry, and not wait until 1985 before action is taken? This kind of report causes serious public alarm unless it is categorically denied.
Lord Skelmersdale: No, my Lords; my attention was not drawn to the particular article in the Observer to which the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition has referred. However, we currently know that complex nitrogen compounds have been discovered in animals in laboratories, and these can cause cancer. But at the moment it is unknown whether that fact can be extrapolated so as to apply to humans. The Government are most seriously concerned with this matter, and in one of my supplementary answers I said that in this regard we were very carefully following medical science.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, is it not the case that, while some years ago the use of nitrate fertilisers dramatically increased agricultural yields, the evidence now is that greatly increased doses of nitrate fertilisers produce only very small increases in agricultural yields?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, that is rather another question; but I would assume that it depends entirely on what nitrate levels have already been added to the soil, as well as the type of soil structure that one is considering at the time.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, may I ask the Minister whether it is not a fact that some of our sewage pipes run rather near to drinking water supplies, and could that not be the cause of the rise in infective hepatitis A?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I fear that I am completely stumped by that supplementary question from the noble Baroness. I shall certainly make inquiries and report to her what I discover.

Wartime Supply Requirements
3.10 p.m.
Lord Shinwell: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have estimated the requirements, in the event of a major war, of coal, oil and other sources of energy, of weapons and raw materials for their production, of skilled workers and of food for both the forces and the civilian population, assuming that the resources of NATO would be available; and how these estimates compare with their estimates of the strength of any likely aggressor.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Elton): My Lords, since the Government's review of home defence in 1980, emergency planning staffs in all departments have been engaged in estimating wartime supply requirements for civil and military use and in planning how to meet them. No simple comparisons can be made with the capabilities of likely aggressors.
Lord Shinwell: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for doing his best to furnish me with an answer. I fear, however, that it is disappointing based on information that comes my way from two publications and no other source. There is no secret about it. The information is available to anyone. I believe that the Minister, like myself, is doing his best to try and prevent a war of any kind, nuclear or conventional. I am sure that that is the wish of every noble Lord in this assembly. Are we not faced, because of cuts, with a reduction in the production of the elements that provide energy resources and especially the deprivation of vast numbers of craftsmen who would be essential in the event of a major crisis that I hope will never happen? Will the Minister answer the last part of my Question. In military affairs we are strong. In logistics, we do not compare favourably with a likely aggressor. Will he answer that question?
Lord Elton: My Lords, I shall indeed try to answer. The noble Lord referred first, I think, to energy resources. I would remind him that, as he well knows from his past experience, the United Kingdom produces more coal than it uses and that the replenishment of coal is unlikely to be a problem. That should enable the supply of electricity to be maintained. Our gas supplies are entirely based on North Sea production. Denial of these supplies by enemy action would cause us to lose all gas and throw a heavy load on alternative supplies of energy, including, of course, electricity.
In time of war the Department of Employment would co-ordinate the use of skilled labour for domestic purposes and in support of the armed forces. This would be done so far as possible through existing labour organisations. The noble Lord is suggesting, I think, that we may need to recruit scarce skills in time of war. Your Lordships will realise that, in the present time of rapidly evolving technology, skills change and

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it is impossible to make block plans far ahead of requirements.
Lord Bishopston: My Lords, will the Minister give greater recognition to the importance of my noble friend's Question which is an echo of some of the contributions that I made in the debate on defence initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, when I claimed that in an emergency our human resources would be at least as great in their importance as our weaponry? In the short period for which this Government will have responsibility before the general election, how will the Government act to engage 4 million unemployed in the wartime effort, not forgetting the considerable contribution that could be made by our many senior citizens?
Lord Elton: My Lords, the importance of the human element in war has never escaped this country and has usually accounted for its victory. I give due importance to that and also to what was stated by Lord Shinwell, for whom I have had a steady regard from the day he inspected me as a cadet in 1947 when he was already, I thought, very senior and likely to retire. The noble Lord, Lord Bishopston, appeared to ask us to deploy 4 million unemployed in war effort before the next general election. We intend to abide by democratic rules. It is unlikely that the general election will be delayed beyond the outbreak of the next war.
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, would not a suitable answer to the Question—one that might please the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell—be that if we were forced to stand on our own, our resources for defending ourselves would be minimal indeed, but that, standing shoulder to shoulder with our major allies and taking our due share of the burden, we are well able to cope with any opponent?
Lord Shinwell: My Lords, I have no desire to press the matter. However, as this Question is of such substantial importance I hope the Minister can find a satisfactory Answer. Will he refer the matter back to the Secretary of State for Defence and perhaps ask the all-party Defence Group to consider it?
Lord Elton: My Lords, the noble Lord has played a prominent part in the winning of victories by this country standing shoulder to shoulder with others in two world wars. I do not need to remind him of that. I shall, of course, convey his conern to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Defence. As to the all-party group, it is not, I think, a function of a Minister in this House, or indeed of a Member of any Front Bench, to dictate what that august body shall do with its time.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, will my noble friend agree that so far as can be foreseen, if anything can be foreseen, the likelihood is that another war would be very short and very hot? Will he say whether the Government are satisfied that they have, above all, adequate supplies of ammunition, which has not been mentioned, rather than items which will sustain us for a long war that is unlikely to happen, anyway?
Lord Elton: My Lords, it is the duty of the Secretary of State for Defence to supply our forces in time of war. I have no doubt that he will do so. As to the duration of the campaign, and its nature, the noble Lord's opinion is as good as that of many others.

Overseas Students' Awards
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m., I shall, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement to be made in another place on overseas students' awards.

Lotteries (Amendment) Bill [H.L.]
Lord Irving of Dartford: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to amend the Lotteries and Amusements Act 1976, to abolish certain offences respecting foreign lotteries and for connected purposes. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(Lord Irving of Dartford.)
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

Telecommunications Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.
Lloyds Bowmaker Bill [H.L.]
Read a third time, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

House of Lords Offices
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Aberdare): My Lords, I beg to move that the Second Report from the Select Committee on House of Lords Offices be agreed to.
Moved, that the Second Report from the Select Committee be agreed to.—(Lord Aberdare.)
The Report read as follows:
1.Photograph of the House in Session
The Committee considered further photographs of the House in session for permanent display.
2.Staff of the House
A report from the Sub-Committee was received.
3.Refreshment Department
A report from the Sub-Committee was received.
The Committee authorised the appointment of an additional Assistant Manager, a Deputy Chef and an extra waitress.
The Committee sanctioned the application of Industrial Memorandum number IM/14—Reduction in conditioned hours—to staff of the Refreshment Department.
4.Internal Audit
The Committee agreed to the introduction of an internal audit system to the House of Lords.
5.Hansard Reporting Staff
The Clerk of the Parliaments informed the Committee of the following changes in the Editorial staff on the retirement of Mr. C. R. Stanton, OBE, the Editor of Debates on 24th March 1983:—

Mr. D. A. Dumbreck to be Editor

Mrs. M. E. E. C. Villiers to be Assistant Editor

Mr. W. Frensham to be First Sub-Editor

Mr. G. R. Goodbarne to be Second Sub-Editor

The Committee expressed their warm appreciation of Mr. Stanton's long and valuable service to the House.
6.Parliament Office
The Committee were informed of the appointment of Mr. J. I. Stoodley as Legal Assistant and authorised the creation of a new post of Personal Secretary for the European Office.
7.London Weighting
The Committee authorise the payment of London Weighting allowance to staff provided with official residences.
8.Parliamentary Delegations
The Committee approved provision for the payment of revised subsistence allowances.
9.House of Lords' Judicial Fees
The Committee approved the following revision in the judicial taxing fee:—
On Bills taxed on or after 1st April 1983 where the amount allowed does not exceed £500, a flat rate of £25 be charged. On Bills, taxed on or after 1st April 1983, where the amount allowed exceeds £500, for every £1 or fraction of 1 an amount of 5p be charged.
10.Superannuation
The Committee were notified of the following awards:—

(i) Pension and lump sum to C. R. Stanton, OBE, Editor of Debates on retirement from 24th March 1983.

(ii) Pension and lump sum to H. J. B. Rice, Temporary Senior Clerk, on retirement from 1st January 1983

(iii) Preserved pension and lump sum to Mrs. E. A. Webb. Assistant Examiner of Acts, who resigned on 30th November 1982

(iv) Pension and lump sum to Mrs. B. McCullagh, Housemaid, who formally retires on 1st April 1983

(v) Short service payment to Miss M. R. Dean, Legal Assistant, who resigned on 31st December 1982

(vi) Short service payment to Miss P. J. Stockley, Personal Secretary, who resigned on 25th February 1983

(vii) Revised pension and lump sum to Sir Charles Sopwith, Second Counsel to Chairman of Committees, who retired on 1st June 1982

(viii) Revised pension and lump sum to T. G. Talbot, CB, QC, Assistant Counsel, who retired on 1st October 1982

(ix) Revised pension and lump sum to A. H. Town, Personal Assistant to Lords of Appeal, who retired on 1st November 1982

(x) Revised pension and lump sum to Mrs. A. Bellchambers, Housemaid/Cleaner who retired on 27th July 1982

(xi) Revised pension and lump sum to Mrs. J. Williams, Housemaid, who formally retired on 3rd September 1982

(xii) Revised pension and lump sum to Mrs. J. L. Saxton, Housemaid, who formally retired on 15th April 1982

(xiii) Revised pension and lump sum to Mrs. H. Chester, Clerical Officer/Cashier who retired on 1st May 1982.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Pet Animals Act 1951 (Amendment) Bill [H.L.]
Read a third time, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

Divorce Jurisdiction, Court Fees and Legal Aid (Scotland) Bill
3.20 p.m.
The Minister of State, Scottish Office (The Earl of Mansfield): My Lords, on behalf of my noble and
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learned friend the Lord Advocate, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a third time.—(The Earl of Mansfield.)
Lord McCluskey: My Lords, before your Lordships agree to that Motion, may I say one further word about the Bill? It is a Bill which is modest in appearance but undoubtedly will effect substantial changes in the day-to-day practice of the courts in Scotland. Its effects have been discussed in a somewhat anecdotal and speculative way. I would repeat something I said earlier—but I should like the Government to take it on board—and that is that many of us in Scotland feel that the methods whereby the effects of such changes can be studied are inadequate. In other words, it is impossible to say with any confidence and accuracy precisely what the financial effects of such a Bill will be. It is impossible to predict with any accuracy what the effect will be upon the incidental business and the general business both of the Court of Session and of the sheriff courts in Scotland.
We are, in effect, required to take rather too much on trust in relation to a matter of this kind, and the Government are also required to take too much on trust. At one stage I suggested—and I shall come back to it in another context—that there ought to be in Scotland an institute of judicial administration which could examine this type of question. I hope that the Government will think seriously about that suggestion and how they might best use the universities to do real research into the day-to-day operation of our system of justice in Scotland. Meantime, however, I wish these changes well. I hope that many consultations which the Government were good enough to promise in the course of the proceedings on the Bill will be in fact fruitful. I thank the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Advocate, through the noble Earl, for his courtesy in handling the Bill.
The Earl of Mansfield: My Lords, I do not think it altogether proper that a member of the English Bar should intrude when, as I understand it, the Faculty of Advocates are losing some of their jurisdiction so far as undefended divorces are concerned; therefore I do not seek to do so. But on behalf of the Government and, more especially, my noble and learned friend, may I say that he has been considerably exercised by the very constructive part which the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey, played in the Committee stage of the Bill and, indeed, on Second Reading; and that also goes, of course, for my noble friend Lord Selkirk and for various other noble and learned Lords, such as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilson of Langside. I should like to pay tribute to all those noble Lords. On behalf of my noble and learned friend I give the undertaking which is sought by the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey. I have no doubt that this Bill will go a long way to improve the law of Scotland so far as this small but important arena is concerned.
On Question, Bill read a third time.
The Earl of Mansfield: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass.
Moved. That the Bill do now pass.—(The Earl of Mansfield.)
Lord Wilson of Langside: My Lords, before your Lordships pass this Bill, having listened to what the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey, has said I wonder if I may just add a word of truly warm welcome to the Bill. In my view the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Advocate, is to be congratulated for his determination to prepare the Bill, to present it to the House with such care and skill, and to see it passed in the face of not inconsiderable opposition from certain quarters of the legal establishment in Edinburgh. He was assisted, perhaps, by the circumstance that he had the support of the Law Society of Scotland. It is perhaps coincidental that this year the president of the Law Society of Scotland is a distinguished Glasgow solicitor. I have no doubt that his distinguished leadership contributed to the support which the law Society has given to this very sensible measure. My only criticism of it was that it should have been dealt with at about the same time as the Divorce (Scotland) Act was passed, I think in the time of the Government of which the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey, was a member. But, to coin a phrase, better late than never.
I wish this Bill every success. If it does not have success in relation to the expenditure on legal aid or jurisdiction in divorce, many people will say, "I told you so", and have a little bit of a schadenfreude in their turn. What the Government will then have to do is to take a long hard look again and monitor the whole business very seriously, and I hope that they will do so. If they do that, there is no reason why the Bill should not achieve the objectives which the Government set for it. I wish it well.
On Question, Bill passed.

Legal Aid (Financial Conditions) Regulations 1983
3.28 p.m.
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone)The Lord Chancellor (Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone) rose to move, That the regulations laid before the House on 10th March be approved. The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, there are four legal aid regulation Motions on the Order Paper which I wish to speak to and, with permission, I will speak to them all together, although they will of course have to be moved separately. The first two Motions relate to England and Wales and the second two relate to Scotland, but they all have the same broad intent, and that is to up-rate the disposable income limits and the disposable capital limits available for legal aid by approximately 6·25 per cent. This increase is intended to ensure that persons with the same real income in the coming year as those who qualified last year will be eligible to receive legal aid, subject, of course, in suitable cases, to a similar contribution.
The lower disposable capital limit for civil legal aid is being increased to align it with the supplementary benefit limit of £2,500 as recommended by the Advisory Committee on Legal Aid in its recent annual report. The upper limit is increased to £4,000, thus maintaining the differential between the two. This increase in the lower limit represents an increase of over 90 per cent. Broadly speaking, it means that
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anyone eligible for supplementary benefit will also be eligible for legal aid without paying a contribution.
I should like to deal with the regulations in a little more detail. The legal aid regulations raise the lower disposable income limit for legal aid, below which no contribution is payable, from £1,850 a year to £1,965 a year, and the upper income limit, above which legal aid is not available, from £4,440 a year to £4,720 a year. They also raise the lower disposable capital limit for legal aid from £1,310 to £2,500, and the upper limit from £2,725 to £4,000.
The advice and assistance regulations—that is, the green form scheme—raise the lower income limit for legal advice and assistance, below which no contribution is payable, from £44 a week to £47 a week, and the upper disposable income limit for green form assistance, above which it is not available, is raised from £93 a week to £99 a week. They also raise the relevant capital limit above which legal advice and assistance is not available from £655 to £700.
The House should also be told, and is probably already aware, that I have made a further set of regulations, for the approval of which an affirmative resolution is not required. These are the Legal Advice and Assistance (Amendment) Regulations 1983, and they make amendments to the scale of contributions which an applicant under the green form scheme may be required to pay towards his costs. The corresponding Scottish regulations are in a slightly different form. This is because the lower income limit for advice and assistance does not appear in the regulations requiring an affirmative resolution but in the instrument subject to the negative procedure, together with the amendments to the scale of contributions. These are the Legal Advice and Assistance (Scotland) (Financial Conditions) (No. 2) Regulations 1983.
All these limits were, it will be remembered, increased on 1st April last year. They will now be increased on 1st April this year to reflect the extent of inflation over the year from November 1981 to November 1982, as the last year's increase reflected the position in November, 1981. Any changes since November 1982 will, therefore, fall to be taken into account at a future date. The legal aid disposable capital limits have, moreover, been substantially increased in real terms by a percentage far in excess of inflation (as will have been gathered from what I have just said) as it is now, or was last November, or even at any time during the term of the last Labour Government. This will enable many of those who are excluded under the current limits—for example, old age pensioners with a small sum of capital—to be eligible for legal aid.
The coverage of the scheme as regards disposable income is much the same as it was last year. The limits are only one factor affecting financial eligibility. To obtain the concept of disposable income and disposable capital involves a deduction from gross income before the limits are applied; for instance, in respect of allowances for dependants, housing costs and fares to work. Perhaps I should add this. Although it is not the subject of these regulations, the House should be told that I have also recently introduced regulations to give effect to a number of changes to simplify the process of assessing the means of applicants for legal aid. These are relevant to the subject of eligibility.
The principal changes involved are as follows: first, the abolition of the rule allowing the disregard of the first £4 a week of unearned income; secondly, a relaxation of the rule governing reassessments so that in future a reassessment of an assisted person's disposable income will be made only if the assisted person's disposable income appears to have increased by more than £500 or decreased by more than £250 and a reassessment appears likely to lead to a significant change in the contribution payable; and, thirdly, a partial disaggregation of parents' and child's resources so that only the resources of those with whom a child lives and who are responsible in law for the maintenance of the child will be aggregated with the child's resources. These changes bring into effect the proposals of the advisory committee regarding simplification contained in their recent annual report.
I invite the House to approve these sets of regulations, and I beg to move the first of the four Motions standing in my name.
Moved, That the regulations laid before the House on 10th March be approved.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
Lord Elwyn-Jones: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for guiding us through this somewhat complex forest of provisions regarding legal aid and assistance. Of course, we on this side of the House immediately welcome the increase in the financial eligibility limits for both legal aid and advice and for legal advice and assistance. I hope I may be forgiven for pointing out that the last major uprating of the eligibility limits was made in the package of improvements which the former Administration introduced in 1979. Regrettably, the financial limits were not uprated in November, 1980, nor again in November 1981, apart from small increases in dependants' allowances.
I am bound to say that before I introduced the 1979 regulations it was regrettably the case that a high proportion of the working population was excluded from the scheme. I have little doubt that the present incumbent of the Woolsack had as much difficulty as I in breaking through that limitation which was permitted by the Treasury. However, it is certainly a relief to learn that now there has been in particular the substantial improvement in the limits as to disposable capital at which no contribution is required. That is now increased from £1,310 to £2,500, and the upper limit is increased from £2,725 to £4,000. This was one of the major defects in the arrangements until now.
I think it is essential that eligibility limits are raised regularly and realistically, otherwise, once again, millions of our fellow countrymen will be excluded from the benefits of this essential service in the field of legal aid and assistance.
Lord Foot: My Lords, speaking from these Benches, may I say that when anything is proposed to the House by the noble and learned Lord who sits on the Woolsack and at the same time is commended to the House by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, I think the House will agree that it must be right. At any rate, that is the view that we share on
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these Benches; and I deferentially concur in everything that has been said.
Lord Wilson of Langside: My Lords, as one who was in at the birth of legal aid and welcomed it with greater enthusiasm than most of my colleagues at the Scotish Bar at the time, but who have occasionally been critical of some aspects of its operation, from these Benches may I echo the appreciation of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, to the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack and say that we also welcome this further contribution to the legal aid scheme. To reinforce the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Foot, that if certain other of your Lordships agree and express appreciation at the noble and learned Lord's introduction of these regulations, if I also agree, then, a fortiori, it is almost bound to be right.
Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran: My Lords, I should also like to echo the words of praise to the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack for his presentation of this matter. At this stage I should like to raise rather a technical point. I apologise to the noble and learned Lord that I have not given him advance notice of it. I very much welcome the increase in the value of the capital matters which arise in judging whether a person is able to receive any legal aid. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, has raised the difficulties that have arisen because of the low value of that capital disposable aspect. But now, as the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack said, that has been increased very considerably.
However, in my capacity as President of the Institute of Patentees and Inventors, it has been brought to my notice that, in assessing whether a man or a woman, who has an income below the value of the income allowed for, has a patent or several patents, certain parts of the country say that if the person is the owner of patents, that constitutes a capital asset and he is precluded from getting legal aid because of the estimate of the value of the patent rights which he holds. Quite often a patent, although looking a very impressive document, is not worth the paper on which it is written. It may be that the noble and learned Lord will be able to assure the House—possibly not at this stage but later on—that in assessing the capital value of the assets of any applicant for legal aid, patent rights are not included for the purposes of the final sum.
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I am extremely grateful for the courteous and generous way in which these regulations have been received. I have always given great credit to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, for the improvements he made in 1979. I think I praised them at the time so I am entitled to say so now. It was at that stage that the burden of legal aid on the taxpayer was significantly increased, but to show how much it has increased by I may say that in 1978–79 the burden was only £84·5 million; for 1983–84 it is estimated at £243 million. That indicates the size of the increase. The coverage, which of course varies slightly from year to year, is now about 70 per cent. of the whole population. Of those who can take the major advantage of the disregards it is rather higher than 70 per cent., and it is correspondingly

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lower for those, particularly in the case of single people, who do not have that advantage.
So far as the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, is concerned, I think I shall have to correspond with him about patents. I quite agree that they are not always worth as much as some people would suppose. I had a cousin who used to practise in that branch of the law, and he said, "Show me a patent and I will break it".
Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran: That is right, my Lords.
The Lord Chancellor: With those happy thoughts, my Lords, I beg to move.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Legal Advice and Assistance (Financial Conditions) Regulations 1983
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I beg to move the second Resolution in my name.
Moved, That the regulations laid before the House on 10th March be approved.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Legal Aid (Scotland)(Financial Conditions) Regulations 1983
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I beg to move the third Resolution standing in my name.
Moved, That the regulations laid before the House on 14th March be approved.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Legal Advice and Assistance (Scotland)(Financial Conditions) Regulations 1983
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I beg to move the fourth Motion standing in my name.
Moved, That the regulations laid before the House on 14th March be approved.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Overseas Students' Awards
3.43 p.m.
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a statement being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science. The statement is as follows:
"I should like to make a statement about awards to overseas students.
"On 16th December last the House of Lords ruled on the meaning of 'ordinary residence' in relation to the entitlement of students from overseas to mandatory awards. The main effect is that students who were in this country during the three years before their period of higher education, essentially for the purpose of taking a lower-level course of
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education, may have been eligible for a mandatory award, subject to a means test on their parents' income. They were not so eligible under the 'real home' test which formed the basis of the previous advice to local authorities by this and the previous Administration.
"The cost to the taxpayers and ratepayers of this ruling could be substantial. Much of the benefit will go to students from overseas who have come here with no expectation of receiving support from British public funds. The Government's policy is to support selected students and countries under the aid programme and the programme announced by my right honourable friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary on 8th February. Other overseas students are welcome but are expected to pay their own way.
"There will be no retrospective legislation. But the Government have decided to restore the position on mandatory awards to that which successive Governments thought and intended it to be. I have today laid before Parliament amendments to the 1982 Awards Regulations which will come into force tomorrow. Their effect will be that local authorities in England and Wales will not be obliged to make new awards after today to overseas students who have been resident here wholly or mainly for the purposes of education. I am also today issuing guidance to local authorities. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland is making similar arrangements.
"Our intention on fees for overseas students for 1983–84 onwards is to retain the differential arrangements which have in fact existed for many years. I shall make a further announcement as soon as possible as to how this should be done.
"Local authorities in England and Wales receive 90 per cent. Exchequer grant on their expenditure on mandatory awards, which in Scotland are paid direct by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State. Universities and other institutions in Great Britain directly funded by the Exchequer will be compensated for any unavoidable loss of fee income."
My Lords, that concludes my right honourable friend's statement.
Baroness David: My Lords, I should like to thank the Minister for repeating that statement. The fact that the Secretary of State has had to make such a statement today is because of the crisis which the Government caused when they decided to charge full cost fees. That is when students found themselves in real difficulty. The shock of the Scarman judgment has jolted the Government into action, though it has taken four months since the judgment for a statement to be made, and many people have been waiting for that.
There was, of course, plenty of warning about the problems and difficulties that were likely to arise. Early in 1980 the then Secretary of State, Mr. Mark Carlisle, told the Select Committee on Education, Science and the Arts that the meaning of "ordinary residence" would be for the courts to decide. The chairman of the Select Committee, Mr. Christopher Price, warned that it could take two or three years before the decision

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would be taken and, indeed, it was nearly that length of time.
On 25th January this year, the Under-Secretary of State, Mr. William Waldegrave, said in another place that a statement would be made shortly on the action to be taken as a result of the Scarman judgment. That was two months ago. We learn from the statement that there is to be further delay. In paragraph 5 it says about fees:
"I shall make a further announcement as soon as possible as to how this should be done"—
that is, how the differential arrangements will be retained. Can the Minister tell us when that further announcement will be made, and will it be the case that there will be no retrospective legislation applying hereto? May I ask for clarification on the sentence in paragraph 4 which says, of the regulations that are coming into force tomorrow,
"Their effect will be that local authorities in England and Wales will not be obliged to make new awards after today to overseas students who have been resident here wholly or mainly for the purposes of education".
Does this mean that anyone intending to take up permanent residence, even if he has not been here for three years, will be entitled to a mandatory award? Are only those exclusively here for education to be excluded?
I want to know what will be the effect on immigrants. Students who benefited from the Scarman judgment were all immigrants. If we return to the status quo, will immigrants suffer? Will there be a difference between real overseas students and immigrants? In the last paragraph, the statement says:
"Universities and other institutions in Great Britain directly funded by the Exchequer will be compensated for any avoidable loss of fee income".
May I ask what will be the position of the local authorities? Will the polytechnics and the colleges of higher education get compensation in the same way?
I want to make a last point about the delay that has been going on and, it seems, will still be going on for a further time. There has been and remains much difficulty and a great deal of confusion in local education authorities, in institutions and among the students themselves. Indeed there has been hardship for students. Can the Minister say when the whole situation, which so badly needs tidying up, will be cleared up so that those institutions and those students know exactly where they stand?
Lord Gladwyn: My Lords, we, too, should like to thank the Minister for making this Statement. I would venture to associate myself with the various questions which have just been put by the noble Baroness. For my part, I would simply say on behalf of those on these Benches that this is rather typical of the, on the whole, rather ungenerous attitude towards overseas students that has been consistently manifested by the present Government. I see the noble Baroness nodding her head. I suppose it is not much good protesting on this particular decision, which, on the whole, was probably expected by most of the people involved, unfortunately. The real question is what is going to happen in the future.
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Here I should like to repeat the question put by the noble Baroness. What is going to be the exact effect of the statement:
"Our intention on fees for overseas students … is to retain the differential arrangements which have in fact existed for many years",
which is perhaps not unexpected, and that they are going to make a further announcement as soon as possible? Will that announcement be made before Parliament reassembles or, as I should hope, after we come back on 11th April, when there would be an opportunity for us to discuss whatever the proposals are? I suspect that they may be as equally ungenerous as the proposals up to now, but I hope not.
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady David, and the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, for listening to this Statement. I am rather surprised by the attitude which the noble Baroness took about this. The advice to local authorities on the interpretation of ordinary residence which the House of Lords rejected was in fact given in 1978 by the previous Administration. I did not expect the fairly violent and virulent attack on the Government which I received, because I have no doubt it represented the best advice available at the time. But it was, and could only be, advice. Only the courts can provide an authoritative view of the law. This the House of Lords has now done, overturning along the way not only the department's advice of 1978 but also the views of lower courts in the same cases. I do not think there is anything for either the department or for this Government to apologise about.
Baroness David: My Lords, what I was criticising the Government for was putting up the fees; making the fees full-cost fees. That is what caused the crisis.
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, I should have thought that parents who could afford to send their children to Eton or Harrow could probably well afford to pay the full prices of further education in this country. We must bear in mind that, mainly, it is children of this type that we are talking about. We are talking about pupils from abroad—I see the noble Baroness, Lady Jeger, shaking her head, but, yes, this is what this is about. This is about the parents of children who have decided to send their children to be educated privately in this country, mainly, and have then decided that, because of this, they are entitled to get mandatory awards for their children. The fact that they can afford to send their children to school here must mean that they can afford to pay their fees, and the small amount of money that we can afford should go to those who are in greatest need.
The noble Baroness, Lady David, made a lot about the time and the delay. I said that this was on 16th December. There has been a lot of legal advice needed and asked for as a result of their Lordships' judgment on this case, and this has obviously taken time. The noble Baroness asked me about immigrants. The great majority of those benefiting from the judgment are overseas students who have come to this country quite specifically to take advantage of our education system. We see no reason why any such people who wish to do so should be able, of their own volition, to obtain the

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substantial benefits we provide for our own students. Those selected overseas students we wish to help stay in this country we support in other ways. Others who will continue to benefit from the House of Lords judgment do not fall into the same category, and these will mainly be children of overseas diplomats and businessmen working in this country who have brought their families with them. I should have thought that immigrants would probably have been covered by that.
A lot was made by both the noble Baroness and the noble Lord about the question of fees. There is little that I can add to that. They are quite a different matter from mandatory grants, and are different in law. Both the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, I am afraid, will have to wait for the further announcement promised in the Statement.
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, we on this Bench would like to thank the noble Earl for repeating this Statement. Could he tell us whether he has any evidence of the numbers of students who were previously benefiting from mandatory awards on the basis which it is now proposed to terminate? I should have thought that most students would have been here on annual Home Office permits, which would not have qualified them as ordinary residents. However, if the Government consider that they have plugged a loophole here and are saving some money, I should like to ask whether they will now consider using the money they have saved for showing greater generosity towards the students from poorer countries.
One of our quarrels with the Government Statement of 8th February was the extreme selectivity of arrangements for students from the Commonwealth and certain countries. We were very concerned that there was very little in the Statement for students from the poorer developing countries. If the Government are saving some money on the one hand, could the noble Earl give us an undertaking that they will look at the needs of students from poorer countries?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, I fear that my repetition of my right honourable friend's Statement must have been incomprehensible or badly put, because the one thing that this judgment is not doing is saving us money. It is costing us a lot of money, because until the judgment it was considered that students who came over here for school and A-level courses were not ordinarily resident in this country, and therefore they were not entitled to the mandatory grants. Now we find, because of the House of Lords judgment, that there may be considerable—and I say "considerable"; I do not know the details of figures—claims for money that they should have been paid at the time. I fear there is not going to be anything in the kitty to distribute. It is going to be a question of trying to find something in the kitty to pay for these students.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, the Government say in the Statement that their policy is to support selected students and countries. The Government cannot moan about being criticised. Anyone who has gone about the world knows the enormous
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harm that their previous cuts did, particularly in one case that I know well from my connection with Dundee University. A lot of Malaysian students used to go there, and they were indignant and actually took statutory measures to hit back at Britain with regard to trade. Is Malaysia included in the list of selected countries, and does the noble Earl hope that they will be able to put right the harm the Government undoubtedly did in that case?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, I am afraid I cannot answer that. This is quite different. We had a long debate on this, and my noble friend Lord Belstead answered for the Government. This is a completely different set of circumstances. This is to do with people living abroad who choose to send their children for education in this country. This really is very wide of the Statement.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, it says in the Statement that the Government's policy is to give aid to selected students and selected countries. It appears to me entirely reasonable that I should ask whether a certain country from the Commonwealth is included.
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, I shall have to write to the noble Lord with the answer.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, I must declare an interest in asking my question since the forensic eloquence which persuaded the Lords, in their judicial capacity, to deliver the judgment now to be reversed by administrative action was the eloquence of my elder son. Having attended the judgment in that case it does not seem to me quite fair, or useful, to say that this primarily affects, although no doubt it does to some extent, a number of wealthy persons who send their children to expensive boarding schools and who are not much affected by the change. As I remember, those who brought the case had been studying at institutions of further education, or at polytechnics, or in other places, in order to prepare themselves better for entry into university.
It may well be that this judgment of the House of Lords came as a great surprise to the Department of Education and Science, just as they were very surprised to find that they were governed by the EEC rules in respect of European students. What seems to come out of this is that the Department of Education and Science is not very fortunate in the legal advice available to it. As I understand it, the House of Lords redefined "ordinary residence", a phrase which appears in many Acts of Parliament having nothing to do with mandatory grants or, indeed, with education. Do the Government now purport, as it were, to withdraw education from the purview of this judgment, or will they do something to try to bring the law into general operation? I ask that because I believe the Minister will find that it also affects the availability of the National Health Service to certain classes of people.
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, if the Department of Education and Science had had my noble friend's son acting for them, they might have received better advice at the time, but perhaps he was not qualified then. The Government are coming in for some stick

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from various parts of the House this afternoon. We are being fair and are living up to our commitment by saying we were wrong and must pay up. There is no question of introducing retrospective legislation, which would have been the dirty way to have dealt with the matter. It is a state of affairs about which both this and the previous Government were wrong, and I admit they were wrong. The judgment has been unfortunate, and the object here is to stop this state of affairs arising in the future.
Baroness Hornsby-Smith: My Lords, which Commonwealth or foreign Governments give reciprocal opportunities of this type for United Kingdom students in their countries? If my noble friend cannot answer that off-the-cuff, will he let me know?
The Earl of Swinton: I will let me noble friend know, my Lords.
Baroness David: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, and I both asked when the further announcement would be made about the fees. I also asked whether the polytechnics and the colleges would get compensation for loss of income in the same way as the universities. I went on to ask whether the fourth paragraph of the Statement meant that anyone intending to take up permanent residence, even if they had not been here for three years, would be entitled to an award.
The Earl of Swinton: I apologise to the noble Baroness, my Lords, but she asked me a lot of questions in a short space of time and I did not note them all. I thought I had answered the question about the timing of the further announcement on fees. It is that I do not know and cannot tell her. As for the polytechnics, some polytechnics and other institutions providing AFE may face claims for the reimbursement of fees paid in 1982–83 by students previously classified as overseas students. It is not my right honourable friend's present intention to revise pooling allocations within the quantum, but he will be ready to consider representations. I shall have to write to the noble Baroness about her third question.

Pig Industry Levy Scheme 1983 (Confirmation) Order 1983
4.4 p.m.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Earl Ferrers)The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Earl Ferrers) rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 2nd March be approved.
The noble Earl said: The order will bring into effect the levy scheme which has been submitted by the Meat and Livestock Commission under the terms of Section 1 of the Pig Industry Levy Act. Your Lordships will recall that this Act received Royal Assent on 1st March, having been generally welcomed and passed rapidly through all its Parliamentary stages. Your Lordships will also be aware that the Aujeszky's disease eradication programme began on
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14th March. In the short time that has elapsed, the disease has been confirmed in 29 herds totalling over 30,000 pigs. It is expected that the majority of infected herds will have been dealt with during the next six months.
The owners of those herds will receive compensation both for the loss of their herds and for the consequential loss which will result from having their herds slaughtered. The Pig Disease Eradication Fund Limited, which was set up by the National Farmers' Union, has established loan facilities to finance these payments in the initial stages of eradication, and it will be reimbursed from the proceeds of the levy, which will be raised by the commission as a result of this scheme. In order to keep the costs to the producers—who have agreed to finance the programme—to a minimum, it is important that the levy scheme comes into operation as soon as possible
The rate of levy for the first year of the programme will be 30p per pig slaughtered or exported alive. That is the maximum rate which is allowed by the scheme, and it was part of the basis on which the producers agreed to the scheme. Alterations to the rate will depend on the progress which is made with eradication and on the level of receipts from animals sold as salvage. The collection arrangements in the scheme are designed to be a straight addition to the Meat and Livestock Commission's existing levy arrangements to keep the administrative costs to the minimum.
The scheme will provide funds to enable Aujeszky's disease to be eradicated from British pig herds. It completes the legislative process which was initiated when the results of the producer poll were announced last November. I commend the scheme to your Lordships and, in doing so, congratulate all concerned in getting the eradication programme started so quickly. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 2nd March be approved.—(Earl Ferrers.)
Lord Bishopston: My Lords, I thank the Minister for explaining the order, which we welcome because, as he said, it brings into effect the intention of the Government—supported by the official Opposition and other parties, and the hopes of many in the industry—as expressed by the recently passed Pig Industry Levy Act 1983. The levy was introduced in response to grave concern expressed by the industry about Aujeszky's disease and, as he said, the order gives power to the Meat and Livestock Commission to raise the levy, the proceeds of which will be used to pay compensation and other costs necessary to control and, we hope, eradicate the disease affecting pigs.
May I ask what consultation took place with the NFU—I was going to add, and with the Meat and Livestock Commission, but obviously they were consulted—and the industry in general about the level of the levy? I am certainly not opposing the levy but wondering what consultations took place to decide its level and the conditions under which it is to be collected, as outlined in the order, together with the basis of compensation. The Minister said that 30p was the maximum. I know from experience, as a former Minister of State, that although it is often the practice for Parliament to agree to maximum levels, the

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industry can impose a lower levy if it wishes, perhaps later reaching the maximum.
As the Minister will be aware, the pig industry is not without its problems, and various suggestions have been made about helping it with deficiency payments and so on. I notice that in the other place his right honourable friend the Minister of State said that prices had held up strongly for quality products. But there are distortions in supply and demand in respect of feeding grain and so on, and many pig producers have incurred losses. As I say, we are aware that the industry has its difficulties. That makes the levy much more essential, so as to help the industry in the bad times when the disease affects livestock. Perhaps the noble Earl will comment on the amount which might be regarded as essential and how he sees the levy in terms of balancing other costs. I welcome the levy, but it might be helpful if the Minister would comment on the questions that I have asked.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: From these Benches, my Lords, I too welcome the order and hope that it goes speedily into execution. The industry is paying for the whole cost of the scheme and it says a lot for the industry that in very bad times it has agreed to do that. Aujeszky's disease is enormously dangerous and our experience—with foot and mouth and other diseases—has been that the slaughter policy works and can preserve the health of the herd. I too should like the Minister to say whether he has any idea of the total amount of money which might be involved in compensating the 29 herds to which he referred, how long it will take to raise sufficient money to enable compensation to be paid and when he expects the levy to be lowered. In other words, can he give us any idea of how he expects the money side of this to go in this essential eradication scheme?
Baroness Phillips: My Lords, I should like to put a point that the Minister may feel is out of order since we are talking about money, but perhaps it is rather in defence of the pigs. I notice that the eradication of this disease seems to be something that has fairly newly arrived on the scene. One wonders whether the close husbandry of pigs might have something to do with some of these diseases which now seem to be prevalent in the farming community.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, perhaps I may deal first with the question put by the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips. This is not a new disease. It has been around for some time—from, if I remember correctly, the early 1960s. It has not assumed bad proportions until recently. We in the Ministry of Agriculture have always considered that there are many other diseases which are potentially more harmful, but, where this disease does exist, it can have very penetrating effects. That was the reason why we suggested to the pig industry that, if they wished to eradicate this, the Ministry of Agriculture would co-operate in all ways in identifying and dealing with the disease provided that the farmers themselves financed it. The noble Baroness is quite correct. The more intensive any form of husbandry becomes, the more liable are the animals or plants to disease. That is a fact of life.
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With regard to the noble Lords, Lord Bishopston and Lord Mackie of Benshie, the noble Lord, Lord Bishopston, asked what consultation there had been with the National Farmers' Union. He will appreciate that there has been considerable consultation with the NFU and with the Meat and Livestock Commission, because the Meat and Livestock Commission have the practicality of having to collect the levy and the NFU have the problem, for the first time, of organising financing on anything like this scale. There have been close consultations. The rate of 30p per pig was included in the poll document with the agreement of the National Farmers' Union and that was the basis upon which the producers agreed to the scheme in the first place. So there has been close consultation with the industry throughout.
It is difficult to say how long this levy will last at its present height. I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, that it is anticipated that the greatest cost of the scheme is going to fall in the first year. Now, the scheme is under operation and the veterinary surgeons of the Ministry of Agriculture are out locating the diseased herds and disposing of the diseased herds. This is the period when the greatest slaughter, and therefore the greatest compensation, will be required.
I should point out that those animals which are clinically diseased will not be sold but disposed of. But those which may have evidence of having been infected, although they are clinically sound, are perfectly suitable for human consumption and will go for slaughter. There will be a salvage value on those carcases. It is difficult to say what that might be. As a rough approximation, one might think that the compensation could be in the region of £20 million and the anticipated salvage could be about £16 million. The balance therefore would be in the region of £4 million. And it is anticipated that the levy on 15 million pigs a year will produce about £4½ million.
I think I should make it clear that the levy is collected by the Meat and Livestock Commission and will be passed over by direction of the Minister to Pig Disease Eradication Fund Limited. The actual funding for the consequential loss will be part of the duty of the organisation itself and the actual compensation for the animals will come straight from the levy. In other words, the payment will be in two parts. One is the payment for the animals which are destroyed and the other is a payment which is funded totally by the industry and which is for the consequential loss, which is in the nature of 20 per cent. per animal for breeding animals and 5 per cent. for fattening animals on separate premises.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, do I understand that the consequential loss will not come from the levy?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, the consequential loss will come from the levy; but it will form a different part of the actual payment which the farmer receives. He will be paid the cost of the value of the slaughtered carcase and then paid separately the compensation for loss of profit.
Lord Bishopston: My Lords, before the noble Earl sits down, may I explain the nature of my question

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about the 30p maximum? I think it is usual with the Meat and Livestock Commission on various animals to set a ceiling and to levy lower than that ceiling. I presume that the 30p maximum which is going to be levied from the start is considered adequate, and that the commission does not need freedom to go higher. If they do, this will need another order at a later date. That is not a criticism, it is merely an explanation.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I am so sorry I did not make that point clear. I thought I had done so by saying that the greatest expense is likely to come during the first year. But it may take two or three years at the 30p levy in order to refund Pig Disease Eradication Fund Limited. Therefore, it is not anticipated that there will be an increased levy. It will merely mean that the receipts may possibly continue for three years, although the greatest expense will come during the first year.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Agriculture and Horticulture Grant (Variation) Scheme 1983
4.18 p.m.
Earl Ferrers Earl Ferrers rose to move, That the scheme laid before the House on 2nd March be approved.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, in November last year my right honourable friend stated his intention to make grants available for a five-year period for the replanting of our apple and pear orchards. The three orders before your Lordships today allow for these to be paid under the existing capital grant arrangements from 1st April. The printed order, the Agriculture and Horticulture Grant (Variation) Scheme 1983, is an amendment to our national scheme. The two other orders—the Agriculture and Horticulture Development (Amendment) Regulations 1983 and the Farm and Horticulture Development (Amendment) Regulations 1983—are draft orders for your Lordships' approval and they amend the European Community schemes.
My Lords, our apple and pear industry began its recovery with the introduction of the Kingdom marketing scheme some 2½ years ago. This is the premium pack which was first recommended in a penetrating study of the British apple and pear industry which was carried out by my noble friend Lord Selborne and his colleagues on the industry's Top Fruit Working Group. The success of the Kingdom scheme has shown that our growers can be viable and can compete with the best imported produce provided that they organise themselves and produce good quality, properly graded fruit, which is properly and professionally marketed.
What is needed now is a greater supply of this produce. A third of our orchards have become too old to produce top quality fruit and a number of varieties which are grown merely have a local demand. The orders before your Lordships are designed to back up the Kingdom scheme by encouraging growers to plant with varieties of fruit which are in popular demand. It is estimated that, over the five-year life of the scheme, this additional aid will amount to some £5 million.
Grants for grubbing trees are already available under the grant schemes. These new orders will enable grant to be paid towards the capital costs of replanting apple and pear orchards which are grubbed up after 7th November 1982. The rates of grant will be 22·5 per cent. under the Agriculture and Horticulture Grant Scheme and 32·5 per cent. under the Agriculture and Horticulture Development and Farm and Horticulture Development Schemes.
For too long the rewards of apple and pear growing have not been adequate enough to encourage the planting of new young trees. As a result, the trees have grown old and both the quantity and the quality of the fruit which they produce has suffered. They need to come out and to be replaced with fresh, young trees, capable of providing good quality fruit. There is still too much poor quality fruit on the market, but these grants will help apple and pear growers to modernise their orchards.
The industry has been consulted on the varieties which are considered to be commercially viable, both now and in the future, and which are considered to have a reasonable storage and marketing life. Those named in the orders are Cox's, Bramley and Spartan apples and Conference and Comice pears. Growers might wish to plant other varieties to meet, for example, a local market demand, and the orders therefore provide for the aid to be given on a restricted proportion of other varieties of trees for pollination purposes. Up to one in four trees to be planted may be of a variety which is not mentioned in the order. In order to qualify for grant, the stock planted will have to be certified under the Ministry's Plant Health Propagation Scheme or be of a comparable health standard. No problems are anticipated over the availability of healthy stock to meet the demand created by the grants.
I hope that your Lordships will agree that these grants should give our apple and pear industry further encouragement. I beg to move.
Moved, That the scheme laid before the House on 2nd March be approved.—(Earl Ferrers.)
Lord Bishopston: My Lords, I should like to thank the Minister for his explanation of these orders and to give a welcome to them, because they substantially help British agriculture which over the years has made a very substantial contribution to our own food needs and to vital United Kingdom exports. Productivity in our food and agricultural industries has been extremely good and has been an example to other industries. As I have said before, if only the productivity of other industries had matched that in the agricultural sector there would be fewer problems. But in order to maintain such a record, the pursuit of excellence must be a continuing objective, especially in competition with the EEC producers and in particular the French and other growers.
Apples and pears are the concern not only of the Apple and Pears Development Council, the Ministry and other bodies, but also the concern of every grower and producer and, indeed, of the consumer, who must see quality and prices as being competitive. Marketing is also important in ensuring that the fruit on offer is of

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the finest quality and presentation. The measures do help us to maintain the high standards of production. Coming from Nottinghamshire, as I do, I have a particular interest in the Bramley, which originated in that area.
Good marketing, which is the concern of the Apple and Pear Development Council and the Ministry, will not be helped if the fruit is substandard so these measures will be helpful here. The aim of the orders, as the Minister of State has said, is to improve the stock, and they are to be welcomed. I hope that consumers will also be aware of the very great effort being devoted to ensuring that our food products are competitive. In last year's report of the Apple and Pear Development Council a few points were made which are obvious to many of us but which should not be forgotten. They referred to the fact that:
"Substantial amounts of concentrate are produced in countries that have lower costs than the U.K. in terms of both processing and raw materials. This, together with good world-wide apple crops in most years, has tended to maintain prices at a relatively low level."
They go on to say:
"A preliminary financial appraisal indicated that it would be difficult to set up a plant in the U.K. and process apples into concentrated juice at a cost low enough to compete effectively with imported juice".
Therefore, although it is very important, as the Minister has said, to ensure that our producers have this kind of aid to ensure the maintenance of the very high quality of their produce, it is also important to recognise that they are in great competition with imports from other countries and therefore this aid is doubly welcome. The apple juice market is important and it is vital that the product should be such as to enable it to capture a greater share of the market. I understand there is spare production capacity in the apple-processing industry so that there is still great potential for further quality production.
With those few words, may I say again how much we value the aid given by the Government to the industry. We hope that our industry can remain competitive both in quality and price.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, I, too, should like to welcome the order. I think it is awful that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, is not in his place to welcome this order, because the last time we spoke about Cox's Orange Pippins in this House he was absolutely lyrical about the pippin, and that must have done a great deal of good in the country. I hope he will take an early opportunity to repeat his marvellous comments on the pippin and do some more good.
I should like to ask the Minister whether he thinks the one in four will be enough to take care of a number of rare varieties which are useful and which will have a limited market. May I also ask him why we have not included the main competitor, which I understand grows here quite well; that is, Golden Delicious! That is the apple which is indeed taking much of the market and I should have thought we might have encouraged somebody to try to beat the French at their own game and perhaps grow a tastier form of the apple in this country. Perhaps the noble Minister could tell us why this was not included.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, the whole purpose of the scheme was to encourage the planting of those varieties which are in popular demand. In fact, Cox's make up about 60 per cent. of the national dessert apple area, and Spartan about 5 or 7 per cent. Bramleys are 85 per cent. of the culinary apple area. While a number of other varieties are grown, it is very difficult to market those adequately or on a national scale, although there may be some local demand, as I suggested earlier. It is possible to allow for that by planting these additional trees which anyway have to be planted in order to act as pollinators.
We have, of course, to encourage the apple industry to grow those varieties which sell best, and while it is perfectly true that Golden Delicious have a certain market it seems to be the case that those from overseas happen to get priority of publicity, as opposed to the English variety. For those reasons, we decided on the three apple varieties I have referred to; but of course if circumstances change and other varieties come up in interest and demand then they can be added to the list of apple varieties which can attract grants.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Farm and Horticulture Development (Amendment) Regulations 1983
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I beg to move these regulations.
Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 2nd March be approved.—(Earl Ferrers.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Agriculture and Horticulture Development (Amendment) Regulations 1983
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I beg to move these regulations.
Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 2nd March be approved.—(Earl Ferrers.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Valuation (Communal Accommodation) (Scotland) Order 1983
4.30 p.m.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, I beg to move that the Valuation (Communal Accommodation) (Scotland) Order 1983, a copy of which was laid before the House on 7th March, be approved. The purpose of this short order is to apply the power provided in Section 5(2) of the Local Government and Planning (Scotland) Act 1982, enabling the Secretary of State to prescribe a method of ascertaining the rateable value of certain lands and heritages in Scotland. The lands and heritages described in the Act and covered by the order are those which are not used for profit-making purposes, which are wholly or mainly used as residential accommodation for persons living separately from any family and in which certain facilities are shared by those persons. The order itself specifies a limit. It will apply only to property where the total external area is not more than 300 square metres. The order provides

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that these lands and heritages are to be valued according to the provisions relating to the valuation of dwellinghouses in Section 6 of the Valuation and Rating (Scotland) Act 1956 as if they were, in all respects, dwellinghouses. It is also provided that valuation rolls shall be altered to give effect to the order, and for the order to come into operation at the beginning of the next local authority financial year, which is on 1st April 1983.
The powers now in Section 5 of the 1982 Act were introduced during consideration of the Bill by your Lordships' House in Committee. The problem of high valuation and, therefore, high rate burden on communal accommodation had been raised in representations to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State during consideration of the Bill in another place, and in your Lordships' House these points were raised by my noble friend Lady Elliot. The provisions in Section 5 were introduced as a result of the Government's consideration of the problem.
My noble friend Lord Mansfield explained, when moving the relevant amendment, that the Government had been aware for some time of the difficulties caused to charities, local authorities and housing associations by the valuation of communal accommodation for single people as commercial and not domestic property, regardless of its size. This means that those persons living in this type of property pay higher rates than are levied on comparable domestic property. My noble friend Lady Elliot, in the speech she made during consideration of the Bill in Committee, mentioned a number of examples, including flats run by the Edinburgh Youth Homes to provide accommodation for young people leaving children's homes. These were originally rated at £172, but when they were divided and lived in separately were valued by the assessor as a hostel and the rates increased to £467. Another example has been brought to our attention by the Scottish Association for Mental Health, which took on the tenancy of a block of postwar fiats in Edinburgh. These were occupied as permanent accommodation by ex-psychiatric patients and the rateable value was increased, following the adoption of a commercial basis of valuation, from £202 to £376 each.
Accommodation such as housing projects designed for single persons generally, with communal facilities, are usually valued as a hostel on a commercial basis, greatly increasing the rateable value and, as a result, a number of projects to provide accommodation for single homeless and for single people generally have been jeopardised. It was recognised, when the power of Section 5 were sought, that the problem of valuation of these properties on a commercial rather than domestic basis is not capable of a single of a simple solution. As I am sure those of your Lordships who have ventured into the subject will know, valuation law is extremely complex. In the short time available prior to introduction of the Section 5 powers in the Bill, it was not possible to consult widely enough to achieve agreement to the substantive changes to be made in primary legislation. It was for this reason that it was decided to seek a general power to enable the Secretary of State to tackle the problem as appropriate, by prescribing rating relief and/or methods of ascertaining values.
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If I may detain your Lordships a little, the root of the problem lies in the fact that in Scotland dwellinghouses are entitled under statute to a favourable method of valuation which is not usually extended to other kinds of residential accommodation owned, for example, by charities or housing associations and let to persons often disadvantaged in some way, who would find it difficult to provide their own accommodation. Often, the rateable occupier is not an ordinary householder, and the accommodation is not assessed as a dwellinghouse and loses the considerable valuation benefit associated with this status, which may not be compensated for by other relief; for example, that which is available to charities. The accommodation concerned may be just as much the settled home of the occupants as is a dwellinghouse but the occupants are penalised in having to pay higher rates than householders who are often better off than they. The extent of the rating disadvantage will vary considerably from property to property, and the fairest way of providing the exact relief merited is by having the residential accommodation, often a flat, assessed as if it were a house.
Since the 1982 Act was passed, a committee of the Working Party on Local Government Finance in Scotland has carefully considered how the powers enacted in Section 5 might best be put into effect. They came to the view that the problem of high values and, consequently, high rate burdens was most pressing in respect of those properties most akin to dwelling-houses. They considered that, as the basis of the problem was valuation on a commercial rather than a domestic basis, provision should be made to ensure valuation in line with domestic property. The order therefore provides that premises within the terms laid down are to be valued as if they were, in all respects, dwelling-houses, notwithstanding that structural adaptations might have been made of a nature not normally found in a dwellinghouse; for example, additional washing, cooking or storage facilities.
The order is restricted to those lands and heritages with an external area not exceeding 300 square metres. We are advised that this will allow the order to be applied to properties up to and including those which are of a similar size to comparatively large houses, and for which there is sufficient evidence available to enable assessors to fix a valuation as if the property were a dwellinghouse. A review of the rate burden on larger premises, such as hostels, is in hand. When this is concluded, consideration will be given to whether and to what extent relief for these premises may be appropriate. Larger properties will require separate consideration mainly because they are unlike dwellinghouses in size and structure, and it is likely, therefore, that any measure which might be proposed would have to provide a solution for larger premises different from valuation as if they were dwellinghouses.
This order has the support of The Scottish Council for Single Homeless and other housing associations, to whom I should record our gratitude for bringing this problem to our notice, and for their willing and helpful co-operation in constructing the solution contained in the current order and in carrying out further studies. It is considered that the modification to the existing valuation system contained in the order will go a

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considerable way to removing a widely perceived unfair discrimination in the existing system against those in the community whose burden in life can well do with lightening, rather than being added to. It is also a matter of practical common sense that the rating system operates in as even-handed a manner as possible. The order is evidence of the compassion and sound practicality of this Government. For that reason, I commend it to your Lordships' House. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the order laid before the House on 7th March be approved.—(Lord Lyell.)
4.39 p.m.
Lord McCluskey: My Lords, with regard to the order itself, the House will be grateful to the noble Lord for explaining it. With regard to the last sentence of what he had just said, the House will see that the noble Lord took the opportunity to congratulate the Government, because he gets such few opportunities to display compassion. This extremely modest example of the Government's compassion is welcome like a good deed in a naughty world.
I should like to ask the Minister whether he would explain something to me. He has explained what the purpose of this order is. As I understand it, there has been a question in Scotland, as yet unresolved by the courts, as to whether, for example, a small convent—and I say "small" because I am thinking of the external measurement given in the order—would qualify as
"residential accommodation for persons living separately from any family"
and sharing facilities. I assume that the answer to that is, Yes; but perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, will be able to tell me.
There is one other anomaly to which I want to draw attention—and I have given the noble Lord notice of this question. It is bizarre that a Church of Scotland minister who lives in a manse in Scotland is deemed under valuation law to be living in a dwellinghouse; but a minister of any other religion—and in particular Roman Catholic priests who live in presbyteries—are not, in large parts of Scotland, deemed to be living in dwellinghouses, because the use of the house is said to be not that of a dwellinghouse. The result is that, at least in certain parts of Scotland, there has been a kind of religious discrimination, depending on whether or not one is a member of the Established Church.
I wonder whether the result of this order will be that when one looks in future at a presbytery lived in by a Roman Catholic priest, or at a house inhabited by a Salvation Army minister, if there is such a person, it will be regarded as
"residential accommodation for persons living separately from any family";
and, if so, whether it will be deemed to be a dwellinghouse? If the answer to that is that the order will apply to such accommodation, will it apply to such accommodation only if there are two priests living there, and thus sharing the accommodation? And will the house cease to be a dwellinghouse if the senior priest dies or the junior priest decamps, thus
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leaving the house occupied by only one person? Perhaps the noble Lord can clarify these matters so that those who read the proceedings of this House in order to understand what the effect of the order is will be able to understand how it will apply in this somewhat bizarre situation.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, your Lordships will be very grateful for the detailed scrutiny of the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey, and for the pertinent questions put by him. I would be less than fair to your Lordships, and certainly less than fair to the noble and learned Lord, if I were not to let your Lordships in on the secret that the noble and learned Lord gave me prior warning of his question, albeit a simple question. I hope that I shall provide some kind of answer. At the same time, the noble and learned Lord's question covers a fairly wide area and he may find my reply not entirely satisfactory.
Your Lordships will see that the lands and heritages to which the order before us this afternoon applies are those specified in Article 2 of the order. I understand that property within the category specified is required to be valued according to the provisions for ascertaining the value of dwellinghouses. This is prescribed in Section 6 of the Valuation and Rating (Scotland) Act 1956. Your Lordships will recall that in the course of my introductory comments I mentioned that this was a favourable method of valuation. This advantage arises mainly from the provision that in assessing the annual rent, which is the basis of all valuations, it shall be assumed in the case of a dwellinghouse, first, that all comparable accommodation in the locality is due shortly to become available, free from any statutory or other restrictions; secondly, that rents are unsubsidised; and, thirdly, that no marked excess or deficiency exists of accommodation relative to tenants.
The definition of "dwellinghouse" does not appear in the Act, but I am given to understand that lack of a precise definition of what is and what is not a dwellinghouse does not appear to have caused difficulty to assessors in applying the method of valuation appropriate to dwellinghouses prescribed in the 1956 Act. I understand that no representations have been made for a definition of "dwellinghouse" to be prescribed.
Finally, perhaps I may settle the question of convents or other houses occupied by religious persons for residential purposes, in reply to the noble and learned Lord. I understand that the order will cover these houses and convents, or buildings occupied for residential purposes, if the criteria of the order are satisfied; if the area of the building is within the size restriction. In the definition of the building, the noble and learned Lord mentioned a convent. The noble and learned Lord mentioned to me before we came to your Lordships the case of a convent separate from a church or other institution. I believe that if the area of the residential building was within the size restriction and if the building was used wholly or mainly for residential accommodation by these persons, the residents would certainly find themselves in all cases—be they priests, ministers, clergy, curates or nuns—living in
"residential accommodation for persons living separately from any family".

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That might cause some difficulty with the Church of Scotland minister—I would not know for certain—but Roman Catholic priests, nuns, and other religious orders, provided the building in which they are resident falls within the size restriction of 300 square metres, will find, as I understand it, that the order indeed covers convents and priests' houses of the type described by the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey. I hope I have gone some way to answering the noble and learned Lord's question. Does he wish to intervene?
Lord McCluskey: My Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, sits down, I entirely accept what he said about there being no definition of "dwellinghouse" because the Act does not use the phrase "dwellinghouse" but "occupied as a dwellinghouse". Therefore, attention is directed at the character of the relationship between the premises, on the one hand, and the persons who use them, on the other.
However, I wonder whether the noble Lord can deal with my last point? The order refers to shared accommodation and to "persons". Therefore, it envisages that premises to which the order will apply will be premises in which there are several persons. If one has premises of that kind occupied by two persons, and therefore the order applies, and then one of those persons dies or leaves and the same premises continue to be occupied in the same character by the survivor, will the premises then cease to be occupied as a dwellinghouse within the meaning of the order? If so, should not the Government think of that as being an extraordinary anomaly?
Lord Lyell: My Lords, as the representative of the Government this afternoon, I have indeed thought of that anomaly, but I have to say to the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey, that I do not have an answer to the problem. I recognise that in the criteria I have quoted from Article 2 of the order they are classified as being "shared by those persons". But I will certainly obtain the information for which the noble and learned Lord has asked. I shall reply to him as succinctly, briefly and swiftly as possible. I am immensely grateful to the noble and learned Lord and to all other noble Lords for their forbearance this afternoon. This is a technical subject.
Lord Wilson of Langside: My Lords, if the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, has finished with the interesting point raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey, and before he sits down, I do not wish to join in any argument about compassion but I shall look forward to discussing the matter on some future occasion. I could not raise any matter with the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, because I was unable to obtain a copy of the order until two o'clock this afternoon, and I have been in the Chamber since then. I was a little bothered by the Explanatory Note, which does not seem to explain anything. I appreciate that the Explanatory Note does not form part of the order, but it simply adds nothing at all. The Explanatory Notes to many of the orders we debated earlier did add something, particularly for the layman reading these matters for the first time, perhaps. Valuation and rating are difficult and complicated matters, and I submit for the noble Lord's consideration that he
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might suggest to the draftsman that the Explanatory Notes should do a little better than that.
My other point is that I was a little puzzled by what the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, said with regard to the total area, which I understand is not to exceed 300 square metres. I understood the Minister to say that that was the area of a normal house. I must say I could not understand that part. I am sure it is my own obtuseness. Perhaps the Minister would be good enough to explain again why the area of 300 square metres was chosen.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilson of Langside, for his comments and for the interest that he has taken in the matter. I will endeavour to find out if there was a shortage of copies of the order so that he was unable to obtain one.
Lord Wilson of Langside: My Lords, I was not blaming anyone but myself. It was not available when I was last in the House. I am not complaining about not getting it; I was just explaining why I had not paid the Minister the courtesy, which Lord McCluskey had, of giving him notice of the points I was raising. That was all. I am not complaining.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, the noble and learned Lord asked me about the problem of the Explanatory Note. As the noble and learned Lord and, I am sure, all your Lordships, are aware from the tenor of my remarks, the order brings into effect Section 5, which was the result of an amendment whch was moved by my noble friend the Minister in response to my noble friend Lady Elliot: she raised this point of the young single homeless persons who were resident in various types of accommodation which had up till then been classified as hostels. The Government certainly believed that there was a problem. We hoped that Section 5 had gone some way to meeting this problem, and the order, we would hope, will bring Section 5 into full effect.
The noble and learned Lord asked me also about the size of 300 square metres. I was given to understand that an average three-bedroomed house is of the order, including the external walls, of 150 square metres. I would suggest to the noble and learned Lord and to your Lordships that it is reasonable to limit the prescription of a method of valuation appropriate to domestic properties to those properties which are akin to—this is probably a slightly legalistic phrase—normal dwelling houses not only in purpose but also in size. We are advised that the limit of 300 square metres will cover the properties in that category. The figure of 300 square metres will, of course, include premises up to dimensions similar to comparatively large houses—that is the point I made in my preliminary remarks—and in relation to which there is sufficient evidence available to enable the assessors, who are the ones who are going to have to use this limit of 300 square metres, to fix a valuation as if the property were a dwellinghouse.
I am afraid I am not able to give an example as to the area of 300 square metres. I ought to know the measurements of the Chamber of your Lordships' House; I think it is something like 140 feet by 80 feet by 80 feet, as far as I can recall. The thought of a

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number of single homeless persons having hostel-type accommodation on the Floor of your Lordships' House I would leave to the imagination of the noble and learned Lord, but I hope I have been able to go some way to satisfy him on this limit of 300 square metres mentioned in the order.
Lord Wilson of Langside: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord the Minister for his explanation, as for his explanation of the order. May I reassure him that when I referred to the subject of compassion I was trying to be light-hearted; I was not being serious at all. But I find absolutely fascinating the competing claims of the Labour and Conservative Parties to compassion, especially as I have known them both for a long time.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, I thought probably the compassion was being directed in my direction; at least I always understand that that is the case whenever I rise in your Lordships' House, whether it is needed or not. Certainly on this occasion I have been attempting to explain very abstruse items of legal proceedings and legal wording and drafting to both noble and learned Lords. I am immensely grateful for the compassion and tolerance with which your Lordships have listened to my remarks this afternoon. I hope, if I have missed anything, that I may get in touch with noble and learned Lords at a later stage after the Recess. Meanwhile, I commend the order to your Lordships.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Representation of the People (Scotland) Regulations 1983
4.57 p.m.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, I beg to move that the Representation of the People (Scotland) Regulations 1983 be approved. These regulations have three main purposes. First, they consolidate the existing Representation of the People (Scotland) Regulations, which govern the registration of electors and absent voting at parliamentary and local government elections in Scotland. Secondly, they supplement the new provisions for the electoral registration of voluntary patients in mental hospitals introduced by the Mental Health (Amendment) Act 1982. Thirdly, they introduce a number of changes which, for the most part, have been broadly agreed by the political parties, by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and by other interested bodies. The opportunity has been taken to set out the regulations in a more logical and convenient order. The number of prescribed forms has been reduced and some minor drafting amendments have been made to express the intentions of the regulations more clearly. These consolidating regulations follow the consolidation of existing electoral law in the Representation of the People Act 1983, which came into force on 15th March. Your Lordships approved similar regulations for England, Wales and Northern Ireland on 17th March.
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The major change of substance in the regulations is the new provision made for the electoral registration of voluntary patients in mental hospitals. This follows the provisions introduced in the Mental Health (Amendment) Act 1982, which comes into force on 1st April, and are consolidated in section 7 of the Representation of the People Act 1983. Regulation 9 requires a patient's declaration to be attested by a member of the hospital staff authorised for the purpose by the managers of the hospital, and enables the hospital to send the declaration to the electoral registration officer on the patient's behalf. Regulation 13 sets out how the electoral registration officer should enter a patient's name in the register. There will be no special marking on the register which would enable those on it to be identified as mental hospital patients. Voluntary patients will be able to make a declaration for inclusion in the register on or before 10th October this year, and to vote at any election held after 16th February 1984, when the 1984 register comes into effect.
Of the other changes introduced by these regulations, the main one is the change in the timetable for absent voting. Under existing regulations, applications for an absent vote have to be received by the twelfth day before the day of a parliamentary election and the fourteenth day before a local election. This time of grace does not count Sundays, Bank holidays and other breaks.
The Representation of the People Act 1981 extended the timetable for parliamentary elections by providing that Saturdays should be disregarded in the computation of the parliamentary elections timetable. Under these regulations, Saturdays will also be disregarded for the purpose of the absent voting timetable at parliamentary and local government elections. The regulations fix the deadline for absent voting applications at both elections as noon on the eleventh day before the poll. This means that the deadline at a parliamentary election will be moved from midnight on the Thursday two weeks before polling day to noon on the Wednesday. Because of the changes in the parliamentary elections timetable introduced in 1981, an elector will in fact have one day longer to submit his application than he did at the last General Election in 1979.
The other changes of substance are increases in certain fees and fines prescribed by the regulations, including the fee for spare copies of the electoral register and of copies of a return or declaration of a candidate's election expenses. These fees were last increased in 1979. Regulation 75 increases the fine for giving false information to a registration officer from £50 to £100. It was last increased in 1969. These are consolidating regulations, and the few changes they incorporate will, I hope, be useful to all concerned with contesting, running or voting at elections. For that reason, I commend them to your Lordships.
Moved, That the regulations laid before the House on 10th March be approved.—(Lord Lyell.)
Lord McCluskey: My Lords, again the House will thank the noble Lord for describing what these regulations do. I think the House will appreciate that they do for Scotland what the other regulations do for

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other parts of the United Kingdom. There is one matter to which I wish to draw attention. As the noble Lord said, a principal purpose is to make things slightly easier for voluntary patients in mental hospitals. The 15th Report from the Joint Committee draws attention to the fact that the Government seem to have acted in great haste here and laid this instrument before Parliament before this enabling Act was published. The Home Office, in reply to that criticism, in effect state that it wanted the order to come into force on 1st April. This, as your Lordships know, is April Fool's Day, and one has to ask why the Government are so keen that this order should come into force on that day. I cannot imagine that their taste is so bad as to have thought that that was an appropriate day on which to enlarge the electoral rights of voluntary patients in mental hospitals. I can only suppose that the real purpose of this unseemly haste is that the Government are trying to clear the decks for an early General Election—perhaps a snap election at the beginning of May. Before the order is formally accepted, perhaps the Ministers will explain the Government's intention and give us the benefit of advance notice of the date.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, we are grateful to the noble and learned Lord for, as always, his detailed study. I assure the noble and learned Lord that there was no malice or indeed mischief in suggesting that these regulations should come into force on the day that is traditionally known for pranks, albeit possibly in the Scottish legal profession as in any other walk of life. I stress to the noble and learned Lord that Regulation 9, which is made under a provision originally enacted in the Mental Health (Amendment) Act 1982, prescribes the manner in which voluntary mental patients in hospitals may make declarations to be registered as electors. This Act, the Mental Health (Amendment) Act 1982, is due to come into operation on 1st April. It is essential that the regulations we are now discussing should come into effect on the same day.
To digress for a moment on to a general point, may I say that these regulations consolidate what I call a ragbag of existing regulations which are becoming increasingly difficult to follow for those who need to use them. It was generally agreed that the sooner the new regulations were introduced the better, albeit on 1st April.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Upholstered Furniture (Safety)(Amendment) Regulations 1983
5.5 p.m.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion that stands in my name on the Order Paper: that the draft Upholstered Furniture (Safety) (Amendment) Regulations 1983, which are to be made under the Consumer Safety Act 1978, be approved. I stress to your Lordships that the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments has considered the text and did not comment on it. The draft regulations supplement the provisions of the 1980 Upholstered Furniture (Safety) Regulations, and need to be read in conjunction with those regulations. I would not claim that this makes for easy reading. However, the two main changes are, in themselves, relatively straightforward.
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Your Lordships may remember that the 1980 regulations required domestic furniture to carry red warning labels if it could not pass two British Standard tests for resistance to ignition by a smouldering cigarette and a small butane flame simulating a lighted match. Draft Regulation 2(c)—new Regulation 4A—would require furniture which does pass the two tests—the match test and the cigarette test—also to be labelled with a new green-edged square label stating that the piece of furniture passes. The problem at present is that this safer furniture can be identified only by the absence of warning labels. I would ask noble Lords to consider whether, faced with unlabelled furniture, they would readily deduce that this was cigarette and match proof. I am assuming that those noble Lords present have much greater familiarity with the requirements of the current regulations than the average consumer or buyer of furniture, but, even so, I wonder whether any of your Lordships who have this expertise would not ask yourselves whether somebody had forgotten to put on the warning labels or whether they had merely fallen off.
The new regulations will require suppliers who are satisfied that their furniture does meet the tests to make a positive statement to that effect. Both the furniture industry and the enforcement authorities welcome this clarification. All furniture first placed on the British market since the end of last year has had to satisfy the cigarette test. The new labels will draw consumers' attention to furniture which satisfies the match test and this should help to stimulate demand for match-proof furniture.
The other main purpose of the draft regulations is to make provision for the safety of children's upholstered furniture. This category was exempted from the 1980 regulations on the ground that it was unnecessary to subject items of nursery furniture, such as high chairs, with only small amounts of upholstery, to tests dealing with the dangers of cigarettes and matches. The Government still consider this unnecessary. However, just over a year ago the Government began to receive reports of accidents involving, not high chairs, but what we call novelty chairs for small children which are constructed almost entirely from combustible materials such as polyurethane foam or expanded polystyrene. Some of these were actually marketed as "fireside chairs" and young children were pushing them close to electric, gas or coal tires and leaving them there. Sometimes the chairs caught fire and, in one case, the mother of the child concerned was overcome by fumes from the burning upholstery, although fortunately she recovered after hospital treatment.
In order to prevent further accidents my honourable friend made the Children's Upholstery Furniture (Safety) Order on 6th April last year. This prohibited, for one year, the supply of children's furniture containing more than small amounts of polyurethane foam and expanded polystyrene. One or both of these two filling materials was used in all the potentially dangerous chairs of which we were aware, and a prohibition on these specific materials was the most effective way of getting them off the market quickly. However, it would be quite possible to construct equally dangerous furniture using other materials. The only systematic safeguard is to set an objective performance standard

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for the furniture as a whole. After extensive consultation and research the Government concluded that furniture which passed the ignition test in British Standard 5852 Part 2 (Ignition Source 5) would also be likely to be safe when closely exposed for prolonged periods to typical domestic radiant heating such as gas or electric fires. This is a considerably more stringent test than either the cigarette or match tests.
Under Regulation 2(e) (new Regulation 5A) all children's upholstered furniture, apart from beds and items such as high chairs with only small amounts of upholstery or low density framework material, will have to pass this exacting new ignition test. This requirement will enter into force on 7th April to coincide with the expiry of the prohibition order. However, to give suppliers sufficient time to adjust it will remain possible—for a limited transitional period—to go on supplying children's furniture which would not have been prohibited by the order if it had remained in force. This exemption is contained in new Regulation 5A(1)(b). I think that your Lordships will find that right at the bottom of page 3 in the regulations that are before us.
All of these regulations carry forward the Government's commitment to reducing the fire risks of modern upholstered furniture. But they are by no means the last word. The Government will continue to explore actively other aspects of the problem. The 1980 regulation and the amendments are designed to promote the sale of furniture with reasonable resistance to ignition in everyday circumstances. More remains to be done to reduce the risks when furniture, for whatever reason, does catch fire. Work has started in the British Standards Institution to devise means of measuring the rate at which fires develop in upholstery after ignition. The Government are also monitoring and helping to sponsor research into the development of safer tilling materials, particularly acceptably priced substitutes for the types of foam currently used in 90 per cent. of modern furniture. As solutions emerge the regulations will need to be further reviewed.
Meanwhile the draft regulations before your Lordships' House will promote greater safety on these aspects of furniture flammability for which current technology already provides solutions. For that reason, I would ask your Lordships to approve them. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 7th March be approved.—(Lord Lyell.)
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede: My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, for explaining very lucidly these regulations. I must say that his explanation of the regulations makes them much more understandable than the actual reading of the regulations themselves. As the noble Lord said, these particular regulations have to be read in conjunction with the 1980 regulations. I wonder whether the noble Lord could advise your Lordships whether there are any proposals to consolidate the two sets of regulations so that they can be read in a more digestible form than will be possible at present?
The proposals contained in the regulations are proposals which are certainly to be very much
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welcomed. The hazards of furniture which can ignite too easily are very well known. The fact that the furniture is to be marked in this particular way to protect the consumer so that the consumer will know that the furniture has been tested in the appropriate way is certainly a step forward. Also, I was glad to know that it was proposed that children's furniture, and particularly, as the noble Lord said, novelty furniture, was also to be subject to regulations in the same way.
The noble Lord in explaining the regulations talked about the duties of the suppliers of the furniture. He did not in fact mention, I think, the question of the responsibilities of the retailers of the furniture. He did tell your Lordships that there was to be a transitional period so far as the suppliers are concerned. What will happen with regard to existing stock in retailers' premises? Will that be subject to some form of labelling? Will it be inspected or, in fact, if it has not been inspected, will there be some form of negative labelling for that to show that it does not comply? It could well be that some of that stock will remain in retailers' premises for a considerable period of time before being sold. But in general, we welcome the laying of these regulations.
5.15 p.m.
Lord Auckland: My Lords, there is just one point about these regulations in paragraph 3(e). I declare an interest, non-financial, as an honorary vice-president of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents. The paragraph says:
"be attached to the furniture in such a way as at all times when the furniture is exposed for sale by retail either both faces are visible and legible or, if only one of them is visible and legible, the other may readily be made so by reversing the label by hand."
I think it is generally recognised that, first of all, the printing on some of these labels becomes affected very badly by washing and other means and that this means that the labelling becomes, so to speak, negative. Are there in the regulations—perhaps my noble friend the Minister can confirm this—means by which the labelling must be such that it is indelible and by reasonable washing the instructions on the printing can remain? This is vital if these very valuable regulations are to be made effective.
Baroness Phillips: My Lords, these are very important regulations. Anybody who has seen the terrible effects on children who are burnt knows how important the regulations are. There have been terrible accidents from burning furniture of all kinds, but particularly of this kind. Can the Minister tell us whether the British Standard is a mandatory one and, if so, will the article be kite marked in addition to it being mentioned on the label that it has come up to the specification? There is a very important difference, as your Lordships will know. Many years of working on the British Standards to get mandatory standards against flammable nightwear, and, indeed, against dangerous furniture, have led me always to follow whether all these regulations are mandatory.
5.18 p.m.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, I should like to begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, my noble friend Lord Auckland and the

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noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, for the attention which they have paid to these rather complicated regulations. We are very grateful for their continuing interest, in view of their expertise and knowledge in this particular area.
If I may attempt to answer the first question which was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, concerning consolidation of the 1980 regulations in with the 1983 regulations, certainly the noble Lord has raised a very interesting point. We will certainly consider consolidation of these two sets of regulations if there are further substantial amendments. When I asked about the definition of "substantial" this morning, I was told that it would not just be one or two words, or a minor definition, but if there were large paragraphs or really major sections of the regulations to be altered we would certainly consider consolidation of these two sets of regulations.
The noble Lord also raised a point about what happens to stocks. I wonder whether he was thinking only of children's furniture, or all furniture. The noble Lord raised the spectre of novelty chairs, which I must say I am not aware of. I do not know whether they are similar to the type of chair across which Tom chases Jerry. I am not entirely aware of these so-called novelty or fireside chairs. However, I understand that so long as they are in the showroom, existing stocks will be allowed to be sold, but if I may ascertain the exact details of the stocks of children's upholstered furniture and fully upholstered furniture, I shall write to the noble Lord.
My noble friend spoke about ensuring that the label is legible, perhaps by reversing it by hand. I have obtained a very valuable little guide from the department for which I speak. Probably my noble friend is already aware of this particular point, which is more than I was before I became acquainted with the regulations. The guide is entitled, Furniture and Fire—A Guide to the New Furniture Safety Regulations. I understand that it contains details of labels that will be attached to upholstery by string, a pin, or some such method. But we propose to have other labels—green ones—which I understand will have to be firmly fixed to the cushion or other part of the upholstered piece of furniture. I think that the label has to be 90 millimetres square. All the details of what the labels shall look like and the definitions of the labels are set out in the booklet. I shall certainly send a copy of it, together with explanatory literature, to my noble friend, in the hope that they will go most of the way towards satisfying the point that he raised.
I fear that I am not able to answer the question asked by the noble Baroness. It goes a little wider than the precise regulations which I have been trying to explain this afternoon. Perhaps I ought to be able to answer the question, but I must apologise and say that I do not think that I can give a satisfactory answer at present. I hope that the noble Baroness and your Lordships will be content if I study her comments and write to her very fully, giving all the answers that I can. If no other Member of your Lordships' House wishes to raise a point on the regulations, I would commend them—
Lord Somers: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, will he give an English translation of "90 millimetres"?
Lord Lyell: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Skelmersdale says "two point something". I know that 2·54 millimetres approximates to one inch. I am sorry, my Lords; I should have said 2·54 centimetres; that is, 254 millimetres, according to my noble friend. I shall attempt to discover the Imperial or British measure equivalent to 90 millimetres, and write to the noble Lord, Lord Somers.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Mines and Quarries (Valuation) Order 1983
5.24 p.m.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I beg to move that the draft Mines and Quarries (Valuation) Order 1983, which was laid before this House on 15th March, be approved. The purpose of the order is to do away with the special provisions for the valuation of tin, lead, and copper mines for rating purposes. These provisions were conceded to the mines in 1874, to take account of differences in the basis of royalty payments, on which rateable values are based, between these and other mines.
Uniquely, the price of tin is reflected in the rateable values of tin mines, which are reassessed annually. This special arrangement has resulted in a very substantial rise in the rates liability of the tin mines since the last general revaluation in 1973. Indeed, the rateable values alone of two of the mines have, I understand, increased respectively by five and 10 times over the last 10 years. This is quite an unintended effect of the method of valuation, and so the order which I am moving today attempts to remedy the situation by placing tin, lead, and copper mines on exactly the same basis as other mines for valuation purposes.
Perhaps I should explain, briefly, that mines and quarries are all rated by special formulae, as contained at present in the Mines and Quarries (Valuation) Order 1971 and the National Coal Board (Rateable Values) Order 1977. The first order—the 1971 order—sets out two different bases for valuing mines, other than National Coal Board mines. All mines except tin, lead, and copper mines are valued in accordance with the normal provisions of rating law. Rateable values are based on rental values, as reflected in royalty payments, and are reassessed annually to take account of changes in production levels which affect the royalties paid. Ancillary buildings and other structures, including shafts and adits, are separately valued and do not change annually.
Tin mines—for lead and copper are now mined only as by-products of other mining—are valued on the same basis, but with two important differences successfully negotiated by the mines in, as I said, 1874. The royalty payments which provide rental evidence are based on the value of production, so they change with changes in the price of tin; and underground workings and other structures are included in the rateable value based on the royalty payment, rather than separately valued.
Rate bills are the product of the rateable value base and the rate poundage set by local authorities. Of

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course, many industries have suffered from increases in poundages, but I am not aware of any instances, other than tin mines, in which rateable values have moved so significantly out of line between revaluations. The consequences are obvious in an industry that is of great importance in Cornwall. It is the function of the rating system to ensure that the burden of rates is spread fairly between ratepayers, and it is clear that in the case of tin mines this is no longer so. Therefore, after consulting the mining industry, local authority associations, those local authorities most concerned and other interests, the Government decided that we should remove this anomaly by making the changes contained in the order that we are debating today.
The order places the valuation of tin, lead and copper mines on exactly the same basis as other mines. This will reduce substantially the value placed on tin in the calculation of the rental evidence, bringing it down to 1973 prices from the current price of around £9,000 a tonne to some £1,700 per tonne. The benefits from this will be offset to some extent by the separate valuation of underground workings and other structures which will now be necessary. The local authorities most closely concerned have raised no objections to the—to them—minimal loss of rateable value that will result, since they clearly recognise the benefits to the area of relieving the tin mines of unjustifiable and substantial costs. If your Lordships today approve the order, it will have effect from the beginning of the 1983–84 rating year. I hope that the order will commend itself to your Lordships' House. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the order laid before the House on 15th March be approved.—(Lord Skelmersdale.)
5.29 p.m.
Lord Bishopston: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for having explained the order, which is concerned with rateable value, and not the rate poundage, but, as he has implied, the two are very much connected and influence the total amount of the rates paid. I notice that under Section 19 of the Local Government Act 1974 the Secretary of State is required to consult local authorities and others, and from what the noble Lord has said I understand that that has been done. I do not know what "consultation" normally means to the Government—more often than not it means that they tell people what they have actually decided—but I gather that in this case there may have been true consultation, in so far as there was an exchange of views, which the local authorities welcomed.
I should like to ask the Minister what appeals exist against the level of rateable value levied on various rateable hereditaments. I presume that, as rateable values are going down, there may not be any appeals. I notice that the Minister says that local authorities welcome the proposal. However, if the rateable value goes down, it means that the local authority has correspondingly less in rates. It may be the case in some areas where mines are situated, especially Cornwall—I think of the Wheal Jane mine and others which have been in some difficulty—that the effect of the order will be to help the industry and also help the
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authority if the result is improved productivity in the mines concerned.
The Minister has mentioned the connection with royalty payments. Perhaps he can say what this means in present day terms having regard to the fact that he is changing legislation that dates from 1874. I should like to ask finally about the effect on mines. As the rateable value is being cut, do they still make royalty payments? At the end of the day will the mines, especially the tin mines of Cornwall with which I am sure we are concerned, be better off or otherwise? With those remarks, I think the House should give a welcome to the order.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I am grateful to Lord Bishopston for his reception of the order which will bring about a change to one small aspect of the rating system and will affect only a small area of South-West Cornwall. Nowhere else will be affected. Nevertheless, it is of considerable importance to the tin mining industry. The prosperity of that industry will have repercussions on the economy and the employment prospects of that part of Cornwall. I am satisfied that the benefits of the order for the area as a whole will far outweigh the costs to the local authorities concerned. It will, I fear, not be possible to provide accurate figures until the valuation officer has been to the mines and assessed their rateable values on the new basis. However, the total of the current rate bills of the four mines amounts to only just over the product of a penny rate in each of the three district councils after including the Cornwall County Council precept. The mines will, of course, still have to pay rates, although I would expect that the rates that they have to pay will be slightly smaller. I can confidently say that the cost to ratepayers generally will be minimal.
The tin mines will have the same rights as any other ratepayer to appeal against rateable values set under the new method of valuation. But since it is a benefit that the mines themselves specifically asked the Government to provide and since I am giving them, if your Lordships agree the order, a welcome Easter present, I hope, as the noble Lord says, that appeals will not be necessary in this case. I beg to move.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Level Crossings Bill
5.34 p.m.
Lord Brooks of Tremorfa: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time. I am indebted to the honourable Member for Gateshead East for piloting the Bill so far. I am delighted that he has used the opportunity of his success in the Private Members' ballot to promote such a useful measure. This Bill will rectify anomalies in the powers controlling changes to the protection and operation of level crossings.
I will begin by explaining the need for the Bill. Of course, most level crossings in the United Kingdom are on lines operated by the British Railways Board. Changes to almost all of these can be authorised by an order made by the Secretary of State for Transport at the request of British Railways. This is a simple, straightforward procedure and administrative costs are low. But there are also a number of level crossings on railways run by private operators, as well as a few

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crossings on British Railways lines, to which changes can only be authorised by private Acts of Parliament or in some cases by a light railway order. I have in mind in particular private companies who operate lines to transport goods, or preservation societies who run tourist railways. This curious state of affairs arises because of the complex tangle of legislation at present covering level crossings. It may help noble Lords if I briefly outline the powers as they exist so that they can see the gaps for themselves.
Much railway legislation is 19th century and the powers controlling level crossings are no exception. Our Victorian forefathers provided legal powers for level crossings to be built and for the provision of protection at crossings for their users. Most of these powers for public railways were drawn together in the Railway Clauses Consolidation Act 1845, though there is still much extant private legislation providing similar powers in special circumstances. Most private railways are still covered by private Acts of this kind. What none of these powers provided was an ability to modernise the protection provided. Men with red flags or other protection suitable for a Victorian railway remained the order of the day.
To meet the needs of the second half of the 20th century, the British Transport Commission Act 1957 and the Transport Act 1968 provided the Minister of Transport—now the Secretary of State—with the power to authorise by order the modernising of the operation and protection of level crossings on virtually all lines operated by British Railways. But there are no similar powers to authorise modernisation of level crossings on lines run by private operators.
The only ways for a private operator to escape from this difficulty are to promote private legislation or, if applicable, to seek a light railway order. Private legislation and light railway orders are costly and time consuming procedures. Operators of the relatively small numbers of crossings on private railways which are in need of modernisation are quite understandably deterred by the expense and complexity of this legal anomaly, while, for the vast majority of level crossings in the country, British Railways have a convenient and simple means of obtaining authorisation for change.
It is quite wrong for different operators of level crossings to be treated in different ways by the law in this arbitrary fashion. This is the biggest gap in existing legislation which the Bill will plug by bringing all operators into line with the procedures currently applying to most British Railways crossings. But because the Bill allows the Secretary of State to authorise level crossing modernisation on the application of any railway operator the Bill will also remedy a few other deficiencies in existing legislation. One example is that the law relating to British Railways crossings over public roads which did not exist at the time the railway was built is uncertain. The Bill will solve that dilemma since authorisation can be given irrespective of the date of the road. Another example of a difficulty is that unless a non-British Railways crossing happens to be covered by existing statute, or the crossing falls within the jurisdiction of a highway authority, there are no powers to provide appropriate traffic signs. The Bill will allow the Secretary of State to authorise any necessary traffic signs.
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I hope that I have made clear to the House why this Bill is necessary. I should like to add, by way of reassurance, a few words on what it does not do. I am aware that there is general interest in level crossings and, in particular concern about their safety. First, let me say that this Bill does not touch on the question of what level of protection is appropriate at a crossing. It only seeks to provide an appropriate legal and administrative framework for any modernisation which is deemed necessary. Secondly, the Bill will not lead to unnecessary expense. The initiative for proposing modernisation will rest with the operator who will be responsible for the costs of the work. Thirdly, the Bill does not provide powers to restrict hours of operation of a crossing or to close it. It will not, therefore, restrict the rights of road users using level crossings.
This is a modest measure. However, it is fair and useful and is widely welcomed by those whom it will affect. There has been consultation with a wide range of interested bodies which has revealed considerable support for its intentions: indeed, no one has raised any objection to them. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a Second time.—(Lord Brooks of Tremorfa.)
Underhill: My Lords, I shall not detain your Lordships very long, but I should like to congratulate my noble friend on the way in which he has explained the provisions of the Bill. He has explained its purpose and that it fills a gap. It is something that is badly needed. He described it as a modest measure. However, I think that having heard his explanation noble Lords will agree that it is an important measure. My only purpose in speaking on the Motion is to indicate that although it is a Private Member's Bill I hope that not only will noble Lords support it but that the Government themselves will give it their wholehearted blessing.
5.42 p.m.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I also should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Brooks of Tremorfa, for the very lucid way in which he has described the Bill which he is putting before your Lordships this afternoon. I am also grateful to him for bringing the Bill forward and to the honourable Member for Gateshead East who launched the Bill in another place. I should like to add a few words of support. This is a worthwhile measure which will remove the wasteful anomaly of different legal and administrative controls applying to the modernisation of level crossings, depending on their circumstances. Railways have to be authorised to cross roads on the level, and modernisation can be needed to improve the safety of crossings, to make the railway cheaper to operate or to speed the flow of traffic using the crossing. To enable itself to modernise crossings the British Transport Commission, the forerunner of the British Railways Board, took the powers which have been described to us in the 1957 Act. These were added to in the Transport Act 1968. However, as the noble Lord said, neither of those two Acts is normally available to railways other than British Railways.
There are many railways not covered by these powers, but none of them has access to the straightforward

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procedures for modernising level crossings which British Railways enjoy. To British Rail, the costs of an order under the relevant Acts are minimal, but any other railway operator who wants to modernise his crossing has either to promote a private Bill, or apply for a light railway order. As the noble Lord, Lord Brooks, has said, the delays and expense involved in using either of these methods are considerable. To the Government that state of affairs seems to be somewhat invidious, and I very much welcome the Bill because it will resolve this anomalous position.
The Railway Inspectorate have recommended the introduction of a measure such as this since the 1978 report on level crossing safety drew attention to the gaps in current legislation. Unhappily, pressure on parliamentary time has prevented anything being included in Government legislation, and so I very much welcome the noble Lord's bringing forward the proposals contained in the Bill. I also understand that consultation has revealed that those directly concerned welcome the Bill and that no one has expressed opposition to it. The Government fully support the noble Lord in his sponsorship of the Bill. May I express the hope that your Lordships' House will give it a very speedy passage?
Lord Brooks of Tremorfa: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Underhill and to the noble Minister, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, for the support that they have expressed for the Bill. I am confident that it will receive the fullest support of the House.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Truck Acts (Repeal) Bill [H.L.]
5.46 p.m.
Lord Harris of High Cross: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. In bringing this Bill before your Lordships from the Cross-Benches, I have been encouraged by the non-party repeal group. It has three purposes: first, by the simple device of repeal to slim the statute book which has become grossly inflated until, like a fat man, we can no longer see where we are putting our feet. Secondly, we wish to reinforce Her Majesty's Government on the urgent need to set limits to endless talk and to speed action. Our third substantive aim is to remove an obsolete barrier to spreading payment of wages by a variety of more modern, economic and safe methods than by carting £1,000 million of notes and coin around the country every pay day.
The origins of the Truck Acts take us back to a vanished world peopled by such ghosts as the bagmen, the petty foggers, the butties and other middlemen who paid workers in goods or in tommy tickets that could be exchanged only at the company store or truck shop which belonged to their employer. "Truck" apparently comes from a French word "troc" meaning barter, and it sometimes served a useful purpose in earlier centuries when people lived and worked in remote districts away from towns or markets. But it was open to the obvious abuse of any monopoly and became the target of public policy as early as 1411 when a local ordinance required Colchester weavers to
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be paid in gold and silver rather than in merchandise or victuals.
The Truck Acts (Repeal) Bill would decently bury the carcases of five outdated laws listed in the schedule. The 1831 Act in its time replaced no fewer than 19 statutes by a wide prohibition against contracts for artificers' wages being specified in other than "current coin of the realm". Its 27 clauses applied to a dozen specified trades and excluded agriculture and domestic service. The 1887 Truck Amendment Act extended protection to all manual workers covered by the Employer and Workmen Act 1875. The 1896 Act strengthened protection against deduction from wages. In 1940 a further Act was necessary to protect employers against some of the resulting anomalies—for example, where meals were served at work. Finally, the 1960 Payment of Wages Act permitted payment in postal orders, money orders, cheques or direct bank credit in place of cash. But it allowed these alternatives to cash subject to three conditions: first, that the employee agrees in writing to forgo cash; secondly, that he can withdraw that agreement at four weeks' notice; and thirdly, that the employer provides a full statement of gross wages and deductions.
Reflecting on the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, I imagine that at some Liberal seminar on the theme of "Forward from 1831" this legal outline might be puffed up to sound a progressive and satisfying development. The reality is less flattering to our parliamentary forbears. As was made clear by the American scholar Professor Hilton in his standard work entitled The Truck System, most of these laws were out of date before they were enacted. Thus the practice of truck has been extinct for more than a century and the only patchy remnants of any value in this legal rag-bag relate to deductions from wages.
It is central to my case that deductions from wages could be far better dealt with under the quite separate Contract of Employment Act 1963 and the Employment Protection (Consolidation) Act 1978. In the contemporary world of written contracts of employment, it should be straightforward to protect everyone, not just manual workers, against unauthorised deductions by extending the right of appeal to industrial tribunals. In this way we can satisfy what matters in our obligations under the International Labour Organisation and the European Social Charter.
The Truck Acts are not merely an historical curiosity and therefore apparently beloved by the Liberal Party as the museum for lost causes. The law as it now stands has become a positive nuisance. It is like the decayed remnants of some long dead corpse that has been resurrected to serve a purpose wholly different from its original intention. As a non-lawyer, I hope to make clear what is the central fallacy in the modern interpretation of the Truck Acts and the resulting error, as I see it, that was embodied in the Payment of Wages Act 1960.
The plain purpose of the historical campaign against truck was to ensure that workers were not paid in goods. The aim was never to guarantee that they were paid in some specified form of money. Indeed, the 1831 Act said that the contract was to be made in cash. Of course, in the 19th century coins were the

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standard medium of exchange, just as today cheques, bank cards, Giro, and direct debit are the predominant means of payment. Even so, in 1831 Section 8 of that Act provided that workers could be paid by a cheque drawn on the Bank of England or on any other note-issuing bank within 15 miles of their place of work.
This neglected provision completely explodes the case of those TUC Luddites who want to go on discussing and negotiating for ever to delay action on the switch from cash to credit transfer. The key safeguard of the 1831 Act and subsequent Acts, was not cash in the form of coins but generalised purchasing power in place of payment in unwanted goods. It was only the accident of the 1844 monopoly of the Bank of England over the issuing of notes that invalidated Section 8 of the 1831 Act and made the Payment of Wages Act 1960 necessary. Yet this latest Act now works to slow down the development of those very modem means of payment through the banks that were its original justification.
In 1983 the chief obstacle to progress in various forms of credit transfer is the unjustified requirement that not only must every worker give written permission to be paid by cheque, but that he can at any time change his mind and at four weeks' notice insist on cash. Thus, we find that a complex system of law evolved over 400 years to prevent a forgotten abuse can, 150 years later, be brandished to obstruct developments beneficial to workers no less than to the economy and to society.
Is it any wonder that we lag so far behind America and Europe, with 13 million British earners still paid by the week and over 10 million paid in dangerous, clumsy and inefficient cash? The Central Policy Review Staff in 1981 doubted whether the Trucks Acts were high on the list of obstacles to further progress. With rather more direct knowledge, employers have called for repeal of the Truck Acts as a barrier to modern methods of payment. Among the leading supporters of this Bill I am pleased to quote the Confederation of British Industry, the National Federation of Building Trades Employers, the Engineering Employers Federation, and the Federation of Civil Engineering Contractors. No less impressive, the Institute of Personnel Management has supported repeal of the Truck Acts as an overdue step towards obliterating the increasingly meaningless distinction between wages and salaries, as between workers and staff.
More than 20 years ago the Karmel Committee urged repeal. Since then the banks have improved their services, including more flexible opening hours and wider access to cash dispensers. Further developments are already on the way. I believe that few initiatives would give stronger encouragement to the rapid extension of an efficient, modern banking network serving the entire population than the repeal of these backward-looking statutes. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Harris of High Cross.)
5.55 p.m.
Lord Rochester Lord Rochester rose to move, as an amendment to the Motion, That the Bill be now read a second time;
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to leave out all the words after "That" and insert "this House declines to give the Bill a Second reading until consultations on the document published by the Department of Employment entitled "Proposals for updating the law relating to the payment of wages," have been completed.".
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the amendment standing in my name on the Order Paper. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross, should have allowed his imagination to roam, as it did, in the direction of way-out Liberal seminars that I might have attended. The truth is really very different. I simply want to suggest to your Lordships that at a time when the Secretary of State has only recently issued a consultative document setting out proposals aimed at bringing the law on the payment of wages up to date—and interested parties have 10 more weeks in which to respond—it is better that the House should have the benefit of knowing the views of those concerned and, indeed, the Government's response to those views before it reaches any conclusion on this matter.
In my opinion, the Government have been wise to seek the widest possible measure of agreement before proceeding further in the matter. The consultative document makes plain that there is already a general consensus that the payment of wages by cheque or by direct credit transfer rather than in cash brings, as the noble Lord, Lord Harris, also said, benefits to employers, to employees and to the community. The responses to an earlier document issued by the Central Policy Review staff in 1981 showed that there was also general agreement on the need for faster progress to be made in this direction. Therefore it seems to me that it is entirely understandable that the Government should now consider that changes in existing legislation are desirable.
For my part, I believe that the distinction made in the Truck Acts in the last century between manual workers and others is now altogether out of date, and that every opportunity should be taken to bring the conditions of employment of weekly wage earners more closely into line with those of salaried staff. In this I heartily agree with what I understood the noble Lord, Lord Harris, to say. Such harmonisation is, in my view, badly needed and would contribute greatly to the improvement of industrial relations in this country. So for that reason alone—and I am sure that there are many others, as those of your Lordships who have read the consultative document will no doubt agree—there is a strong case for reforming the law.
At the same time it is surely important to ensure that as far as possible any legislation which is introduced to take the place of the Truck Acts should be up to date and should provide adequate safeguards for all employees, whatever their status, and it should not be arbitrarily imposed on the very substantial numbers of people in this country who are still paid in cash. As I understand it, it is the purpose of the current consultative exercise to meet just those criteria. The process may well reveal points that none of us has yet thought of but which bodies like the TUC and the CBI are in the best position to uncover. It is surely pointless—this is the point on which I feel very keenly—for consultation to be undertaken, unless there is the intention, before reaching a conclusion, at

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least to take account of the views that are then expressed. Yet in this Bill, as the noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross, has made plain, we are being asked to accept in principle that the Truck Acts should be repealed without any suggestion that something might be put in their place. With the greatest respect to him, I do not think that it will do this House a service if we acquiesce in that now.
Finally, I noticed in the Official Report of the proceedings in another place last Friday, at col. 1254, that objections were raised to the Second Reading of a Bill couched in almost exactly the same terms as this one. Indeed, as far as I have been able to establish there is only one difference, and that is the substitution in this Bill of the word "repeal" for the word "abolition" in the other one. I therefore very much hope that in the light of the objections raised in another place for what I have felt obliged to say, for reasons which I trust your Lordships will think sound, the noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross, having moved his Bill, will, at the end of the debate, agree to withdraw it so that it will not be necessary for my amendment to be pressed.
Moved, That the bill be now read a second time; to leave out all the words after "That" and insert "this House declines to give the bill a Second Reading until consultations on the Document published by the Department of Employment entitled 'Proposals for updating the law relating to the payment of wages,' have been completed.".—(Lord Rochester.)
6.2 p.m.
Lord Orr-Ewing: My Lords, I think we owe a debt of gratitude and sincere thanks to Lord Harris of High Cross for the trouble and very moderate way in which he has moved this Bill. I shall, quite shortly I hope, recommend that this House gives it a fair wind. I shall also deal to some extent with the amendment.
There is general agreement that in this field Britain lags very sadly behind many other of her industrial competitors. This is an Act which has stood on the statute book since 1831; Judge Karmel commented on it and recommended that it should be abolished more than 20 years ago, but it still stands there. I hope that we can decide that we have a task, therefore, to nibble at the restrictions and overcome the difficulties and abolish this Act.
Everyone would agree, whether he is a wage earner or not, that we have an obligation to do anything to change the law which will discourage thugs from snatching and grabbing wages and often, in doing so, committing violences against those who are dealing with the cash. I think also that it is important, too, that we improve industrial relations by removing hurdles. One of the hurdles is the difference between the manual and the non-manual worker. Everyone who works in industry, as I still do, is hoping that we should move progressively to staff status. This is happening, but one of the difficulties and delays is the Truck Act, and the differentiation between the non-manual workers, of whom there are increasing numbers, to whom the Truck Act does not apply, and the manual earners, to whom it does. Therefore, we are advocating one small reform, to get rid of this undesirable 1831 Act.
I go along with all those who say that it must be made easier to convert from a cheque, if that is the way
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of paying, or from paper into cash for those who need that to be done. People going on holiday—of course we have staggered holidays now in industry to a very large extent—and certain other people may need cash at short notice on Thursday evenings; and therefore it will be for local negotiation, if such a freedom were provided, to make sure that arrangements were made for those who wanted cash for special purposes to be able to convert their wages into cash and take it away for their needs.
This would put pressure on the banks, which I always think deserve to have pressure put on them, to have longer opening hours or to have dispensers more easily available, so that cash is convenient not just for the wage earners but for a host of other people in this country who find it difficult sometimes to go shopping on Saturday mornings because they have not been able to get to the banks on Friday. The Co-op sets an example in this and I hope the other banks will follow. Of course, the building societies also are increasingly offering facilities which are better and have longer hours of access, so that again would be an encouragement which would not affect just the wage earners but other people as well.
I recomend the IDS report which I have been studying. It is a very thorough report. It is the Incomes Data Services Limited report, Study 260, which was published in February 1982. It summarises the rather slow progress we are making to date and also the pros and cons of getting rid of the Act.
Now I come very briefly to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Rochester. Of course, there are always the arguments, which I suppose I have heard since 1950—which makes 33 years' political life—that, "This is the wrong time" or that, "This is the wrong way" of making a reform or that, "It ought to be delayed until someone has been consulted". These are all the standard formulae of which I am sure my noble friend is aware—and I call him that because he is a friend, although I may disagree with him about this. It is the standard formula for delay.
I do not know how the Government will do this as they have put out a consultative document asking for comments and they have given until June for these recommendations to be put in. I do not know whether they will include this in the general employment Act which is coming along, which may be called an industrial relations Act, but clearly Mr. Tebbit as the Minister responsible is framing Acts while consultations are going on. Why include this small reform in a great omnibus Act, in view of the convoy principle that if one has enough ships in a convoy one will always travel at half the speed compared with taking a direct route? I would have thought we should follow the principle of, "Let us get on with this small reform". Let us show that this House is not just a House set for debating and initiating debates; not just a House for delaying, though it has those powers; not just a House for amending, though it often has to do this because of the use of the guillotine in the other place. Many Bills and clauses in Bills would go undebated, undiscussed altogether, on to the statute book if we did not have the ability to amend Bills when they come to our House. But let us show that we are a reforming House.
It may well be that the Front Bench will plead that all this has to go through the ILO in Geneva. If it does

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we can give notice now that we do not want to be bound by this. I think we have to give a year's notice. That is not an insufferable objection. Every other country has overcome it—France, West Germany, the Netherlands. Scandinavia, the USA; all our competitors have overcome it and they are all members of the ILO, so we might just as well overcome it, too.
I hope that this House will not brook the delay, however reasonable were the terms the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, used and however logical it all seemed. I hope that as a reforming House we will make this small but important reform, and the great balance of advantage is now to get rid of the 1831 Truck Act. I hope the House will support my noble friend Lord Harris of High Cross and will discard and defeat the amendment, should we vote upon it.
6.10 p.m.
The Earl of Selkirk: My Lords, I should like to copy the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, and congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross, for drawing attention to this subject, which, after all, has hung fire since the Karmel Report some 20 years ago. Clearly, successive Governments have hesitated about dealing with this subject. It is a complete anachronism and it is almost entirely obsolete. Indeed, it might almost be said to be spent in many respects.
The problem of manual workers has been mentioned. I am told that a hairdresser is a non-manual worker and a bus conductor is a non-manual worker, whereas a tram conductor is a manual worker. This is an example of how anomaly apparently spreads through the whole system. It is necessary to take a step forward, and I believe that the Government want encouragement. I asked a question which touched on this, I think the week before last, and I was glad that the Government recognised that something had to be done, as indeed did the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, and that progress had to be made in this respect. This is important.
There is an argument about the speed with which it should be done, I quite agree, but there are urgent problems of security, and I understand from the report of the CPRS that something like 200 cases of wage snatching took place last year. This is a serious risk which every firm has to face, and there are ways of getting round it. A change would lead to considerable economy in administration. It would greatly aid the saving habits of people. If you have an account, you do not necessarily save, but some of your Lordships may remember that money in the pocket tends to cause the hole in the pocket, and perhaps the money in the bank does not do that quite so forcibly.
There are few more sensitive subjects than that of the payment of wages. I realise that. Indeed, there is not one of us who is not concerned that he should receive some money from time to time. I recognise that there are real difficulties in some cases, and they are not simple. There are remote areas where it is not so easy to get to the banks and banking houses, but I can see no reason why a range of other institutions, whether it be the Post Office, savings banks, building societies, or others, should not be brought in so as to
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make it much easier for anyone who wished to cash cheques of any sort or kind.
I rather feel that the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, is exercising a delaying tactic. Of course, no Government are really going to take action on this—and it will be a Government that will have to take action eventually—until they have had their consultative paper properly examined. There will be a lack of complete agreement as to what should be done. However, what is important is that we should encourage the Government—if necessary dividing the House, which I do not greatly believe in doing—and should say to the Government that something has to be done. They are sitting back—I shall not say doing nothing—and they only produced the consultative document last December, 20 years after the report was made. I hope that this will be an encouragement to them to take a further step.
What will happen will be that those who get accustomed to using banks will find it a great benefit. I can quite understand some people thinking that these great institutions, made of huge blocks of stone, are rather terrifying organisations which do not want to deal with people with small accounts. The bankers have to take a step forward, and have to show themselves more willing, ready and anxious to help people who are in this position. A great burden rests on them to make themselves available both in time and in services to people in this position. I hope, therefore, that the Government will regard this step by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, as a real encouragement to take urgently and quickly steps which will be of benefit to British industry.
6.14 p.m.
Baroness Platt of Writtle: My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross, for raising this matter, as I agree with him that the Truck Acts need substantial updating. They were originally enacted in the 19th century for very good reason in order to prevent exploitation of workers by prohibiting payment in kind or illegal deductions from wages. At that time, this meant ensuring payment of wages in cash, on a weekly basis, to manual workers.
Times have changed considerably since those days, and indeed the pace of change accelerates, as we all know. Employers today are removing, where possible, distinctions between manual and non-manual employees. This division will become increasingly irrelevant as production becomes more and more automated. People will be operating keyboards from manager level through the offices and on to the shop floor. Pay depends far more on usefulness to the firm than the type of work that people do. The emphasis today must increasingly be on efficiency so that we can sell our goods in highly competitive world markets. In those circumstances, we need to consider the best and most efficient method of paying people, and indeed one that suits them. There are bound to be negotiations locally to find a system that suits individual firms and their employees. People need protection from exploitation, but apart from that there should be as much freedom from Government interference as possible so that the best local solution can be achieved.
It is important to everybody to move towards cashless pay. Thieves are the only people who benefit

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from large amounts of money being carried about, whether it be the highly organised wages snatcher, the pickpocket or the burglar. More and more in the coming years money is bound to be transferred in a cashless manner by cheques, giro, bank cards and the computer. It is going to take time to get used to this idea, but it is bound to come. Already children in schools are learning about computers and how to make them serve their needs. Schools, too, are often operating their own banks so that children can save for outings, holidays and equipment. Children themselves act as bank clerks, under supervision, to get used to the idea of handling money efficiently and economically. These schemes need to be expanded.
Families, too, operate differently. They pay a great many more of their bills, rent, rates, mortgage repayments, gas and electricity, on a monthly basis. They shop, too, on a bulk buying basis, perhaps weekly, more often monthly. They know the cash advantage of buying goods in large packets. The most expensive way of buying anything is the 100 gram packet. You spend your money on cardboard and packaging and not tea, coffee, or soap powder.
Families can achieve more economical budgets on a monthly basis. They need to be helped by the banks. If people are to be paid by cheque on a monthly basis, they need to be able to draw money easily. Cash points, some building societies, Co-op handy banks in their stores, Post Office Giro, all help, but the high street banks need to get back to Saturday opening. It does not need to mean longer working hours for employees unless they wish it. Shops, hairdressers, and restaurants all open at weekends with different arrangements for staff working hours. I am tempted to say that Saturday morning opening could help qualified women bank clerks to keep their hand in one day a week while they are bringing up their families. There are many ways of solving that problem. The Barclays Bank experiment was, I understand, a success, and I hope it will spread.
If alteration can be made to the Truck Acts, we can move away from pay in cash. We can also move towards four-weekly pay. I deliberately say four-weekly, because that is better than monthly pay for the wage earner and the employer. Monthly pay means irregular payments for both. Months are of diflerent lengths, and the five-week month presents budgetary problems for the employee. Thirteen four-weekly periods is better for both, and can iron out pay anomalies, especially for part-time rota workers, so that they know what to expect in their regular pay packets and can budget their outgoings on a more convenient and regular basis. We in Essex County Council have negotiated cashless pay for all but 10 per cent. of our manual employees. However, it is still costing us nearly two-and-a-half times as much to pay our manual, compared with our non-manual, employees. A large amount of money could be either saved completely or put to better use in providing services if four-weekly pay could be negotiated and accepted. That is equally true in industry and commerce, and it would, I hope, improve out prosperity as a nation.
It is clear that the system of the payment of wages needs modernising to meet the needs of the 21st century. The Department of Employment appreciated
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that in their proposals in Updating the Law Relating to the Payment of Wages. I understand from that document that we are a party to the ILO Convention No. 95 and must give notice this summer if we wish to make changes. In those circumstances, and being very much behind the spirit of today's debate, I would seek an unequivocal assurance from the Government that they will, while retaining necessary safeguards, make changes in the law as soon as possible to allow a thorough modernisation of the payment of wages for the benefit of the employer and employee, while not breaching our international commitments.
6.22 p.m.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, three main reasons were advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, who is to be congratulated for bringing this matter before the House. The first was that it would make for greater efficiency, and we have just heard from my noble friend Lady Plan some interesting figures, including Essex County Council's experience of having only 10 per cent. of their manual employees remaining who are paid weekly in cash, and how much that costs. I understand from the CBI that, in Britain, 59 per cent. of employees are paid in cash weekly, whereas in Germany, France and Australia, which are among our major competitors, it is only 5 per cent., and in the United States it is only 1 per cent. That is an indication that this change must happen, and I think that all who have spoken so far, including the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, would agree that it is only a question of how to go about achieving it.
The second important point—it was advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, and touched on by my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing—is the question of achieving a reduction in security risks. That is an important point in view of recent occurrences, not only for the companies but the employees, and I should have thought it was very much in their interests to join the banking system for that reason alone. The third important point which greatly struck me—it was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, and others—is the question of the harmonisation of terms and conditions for staff and shop floor employees. At present an anomaly exists there, and I have been battling against it for some time. It divides people, and we must overcome it. I am sure that the TUC would agree with that in principle. The question therefore is whether people should be forced to make a change.
I suggest that if this Bill were given a Second Reading, as I hope it will be, and if it suddenly achieved a speedy enactment—which is highly unlikely, even if the Government were right behind it; they do not seem to go very fast in another place with Private Members' Bills, particularly those which start here, and therefore I do not hold out much hope for the measure—it would not immediately mean everybody being forced to be paid monthly (or fortnightly, as has also been suggested) through the banks. It would merely become possible. As my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing said, whatever changes there might be, they must first be negotiated, and I agree strongly with him on that. It seems remarkable that anybody should think that that would not be the case.
It would enable people to have the alternative choice of being paid monthly through a bank account, with

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all the advantages that flow from that. As others have said, the whole proposal will not be a runner unless the banks are open on a Saturday, and the banks should be able to do that. There is rather an anomaly in that connection, anyway, these days. I am sorry that my noble friend Lady Trumpington, with her Shops Act, was not going to free the banks as well on Saturdays, but that is by the way. The banks would make a great deal of money out of this, because they would get many more customers; so there should be every inducement to them to make all sorts of investments to enable them to open on Saturdays.
There is everything to be said for the Bill. No harm would be done by accepting it. I am sympathetic towards elderly people, for example, who have become accustomed to weekly payments, and it would be a pity if they were not encouraged to change as quickly as possible, though they should not be forced to do so. I do not believe the Bill would force them, and one hopes that the Government would bring forward any ameliorating legislation in parallel with the Bill, if it became an Act quickly, so as to underline whatever they thought was important. I get the impression from having read the Government's proposals that their ideas are in the right direction. It is just a matter of getting on with it, as Judge Karmel said over 20 years ago. I hope the Bill will be given every encouragement and that the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, will withdraw his amendment. However, if it comes to a vote, let us all vote for the Bill and against the amendment.
The Earl of Halsbury: My Lords, with the indulgence of the House—I apologise for not having added my name to the list of speakers—I rise to add a few words to emphasise the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk. If I failed to take my share of putting the maximum pressure on the Government, as adumbrated by the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, to accelerate an improvement in personal security in money handling, I should feel that the death of anyone involved in a bank robbery would in part lie—that is my share of it—at my door. To maximise that pressure, I shall vote against the amendment
6.28 p.m.
Lord Gisborough: There is no doubting the fact that the Bill is desirable, my Lords. None of the advantages that have been mentioned can be denied. Equally, there are many arguments for concern. Many people do not want to lose their pay packets, and it would not be right to force them to do so. Indeed, there are people who would find it extremely difficult to manage with a bank account rather than cash. While my noble friend Lady Platt talked about bulk-buying, and while she was correct in what she said, many people live on a knife edge and are not capable of buying forward. Many people live a long way from banks—in the depths of Scotland, for example—and there are the elderly who cannot get out to visit the bank. They present, not necessarily insuperable problems but problems which must be considered.
We must also remember that while the banks would gain many more customers they would include many who would not want to be customers. I do not believe the banks would be keen to have customers forced on
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them, especially when it would mean them collecting a great deal of money simply to pay it all out the following day to people who do not want to be there anyway.
What is being proposed is happening naturally already. There is a great increase in the number of people who are prepared to be paid by cheque. The development, therefore, is going ahead on its own account. I am not particularly against the Bill, and, whether or not it goes through, greater encouragement could be given to people to persuade them to be paid by cheque rather than in cash. That should be the case, Bill or no Bill. However, if the various considerations are taken into account, the Bill represents a move in the right direction.
6.30 p.m.
Lord Brooks of Tremorfa: My Lords, the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross, to repeal the Truck Acts is, in our view, premature. The need for the Truck Acts arose out of the unsatisfactory and, in many cases, inhuman conditions of employees during the last century. The abuses which led to the passing of the 1831 Truck Act and the subsequent Truck Acts are, mercifully, no longer present, but before agreeing to the wholesale abolition of the five Acts which Lord Harris's Bill proposes, we should satisfy ourselves that no employee will be worse off by the passage of this Bill. As has been said by many noble Lords, there are very good reasons why employers would want to make payment by cheque instead of by cash. The security problem has been mentioned on a number of occasions and it is clear that in moving substantial amounts of money great cost is involved and it can be potentially dangerous to those concerned; but this must be weighed against the factors affecting the position of those in receipt of cheques instead of cash wages.
The noble Lord, Lord Rochester, has tabled an amendment to the effect that the House declines to give the Bill a Second Reading until consultations on the document entitled Proposals for Updating the Law Relating to the Payment of Wages, published by the Deparment of Employment, has been completed; and it would seem to me that this would be the correct way for the House to proceed this evening. Some 40 per cent. of employees are still paid in cash and we need to ensure that they will not find themselves incurring bank charges if they are paid by cheque; although I should say at this point that if they bank with the Co-operative Bank and keep their accounts in credit they will not incur any charges at all. I have no doubt that in many cases employees will find themselves having to bank with the most convenient High Street bank and not with the Co-operative Bank, and this will involve them in charges if they do not keep more than a minimum amount of money in their account. We must be certain that nobody will be worse off as the result of the repeal of these Acts. These are matters which I am sure, given good sense and reason, we can get round; but I repeat that the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Harris, is premature.
6.32 p.m.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I do not know whether there are any Standing Orders about advertising in this House during speeches, but, if there were, I am sure

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that the noble Lord, Lord Brooks of Tremorfa, would have contravened them. However, he did that with very good reason. As this is a Private Member's Bill I shall try to restrict myself to giving, so far as I am able, an unbiased view of the effect which this Bill, if passed, would have; and I shall try so far as possible not to get involved with the merits of the Bill itself. I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross, upon the simplicity and the brevity of his Bill. Even I can understand it. The areas covered by the Bill range wide. It has implications for all manual employees in the United Kingdom—75 per cent. of those are paid in cash—and for the ability of the United Kingdom to honour specific international obligations which have the force of a treaty.
I think that the question which surrounds the whole area of Truck Act legislation is how much of that law should be reformed and when, given our need to abide by our international obligations. The international dimension, if one may so put it, is that before a law removing the right to be paid in cash is enacted, we would have to denounce the ILO Convention 95 to which we are a party. My noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing disposes of that rather like swatting a fly on his jacket; but that is a fact. But another ILO Convention, No. 144, says that before denunciation from any ILO Convention it is necessary to consult first on the proposal for denunciation. Therefore, we are at present in the position of having two consultations: one with the TUC and CBI on whether we should denounce the ILO Convention; and the other with interested parties to determine how the law should be improved. It so happens that the closing date for both these consultations is 7th June.
My Lords, perhaps I could deal with the substance of the noble Lord's Bill. My noble friend Lord Selkirk said the Government must not just sit down and do nothing. I can assure him that we are not doing nothing—as I think he slightly grudgingly admitted. The Secretary of State for Employment has initiated a consultative document entitled Updating the Law on the Payment of Wages. This has been issued to a wide range of organisations and employers, not only throughout the country but also throughout various sectors of the economy, and it has been made freely available from his department to any who ask for it.
I think that I should make this clear, particularly to my noble friend Lord Gisborough, whose short speech was, indeed, penetrating. The Government have no intention of introducing legislation which would compel anyone to be paid in a particular way; we are simply looking at the operation of some very old legislation to see whether it has any relevance to modern circumstances. If that results in any change being made to the way in which wages are paid, it would do no more than leave it to employers and employees, or their representatives, to decide what is best in their circumstances. The Government accept the need for effective change to legislation which is both archaic and complex and would make their decision as to how this should be achieved in the light of representations they receive from the consultative document.
The options for reform certainly include those of the noble Lord, Lord Harris. But the Government must
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also consider—and this will emerge as a result of the discussions—whether they should continue to make provision, for example, for deductions from pay, for fines and for payments in kind. The options must, therefore, include repeal, partial repeal, repeal with the re-enactment of particular provisions or amendment, or amendment of the existing legislation.
The Bill in front of your Lordships in fact makes no provision for dealing with other, similarly anachronistic, legislation all relating to pay. For example, there are the Hosiery Manufacture (Wages) Act 1874, which prohibits employers from letting frames and machinery to workers or from making any form of deductions for such purposes; also the Payment of Wages in Public House Prohibition Act 1883, which prohibits the payment of wages to any workman in a public house or other place used for the sale of alcoholic drinks; also, the Stannaries Act 1887, which applies to miners of tinworks in the Stanneries of Devon and Cornwall; not to mention the Coal Mines Regulations Act 1887; the Checkweighting in Various Industries Act 1919, the Mines and Quarries Act 1954, or the Wages Councils Act 1979, which contains provisions similar to those of the Truck Acts. All of this legislation really needs to be considered together, and to be reformed together.
My Lords, what ought, therefore, to be the timetable for reform? The Government are doing the correct thing, in our view, in consulting the TUC and CBI about denouncing ILO Convention 95. They will have completed those consultations on 7th June of this year. Under the terms of the Convention it is possible for the states who have ratified the Convention to denounce it during a 12-month period which recurs only once every 10 years. This period happened to begin on 24th September, 1982. So the United Kingdom can denounce the convention at any time before 24th September, 1983. A denunciation will take effect 12 months after its registration by the International Labour Office. Therefore, under the consultation processes which are at present being undertaken, the Government will have from 8th June until 23rd September of this year to decide whether we should denounce that convention. So, my Lords, the fact is that we are bound by this international obligation—which has the force of a treaty—until at least the end of the summer, or early autumn of next year. If the noble Lord's Bill were passed, it would, therefore, put the United Kingdom in contravention of its treaty obligations under the ILO Convention.
That is not all. The United Kingdom is also bound by Article 4 of the European Social Charter of the Council of Europe, which requires Governments,
"to permit deductions from wages only under conditions and to the extent prescribed by national laws or regulations or fixed by collective agreements or arbitration awards.
The present Truck Acts, with all their faults, provide the vehicle by which the United Kingdom complies with this particular requirement, and if we proceed with the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Harris, we shall put the United Kingdom in breach of the European Social Charter, because his Bill removes all the safeguards regarding deductions which are in the Truck Acts.
As I have said, and as your Lordships know, the two International Labour Conventions and the European

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Social Charter have the force of international treaties, and they are legally binding obligations. So, even if we were enthusiastic about the merits of the noble Lord's Bill, I do not see how we could pass it because to do so would put us out of line with our international obligations. The noble Lord, Lord Rochester, seeing this problem, then comes out with his amendment—an extraordinary one, if I might say so. If his amendment had been (which it is not) to move, "That the Bill be read six months hence", that would effectively kill the Bill, and I assume that the Liberal Party did not wish to be seen to kill what was essentially a liberalising Bill.
So the noble Lord puts this amendment down, declining to give a Second Reading to the Bill until the consultations have been completed. In other words, the noble Lord could have phrased his amendment to say, "This House declines to give the Bill a Second Reading until 8th June". My researches have not discovered whether this form of amendment is unique, but my guess is that it is. It is certainly extraordinary and, I would suggest, totally confusing. We cannot, as it were, "stop the clock" on the Bill. Either it gets a Second Reading or it does not. If the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, thinks it wrong for the Bill to pass now, then he should vote against it. If he wants the Bill to pass, then he should vote for it. But he really cannot sit like Humpty Dumpty on top of the wall and wobble—and hope to fall both ways.
So the problems are: first, how much reform should there be; and, secondly, when should it be? I really do think, with the greatest respect to noble Lords who have spoken, that the Government's way forward is the correct one: to have consultations, then to reform all this old legislation rather than just parts of it, and to reform it in a way which enables us to do so in accord with our international obligations.
Having been, I fear, somewhat of a wet blanket to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross, I can assure him that the Govenment share his view that the law on the payment of wages is overdue for reform. The Government would like to be sympathetic to the noble Lord, Lord Harris, but for the reasons which I have explained the Bill, if enacted, would be neither suitable for our international commitments nor necessarily appropriate for our domestic requirements.
I therefore hope that the noble Lord will consider, with his customary courtesy and fairness, whether it is in the best interests of all those who are affected to pursue this particular Bill at this particular time. I would advise the noble Lord that it would not be. That is my advice to the noble Lord. Whether or not he takes it is, of course, entirely a matter for him.
6.43 p.m.
Lord Harris of High Cross: My Lords, I should like to thank all the speakers who have taken part in this, I think, admirable and brief debate. I do not think that a good case has been made out for the amendment, and I do not think the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, gave any reference to the merits of the present Truck legislation. Nothing I have heard suggests the least difficulty about giving the Bill a Second Reading and continuing at Committee stage the discussions about
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the single issue of deductions. In view of the Minister's most amiable advice on these matters, and also in view of his splendid attack on the pretext of the Liberal amendment, I want, if I may, to offer him a warning, if it is not impertinent. My warning is that he may find that his advisers are making rather heavy weather of the international conventions and charters. Having poured over these stupefyingly mundane documents in recent weeks, I find them to be mountains of bureaucratic pomposity, signifying very little indeed.
For example, let us come to the ILO Convention No. 95, the date of which is 1949. We discover that its key article (Article 8) is partly reproduced as Article 4, Section 5, of the European Social Charter, about which we heard a good deal from the noble Earl. Both these remarkable documents that we are in danger of violating say nothing more than that deductions from wages shall be permitted only to the extent allowed by national laws, regulations, collective agreements or arbitration awards. If I may say so, it is difficult to see how such solemn trivia could be taken seriously by anyone who is not paid a fat fee to keep a straight face when he reads it. In Britain, we already have written agreements of terms of employment, and we have put on employers the duty to itemise deductions from wages. We have appeals to industrial tribunals for unnotified deductions, and we have civil remedies before the county court. If more is necessary, it should not be diffcult to graft it on to the Employment Protection (Consolidation) Act, so long as that inflated statute survives.
Certainly a coherent solution to these problems cannot be cobbled together from the scraps of Truck Acts concerned with quite different and now wholly extinct practices. These Acts will have to be abolished—there is no question of that. They will have to be obliterated and repealed before there can be new reconstruction. So why not call the bureaucratic bluff and repeal these old Acts? In the alarming jargon of international bureaucracy, I would urge the Government to "denounce" the ILO Convention No. 95 and, for all I know, Conventions 1 to 94 at the same time, in order to save postage. If we do inadvertently put the Government offside in terms of international obligations, we should simply be generating more pressure to get onside again, with up-to-date and relevant legislation.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, perhaps I might interrupt the noble Lord only to correct him, because he is always totally fair. It would not be inadvertently that we were putting the Government off-side.
Lord Harris of High Cross: My Lords, in sober truth I believe that too much is being made of all that, and of course the Minister's advisers and the international bureaucrats have a great interest in mystifying us all and alarming us if we appear to be wanting to take what seem to be quite sensible steps. As the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing and the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, said so forcefully, 20 years after the Karmel Committee urged the repeal this amendment seeks to prolong further delays. I have noticed before this tendency on the Liberal Benches to shield behind caution and compromise as a pretext for indecision and inactivity. If we are serious in wanting progress,

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there are few better ways of encouraging the Government than by resisting this amendment and giving the Bill a Second Reading.
I should like to say to the Minister, with my customary fairness, that it is to the credit of a Conservative Government that on Truck, as on other issues, they show signs of awakening to the advantages of radical change. It is notable from the speeches we have had that the case for radical action came from the Conservative Benches and the case for the dragging of feet from the Liberal and Labour speakers.
We are still paying a high price for our tardiness in adapting to new needs and new opportunities. I suggest that our attitude to this Bill and to this amendment should be taken as a measure of our readiness to turn our backs on nostalgia for the past and to rise to the challenge of still glittering prospects for economic and social progress. Unless the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, is so gracious and well-advised as to withdraw, I shall urge all those who do not owe him some loyalty to vote against his equivocating amendment.
6.51 p.m.
Lord Rochester: My Lords, I am sorry that I should have been accused of exercising sinister delaying tactics. I had hoped that in my opening speech I had made it sufficiently plain that I think there is need for the law in relation to the payment of wages to be changed. It simply is the case that I do not think it right, as I also hope I made plain, that, a consultative exercise having been embarked upon, the House should today agree in principle to the repeal of the Truck Acts without thought of there possibly being need for something to replace them and before taking account of the views expressed during the course of consultation.
There seems to me to be little between what I was trying to say and that which the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, speaking for the Government, himself said, until he came to his closing remarks, and I should have thought in some sense that he would feel that my amendment would provide a means for the Government, in the light of what their representative said, as it were, to get off the hook. He has not seen it in that light. I understand what it is that he has said. I do not want there to be a difference between us in this House simply on grounds of procedure and I am perfectly willing, that being the case, to withdraw my amendment.
But in so doing, I must make it plain to the House that I see no other way of making the point that I wish most strongly to make again; namely, that it would be quite wrong for this decision to be taken in principle now by the House, before the results of consultation have been established. There is no other way, if I withdraw this amendment, to make that point than to vote against the Bill. So, in withdrawing this amendment, I must make it plain that that is the only alternative left open to me and I would advise the House, in that situation, to take that alternative.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.54 p.m.
On Question, Whether the Bill shall be now read a second time?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 39; Not-Contents, 36.

DIVISION NO. 1

CONTENTS

Ampthill, L.

Mancroft, L.

Auckland, L.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Beloff, L.

Molson, L.

Brougham and Vaux. L.

Monson, L.

Cathcart, E.

Montagu of Beaulieu, L.

Colgrain, L.

Mottistone, L.

Colwyn, L.

Napier and Ettrick, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Onslow, E.

Craigton, L.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Crathorne, L.

Platt of Writtle, B.

Dormer, L.

Rugby, L.

Gisborough, L.

St. John of Bletso, L.

Glanusk, L.

Salisbury, M.

Greenway, L.

Selkirk, E.

Halsbury, E.

Slim, V.

Harris of High Cross, L. [Teller.]

Somers, L.

Spens, L.

Ironside, L.

Swinfen, L.

Killearn, L.

Thomas of Swynnerton, L.

Lindsey and Abingdon, E.

Trumpington, B. [Teller.]

NOT-CONTENTS

Ardwick, L.

Marley, L.

Aylestone, L.

Mayhew, L.

Bishopston, L.

Merrivale, L.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Mersey, V.

Broadbridge, L.

Oram, L.

Brooks of Tremorfa, L.

Peart, L.

Collison, L.

Phillips, B.

Elwyn-Jones, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

Evans of Claughton, L.

Rea, L.

Ferrier, L.

Rochester, L. [Teller.]

Fisher of Rednal, B. [Teller.]

Shackleton, L.

Stone, L.

George-Brown, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Tordoff, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Underhill, L.

Kilbracken, L.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Kirkhill, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Lloyd of Kilgerran, L.

Young of Dartington, L.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Resolved in the affirmative; Bill read a second time accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Licensing (Occasional Permissions) Bill
7.3 p.m.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. I cannot begin to tell your Lordships what a relief it is for me to commend to your Lordships a Bill that has already passed through all its stages in another place. This Bill, which was introduced with all-party support by my, honourable friend the Member for Bournemouth, East, represents a modest but beneficial reform of licensing law. It is not a substantial enlargement of licensing law but a rationalisation of a small area of it. It follows in general the Erroll Committee proposals but has more safeguards. Broadly similar provisions have worked satisfactorily in Scotland since 1976.

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Although some of the Bill's provisions are detailed, its policy is quite simple. It will require the licensing justices in England and Wales to grant to representatives of organisations and their branches which are not carried on for private gain occasional permissions which will authorise them to sell intoxicating liquor at functions connected with the activities of the organisations. As many of your Lordships will know, under the Licensing Act 1964 if an organisation—let us say a parent/teacher association organising a modest wine and cheese party to raise funds for a school—wishes to run a social function at which drink is sold, it must engage the services of a publican or other holder of a justices' on-licence, because such holders are the only persons who may apply to magistrates for an occasional licence. The organisation is thereby deprived of profit from the sale of drink. If the organisers of the function simply go—as many undoubtedly do—to a local supermarket and buy a few cases of wine, and then sell it on their own account, they commit an offence for which the maximum penalty is a fine of £200 or six months' imprisonment, or both.
As I have said, the Bill is based largely on proposals made in 1972 by the Erroll Committee, the departmental committee on liquor licensing of which my noble friend, Lord Erroll of Hale, was the chairman. In its report the committee said that they had some difficulty with the position of small organisations which, because they had in effect paid all or a sizeable proportion of the bar profits of their functions to the occasional licence holder, felt resentful at gaining little or no financial benefit from that particular branch of their activities. The committee also mentioned that small organisations frequently found it very difficult to interest existing licensees in their functions. From my experience, this is still very often the case. In proposing that there should be a simpler and more flexible system for organisations whose sole concern is to operate a bar for their own enjoyment and incidental profit on a few occasions during the year, the committee emphasised that their proposals would reserve the general principle that for longer and more elaborate occasions, a more professional approach was necessary.
I will now briefly describe the main features of the Bill. Clause 1 empowers the licensing justices to grant up to four permissions in a year to an officer of an eligible organisation or to a branch of such an organisation. An eligible organisation is one not carried on for private gain, and this would include many charities, local community associations, churches, and constituency organisations of political parties. In granting applications, the licensing justices must be satisfied that the officer is a fit and proper person to sell liquor and that he is resident in their licensing district; that the place where the function is to be held is suitable for the sale of drink; and that the sale of drink at the function is unlikely to result in a disturbance, in disorderly conduct, or to cause annoyance to local residents. These are important safeguards, and your Lordships will know that the justices are experienced in considering such matters when dealing with applications for the granting of liquor licences.
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Clause 2 sets out the procedures to be followed in making an application for an occasional permission and for its hearing by the licensing justices. To enable the application to be properly considered, the applicant will be required to submit his application at least one month before the function to which it relates. And in order that the police can consider whether to oppose the application, the clerk to the justices will be required to send a copy of the application to the chief officer of the police. The application will generally be heard by the licensing justices at their next licensing session. It will then be open to those who wish to oppose an application to state their objections.
Clause 3, read in conjunction with the schedule, creates various offences triable only summarily and punishable by fines. These offences reflect safeguards contained in the Licensing Act 1964 for the protection of young persons and for regulating the conduct of licensed premises. Thus it will be an offence for a holder of a permission knowingly to have sold intoxicating liquor to a person under 18 years of age except for consumption with a meal, or to allow such a person to consume it in a bar. There are also provisions aimed at preventing drunkenness or violent, quarrelsome or riotous conduct taking place on the authorised premises. To enable the police to exercise a proper degree of supervision, they will have a right of entry to the authorised premises during the hours specified in the permission.
Clause 4 deals mainly with interpretation of the Act, applies certain provisions of the Licensing Act 1964, and makes consequential amendments to that Act. Clause 5 gives the Act its Short Title and extent and provides that it will come into force three months after Royal Assent. My Lords, I think your Lordships will agree that the Bill does not represent any major relaxation of the licensing laws. I firmly believe that the sale of drink needs to be controlled and that permission to do so needs to be restricted to those persons who can satisfy the licensing justices as to their suitability. This my Bill does, and establishes proper safeguards for preventing alcohol misuse.
Those of your Lordships who are in contact with the licensing trade or who read the trade press will know that the National Union of Licensed Victuallers are opposed to this measure. Their opposition is based on two premises. The first is that it will deprive licensees of a proportion of business at a time when the trade is suffering from the wider economic recession. Their second objection is that the sale of drink should be restricted to those who are professionally competent and who have satisfied the licensing justices as to their suitability to manage licensed premises.
On the first point, this Bill's function is to tidy up a very small part of the law which is widely abused at present. It does not concern itself with the economic factors. With regard to the licensed victuallers' second point, an applicant for an occasional permission will also be required to satisfy the justices as to his or her suitability. As to professional competence, I think there is a difference in scale between running a public house or licensed restaurant and simply organising the sale of drink occasionally at a social function like a wine and cheese party. I am convinced that voluntary organisations will continue, as they always have done, to engage the services of the trade for their larger

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functions. I believe that what I have said will allay the fears of the National Union of Licensed Victuallers. I certainly hope so, as my previous experience of this organisation has always been on the happiest basis, and I have nothing but admiration for their hard work and their very real contributions to charities of all kinds.
Finally, my Lords, I should like to express my thanks to the Government for the help which has been given in the drafting of this Bill. The licensing law is complex and any changes need to be well thought out. I believe that with the safeguards contained in the Bill many worthwhile organisations will benefit from it, and that it will not contribute to any worsening of the serious problem of alcohol misuse. I commend the Bill to your Lordships.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Baroness Trumpington.)
7.13 p.m.
Lord Boston of Faversham: My Lords, after the vast range of different subjects your Lordships have been called on to grapple with today, it comes as something of a relief to have reached this particular subject, and that is not just because it is the final item on the Order Paper; it is much more because, after all that has gone before, your Lordships are perhaps in need of refreshment, and that is precisely what this Bill provides for. So it is a congenial topic, I think, to reach just before the Easter Recess.
I would like to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, not only on her timing, but also on having brought this Bill before your Lordships and on the way in which she has introduced it. Our licensing laws, as any lawyer knows, are a minefield for the unwary, because they contain a mass of intricate detail. I think the noble Baroness has shown quite plainly that she has mastered that in the very clear way she has explained the Bill's provisions and steered us through the minefield.
I welcome the Bill because I believe it will perform a very useful service. I do not intend to dwell on the principles behind it because these have been dealt with by the noble Baroness. As she said, it stems in part from a proposal of the Erroll Committee, and that is a recommendation in itself, for theirs was a very thorough inquiry and report. So perhaps it is the case that the Bill has matured in a rather fine cask and is of a particularly good vintage.
No doubt we have all received the circular letter from the National Union of Licensed Victuallers, to whom the noble Baroness has referred this evening, expressing their opposition to the Bill. I can, as indeed the noble Baroness does, understand their fear that their livelihood might in their view be affected. But in the first place it is the case, I think, that it has become increasingly difficult for organisations to find licensees ready to provide them with the service of applying for licences and looking after the sale of drinks at their functions. Also, I believe their fears to be misguided, for—this is at least an equally important point—the vast bulk of the functions this Bill seeks to help simply would not merit the services of the publican anyway; these functions would be far too small to interest him.
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So, under the present state of the law, without this Bill either those events would not take place at all, I suspect, or, like so many cheese and wine parties or perhaps bottle stalls at summer fetes as well, they would continue to go ahead while the law, or its enforcement officers at least, turned a benevolent blind eye upon them. In neither of those cases would the licensed victuallers stand to benefit anyway. So I believe it is better properly to provide for these functions within the law. I share the admiration expressed by the noble Baroness for the licensed victuallers' organisation.
I have only two small queries about the Bill, and they do not need to be answered today. They both arise from Clause 1(4). First, the subsection provides for up to four occasional permissions in each 12 months' period for an "organisation or branch". I am wondering whether that means that each branch can have up to four goes a year and not just that each organisation, perhaps through its branches, is restricted to four events. I assume that it must mean that every branch can have up to four goes, for otherwise there would not be any need to include reference to a branch as well as an organisation in the Bill. I would certainly hope that that is the meaning of the Bill, because it would seem rather useless, in the case of a constituency party, say, to restrict it to, let us say, just four cheese and wine parties throughout the whole constituency per year, those occasions to be spread over however many branches the constituency party might have.
My other point is this. The subsection says that not more than four permissions may be granted in 12 months. I would like to ask for a little clarification on the timing involved—and again, I do not need to have an answer today. It could be that in a particular 12 months' period an organisation or branch has been granted and has held four functions, and then it wants to prepare for the first of its functions in the next 12 months, but because of the timing of the application and of the licensing session the actual grant by the justices needs to be made in the present 12-month period.
It would seem reasonable, I would submit, that the body should be able to obtain permission for that event in the next 12-month period. I just want to be assured that there is no difficulty here and that the words in the subsection "granted … in respect of functions" will enable that to be done. I feel sure that there need be no difficulty here and also that the wording of the Bill is capable of that meaning and of that intepretation. I do not see that these two points need call for any amendment of the Bill at all; it is simply that at some point a little clarification would be helpful.
As I have indicated, I do welcome the Bill. I hope it will receive a speedy passage in your Lordships' House. I would only add that, in congratulating the honourable Member of another place, Mr. David Atkinson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, we would all agree to join in raising our glasses to the noble Baroness tonight.
7.20 p.m.
Lord Spens: My Lords, I, too, want to congratulate my noble friend Lady Trumpington—I hope I may

1625
call her my noble friend—on the very lucid way she has introduced this Bill and explained it to us. I hope that it will get a very speedy Second Reading.
The reason why I am particularly interested in the Bill is that from time to time I find myself engaged in organising small horse shows and events of that nature in the country, and it is absolutely essential if such shows are to avoid making a loss that spectators are attracted to them. Moreover, the competitors like to be able to show off to people other than themselves what they are doing. One of the main attractions is to be able to advertise that there will be a bar.
In the past it has proved difficult at some of these shows to find a licensee who is ready and willing to operate such a bar. He says straight away that he is going to lose, not gain, from the operation because he will probably have to take his staff away from his public house to put on the bar at the show. Therefore, I feel that this ability to allow the organisers of such a show to run their own bar will be very useful and satisfying. I do not think that it will affect the licensees in their trade at all because as soon as a show—certainly of the kind that I have in mind—becomes large it needs professional people to run the refreshments, and they are automatically called in.
I hope that the Bill is given a Second Reading and I hope that my noble friend will be able to go in peace to Sandwich for Easter and tend her precious flowers without any worries about the future of the Bill.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, from these Benches I briefly give my support to the Bill. I support it not only because I have had experience of these matters but also because it is such an obviously necessary new move.
With regard to the licensed victuallers, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Boston of Faversham, that they need not worry. In my experience the only difficulty about having to go to a publican was to make sure that he went to the magistrates in time. There was one occasion I remember when the publican did not and we nearly had to cancel the party. That was very difficult, as it had been widely publicised. It was not due to lack of support but because he just forgot. He was perhaps not attentive to his duties. This particular publican sometimes found it difficult because it was not always convenient for him to go to the magistrates about something when he did not want to go for any other reason. He had to go about 10 or 12 miles. Altogether, the Bill will save that sort of hassle.
As to whether licensees lose business, I have never found that they want business. They have kindly done this chore merely in order to comply with the law. As regards the "professionally competent" argument, I do not know whether on the various occasions that I have been involved the publicans have been aware that I was the always the wardroom wine caterer to every ship in the Navy in which I served until I became too senior to do it and, therefore, could be said to have a little competence. However, I think there were others who could do the job equally well.
On the whole I hope the licensed victuallers will feel that they are not having bread stolen from their mouths and I hope that the Government will give all
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the support they can to the Bill so that it will quickly get on to the statute book without any hassles about amendments or anything like that. I wish it well.
7.25 p.m.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, it now falls upon me to indicate the Government's attitude to the Bill. Before doing so I should like first to thank and congratulate my noble friend Lady Trumpington for her clear and helpful explanation of the Bill's intentions. I am sure that your Lordships will agree that with her experience on the bench as a former licensing justice she is particularly well qualified to present a measure of this kind. I am also grateful on her behalf, as well as for the Government, for the support that the Bill has received from the Benches opposite and from my noble friend Lord Mottistone. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Boston of Faversham, that this is a suitable topic on which the House can break up for Easter.
The Bill as drafted is entirely acceptable to the Government. The noble Lord, Lord Boston, raised two points. One was whether each branch of an organisation will be able to obtain four permissions a year. I can tell the noble Lord that that is the case and each branch will be able to do so. His second point was whether it was a year or a calendar year. That is not quite so clear and it is something which we should like to consider. Perhaps that also will satisfy the noble Lord. We will look into it and let him know.
In arriving at the view that we hold on the acceptability of the Bill, we have tried to balance the arguments advanced by those who see it as a relaxation of the licensing law which, by making drink more easily available, could add to the problem of alcohol misuse, and those who argue that voluntary organisations of the kind which would benefit from the Bill are sufficiently responsible to be entrusted to supervise the sale of drink at the social functions which they organise.
The Government are seriously concerned by the problem of alcohol misuse. We recognise that in recent years all the indicators of misuse have shown an upwards trend and that this is costly to society, both in terms of personal misery and in the strain it places on the social services. It is for that reason that the Government have refrained from introducing legislation to liberalise the licensing law. We believe that it would be irresponsible for the Government to take any initiative in this direction in isolation from the wider issues and without regard to our general strategy for helping prevent alcohol abuse. We consider, too, that there needs to be further public discussion on this question. As an aid to this, in 1981 the Health Department published a comprehensive document on alcohol misuse which looks at the different issues and the scope for action by individuals and the Government. It is hoped that in due course the response to this document will enable sensible decisions to be taken as to whether, and if so how, the licensing law might be reformed. But in the meantime (as my right honourable friend the Home Secretary has stated on a number of occasions) we have no plans for legislation in this area, and in general we believe that any progress in the reform of the licensing law is most appropriate to Private Members.

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During the past few years the Home Office has received representations from many voluntary organisations complaining that they have found it increasingly difficult to persuade licensed victuallers and other holders of justices' licences to run bars at their functions under the occasional licensing procedure. They also feel strongly that this deprives them of the profit which they would otherwise receive if they were able to sell the drink on their own account. We are also aware—although there is no hard evidence to substantiate this assertion—that many organisations either ignore the licensing requirement or try to circumvent the law by including the cost of the drink in the price of the ticket. Although this is still unlawful under the Licensing Act 1964, as many of your Lordships will know, this is widely done. The Government are unaware that such contraventions of the law have given rise to any significant extent to problems of public disorder or alcohol misuse.
As my noble friend has said, a system of occasional permissions has operated in Scotland since 1976. The Scottish Office has informed us that this has operated satisfactorily and does not seem to have caused any social problems. The Home Office has consulted the police, the justices' clerks' societies and the magistrates about the proposals contained in this Bill and each of these bodies has said that it is not opposed to them. In these circumstances we believe that the Bill, if it is enacted, will not add to the problem of alcohol misuse. We consider that the Bill contains adequate safeguards to enable the licensing justices to exercise proper control over the granting of permissions and the circumstances in which drink may be sold. By giving the police the opportunity to vet applicants and to enter authorised premises during the permitted hours this control is strengthened. We should hope that the Bill, if it becomes law, would encourage those organisations which at present sell drink unlawfully to apply for permission, thus bringing them within the law and subjecting their activities to proper supervision. For these reasons the Government believe that the scheme proposed in the Bill has positive advantages and might more appropriately be described as a rationalisation or technical change in the law rather than a liberalisation measure.
As my noble friend, Lady Trumpington, has said, the National Union of Licensed Victuallers has represented that the Bill will have adverse financial effects for its members and the union has also advanced the argument that licensees are the best people to supervise the sale of drink. On their first point, the Government are aware of the effects of the wider economic recession in the drinks industry and we recognise the National Union's concern to safeguard the livelihood of its members. Although they benefit from the occasional licensing provisions of the Licensing Act 1964, it has to be said that it is not a function of the licensing law to regulate competition. In general terms, the Government do believe that licensees are perhaps the best qualified to sell drink in public houses and at large-scale functions. It is likely that they will continue to profit from this business. But I do not believe that voluntary organisations would be unable to supervise adequately sales authorised under an occasional permission. Given the safeguards in the
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Bill, together with the penalties to which the holder is liable if he fails to comply with them, I believe that the proposed scheme will adequately regulate the sale of drink at functions selling drink under an occasional permission.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, what a cosy way to end the day! May I thank all the noble Lords who have spoken. It is good to finish on a note of all-party agreement and with unstinting Government support. May I wish your Lordships all a very happy Easter, sunshine and a good rest.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Motion For Adjournment
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, before I move the adjournment of the House may I, too, from these Benches, wish all noble Lords a very happy and peaceful Easter. I think that everybody would agree that we have had a fairly tough and busy time since we came back after Christmas. May I presume to speak on behalf of all Members of your Lordships' House to pay tributes to the staff and to thank them all, and to wish them, too, a happy and peaceful Easter.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede: My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord for his remarks, and concur with his sentiments. The Government have in fact given us a fairly hard Lent Term. I think that we have sat on more days during this term than we have during similar periods for many years past. I live in the hopes that when we come to the summer term we may be spared some of the very late nights and meeting on five days a week. I hope indeed that the organisation of Government business will be such that we shall have a more relaxed summer term than we have had in some recent years in the past. Of course I join wholeheartedly with the noble Lord in his thanks and best wishes to the staff of the House. I think that they, and all of us, deserve the slight respite—only eight or nine days, I think—before we return on 11th April.
Lord Rochester: My Lords, despite, or perhaps all the more because of, the exchanges of an hour or so ago, I should like to join in wishing all Members of your Lordships' House a happy Easter and a good rest. May I associate those of us on these Benches with what has been said about the debt that we owe to the staff of I this House.

Ashridge (Bonar Law Memorial) Trust Bill
The Examiner's Certificate that no further Standing Order is applicable was ordered to lie on the Table.
King's College London Bill [H.L.]
The Queen's Consent was signified and the Bill was reported from the Unopposed Bill Committee with amendments.

Commons Registration (Glamorgan) Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and referred to the Examiners.
House adjourned for the Easter Recess at twenty-five minutes before eight o'clock.