Lords Sitting of 3 May 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 Southwark.
The Earl of Cromer—Took the Oath.

Extradition: Legislation and Treaties
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether in the interests of the suppression of international crime they will consider the consolidation of the extradition statutes, and the conclusion of treaties to establish or re-establish effective extradition relations where they have lapsed.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Elton): My Lords, the law and practice of extradition were reviewed by an Inter-Departmental Working Party, whose report was published in May 1982. The report was sent for comment to individuals and organisations known to have an interest in the subject, and we are considering their responses before deciding what action to take on the recommendations of the working party. It has not been the practice to negotiate or re-negotiate our extradition treaties while decisions on the review of the Extradition Act are pending.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, while I thank my noble friend the Minister for that most helpful reply, may I ask him whether there is not a case for a reform and consolidation of our own statutes prior to accession to the European Extradition Convention such as is recommended in the Inter-departmental Committee's report; whether accession to the
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convention, as recommended, without having first taken these steps would not add a layer of undue complexity; and whether in any event the conclusion of new treaties to establish effective extradition arrangements, which take some time, is not a matter of concern?
Lord Elton: My Lords, my noble friend is right. We have to get these things in the right order. Accession to the convention would require more than consolidation of the existing statutes. If the number of designations were to be small enough to make it worth our while to sign, we should at least have to remove the requirement for proof of a prima facie case before extradition can be granted. This is a point which was covered in the report and attracted during the period for consultation many comments which are now being considered. The coming into force of new legislation substantively different from the present would mean the renegotiation of all our existing treaties, and that would take a very long time.
Lord Renton: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that, until we have signed the European Extradition Convention and negotiated the bilateral agreements that would be necessary, our law will remain out of date and out of step with those of other friendly countries? Will the Government, therefore, do their best to make really good progress in this matter?
Lord Elton: My Lords, I think this really is a matter for making haste slowly. It is a complicated field. We are not under grave pressure from the discontinuity, to which my noble friend refers, between our law and that of other countries. To bring the whole into harmony would take a very long time indeed.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: My Lords, it is the case, is it not, that this country has a notable record of achievement in the extradition field, first having pioneered its introduction in a great many ways? Have we not a lot to teach other countries in this field?
Lord Elton: Yes, my Lords, including thoroughness and patience.

London's Homeless: Rowton Hostels
2.40 p.m.
Baroness Jeger: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps are being taken to alleviate the growing problem of London's homeless; and what arrangements are being made to deal with the threatened closures of the Rowton hostels.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, the Government are well aware of the problems of London's homeless and have under way a major programme for the provision of modern hostels: funds are being made available specifically for this purpose through the Housing Corporation. The future of the hostels in London owned by Rowton Hotels PLC is primarily a matter between the company and the local authorities concerned—the London Boroughs of Camden, Lambeth and Tower Hamlets, and the Greater London Council. An independent valuer has been appointed by those councils and the company jointly, to determine the value of the hostels. Negotiations are at a delicate stage, and I am sure the House would not wish me to prejudice them by saying more about the Rowton hostels at this juncture.
Baroness Jeger: My Lords, I appreciate what the noble Lord the Minister has said about the negotiations. But will he explain why the negotiations are only between the local authorities and Rowton Hotels? Surely we have to recognise that this is a national problem. Is it not most unfair to leave it to the local authorities? Can the noble Lord the Minister say what is the Government's estimate of the figures of homeless single men sleeping rough in London tonight? Did he see an estimate in the evening Standard some days ago of 50,000? Is not that a disgrace to a capital city?
Lord Skelmersdale: No, my Lords. Although I appreciate the concern on all sides of the House on the future of the Rowton hostels, I cannot agree that this is a national problem. After all, they are situated in local authorities' areas. Local authorities have responsibility for the housing of people in special need. The negotiations are being conducted between the local authorities' concerned and Rowton Hotels PLC. So far as the Government's estimate is concerned, I am afraid that I have no figures on the number of people who will be sleeping out rough tonight, but I have no doubt that the figure of 50,000 people mentioned in the recent Standard article has some basis of truth in it.
Lord Shinwell: My Lords, has the noble Lord the Minister read an article this morning in one of the newspapers which supports Her Majesty's Government—namely, the Daily Express—complaining about the existence of a vast number of empty houses in the London area which could be used for the purpose of allowing homeless people to occupy them if the local authorities were advised accordingly and were allowed to spend the money required? Is it not a
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scandal that in this country, where we talk about civilisation and about progress, we should have thousands of homeless people sleeping rough on the Embankment, and in other places?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, as regards empty houses, this is again a matter for local authorities. I have noticed that there are various places thoughout the country where local authorities are not using the money provided for them by Government, and through their own rating system, for the occupation of those houses. That is an absolute scandal when the money is available.
As regards people sleeping rough, it is not always the fact that they are sleeping rough because they are unable to find houses. Information is beginning to come to light that there are some people, commonly called tramps, who actually prefer that way of life, as much as that might seem disagreeable to either myself or others of your Lordships.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, is my noble friend the Minister aware of the situation in Bruce House, a common lodging house in the City of Westminster, where the council, although it had for years spent more and more money on upgrading it, was faced with such unreasonable demands from the socialist opposition that all the former occupants of that place had to be put out? Moreover, is the noble Lord aware that the regional authority, which is socialist controlled, would not agree to any rebuilding or improvements which would bring the house back into use and help homeless people?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I am not aware of the case that my noble friend brings to your Lordships' attention. However, if her facts are correct—and I have no means of either proving or disproving them—this is another scandal.
Lord Soper: My Lords, are the Government aware that during the past few days a document has been published by a group called UNLEASH, sponsored by the Church of England authorities, which indicates that on any ordinary night in London there are at least 5,000 single homeless people, very few of whom, I imagine, prefer that to some kind of domiciliary comfort? Will the Government take account of the propositions made in that document for a closer relationship between Government authority in general and local authorites, who would be only too glad to have the opportunity to do better if they had more money with which to do it?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I have already made the point that the money is available. As regards the report to which the noble Lord, Lord Soper, refers, this has been published only in the last few days. The Government are considering it very carefully, and will report in due course.
Lord Inglewood: My Lords, does my noble friend not agree that one side of the problem concerning thousands of homeless people in this city and elsewhere is that, for a section of them, anyhow, the problem of alcohol is almost intractable?
Lord Skelmersdale: Yes, my Lords; and this puts them in a special category of homelessness for which local authorities are bound to find beds.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, is the Minister aware that in the London borough of Westminster, which is Tory controlled, there are over £50 million worth of vacant dwellings at the moment? On the question of Rowton houses, does he not agree that the Department of Health and Social Security, as has been said in answer to a previous question, has a residual responsibility for looking after the accommodation of many of the people who would be thrown on to the streets if these properties were closed? Does the Minister also agree that it is possible that the Government may be asked to approve a compulsory purchase order on the properties, and that if they were prepared to express their willingness to do this it might concentrate the minds of those on the other side who are negotiating?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I hope that I made it clear in my original Answer that, as regards the Rowton hostels, anything is possible, and I do not want to do anything which would prejudice the outcome of talks which are now going on. As regards whether or not Westminster Council have vast amounts of empty properties, I simply do not know the answer. If they have, there are normally very good and very valid reasons why some houses are vacant; in other words, when they are being repaired or rebuilt, when there is a change of occupancy, and other such reasons. It is not all black on the housing scene.
Baroness Birk: My Lords, may I refer back to the first part of my noble friend's Question, about the growing problem of London's homeless? In the Minister's reply, did he not say that the Government are undertaking something and that it would be through the voluntary housing movement? I may not have quoted his exact words. May we be informed at what speed this is being taken by the Government? Can the Minister give an estimate of the number of London's homeless, what sort of provision is to be made and how many units will come out of it?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I did not mention the voluntary bodies in this connection. I have already said that I have no estimates of homelessness in London in any of the various categories. However, to pad out my original Answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Jeger, in 1983–84 the Housing Corporation has made a specific allocation for association hostel housing and shared housing schemes of over £57 million. Something like a third of this sum will be available for schemes in the London area. Under this Government, the Housing Corporation had up to the end of March 1983 approved schemes providing 7,000 bed spaces, over two-thirds of which are for single homeless people, including the elderly. The number of bed spaces approved in the last financial year was three times greater than in 1978/79.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that this has developed into a most grave problem which goes beyond the Rowton Houses and the question of alcoholics, tramps or vagrants and
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involves a very large number of young people? In the light of the exchanges which have taken place, would he not press his right honourable friend to institute a full inquiry into the causes of this problem before it develops into a national difficulty of a size we cannot at present comprehend?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition has put his finger squarely on the point, which is that this is a growing problem in our great cities. It does not apply only to London; it also applies to Birmingham, Manchester and, to a lesser extent, cities in the North-East of the country. One of the difficulties is that young people particularly are not made aware (which I feel that they should be through the school system) that the streets of our great cities are not paved with gold.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, may I ask the Minister what advice is given to school-leavers on the danger of the big cities, so that they do not come to London and other big cities without having prearranged accommodation, because many of them do come from the country and some even come from Ireland?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, with the greatest respect, I think that that question is rather wide of the original Question on the Order Paper, even though I did widen my last answer.
Lord Brockway: My Lords, the Minister has said that a number of local authorities are not using the grants. Could he publish in the Official Report a list of the local authorities which are using the grants and those which are not? It would be very interesting for the local elections in three days' time.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, is the noble Lord referring to empty houses generally or is he referring to the use of them by homeless people?
Baroness Macleod of Borve: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend the Minister whether he can confirm that, due to the Government's order recently, those young people who are out of work and who also have no home to go to can in the future give a hostel as their home address, bearing in mind that a person cannot get a job unless they have a home address? Can the Minister tell me if that is now the case and, if it is, for how long each young person would have to be in a hostel before that address may be used as a home address?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, so far as employment and registering for unemployment goes, I am afraid that I cannot answer my noble friend. But I can tell her that since 1st April this year the rules for claiming benefits have been amended to make it clear that people resident for 14 days or longer in such places are entitled to housing benefits. It would be logical to assume that the same rules would apply to unemployment benefit.

Asylum: Pakistani Applications
2.53 p.m.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
To ask Her Majesty's Government on what date the person whose Home Office reference is K310933/5 was first interviewed in connection with his application for asylum: why no decision has yet been made; and what are the factors being taken into consideration regarding the human rights situation in Pakistan when evaluating claims for asylum from citizens of that country.
Lord Elton: My Lords, the subject of Home Office file K310933 was interviewed on 8th June 1981 in connection with his application for asylum in the United Kingdom. All relevant factors are taken into account when considering a claim for asylum and, although all applications are considered case by case in the light of their individual circumstances, there are occasions when a group of applications must be considered together. Several Pakistanis of the same persuasion as the subject of the noble Lord's Question have applied for asylum here, and I hope that we will be in a position to resolve these applications in the very near future.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, will the Minister confirm that the initial interview with this person took place in April 1981 and not in June, as he has just said? Is it not scandalous that it should take more than two years to process an application for asylum from whatever country the person may come, bearing in mind that he has all the disadvantages of an unsettled status in that he cannot look for a job, settle down or begin to make a new life in any other way? Will the noble Lord kindly deal with the third part of my Question? What factors are being taken into consideration regarding the human rights situation in Pakistan in evaluating these claims for asylum? I ask this bearing in mind that in Pakistan recently laws have been promulgated which increase the so-called Islamic penalties, which make the evidence of a woman equivalent to half that of a man and which have excited the wrath of the bar associations up and down the country, leading to the detention of many distinguished lawyers and politicians? Are these factors taken into account in looking at the claims for asylum of people from that country?
Lord Elton: My Lords, the interview—which is what the noble Lord asked me about—was on 8th June, according to the advice I am given. As to the disadvantages of being the subject of an unresolved claim to asylum, I should point out that the individual in question is at liberty and is not held in custody, in case any of your Lordships should be under a misapprehension about that. The considerations which my honourable friend has in mind when resolving these issues extend to a list longer than that of the subordinate clauses with which the noble Lord furnished his third supplementary question. In this case, the circumstances of his release from imprisonment in Pakistan, which resulted from the hijacking of a civil aircraft in the course of which one
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passenger was murdered, mean that his is a case of particular delicacy which must be scrutinised with very great care.
Lord Belhaven and Stenton: My Lords, would the fact that Pakistan has taken in something like 1½ million refugees from Afghanistan influence Her Majesty's Government's view on the stand for human rights in Pakistan?
Lord Elton: My Lords, the principal consideration which subsumes all others is that of Article 1 of the United Nations Convention of 1951 relating to the status of refugees and whether or not an applicant has a well-founded fear of persecution on various grounds, including that of, in this case, political opinion.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, will the Minister agree that there is no question of the people whose freedom was secured by the hijack to which he refers having been in any way concerned with the commission of that terrorist offence, and that this is proved by the fact that the Home Office has granted asylum to other persons who were also liberated as a result of that hijack? Is it not because we like to keep in the good books of General Zia that we are making life so difficult for these particular applicants? Is not the attitude of the United Kingdom to violations of human rights generally across the world conditioned by the stance of the Government concerned in the struggle between the super-powers?
Lord Elton: My Lords, the noble Lord is right that, I think, three members of this group have in fact received clearance. He is wrong in the assumption that every case is equally simple to resolve. I can however tell him that we hope to resolve the remaining cases very soon.

The Arts Council: "Panorama" Programme
2.57 p.m.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will invite the BBC to explain why a "Panorama" programme critical of the Arts Council which was completed last year has never been transmitted.
Lord Elton: My Lords, under the broadcasting arrangements which have been endorsed by successive Governments, the British Broadcasting Corporation is entirely responsible for deciding what programmes to broadcast, subject to the law and to its obligations on programme standards. The Government do not answer for the corporation's programme decisions; nor would it be appropriate for us to intervene with it in respect of particular decisions, such as its decision not to transmit the programme about the Arts Council to which the Question relates. In other words, my Lords, No.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, the noble Lord may perhaps be surprised to hear that in general I

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entirely agree with the tenor of his Answer. Is he aware that I believe that it is appropriate that such an arrangement should be made in general terms? But is he also aware that it is to be hoped that the Arts Council will take some note of these exchanges in this Chamber and will recognise that, during the course of the time while this programme was being made, the then Vice-Chairman of the BBC became Chairman of the Arts Council? The coincidence that, after that, the programme was never broadcast has caused some comment.
May I also ask the noble Lord whether he is further aware that, contrary to Arts Council statements, a higher proportion of its funds was spent in London, as distinct from other parts of the country, in 1981 than was the case in 1976, when, by another coincidence, I had some responsibility in the matter? In view of this, is it not to be hoped that the BBC will take note of these exchanges and may feel moved to make its own statement on the matter?
Lord Elton: My Lords, the noble Lord began his supplementary question by hoping that the Arts Council would consider the exchanges in the Chamber this afternoon, and he concluded by hoping that the British Broadcasting Corporation would so do. I am sure that Hansard is freely available to them. I cannot comment further.
Lord Orr-Ewing: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that in his original reply he said that there were placed on the BBC two obligations: to keep programmes within the law, and to maintain programme standards? Is there not a third obligation: to keep a balance in programmes? Is it not notorious that the "Panorama" team has singularly failed to keep a balance, their programmes usually being Left-wing and highly anti-American in concept?
Lord Elton: My Lords, balance is one of the standards which we expect to be kept. If, at the inducement of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney, the BBC reads Hansard, it will also read my noble friend's forthright, and not groundless, remarks, and perhaps consider whether a balance was kept in the case of the programmes to which he refers.
Lord Shinwell: My Lords, would it not be judicious to compliment the BBC on not inflicting upon viewers, and those associated with entertainment, another commentary of the type which, when one has to listen to it, one discovers is nothing in particular?
Lord Elton: My Lords, since in this case the programme was not broadcast, I cannot say whether or not the content was nothing in particular.
Lord Strabolgi: My Lords, following on what my noble friend Lord Jenkins of Putney has said about the Arts Council, may I ask the noble Lord whether he is aware that we warmly welcome the appointment of the young, new director general, and that we hope he will do much to revitalise that body?
Lord Elton: My Lords, the occasions on which I can welcome a noble Lord going beyond the Question on the Order Paper are rare, but this is one of them.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, if I may make a final point on this matter, may I ask the noble Lord whether he is aware that balance is something which is often in the eye of the beholder?
Lord Elton: My Lords, so are motes and beams.

Dinner
Lord Denham: My Lords, it may be for the convenience of the House if I announce that dinner will be available this evening at the usual time for a Tuesday of 7.30 p.m.

Energy Bill
3.3 p.m.
Report received.
Clause 7 [Charges for purchases by Electricity Boards]:
Lord Ezra Lord Ezra moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 4, line 34 leave out ("other than the Central Electricity Generating Board").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in the unavoidable absence of my noble friend Lord Tanlaw, I beg to move Amendment No. 1. The amendment proposes that the words,
"other than the Central Electricity Generating Board",
should be omitted from Clause 7 of the Bill. The reason for putting forward this amendment (which was also put forward at the Committee stage) is because we consider that if the object of the clause is to introduce transparency in regard to the basis on which the electricity authorities purchase electricity produced by other bodies, there should be total transparency. We see no reason why the electricity boards, which undoubtedly will be purchasing the bulk of the electricity privately or otherwise generated, should have to prepare their tariffs, while the CEGB, which, on the noble Earl the Minister's own admission, might occasionally have to purchase such electricity, should be exempt from this obligation. The noble Earl stated that in the circumstances in which the CEGB had to purchase electricity which was privately or otherwise generated, it would itself fix the terms on which it might be purchased. But if that were to be the policy, why does it not apply throughout?
What we are complaining about from these Benches is that there seem to be two systems. The electricity boards have to publish tariffs so that the prices are transparent and known to everybody, but the CEGB, which on occasion might have to purchase privately or otherwise generated electricity, can apparently negotiate terms which it considers desirable. In my opinion, based on my experience, it is possible that the amount of electricity which the CEGB might have to purchase will grow. If there are organisations which generate electricity throughout the country, due to the fact that they have branches in various parts of the country, I see no reason why they should not be in a position to negotiate centrally for the sale of that electricity.
On these Benches we understand that the Government believe in the market philosophy, which implies the exercise of options by those who want to dispose of a product, and we believe that this philosophy should be carried through in this clause. I therefore wish very strongly to press the amendment, under which it is proposed that there should be introduced into the Bill total transparency in regard to the terms on which electricity should be purchased by either boards or the CEGB. I beg to move.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Energy (The Earl of Avon): My Lords, I am sorry that my earlier reply on the amendment during the Committee stage has failed to satisfy both the noble Lords, Lord Tanlaw and Lord Ezra. In that reply I explained the main reason for exempting the CEGB from Clause 7. It is that there is little point in asking the CEGB to fix a purchase tariff which is unlikely to be used. Virtually every private generator will be dealing with an area board. Selling direct to the CEGB would be a specific case, and the terms would need to be individually negotiated; and at one stage the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, himself used the term "centrally negotiated". If I were to give an example, I would refer to tidal power or something of that kind, which would need a very specific, and a negotiated, settlement outside the tariffs that we are discussing.
I am aware of the noble Lord's concern that the bulk supply tariff should not be used as the yardstick for purchasing supplies from private generators. There is of course no mention of the BST in the Bill. If someone approached the CEGB wishing to sell significant amounts of electricity on a regular basis, the two parties would establish an operating regime which might involve the private station becoming integrated in the CEGB's system and accepting operational control like any other CEGB station. In these circumstances the bulk supply tariff would almost certainly be an inappropriate measure of the station's contribution to electricity supply, particularly, for example, at times of peak demand. In contrast, for a small and less predictable producer supplying an area board, the BST, as the reference point, might be as generous at certain times as it is ungenerous at others, and thereby it would reflect on average the value of the producer's output.
The noble Lord, Lord Ezra, said that the CEGB would not be exempted. I feel that I must emphasise that where the CEGB proposes a price to a private generator, that price must conform with the same fair terms embodied in the Bill for purchases by other boards, including the principle that it must reflect the board's avoided costs. The price proposed by the CEGB is also subject, as are prices proposed by other boards, to the disputes procedure in the Bill under Clause 9. The CEGB would therefore not have complete discretion over the price offered to the private generator.
The Government are satisfied that the private generators will not be at a disadvantage because the CEGB is exempt from setting tariffs. The exemption is a practical one arising from the recognition that the CEGB will rarely be called upon to purchase privately generated electricity. On that rare occasion, special
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circumstances are likely to arise. I hope that, in the light of this further explanation, the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, will feel able not to press his amendment.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, we have all listened with great care to what the noble Earl, the Minister, has said. I still feel that it would have been desirable for the CEGB to publish its tariffs and then negotiate around those tariffs in the normal negotiating manner. However, if he has given us the assurance that any negotiation conducted by the CEGB will take full account of the terms on which electricity boards negotiate and that it will not, as a result of its central position, discriminate in any way against those negotiating with it, I am happy to beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Strabolgi Lord Strabolgi moved Amendment No 2:
After Clause 10 insert the following new clause:
("Waste disposal authorities
(".—(1) This section applies to the production and use of electricity in accordance with section 21(3) of the Control of Pollution Act 1974 (production of heat and electricity from waste, etc).
(2) Where a disposal authority wishes to use any such electricity on premises occupied by the authority other than the installation at which it was produced and requests an Electricity Board to permit the authority to use the Board's transmission and distribution system for the purpose of supplying the electricity to those premises the Board shall offer to comply with the request unless on technical grounds it would not be reasonably practicable to do so.
(3) Where a disposal authority produces electricity in accordance with the said section of the Control of Pollution Act 1974, it shall be the duty of that authority, wherever practicable, to adopt and support schemes—

(a) for the combined production of heat and electricity, and

(b) for the use of heat produced in combination with electricity, or incidentally from its generation, for the heating of buildings or for other useful purposes.

(4) Subsections (3) to (6) of section 5 shall apply to an offer under this section as they apply to offers made under section 5(2).
(5) Tariffs of charges made under section 8 above shall apply to the use by disposal authorities of Boards' transmission and distribution systems made under this section as they apply to the use of such systems by private generators and suppliers under section 5 above.
(6) Section 9 above and regulations made thereunder shall apply to disputes as to offers made under this section as they apply to disputes within section 9(1)(a) to (e).").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I move this amendment in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Tanlaw and Lord Ezra, the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, and myself. It is a repeat of the amendment put down in Committee which we have felt bound to table again. In the interval, there has been some discussion and correspondence with the noble Earl—we thank him for his courtesy in outlining the Government's attitude and for looking into the matter—but we do not feel that what he says is sufficiently reassuring. We have therefore felt bound to return to the matter again.
It is clear that the main purpose of the Bill is to encourage generation of electricity by private enterprise, in part as a spur to greater efficiency in the public sector electricity supply industry. However, it is also clear that, for some reason that is not evident, the Government believe that the present Bill need not, and should not, increase the powers and responsibilities of local authorities in the field of transmission.
At present, only the Greater London Council is directly generating electricity from waste. There is however much enthusiasm, which should be welcomed and encouraged, among local authorities wishing to contribute in every possible way to the principle of energy conservation. With the price of energy increasing at a far greater rate than prices generally, it can only be a matter of time before waste disposal authorities decide that it would be economic for them to manufacture electricity for their own consumption.
Authorities will not take kindly to manufacturing electricity from waste, selling it to electricity boards at a predetermined price and then being forced by the boards to buy the same product at a higher price for their own consumption. In our view, the Government should not be supporting the principle of one part of the public sector making a profit from another. Such a course can surely only lead to unproductive bureaucracy. We know how much the Government are against that—as, indeed, are all of us.
It seems strange that the Government, with their commitment to energy conservation, should be opposing on ideological grounds a proposal which, although it may not be put into practice in the immediate future, will undoubtedly in the long run make a worthwhile contribution towards the energy resources of this country. When the Government talk about encouraging the generation of electricity by private enterprise, they seem to mean different things at different times, as the mood takes them. I should have thought that private enterprise would mean any enterprise that was not part of the nationalised electricity industry. But this is apparently not so according to the rather myopic manner in which the Government view the matter. As Humpty Dumpty said, "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean: neither more nor less".
There is no consistency in the Government's attitude except that they are clearly biased against local authority private enterprise. In other words, local authorities are to be treated as a sort of second-class sector, way below private contractors, and are thought not to be worthy of being entrusted with this task. Unless the noble Earl has a better explanation, we shall feel bound to press the matter.
Lord Balogh: My Lords, I commend the amendment because it is an improvement on what now exists. However, it does not eliminate the basic foolishness of the Bill. The measure has little to do with energy as such. It has something to so with the regressive redistribution of income and the wrong allocation of resource capacity to the country. Far from improving underlying competitiveness, this will weaken it. A horrifying shrinkage of economic knowledge is plainly displayed. The Administration have forgotten, if they ever knew, that the impact of decreasing cost industry increases the probability of monopolistic worsening of the situation.
No one in his right mind would propose measures that would depress the industrial pattern of a decreasing cost and increasing returns industry. Yet this is exactly what is proposed. The Prime Minister, duly echoed by the Energy Secretary, has been crowing about successes. Actually, what has happened is that
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the decline has been halted by the steadying of the market, and no more. She discerned a brisk advance and the creation of what she calls real jobs. This would—she says—achieve optimum function of the economy. The words "market forces" flew around like a disturbed swarm of bees. What in fact happened, and will continue to happen, in the short run, if the proposed Bill is effective, is reallocation of resources and certainly not optimum allocation of capital.
I well remember the days when I had to change or buy convertors for all my electrical gadgets when I was moving from 44 to 28 Gordon Square because they were supplied by different firms having different preferences. We are certainly at the moment on the way down. We can only hope that this trend will be altered before we are down and out.
Lord Ezra: I support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, and supported by the noble Lord, Lord Balogh. This is a very moderate amendment and entirely in keeping with the sense of the Bill. We are suggesting here that local authorities which take the initiative to generate electricity by using waste products to greater advantage than has so far been the case should be entitled to negotiate with the electricity authorities to transmit that electricity to other local authority locations. This is what the Bill proposes for private enterprise which takes such an initiative in generating its own electricity. There is no restriction to the generation of electricity on the basis of waste; it can generate it on the basis of any fuel it likes. So this seems to be a discrimination against the initiative which could be shown by local authorities.
The noble Earl the Minister, in his comments on this amendment as moved at the Committee stage, said that the effect of this change might be a return to the days when electricity supply was concentrated in local authorities. But we are here talking about a very limited operation requiring a great deal of courage and initiative—namely, the generation of electricity from waste. I believe that, in the interests of energy conservation, we should be giving every encouragement to bodies—whether they be local authorities or others—who are prepared, instead of having to find more and more places in which to dispose of domestic waste, to convert it into usable energy.
Therefore, we from these Benches request that the Government think yet again about giving local authorities the same degree of incentive for the promotion of energy efficiency as is provided in this Bill for private enterprise, bearing in mind that we are here talking about converting waste to a useful resource, bearing in mind that it will be a very limited amount of electricity that will be generated from this source for a long time to come, and bearing in mind that all we are asking for is that local authorities should have the ability to negotiate with the electricity generating authorities about the disposal of this electricity to other locations within their control.
We believe that this is a very moderate proposition—entirely in line with the sentiment of this noble House—for generating electricity in the most efficient way and for giving every conceivable encouragement to energy efficiency. Therefore, I should like to press very strongly that the Government concede this point in those interests.
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, I should like to support the amendment from these Benches. The points which are really important have just been made by the last speaker. There is a move, of course, to try to use refuse for producing power, and it really needs a bit more incentive to make it a practical realisation.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, I wish to oppose the amendment, The sentiments that have been put forward sound very impressive and very environmentally conscious but they fail to appreciate exactly the environmental situation at the vast waste disposal station at Edmonton which is now the place from which the Greater London Council generates its electricity from waste. In order to produce sufficient refuse to incinerate to produce enough electricity, there has to be an enterprise of vast size. From the local environmental point of view, it brings in great numbers of heavy and noisy vehicles which have to queue up in order to tip their waste into the great bays that are provided. Anyone living in the Edmonton area—and I must say that I represent a seat not far from there on the Greater London Council—is rather grateful to hear that the Greater London Council considers that the cost of producing the electricity and of running the station means that probably nothing of its type will ever be constructed again.
As the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, has said, it is likely that only a small number of people would want to produce electricity from waste in the future. Certainly at Edmonton the cost of production has been found to be great. However, it has simply been a waste product and, therefore, it has been used and people are pleased that is has been used. It has always been sold through the electricity grid. In the past the problem has been the price that was paid for it. Because the electricity boards are the monopoly controllers of the power system, the power that was generated was purchased at a very, very low price. The Minister has now assured us that that will not be the case and that the Bill will ensure that the Greater London Council receives a fair price for its power. Similarly, if these schemes come into operation in other areas—as has been suggested by other noble Lords—and perhaps on a smaller scale, then again I would think that to get a fair price for the power that is generated would be very adequate.
I would deplore local authorities going into the electricity business. I do not think that that is the duty of local authorities. There are specific statutory obligations now placed upon local authorities. They have more than enough responsibilities at present. Indeed, at present they frequently seem to stray into their own, in my opinion, undesirable private enterprise. I certainly would not want to see them going into the electricity generating business. I would most strongly oppose the amendment, and ask your Lordships to do the same.
Lord Somers: My Lords, I do not wish to oppose the amendment in spirit but I wonder whether the noble Earl would say in his reply whether there is any provision for generation at the correct voltage; in other words, that it should be AC and not DC? Also can he say whether the electricity so generated will be supplied to the national grid?
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, noble Lords will remember that in Committee I appealed to the Government to have another look at this matter provided that the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, would withdraw his amendment at that stage. Those of us who have been able to be in touch with the department and with my noble friend the Minister in the meantime, are grateful for the care and attention which he has shown in dealing with it.
It is a sadness to me that my noble friend Lord Ridley, with his vast local authority experience, cannot be here today, as he could not be present at the Committee stage. By the same token, the contribution of my noble friend Lady Gardner, as a local authority expert, is very timely indeed. As one has looked into the matter—and I, too, have thought about it while the Government have had another think—the question that arises is whether the local authorities really need the right to their own transmission systems to their own premises.
We already have it from the noble Lord, Lord Ezra—whose presence here is so welcome to all of us who are interested in energy, and whose contributions are of such interest—that it is likely to be a very limited operation in any event. I am rather surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, in his ideologically myopic approach to private enterprise did not cite a whole lot of examples of local authorities that actually want this to take place. We do not know how many of them want it. We do not know at all and no one has given us any indication of how many extra refuse generators could be expected to result from the local authorities being given the transmission rights. We do not know what extra kilolwattage of energy is in view. Surely the big incentive has already been provided in the Bill, which is to enable local authorities to sell at a fair price. That is the new provision; that is what is being offered to private enterprise, that is what is being offered to local authorities; and that is really the ultimate incentive.
The noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, said that, as matters were, local authorities would have to buy the electricity back from the boards at a higher price than that at which they sell it. I do not know whether that is so or not: it is a new slant. But surely it is equally fair to suggest that if local authorities have to provide their own transmission system in parallel with that already existing in the grid, it can only raise the cost and would be a needless duplication. So whether local authorities having access to a transmission system of their own would lead to a cheaper product is certainly questionable and one is surprised that the movers of this amendment have not adduced any evidence in support of it. It would certainly mean some extra capital expenditure. The electricity boards—monopolists that they are and no friends of mine on that account—are supposed to be the experts. The idea now is that local authorities would be just as expert, no doubt by taking on extra staff at public expense.
But I think that one has to see this in proportion. This is not a local authority Bill. It is essentially an electricity Bill enabling non-board producers to sell at a fair price. That applies equally to the pure private enterprise or the kind of surrogate private enterprise which now enters the ideology of the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi. The critical aspect is the incentive of fair

17
price, which is new. Surely anything more than that will widen the local authorities' powers in a sense that would hardly be appropriate to the purposes of this Bill.
I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, that it makes competition wider still. Indeed, that is the argument that I used in Committee. But having looked at the matter further, I am not sure that that is other than a collection of words. The real point is whether this is a Bill about local authorities or whether it is a Bill about electricity. Because it is an electricity Bill—an energy Bill—I do not think that one should seize this opportunity to widen the powers of local authorities to a degree that may in any case be counter-productive and would only arise (so we are told) on a very small scale.
This would of course tend to turn the clock hack towards localised generation of electricity, and although I would not oppose that in itself, it comes strangely from noble Lords opposite, with their love of centralisation, to argue that case. I believe that the real question is whether this is an appropriate amendment for this Bill at this time. I should like to suggest that I do not think it is—I do not think it is any longer. Therefore, I hope that noble Lords will not press it. I should like to express my thanks and that of others to my noble friend Lord Avon for the care and attention which he has given to the matter meantime.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, as always, I was impressed by the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Ezra; but he made the point about the opportunity for local authorities to exercise initiative. As I read the amendment, it is not about initiative; it is about the production of electricity. I should have thought that local authorities should be encouraged to use their initiative if this is a good way of disposing of their waste. But it is good that, having taken the initiative, they should go to a private enterprise, which inevitably and always looks carefully at whether the particular operation will be cost-effective, because that is what they are in business for and they go out of business if they are not cost-effective. They will get a much better deal from somebody who tackles this problem properly for, as my noble friend Lord Lauderdale has said, because local authorities do not really have the same type of disciplines for balancing their books as does private enterprise, there is a tendency for them to embark on projects that perhaps are not profitable. This would be bad because the whole exercise would be a disaster—as indeed my noble friend Lady Gardner has indicated is the case as regards the Edmonton exercise of the same sort.
I should have thought that the principle of what the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, is seeking—which is to allow local authorities to have initiative in this area—is in no way harmed by the Bill as it stands, and in fact might produce a rather bogus and non-cost effective result if this amendment were passed. Therefore I suggest to him that the amendment goes much further than he is mainly seeking.
Lord Leatherland: My Lords, it has been suggested from the other side that the powers of local authorities would have to be widened. My experience tells me that over 70 years ago refuse disposal departments were either generating electricity themselves and feeding it
18
into the main or else selling steam from the burning of the refuse to the neighbouring electricity generating authority. I know this very well because about 70 years ago I was the chief cost accountant of the Birmingham Corporation refuse disposal department, and we took great pride in the way in which we were making money and saving money for the ratepayers by burning their refuse instead of transporting it miles out into the country to tip it, and then securing an income from the electricity authorities from the steam which we supplied to them.
The cost of alternative methods of dealing with refuse is very expensive. For example, there is tipping. If you are in the middle of a big city, your tipping opportunities are limited to the country districts which are perhaps 10 miles away, and you have to transport the raw refuse, or the clinker after it has been burned, to country districts well outside the boundaries of the city. You have to use canal boats or motor vehicles to transport it, and both of those forms of transport are very expensive and put a burden on the rates.
The burning of refuse also costs money; it is a fairly extensive operation. So there is a way of securing a set-off against the cost of dealing with refuse. Selling the steam from your refuse destructor boilers is one way. We used to do this in Birmingham and we received quite a substantial income from it. We sold the steam to an electricity station a few miles away, and it was of course transported through pipes.
I do not think that there is anything to be said against the proposals that are put forward in this amendment. The amendment will give some extra powers to local authorities. Those local authorities who have such powers at the moment are finding them very successful, and I see no reason why it should not be extended to others.
Lord Shinwell: My Lords, I gather from the speeches to which I have listened that the Government are opposed to this amendment because they fear that this would turn the clock back, by which is meant that we would return to the period when local authorities generated electricity by using waste products. But they did nothing of the sort; they never did that at any time. It is obvious that those who talk in that strain know nothing about the history of electricity. I intervene only because I confess that I prepared the Bill for the nationalisation of electricity, and long before then—way back in the period of the First World War—was concerned when, through the medium of the metropolitan gasworks in London, we sought to process coal for the purpose of producing oil and other by-products. That is another story.
There is a history about this matter. What was the situation 30, or 40 or 50 years ago? A number of local authorities were responsible for generating electricity, not by using waste products but by generating it from coal, and from no other mineral. That was the situation. It was because of the conflict between those local authorities and private electricity undertakings that it was decided by a Labour Government to nationalise electricity. The first step was taken, not by a Labour Government but I believe by the Baldwin Government in creating the Central Electicity Generating Board. That was the situation. That is the history.

19
I cannot understand why we should object to local authorities using their waste products to generate electricity. I should like to remind noble Lords of what happened in 1946–47. I do not like those dates because they remind me of some of my misadventures. There was an occasion when electricity was in short supply. What happened? We discovered that throughout the country there were various industrial undertakings which had the equipment to generate electricity, and we used them. Without them we should never have been able to overcome the crisis which assailed us at the time.
Why were we assailed by a crisis? It was not a coal crisis. One has only to search the Cabinet records 30 or 40 years after the event to discover that. It was because of transport. There was plenty of coal at the sidings. We could not get it to the electricity power stations where we required it. That was all. What is the objection to this proposition? Why not use the local authorities? Are we afraid of the local authorities?
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, will the noble Lord give way? We can use it. We are encouraging them to do it. It is only the question of whether they can use the transmission or not. We are encouraging them to use waste, to burn waste to make electricity. It is all in the Bill.
Lord Shinwell: My Lords, do I understand that the Government are afraid of competition? I thought they rather admired competition. Perhaps this is a change. Is this a U-turn? They are troubled about competition? Why should not the local authorities enter into competition even with the Central Electricity Generating Board, or any other electricity undertaking which has the support of the Government? Why should they not enter into competition so long as we get the electricity when we require it?
It does not mean that the local authorities will immediately begin to generate electricity if it is not required. There must be a market for it. I am not sure, if I may say so, that the noble Earl, Lord Avon, is intensely interested in this subject. He is working, and I can understand it, on a brief. Have the department never read the history of the electricity industry? Have they never heard of those occasions when electricity was in short supply because of something that went wrong at the electricity undertaking in the winter, or any other time? What is the trouble about it?
Of course the Minister is no longer interested. He is not paying the slightest attention to me. I can understand it. Ministers get that way sometimes. They begin to fancy themselves, and why should they take any notice of me or any other Member of your Lordships' House? Anyway, I put the point again: here is a proposition to enable local authorities to use waste products to generate electricity. What is wrong with that?
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, it is in the Bill.
Lord Shinwell: It is in the Bill? Well, why are you objecting to it?
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, we are not objecting to it at all. The noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, is quite right.
20
If he reads the Bill he will find that we are encouraging local authorities to generate electricity which can be bought by the boards.
Now may I come back to the Report stage of this Bill. I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, made an excellent thesis, and I thought he skated very well on thin ice somewhere between telling us a little on how we ought to privatise, and balancing it a little by the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Balogh, which is basically that the party opposite do not like this Bill very much.
For a start, let me make it clear that local authorities already possess adequate powers relating to the generation of electricity and heat. They are able to generate electricity from waste or from other fuels. Since 1974 they have had the right to sell their electricity to electricity boards; a right given to private generators for the first time in the Bill before your Lordships. The problem—I think I could even say complaint—of local authorities was that the price the boards offered was not of true value. Now the Bill establishes a framework under which the electricity boards will have to offer fair prices for electricity supplied by both local authorities and private generators. Therefore, I believe that this Bill removes the local authorities' major worry.
There has been emotive talk of converting waste, energy conservation, initiatives, incentives and efficiency. The noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, mentioned the word "incentive". The Government agree with all these aspects, and we encourage the local authorities to promote electricity through waste generation. The noble Lord, Lord Somers, asked me a couple of questions. The electricity supply sold by local authorities to boards would be at the suitable voltage or frequency and would indeed go on the national grid.
Local authorities also have comprehensive powers to participate in combined heat and power schemes. They may produce, acquire and dispose of heat; they may produce electricity and dispose of it to electricity boards on fair terms; they can establish and operate installations; they can construct, lay and maintain heat mains, and they can even break open streets. In practice, the advantage taken so far of these various powers by local authorities has been very limited. Only one authority, the GLC, generates electricity from waste, though it may be that others will be encouraged—and the Government hope this will happen—to develop schemes in the light of the new provisions in the Bill on fair prices for the sale of electricity.
May I give one example of what is going on at the moment, just to encourage the House that things are on the way that they feel they should be. Local authorities have been involved in active discussion with electricity boards and other interested parties on potential developments. We expect them to continue to do so. Indeed, we know of one possible waste burning combined heat and power project on which a board and a local authority are working closely together. The local authorities have of course also played a constructive part in the feasibility programme. In all these local authority involvements with CHP the Bill will remove impediments and provide encouragement.

21
The new clause proposed by the noble Lords would allow a local authority which generates electricity from waste to use an electricity board's transmission and distribution system to transmit this electricity to other premises occupied by the authority. As I have mentioned, the only authority at present in a position to take advantage of any such step is the GLC. I suggest to the House that the present arrangement by which the GLC sells its output to the Eastern Electricity Board is the way forward. This Bill offers them a fair price. My noble friend Lady Gardner of Parkes has spoken to this effect.
The Government believe that it would be wrong at this stage to contemplate extending the powers of local authorities in the way the noble Lords propose. In the first place, there is no case on practical grounds for such an extension of local authority powers. My noble friend Lord Lauderdale mentioned this. The economics of transmission of electricity for use at locations remote from the site of generation seem unlikely to be more favourable for local authorities compared with selling to the electricity boards at a fair price. The viability of CHP schemes depends upon the economics of the distribution of heat, not upon local distribution of electricity.
In the second place, the main purpose of the Energy Bill is to encourage generation of electricity by private enterprise, in part as a spur to greater efficiency in the public sector electricity supply industry. In the third place, for all their merits, we do not expect that local authorities, who have little or no experience in the electricity supply business, will enter into this field. The generation of electricity is not a function of local authorities other than as a by-product. The generation of electricity following the Bill will be a trading enterprise in which the private sector can be expected to invest risk capital in the expectation of making profits. We do not believe that local authorities are in this line of business, nor should they be.
I would argue that the first priority for local authorities is to run their existing operations with the greatest possible efficiency. The Government have already said in another place, and I willingly repeat it to this House, that it may be necessary in the future to review legislative and organisational arrangements in the context of the development of CHP district heating. This we shall do. The question of use by local authorities of the transmission and distribution system could be looked at again at that time should there be any new arguments or evidence. The Government believe that the present Bill need not, and should not, increase the powers and responsibilities of local authorities. I hope that with the reassurance that I have given, and the reasons that I have stated, I have been able to convince the House that this is so.
Lord Balogh: My Lords, before the Minister sits down, may I ask him what is a fair price? Who is going to determine it, and under what principles?
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, this is Report stage. If I may be able to reply to the noble Lord with the leave of the House, this point is in the Bill, and I think we debated it at Committee stage.
Lord Strabolgi: My Lords, I think this has been an interesting debate, and I am grateful to all noble Lords
22
who have taken part in it. Of course, this is not a party matter. As your Lordships are aware, this amendment has been supported by noble Lords from all sides of the House. I am sorry we have not had the advantage of the presence of the noble Viscount. Lord Ridley.
The noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, said that he did not know how many local authorities wished to have this power. As has been made clear by the noble Earl, the power is not to generate electricity (a facility which they have now) but to use the electricity board's transmission and distribution system. I can tell the noble Earl that it is wanted by the Association of County Councils, which represents all the local authorities in that sector.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord. My question was not whether the association professes that all its members want it, but how many local authorities are known to want it, which is a different question.
Lord Strabolgi: My Lords, all I can say about the association, from what little experience I have, is that it mirrors the wishes and policy of its members.
As the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, says, this amendment is really to give local authorities some degree of initiative. It is a moderate proposition to encourage energy efficiency. The noble Earl, Lord Avon, and the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, said that they were opposed to local authorities going into the electricity business. Why ever not? This is a Bill to privatise electricity generation and transmission. The Government are taking away the monopoly from the electricity boards. That is accepted by the Bill, which has been passed by another place and is shortly to be passed by your Lordships' House—but why discriminate? Once this power is taken away from the electricity boards, why is it then given only to private contractors and not to local authority contractors? We on this side of the House cannot see the difference. Why should there be this bias against local authorities? We think that the House should divide and that we should press this so that your Lordships can come to a decision.
3.52 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 2) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 80; Not-Contents, 114.

DIVISION
NO.1

CONTENTS

Amherst, E.

Chitnis, L.

Amulree, L.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Ardwick, L.

Collison, L.

Bacon, B.

David, B. [Teller.]

Balogh, L.

Denington, B.

Banks, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Elwyn-Jones, L.

Beswick, L.

Ewart-Biggs, B.

Birk, B.

Ezra, L. [Teller.]

Bishopston, L.

Fisher of Rednal, B.

Blyton, L.

Gallacher, L.

Brockway, L.

Gladwyn, L.

Brooks of Tremorfa, L.

Granville of Eye, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Gregson, L.

Byers, L.

Hale, L.

23

Hampton, L.

Phillips, B.

Hanworth, V.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

Hunt, L.

Prys-Davies, L.

Irving of Dartford, L.

Roberthall, L.

Jacques, L.

Rochester, L.

Jeger, B.

Rugby, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Sainsbury, L.

John-Mackie, L.

Scanlon, L.

Kennet, L.

Shinwell, L.

Kilbracken, L.

Spens, L.

Kilmarnock, L.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Leatherland, L.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Lee of Newton, L.

Stone, L.

Listowel, E.

Strabolgi, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

McCarthy, L.

Underhill, L.

McNair, L.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Mais, L.

Walston, L.

Mayhew, L.

Wedderburn of Charlton, L.

Milford, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Nicol, B.

White, B.

Oram, L.

Wi oder, L.

Peart, L.

Wootton of Abinger, B.

NOT-CONTENTS

Airey of Abingdon, B.

Kinnaird, L.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Lane-Fox, B.

Allen of Abbeydale, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Allerton, L.

Lawrence, L.

Ampthill, L.

Long, V.

Avon, E.

Loudoun, C.

Bellwin, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Belstead, L.

Lyell, L.

Berkeley, B.

McAlpine of Moffat, L.

Bessborough. E.

McFadzean, L.

Caccia, L.

Mackay of Clashfern, L.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

MacLehose of Beoch, L.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Chesham, L.

Malmesbury, E.

Clitheroe, L.

Mancroft, L.

Cottesloe, L.

Mansfield, E.

Craigavon, V.

Margadale, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Marley, L.

Daventry, V.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Davidson, V.

Merrivale, L.

De Freyne, L.

Mersey, V.

De La Warr, E.

Minto, E.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Molson, L.

Dilhorne, V.

Morris, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Mottistone, L.

Duncan-Sandys, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Ebbisham, L.

Moyne, L.

Eccles, V.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Effingham, E.

Newall, L.

Ellenborough, L.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

O'Hagan, L.

Elton, L.

Orkney, E.

Ferrers, E.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Fraser of Kilmorack, L.

Porritt, L.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

Portland, D.

Garner, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Glanusk, L.

Reigate, L.

Glenarthur, L.

Renton, L.

Glenkinglas, L.

Romney, E.

Gore-Booth, L.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Greenway, L.

St. Davids, V.

Gridley, L.

Sandys, L.

Haig, E.

Selkirk, E.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Sempill, Ly.

Skelmersdale, L.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Somers, L.

Henley, L.

Strathspey, L.

Hives, L.

Sudeley, L.

Hornsby-Smith, B.

Suffield, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Swinton, E. [Teller.]

Ilchester, E.

Teviot, L.

Jessel, L.

Thomas of Swynnerton, L,

Kilmany, L.

Tranmire, L.

24

Trefgarne, L.

Vivian, L.

Trenchard, V.

Westbury, L.

Trumpington, B.

Wynford, L.

Vaux of Harrowden. L.

Young, B.

Vickers, B.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
Clause 12 [Meters to be of approved pattern]:
4 p.m.
Lord Ezra Lord Ezra moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 8, line 12 after ("State") insert ("and the Electricity Consumers' Council").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 3, which proposes that the words, "the Electricity Consumers' Council" should be inserted in this clause. This clause deals with the question of the approval of meters for the measurement of electricity, which is very important for consumers because it is on that basis that they are charged for the electricity that they consume. Therefore, we consider, in the interests of consumers, that the Electricity Consumers' Council should be associated with the approval of these meters. I beg to move.
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, the purpose of Clause 12 is to require meters used by a person other than an electricity board to measure the electricity he supplies to another person to be of an approved pattern. This means a design approved by the appropriate United Kingdom or European Community metrological authority. Approval in the United Kingdom is given by the Department of Energy's chief electricity meter examiner on behalf of the Secretary of State.
The effect of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, would be that for approval to take effect in this country the meter would also have to be seen by the Electricity Consumers' Council. We all recognise the valuable work on behalf of consumers done by the Consumers' Council—which is indeed being given statutory status in later clauses in this Bill. However, pattern evaluation for approval involves a critical examination and testing of meters requiring highly specialised staff and equipment to ensure that meters conform to the requirements of the appropriate British Standard Specification, BS5685. I am sure that the Consumers' Council themselves would accept that they do not possess the competence or apparatus to carry out such technical analysis. Nor am I aware that they are dissatisfied with the chief electricity meter examiner's performance.
I am aware of the interest shown by the Electricity Consumers' Council in the introduction of new metering technology involving remote meter reading and load control. One, the mains-borne telecontrol system, which allows for reading and control of electricity, gas and water supplies, has already been given approval for trial purposes, and others will, as they become available, be examined by the chief meter examiner, who keeps in close touch with these developments. The question of their introduction for domestic use is of course a matter for the industry in consultation with consumer interests. Pattern

25
approval is a separate technical question. I hope that, in the light of this explanation, the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, I have been closely associated with an energy consumers' council for many years and, as their name suggests, what they like to have done to them is to be consulted. They are not experts in most of the technical fields for which they are being consulted and nor, I suggest, in this particular case, would the Secretary of State himself be an expert in metering. He depends upon technical advice. The purpose of this amendment is that the technical advice should be rendered both to the Secretary of State and to the Consumers' Council and that they should consult together in order to decide what are desirable meters and what are not. I would hope therefore—and it is not my intention to press this amendment—in withdrawing this amendment, that the Secretary of State would, however, be prepared to consult with the consumers' council in these decisions in order to make sure that there is nothing in their view that might be contrary to his opinion.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Ezra Lord Ezra moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 11, line 28 at end insert ("promote",).
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this amendment relates to the insertion of the word "promote" in Clause 19. This was a matter which was debated at some length at the Committee stage. From these Benches, we should like to ensure that the maximum possible stimulus should be given to the electricity authorities to promote CHP schemes. Indeed—and I am quoting from the report of our deliberations at the Committee stage on 19th April—the noble Earl the Minister then said that:
"as drafted, the clause gives electricity boards a clear duty to promote CHP schemes".
If that is the duty which they are given, then we fail to see why the word "promote" should not be used. If we are serious about this, then we should make it very clear to those who are going to have to apply the legislation that that is the case. If it is the intention that these schemes should be promoted by the electricity boards, then we consider that it is not unreasonable that the word "promote" should figure in the legislation. I beg to move.
Lord Strabolgi: My Lords, I should like to support this amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Ezra. I think that to include the word "promote" greatly strengthens the wording of this particular subsection of the Bill and gives great support to words like "adopt" and "support" which are basically somewhat nebulous and which are not nearly positive enough. Of course, it is very necessary that everything should be done to encourage combined heat and power in future. The other day, when we had the general debate on energy, I had some rather hard words to say about the Government's lack of initiative in this respect and how we were lagging far behind our European partners. I think it would be an indication for the Government to show that they are serious about this if they adopted the words in the noble Lord's amendment. Therefore, I support everything that the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, has said.
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, really wants every inch of this one. He rightly said that I had said that this should read exactly as he wants it. I will try to explain once more why we believe the present wording not only includes what he wishes but goes, I think, further. I explained at Committee that the wording of Clause 19 was deliberately chosen in order to give the boards a clear and specific duty to adopt and support schemes for CHP and the use of heat generally.
The noble Lord, Lord Tanlaw, stated during Committee that the position of the Government on CHP was unclear. Surely the inclusion of Clause 19 in the Bill is a clear indication of the Government's attitude. The clause gives firm encouragement to this type of project and removes any doubt about the attitude which boards should adopt.
The Government have also made a positive commitment to investigate thoroughly the economic potential of CHP district heating and is currently assessing the consultants' report on the economic and practical feasibility of CHP district heating schemes in nine locations.
As I said in Committee, I am confident that this clause will encourage the development of CHP schemes and that the amendment of the noble Lord is unnecessary. I must repeat what I said at Committee stage. The boards will be able to carry out schemes themselves or to participate in the schemes of others to adopt and support schemes. If the word "promote" were added to the clause they would then be obliged to promote schemes of other parties acting on their own. I do not believe that it would be practicable to impose such a duty in respect of schemes in which boards have no involvement. I am sorry that I did not make this point clearer at the Committee stage. We are not quibbling at all over what we want: it is just a question of how the Bill should be drafted.
Baroness Phillips: My Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, replies, I wonder whether the Minister can explain what happens if the hoard does not carry out the duty that is imposed upon it. It is such a glib phrase to say, "It shall be the duty". But what happens if boards do not "adopt and support" these schemes?
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I should be happy to answer the noble Baroness by saying that if there was any question of a price not being agreed, I think the matter would go to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for him to adjudicate.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, we have heard what the noble Earl the Minister has said. It is quite clear that it is the Government's view that the electricity authority should do everything possible to promote the development of CHP. It still puzzles me somewhat as to why, if that is their intention, they cannot state it in the Bill. However, if the answer is very clear as a result of this discussion and what the noble Earl the Minister previously said—namely, that they wanted the authorities to promote this but, for some reason (which is unclear to some of us) do not actually want to say so—then I should be very happy to leave matters there. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
4.14 p.m.
Lord Ezra Lord Ezra moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 12, line 1 leave out from ("the") to end of line 3 and insert ("minimum financial criteria set by the Secretary of State for this type of investment by an Area Board").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the proposal here is that we should introduce into Clause 19 the words:
"minimal financial criteria set by the Secretary of State for this type of investment by an Area Board".
The reason for this amendment is that we believe it is so necessary to encourage these new forms of electricity generation that the criteria pertaining to them on a financial basis may not necessarily be the normal criteria which those authorities apply for their normal schemes. We should therefore like to leave it to the Secretary of State, depending upon the circumstances, to agree with the board concerned what those criteria should be. We consider that this proposed amendment would introduce a degree of flexibility and a degree of incentive, and we hope it will be entirely acceptable to the Government.
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, before replying to the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, may I say a word to the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, in answer to her question on Amendment No. 4. I said to her that the Secretary of State would be able to do something; but may I say that in point of fact he could direct the board if it was not doing its statutory duty; and that is how it would be done.
If I may now refer to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, it is suggested that special rates of return—that is, lower rates of return—should be set by the Secretary of State for investment in combined heat and power projects. This follows the line of the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Tanlaw, at Committee stage. It proposes that combined heat and power schemes should be singled out for special treatment and that criteria other than financial should be given priority when a board is considering a scheme.
The Government's overall approach to nationalised industry investment remains that which was outlined in the previous Administration's own White Paper on the nationalised industries (Cmnd, 7131). The nationalised industries should plan their investment so as to achieve a proper rate of return for the programme as a whole. To do otherwise would be to squander national resources. Within this guideline it is for the industries themselves to judge which individual projects seem most worthwhile, but there would need to be special reasons for a board to invest in a major project of any kind which did not seem likely to make its proper contribution to this overall rate of return. I feel that to say such things to the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, is rather idiotic because for 13 years he chaired one of these boards himself; but when I came here today I did not know that he would be moving the amendment rather than the noble Lord, Lord Tanlaw, whom I welcome back in his place.
I would not disagree with the noble Lord that combined heat and power schemes could provide social benefits; but I would point out that CHP investment is not the only type of investment in generating plant where social benefits could arise.
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There is therefore no particular reason to use the argument of social benefit to justify a lower rate of return criterion on CHP projects than on other projects undertaken by the boards. Equally, nor is it the case that electricity boards would be able to impose a requirement that CHP schemes should provide higher rates of return than other projects. The Bill clearly states that the boards should treat CHP schemes on the same economic basis as other projects: no more and no less. Electricity boards would be expected to apply the same criteria to proposals of this kind as they apply to other types of investment. "Financial criteria" is specified in the Bill so that it is clear that the boards are not obliged to adopt or support uneconomic schemes which could result in an increased burden on consumers generally. I hope that the House will agree to leave it like this.
Lord Tanlaw: My Lords, in supporting my noble friend Lord Ezra, may I clarify one point to the noble Earl. I do not think we are asking for charity: that is not the point of this amendment. We are not asking for any special or lower rate of return. We are asking for recognition by the generating boards that different criteria are applied to CHP schemes than those which are applied to straight generating schemes. The noble Earl referred to waste. The whole point of a combined heat and power scheme is to prevent the waste of excessive heat going up the chimney into the atmosphere. In terms of efficiency and lack of waste, I should have thought that the recognition of this alone would have meant a different type of criteria in order to judge such a scheme.
I would also ask the noble Earl to consider that the capital costs may well be higher in putting in the heating pipes, and so on, in a conurbation. But let us take into account the actual increase in employment that this will involve, and which must in a way save money for the Exchequer, which is having to pay out money on unemployment benefits. We have particularly recommended that these schemes should be considered in areas of high unemployment. Therefore the object of this amendment is not in any way not to recognise the Government's strictures laid down in the Command Paper referred to by the noble Earl, but to recognise different criteria by which those rates of return are to be judged. Because there has not been such a scheme in operation in this country before, it is perhaps rather a nuisance for the Government and the electricity boards to work out these financial critieria.
All we are asking is that the Government will look again at this aspect and put forward financial criteria which I feel will hold up perfectly adequately in financial returns and loss of waste to the taxpayer, and which will serve to benefit the taxpayer by offering him a new and cheaper form of heating if he is fortunate enough to live in an area in which a CHP scheme operates.
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, I wonder whether, with the leave of the House, I might reply just very briefly to the noble Lord, Lord Tanlaw, as I have not been able to speak to him before today. First, the criteria which he has mentioned are very good and I will certainly draw to the attention of the boards what he has said today, but I do not think that they

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necessarily come within the ambit of this amendment. May I, too, repeat something I said earlier to the House when the noble Lord was not here. The Government have already said in another place—and I willingly repeat it today—that it may be necessary in the future to review legislative and organisational arrangements in the context of the development of combined heat and power district heating, and this we shall do.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, in view of what the noble Earl the Minister has said, I do not wish to press this amendment. I would only remind the House that we as a country are lagging far behind many continental countries in the application of this type of scheme. Denmark, Sweden, Germany, France and many other continental countries have gone much further ahead than we have, and I believe we have lagged behind because of our ambivalence and uncertainty about these projects. If we want to go ahead with them, there must be a determination and a will so to do. If we remain ambivalent and uncertain we shall find that these other countries will get ahead of us in the efficiency with which they utilise electricity and other forms of energy. With those remarks, I am quite ready to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Social Security and Housing Benefits Bill
4.22 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Lord Trefgarne): My Lords, I beg to move that the Social Security and Housing Benefits Bill be now read a second time.
The purpose of this short Bill is very simple. It is to change the future basis of up-rating social security benefits each year from a forecasting method to an historic, or actual method. Social security is notorious for the creation of obscure terms of jargon, so before going into detail on the Bill's three clauses, I will, with your Lordships' permission, explain the nature of this change and why we believe it to be both necessary and worthwhile.
The Social Security Act 1975 obliges the Secretary of State to review each year the levels of certain weekly benefits to determine whether they have kept their value, having regard to movements in the general level of prices. A similar obligation, but with special provision for housing costs, arises in relation to the needs allowances of housing benefit under the Social Security and Housing Benefits Act 1982.
Under the system which Clause 1 of this Bill replaces, the review had to be carried out in the tax year preceding the November up-rating date, and the Secretary of State was obliged to take into account the expected movement of prices from the date of the last up-rating to the date of the next one. Since 1976 this has meant preparing a forecast in the early part of the year of the likely movements in the period from November to November. Usually the only certain figures available at the time of the review have been those covering the first two or three months since the
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previous November's up-rating. The remaining months have been a forecast based on the best assumptions possible at the time. This method of determining benefit increases came to be known as the "forecast" method.
Unfortunately, this method has not worked at all well in the seven years it has been in use. The forecasts have been wrong in five years out of seven. Sometimes the difference has meant a loss to pensioners and other beneficiaries; sometimes it meant a gain. Pensioners were never quite sure where they stood with these arrangements, because once the differences became clear there was usually a period of months before they knew what was to happen. This led to unnecessary worry and uncertainty and it was a haphazard and unsatisfactory way of providing benefit increases for the 20 million or so beneficiaries concerned.
We think that the time has come to get rid of a forecasting method which has proved to be unreliable, uncertain and a source of worry, and to replace it with a method based on fact and certainty. We propose to review on the basis of actual, or historic, price movements as late in the year as we can manage, and still ensure that beneficiaries get their increases in time. We propose to have the review in June of each year, and to fix the new rates of benefit by reference to the general movement of prices in 12 months from May to May. There is no ulterior motive in the choice of a May to May reference period or of a June review date. We are simply not able to use any later period without risking late payment of the up-rating increases to millions of beneficiaries. And clearly we do not want to move to an earlier review date and thereby widen further than necessary the gap between the review date and the up-rating date. Pensioners have complained in no uncertain terms about the long interval that arose in recent years between a Budget time announcement of new rates and their implementation in November. We intend to improve on that by cutting to five months the gap between the announcement date and the up-rating.
Five months sounds a long time to carry out the administrative work of up-rating benefits. But it is not so long when one considers the size and complexity of the operation. Millions of retirement pensioners and other beneficiaries are paid by means of a book of payable orders produced by the computer and normally covering 20 weeks of payment. The issue of these books must be carefully organised to even out the flow of work, and some books covering the week of the November up-rating start to be issued in late May. We can start the process of up-rating later than this by issuing some beneficiaries with a second book topping up their other payments, but there is a limit to the number of extra books than can be issued in this way.
There is the further problem that the department's local offices must deal clerically with the complex task of reassessment and replacement of order books for some 3 million to 4 million supplementary benefit and invalidity pension cases. We have not yet succeeded in finding the means of transferring such work on to machines or the computer. So we cannot begin the process more than a matter of a few days after the end of June without large numbers of beneficiaries being forced to wait for some time after the November up-rating date for their increases. This is the problem that

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arose when the last Government tried to up-rate in 17 weeks in 1974 and it is one we are determined to avoid. As our operational strategy develops in the coming years we shall be looking towards the possibility of further shortening the gap between the announcement and the up-rating, but we are some way off that point yet.
The main doubts that the Bill has created in the course of discussions in another place are not concerned with the principle of the change to an historic reference period, nor to the choice of the latest possible review date. That is not surprising, because the logic is unassailable. Concern has arisen only at the implications of the change for the 1983 up-rating. This is understandable, because we think the inflation rate in May is likely to be a percentage point or two lower than that in November. But no one should draw any false conclusions from that. Last November pensions and other benefits rose by 2.7 per cent. more than was needed to maintain their values. If we had retained the old method of up-rating we would, as we made clear last autumn, have adjusted to have regard to that unintended over-provision. Had full adjustment been decided upon, if the old method had continued the year's up-rating would have been 3.3 per cent. if a forecast of 6 per cent. was assumed.
But the question of adjustment is not now relevant. The Government are changing the method and for very good reasons. With the change to the historic method this year's up-rating will reflect fully the actual movement of prices from May 1982 to May 1983. We do not know what the rise in prices will be as yet, but it may be in the region of 4 per cent. In addition, pensions will retain the full 2.7 per cent. over-provision from the 1982 uprating. No question will arise of adjustments for error; there will be no shortfalls and no overshoots. We are replacing doubt with certainty and unreliability with stability.
Our pledge to pensioners was that we would fully protect their pensions against inflation over the lifetime of this Parliament. On the best estimates we have, in the five years from November 1978 to November 1983 pensions will have risen by about 75 per cent. and the retail price index by about 70 per cent. We have more than kept our promise to pensioners, despite facing a severe, world-wide economic recession, and that is no small achievement.
So much for the background to the change. I turn briefly now to the details of the Bill's three clauses, though your Lordships may also find it helpful to refer to the notes on clauses which have been made available. Clause 1 amends the present up-rating provisions of Sections 125, 126 and 126A of the Social Security Act 1975, which cover national insurance benefits, attendance allowance and invalid care allowance. The provisions also cover public service pensions. Instead of the statutory review being carried out in the tax year preceding each November up-rating, the amendments defer the review date to June each year, for the reasons that I have explained. This clause will also require future increases to be based on the actual percentage rise in prices in the twelve months to the end of May each year, rather than on a forecast of what might happen between up-rating dates.
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Clause 2 amends Section 29 of the Social Security and Housing Benefits Act 1982, which provides for the annual review of housing benefit needs allowances. The needs allowances are the weekly amounts allowed, in calculating the amount of benefit, for the housing and other needs of housing benefit recipients not on supplementary benefit. I should add that the change will not affect supplementary' benefit claimants on housing benefit. They are automatically eligible for help with all their rent and rates, subject, in some cases, to deductions—for example, if they have non-dependants living with them. Clause 2 simply makes the amendments necessary to enable the review of needs allowances to be done on an historic basis, by reference to actual changes in prices and housing costs. The Secretary of State will still have to report to Parliament if he decides, after a review, not to restore any loss in value.
Clause 3 relates to the Short Title, commencement and extent of the Bill. It ensures that the Bill's provisions apply for the purposes of the 1983 up-rating review, and it allows Northern Ireland to continue to reflect up-rating increases provided for in Great Britain legislation without the need for special new provisions for Northern Ireland.
As I have indicated, not all social security benefits are covered by the Bill, which is limited to those for which legislation is needed to change the method of up-rating. In other cases it is already possible to up-rate by reference to the historic movement in prices. The main benefits not covered by the Bill are supplementary benefit, child benefit, one-parent benefit, family income supplement, mobility allowance and war pensions. We have, of course, already announced a substantial increase in the rates of child benefit from November, as well as a range of other social security improvements. As for other benefits, it is our intention to up-rate these in November 1983 broadly in the same way as the benefits covered by the Bill. That is, we shall have regard to the historic movement in prices over the 12 months from May 1982 to May 1983. Details of the proposed November up-rating will be announced in June.
My Lords, two final points. Your Lordships may ask why we do not restore the link that existed for five years to 1980 whereby basic retirement pension and related long-term benefits rose by movements in earnings or prices, whichever was the higher. The fact is that that system led to a "ratchet" effect whereby benefits in the long run increased faster than either earnings or prices, and this was placing a growing burden on the working population, particularly at a time of high unemployment. Each 1 per cent. real improvement in social security expenditure costs the country about £300 million more a year. That can only be paid out of higher taxes or contributions. It would be irresponsible to introduce provisions of that kind, irrespective of the country's ability to pay.
Second, it may be suggested that we could now move towards more frequent up-ratings at, say, six-monthly intervals. But that again involves a major increase in benefit expenditure and again serves to increase inflationary pressures at a time when we are working successfully to bring inflation under firm control. Each 1 per cent. of the annual up-rating

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brought forward by six months means £150 million more benefit cost in that year. It also leads to pressure for similar concessions for wage earners, again at inceased costs; and it means that the department's staff would be continuously engaged in up-rating benefits. As one was being implemented, so the next would be announced, to the immense confusion of pensioners and the public at large.
I conclude by reminding your Lordships that we are introducing this Bill at a time when we have brought down the annual rate of inflation to its lowest level for 13 years. This in itself is of considerable help to social security beneficiaries. This Bill further helps them by restoring simplicity, certainty and stability to the process of up-rating social security benefits. I commend the Bill to the House.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Trefgarne.)
4.38 p.m.
Baroness Jeger: My Lords, I thank the Minister for making this obscure Bill as clear as possible. My first criticism, which relates to the cost of living, is that this Bill, consisting of three and a half blank pages and three and a half printed pages, costs £1·30. I know that this is not the responsibility of the Minister, but many people are very concerned about what seems to be the increasing cost of official documentation. I very much hope that an opportunity will be taken to look at this matter.
Although the scope of the Bill is narrow, it has wide implications. The main concern of pensioners is not with the academic argument about forecast or historic assessments, but simply with the result: under the Bill, will they be better or worse off? The very respectable organisation called Age Concern suggests that as a result of these changes the Government will save £105 million in the year 1983–84. If the Government save, somebody loses. I cannot help but contrast this with the tax give-away in 1979 off £1,590 million—15 times as much—to the best off, in the higher tax brackets.
I understood that the autumn Budget statement provided for a saving of £180 million on social security. This causes a certain amount of confusion. In the other place—I refer to Hansard of 20th April, col. 302—it was suggested that these changes would save the Government £210 million. Is the Minister able to say what is the correct answer? Mr. Hugh Rossi said on 20th April, at col. 328:
"The arithmetical difference in 1983–84 between an assumption of 4 per cent. inflation and an assumption of 6 per cent. inflation is £210 million".
I have to ask the Minister what sum of money we are talking about. If the Government are saving that sum of money, from whom are they taking it away?
This Bill affects about 20 million people, including dependants, which is a very large proportion of our population. Clause 1 proposes to increase the sums in question by a percentage or amount at least equal to the percentage by which the general level of prices has risen during the period under review. Is that reference to the "general level of prices" based on the retail price index? Has it any connection with the pensioner price index? Does it take into account that so far as retired
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people are concerned only 2 per cent. of pensioners have mortgages? Mortgage rates, we know, are reflected quite considerably in the retail price index—and quite rightly. In the other place there was a great deal of discussion about the position of the retired pensioner. But this Bill concerns not only the retired but widows, unemployed, invalids, people receiving supplementary benefits and public service pensioners. I am grateful that the noble Lord made it clear that it does not refer to war pensioners and war widows, and I hope he may say in reply what proposals the Government have to help these people, who are really having a really difficult time.
I have to ask the Minister one or two other questions. If this whole scheme is based on the fact that there will be a gap between the inflation rate in May and what the inflation rate is in November, what happens to people who die in between? Surely they will never get their money back? What would happen to an unemployed man who was on this lower rate—because he was told to wait until November when he might get a bit more—in the most unlikely circumstance, under this present Government, that he found a job before November? Will he ever get his money back under this arrangement? I must ask the noble Lord the Minister: could we not with modern technology get a shorter gap? We know all about the computerisation that is supposed to be coming in in 1984–85. Can we not get something closer between the forecast and the implementation, or is everybody still sitting around with pens and pencils at the Elephant and Castle and the other places? Surely we could try to bring these things together. Perhaps I may put it to the noble Lord that we might have a six-monthly up-rating. I am not making any party point, because no party can take any pride in its record on this. But it does seem to me that a speedier up-rating is what the pensioners of this country deserve.
I want to ask the noble Lord one or two questions. Can he give an assurance that if inflation is higher in November than in May they will ensure that social security beneficiaries do not lose? What all the people concerned with this Bill want to know is whether they are going to be worse off, and many of them feel that they are going to be worse off. Obviously, if the May inflation rate is 4 per cent. and pensioners have to wait until November, when we are told that inflation might be 6 per cent., there will be a gap in their income. We really must know from the noble Lord the Minister what the position is to be. How can we help them? I would suggest that, to avoid a lot of paperwork, if there is a 2 per cent. rise in inflation between May and November, that on my illiterate, innumerate calculations would come to about one week's benefit, and it might be that, without a lot of clerical work, we could just double up the benefit for a week in November, just add one week's money. Otherwise, there could be a disguised clawback for many of these people.
I am encouraged in suggesting that there ought to be some changes by paragraph 35 of the report of the Social Services Committee of the House of Commons, which says:
"We recommend that in developing its operational strategy the Department bear in mind the considerable advantages that would accrue from the possibility of swifter and more frequent up-rating."

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A year is a very long time for people who are on benefit to have to wait while the Government do all the arithmetic and work out what should happen to them.
I must say a word about Clause 2 housing benefits. This is a Second Reading debate, so perhaps I may go a little wider than the actual Bill. I want to ask the Minister if he is satisfied with what is happening about the housing benefits provisions which have been brought in. How many people are receiving their entitlement? What monitoring is going on to ensure that this drastic change is being effective? I want to ask the noble Lord if housing benefits will be increased as rents or mortgage charges go up, or is the assessment to be annual? The Government promised at an earlier stage that nobody would be more than 70p a week worse off. I do not understand why anybody should be even 70p a week worse off. But I wonder whether if there are not some who are even more badly off at the present time. Have all the councils received the extra money they need, the extra staff? My information is that there is chaos as regards housing benefits. There are 6·7 million householders involved, and I am told that in Newcastle-on-Tyne, for instance, the staff went on strike because of the extra work for which no provision, no extra staff, had been provided. The computers had not been programmed. If only they would abolish computers they might get on better.
I am told that the switchboards are jammed in most of the council offices in the country, that the review boards of appeal have in many cases not been set up. I am told that about 40 local authorities have ordered a computer package from ICL, to be delivered in March, but it has not arrived. Guildford sent out 2,000 emergency handwritten cheques. That is the computer age for you! That was the only way the people in Guildford could get their money. In Salford, faults in the computer package forced the council to issue letters, old-fashioned letters, to 5,200 people advising them that their housing benefit had been wrongly assessed. In Newark all standard housing benefit cases have been wrongly assessed due to computer error. I am taking these figures from an issue of New Society of 28th April. If the Minister wishes to say that they are all wrong, then the House will be interested to hear about that.
I could go on to describe other difficulties, not only from this article but difficulties about which I know from my own information, which show that this system is in chaos and there has been a breakdown in most parts of the country. The liaison between the DHSS offices and local authorities is in a shambles. Supplementary benefit claimants cannot get their money. Landlords are trying to evict people for nonpayment of rent when their non-payment is due to the fact that they have not got the money they are supposed to get.
Then the DHSS office has, among other things, something which is called a yellow form. This is supposed to go to private tenants on supplementary benefit. There appears to be a problem about the yellow forms because some local authorities are receiving hundreds of these and some are not receiving any at all. There seems to be an impossibility of matching the yellow forms to entitlement to housing benefit so that if there are no yellow forms the private
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tenants are not being paid their housing benefit. Therefore, they cannot pay their rent to the landlord and the landlord starts to throw them out. I cannot believe that that was the intention of even this Government, and I cannot believe that is what the Minister wanted.
I hope he can answer some of these questions because, as we said on a previous debate, it seems that the extra resources are not being made available. A lot of extra resources are needed to give local authorities the staff and the abililty to deal with this switchover. That has not happened. This matter has been pushed through in a very raw and difficult state. I apologise for spending time—I and hope your Lordships will not think is too much time—on the housing benefits part of the Bill; but, as an former chairman of a housing committee, I am very concerned about what is happening.
This Bill is so complicated and difficult that I should like to know what steps the Government will take to explain the provisions to the people who ought to benefit from it? Often the people who need to benefit from such legislation are those least able to understand and to realise what their rights are. For instance, if someone is not entitled to supplementary benefit in June, will they be reminded to come back in November? By then they might be entitled to it. What are the Government doing about the take-up problem which we have often discussed in this House? I think that all sides of the House have agreed that there is a fall in take-up, about which we should all be concerned.
I have one final question which I put very seriously to the Minister. I understand that the 17th June is a vital day because then we expect to hear the May figures for inflation and that everything will depend on what is announced on that day. If, for the best of all possible reasons, the House is not sitting, can the Minister asure us that people who will be entitled to some up-rating will not be left in suspense because the House will not—as I hope it will not—be sitting on the 17th June?
4.52 p.m.
Lord Banks: My Lords, I join in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, for his very clear exposition of the purpose and content of this Bill. We on these Benches agree with the linking of benefits to prices. We wish that all benefits were linked to prices, particularly the death grant. We regret that long-term benefits are no longer linked to earnings as well as prices. The noble Lord the Minister referred to that and again to the ratchet effect. I have said previously in this House that we on these Benches are not worried about the ratchet effect because we do not consider that the retirement benefit level is adequate. We accept that there has to be a measure of redistribution if it is to be made adequate, and we believe that we have provided a means of doing that in the tax credit scheme which we have recently published.
The main purpose of the Bill is to deal with the change from the forecast method of assessing inflation to the historic. I want to speak very briefly about that not because it is unimportant but because I believe that the essence of the matter can be put very shortly. I believe that the move is right in principle. I have

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often said that the Government should make such a move and that it was unsatisfactory to have a period of reference which was half in the past and half in the future, and which involved an element of guessing.
The noble Lord the Minister said that the Government have in fact got the guess wrong five times out of seven. Of course, when that happens there are arguments about making good or clawing back. I believe that those disadvantages outweigh the disadvantage in the historic method of a period of delay, although I am glad to hear from the Minister this evening that there are plans to reduce that period as much as possible.
In advocating this move in the past I have said that it ought to be done at a time when inflation is going down. A time of rising inflation, when the Government themselves estimate that inflation will rise, is not the right time to make the change because at such a time beneficiaries lose. it has been explained by the Minister, and referred to by the noble Baroness, that the Government expect inflation will be running at an annual rate of about 4 per cent. in May and at about 6 per cent. by the time we get to next November.
Last year there was an over-estimate, as the noble Lord said, of over 2 per cent. in the forecast and there was speculation as to whether there would be a claw-back. To make the change from the forecast method to the historic method at a time when beneficiaries are likely to lose 2 per cent. must make the operation seem like a backstairs method of obtaining the claw-back, whether or not that is actually the Government's motive. It is undoubtedly true that recipients will be worse off this year and there is no guarantee that they will be fully compensated in the next year. I will not go into the arithmetic of that latter point this afternoon, but no doubt we can do so at a later stage if it seems appropriate.
I must say that some of the criticism from the Labour Front Bench on this issue is a little like the pot calling the kettle black because a Labour Government introduced the present system at a time of falling inflation, thus depriving beneficiaries of £500 million in 1976. Beneficiaries had reason to suppose that they would get an up-rating of 21 per cent. to match the historic rise in inflation but in fact they only received 15 per cent. I was one of those in this House who objected to that at the time.
It is not surprising therefore if the public are cynical about these changes. A move from the historic to the forecast system needs a static or rising inflation rate if beneficiaries are not to lose. A move from the forecast to the historic needs a static or falling inflation rate if beneficiaries are not to lose. In fact both Governments chose the wrong moment to do it so that there was a loss on each occasion.
If the present Government, in the present situation, had acted when they were estimating a declining inflation rate they could have gone back to the more satisfactory historic method with much wider support than they now have. I regret that they have not done that.
4.58 p.m.
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, it is difficult to make a well-rounded Second Reading speech on a Bill of this
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nature. The intentions of the Bill are perfectly clear and in any case have been explained by the noble Lord with his customary clarity. They are to change the basis of indexation for all those benefits listed in Schedule 4, Parts 1, 3, 4 and 5 of the Social Security Act 1975 and of the housing benefit needs allowances introduced by the 1982 Act. The noble Lord also told us that there are certain other benefits, for which legislation is not required, which will be subjected in due course to the same method.
The present method of forecasting at the time of the Budget followed by an implementing order in the summer and implementation at the end of November is to be replaced by the so called historic method whereby uprating is carried out strictly in relation to past movements in prices and housing costs and assessed each June on the experience over the preceding 12 months up to 31st May.
Now this may seem superficially more accurate and therefore to have much to recommend it. Indeed, it is a return to the original method. It would avoid the need for clawing back when an over-estimate has been made or for restoring the shortfall when the forecast has under-estimated the rate of inflation. It would also save the Government the embarrassment of having to decide whether to claw back relatively small over-payments to pensioners and whether or not to make good shortfalls where these occur—matters which form the general substance of so many of our social security debates in your Lordships' House.
It does, however, seem rather curious that the Government have had these second thoughts on their method of assessment so soon after the passing of the 1982 Act and consider these second thoughts of sufficient importance to bring forward yet another Bill less than a year after that Act became law. It cannot be any coincidence that they have chosen their new basis precisely at the moment when inflation has hit its lowest point for years (as the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, himself pointed out) and when it can hardly do anything but rise.
Thus, as the noble Lord, Lord Banks, pointed out, those affected are very likely to be living off a 4 per cent. increase, while inflation is rising to 5 per cent. or 6 per cent. If the next adjustment is to, say, 6 per cent., they may well find inflation outstripping them again and rising to 8 per cent. over that period. Other than on a falling inflation rate, they will always be out of pocket.
Now the explanatory memorandum of the Bill tells us that there will be no effect on public service manpower, which seems pretty obvious. It will presumably take the same number of people to make the annual calculations and produce the benefit books by one method or another. But what the memorandum does not tell us is what calculation has been made of the effect on public expenditure. Age Concern, which has already been referred to by Lady Jeger, have estimated that the Government will save approximately £105 million on pensions alone in 1983–84 and that total savings will be in the region of £210 million. That is a figure which also emerged and was quoted in the debates on this subject in another place. I think the Government should tell us if they agree with those estimates, and, if so, how they can reconcile them with their undertaking to maintain the

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real value of pensions, which the noble Lord claimed has been honoured so far. Even if that is so, it does not take into account what will happen on a rising inflation rate.
It seems to me that if the Government are determined to revert to the old system of up-rating, this makes the case a great deal stronger (if only in the interests of accuracy) for more frequent up-ratings of pensions. Although the Minister, Mr. Rossi, during the Committee stage in another place claimed that biannual up-ratings were so administratively complicated as to be beyond contemplation, this was shot down by my honourable friend Mr. Mike Thomas, and this is a matter we may well want to revert to at the Committee stage in your Lordships' House.
Speaking more generally, I do not wish to seem to treat public expenditure lightly. I do not. I am well aware of the high percentage of national income which is taken up by social security in one form or another. It is perfectly proper for this to be kept under review. But it is equally important that those who are struggling to keep up the most minimal standards of civilised life should not be squeezed intolerably. At a time of profound structural change in industry, with far-reaching effects on the people of this country—including widespread unemployment and earlier retirement—it is vital that the social security system, in combination with the tax system, should perform its function and be seen to perform that function, which is to ensure a fair distribution of sacrifices and rewards. I believe it is very important that the Government keep this in mind and resist the temptation to nibble away at every possible opportunity at the minimum requirements for survival in a harsh industrial climate. It is quite wrong to think you can only afford a good social security system when times are good. It is when times are hard that you need it most.
Since Social Security Bills are generally used as an occasion for fairly wide-ranging debate in the social security field—and particularly as this Bill does not in itself give us a great deal to discuss—I hope that noble Lords will forgive me if I mention briefly the Supplementary Benefit (Requirements) (Long-Term Rates) Amendment Regulations 1983 which were passed by your Lordships on the nod last Thursday. I had intended to say a short word about this, but, while I was politely waiting for the Opposition Front Bench spokesman, Lady Jeger, to rise to her feet, the Question was put and the occasion passed. In fact, I had intended to welcome the measure, which in effect removes entirely the qualifying period of 52 weeks in receipt of a supplementary allowance before a man over 60 can opt for the long-term rate of the supplementary benefit until the pensionable age of 65. I believe that this is a further small step in the right direction—that is, in easing withdrawal from the labour market of those who are very unlikely to find further full-time employment.
It was one of the recommendations of your Lordships' Select Committee on Unemployment (I think at Chapter 14, paragraph 46) that the long-term unemployed over 55 should in effect be able to opt for early retirement on long-term supplementary benefit
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rates. While congratulating the noble Lord on the Government's opening up this option unconditionally to all men over 60, I was going to ask him what the Government's intentions are towards those a little further down the age range. I hope he would agree with the Select Committee that it is one of the best, cheapest and most humane ways of bringing about a reduction in the supply of labour at the older end of the market. Of course, I shall not expect an answer from him this evening, but I wanted to get this down on the record, and perhaps I might hope for a letter in due course indicating whether the Government intend to extend this option progressively downwards to those over 55 who are unlikely to obtain further work.
Finally, as I have said, we are somewhat suspicious of the Government's motivation in bringing this Bill to Parliament at this particular time, as the noble Lord, Lord Banks, has also suggested. We would agree both with the Government and with him that the historic principle is the right one, but whether this was the moment to do it, and what the immediate effects will be on pensioners and other beneficiaries, is not entirely clear. I shall reserve our detailed criticism until the Committee stage of the Bill.
5.7 p.m.
Baroness Phillips: My Lords, I intervene merely to assist the Minister. As someone who has been a spokesman on social security both in Government and from the Opposition Front Bench, I have maintained a great interest in it. I should merely like to repeat a comment that I have made at least twice before when the question of pensions has been raised. We have heard tonight how very complicated it is to make the calculations because of the varying types of benefit, but I would suggest that a very large number of retirement pensioners (certainly widows) receive possibly an identical amount. We are told that the length of time between the calculation and the actual starting of a given benefit has to be something like five or six months. It has always amazed me why Governments do not adopt the methods that other institutions do. It is different when people are going to take money away from you. Increased prices can be introduced the following day. British Rail have a very simple method of increasing the price on tickets. They use a rubber stamp. I suggest that they do it on millions of tickets. They are not concerned with only a few. For a long time we had a £25 marking on a cheque card. The banks told us that that could automatically be read as £50 if you wished to withdraw that amount.
On the ordinary, uncomplicated retirement pension benefit book, for £31 we could in future easily read £32. It is hardly likely to be £62 under this Government. It seems to me that anything which will shorten the period between the announcement of an increase and its actual receipt can only be for the benefit of people, who, as my noble friend Lady Jeger explained, may perhaps never live to collect any increased benefits. The length of time needed for this calculation has always been advanced as one reason for the delay. This is something that any Government should look at to shorten the period.
5.9 p.m.
Lord Wallace of Coslany: My Lords, I rise first of all to thank the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, for his

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extremely short but very detailed speech. Unlike another speaker, I do not rise exactly to assist the Minister. The noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, did so. With regard to the point which she made about British Rail altering fares, I would say that this is quite easy to do. A supermarket can alter its prices overnight, though unfortunately in most cases they go up, instead of down.
Today we debate yet another social security Bill. The number of social security Bills put forward during the life of this Parliament must be an absolute record. The theme of all of them has been financial saving, and this one is no exception. This is a curate's egg of a Bill, good in parts, but not so good in other parts. Indeed, quite a proportion of it seems good on the surface, but after scrutiny is found to be not so good. It is estimated that overall, as a result of the various Government measures on social security and allied benefits, savings effected so far by the Government amount to £2 billion. References have been made to estimates by Age Concern of savings of £105 million. At least two noble Lords have spoken about it. This relates to pensions alone, and is based on the theory that 4 per cent. now will be 6 per cent. in November. In another place Members have made the savings total even more, but of course they might be guessing. I should say that Age Concern is more likely to be accurate.
The cut of 5 per cent. in unemployment benefit imposed in 1980 is at last to be made good, though not until November. This is to be welcomed as far as it goes. The restoration comes 16 months after unemployment benefit became taxable. Its effect upon the incomes of the unemployed will be negligible, since for the majority of them it will be matched by an equivalent reduction in their supplementary benefit. The unemployed aged over 60 are now immediately entitled to the long-term rate of supplementary benefit. However once again the under-60s do not receive it—a situation which in 1981 the Social Security Advisory Committee described as "wholly unjust".
The closing of the "invalidity trap" is to be welcomed, but entitling invalidity pensioners under 60 to claim the long-term rate of supplementary benefit after one year on invalidity benefit and immediately entitling those over 60 mean that the Government are forcing people on to a means-tested supplementary benefit, rather than improving their National Insurance benefit.
I now turn to another 5 per cent. cut, which is not mentioned in the Bill. I wish to ask the Government: when will the 5 per cent. cut in invalidity benefit be restored? It has not so far been mentioned in today's debate, and it is certainly not mentioned in the Bill.
When a week yesterday there was telephoned to me news of the change of business for today, my immediate reaction was, "Ah! So it's to be a June election". That may of course be so if the headmistress makes up her mind. But as my noble friend Lady Jeger has mentioned, June plays a significant part in the Bill. It plays a significant part simply because it will be the month of decision on the amount of benefits up-rating based on price increases as at 31st May, not on a forecast of price increases in November, with inflation likely to be at 4 per cent. at the end of May and a Government forecast of an inflation rate of 6 per cent.
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in November. That is rather interesting and very clever stuff on the part of the Government. There is no straightforward (if that is the appropriate word) clawback, but rather a devious way of securing recovery of last year's overshoot of 2.7 per cent. which was due to miscalculation in forward forecasting. This afternoon various suggestions on forecasting have been made, including the use of more computers, and other methods. But whatever method is adopted, forecasting cannot be accurate. The fairest way is to relate the issue to prices or wages, whichever is the higher, as was past practice. Furthermore, I would add that there is certainly a need for more frequent reviews, though one cannot reasonably suggest reviews more often than every six months.
It is said that this House contains many experts on many subjects. I do not pretend to be one of those, except on the matter of shopping. I make that claim advisedly because I have been well trained. On the subject of inflation I would say that many items used in Government calculations do not appear in the budget of the pensioner, the unemployed, and other types of social security beneficiary. I now come to the expert bit. Being closely involved in my household's weekly shopping, as well as being sent on my own on other occasions—having been well trained, as I have said—I am well aware that prices of food and other essential items for families or individuals on a small budget do not seem to be going down: on the contrary, they seem to be going up. It is quite usual to hear among elderly pensioners when shopping the comment, "They say inflation has gone down. I don't know where—money doesn't seem to go far these days". That is a very frequent comment. I have heard it when going around the shops, and virtually every Friday my wife says it to me, too. So make no mistake about it, my Lords: I know something about it.
Comments of that kind indicate what is nowadays a fact of life for people on social security benefits. The retail price index does not fully reflect the expenditure pattern of pensioners and others on benefits. This is borne out in a recent report—House of Commons Paper 123—of the Social Services Select Committee, which stated:
"There are good grounds for believing that the welcome fall in the rate of inflation over the past 12 months has not been fully reflected in the expenditure patterns of pensioners and other groups of social security beneficiaries".
By way of example the committee pointed to fuel and light costs, which account for a higher proportion of the expenditure of pensioners and low income families than that of other households. Between November and December 1982 the fuel and light component of the RPI (the retail price index) rose by 2 per cent., and the RPI itself rose by only 0.5 per cent. There is no doubt whatever—it must be done somehow—that the official pensioners' price index, quite apart from the retail price index, urgently needs to be reviewed.
Of course, the cost of benefits is becoming a national financial burden, but we must not forget that a figure of well over 3 million unemployed is costly to the nation financially and represents a pitiful waste of human energy and resource. What is the annual cost of unemployment benefit and allied supplementary benefit? Whatever huge sum it might be, it represents the cost to the country of Government policy.

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I note that Clause 3(2) of the Bill, on page 3, states:
"This Act shall be deemed to have come into force on 16th March 1983".
In other words, although we have not yet passed the Bill and Royal Assent is still awaited, its provisions are to be backdated. Why? Has it anything to do with a June election? That brings me to a point made by my noble friend Lady Jeger, and I should like to go into perhaps a little more detail. Parliament could be prorogued in June or even late May. The retail price index comes out on 17th June which is also the starting date for changing the books of millions of beneficiaries. I wish to know whether a decision will be reached and operated without parliamentary approval.
Another point is the great inconvenience caused to those on the Labour Benches and other Benches on this side of the House. I understand that the committee stage is being pushed forward to Monday 9th May. What is the reason for what appear to be these panic measures? The whole matter is being rushed through with indecent haste.
This Bill, compared to some, appears on the surface to be a small measure with only three clauses. With one honourable exception, it is of interest only to the Front Benches of this House. But, in my view, it is a cunning and devious measure carefully calculated to deceive. It is window dressing for a possible early election. The Bill is probably the last of a long series of social security measures during the lifetime of this Parliament. If that is the case, I welcome it with a great sigh of relief.
5.21 p.m.
Lord Trefgarne: I, too, welcome the measure, but perhaps for rather different reasons from those of the noble Lord. I am grateful to every noble Lord and noble Baroness who has contributed. I cannot say that all of them agree with every single word that appears in the Bill. I fancy, however, that the main thrust of the proposals, which, as I stated in my opening remarks, is to replace doubt with certainty and unreliability with stability, has found an echo even with noble Lords and noble Baronesses opposite.
A number of points have been put to me. I shall deal with as many as possible and at least with the most important of them. Any that I fail properly to deal with now, I shall endeavour to respond to subsequently by correspondence. The noble Baroness, Lady Jeger, asked how much money was to be saved by these proposals. This point was echoed by the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock. The difference between the money that will be caused to be spent in the increases this year and the money that might have been spent had the old system still been in force or some other system devised would have depended upon the assumptions that we made when we were forecasting, as it fell to us to do, under the old system. I can go no further than my honourable friends in the other place when they mentioned various figures that had been mooted and which they broadly confirmed. For example, the basic difference between a 4 per cent. and a 6 per cent. up-rating is indeed about £210 million. That was one of the figures to which the noble
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Baroness, I think, referred. But these figures, emphasise, are speculative. They are based on various assumptions that may or may not have proved accurate in the upshot.
What we have done, as your Lordships will appreciate, is to alter the basis of these calculations so that pensioners know precisely where they stand. To take up another point made by the noble Baroness, the shortfall, if there is one, in the June up-rating, when it comes to be announced, will, of course, be made good in the following year because the reassessment period runs from May to May.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jeger, also asked a number of points about housing benefit. The implementation of housing benefit reassessment in local offices and local authorities has generally been completed at least as fast as the reassessment of cases for rent changes in previous years under the old scheme. Progress reports have been collected from various local authorities. I understand that, as soon as they have been collected, my honourable friend the Minister for Social Security will make the results known in an appropriate way.
The noble Baroness asked me about progress in implementing the scheme of housing benefits. My honourable friend intends to make some observations about that. I cannot deny that there have been some local problems and doubtless a few individual mistakes. That is not surprising when we consider that we are introducing a new scheme involving over 5 million claimants. However, there have been no breakdowns. Ministers have received practically no correspondence from right honourable and honourable Members of another place. From my own experience, I am certain that had there been any widespread difficulty we would have received a welter of correspondence from honourable Members, and indeed from noble Lords.
Progress reports entering our headquarters show that local offices reassessed nearly 90 per cent. of supplementary benefit claimants in the main start by 18th March, which was their target date. Most of the remaining cases were completed by Easter. On the local authority side, three-quarters of the existing rebate changes were reassessed on time. Where cases had not been reassessed on time, this was due to a variety of factors, often local in origin and, in many cases, not directly associated with housing benefit. A good example of difficulties was the recent industrial action in DHSS offices at Birmingham and Oxford that had a knock-on effect on housing benefits.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jeger, asked me about publicity for what she regarded as this complex measure. I am not sure that it is a complex measure. I think, on the contrary, that we are introducing a much more certain and reliable arrangement for pensioners. The announcement, when it comes to be made in June, will be subject to affirmative parliamentary resolution, I think by both Houses, immediately after, or at an appropriate moment after, the order is laid. The noble Baroness asked me some other points about housing benefit. I can assure her that the amount of housing benefit that a person receives goes up when rents and rates rise as well as when the needs allowances are increased.

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The noble Baroness also asked about the link with mortgage costs. The housing benefit scheme is designed to help with the cost of rent and rates. It does not give assistance specifically with mortgage costs. That being so, movements in mortgage interest do not play a part in settling the rate of the housing benefit needs allowance. Because of this, the change to a historical review has no particular relevance to the measurement of mortgage costs for the purpose of up-rating the needs allowances. The costs are therefore outside the scope of the scheme.
The noble Lord, Lord Banks, drew attention to the Liberal plans to which I believe he was a significant contributor. I referred to that scheme when the noble Lord spoke on the social security orders the other day. Perhaps I need not say more about that now. The noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, and the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Coslany, asked me about extending the long-term scale rate to those below 60 years of age. I was asked for an indication of Government thinking on the proposal to extend entitlement down from the age of 60 to 55. I can tell both noble Lords that they should not have to wait too long. The proposal was one of those included in the report of Social Services Committee on the age of retirement. The Government are still considering that report and their detailed response. We hope to make our views known shortly. I cannot, of course, forecast what our decision will be on the particular matter that has been raised, but we shall touch upon it in our response.
I was also asked by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, why abatement is still applied to invalidity pension. We have undertaken that the abatement of invalidity pension will be made good when invalidity benefit is brought into tax. A date for that has not yet been fixed. If there are any other points that I have not properly dealt with, I shall be happy to reply to them in correspondence. Meanwhile, I invite your Lordships to give the Bill a second reading. I beg to move.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Copyright (Amendment) Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.
Coromers' Juries Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.

American Bases in Britain
5.30 p.m.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, I beg to ask the Unstarred Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. I should like to begin by reading the Question. It is:
"To ask Her Majesty's Government why they have been reluctant to reveal the growth of American nuclear and other bases in this country and whether they now agree that it is urgent to establish British operational control over nuclear weapons at all such bases."
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The Question is framed in a manner which I hope will maximise support. It in no way attempts to go to the position which some of us might like to follow, and that is to get rid of nuclear weapons altogether. The Question does not even go to the point of saying that the cruise missile and the Pershing II missile should not be deployed at all. However, many of us—and a larger number than those who believe in total nuclear disarmament—would at least go so far as to say that Pershing II and cruise missiles should not be deployed and would only exacerbate the nuclear tensions which now spread over Europe.
The Question goes only a very small way indeed, but it goes to a point which I believe will gain the support of all those speakers who are to take part in this short debate with the possible exception of the noble Lord, Lord Belstead. However, I hope that even he may say that such is the moderation of the Question put to him that the Government are looking at it with great care and that they are in negotiation with the American Government with a view to re-asserting British control over nuclear weapons in our own area.
Therefore, it is a modest question, a question which will not only unite every member of the Labour Party, but will, I believe, carry with it the spokesman on the Liberal Benches, who, in my view, is now a spokesman for peace. He has his own ideas, but whatever may have been the case in the past, today the noble Lord is a man who, in his own way, is seeking peace as indeed are most of us. I believe also that I shall carry with me in this Question the noble Lord, Lord Kennet. And, of course, we shall have Labour support. Indeed, I think that on this occasion the Front Bench will have no difficulty in going the whole way with me, though they would probably regard the Question as not going far enough and would like it to go a good deal farther. So should I; but I shall endeavour to restrain my noble friend on this occasion from dismissing this as a small and insufficient measure, on the grounds that on this occasion what we are really trying to do is not to castigate the Government but to bring them with us, to put forward something which I believe all patriotic Conservatives would say was close to their heart—namely, the reassertion of the power of this Government in their own territory, if not over the face of the globe. I am pretty sure, too, that we shall carry many Cross-Benchers with us.
Therefore, I think that we shall have a majority of the House, but I am not sure whether we shall carry the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, with us. Experience shows that one should not be too optimistic about that. However, we shall hope that, by the end of the debate, such will be the power, not of what I say but of what noble Lords who follow me will say in support of the Question, that the noble Lord will give us an answer which, if not in the complete, immediate affirmative will be of such a character as to lead us to believe that there may be some hope, whereas at present there is little but despair.
In this Question I have referred to the reluctance of the Government to reveal the growth of American bases in this country. I shall demonstrate that apparent reluctance in a moment. But it occurs to me that it may be not so much a case of reluctance as—I was going to say of ignorance; but in my new-found policy of conciliation with the Government I shall not say

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that. I shall suggest instead that it is a question of lack of knowledge, which I shall describe in a moment.
In a previous debate I referred to the American military presence in this country as being that of a country within a country. Of course one country does not always know what is going on in another, even when that country's military and intelligence network exists within the borders, the waters, and the air-space of the host country.
The pattern of American military presence in Europe was established first in Germany. Of course the Germans during the war and immediately after it were not told what was going on and nobody thought that they should be told or expected that it was proper for them to be told. But that pattern appears to have been followed throughout Europe. Indeed, it is understandable that it was followed throughout Europe. After all, the American forces landed with our own in France and advanced throughout Europe and established their methodology of operation throughout the whole of Europe and, indeed, in their bases—mostly air force bases, but many other bases as well—in this country at that time.
It is not clear that the American military and communications complex draws any sharp distinction between its role and behaviour in an ex-enemy country and its similar presence on the territory of European countries which are now seen as forward bases in the struggle against the Soviet Union. There is, in fact, no fundamental difference in the methodology deployed by the American network in Germany, England, Belgium or Holland.
The nearer one comes to Soviet-controlled territory, the more apparent is the American presence. But apart from that, the policy is for the United States forces to be self-sufficient—to have their own communications network, their own food and entertainment, certainly not to live off the land of the host country; and for the presence of thousands of servicemen to be as inconspicuous as possible. It is a far cry from the wartime intermingling depicted in the film "Yanks"—something which I remember well from my own service days, because I worked with the Americans on and off from the time of the Eagle Squadron in the Royal Air Force until the end of the war in Europe.
Let no one imagine that I am remotely anti-American; on the contrary, experience has given me much admiration for that country. I must say that I cannot admire their political system as much as I do our own, with all the faults that I discern even in our own—faults with which, on some other occasion, I shall probably bore your Lordships, but certainly not tonight. As much as I dislike and, frankly, am afraid of the present Government of the United States—and I think that there are many Americans who share that fear—this does not remotely mean that I am in any way anti-American or that anybody who discerns danger in the American presence in this country becomes anti-American. Not at all. We believe that we are speaking for the best in America, because there are many Americans who are, as I shall demonstrate by quoting in a moment, concerned with current developments of the American industrial military complex, as are many of us in this country.
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First, I deal with the apparent reluctance to disclose the extent of the American military presence. In June 1980 the Foreign Secretary disclosed the existence of 12 American bases. In another place Mr. Cryer pressed for this disclosure of back-up and communications bases. The matter developed, but before I proceed, I would point out that in their own way these back-up and communications bases are just as important as the forward operational bases. Mr. Pym, then Defence Secretary, listed another 38 such bases. A month later another three emerged, making a total of 53 disclosed in 1980. But in November of that year another 10 operating bases were found, and finally this year the total went up to 75.
It is known that there are even more than this. A map and a list were published in the New Statesman—apparently, it was a Soviet military map—so the department of the noble Lord was pressed still further, this time without result. But according to Mr. Duncan Campbell, who is the authority on the subject, writing in the Observer, the list is still incomplete. The Government's admissions include small, unmanned communications relay stations but omit many important manned sites. The Minister may say that it is only the "titches"—the minor ones—that have been omitted. That is not actually the case. Some minor bases have been included and some rather major ones have been left out. All in all, it seems that there may be twice as many as even the much larger number now admitted—in other words, somewhere between 100 and 150; certainly not fewer than 100, and a far cry from Mr. Pym's original dozen.
My first question to the noble Lord is this. Was this concealment or was it lack of knowledge, or was it both? Was the Government's disinformation on the point intentional, or did they not know? The Minister has claimed that American bases in this country are committed to NATO but, for example, he omitted from the list the Oakhanger tracking station, which is one of the seven stations which cover the United States, Air Force secret military and spy satellites. Over 1000 million dollars was committed to improve Oakhanger and its fellow stations last year.
What about Liverpool Port?—described as a major installation by the Americans who are much more open about these matters than we are. If one wants information about what the Americans are doing in the United Kingdom, it seems that one either has to go to America for it or to the Soviet Union. In either country one can get much more complete information than any of us have been able to extract from Government Ministers on this, point.
Of course, it is the lives of our people who are either to be preserved, as some people would say, or threatened by the existence of these bases. So either way it is important for our people to know what is going on in their name what the Government are permitting and, their reluctance to reveal has been intentional, why it is that they have refused to tell our people—who, after all, are the people in the front line—what apparently the Russians know all about and what apparently the Americans know all about.
As I say, what about Liverpool Port?—which is unlisted here, but which is described as a major installation by the Americans. What of six other unlisted

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terminals? What about Prestwick? Is that now going ahead or has it been abandoned? Did the Government know about that or not? I think that we are entitled to know.
I now turn to the second part of my Question, that of operational control. If we are charitable—and, as I have made clear, I am in a charitable mood tonight—and we assume that the Government believe their own denial of the existence of most of the American bases in this country to be the reality and the truth at the time, that is even more alarming from the point of view of controlling nuclear weapons. For if the Government are unaware of the extent of our peril, how can they control it?
This illustrates a point which I think any staff officer could explain to the noble Lord the Minister: that political control without operational control is ineffective; that operational control is the executive arm of political decision-making, and that without it political orders may well be just whistling in the wind. Let us suppose that during the recent expedition, or sadness, in the South Atlantic we had not exercised effective operational control over the submarines which were deployed there. Let us suppose that the submarines instead of being under British control were under some foreign control, perhaps American. Would there have been a sinking of the "Belgrano"? The Prime Minister would not have been able to give the order. Some of us may believe that that would have been a highly beneficent outcome and that a peace might have been secured if that had not occurred, without the loss of life which followed.
I believe that any Member of this House who has any military experience whatever would agree with me that, if you want to be effective, you must have operational control and that political decision-making is not enough in time of tension and, certainly, in time of war. One must be certain that one's orders will be obeyed, and that an order not to fire will be regarded as absolutely sacrosanct and to be obeyed as much as an order to fire.
Surely that must be the first essential if we have any regard for the safety of our own people. I charge the Government with being careless with the safety of their own people if they will not exercise their own control, if they will not go to the Americans and say, "If we cannot have control over cruise missiles in our own country, then the price we exact for that is that they will not come here".
I want to say why, if we did not have cruise missiles, I do not think that that would be a disaster, or something about which we would be sorry. I believe that it would be a very great benefit to everyone if we never had them at all. The danger of the cruise missiles, and especially of those under foreign operational control in our country, is that they are cheap, small, and impossible to verify. Not only could they not be detected by Soviet satellites, they could not even be checked by the Government, for the Americans enjoy untrammelled rights to bring in what they like and do as they please within their own bases.
As the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Carver, has pointed out, privileges which the Americans rightly enjoyed in simpler wartime and post-war years have been extended into a period in which they have
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become not a protection but a horrible danger to the host country. Those words are mine, not Lord Carver's. But the point I make is that the situation is different today from what it was in the wartime and post-war years, which is the point that the noble and gallant Lord—I am sorry he is not here this evening—will agree that he has made time and time again. I freely admit that the noble and gallant Lord does not go so far as I should like on many of these issues; but that is also true of many noble Lords who I believe will be speaking in favour of the general line of this Question later in this debate.
What is more, the introduction of cruise missiles—for of course they will be matched by the Soviet Union—means the end of verification, because indeed—and I do not think that the noble Lord who will reply to the debate will disagree with me—verification of these small weapons is almost an impossibility. The question of where they are—and they can be moved about—as to whether they are loaded with a nuclear warhead or a conventional warhead are questions impossible of verification. If this is so—and I believe that it is—certainly they are impossible of verification by satellite, which is the customary method of verification now employed in respect of all the missiles currently deployed—then arms control becomes impossible and we are on a straight road to Armageddon.
It is no good talking about cruise not being a first strike weapon. Now it is true that the so-called demonstration shot, which NATO chiefs are alarmingly so fond of, would probably be launched by Pershing 2 missiles, or perhaps even by a battlefield weapon, rather than by cruise, but it would be just as fatal. Furthermore, surprise—which is the essence of first strike—can be achieved militarily in two possible ways. First, as in the case of the Pershing, by speed of attack and quickness of arrival, before the defence can be deployed. But it can also be achieved, as anybody knows who has ever studied these matters, by concealment, by the evasion of detection. That could not be achieved by Pershing, but it is the main characteristic of cruise.
Therefore, the question of whether cruise would, or would not, be used in a first strike capacity is a military decision. It has nothing to do with the characteristics of the weapon itself. There is nothing in the slow but evasive approach of the cruise weapon which makes it inherently a second strike weapon. It is 10 times more accurate than the Soviet SS20, and it is impossible to tell by surveillance whether or not the cruise is carrying a nuclear warhead. This means that deterrence is at an end. This is a nuclear war fighting weapon, because you cannot deter by something which your prospective enemy can know nothing about. He therefore can only respond, and that means nuclear war.
Cruise, as distinct from Pershing, is not a ballistic missile. It stems from the old German terror weapon, the V bomber. Like it, it is a small, pilotless, self-guiding airplane. It is about 15 feet long. It can reach most parts of the Soviet Union from here, and it can carry a nuclear weapon 15 times as lethal as the Hiroshima bomb. One of them could kill a million people and render the whole of Moscow or Leningrad uninhabitable, full of dead, or dying, men, women and

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children. It is extremely accurate, and it is designed to explode within a few meters of its pinpointed target.
It can be launched by air, by submarine, by ship, or from a land-based vehicle, say a lorry. The cruise missiles fly close to the ground, and although subsonic are difficult to detect by radar. For that very reason they are subsonic. If there were time I could describe to your Lordships the method. Did I understand the noble Lord to say there is time?
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Belstead): No, my Lords.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: No? If that is so, I shall restrain myself, because there are other speakers in the debate. However, my Lords, I understand that the normal limitations which are placed on these debates are not very closely, firmly and heavily upon us this evening for one reason or another. As I was saying, cruise is about 15 feet long and it can carry a weapon of most horrible lethality. Plans for a supersonic model of cruise are well advanced; but in my own view these plans, like most nuclear plans, are a complete waste of time, because already on both sides we have more than enough overkill to destroy each other several times over.
The United States now proposes in its present plans to deploy some 3,000 air-launched cruise missiles capable of eliminating the USSR by themselves a thousand times over, and several hundred sea-launched cruise missiles as well. That is as well as the quite unnecessary hundreds of land-based cruise missiles they plan for Britain and the rest of Europe. This brings me to the point I mentioned earlier. If the Government were to decide that they want a dual key arrangement on these weapons or they will not have them, and if the Americans were to say, "All right. No cruise", then the fact that they were not coming here would not decrease our power to resist. On the contrary, it would increase our safety.
The plan to fill Europe with these things is the act of a madman, and if they come our civilisation is doomed, and perhaps the expectation of life of a child born today is not greater than my own. We have not the right to deprive our children of a future. It is useless to prate that the nuclear weapon has kept the peace. That point is unprovable. But even if it has, the cruise weapon will bring that peace and our world itself to an end too horrible to be encompassed in the mind of man.
There is no secret in the fact that I, like the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, should like to get rid of all nuclear weapons; but in this Question I am putting a much more limited objective. In doing so I think I am speaking, as I said at the beginning, for a large number of people who have not, as yet, come with us all the way on nuclear disarmament. I am not looking for a whole loaf tonight: I am not even asking for half a loaf. A nuclear freeze, I suppose, would be a reasonable half-loaf which would carry many people with us. A nuclear freeze would gain me not only the support of all the Labour Party, but of the SDP and the Liberals, some Cross-Benchers; certainly the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman—who has expressed himself most trenchantly on this issue recently in the
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Spectator—but perhaps even some of the Conservatives. There are Conservatives against the bomb—thank God!
I believe that the balance of argument on this issue has in recent months undergone a subtle change, and that the Government (who were on the attack) are now on the defensive. That is demonstrated by the unnecessarily vigorous nature of the polemic they are currently deploying against CND. Rather than to attack the CND in terms of personality, the Government would do better to ask themselves why these arguments—not yet the total argument of unilateral nuclear disarmament—which see the peril of the nation, clearly are now gaining such widespread support throughout the country. Is it not that the nuclear weapon has undergone a subtle change, and that if it ever was a deterrent it is no longer so? It has now become something that unless we stop it, or pull it back to the point at which it was a deterrent, will lead to the destruction of us all.
I am asking only for a crumb and it is a crumb which all those I have mentioned I believe would welcome. It must surely appeal to patriotic Conservatives. It is merely the reassertion of the power of the Government to control our fate. I do not want cruise missiles here at all. I shall give every possible support to the Greenham Common women and everyone else who seeks to oppose their arrival. Even those who are opposed to these methods surely will say, "Let us have this issue out within our own borders. Let us be the people who decide what is to be our own fate". Even in respect of the nuclear weapons already here—not only the cruise which are coming; we already have plenty of American nuclear weapons here—we must surely exercise our right of physical operational control to ensure, to support and, if necessary, to enforce the political control which we are said to enjoy.
Will the Government now agree that it is urgent to establish British operational control over all nuclear weapons in this country? That urgency is an aspect of technological advance in the nuclear age, an aspect of the increase in the horrifying power of nuclear weapons and of human ingenuity in the means of delivering destruction and death. We have to change our operational systems to cope with that technological advance or we shall be destroyed.
The Government must move in this matter. If they do not, much support will be withdrawn from them. It is no good arguing that arrangements made in earlier and simpler times are adequate for today. They are not. We are in peril, and if the Government do not recognise it and decide that our fate must be firmly in our own hands, they will not deserve to retain their support in the country.
6.5 p.m.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins opened by saying that he would speak in a conciliatory and non-controversial manner on two very narrow issues—the issue of the number of American bases in this country and the issue of dual safety-catches on missiles. For several minutes the noble Lord stuck to his good resolutions; but, as the speech developed more familiarly, we had an attack in

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the broadest way on the American bases, on missiles and on cruise missiles in particular.
I propose not to follow the noble Lord on the broader questions, but to make a few comments on the two specific questions that he raised. I am very glad to follow him, particularly because of his kind tribute to me as a man of peace—a tribute which will give me much to think about—and also because he and I were members of Labour Governments which warmly welcomed the presence of American nuclear bases in the country. When I think back I am quite sure that Clem Attlee, Ernest Bevin and Nye Bevan, Hugh Gaitskell and James Callaghan, all those who warmly welcomed these American bases, would say today that they were right so to do. The nuclear presence has been successful, in as much as we have never come within a remote distance of ever having to operate from the bases. I am sure that if they were here tonight they would say that the problem has not changed as we have not changed our minds. What has changed is our Labour Party. That is what they would say and they would be right. That has been the essential change in the situation we have today.
The Labour Party is in opposition, it has no control over its extreme Left and therefore it commits itself to the removal of American bases within the lifetime of a Labour Government, if one is elected. It does not oppose of course the Western nuclear deterrent. It can see completely that unilateral nuclear disarmament in the West would concede military supremacy worldwide to the Soviet Union, and the Labour Party does not want that. That is perfectly clear. What it says is that the West needs a nuclear deterrent but that Britain must have no part in it. That is the Labour Party's position. It is hard to see how one could devise a more illogical and morally ambiguous defence policy than that.
There are of course non-nuclear nations in NATO; but, unlike them, Britain has contributed to the Western deterrent by providing these bases in the past. To withdraw them now, to throw more responsibilities on to our allies, to incur—quite rightly—their resentment and mistrust, would divide and weaken the alliance and that is certainly not acceptable to my noble friends and me on these Benches. If it is morally right for the West to have a nuclear deterrent, why is it morally wrong for the British to help in it? That is a question we should like to hear answered from the Front Bench tonight.
I thought that the noble Lord was on stronger ground when he spoke about the need for dual control over these missiles. Here I should like to ask some questions of the Government. We know already the broad line of the Government's defence. It stands on the 1952 agreement which conferred joint political control on the Americans and the British over the firing of these missiles; joint political control not accompanied by joint physical control. The Government assert that joint political control is enough. But one or two doubts must creep in. I put to the Government that it was after 1952 that joint physical control was imposed on a series of missiles, such as the Thor, the Lance and the Honest Johns. If joint political control was enough then why did we have joint physical control over a number of missiles? I also ask the Government about the costs that they say this
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proposal would incur. The cost of actually technically safeguarding the missiles with dual safety catches is negligible. The actual cost of doing the job is not in dispute.
The Government take the line that we would have to buy all the missiles. On March 1st in the House of Commons the Secretary of State for Defence declared that it would cost us £1,000 million, the assumption being I suppose that, although the project would be a joint project, the Americans would pay nothing towards it. Is that the assumption of the Government? If so, it is simply ridiculous; and we should like to know the answer to that question. And we should like to know whether it has ever been discussed with the Americans. When I asked in a parliamentary Question about discussions between the two Governments on this issue, I was told, no; that since the Government took over they have not specifically discussed the question of the cost of putting dual safety catches on these missiles.
I suggest that they should discuss it with the Americans quite urgently. I think that they might well find that President Reagan will be willing to pay at least a substantial part—if not perhaps the whole cost—of this operation. Fortunately, it is extremely unlikely that the provision of dual safety catches will ever have any operational importance. But it has importance in the sense of raising questions of sovereignty, and raising questions of equality of partnership. I think that for the British it involves questions of self-respect and, in the case of the Americans, I think that common sense and courtesy would lead them to adopt this proposal. I think therefore that the Government need to answer some of the questions raised by the noble Lord. I think that they are wrong to dismiss this proposal out of hand, as they have done.
6.12 p.m.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, for putting down his Unstarred Question and for his initial good intention about being non-contentious and confining himself closely to it. I shall speak on an even narrower front then either of the noble Lords who have spoken so far; that is, solely about the joint control of the cruise missiles. I think that, beforehand, the House will not need me to repeat that I do not go along with Lord Jenkins's broader view of NATO's defence policy, which I conceive to be more or less the official view of the Labour Party at the moment; but that we on these Benches go along much more closely with a view which we think is better considered. That is the view expressed by the Labour Front Bench in this House and which we hope to hear expressed again this evening—the official Labour view being, of course, that Russia should become the only country with nuclear weapons in Europe. With this, we cannot agree.
Let us go back to the origins of the present difficulties about dual control of cruise missiles. Once upon a time there was an understanding between Britain and America about the joint decision to be taken before any strategic weapons were to be launched from this country. I think that the

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understanding grew up during the Second World War. I am not too clear about it and anything that the Government can say to help this afternoon will be good. But we know that there was an understanding because in January 1952 there was a joint British-United States communiqué which said:
"We reaffirm the understanding that the use of these bases"—
that is, US bases in Britain—
"in an emergency would be a matter for joint decision".
So there we have an understanding reaffirmed in a communiqué. It is not a very formal arrangement yet, is it? It is an understanding that we do not know about, reaffirmed in a communiqué which we can all read.
In February 1958, a slightly higher degree of formality was introduced into the arrangements. There was a memorandum. It was a memorandum on the supply of ballistic missiles by the United States to the United Kingdom, and it said:
"The decision to launch these missiles will be a matter for joint decision by the two governments".
I do not know how a decision can be a matter for joint decision. I do not know whether that sentence is synonymous with the clear English sentence which would run: "The decision to launch these missiles will be a joint one by the two governments". Maybe that was just bad drafting or maybe it conceals a shade of meaning which escapes us. In any case, I think that the House should note that we have proceeded from an understanding, an unpublished understanding, through a communiqué to a memorandum—not a memorandum of agreement, not a treaty. That is what governs the matter at this moment.
The intrinsic question is not difficult to understand; it is not difficult to distinguish. I emphasise the fact that it is not difficult to distinguish because the Government always seem to give slightly the impression that it is difficult to distinguish and that those who are not instantly in agreement with their point of view are being slow to make the relevant distinction. It is not difficult to distinguish between weapons systems with one safety catch and weapons systems with two or more safety catches. On the one hand, are shotguns—well known to all of us, I think—which have one safety catch. On the other hand, are almost all the more complex weapons systems which have two or more safety catches. Once there are physically two or more safety catches on a weapons system—that is to say, once physical actions by two or more persons are required to launch it—the question arises: who shall those persons be?
We know that in the control of our own nuclear weapons it has always been two or more; we know that in the control of purely United States nuclear weapons in the United States, it has always been two or more. I do not think that the Government can possibly tell us if the cruise missiles are not going to require two or more persons to launch them, in any case. We are talking, of course, about the question of why one of those persons should not be British.
The Government are apparently frightened to permit the expected debate on all this in the House of Commons, no doubt because of the pressure for dual-key control of the American cruise missiles which they
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expect from their own Back-Benchers. In this, I think that the Government's credibility is at stake. This evening may, in fact, be the last occasion for them to say anything on the subject before a general election. So far, the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, and his colleagues have failed to answer, or have fudged the answer to, two main questions. The first is this: what will be the cost to Britain of a dual key for the cruise missiles without transferring their ownership to us? It is not compatible with sovereignty that, having lent our soil as a launching pad, we should be without a finger on the safety catch of these weapons.
The noble Lord, Lord Bestead, last failed to give me an answer to this question an April 21st, and, before that, on March 22nd. Since 1981, the Government have been maintaining or implying that it would be unthinkable for us to have a finger on the safety catch without buying the missile system. Indeed, they have been putting up a rearguard action on the dual key question ever since the SDP was founded.
The second question concerns authority in the United States to launch nuclear weapons, including the cruise missiles in Britain. If the President and Vice-President are incapacitated or absent, where does that authority devolve under the United States Constitution—to the speaker of the House of Representatives? That is not a fanciful question. There was confusion and panic when President Reagan was shot. This is a separate question. How far down the line does the President of the United States have the right to devolve this authority in the ordinary course of events—to the Secretary of Defense, to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to SACEUR, to another general, to a colonel, to a major? When I last asked this question here, the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, seemed to think this was a matter of etiquette and answered that it would not be appropriate to inquire.
In evading their duty to answer these questions, the Government like to claim that ground-launched cruise missiles are no different from the United States bombers and submarines that use British bases, concerning which arrangements have been accepted by all parties as satisfactory. But missiles are different in two ways: first, they cannot be recalled when they have been launched and, secondly, they are launched from British soil. The weapons carried by the bombers and submarines would not be launched from British air space or British waters. Thor was the only land-based nuclear missile we have had on British soil until now, and it was indeed under dual key.
If the Prime Minister does not decide for a June election, this House may, I think, wish to take up the suggestion put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, on 21st April that there should be a vote here. But if she does decide for a June election, then the Government must realise that, if they do not answer these questions tonight, their next opportunity for doing so will be when they meet an electorate, 92 per cent. of whom want the dual key.
6.22 p.m.
Lord Milford: My Lords, first of all. I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney, for giving this opportunity for us to ask the Government several very important questions. With the smears of the Secretary of State for Defence flying about, I shall

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have to declare a vested interest, I think. First of all, I am a Communist because I want to be in the front rank of getting Socialism in this country. Secondly, I am a member of the CND and hoping to achieve the security of the British people through its policies.
The situation is very dangerous. There are mad cold-war warriors around: they could easily slip into disaster for mankind. At the risk of being labelled a "Kremlin stooge", while following what is happening—or rather, not happening—in Geneva, I remind myself that Russia has been invaded several times in recent history, suffering appalling loss. So the idea of security to them must be a tremendous issue—far more than it is for us—while Britain and America have been free from invasion in modern history.
These American bases we have been talking about mean that Britain will now be in the front line, holding back any war on American soil. Britain, by piling up more and more American arms and bases in this country, will certainly become one of the first targets if war breaks out. Our present Government welcome more and more deadly weapons in this country when enough already exist to blow mankind out of existence.
I went to Greenham Common at Easter and it gave me a very great experience. First of all, I have never been in such an atmosphere of open friendliness, with everybody treating one as a warm friend. Secondly, it was amazing how they kept to non-violence. Everything was greeted with the best of possible tempers and smiles. Thirdly, there was the bravery and the sanity of those remarkable women. I felt the whole set-up was giving a new dimension, a spiritual dimension, to politics. This is happening in every country and I think we have to learn from it. This is the hope for the future, because they are based on realism while at the present moment the leaders of mankind are madmen. So let us stop and come back to friendship and sanity.
Faced with this fast-growing movement, the Government's Secretary of State for Defence will not step into the arena and discuss and debate with those who do not agree with him. Instead he stays on the sidelines and throws mud like any street hooligan. It is imperative for mankind that the Geneva talks succeed in lessening the madness in the world.
As regards Geneva, there is one question which seems to be holding progress up, and I do not know the answer. I should like to ask the Government this question, and I hope the Minister will give us the answer. I am not trying to make any propaganda: I just do want to know the answer because the question is being asked by people up and down the country. It is the question regarding the French and British nuclear weapons. This seems to be holding up the Geneva discussions. Seriously and honestly, I do not understand why they do not count as part of NATO's total armament. Will the Minister explain once and for all, so that the country can know? We and France are part of NATO: we and they do not conceal that their weapons and ours are directed against the Soviet Union. Would it not be more honest to count them in when talking about parity in armaments on each side? Again, I am not a "Kremlin mole". I want to know the
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answers, because this really is holding up progress in Geneva which is so essential.
Geneva must be the beginning of total nuclear disarmament, the beginning of a sane world. If disarmament and peace were achieved, the world could look forward to new horizons of happiness, spending billions and billions on everyone's welfare, instead of on more and more appalling arms. Everyone knows this. I know it is a platitude, but we do not settle down to try and get it. I do not feel that our Defence Minister's antics depict him and the Government as having a sincere determination to obtain such a world.
6.29 p.m.
Lord Bishopston: My Lords, I am sure we are all indebted to my noble friend Lord Jenkins of Putney for giving us the opportunity to debate this life-and-death matter of nuclear weapons to be based on United Kingdom soil. He began by saying that there was a good deal of goodwill on this matter. In view of the limited terms of the Question, he said he did not seek to "castigate"—that was the word he used—on this occasion, but only to interrogate. It is also a good thing, and to the credit of our democracy, that we can debate these issues here, or, indeed at Greenham Common. Long may it continue, although, of course, we hope that we shall get some more answers to the questions which have already been detailed by noble Lords tonight.
As my noble friend has said, it is not a matter of whether one takes a unilateral or a multilateral line. The noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, teases—if that is the right word—my colleagues and myself, because he says that our views have changed. Of course, it is not the views that have changed but the circumstances, because nuclear weapons are now far more deadly than in 1952 when the agreement, which the Government say is adequate, was arrived at. We are concerned not only about the questions which my noble friend has tabled tonight, but also about the situation which may eventually prevent any weapons from being located on our soil. Of course, I refer to the Geneva talks and it may well be that the Minister will say very briefly what progress has been made there and what are the chances of the cruise weapons not coming here, as the Government anticipate, in December next. This is a matter of concern not only to us but to other members of the NATO alliance.
For some time, as we all know, members of political parties in both Houses of Parliament and in the country have shown a deep concern about the need for dual control of weapons based here. This concern is widespread, particularly among those who accept the basing of nuclear weapons on our soil. It is rather surprising that those who support Government policy are not more strident in their demands for the guarantees which have been demanded here this evening.
Britain, the Prime Minister says, should not be pushed around. She said that about the Falklands which are 8,000 miles away, yet here, in the control of events on our own soil affecting our own people, the same principle does not apply, because the distinct impression in this matter is that in any emergency situation the United States will be entirely responsible

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for our destiny. So we demand that the United Kingdom should not be pushed around and that we should control the nuclear weapons, if they have to be based here, because of the devastating effect that they can have not only upon the lives of millions of people here now, but upon generations yet unborn.
In the other place only last week my right honourable friend the Leader of the Opposition pressed, as he has done for some time, to have a debate on these issues as well as on defence and disarmament policy generally. We believe that, if the USA is to be in sole charge of the bases here, we need to know much more about the President's thinking on a number of issues and his commitment on major defence and foreign policy issues. This is not an anti-American sentiment, but clearly if the Americans are to have such control over our destiny we need to know more about their thinking and, what is most important, we need to be consulted on matters which will affect us.
In recent debates in your Lordships' House not only has concern been expressed on all sides, but a lack of clarity, and indeed a vagueness, has been shown by Ministers about the policy of the Government. I believe that the time has come—in fact, it is long overdue—for the Government to be quite clear about their policy. With the Prime Minister—it may not be this Prime Minister; it may be another—going to conferences at Williamsburg and elsewhere, Parliament has a right to know about the issues being discussed and the policy issues which the Government are likely to pursue. So those who support Government policy ought to be no less demanding about the dual control and the other safeguards—matters on which there has been confusion and uncertainty from the Government for some time.
The issues have been of particular concern in Parliament, as is clear from the Official Reports of both Houses in the last few months. In this House on 18th January, the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, assured us that,
"The use of United States bases in the United Kingdom in an emergency"—
including, of course, missile bases—
"was to be a matter for joint decision by Her Majesty's Government and the United States Government, in the light of the circumstances prevailing at the time."—[Official Report; col. 1286].
Later, in column 1288, he is quoted as saying:
"A dual key arrangement would entail the United Kingdom purchasing the missiles and supporting equipment, except the warheads, and manning them in the same way as we do the Lance missiles in Germany".
So there will obviously be no operational control of these weapons.
On 1st February last in another place, the Secretary of State Mr. Heseltine said at column 133 of the Official Report, when asked about arrangements for the use of cruise missiles, that there would be a joint decision by the American and British Governments. He went on to say:
"There was no case for the additional strain on the defence budget that would have been imposed by buying the cruise platform systems, when they would be fully protected under the arrangements that were on offer".
So, again, the Government stress that there will be no dual control, and presumably the actual firing will be
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done by members of the United States Army Air Force. We believe it is not enough to say that we hope, in the almost panic situation which could prevail at that time, that there will be no mistake, no error—because millions of lives could be at stake.
The Government tell us repeatedly that the arrangements have been in existence for 30 years, so we have no need to worry, and the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, reminded us that the agreement was made under other Governments. But, as I said a moment ago, the situation is far more dangerous than it was then, and the concern which I and my noble friends share about the consequences of the Government's policy is shared by many others. The arrangements which were formulated all that time ago were, of course, for subsonic aircraft and free-fall bombs and, as a Member of the other place said recently, they are wholly inappropriate for dispersed missiles with sophisticated triggers and targeting. These are the factors which are causing growing concern in the country.
As I said, the important point is that modern nuclear weapons and cruise missiles are far more lethal and their mechanisms are far more intricate and sensitive than ever before. That is why the Labour Party believes that the arrangements of 1952 are quite unrealistic and inadequate in this situation. A firing, whether intended or not, would invite massive nuclear retaliation. More concern was expressed in the debate in the other place on 7th February, and of course there has been widespread concern in the country, not only in CND but in the Churches, as well as at the meetings at Uppsala in Sweden only a few days ago between the Churches and the bishops of the United States. So there is growing widespread concern, and it is no good for the Secretary of State for Defence to suggest that those who doubt the Government's policy are to be considered sinister and fellow travellers, because that will not do.
In this House on 16th February, at column 329 of the Official Report, the Minister said that the estimated costs to the United Kingdom of providing 160 ground-launched cruise missiles with the dual key system would be of the order of £1,000 million of capital expenditure, with annual running costs of tens of millions of pounds. The fact is that the cruise missiles—which are, as I said, due to come here from December, unless some satisfactory arrangement can be arrived at in Geneva and elsewhere—would be dispersed around the country, with all the added complications of communications which that would entail.
The Minister should tell the House whether the views of Admiral La Rocque, a former high-ranking officer of the Pentagon, which were expressed in an ITV programme on 28th February, have been considered by the Government. He claimed that nobody in Europe could stop the USA from firing its nuclear weapons system from this country. These are the aspects which add to the concern of many millions of people. I would ask the Minister to answer another questions. If cruise missiles can be launched from any area of the United Kingdom, what real control will there be?
I believe also, on the issue of nuclear weapons and conventional capabilities, that another major fear in

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the minds of many people is that the enormous cost of nuclear weapons—of cruise, of the dual key arrangement, of Trident and maybe of dual key for Trident as well, plus the Falkland defence liability—will be far more than we can afford. This view has been expressed by noble Lords on all sides of the House, and indeed by honourable and right honourable Members on both sides in another place. The danger is that should we go nuclear early on, the huge cost of nuclear weapons would reduce our conventional capability to the extent that conventional weapons might be completely inadequate in any situation. That is the real fear which causes grave concern to so many.
The United Kingdom needs to know, in terms of the Question tabled by my noble friend, why the Government have been reluctant to reveal the American nuclear and other bases that there are in this country and whether the Government will establish operational control over nuclear weapons at such bases. Even more important, the Government need to have wise and meaningful defence policies and to come to agreement in international talks with the Soviet Union and with others about improved relationships so that conventional, not nuclear, weapons may lower the fear striking mankind. Success at Geneva and in other international talks which could result in the use of nuclear weapons or bases being unnecessary would remove the clouds of war which haunt mankind at present.
6.42 p.m.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I am surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney, should ask this Question this evening for, far from being a source of anxiety, the presence of United States forces in this country is a source of strength and reassurance for the defence and security of our country. There has therefore been no attempt to conceal the facts, as the noble Lord suggests. The arrangements for the control of any use to which these forces might be put are wholly satisfactory, and that has been the case since United States forces returned to Britain after the 1939–45 war.
Western Europe is faced with Russian military power. The Soviet Union makes no secret of its readiness to use force and on more than one occasion it has shown that it will prevent by force any attempt by the people of Eastern Europe to recover their lost liberty. That is why Britain has been a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation since 1949. That is why successive Governments have regarded the alliance as the cornerstone of our defence. For over 30 years NATO has prevented aggression. The success of this policy of deterrence hinges on the determination of all the NATO countries to stand together, to treat a threat to one as a threat to all. Above all, it is vital that the defence of the United States is identified with the defence of its NATO allies. It is for this reason, strengthened of course by our cultural and historical ties and by our comradeship against tyranny in days gone by, that successive British Governments have welcomed the stationing of United States forces in Britain.
The noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney, was a Minister in previous Labour Governments. At no
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point in his speech did the noble Lord reveal why it is that he and his party are now apparently proposing to withdraw facilities offered to the United States for the past 30 years and so to withhold much of our contribution to the collective defence of NATO. It was left to the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, to say that the Labour Party has changed its mind. On the evidence of Soviet aggression across the world, that change of mind is I believe wholly irresponsible.
The noble Lord's Question also reflects allegations which are wholly without foundation. Those allegations are that the United States presence in this country is growing and that this is somehow being concealed by Her Majesty's Government. In his speech, the noble Lord went on to say that his assessment was that there are between 100 and 150 United States bases in the United Kingdom. The fact is that eight main operating bases are being used by the United States in this country. These are at Holy Loch, RAF Alconbury, RAF Bentwaters, RAF Fairford, RAF Lakenheath, RAF Mildenhall, RAF Upper Heyford and RAF Woodbridge. Over 95 per cent. of the United States forces personnel based here work at these main locations and at the three standby deployment bases. That fact alone gives, I hope, a proper perspective to this matter.
It is indeed the case that supporting these main bases there are a number of other facilities, but as the Government have made clear on a number of occasions, even taking into account such things as storage hangars, the total list is close to 60 and not between 100 and 150. This has been made perfectly clear in answer to Questions in another place. The noble Lord mentioned the Answer of 8th June 1980 when the number of United States bases was given.
The Answer made clear that there were other facilities. These were named in succeding Answers to Questions about bases not manned or facilities for storage or logistic support. I shall not go into detail about individual bases which the noble Lord ascribed to use by United States personnel, except to say that there is nothing in what the noble Lord suggested with regard to Oakhanger and Prestwick. They are not American bases. That the Port of Liverpool should be alleged to be a major United States terminal is one of the most extraordinary things that I have heard suggested for a long time. By no stretch of the imagination can an office at Liverpool which processes shipping documentation warrant a description of that kind. Indeed, of the bases named in some of the newspaper articles which have been published, no fewer than eight of the facilities listed were handed back by the United States forces long before they were indentified as such. The noble Lord will forgive me if I say that I sometimes wonder whether he and those who think like him have first thought up the number of 100 or more and then tried to justify it. I hope that what I have said will rectify the false allegations which have been made.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, on a point of accuracy, in view of what the noble Lord has just said, how does he justify the gradual revelation of the existence of more and more American nuclear bases? The Minister himself gave a figure of eight bases, whereas he knows that his noble friend has already

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admitted to the existence of over 70. How does the Minister justify this figure, first arriving at 12 and then finishing up with something approaching 100? Is it not the case that since the Government have been inaccurate in the past we can reasonably expect them to be inaccurate in the present?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I can easily answer that question. How delightful it is to take part in a debate when it is easy to answer a question. The answer to the noble Lord is, no. Turning to the second part of the noble Lord's Question as to operational control over United States nuclear weapons based in this country, this is a matter to which all post-war British Governments have directed their attention. This, I accept, is a matter of concern to noble Lords and I shall try to give answers to the questions which have been put. Arrangements for the control of American forces based in the United Kingdom were first agreed by Mr. Attlee and President Truman in 1951. As your Lordships know, that agreement was endorsed by Mr. Churchill and President Truman in further discussions in 1952. The understanding which these two leaders reached was summarised in a joint communiqué published at the time. The text reads as follows:
"Under arrangements made for the common defence, the United States has the use of certain bases in the United Kingdom. We reaffirm the understanding that the use of these bases in an emergency would be a matter for joint decision by Her Majesty's Government and the United States Government in the light of the circumstances at the time".
This understanding has applied, although of course it has been looked at every time a new Prime Minister or a new President has taken office, throughout the period from 1951 and applies with equal force today.
All successive Prime Ministers and Presidents have reaffirmed the understanding, all judging it to be satisfactory. Most recently the arrangement has been reviewed by the Prime Minister and President Reagan in February 1981. The Prime Minister has said in another place that she is satisfied that these arrangements are effective. The understanding applies to the bases for all United States forces in this country, both conventional and nuclear, and it will apply to the 160 United States ground-launched cruise missiles, the first of which are due to be deployed here from the end of 1983 if there is no prior agreement in Geneva to abolish this class of missile.
If I may say this to the noble Lord, Lord Bishopston, who revealed that he was particularly concerned about it, this understanding means in effect that the use of nuclear weapons is subject to joint decision. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, made great play with the distinction he drew between political and operational control. It would be a matter for the elected Governments involved to make decisions of such awesome importance. That is why this Government, like its predecessors, believe that this understanding between the two Governments is of overriding importance.
Had we so chosen, cruise missiles could have been deployed here on a dual key system, whereby we bought and operated the missiles while the United States retained custody of the warhead. Previous Governments have not considered such measures necessary for the physical control of the United States Air Force F111 's, which have, of course, been
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operating from this country for many years, and during the whole time of the two Labour Governments. I would emphasise that there is no precedent for a dual key system except on the basis of ownership. The noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, and the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, raised this point recently and again this evening. I have to repeat to both noble Lords that a dual key system is the basis on which we operate the Lance missile and nuclear-capable artillery deployed with our army in Germany. It was the basis on which we operated the Thor missile system, which was stationed in this country in the early 1960s. But it is done on the basis of ownership of the launchers.
Against the background of our relationship with the United States and our confidence in the long-established arrangements governing the use of United States forces based in this country, we concluded that to apply different arrangements from those which already existed, which I have just outlined, would add nothing to the effectiveness of the cruise missiles as a deterrent force, and would divert substantial resources from the enhancement of our conventional and independent nuclear capabilities.
Lord Bishopston: My Lords, I appreciate the noble Lord giving way. I was about to intervene to make the point the noble Lord made, that under the 1952 agreement there was dual control of the Thor missile. Now, of course, the Minister says you cannot expect it on cruise because it is not owned by us but jointly owned. Surely, it we are allies working together in any emergency there is just as much case for us to have dual control in the present situation as there was previously in the case of Thor!
Lord Belstead: My Lords, with respect, I do not think that the noble Lord has perhaps quite added to the light which is being shed on this subject, which is not an entirely easy subject. The 1952 agreement is the agreement which I have read out, and that in effect gives joint political decision. The arrangement with the Thor missiles, with respect to the noble Lord, was an arrangement for full dual key, because the Thor launchers were owned by the United Kingdom. What I have just been saying is that that is the arrangement for full dual key, and only that arrangement, based on ownership, has always been accepted both by the United States and those who are the allies of the United States. For that reason, unless we were prepared to purchase the cruise missiles, we should not be able to claim full dual key. We felt that this would divert substantial resources from money which we should otherwise be spending on our conventional and other nuclear capabilities. In these circumstances, the Government decided that the arrangements summarised in the 1952 communiqué should apply to the cruise missile force.
The 1952 understanding is of long standing: it is firmly founded in the close co-operation which we share with our staunch NATO ally. It has stood the test of time; it has provided a framework which successive Governments of both parties have found entirely satisfactory. And it is a symbol to a potential aggressor of the strength and cohesion of NATO measured by the mutual trust which exists between Britain and the

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United States within the Western Alliance. As such, it provides a significant contribution to the capacity of NATO to sustain its policy of deterrence.
I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, that those who would consider changing the arrangements should weigh carefully the consequences of their actions. The Soviet Union must be in no doubt as to the absolute mutual confidence and trust between the NATO partners, which has been the foundation of the alliance since its inception. There must be no room to doubt our determination collectively to stand together in defence of our common aims. After all, NATO threatens no one, but the NATO policy of deterrence has ensured the longest period of peace in Europe for longer than anyone can remember. Our deterrence strategy works precisely because the resources of the members of the alliance are joined together for the common good. The presence of United States forces in this country and in other parts of Europe is crucial to this. So we welcome the United States presence in Britain.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, I wonder if the noble Lord would allow me to ask him a question, which is asked in a most constructive spirit. Why did Mr. Macmillan buy the Thor Missiles?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I cannot answer that question, although I will no doubt look it up. But I do not think this takes our debate very much further. The fact of the matter is that Thor was under a dual key—there is no secret about that—because the launchers were owned by Britain. The fact of the matter is that the decision had to be taken by the Government at the present time as to whether they were prepared to purchase the cruise missile launchers. That would have taken a very large sum of money, and I have already given an assessment of it in previous Questions in your Lordships' House. And, for reasons which I have already deployed in my speech, the Government felt that it was not right to go for a dual key decision on cruise but to rest on the effective arrangements of the joint political decision procedure which is encapsulated in the 1952 Memorandum.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, it is very good of the noble Lord to be so kind as to give way again. May I ask him to clarify this point? I believe he is telling us—I hope he is not— that the trust between ourselves and the United States is worth so little that they will not concede a dual key arrangement unless we are prepared to buy the launchers from them. If that is the nature of the trust between us and the United States at this time it is not so good as it was during the last war, and it is not worth much.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, the noble Lord is not only capable of not following the argument I am trying to put forward, but I think the noble Lord is even capable of not listening. The last few minutes of the speech I have been submitting to your Lordships—before I gave way to the noble Lord, Lord Kennet—have been entirely directed to making the case that the joint political decision procedure rests upon mutual trust, mutual respect and mutual confidence. We need to be able to show the United States, Britain and all the allies in NATO that we have this mutual trust and
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confidence and to leave the Soviet Union, in particular, under no misapprehension that this mutual trust and confidence exists.
I ask the noble Lord to try, just for once, to stick to the facts of the case. In this speech, the noble Lord took it upon himself, in the third period of 10 minutes in what is supposed to be a short debate, to regale the House with a wholly inaccurate argument about cruise missiles being first strike weapons. I wonder whether the noble Lord has ever considered, just for one moment, that the huge number of strategic ballistic missiles held by the Soviet Union would make such a policy for cruise entirely impracticable—and that is to leave aside entirely the fact that the NATO alliance is a defensive alliance which has never, and will never, strike first at an enemy.
I said at the beginning of my speech that I expressed surprise at the terms of this Question and I remain of the same view, for it seems wholly to disregard all that NATO has achieved and all that NATO still has to do. The spirit of co-operation which brought the countries of Western Europe to stand together against the military threat from the Soviet Union has stood the test of time. This is due, not least, to the fact that the alliance is a free association of nations joined together to defend the liberties of their people. I repeat, it is an alliance based on mutual trust and mutual beliefs.
Today, while remaining strong and vigilant, NATO is also working for a reduction in forces both nuclear and conventional. In each of the three disarmament negotiations the West has put forward proposals for genuine and significant arms reductions and in each case we await a matching response which would show that the Soviet Union is also working for balanced reductions which would increase stability between East and West. But, perhaps most important of all, it is now up to the Soviet Union to decide whether any cruise missiles need to be deployed in Western Europe from the end of this year. The noble Lord, Lord Bishopston, asked specifically about this. If the Russians are prepared to dismantle their own such weapons, NATO would be very ready and only too happy not to proceed with its own deployment. We should then have taken a significant step towards an agreed reduction in arms; a step which would be vital to the cause of peace.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down would he be so courteous as to answer another question? Has he noticed that he has failed to address himself to the two questions which I asked, or has he a reason for failing to do so?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I did not mean to be discourteous to the noble Lord. The first question that the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, addressed to me was: why is it not possible to have a dual key system without needing to have ownership, but by having some form of British presence in the line of command?
Lord Kennet: My Lords—
Lord Belstead: My Lords, the noble Lord will forgive me, I cannot keep bobbing up and down. I am replying to the two questions which he says I have not answered. In effect, I have replied to the question by

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going into great detail about the reasons why ownership underlies dual key.
The second question which the noble Lord asked was about authority in the United States to launch. If the noble Lord will acquit me of discourtesy, I answered that in the space of three long columns in Hansard on 23rd March.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, that was not the question I asked. I know that it is customary only to ask questions but may I repeat the question, with the leave of the House? How much would it cost us to have a dual key arrangement without buying the missiles? That is a different question. I should like to have an answer.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I have answered that question on more than one occasion in the past. We have not gone into that because the question does not arise for the reasons that I have given during the debate this evening.
Lord Milford: My Lords, may I repeat the question I asked? Why are French and British arms not counted in trying to get parity in Geneva?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, here again, I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Milford, because I know that that it is a perfectly genuine question. It is, however, a question that has been answered on many occasions in both Houses of Parliament. The short answer is that the talks in Geneva are bilateral talks between the Soviet Union and the United States and it does not do to change the rules in the middle of negotiations.
House adjourned at five minutes past seven o'clock.