Lords Sitting of 2 May 1984

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The Chairman of Committees on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Gloucester.

Economic Recovery and Unemployment
Lord Dean of Beswick: 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 when they expect the economic recovery now being widely publicised to reflect itself in a reduction of the number of people unemployed.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Cockfield): My Lords, while we have not yet seen sustained reductions in the level of unemployment, elsewhere there are encouraging signs: employment is rising, short-time working in manufacturing is the lowest for four years, and overtime hours are almost 20 per cent. higher than this time last year. In the long run, improvements in job prospects will continue to depend upon lower inflation and lower wage settlements.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that Answer, and, like all Members of this House, I welcome the fact that the unemployment figures showed a fall last month. But the Minister must be aware of the Answer given by the Secretary of State in another place yesterday, when he said:
"It is too early to tell whether the improvement in the economy will move fast enough to cope with the additional 160,000 people seeking work this year and the undoubted improvements in productivity also being achieved".—[Official Report, Commons, 1/5/84; col. 177.]
He said that that is the challenge we must meet. Does the Minister not agree that unless our overall performance is improved considerably, by more interventionist measures by the Government, there will be no significant impact made on unemployment, with the present policies continuing?
Lord Cockfield: My Lords, I share the noble Lord's concern about the present level of unemployment, as I think we all do. The encouraging point is the way in which the total level of employment, including self-employment, increased last year. So far as the future is concerned, I share the first part of the view he expressed; namely, that what is required is an improvement in the performance of the British economy, which is to be achieved partly by the Government following a responsible financial and economic policy (as they are) and partly by the efforts on both sides of industry to improve competitiveness. However, I do not share the noble Lord's view that this is best done by intervention on the part of the Government. In fact, experience suggests the contrary.
Lord Hooson: My Lords, to what extent have the Government addressed their minds to the probability that whatever the significance of the economic recovery—which we all hope will be considerable—with modern technological developments there may not be a significant drop in unemployment? What do the Government intend to do about that?
Lord Cockfield: My Lords, all experience since the time of the Industrial Revolution indicates that an increased level of technology and improvements in methods of production lead in the end to higher output and therefore higher employment.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, in view of the Minister's statement that intervention has been proven not to be of any great assistance, can he explain a little further what kind of intervention he means? Does he mean intervention of the kind sought by Franklin D. Roosevelt just before the second world war, which made such a great contribution to our being at least in some measure prepared for the onslaught of Nazism? Or does he mean intervention of the kind seen just after the war, when literally million of soldiers, sailors and airmen found jobs when they returned home because of government intervention? In short, does the Minister not agree that civilised, sensible government intervention can assist the private as well as the public sector?
Lord Cockfield: My Lords, we all—including the noble Lord, Lord Molloy—need to learn from experience. The circumstances which exist today are very different from the circumstances which existed in 1931. Many of the measures taken then were appropriate to the needs of the time, but the world has changed a very great deal since then. The kind of centralised direction of the economy which was practised, for example, between 1945 and 1951 is not only no longer appropriate but would not produce the results which both the noble Lord and myself would hope to see.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, does the Minister not agree that the major threat to the United States in the 1930s and to Great Britain in the mid-1930s was the same as the threat which exists now, under this Government—that of massive unemployment?
Lord Cockfield: My Lords, we can debate the issue of unemployment, but unemployment is due to two major factors. The first has been the world recession; the second has been the increasing uncompetitiveness of British industry. As far as both those factors are concerned, the world is moving out of the recession; and I am very glad to say that as a result of great efforts made on both sides, the level of the competitiveness of British industry is improving.
Viscount Trenchard: My Lords, following my noble friend's last answer, does he not agree that had our share of world markets not fallen by more than half between 1960 and 1978, and had we been a little less uncompetitive in that period and our share had fallen to only, say, 11.5 per cent. of the world markets, then

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our employment situation would be the best in Europe by quite a long way? Would my noble friend not further agree that if we can now, with our new-found, increasing competitiveness, start to regain our share, we will indeed see a reduction in unemployment?
Lord Cockfield: My Lords, I agree with my noble friend's analysis of the situation. The position is that, as a result of growing uncompetitiveness, particularly in the 1970s, our level of costs became out of line with those in the rest of the industrialised world. As a result, both our exports suffered and our propensity to import increased.
Lord Barnett: My Lords, despite what the noble Lord the Minister said, will he confirm that the Government's own assumptions, judging from papers issued recently, indicate that unemployment will not fall during the life of this Parliament? In those circumstances, would it not be more honest to concede that situation, so that at least alternative plans can be made to ensure that the present appalling levels of unemployment are reduced?
Lord Cockfield: My Lords, the noble Lord, as a former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, speaks with great skill. There is, of course, no connection between the first part of his supplementary question and the second part. As he himself acknowledges, the figures to which he refers are assumptions; they are not in any way forecasts.
Lord Barnett: My Lords, why, then, did the Treasury make those assumptions?
Lord Cockfield: My Lords, the Treasury makes the assumptions on precisely the same basis as they were made when the noble Lord himself was Chief Secretary to the Treasury. It is standard form that the assumption taken for the first year in the public expenditure White Paper is carried forward unchanged to subsequent years.
Lord Paget of Northampton: My Lords, may we take it that the fact that the increased employment resulting from industrial recovery is apparently being taken up by overtime working, instead of by increased general employment, is a matter which the Government regard with complete indifference?
Lord Cockfield: My Lords, at the moment there is a substantial increase in the amount of overtime being worked. This is perfectly normal in the early stages of recovery. There are certain obstacles to the employment of additional people. One of them, of course, was the national insurance surcharge, which has been abolished in the proposals announced by my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, in an earlier reply the noble Lord the Minister referred to the major factor in the present unemployment situation as being the world recession. He also disagreed with me on the second part of my supplementary question regarding
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Government intervention. Is it not a fact that many responsible sources apportion the responsibility for the present level of unemployment as being 50 per cent. due to the world recession and 50 per cent. due to the present Government's policies? Is not that intervention of an adverse kind which we could well do without?
Lord Cockfield: I do not accept the analysis to which the noble Lord refers. In fact, it is essential that the Government should follow a responsible financial and economic policy in order to reduce the level of inflation. The high level of inflation in past years has been one of the major factors causing unemployment.
Lord Leatherland: My Lords—
Noble Lords: Order!
Lord Denham: My Lords, we have been 10 minutes on this first Question. It is a very important Question and it is right, of course, for your Lordships to ask supplementaries, but I wonder whether the House does not think it right to move on now to the second Question.

A.66 Trunk Road
2.48 p.m.
Viscount Rochdale: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the proposed scheme to bypass Temple Sowerby and Kirkby Thore on the A.66 trunk road has been cancelled and, if so, why.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, the previously proposed Temple Sowerby-Whinfell House and Kirkby Thore-Crackenthorpe bypass schemes were cancelled by the White Paper, Policy for Roads in England: 1983, which was published in September last year. The schemes rated a low priority and it would have been many years before resources could have been made available for such construction.
It was decided, therefore, that quicker possible solutions to problems on these two sections of the A.66 should be investigated through more modest schemes. Cumbria County Council, as agents for the Department of Transport, are examining the problems now present, and likely solutions, in the context of today's traffic and future predictions.
Viscount Rochdale: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for, at any rate, clarifying the situation. Would he not agree that the completion of the Clifton bypass, near Workington, means that every other village and town on the A.66–80 miles in length from Scotch Corner to the west coast of Cumberland—will have been bypassed, with the exception of the two villages mentioned in my Question? Will my noble friend not bear in mind, and will he not agree with me, that that being the case, it is natural that the flow of traffic should increase substantially, as it is doing today, and that the proportion of heavy-duty vehicles should be far above the national average, with the

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result that the disturbance, distress, and, indeed, danger, to the villagers is becoming very acute? Therefore, would he not agree that this situation can hardly be in keeping with the White Paper to which he referred—Policy for Roads in England: 1983—which says that one of the main objects of road policy is to keep heavy-duty vehicles away from people?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I accept the first part of what my noble friend said with regard to the section of road on the A.66. We are, of course, concerned with the 66-mile section from Penrith down to Scotch Corner. The noble Viscount will know that the first part of the improvements to which he referred took place in 1976. Since then there have been changes in policy, and I have to repeat that the particular scheme at Temple Sowerby rated a low priority, particularly in terms of timescale. Since it would have taken many years to implement the original scheme, it was felt better to replace some of the grand strategies for cross-country improvements by more localised schemes. I can tell the noble Viscount that the studies currently being undertaken will have regard to the flow of traffic (some 6,000 vehicles per day) and will be particularly geared to the distress and danger points to which the noble Viscount has referred.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that those of us who know this part of the country and who live there find his Answer totally inadequate and unacceptable? Is he further aware that, as the noble Viscount, Lord Rochdale, said, this is the only village on the whole of the A.66 from the A.l(M) to West Cumberland which has not been bypassed; that it is one of the most beautiful villages in the country without any doubt whatever; and also that there is a constant flow of heavy traffic through this village which, because of the lie of the road, does not slow down when it goes through the village so that it is becoming increasingly difficult for villagers to get from one side of the village to the other? Will he now replace this bypass in his plans, because the solutions he talks about are no solutions at all? The only solution to the Temple Sowerby problem is a bypass. Will he now replace it?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I am well aware of the interest that the noble Lord, Lord Glenamara, has in this village. I am sorry that he finds my Answer totally unacceptable. I am also aware that this is the only village out of five villages on the stretch of road which has not yet been bypassed. I have to say that I do not know the village myself, but I accept what he says about its beauty. I have further to say: no, the Government will not reconsider their decision to abandon the scheme, which was removed in the 1983 White Paper. From the census of traffic that has been taken, I know that there has been a modest increase in the number of heavy vehicles since the other bypasses were opened; but we believe that this matter can be better and far more quickly contained if we look to more modest schemes, particularly those of traffic management. The current study, which will be finished by the end of the summer, should produce some of the answers upon which action can then be very quickly taken.
Lord Inglewood: My Lords, can my noble friend please confirm not only that we had a flow of 6,000 vehicles per 24-hour period, as was mentioned, but that, even though he referred to a modest increase in traffic density on that road, the figure calculated only a few weeks ago was 7,500—an increase of 25 per cent.—which is far beyond the modest increase which the Minister has just mentioned?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I understand what my noble friend has to say, but in fact I said that it was a modest increase in the number of heavy goods vehicles.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, does the Minister recall that some months ago there were Questions and supplementary questions on the report of the Civic Trust dealing with bypasses and the juggernaut, and that on that occasion apprehensions were voiced that by the 1990s quite a number of villages and towns would not be in a bypass programme? Does he agree that the points that have been made this afternoon further justify that concern?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I recall the exchanges with regard to the report of the Civic Trust. If I remember correctly, we said on that occasion, and we say it again, that we were obliged to the Civic Trust for the report. We thought that it had underestimated the number of bypasses which had already been contructed and the effects that they were having, but we nevertheless accepted some part of the criticism. We invited the Civic Trust—an invitation which it has since taken up—to discuss with us the general matter to which the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, refers.
Lord Paget of Northampton: My Lords, will the noble Lord consider giving Temple Sowerby the unnecessary and unwanted bypass which is being wished on Market Harborough?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord. Lord Paget, will agree that that is a little way away from Temple Sowerby.
Lord Paget of Northampton: My Lords, I thought it most apt.
Lord Hunt: My Lords, will the Minister tell the House whether, in view of the particular quality and character of this village and its relationship with the national park, his colleagues in the Department of the Environment and the Countryside Commission have been brought into full consultation?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I beg the pardon of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, but I did not hear the last part of his question. Perhaps he will repeat it.
Lord Hunt: My Lords, the burden of my question was whether, in view of the particular quality and character of the village which is not to be bypassed and in view of its relationship with the national park, the Department of the Environment and the Countryside Commission have been consulted in the decision which has been reached.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I can say that consultation has taken place with all those in government departments of state who are interested. But I think it might be more helpful if I responded a little differently to the noble Lord and said that we regard this matter as of sufficient importance to have sent a team of officials who will be at Temple Sowerby to discuss matters with the local action group this very night.
Lord Ferrier: My Lords, does the noble Lord appreciate that the absence of a bypass for the City of Edinburgh means that the main route for traffic, including heavy vehicles, between England and Scotland is deeply concerned with facilities on the A.66 and that there is a link between the two?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I accept what the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, says about there being a link. He will I think accept that that, again, is rather wide of the original Question.
Lord Henderson of Brompton: My Lords, the Minister has talked about more modest proposals. Does he agree that the proposal now put forward by the residents of Temple Sowerby is indeed a modest scheme for a short, single carriageway bypass of only just over one mile? Is that not a very reasonable proposal by comparison with the previous proposal for a bypass in this area and all the other much more extravagant bypasses (some of us think rather too extravagant) that there have been during the past 10 years?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I very much accept what the noble Lord, Lord Henderson of Brompton, has said. The more modest scheme to which he has referred, which is currently costed at something just over £1 million, is one of the solutions which form part of the current studies. It cannot be considered in isolation from others, but it will certainly receive favourable consideration. I have said, and I repeat, that these studies will be completed this summer. My department will be taking an early decision on those studies which will include that which the noble Lord has suggested.
Viscount Rochdale: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether he will convey to his right honourable friend the Secretary of State the fact that this is a very urgent matter, and also the strength of feeling of the vast majority of villagers in Temple Sowerby, even to the extent of an unfortunate feeling of considerable bitterness?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I can give my noble friend that assurance. I hope he will accept that the answers I have given this afternoon have expressed a degree of urgency on the part of the Government. I repeat that that is one of the reasons why a team of officials from my department has gone to Temple Sowerby today. We have no wish to distress the 279 inhabitants of the village, and would wish to find quick solutions to the problems which my noble friend has indicated.

Death Grant
2.58 p.m.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have any plans to increase the death grant.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services announced on 2nd April a series of reviews of the social security system. The future of the death grant will be considered in the context of these reviews.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that this delaying tactic is acceptable, I would say, to no part of this House? Is it not a fact that the last time the death grant was revised was in October 1967? Is it not also a fact that the discussions on the Government document bearing on the death grant were completed by July 1982 and we have still had no reactions to the document? Is she satisfied with the speed with which the Government are approaching what is a very vital problem for thousands of people in this country?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, based on the latest figures (March 1984) available, the grant would need to be increased to £ 165 to restore the 1967 value. This would cost about £80 million per year extra in 1984-85 if other conditions for the grant remained unchanged. To extend such a grant to cover areas where at present no grant or only a reduced rate grant is payable, would cost a further £10 million, and the total cost, including administration involved in paying grant, would be about £120 million.
In answer to the second part of the noble Lord's question, the public response to the consultative document of March 1982, to which he referred, gave no clear support to any of the proposals put forward. As a result it was necessary to re-examine the whole question.
Lord Banks: My Lords, if the Government are committed to having a means test of some sort in this particular case, as the consultative document seems to suggest, will the Government consider doing three things: first, substantially increasing the grant; secondly, making it available in all cases without initial means test and thirdly, recovering it subsequently from estates over a certain size?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, the short answer to that is that I could not possibly give answers to that before my noble friend in another place has considered the results of the reviews in which the death grant is included.
Lord Banks: My Lords, would the noble Baroness like to put that suggestion to her right honourable friend?
Baroness Trumpington: With pleasure, my Lords.
Baroness Macleod of Borve: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend the Minister whether she and the Secretary of State are aware of the enormous increase in funeral costs? They are now quite prohibitive. Further, in spite of the ribaldry in your Lordships' House, may I ask my noble friend to draw the Secretary of State's attention to what I have said in this House? Will she ask him, when this review is taking place, to try to find out the reasons for the enormous cost of burying somebody who is perhaps fairly close?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I have great sympathy with my noble friend Lady Macleod over the ribald attitude taken by the House to a perfectly sensible question. On the assumption that an average funeral costs about £350, it would cost about £185 million a year extra to increase the present grant to cover the cost of a funeral at that price. The further cost of extending this increased grant to cover all deaths where at present no grant or only half-rate grant is payable, would be about £30 million, and the total cost of paying grant at this level to everyone would be £240 million.
Lord Blyton: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that only this weekend the cost of the burial of a woman in my area—a cremation with two cars—was £537? The family had to scrape to bury her. Does she not think that, apart from the grant, which I hope will be increased, there ought to be an investigation into the costs of undertakers and the ancillary services, because the cost of burying anybody in this country is now outrageous?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, the increase in the supplementary benefit single payment limit from £300 to £500 and other changes in the supplementary benefit capital limits announced in the last Budget will help to ensure that people receiving supplementary benefit are not required to draw on personal savings or other provision towards personal funeral costs to meet expenses that could otherwise be met through the scheme.
On the question of the high cost of funerals, I think I can only report what the noble Lord and my noble friend have said to my right honourable friend in another place.
Viscount Mountgarret: My Lords, I wonder whether it might not be possible to have all these matters index linked to the rate of inflation or, dare I say, deflation, and then these periodical reviews and questions would never arise.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, in answer to my noble friend, if death grant were increased, national insurance contributions would have to go up, and they have risen substantially.
Baroness Jeger: My Lords, in view of the anxiety in the House about the increasing cost of funerals—and all of us recognise what a difficult job this is for those who do this work—would it be possible for the Government to refer the matter to the Office of Fair Trading so that perhaps we could get some report on the matter?
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Secondly, does the noble Minister recall that on 29th March her noble colleague, Lord Glenarthur, told the House that an announcement would be made in due course? I think "due course" is the most meaningless bit of jargon that exists in our bureaucracy, but are we now not getting a timescale of undue course? After all, in due course, shall we not all be dead? Meanwhile, there are many poor and harassed families who are facing great difficulties. If it is the Government's intention not to increase the death grant, if the Government insist that they cannot afford to increase the death grant, why not tell the British public so?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I think the best I can do in replying to the noble Baroness is to quote to her from a debate on 2nd April in another place, when my right honourable friend, the Secretary of State for Social Services said:
"We shall want to consider the death grant, together with the whole of social security over the coming years."
Therefore, any course is better than no course, including due course.
The Lord President of the Council (Viscount Whitelaw): My Lords, perhaps I am going to be an exception which proves the rule in this case. I ought to be saying that the questions are taking a very long time. But I am going to do something quite different. I think it will be reasonable—and I hope the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, will accept this—that I should congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Blyton, on behalf of the House on his 85th birthday, which I think is a very special occasion.
Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Baroness Phillips: My Lords, how does one follow that? I should just like to ask the Minister how she can forecast in such precise figures, how many people are going to die next year that she can tell us exactly what it would cost if she increased the death grant.
Baroness Trumpington: I am terribly sorry, I could not hear.
Baroness Phillips: My Lords, it is one of the mysteries to which the noble Minister may not have the answer. How can she explain in such precise figures what it would cost to increase the death grant unless she knows precisely how many people of different ages will be dying next year?
Baroness Trumpington: I imagine it is what is known as a mean average.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, some of the major issues have already been raised. All 1 want to ask the Minister is one final question regarding the review which was supposed to be completed in July 1982. Will she answer the original question that I put to her? Is she satisfied that, on this desperately tragic issue, the Government are moving with sufficient speed when they have not yet responded to the result of that review, which is now almost two years old?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I speak at all times on behalf of the Government, not on behalf of myself. Therefore it is no business of mine to say whether or not I am satisfied. The answer to the noble Lord is, yes.

Pit Closures and Job Creation
3.9 p.m.
Lord Diamond: 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 plans have they for setting up a National Coal Board subsidiary company with the responsibility of creating jobs in areas threatened by pit closures.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Energy (The Earl of Avon): My Lords, there have been no compulsory redundancies in the coal industry during the current restructuring. With the early retirement provisions for the over-50s and the generous redundancy payments now available for the under-50s it is not envisaged that any compulsory redundancies will be required to achieve the proposed 10 per cent. fall in the manpower of the National Coal Board over the next 12 months.
Lord Diamond: My Lords, I am grateful for that Answer, but the noble Earl must be reading an Order Paper different from mine. I cannot find a single reference to the words "compulsory redundancies". What is assumed behind the Question—at least, what I assumed would be understood—is the possibility of people losing jobs compulsorily or voluntarily. Inasmuch as a comparison with steel proves that it is quite useful to have a separate subsidiary organisation trying to provide jobs where they are being lost, would it not be sensible for the Coal Board to be doing something similar and for the Government to be encouraging it to do so?
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Lord did not read into my origial reply an anticipation of his supplementary question. Really, the two situations are quite different. There is, for instance, nothing new in pit closures. We talked about this last Friday. So far as comparisons with steel are concerned, the NCB has so far been able to avoid compulsory redundancies. Any coal industry equivalent of the British Steel plan would have to operate in many more locations and therefore be less effective.
Lord Blyton: My Lords, is the Minister aware that I have seen in my lifetime in County Durham collieries closed, villages devastated and young people left without jobs? If we are to face closures again, should not something be done to create new industries in the places where closures are to take place rather than leave children and young miners without hope in derelict villages?
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, indeed; but what the noble Lord perhaps does not appreciate is the number
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of alternative jobs that have been provided for these miners and the fact that until recently no one declared redundant has been under the age of 50.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, in view of the importance of the question asked by my noble friend Lord Blyton, is it really understood that in modern mining the word "miner" embraces many professions and many skills—carpenters, joiners and engineers? It is quite a remarkable range. They have skills and abilities that could be used in other industries. Does the noble Earl not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, that when pit closures affecting entire communities are likely, new industries could be attracted if someone was responsible for making them aware of the vast range of skills and abilities that exist within mining communities?
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord has a strong point. Equally, of course, there are other special employment and training measures such as community industry, enterprise allowance and job release schemes, all of which cover the sort of people he is referring to.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, may I remind the noble Earl of the report on European Community Coal Policy produced by your Lordships' Select Committee on the European Communities, and particularly the conclusion in paragraph 116 (r) which recommends that:
"The United Kingdom Government will need to take new regional initiatives to deal with the consequences of pit closures concentrated in South Wales, Scotland and the North-East"?
That appears in your Lordships' own Select Committee report. Have the Government yet made a formal response to that recommendation and, if it was accepted by the Government, would it not assist in solving the present dispute in the mining industry and provide real jobs for any miners dispossessed of jobs?
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, my answer is three-fold. First, as I stated in my reply to the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, there are a great number of schemes to cover areas affected by loss of jobs. Secondly, there have been discussions between the Department of Energy and the National Coal Board on the possibility of setting up a similar organisation to that mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, earlier. But, at the moment, we do not believe that the circumstances are such that this should be done. My third point comes back to the original one. At the moment, jobs are being found in other pits and up to the beginning of this year there were no redundancies involving anyone under 50.
Lord Gormley: My Lords, have the Coal Board definite plans for pit closures as against dealing with them piecemeal?
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, as the noble Lord knows, the subject of pit closures is for the National Coal Board, which follows the established consultation procedure of which the noble Lord is well aware. The difficulty is that there is no simple trade-off that can be made between redundancy terms and efforts to create jobs.
Lord Grimond: My Lords, is the Minister aware that an initiative was taken by Mr. MacGregor's predecessor at the British Steel Corporation under which the corporation set up an organisation that did a great deal to find alternative jobs at Corby when the steelworks there was closed? Will the noble Lord perhaps have a word with Mr. MacGregor in his new incarnation to see if a similar initiative might be taken in certain places where pits are closed, leaving widespread unemployment?
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, yes. As I said earlier, we have indeed considered this. I shall bring it again to the attention of my right honourable friend. But the circumstances are very different, as I tried to explain in my supplementary answer, from those in the steel industry.
Viscount Mountgarret: My Lords, I wonder whether my noble friend the Minister can answer this question. If noble Lords opposite think that it is such a jolly good idea to set up subsidiary companies to deal with employment after the closure of pits, why did they not put something into effect when they during their term of office closed, I think I am right in saying, some 300 pits?
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, because we had full employment.
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, I am not trying to draw the Opposition in the way that my noble friend has done, but, as I have said, the situation is different.
Lord Diamond: My Lords, will the noble Earl be good enough to reconsider the answers he has given, which seem clearly based on the assumption that there have always been pit closures, as he has said, and that there is no difference in the situation today? That is not the picture as the miners see it. It is a very different picture. They see the Government as being unappreciative of their circumstances. Would it not therefore be wise for the Government to be seen to be taking some initiative directed towards the severity of the problem as the miners see it?
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, I really do not know where the noble Lord has been over recent years. So far as I can understand it, the miners are very appreciative of the redundancy terms, which are extremely generous. Any idea that the situation is comparable to what the noble Lord suggests, I reject.

British Telecom
Lord Denham: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. my noble friend Lord Cockfield will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement to be made in another place on British Telecom.

Freedom and Private Property
3.18 p.m.
Lord Beloff Lord Beloff rose to call attention to the connection between freedom and the widest possible diffusion of private property; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the unprecendented or perhaps nearly unprecedented length of Question Time today may suggest to some of your Lordships a reluctance in this House to embark, rather unusually, on the consideration of an abstract proposition such as is contained in the Motion now before us. It was, however, the view of myself and my noble friends that, at a time when there are perceptible considerable changes in the outlook both of those professionally concerned with social and economic problems and among the general public all over the Western world, when people are beginning to look at some of the fundamental problems of our societies in a new way, there might be something to be said for standing back from the daily hurly-burly of legislative proposals and administrative changes to look at these matters as a whole—hopefully, one would imagine, from a point of view in which economic and social questions are looked at together rather than, in consequence, I think, largely, of the so-called professionalisation of economics, as two separate matters.
In a debate on freedom, it might be appropriate to conclude my explanation of why I suggest that we do this by a quotation from Abraham Lincoln:
"If we could first know where we are and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do and how to do it".
It has been a common theme of social thinkers for more than two centuries that freedom is a matter of direct concern to individuals and indeed is part of what they look for in a civilised society. It has been admitted generally for a long time that individuals who are in the possession of private property within a system where it cannot be taken away, either directly through confiscation, or indirectly through inflation, are themselves in enjoyment of a very considerable measure of freedom in their choice of action, and the language they use and the opinions they express are all more easily defended than are those by those people who depend upon someone else's will or ability to give them employment and who, if they lack this, are confronted with grave difficulties of a kind which detract from not only their material profit, but also their freedom.
In the nineteenth century this happy position was obtained in all our countries by a minority of the population. But even to the acquisition of that degree of freedom by a minority of the population we owe the great explosion of ingenuity, of thought, of the arts, which goes to make up the civilisation of the nineteenth century. We are all the inheritors of it; and I fear some of us are still parasites upon it, since it is difficult to see any way in which our century has advanced, at any rate in social thought, beyond the limits attained in the nineteenth century.
The problem then, and since, has been: how does one make this ownership of property and the sense of freedom deriving from it available to wider and wider sections of the community, in the light of the fact that, as already was apparent early in the nineteenth century, modern industry, modern technology demands larger and larger-scale operations, so that the familiar, the classical, position of someone owning, say, his own farm—a piece of land—is really an inappropriate analogy? That problem was not solved in the nineteenth century; it remains to confront us today.
But there were two important attempts in the nineteenth century to bypass the problem. The first of them was what we generically style socialism; that is to say, the belief that if the resources of the community were publicly owned, people would derive from that fact the same kind of satisfaction as they would otherwise have derived from the private ownership of property. Experience which we have had in the twentieth century, and which was not available to the writers and thinkers of the nineteenth century, has made us well aware that this is not the case. It was possible, for a generation or two, to say that the fact that in the Soviet Union freedom was clearly absent was due to some particularities about Russian society—the backwardness of the country at the time of the Revolution, the lack of any strong indigenous tradition of free institutions, and the ravages of civil war and foreign war.
But we have now had some 40 years in which some of the more advanced countries of Europe, countries such as Czechoslovakia, which have been in the mainstream of European civilisation for centuries, have undergone the same experience and have ended up in very much the same place. Therefore it would now seem to be a matter of common agreement that if in a society property, particularly productive property, the source of someone's employment, the source of his housing, the source of his information and the source of governmental authority which he obeys are all in the same hands, then one has the very definition of tyranny.
One might say, however, that in the West there has been another bypass attempt, which we might call less than integral socialism—partial socialism. By that I mean the acquisition by government, by the State acting on behalf of the community, of large sections of property, particularly productive property. In the debates over nationalisations in this and other countries—our experience is no different from that of our neighbours—it was often argued that one of the great reasons for making this change was that people working within a publicly-owned industry would feel quite differently about themselves and their situation from those in private employment. Again, that has proved to be an illusion.
Earlier this afternoon references were made to the current dispute in the mining industry. One aspect of this strikes me and must strike many of those who remember the last great dispute in 1926. The language which is used by some of the leaders of the miners about the National Coal Board does not differentiate itself at all from the language which was used by Mr. A. J. Cook in 1926 about the mine owners of that day. Therefore it does not seem that the fact that the National Coal Board are our employees—speaking of ourselves as taxpayers—has made any difference to the workforce, or at least to a considerable section of that workforce. It would seem that with the present formulae of state ownership—exactly the same thing is observable in, say, France—we have again failed to solve the problem.
The other attempt at bypassing the problem, which was a more lasting and in some ways more profitable method of bypassing, was the creation of substitutes for what someone might do with property and with income; that is to say, what we customarily call the
welfare state, but which I think would more properly be called the entitlement state. By that I mean the conferring by the state upon individuals not the ability to purchase certain services or to save money in order to acquire these services, but rather an entitlement to draw on the resources of the community as a whole to provide them as an entitlement. Here again, after having made what most people would admit is very important progress in this respect, in the sense of relieving unnecessary miseries in our society, we seem to have come up against an obstacle or a series of obstacles to progress.
First, there is the fact that the entitlement system has not reduced the hard core of poverty which was observed by social observers in the nineteenth century and which is still daily called to our attention. Secondly, it has been made clear—and quite recently by many of your Lordships—that a system of this kind is, almost of necessity, so complex that it defeats the very purposes for which it was set up, in that (and this was referred to in a debate this week) a great many of the people whose needs are greatest find it most difficult to acquire that to which the state has entitled them. Those noble Lords who have come to this House from another place will no doubt confirm that the surgeries which they held in their constituencies from week to week were very largely taken up with advising people as to how to make the best of their entitlements.
There is also of course, the question as to the relationship between entitlement and the urge to produce, because all that entitlement can do is to enable the product of work to be diffused. That, of course, was a constant worry of the creators of our modern welfare provision, from the Webbs to Beveridge. However, that is an economic question which might more appropriately be discussed on another occasion.
What we can see from out experience of both socialism and the entitlement state is that there is some mismatch, not in theory but in practice, between bold schemes of social organisation of this kind and the actualities of human nature. In fact, the socialist schemes only run at all because a large margin is allowed for human instincts of acquisition to make themselves felt on the margins. It is the private plots which feed those countries, not the state-run farms.
In our own society we can, I think, see growing evidence of a preference for ownership over dependence, over entitlement. The most striking example—and it will no doubt be dwelt upon by other speakers this afternoon—has been the sale of council houses. It is obvious that most people would rather not be the tenants of a local authority even though, as we are so often reminded in this House, the local authority is their own choice through the ballot box. So popular, indeed, has the acquisition of this form of property proved to be, that I find no echo in the reports of the local elections which are to be held tomorrow that in any part of the country Labour candidates are saying, "You have only got to return us to office and we will give you back the council tenancies for which you crave". It has been accepted as a general fact by all parties that when choice is given people prefer property to entitlement.
There is also some evidence, although of a much less conclusive kind, that where people can acquire a direct interest in concerns in which they work, even large concerns, they respond in a more positive fashion than they respond to nationalisation through government-appointed boards. A very high proportion of the shares that have been offered, on denationalisation, in a number of concerns—and I suppose the National Freight Corporation is the most obvious one—have in fact been willingly and, indeed, eagerly acquired by their employees. When something is obviously far too large to be done by a small firm or by an individual entrepreneur, there would again appear to be a movement towards reconsidering the whole situation and finding some new methods of ownership in which those working would be interested in the successful outcome of the enterprise.
Finally—and, again, this is often referred to in our debates—there is the question of self-employment and the growth in self-employment and in new enterprises, which has been marked in very recent times. Therefore, there seems to be something of a perceptible shift in popular opinion. It is, of course, tremendously resisted. Where I think I differ from Her Majesty's Government and their advisers is that I believe that this is the beginning of a very long process, and that the idea that society can be transformed in this respect in one, two or three parliaments is almost certainly a illusion. After all, the contrary process took something like a century and a half.
Nevertheless, it seems to me that if we perceive willingness among people to give of their best if they are working directly for themselves and, even more, if they are working for the benefit of their own familes—in other words, if we perceive the strength of the parental instinct—and if we say that all of our social arrangements should harmonise with that, then at least we would have a yardstick by which to measure the various proposals for legal or administrative change that come before us. But there is considerable resistance because a great army of beneficiaries have grown up around both partial socialism and the entitlement state. There are a great many people who owe not only their employment but their positions of influence and power to being somewhere within these structures. We can no more imagine them surrendering them freely than the aristocrats of the eighteenth century were ready, freely, to surrender their privileges at the time of the great revolutions. So one must assume that the argument will continue and that we are by no means certain as to the particular ways in which progress can be made.
It is not simply a question of, for example, the interests of the National Union of Teachers in the limitation of parental choice, or of the interests of some branches of the health service in maintaining that particular form of organising the health of our community. There is also, as far as one can judge, some considerable resistance in the Inland Revenue to the kind of changes which would stimulate self-employment. There is a strong preference for the PAYE system, which is so usefully geared to bureaucratic convenience and the appetite of computers.
Nevertheless, there are good reasons for believing that there is a sensitivity to these issues which did not exist a generation ago. To some extent I think that we have been distracted from them by the economists. They tell us to look at the size of public expenditure as compared with the size of private expenditure. Therefore, they look at an input, which in itself is neutral, rather than at the results, about which people are concerned.
My own belief is that in this country many people probably spend too little of their income on both education and health, and that we have a great deal of money in our pockets to spend on things which are not publicly provided; for example, video nasties—to take your Lordships' primary legislative interest at the moment.
But my own view is that increasing sums will not be invested either in improving our health or in bettering our educational system unless somehow we manage to join our interest in this to the interests of parents in themselves and their families. I do not know how this will be done. None of the schemes which have so far been floated seems to me to be without snags. Nevertheless, we are moving towards a recognition that a system which ignores the primary instinct of human beings for the disposal of their own work, of their own fortunes, and the planning of the future of their own families, is a system which is unlikely to command general support. It is with those general ideas in mind that I thought it would be interesting to have the reactions of the House to the proposition on the Order Paper. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.42 p.m.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, has chosen an interesting subject for today's debate, though it is not a new one. He has made a stimulating speech, as he always does, though it is not one with which I or my noble friends can agree. Indeed, there would be many distinguished members of his own party who would have doubts about some of the things he said. Strictly speaking, the noble Lord's Motion advocates that private property as it now exists should be diffused; that is, more widely spread. But the noble Lord has gone beyond that. His speech was, in fact, a defence of the present Government's policies and, if I understood him aright, a plea for an even stronger dose of the same medicine—a prescription which is slowly but surely creating a permanent mood of frustration and desperation among a large section of the British community at the present time.
The noble Lord's Motion relates freedom to the possession of property. That is a very old proposition and it gives rise to an old argument. It also brings into the debate the very substance of political divisions. The noble Lord takes an old-fashioned view but, in my opinion, it is a dangerous one because if this country were to travel along the road which he advocates, we would find ourselves in deep trouble and the great majority of our people, far from gaining freedom, would lose some of the freedoms that they now enjoy.
Years ago I was much impressed by R. H. Tawney, who taught me a great deal about the so-called "partial socialism" to which the noble Lord referred. One of his books was Christianity and the Social Order. No doubt the noble Lord remembers it very well. What

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Tawney wrote is relevant to this debate. Perhaps I may be allowed to quote from this book, so as to get our discussion into perspective. This is what R. H. Tawney said:
"There are few topics on which more nonsense is talked than that of property. Statements are still sometimes encountered which defend property in general or attack it in general. They appear to rest on the assumption that all forms of property are equally justified or equally without justification. The assumption is fallacious and the statements are meaningless …
The important point of principle is to discriminate between property for use and property for power or exploitation, a distinction which largely though not wholly coincides with distinctions based on magnitude.
Some forms of property … which are privately owned … ought to be publicly owned … some other forms of property … ought to be owned on a much larger scale by a much larger number of persons because until they are so owned the mass of mankind are starved of the necessities and amenities of a cultured existence".
Tawney's general approach is as relevant today as it was when he wrote those words, and his criticism of the diffusion of property, as advocated in the noble Lord's Motion, is as valid as ever. Although they are obviously related, we must distinguish between political freedom on the one hand and economic freedom on the other. The struggle for religious and political freedom continued into this century, and most of us have been involved in the effort to achieve economic freedom.
The only question in this debate is whether the measures advocated by the noble Lord and, generally, the policies of the present Government are, in fact, enhancing the political and economic freedom of the people of this country—and by that I mean the great majority of the people of this country, and not a select few.
Since the last war the Western democracies, which had previously periodically been locked in conflict, have succeeded in maintaining a balance, in preserving freedom while avoiding the excesses of the extreme Left or the extreme Right. Given the previous history, it has been one of the most heartening periods of modern times. Even so, the policies which have made this possible have not been those advocated by the noble Lord, Lord Beloff. They have, by and large, operated mixed economies, with a balance as between the public and private sectors on the pattern laid down by the post-war Labour Government.
The noble Lord is always at his liveliest when he is criticising the Labour Party, but I want to say this to him—and I say it with conviction because I and my colleagues have been witnesses to these things. The policies of the Labour Party since 1945 have extended the boundaries of individual freedom in Britain. Let me explain how this has taken place, in response to the rather superficial references of the noble Lord to the welfare state, which he described as "the entitlement state". Let me remind him of what happened from 1945 onwards.
First, I well recall the tim when people dreaded illness, not only for its own sake, but also because they could not afford the doctor's bill, let alone a hospital bill. I recall visiting the Caernarvon and Anglesey hospital in Bangor many years ago and the secretary there showed me the patients' register of the hospital at the turn of the century. There were entries such as, "John Jones, Gwalchmai, Anglesey, sent home—no means to pay". Another read, "William Roberts
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Nefyn, sent home—no means to pay". They could not afford to stay on in the hospital.
As a distinguished historian the noble Lord really ought to get down to the facts. The National Health Service was created to remove this fear once and for all, and to give everyone, at every level of society, the same access to the best treatment possible. That is an extension of freedom. A departure from this basic principle, a move towards privatisation of the health service, would be a retrograde step of the worst kind.
I am a great admirer of the United States and of its people, but we must remember that illness in the United States can reduce a family to penury. Is that what the noble Lord wants here—because from what he said that appeared to be his objective.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, as that is a direct question perhaps I may answer it.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, by all means.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, if the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, would look at the article by Mr. Marac in the current issue of the Economist, comparing the costs of the health service and the methods by which it is organised in Britain and in the United States, he would find (though by very different routes) that we have come up against the same obstacle—and it is the one which worries me—namely, that we cannot provide the best medical attention for all our people because of the way in which we finance it. The United States have come to this conclusion by a quite different route. The contrast between Britain and the United States may well have been true in Tawney's time. It is not true today.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, the evidence that we have is contrary to that of the noble Lord. The National Health Service, for all its weaknesses—and our fear is that it will become weaker under the present Administration—provides opportunities to the people of this country as a whole which do not exist in the United States of America.
I have read the article in the Economist to which the noble Lord referred. It is not relevant to the point I am making about the availability of free medical treatment in the two countries.
Lord Molloy Lord Molloy My Lords, would my noble friend give way?
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: No, my Lords. I should like to give way to my noble friend but I must proceed with my speech.
Secondly, I recall the time when a large section of the population dreaded old age. They feared it because there was every possibility that they would have to go to what was then called the workhouse. That would mean—or could mean—a grim and cruel end to an old couple's life because they would live in the workhouse apart from each other after living together for decades. The much maligned Labour Party put an end to that. It abolished the workhouse, and homes and suitable housing for elderly people with improved pensions and other measures were introduced. That, my Lords, was an extension of freedom.

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Thirdly, as the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, knows full well, educational opportunities for the vast majority of young people were severely restricted before 1945. I shall avoid detail because we have debated these matters recently. The Butler Act, as taken up by the Labour Government, transformed the scene and gave opportunities for further education to thousands of young people who would never have enjoyed it under the old dispensation. That, my Lords, was an extension of freedom. In all these fields the Western democracies have followed the lead given by the Attlee Government, and some have by now overtaken us in certain areas. But, as I have said, the basic freedoms were also preserved in all these countries.
Finally, and perhaps most important of all, stress was laid on the importance to the individual of secure employment. The freedom of the unemployed man or woman is strictly limited. If we cannot understand that, we do not know what freedom means. There are over a million young people under 25 who are out of a job now. They are not free as I understand freedom. I shall not pursue this point at length because my noble friend Lord Wilson of Rievaulx is to open a debate on unemployment in a few days' time. However, the noble Lord's Motion entitles us to ask how the policies of the Government he supports have affected freedom in Britain and whether the next few years are likely to enhance our liberties. This is the gravamen of the argument.
I would hope that I am not as prejudiced in my general attitude to the Conservative Party as the noble Lord, I fear, is towards my party. For example, I recognise that members of the party opposite are as attached to certain concepts of freedom as we are; to the rule of law, and to freedom under the law. I would, however, argue that in pursuance of certain objectives this Government have for five years obstinately refused to recognise the damage they have done, and are doing, to the social fabric of the nation. People on the Right, Left, and centre of politics have urged and pleaded with the Government to modify their economic policy.
Three years ago 364 university economists criticised the Government's economic policies. One of the things they said which is relevant to the noble Lord's Motion was:
"Present policies will deepen the depression, erode the industrial base of our economy and threaten its social and political stability".
Since then, unemployment has gone up by 2 million, and bankruptcies have been running at a record level.
The noble Lord, Lord Cockfield, who is to speak later—and I am delighted that he is taking part in the debate—will say, and he is entitled to, that the Government have brought inflation down and that we are seeing some growth in the economy. That is to be welcomed. But it must be seen in perspective. The American recovery has led to some improvement in world conditions, but the big question is what effect the growth will have on unemployment, and whether the rate of growth can be sustained.
These are relevant to the Motion because the price this country has paid for the Government's economic policies in terms of unemployment and the freedom of between 3 and 4 million people to work has been a massive one. I understand that economic research
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institutes in West Germany and the United States are at present forecasting a substantial fall in unemployment in those two countries. The noble Lord might like to tell us if we can expect similar relief in this country. It really would be very good news if he can say clearly that these people who are now deprived of the freedom to work will in fact have a better prospect of work.
Privatisation is another variation on the theme of setting the people free. It is conveniently overlooked that the public ownership of certain areas brought essential services to millions of our fellow citizens: rural electrification, gas, piped-water supplies, rural telephone services, rural housing and rural transport are all examples of this. All these developments have improved the quality of life of our people and contributed to their economic freedom. Now we have this obsessive cult of privatisation I do not believe that the public sector is perfect. I have felt for a long time that there has been a tendency towards over-centralisation, and a falling off of local accountability and control. Great power in any sphere has its obvious dangers, and democratic control of public industry is absolutely essential. Even so, public industry is subjected to far more control and public scrutiny than private industry, into which the present Government wish to convert it. Do John Smith or William Jones feel that their freedom has been extended as a result of the Telecommunications Bill? They certainly do not. They regard it as an irrelevance, and they know from long experience that the boardrooms of Britain are not cathedrals of freedom. The switch from the public to the private sector diminishes accountability every time. The ownership of property does not, therefore, bring freedom any more than it brings happiness.
We have heard a great deal about house ownership. I am very much in favour of it, although I do not think that it is one of the essential ingredients of freedom. The noble Lord himself referred to the sale of council houses. I know two neighbouring families in a small council estate in Anglesey. One have bought their own house while their next-door neighbours have not. There is no real sense in which one family is more free than the other. The fact is that this country must have a reservoir of houses to let. What is needed today is a sensible housing policy and not the hotch-potch of inconsistency which serves as a policy for the present Government.
I well remember that when I was doing my best to obey the noble Lord's injunction to diffuse private property by taking the Leasehold Reform Act through the House of Commons in 1967 we were obdurately opposed by the party opposite at every stage, yet that Act increased home ownership more than any other single piece of legislation which has gone through Parliament during this century.
In conclusion, I must say to the noble Lord that our concern—and it is shared by many in the Conservative Party—is that this Government are moving steadily away from democratic principles and from local accountability and freedom. In local government this includes the cancellation of elections, the creation of transitional nominated councils, the abolition of metropolitan authorities and the GLC, as well as other measures now before the House.

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We hear a great deal about "the mandate and the manifesto", and I do not underestimate election promises. At the same time I well recall the words of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor when he referred to the absolute legislative power confided in Parliament and concentrated in the hands of a Government armed with a parliamentary majority, briefed and served by a professional Civil Service, and I quote his exact words:
"when such a Government is indoctrinated with the false political doctrine of the mandate and the manifesto … the expression 'elective dictatorship' is not a contradiction".
That is what the noble and learned Lord said. The Government and the noble Lord should ponder these words today.
This country's success over 300 years has been to create a progressively more stable society in which freedom has grown from generation to generation. Freedom is most at risk in an unstable society and there is ample evidence of this as we look around the world today. The noble Lord believes strongly in the doctrine behind his Motion, but I am afraid that he is not facing up to reality. Part of that reality is that a huge section of the land and of the marketable wealth in this country is still in the hands of comparatively few people. For example, the richest 5 per cent, of the adult population owned 45 per cent. of the marketable wealth in 1981. I should certainly like to see the nation's wealth shared out more fairly. I do not see that happening under the present Government. The steps taken in the name of the noble Lord's doctrine concentrate the ownership of property in limited hands; they do not diffuse it.
We on this side believe that freedom requires that people are free from want and disease and the fear of these things and that they are financially and physically secure. There is a great truth in the old quotation:
"Give me neither wealth nor property, but enough for my sustenance.
I started with R. H. Tawney and I will end with him. He said:
"The goal to be sought must… make it evident that the common good takes precedence over private interests and ambitions and that all men are fellow servants".
It is because, for all our defects and deficiencies, we in the Labour party believe in this that we reject the noble Lord's Motion.

British Telecom
4.2 p.m.
Lord Cockfield: My Lords, with permission, I will repeat a Statement made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry on the privatisation of British Telecom. The Statement is as follows:
"With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a Statement about privatisation of British Telecom.
"As the House will know, it is the Government's intention to sell a majority interest of the ordinary voting shares of British Telecom.
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"I wish now to set out the broad outlines of the capital structure with which BT PLC will enter the private sector. We have concluded that the initial debt of the company to the Government should be in the form of debentures with a capital value of £2,750 million carrying interest at between 12¼ per cent. and 12¾ per cent. The Government will assign sufficient of these debentures to the residual statutory corporation to enable them to meet the deed of covenant obligation to the BT and Post Office staff superannuation schemes as required by the Telecommunications Act 1984.
"BT PLC will also issue to the Government preference shares to the value of £750 million. These preference shares carrying a gross dividend of 11¾ per cent, will be non-voting and redeemable at BT's option or in any case after 30 to 35 years. Apart from BT's continuing overseas and short-term borrowing, the remainder of the company's assets will be financed by ordinary shares and reserves.
"Turning to BT's future operating environment, we announced last year that the tariff increases on some of BT's services should be kept below the rate of inflation. We have now concluded that the services concerned will include local calls, business and residential rentals and trunk calls. The constraint will apply for five years to a weighted average of these services. Its level will be RPI minus 3, that is 3 percentage points less than the increase in retail prices generally over the preceding year. We are satisfied that this will reassure BT's customers, while allowing BT to adjust tariffs on these services to reflect market demands. The board of BT has given the Government an assurance that BT PLC intends during the same period that the level of its residential rental charges will be held within a ceiling of 2 per cent. over RPI; and that it further intends during that period to continue to give rebates to low users, broadly comparable in overall financial effect to the present scheme.
"Details of the operation of the RPI minus X provision will be set out in the BT licence which will be laid before Parliament soon.
"The Government intend that the BT flotation should provide an opportunity to encourage wider share ownership by both the public and employees of the company.
"Employees who work at least 16 hours per week for BT and who have been in continuous employment with BT from 2nd April 1984 until a date shortly before the flotation will benefit from a special scheme. They will be offered about £70-worth of free shares and, for every share purchased by the employee, the Government will provide a further two shares, up to a maximum of £200 of free shares for £100 of purchased shares. Employees will therefore have the opportunity to acquire about £370-worth of shares for an investment of about £100. As in past sales, these shares will have to be vested in a trust for a minimum of two years.
"In addition, a discount of 10 per cent, off the public offer price will be offered to all employees at the time of flotation on purchases of up to

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£2,000-worth of shares, provided that they are held for a specified period.
"Further, we have decided to offer special incentives to telephone subscribers. One possibility would take the form of vouchers which could be issued to offset part of the cost of quarterly telephone bills for a subsequent period. Details will be announced closer to the flotation.
"As a result of these measures we are confident that very many of BT's employees and customers will become shareholders in BT PLC. The financial framework for BT PLC is now set, and work on the flotation is on schedule for a late autumn launch. I will keep the House informed of further progress on the BT sale".
My Lords, that completes the Statement.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Lord for having repeated the Statement made in another place, and, in particular, your Lordships will be grateful for his assurance that he will keep the House informed of further progress. I am bound to admit that with the existing uncertainties within the City, which have been voiced and, indeed, published over the last three weeks in the financial press and in what is called the quality press, the noble Lord's Statement comes as rather an anti-climax. It conveys really very little information at all.
In so far as the Statement does convey information, I was a little surprised to see that, notwithstanding the assurances about the RPI minus X factor which were given in the course of Second Reading, Committee and Report stages, we now find that the residential rental charges will be held within a ceiling of 2 per cent. over RPI. This is useful information to have. It is a pity, perhaps, that we did not have it while the Bill was going through your Lordships' House, because many of us suspected that the RPI minus X formula would conceal a number of factors of which, I suspect, this latest revelation is only one.
In dealing with the revised capital structure, the noble Lord has been singularly modest in the amount of information that he has given. It is said in paragraph 3 of the Statement that the initial debt of the company to the Government should be to the value of £2,750 million, carrying interest at the rate stated. This was, in part, envisaged at the Committee stage of the Bill.
If the noble Lord will look at the balance sheet of British Telecom as at 31st March 1983, he will find that the total amount of the loans from the Secretary of State amounted to £2,943.7 million. If one deducts the payments that are going to be made up to and including 20th September 1984, that leaves a total sum outstanding of £2,911 million. I do not know what increases or decreases in loan transactions may have taken place during the current year—and it may be that the position has changed since the end of the financial year 1983—but in the event of it being the same, it would seem that there is going to be a write-off of some £164 million of the taxpayers' money. I would invite the noble Lord's attention to that.
One rather expected that the Statement would contain much more information than it does and, in view of the Government's assurance that they are going to give us further information, may I anticipate
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some of the matters on which this House will expect some early information and, indeed, on which the prospective investors themselves will require further information. First of all, when is the draft of the final licence to BT going to be presented to this House and to another place for consideration? This is a matter of concern to investors, too, because until investors know under what conditions BT are going to operate, it will be very difficult for them to make an investment appraisal. May I have the noble Lord's assurance that as soon as the BT licence has been finalised it will be presented to this House first rather than to the investment institutions within the City?—because (who knows?) this House and another place may not like the final form of the licence which they see and which I am informed is likely to differ very substan-tially from the draft with which we were furnished during the passage of the Bill through this House.
Will the noble Lord also give us some further information in regard to some items which have appeared in the press; and if the items are wrong, then I shall willingly stand corrected by the noble Lord. According to at least one of the very prominent quality newspapers, a very considerable advertising and promotional campaign is going to take place prior to the issue of the shares themselves. Your Lordships will be well aware that over the last few months, for some mysterious reason, we have been made acquainted with the virtues of BT on an almost daily basis, several times a day, with "The Power behind the Button". The dividing line between a promotional activity ultimately culminating in inviting investors to make an investment in BT and an invitation to customers to take up the services of BT is a very fine one.
I trust that if the noble Lord is anticipating, prior to the issue, the television media being used as part of the promotion of the issue, he will bear in mind that in such circumstances the video recordings would, prior to showing, have to comply with the provisions of the Stock Exchange in exactly the same way as any written prospectus. He might take it on board that he is in danger of illegality if anything such as that occurs; unless, of course, further legislation is brought to Parliament.
May I ask the noble Lord a further question on this? If inspired reports in the press are to be believed, it is expected that the Government anticipate a substantial sale of these shares to residents in other countries and to people other than British citizens. If that be the case, will the noble Lord inform me as to whether it is proposed to issue a full prospectus to those individuals likely to subscribe in foreign countries or to investment institutions in foreign countries? If it is the intention to issue full prospectuses on that scale, how can he justify the issue of an abbreviated prospectus to subscribers in the United Kingdom? Alternatively, is he prepared to face the hazard that if he does not comply with the full-prospectus provisions, it may be difficult to have the securities marketed on other stock exchanges in the world?
Finally, when is the noble Lord going to let us have a copy of the memorandum and articles of association? I am sure that, although the subscribers and some of the employees may wish to take advantage of acquiring the miniscule amount of shares that are apparently going to be available on favourable

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terms, they would probably like to know whether they are going to be able to attend the annual general meetings of this new company—which, in coming years, should be very interesting indeed.
4.17 p.m.
Lord Diamond: My Lords, while it is with complete sincerity that we on these Benches can thank the noble Lord the Minister for repeating a Statement made in another place—which I certainly regard as an important courtesy provided by the Government—I hope that he will acquit me of any discourtesy when I say that we cannot possibly welcome any Statement of any kind which takes a step further in pursuing the unwise and damaging policy of attempting to turn this public monopoly into a privately-owned organisation. The term used here is "privatisation". My first question to the noble Lord is this. Am I correct in understanding that "privatisation", as used by the Government, means the transformation of a public monopoly, with all the accountability and protection that that involves, into a private monopoly without any accountability or protection at all?
As to the content of the Statement, the noble Lord has said that the financial framework is now set. In those circumstances, would he be kind enough to fill in some of the figures about which this Statement gives no indication at all? He has told us what the debentures would amount to, although he has not told us what kind of security is attached to the debentures, what kind of security they will carry. He has not given us any indication of the totality of the figures, either of the assets or of the amounts to be financed separately by ordinary shares and reserves. I am not expecting exact figures, but an indication would be helpful to everybody who is interested in this enormous and important flotation.
The Statement goes on to say that the flotation is on schedule for a late autumn launch. May I ask the Minister for an assurance that a late autumn launch will not take place during a recess of Parliament?— which, of course, would be a very convenient period to deal with the launch and all the difficulties involved in it; difficulties of a political, as well as an economic, nature.
Then the Statement goes on to refer to employee interest in shares which, as the noble Lord knows, is something in which all of us on these Benches are interested. Could he confirm that, with regard to employees' shareholdings on these advantageous terms, there will be no capital gains tax involved when the shares come to be sold, if they are sold, after the end of the retention period? Also, do the same remarks apply to the discount of 10 per cent?
Lord Cockfield: My Lords, may I first say that the issues of policy relating to the privatisation of British Telecom were debated at very great length in your Lordships' House very recently and I do not propose either to reopen those arguments or in fact to respond to the specific points made by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, and the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, so far as that is concerned.
I will come, if I may, to the factual points. The Statement in fact gives a very great deal of additional
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information—in fact the kind of information for which the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, was himself asking in the course of our debates on the Bill. First of all, so far as the RPI minus X formula is concerned, the general formula—that is, the RPI minus 3 per cent, as it will now be—applies to a basket of charges which of course include the residental charges as well as local calls. That will be the overriding restraint. Within the total thus ascertained, it is only right that BT should have a measure of commercial flexibility as to how much to change individual charges; and it was in relation to that element of flexibility that the assurance has been given that the specific item of residential rental charges, about which some anxiety had been expressed, should not be increased by more than RPI plus 2 per cent. In other words, it is an additional safeguard and not one which in any way derogates from the main safeguard contained in the RPI minus 3 per cent. safeguard.
Secondly, on the revised capital structure, the accounts from which the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington. was quoting are the interim accounts for the six months ended 30th September 1983 and they do show certain figures for the amount of the National Loan Fund's obligations then outstanding. The position, however, is that since then the total amount of the NLF debt has been reduced to £2,790 million. It is a substantial reduction. The point made by the noble Lord was an entirely valid one on the basis of the information that was before us when we were debating these matters on an earlier occasion, but the position is that the NLF liability has now been reduced to £2,790 million. That figure is within striking distance of the £2.750 million which the new figure will be: that is, the debentures of £2,750 million. In fact—and this is a point to which I drew specific attention in the debate that we had on an amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington—the rate of interest charged on the new debentures will be higher than the average rate of interest on the NLF loans. If one takes the discounted present value of the new debentures, they will, if anything, be a little bit higher and not lower than the NLF loans; so I think that effectively deals with that specific point.
The noble Lord then referred to the draft of the final licence. On the basis of the arrangements that were put in the Bill as a result of the discussions in your Lordships' House, the statutory order will be accompanied by the final licence and, as I explained on that occasion, if the statutory order is not passed the licence falls. I gave an assurance that this would happen well before the Summer Recess so that there will be ample and timely opportunity for your Lordships to discuss these matters.
The details of the advertising campaign for the issue have not yet been settled and therefore I cannot give an estimate of the costs that will be involved. As regards the specific advertising to which the noble Lord referred, that is commercial advertising by British Telecom which is not linked to the launch. I note the warning that he has given, but the position as we see it is precisely as I stated.
As regards possible sales to persons resident outside the United Kingdom, the information given must meet whatever may be the regulatory requirements in the countries concerned. So far as the shortened

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prospectus is concerned, that was specifically approved by a vote in your Lordships' House and of course that applies only to the United Kingdom, since we cannot alter the regulatory systems in countries outside the United Kingdom. A draft of the memorandum and articles of association for BT PLC has been placed in your Lordships' Library and in fact has been there for some little time.
The noble Lord, Lord Diamond, asked a number of specific questions. He asked, first, what would be the amount of the ordinary shares and reserves. I have given figures for the amount of the debentures and I have given figures also for the preference capital. The remaining capital of the company, apart from certain loans from overseas institutions which do not really come into this discussion at all, will be represented by equity capital and reserves; but the precise division between the two has not yet been settled.
The noble Lord also asked for an assurance that the launch would not take place during a Recess. Of course, his interest here is to ensure that matters are fully discussed while the House is in Session. The assurance that I have repeated to the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington—namely, that the licence and the statutory order will be brought before your Lordships before the Summer Recess—will, I think, answer that specific point.
Finally, he raised the question of the potential tax liability on shares issued to employees. For the "free and matching" offer of shares, we would expect the normal taxation rules to apply. The shares would be vested in a special trust and made subject to a declining rate of income tax after the end of the retention period; and after that they would not be liable to an income tax charge. The question of the discounted shares is a more difficult matter, and perhaps I may write to the noble Lord on that point.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his replies. I shall not press him very much further, but there are two matters to which I should refer. The first is that the figures I gave with regard to the loans were derived from the certified accounts for the year to 31st March 1983. I note what he says about the interim accounts since that time, and there is much talk of several forms of accounts that are now floating about. Could the noble Lord give us some indication as to when the accounts of British Telecom for the year to 31st March 1984 will be finalised, in whatever form it is decided to finalise them, and when we shall be in possession of them?
In regard to his reference to the draft memorandum and articles of association, is the noble Lord aware that, if he intends to proceed with a flotation some time in the late autumn, it is high time that the company itself was formed? If it has been formed, it already has a memorandum and articles of association. If it has not, will the noble Lord give us some information as to when we shall receive the finally agreed memorandum and articles of association, and will he be kind enough to notify the House, if necessary by other means, as to when exactly the copy will be placed in the Library, if that is considered by him to be the correct venue for that purpose?
Lord Cockfield: My Lords, I am sorry if I assumed that the noble Lord was quoting from the latest available accounts. I accept his explanation that he was quoting from a rather earlier set of accounts; but, of course, it does not affect the substance of the explanation that I gave. So far as the accounts for the year to 31st March 1984 are concerned—these are the certified accounts—they will be published in July, which will be in ample time before the flotation takes place. I am not at the moment in a position to tell him when the final draft of the memorandum and articles of association of BT PLC will be available, but I shall get in touch with him on that point.
Lord Diamond: My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord for the courteous way in which he answered, and very fully answered, all the questions that I put to him? I want to pursue only one further matter, and that is the question of the short prospectus, to which reference has already been made. Of course, it is true that the Government have legal authority to deal with this by way of a shortened prospectus, but, as the noble Lord has made absolutely clear, it is the intention of the Government that these shares shall be offered for sale on foreign markets, and, as he has repeated today, he may therefore be in the position of having to publish a fuller prospectus to satisfy the regulatory requirements, particularly of the American stock exchange. In those circumstances, does the noble Lord really suggest that it would be satisfactory—I am not saying it would be illegal—to publish a fully detailed prospectus for possible American purchasers and a reduced prospectus for all English subscribers?
Lord Cockfield: My Lords, perhaps I may deal with that point rightaway. The noble Lord referred to publishing a full prospectus. It is, of course, intended to publish a full prospectus in this country. That prospectus will be included in four prominent daily newspapers. As a result, the full prospectus will in fact be available to anybody who wishes to see it. The problem that we were faced with, which was discussed at length in Committee and particularly at the Report stage of the Bill, is that one might require as many as 16 million copies of it if a full prospectus were to be given to everybody who might be interested in the offer even if they did not subscribe for it. It is for that reason that a shortened prospectus will be used as well as the full prospectus. But there is no question of a full prospectus not being published in this country. I am sorry if there has been any misunderstanding on that point.
Lord Morris: My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster for repeating the Statement, but may I ask him one question? He was good enough to inform the House—indeed, to stress to the House—that the British Telecommunications licence would be published well before the Summer Recess. I do not want to press him for an exact date, but would it be right to assume that the licence will be published certainly in June and, with luck, even before the end of May?
Lord Cockfield: My Lords, I should not like to give my noble friend an exact date, because this depends also on the convenience in relation to the arrangement of business in your Lordships' House.

Freedom and Private Property
4.35 p.m.
Debate resumed.
Lord Grimond: My Lords, we are all very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, for introducing this Motion and for the interesting speech which he made in arguing for it. I am also delighted to follow the noble Lord. Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos, who introduced into the debate a note of cheerful acerbity, for which he is well merited. I do not wish to take issue with him in his many stringent criticisms of the Government, because that is not my business, but I would make just one or two comments.
It seemed to me that towards the end he was slipping into what has become the normal language of politics, which is rather extreme. I do not think he went as far as some people, but, try as I may, I find it extremely difficult to see, for instance, the Leader of your Lordships' House, the Foreign Secretary, the Prime Minister, or the Minister for Industry as fascist beasts slavering to destroy democracy. I have tried my best, but so far I have failed to see them in that light, though I think they are open to all kinds of other criticisms.
Further, I do not think it is sound to equate the denial of freedom consequent upon unemployment with the kind of denial of freedom which takes place in, say, Siberia. They seem to me to be extremely different matters and, so long as the unemployed are paid at least something of a wage—they have all sorts of matters for complaint, so it is serious—it is not on the level of the major interferences of freedom which take place in fascist and communist states.
As for accountability, the main accountability in the private sector lies in competition and the need to raise money in the market on your own merits. For the consumer this has proved to be the most effective form of accountability, and a good deal more effective than accountability to parliamentary committees. But I am also in agreement with the noble Lord that there is far too great a disparity between ownership and income in our modern society.
I must say to the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, who said that there had been no great advances in social thought in this century, that I consider the whole train of thought which began with Asquith and Lloyd George, and continued through Keynes and Beveridge, as a very considerable advance. Although there have been difficulties, and although it requires reconsideration, certainly as a Liberal I should be very sorry to throw out the whole of that tradition and return to a kind of jungle warfare in which the strongest take all. So I do not think it is very useful to argue today the exact bounds of the mixed economy.
I quite agree that the present mix needs reconsideration, and I am a strong supporter of doing as much as can be done by a free market and individual ownership. But the fundamental point made by the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, was surely that threats to
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freedom throughout all history have tended to come either from the state or from overpowerful individuals and institutions, and that the main bulwark against them has been that ordinary people should have a certain amount of property on which they can rely, and from which they can resist the overweening pretensions of the state, and, indeed, the great landowners and institutions of various kinds.
The noble Lord broadened the Motion out from that to indicate, as is perfectly true, that individual enterprise has proved to be the best way to run an economy and that, if we wish to raise the material standards of the world, it is to that that we should look, and not to a socialist economy such as Russia, Eastern Europe, and the Far East. Surely we must all agree that whatever boundaries have to be drawn in a mixed economy, in that part of it which remains to be run by private enterprise, and which I consider to be a most important part, the greatest spread of property is highly desirable.
Where I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, was slightly over-fair towards the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, was when he stated that the noble Lord opposite was defending the Government. I myself thought that his defence was rather lukewarm. I do not feel that the Government are pursuing the kind of policies of which I suspect the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, might approve. On the contrary, since this Government came to power the difference between the very rich and the very poor has grown a great deal. Property, far from being diffused, has been concentrated. One has only to read the newspapers. One can read in the newspapers today that the directors of the Bank of Scotland have awarded themselves enormous increases in salary. At the same time, the teachers are being asked to take 4·5 per cent. This Government are not diffusing property and spreading it across all sections of the community, but are concentrating it.
I believe that the main reason we do not have a great diffusion of property is our system of taxation. I have no doubt that the noble Lord, Lord Maude of Stratford-upon-Avon, who is to follow me in this debate, will have a good deal to say on that subject. To my mind, there is no doubt that present taxation in this country deters the ordinary person from investing in equities and makes it comparatively difficult for him to enter a partnership, to start a small business, or indeed to own ordinary house property. The bias of taxation is in favour of such investments as pension funds. Pension funds remove from ordinary people the choice that is so desirable. The taxation system encourages people to put money into investments such as savings certificates but not into equity shares, and it makes it extremely difficult for the self-employed to continue with business.
One may compare that situation with the attitude in other countries, and I have before in this House drawn your Lordships' attention to the co-operatives in Mondragón in Spain, where there are now 20,000 people engaged in co-operatives. To join a co-operative there, one has to put down £2,000, and there is a long waiting list. If one asks, as I did, whether it is difficult for people to put down a £2,000 deposit, one receives the reply, "Of course not. Don't all working people put down money on motor cars or on television

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sets? Of course they do. They put down a certain deposit and borrow the rest". That is what the workers of Mondrag¾n, who are less affluent than most workers in this country, are doing. The result is that they not only have a stake in their business, but they own it. This makes an enormous difference to efficiency and to the community. It means, for instance, that they are now in a position to run their own social services and their own schools. They do not like their schools run by the Catholic Church or by the Government. They were told that they could not have social benefits as high as they expected, and so they started their own scheme. These are not Right-wing fascists, but Left-wing Basque nationalists—and they are determined to keep out of the grip of Madrid.
One can compare their situation with that of our own people, about whom we have just heard. As I understand it they are expected to take the princely sum of £70-worth of free shares. It is perfectly true that they can subscribe to more shares, but the Statement seemed to indicate that the Government regard employee shares as being a fringe activity. The workers are not going to have any control over the privatised British Telecom. They are to be given a few very small perks on the extreme margins of the business. One has to make it worthwhile for people, if one wants them to increase their stake in the country, to take up equity shares. I have not considered the Statement in detail, but there is a good deal more to it than has so far appeared.
In my former constituency of Orkney and Shetland, there is now a very considerable amount of savings as a result of oil. What happens to them? They are put into either savings banks or building societies. Those savings are removed from the counties and out of industrial investment—and we are still heavily subsidised by central Government—while people will not use our own savings for the benefit of our own industry and services. There must be something wrong about this.
I return to what was quite rightly said by the noble Lord. Lord Cledwyn, when he objected to the centralisation that goes on in this country. Money is taken out of Wales and put into the City of London, and then subsidies are graciously paid back to Wales, to make good what the City has taken.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, if the noble Lord will give way, in the light of his comments about Mondrag…n. does he not agree with the idea of a co-operative development agency, which I know he supported in another place, as I did? Is it not rather sad that when the Government have an opportunity to strengthen the development of co-operatives through the Co-operative Development Agency and Industrial Development Bill, which will come before this House shortly, that there is a great contrast between what the Government say they want to do and what they actually do when it comes to legislation?
Lord Grimond: My Lords, I am wholly on the noble Lord's side. The Government have kept the Co-operative Development Agency in being, and what they are going to do now we do not know. I am wholly with the noble Lord that co-operatives are one way of
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achieving that which the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, wants—and, I think, a very important way.
The country still believes that there are two ways to run our affairs. One is state possession, which has proved highly unsatisfactory for many reasons. The other is private monopoly in the hands of very large institutions and shareholders—and that is becoming worse. I believe that there is a third way, which may be called socialism without the state. The situation is becoming very serious, because as privatisation goes on, and as modern technology expands, more and more wealth and power will be concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. The only way to spread the advantages of modern technology is to widen its ownership. That has to be done through a much wider holding of shares.
I am not convinced that the so-called improvements in the City will achieve that. I am not convinced that the small shareholder will benefit from what we are told is going to happen in the City of London. I am not sure that he will get a fair deal from the amalgamation of the broker and principal. And I am not sure that the huge amalgamations of brokerage houses will be interested in his investment.
I very much hope that the Government will do more in the privatisation schemes to spread ownership and will reform the taxation system to give advantages to those who are prepared to invest their own money in equities. I hope that the Government will continue in other ways to encourage the small businessman, the self-employed, and those who want to own a reasonable amount of property for the very purposes which the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, began by telling us about.
4.48 p.m.
Lord Maude of Stratford-upon-Avon: My Lords, I am sure that we are all very grateful to my noble friend Lord Beloff for initiating this debate. After listening to him and then to the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, I am bound to say that I was not sure whether they were both speaking in the same debate on the same Motion. As the noble Lord, Lord Grimond, said, it is of course possible to define freedom in any number of different ways. Once one gets into the argument over what constitutes economic freedom, it is one that can go on interminably, without any satisfactory conclusion ever being arrived at. I want to limit what I have to say to certain kinds of property; visible property, tangible property—which I believe have a very close connection with freedom. Indeed, to me the question is not so much whether property confers freedom but whether there is at the moment enough freedom to acquire property.
I heard the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, say at one point that there was no way in which the council tenant who remains a council tenant was any less free than his next door neighbour who purchased his council house. With respect to the noble Lord, that is absolute nonsense. Of course the tenant who has bought his council house has achieved a degree of freedom which his tenant neighbour does not have and possibly never will achieve. The house owner has considerably more freedom to do what he likes with his house and garden, subject to planning controls: to extend his house and to relandscape his garden, and so

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on. He now has the freedom to transmit it to his heirs and to his children. But above all it has given him the immense freedom of mobility which the council tenant lacks. A council tenant who wants to go somewhere else to find a job is, at the moment, thwarted by the difficulty of finding a council house in the place where the job is available, or arranging an exchange through the local council. However, after the initial period has expired, if he can sell his house he has an immensely better chance of getting a job in a new place.
To take a more obvious example where the connection between ownership of personal property and freedom is concerned, let us consider the revolution which the private ownership of motor cars has brought about in this country. Apart from giving the city dweller the freedom to get out of the city at weekends, it has created an absolute revolution in the countryside. Whereas with the decline in agricultural employment it used to be necessary for rural dwellers to crowd into the towns and cities in search of work, they are now able to commute 30 to 50 miles a day, sharing their cars between groups of workers. Their freedom to choose and obtain jobs has been immensely increased; quite apart from the other amenities which the motor car provides for them and their families. There does not seem to me to be the slightest doubt that that is true. Indeed, the ownership of some kind of personal property really is the mark, I suggest, of a free citizen. It gives him self-respect and an increased degree of economic freedom, however defined, and it gives him a wider freedom of choice in many respects.
The opportunities for acquiring tangible personal property are. of course, increased enormously for the younger generation. A generation or two ago a young couple getting married had to save for a long time to buy a house, if they were ever able to buy a house. They had to acquire their furniture bit by bit. Their marriage was often postponed for many years because they had not saved up enough to furnish and equip a home for marriage. This has all changed. The young couple of today at almost ever)' level expects to be able to get into the house and find it fully furnished with consumer durables of every' kind, and have a motor car, television set, washing machine, or whatever, on borrowed money. This has its dangers. The enourmous increase in the propensity to borrow does carry considerable social and economic dangers. However, that it has increased the freedom of choice and freedom in general for these people cannot, it seems to me, be doubted.
There is another respect in which freedom has been gradually spreading as a result of the acquisition of property. That, of course, is in the one-man or small private business, which is a method of accumulating property whether it be in the form of fixed assets, working capital or simply the goodwill of a business. It is possible for a single person, starting as a self-employed person, to work up a business which, if he is another Morris, could become one of the giants of the future. But it may also simply be that he is establishing a useful local small business which he can leave to his children. This provides a useful function and gives him a degree of independence which he cannot possibly achieve as an employee.
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The enemy of this kind of freedom is, as the noble Lord, Lord Grimond, said, bureaucracy. It is the tax collector; it is the planning officer, and it is the bureaucrat of every kind. There are many planning authorities which seem to take a fiendish delight in spinning matters out over quite small details on planning applications for improvements, and so on. I am aware that the present Government have improved the position but there is still far too much time-wasting going on. There is also the bureaucracy of the Inland Revenue and the complexities of the tax system. I freely admit that this Government have done an enormous amount in providing tax concessions and incentives, grants, loans, and so on, for the starting up of businesses. But, as I have said before in your Lordships" House, it is in fact the sheer weight of controls and paperwork which is stifling so many of these new businesses in their infancy. The very sight of the tax tables—which are about two inches thick—is enough to stop a one-man business from taking on one extra employee. The wife is probably working every evening doing the VAT returns and she is not going to be able to cope with that as well as the book-keeping.
Again as I have said before, there is also this appalling habit of the Inland Revenue of forcibly reclassifying self-employed people as employees to the tune of many thousands a year. Of course there are certain cases—and we know that there are—in which the Revenue has reason for its decisions. There have been cases of frauds and fiddles through subcontracting of various kinds which has enabled some people either to evade tax or, at least, to pay their tax much later than under the PAYE system. But it is also a fact that the single self-employed man who may have only one client or customer is starting what might turn out to be a very much larger business; but if he is immediately forced to become the employee of his one customer he loses his opportunity to get a second customer, a third and a fourth and of gradually building up a useful small business. In my view the Inland Revenue has been far too officious, far too insensitive and far too bureaucratic about this. I very much hope that my noble friend, with his long experience of the Inland Revenue, will be able to give us some encouragement that the Government really are going to look at this.
A few weeks ago I read an article in a newspaper by a former colleague of mine in another place—Mr. Brian Walden—for whom I have a considerable admiration, first, as a politician, when he was, and now as a journalist and broadcaster. In the course of the article he said that in his view the ordinary British citizen did not want to be free; that he did not want the sort of freedom which this Government both advocate and are offering. He said that all that concerned the average British citizen was the security of his savings and that the British citizen would very much rather put his savings into a building society or a pension fund and be sure of their security than take the slightest risk which might be involved in investing through the Stock Exchange or other securities.
It is my view that, while that may be true of a considerable number of the population, Mr. Walden is already well out of date. I think that the situation among the younger generation is changing very considerably and the ambition to free oneself from the

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ties of employment is spreading much faster and much wider than he thinks. Of course to free oneself from the ties of employment involves being able to set up without undue restrictions in one's own business and to acquire property as a standby to give one the greater freedom of choice which property of all kinds offers.
There is a connection between freedom and the ownership of private property. To my mind that is undoubted. What is needed is a much greater freedom from Government interference with the acquisition of private property and the encouragement of those who want to put property to good use.
5 p.m.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, I should like to begin by thanking very warmly the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, for introducing this Motion, not simply because it is leading to a most interesting debate but because, in my view, British politics is greatly lacking in ideological debate and this kind of Motion is particularly apposite to this House, where we can debate ideologically and can add a valuable element to British politics.
There are two nouns contained in the Motion. The first is "freedom". Freedom is directly related to people and their feelings—to human beings. The second is "property". Property consists of inanimate objects. As I understand it, the noble Lord's proposition is that material goods—the inanimate objects— can create or sustain the human emotion of freedom. I beg to doubt that. I want to examine both the proposition and the alternative.
Historically there have been two general answers to this issue. The first is that possessions are necessary for freedom. This is the conventional Conservative attitude, although one should note that at times leaders of the Conservative Party, like Benjamin Disraeli, had a wider concept. Indeed, since the second world war there has been a certain modification of the boundaries set—the parameters accepted by the Conservative Party—between personal and social provision. The second answer to this general proposition is that freedom is possible only through membership of broadly like-minded communities, which is the general Socialist approach to the issue.
I should like to examine first the conventional Conservative philosophy. We have to ask: freedom for whom? Freedom surely comes through power, and in our modern world power very largely comes through wealth. My noble friend Lord Cledwyn gave one statistic concerning the distribution of wealth in this country in 1981, when the last figures were compiled. I want to add to his figures and take them a little further. It may assist noble Lords to understand the thread of my argument if I point out that, according to the Inland Revenue, 1 percent. of the adult population of this country on the 1981 figures own 23 per cent. of the marketable wealth of the country.
My noble friend Lord Cledwyn gave the 5 per cent. figure; I would go on to the 10 per cent. figure. Ten per cent. of the adult population own 60 per cent. of the marketable wealth of the country; 25 per cent. (one in four) own 84 per cent. of that marketable wealth. What does that mean in practice and in the terms of this Motion? Does it not mean that here we are talking
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about freedom for the few—the minority; a large minority? If 25 percent, own 84 percent, of the wealth of this country, 7 5 per cent. own only 16 per cent. That hardly provides a basis of private property giving the wealth which gives the power through which freedom can be gained.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord has not overlooked a third noun in the Motion—"diffusion". If the word "diffusion" is looked at in the same way, the Motion does not defend the present distribution of private property. The Motion advocates its diffusion.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that intervention. It is a point on to which I was going to lead my argument. I accept completely that the wording of the Motion indeed supports the basic philosophy that I hope will follow from the enunciation of the form of Socialism which is the central part of my speech. But at the moment, as the noble Lord has by implication admitted, the wealth distribution of this country allows freedom for the few and denies freedom to the many. Once you get into the situation in which an elite has freedom, inevitably that is denying the same kind of freedom to the vast majority of the citizens of this county. This is the central thrust of my examination at least, not necessarily of the noble Lord's interpretation of the Conservative philosophy, but of the conventional Conservative philosophy.
This Government, and indeed the Government since 1979, have made that quite clear. In my submission, they have made it perfectly clear that their conception of freedom in this country is freedom for the few, and indeed freedom for the powerful. What is happening today so far as the freedom of the citizens of Britain is concerned? We have seen the undermining of the right to vote. Is the right to vote not an essential part of individual freedom? In parenthesis, I would warn this House, and I would particularly warn those who defend the continued existence of this House as it is at present constituted, that if it supports the concept of depriving people of the right to vote, it is committing hara-kiri. The people who have gained the right to vote in battles throughout the ages will not have a non-elected Assembly telling them that that right to vote can be withdrawn.
We have seen the attack on the trade unions and the increasing Government control over the trade unions and industrial relations that has followed. Have we so forgotten our concept of common standards that, when we see the restriction of free trade unions and the increase of Government control over industrial relations in Poland, we recognise that as an attack on freedom, whereas in our own country it is not admitted—on the other side of the House at least—that this is equally an attack on freedom and a restriction on the freedom of organised workers?
I hardly need to point out that there is no freedom for the man or woman who has no employment but particularly there is no freedom for the young men and young women who not only have no employment but see no prospect of employment and who may, as we know, through experiencing a period of three, four or five years after leaving school, not simply be denied

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employment but be denied the power of taking up employment if the opportunity ever comes. I think the noble Lord would probably agree with me that there is a very great danger that those young people who leave our schools and who are not able to get a job in the first five years after leaving school may very well find themselves, at the end of that period, to be unemployable.
We have seen, and the noble Lord who preceded me, Lord Maude, was talking about, the use of motor cars in the rural areas. Oh yes, but what about the use of railways and bus services in the rural areas? Those of us who live in the rural areas know that the mobility of the inhabitants of rural areas has been drastically reduced over the past few years, through the removal of railways, through the curtailment of bus services.
Lord Maude of Stratford-upon-Avon: My Lords, does the noble Lord not realise that it is precisely the enormous increase in the ownership of motor cars in the rural areas that has made the bus and railway services so unprofitable that they have had to close down? I admit that it is of considerable inconvenience to those old people who do not have cars.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, I am not just talking about those who have cars. I am certainly not unaware of the fact that a lot more people in rural areas have cars now than, say, 10 years ago. But there are still a lot of people who do not have cars and who are leaving the rural areas because they find that they neither have mobility nor the elementary opportunity of just doing their ordinary shopping. When the test of the services, whether bus or rail, rests simply on the issue of profitability, then I suggest that we are penalising the old, the young and, indeed, a large number of middle-aged people in rural areas who do not have cars. We are driving them out of the rural areas and seeing particularly the young people being forced to go to the cities.
I would also take up another point that was raised, I think, by the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, when he made an intervention in connection with health facilities in the United States in comparison with those in this country. I am sure that, like myself, the noble Lord has taught in the United States. Teaching in the universities in the United States, my experience has been that regularly students drop out every term. When you investigate this, they drop out because they have slight—and I emphasise slight—health problems. Those slight health problems cost them so much that they cannot afford to continue their university fees.
I remember not very long ago in the wealthy city of Houston in Texas that every night there was a radio broadcast appealing for people to give blood, to sell blood. To what? To the two charitable hospitals because there was no blood bank at either of them—in one of the wealthiest cities of the United States. Any American will tell you that one of the most drastic and heaviest burdens that they have to live with is the danger of being ill. Of course there are insurance schemes. But you talk to any of the poorer half of the United States, and particularly to the young and to the mothers, and I have no doubt whatever that they will confirm what I am saying.
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Let me very quickly turn to the alternative philosophy raised by the noble Lord's Motion. Those of us who claim and have claimed to be socialists have a long history behind us. We need to remember it continually. It is frequently thought of as starting from the early Christians. I would go further back than that, to the early hunting and gathering of societies, where communal service and communal freedom were first established, but we have not time to go into that. I would just give this list: coming from the Peasant Revolt to the Levellers; to Robert Owen and his followers in the 19th century; to the Chartists; to the Social Democratic Federation of Hyndman; to the Independent Labour Party of Keir Hardie; to the Fabian Society and eventually to the Labour Party. There is a long-standing history. Of what?— particularly if you add on the social side the growth of the trade union movement since the Industrial Revolution, alongside the growth of the co-operative movement, very much on the lines that I was delighted to hear the noble Lord, Lord Grimond, describe as that now being practised by the Basques in Spain. This long list is a list of the pioneers, of those who have been battling from freedom, freedom for all against freedom for a small elite. It is freedom through membership of the community, giving security, which is essential to freedom, giving mutual protection, giving a common concern, and based upon a common form of ownership.
Let me say here again in parenthesis that nationalisation has not necessarily got anything to do with socialism. Bismarck nationalised the railways in Germany in the last century. That was nothing to do with socialism. I would say to members of my own party that we have to rethink this whole concept of nationalisation. We have to think much more in terms of common ownership than of the kind of state nationalisation which we have seen over the past 30 years or so. We must be clear that when we are talking about common ownership, we are not at any time excluding personal possessions. We are not suggesting that all goods should be commonly owned. Personal possessions, as has been said earlier in this debate, are an essential part of a healthy society.
Nor may I say to the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, would I accept the Soviet Union as an example of any kind of socialism that I would recognise. I do not believe that the Soviet Union is going along a socialist direction. I certainly do not believe that the Soviet Union has developed that basis of freedom for all which is an essential of the socialist message.
But this concept of freedom through the community is more relevant today than it ever has been since the growth of the nation state, since the increase of the power of the executive within that nation state; particularly today, as we see in our own country, with the bureaucracy which the nation state itself has created, with, perhaps even more important, the growth of the multinational corporations, often more powerful than the nation state; with the insidious effect of the mass media in all its aspects and its power to control minds or to direct minds. In these circumstances the individual has less power and less freedom of choice, less freedom of action, less freedom to develop an individual personality than perhaps at any time in modern history.

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I should like to refer briefly to another point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Beloff. The noble Lord referred to the growth of freedom in the nineteenth century. That may have been the case as the mass of people in this country were demanding equal rights with all. It was certainly not the case for the vast majority of people in this world. The period of colonialism can hardly be described as a period of freedom. Europeans at this time were recognising, as they thought, the strength of a civilisation according to the number of possessions that that civilisation owned. They did not recognise the extent of individual freedom which was drawn in such societies from the co-operation of communities, including the freedom from the tyranny of materialism which is surely a lesson that we all can learn and that we all need learn in the latter part of the twentieth century.
I conclude by strengthening the argument that I have been following with the words of a man whom I, at least, consider a great poet. They are well known words from Alexander Pope's Essay on Man. I quote:
"So two consistent motions act the soul;
And one regards itself, and one the whole.
Thus God and Nature linked the general frame,
And bade self-love and social be the same".
5.22 p.m.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, I, too, spotted that the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, had overlooked (dare I say characteristically?) the third noun "diffusion". I also noted that the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, when he opened his speech, talked about freedom as being through power, which is the last way I would have thought of it. I was tempted to take the points as they came, but that would be very boring. I think that it may be found that what I have to say is in remarkable contrast to what we have just heard. I suspect that if the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, sought to say it, he would say that it is disgraceful that we have over 10 per cent. unemployed. I would say that it is splendid that we have nearly 90 per cent. employed. The noble Lord might say, with great passion, that the number of unemployed should be reduced: I would say, also with great passion, I believe that the number in employment should be increased. There is a fundamental difference of approach, which I think will spread throughout my contrasting statements.
I feel great gratitude to my noble friend Lord Beloff for introducing this Motion and for the thoughtful manner in which he did so. My noble friend said that it would be a philosophical sort of debate. The noble Lord, Lord Hatch, called it an ideological sort of debate—an interesting contrast, and, again, a different approach to the same subject. I was rather frightened when I viewed the philosophical aspect of it. It is very fundamental. I trust that I shall not take too long, but I believe that the debate deserves proper treatment.
I found myself first trying to identify—the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, did the same—what is freedom for all within the law. I came out with six headings: to be free to earn one's living in an acceptable activity so as to enjoy one's freedom; to be free from excessive restraint by government, especially financial restraint—my noble friend Lord Maude touched upon the practical details—that hampers freedom of choice; to be free from restraints by well-meaning persons
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seeking to impose theories of collective living on individuals; to be free to own property and personal possessions; to be free to indulge in any reasonable sporting or other activity of one's own choice; and to be free to contribute individually to the wellbeing of the community. There are no doubt other headings, but those that I have given seem to me to sum it up.
I wish to deal with what has been achieved in the way of freedom within the law. Like other noble Lords—for example, the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn—I would agree that until about 1939 freedom was limited for the majority of free world citizens. During the second world war a process of centralised control which had begun during and after the first world war was gradually increased in this country in order to ensure maximum collective effort. People accepted the sacrifice of much individual freedom to ensure a national capability for re-introducing and widely developing individual freedom when peace was achieved. The immediate post-war decade required a similar sacrifice while adjustments to peace were made. However, such of the centralised control, even when unnecessary and sometimes harmful, has been retained some 40 years later, partly because of theories of collective management not relevant to peace-time living—for example, central responsibility for major businesses (and dare I say that major businesses are Tawney's large property, as referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn)—and partly because people just got used to it.
Thanks to the threat of nuclear war, peace has been maintained. As a result, even in this country, from the 1960s freedom for the individual has become widely spread. My noble friend Lord Maude touched upon this. People of all sorts can, for example, own cars—and what better example can there be of freedom of mobility? All can indulge in sporting and other activities to a degree unimaginable at the beginning of the century. After another couple of decades, people are now looking to control their lives still further, like having the ability to purchase possessions of their own choice such as tape recorders—if one takes small possessions—or skis or boats—anything that anyone wishes to obtain. It covers any sport in which they wish to take part, without exception. Sometimes, with some support, if they are determined enough, they can do it; and it is splendid.
It also covers such matters as owning their own homes; having control of their own money, which means less taxation; and having a greater share in the ownership of businesses in which they work, rather than a very remotely indirect share through Auntie Government in a major and most inefficient business. This explains, for example, why share option schemes in private enterprise companies are starting to develop and why the selling of businesses to their own employees is so exciting. Some of the remarks of my noble friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster about British Telecom selling shares within the company were about something which is in itself exciting. The noble Lord, Lord Grimond, gave examples of the same sort of thing.
All these are new developments. I was sad to hear the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, whose views I greatly respect, talk as though the past was the thing to stress.

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It is the future that is important, the new thinking that is coming along in the direction I am talking about, and this is how it is to develop. So long as we can keep the peace—that is the all-important point—the freedom can be developed and people can use their own abilities to achieve in their employing firm the competitiveness which enables their own individual freedoms to be guaranteed.
If there is one message which stands out from the experience of the past 40 years it is that the more individuals can see positive results from their own efforts, especially easily identified benefits to themselves, the more they will contribute to the success of any venture. This may be unpalatable to certain sorts of theorist, but it is true. It is also another way of expressing freedom, freedom to contribute. An interesting factor in this search for individual freedom is that it is obvious mainly in what people do, not in what they clamour for collectively. People get on with what activity they want, and this will include helping others individually or in small groups. They do not start great movements.
If one reflects, this is natural because they are using and seeking individual freedom. Perhaps it only reveals itself in the secret ballot. We are given the example by the results of the last election. Perhaps it explains the fear of Mr. Scargill to put his people to the vote. Perhaps it even explains why the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby, thinks the right to vote is so important. Pehaps he could tell that to Mr. Scargill. The more widely property, and for that matter businesses, are diffused, the more scope there is for the freedoms that all are seeking.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down I should like to ask him if he would accept from me that certainly I would urge Mr. Scargill to hold a national ballot, but that does not mean that I will support the rejection or the withdrawal of the right of citizens in the metropolitan areas to elect their own councils rather than have them imposed by nominated representatives of central Government.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, on the first point made by the noble Lord, may I say that I am delighted; I hope he will get on with it. On the second point, perhaps he would delay his general contribution in that area until we debate the relevant Bill when it comes to the House.
5.34 p.m.
Lord Harris of High Cross: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, for the wide terms of his Motion. It is true that it allowed the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos, to give us his splendid, revivalist tirade against largely vanished abuses. His speciality seemed to be looking back through the mists of time to Tawney, whose own gaze in his day was directed largely to still remoter times. My central quarrel with the noble Lord, which we have rehearsed on other occasions, is that in post-war welfare policy he fails to distinguish between necessary support for the minority of poor and the quite different aim of imposing a comprehensive uniformity on everyone, to be financed by massive taxes that reduce the freedom of choice for the great majority.
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I listened with close attention to the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, and was glad that he called for the clash of ideological disputation. As a quite modest offering in that spirit, I would say that he is one of the exponents of equality who invariably show how unattainable it is in practice by pinching more than their fair share of what no doubt he would call our communal time.
I want to argue that the link between private property and freedom works in both directions. I do not think it can be disputed, as the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, said, that personal ownership does confer real independence and choice on individuals, where public ownership tends to concentrate power in the hands of politicians and their nominees, tending towards the diminution of general freedoms. In my view we may discern that in the coal mines, to which I will return in my concluding remarks.
If private property buttresses freedom, I would claim that it was equally self-evident that freedom in our economic arrangements hastens and widens the spread of private property among the great mass of the people. This proposition can be illustrated in two ways: first, by comparing countries with widely differing degrees of economic freedom to see the effect on ownership; secondly, we may contemplate the spectacular growth over a lifetime of private property in countries like Britain which enjoy a fair degree of economic freedom. The contrast between free and unfree economies is plain for all to see in the political divide between the West and the East.
Consider the enormous variety of property owned by most workers in Western Europe or America. The noble Lord, Lord Beloff, touched on home ownership. There are also all kinds of savings, from post office to unit trusts and pension funds. There is a whole range of domestic equipment and personal belongings of almost bewildering variety. The latest include colour television, hi-fi, video recorders and home computers. Many who are judged to be below the official poverty line in this country are rich compared with the average inhabitants of the proletarianised ant-heaps of Eastern Europe and their African counterparts so admired by the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby. One of the most telling statistics that I commend to the noble Lord is that per head of the population the ownership of cars is higher among blacks in South Africa than among the inmates of the "People's Paradise" of the USSR.
On my second test, the extent to which economic freedom helps the spread of private property more widely, can be seen in Britain over the century. Anyone brought up in a working-class family, as I was before the war, cannot fail to be impressed by the multiplication of private possessions and property among the mass of the people. The items include washing machines, fridges, freezers, central heating, garden equipment, cars, caravans, and, increasingly, even yachts. All these examples show how most commonplace personal possessions started as the indulgences of the rich, favoured minority whose contribution to popular prosperity is so under-rated by the levellers among us.
The rich paid dear in their time as pathfinders, exploring these new forms of consumption and domestic investment before private enterprise could

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harness mass production to bring them within the reach of a mass market. It was the superior innovation and efficiency of the free economy which raised incomes and reduced prices so as to extend demand for these durable consumer goods. And it was the invention of hire-purchase by financiers, of whom many noble Lords on the Labour benches would thoroughly disapprove, which enabled the majority, with rising incomes but no capital, to invest in long-lasting domestic equipment. I must say that I believe none of this remarkable progress in spreading private property owes anything very much to socialism, which everywhere holds back the creation of new wealth and seeks to centralise property, always in the name of the state but with the power going to politicians and their apparatchiks.
Even when the transformation of popular capital-ism is noticed by socialists they invariably prefer to dwell on differences in ownership which they insist on labelling the "inequality of wealth". I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Bauer, was prevented by his absence in America from taking part in this debate. He has argued consistently that inequality is a loaded term implying an unnatural departure from some ideal state of equality, which, of course, is not only far from ideal, but would also be unattainable without repeated confiscation, and would anyway be inconsistent with economic prosperity or continued progress.
As regards the statistics which were given by the noble Lord. Lord Hatch of Lusby, I have only time to say that all those figures about 10 per cent. of the population owning 60 per cent. or 70 per cent. of personal wealth, are without foundation in reality and they give a totally false, backward-looking impression of a rapidly changing picture. They are drawn from the tiny minority of estates declared for death duties. They inevitably exaggerate the importance of fixed investments and completely ignore the widely diffused forms of private property that we have discussed in the Motion. Even if all incomes and inheritances were equal at birth, the average accumulation of wealth through lifetime savings would anyway lead to 10 per cent. of the population, mostly the elderly, owning about 30 per cent. of all the wealth.
Going on another tack, the Diamond Commission took figures for 1971 to show that the poorest 80 per cent. of the British people may have owned anything between 10 per cent. and 40 per cent. of all wealth, depending entirely upon what assumptions were made about, for example, pension rights and other possessions that are not counted for estate duty.
In conclusion, recent scholarly economic analysis has emphasised the central importance of private property rights not only in enlarging freedom, but as a direct incentive to effort, efficiency and enterprise. Following the line of thought of the noble Lord, Lord Grimond, it suggests a constructive way of resolving the unhappy political battle in the coalfields, that offers benefits for miners, consumers and not least taxpayers. Bearing in mind Mr. Scargill's not wholly misplaced faith in the future of the British coal industry, I suggest that Her Majesty's Government should offer to give all miners a share of the unencumbered assets of the mines to be operated in competition with alternative sources of fuel. On the
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one hand, it seems to me that if Mr. Scargill urged the men to refuse, we would at least have called his bluff about the golden prospects for British coal. But if, on the other hand, the miners accepted this further diffusion of private property, I believe that there could be an economic and political transformation. Such is the motive power of personal ownership that it could enable miners to pay themselves higher wages out of greater efficiency, while reducing prices to customers and phasing out over a period the current subsidy of £870 million a year, paid mostly by poorer taxpayers. In terms of the Motion before us, such a diffusion of direct ownership to the miners would indeed bring them freedom—it would bring them, above all, freedom from their unhappy thraldom to the NUM.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, I should like to say that if I had not been so eager to get into battle with the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, I would have asked to apologise to the House for the fact that, owing to a long-standing previous engagement, I shall not be able to stay to the end of the debate. I apologise to the noble Lords on the Front Benches who will be winding up. and in particular to my noble friend Lord Cockfield and my noble friend Lord Beloff.
5.44 p.m.
Lord Raglan: My Lords, when I came to the House nearly 20 years ago I was impressed by the number of academics on the Labour side, and I am sure that it is good that the Convervatives have equipped themselves with an equal number. It is only with some reservations, to which I shall come later, that I welcome the noble Lord's invitation to discuss an interesting philosophical proposition.
I have often pondered what positive good professional philosophers (even at their best) have contributed to mankind in general. Let us take as an example the slogan, "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity", which was taken up by the French revolutionaries. It seems to me that France, with all its virtues, is still traditionally a less free and egalitarian society than this one. It is as if by repeating this stirring libertarian slogan it shows that their intentions or credentials are good, but it also relieves them from pressure for action.
On the other hand, there has been no lack of philosophers who, because of their ability to use words to make it appear as if they know what they are talking about, have been responsible for leading people into the most appalling circumstances. My least favourite in that category is Hegel, who was the chief publicist, perhaps the inventor, of the theory of historical determinism and, therefore, the main inspiration of nationalists and other authoritarians. He was appointed by the then King of Prussia as an apologist for the king's nasty régime. Over 100 years later Sir Karl Popper has condemned him as a charlatan, and it is better that he should be condemned late rather than never. But it was too late to prevent his contributing a large part of his thinking to Karl Marx. Marx may have been indignant at what was going on in the world outside his room, but he did not understand it and he caused a lot of misery by appearing to the gullible to be a lot cleverer than he was.

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The Western liberal democracies are not the product of mystical structure-weaving philosophers. They appear to be the product of accidental development over centuries, and the outlook of most of their citizens—thank goodness!—is essentially pragmatic. They have become the engine of most of the world's technology and wealth, and at the same time have been developing the most agreeable civilisation yet known in history, having a form of government which gives the greatest scope yet known for individual freedom.
Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, I will not give a list of what I define as "individual freedoms" because it would take too long. However, I am nervous about analysing what makes our culture tick in case somebody announces that at last the elixir of liberal democracy has been discovered and it is declared that we should all rush out after it into the night. The noble Lord was, I think, inviting us to do just that over the next two or three parliaments. He says that to be free we must all go out and get some property. I do not think that he is right, but I will not try to come up with a counter proposition.
However, I think that he is right to encourage people to think about the question of freedom, immensely complicated though I believe it to be and even intangible; and to think about it not just as a counter to the totalitarian Hegelians and Marxists to the Right and Left, but so that some knowledge of liberal democracy and its associated wealth-making ability can be disseminated to the third world. They need to learn how to be relatively prosperous and free as we are in the West. The authors of the Brandt Report, for example, never addressed themselves to that matter at all, although perhaps that is where they should have started. But I do not think that they should have started with property.
I am reminded of my grandmother. She did not like living in the country. She and my grandfather let their house and estate—and they did not let it for much in those days of agricultural depression—and for the rest of their lives neither of them lived in the house which they owned. But it was not a matter of social fashion in those days to own your house, and it still is not the fashion in central London, although nowadays it may be financially prudent. I inherited the house and 1,000 acres, and until that time (as we are talking of statistics) 16.7 percent. of my family owned 100 percent. of the wealth. The 16.7 per cent. was my father, and there were six of us.
Before I inherited the property I began to manage the estate, and of course it has been a worry to me. But more than that, it has been a tie. I consider myself privileged to own such a nice place, and I am proud of it; but nice place it would not be if it were not for my constant attentions. I look after it because of my upbringing, because of duty, custom, inertia and above all, I suppose, sentiment. But my idea of freedom would be to sell up, live in a hotel and be waited on hand and foot—and I would also be better off financially.
In contrast, let us take the council tenant mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Maude. In return for rent, if the roof leaks all he does is to ring up the housing department. However, persuaded by tempting offers
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from this Government he takes upon himself the responsibility and expense of property ownership and sinks himself up to the eyes in a mortgage, by which he is imprisoned for the rest of his working life. The only worthwhile reason for inflicting this handicap on himself is that, because of the absurdity of the tax laws, house-purchase is the only tax-free form of saving. What he should be doing with his money is not locking it up in a house but putting it into trade or industry. But house-owning is fashionable, whereas for generations people have looked down their noses at trade. All I can say is that I hope the price of houses does not go down.
The economic order of Western democracies appears to be interlinked with our personal freedoms, but I believe it suffers from being misnamed. Once again, I suppose it was Marx who gave wide currency to the term "capitalist system". It is scarcely a system because nobody seems to understand how it works, and capital is only part of it. I believe that the essential part is revenue. One can have revenue without capital, but capital does not materialise or increase without revenue, for capital is the surplus saved out of revenue. Capital—and that includes property, if one can sell it—does nothing productive if it does not create revenue, which is why so many gifts and loans to developing countries are wasted, as those countries do not know how to use the money effectively to make more, for the scheme of things is foreign to them. I am thinking of all those poverty-stricken millions living under unsavoury or incompetent regimes. It is attractive to suggest that they would all be freer if they had properties. But how will they acquire property? On the other hand, in Greece, where I believe the great majority of the population own their own houses, that did not prevent the coming of the colonels.
Perhaps I could look at the question from another angle. We look to Parliament as the defender of our freedoms. But, as I see it, the House of Commons came into existence to protect citizens from unfair or arbitrary taxation, meaning demands upon their revenues. Surely it is from that purpose that all its other functions derive, including the protection of property and the freedom to own it. For Hitler got elected, and at that time there must have been as many property owners in Germany as there were here. Why did not France, Britain and the United States of America go the way of Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal? I do not think that it had to do with property. I think it had to do with an anti-authoritarian tradition which, indeed, may often have been connected with the defence of money-making assets.
But surely there is more to it than that. There was that change in religious view in the seventeenth and eighteenth and
centuries—nonconformism—to which Professor Tawney drew attention, when investment in manufacture and trade was encouraged instead of being discouraged; and, of course, business techniques were developed accordingly.
Then—and it seems to me that this was a major revolution—there came about that ethic of mutual trust and straight dealing without which business as we know it cannot flourish. I feel that this is where the third world fails, as well, of course, as communist

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systems. The unfortunately-named "capitalist system" is often indicted as being corrupt or corrupting; but, in fact, it is really less corrupt than others. Like most human activities, it requires to be set within a framework of enforceable laws, but in its own interests, which includes that of the consumer, it needs to tend toward self-correction or it cannot work; whereas in a culture of bribes and backhanders, or where fraud or fear are the norm, business will not succeed because it thrives on confidence. If that is absent, the money does not go round—it is not spread about—and property is worth little.
There is one other interesting aspect of the culture of this country to which I should like to draw attention before I sit down, and that has been the custom of primogeniture, which has continually encouraged the concentration of wealth back into fewer hands rather than into more hands. Even so, that custom does not seem to have affected our liberties. It may have had the reverse effect, but I do not know. I have heard it advanced that primogeniture stimulated the Industrial Revolution in this country because younger sons, wishing to maintain their standard of living after leaving home, sought other means of income. They created wealth-making assets without a property base, and needed to defend those assets against depredation or loss as strongly as any property owner might.
This philosophy of individualistic enterprise—the desire for free trade—has always been inclined to oppose authoritarian government. Yet for this section of the community, this enormously important and powerful section of the population, property has traditionally been a manifestation of wealth and independence rather than its source. On the other hand, the French peasant, for example, locked into and pre-occupied with maintaining his divided-up parcel of land, free and envied though he may be in many ways, does not seem to me to have had the same effect upon the libertarian aspects of the French constitution, which had bourgeois origins.
Therefore, I draw a conclusion different from that of the noble Lord, and I think that the whole question is much more complex than he appears to assume. Though property has its importance—and, indeed, much of our legal system developed out of arguments over the possession of land at a time when that had a much greater productive value than it has now—property has no value and is a burden unless it produces wealth or there is a wealth-creating process to acquire and support it. The increase of wealth and its diffusion is desirable because it increases freedom of choice, though always with the reservation of the old saying that the only man of independent mind is the man of independent means.
However, the increasing of wealth, as we know it, in this unique Western civilisation appears only to be possible in a culture which values the individual, which authoritarian systems of Right and Left do not. From that point it will value his enterprise, subject to restrictions, and other freedoms, and encourage the freedom of choice, which includes the means to have freedom of choice. That freedom includes both the liberty to own property and the liberty to have none.
6 p.m.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Beloff for giving us the opportunity to debate this subject today. It is an interesting title, and it is always worth listening to my noble friend Lord Beloff, who introduced the subject so clearly. My own comments are much more prosaic but I believe equally relevant to the subject, as I am convinced that the right to buy for council tenants has meant a great increase in freedom for the individual.
It has long been Conservative policy that Britain should be a property-owning democracy, and the sale of council houses to sitting tenants was encouraged. Many tenants who wished to buy their homes were not allowed to do so as the local authorities involved, for doctrinaire reasons, refused to allow their tenants to buy. It was only under the last Government that the right to buy came into force. Of the 676,000 public sector sales between April 1979 and December 1983 431,000 were under the right to buy. It is very significant that such a high proportion were under the right to buy.
Whether it be a private or a public sector home purchased, home ownership gives a great degree of freedom to the individual. When I was district housing chairman on the Greater London Council before housing was transferred to local councils, I had first-hand experience of the lack of freedom for the tenants. Tenants whose front doors were in windswept, rainsoaked positions applied to the council for the right to add—at their own expense, I might say—porches for protection. They were refused. Later, when those same occupiers owned those houses, they built those porches, and I am sure they are much more comfortable.
After one meeting to discuss with tenants whether or not garages should be built in their gardens, I was amazed to hear official comments that these people really should have no say in these matters—the best plans were made for them, and they should be grateful. That was the attitude. No thought was to be given even to the fact that these people loved their gardens and did not even own cars: plans had been drawn up 20 years earlier: those plans should be implemented. As home owners it is quite clear that people would have the choice whether to opt for their garden or their garage.
The noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby, talked about power coming only through wealth, but that is not so. A great deal of power goes with the person who is able to allocate housing, and refuse or permit anything to a council tenant. I am pleased that the planning regulations have relaxed considerably and that houses in single-family occupation can now have an extension or modification in many cases as "permitted development"; this means that no lengthy and expensive planning permission is required for people to make their homes to suit themselves.
As you drive along a row of council-built houses you will know which ones have been bought. The owners like to have their front doors a different colour, or a gate of original design. People have this freedom of choice. Again, I found council officers thoroughly disapproving of these signs of independence. As the noble Lord, Lord Maude, mentioned in his speech,

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owners have the freedom to sell and move.The one freedom they do not have is fredom from responsibility, and in this respect I found the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, most interesting. But I think that his view is rather different from the view of someone who is seeking to become a home owner for the first time.
A property owner must accept the duties and responsibilities that go with that ownership, but his own situation is very different from the situation of most people. The noble Lord mentioned the wealth concentration effect of primogeniture, but I would put the other case, that I think that many people now may be encouraged to diffuse wealth—and I hope with it property—through the capital transfer tax, which encourages one to spread the wealth rather than to keep it. I hope that that will apply to a wider home ownership.
I was also interested in the noble Lord's idea that if you were a council tenant and some little thing went wrong all you had to do was to get on the phone and someone would be round to fix it. I can tell the noble Lord that there are plenty of council tenants who would not take that view. I remember one lady, when I went to her door, saying to me, "I did apply to have this bath fixed. There is a crack in it". I said, "When did you apply?" She said, "Fifteen years ago". That was a fairly rare case. Apparently in the whole 15 years she had made no effort to follow it up. But there were many cases of years of delay, and whether it is a private owner or a council it is not easy to get repairs done.
Lord Raglan: My Lords, I was responsible for a housing department for many years, and I slightly go along with the noble Baroness on the difficulty of getting repairs done. However, I was drawing attention to the fact that the council tenant who is acquiring a property is acquiring responsibility and not freedom.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, and I made exactly the same point myself: they are definitely acquiring responsibility. But many people are seeking that responsibility, because with responsibility comes the freedom of choice which they do not have when they remain a tenant.
I should like to give a business example. In this City of Westminster it is thought that there remains only one master baker; that is, a skilled baker producing his own bread on the premises. The business has been in existence since 1925 and the third generation of these master bakers is serving the local population today. The business is in rented premises, and over a period the rent reviews have seen the rent rise from under £4,000 a year to a current £25,000 a year. Next March the expected rent is anticipated to be £32,000 to £37,000, and the bakery will simply have to close and put people out of employment if they have no alterna-tive but to remain in those premises. Fortunately, they have managed to acquire the freehold of a small shop in the area. They still face the job of getting the necessary permission to bake, even though the premises were a bakery for over 100 years. But here is a clear case of a link between freedom and the ownership of private property. The bakers will now have stable costs and will have the freedom to continue in business, to be good employers, as they are, and the
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local residents will have the freedom to continue to enjoy the best bread in Westminster.
Returning to the home subject, it is clear from the Building Societies Association survey published recently that my support for home ownership is not unusual. Seventy-eight per cent. of adults wish to, and expect to, become home owners; 62 per cent. of households are in owner occupation—a marked increase under the Conservative Government. In 1983 the building societies gave 958,000 loans—that is nearly a million—for home purchase. But the more significant figure is surely the 506,000 mortgages for first-time buyers. That is the highest ever in one year.
I am anxious to see a continuing supply of homes, and there is need, as more young people want to own their own home now, for a net increase of 150,000 homes a year. The circular issued by Westminster City Council just this week on the 1.6 acre site currently offered for sale clearly indicates that a condition will attach whereby the purchaser must undertake to provide a number of flats for sale to first-time buyers at current ceiling prices of £28,000, which by the standard of prices in the City of Westminster is reasonable and within the reach of many people. Similar schemes have worked very well in Westminster and usually the purchasers have vacated council flats to move into these properties.
But land in London is scarce, and it is getting scarce outside London. As a great believer in the Green Belt I am delighted that the Secretary of State for the Environment confirmed in March this year that the Green Belt will stay green. But he should certainly—and I believe that he is—look carefully at what the Green Belt is. We envisage and enjoy the wide green spaces that provide the breathing space and pleasant environment, and of course I am most familiar with the area around London. But my experience as a planning vice-chairman revealed to me that there are also classified as Green Belt scruffy little bits of derelict land, often hemmed in by housing all around, and frequently no joy to look at but rather a dumping spot, uncared for by anyone, frequently vandalised and a cause of anxiety to adjoining owners. These little patches would provide classic in-fill sites; and a well-designed, well-constructed, considerately sited house, with a well-cared-for garden, would be more pleasant for the area and would assist in providing the house building space which is so necessary. The House Builders' Federation states:
"The balance has swung too far in favour of those who are housed and wish to pull up the drawbridge against those who want to own their own homes."
That is a very interesting view and is particularly relevant to the topic of this debate today. I unhesitatingly support the aim of the widest possible diffusion of private property, and I am convinced of the connection between that and freedom.
6.10 p.m.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, I have to say that it is almost impossible, I should have thought, for anyone to be neutral about any of the views expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Beloff. Those of us who hold strong views within the democratic structure are always good for stimulation and examination. The noble Lord, Lord Beloff, has certainly introduced those ingredients

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into this Motion today. I am very grateful for that. Although our views are totally different, I have the suspicion that we come from a similar mould.
I expected to hear the kind of speech which was delivered by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, this afternoon, with its forthright attack on trade unionism. I regret I have to say that these days there are many people with a hatred of miners. I was born and bred in a mining community which has more Victoria Cross holders than any other part of Great Britain. When I hear some of the things said arising from the unpleasant events which are taking place at the present time involving the British coal miner, I am bound to get a little emotional and angry, and I hope your Lordships will understand my position. It pains me, in regard to the speech delivered by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross (and I am sorry he is not here) to have to draw a parallel with some of the statements we have heard from that other grand old "democrat" in Poland who also loves trade unionists and miners—General Jaruzelski. I have previously asked the noble Lord, Lord Harris—such an eminent economist—whether he can say who is to speak against the evils of the rich tax dodgers in our society and those who bolster up the black economy which costs our nation so much.
It is also regrettable to have to acknowledge that under this present Government—as one or two of your Lordships have said—the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. This is of itself not merely immoral, but also appallingly dangerous. The greedy rich who do not mind pulverising the poor are the finest recruiting sergeants for any form of communism. I should have thought that lesson had been learned, but that is apparently not so.
I was interested in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Maude. I used to be interested in what he had to say in another place, and it is always nice to hear him speaking in this House. I find it quite remarkable that his speech in support of capitalism seems to be a mile away from his Motion for a short debate to call attention to the need of Her Majesty's Government to press urgently for an effective free enterprise endeavour: a European Community scheme to enable large surpluses of foodstuffs to be distributed in areas overseas where there is widespread starvation and malnutrition. I say, "Hear, hear" to that. At least he has got to admit that he is not asking Marks and Spencer or ICI to do that; it has to be done not by the private entrepreneurs, but by democratic governments within the EEC. The quicker we recognise these truths, the better.
I should like to examine for a moment the observations regarding council houses made by the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, and, to a much larger extent, by the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes. Council houses suddenly became popular with the Tory Party (who built very few only) when they decided that they should be put up for sale. Why were they built? If the majority of Labour-controlled councils and a few enlightened Tory councils had not built those houses in the first place, they would not have been for sale to anybody—because they would not have existed. This House will remember that in the days just before and after the war, when there was a
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massive amount of public housing under construction, among his great achievements Aneurin Bevan not only introduced the National Health Service, but also started a scheme of public housing which was enormous and successful. The Tory Party, in the words of the noble Earl, Lord Stockton, when he was Mr Harold Macmillan, said "We can do better; we will help these wicked Labour councils not to build a mere 290,000 houses, as they did under Aneurin Bevan; we will build 300,000 publicly-owned council houses for the poor every year."
Many houses built for that purpose, despite the enormous homelessness in this country, are being "flogged off' to those who have the most money to buy them. I do not mind people saving that is a good philosophy and that they want to do that. But I find it difficult to accept, when they boast about going to Church three times a day on Sundays and when they also hold such positions as chairmen of parochial church councils.
This is the kind of argument which is put to me—sometimes it is debated in our universities—and it concerns a great hypocrisy which exists in this nation. Just one such example is when the Conservatives claim they have freed people to buy their council houses. If the Conservative Party had their way, they would never have built those council houses in the first place. There was nothing to stop any private organisation of builders from building as many houses as they wanted. Builders obtained contracts from local authorities in order to play safe. The last thing they wanted was any spirit of adventure, in case they lost a few million pounds. That is why many private entrepreneurial builders were so glad when the local authorities decided they were going to rehouse the poor—because they could then build the houses and have the profits Whether those houses were built for private sale or for councils, the majority of the men who really constructed them were the quantity surveyors, electricians, carpenters, joiners, bricklayers, and those who laid down the sanitation and installed the telephones, gas and electricity. They were all working men of great skill, and this was never acknowledged. Let us take a moment to acknowledge them now.
When I hear of the magnificent successes which this Government are alleged to have had and continue to have—as we have heard from the Benches opposite—my socialist feelings compel me to say that I am sorry to disillusion them, because only a week ago today in the queen of the suburbs of London, the London Borough of Ealing, the Labour Party had a magnificent victory at a local election in a ward which is traditionally Conservative. I am hoping this kind of thing will continue.
It is difficult for people to realise that public ownership is not the preserve of the Labour Party. The Labour Party believed—and that is why I am a member of it—that it we could get the mine owners and steel owners off our backs, our nation would flourish; we would have full employment, which would give us a much greater degree of freedom and independence. That is what we have got to understand when we talk about the unemployed. They are not just a group of people with no work. I have said before in this House that I have seen families torn by

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unemployment, faced with argument and sometimes abuse, and it is not pleasant for me to have to say that British capitalism did not respond to the agonies of the unemployed. The way they treated the coalminers in 1926 was absolutely disgusting. When a panel of eminent judges and eminent businessmen in the early 1930s examined the structure and what had to be done with the energy problems of Great Britain, vis-à-vis coal, the unaminous recommendation was that it must be brought into public ownership. That cannot be such a terrible thing as some people make out.
When, for example, under the Government of Mr. Ted Heath there came the collapse of the great British symbol, the Rolls-Royce engine and the Rolls-Royce car and the Rolls-Royce aeroplane, it took us in the House of Commons in those days less than 24 hours to nationalise Rolls-Royce, and it is still—thank God!— nationalised. We could have been in some difficulty if that massive invention had been allowed to drop away.
Something else that is a threat to our freedom, as has already been mentioned, and I mention briefly, is the fact that local authorities are now in danger of being liquidated. What an awful word to use in this House about freely elected local authorities. If the Tory Government persist, the local authorities could be liquidated.
I should like to say so many things, but I shall make just one remark. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, said that people have to be involved in the free enterprise element before they can give of their best. Are we to say that about the police? Are we to say that about the task force on the Falkland Islands? Would it have been better if a private enterprise force had gone out, or were they not quite up to standard? In our nation, the Army, the Navy and the Air Force are publicly owned. Are we to say that about the firemen when the bells are clanging and they are rushing through the streets or the ambulance drivers who follow? There must clearly be a balance in what we are saying. When some of these debates are read by ordinary people outside they get a bit hot under the collar.
I make this point quickly that there are many industries and small businessmen who also believe strongly in the principle of public ownership when what they supply for the Central Electricity Generating Board or perhaps the National Coal Board or whatever it is guarantees them full work the year round.
Unlimited power is the fatal defect of the prevailing form of capitalism and state Communism. There is an awful similarity in my view and this can only be rendered nugatory via, again in my view, democratic Socialism. Barbarism as opposed to liberty is the result of power being released from the constraint of fair and just rules. Nowhere are the effects of irresponsible democracy more clearly shown than in the general increase in the power of central Government by the assumption of functions formerly performed by regional or local authorities.
We are moving towards massive central power. I find that a very distasteful way for my country to be moving. I have seen it happen in the United States of America, where private power now is so enormous. I wonder what the founding fathers of that great nation,
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when they issued their declaration on 4th July 1776, would have said about some of the things that are happening in the United States. There is grinding and absolute poverty on one hand, and not in small measure, and ostentatious richness and vulgarity on the other. I am quite sure that it would turn the stomach of Thomas Jefferson if he were able to realise that all he believed in when he wrote the Consitution has now been ravaged not by Socialist greed, Communist greed or liberal greed, but by capitalist greed. That is what we must acknowledge.
Some economists try to depict the economic system for the layman as a machine. Raw materials are fed into it, workers turn the machine and the capitalist owns it. The state, the landlord, the capitalist and the workers share its product in an egregiously unequal way. I am one of those who does not believe that equality is the answer, but I believe that efficient equality should begin at the starting point in education so that at the end when the more apt scholar gets the palm it will not be because of privilege but simply because of the mysteries of vocation and the fact that the better person has won.
I was reminded in a statement made earlier by one of your Lordships of the fact that the multi-millionaire John D. Rockefeller once described the American Beauty rose as being "splendour in its fragrance", but this wonderful rose could only be grown by sacrificing the earlier buds which grew up around it. Years later, his descendant, Vice-President Nelson Rockefeller, warned the free world against the dangers of compassion. I do not mind people accepting that, but I hope we shall not have big shows over Easter, Christmas and all the big religious feasts and every Sunday evening those programmes, which I enjoy, of people singing hymns, while quietly by Monday morning saying that that load of compassion is an awful lot of conkers, that it is just a drug for the working classes, because people will no longer get away with that argument.
I believe that, whether one is Christian or not deeply religious, notwithstanding all the religious aspects, the Sermon on the Mount is a real doctrine which will help to dispense with and ultimately do away with all the other evils of greed and lack of compassion. It will do away with this sort of thing, for example. Between 1811 and 1820 the Countess of Sutherland and her husband the Marquess of Stafford cleared 15,000 Highlanders from their estate to make room for sheep. They used fire and dogs to kick the Highlanders out because it had been shown that sheep produced more revenue. That was not all that long ago. We must remember these things, because that will help to guide us towards a better future when we realise some of the evils that we have committed in the past.
The Government and Tory view does not enhance the idea of freedom, because the simple philosophy which we had from Lord Beloff, which was forthright and honest, seemed to indicate that the man is there because the clothes are there. We Socialists say, "No." The clothes come because the man is there. It is this simple philosophy which I believe in.
In a property-owning democracy the fundamentals of health, energy, transport and defence of our island must be owned by the property-owning democracy

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and Parliament should be the watchdog and the director of that property-owning democracy.
During the last few years many of the arguments submitted by Lord Beloff have not really borne fruit. I do not think for one moment that he can agree that the views he outlined to us this afternoon, which I know he fervently believes in, have in any way been achieved by the present Administration. The facts are right against it. We have the highest level of bankruptcies we have ever had in Britain's history, and the sad aspect of that statement is that we have had the highest level of deaths caused through worry—in some cases death by one's own hand. This I believe is a serious situation. When these thoughts have entered families, the families of the bankrupt small business man, suicides have followed. The unemployment among our youth and the diminution of law and order are a denial of what the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, said in his submission and are facts today. They certainly are reducing freedom and they will continue to do so unless they are arrested. Freedom flourishes with civilised behaviour and that behaviour, in my judgment (contrary to that of the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, and of other noble Lords who have spoken) is always enhanced in a democratic Socialist society.
I can only speak from my own personal experience, having been brought up in a Welsh valley, very proud of the massive military achievements of our grandfathers and of our fathers in the defence of freedom—and this despite the fact of the crushing weight of the coal owners and the steel owners, who treated us like animals. We were not to blame our nation for that; and we did not do so.
We knew that one day we would break through and that the vehicle which would aid us would be the British Labour Party. And I am proud to say that, in the rise of the British Labour Party, in the introducing of real freedom, happy freedom, for millions of my fellow countrymen, not one of our fellow-Britons was deliberately slain in that grand march. I respect the views of the noble Lord, Lord Beloff; but I have not heard anything whatsoever, from my experience of life on this island and of service to this nation, to change my belief that it will be a better nation, a freer nation, a happy nation and one that will be an example to all mankind, when we have the return of a democratic Socialist Government.
6.31 p.m.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, I should like to say a word or two following what my noble friend Lady Gardner called her more prosaic contribution. I should like to say a word about the specal importance of the subject of this debate to the future of the people of Scotland, particularly in relation to housing. I do not need to remind your Lordships that in Scotland we do not always behave, or, indeed, want to behave, in the same way as people behave south of the Border. Our history is different; our priorities are often different; the way we order our affairs is different; and social change often comes according to a different timetable.
Scots have always valued individual freedom and autonomy as highly as any race on earth—certainly, I
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would suggest, as highly as any Englishman or Welshman. But the link between the ownership of house property and the safeguarding for oneself of some freedom of manoeuvre, and the link between lack of home ownership and diminished freedom—a matter which has been so high on the social agenda at least in the south of England for some time now—has not until very recently been such an important part of our consciousness in Scotand. In my view the reason for this is not far to seek. The first industrial revolution came to Scotland early. It transformed a largely rural scene to one of massive conurbations across the central belt of the country. It brought about some of the worst slums in Europe and the greatest social dependence of the many on the few.
The democratic will in Scotland, before and after the second world war, was to put massive energy into rectifying this. The slums were demolished and enormous public housing schemes were built, some in the centres of cities, more on greenfield sites outside. These houses were our national and local pride and joy. The success of local government councils and of central governments of all persuasions was largely measured in terms of the number of council houses built. It was the widespread wish of very many people to get high on the list for a new council house.
As a result, we now have in Scotland the highest proportion of any country this side of the Iron Curtain of people living in houses rented from public authorities. No less than 53 per cent. of the Scottish housing stock is in public authority hands as opposed to 29 per cent. in the United Kingdom as a whole. In Strathclyde Region (which is half Scotland) the proportion is 61 per cent., and in some areas of Strathclyde and elsewhere it is even higher than that. In Clydebank, 78 per cent. of the housing is in local authority ownership; in Motherwell, 80 per cent.; and so it goes on. I know of several schools in my own area where the catchment area of, say, 14,000 people has in it not a single owner-occupied house. Small wonder that in Scotland for a long time now it has been seen as an inescapable fact of life that only a minority—30 per cent. or so—were going to own their own homes, and in some areas far fewer than that! Many in Scotland have always been happy to rent council property. But happy about it or not, for the majority it has been TINA—there is no alternative.
This lack of choice would not be so important if there had not developed—unintentionally, perhaps, but in my own personal experience of larger schemes, and not so much the smaller schemes, without question—what amounts to a new form of urban feudalism which is frequently as limiting to individual freedom as was ever the rural feudalism of earlier days, one element of which has been referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Molloy. It often happens, with the best will in the world, that in running their housing departments councils have to be fair. Fairness requires a system, and rules and criteria by which decisions are made. Supervision, red tape and administrative procedures necessarily abound, and sometimes, inevitably, the system is exploited or abused. Enthusiastic local councillors let it be known, "If your downpipe is blocked, give me a ring; I'll see it's fixed". They hold surgeries at which housing problems (many of which could be solved by people themselves, or

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which people themselves should take to officials) become, again with the best will in the world, the building bricks of a local political base.
People begin to feel that they must not displease officials or get up against councillors or they will be in trouble when some kind of housing emergency occurs. So, often with the best intentions of all concerned, ordinary people find themselves being manipulated, trapped in a system out of which they cannot find a way; and, because one's home is so basic to life, puzzlement about what to do—and cynicism, too—spreads to one's attitude about other things. It somehow does not seem possible to have a say in the schooling in the local area, in the community centre or in the bus service.
The case must not be overstated, but in Scotland one cannot but notice, too, what happens when people in a given area buy their houses, or in an area where some houses have always been owner-occupied. As my noble friend Lady Gardner says, the houses look different: the brass door knockers are there, the door handles shine, and the gardens are planted. And when you visit, the talk is about showing the house off with pride, not showing the damp patch or the leaky radiator which no one will come to repair.
You might expect that the need to make it easier for the maximum number of people who aspire to do so to be able to buy their own homes would be clear by now to people in positions of influence who really care—people who want to help spring the trap in which so many families are caught, or feel themselves caught. But the conventional wisdom still remains the same. Caring officials continue to see their service to the public as the maintaining, as far as possible intact, of the stock of houses to let. Caring councillors still too often see their role not as helping and encouraging people to take advantage of the right to buy and using the proceeds to refurbish boarded-up family houses to replace and renew houses for older people and for disabled people which are increasingly needed. They see it as their job to maintain, so far as possible, the status quo.
Even in this House, Scottish elder statesmen on both Benches opposite are so anxious to keep discounts down that they voted the other day for it to be made more difficult to buy one's house in Scotland than it looks as though it is going to be in England. Also a right reverend Prelate said on the same occasion as he went to vote for lower discounts:
"I can't see that home ownership is all that important. I don't own my home and I find I don't mind that at all".
In fact, in Scotland 3,500 people or so are buying their council homes every quarter, but they are doing it in spite of discouragement rather than because of encouragement from the people in charge and from those in positions of leadership.
Not everybody, of course, wants to buy a house: many will always freely choose to live all their lives in rented property. But the evidence in Scotland, South of the Border and elsewhere, is that massive undiluted areas of public housing, however caring those who run such areas try to be, at worst produce, and at best reinforce, a sense of lack of involvement, of frustration, of resignation, of a lack of freedom to manoeuvre and a sense of being at other people's
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mercy, which is the very opposite of what the creators of the great housing schemes originally intended. In my view, we in Scotland have to think hard and fast. The legislation is in place. We need to make sure that people know how to take advantage of it, if and when they want to. For that reason, and for many other reasons, my Lords, I strongly support this Motion.
6.42 p.m.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, I must first apologise for the fact that I have been very erratic in my attendance at this debate, for reasons which are almost entirely outside my own control. They relate to engagements which had been fixed before I knew the debate was taking place, and perhaps at this late hour I can best make amends by being as brief as possible.
It seems to me rather sad that this debate—what I have heard of it, at any rate—has turned largely into a party political wrangle, whereas the theme of freedom is, after all, one of the great themes of politics; and the pursuit and maintenance of freedom for men and women, when it has been partially achieved (and it has never been more than partially achieved) has to be one of the great purposes of politicans everywhere. To reduce it to the level of a party battle seems to me to be an inadequate way to approach a very great subject. I will limit my contribution to the party battle to pointing out that it was, after all, the reforming Liberal Government of 1906 which in fact initiated what is today the welfare state. And Beveridge, people seem to forget, was a Liberal Member of Parliament and a Liberal Peer. Having said that, I will leave the party issues on one side.
Surely the pursuit and maintenance of freedom is something far wider than the question of property. Of course, some degree of property is an element in freedom but Beveridge talked about freedom from fear, freedom from want, freedom from ignorance and freedom from disease. Can anyone seriously think that those freedoms can be obtained except by a sensible collaboration between both public and private service and public and private effort? So surely the argument turns on what kind of public and private effort and what kind of public and private contribution should be made; how it should be done and what is the most appropriate means at any given time. There can be no doctrinaire answers. What is appropriate at one time is inappropriate at another. One of the things we are learning in our desire—and this, I think, has been common to all parties—to develop an effective welfare state is that we have made certain mistakes which it is necessary now to review and to correct.
There is no doubt that in many places the efforts of people who administer the welfare state are seen as highly bureaucratic and remote, and a resentment against certain aspects of the welfare state has in consequence built up which should never have developed, and which can I think be corrected. In my view, it is fortunate that there is a movement towards a much closer collaboration of both statutory and voluntary services to meet needs, and that there is a much greater determination to make provision at a far more local level than hitherto so that people who have need of the services can collaborate in the provision of services rather than feel that they are provided by

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people whom they do not know, and to whom they attribute motives which are often totally incorrect but which nonetheless are widely believed to be true. I think that the movement at the present time towards closer statutory-voluntary, private-public collaboration is one of the most healthy developments in the welfare state.
The welfare society—Beveridge always insisted that what he wanted was a welfare society and not a welfare state—means, I believe, much greater collaboration at local levels between a variety of different providers and meeters of welfare needs of the society in which people happen to be living; and the greater emphasis on community service and neighbourhood service is something which is freedom enhancing rather than freedom limiting, it seems to me. So do not let us see this as a party political thing but as something we all believe in and that we all want to achieve. We none of us know the answers, and we know that the approach will be different in different places and at different times.
I do not deny, of course, that the ownership of property is an element in freedom but, as I see it, it is only a very small element if you look at the challenge to freedom, as outlined by Beveridge, by huge obstacles to the true freedom which he identified. But the ownership of property comes into the whole argument. Perhaps nobody else has quoted the old adage, a very useful and true one, that property, like muck, is no good unless it is spread thin. Nobody can say that the property is spread sufficiently "thin" at the present time; and we from these Benches would always wish to urge that we are not against property but very much in favour of it. The trouble is that far too few people have enough of it.
The way to spread the property thin is not only through home ownerships—I am not challenging the value of that because in fact I am totally and most uncomfortably involved in acquiring at long last some home ownership myself, and I am overwhelmed by the difficulties which beset one when one starts doing this, especially at the wrong end of life: but that is my personal problem. However, there are many other aspects of property ownership which do not just involve house ownership. I believe in a wide spread of property, and for a large number of people to own something—be it stocks and shares, or a house or some other resource which is their own—is important to freedom.
Far too many people in this country are entirely dependent on either the wage that their employer pays them or what they can draw from the state, and this limits people's ability to make choices. It restricts their ability to walk out on an employer with whom they disagree. It is a very sad aspect of politics today that so many politicians depend entirely on being paid, so that they cannot resign and they cannot cross the Floor, because they are afraid of losing their jobs. It is a sad thing that people are terrified of losing their jobs, because they have nothing to fall back on if they do. It is not a free society. I do not believe that you need to have a lot of money to have some degree of independence in making up your mind what you are going to do—but you must have some. One of our objectives should be to see that that element of property
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ownership is far more widely spread than it is at the present time, and we are not moving very fast in that direction.
One group of people who illustrate this point very plainly are women. If we look back 100 years—I shall not digress long here, but it makes the point—we see that when a woman lost all her property to the man she married, she lost her freedom totally. If you want the extreme illustration to show how some ownership of property is important, you cannot do better than think of the position of the woman who had some property but lost it when she married and. having made a bad marriage, she could not recover her property and had no freedom whatsoever. We talk about the increase in the divorce rate. How many marriages were broken to smithereens, and yet people had to stay together because there was no property base on which they could separate?
To bring the illustration more up to date, I would say that the taxation of women's earnings is highly relevant to the ownership of property. Until we get to the point at which we are taxed as individuals, and not taxed on the basis of our marital status, we shall be denying the property rights which underline freedom to a good many women at the present time. I hope that the time will come when the whole approach to the earnings of women and their taxation is looked at very seriously and changed.
But there are sensible things which we could do and which we in this party have advocated for a very long time, so that property is more widely spread. We need a much more vigorous attack on monopoly, both public and private, and—we on these Benches have said it again and again, and we shall continue to say it—I see no virtue whatsoever in getting rid of a public monopoly in order to create a private monopoly. If we believe in spreading property and wealth through the opportunity for people to compete, to earn, and to establish businesses, then that attack on monopoly of all kinds needs to be more vigorously pursued, and we certainly do not want to increase private monopoly by the kind of changes which are taking place in some aspects of the privatisation programme.
Then, again, there is the question—this is a very hoary suggestion, but it never gets dealt with—of inheritance. Why is it so difficult to bring in changes in the inheritance laws which encourage the much wider distribution of property when people die, so that the taxation is adjusted according to how much a person had previously inherited, thereby encouraging people who are leaving their money to leave it to those who have not already accumulated a considerable amount of wealth? In a couple of generations such changes in estate duty would make a very considerable difference to the way in which wealth is distributed. That is surely something which we could get on with now without a very great deal of difficulty.
My noble friend Lord Grimond has already spoken about ownership in industry and a much greater extension of share ownership in industry. I wish it were the case that share ownership schemes and share option schemes were always available to all employees. The development of the kind of share option scheme which is limited to certain categories of management seems to me to be contrary to the kind of

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distribution of wealth which we aim to see established. The Government have gone some way in encouraging wider share ownership, but the Conservative Party as a whole has had to be pushed and shoved for years to get action in this area.
It was a Labour Government—there was a fairly considerable battle at the time of the Lib-Lab pact to get them to do it—who made the changes in the Finance Act 1978 which gave some beginning to the encouragement of share ownership through changes in the taxation system. Surely we can go much further along those lines than we are doing at present. This has the double benefit of giving that degree of property spread thin, which is an essential basis for freedom. It also gives that other freedom of having a much greater say in what goes on in the place where you work, and a much greater sense that you are identified, because you share in the ownership of the concern in which you are employed.
These are traditional Liberal policies, but so little has been done to develop them that they bear repetition. These are great themes concerning freedom and how it can be maintained. They rise above party considerations. They are not matters that can be linked to any one change, such as a move in the direction of much greater private ownership—the kind of advocacy that we have heard this evening from the Government Benches. This is a multi-pronged approach to a vast problem to which none of us has the answers, but on which we want to see some progress made.
6.57 p.m.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, it is always a very pleasant and enlightening experience to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, in almost any contribution she makes in your Lordships' House. I very much agreed with a large amount of what she said, but I particularly admired the way in which she enunciated controversial Liberal policies, emphatic Liberal policies, and reminisced on Liberal history, at the same time asserting that her observations were completely above all party politics. I find that a quality which is most engaging and most attractive.
We should also be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, for introducing this Motion. I observe that when he started he gave some explanation for introducing what he described as an abstract Motion and indicated his intention of standing back from legislative proposals. I had intended to follow his example and to conduct the argument on the very high and lofty plain upon which he ventured to embark. But I regret to say that a number of contributions made since then have brought back the whole matter to a rather more earthy, legislative and, if the noble Baroness will forgive me, party political controversy.
I do not intend in any way to burke the issue which is raised by the use in the Motion of the term "diffusion". As I understand it, the whole Motion is one that supports the proposition that the wider diffusion of property will in itself result in increasing the liberty of the subject. This presents some difficulties, because I wonder to which section of the population this ownership is to be diffused. I wonder how the diffusion to whatever section it is diffusible
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will be carried out. The noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross, has another engaging quality: that of standing on the validity of the statistics that support his own case but dismissing as entirely irrelevant and inaccurate any statistics that do not support his own case. After listening to him, I will venture to reiterate some of the matters which have already been raised in regard to the present state of the distribution of property.
It is a fact, despite the doubts of the noble Lord, Lord Harris, that some 80 per cent. of the population own approximately 23 per cent. of the country's marketable wealth. This means that about 20 per cent. of the population own some 77 per cent. of it. It is true also, I believe, that, so far as share ownership is concerned, 80 per cent. of the population own some 5 per cent. of the total shares held by individuals, and 20 per cent. of the population own 95 per cent. of the shares.
On the question of homes—including the land immediately surrounding those homes, as part of them—I understand that 80 per cent. of the population own some 42 per cent. of homes, whereas 20 per cent. own some 48 per cent. of them. There may be variations, but that is the broad and general picture. The first question I must ask is: to whom is the ownership going to be diffused? How is it going to be acquired? One can understand a certain movement of property among those who are included in that very fortunate 20 per cent.—some will have a little less and some will have a little more—but what about the 80 per cent., the great bulk of the population? What resources do they have?
We have certain clues because we do know, very approximately, that there are at present some 15 million of the population living below, at, or slightly above, subsistence level. They are the people who are within the 80 per cent. What resources do they have, to be able to acquire property? The noble Lord, Lord Mottistone—who, unfortunately, could not stay—made the assertion (rather remarkably, I thought) that anyone—and I believe he used the term "without exception"—could obtain resources "on tick", on credit, to enable them to acquire property. If the noble Lord were still here, I would possibly refer to that observation of his in slightly more austere terms, but his absence merely requires me to note it as being quite ridiculous.
Your Lordships may be aware of a feature that appeared in the Sunday Times as recently as 21st August 1983. This set out the results of a detailed MORI poll carried out in very careful circumstances which revealed the conditions under which millions of our fellow citizens at the bottom of the scale live. It described the facilities which millions are having to go without. Some 4·3 million did not have damp-free homes; 2·9 million could have a roast joint or a meat chop only once a week; 3·25 million were without heating, 3·4 million were not able to have new clothes as distinct from buying second-hand clothes; 2·9 million needed warm coats; 9·7 million had to go without a week's holiday away; 1·1 million were without a bath; 2·2 million were without facilities for a Christmas celebration.
How, then, is property going to be diffused among people with those resources? What bank is going to

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advance them the money to acquire a property? How does their income level relate in any way to any reasonable ability to discharge a hire-purchase obligation of the kind they may need to acquire such a substantial asset as a motor car? There can be no real diffusion of property on any substantial scale in the direction which the noble Lord infers it ought to go, as distinct from among the top 20 per cent. of the population. So long as there remains in this country unemployment running at the level of between 3 million and 4 million, this cannot happen.
My noble friend Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos spoke very eloquently about the two different types of property, as originally put forward by Tawney. Nobody is objecting—in fact, everybody is affirming—that to be able to acquire property for one's own use and enjoyment would undoubtedly increase the sense of personal freedom, subject to a qualification that I shall make presently. But when it comes to real property in the sense of property which confers on its owners the right and the power to determine the lives of others, to decide where to invest and where not to invest, to decide where to export and where not to export, to decide where to compete and where not to compete, and to decide who to sack and who to engage, then there is no desire to diffuse that power—none whatsoever. In fact, ever since 1979 that power has been progressively increasing. The power of property consisting of the means of production and the means of employment is rapidly placing more and more power into fewer and fewer hands.
Far from there being any governmental policy to diffuse that power, the policy is to increase it. The policy is to increase the concentration of power; and even today some 80 per cent. of manufacturing production in this country is in the hands of 400 companies whose directors—and ultimately, one supposes, their shareholders—can dermine the fate of the people they employ.
I said I had a qualification about the acquisition of property. The most common way of acquiring property by people who are not in the top favoured 20 per cent. of the population—and perhaps even including them—but who are on the lower levels is, of course, by obtaining a mortgage loan or engaging in hire purchase transactions. Of course, that gives the illusion of freedom and the illusion of ownership. But in most cases the ownership itself is not completed in the purchaser's favour until after the mortgage is discharged. In times of high interest rates and high unemployment, mortgagor after mortgagor has the option given to him of either increasing the length of the term of the loan or paying the increased interest. There are thousands of alleged home owners in this country who will never, in fact, own their house during their lifetime and whose mortgage, in many cases, will not be paid off until after their death. However, it gives the illusion of ownership.
How does that enhance freedom? How does it enhance the freedom of the individual? There have been many definitions of freedom this evening, including two examples which I am pleased to support from the noble Baroness, Lady Seear: freedom from want and freedom from ignorance. There are many other illustrations of freedom because it can only be
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stated in illustrative terms. Above all, freedom means freedom from fear. There are certain fears that are the inevitable consequence of being on earth itself. There is nothing very much that we can do about that. There is fear of death, fear of illness and of physical hurt, fear of bereavement, and so on. There are even fears for one's own future. Those are all common fears. However, there are certain fears that are not inevitable. People ought not to be afraid of the cost of dying. They ought not to be afraid of delays in the treatment of their health. They ought not to be afraid or deterred by its cost. They ought not to be afraid of unemployment. They ought not to be afraid of loss of material possessions arising from economic adversity. They ought not to be afraid of those things.
The ownership of property under mortgage conditions or the acquisition of property on hire purchase can often lessen freedom in the sense that it accentuates the worries that already exist. It is one of the reasons why, if I may introduce a slightly political note into the debate, the party opposite particularly loves those people who are working; loves them to be under obligation to the banks; loves them to be under obligation to the hire purchase companies, because it makes them more amenable when it comes to wage claims and to industrial disputes. The party opposite likes that. The ownership of property in those circumstances is a disadvantage rather than an advantage.
There are other freedoms, too, which have already been touched upon this afternoon. There is freedom of movement. It has been said that the ownership of one's own house increases one's mobility. I would say that that is a very debatable proposition. It is not possible in every case for a house to be easily sold. There are a large number of local authorities in the United Kingdom, of all political persuasions at the top, which have exchange arrangements whereby people who want to move from one local authority to another are able to do so. Not all owner-occupied property is readily saleable.
The noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, gave some very illustrative arguments about the state of housing and the state of the repair of housing. The picture that she painted was that owner-occupied housing tended to be spick and span, easily repaired, in prime condition but, on the other hand, that the same care was not taken by occupiers of tenanted property to maintain it in a proper way. I sincerely hope that the noble Baroness did not pursue that argument with the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy of Lour, in regard to Scotland, because the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy of Lour, would have been compelled to say that in Scotland, at any rate, tenanted property is maintained spick and span, and very well indeed, in the local authorities of which she has some knowledge. May I remind the noble Baroness that of owner-occupied houses about 483,000 were unfit for human habitation as recently as 1981?
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, I think that the noble Lord has my speech and that of my noble friend Lady Carnegy of Lour confused. I made no remarks of the type the noble Lord has mentioned, whereas my noble friend did say exactly what the noble Lord said she would not have said.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, we shall read what Hansard says, but the strictures of the noble Baroness about rented property, particularly rented property in local authorities, will be within the recollection of the House.
I do not think that the argument that the diffusion of property, if it ever occurred, somehow enlarges individual liberty will stand up to any kind of practical examination. Moreover, I feel that it would be very difficult to accomplish. We must look at the whole question in a different way. I am very much in accord with the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, who referred to co-operation between the public sector and the private sector in industry; and, indeed, between the whole of our public affairs and private affairs in so far as they fall within the sphere of economics.
There is all this talk about inefficiency of public enterprise, and the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, is at his best when it comes to uttering his favourite nostrums. However, I have observed that although public enterprises are supposed to be always failures, nevertheless, as soon as they become successful in the service and, indeed, other spheres, then, and not before then, they are privatised. Privatisation does not come in at the development stage. That is only thought of when the public enterprises themselves, through their own efforts and, in some cases, with the aid of Government as in Rolls-Royce, become successful. Particularly in the case of British Telecom, one wonders just what advantage there will be to the British taxpayer—who will provide the initial money—and the British consumer—the telephone subscriber—in return for the £400 million per annum which will be paid out by way of dividend to shareholders who will acquire an interest from the Government probably at a reduced price. It simply does not add up.
I believe that there should be this co-operation between public and private enterprise. What we should be thinking of is not so much ownership but use. We are all mortal. Very often we do not consider logically the results of the consciousness of our mortality. We are only tenants on the face of the earth—for four score years and ten for some of us and perhaps even longer for others, including the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell. We are not freeholders. This obsession with property as a means of gaining freedom is entirely obsolete.
Surely we have to look at the matter in a different way altogether. We should look at it not in the old way but in a far more modern way. Let us try to live our lives not for the acquisition of things but in order that we may work constructively with people. Let us live our lives as best we can in order that we may have such freedom as we can get to use our abilities constructively. Let us conduct ourselves in such a way that we do not use competitiveness in the rat-race for survival or in the acquisition of property. Let us have competition among people for the achievement of excellence whether in art, music, literature, sport or the normal social ambit within which we should move.
These are the objectives for which we should aim—the development of the human personality and the achievement, if it is possible and in so far as it is possible, of a degree of personal serenity which is the
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indispensable adjunct of the development of moral values, not in the secular religious sense but in the more deeply and profound spiritual sense. These are the ways in which we should be directing our policies. In the words of Matthew Arnold, at the moment we are between two worlds: one dead and the other powerless to be born. I venture to suggest to your Lordships that the philosophy and policies that we shall follow inevitably, whatever the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, may think, and whatever the noble Lord, Lord Cockfield, may dictate, will have more in common with the philosophies of the miner from Ebbw Vale than those of the daughter of the grocer from Grantham.
7.23 p.m.
Lord Cockfield: My Lords, this is one of those rare and valuable occasions when we have the opportunity of debating philosophical issues untrammelled by the need to defend, or the temptation to attack, specific legislative proposals, although, as the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, said, some of your Lordships did fall into temptation. In a very penetrating remark, the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, said that it was impossible to be neutral to the views expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Beloff. We are, therefore, all of us, greatly indebted to my noble friend Lord Beloff for initiating this debate and to all of your Lordships who have participated in it.
We are concerned, all of us, to discern the true path which leads mankind from Hobbes' "state of nature" when,
"The life of man [was] solitary, poore (sic), nasty, brutish, and short",
to a society which offers freedom of mind and person alike, the opportunity of progress, the encouragement of development, tranquillity at home and peace abroad.
Progress is always lamentably slow. Mankind takes a step forward, and too often a step back. But if progress is to be made it must be two steps forward for every one step taken back, and that it has always proved to be; although to see it at times one must take a view that extends beyond the span of one's own lifetime.
"As [we] walk through the wilderness of this world",
often it is the achievements of the past and the hopes for the future which must sustain the struggles of the present.
"Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes, and adversity is not without comforts and hopes".
We need, therefore, to have a sense of history and a vision which transcends the problems of the hour if we are to understand the true nature of events and the evolution of our society.
Freedom is the key to progress. Empires rise and fall. Governments come and go. Institutions change. They are born, they evolve, they die. But as generation succeeds generation, as the centuries pass, we see an expansion of freedom and the march of progress. There are black spots in the world: there is hardship and repression. We tend perhaps too much to concentrate on this dark side of the moon to the exclusion of the side on which the sun falls. But the world is a much better place than it was in the Middle

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Ages; this country a better place than it was then or, with respect to my noble friend, than it was in the nineteenth century.
Freedom requires a framework of law to sustain it. In this country over the years we have developed such a framework which is a model for the world. But a framework of law is not in itself sufficient. We need the right social and economic climate in which freedom will grow and be entrenched. It is in this area that my noble friend's Motion has particular relevance and the Government have a specific role to play.
Of course, none of us would argue that property ownership is the only factor relevant to freedom. Of course it is not, and nor does my noble friend's Motion suggest that it is. I entirely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, that freedom is wider than the possession of property; but it is an important and indeed an indispensable element. In this I entirely agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Grimond, said, and I echo the thoughts expressed by my noble friend Lord Maude of Stratford-upon-Avon. I listened with great interest to the description of the six freedoms given by my noble friend Lord Mottistone.
The importance of private ownership of property lies in the independence it gives people: independence of mind, as well as of action. It protects them from not only many of the hazards of life but also oppression by the state, by large organisations, and indeed by their fellow citizens. The diffusion of property ownership is a diffusion of power. It is this greater equality of power which protects the individual from those who would oppress him.
I doubt whether there is any disagreement in your Lordships' House about the need for greater equality of wealth. Where the disagreement comes is in the fact that we would achieve this end by levelling up, by making property ownership easier and more attractive for the great mass of our people; while many noble Lords opposite would achieve this end by levelling down, by penalising the rich and indeed the not-so-rich, as well.
There are a number of specific areas of wider private ownership of property that I should like to touch on in more detail: first, home ownership; secondly, share ownership, particularly by employees and, thirdly, the contribution made by privatisation. In all these areas, our aim—and our achievement—is more widely spread ownership by the people themselves. This is the right way to achieve greater equality of wealth and the great benefits which go with it.
I start with home ownership, a matter dealt with in particular by my noble friends Lady Gardner of Parkes and Lady Carnegy of Lour. Sixty per cent. of householders now own their own homes. The figure has doubled in the last 30 years, and is still rising. Property ownership confers rights on people; that is why it is so important in a free society.
However much we do to improve the position of the council house tenant—and this Government have done a very great deal; let there be no question about it—there is, and there is bound to be, a big difference between the person who owns his house and the person who is a tenant. This point was made very forcefully and effectively by not only my noble friend Lord
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Maude of Stratford-upon-Avon, but also my noble friend Lady Carnegy of Lour. The home owner enjoys freedoms which the tenant cannot have. The home owner has a stake in the community, a sense of security, and of responsibility for his home and his neighbourhood, which the tenant cannot enjoy to the same extent. The home owner can move more easily from one part of the country to another than can the tenant, and while the tenant has to go on paying rent in perpetuity, the home owner's mortgage payments go towards a valuable asset that will eventually be his.
Secondly, I come to share ownership. Share ownership also confers rights. The owner of a business or a shareholder has rights which an ordinary employee or customer does not have. True employee involvement in company affairs comes through share ownership. It is the most effective way that we can make employee consultation both effective and a reality. Instead of being just "consultation" between people who may regard themselves as on opposite sides, it becomes consultation between people who are truly on the same side.
The shareholder, moreover, is free to make his views known on the future direction of the company, its policy, and its management style. Every shareholder has a vote which he can use to approve or disapprove of the policy of the board and to support or reject the candidatures of directors coming up for re-election. In contrast, in a nationalised industry employees have no direct say because they cannot become shareholders. As employees become shareholders they see the need for profits and dividends and for the company to be strong and progressive. They begin to think of themselves as part owners as well as employees. This is what employee participation really means.
The ownership of property therefore encourages people to exercise new rights, spreads power in the community, and brings to people new responsibilities. The home owner has to repair his property. The employee shareholder has to think about the greater good of the company as a whole, as well as about his next pay claim.
Let me now turn to the part played by Government in these two areas. The Government have been outstandingly successful in encouraging more people to own their own home. We have done this, first, through the system of mortgage interest relief against income tax; secondly, by encouraging council house sales to tenants at a generous discount—over 600,000 public sector tenants have already bought their houses since we took office, and a further 175,000 are in process of buying; thirdly, by lowering the costs of purchase in the housing market—the Budget, for example, halved stamp duty and raised the threshold; fourthly, by securing the release of under-used land for housing, in particular within urban areas, or where it is held idle by public authorities; and, fifthly, by encouraging low-cost low-start mortgage schemes and part-equity schemes.
The development of a home-owning democracy has transformed the political process in the United Kingdom. Home ownership is now a reality for nearly two-thirds of the population, and we look forward to the day when it becomes a reality for three-quarters of the population.

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In the field of share ownership the Government have taken a wide range of measures to encourage employee shareholdings. For example, there has been, first, relief in successive Budgets for employee shareholding schemes, which is now generous, and, secondly, the encouragement of management buy-outs in the public and private sectors. Thirdly, there has been the encouragement of employee shareholdings, when businesses are denationalised, through employee preference schemes, and, fourthly, there has been a range of measures in the tax field and elsewhere to help small businesses, as well as the enterprise allowance to encourage people to set up on their own.
We want to encourage not only employee shareholdings, but also wider share ownership generally. At present so much individual savings and wealth is channelled through institutions such as pension funds and insurance companies. These have proved to be an extremely valuable medium for building up individual property rights. But they do have their disadvantages. In particular, there is no direct nexus between the individual and the companies in which his money is invested.
The fiscal system has been slanted in a way which has favoured investment and savings through institutions and penalised direct investment by the individual himself. My right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has taken the first steps towards establishing a more fiscally neutral system. Life insurance relief is being withdrawn, thus reducing the bias in favour of institutional saving, and the investment income surcharge is also being abolished, thus reducing the bias against personal investment.
Thirdly, I come to privatisation. This is the third element in our policy for promoting wider ownership of property. Nationalisation as conceived in the 1940s sprang from the best of motives. It was felt that the industries concerned would be "owned by the people"—that this would encourage efficiency, competitiveness and good labour relations. These high hopes have been disappointed. I know that there are exceptions and distinguished exceptions, but in general the nationalised industries have been characterised by inefficiency, uncompetitiveness, overmanning and poor labour relations. Far from the people feeling that they owned these enterprises, the general public reaction has been one of antagonism. People in their day-to-day capacity as consumers have often felt that they have been oppressed by these vast bureaucratic organisations. Only by returning these industries to private ownership can we really ensure that they are owned by the people themselves. This we are now doing on an ever-increasing scale.
Additionally, in British Aerospace, Cable and Wireless, Amersham International, Britoil and Associated British Ports, special arrangements have been made for employees to become shareholders on preferential terms. As my right honourable friend has announced today, we shall be doing the same in British Telecom. The noble Lord, Lord Grimond, suggested that the arrangements were somewhat meagre. I am afraid that the speed with which the Statement had to be read no doubt deceived the ear of the noble Lord for, in addition to the £70 to which he specifically referred, there is also a matching issue of £200 for every £100 purchased. In addition, the special
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discount of 10 per cent. for employees will extend to £2,000-worth of shares. The arrangements therefore can be described as generous.
Ultimately in this field, we have the same objective as the noble Lord of ensuring that as many as possible of the employees of these organisations become shareholders. On that point, it may interest your Lordships to know that, on flotation, 74 per cent. of the workforce in British Aerospace became shareholders. In Cable and Wireless, the figure was 99 per cent.; in Amersham International, 99 per cent. of the United Kingdom work force; in Britoil, 72 per cent.; and in Associated British Ports, 91 per cent.
My noble friend, Lord Maude of Stratford-upon-Avon referred to the question of self-employment. I entirely agree with him that the growth of self-employment that has occurred in recent years is an important, welcome and healthy development. My noble friend referred to certain difficulties that he said were created by the Inland Revenue. If he has any particular case in mind, perhaps he will let me know. But, in the end, the Inland Revenue administers the rules that are laid down by Parliament, although, since the intervention of the Liberal Party in the form of the late Mr. Lloyd George, as he then was, your Lordships' House no longer plays any part in those particular deliberations.
Helped by all these measures, there is a much greater diffusion of wealth in this country than most people imagine. One only has to look around one to see the abundant evidence of this wider dispersion of wealth. Sixty per cent. of homes are now owner-occupied, and this figure is growing steadily. No less than 12¼5 million people are home owners and 11 million are in occupational pension schemes. Twenty million people have building society shares or deposits. Two million own shares in companies. Ten million have National Savings accounts. Our objective surely must be to encourage these numbers to grow.
The noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby, and the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, both quoted certain important but carefully selected figures relating to the ownership of wealth in this country. Those of us who are or have been professional statisticians owe a great debt to the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, for the work that he did when he was chairman of the Royal Commission on the Distribution of Income and Wealth. That commission produced a very great deal of information of the utmost value and the path that he blazed has been continued since. The best single measure of the dispersion of wealth is the Gini co-efficient, which I explained to your Lordships on an earlier occasion in connection with the distribution of income. The Gini co-efficient is also calculated for the distribution of wealth. The noble Lord, Lord Hatch, will find the figures at the bottom of the table from which he quoted. In the last 10 years—
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, yes. The figures are there. They show a rising Gini co-efficient during the lifetime of the present Government.
Lord Cockfield: My Lords, perhaps I may complete what I was going to say. I said right at the beginning of my speech that one needs to look at these developments over a period of time, that we do have

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short-term fluctuations. Now the position is this. In the last 10 years for which figures are available—that is, from 1971 to 1981—the Gini co-efficient for the distribution of personal wealth including pension rights—and this is a crucial point—has declined from 59 per cent. to 45 per cent. The lower the co-efficient, of course, the more equal is the distribution of wealth.
There are two main factors that have contributed to this. One is the spread of personal pension rights, a very important factor. The other is the increase in home ownership and the increase in the value of homes. So home ownership, about which the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, seemed to have some reservations, has been one of the major factors in producing greater equality in the distribution of wealth. If one looks over any reasonable period of time, there is no question whatever but that the distribution of wealth in this country is much more equal than it used to be.
There are two quite different ways to approach the constitution of society. As the modern state has grown in numbers, in wealth and in power, there has grown, too, the temptation to regard authority, power and influence as extending downwards from the state to the great institutions whether quasi-governmental or private, whether trading companies, industries or trade unions, and then only as a residue to individuals, who are regarded often contemptuously simply as workers in these organisations. This is the Marxist-Leninist approach, the Socialist-Syndicalist approach, and at times our own society has been tainted by it.
In contrast, we ourselves believe that authority, and the power and influence which stem from it, has its foundation in the individual and is only delegated upwards to the organisations, the institutions and ultimately to the state itself. Freedom is not something which is delegated to the individual by the state. It is his inalienable inheritance. We all of us accept the need for a framework of law within which we live: that there are services which need to be provided communally; and that there are some things better done and which possibly can only be done through government. But the state must be our servant, not our master. We have great responsibilities to our fellow men. But these responsibilities must be shouldered by us as free men, not as the automatons of a state society.
The very concept of freedom requires that where we can do so we shoulder our own burdens and accept our own responsibilities. We cannot offload our personal responsibilities on to the state. Equally, we must not allow the state to pre-empt those things we should and can and want to do ourselves. At times there may be marital necessity in the state providing particular services, but there is no merit in the state owning property as such—only if it needs to do so as ancillary to its main purpose, strictly defined.
Therefore, if we value our freedom, if we are determined to protect our freedom, we must protect it from encroachment by the state at home as much as from enemies abroad. It is in the growing army of people who own their own homes, who own property of every sort and description, that the best defence of our freedom and the most certain guarantee of our future are to be found. Therefore, I commend to your Lordships the spirit, the sentiment and the substance reflected in my noble friend's Motion.
7.51 p.m.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, it is customary for the mover of such a Motion to end the proceedings on a happy note by thanking all those who have taken part in the debate; and I do so without reservation. However, my own joy is somewhat alloyed by the fact that to some extent the experiment of facing this House with a general proposition has, as the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, pointed out, not altogether succeeded. Certainly it was not my intention, as the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos, suggested, to make a speech in defence of all the policies of Her Majesty's present Ministers. Were I a Minister that would be my duty, but the Prime Minister has not thought fit to include me in her administration.
Since that was not my purpose, equally it was not my purpose to attack the Labour Party. I am afraid that the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, was so certain I was going to do this that he had prepared a defence of the Labour Government of 1945, to which he attaches an importance which perhaps only the rewriting of a couple of famous lines in English poetry would illustrate:
"Behind us stretched eternal night; Attlee came and all was light".
I think it would be only fair of him if he were to agree that he somewhat telescoped the way in which the appalling conditions of many people in this country at the turn of the nineteenth century, to which he referred in moving terms, were altered. They were altered in part, as the noble Lord, Lord Grimond, reminded us, by the Liberal administrations before 1914. But the ending of the Poor Law, to which he referred particularly, and all that went with it was largely the work of a somewhat neglected statesman, Mr. Neville Chamberlain, as Minister of Health in the 1920s. What was built up by the Labour Government after the war was largely pursuing policies which had been developed—in some cases rapidly developed—for a more humane society in the inter-war years. If we are to have these debates we must respect our facts and our authorities.
I would assure the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, with whom I seem to cross swords fairly frequently, that he may not quote the Levellers among the ancestors of modern socialism. I am quite sure that if this proposition had been put to the Putney debates of Cromwell's army the Levellers, to a man, would have voted for it because they believed in the importance of the diffusion of property as a safeguard of freedom.
My Lords, if I were to ask for Papers, clearly I would be getting documents ranging from the Sermon on the Mount through Hegel to the collected works of R. H. Tawney. That would be a lot to ask for, and therefore I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Straw and Stubble Burning Prohibition Bill [H.L.]
7.55 p.m.
Report received.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Aberdare): My Lords, before calling the first amendment I should point out that all the amendments on the printed list are in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Alport.
Clause 1 [Straw and stubble burning]:
Lord Alport Lord Alport moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 6, after second ("to") insert ("unbaled").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving this amendment I should point out that there is a correction to be made to the way the amendment appears on the Marshalled List. The amendment should read:
Page 1, line 6, after second ("to") insert ("unbaled").
This is an amendment which is consequential on an amendment we made in Committee on Clause 3. I beg to move. On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Alport Lord Alport moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 1, line 7, leave out (" (whether baled or unbaled) ").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this amendment is a further consequential amendment. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to. Clause 2 [Licences].
Lord Alport Lord Alport moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 1, line 12, leave out subsections (1) and (2) and insert—

("(1) A local authority shall grant a licence to permit a person to burn straw or stubble in accordance with regulations made by the agriculture Minister under subsection (2) of this section.

(2) The agriculture Minister may by statutory instrument, subject to an affirmative resolution of both Houses of Parliament, make regulations prescribing conditions for the burning of straw and stubble, taking into account—

(a) good agricultural practice,

(b) the protection of the environment,

(c) the safety of the public,

(d) the safeguarding of property, and

(e) the effect on public health from the pollution of the atmosphere

and may prescribe the procedure for making an application to, and the issuing of, a licence by a local authority.

(2A) The agriculture Minister may also prescribe the procedure whereby any person applying to a local authority for such a licence and any person to whom a local authority has failed or refused to issue a licence or whose licence has been withdrawn in accordance with the provisions of section 2(3) of this Act shall have the right of appeal.").

The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is a much more substantial amendment. It covers a number of points which were raised by my noble friends and noble Lords opposite during the Committee stage. Your Lordships will see that in subsection (1) I include "shall" instead of "may":
"A local authority shall grant a licence".
This is in response to a point made by my noble friend Lord Mountgarret. It ensures that the farmer will get his licence subject to the conditions in subsection (2) of this amendment.
In subsection (2), I included the point made by the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, in making provision for conditions to be included in the regulations to be the subject of the affirmative procedure in both Houses. I think that is sensible. It has the great advantage that it ensures that the conditions, in contrast to the present model by-laws, will then have behind them the authority of Parliament as well as the authority of the Secretary of State. I have included in subsections (2)(a) and (2)(b) of this amendment conditions suggested by my noble friend Lord Stanley
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of Alderley. They are that good agricultural practice and the protection of the environment should be taken into account by the Minister.
In subsections (2)(c) and (d) I have included in general terms various points made by my noble friend Lord Ironside and the noble Lord, Lord Henderson of Brompton. I think this provision covers the general points which they made and at the same time gives full scope for the Minister to take into account any considerations which are appropriate. I have no doubt that when the time comes the model by-laws as they are drafted at present will be a guide to the Minister in issuing his regulations. Subsection (2)(e) covers matters relating to damage to public health as a result of straw and stubble burning. It is important in view of the great concern which was expressed by public health authorities over the events of last summer.
The advantage of the procedures which I propose in this amendment are two-fold. First of all, the amendment meets the point made by my noble friend Lord Stanley of Alderley who wished to see—I was greatly impressed by his arguments—standardised procedure over the whole country so that the farming community would know exactly where they are in this licensing system. Secondly, it gives far greater authority than the present model by-laws can give for the conditions under which straw and stubble burning is carried out.
In addition, this provision enables the Minister of Agriculture to prescribe procedures for appeal by any farmer who wishes to appeal. I think this is right. It was the addition that was made at Committee stage, but this is an improvement because it meets the point made by one of my noble friends; that is, that the authority for this is given to the agriculture Minister, who when we come to the definition clause will be defined as the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Secretary of State. This means that the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Secretary of State for Wales will make their own regulations in accordance with the conditions which are necessary in those two countries.
So this amendment is an important amendment. I hope that it meets—it is certainly intended to meet—the views expressed by my noble friends and by noble Lords on the other side during the Committee stage. If I may say so with due modesty, I think that it is a very considerable improvement upon the Bill which I originally brought before your Lordships' House. I beg to move.
Baroness Nicol: My Lords, it is with some disappointment that I view the considerable changes which have taken place in the Bill during my absence. Let me first say on behalf of my noble friend Lord John-Mackie that he has to be elsewhere this evening and is extremely sorry not to be present.
By substituting "shall" for "may" in the first part of the amendment, we are saying that the local authority now loses all discretion in the issue of a licence. I do not feel that this can possibly be an improvement and I hope that the Minister will spell out to me whether there are any circumstances in which the local authority—if it is known that the licence should not be issued—can take action, and what that action should be.

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We would have supported the ultimate sanction which was included in the original Bill, that the Secretary of State should eventually have the power, if he felt it necessary, to ban straw burning altogether. We feel—and when I say "we" I include my noble friend Lord John-Mackie, because we have discussed the matter—that the removal of this power makes the Bill less effective because there will inevitably be those irresponsible people who will ignore the whole system and the regulations produced by the Minister. However, we support the licensing scheme and we hope that it will suffice.
No one could argue with the regulations which are to be brought forward by the agriculture Minister. But can the Minister explain to me what the effect will be on the existing local authority by-laws? It seems to me that they are not going to be of very much use. Are they automatically repealed? Are they automatically overridden if this amendment is passed, or will there be any residual powers left in them at all? In other words, I am asking: why bring the local authorities into it at all?—because they seem to have no powers left under the amendment.
Whatever we may do with this Bill—and I commend the noble Lord, Lord Alport, on his courage and persistence in seeing it through even in this reduced state—the problem will not go away. Right up to the beginning of April I was still receiving private letters from individuals in Cambridge on the events of last summer. If that happens again I think that the Government will have no choice but to take action. I hope that the Minister realises that and that, if we have a repetition in this coming summer of the events of last summer, the Government will not need to be prodded by a Private Member's Bill, but will realise that they must take action to protect the public.
We spoke earlier this evening about the freedoms which people enjoy. One of the greatest freedoms is the freedom to enjoy clean air. We recognised that a long time ago and I hope that it is not a freedom we are going to give up.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: My Lords, perhaps for the convenience of the House I might speak to all the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Alport on licensing straw burning. As your Lordships will remember, the Government published during the passage of my noble friend's Bill their proposals in the form of a new model by-law. They said that that by-law—as I hope and as they believe—will be the way forward. I believe with them that all local authorities who have a straw burning problem will adopt the new model by-law. This new model by-law should be given a real chance to work, and by "a chance to work" I do not mean for just one season. Nor do I accept that it is not working just because some reporter somewhere suggests in some paper that the by-law is not working or, indeed, a Member of your Lordships' House somewhere else does exactly the same.
If your Lordships take such a view, I would suggest once again to my noble friend Lord Alport that his Bill is unecessary—a point as regards which I tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade your Lordships and my noble friend on Second Reading. I very much hope that we—or perhaps I should say "I"—will abide by
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the by-law. But if we do not do so, then I would not trust my noble friend Lord Belstead not to impose even harsher restrictions and penalties. Indeed, I would remind your Lordships—as I am sure he will do in a minute—that he has said that he would do so. I would also remind the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, that that probably answers all the points that she has made, although I am sure that my noble friend Lord Belstead will be happy to answer them on his own behalf.
However, I would suggest, perhaps more in hope than in expectation, that my noble friend Lord Belstead should agree that the by-law as drafted is ridiculously strict already. But if your Lordships still do not trust the by-law and still wish to have a licensing system, then the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Alport improve those that he originally proposed. In fact, I will go so far as to say, perhaps rather like Pilate, that I can find no fault in them; although I am not a lawyer and I am certainly not a parliamentary draftsman.
8.8 p.m.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, I think that both noble Lords who have spoken have raised some interesting points on the amendment. It all needs a little sorting out. It is true that we have had the model by-law published while this Bill has been before your Lordships' House and that there is some relationship between the two. Indeed, that brings me to the important question; namely, what will the Government's intentions be about this Bill when it has passed through your Lordships' House?
We are all aware of the fact that, while we make room for any Bill passed in another place, another place does not always make room for a Bill passed in your Lordships' House. If the Government take a friendly view of the Bill in its present form, then I think that the adjustments that have been made by the noble Lord, Lord Alport, will be fully justified. But I ask your Lordships to bear in mind that, so far as I personally am concerned, I was looking forward to seeing the end of this scorched earth policy in 1989. That is removed from the Bill and so my hopes of seeing an end to stubble burning in my lifetime are now receding. It was a very important concession to have made. To secure favour for this Bill we are removing the target date for ending stubble burning.
Secondly, in order to meet points of view on this—and I am not complaining—the noble Lord, Lord Alport, has substituted the word "shall" for the word "may". My noble friend on the Front Bench has just asked in what circumstances local authorities might have power to refuse a licence. There is the point on page 2 of the Bill that:
"A local authority may withdraw a licence (for any period) from any person convicted of an offence".
That is a discipline imposed on non-observance of the rules. When the Minister replies he will probably tell us about that. What I want to know is: are we doing business? If we are doing business, then I am all for getting a compromise to enable business to be done. If we are not doing business, then I see no reason to make concessions in, as it were, thin air. Therefore, I look forward to the Minister's reply on that point.

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For the benefit of a lapse of memory on my part, when he replies perhaps he can tell us who pays for the fire brigades who have to turn out to fight the fires. I was asked that question the other day by someone who thought that by now I must be an expert on stubble burning, and for the life of me I could not remember whether I had heard the answer. If those who are careless have to pay for the fire brigade to turn out to put out the fires, a greater discipline might be imposed on people to take care. However, if the public have to pay, then people will not be so conscientious. I am sure that that point was raised in an earlier debate, but I have not had an opportunity to look it up.
Lord Henderson of Brompton: My Lords, I should like to make a contribution from the Cross-Benches. First, I wish to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Alport, on following someone who he might regard as his master, the late Lord Butler of Saffron Walden, in achieving by these amendments what was the art of the possible in political terms, though they do not go as far as the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, would like or as far as the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, would like, or indeed as far as I would like or, even more important perhaps, as the Royal Commission on the Environment would like. That Royal Commission recommended that, on good general environmental grounds, there should be a terminal date of five years for the burning of straw and stubble. They applied that principle across the board. Whoever the polluter may be, they believe that a terminal date concentrates the mind and encourages the scientists to effect the cure which would otherwise not be effected unless there was this terminal state. However, having said that, I must, of course, accept that any legislation is the art of the possible.
I should like to comment on Amendment No. 3. I, too, am confused about the use of the word "shall" in subsection (1), especially when one looks to the new subsection (2A). Under the clause as drafted, the local authority "shall" grant a licence and then subsection (2A) says that the local authority may have:
"failed or refused to issue a licence".
How can we reconcile "shall" grant a licence with failing or refusing? They seem to me to be irreconcilable. 1 suppose that the object of this is that they are empowered not to grant a licence if they have good reason to believe that the applicant, under paragraphs (a) to (e), has not come within those provisions. However, there seems to be this contradiction between "shall" in the first part of Clause 2, (1) and the licence that the local authority has to fail or refuse to grant in subsection (2A).
There is one further point that I should like to make, which is purely drafting. I entirely agree with the first two amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Alport, about the insertion of the word "unbaled". It seems to me that in line 3 of subsection (2) of Amendment No. 3 the word "unbaled" should be inserted before the word "straw". There is another consequential amendment to that effect later on. However, that is pure drafting.
Perhaps I may just ask the noble Lord the Minister about paragraph (c), which speaks of, "the safety of the public". From the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Alport, I presume that his intention is that those words
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should include highways. I see him nodding his head. I have given the noble Lord the Minister notice of this next point. I consider that it would be highly advantageous if the statutory regulations in regard to the burning of straw and stubble, and the obligations of those who do so in respect of highways, could somehow or other be incorporated in the new model by-laws. Unless that is done—and I appreciate that there must be some technical difficulty about it, but I think that it is not beyond the ingenuity of draftsmen to do this, perhaps just by way of reference—we shall not have all the relevant regulations in one place. If the statutory requirements in regard to highways were not included, the emphasis would, therefore, be laid solely on the by-laws and not on the statutory laws. That would seem to me to be a great pity.
I hope that something can be done in good time for the straw and stubble burning season, which may well be on us rather sooner than we would normally expect in view of the very good weather that we have recently been having.
Lord Ironside: My Lords, I think that this Clause 2 amendment now incorporates the ingredients of an acceptable licensing method, and I should like to give it my support. However, I should like to make a few remarks about the guidelines which the Minister will be expected to take into account: first, that he should observe "good agricultural practice" is, I think, a meaningful phrase to people like myself who are not farmers. Just because a profession adopts a practice, it does not automatically mean that it is a good one in the sense that it is directly acceptable to society and complies with maximum health standards and minimum nuisance levels. In fact, good practice implies that other factors have been taken into account, such as cost effectiveness, clean technology, and proper resource management, all of which are of just as much concern to society as is the quality of life.
To my mind, burning is a practice, but not a good practice, and until other methods of acceptable disposal can be found, control of burning is vitally necessary. Therefore, I am happy that the phraseology of "good practice" is established in this clause, and ideally at the end of the day I think that "good agricultural practice" surely means practices such as soil incorporation, contained combustion to dry animal food, recycling, or whatever. But it does not mean uncontrolled combustion, which, in the opening words of the NFU code, is considered to be bad husbandry.
Protection is needed for those using public highways, public pathways and wayleaves. Protection is needed for those property owners whose houses and gardens are in or near an arable area. Protection is needed for animals. As I have said before, I believe that the model by-laws cover the methodology of burning, but they do not specifically cover the factors which I have mentioned. Nevertheless, during the Committee stage the Minister assured us that they would be taken into account, and I hope that he can still give such assurances if licences have to be granted. They are factors about which we are all concerned, and there is plenty of evidence to show that they must be taken into account, if not from the safety point of view, then from the point of view of quality of life, of

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preventing nuisance and damage and thus of avoiding any unnecessary cost.
The Central Electricity Generating Board and area supply boards have to suffer damaged corona insulation rings when flashovers are caused on the grid lines by pockets of intensely hot air that come up from straw burning. Horses and other animals take fright at fire. Buildings caught in a downwind stream of sparks can easily be razed to the ground; and local authorities must give full consideration to these factors in granting any particular licence.
The right of appeal is quite proper and fair, and I hope that sensible legislation taken now may open the door to eventual banning. I would merely remind the House that the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution have recently stated that in their view straw burning has become a matter of widespread concern, and they believe that once a target date for the ban could be set the agricultural community would have the necessary incentive to find new ways of disposing of straw.
I have noted with particular interest what the Association of District Councils said in their evidence about pollution on 3rd April to Sub-committee G of your Lordships' Select Committee on the European Communities. They recognise the problems with straw burning, and their members are being advised by them to adopt the new by-laws. They consider that difficulties will persist unless a system of licensing is introduced. They find that this Bill is extremely acceptable, and they feel that it really provides the solution. I support this view.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Alport that the amendments which some of us suggested originally have been taken on board, and I think that the Bill has been improved. When it comes to licensing, I am still against it. I do not see the point of it. This point has been exemplified in the last 10 days by our spring drought. We have had fires all round the country in heather burns without a single farmer setting fire to it. In 1981 we had a lot of problems with straw fires, and over 95 per cent. of the fires to which the fire brigades had to be called were started as a result of vandalism or by accident. Is licensing going to solve that problem? I do not believe so.
There was a case last week on the moors in Yorkshire of a fire started by people collecting heather at the side of the road with which to boil their kettle. They knew the moor was dry but, lo and behold!, they went and did it. What is more important is that we educate the public into the potential hazards of the countryside and the trouble that can be caused by a fire.
With regard to highways, the point was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Henderson of Brompton, that they cannot be covered by the model by-laws as they are already covered by the Highways Act 1980, and as I understand it the model by-laws cannot take precedence over an Act of Parliament. I hope that the model by-laws will prove the effective way of dealing with this, rather than a licensing system. That would be bureaucratic and expensive, and would not achieve the aim that is desired.
8.24 p.m.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Lord Belstead): My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, in looking at these two amendments, asked why the local authorities should be brought into the matter at all, because the noble Baroness's reading of the amendments was that although the local authorities will, under the Bill, be the licensing authority, the power really had been taken away from them by other provisions in the new wording of the Bill. My answer is that, given either local by-laws or the ministerial regulations for which my noble friend Lord Alport's Bill now provides in these amendments, licensing would serve no useful purpose but would create a bureaucracy, with indeed an appeals procedure thrown in, which I think would be unwelcome to the courts. I am sorry to be unhelpful, but I therefore start by making it clear to your Lordships, and specifically to the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, that the Government are not disposed in a friendly way towards this Bill, because we believe that it is not necessary.
Several of your Lordships have pointed specifically to the wording of Amendment No. 3—the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, and the noble Lord, Lord Henderson—and particularly the use of the words "shall" and "may". I recognise that in Amendment No. 3 my noble friend Lord Alport has endeavoured to meet various points that were put at earlier stages of the Bill, but I join with the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, in finding that the amendments before us now add up to an inconsistency in requiring local authorities to grant licences in accordance with regulations whether or not Ministers have exercised the power to make the regulations at all. Secondly, there is an inconsistency in requiring authorities to grant licences with no apparent power to refuse one, but in providing for an appeal against the refusal of a licence. These are drafting points, but they are points which by this Amendment No. 3 leave the Bill with a drafting which is not very satisfactory.
There are three particular questions to which the Government were asked to reply. The noble Lord, Lord Houghton, asked: who pays for the fire brigades? My noble friend Lord Caithness has answered that question admirably by drawing attention to what has been happening in the dry weather during the last few weeks. Whoever starts fires, be they inadvertent or deliberate, if the fire brigade has to be called then of course the expense falls upon the public purse.
The noble Lord, Lord Henderson, gave me notice of the question which he asked about highways. In essence, the noble Lord is saying that here is an important point, the protection of people on the highway from smoke when straw burning takes place, and yet it does not appear in the by-laws. Therefore, when people read the by-laws before harvest time they may forget that there is a rule. There is indeed a rule (and the rule is enshrined in the Highways Act 1980) making it an offence to start a fire within 50 feet of the centre of a road so as to injure or endanger passers-by or to damage the road. I should like to repeat what I have said before: that the Department of Transport are considering the scope for strengthening these provisions.

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The difficulty, as again my noble friend Lord Caithness said, is that it would not be appropriate to refer to other legislation in the model by-laws. I am advised that it could well mean that the by-laws would be ultra vires if mention was made. The noble Lord, Lord Henderson, will therefore ask me: what are the Government going to do in order to satisfy the noble Lord's reasonable point? The NFU's revised code of practice, I am advised, is going to contain a reminder about this provision in the Highways Act and about other relevant legislation. Incidentally, I understand that the National Farmers' Union's code of practice is being revised, and therefore it is not a question of digging out the old code from a pigeonhole; people will be looking at the new code to see what is new in it.
There is a second point I should like to put. I give an assurance to your Lordships that the Ministry of Agriculture and those of us who work there will pay attention to these important considerations in the publicity we shall be giving to the new by-laws before we get to harvest time. Of course, we shall be giving publicity because it is our duty to do so. I know that that does not wholly meet the point of the noble Lord, Lord Henderson. He would have liked specific mention to be made in the by-laws. My advice is that we really cannot do this, but I hope I may have gone a considerable distance towards satisfying the noble Lord.
Lord Henderson of Brompton: My Lords, I think I might at this juncture thank the Minister. I am satisfied and grateful for what he has said in that respect.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Henderson. The third aspect on which the Government were asked to provide an answer was really a set of questions from my noble friend Lord Ironside, who has been entirely consistent throughout these proceedings on the Bill in pointing to the general problems which he feels derive from straw and stubble burning, and pointing in a very helpful way to specific matters which he believes are of public concern. This evening my noble friend Lord Ironside pointed to the question of public health from pollution from burning, and also to the danger, amongst other things, to people who use public footpaths and to public services which are carried on telegraph poles of various kinds.
Perhaps I may take those three points. The noble Lord was very fair in mentioning the word "incorporation", and indeed because these by-laws now make it a duty on a farmer—subject to the defence of reasonable excuse—to incorporate ash within 36 hours, and also because there are really quite tight restrictions on the area which can be burnt by a farmer at any one time, we believe that after harvest time there will now be every hope that ash and smuts will not blow about after burning. We believe that because of the restrictions on the area to be burnt there will be a lesser effect of hot thermal air carrying the ash and smuts very great distances.
So far as danger to people on footpaths is concerned, it is the case that we have not got a specific provision about this in the Government by-laws. I should just make the point to my noble friend Lord Ironside that, as footpaths almost invariably run along the sides of
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fields, the increased fire breaks which are provided for in certain very wide circumstances in the by-laws will, I think, benefit the safety of people using footpaths and certainly any scorching damage to footpaths.
Finally, my noble friend made the point about public services being carried on telegraph poles. May I make the point to him that in by-law No. 4(1)(b) there is a provision for an increased distance which has to be left around trees, telegraph poles and between the area being burnt and hedges? I hope that will go some way towards meeting the very valid points that my noble friends have made. I am sorry to have gone on for so long—
Lord Ironside: My Lords, if I may interrupt the noble Lord the Minister for one moment, what I was talking about was the grid supply lines rather than telegraph poles or anything else.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, as grid supply lines are invariably put at the edges of fields where there are hedges, they will again benefit from exactly the same subsection of the model by-laws as I have mentioned already.
Finally, I come to a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol. The noble Baroness said that she very much hoped that if things went wrong in next year's harvest the Government would not need to be prodded by a Private Member's Bill. It is not, if I may say so. quite like that. Immediately after last year's harvest, the Government undertook a review of what had happened through our regional organisation. As a result of that, we then very soon started work (and I hope my noble friend Lord Alport will not mind me saying so)—ahead of the publication of his Bill—on a new model by-law, by discussing with very many people on the National Fanners' Union Straw Burning Working Party. I should like to pay tribute to the very responsible part which was played by the National Farmers' Union and others. As a result—as my noble friend Lord Stanley said—the new model by-laws of the Government were published about six weeks ago, in March.
That being so, we have in place now for local authorities to avail themselves of if they wish—and we have every reason to believe that they most certainly do wish—a set of by-laws which my noble friend Lord Stanley says are very strict indeed, and which, of course, carry yet again a double financial penalty for every single breach of the by-laws: in other words up to £2,000—a good deal less than my noble friend Lord Alport is putting in his Bill. It is the maximum sum—we are advised by the Home Office—which it is consonant with the penalties for other offences. It is certainly a very stringent penalty when one bears in mind that it would be for every single offence.
We hope very much that these new by-laws are going to work, but I repeat what I have said before on behalf of the Government: if we find that they do not work, it may indeed be necessary to take stronger action in the future. I feel I owe it to your Lordship's House to make the Governments position perfectly clear on this point in answering this last point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol.

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I hope I do not appear to be discourteous to my noble friend Lord Alport, but before sitting down I am afraid I should indicate that what my rather lengthy remarks add up to is that the Government still do not support my noble friend's Bill.
Lord Alport: My Lords, my purpose in bringing forward this amendment was twofold. First of all, it was to do what I thought was right in the interests of and out of respect to your Lordships' House, which was for anybody moving a Bill to take into account the detailed discussions and views which were contributed during Committee stage by noble Lords. I have often said—and my noble friend Lord Henderson has said so this evening—that Ministers resist amendments when really they could quite easily accept them, and they do so in the belief that they are showing the strength of the Government's case. I think that anybody who moves a Bill and tries to promote it through this House should take into account the views expressed by noble Lords. The amendments which I introduced at the Committee stage and at this stage were proposed because I have taken into account what I regard to be the legitimate and wise views and advice which have been given to me in the conduct of this Bill.
The second reason—and the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, knows of it because he referred to it earlier—is that I realise if I retained the banning provision, not only would I not get it through this House, but there would not be a snowball's hope (if I may put it that way) of getting it through the other place. I therefore decided that the right course was to change the Bill to an extent and exclude the banning provision, but to retain what is in the view of the National Farmers' Union an extremely important element: that is the sanction which is provided by licensing, the withdrawal of a licence in the event of any offence against any of the conditions under which the licence is issued. That is extremely important. It does not exist under the model by-laws; there is no sanction other than the supervision and enforcement of the model by-laws by the district councils. It is quite different, in trying to enforce a sanction of this sort, to rely on a parliamentary regulation rather than on something which has been delegated to a local authority to enforce off its own bat.
There is a great deal of difference between the Bill and the model by-laws. It came out extremely clearly in the statement which my noble friend the Minister made when he was asked about the problem of improving safety on the highways. His argument, so far as I understood it, was that the National Farmers' Union was sending out a reminder relating to its code to ensure that farmers took more account of the danger of smoke over highways, which last season led to the sad death of those two young people in Yorkshire.
We have been relying on the National Farmers' Union code for the last 10 years, and it has not worked. The local authorities and the District Councils' Association are clear in their minds, although a great many will adopt the model by-laws, that they are inadequate in dealing with the problem which the burning of straw and stubble involves. As I
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said on Second Reading, if local authorities feel that they are not getting support from the ministry in dealing with this problem, as they do. the results will be ineffective.
What has happened is interesting. In the first place the model by-laws were being tossed from one side to another in the discussion, but suddenly they appeared at the beginning of the Committee stage of this Bill. They were circulated to all noble Lords. The Bill did one thing; it made the noble Lord and his colleagues in the ministry concentrate their minds on producing model by-laws. That is something of advantage. But it has done something much more. In his speech a few moments ago, in reply to the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, the Minister said that if the model by-laws do not work, then we shall have to do something more drastic. What will the noble Lord do? Does that mean that there is a threat to my noble friend Lord Stanley of Alderley that they will ban the practice next year if there is a repetition of what happened during this last season?
This Bill is of help not only to the farming industry—though I am afraid that my noble friends do not always recognise the help I am trying to give them—but also the ministry. It is a help to the ministry because it knows in its heart of hearts, the district authorities know from their own point of view, and the public in the country generally realise that all the action that has been taken so far by my noble friend's department to produce the model by-laws will not be effective. We may get away with it this coming season. We may have a wet season and there may be no burning, but we do not know.
I assure my friends in the farming industry, and I assure my noble friend the Minister, that before five years are out this practice will be banned in this country. Whatever may be the deficiencies of my drafting—I admit that I am not an expert draftsman, though I have occasional help on this matter—and whatever may be the deficiencies of the Bill, it has already had some advantage in concentrating the minds of not only the Minister and perhaps the farming industry, but also the public in general upon this matter during a period when everybody has forgotten what happened last August and September. It has that advantage.
We were told in this House two or three days ago that a Private Member's Bill has a 50 to 1 chance against ever reaching the statute book. This Bill will not be accepted by my noble friend or the Minister of Agriculture. It will have its throat cut when it reaches the House of Commons. I know that perfectly well. But I should like to see it go to the House of Commons because a number of my honourable friends in the House of Commons would be glad to promote it there, if only to keep the subject alight during this period between now and the next harvest—if that is not the right expression, it is jolly nearly the right one.
I hope that the House will approve this amendment. I hope that the Bill may go from this House to another place. What happens there will not be our concern. But if, as a result of both what the Minister has said and the criticism of my noble friend, the Bill were to terminate its existence in this House now, I think that a great deal of the work done by noble Lords on all

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sides to improve what was not a very good Bill when I introduced it—I accept that, but it is now a very much better Bill—would be lost. I hope that your Lordships will accept this amendment. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Alport Lord Alport moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 2, line 6, leave out subsection (5).
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this amendment leaves out the definition of "local authority", which is now included in the new clause, headed "Definitions", which I shall move in a moment. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Alport Lord Alport moved Amendment No. 5:
After Clause 3, insert the following new clause:
(" Definitions.
. In this Act—
"agriculture Minister" means the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food or the Secretary of State;
"local authority" means a district council and in Scotland means a district or islands council;
"person" means the owner or the occupier of the land by whose authority the burning of the straw or stubble is carried out;
"straw" means cut stalks of barley, oats or wheat.")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is the new definitions clause.
The description "agriculture Minister" means the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and, of course, the description "Secretary of State" means the Secretary of State for Scotland or the Secretary of State for Wales.
As to the phrase "local authority", that definition is a reproduction of the subsection that we have recently deleted. I admit that I have had problems with the definition of "person". My noble friend the Minister suggested that it was important that there should be some definition of "person" in the Bill. In the by-laws it says:
"No person shall commence to burn, or cause or permit to commence the burning of, any area of straw or stubble".
I do not think that is a sufficient definition. The definition that I have included is, I hope, clear. It means that the man who gives authority for the burning of straw of stubble is the man who, first, is the licensee, and, secondly, carries the responsibility if the conditions under which the licence is granted are broken.
The last definition is:
"straw means cut stalks of barley, oats or wheat".
That is a reproduction of an amendment which my noble friend Lord Stanley of Alderley introduced at an earlier stage.
I hope that this amendment assists in the clarification of the various terms in the Bill, and will be acceptable to your Lordships. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 4 [Short Title and Commencement]:
Lord Alport Lord Alport moved Amendment No. 6:
Page 2, line 13, leave out ("Prohibition") and insert (" (Control and Licensing) ")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this involves a change in the Title of the Bill which is consequential on the changes made earlier. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Alport Lord Alport moved Amendment No. 7:
In the Title, line 1, after ("control") insert ("and licensing")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is consequential. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Alport Lord Alport moved Amendment No. 8:
In the Title, line 2, leave out from ("burning") to end of line.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this again is consequential. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
House adjourned at eleven minutes before nine o'clock.