Lords Sitting of 5 December 1985

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Birmingham.

Electricity Resale: Publicity
Baroness Burton of Coventry: 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, further to their Answer on 29th October (col. 1445), whether they will make a Statement on the wide-ranging discussions they have had with the electricity supply industry about the report of the Director General of Fair Trading, including his recommendation for wider publicity.
The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Lord Gray of Contin): My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will arrange for a full Statement on the lines requested by the noble Baroness to be printed in the Official Report. Briefly, however, the Government's discussions with the industry have been successfully completed. Many electricity boards have already discussed improved publicity with their consultative councils and others will include it in the normal discussions on the next general round of tariff changes. The Government expect to deal with the question of overcharging by landlords, not by making it a separate criminal offence but as part of the proposed new legislation on misleading price indications announced in my noble friend's Statement of 4th March to this House.
Baroness Burton of Coventry: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that statement, acceptable not only to me and to the House but to the large numbers of people affected by the resale of electricity. Does he realise how glad we are that the Government are evidently not prepared to tolerate this abuse by a minority of landlords and that we had better now await the details of the proposed legislation to see how far this covers the points raised by the director general in his original report and whether they are workable? Can the Minister say whether legislation is to be expected this Session and, if so, when? Finally, I am most grateful for what the Government have done.
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords. I am most grateful to the noble Baroness for her generous remarks. I would pay tribute to the leading role that she takes on behalf of the consumer. I am afraid that I cannot be specific in answering her final point. The best that I can tell her is that legislation will be forthcoming as soon as parliamentary time permits.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, can the noble Lord give the House an assurance that when the legislation dealing with this matter is being framed special attention will be paid to its enforcement? Is he
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aware that very often it is the enforcement that falls down when regulations are made?
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, yes, I can give the noble Lord that assurance. Indeed, that is one of the reasons why the Government decided that the particular offence referred to earlier should not be a new special offence, one of the reasons being that this would require access to private property, which always causes great difficulty.
Following is the Statement referred to above:
"The Government expect to deal with this subject not by making overcharging a separate criminal offence but as part of the proposed new legislation on misleading price indications announced in my noble friend Lord Lucas's Statement of 4th March to this House. When the necessary powers become available under that legislation we would expect to introduce an order which would require those who resell electricity to give itemised bills which include a statement showing the number of units charged for. the rates applied and the statutory maximum rate. The general provisions of that legislation, under which it would be a criminal offence to give a misleading price indication, or to fail to comply with an order, would then apply to those bills and the information given in them. The present civil remedy would also continue to be available.
"The electricity supply industry, with the agreement of the Government, has decided not to abolish the daily availability charge as recommended in the report but, instead, to rationalise it throughout the United Kingdom on the basis that the maximum any tenant will pay through the daily availability charge will be no more than he would pay through the domestic standing charge if he were a standard direct credit customer of his electricity board. The industry has satisfied itself that this will be a fair arrangement for both tenants and landlords and expects to introduce this change in the next general round of tariff changes, probably in the spring of 1986. The arrangements for itemised bills will also embrace the daily availability charge.
"I understand that many electricity boards are discussing with their area electricity consultative councils what steps should be taken with regard to the report's recommendation that there should be increased publicity for maximum resale prices. In some areas, discussions have already taken place and in others the subject will be included as part of the normal discussions regarding the next general round of tariff changes. The Government recognise that additional publicity will be necessary for the new powers which I have outlined today at the time they become available and will consider the form this should take in due course. The industry has however already informed the Government of its willingness to play its part by incorporating details of the new arrangements in its own leaflets, showroom notices and other advertisements about the maximum resale price of electricity".

Overseas Aid: OECD Comparisons
3.11 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 what is the average reduction in their overseas aid in real terms over the past six years and how this compares with the figures for the rest of the OECD.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Young): My Lords, OECD aid statistics mix amounts actually spent and, for certain forms of multilateral aid, funds committed. As a result they do not necessarily reflect aid expenditure in any one year. On OECD calculations, net aid from OECD countries taken together increased by 3·9 per cent. a year in real terms between 1978 and 1984, while British net aid fell by 4·2 per cent. But in terms of

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expenditure in real terms British aid fell by 0·5 per cent. a year over the same period.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, is it not the case that according to the OECD figures British committed aid over that six-year period fell by 6 per cent. annually whereas that of the OECD Development Assistance Committee members increased by an average of around 4 per cent.?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I have given the precise figures in the Answer to the noble Lord's original Question. What is very important, I believe, is to look and see what happened in spending terms, which shows that the decline is much smaller—only 0·5 per cent.
Lord Orr-Ewing: My Lords, will my noble friend not agree that sometimes it is not the actual amount that matters but the effectiveness of those sums? Did not the government of Ethiopia in the years from 1978 to 1982 receive 1 billion dollars of aid from the West and from the United Kingdom, and did not the Sudan in the same period get 2·5 billion dollars? Can we be assured that those huge sums do get down so that the poorest are substantially helped and not other areas that are less deserving?
Baroness Young: My noble friend makes a most important point. We always try to see that British aid is well targeted and well spent.
Lord Oram: My Lords, do not the DAC figures, to which the noble Baroness referred, show that Britain is very much the worst performer in aid terms in comparison with all the other members of the OECD? For instance, Italy has a positive record over the last six years of some 8 per cent., France 7·5 per cent. and Germany 8 per cent., whereas our performance has been negative. We have been declining, whereas they have been impressively increasing their aid programmes.
Baroness Young: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Oram, takes the statistics which he has used from the recently published table of OECD aid expenditure. But of course if we look at our aid performance as a percentage of GNP in absolute terms we have the sixth largest aid programme and within the European Community the third largest.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, is it not the case that only two other members of the OECD Development Committee reduced their aid over this six-year period by minuscule amounts, whereas ours was declining by 6 per cent. a year? Would the noble Baroness not agree in relation to her last figure that aid provided by this Government currently reaches only 0·33 per cent. of our GDP, whereas when this Government came into office it was 0·49 per cent.?
Baroness Young: My Lords, the statistics that the noble Lord gave in the first part of his supplementary question from the OECD table are correct. But the noble Lord should know that the increases which have
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been announced for the aid programme in the coming three years more than maintain the real value of our aid programme and are considerable sums of money.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: Can the noble Baroness the Minister expand on the answer she gave to her noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing and tell us what practical steps the British Government are taking to see that the money given is properly spent?
Baroness Young: My Lords, the noble Lord will be aware of these from the published reports from the Overseas Development Administration, from the Statements made by my right honourable friend Mr. Raison, and from the answers given to a number of specific questions.
Baroness Macleod of Borve: My Lords, will the Minister confirm that a great number of people go out from these shores to help under this particular organisation, and that the quality of the people going out is remarkably high?
Baroness Young: My Lords, yes. A great deal of our aid money goes on technical co-operation schemes. The point that my noble friend makes is a very valid one. What is important is what is achieved with the money.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, will the noble Baroness answer the second part of my second supplementary question? Will she confirm that the Government are presently allocating no more than 0·33 per cent. of our GDP, whereas the figure was 0 49 per cent. when this Government came into office in 1979?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I can confirm that in 1984 we were spending 0·33 per cent. of our GDP on overseas aid. But, as I have already indicated to the noble Lord, we have made increases which will more than maintain the real value of the programme.

Gat wick Airport: Immigration Service Staffing
3.16 p.m.
The Earl of Kinnoull: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will increase the number of immigration officers at Gatwick Airport next year to handle the expected expansion of traffic and to reduce the delays that occurred last summer.
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, a review of the Immigration Service staffing at Gatwick has recently been completed, and staffing levels for next summer will be decided when the recommendations of the report have been considered. Although there were some delays at peak times last summer, the clearance times through the immigration control were at most periods satisfactory.
The Earl of Kinnoull: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that helpful reply, and being the first to congratulate him on his maiden reply from the Dispatch Box, may I ask him whether he has figures on the waiting times, including the peak periods, and whether the review that is being undertaken includes consultations with both airlines and the British Airports Authority?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend for his kind remarks. It is not my maiden appearance at the Dispatch Box. I have managed to adjourn the House three times—successfully.
On the first part of his question, the British Airports Authority survey showed the following average waiting times at the immigration control area from June until August 1985: British and EEC nationals, one minute; other passengers, 13 minutes. Ninety-five per cent. of all passengers were cleared within 30 minutes of arrival at immigration control.
So far as the second part of my noble friend's question is concerned, the British Airports Authority is quite satisfied with the situation as it is; and the airlines and the British Airports Authority will be considering the review in due course.

Channel Fixed Link
3.18 p.m..
Lord Ferrier: 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, as reported in the Daily Telegraph of 14th November, it is true that they are in the course of committing the United Kingdom to a fixed channel link.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Transport (The Earl of Caithness): My Lords, the newspaper report referred to by my noble friend was based upon a misunderstanding. It was corrected the following day.
Lord Ferrier: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that disarming reply may I ask him whether he is aware of the increasing number of people from Scotland, and the North and South, who are distressed by the prospect of a direct link because they regard it as a potential danger?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, yes. There is an increasing number of people who are against the link. However, I think that there is an increasing number of people who are for the link because of the advantages that it can offer to this country. I was in Scotland recently and I was tackled on this matter. I think that Scotland has a lot to gain from a link.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, in the light of the Minister's reply, do not the Government agree that it is highly desirable and essential that this House should debate the principle of a direct link as well as the relative nature of possible direct links before the
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Government make a decision on a particular project? I hope the Government will agree that through the usual channels it will be possible to arrange a debate on this issue.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, as the noble Lord will be aware, the United Kingdom-French Study Group reported on this matter in 1982, and a copy of the report was placed in the Library. It is for the usual channels to decide whether or not there is to be a debate.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, as this is probably the largest fixed capital investment ever to be carried out in this country without a public inquiry of any sort—and it matters not whether it be public or private in this context—is it not the case that last time round, in 1973, there was a full range of inquiries which, for instance, reported in detail on the effects of a fixed Channel link on all the ferry routes from Felixstowe right round to Southampton, and not just the short-sea routes? Is that not a fair instance of the sort of action that ought to be taken this time?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, there has been a considerable amount of public consultation. This consultation has been undertaken by all those who have submitted schemes. There have been advertisements in the papers. There has been intense lobbying of Members of Parliament and Members of this House. I do not think it can be said that there has been no consultation.
Lord Chelwood: My Lords, will my noble friend agree that the environmental impact of a fixed link is bound to be very far-reaching indeed, and of course permanent? Is he aware of the widely held view that the amount of time that has been allowed to consider this impact is wholly inadequate?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, no, I would not consider the time for consultation to be too short. In this fast moving commercial world, and comparing it with that world, it is not too short a time.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, is the noble Earl not aware of the distinction between a public inquiry and public consultations?
The Earl of Caithness: Yes, my Lords, I am.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, is the noble Earl the Minister aware that he dismissed rather lightly the comments made by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, regarding the increasing concern in the North of England at this project going ahead without a public inquiry? I come from the North. Is the noble Earl not aware that the people up there consider that to go ahead with this tunnel without full consultation or a public inquiry could further exacerbate the grave economic differences between the North and the South?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I do not believe that my noble friend Lord Kinnoull has actually asked me a question; I believe that it was my noble friend Lord Ferrier. As I have said, there has been considerable public consultation, and if there is to be

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a fixed link I believe that the North stands to benefit both from the work that is available for a fixed link and in the long-term.
Baroness Burton of Coventry: My Lords, referring back to those long-ago days when I was in another place in the early 1950s, is it not correct that discussion on the desirability of having a Channel tunnel was then mooted? We have waited a very long time until now, and is the noble Earl aware that I for one very much hope that the Prime Minister and President Mitterand will make a decision to go ahead early next year?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness and I shall pass on those remarks.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that many of us share the anxieties of his noble friend Lord Ferrier on this matter? Is he further aware that the whole concept of a permanent link with the continent of Europe has to be considered within a far wider context than has been the case so far? Is the noble Earl aware that there is a difference between public consultation and lobbying, to which we have all been subjected?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I am aware of the anxieties which are being taken into account in the assessments being carried out at the moment. I am also aware of the increasing frustration of those who long to see a Channel tunnel and who have been debating this at the slowness that it has taken to reach this stage.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, will my noble friend agree that, if there were to be a public inquiry into this matter, it could drag on for years and years, cost the country an enormous amount of money, destroy a great many potential exports, and do nothing but total harm?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, it is of course open for those at public inquiries to keep matters proceeding for quite a long time. I believe that that is well understood.
Lord Hankey: My Lords, before the Government reach a decision, may we assume that they will carefully consider the defence aspects of this question from every point of view?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I am very pleased to confirm that that is being taken into account at the moment.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, in view of the unusual conjunction of opinion, including that between the noble Earl, Lord Ferrier, and myself, will the Government look again at the whole matter?

Business: Christmas Recess
3.25 p.m.
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 this afternoon my noble friend Lady Young will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement that is to be made in another place on UNESCO. It has been agreed through the usual channels that the Statement which is to be made in another place on the European Council Meeting in Luxembourg should, by leave of the House, be printed in the Official Report.
Your Lordships may also like to know that, subject to the progress of business, it is proposed that the House will rise for the Christmas Recess on Thursday 19th December and return on Tuesday 14th January. The House will sit at 11 a.m. on Thursday 19th December.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, before the noble Earl sits down, if the Statement on the European Council Meeting is not to be repeated here, can he say whether we shall have an opportunity to discuss it quite soon because many of us are deeply concerned at the outcome of that meeting?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, it is quite a usual step that Statements are printed in the Official Report when they are made in another place. I do not think that it is usual to have a debate on them subsequently. I believe that that is a matter for the usual channels.

European Council: Luxembourg, 2nd-3rd December
Following is the Statement referred to:
"With permission, Mr. Speaker, I shall make a Statement about the European Council held in Luxembourg on 2–3 December.
"My right honourable and learned friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary accompanied me to this meeting. I have arranged for the conclusions of the Council to be put in the Library of the House.
"The European Council reached agreement in five main areas. First, the completion of the Community's Internal Market.
"This has been an important United Kingdom objective for a long time, with the strong support of British industry and business. The target of completing the common market by 1992 will be established in the treaty. And we agreed that there should be greater use of majority voting on a number of treaty articles dealing with goods and services. But unanimity will be retained for all decisions on taxation, the free movement of persons and the rights and interests of employees. We also retain the right to take national action where required to protect public, animal and plant health.
"The United Kingdom's position and the position of this House are thus properly protected on such vital questions as frontier controls in relation to terrorism, crime, drugs and immigration from

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outside the community; and on essential controls in the field of health, for example of rabies.
"The Luxembourg Compromise, whereby a member state can invoke a very important national interest to prevent a decision being taken, is unaffected. Secondly, the European Council agreed that the treaty should be brought up to date by new articles on technology, environment and the regional fund. Action has hitherto been taken in these areas on the basis of the general article in the treaty. The new articles will provide a more precise basis for action in these areas in future. Unanimity will be preserved for all important decisions.
"Third, we agreed on procedural changes to improve consultation with the European Assembly. There will be better arrangements to enable the council to take account of amendments to Community legislation suggested by the assembly. But in all cases the last word on such legislation will rest with the council. There will be no transfer of power on these matters from this House to the assembly.
"Fourth, on monetary co-operation between member states, an amendment to the treaty was agreed which describes what has already been achieved in the community framework, without entering into new commitments. Finally, agreement was reached on a separate treaty of co-operation in foreign policy on the basis of the draft presented last summer by the United Kingdom. This formalises existing arrangements for consultation among the ten on foreign policy matters and looks to a steadily closer co-operation.
"The European Council's decisions on these matters remain subject to general reservations from Italy and Denmark. The proposed amendments to the treaty will go forward only if these reserves are lifted. The United Kingdom has reserved its position on the voting arrangements in a proposed new treaty article on working conditions. We insist that unanimity be preserved. In view of the risks that this article might be used to impose unfair burdens on our small and medium-sized business.
"The European Council also discussed the economic and social situation and confirmed existing economic policies designed to reduce inflation and encourage sustained growth. On deregulation, the Commission gave an undertaking: that in future all new proposals would be accompanied by an assessment of the effects on business and job creation; that the most important existing regulations would be re-examined to simplify them and reduce the burden on industry; and that there should be a regular procedure for monitoring progress towards this objective.
"The United Kingdom's initiative earlier this year has thus been formally adopted. In my Statement in this House following the last European Council in June, I made clear that we would have been ready then to take the steps necessary to complete the internal market, to improve decision taking, to formalise foreign policy co-operation and to improve procedures for consultation with the European Assembly.
"Those objectives are now embodied in the conclusions of the Luxembourg European Council together with some tidying up of the treaty to reflect the Community's development. The amendments to the treaty have to be approved by each sovereign parliament and accordingly will be submitted to this House.
"Mr. Speaker, I believe that the conclusions on completing the common market and reducing the burden of regulations will be of long-term benefit to British firms selling their goods and services in the european community. Together with the arrangements to reduce the scale of Britain's budgetary contribution agreed last year, they will be an important step towards enabling this country to realise more fully the benefits of our membership of the European Community."

Business of the House
3.27p.m.
The Lord President of the Council (Viscount Whitelaw): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the debates on the Motions in the names of the Lord Harris of Greenwich and the Baroness Seear set down for 11 th December shall each be limited to 2½ hours and that Standing Order 35 and paragraphs 10 to 13 of the Rules for the Conduct of Short Debates set out in Appendix H to the Companion to Standing Orders shall apply to each debate.—(Viscount Whitelaw.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Okehampton Bypass (Confirmation of Orders) Bill
3.28p.m.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now considered on Report.
The Government bring this Bill to the House because we think that a southern bypass is right for Okehampton. The new road there is a key element in the national road programme. It is a major plank in regional development. Without it, West Devon and Cornwall would not be linked properly to the national road network. The people of Okehampton should not have to suffer traffic as they do all year round, and not just at holiday times as is often believed. It is the policy of this and successive governments that there should be a good national network of roads and that through traffic, particularly heavy goods traffic, should be kept away from people. This scheme meets both criteria. It follows that our proposals are a matter of policy and that there should be a bypass soon.
Many thousands await your Lordships' decision. They are anxious in case this House delays the appearance in their local papers of comments such as:
"Street Where Traffic Chaos Melted Away
A mother can even safely walk her child across the road in a push chair—just like the old days when traffic helped govern town life instead of choking it to death."

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That is what the people of Reigate read two months ago, after the M.25 opened. I hope that we shall not be accused of delaying it for Okehampton.
There is still, however, considerable controversy about where the bypass should be. So let me start by briefly saying a word on the environment. From my background, many noble Lords would know that this is to me the most important consideration. I am as convinced as my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport that our predecessors made the right decision in going for the southern route. He described why he was so convinced at some length in the other place. When I went to look for myself I could see quite clearly why the inspector at the public inquiry, while saying that the landscape south of Okehampton was of great merit, concluded that building a road to the north of the town would do greater environmental damage than a southern route. It is a balanced decision that we have had to take, but it is the environment which tips the balance.
Wherever one builds a new road in such an attractive part of the country, it is a soul-searching decision and one which will cause some environmental problems. But the impact on the landscape would be greater in the north than in the south. I am sure other noble Lords will go into this aspect in greater detail during the debate. Therefore, without downgrading the environmental considerations I want to give prominence to some aspects of the Bill which were not fully dealt with in the other place.
I turn first to open space. For many years compulsory purchase orders which would take open space have been subject to special parliamentary procedure unless the Secretary of State for the Environment can certify that "land not less in area and…equally advantageous to the public" is to be given in exchange. The current law is consolidated in the Acquisition of Land Act 1981.
We knew before the 1979 public inquiry that two acres of dedicated open space at the northern end of Meldon Woods would have to be taken permanently for the new road. Our compulsory purchase orders provided for four acres to be given in exchange. The inspector, however, found that this land was not equally advantageous to the public. He also found that about 20 acres of privately-owned land on East Hill which was also required for the road was, as a matter of fact, "Used for the purposes of public recreation". The sense of his finding was that, although the land was privately owned, it ought to be treated for exchange land purposes as though it were de jure open space. The department could not have included in the compulsory purchase orders exchange land for that area, because when the order was prepared this land was, and is still, privately owned. Furthermore, there was the added difficulty that the public had no legal rights, and we could hardly have offered land in exchange for rights that do not legally exist.
The Secretary of State could have, at this stage, decided to try to purchase additional exchange land compulsorily for the land at Meldon Woods and at East Hill. Those new compulsory purchase orders would almost certainly have led to another public inquiry. Alternatively, he could have introduced a hybrid Bill. Instead he decided that special
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parliamentary procedure offered the best course. Since then, with the help of the CLA, to whom I pay tribute, we have found a further 30 acres of land which we believe the owners are willing to sell by agreement and which we hope to buy under separate powers to mitigate the effects of the road and make available for use as open space if the Bill goes through. With the four acres already in the CPO, and a further eight acres which we may buy or manage for additional landscaping and public use purposes, in all about 40 acres are in prospect to replace the 23 acres of open space taken for the road. The two plots intended for public use are, in my judgment, more use to the public than Meldon Woods. They are closer to the centre of Okehampton, the public will have a legal right to be on them, and they will not be ruined by road noise as was implied in another place.
I should say also at this point that the report of the Joint Committee is a little misleading when it says in paragraph 3 that,
"Public open spaces form such a large proportion of the Southern Route".
There are only two acres dedicated as open space for public use, and only 23 acres out of the 140 taken for the route was found to be open space by the inspector.
I should also correct another error made in another place. It was suggested that a northern route would avoid any problem of open space. This may not be so. There is a possibility that the inspector could determine that de facto open space exists at a place common to all the northern routes. The Joint Select Committee were told about it. We do not know if, on full investigation, it would be found to be open space, but it might be. Special parliamentary procedure might again be necessary, and the process we are going through might have to be repeated. This could mean further delay, but let me make it clear that we have not provided for it in our timetable for a northern route, which I shall come to later.
Let me recap on the decisions and procedures that have taken place. As I have already said, it was purely the question of open space that triggered the submission of the orders to Parliament under the Statutory Orders Special Procedure Act 1945 as amended in 1965. Under this procedure, and following the making of the orders, there are 21 days to enable petitioners to lodge petitions of either a general or specific nature. If a petition is lodged, it is scrutinised by the Lord Chairman of Committees and the Chairman of Ways and Means whose job it is to certify whether the petitions are proper to be received. The petitioners in this case indicated that central to their case were issues of policy—on national parks—which went far beyond the more limited open spaces issue. At this stage the Secretary of State can put a memorial to the joint chairmen on the question of whether the whole or part of any petition is proper. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State did just that. He asked the joint chairmen not to certify as proper that large part of the petition which was based on matters of policy. This indicated the Government's objection to issues of policy being taken by a joint committee. The joint chairmen disagreed. When this happens the petition must go before a joint committee of both Houses unless within 21 days there is either a resolution of either House that the matter should not

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go to a joint committee or there is a resolution in either House that the orders be annulled.
Your Lordships will remember that the noble Lord, Lord Foot, put down a Motion in this House that the orders be annulled. That was followed by a Motion put down in the other place by the honourable Member for Devon West and Torridge and others that the orders should not go to a joint committee. There followed discussions between all the parties involved in Parliament who reached agreement that the right procedure would be to take the orders to a joint committee as normally happens automatically under the Act since it was amended in 1965.
As can be appreciated from what I have just said, the question of whether a petition goes to a joint committee is not now decided primarily by the Government of the day. This is contrary to what my noble friend Lord Molson believed and wrote in his recent letter to The Times. If the Government had moved at this stage that the petition be not referred to a joint committee, we would have been criticised for using our powers as—and I quote from Mr. Greenwood in Hansard of 14th November 1945, at col. 2180:
"a weapon with which to beat down opposition or to carry proposals through without due regard to all the interests who ought to be considered".
Mr. Greenwood further said:
"We hope to get on to the Floor of the House discussions which go to the root of Ministerial Orders".
He added at a later stage:
"it must rest with the Government of the day, whatever its complexion, to advise Parliament whether a particular issue raised on a Ministerial Order is or is not one of policy on which the Government may feel bound to use their Parliamentary resources".
My right honourable friend the Secretary of State did make clear that this was a matter of policy, and we are of the opinion that it is of such importance that it should be brought for decision on to the Floor of the House under the procedure provided for in Section 6 of the 1945 Act. Some of your Lordships might not like the present system, but given the only alternatives of a hybrid Bill or special parliamentary procedure I believe even with hindsight we were right to use special parliamentary procedure. This was agreed as the best way forward at that time. The provisions of the relevant Acts have been followed meticulously.
Given the fact that there was a 96-day public inquiry; that there was considerable local consultation; that a right was given to the petitioners to put their case yet again to a joint committee of both Houses, I cannot see how my noble friend Lord Molson can argue that the assurances given to him by Mr. Greenwood have been overturned. It is clear to me that every effort has been made to have this matter fully debated and that the correct procedure was followed. While I respect my noble friend's concern I just wonder whether my noble friend is not in fact more concerned that we used the procedure, for it was none other than my noble friend who, as the then Member for High Peak, tabled a Second Reading amendment to the Bill back in 1945.
Let me say a word on the constitutional custom consistently followed by successive Governments. The House will know that in 1949 the Government of which Mr. Greenwood was a member did bring to the
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Floor of both Houses a confirming Bill to change amendments made by the joint committee to the Mid-Northamptonshire Water Board Order 1948 because they raised issues of principle. The joint committee has sat 43 times since the 1945 Act. On three occasions before this one they have rejected orders completely. Two of them originated with local authorities, and on the one occasion when a central Government order was rejected. The Minister was so diffident about it that he gave no oral evidence and let petitioners fight it out with witnesses from an existing water board.
I trust your Lordships will all agree that it would not be right to erect a constitutional doctrine from such material. The House has always been able to review the decisions of its committees. If serious matters arise the Floor of the House is the place to deal with them, and judging by the number of noble Lords down to speak today and the number of speakers in the other place, this is a serious matter of considerable interest. I ask the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, to reconsider his amendment to the Motion. It was his party—although he was not of course personally involved—which published DOE circular 4/76, which contains the now famous statement on roads in national parks. But it was also his party which eight months later published the preferred route for the bypass to the south of Okehampton, acknowledging, in the announcement, that there were national park implications. We agree with their decision. We can see that at Okehampton there are the geographical circumstances of which the circular speaks when saying that there will be exceptions. The inspector saw them too. He gave five grounds for his recommendation for a southern route with which we agreed; and we give prominence to landscape impact which was one of those grounds. The joint committee disagreed and that was their right. But I would have hoped for some consistency from the noble Lord's party. He seems now to be saying that they made the wrong choice in 1976. They were right then to conclude that there was no reasonable alternative means of meeting this compelling need. Having published the preferred route, they drafted and published the orders and set up the pubic inquiry in 1979. They should not be regretting our bringing in this Bill. They should be supporting it.
Many noble Lords who have spoken to me about this Bill have been concerned that we might set a precedent for future roads or other development in national parks. My noble friend Lord Elton is better placed to deal with the general point, but on roads I can give a categorical assurance that we shall not use it in that way. The processes of public inquiry and decision do not allow the facts of one case to justify another.
Lastly. I want to deal with the time necessary to plan and build a northern route, which has emerged as an important issue, especially for the people who live in Okehampton and for Cornwall. No one disputes that it would be possible for a southern route to be completed within three years of Parliament approving it. The dispute lies in the difference between the department's firm statement that a northern route would take nine years to complete and the objectors' advisers who have said since the joint committee hearings that it need only take five years or thereabouts. From what I understand it appears that

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their opinions can be challenged. It is based on the views of Mr. Brian Parker, who appeared as a witness for the objectors, and Mr. Singleton, who broadly corroborated what Mr. Parker said. While they both hold respected qualifications, neither has led the design and processing of a national road scheme.
Nevertheless, I do not think they would dispute that it takes—on average—13 years to plan and build a national road project. We wish it could be a lesser period. We have said that pulling out all the stops we might be able to build a northern route in nine years—a significant saving of four years—assuming that the inspector at the inevitable public inquiry did not reject it, as the last one did, and assuming also that none of the land involved was ruled to be de facto open space: a point I referred to earlier. So what has led Mr. Parker into thinking, erroneously, that we might do better than nine years?
If it is the assumption that we could save two years on investigation of route options by going straight for the particular northern route advocated by the petitioners, he is wrong. This route was not as such discussed at public inquiry, though it does consist of parts of some of the 13 variants which were. To do this would be clearly unrealistic, and we could be challenged at public inquiry and in the courts, and rightly so. because we would not have done our homework thoroughly.
That leads me to wonder whether if Mr. Parker also thought that we could save another year by avoiding public consultation of the route options. This is undemocratic as well as unrealistic, given the strong local preference for a southern route. He might have assumed that yet another year could be saved because we have done most of the detailed design for a northern route. We have not. This is evidenced by the fact that the South-West Water Authority drew to our attention only on 18th March this year, and for the first time, that there was some metal contamination in soft ground through which any northern route would go. Naturally, if the detailed design for a road had been undertaken water and soil tests would have been done and we would have known about this possible problem. All we have done is to say that one or other of the northern routes comply with our design standards. The joint committee said that given good will we could proceed quicker. To meet the tighter timetable those entitled to be heard at a public inquiry would either have to forgo their statutory rights voluntarily—which they would not—or be compelled to do so.
The department's south-west road region which comprises the seven counties, including Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, is currently working on over 50 schemes in the national road programme. The staffare fully committed. If we cannot proceed with the proposed scheme at Okehampton, there will inevitably be delays to these schemes as well. The dual carriageway A.30 Okehampton-Launceston scheme would have to be delayed until the line of the western end of the Okehampton bypass was fixed. I shall not be drawn on which other road schemes would suffer, but if we have to divert resources to finding a new route north of Okehampton, suffer they will.
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It is entirely proper that we should have been asked to explain and justify these estimated timings for a possible northern route. On the face of it nine years is a long time. Before some of your Lordships point out to me quite correctly that we have just completed the Darlington bypass in eight years and nine months, let me remind the House that the public inquiry lasted two days and that the inspector reported in 14. That, as your Lordships will know if you have spoken to any Devonian, simply will not be the case in this instance. Any northern route would be bitterly fought; in fact, the whole concept of a northern route would be contested with the same vigour as has been deployed against the southern route. I have to advise the House that nine years is a minimum realistic time for a northern route. It would be wrong and cruelly unfair to the people of Okehampton and others affected if the House rejected this Bill in the mistaken belief that a northern route could be completed in less than nine years.
I shall summarise the Government position briefly. We are convinced that the southern route is right. We stand by the general presumption against major through routes in national parks, and we say that this is one of those exceptional circumstances for which DOE circular 4/76 provided when it was drafted because we do not believe that any northern route would be a reasonable alternative means of bypassing Okehampton. We do not apologise for presenting the Bill. We still believe it was the right course. It is right that Parliament should decide this important matter and I ask the House to allow the swift passage of the Bill. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now considered on Report.—(The Earl of Caithness.)
3.47 p.m.
Lord Molson Lord Molson rose to move, as an amendment to the Motion that the Bill be now considered on Report, to leave out all the words after ("that") and insert ("this House declines to proceed further with the Bill because it contravenes assurances given by the Lord Privy Seal in the House of Commons during the passage of the Statutory Orders (Special Procedure) Bill 1945 in two separate respects (H.C. Debates, 14th November 1945, vol. 415, cols. 2180, 2181), the constitutional custom consistently followed by successive governments up to December 1984 and circular 4/1976 issued by the Department of the Environment; and overrides the recommendation of the Joint Select Committee's Special Report on the Orders (H.L. 131, 1984–85.).").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I have drafted my amendment in very firm terms in order to draw attention to the important constitutional issue involved. If your Lordships pass this Bill unamended—and you can hardly amend it—it will create a precedent going to the root of special parliamentary procedure and infringing a custom maintained for 40 years. Never before have parliamentary majorities been used to over-rule the recommendations of a Joint Select Committee on a petition of general objection. Of course your Lordships have the power to do so, but I believe that you would want to be aware of what you are doing with its implications for the rights of the individual.
I was fairly confident of my facts, having taken an active part in the debates and negotiations about this matter ever since 1945, but in order to be sure of my ground I took the most authoritative advice available to me, as I was entitled to do, and I have obtained their confirmation that there is no precedent for this Bill.
In order to explain this special parliamentary procedure I have to go back a long time; and in addition it is a complex subject. I have been at pains (writing my speech about three times over) to be as concise as possible. However, it is impossible to be very brief in going back to 1845 and, in greater detail, to 1945. Before 1845, every infringement of a private right required a statute. It was agreed in that year that in the modern world that procedure would have to be brought up to date. A complicated system of ministerial orders was introduced, usually requiring a very brief confirming statute.
When war came in 1939 the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act was passed, and in the following years of a siege economy we were ruled by orders made thereunder. There was no opposition to that: we accepted it as necessary in time of war. There was in fact virtually no opposition, except that of two distinguished ex-Ministers. They both spoke from the Opposition Front Bench, always in an entirely patriotic spirit. One was the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, and the other was the late Lord Winterton. I am afraid we rather irreverently nicknamed them after a popular play running at the time, Arsenic and Old Lace.
It was left to us, the Conservative Back-Benchers Committee, to scrutinise the stream of ministerial orders under which we were governed. We did not object, in wartime, to the Government's dictatorial powers, but we wanted to know in the case of each order, first, what these orders meant, and, secondly, in what spirit the wide powers taken would in fact be exercised. For example, when rationing limited the cost of a meal to five shillings, it was important to define also a snack and refreshment. Such were the complexities of the time.
Those orders could not be amended. Our only way of proceeding was to move a prayer to annul them. We did so fairly regularly after the normal hour for the House of Commons to adjourn. I do not think we ever divided the House against an order, but the Whips kept a sufficient number of loyal supporters to defeat us if we had ever divided. Whips in that House will be familiar with the technique. That taught us the power of a Government with a substantial majority.
This necessarily arbitrary procedure by the Government in wartime under defence regulations did not take much account of private interests. Necessary and accepted as it was in wartime, it was not, of course, tolerable for peacetime, and so both Governments fully recognised. This they did by introducing the Statutory Order (Special Procedure) Bills of 1944 and 1945. The first was introduced by the Conservative Attorney-General, Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, affectionately known to your Lordships as Lord Kilmuir. After the victory in 1945 of the Labour Party, it was re-introduced almost unaltered by Herbert Morrison. It is clear, therefore, that this was never a party issue. However, we, the Back-Benchers,
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scrutinised the Bill carefully because it introduced a new and permanent procedure for protecting private rights in a way broadly analogous to Private Bill procedure. It is invoked by many statutes and is therefore of great importance for the liberty of the subject.
If we welcomed the Bill, your Lordships may ask, what was its principle and why did we scrutinise it so carefully? It provided that ministerial orders invading private rights should, in suitable cases, be treated like Private Bills; that is to say, sent upstairs to be examined by a Joint Select Committee which would hear counsel and see witnesses. The Bill wisely made separate provision according to the nature of the petitions against orders. The Bill distinguished, first, petitions for amendment, and, second, petitions of general objection. These last were generally in the form of raising a matter of principle, as the name indicates.
Under the 1945 Act they would only go to a Joint Select Committee if either House so resolved. Petitions for amendment would go automatically to a Joint Select Committee for detailed examination and amendment. The difficulty of getting a petition of general objection upstairs to a Joint Select Committee led to much criticism. In Henry Brook's time, and after careful examination, the 1965 Act was passed to reverse (shall I say?) the general assumption. Instead of a resolution being needed to send a petition of general objection to a Joint Select Committee, it was to go there automatically unless a resolution to the contrary was passed.
Reverting to the 1945 Act, our relations with the Labour Government of the time were friendly all through our private negotiations. In fact, throughout the proceedings Arthur Greenwood kept referring to me as his honourable friend having apparently forgotten that in the general election of 1945 I and my friends had been relegated to the Opposition Benches. When accepting our most important amendment at the Report stage, Mr. Greenwood said that it had been skilfully drafted. Many of your Lordships will realise that that meant that it had been drafted for me under his instructions by parliamentary counsel. No amendment is ever praised by the Government of the day unless it has been drafted by parliamentary counsel.
If we welcomed the Bill, your Lordships may well ask: what, then, was all the debate about? In one sentence, the issue at stake then and that today was the same. We wanted an assurance that a majority in the Commons would not be used to deprive or limit the rights of private interests to have their case judged by an impartial Joint Select Committee which had heard the case stated in a judicial atmosphere upstairs. In principle that was handsomely conceded by the Lord Privy Seal. I put the point to him on 14th November 1945 (at col. 1167) when I said:
"I would ask the Lord Privy Seal to give an undertaking now that this Government at any rate—and if they set an example, perhaps other governments will follow it—will not use their majority as a 'bulldozer' in order to prevent petitioners from having a fair opportunity of having their case heard in a judicial atmosphere upstairs".
I break the sequence of my statement at this point to remark that that unfortunately is precisely what some

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honourable Members in another place sought to do at an early stage, to prevent the Okehampton bypass being considered by a Joint Select Committee. I shall revert to that later.
To return to my recital, the Lord Privy Seal replied to me in the same column:
"I cannot speak for any future government, least of all for a government drawn from the opposite benches, but I can speak for His Majesty's present Government. I do not want to mince my words at all, and I give the most explicit assurance that we do not regard this bill as a weapon with which to beat down opposition or to carry proposals through without due regard to all the interests who ought to be considered. I think it would be wrong to use the bill in that way. and so long as this Government continues, I can assure Hon. Members that this specific pledge which I have given will be honoured to the full".
And so it was! Not only so; it has been honoured by the Labour Party ever since. I had occasion to raise this matter in a particularly difficult connotation with the noble Earl, Lord Longford, when he was Leader of the House and with the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, his Chief Whip. That was in connection with the Meldon Reservoir.
I do not wish to take up your Lordships' time by dealing with the interesting legal technicalities arising out of Standing Orders. Suffice it to say that the noble Earl took a broad view. He withdrew the order, secured an amendment of the Standing Orders to give locus standi to amenity societies and so gave full effect to another sentence in Arthur Greenwood's speech. He thereby made sure that the issue involved would go in a new order before a Joint Select Committee; and it did.
So much for the general constitutional convention; but does it apply in this case? Arthur Greenwood was an experienced statesman and, as I have said, we had discussed the whole problem in private. Consequently, he put in a reservation which we thought perfectly reasonable. After giving the general assurance that I have quoted he went on to say (at col. 2180):
"it must rest with the Government of the day, whatever its complexion, to advise Parliament whether a particular issue raised on a Ministerial Order is or is not one of policy on which the Government may feel bound to use their Parliamentary resources in support of their own point of view".
He meant that the Government of the day must retain the right to legislate to sustain a ministerial order—and here I quote his words, with one or two left out, but not altering the meaning—
"where national policies are involved … or imperilled or embarrassed".
Can it be said that this Bill is justified under that reservation because a national policy is imperilled?
It is quite the contrary. This Bill contradicts national policy as stated by the Department of the Environment's Circular No. 4 of 1976, which says in summary—and I shall quote, again leaving out a few words—
"no new route for long distance traffic should be constructed through a national park…unless it has been demonstrated that there is a compelling need which would not be met by any reasonable alternative means".
The Joint Select Committee which has gone into this matter has found that a northern route offers "a reasonable alternative means".
This Bill does not preserve a national policy; it contravenes it. If one of my noble friends says that
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Circular No. 4 of 1976 was issued by a Labour Government and does not bind a Conservative Government, I would say that the circular only repeats in rather bureaucratic language the policy laid down by my noble friend Lord Stockton when Minister of Housing and Local Government. I am tempted to quote his words which I have here, but I do not want to be too long and the House will accept my assurance that he took exactly the same line.
When, in December 1984, I learnt that some honourable Members in another place had put down an Early Day Motion to use the 1965 Act to by-pass the normal Joint Select Committee procedure I approached my noble friend the Leader of the House and I explained the important constitutional principle at issue. He said, "Leave it in my hands". I knew they were very good hands and I was perfectly content—and justifiably so. A few days afterwards the Early Day Motion disappeared from the Order Paper of the House of Commons.
My noble friend has a remarkable entity. I would say with all reverence that he resembles the Holy Trinity, but it is in a humbler way. He is Deputy Prime Minister; he is Leader of your Lordships' House; and he is the Lord President of the Council. In which capacity he acted to secure the withdrawal of that Early Day Motion, I do not know. Anyway, he was at unity in himself. But is he still?
After the Joint Select Committee had come to a decision adverse to the Ministry of Transport, I heard a rumour that it proposed to introduce this Bill. I accordingly approached my noble friend again. This time I got a more guarded reply. This time it was not, "Leave it in my hands", but, "I will see the Secretary of State and write to you again". The analogy I venture to draw between my noble friend and the Deity breaks down at this point. He is not omnipotent! I have had a most courteous letter from him defending the Government's policy in introducing this Bill. I will not take time to answer him now, but he has not convinced me. I have the authority of two successive Ministers in charge of what is now the Department of the Environment that if a Minister feels that an order is so fundamental to his policy that he would use legislation to have his way, it would not be right to allow petitioners to go to a Joint Select Committee and, if they won, to reverse the decision by legislation since that would involve petitioners in a waste of money. In this case it amounts to nearly £50,000.
Let no one say to me that I asked for the matter to be referred to a Joint Select Committee. Of course I did, but it did not occur to me at that time that if the decision of the committee went against the Government they would introduce legislation overruling the recommendations of the Joint Select Committee. I think this is a matter of straightforward dealing. I feel entitled to ask: at what moment of time did the Secretary of State decide that he would not abide by an adverse decision of the Joint Select Committee and treat its proceedings as an elaborate and costly charade? He can choose on which horn of the dilemma he wishes to sit. Did he never intend to accept the opinion of the Joint Select Committee or did he decide to overturn it when it was adverse to his wishes? An apologist for the Secretary of State said to me that he had probably regarded it as a gamble which

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he hoped to win. I should not willingly make a wager with a man if I thought the other party intended to take up the stakes if he won but to invoke the laws against gaming if he lost.
My noble friend referred once more to the so-called precedent of the Mid-Northamptonshire Water Authority, cited by my noble friend Lord Brabazon. It is not a precedent. It was a petition of amendment and not a petition of general objection; and so it went before the committee and was amended. The Government accepted all the amendments except two, and on one of those your Lordships stood firm and the Government accepted a compromise.
I have only one more argument to adduce, and I am glad to think that we have again had an assurance from my noble friend Lord Caithness that perhaps it will not be used to our disadvantage in the future. If, in breach of Circular 4 of 1976, the sanctity of Dartmoor can be infringed, that creates a precedent for roads through other national parks. What about the Lake District? What about the High Peak of Derbyshire, which I represented in another place for 22 years? We have had an assurance, and naturally I accept any assurance that comes from my noble friends on the Front Bench. But before hearing that, I asked this question, which I regard as relevant: are those other national parks to be transfixed by trunk roads?
I am deeply grateful to your Lordships for the customary courtesy with which you have listened to an unduly long speech; but covering 40 years of this established procedure with which I have been familiar all the way through, and involving, as it does, the liberty of appeal of the private interest, my speech could not be brief. If my longevity has served no other useful purpose, it has at least enabled me to recall in 1985 the circumstances in which this procedure was inaugurated in 1945. I beg to move my amendment.
Moved, as an amendment to the Motion that the Bill be now considered on Report, to leave out the words after ("that") and insert ("this House declines to proceed further with the Bill because it contravenes assurances given by the Lord Privy Seal in the House of Commons during the passage of the Statutory Orders (Special Procedure) Bill 1945 in two separate respects (H.C. Debates, 14th November 1945, vol. 415, cols. 2180, 2181), the constitutional custom consistently followed by successive governments up to December 1984 and circular 4/1976 issued by the Department of the Environment; and overrides the recommendation of the Joint Select Committee's Special Report on the Orders (H.L. 131, 1984–85).").—(Lord Molson.)
4.20 p.m.
Lord Underhill Lord Underhill had given notice of his intention to move, as an amendment to the Motion that the Bill be now considered on Report, at end to insert ("but that this House regrets the decision of the Government to introduce this Bill, and urges the Secretary of State, after consultation with the Dartmoor National Park authority, to provide adequate compensation to the authority, both financial and in kind, to provide suitably for loss of amenities and land.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I think there is one point on which there will be unanimity among your Lordships; that is, that there is need for a bypass for
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Okehampton. I know the area fairly well, as I have a son who lives only a few miles west of Buckfastleigh and just a few miles from the moor. But I want to be thoroughly honest with the House. I have not had the opportunity to walk over the route. I was at Exeter over the last two days, but to walk over the route at ten or eleven o'clock at night would not have shown me what I wanted to see.
We must recall that a bypass was included in the county development plan for Devonshire way back in 1964—that was a northern route—and a bypass for Okehampton has been in the national road building programme since 1968. I have always held that one cannot divorce transport matters from the environment and I am pleased that the noble Earl himself stressed that point in his opening remarks.
We have the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Molson, and, whatever one's views may be upon his amendment, I think the whole House will appreciate the clarity with which he put his case and also the firm independence that he has shown on this matter over such a long period. I hope that the debate will cover not only the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Molson, and of course the Government Minister's speech, but also the amendment in my name.
When the Statement was repeated in this House by the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, on 26th July about the Government's intention to bring forward such a Bill I stated that when a Bill was presented it would be contested on non-political and all-party grounds. That view was endorsed heartily by the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, and by a number of other noble Lords. This is clearly not a party issue and, by the very nature of the Bill, it can be clearly seen that it is not a Bill that one can amend in itself.
Faced with the convention, both held and strongly observed by the Benches on which I sit, that we do not vote against any basic principle determined by the other House, we have decided that our Front Bench spokesmen will be encouraged to abstain on the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Molson.
However, we recognise that there are strongly held opinions on the matter—on procedure, on constitution and on environmental grounds—and that it would be wrong to do other than say to all other than our Front Bench, who we hope will abstain, that they have a completely free vote to determine, according to their own consciences and the strength of the arguments, whether or not they should support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Molson. I want to make that absolutely clear to the House. That is the reason for my amendment, which expresses deep regret that the Government have brought forward this Bill.
In commenting on the Statement when it was presented prior to the Summer Recess, I suggested that it would be extremely helpful if noble Lords read the report of the debate to annul the orders, which had been initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Foot, on 3rd December last year, during which debate some of the points put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Molson, today were covered. I hope that many noble Lords will have read the report of that debate in the weeks since the Statement was made to us.
I know, as the noble Lord, Lord Molson, has said, that there is still considerable concern at what seems to be setting aside the principle of the Department of the Environment's Circular No. 4 of 1976. I shall not repeat what that circular stated, but I hope noble Lords will remember clearly the words expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Molson. I also hope that everybody stands by the principle of that circular. As the noble Lord. Lord Molson, has said, any departure from the principle of that circular is a precedent which could be used by any government in the future in connection with any other national park. Therefore, it is a very important statement in the circular.
Reference has been made to the decision of the Labour Government in 1976. As I have said on previous occasions, I was not a member of that Government, though I supported it. But we had not had the public inquiry then; the public inquiry was not set up until 1979 and did not report until 1983. We had not had the setting up of the Joint Select Committee when that decision was taken. It is clear that there is an alternative to the southern route. There is the northern route. As I have already mentioned, that was in the Devon county development plan back in 1964, and it seems that it was not until around 1973–74 that there was any thought given to a possible southern route which might traverse in some degree the national park.
In the debate in your Lordships' House on 3rd December 1984 the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, said at col. 1158 of the Official Report:
"Decisions on the best routes for bypasses are only taken after the most careful study. Alternative possible routes to the north and to the south…were examined in some detail.".
If those words mean anything, they mean that the department had details of a possible alternative—the noble Earl shakes his head—and therefore the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, was not correct in the statement he made that,
"Alternative possible routes to the north and to the south were examined in some detail.".
In the Third Reading debate on this Bill on 19th November, the Secretary of State said at col. 140 of the Commons Official Report:
"I emphasise that we are promoting the southern route because we believe it is environmentally superior. It is my firm conviction that, in an area as unique as the countryside round Okehampton, environmental factors must not only have high priority, but must be the priority.".
That is a definite statement made by the Secretary of State. That statement surely dismisses some of the snide comments that have been made about environmentalists and conservationists.
But the Secretary of State's view, and the Government's policy on the southern route, are challenged by many competent authorities. Ten actually petitioned against, and I was very pleased to see that such is the respect in which some of these authorities are held that in The House magazine of 11 th November there was an article from the Council for National Parks, another one from the Countryside Commission and another from the Council for the Protection of Rural England. Those bodies were considered sufficiently responsible for accounts of their activities to be given in The House magazine of
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11th November. Therefore, the objections have not been irresponsible or made by irresponsible persons.
Clearly, the Dartmoor National Park Authority, whose duty is absolutely clear, is opposed to the southern route. So, also, is the Countryside Commission, which is the Government's own statutory body with members appointed by the Secretary of State and the Secretary of State for Wales and funded by a grant from the DoE. What docs the Countryside Commission say? It says:
"The Commission has confirmed that the area which would be affected by the southern route is of national park quality. The landscape which would be affected by the northern route is not of national significance, nor is it comparable in quality with that south of the town within the national park".
But what do the Government do? Instead of having regard to the views of their own Countryside Commission, they accept the views only of the department's own Advisory Committee on the Landscape and Treatment of Trunk Roads. I sec no reference to the Government's consideration of the views of the Countryside Commission.
I am not arguing against the propriety of the Government in bringing forward this confirmation Bill. Despite the clarity and eloquence of the noble Lord, Lord Molson, we accept that there is provision to the effect that if the Government of the day cannot support a Joint Select Committee's report, there is this confirmation Bill procedure.
But what should the Government do about a Joint Select Committee report? As has been emphasised by the noble Lord, Lord Molson, the Government had to go back 36 years, back to 1949, to find some justification and precedent for what they are doing now. Surely it is ridiculous to refer an issue to a Joint Select Committee and then completely to ignore its conclusions. The noble Lord, Lord Stallard, was a member of the Joint Select Committee, and he dealt with this in his brief comments on the original statement. I am sure that my noble friend will amplify his comments when he speaks later today.
I appreciate that it is not in order to quote speeches made in the other place, other than those of Ministers. Therefore I shall transpose one particular speech. I hope noble Lords have read the debate in the other place of 19th November and in particular the speech of Mr. Peter Rost, Conservative Member for Erewash, who was chairman of the Joint Select Committee. Noble Lords may now, if they wish, refer to cols. 182 to 186 of the Hansard report of that day. Mr. Rost said that if the DoE had followed its own circular of 1976, a reasonable alternative to the northern route would have been completed long ago and Okehampton's frustrations would have been cleared up many years ago.
Mr. Rost complained of some attempts to discredit the joint committee and said that the committee's view had been misinterpreted and denigrated. He claimed that it was unacceptable that the joint committee was held to be less important than the public inquiry. Mr. Rost complained also that it is not generally understood that a great deal of new evidence was presented to the Joint Select Committee. He said that the inspector had submitted his report and had said that his decision was a finely balanced one. Mr. Rost commented that the inspector might well have

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changed his mind and made the decision the other way if he had heard the new evidence that had been presented to the Joint Select Committee.
Mr. Rost said that when the joint committee weighed up the pros and cons the members came to the independent judgment that there was no reason whatever why the alternative northern route should not be developed. The chairman of the Joint Select Committee, Mr. Rost, referred to the dilemma facing Members of Parliament. There was a conscience as to the wider issues of national policy on environment, open space and national parks, and against that the frustration of the delay of some 20 years.
The Secretary of State has repeatedly made much play of consultation with local people and the views of local authorities. He also said in the debate of 19th November, at col. 141 of the Official Report that,
"the damage incurred in going north of Okehampton on any of the 13 possible variants of a northern route would be greater".
But those who know the area like the back of their hand have stressed in debates in both Houses that this view is not accepted and that there is no physical barrier whatever to prevent the road going to the north. As a democrat, I accept that a majority is a majority, but the Secretary of State should be very careful in claiming that there is an overwhelming local view. Devon County Coucil voted 38 for the southern route. By the way, I was at a lunch yesterday with the present chairman of Devon County Council, and so I think my facts are right. It voted 38 for the southern route, 34 for the northern route, with four abstentions—a decision taken as recently as 25th July.
Lord O'Hagan: My Lords, can the noble Lord compare those figures with the normal voting figures on Devon County Council, taking into account the fact that the Alliance have recently become the majority party? Will he compare the figures he has just given with the normal voting pattern on Devon County Council? Otherwise he may have given a misleading impression to the House.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, what I am going to give are the figures on this particular issue. That is the only one with which we are concerned. I am not concerned with decisions taken by Devon County Council on any other matter, whether a month ago or two years ago. As I emphasised, this is not a party issue. My noble friends here have completely free votes. The Front Bench will abstain because of our propriety of not voting against a decision of the other House.
This decision of the county council was taken despite all the influences brought to bear through the department and Ministers. Even the Okehampton Town Council voted only by 10 to six for the southern route. These are the elected local people. The Secretary of State has referred to the strength of the survey of the people of Okehampton which has been conducted. But, again, what are the figures? I am a democrat and I accept majorities, but let us have a look and see what the figures mean. In a questionnaire, 55 per cent. favoured the southern route, with 45 per cent. against. One thousand and thirty people completed the questionnaire out of a population in Okehampton of 3,500. My elementary mathematics
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tells me that is a majority of 100 people—not exactly an overwhelming view of local opinion.
Many noble Lords will have received masses of briefs, documents and papers of all kinds on this issue. Perhaps I may refer in particular to the document received from ROAMR—Residents of Okehampton Against the Moorland Route. Nothing could be more local than that particular opinion. The secretary, and a resident in the town, Dr. Bill Hunter, forwarded a five-page statement setting out the case against the southern route. It was a powerful case based on the history of the matter and the nature of the area affected.
Emphasis has been laid by the Secretary of State and also by the noble Earl today on the possible delay if we do not proceed with the southern route. The noble Earl referred to the position of Mr. Parker. Perhaps I may quote one statement made by Mr. Parker. He said:
"I trust that pride in professional independence and concern for good planning and good engineering practice rule my judgment".
Mr. Parker, who is a highly qualified independent road engineer, has said that further delay need be not more than two years and a bit. Noble Lords may recall, as it has been mentioned previously, that the Countryside Commission questioned this figure and asked a reputable firm of engineers, Denis Wilson and Partners, who are consulting engineers and transport planners, to check that statement. The firm did so and confirmed it.
The question of a bypass is naturally of great concern to the people of Okehampton. It is of concern to the hundreds and thousands of people who travel each year on holiday and go through Okehampton, or try to go through Okehampton, as I know to my cost. It is also a matter of concern with regard to the position of commercial vehicles. But the matter is one of great concern, too, for the environment and for the protection of our heritage. That must be kept in mind.
The joint committee gave attention to the problem of a possible delay if the northern route were now adopted. The joint committee said that the mistake made in the past by switching to the southern route should not now be insisted upon by continuing on that basis. The Select Committee decision would correct that error. The chairman of the committee has said that we must not now be asked to take the easy option of deciding to go through the park when a route may go through the northern alternative way. That is the problem before us. The easy way out is to accept the southern route despite the precedents that are being created.
I can understand the concern of Cornwall County Council about its unemployment problem. I can understand the concern of the haulage contractors. But perhaps I may take a short while to quote a letter which other noble Lords may have received from the driver of a heavy goods vehicle, a Mr. John Luce, who lives near Chard in Somerset. He states:
"Whichever [route] is built will be there for good, and if short-term considerations result in the wrong choice, its advantages will very soon be forgotten".
That is the issue which faces your Lordships this afternoon. Mr. Luce puts seven points, but I will repeat only two of them:

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"A northern route would intersect all radial roads and therefore offer a complete and wholly effective bypass. A southern route intersects none; all traffic commuting north/-east/-west will continue to go through the town".
He adds as his fourth point:
"Both routes rise to over 850 ft. but are not affected by the same weather. The northern route lies across part of the West Devon plateau which though exposed is not high enough to influence its weather pattern significantly. The southern route mounts the main mass of Dartmoor, running less than two miles of the 2,000 ft. peaks, and is subject to the notorious Dartmoor weather: it is often affected by fog and ice and snow when the plateau to the north remains clear. Above all, it would attract heavy snowdrifting, which on a north face would thaw only very slowly, as I know from having lived in the area".
Those are the views of a heavy goods vehicle driver.
I conclude by reminding your Lordships of what was said by the Secretary of State—and I have already quoted him in part—at col. 140:
"Environmental factors must not only have high priority, but must be the priority [and] if I had believed that the balance of environmental interest favoured any of the northern alternatives, I would not be here today presenting the Bill".
On the evidence that has been presented, I believe that the Government ought to withdraw this particular Bill. Although we are unable, for the reasons I have mentioned, to support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Molson, our Back-Bench Members will have a completely free vote. My amendment regrets that the Government have introduced this Bill, but it also declares that if it is the wish of Parliament that the Bill should go through, adequate compensation, both financial and in kind, should be made to the Dartmoor National Park Authority following consultation with that authority. I believe that other noble Lords will be dealing with this matter, but I wish to emphasise that I am moving this in a non-political manner and that all our Back-Bench Members will have complete freedom of conscience on this particular issue.
4.43 p.m.
Lord Hunt: My Lords, at an early stage in his speech the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, pointed out that views are very strongly held on this matter. I am among those who feel very strongly indeed about this Bill. The noble Lord also made it clear that for his Benches there would be freedom to decide what Members wished to do at the end of this debate. I should make it clear that although I speak from the Alliance Benches, I am speaking for myself and I am not committing any of my noble friends to the views which I hold.
The procedures to which the Government have resorted in pursuit of their determination to adopt the southern route have been masterfully dealt with by the noble Lord, Lord Molson. I say at once that I share the case on and the objections to the southern route which have been extremely clearly put to the House by the noble Lord, Lord Underhill. I shall try not to repeat what has already been said and will confine myself to some of the environmental issues involved. I wish mainly to speak to matters of principle.
It is only right that your Lordships should know that every one of the constituent member bodies of the Council for National Parks of which I have the privilege of being president is strongly of the view that the Government's decision to adopt the southern route for the bypass is wrong. I may add that every other
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organisation concerned with environmental and conservation issues of which I am aware, from the Countryside Commission down (and its views have been retold to your Lordships by the noble Lord, Lord Underhill), is of the same opinion.
Your Lordships may wonder why it is that the council's 35 constituent member bodies representing a wide spectrum of interests, by no means all of them—in fact, most of them not—specially focused on the problems of Dartmoor, should be of one mind and hold the same view so strongly. It is because this bypass is regarded not as a local matter but as a national issue. The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, made it clear in his opening speech that whichever way the bypass goes, it will be a key element in the national network. By the same token that both he and the Government regard it as being a national issue, so do we.
A key principle bearing on this matter was established by the noble Lord, Lord Sandford (he is my noble friend, except on these occasions), whom I am so pleased to see in the House, in chapter 15 of his report on the national parks published in 1974.I shall not quote that report again because it was spelt out in the Government circular 4/1976, to which the noble Lord, Lord Molson referred, and it was endorsed by another Government circular in 1977. It should in my submission hold good in this instance. The key words in what the circular has to say are "a compelling need" and "any reasonable alternative means".
Those of us who are opposed to this Bill agree with the Joint Select Committee of both Houses of Parliament that in this instance, whereas the need for a bypass is certainly "compelling", one of the northern routes—which I believe is labelled "M"—is, all things considered, a "reasonable" alternative. Environmental considerations apart, it is well worth bearing in mind that which the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, had to say about the advantages for locally-sited industrial traffic if the northern route were adopted—advantages that would be denied by the southern route.
The objections to a northern route have been powerfully advocated, and I am sure your Lordships are only too aware of it through lobbying outside this House. They were also powerfully made by the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, in his opening speech. No doubt other noble Lords will extend those objections in the course of this debate. It seems to me that we have to make a choice not only between alternative routes but also between conflicting principles. Should the principle be that of expediency or that of cost? I understand that the northern route would cost more, to the tune of perhaps £5 million. If this is so, in a matter of national importance involving a key element, as the noble Earl said, I cannot bring myself to believe that the sum of £5 million, considerable though it is, is an insurmountable and unacceptable cost to the Department of Transport's budget.
Should the principle be that of protecting farming and land-owning interests, or of avoiding further delay in solving what is undoubtedly a serious traffic problem? We have heard the figures on the extra time required to start now on the northern route. Some fantastic figures have been bandied around in the propaganda which we have recieved. A period of up to 13 years has been suggested. We have heard the noble

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Earl's conservative estimate of nine years. We are told that the southern route would take four years less. I put it to your Lordships that in an issue that is a matter for perpetuity and for irreversible decision, a further delay of four years in a lifetime and for posterity could be tolerated—all the more so because there is a southern holiday route which is coping not too badly with holiday traffic at the moment. Alternatively, should it be the principle underlying the creation of national parks; the integrity of certain areas especially designated for their natural beauty, the peacefulness they provide and the opportunities for recreation with access for the public to enjoy all these values?
There may, or there may not, be fewer votes for this latter principle in the short term; let us say, in the run-up to the next general election. But the time is not far off when conservation will be an important election issue. I have no doubt how future generations will judge a government which had chosen to erode the national heritage on grounds of expediency.
We have certain precedents in this matter. There was the construction of the A.66 through the northern part of the Lake District in 1973 to shorten the journey of heavy goods traffic from the M.6 to the coastal industries of Cumbria. No one who knew the Lake District before that road was constructed and who is familiar with the Lake District today could possibly deny the irreversible damage wrought by that decision for the sake of less than an extra hour's driving time round the northern fringes of the park.
Some of your Lordships may recall the powerful argument advanced against encroaching on the northern flanks of the Carneddau peaks in the Snowdonia National Park at about that time to build an expressway which would relieve the congestion along the North Wales coastal road. Those arguments in that case happily prevailed. Your Lordships who remember those precedents will point out that neither is exactly similar to the case of the Okehampton bypass, but the underlying principle is the same. Incidentally, the A.66 case—I hope the noble Lord will not shake his head—gave urgency to the formulation of policy contained in his report on the national parks.
In announcing his decision on 14th October, Mr. Nicholas Ridley underplayed the effect on Dartmoor, calling it a very slight incursion. At the same time he magnified the impact of the northern route, describing it as a scar across the rolling countryside. It has been claimed that the southern route is somehow environmentally more attractive and superior to the northern route. I regard that, without respect to persons, as preposterous nonsense. No one who cares about the environment and conservation of our beauty places can possibly contemplate a motorway, let alone listen to or watch the movement on it, and call it in any way environmentally attractive. The fact is that the southern route will be a permanent, noisy intrusion on the southern landscape, within sight and hearing of many of the citizens of Okehampton, day and night, and it will run cheek-by-jowl with the southern fringes of the town.
The noble Lord, Lord Underhill, dealt most effectively with the claim that the citizens of Okehampton and the inhabitants of Devon,
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represented by the county council and the town council, prefer the southern route. He dealt with the point that a significant minority feel strongly that the southern route should not be the route taken. The fact is that Mr. Ridley has persuaded his Cabinet colleagues to damage and diminish the Dartmoor National Park. I would say that our national parks are too small to justify this kind of erosion.
Erosion means compromise and I am tempted—and I shall not resist the temptation—to mention some words of the noble Earl, Lord Stockton, who was mentioned in a Starred Question last week by the noble Baroness, Lady David, in another environmental context, and who is deeply loved and respected on all sides of your Lordships' House. As Mr. Harold Macmillan, in 1952 when he was Minister of Housing and Local Government and the designation of the national parks was beginning, he said:
"In those areas which are designated as national parks, amenity and access are to be given an overriding position".
"Overriding"—an unambiguous, unequivocal and uncompromising adjective. There should be no compromising with that dictum; for each compromise reduces the unique value which each national park represents to the nation and for posterity. Each compromise provides a precedent for further damaging development.
Sadly, proofs of this latter objection to compromise abound over the years from 1952, and increasingly during the past decade, through the increased defence training activities, through industrial and agricultural demands, through commercial afforestation, water storage schemes, mineral extraction, and the growing pressures of the tourist industry. Arguably most damaging of all is road construction; a lot of it allied to one or other of those factors that I have mentioned.
Where do we draw the line? Is it not time to call a halt? Should not the Okehampton bypass case be the ne plus ultra against further incursions and scars on our national parks? By a peculiar irony the decision to introduce this Bill coincides with the Countryside Commission's campaign to draw public attention to, and elicit more concern among the public for, our national parks. It falls, too, in International Youth Year in which emphasis has been placed on the importance, especially for young people, of access to more open spaces. Some of your Lordships may have seen, or been aware of, the lobby of young people in connection with International Youth Year about a fortnight ago in the Palace of Westminster. It coincides, too, with a changing public attitude in regard to the excess of certain agricultural products, some of which are produced in that rolling countryside of Mr. Ridley's emotive phraseology.
On all those grounds, as I said at the beginning of my speech, I believe that the Government have made a serious blunder in preferring short-term expediency to abiding principle. I believe that they will diminish not only Dartmoor but their own credibility as a political party which gives a high place for conservation when issues of rural land use arise.
My final words are these. It gives me no pleasure whatever to say what I have just said. My council has been happy to give credit to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food for its successful efforts to persuade our EC partners to give importance to

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conservation in restructuring the agricultural directives. But this Bill illustrates the continuing need to co-ordinate the policies of all Government departments, including the Department of Transport, when conservation of the rural environment arises.

UNESCO: British Membership
4.58 p.m.
Baroness Young: My Lords, with the leave of the House I shall now repeat a Statement being made in another place about the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation. The Statement is as follows:
"Britain played a prominent part in the creation of UNESCO. We continue to support the ideals and objectives contained in its consititution. But the House will be aware of the Government's long standing doubt about the effectiveness with which UNESCO has been pursuing them. Among our concerns are the degree to which its work has been harmfully politicised; the organisation has been used to attack those very values which it was designed to uphold. Then there has been inefficient management. This has led to programmes which contain vague and meaningless studies, duplication with the work of other agencies, and lack of discrimination in the creation of projects. There have been serious weaknesses in staff management, and excessive expenditure and staffing at the Paris headquarters.
"Although we have put forward firm proposals for reform, and worked hard, particularly at the recent General Conference at Sofia, to secure their adoption, the results in our judgment fall well short of what we believe could justify continued British membership. The Government have therefore decided that the notice to leave given by my right honourable and learned friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary in his letter of 5th December 1984 to the Director General will not be withdrawn. The United Kingdom will cease to be a member from 31st December 1985.
"This decision is in no way aimed at the United Nations system as a whole. But we are determined that our support for the UN should be seen as support for effective and efficient organisations. Unfortunately, UNESCO is not such a body.
"We will not be cutting back on international co-operation in the fields now covered by UNESCO. The money saved from our contribution will be used through the aid programme to further educational, scientific and other activities designed to benefit developing countries, particularly in the Commonwealth. In this way there will be more support for education, for the most part to be carried out through the British Council. We have particularly in mind increased allocations for training in this country for students from poor countries in the Commonwealth and elsewhere. In science we shall certainly continue to support the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission and the International Geological Correlation Programme, and make other arrangements for
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assisting international science, including, for example, programmes in soil and water management in arid and semi-arid countries in Africa. We shall give further details to the House in due course.
"Because of the importance we attach to the underlying principles of UNESCO's work, the Government plan to maintain observer status on the organisation.
"Mr. Speaker, it is sad that an organisation which began with such high hopes and to which this country has contributed so much in the past should have gone so wrong. But we have to deal with what the organisation has become. We must resolutely ensure that the resources saved for the aid programme as a result of leaving UNESCO are spent in the most useful way."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Lord Oram: My Lords, it is appreciated that the noble Baroness is repeating a Statement that has been made in another place, and I thank her for doing so. But is it not a sad and disgraceful announcement that she has had to put before your Lordships? Should we not remember that UNESCO was the result of pioneering efforts in this country under the leadership of Sir Julian Huxley; and should we not remember the long line of distinguished British public servants who have served UNESCO over the years and brought great credit to this country in that organisation? Is it not sad indeed that their work should have had the unhappy outcome announced today?
Is this not yet another example of following meekly behind the United States? Are we not putting ourselves once again in a position of isolation from countries who we call our friends? Is not the action that the Government have announced contrary to the will and advice of our partners in the Commonwealth; and do not our fellow EC members take an entirely different view? Moreover, has not this country's national commission for UNESCO gone on record almost unanimously saying that it would be wrong for this country to withdraw? We should remember that that national commission is composed of scientists and people representing cultural and artistic life in this country who bring a great deal of expertise to the consideration of this matter; and they have distinctly gone on record in opposing what the Government have announced.
I recognise that the organisation has many faults, and they are outlined—I do not accept all of them—in the early part of the Statement. But if it is faulty, is not the responsible action of a leading member of the organisation to stay in and work still further to get the matter put right rather than to walk away from a difficult problem, as the Government now propose to do?
Lord Kennet: My Lords, we agree with every word that has been said from the Labour Opposition Front Bench. May I start by saying that we are glad that that part of our UNESCO contribution which is aid money is not simply to be re-swallowed by the Treasury but is to continue in aid? We regret only that it should be bilateral and no longer multi-lateral aid through the United Nations. We can agree with the Government

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that UNESCO has gone astray, but organisations do from time to time. Beyond that we agree with the Labour Front Bench that it is a sad, weak, shortsighted and probably thoughtless decision to give up and walk away instead of staying and fighting for the proper reforms.
The Statement said that the decision is not aimed at the United Nations family of organisations as a whole. It may not have been aimed at it, but it certainly hit it. Should not the Government ask themselves who has before left a United Nations organisation and in what circumstances? Should they not also ask themselves who left the League of Nations and in what circumstances? Is this not the beginning of the breakup of the United Nations system? Is it not as serious as that? Is it not a true parallel with the break-up of the League of Nations system? It was a grief to us that it was the United States, our nearest ally, which started this. I believe that it is a disgrace for this country that we should have followed suit.
Baroness Young: My Lords, in what they have said on the Statement both noble Lords have been critical of UNESCO. The noble Lord, Lord Oram, said that the organisation has many faults—I think that I quote him correctly—and the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, said that it had gone astray. The noble Lord, Lord Oram, said that the Statement was sad and disgraceful. We would all agree that it is a sad Statement. He referred to the many British people who were involved in the inception of UNESCO. It was a great idea when it was set up, but it is not that kind of an institution today. I cannot accept the charges that the Statement is disgraceful.
Both noble Lords asked a series of specific questions. One was whether we are simply following the American lead. The answer is, of course, no. Our basic aims are similar, but we have throughout adopted a different strategy, and our final decision has been taken independently of the United States. Indeed, there has been no pressure from the United States and there have been no discussions about UNESCO with the United States at ministerial level for several months.
So far as the Commonwealth countries are concerned, as my right honourable friend the Minister for Overseas Development has already said, the subject of UNESCO was not raised at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in October and I can confirm that it was not raised at the European Council on 2nd and 3rd December. With regard to other countries, it is for them to make their view plain to us. Indeed, many other countries have worked with us for the reform of UNESCO and in so doing have made it clear that they wish us to stay in. But we have kept and will continue to keep in touch with them, although the decision on whether we should or should not remain in UNESCO is for Britain and for Britain alone. As was indicated in the Statement, we have clear reasons for taking the decision that we took.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, as someone who for 40 years has been involved in international cultural cooperation from an academic base, perhaps I may congratulate Her Majesty's Government on the
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sensible way in which, in the face of a great deal of political pressure of the kind that the two noble Lords who have spoken from the Opposition Benches represent, they have taken this decision. It will be widely welcomed in the British university, humanistic and scientific worlds. It is a decision that frees for use for genuine co-operation with our friends in the Commonwealth and elsewhere money that was being patently squandered despite all the efforts of Britain to reform this organisation from within. May I say how welcome that is, and how glad we are to learn the content of today's Statement?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I should like to thank my noble friend Lord Beloff for his intervention. He has, of course, made the points that he mentioned this afternoon on a number of occasions in your Lordships' House. He speaks with considerable knowledge and authority on this subject. I thank him for what he has said.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware of one factor that has not yet been mentioned—that it was the all-party Foreign Affairs Committee of another place that advised the Government to stay in UNESCO? Is she further aware of the activities of the very Right-wing American organisation, the Heritage Foundation, financed by a number of American millionaires? When she says that this is not a blow at the United Nations institutions as such, is she aware of the fact that that foundation, about 12 months ago, came over to this country and conducted an intensive campaign among Members of Parliament and the media which apparently resulted in a series of articles and programmes hostile to UNESCO?
Is she aware that Mr. Gough Whitlam, the former Australian Prime Minister and ambassador to UNESCO, has recounted in this Palace the activities of that organisation which is very close to the United States President? Is she still convinced that this decision has not been affected by the pressure of official American opinion and the unofficial opinion that is hostile not just to UNESCO but to the whole United Nations ideal?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I was aware of the view that has been expressed by the Foreign Affairs Select Committee in another place, and, of course, all these views have been taken into consideration by the Government in reaching their decision. So far as the suggestion of influence from the United States is concerned, I can confirm that there has been no pressure from the United States. So far as the Heritage Foundation is concerned, I can confirm that the Government have had no recent contact with the Heritage Foundation.
Baroness Ewart-Biggs: My Lords, is the Minister aware that following the United States' withdrawal from UNESCO, private contributions to UNICEF in the United States dropped substantially because of a loss of confidence in the United Nations and confusion between the two names? The United Kingdom Committee for UNICEF of which I am president fears very much that the same thing will happen in this country. Does the Minister not agree that it would be deplorable if UNICEF, which depends on private

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contributions and which does such important work for children throughout the world, should suffer in this way? Will she consider giving a commitment that the Government will increase their contribution to UNICEF should it happen that private contributions go down?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I am aware of the excellent work that the noble Baroness, Lady Ewart-Biggs, does on behalf of UNICEF and, indeed, of what a very admirable organisation that is. I recall referring to it specifically when we had a debate on the United Nations in your Lordships' House only a few weeks ago, when the noble Baroness spoke on behalf of UNICEF. I can assure the noble Baroness and your Lordships that, as I said in repeating the Statement, we remain fully committed to the United Nations system. But this does not mean that it is necessary for us to remain a member of any one of its constituent bodies if we are dissatisfied with its performance. There is no evidence at all of dissatisfaction with what UNICEF is doing. I can only reiterate what I said on an earlier occasion about the value of the work of that organisation.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, is there not a degree of duplicity in the Government's decision? Is it not the case that it was made clear to UNESCO, to the Commonwealth countries and to the EC countries that the fulfilment of the threat to withdraw was dependent on progress being made? Since very substantial progress has been made on almost all the demands that were made by the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, can the noble Baroness say what is the justification for ignoring the unanimous conclusions of the Commonwealth, of the all-party Select Committee, as has been said, and yesterday's massive majority in the United Kingdom Commission for UNESCO appointed by the Minister himself? Is there not a degree of betrayal of our friends in this decision announced today?
5.15 p.m.
Baroness Young: My Lords, I would not accept for one moment that there has been any duplicity on the part of the Government. The noble Lord, Lord Ennals, has stated that many organisations and many countries have made representations to us. I have answered those points already. As to the reason why the Government have taken the decision to withdraw, this has been fully covered, I believe, in the Statement. It was also set out by my right honourable friend the Minister of State for Overseas Development in another place on 22nd November. But if I wanted to sum up the reasons I would say: over-politicisation, lack of financial stringency, poor management and poor programmes.
Lord Annan: My Lords, may I add my voice to those who support the decision of the Government? It seems to me that we have at last faced the realities of international politics instead of, as so often, wallowing in sentimentalities. Does the noble Baroness agree that when the United States withdrew from UNESCO it was like the firing of an enormously massive shot across the bows of the organisation because of the
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tremendous loss of income that it would suffer? Does the noble Baroness agree that in any normal organisation this would have led to major reforms being initiated at once? Would she not agree that, instead, step by step, every position was defended until, finally, some had to be abandoned in the face of opinion, although not very substantial progress was made in reform?
Would the noble Baroness not also agree that in any organisation that had received this kind of shock it would be natural for the head of it to resign or at any rate to indicate that, within a measurable space of time, he would hand over to someone else? Is not the fact that Mr. M'Bow did not do that one very good reason for the Government's decision?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Annan, for what he has said He is making somewhat similar points to those that he made about UNESCO when we debated this among other matters in the foreign affairs debate on the Queen's speech. I agree when he says that the reforms that have been instituted in UNESCO have not been substantial enough. On the specific point about Mr. M'Bow, I can only say that we believe that he is responsible for low management standards. It is, however, important to remember what has been said in the Statement about the alternatives to remaining a member of UNESCO; namely, that the money that has been saved from our contribution will be used through the aid programme to further educational, scientific and other activities designed to benefit developing countries, particularly in the Commonwealth.
Lord Caradon: My Lords, will the noble Baroness accept that the very grave seriousness of the decision announced today is fully understood? Here we have a decision taken—after some delay, it is true, during which arguments have been put forward—which is directed against the activities of the United Nations Organisation. That, in my view, is a very serious development indeed which is out of step with our Commonwealth and other friends in the world. Everyone believes that this represents (as I feel sure that it does), a reflection of the views of the United States in regard to the United Nations which many of us seriously deplore. We have other matters on which, if the actions of our Government were to imitate those of the United States, the situation would be very serious indeed. Take, for instance, the attitude of the United States on the law of the sea, where the whole organisation worked for years to achieve a purpose which was eventually denied by the United States.
If we are to follow this course of opposition, of complaint, of criticism of the United Nations efforts, rather than to improve them and to work with others to ensure that it is put to the best possible use, I believe that this is a moment of very serious concern for all peoples in this country who are genuine internationalists in that they wish to use the international organisation for the benefit of mankind. I believe that a very grave and serious movement of retrograde disgrace is being announced to us this afternoon.
Baroness Young: My Lords, I can only say to the noble Lord, Lord Caradon, and can only repeat what I have said to other noble Lords who have raised similar points on this Statement: that our decision is a decision of the Government. It is not a reflection of the views of the United States. Nor indeed is this an attack on the United Nations system as a whole. I made this plain in an answer that I gave to an earlier question. Indeed, the Statement itself makes it quite clear. As it says in paragraph 4:
"This decision is in no way aimed at the United Nations system as a whole. But we are determined that our support for the UN should be seen as support for effective and efficient organisations".
I would agree with the noble Lord, Lord Caradon, that it is a sad day that UNESCO is not the same UNESCO as it was when it was established.

Okehampton Bypass (Confirmation of Orders) Bill
5.22 p.m.
Consideration on Report resumed.
The Earl of Iddesleigh: My Lords, I count myself fortunate in having lived in Devon for the greater part of my life. In fact, for the last 35 years my home has been within 19 miles of Okehampton. I confess that I do not travel through Okehampton every week—I do not think that any sane person would unless they had to. But I know the A.30 reasonably well and I also know the country surrounding Okehampton tolerably well. Although I have been a Member of this House for some years, I am known in the West Country as an occasional speaker here. But I think it is significant that I have never before received so many letters as I have in the post in the last few weeks from organisations and individuals on this subject. They have all urged me to come and address your Lordships this afternoon. I needed no urging, because I am convinced that to go south is the right decision. I feel that I must tell your Lordships that the feeling in the West Country is running very high indeed.
Another factor which is of major importance is the attitude of the various local councils. The noble Lord, Lord Underhill, has already mentioned the comparatively small majority in the last meeting of the county council. But it is a fact that Devon County Council has consistently supported the "go south" policy ever since the consultative process was started. And it is not alone. West Devon District Council, Okehampton Town Council and Okehampton Hamlets Parish Council have been consistently for the southern route. In fact, all 14 local parish councils support this route as well. Surely this House must pay heed to the local views—views from democratically-elected individuals. I have this information from an impeccable local government source.
I am sure that many noble Lords have seen the exhibition staged by the Ministry of Transport either at Marsham Street or at the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors building across Parliament Square. I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, was there, because I feel that any noble Lord not familiar with the area must surely have been convinced by that exhibition that from a purely visual angle the southern route is far preferable to any of the
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(is it 13 or 16?) alternatives to the north. This view is supported by well-known landscape consultants.
But what of the ecology angle? How important are these woodlands on the southern route? I think that we can find the answer to these questions in the report of Dr. D. L. Hawksworth of the Commonwealth Mycological Institute of Kew. This report was used in evidence at the public inquiry in 1979. It is dated 4th April that year and is headed, "Report to the Dartmoor National Park Officer". The aim of the report is to survey the lichen flora of Okehampton district with particular reference to parts that would be affected by a southern route, to assess the ecological continuity in the woodlands, to assess the scientific importance of the park for lichens in a regional and national context, and to consider the probable effects of the bypass route.
In his evidence at the inquiry the Dartmoor National Park officer hardly referred to this very comprehensive report. I imagine that the money by which it was sponsored came from his Dartmoor National Park Committee.
It is of course difficult to paraphrase several sheets of foolscap, but in essence Dr. Hawksworth gives the Revised Index of Ecological Continuity (or RIEC) for the eleven various wooded areas on the southern route. He compares those figures with other areas on Dartmoor. The RIEC scale is from 0 to 100, and the most important areas have figures of 80 to 100. We have examples of Holme Chase and Bekka Falls, which have figures of 100 or 95.
It is interesting that the summary of this report states:
"Calculations of Revised Index of Ecological Continuity of the woodlands examined have values of 0 to 30 suggesting they do not have a sufficiently long history of ecological continuity to make them of outstanding scientific importance for plants and animals of all groups characteristic of ancient woodlands".
Time does not permit me to give the complete summary of conclusions. But it is clearly shown that the southern route will not go through woodlands of national importance. The implications in the report are that these woodland areas are not ancient woodlands, that they are of only limited regional importance, and, anyhow, that the bypass will not seriously affect them.
Your Lordships have heard convincing arguments, and will hear more, in favour of the southern route; few, I feel, that are convincing in favour of any alternative. We in the West Country need this bypass now. We know that we may have to settle for three years' time, but, please, my Lords, any delay longer than three years is totally unacceptable, I believe, to the vast majority of West Country residents.
My final points are in connection with the conclusions of the joint parliamentary committee, which voted by only four votes to two in favour of a northern alternative earlier this year. First, at the 1979 inquiry, between them the farmers on the northern route spent some £ 10,000 to defend their farms. When the result was made known they thought that after many years of planning blight they could safely go ahead with developing their farming activities, and they have done so. Secondly, at the joint parliamentary committee hearing locals were not given the opportunity to object, as they were at the

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public inquiry. The reason, of course, is that no one particular northern route is actually fully planned in any way.
Another point is that the joint parliamentary committee was not aware when it met that public open spaces which would be taken by the bypass would be replaced by land bought by the Ministry of Transport, as the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, has already informed this House. The acreage of land provided is greater than the land that will be taken.
Lastly, if a northern route is chosen, it will almost inevitably cross this bog, to which, again, the noble Earl referred, and the disturbance of this bog will, I am told, release the dangerous heavy metal, cadmium, into the local streams and the River Okement. This will cause considerable environmental damage, and this, too, was not known to the joint committee when it sat. If these last two points had been known earlier this year, I wonder whether the joint committee would have voted as it did? I know that these points and others will be enlarged upon by other noble Lords from the west country.
I should like to conclude with a story which I am assured is true and which goes back to 1938 when a farmer to the west of Okehampton—and I honestly do not know whether he was a northern or a southern man—was approached by a surveyor carrying his equipment across his field. The surveyor asked the farmer, who was quietly ploughing his field, whether he could carry out a survey for an alternative road away from the town centre. The farmer replied: "That's all right, you go ahead; but tell me, is it worth finishing the field or shall I take the horses back home to bed?" Do not let us take this horse home to bed tonight and let it rest in its stable for another nine years or more. I strongly urge this House to support the findings of the public inquiry—and I stress the word "public"—and to vote for a southern bypass for Okehampton.
5.33 p.m.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the vigorous voice of the noble Earl, Lord Iddesleigh. who has come from Devonshire to support the Bill. The first point which the noble Earl made was the first point that I want to make: that the overwhelming voice of the elected people and bodies from the South-West is a major factor which I am sure all noble Lords will take into account. The only point I would add to the noble Earl's list of county, district and parish councils is that of the 16 Members of Parliament in Devon and Cornwall, 14 are in favour and only two against. In my view, that is a major factor.
As we all well know, the fact is that this bypass is a matter of vital importance to the economy of the south-west, especially Cornwall, and it is for that very reason that the Government are justified in promoting this Bill as a matter of national importance and as part of the completion of the national road network.
I should like to refer briefly to the letter of the noble Lord, Lord Ardwick, which was published in The Times a couple of days ago. In it he alleged that the amendment of my noble friend Lord Molson is a
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wrecking amendment because it declines to approve the Bill. Indeed, if this noble House were to support my noble friend's amendment, it would reverse the Commons decision on the Bill. That would be contrary to the convention of this House, which is that we do not withold approval from legislation approved by the other House.
The noble Lord, Lord Underhill, was very skilful in his footwork in moving around this, and no one could object to his amendment. If the Front Bench sit tight and perhaps he and the noble Baroness, Lady David, and the remainder of his noble colleagues behind him all support my noble friend Lord Molson, it probably would not embarrass the noble Lord as much as it would embarrass us; he would have kept within the convention that the Official Opposition do not oppose the Government. Just how the convention applies to a Private Member's Motion is a matter which I do not think has ever been fully explored. However, it seems that the extremely cogent charge of my noble friend Lord Molson that the Government are being unconstitutional is slightly shaky on its base as to whether he is being constitutional in proposing the rejection of this Bill. Nevertheless, I should like to try to deal with the major points with which we are all very concerned.
I should like to say how much I enjoyed listening to my noble friend Lord Molson, who I have heard very often over the years. I have never heard him in better voice as he marshalled his arguments in such tremendous style; and his very long history, going back to the 1945 Act, and indeed years before, gives him great authority. I recall his fame when he was at Oxford, where he won a First in jurisprudence. Therefore, none of us is suprised that he is able to speak with such compelling authority. It is not so much compelling that it will drive us into the Lobbies on his side, but it compels us to listen to him even though we may not agree—and for myself I do not.
I shall not try to deal with the main points that he made. The major point is that it is a constitutional impropriety for the Government to override the recommendation of the Joint Select Committee. My noble friend Lord Molson very fairly quoted passages from the speech of Arthur Greenwood, the Lord Privy Seal, in 1945, in which he said that he did not intend to use this measure to override the private interest. However, he did say that, where it was a matter of national policy in the judgment of the Government, it must then be for the Government to decide whether they should use their parliamentary majority to support that point of view. My noble friend very fairly quoted that particular passage.
The fact is that this is just such a case. I shall leave the matter of precedents to my noble friends on the Front Bench. I do not doubt that, as usual, my noble friend Lord Elton will have all the precedents at his fingertips. However, I think that the 1949 measure is a precedent. I shall let my noble friend deal with that.
Finally, leaving precedents aside, there is no doubt whatever that the opinion of a Select Committee cannot override the opinion of Parliament. At the end of the day the sovereignty of Parliament is absolute. As I said earlier, the case of this bypass has become much more important than the convenience of Okehampton, though goodness knows that must now be a pretty

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serious matter. After 17 years of delay the issue has become one of national importance, for the south-west and especially for Cornwall. That is the basic justification for my noble friends on the Front Bench and right honourable friends in another place saying that this is a matter of national policy, and that is why they believed they were justified in using the machinery in the 1945 Act.
Further to my noble friend's charge of rejecting the report of the joint committee, I agree that governments normally accept reports of joint committees, but they are not bound to; and there are some unusual features about this report to which I should briefly like to call attention. The joint committee was set up to consider the compulsory purchase orders for the land required for the southern route where the exchange land proposals were found by the Secretary of State for the Environment to be inadequate. In the event, the Joint Select Committee, having been set up with those terms of reference, concluded that it was deciding whether or not the southern bypass should be built to the south of Okehampton. Indeed, the honourable gentleman who was chairman, Mr. Rossi, said in his speech in the Commons—which has been referred to—that they did regard themselves as a court of appeal. But of course they were not a court of appeal at all. They heard the petitioners against the south route, and they heard the Department of Transport, who were the promoters, in favour; but what they never heard were the interests—the landowners, the farmers, and other interests—on the northern route who would be affected by it going there.
It is no argument to say that the arguments were put forward by the civil servants from the Ministry of Transport. They would have been much stronger arguments if they had come from the interests themselves. They never heard them at all. They cannot be said to have had the full case put before them in the way that the inspector had in his 96 days of inquiry where he had the full force of the interests both to the south and to the north personally represented in front of him. I say to my noble friend that I thought he was rather over-severe in his criticisms of my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport with regard to the setting up of the joint committee. I do not see how any government could have known that the Joint Select Committee would have gone so far beyond its original terms of reference as it did.
I make two other limited points with regard to the Select Committee. It was fully considered, as was made plain by Ministers in the Commons debate (but it is worth adding a point made by the noble Earl, Lord Iddesleigh), that in fact within a few months of the joint committee being set up additional land was found—enough to make the exchange for the public open space being taken more than adequate. Therefore, had that been done to start with the Secretary of State for the Environment could have given his certificate and the Joint Select Committee need never have been set up. But of course that is now all water under the bridge.
Lord Hunt: My Lords, I apologise, and I thank the noble Lord for giving way. It is of course true that the
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Secretary of State has offered in quantity a large acreage of land in replacement of the 23 acres which will be denied by driving the route through the southern route; but has he considered the matter of quality? It is the contention of those who are not at all satisfied with that offer that the quality of the land, in terms of access for the purposes that we understand a national park to stand for, is nothing like so good.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, that evidently is the noble Lord's opinion, and this must remain a matter of opinion. As the whole point is now theoretical and water under the bridge, I should not delay the House in discussing it as we have so many speakers.
I turn to another major point, and that is my noble friend's charge of the breach of Circular 4/76, Roads Through National Parks. Of course we all recognise the immense importance of this strong circular issued by the Labour Government in 1976, which clearly defined a policy against roads through national parks. But I repeat what my noble friend said in his opening speech, that it provided for exceptions where there is a compelling need which could not be met by any reasonable alternative. Those terms of course mean exactly what they say, and at the end of the day it must be a matter of judgment as to whether or not that is made out.
I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, dealt with this diplomatically, but nevertheless the Labour Government of the day decided that the southern route was the right one to promote, and they then started the process which, as the noble Lord rightly said, went on to public inquiry and all the rest of the procedure which has gone on ever since. But the fact that the Labour Government of the day so decided is some confirmation that the Government of today have probably got their judgment right.
Finally, on the question of compensation to petitioners before the Joint Select Committee, a point my noble friend made and which was implied in Lord Underhill's amendment—
Lord Underhill: My Lords, will the noble Lord give way? There is nothing at all in my amendment referring to compensation to the petitioners. It is compensation to the national parks authority to which my amendment refers
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, all right, we shall leave it at the petitioners. I shall only say that no hardship has been done. In fact, the Joint Select Committee could have awarded costs to the petitioners if it had wanted to, but the petitioners did not apply for costs. Since then a leading member of the petitioners has written to the Secretary of State saying that they would have regarded an offer of money as an insult. No doubt a few other noble Lords besides myself will have read the advertisement today in The Times advising me to vote against the Bill. It indicates that the petitioners are not exactly on the breadline.
I conclude because, much as I should like to continue to debate with my noble friend, the only criticism that I should have thought lies against the Government after 17 years' delay is that the procedural preparation needed for this bypass is much too long, and now is the time to take the decision and

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let the road building proceed. I urge noble Lords to support the Government.
5.47 p.m.
Baroness White: My Lords, I rise to support the amendment to be moved by my noble friend Lord Underhill, on the supposition that we get that far. If it were not so serious a reality, the matter of the Okehampton bypass might seem to call for the pen of Anthony Trollope himself to do the story full justice. It is indeed an astonishing saga.
The uncertainties which have dogged this matter for almost two decades included of course in the earlier years the uncertainty as to whether or not the railway would abandon its mineral line to Meldon Quarry, followed by the unfortunate illness of the inspector which delayed the report of the public inquiry for years rather than months. But meanwhile Okehampton has suffered, and vehicle drivers have cursed the inadequacy of the A.30 not only in and through the town but also on either side of it. Therefore, one feels that we should now come to a decision.
The uncertainties I have mentioned were not of course the fault of the present Government, but the position in which we find ourselves today, which is at the root of Lord Molson's amendment, stems at least in part, despite protestations, from an uncertain attitude towards national parks as well as to the natural difficulties inherent in the case. I have tried to study the past history of this affair, as well as making the required pilgrimage to Okehampton to see for myself. With great respect to the noble Earl, Lord Iddesleigh, who seems to have vanished, interesting though it was, the exhibition at the Ministry frankly was not enough. Unless one has been to see for oneself it is not easy to appreciate the finer but important local details.
What might look reasonable on a map may prove a good deal less convincing on the ground. I was much concerned, for instance, to be told that the northern route was to be preferred inter alia because it would provide easy access for heavy goods vehicles serving the small industrial estate to the north of the town. This indeed is a congested area, not ideally situated from any point of view as far as I could judge. But if, as seems likely, the preferred northern route were to go over the proposed Knowle viaduct at a very great height, spanning the deep and narrow valley adjacent to the industrial estate, I fail to see how local industrial traffic would obtain easy access at all.
The Earl of Caithness: Absolutely, my Lords.
Baroness White: My Lords, the Ministers on the Front Bench can see that I am doing my utmost to be entirely fair. The other industrial estate on the Exeter road is far better situated and far better laid out, but that is another matter altogether. That would have acceptable access whichever of the two contested routes were chosen.
Taking the southern route, when I saw from the map how close it was to the edge of the national park I confess that I wondered whether it might not in all the circumstances make better sense to modify the boundary of the park.
Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Baroness White: Ah, but wait, my Lords. The national park authority has already embarked on preliminary local consultations on possible revision of the park boundary in preparation for the formal 10-year review scheme initiated by the relevant authority for national parks; namely the Countryside Commission. In other words, park boundaries are sacred but not absolutely immutable for all time. But as soon as one went to Okehampton and saw the reality the idea of boundary modification became untenable. Not only is the quality of the land to be traversed by the proposed southern route indubitably of national park standard, as the recent Country side Commission statement so fully confirms, but this wooded escarpment is clearly part of the land mass of the park itself and provides a striking, in parts indeed a dramatic, introduction to the High Moor, even softening the shock of a sprawling army camp which one finds above it. This is true even if, as suggested by the noble Earl, Lord Iddesleigh, the woodlands are not perhaps of the highest possible ecological quality As Mrs. Rumbold, the Junior Minister in another place, admitted, at the eastern end at Fatherford, where the new southern road would have to be carried on a high viaduct for a considerable distance, there would inevitably be the most serious visual intrusion. Whatever alleviating measures were adopted—I know that some have been considered—I am convinced that traffic noise would completely destroy the present tranquillity of the scene.
Not, I admit, that perfect peace reigns at present. The truckloads of ballast from the Meldon quarry travel by rail or further west by road several times a day. But this is not the intense and continuous noise of motor traffic on a major highway, which is the last thing one wants if one wishes to commune with nature. If one goes in person (I am speaking of those who, like myself, are not familiar with the area) the whole matter becomes very much more vivid.
I could continue with arguments for and against the northern and the southern routes, but I feel that perhaps it would be more helpful to leave that to others who have greater familiarity with the local scene and to turn to the second part of the amendment standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Underhill.
However, before I come to that there is one matter on which I feel obliged to comment. The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, made a very lively defence of the special procedure adopted by the Government which has taken so much time, not only in absolute terms—nearly a year, because the orders were laid at the end of 1984—but has also led to the overturning of the opinion of the joint committee. That was triggered off by this matter of the compensatory land for open space. I find this extraordinarily puzzling. The major part of the required land now to be purchased by agreement already enjoys, as I understand it, de facto public access. I think I am also right in saying that the national park authority had already initiated negotiations for a long lease of that land. What I cannot understand is why, if the Country Landowners' Association has been so helpful now, it could not have been helpful long ago. Why was it impossible—had the

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Ministry of Transport put its heart, mind and effort into the matter—for it to have used its considerable power of persuasion with its landed friends to have obtained this land which, as recently as 23rd October, it informed us it could now obtain? Could it not have made that purchase possible and saved nearly a year of precious time and the efforts of the joint committee and the petitioners? This was not fully explained by the noble Earl and I find that extremely puzzling.
The Earl of Caithness: If I may quickly reply to that, as the noble Baroness has kindly mentioned me by name. We offered four acres which we were going to acquire compulsorily for the two acres of Meldon Woods. We did not know until the inspector reported that there was further de facto open space land which became de jure open space land when the inspector reported on East Hill. Therefore we could not offer any alternative land until the inspector has reported, and that was the problem.
Baroness Whites: My Lords, if that is the case, ought not something to be done to change the legislative position? It seems to me perfectly absurd, but no mention of that was made to the noble Earl.
As I said, one could go on arguing for the southern or northern route, each of which has advantages and disadvantages. Neither side will admit to disadvantages of their own and all will claim advantages which are not so obvious to other people. But against this background of continuing and quite passionate controversy, some of us have tried to distance ourselves and tried to consider in more general terms what might be done to help the Dartmoor national park if the Secretary of State for Transport gets his way for the southern route, whatever one may think of it. We have had assurances that the intrusion into the Dartmoor park is not be regarded as a precedent. We hope that this will prove true, but it could happen elsewhere. Such things are not unknown. Meanwhile in the Dartmoor national park the amenities and character of the park will be significantly affected in an area which is admittedly not large in relation to the totality of the park, but it is important as a northern entry point to many of those who wish to enjoy the amenities of the park, not least those who make Okehampton their base. A high rise major trunk route may be regarded by the Government as essential at this point, but surely they must agree that it is completely contrary to the concept of what a national park should be.
If a local planning authority gives a planning consent and then, for whatever good reason, reverses that decision, it is liable to pay a considerable sum in compensation. The formal designation of an area as a national park is surely to make a national planning decision on the nature and use of the area of land concerned. Circumstances may arise (as it could be argued that they have arisen at Okehampton) where subsequently it may be decided that action has to be taken which is indisputably contrary to the intentions of the designation. There is a procedure, as we have just mentioned, for compensation for the very small areas of designated open space, but there is no such procedure offered as restitution for a national park in circumstances in which its value indubitably will be
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diminished. My noble friend's amendment refers to land exchange as a possible way of compensating. However, in many circumstances land exchange on any scale which would have any kind of validity quite frankly is improbable. The right kind of land does not always appear at the spot at which one would like to find it.
There are other ways, however, of trying to make some kind of restitution, if one is defeated on the main objective of the complete protection of the national park. The Ministry of Transport has estimated that it would spend just on £22 million, at 1984 prices, on the southern route proposed through the park. I think one can safely say, that by the end of the construction period it will more likely be £25 million. In our view—and this is part of the thinking behind the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Underhill—there should be an obligation on the ministry to make some payment to the park authority for the significant loss of amenity. Obviously, at present, this would have to be ex gratia. But if this line of thought were to be considered to be desirable, then other means could, if necessary, be devised.
If local authorities have disincentives to reverse planning decisions, it seems only just that a Government department should make some recompense if it concludes that it must override what were, in effect, planning decisions on a national scale.
Suggestions have been made in another place that land to the east of the park and to the west of the now agreed first stage of the bypass might be included in the park. Some 1,400 acres was mentioned. This might be a sensible revision when the major boundary review is undertaken in a couple of years' time, but it does not seem to me at this stage to be a relevant substitution. In any case, it is not a matter for the Ministry of Transport to deal with, but for the Countryside Commission, which is the appropriate authority.
Reference has already been made to the suggestion that something should be done to meet the costs of the petitioners—members of voluntary organisations which are obviously, as the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, has suggested, better heeled than some of those who support voluntary organisations in the part of the country from which I come. It must be a very prosperous area. Nevertheless, they have spent some £50,000, on the abortive proceedings of the joint committee. Some have said they would refuse costs even if offered. Heaven forfend that any Government department should think it could buy its way into a national park. However, to offer some compensation as restitution for the significant disturbance seems to me to be quite another matter.
On an expenditure of £25 million, can one perhaps suggest that half a million by way of compensation might be about right? This is rather less than just a single year's Government grant for this particular park. The disturbance will not be for just a single year; it will be there for the foreseeable future.
If we are serious, we should keep out of national parks. If, nevertheless, in all the circumstances the decision is to be taken that other considerations override our concern for the environment, the procedure which I have suggested at least should be seriously considered. In the normal course of

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legislation this could be considered at a normal Committee stage. However, we are in an abnormal situation and therefore I must make this suggestion here, in support of my noble friend Lord Underhill, I hope very much that the Government and your Lordships' House will take it into account.
6.4 p.m.
Lord Denning: My Lords, I hope that your Lordships will not accept either of these amendments. It reminds me of the time when one was in the courts of law: "If you have no defence on the merits, take a technical point, take a pleading point". That seems to me what is sought to be done by these amendments.
I should like to bring your Lordships back to the real matter before you. It is not what the route should be, north, south or the like. The only question is whether or not the Minister's order, under which he compulsorily acquired a few acres of land in Devon, should be approved and confirmed. Those are simply the closure orders.
This whole question of the route and so forth has been fully investigated in circumstances according to law, about which I shall tell your Lordships. In 1976, in pursuance of their statutory duty under the Highways Act, the Minister, the Secretary of State, had to set out the line of any proposed trunk road which was to serve the needs of the community. At that time, under the Labour Government in 1976, the proposed trunk road was proposed to take the strain off" Okehampton. The proposed road was one which would go through the so-called southern route, which would go through a little fringe edge of Dartmoor.
As the statute required, there had to be a public inquiry before that line of route was accepted and approved. There was a public inquiry chaired by Mr. Charles Fay. a member of the Bar. He heard every objection and everything in support. He took 93 days over it. This was in 1979–1981. Then, after another two years, he presented his report. Mark you, in the course of the case there were objections. We have had many of these cases, in which people have taken objections to the inspector doing this and hearing that, All those have gone overboard. Then, when his report has been made, people have sought to challenge the report in the courts, All those have gone by the board.
In this report the inspector went into this very point of the national park and considered it at length, with reasons. I shall not read the whole of his report because it would take me about three days to do so. However, I shall read the salient passages where he is dealing with this very question of the national park and this very question of the circular of 1976.
He said, in paragraph 2814 (your Lordships can see how many paragraphs he had; that is nearly 3,000):
"I now consider the policy relating to through routes and National Parks expressed in Circular 4/76, paragraph 58. Since I have concluded that there is 'a compelling need' for a bypass,"—
that is now accepted by everybody—
"the question to he answered is whether any northern alternative would consitute 'a reasonable alternative means'".
Thus he considers the very question there put. He goes into that very question in many paragraphs. He deals with the economic considerations, with the agricul-
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tural considerations. He deals with the question today and says, quite rightly, as all of us know, that this is not a matter for law, it is a matter of reasonableness which we always state to be a matter of fact.
After considering these matters in many paragraphs, he goes on to say in paragraph 2818:
"In all these circumstances, my view is that none of the northern routes that were considered at the inquiry is a reasonable alternative for the purposes of Circular 4/76".
Then he. considers the other matter. In his final conclusion in paragraph 2821, he says:
"Thus, having considered a large body of evidence and submissions, my conclusion is that a bypass for the A.30 at Okehampton should be built and that it should be built on the published route".
That is the route which goes through the edge of Dartmoor. That was his report. It was never challenged in the courts. Also—this is the important part—it was made the basis, by the Minister, of a statutory order under the Highways Act. Therefore, that is the order limiting the route, which has been decided in the face of all objections, in the face of the national park's objections, the environmental objections and all the others. That is the statutory order made under the Highways Act, after the full inquiry, which the statute provided.
So that route is decided. It will not create a precedent in regard to others because it is made only in regard to the exceptional case which has been mentioned. You can have the exceptional case even for a national park where there is a compelling need and no reasonable alternative. So it does not create a precedent in that way; nor can it in law create a precedent because all these questions of reasonableness are questions of fact and no decision on one set of facts ever binds another. So the question of precedence is out of the way.
Therefore, the line of the route having been decided authoritatively by a public inquiry and confirmed by the Minister under statute, it seems to me that that is not open to further investigation. But it was! When the question arose, it was simply this. When the Minister had to get the land for the route, he could get a lot of it by agreement. But there were a few acres—and there was all this question about open spaces; and I need not go into that—for which he had to get a compulsory purchase order. And he made that order. But, owing to the procedure which we have known and heard about, as there was a petition against this compulsory purchase order it was referred to a Joint Select Committee of your Lordships' House and of the Commons. The inquiry before that Joint Select Committee should have been simply about the validity or not of these closing orders. None of the people who owned the land objected at all. The people who came to object to the compulsory purchase order—could not object to the route any more—were the national parks and all these other bodies that we have heard of.
I am afraid that the joint committee was led up the garden path, if I may say so. It went again into all this matter of the route. I do not think that it ought to have done that, because once you have a decision as it was taken by the inspector, after all the evidence, you do not re-open it again. We have got a doctrine called res judicate. Once you have settled a thing after full

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inquiry you do not go canvassing it again, with all the expense involved. Anyway, the committee did so. But that committee did not have nearly so good a case as the inspector; it did not hear all these objectors and all the evidence and so forth. It was not in nearly so good a position to do that. It did not give a reasoned judgment, as did the inspector. Without any reason, it simply said it did not approve the compulsory purchase order. But it went into all the questions that I mentioned.
Its final decision—and it goes into what I think it ought not to have gone into—was:
"The Committee think that the northern route provides such a 'reasonable alternative means' and that the arguments in favour of the southern route do not justify the incursion into the National Park in this case".
I think that it really ought not to have gone into that. Then it says:
"This Committee are therefore of the opinion that the Orders be not approved".
It is for your Lordships to decide. This is a confirmation Bill. That is only a report by this joint committee for your Lordships' consideration and it is for your Lordships to decide on these compulsory purchase orders. That is the only thing. As I say, the route itself is already decided.
One comes to these amendments. My word! I will not go through them all, but it seems to me that a perfectly proper course was taken by the Government in saying, "Well, in the circumstances of such a debate and everything of this kind, this being a petition of general objection, let it be referred to a joint committee". It seems that that was quite right and the Government were quite right to receive the joint committee report and to consider it. But, having considered it, they could do as they have done in saying: "We think these compulsory purchase orders should be confirmed"; and they should be. It carries out the policy, the good policy, initiated by a Labour Government years ago, followed by this Government now, to have this bypass round Okehampton, even though it does go a little bit into the national park. That seems to be the policy, and it has been shown by my noble friend Lord Iddesleigh to be overwhelmingly supported by the county councils and the local authorities of Devon and Cornwall. In those circumstances surely your Lordships should affirm the Government and the Ministers and reject these amendments.
6.15 p.m.
Lord Foot: My Lords, I must say that I have listened to the last speech from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, with increasing misunderstanding, if I may put it like that. That is because I had the pleasure—it was a pleasure—of going to the exhibition that was laid on.
Lord Denning: My Lords, so did I.
Lord Foot: My Lords, I found the noble and learned Lord there. He was there apparently picking up all the information he could garner. He told me that he did not know anything about it when he went there, but he appears to be entirely convinced by the exhibition. I will come back to that exhibition in a moment.
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I want immediately to try to deal with the argument which the noble and learned Lord is addressing to us, because it is an extraordinary argument coming from such an important and indeed, incomparable legal authority. The whole burden of his speech was that the inquiry before the inspector was a very reputable business, a very useful exercise; but then he proceeded to pour scorn upon the Act of Parliament which has been on the statute book ever since 1945, the Statutory Orders (Special Procedure) Act 1945. He said that the idea that these petitioners could get access to such a committee was really quite improper. He said that the committee went far beyond its rights in the matters which it discussed.
It is not often that I am able to correct the noble and learned Lord on a matter of pure fact; but the fact of the matter is that that is completely false. If the noble and learned Lord will refer to Section 5(1) of the 1945 Act, he will find that these are the words with which subsection begins:
"Where any petition against an order to which this Act applies is referred to a joint committee of both Houses…the order shall stand referred to that committee for the purpose of the consideration of the petition".
As soon as the petition is lodged, and once it is accepted by the two chairmen—the Lord Chairman of Committees in this House and the Chairman of Ways and Means in the other place; I will come back to that in a minute—the matter which is then referred to the joint committee is nothing whatever to do, in this case, with open space; it is what is contained in the petition. That is what the joint committee has got to consider.
The matter is made even clearer if one looks at the petition, because the petition made perfectly clear the issue on which we the petitioners petitioned. I use the word "we" because I happen to have the good fortune to be the president of the Dartmoor Preservation Association, which led the campaign, and also chief promoter of the petition. When the petition was drawn, what the petitioners said at paragraph 25 was this:
"At the heart of your Petitioners' objection is an issue of principle of the first magnitude for the whole future of national parks. As is stated in the letter dated 16th September 1983…announcing the decisions of the Secretaries of State, the crux of the matter is the statement of Government policy in Department of Environment Circular 4/76, particularly paragraph 58. which reads 'No new route for long distance traffic should be constructed through a national park, or an existing road upgraded, unless it has been demonstrated that there is a compelling need which would not be met by any reasonable alternative means'."
It was the simple business of that joint committee in its 15 days of hearing to consider whether that was made out; whether in fact when the Government put forward the southern route as their preferred route they were making a blunder, whether they had been wrong from the very beginning and whether the inspector also had been wrong in his interpretation of the circular.
I have heard it said on many occasions—it was said during the debate tonight, and it was said often enough in the other place the other day—that the inspector took an impartial view, as of course he did, and that he summed up the matter. What is not fully realised is that from the moment the department and the Secretary of State at the time decided to go through the national park, contrary to the policy laid down in the circular, all the resources of the Department of

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Transport and, shockingly enough, of the Department of the Environment were mobilised and deployed at the inquiry day after day, to disparage any route to the north and to promote the route advocated by the department. That is understandable, of course, but enormous pressure was brought to bear upon the inspector to accept the department's view.
Then we got before the joint committee. The joint committee looked at it again and came to the conclusion that the inspector had got it wrong because he had done a balancing act when what he was supposed to do was to consider whether any northern route presented a reasonable alternative means. And so the inquiry before the joint committee took place. At the end of the day they decided, having spent all the time that anybody wanted to spend on it, having listened to the department's witnesses, and to learned counsel, senior and junior, instructed by the department, that a great mistake had been made from the beginning.
It is all very well for the supporters of this Bill to say, "We cannot tolerate any further delay", as the Secretary of State for Transport said in the other place when giving the reasons why this Bill is being introduced. He says that we have got to settle this once and for all. It is all very well for that to be said, when the people who are responsible for the fact that Okehampton has not got a bypass today are the people who are supporting and proposing this Bill—because had the Government never departed from their own declared policy the bypass would have been constructed at this time. Now when we talk about delay every argument is advanced to try to suggest that going to the north instead of to the south would involve nine, 10, 11 or 12 years' delay. They build it up. It is of course in their great interest to argue that it is going to involve delay, but they are the people who are entirely responsible for that. The poor people of Okehampton have suffered under this because of the mismanagement of the Government.
I had not intended to be diverted into that small discussion and I think the best thing I can do in the remainder of my remarks is to concentrate on one matter only. It is my contention, which I shall hope to persuade your Lordships is right, that while the Government are of course entitled to do it and while it is provided in certain circumstances that a government can introduce a Bill to overturn a report of a Select Committee, the way in which they have done it on this occasion has been a gross misuse of power.
I want to tell your Lordships why I take that view, but before I do so I should like just to refer back again to the exhibition. It was the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, who at the moment is not in his place, who made the passing comment about our advertisement in The Times today that the people who had paid for the advertisement evidently were not on the breadline. Very well, but how has the propaganda of the Government been paid for? I hope some of your Lordships went over to see the exhibition and I hope that you will have taken notice of the fact that Mr. Ridley is going to use public money to buy no less than 70,000 trees to be planted there. Those 70,000 trees will be planted there along that four-mile stretch. The number of trees he is going to give us out of his
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munificence may give your Lordships some idea of the enormous injury that has to be covered up. The exhibition in Marsham Street was paid for by the taxpayer. The one at another venue was paid for by the poor ratepayers of West Devon, who had their money used without ever having been asked whether the council could do it.
At these two exhibitions the main exhibits were what I think are called montages. The first was a photograph of the southern route, looked at from the north, from the direction of Okehampton. There was the photograph of the existing countryside and superimposed upon it, so we were told, was a drawing of the great dual carriageway, as it will be when it is completed. But there was no sign of the dual carriageway; there was no sign of the great bridge which is going to cross the railway there and no sign of both great concrete viaducts—the one that goes over the East Okement River and the one that goes over the West. Why?—because it had all been greened out. they had put a lot of green paint there and painted them all out. That is what was done with 70,000 trees. We were presented with a picture not of a few early saplings, but of a forest in full maturity, all done by the Secretary of State for Transport.
Looking to the other side, there was another montage. This time it showed a picture of the northern route. We have been told in another context that nobody knows where the northern route is going to go. We have been told there are 13 or 14 different options; but the man who made this drawing, this montage, knew exactly where it was going. He must have been told by the Secretary of State.
So what have they done there? You saw there something quite different. You saw a long stretch of bare, bleak embankment, with a big truck running along the top, just to make sure that you knew what it was all about, and not a tree, not a bush, in sight. It would appear that the Secretary of State, when he came to commission that exhibit, had not only run out of trees but had run out of paint, too. I say that because it is the sort of exercise that you might expect from an over-eager advertising agency, but it is not the sort of thing that should be foisted off on the Members of the House of Commons and the Members of your Lordships' House.
I wonder why those two exhibits were not presented to the Select Committee. I know the answer to it. too. In the Select Committee, it would have been subject to scrutiny, it would have been subject to cross-examination and the imposture would have been exposed. That is why it was never shown. The noble Lord is laughing, but that is in keeping with another map which they had on display. That was a map which was supposed to demonstrate what a small incursion a new route would make.
You had a map of the Dartmoor national park which was a complete blank, except for the little roadway running across to the north. It disguised the fact, of which even people such as the noble Earl, Lord Iddesleigh, must be aware, that the greater part of the national park is not open country at all; it is privately owned farmland and the rest. There was no sign of that on the map. The suggestion was that the whole of the rest of this vast national park would be left available.

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It gave no sign of the fact that there is the hideous Meldon dam, which was built only some 10 years ago in the face of every kind of protest and which is one of the disasters of the area. It gave no sign of the fact that up on the northern moor, just south of Okehampton, you have the awful hutted camp of the military. It gave no sign of the fact that over large stretches of the northern moor the public are not allowed to go at all because it is being used, if you please, as a firing range by the military.
All these things we have tried to fight in the past, and every time we have had somebody coming forward with a proposal to exploit the moor we have always been met with the same sort of arguments as we have heard here tonight: "Look, this is only a small incursion. It does not matter. Compare it with the size of the rest of the park. It does not really matter." That is the argument used every time.
It is the argument used by the chief protagonist of this route, Sir Peter Mills. I cannot remember a single occasion in the last 25 years, when anybody has made a proposal to exploit the moor in one way or another, when it has not been supported by Sir Peter Mills. He regards the national park as a dustbin.
Lord O'Hagan: My Lords, is it in order for the noble Lord to attack a Member of another place who is seriously ill at the moment and not able to answer?
Lord Foot: My Lords, Sir Peter Mills is perfectly capable of looking after himself. It would be ridiculous if we could not discuss this matter without any reference to what was said in the House of Commons a week or two ago by any of the Members there. How can we have a satisfactory discussion?
Lord O'Hagan: My Lords, the honourable Member was not present in that debate, because he was then seriously ill, as he is now.
Lord Foot: My Lords, I leave that matter there.
I want now to come to the other issue and it is what I might call the legitimacy of this Bill. As I said earlier, it is perfectly true that the Government are entitled to do it according to the strict reading of the Act. But what is at issue here is not whether it is right, but whether it is in any way proper for them to carry this Bill through. A question which arises right at the outset—and it is a question of the utmost importance, because it goes to the good faith of the Government—is: when did the Secretary of State for Transport decide that he was going to strike down the decision of the Select Committee if it went against him? When did he make that decision?
The sequence of events was this. First, the two compulsory purchase orders were laid, as they must be under the Act, before the two Houses. The next step was that the petition was presented. The following step was that it was scrutinised by the two chairmen, as I have described. The next step was that the Government's agents appeared before the two chairmen to urge that we should not be allowed to refer to the national park issue in our petition or in the hearing before the joint committee. As I said, the two chairmen turned that down, without asking our representative to make any answer.
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Then the joint committee was set up and all the preparations were made for the matter to be heard.
At some stage in that process the Secretary of State must have asked himself: what am I going to do if the joint committee should find against me? He must have asked that question for the very good reason that there are important precedents and his advisers would certainly have drawn to his attention what those precedents are.
The first quotation in the letter which the noble Lord, Lord Molson, wrote to The Times the other day was this. He quoted what had been said by Mr. Rippon, who was then the responsible Minister, replying to a debate in the other place on 13th March 1962, when he said this
"If the Minister regards an Order as being so fundamental to his policy that even if it went to a Joint Committee, and even if the Joint Committee took a certain view, he would, nevertheless, do as he is entitled to do, which is to introduce a Bill under Section 6 of the Statutory Orders (Special Procedure) Act 1945, it would be quite unfair to the petitioners, or anyone else to allow the matter to go to the Joint Committee".
[Official Report, Commons; cols. 1274–5.]
That was borne out by another statement by Mr. Rippon, in which he said:
"Where a Minister regards an order as being so fundamental to his policy that, supposing it was rejected by a joint committee he would insist on making it, even though this entailed introducing a confirming Bill, in such a case it would be only fair to the petitioner to save him pointless expense".
The pertinence of my question, as to when the Secretary of State decided that he was going to kill the joint committee's decision if it was against him, is this. If he came to the decision and did not comply with what Mr. Rippon had said, and indeed later with what the Brooke Committee which reviewed this matter said, if he came to that conclusion and kept it to himself, he was guilty—was he not?—of gross misrepresentation.
When we-the petitioners raised the funds—and it took a lot of money—and went to all the trouble to prepare a petition and present it to both Houses, we were under the innocent belief that if we succeeded before the committee then our view of the matter would prevail. But if the decision had already been made that if the proceedings of the joint committee went against the Secretary of State he was going to obliterate them, not only were the petitioners deceived, but the three Members of your Lordships' House who sat for 15 days were completely deceived. All the witnesses who were called by the department assumed that they were taking part in some useful exercise. Not only were they deceived but the general public were deceived.
I wonder whether we can be told this by the Lord President of the Council. Did he know whether the Minister had made a decision or not? It does not make very much difference whether the Secretary of State just failed to make up his mind on the matter before the committee sat, because now he is trying to annul all the proceedings before the committee, and as the noble Lord, Lord Molson, said, render them nothing but a mere charade. The Government say, "Don't worry. You need not worry, this is not a precedent". I do not know what they mean by that. Do they mean that the Secretary of State for Transport is saying, "Look here, you do not have to worry about this

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decision because you are never going to get another Secretary of State to act as badly as I am acting now. There will never be another one like me"? That is something devoutly to be hoped for, but they cannot escape from the difficulty by saying whether the Secretary of State made up his mind before the hearing or afterwards. Certainly we ought to have been warned—everybody ought to have been warned—that if needs be and if the committee came to a conclusion that the Secretary of State did not like, he would strike it down.
Viscount Whitelaw: My Lords, the noble Lord has asked a question about me. I think it is perfectly clear from the account that my noble friend Lord Molson gave of my correspondence with him that I acted in totally good faith to this House and indeed to everyone else throughout. When the noble Lord, Lord Molson, approached me in the first instance, I went to my colleagues and, as he rightly said, the Motion was taken off the Order Paper. Shortly afterwards the Joint Select Committee was set up. I do not think anybody would accuse me of taking all the trouble to get noble Lords of this House to set on a joint committee if I thought it was going to be overruled if it came to a particular decision, one way or the other. Of course not. At the end of the time I think I am right in saying that the Joint Select Committee reported on 3rd April. The first time I knew there was any question of a Bill of this kind being produced was at the beginning of June. I knew it then but I should point out that that was two months after the Select Committee had reported.
Lord Foot: My Lords, I accept every word of that. Indeed I hope that I said nothing to disagree with it. I am absolutely certain that the noble Viscount the Lord President of the Council has acted in good faith throughout. I am sure of that. But if of course the Secretary of State had decided before 3rd April that he was going to strike down the committee's ruling, ought he not to have told the noble Viscount?
Viscount Whitelaw: My Lords, I have to say that if my right honourable friend in another place had made that decision, and if he had not told me and I had subsequently discovered, I should have been extremely angry. I have not subsequently so discovered.
Lord Foot: My Lords, I shall not detain the House any longer. I have gone on longer than I should have done.
Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Lord Foot: My Lords, that is the first popular applause I have had from the other side of the House.
In conclusion, I wish to say a few words about the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Underhill. I understand that the noble Lord feels about the matter very much as I do. He feels very strongly about it. But I have to say to the House that if noble Lords choose to vote for his amendment, which will not strike down the Bill but will merely express regret at what the Government are doing, that will not hinder the
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passage of the Bill. Indeed I am afraid that anybody who votes for his amendment in preference to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Molson, will be making the building of the southern bypass more certain. That is our dilemma. There is no way in which we can be compensated. The Dartmoor National Park Committee would not dream of taking a financial consideration in return for the desecration of the national park. I hope that, when we do come to a Division, Members of your Lordships' House who are of the same opinion as the joint committee will all go into the Lobby in support of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Molson.
6.48 p.m.
Earl Waldegrave: My Lords, when I arrived in the House this afternoon rather late (because taxis can never be found in wet weather) and found that I was listed to speak after the noble Lord who has just sat down I was a little nervous because I felt I should perhaps have to follow him in more senses than one. But I feel now that, the big guns having fired the heavy salvoes, I have no obligation to do that, and your Lordships would not want me to try.
I have known and frequently visited Dartmoor for the past 75 years to my certain knowledge, but it may be for even longer because I cannot remember whether I went there in my pram when I was two, three and four years old. My grandparents lived at Buckland-in-the-Moor. I have always had a passionate love of Dartmoor. When I say that I support the southern route, I should not like noble Lords to think that I am doing it as a Philistine who thinks it is a cheap route and that national parks do not matter. I do think national parks matter. I am a dedicated conservationist and I helped to start the Somerset Trust for Nature Conservation some 21 years ago when conservation was not such a popular subject as it is today. The presidency was taken over by the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, who is sitting on the Front Bench now. National parks must be protected, and especially this huge national park of Dartmoor must be protected.
I should like to make another comment. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, who is not in his place, said that the national parks were too small. I thought I would look that up and I found that the national park of Dartmoor is 365 square miles in area, which, translated into acres, is 233,600 acres. We propose to desecrate about 140 acres, and they will mostly be shielded by trees and from sight. The only other time I have dealt with Dartmoor was in another sphere when I was passionately opposed to the Swincombe reservoir. It never took place.
I am very familiar with the A.30 throughout its whole length. I imagine that everyone who has travelled the route through Okehampton knows that there must be a bypass. The only question is whether it should be north or south of the town. I say "everybody", but I was somewhat surprised by one of the duplicated and, I believe, manufactured letters included in the huge mail which we have all received on this subject. One gentleman wrote that he thought all the traffic should be diverted to the A.38 from Exeter and go around by Plymouth. He did not think that the traffic should go through the north of

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Dartmoor at all. I do not know what my noble friend Lady Vickers thinks of that suggestion, but that is what he proposed.
I am not sure that the brilliant and redoubtable Lady Sayer, in her well-timed letter in today's issue of The Times—and she is a very formidable and indefatigable organiser—does not almost imply that she would support that solution too and get the traffic well away from Dartmoor. However, I am not sure about that.
The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, had a terrible fear of precedent. However, my noble friend Lord Caithness, in a brilliant opening speech in which he covered nearly all the points which there are to be covered, gave a categorical assurance on behalf of the Secretary of State that this matter would not be treated as a precedent. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, later informed us non-lawyers that we cannot establish a precedent in that way; that it must be a matter of fact and of judgment.
I support the southern route because I believe that it would do less damage to the environment. We have not heard very much about the detail of the southern route. I have some details, but as it is so late I must cut most of them out. Nevertheless, all that I have heard in this debate so far, all that was said in. another place on 19th November (and I commend any of your Lordships who have not already done so to read the Secretary of State's speech in that debate) all that I have been able to digest from the mass lobby of papers, and from all the maps, plans, demonstrations and exhibitions we have seen—and today, as in a modern takeover bid, the subject has even overflowed into the advertisement columns, with the lobby buying space in The Times—has convinced me that the arguments for the southern route overwhelmingly prevail over the arguments against it.
Quite apart from the arguments about the southern route—and it is not really necessary for me to say this because it has already been said by my noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford, by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, and by the other heavy guns—the letter which the noble Lord, Lord Ardwick, wrote to The Times the other day is very right. It would be the most appalling blunder—to use no other word—if we in this House allowed ourselves to throw out a Bill for the first time since, I imagine, the Parliament Act. My uncle was a whip then, so I do not personally remember that occasion. However, for us to throw out for the first time in recent history a Bill that has come from the Commons—and on such a subject as this, as to where a road in Devonshire should go—is really something that we must not do. I cannot see how anybody could support the main amendment, which would wreck the Bill.
I should like to say a little more about a matter that was touched upon by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, by the noble Baroness, Lady White, and by others. It concerns the quality of the land. The quality of land down there, at the bottom of the escarpment on the south side of Okehampton, is very delightful, with some woods grown up. However, I wonder whether one normally expects to find in a national park a very big working quarry, a golf course, a railway line, and various other developments of that kind. There is now
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quite a lot of housing development down there. I wonder whether, if the boundary was being decided for the first time today, one would have included that little piece of land in the national park.
Another point that has not been mentioned is that if the southern route goes forward as planned—and it is all ready to go—it will be in that low ground and will be shielded ultimately by trees. It will hardly be seen from Okehampton town itself. It certainly will not be seen if one looks from the escarpment. That area of Dartmoor has been most terribly and distressfully spoilt already by military camps and access roads into it. I am bound to say that that little piece of Dartmoor in the national park running up from Okehampton to a point beyond the camps is by far the most unattractive part of the whole of Dartmoor.
There is some woodland at Meldon Quarry which shields the quarry to some extent. It has now been rechristened Bluebell Wood. For those of your Lordships who did not see the fascinating letter written by Lord Courtenay to the Daily Telegraph on 13th August, I must quote a part of it. He wrote that the phrase,
" 'Save a small comer of Meldon Tip' has not quite the same ring about it as 'Save Bluebell Wood', but it would be a lot more accurate".
That is exactly what that corner of the wood is; it is mostly hiding a tip.
The opposition to the southern route has been quite out of scale. It has occasioned already a delay of nearly 20 years, at huge expense. That delay has been a grave disservice to all concerned, both nationally and locally. There is no northern route mapped out, designed and agreed. The question before us tonight is not of choosing the north route or the south route, both of them being prepared and ready to go. Any northern route would be fiercely opposed, and it is inconceivable that the opposers would not be able to cause long delays, perhaps for another 10 or 20 years. We cannot be a party to encouraging such delay.
The southern route was the route preferred by the original public inquiry which, if I may be allowed to correct the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, sat for 96 days and not for 93, as I think he said. It is also the route preferred by the local majority, by the Cornwall and Devon County Councils, and by practically all the parish and district councils. It will not seriously damage the environment, as it runs in cuttings for such a lot of the way, and it will not desecrate the national park. It is the commonsense route, the shortest route, the cheapest route, and the best engineering-wise technical route. This is the main point: it is ready to start. It only awaits your Lordships' vote in favour of this Bill tonight. The starting pistol is already cocked. Let us pull the trigger and start the race to complete this in less than three years.
7 p.m.
Lord Stallard: My Lords, in the normal course of events I would not dare to intervene in a debate of this kind. Certainly I would not dare to follow the noble Earl who has just spoken, particularly his last sentiments: more particularly, after listening to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, who always appears to me to be right and authoritative even when I think he is perhaps wrong.

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So, just as I was wondering what words I might be able to use, with all due deference, to try to correct the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, along came the noble Lord, Lord Foot—thank God!—and did the job far better than I could probably have done. When 1 say he did the job, I mean that he corrected the impressions of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, about the scope and terms of reference of the joint committee. That is the only reason that I intervene. For my sins, and for whatever reason, I was a member of the Joint Committee of your Lordships' House. I am grateful for the opportunity given to me by your Lordships to have that experience.
I can vouch for the facts outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Foot, I will not repeat them all. The joint committee did take very seriously the terms of reference. It went into them quite deeply. We ascertained exactly what had happened at the meeting where the promoters memorialized before the Chairman of Ways and Means and the Chairman of Committees of this House. We knew exactly what had happened and the minutes are available if any noble Lord wishes to familiarise himself with them. Therefore, we knew that our terms of reference applied to the whole order and not just a specific part.
I am also grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, who opened the debate. He was very fair on this point; that they did memorialize against it, that the chairmen did find against him and said that the petition was in order to go forward, as a general objection, to the joint committee. That means, and I think everyone will accept, that we cannot just discuss a part of the order in isolation when the whole order, plus the petition and the petitioners' case, had been presented to the joint committee.
Before we started we were advised and took advice from whatever learned experience was available to the committee. Certainly I was assured that any assertion that the joint committee had misdirected itself could be firmly rejected. That has to be said and cannot be said often enough. It seems that the case being put forward by many spokesmen from the Government Benches rests on how much they can denigrate that joint committee and the procedures of the House; how much mud they can throw at the recommendations or deliberations of that committee, to the extent of saying that it did not hear the case against and did not listen to witnesses.
Forgive me, my Lords, but I was there. I did not see many noble Lords in the public gallery. I certainly saw one or two, but not many, and not many of those who have spoken tonight. Yet they say with all authority that the committee did not listen to witnesses. I am bound to say that it did. We on the committee heard counsel and his assistant, and his advisers from the Department of Transport. We also heard the leader of the local council and other landscape experts, and people who were against the northern route and speaking in favour of the preferred route. We heard all those witnesses as well as witnesses from the other side. It is therefore a travesty of the facts and to be deplored that a committee set up by both Houses can be denigrated in the fashion that has been done so far.
I hope I have said enough to convince noble Lords who do not accept it yet that the joint committee was within its rights and its terms of reference, and
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certainly within the confidence placed in it by both Houses, to go into the matters with which it dealt The matters that were dealt with have been covered by other noble Lords and I shall spend a wee bit of time on some other aspects.
Like other noble Lords, I received many letters about the Okehampton bypass. The noble Earl who spoke before me mentioned his bundle of mail. He can imagine that I had just as much, if not more, because people knew that I was a member of the joint committee. Other committee members will endorse that. I am also aware of the press cuttings and letters that poured in, for whatever reason, from either side. I know too of the expensive exercise mounted by the department and so graphically illustrated and demonstrated by the noble Lord, Lord Foot. I know of all those things, but in spite of that and in spite of the threat of even more and inordinate delays if the Bill is not passed tonight, there have been only slender majorities produced by the local authorities. Even after all that, the majorities have been slender—I think it was 38–34 on the main local authority.
I suggest, from reading all these letters from outside, that what many people are supporting now—and I wholeheartedly agree with them—is the compelling need for a bypass; the need for a road. Whether it goes south, north, east, west, through the middle, the back or the front, I do not think bothers many people. They want a road, and I agree with that. I would agree far more if they were honest enough to say that is the case rather than go through all the devious methods which are being used to try to justify the southern route. I can sympathise with them in the difficulties that have been experienced over all these years, and the possibility of further difficulties if there is to be more delay.
Another attempt to denigrate the joint committee has been to almost blame it for the delay, or the delay that might ensue. That is to ignore the fact, as has already been pointed out by some noble Lords, that there was a northern route, or a line on the development map in the county development plan, in 1963. My noble friend Lord Underhill mentioned it. People may say that that was only a line on the map put on with a pencil. That was said at a public meeting I attended recently. Again, that is to denigrate the whole serious procedure that took place. I was present at some of the development planning meetings—not at Okehampton, but in other parts of the country. They, too, were very serious meetings. People did not just draw lines on maps. A great deal of serious consideration was given to where those lines were drawn and why they were drawn. It was known that land and property would have to acquired, or whatever, in advance of development because of the line that was drawn on the development plan. It was not a wasted exercise, as some Government supporters have tried to propose.
That line was on the map with no objections and no protests from anyone. It was there for about 10 years. It was only then, after some time, that it was discovered that the railway line that runs through the park might be closed and someone suggested to the department that there was an ideal solution—it was to use the railway line. That was perfectly reasonable and was something to consider. They could have asked: why not develop that as part of the route? So the Land

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Commission, and others, started working on that route. They accepted that as the southern route, provided—and your Lordships can check this in the Landscape Commission's reports—that proposals were based on the possible closure of the railway.
Some years elapsed and the railway was not closed; but they had gone so far down the line, as it were, in developing the southern route and arguing for the southern route and arguing against the development of the planned route, and so on, that they could not go back and have been stuck with it ever since. That is the situation. Therefore, we are in this position because the route was moved from the north. The real people who are therefore guilty of causing the delay are those who have been advocating the southern route in spite of all the changes and changed circumstances which have taken place since. I shall mention a few in a moment. The people who have been advocating the southern route in spite of the changes and in spite of everything else are more guilty of causing the delay than anyone who has come after.
The inquiry inspector has been quoted at length in support of the Government's chosen route. If we look at page 530, paragraph 2778, we find that he said that the inquiry revealed "a substantial body of opinon" in favour of the published route and "a substantial body of opinion"—the same words—opposed to the published route. There was not an overwhelming public demand for the southern route.
I come to the confirming Bill that is before us tonight. If we pass it that will have the effect of restoring the Secretary of State's wish and desire for the southern route. As has been pointed out, that would wipe out the decision of the joint committee, which sat for all those days, studied the maps and photographs, listened to counsel and witnesses for the promoters and for the petitioners, visited the site and tramped the route. I do not know how many noble Lords have done that, but the committee members did. The procedure must have cost thousands and thousands of pounds. Now that the matter has developed in this way, I ask myself, as indeed many other people must be asking themselves: if the Secretary of State was so determined to get his way, even to the extent of rejecting the results of the joint committee's detailed deliberations, why bother to go to the trouble of setting it up?
There are ample procedural grounds for not having done so. He could have used the 1945 Act. He could have put it to the House at that stage that the matter should not be sent to the joint committee. But he did not. When did he say—as the noble Lord, Lord Foot, was at pains to findout—"Whatever happens on that joint committee, I shall get my way. I and my department are determined on the southern route. We have been geared for it, and all the work has been done for it. Whatever the committee says, I shall go for the southern route"? When did that decision take place? There is no means of finding out, and it is nearly 12 months since the joint committee made the recommendation. There has been another 12 months' delay, which is certainly not the fault of the joint committee. It is, again, the fault of the department. It has taken all that time since the joint committee reported even to start to have the matter discussed here. Who is causing delays unnecessarily? I suspect
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that the Secretary of State's decision was made long ago.
Like most noble Lords I have done my research. I am grateful to noble Lords, learned advisers and clerks for their assistance.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I merely ask the noble Lord to look in Hansard at what my noble friend the Leader of the House clearly said about the time of the decision earlier this evening, so that he does not put himself in an awkward position.
Lord Stallard: My Lords, I was there and I listened to the noble Viscount the Leader of the House, but I did not think that he replied to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Foot, and I certainly did not get the reply that I was seeking about when the decision was taken. It was a simple question, but there was no answer. It was certainly not an attack on the noble Viscount. On the contrary, I feel sorry for him if, like me, he is wondering whether he has been conned, led up the garden path, and did not know all that much.
As I said, I have done a little research. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Molson, who is an accredited and recognised expert, because he went back at least 100 years further than I did. I did not go beyond 1945, but the noble Lord was able to take us to 1845 to strengthen his case.
But I found out that there had been 43 joint committees set up to consider a total of 46 orders since 1945: 20 orders were approved, 21 were amended and five, including these two, were not approved. On the three previous occasions when the orders were not approved no confirming Bill was introduced. The only precedent for overturning a joint committee's findings on an order by way of a confirming Bill is the one which has been mentioned already—the Mid-Northamptonshire Water Board Order Bill in 1949.
In that case a joint committee considered the order and amended it in a number of respects. Most of the amendments were accepted by the Minister but two were thought to be unacceptable, and so two amendments were overturned by that confirming Bill and not the whole order, as is the case here. It is not accurate to say that that is an exact precedent. There is no precedent for a confirming Bill to reverse a decision of a joint committee and not to approve an order. I could find no precedent since 1945. The only one that I found was the one which I mentioned and which tried to reverse two amendments, which is a different thing; and so we are not comparing like with like.
I think that the House should ponder on the possible procedural consequences before we go down the road of throwing out the joint committee report. There are advantages in the joint committee procedure. It expedites proceedings on orders in both Houses; and the committee can consider in detail complicated arguments involving large amounts of evidence, maps and models. It would be impossible to conduct that process in the House normally. That is the benefit of the joint committee. To override that process—in this case after 15 days (96 hours) and all the other matters that I have mentioned—goes against the whole spirit of the joint committee procedure. Are we now to expect any Government to override the findings of a joint

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committee wherever its views about the application of public policy to particular circumstances are inconvenient for that Government? If so, to say the least it will prove difficult to find anyone willing to serve on a joint committee. I can assure your Lordships that it will be no easy task. People will rightly consider that it is a pointless exercise if, after so much deliberation, decisions can be overturned as simply as that.
I turn again to the alleged precedent of the Mid-Northamptonshire Water Board Order Bill. Similar views were expressed in 1949. I shall not weary your Lordships with too many quotations, but some are relevant. On 19th May 1949 (at col. 837) the then Lord Belstead said:
"It seems very unfortunate that the Minister has acted in this way. All your Lordships will be aware, or at any rate will be easily reminded, that the Committees which sit upstairs are not easy to man. The Clerks and the Party Whips of both Parties are well aware of this. It is rather difficult to obtain the continuous attendance which is necessary. The Committee on this Bill took six days of very careful consideration".
The noble Lord outlined how many questions, and so on. He continued:
"It seems rather a pity, and not very encouraging to those who serve on these Committees, that, at the will of the Minister, however honestly applied and intended, it should be possible to reverse the decision of a Committee who have had every conceivable detail laid before them, cross-examined, re-examined and dealt with almost, I was going to say. ad nauseam".
The noble Lord was followed by the Marquess of Reading (at col. 838) who said:
"Of course, the House itself is always in the position of the overriding authority. When a Committee of the House report to the House they willingly accept the House's decision as to whether what they have decided is right or wrong. That is a very different situation, however, from having to accept an arbitrary decision of the Minister after a Committee of your Lordships' House have given close and detailed attention to an intricate matter. It is very much to be hoped that, if it is in accordance with the new procedure, it will not be a course frequently adopted by any Government Department".
I could go on. The then Lord Gifford followed and he said that to overturn such decisions was a grave issue. He said:
"They feel that if. after hearing fully the Petitions and evidence put forward, an arbitrary reversal is to take place on the instructions of the Minister, the considerable expense which they incur in putting forward their cases before these Committees is wasted".
And so on. Lord De La Warr made similar points. This appears in the Lords Hansard of 19th May 1949 for any noble Lord who would like to check. They are saying (are they not?) similar things to what we are saying now. It was because of what they said that the other place and this House arrived at the situation quoted by the noble Lords, Lord Molson and Lord Foot, when Mr. Geoffrey Rippon in the other place articulated what he considered should be the procedure. Later on, we had the 1965 review which virtually underwrote the opinion of Mr. Geoffrey Rippon when he was Minister. It was finally underwritten by the Brooke Committee in 1972, not all that long ago. After discussion, they said that:
"where a Minister regards an order as being so fundamental to his policy that, supposing it were rejected by a joint committee, he would insist on making it, even though this entailed introducing a confirming Bill under section 6 of the Act. In such a case it would be only fair to the petitioner to save him pointless expense".
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Everyone who has studied the matter comes to the same conclusion. If this is what the Minister intended in the first place, why bother with the joint committee procedure? If, having bothered with the joint committee procedure, he goes ahead with it and does what the Bill seems to intend to do, there are many grave repercussions for this House, certainly in the view of us who value the institution and the procedures laid down from time to time. I have spent rather long on this aspect. I thought it was necessary for me, as a member of the joint committee, to set out matters as I see them.
I should like now to mention one or two detailed points that have not previously been mentioned. I may be on my own in saying that there is one matter that disturbs me. I wish to mention the deed of gift of a Mrs. Ryan in connection with Bluebell Wood. I am sorry that the noble Lord the Minister lays his hands down in despair. A deed of gift has always been a serious matter to me. I was brought up to believe that such deeds were sacred documents that should not be pushed to one side by anyone. In that deed of gift and dedication—I have a copy—Mrs. Ryan, to commemorate the death of her daughter in 1954, gave in 1965 some 50 acres of land to the Okehampton Hamlets Parish Council as trustees for the benefit of the public at large. The words of the deed are that
"the property is to be preserved in its existing state; that no timber or timber-like trees standing upon the property in 1965 shall be felled (except if they are dangerous) and the present character of the woods is to be maintained as far as possible; and that no part of the property (other than the road) shall be used otherwise than as an open space preserved for the recreation and enjoyment at all times by the public and for the benefit of the public without charge for entry thereon".
I would have thought that this House would regard that as a fairly sacred document, not to be lightly tinkered with. I agree with the sentiments of one correspondent who said to me:
"If this violation of trust is permitted through the passage of the Government's confirming Bill, it would be as offensive as it is morally indefensible".
I would hope that there might be some noble Lords who accept that view. I have mentioned the Land Commission. Anyone who has studied the Land Commission's reports will see that I have reported them accurately. They dealt with the route of the railway up to 1974–75 when it was found to be too late to make changes. When on the joint committee I asked about six visits which were made between 1969 and 1975. At no time and certainly on none of those visits or in the reports was there mention of the Sandford report or Circular 4/76. Nor were they in any position to discuss the updated route, Route M. I asked whether it would not have been advisable for the Secretary of State to request them to make a seventh visit to discuss the whole matter again in line with new developments—the new route, the new policy on parks, Sandford and Circular 4/76. I still believe that their views would have been more relevant had they been able to make the seventh visit.
I have already dealt with the question of delay. I do not wish to go further except to say that we do not accept any responsibility for the delay so far as the joint committee is concerned. On the contrary, we went out of our way to say that any further delay could be avoided given goodwill, commitment and co-

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operation. I still believe that this is true and that this could happen. I wish to refer finally to the question of balance. This has been mentioned by noble Lords, Members of another place and by the Secretary of State and Ministers who say that they took balance into account. However, it depends where you start. I became convinced, after listening to all the witnesses and the evidence, that the only place to start was with the national parks policy and Circular 4/76. If there was to be balance, it had to be a balance set against the deliberate policy outlined by the Government and underwritten by Secretaries of State for many years. That was the place to start—not at the other end with the southern route and then to try to justify everything that had gone before.
So the balance did not get off to the correct start. It might be difficult for some noble Lords to understand this. It is not difficult for others who understand policy on the national parks. It must always be to the advantage of the route through the park that it is the shortest, and perhaps cheaper and quicker. So we have an imbalance. But that was not the object of the exercise. We were concerned to see whether the order was justified and to consider whether there was a compelling need for a bypass that could not be met by another reasonable route. The joint committee came to the conclusion that the northern route as discussed in the committee was an alternative reasonable route. I shall be supporting the noble Lord, Lord Molson, in the Lobby tonight. If he needs a Teller, I shall be only too happy to volunteer.
7.27 p.m.
Lord Clifford of Chudleigh: My Lords, in declaring my interest, I have to say that I am a "has been". In other words, I have not been in Devon for the last two years. So that has to be borne in mind. However, like the noble Earl, Lord Waldegrave, although not for as long. I have to say that since the age of 11 in 1927 I have walked over Dartmoor, I have shot over Dartmoor, I have fished over Dartmoor and I have exercised over Dartmoor, Inter alia my daughter and her husband live slap in the outback, so to speak,
"on a track never crossed 'cept by those that be lost, one Michael Magee, had a shanty".
For several years before I left I was president of the Devonshire Association of Parish Councils. I am, of course, a member of the NFU. I am a past president of the Devon County Agricultural Association. I was a national vice-president of the Rural District Councils Association before it was abolished. All those were nothing compared with the years I spent as vice-chairman, chairman and president of the Devon branch of the Country Landowners' Association. There are two of my successors here tonight—the noble Earl, Lord Iddesleigh, who spoke earlier, and the noble Lord, Lord Clinton, who will follow me now.
In those days we had a continual battle to try to protect the countryside. I quote from a speech I made in the debate of the noble Lord, Lord Molson, in, he tells me, 1967 when I said:
"Devon has been plagued by an organisation which opposes even the planting of a tree on what my old maps called a forest".
The noble Lord, Lord Foot, will know to which organisation I am referring.
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But the point I am trying to make is this. We had our big troubles then about reservoirs and where they were to go. Whenever it was suggested that it would be anywhere near the Moor this organisation chose 20 other nice places which were not on the Moor. As the then chairman of the sub-committee which was looking into all these things I had to go around—I am sure that they did not look at them all—and we saw that they were doing what they could to hold things up. They were stopping anything going on the Moor. But the lesson here is that if we had not been held up on, for example, those reservoirs, there would not have been the drought the year before last and the other one three years before. We are of course by now due for another one. If one applies that kind of situation to what they are doing now the unfortunate inhabitants of Okehampton and the people whose business depends on it to the west, south and north will have to go on suffering.
I am for the southern route. It is quicker to complete. It upsets nobody's livelihood, such as the farms on the northern side. It is unobtrusive to the view, whereas, no matter where one puts the northern route, unless one goes miles to the north, it will stand out like the wart on Cromwell's nose. The southern route is the obvious one. It is not on Dartmoor itself. When they made the national park they followed the parish boundaries; but the parish boundaries are not the Moor proper. Just north is the southernmost sign which says that one is in the national park. That is not on Dartmoor, as we understand it. The same thing applies to the southern route there. There is just a little bit at the south which is within the parish boundaries I presume.
I should like to be able to give one word of encouragement to the unfortunate people in Okehampton. Chudleigh, where I came from, was on the main Plymouth-Exeter road. After the development of containers and what-have-you at Plymouth, the traffic was very bad. The area was being built up, the dormer windows in the narrow main street were being knocked out. One could not go shopping there, one could not take one's children to school, We eventually got the bypass and now Chudleigh is again a little country village. People can meet together. One can cross the road without being knocked down. One does not have to take one's child to school every day. Instead of going off elsewhere to shop—because it was so impossible in Chudleigh—people from outside the village are now going back there.
I hope therefore that your Lordships will follow the advice given by the noble Earl, Lord Waldegrave, and vote this through today so that the unfortunate people can have some glimmer of hope. Otherwise they will play this game that they have played about reservoirs—they will keep putting off the road for ever and a day.
The chairman of the Devon conservation forum comes from Chudleigh. I met him on Sunday and was pleased to hear that he is for the southern route. His description of the arguments for the northern route were that they were specious, illogical and inaccurate. I think that the same thing applies to those grey, faceless people who put that long advertisement in The Times today. It must have cost them a mint.

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Apart from the opening speakers, I get the impression, on listening to the debate so far this evening, that other speakers do not care about people. I hope that your Lordships care about people and vote for the southern route.
7.38 p.m.
Lord Clinton: My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh. Many years ago there was a debate on the economics of the West Country. The Okehampton bypass plays a very important part in our life in the West Country. It is just a year ago that I last spoke in your Lordships' House on this matter and I still hold the same view as I did then—much more strongly now.
As we know, the matter has been before us for a very long time. In this recent year the arguments over the northern or southern route have become even more polarised. As I see it, the time has come for a decision. This is something about which I think we all agree and is the reason for our being here this evening. I should like to make one or two points of view known, especially as I live so close to Okehampton, relatively speaking, and to other Members of your Lordships' House—in fact, 13 miles away. Thirteen seems to me to be my lucky number. I also discover that I am the 13th speaker, and we are only one-third of the way through this evening's programme.
In another place the West Country was well represented in a debate in which the Members represented their constituencies. It was very sad on that occasion that the Member for West Devon, Sir Peter Mills, was unable to attend due to ill health. The work he has put into this debate and the representations he has made on behalf of his constituents, of whom I am one, since he has been a Member have been very valuable indeed. He has been a Member for this constituency since 1964.
The debate in the other place—to which I listened most of the time—confirmed my support for the southern route which was ably put by nearly all the West Country Members of Parliament and supports what I see on the ground. I am particularly pleased that all but one of the West Country Members of your Lordships' House are in favour of the southern route, which I believe to be best. Surely local opinion and support should be considered very carefully on making such a decision as we shall do this evening. Many of your Lordships have seen the Ministry of Transport exhibition of the proposed southern route, which to me, in spite of one or two remarks about it, highlights more than ever how much better this route will fit into the countryside on the edge of Dartmoor beside the town of Okehampton. Because of its design it seems to me to reinforce beyond all reasonable doubt in landscape terms that there is only one way the road can go.
When one starts to look at the countryside north of Okehampton, which I know, I cannot see any way that the road can go north. This has been said time and time again, but it has to be repeated. Surely we should be looking to the beauty of the countryside in its overall aspects and not in isolation because the road happens to clip the edge of the national park of Dartmoor. I would be ashamed to be in sight of it if the
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north road was built. The road will be breaking into high quality amenity land, especially when viewed from Dartmoor.
Agriculture is part of the land of Devon as much as Dartmoor and needs just as much consideration, especially in this part of Devon which I happen to know. The argument that, because we do not need to produce so much, land of this type can be taken out of agriculture, to me is wrong. Surely the loss to these farmers means that their income will be reduced even further and that their farms will become uneconomic. As your Lordships know, farm income has been falling in real terms since 1973. Those who live on any of the so-called northern routes will lose their livelihood, as the road is much more likely to cut through the middle of their properties, increasing the severance problems. When you compare this with the southern route you find that the proposed route tends to clip the edges of farms and not go through the middle. It is very important in the case of the Coombes who live at Barton Barn and various other families, including the Woolidges at Oaklands and the Squires at Pudson, that these units become and stay viable. People really do count. The time taken to decide on a northern route will make their lives unbearable and the cost to them will be considerable. Let us not also forget the investment that they have made and also the Government grants which the nation has invested in them. This should not be lost sight of if the road should happen to go that way in years to come.
Surely farms and agricultural land are part of the environment, and we in the West Country have a good and excellent record of looking after it. One cannot take the attitude that it does not matter when a road is driven through it because it is only agricultural land. Let us also remember that most of these economic farms to the north have been farmed by families for generations, and that we shall be taking away employment and causing more years of uncertainty for them, which is very unfair.
I should like to turn to the question of the boundaries of the national parks. I know that this comment has already been made, but I think it should be repeated. Your Lordships will remember that in 1951 the boundaries of the national park were made with reference to parish boundaries and convenient roads. I know that this is well known, but it was an administration choice rather than an assessment of ecological and environmental values of land immediately within the boundary. At the moment the park boundaries are under review and I believe that extensive areas will be put forward for inclusion in or exclusion from the national park. Surely with a little foresight these boundaries can become more fluid and it should be possible for the park to be retained in size, if not even increased. This safeguard and consultation surely should reduce considerably the worry of the lovers of the national parks. The concepts, values and rules which were set up in 1951 have changed very considerably, from time to time, involving their shape, size and nature.
This completely does away with the argument that the southern route is curtailing the national park. We may find the national park will be extended. I do not believe that this part of the national park is as important as is being made out. It contains a quarry,

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golf course and a railway line, and because of its closeness to Okehampton one could easily be in the middle of or close to one of our bigger cities.
One further point is that as it is on the northern face of Dartmoor and cutting into the contour, it will find itself in the shade most of the daytime, which should reduce its visibility from afar and make it fit more readily into the countryside. I do not want to keep your Lordships too long, but a point has been made about access to the park from Okehampton. As far as I know, this will not change, because the railway line always acts as a boundary. If the new road is built, the road to the battle camp will stay.
People tend to drive out from Okehampton up as far as possible on the loop road, stop at the top and look back north. I think that if the road is built to the north, it would be extremely visible from there. Whether or not trees are planted, I do not think that it would be a very good environmental design.
It has been said that, in opposing the northern route, the CLA and NFU are looking after their privileged members. I believe that that is their job, and with their local knowledge surely that is right. Recently, as chairman of the local branch of the CLA, I got to know all the work which our local secretary, Major Thres, did. The CLA, through his good offices and the work he did, was able to achieve two important milestones during the course of setting up a working party and the public inquiry, and was able to put forward proposals to modify the construction costs. It also made recommendations for the benefit of the environment generally, taking some of the route out of the national park.
The CLA recommendations were not just of advantage to farmers but were also of advantage to the taxpayer, the visitor to the national park, and to the inhabitants of Okehampton. These modifications were largely made for non-agricultural reasons and it is wrong to suggest that agricultural interests disregard environmetal reasons. I hope that these two modifications will be remembered as part of what the CLA can do; they have certainly improved the way in which the southern route has been designed. More recently, our ability to be able to find extra open space, which has been touched on several times, shows how much trouble and care the local people have taken in this matter. As someone who has lived most of his life in north Devon and who has, I hope, a little local knowledge of how we live and work and what we want in that part of the world, may I ask noble Lords to support the choice for the southern route for the Okehampton bypass.
We love Dartmoor. The road will not debase it. It is part of our great county which has produced such great names as Raleigh and Drake. Please accept our considered judgment in these matters and do a service to Devon, Cornwall and the south-west. I believe that we are not spoiling the moor or the national park. Let the Department of Transport and the Government get on with the job and build the road as soon as possible on the southern route.
7.48 p.m.
The Earl of Winchilsea and Nottingham: My Lords, quite apart from any constitutional matters or any
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procedural irregularities in pressing for a southern route, apparently over large numbers of dead bodies, there are many practical reasons why a northern route is preferable, although if you listened to the endless and often misleading propaganda put out by the Department of Transport to the contrary you could be forgiven for wondering whether an alternative even existed.
For instance, you have been told that a northern route is environmentally much more damaging than a southern route. That is untrue. With the possible exception of a short stretch of road next to the East Okement River, the land to the north bears no comparision with the beauty of the land to the south, and the inspector said so in his report.
You may have been told that the farmland to the north is much too valuable to lose to a mere bypass. That may or may not be true, but the fact remains that farmland is given up to roads nearly every day, and this particular farmland is of second- and third-grade quality. Moreover, farmland values, particularly in the West Country, have dropped quite considerably since the introduction of milk quotas. Practically the whole length of the A. 30 goes through farmland, from the westernmost intersection it makes with the M.3 to its termination at Penzance. Indeed, it is often referred to as England's longest country lane.
You may be told that the people of Okehampton are overwhelmingly in favour of a southern route. This also is not true. At the last count, as the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, has already said, 55 per cent. favoured a southern route and 45 per cent. favoured the northern option. The voting majority was a mere 104. What is true is that the majority of residents simply want a bypass quickly. They have been highly influenced by what the Secretary of State has said concerning the delay factor. This is a crucial part of the argument, and, once again, the Department of Transport has been deliberately misleading, to curry favour for the speedy adoption of the southern route.
Noble Lords may remember that after all the fuss about the extension to the M.40 in Oxfordshire had died down and a new revised route was announced, the delay factor, which up until then had been assessed by the Department of Transport to be at least four to five years was quickly revised down to two years. All experts agree that, given the goodwill, the delay in building a northern bypass need not be more than two to three years. Mr. Brian Parker, who has been mentioned several times today by various noble Lords and who is a highly qualified independent road engineer, has advised that a northern route could be in operation within five years, and this includes time for consultative procedures to take place.
There is a flourishing, expanding industrial estate in Okehampton to the north of the town. Over 660 people are employed there. It is reached by a narrow, one-way residential street leading off the present A. 30, which is the High Street. It is left by another narrow, one-way residential street which leads back on to the A.30 in the middle of the town.
The noble Lord the Minister, in his opening remarks, said that he would hate to see an additional delay in constructing a bypass for Okehampton. At last mothers would be able to cross the High Street

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with a pushchair in safety, as was the case in the old days. I am afraid that this is wishful thinking on the noble Lord's part, because it is a fact that over 250 lorries a day use these narrow streets on their way to and from the industrial estate. In addition, over 2,500 cars a day use the same two narrow streets on their way to and from the estate.
All these vehicles have to go through the middle of Okehampton. If a southern route is adopted this heavy traffic will still have to go through the middle of the town to get to the bypass. I think that that is rather dotty. Why build a bypass that does not, if your Lordships follow me? Of course, once safely on the bypass, having ploughed and smoked their way through all the local town traffic to get to it, they will join all the thousands of other vehicles all ploughing and smoking their way through the national park.
Consultative engineers have offered to design an appropriate intersection to connect the industrial estate to the northern route, but as a part of its propaganda campaign the Department of Transport has failed to mention this. So far as I am aware six houses would have to be demolished, two viaducts constructed and one bridge built to accommodate the southern route. The northern route would require one viaduct, albeit a rather tall one, over the East Okement River near Aggetts Quarry. No houses would be affected.
Aggetts Quarry itself is hideous, is practically worked out and employs 10 men, all of whom have been offered jobs by Meldon Quarry in the national park. On the other hand, Meldon Quarry is by no means worked out and may well wish to expand in the future, but would or could be unable to do so if a road is built next to it. The northern route I refer to and recommend is the red route on the public consultation plan, and accepted by the joint committee.
The argument that a new road to the north would be seen by visitors to the national park when looking over Okehampton is to my mind ludicrous. Visitors to the national park will want to look at it, not at an ordinary sort of small town with its fair share of ugly landmarks such as the disused railway station, the industrial estate and the gasworks. No, my Lords, it is the residents of Okehampton we must be concerned about. It is their view that will be ruined if a concrete jungle is constructed to the south, destroying as it goes forest walks, ancient pathways, over 1,000 mature hardwood trees and wildlife habitats, and most importantly of all breaching the trust that designated Meldon Wood a secure open space in perpetuity.
It is proposed to extend the improvements to the A. 30 westwards to join up with the Launceston bypass. Fine, but the A. 30 enters and leaves Okehampton to the north of the national park, so why build to the south? Several northern Devon and Cornish towns would be far better served by a northern route, as would the town of Okehampton itself.
Another factor which I doubt has been seriously considered by the Department of Transport is that the weather conditions on the moor itself are often very severe not only from snow, which tends to drift badly, but also from mist and fog, which anyone who knows the area will tell you often clings to the side of the moor which would be traversed by a southern route, while
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the town, lower down, remains barely affected. This has already been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, when he quoted from a letter sent by a lorry driver who has had great experience of this route.
The argument much put about by those in favour of a southern route that it could be constructed much more quickly than a northern alternative, thereby speeding up traffic on its way to Cornwall, is again a bit dotty. The A. 30 contains 14 bottlenecks between the M.3 and Exeter. I know, as I live very near it as it passes through Somerset and Dorset. I was forced to use it for many years before its alternative, the A.303, was vastly improved. It is a diabolical road, and no one in their right mind would dream of using it if they wanted to get to the West Country quickly. It is a nightmare.
Surely they would be much better advised to take the M.4, the M.5 and then the much improved A. 38. For people wanting to travel west, but who live further south, it would be sensible to take the A.303, the M.5 and the A.38. If you are taking a lazy, meandering sort of a holiday, fine, take the A.30, but if you are in a hurry do not consider it.
We all accept that Okehampton needs a bypass, but not one that will ruin a much loved, much used and much prized local and national amenity, and one which will violate the principle of road development of national parks. This is too high a price to pay for expediency, and it sets dangerous precedents. I urge your Lordships to vote for the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Molson.
7.57 p.m.
Baroness Vickers: My Lords, I am glad to have the opportunity of saying a few words in this debate because I spent over 20 years near Okehampton and visited it a great deal. I should also like to say how pleased I am to see the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, here because he has been away for some considerable time and we missed him very much.
I was simply horrified by what the noble Earl, Lord Waldegrave, said when he suggested that the traffic might go round through Plymouth. When one thinks that 17,000 motorists pass through Okehampton on a Saturday and 30,000 vehicles are expected to go through it in the next century, I hope he will not consider that plan again.
I should also like to say a word to the noble Lord, Lord Foot, because on many occasions we have not agreed, but on the other hand he has been kind to me in helping me with some legal problems, especially when we were both fighting for one special road in Plymouth.
I am not qualified to go into all the details which have been gone into by other people, but I should like to think about the future of the people of Cornwall. This bypass is really for the Cornish people. We want to see that they have better prosperity in the future and we want those who go on holidays to find it both interesting and easy to get to. One of the difficulties at the moment is long hours of travelling which causes extra accidents because people are fatigued by the time they reach Okehampton and they become impetuous, and so on. Therefore, they need an easier way to get there.

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In asking your Lordships to pass this Bill today I believe that the main thing is to think of the prosperity of Cornwall in the future. It is especially essential to take action quickly because Cornwall is going through a difficult time. They may have to close some tin mines, or even shut down the lot, which will mean that they will need new industries.
Devon and Cornwall, as probably noble Lords will know, have not always agreed on projects in the past. The county council and the borough of West Devon, however, are fully in agreement on this occasion and they both desire the southern route. I am all for preservation of public land, but in this case it would appear that the CLA recently found, as I think has been mentioned once or twice before, 22 acres which can be transferred, we hope, to the Department of Transport. I think in all there are about 37·5 acres available to make up for the land that may be taken.
Every year when the weather is not good the local people have to have rationed water. As is well known to some noble Lords, I presented a Private Member's Bill which I got through the House of Commons by 120 to 23 votes. It then went to the committee and, much to my regret and probably to some people's joy, it was turned down on the grounds that they did not see it was practicable from the point of view of what had been proposed in the Bill. On this occasion we have enormous support locally. We have also had ecology people there and every other type of person interested in birds and so on. There is no road going round this reservoir-to-be, and it was turned down. Now every other year or even more often the water has to be rationed and I have lots of letters asking why I did not press it further. However, I could not because of the way it was turned down by the committee.
The local support consists of five local Members of Parliament, and the Cornish and Devon Members of Parliament together make 16. There are only two against. This is also supported by the West Devon and Cornish District Councils, by Okehampton Town Council and many other parish councils, by the trade unions, the National Farmers Union, the CLA and the Cornish branch of the Council for the Preservation of Rural England. I could go on to mention many other organisations; it reminds me of the song about Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all. To my knowledge this is one of the first times that all these people have got together.
This small town, 250 miles from here, is in need of further employment. Employment in the County of Cornwall varies from 26·7 to 14 per cent. in Launceston. Launceston is lower because people go to Plymouth to work in the dockyards, but as the dockyard workforce is to be cut by at least 2,000, life will be difficult for them.
The lowest average wage of any county in Britain is in Cornwall. Therefore it needs good roads and easy access, especially for raw materials and vegetables carried on the roads. Everyone is worried about unemployment. In the newspaper the other day I read that a French Minister was being questioned about how he dealt with getting planning powers through. His answer in relation to the roads was:
"If you want to clear the swamp—you do not consult the frogs".
We do a great deal of consulting in this country and we get rather bogged down.
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I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Vinson, is to speak later. He is the chairman of the Devon Development Commission. Speaking of the need for the Okehampton bypass he has said that up to 5,000 people could be taken off the dole in Cornwall. I hope that when he speaks he will be able to say whether he was correctly reported.
I should like to finish by quoting Lord Courtenay. He is a member of the council of the Devon Trust for Nature Conservation, and he stated:
"Any northern route on the other hand inevitably crosses high ground to the north of Okehampton involving a viaduct and cuttings. It is. of course, much longer involving more land as well as more cost and…will cause a great scar across a very beautiful part of Devon countryside which will be visible from miles around and not least from many parts of the Dartmoor National Park".
I hope that we shall consider today not just all the legal position and the wishes of our own hearts, but think of the people in the county of Devon and also, particuarly, those in the county of Cornwall who need help in the very near future.
8.6 p.m.
Lord Mulley: My Lords, I am extremely glad to follow the noble Baroness because I agree that this is really an issue for the people of Cornwall and Devon which is of absolutely vital economic importance. I hope that it will not be thought that if those of us in favour of the Bill make much shorter speeches than those who are against it it will not be thought that we are any less convinced of the merits of the case that we support. Therefore I hope it will be acceptable if at this hour I make one or two short points without attempting fully to argue them as I should prefer to do in other circumstances.
I am sure the House was extremely entertained as ever by the noble Lord, Lord Molson, when he introduced his amendment. I was wondering when he was going to get to Okehampton, but I do not think he ever did. In fact the whole of his case was based on constitutional objections, as I understood it; the main pillar was a speech by the late Arthur Greenwood. Although I personally had the highest regard for and the friendship of that gentleman, a distinguished Labour Minister, I think he would have been surprised, if some 40 years later, his obiter dicta were being given such importance in this amendment. In fact the real constitutional issue posed by the noble Lord's amendment is equivalent to this House rejecting a Bill on Second Reading that has already passed through the other place. As I understand it, if that amendment is carried the Bill falls and that will have considerable consequences for the road.
My noble friend Lord Stallard spoke very feelingly and I can well understand that the members of the joint committee will be upset if the House does not accept their judgment. On the other hand, it would be absolute nonsense if, after committees had considered matters and after a full debate in this Chamber or in another place, the function open to the rest of us was merely to rubber stamp the conclusions of a small committee. I believe that, for whatever reason, they came to the wrong conclusion. Looking at the report, some of the members of the committee who sat through the proceedings also thought that the majority had come to the wrong conclusion. Equally, I am sure

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none of us would in principle wish to do anything that would seriously interfere with the status and the purpose of the national parks; but surely every incursion which from time to time has to be made in national parks has to be judged on its merits. After all, I think every one of them seems to have large quarries with all that involves with lorries attached thereto. Thus, to have another road on the very edge of Dartmoor does not seem to me to be such a scandalous invasion as has been suggested by some other speakers.
I think the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning underlined the issue. He said that what we have to consider is: should there be a bypass for Okehampton, and is what is proposed a reasonable solution to what I understand is the unanimous wish of everyone in the House, and certainly, as far as I understand it, the universal wish of all the persons connected with that town and the area around it?
I happen to think that, in principle, following the contours would create a better road than the alternative which it would seem would go across the skyline on the escarpment. The noble Earl, Lord Winchilsea and Nottingham, mentioned the M.40. Happily, I managed to avoid having any Joint Select Committees or having to have legislation but there was almost as much fuss about the extension of the M.40 to Oxford as there has been about this particular matter. I am bound to say that when I went to look at the routes, I had no hesitation in backing the department's plan for the road to follow the contours, rather than go, as a scar, right across the escarpment. Indeed, when the road was built, I did not hear anyone complain about the M.40 to Oxford. I firmly believe that if and when, (as I hope it will be) in three years' time, the Okehampton bypass is completed, people will not complain about that.
Finally, I ask noble Lords to reflect on the history of this affair, which fortunately is symptomatic and not unique in the history of our planning and road development procedures. It is an absolute nonsense that before five miles of road can be built, it takes 20 years, a public inquiry of 96 days (in other circumstances, even the inspectors have actually been maltreated and physically assaulted by objectors), then a joint Select Committee for 15 days and then this House sitting into the small hours to consider the matter. For example, in relation to the M.25, it is totally ridiculous that three-quarters of the road is built and then here and there, because of objections, the full economic benefits and the life-saving benefits are affected. I say life-saving benefits because it is well appreciated that good motorways and dual carriageway roads are much safer and have less serious accidents than the existing congested single carriageway roads.
All this is taking place really simply because we are not prepared to face up to a different set of procedures. I hope that not only will this Bill go through tonight but that in consequence there will be serious thought given to a completely new way of planning our roads. After all, it is a national responsibility. In 1979 I produced a national plan for roads and, unhappily, only a small part of that has been carried out. Roads are funded by central Government. It is therefore in my judgment the responsibility of Parliament and not a
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decision that can be delegated to anyone else. I think it is a very great pity that some better way cannot be found of managing our affairs than the present very troublesome circumstances. As many people have said, I hope that at least in relation to these particular five miles, we settle the matter favourably tonight.
8.15 p.m.
Lord Vinson: My Lords, I shall try to be brief. First, perhaps I may declare an interest in that for most of my life I have been a member of the CPRE. I am also a member of the National Parks Authority for Northumberland. Thus, you could say that one side of me has fairly green antecedents. One the other hand, I must declare my interest as chairman of the Development Commission, England's rural development agency.
Noble Lords will be familiar with the Scottish song that suggests that it is possible to take either the high road or the low road. In this case, sadly, it must be one or the other. Like other noble Lords, I had my doubts, so I should like to share with you the thought processes that have led me to believe that there is no alternative but to proceed with the southern road.
First, I tried to look at the problem as if it had affected my own national park. Had it done so, I should have been passionate in the defence of its rurality and its antiquity. However, at the same time I would hope that I could have tried to take, if there is such a thing, a more objective view, and attempt to consider the wider national aspects.
Therefore, I have taken the trouble to find out how many major roads run through national parks in England and Wales. There are precisely 18. Indeed, both the A.30 and the A.38 run through Dartmoor national park and the A.38 cuts into it to a far greater extent than the proposed southern route. Thus, there is nothing new in trunk roads running through national parks; what matters is the degree of harm.
Then, also like the noble Lord, Lord Saint Levan, who is due to speak tonight, I have tried to approach the problem as a longstanding CPRE member.There are, indeed, some environmental issues on which I should go to the cross, and I deeply respect the views of others who believe that, once designated, national parks should be sacrosanct. But in fact there are few absolutes in this matter. While I accept that this is a new road, in reality, the southern route will not slash through the middle of the park. If it did, I should be wholly against it. We are not talking about a major incursion. The proposed route, as others have well said, will only impinge upon the park's periphery.
Here I agree very much with the noble Earl, Lord Waldegrave, that there is some force in the argument that if one was starting from scratch, the northern route would be no less environmentally damaging to our landscape heritage. Sadly, whichever route is taken, the landscape has to suffer.
Then I have tried to look at the problem from the point of view of my interest in promoting the sensible economic development of rural England, or, to put it more concisely, from the point of view of my interest in the creation of jobs. It is difficult to measure the effect of traffic delays and congestion, but just because it is almost impossible to quantify the economic effect

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of a serious bottleneck, it does not mean to say that one should not attempt to do so. I am, then, wholly convinced that the traffic bottleneck at Okehampton is strangling the economic development of the southwest. It is my considered view that the failure to build the bypass around Okehampton has resulted in the loss of many thousand of jobs—jobs that would otherwise be there, had the bypass been built. I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Vickers, for raising this point. We would debate for hours on the statistics of the job losses. However, I am sure we can agree on one point, and that is that the failure to build a bypass has cost jobs—and many of them.
It is at this point that my head and my heart start to tussle. In this debate we will all be branded either as Philistines or as being uncaring about the work prospects of others. This greatly over-simplifies the issue. Thus I have great sympathy with Lady Sayer, and deeply respect her views. My heart tells me that she may well be right, but my head tells me that the needs of the unemployed favour a rapid solution.
In the late 1970s my predecessor as chairman of the Development Commission, the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, who very much regrets that he is unable to be here today, took a close personal interest in the economic development of the south-west. Indeed, he was instrumental in assisting Okehampton to become an economic anchor-point for the whole area. He has asked me to say that he is acutely aware of the terrible traffic problems in the town and believes, like myself, that they are a major hindrance to the further growth of business confidence in the south-west. He also, for that reason, favours a rapid solution to the problem by the building of the southern route. The road to Okehampton is not exactly the road to Damascus, but we both got converted when stuck in a traffic jam.
Other noble Lords have dealt with the point that it is unconstitutional for the Government to defy the findings of a joint committee, albeit the committee greatly exceeded its real remit. There are some who put great store by procedural arguments and procedural arrangements.
Lord Melchett: My Lords, I shall be grateful if the noble Lord will allow me to intervene. He would have heard my noble friend Lord Stoddart, who was a member of the joint committee, and other noble Lords state quite clearly that two officials from either House had to decide whether the general petition could be referred to the joint committee. The officials of both Houses decided that the general petition could be so referred. Is he now saying that the officials of both Houses were wrong in that decision?
Lord Vinson: My Lords, I thought that we were led to believe earlier today that that advice might have been erroneous. Your Lordships will forgive me if I misunderstood the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, but I thought that he indicated that it was surprising that that particular joint committee had appeared to exceed the precise point which they were asked to look into, which was the question of the transfer of common land.
Whichever way one looks at this, I must say that I prefer not to get stuck on procedural arrangements; I should prefer to look at the democratic support for the
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Government's choice. Here I understand that all the local authorities in the south-west support it, not to mention the town and parish councils of West Devon. Like others of your Lordships, I have been inundated, in the evidence of support for the southern route, by those whose livelihoods are affected by the delays at Okehampton and I find such evidence very persuasive and more persuasive than procedural points.
There is in my mind no doubt now that the public good would be best served by building on the southern route. It is the only one recommended by the public inquiry, it is the shortest route, the most economic route both to build and not least for the motorist who will use it and, above all, it is the route that will most quickly help the development of jobs in the southwest. Moreover, it is the route that is clearly preferred by the elected representatives of that region and the country. It is for those reasons that we should reject the first amendment before us today.
8.22 p.m.
Lord Henderson of Brompton: My Lords, I am glad to be able to follow the noble Lord, Lord Vinson, if only to say that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, who is a great scintillating star in the field of the law, does not twinkle quite so brightly in the field of parliamentary procedure. I will leave it at that. I myself would say what a thousand pities it is—and I hope that everyone would agree with this—that in 1964 the Devon County Council was not allowed to proceed, or did not proceed, whichever is right, with the northern route, which they favoured at that time—all that time ago; 21 years ago.
If that had happened we should have been saved countless words and millions of pounds. It would have been cheaper both relatively and actually if that had happened. We must learn this awful lesson, and we must not let this happen again. We must try to apportion blame where it is deserved; but I think that we should all examine ourselves as to what we contributed towards that blame, which has led to this loss of 21 years and of what I consider to be the better route.
I, myself—and this is always with the benefit of hindsight—should like the Government to have taken the same view as did the Devon County Council in 1964, and to have instructed the inspector not to look at the southern route because it passed through a national park: not merely on national park policy grounds but also on any estimate of the future cost of any inquiries which would involve routes going through a national park and all the divisive conflicts before inspectors, before joint committees and before Parliament that would follow. I think that was a very grave mistake, and if anything should be learned from this sorry tale it is that the Government should steer clear of national parks at all costs.
Ninety-six days before the inspector, 15 or so before the joint committee and millions of pounds—not just hundreds of thousand and certainly not £50,000, but more like millions—have been lost, to the great cost of the inhabitants of Okehampton and of the West Country. This is something of which we should all be ashamed, and not least, I would say, that great department of state, the Ministry of Transport. Quite

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recently I had the pleasure to hand out a bouquet to them for the very imaginative way in which they responded to amendments to the Transport Bill, to the advantage of the elderly and disabled. I now feel like hurling brickbats at them; but I shall restrain myself from doing so except to say that I very much hope that they will feel sufficiently guilty to examine the procedures which have led to this catastrophic delay and what I consider to be this wrong decision.
The Government—and I say this with hindsight—really had three choices: to retain the national parks policy unequivocally and go for the northern route; be equally bold (and by the same token, equally wrong) and overturn the national parks policy avowedly and bulldoze through the southern route—of course, I do not recommend that course—or what in effect they did which is to say, "Don't know—we will abide by" (and here one must pause for a moment) "the inspector's report or the decision of Parliament". Of course, that is a very convenient thing to do if both the inspector's report and the decision of Parliament is the same, but you get into trouble if they are not. That is what has happend. It really is quite as simple as that. I do not regard anyone as a villain in this because I think that in this case, as in almost all cases where there are administrative mistakes, they were made by muddle and not by villainy, and I think to a certain extent the muddle has been caused by the parliamentary procedure which was chosen.
Before I turn to the parliamentary procedure, may I briefly talk about the danger of piecemeal encroachment of national and indeed, other parks, including royal parks. I say "encroachment". I do not want to use the exaggerated language of The Times that there is a fear of the concreting over of the Lake District. Of course, there is no such fear. Rather, I recall an admirable article in the Daily Express (I think it was) by Sir Osbert Lancaster. It was about Hyde Park—and that is a royal park. In this characteristic and inimitable way he drew attention to the fact that Hyde Park is about the same size as Central Park, New York, and that if there was to be piecemeal encroachment of Hyde Park it would soon turn into a backyard with no sun and no light instead of the beautiful open space that we know as Hyde Park with a low skyline which is spoiled chiefly by the Hilton Hotel and the tower block of Knightsbridge Barracks. So if we had had that piecemeal encroachment we would have had Central Park instead of Hyde Park: that is the way he graphically put it. The same applies pari passu to national parks.
While on the subject of Hyde Park, if I may, I should like to mention with affection and with honour the late Lord Conesford. He played a leading part in resisting, unsuccessfully, the Hyde Park Bill—which, incidentally, was a hybrid Bill, and I will revert to that. He found the Bill's Title intolerable. It was entitled "Park Lane (Improvement) Bill". He moved an amendment so that the Short Title would be more accurately descriptive. His amendment was:
"Leave out 'Park Lane (Improvement)' and insert 'Hyde Park (Diminution)'."
The noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, who is quite a wit, was speaking for the Government and he resisted this amendment on the only possible grounds on which it
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could be resisted, which was that it was a frivolous amendment.
By the same token this confirmation Bill might well be entitled "Dartmoor National Park (Diminution) Bill", for that is what it is. If you are really determined to diminish Hyde Park in order to improve the flow in Park Lane it is, I suppose, expecting too much of any Government to admit as much. But perhaps the Government will seriously consider whether they might have proceeded by way of a hybrid Bill in the case of the Dartmoor National Park, as they did in the case of Hyde Park, instead of by means of a special procedure order.
I should like to say a brief word about special procedure orders. I have not lived with them quite so long as the noble Lord, Lord Molson, who was in at their birth in 1945, but I have lived with them for three-quarters of their years of existence. Not to make too long a story about it (because the history has been so well related by the noble Lords, Lord Molson. Lord Foot and others) I would say they have caused almost nothing but trouble from the start. This is a classic example of the muddle Governments get into when they seek to regulate parliamentary procedure by Act of Parliament.
I seriously suggest that in the light of this appalling muddle and delay—over 21 years, and perhaps more—the special procedure order procedure might be examined with a view to its being amended, possibly by merely the amendment of Section 6 or else by scrapping it altogether. Her Majesty's Government might call in aid the noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross, who is an expert in finding compelling reasons for repealing Acts of Parliament which either are no longer of practical utility or which sometimes do more harm than good.
But I have no doubt of the benevolent intentions, as rehearsed by the noble Lord, Lord Molson, of Mr. Arthur Greenwood and his Government when this legislation was introduced. It seemed to follow so naturally from wartime regulations, to which the noble Lord, Lord Molson, referred, and which seemed a sort of civilised and right way of proceeding, with parliamentary safeguards. Of course, the thinking in 1945 was not the same as the thinking in 1985; and, as we have heard in the course of this debate, the special order procedure was thoroughly reviewed by Mr. Henry Brooke and his committee, and indeed it was amended. Even so, quite clearly it is not satisfactory in the light of all we have heard today.
So I would ask whether some serious consideration should not be given to the use of the hybrid or Private Bill procedure, whichever is more appropriate in a particular case, but with special provision for national parks and possibly certain other parks and national trust land. These could be regulated by the Standing Orders of both Houses, which are far more flexible and easy to change if we find we run into trouble than statutory provisions, which cannot be changed and which land us in the soup, as we are today.
If I may, I should like to talk about only one of the so-called constitutional issues which have been talked about this evening: that is, whether Members of the House are entilted to vote for or should feel inhibited from voting against this Bill. That, of course, has been dealt with by the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, in

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speaking to his amendment; by the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, who is now sitting on the Woolsack; and by the noble Lord, Lord Ardwick, in his letter to The Times recently, among others.
To my mind there are two guidelines which we have before us since the war, and it is really only since the war that we can look for guidelines. The first is the Parliament Acts, and they clearly envisage that this House can vote against Public Bills, for they make provision in the event of that happening; so it is clearly a possible thing to be done. It was envisaged in 1911, and it was not taken away in 1949. It is still there. It can be done by statute.
Secondly, there is the "self-denying ordinance", which I think is the proper way of putting it. That is often called "the Salisbury doctrine of the mandate", and I would stress the words "of the mandate". That forms the basis of the reason why both Conservative and Labour Oppositions since the war have refrained from voting against the principle of Government mandated Bills, especially those brought from the Commons. This is what Lord Salisbury said in 1964 when referring to the Conservative Opposition formulating their policy when dealing with Labour Bills. He said that they had followed (and I quote),
"the broad guiding rule that what had been in the Labour Party programme at the preceding General Election should be regarded as having been approved by the British people…when … measures were introduced which had not been in the Labour Party manifesto at the preceding election, we reserved full liberty of action."
That rule was re-interpreted (or perhaps interpreted) in 1975 by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, when he said:
"We have hitherto taken the view that the will of the elected House must in the end prevail but that there should be a second House which has the opportunity—in rare cases, perhaps—to enforce a delay in which there can be a reassessment by Government, by parties and by the people of this country of the rights or wrongs of an issue."
I grant that both those quotations are from Conservative Leaders of the Opposition, but I think it is right to say by and large that the Labour Opposition have followed those guidelines. They did breach them once, when the late Viscount Alexander of Hillsborough—I think possibly under the enthusiastic influence of the late Lord Morrison of Lambeth—put down a reasoned amendment asking the House to decline to pass the London Government Bill. But I think perhaps that ought not to be drawn into precedent.
Surely—and I must be brief—with these precedents in mind it is obvious that the House is not as robust as it used to be. The pronouncements of the late Lord Salisbury and the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, are much less restrictive and less stringent than more recent warnings given by what the noble Earl, Lord Waldegrave, called "the heavy guns" and what the noble Earl, Lord De La Warr, called less respectfully, "the heavy mob below the gangway" on the Conservative Benches.
Referring to what the noble Lord, Lord Ardwick, said in his recent letter to The Times, if I may say so to the noble Lord I simply do not think it is true to say, as he said—and I quote from his letter:
"The Government defeats in the present Parliament and in previous Parliaments have all been on amendments to Bills which have never placed them in complete jeopardy."
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I have only to remind the noble Lord that the Bill for the Parliament Act 1949 was rejected by the House, though it was clearly mandated. I can give him many other instances since.
Anyway, what I call the accepted convention is surely that this House refrains from voting against the principle of mainstream Government legislation except where it is clearly not mandated and this House considers that it calls for a pause for thought. That is the accepted convention which of course must be subject to reinterpretation in the light of the political circumstances of the time and of the merits of each particular Bill. If that principle is eroded, then the extent of the powers of this House will be diminished by a thousand cuts, just like the extent of the national parks will be diminished if nothing is said or done to countervail the present trend.
The words of some noble Lords who have made cautionary utterances about amendments in this House may be crammed into their mouths when, unhappily, they may be in opposition and they seek to move what they consider to be a constructive amendment, and they may have their own words held up against them, that they are indeed wrecking amendments—
Lord Ardwick: My Lords, is the noble Lord justifying wrecking amendments?
Lord Henderson of Brompton: No, my Lords; indeed I am not. But if I may dwell for a moment on the word "wrecking" it is not a word that is known to Erskine May. Noble Lords will not find it in the Standing Orders of either House, because it is so imprecise. What is a constructive amendment to the noble Lord, Lord Ardwick, will be a wrecking amendment to the noble Lord, Lord Elton, and vice versa. I say no more about wrecking amendments than that.
I would say, in conclusion, that, though I personally am not going to vote for the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Molson, I see no reason why anyone should not do so if he wishes. I am not voting for the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Molson, because I do not wish to prolong the agony and for no other reason. I wish that I could, but I will not. I shall vote instead for the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Underhill. I am grateful to him for tabling that and for giving me the opportunity to register my vote accordingly.
8.43 p.m.
Lord Roberthall: My Lords, I should like to begin by saying how much I agree with one of the early points made by the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, and made earlier still in almost exactly the same words by the noble Lord, Lord Foot, which is how very fortunate it is that the Ministry of Transport did not make up its mind a long time ago to respect the views about the national park. If it had taken that course, the bypass would have been built long ago and we would not be having the troubles that we are having now.
The people who support the Bill have, I think, been supporting it mainly by quite general arguments,

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which could be reduced to saying that no part of the national park should ever be taken. Put in that way, that is a proposition with which I would agree, because it is very important that we should keep what we have. But to some extent that is now water under the bridge, and in the rest of my speech I shall speak from a particular point of view, which is that I live in Cornwall and, until quite recently, had to drive regularly at all times and in all seasons of the year on the A.30 through Okehampton. Whatever the outcome of this, we ought to think a little about the position of the people of Cornwall who depend almost entirely on the A.30 for their transport, where they are now held up by the Okehampton blockage.
This first came to my notice in 1968 when there was a lot of talk about building a bypass. Since then, the position has gradually become worse and worse and it will continue to get worse. The main reasons for this are, first, that in 1968 a lot of goods traffic went into Cornwall by rail, but there is now very little use of rail for the transport of goods, as is happening all over the country. Secondly, there is not only a heavier load to be carried because of that, but also, because of the general growth of the national income, the total amount of goods to be moved has increased, so that the load has gone up there.
The third reason, with which we are all familiar, is that an enormous number of people in this country now have a motor-car and a great many of them, I am glad to say, use their cars in the summer to go to south-west England, especially to Cornwall, and they make the congestion very much worse than they used to do. It is a very bad entry to and a very bad departure from Cornwall, when practically all of these people have to sit in their cars breathing the fumes of other cars for two or three hours or even more.
The result of this is that the great bulk of the people in the south-west, whatever they might have thought about the general proposition some time ago, are now concentrating almost entirely on the desire for something to be done now. From that point of view, I think they feel very much as the noble Lord, Lord Mulley, said earlier—that they have had a very bad deal. First, there were the discussions in 1968. Then there was an inspector who came down in favour of the southern route; and after a considerable delay the Ministry accepted that. We then had the committee, which has been discussed so much. And now, if our Lordships accept the Motion, they will feel that they are back to square one.
Whatever people say about how the process might be accelerated, they feel absolutely certain that the northern route will take a great deal longer than the southern route, because all the preliminary work has been done for the southern route and practically none for the northern one. They will feel that the whole planning capacity and ability of the country comes out of this very badly, because this is a problem that was foreseen and that could have been dealt with in a satisfactory way much earlier on.
It is not the Government who will suffer if they are defeated on this issue; it is the very large number of people who use the road and all the people concerned with transport who see the position getting worse and
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worse. Even away from the summer season, there are bad jams all the time. For about the whole five miles the roads are rather narrow and often they go through towns. Because, perhaps, of a slow lorry, what I once referred to in a debate as a gravity-assisted lorry (one that goes very well down hill) jams can build up.
I feel that at least we should bear in mind tonight that it is the people who use the road, particularly the people of Cornwall who depend so much on it. who will be the ones to suffer at the very best for three years and at the very worse for heaven knows how long. We cannot say even now, if the southern route is rejected, that the northern route will be automatically started on straight away. We can all make guesses about that, according to where our emotions lie, but the people who have lived through it will not believe there is going to be a bypass until they see it.
8.51 p.m.
Lord Sandford: My Lords, I yield to no one in my love of and support for the national parks. I am currently president of the Friends of the Lake District. Back in the early 1970s I produced a report on the national parks, published in the days when the rubbishing of reports before reading them was not such a developed art as it has become since. The whole report was courteously received by a Government of the opposite complexion to myself. Paragraph 15.6 was taken over and used verbatim to form the kernel of Circular 4/76, which is at the centre of the issue we are discussing today.
I want strongly to support the Government both in their general approach to this and in the particular Bill before us. But I want to deal gently, if I can, with their opponents—with my noble friend Lord Molson, because when I joined the Department of the Environment back in 1970 with responsibility for these countryside matters he was generous in his advice and guidance and I am most grateful to him for it. I want to deal gently with the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, because as a fellow president of one of the associations of local government I shall need his support when dealing with central Government in battles that lie ahead of us. I want to deal gently with the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, not only because of my personal respect for him but because of my regard for the organisation which he heads, the Council for National Parks, which has done and is still capable of doing an enormously useful job.
But I regard the persistent campaign which has gone on since the inquiry as totally misconceived. None of us ought to have been discussing the main issue since that inquiry ended. The Select Committee ought not to have been discussing it. We ought not to be discussing it now, and those who have been persistent in discussing it have in my view done the whole cause of conservation a great deal of harm. In the long run and in the perspective of history, that will be seen to have been the case. The inquiry had Circular 4/76—it did not abrogate it; it did not set it to one side; it did not override it; it had it right at the centre of the whole inquiry. The first question was, "Is there a compelling need for a road past Okehampton?" No one has disagreed with that. The second question was. "Is there a reasonable alternative to the southern route?" After very careful consideration over 96 days, spread

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over nine months, the inspector came out completely and categorically in favour of the southern route. You cannot have a better way of discussing these issues than a public local inquiry. It has been a great mistake to persist in trying to raise that central issue again and elsewhere.
The only outstanding issue now is the exchange of open space land. That will be settled by our vote tonight. Even when it has been settled, I think there is still a job to be done—probably by an investigative journalist. I hope he will find out, and let us know in an article in a journal some day, what on earth happened to the offer of open space land while the inquiry was going on. The offer has now been discovered and for the life of me I cannot believe that it was not around somewhere during the inquiry. Why on earth it was not raised I cannot understand.
The same journalist will also have to discover how on earth it was that the Ministry of Transport ever supposed that they could offer less land than was needed and expect the Dartmoor Preservation Authority not to exploit the loophole that that left open for them. It is that which has led to this enormous delay. However, I do not put that question to my noble friend tonight because I am sure he does not have the whole answer; and even if he had I doubt if he would give it to us.
When we come to vote tonight, in support of the Government I hope, and against both these amendments, we can, as my noble friend Lord Vinson said, vote in the certain knowledge that we have the support of all the local authorities in the West Country—both county councils, all the district councils, all the parish councils and almost all the Members of Parliament, except for one whose constituency is furthest from the scene and is almost totally unaffected by the road that we are discussing. I hope that when a vote is cast in favour of this Bill the department will not only get on with the construction with all due dispatch but will find ways and means, whenever the weather and the light permit, of putting into it the maximum amount of overtime possible so that all the local people whose economies have been harmed and whose lives have been made miserable by this delay will to some extent be compensated, and enabled to enjoy their bypass at the earliest possible date.
8.57 p.m.
Lord Henley: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Sandford has been commendably brief. I hope I can follow suit and with luck your Lordships might then be in bed by at least midnight.
I was also on the committee along with the noble Lords, Lord Stallard and Lord Airedale. Unlike them, I came to a different conclusion in deciding the question of whether we should recommend the confirmation of the two compulsory purchase orders. As has been stated, these two compulsory purchase orders were petitioned again. The petition went to the Chairman of Committees and to his counterpart in the Commons. They confirmed that it was a proper petition. As a result, the Select Committee was bound to consider all the matters that were contained in the petition. I accept that point and I do not take the point
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of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, that we were led up the garden path in considering more than the mere compulsory purchase orders. We had to consider the whole petition. It might have been that the Chairman of Committees and the Chairman of Ways and Means were wrong—I do not know—but there is no appeal against that. The fact is that we had to consider it.
To my way of thinking, that resulted in the committee being something of a quasi court of appeal against the planning inspector. That is where the system breaks down. It becomes a flawed court of appeal in that it cannot consider all the evidence. This is no criticism of what the committee did, but we did not receive evidence from, say, the opponents to any given northern route. They presumably did not consider appearing in front of the committee. I am not sure whether they were even entitled to do so. It was considered that we might confine ourselves entirely to compulsory purchase orders. Obviously we did not do so but broadened out the whole petition. As a result, various people were not represented who might otherwise have been represented.
If this Bill does not succeed owing to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Molson, or whatever, and the department have to go ahead with a northern route, then both interested parties will protest against any given northern route at a public inquiry. However much the committee asked for goodwill in getting the northern route, I am sure that whereas they will get that goodwill from the department, they will not get it from the said objectors to the northern route. There will be a bitterly fought public inquiry which could last another 96 days. There could be further delay.
The subject of delay brings me on to the question of time, which the committee considered to some extent. We heard from a witness for the petitioners, Mr. Parker, who stated that there would be a five-year delay; that is to say, a northern route would take five years longer than a southern route—in other words, a total of eight years and not a total of five years as was said by the noble Earl, Lord Winchilsea. Those people who have been suggesting recently in letters to the press that a northern route could be completed by 1990 are living in cloud cuckoo land. It just would not be possible. As I said, even the witness for the petitioners reckoned on a five-year delay. That seems very optimistic. The department's witness, a Mr. Wedd, stated that if a northern route were chosen, the department would more or less have to go back to square one. We know from what was said earlier by my noble friend Lord Caithness that on average it takes 13 years to build a road. The department reckon that they can probably complete it in nine years. That is a six-year delay as compared with the southern route, which we could have by 1988.
It would be a minimum six-year delay. A protracted public inquiry and various geological difficulties—such as the new evidence of cadmium, or something else—on the northern route could lead to even greater delays. It might even lead to the road being lost for ever. I do not believe that the people of Okehampton and Devon, or of Cornwall for that matter, want to take that risk.

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I should like to deal very briefly with the reasons why I came to my decision, after sitting on the committee, that the order should be confirmed, why I preferred the southern route, and why I felt that any northern route would not be a reasonably alternative. Reference has been made to Circular 4/76 which followed the report of my noble friend. We all know that it stated that no new trunk road should go though a national park unless there was no reasonable alternative. It is agreed by everyone that such is still government policy.
It has been argued that the northern route is a reasonable alternative. The proponents say that all the land between Okehampton and Devon is similar to that in the north, and so if the bypass can go though that land, why can it not go through the land in the north? I do not believe that that is the proper approach. One has to start with what is a natural route, and quite obviously it is that to the south, ignoring first the question of the national park. After all, that is where our forefathers put the railway line. They put the railway line there for the sensible reason that it is where one would put a road.
Having decided that the southern route is the natural route, one must then use the test of whether the northern route is a reasonable alternative. I do not think that it is a reasonable alternative. Because time is getting on, I shall try to give briefly the reasons why I do not believe that any northern route is reasonable.I have written down six or seven different reasons. I accept that none of them on its own would be enough to make the northern route an unreasonable alternative but together they do.
There is first the question of cost. I agree that the extra cost is not much. It is a matter of just a few million pounds. In fact, a few million pounds is quite a lot of money; it would be 20 per cent. more expensive, and that does seem quite a lot more. Secondly, the northern route would be longer; only by a mile, but one mile over five or six miles is an appreciable difference. Thirdly, there is the question of local preference. I know that it is also a question of a national park but local preferences ought to be taken into account. I am not saying that they should be paramount but everyone agrees that all local authorities are in favour of the southern route. The only test of publc opinion showed 55 per cent. in favour of the southern route as opposed to 45 per cent. in favour of the northern route, which seems to be quite a big margin, whatever people may say.
Fourthly, there is the question of employment. I am not sure whether anyone has already mentioned this but any northern route would affect the agate quarry which is near what would have to be the Knowle viaduct. That quarry would probably have to cease operation because it would be unable to continue blasting. Fifthly, there is the question of agricultural land. The evidence given to the committee was that the northern land was not that much better than the southern land. I am no great expert on agriculture but when I visited the area it struck me that the northern land looked far better, with really good grassland. There is also the question of severance, which would affect the farms to the north far worse than those to the south.
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I should also mention, as no other speaker seems to have done so—I do not know whether the Government will—that there is Government Circular No. 75/76 which is still Government policy. This states that one should try to use less good agricultural land rather than the better agricultural land. I agree that we have the further complication of Circular 4/76, so there are slightly conflicting Government policies.
Sixthly, there is an archaeological factor. Sadly, for reasons of saving time, the petitioners did not call their archaeological witness. However, the department produced an archaeological witness who said that there were various sites which would be affected by a northern route. Therefore one must leave that open, but the fact is that both the northern and the southern routes would affect various archaeological sites.
Seventhly, on the landscape question I think that there is a very clear balance in favour of the southern route. As I said earlier, it is the natural route. It fits into the land. It will be easy to disguise it with trees. In passing, it is interesting to note that the department stated in evidence to the committee that it is the second largest planter of trees in the country; for which it deserves full praise.
I admit that the southern route has two viaducts. However, for the northern route the viaduct which will be necessary will be far bigger and far more intrusive, especially from the moor, as will the rest of the northern route. As I think was stated by my noble friend Lord Waldegrave, it will be visible from the moor, and because it will involve a series of cuttings and embankments it will be difficult to hide, even by the planting of trees. If anything, trees will emphasise the scar that would be produced. I think everyone is agreed that the southern route can be completed within three years. There is some dispute as to how long the northern route will take. My own view is that it will be six years on top of the three years; that is, nine years as the absolute minimum. It could be longer, and it could even be a question of never seeing it at all.
Those are my reasons. I may have forgotten some. Together they make any northern route unreasonable. Since the Select Committee reported I gather certain other matters have arisen, such as cadmium in the bog. At any rate something scientific, which I do not understand, has been mentioned. That presumably makes any northern alternative even less satisfactory. For those reasons I shall have no hesitation in supporting the Government, and I urge all other noble Lords to do so.
9.11 p.m.
Lord Melchett: My Lords, I should like to return to something said by the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, at the start of the debate, a long time ago now, which struck me, if I may say to him with respect, as being particularly silly. He suggested to my noble friends on the Front Bench on this side of the House that because the Labour Government had proposed the southern route in 1976 it was absurd for this side of the House not to continue to support it. It struck me as unfair, just because he happens to be a Member of a Government who are well known for pursuing out-of-date and discredited policies, that he should expect others to do the same.

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More significantly, much has changed since 1976 which affects the decison on where the route should go. Indeed, much has changed since 1981. Neither the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, nor the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, seem to recognise that. For example, the balance between areas which are important for conservation and areas which are important for food production have significantly switched in the past few years. It is not at all surprising, therefore, that the joint committee, looking at this issue several years after the inspector considered the evidence, might have come to a different decision solely on those grounds alone. The factors which influence the balance of advantage on where the road does or does not go have changed.
The noble Lord, Lord Henley, said that the agricultural factor influenced him, but I suggest to him that that has become of less importance in recent years than it was during the period of the public inquiry. Circumstances have changed and it is reasonable for people to change their minds. Therefore, I do not think that the joint committee should be attacked for doing so in the way that it has been attacked by a number of noble Lords in different ways tonight.
I ask one question and make one more serious point, because it is getting late. The noble Earl said that this would not act at a precedent. When the noble Lord, Lord Elton, replies to the debate, will he be able to give two assurances in the light of the fact that this will not be a precedent so far as the Department of Transport is concerned? First, can he assure me that the decision about the route that the North Devon link road is to take is not being deliberately delayed until this particular little local difficulty is out of the way? Secondly, can he assure me that when the route is announced the North Devon link road will not go through any areas of national importance from a conservation point of view; in particular, any sites of special scientific interest? I must tell the Government that there is a widespread belief that this is simply the first of what is to be a series of decisions on road developments which are going to damage either national parks or important areas of wildlife. I suspect that to be the case.
The more serious point to which I want to turn is the view of the Secretary of State for Transport about what the Government would do were the joint committee to come to the decision that it did, against the Government's interests. It seems to me that the Government have got themselves in an impossible position. Whichever way they turn the Secretary of State has clearly been deliberately misleading both Houses of Parliament, and I think that the Government are engaged in an extremely shoddy and miserable manoeuvre. I shall say why if the noble Earl gives me a chance.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I think that I must come in at this point. I did not interrupt the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, when he said something similar. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State has not misled either House. I am a little surprised that some noble Lords did not appear to hear what my noble friend the Lord President said. He said that the joint committee reported in April, that the report was discussed in June and that it was decided by the
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Government in July to proceed with the special parliamentary procedures. Before other noble Lords take up the Lord Foot argument, let me say that my right honourable friend memorialised the joint chairmen on the specific aspect of the petition relating to policy. He made it perfectly clear then that it was a matter for policy. The fact that the noble Lord, Lord Foot, did not pick that up and did not advise the petitioners of the consequences, knowing full well what the Act entailed, cannot now be blamed on my right honourable friend.
Lord Melchett: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl for those remarks, and I listened carefully when similar things were said earlier, but they do not seem to me to answer the question. If this was a matter of national policy, the Secretary of State should not have used the procedure that he did. As far as I am aware, he did not say at any stage during the procedures that were the joint committee to come to the decision that it did, the Government would immediately overrule it. If the noble Earl wants to interrupt again to contradict me, I shall gladly give way—but he does not, because the Secretary of State did not say that. He never made the position clear to the petitioners, the joint committee or anybody else. In my view he deliberately misled all those involved from both Houses of Parliament and all the petitioners who went to great trouble and very great expense—for which to my mind the Secretary of State is responsible—in going through a lengthy and, as it turns out, totally meaningless and useless procedure.
The Secretary of State did that because, as the noble Earl has now clearly confirmed, he had no intention right from the beginning of accepting a conclusion from the joint committee unless it was in favour of the southern route. That is what the noble Earl has just told your Lordships' House. That means that the whole procedure—
Noble Lords: No!
Lord Melchett: My Lords, I shall give way and the noble Earl can correct me if he wants to.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, that is not what I said to this House. I am afraid that the noble Lord is totally wrong. He should read Hansard to get exactly what I did say.
Lord Melchett: My Lords, the noble Earl said that the Secretary of State took the view when he first tried to restrict the basis on which the petitions were made to the joint committee that a matter of national policy was at stake; in other words, that it was a matter of national policy that the bypass round Okehampton went to the south of the town rather than to the north. The noble Earl has nodded, confirming that view. That means that the Secretary of State intended to introduce this sort of Bill right from the start, to overrule the joint committee were it to come to the conclusion that it did because a matter of national policy was at stake. That indeed is the only basis on which the Government could even presume to try to justify the miserable procedure on which they have embarked.

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I think that the joint committee was set up on a false basis if that is the case. Nobody should have been allowed to go through the rigmarole of petitioning, with days and days of investigation, if the Secretary of State had decided, as the noble Earl says he had, that as a matter of national policy the road should go to the south of Okehampton. That means that the whole procedure was a waste of time.
If I may say so to the noble Earl, I think that that is discreditable enough, but the basis of that behaviour is entirely discreditable. What principle of national policy was at stake in deciding that the bypass had to go to the south rather than to the north? Is a four, five, six or even nine-year delay really a matter of national policy? Is a small additional cost—certainly tiny compared to the whole of the Department of Transport budget—a matter of national policy? Is the question of whether farmland or public open space is taken in a local case like this a matter of national policy? Of course none of those is a matter of national policy.
A number of noble Lords, including the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, have made perfectly clear their view that this does not raise matters of national policy. The noble Lord, Lord Sandford, said that the matter should have been decided at a public local inquiry and left there. The Government cannot have it both ways unless they are deliberately trying to trick people and get away with a shoddy manoeuvre. That is what the Bill is; that is what will go through if noble Lords vote in favour of the Government tonight.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, with due respect, the noble Lord has misinterpreted what I said and has misled the House, I believe. If he will read what I said in my opening speech about the consideration of the hybrid Bill, about the Motion to annul the orders by Lord Foot and the Motion in the other place, he will see that it was taken by all those involved that it should go to a joint committee, and the petitioners were memorialised by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State.
Lord Melchett: My Lords, I am aware of that. The noble Earl has taken up about half of the eight minutes I have been speaking for, but I am happy to respond. The facts, I believe, are that the Secretary of State for Transport and the Government did not realise that there was a chance of the Select Committee considering a general petition. I am convinced that up to that point they thought that there would be a petition on the narrow issue of public open space. That would go one way or another, but nevertheless the bypass would go to the south of the town. But, as the noble Earl says, it was in their mind all the time, as a matter of national policy, to quote him, that the road should go to the south of Okehampton. What upset the apple cart from the Government's point of view was that the authorities in both Houses allowed a general petition to be made to the joint committee. At that stage if there had been a spark of decency in the Secretary of State for Transport, he would have stood up immediately in Parliament and said, "Right, we must stop this. The Government will overrule the joint committee if they come down in favour of a route to
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the north of Okehampton and against the southern route." But that would have looked like what is actually happening now 12 months later—a deliberate use of the Government's majority to override a joint committee of the Houses of Parliament. They did not have the guts to do it at the time; so they are doing it 12 months later. That is why it is a shoddy manoeuvre.
9.21 p.m.
Viscount Falmouth: My Lords, I speak in full support of my noble friend's Bill to confirm the southern route, the Okehampton bypass, for the A.30. I trust that your Lordships will not agree to the amendment if it is pressed, so that the bypass will be built at the earliest possible date. I speak as a Cornishman who lives in Cornwall. I have lived there for a very long time. I am delighted to find that there are in the House at the moment at least four Members who live or have lived in the county. I have therefore an interest in the Bill.
I speak but seldom, but I believe that I would be failing in my duty if I did not say that these notorious traffic jams are a terrible handicap for Cornwall. One has only to read The Times of last Tuesday to see how united local government spokesmen are in favour of the southern route. We have heard that time and again this afternoon. Our county did not take part in the original inquiry. Nor did we give evidence to the joint committee. We thought it wrong to interfere in the affairs of our friends and neighbours in Devon while the committee was set up to consider, I believe, a limited question of open space land. We now know better.
Our county depends on the A.30 and the bypass is urgently required. We are at the end of the road, and that is always a great handicap. When this burden of the Okehampton traffic queues is lifted, a great obstacle for our trade and industry will be removed—for us indeed a compelling reason. I intend to speak briefly. I have four points to make on the effect of these delays in Cornwall. First, there is the effect on lorry traffic. We send out a great deal of food from Cornwall every year to the markets up country. I think that our gross output is something like £220 million of agricultural and horticultural products—no mean figure. It includes half a million boxes of flowers and that sort of thing, and a lot of broccoli—20,000 crates of broccoli a year. A great deal of this travels up the A.30. The majority travels in lorries slowly moving up hills and up and down all those bends around Okehampton.
Then there are the fish lorries, and, by no means least, all the China-clay lorries from our great China-clay pits in the county. I have heard tell—as we say in Cornwall—that the Okehampton delays are equal to a £5 toll on every load. Personally I would have said it was more.
Let me turn for a moment to a very important question for the trade, that of the drivers' hours. That is such an important question in planning road haulage and marketing. When this bypass is built Cornish loads may well be able to reach the markets as far afield as Leeds and Lincoln, and Folkestone and Dover for the Continent, within the limits of drivers' hours instead of wasting those precious hours at or near Okehampton and vice versa.

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Do we have to wait another nine years for this? I think that the noble Baroness dealt with the question: why not use the southern route via Plymouth? That is already at a maximum at peak periods. The noble Baroness was horrified at that suggestion. I am told by the road surveyors in Cornwall that over the next three years heavy repairs have to be done to that bridge because the concrete deck has to be repaired and in places replaced.
My second point—which again the noble Baroness raised—is about unemployment in Cornwall. This is above the national average. I think that the figure in October was about 18 per cent. overall. As the noble Baroness said, we are most anxious about tin mining, and also about the future manufacture of air-compressors in Camborne. We have excellent labour in the county and the best way to get more jobs in Cornwall is to improve the communications through Devon. Good communications are the key to encouraging industry to come, as they mean a permanent reduction in costs which no government can take away.
So much publicity has now been given to the Okehampton tailbacks that the mere thought of them will frighten prospective industry away. We want the bypass as soon as possible. Good communications mean good predictability of supply. Firms in Cornwall are particularly vulnerable to unpredictable arrivals of goods. Nothing is more frustrating than men who have to be kept hanging about to off-load. It is terribly frustrating for management and workpeople in manufacturing, agriculture, mining and, above all, the shops.
My fourth and by no means least important point is the tourist trade. At home and abroad—and by "abroad" I mean Europe and beyond—we depend on this in summer. I do not know how many Members of your Lordships' House or how many objectors to the southern route have ever been caught in the Okehampton queues. I have, on average for two hours. The surveyor says that in the peak periods at summer weekends there are 17,000 vehicles going each way through Okehampton. That is a terrifying figure.
I am so glad that the noble Lord on the opposite side of the House mentioned the drivers and the passengers in the queues. What do a family of holidaymakers—grown-ups and young children—remember when they return to their Midland home, having left Cornwall that morning?—the delays, the starting and stopping, the traffic lights at Okehampton, the corners and hills round the little village of Sticklepath, which will all happily be bypassed. This is what they remember, and I cannot blame them if they never want to come again, because there are so many competing brochures in the travel shops. Quite literally, if evil communications corrupt good manners, they certainly corrupt tempers. Good communications make life much easier for everyone.
To a greater or lesser degree we are all conservationists, and the conservationists are seeking to prevent a small slice of Dartmoor being taken from within the northern boundary of the Dartmoor park. Whatever one may say, the Dartmoor National Park comprises 233,000 acres and, as has been said, the northern boundary was, for administrative
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convenience, drawn along the line of the A.30. This is not a party issue; it is just a plea for common sense. The proposed southern route is a good one, running along the valley south of the town and close to the railway and quarry. It will have the least effect on the beauty of the landscape. Indeed, how does the present spur (which is already built) from the M.5 at Exeter, running along the northern edge of Dartmoor, spoil the landscape?
This bypass in no way goes through the heart and centre of the national park. It is as though Shylock asked for a hank of Antonio's hair in the Merchant of Venice rather than the pound of flesh, and Portia, his counsel, had no case to make. It would be a friendly gesture to our county if this amendment was not pressed to a Division. However, if it is pressed, I hope that Members from all parts of the House will support the Government. If this Bill is not now passed, how many more years of delay will we have to suffer before a bypass is built?
Quite fortuitously I did not read the advertisement in The Times today, but on the centre page I read the following, and in quoting it perhaps I may apologise to the right reverend Prelate:
"'0 little town of Bethlehem How still we see thee lie,
For on thy by-pass, newly built, The cars pass softly by.
And you can have a by-pass, too, If you apply to us…"
Cornwall realises how important this vote is tonight, and I hope that your Lordships will vote against this amendment and thus support this important Bill.
9.33 p.m.
Earl Attlee: My Lords, I find myself in a slight difficulty this evening in that at least two of my noble friends feel very strongly about the environment. Other noble Lords who are speaking in favour of these amendments also feel very strongly. It is a pity that, in order to support their cause, they tend to inflate certain matters. A leaflet which talks about a wonderful wooded 700-year old deer park sounds very impressive until you find out that there has not been a deer in that park for at least 100 years.
I read the advertisement in The Times and I was surprised because my trouble is that I am not a conservationist. I live in Finchley in North London and I do not go down to Devon and Cornwall. I am interested in transport matters. Therefore, in the words of this advertisement, I was trying to see:
"where lie truth and the public good".
I have been to exhibitions and I have read the large amount of material which has been sent to us. On that basis, it seemed to me that the southern route was the right one.
Then I heard about the Joint Select Committee. I do not know the parliamentary. rights or wrongs of this but I was surprised to find out that this joint committee did not take evidence from those people on a northern route who would be affected, so how could they judge the southern route and propose a northern route if they did not know what people felt about that northern route? Although it has been said before, I think we must accept that there is the southern route, and possibly a northern route somewhere.

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Remarks have been made that the land in the north is not very good and, according to the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, that in the past few years this land has suddenly decreased in its nutrients. The National Farmers' Union states categorically that the land in the north is good land, valuable land, grazing land, that all the farmers in the north are against the northern route, and that the farmers in the south, on the southern route, are not against the southern route.
The other matter we have to bear in mind—and it has been said a lot of times—is how can we possibly let this situation continue for another 12 or 13 years? I read somewhere that it was claimed that if we opted for the northern route it would not cause an additional delay of more than possibly two or three months. The only way that that would be possible would be if we denied to the people who live on the northern route their democratic right to a public inquiry, and that would be very bad indeed.
I am not going to say much more, except that I should like to read a letter that I have received. Having gone against the conservationists, I thought your Lordships might be interested in this letter. It is a letter from the chairman of the Federation of Hotels and Tourist Associations. It is not a very tactful letter.
"I hope that as SDP spokesman on transport, and in memory of your father"—
I like that, in memory of my father!—
"so widely respected by my generation caught by the 1939–45 war, and fully aware"
and so on—
"that you also will have the courage and foresight of your father and support the A.30 southern route".
I thought hard. He is almost saying that if I do not support the southern route which he does that I am not a very good man. I should love to have struck a blow for my independence, but I am convinced that the southern route is the right route and I shall be voting for that.
9.38 p.m.
Lord Brougham and Vaux: My Lords, it may be of interest to your Lordships to know that the list of speakers, as it was originally, representated about 1 per cent. of the population of Okehampton. In speaking to this Motion as someone, like a lot of other noble Lords and Members of another place, who has no connection with the West Country, but has been there on holiday as my daughter lives down there, or on business, or has visited the area to see the alternatives—and I hasten to add that I have not—but has read all the literature on both sides that has come through my letter box and has visited the exhibitions, I have tried to come to a rational, unbiased view on this matter. It is rather hard to do, as other noble Lords have said, because it has stirred up the emotions of not only the people from the West Country but also people from the rest of the country as to whether the road should go to the north or south.
There is no doubt that a bypass will create jobs and bring prosperity to the West Country. There is no doubt that it will not only relieve Okehampton but save it from crumbling, and let it breathe and become a charming country town where people can carry on
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their business life without all the noise and pollution in the air.
I have examined the alternatives. On the one hand, if the road goes to the north, it will go through open spaces at Abbeyford Woods, and it will go through good farming land. I shall not go into that because so much has been said about it already. It will close Aggetts quarry. It will cost more in time and money and will run across the grain of the land above the town leaving a scar with a viaduct. If, on the other hand, it goes to the south, it will go through the tip of the national park—I say "tip"—also leaving a scar. It will go through a mediaeval deer park and what is commonly known as Bluebell Wood and can be completed in three years.
Those briefly are the cases. I have given careful consideration to the issues. If the road goes to the north, it will leave a scar, but the northern route will be seen for miles around with the 90-foot viaduct sticking up like a sore thumb. But the southern route will be hidden in the natural contours of the land Jobs will be lost in the quarry and possibly farming jobs if it goes to the north, but I can see no job losses to the south. As for Bluebell Wood, I am told you either have to be a pygmy or someone on stilts to go through it. The deer park has not had deer in it for over a hundred years or so and, what is more, much of the deer park is useless because it consists of 533 acres out of a total of 1,506 acres made up of railway, golf course, army camp and quarry. If the road goes to the south with additional land coming in, the Moor will be bigger.
I am concerned also about the time factor. I do not think a northern route could be built in an extra five, six or nine years. So many numbers of years have been mentioned. First, the farmers will fight with all they have until the last drop of blood has left them. Secondly, there are outsiders who could object and cause delays. One only has to look at what happened to the M.40 extension where one objector's court actions have caused costly delays, and that person does not even live within 30 miles of the proposed extension. We have seen this from time to time in many cases. This was in the Daily Telegraph on 21 st November.
The Earl of Winchilsea and Nottingham: My Lords, as I said, Aggetts quarry is nearly worked out in any case. The 10 people who work there have been offered alternative employment at Meldon quarry. I thought that was a point worth restating.
Lord Brougham and Vaux: My Lords, I shall just reiterate my point about the objections from outsiders who live miles away. I heard yesterday from a Member of Parliament who has letters from his constituents in Birmingham who have been reading about the Okehampton bypass and they have asked him to vote against it. Those people say they have never been down there. This is happening on the M.40 and it will be happening with the Okehampton bypass. As I was saying, we have seen this time and time again in other places.
It is a fact that all the local elected councils and parishes in varying degree are in favour of the southern route as well as the majority of the local people, local Members of another place, the NFU, the CLA, some

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of the major trade unions as well as the independent landscape authority. They are all in favour.
In the quiet of my home I have pondered and weighed up the balance. I consider that there is no reasonable alternative, in this instance, but that the minority should now bow to the wishes of the majority in this case and that we should pass this order tonight and save Okehampton from total destruction. Let the West Country benefit from the jobs and industry that will ensue now and not in years to come, because then it will be too late.
9.45 p.m.
Viscount Hood: My Lords, I am another West Country Peer supporting the southern route. In doing so, I propose to speak, and very briefly, to the substance rather than the procedures of this matter.
First, in relation to the environment, we have all read, heard and seen much about the environment. There is much evidence on both sides. I have reached the conclusion that there is little to choose. Any major road is a liability to the environment. However, it has to be accepted, as I think it is agreed by Members from all parts in the House, that a bypass is essential and has been essential for many years past.
On the issue of farming land, I believe the balance clearly falls to the southern route. There is more damage to farming the land. I do not think this is the most important point but nevertheless farming is the industry of Devon and cannot be ignored. In relation to cost, it is said that the northern route will cost £5 million more at 1976 prices. Presumably, it will be materially more now. Again, that is not the most important point, but millions do count in this world.
Delay is obviously the most vital factor. This is something on the jugular vein of the West Country. It not only affects Cornwall—and I listened to the noble Viscount, Lord Falmouth, with interest—but I am a Dorset man, living on the border and we are affected and—goodness knows!—Devon is too. The delay is terrible. It is terrible to contemplate six additional years. This is the Government's estimate, and today I have heard no convincing arguments to suggest that it would be less: more likely more. This is the vital factor. We cannot have 12 mile queues of unfortunate people wishing to see the environment but merely seeing other motorcars for miles and miles.
Then, in relation to procedure, I briefly say that, while following the legal arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Molson, the one which convinces me is that Parliament has the power to decide and it is our decision today which counts.
On the issue of the national park, we have been given the most complete assurances by the Government that there is no precedent here. It is a slither (if I may use that word) of the 230,000 acres to which the noble Earl, Lord Waldegrave, referred. There is no precedent. The governing factor is that the reasons should be compelling—and they are compelling—and that there should be no reasonable alternative. Certainly in my opinion there is no reasonable alternative. Indeed, it would be most unreasonable if your Lordships did not pass the Bill and reject the amendment.
9.48 p.m.
Baroness Nicol: My Lords, as each hour has passed, I have crossed out more and more of what I planned to say. However, I think I must say the little which is left. There is no doubt of the need for a bypass. We have all agreed on that, and I am surprised that noble Lords have felt it necessary to go on saying so. There is no argument: Okehampton must have its bypass. I do not intend to go over again all the arguments between north and south. I have just a few particular points that I want to make.
First of all, I thought it might be worthwhile to look at a summary of the representations which I have received since the time of the public inquiry. The Select Committee has advised the Government, as we have heard at great length tonight, against the southern route. The Countryside Commission, which is the Government's own adviser, has consistently opposed the southern route. All 12 or so leading national conservation bodies are against the southern route. None of these has any commercial interest, and can therefore be assumed to be offering objective advice. We have also had many letters from individuals in Okehampton, who appear to set preservation of the southern route above that of their own immediate comfort, though they all want the bypass in the end. When we come to those who support the Bill—and I am not complaining about this—we find that they all have a particular interest. The AA and the RAC are anxious to ease the lot of the motorists; and so they should; that is their job. The Freight Transport Association, of course, are concerned about difficulties for lorry drivers in Okehampton. The A.30 Action Group, from which I am sure many noble Lords will have heard, represent a large number of commercial, industrial and service interests in Devon and Cornwall. All these seek improved access to strengthen the economy of the region which I fully support in an area of high unemployment.
But all these organisations and interests are more concerned about the timing of the bypass than about where it goes. As the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, said earlier, some of them really do not care a button where it goes so long as they get it fairly quickly. The single exception in this category is the National Farmers' Union; and I shall return to them in a moment. Those who profit from the tourist industry might pause to reflect that it is the beauties of their counties that the tourists come to see and that their livelihoods depend upon this; and that, if in the course of getting the tourists in, they destroy the very thing that the tourists want to see, then their livelihoods may well be damaged. I offer that to the service industries before they come out in full support of the southern route.
Now to the National Farmers' Union which is a special case. They quite properly put the case for avoiding loss of agricultural land. But it can be argued that this is a less telling point now than it might have been a few years ago since we are now trying to cope with overproduction in the agricultural industry. They might find possible compensation attractive against loss of profits for crops which have a diminishing value. It can also be said that agricultural land is a loss to identifiable individuals who can be compensated. But the loss of part of a national park is a loss to the whole community. Although I support my noble

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friend's amendment which offers compensation to the Dartmoor National Park authority if such a course is possible—and I look forward to hearing from the Minister as to whether this is so—this should not be seen in any way as a recompense for the damage done to the concept of national parks because for that there can be no compensation.
As the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, told us so graphically, the single real argument in favour of the southern route now is the likely delay in pursuing an alternative. I think we are all agreed on that.There has been no positive support for the southern route that left aside this need for speed; and we all agree that this is so. It is quite deplorable, as the noble Lord, Lord Foot, said earlier, that in spite of the controversy surrounding this project the Department of Transport has apparently been allowed to concentrate solely on the southern route. There have been some rather bitter exchanges of views across the Chamber about how this might or might not be. Whatever the reason, I think it is deplorable because there has been controversy right from the beginning. There has been a national parks policy which the Government should have known would lead to this controversy. It seems to me that there should have been an intelligent appraisal of some of the alternatives.
We have this argument about how much the completion date will be delayed. Mr. Parker, for the Countryside Commission, gives us 1990 as the finishing date for a possible alternative northern route. The Secretary of State, Mr. Ridley, gives us 1994. His Minister of State gives us 1998. I cannot remember exactly the date that the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, gave us but I think it was something around 1994.
We are told in another context that we can have a Channel tunnel in four years. Why should it take nine years to deal with something like four or five miles of perfectly ordinary dual carriageway if we can have a channel tunnel in four or five years?
Has the Secretary of State not felt it sensible in all these years of anxiety to instruct his department to give just some consideration to the alternatives? It seems that the Government have blinkered themselves to all outside comment against the southern route and are determined to force the Bill through by relying on their large Whipped majority and on the constitutional sensitivity of your Lordships' House.
For me the overwhelming argument is the need to protect the national park. I simply do not accept that if we allow this violation to take place it will not be seen as a precedent. I do not question the integrity of the present Secretary of State or of the Ministers on the Bench opposite; but Ministers change, as we have said in other debates on other subjects, and the words in Hansard are not binding on any future Ministers. The next time a park is in an inconvenient place from the point of view of the Department of Transport, we may see yet another encroachment. The principle must be protected. There has already been too much nibbling away at the amenities of Dartmoor. Now is the time to say "enough", and if the only way to do that is to support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Molson, then, my Lords, I shall support it.
9.56 p.m.
The Earl of Halsbury: My Lords, there is a certain inevitability about my appearance in your Lordships' House this evening. Of 39 speakers on the list, only three have historical, long-term connections with Devonshire: the noble Earl, Lord Iddesleigh, the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, and I myself. We are all three Cross-Benchers, detached from party struggles, and all in favour of the Bill and against the amendment. I hope that those of you who are not historically connected with Devonshire will pay serious attention to what we have to say. The speech of the noble Earl, Lord Iddesleigh, on the eco-balance was of outstanding distinction. The noble Lord. Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, has given long, distinguished and continuous service to public affairs in Devonshire, and everything he says also should be taken very seriously.
I come to my own involvement. My family settled in Devon in the early 12th century and flourished there till we backed the wrong side in the Civil War. Proscribed, fined as active malignants—being Cavaliers in a Roundhead county—we lost our estates and set out again on our travels: a thing which the late King Charles II said he would never do. Those travels land me here this evening. Although I am exterritorial, I have never lost interest in what 1 still regard as my own county. I was a regular contributor to the little quarterly magazine concerned with Devon county history—Devon and Cornwall Notes and Queries, it was called. And, whether by virtue of their quantity or their quality I know not, I was invited a quarter of a century ago to become president of the Devonshire Association. I am now of course a past president—and nothing is so past as that.
But I have not come to the end of my recital. I am the ex-tenant of a weekend cottage at Belston, within walking distance of Okehampton. From my garden I could wander straight up to the top of Belston Tor for a picnic, or I could walk into Okehampton for my shopping. I know the district; I know its roads; I know its hopeless traffic congestion; I know its needs; I know its lobbyists—and I know those whose opinions I respect and those I do not. Those whose opinions I respect are unanimously in favour of the Bill and against the amendment.
Okehampton, my Lords, requires better treatment than the shabby one it has got out of parliamentary procedures so far. Why should they be the victims of the busy little butter-fingers of a joint committee whose members deserted their terms of reference, as described by the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford? May I remind your Lordships that law is made by the Queen in Parliament, not by joint committees. If the robustitude of the Commons chooses to give the joint committee a rap over the knuckles, there is no reason that your Lordships should not do the same. In that case, the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Molson, collapse into a vacuum.
I resume the history of my involvement in Devon affairs. I was a member of your Lordships' Select Committee on the Dartmoor Commons Bill. 1 was also for 20 years a committee member of the RAC who, together with the AA and the Scottish RAC, put on that very interesting exhibition in the Institute of Chartered Surveyors last week. I am, like my noble

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friend Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, a back number in many ways—ex-this, ex-that. I could even claim to say in the context of this Bill: you name it, I am exit—spelt, if you please, with a hypen to discriminate my status from exit spelt without a hyphen: an irrelevancy endemic to my age group.
Let me say something, please, of the eco-balance. If Dartmoor were not covered by sheep, it would be covered with impenetrable scrub which you would not be able to walk across. Landscape is invariably man-made. What man has made, man can unmake and remake. Nothing is forever. The ways of the Almighty are inscrutable and we cannot penetrate them. They include an incomprehensible preoccupation with beetles. There are more species of beetles in the Coleoptera than species belonging to any other genus on the planet.
Motorways and their aerodynamics effect a widespread destruction of beetles crossing the motorways and sweep them aside on to the verges, where they provide a rich diet for hedgehogs. So you have a rich new eco-fauna in the verges: kestrels hovering above them and hedgehogs pursuing their lawful occasion within them. Why quarrel with this interesting state of affairs? "The old order changeth giving place to new and God fulfils himself in many ways lest one good custom should corrupt the world." Nothing is forever. One eco-balance transforms itself into another, and why not?
Do not think of a motorway as a blemish. It gives the motorist a view second to none of the beauties of the countryside. In the railway age, this enchantment was a monopoly enjoyed by the National Union of Railwaymen driving railway trains. Now it belongs to every motorist. The day after tomorrow, I shall be motoring to Gloucestershire on the M.4. When I have passed Exit 12, the last of the exits leading to Reading, the whole lovely countryside in all its rolling beauty will open out and my heart will lighten as I enjoy it. It is a matter of landscaping and fitting the motorway to the landscape. I have driven across continental United States and know what beauty landscaping can reveal. I have driven over the motorways of Europe with the same result.
I now come to the essential matter. We must learn to take decisions and stick to them on the basis that the better is the enemy of the good. When I was chairman of the Operational Research Society I used to tease my colleagues on these terms: "There isn't one of you that can't write a learned paper on the mathematics of decision-taking, and there isn't one of you that can take a decision and stick to it between meetings."
I remember a tale of the first Earl Attlee when he was Prime Minister. A colleague sent him a paper with a note: "I think this may be an interesting contribution to debate in Cabinet" (on whatever it was.) Earl Attlee minuted back: "Cabinet does not debate. It decides and has." My Lords, that is what we have to learn to do.
We have had the report of a public inquiry. We should stop frigging about and implement it. For my own part, I shall vote for the Bill but against the first of the two amendments. For a quite different reason I shall vote against the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, because I think it calls for general
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legislation and should not be incorporated in a particular Bill for a particular purpose. I sympathise with its intent but I believe that this is the wrong occasion. My Lords, I shall vote for the Bill and against both amendments.
10.8 p.m.
Lord Airedale: My Lords, I can offer only a few words, as a Member of the Joint Select Committee, on the debate as it has gone so far. There cannot really be very much new to be said now. I am sorry to have to say to the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, that, enormously as I admire the noble Earl's fluency of speech in debate and expertise upon matters of science, he and I have a terrible habit of getting into cross purposes on every possible occasion. I was one of the three Members of this House who, together with three Members of the other House, were asked to serve upon the Select Committee. The noble Earl has accused us of busying our butter fingers with something that he thinks we ought to have had nothing to do with, and he thinks that we ought to be rapped over the knuckles.
If Parliament has laid down a procedure which leads inescapably to a Select Committee of both Houses, and if people are going to be asked to serve and they fear that, having done their best and spent 15 days or more for nothing considering this difficult question when they have other things to do, in the subsequent debate they are going to be knocked about like that, I say to the noble Earl that there will be great difficulty in getting people to serve on Select Committees. In that case we had better have a new parliamentary procedure which eliminates the need for Select Committees. The six of us did the best that we could with the matters that were placed before us.
There is not much new that can be said in this debate, but I have not so far heard any noble Lord mention that the gradient on the southern route is going to be 7 per cent., which I understand is close to the borderline of steepness of gradient which is permissible for a road of this character. If you imagine a heavy, laden large goods vehicle grinding up a 7 per cent. gradient, it is not going to afford much peace and quiet to the people in the immediate neighbourhood.
So much has been said about precedents that I hesitate to say another word about it. The fact is that both Ministers in the other place said that they were not setting a precedent. So did the noble Earl, and for good measure he said he was giving a categoric assurance, as if that made it better. I do not want to get into a semantic argument with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, about what is and what is not a precedent, but I would only say this. Let us suppose that in 20 years' time Parliament wants to do something like this to another national park; it wants to nibble away at the fringe. I suppose that a great many of us will not be here, but I hope that the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, will be.
The Earl of Caithness: So do I, my Lords.
Lord Airedale: My Lords, if somebody in that debate dares to say that 20 years ago Parliament did such a thing in respect of Dartmoor National Park and so perhaps it can be done again, will the noble Earl stand up and say, "How dare you say that? I gave a

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categorical assurance 20 years ago that nothing like this would occur."? That would be Alice in Wonderland. It is never safe for Parliament to say that we are not setting a precedent. It is not for us to do so. It is for those who come afterwards to decide whether or not what we did was a precedent.
Learned counsel for the department, arguing before the Select Committee, stated that Circular 4/76 was crucial to his arguments. He then had to go on to try to argue that the northern route which had been on the county development plan since 1962 was not a reasonable alternative to going through the national park. It seemed to me that he did not relish that task. He spent a great deal of his time simply making a strict comparison between a northern route and a southern route. But if one does that, of course one gives no special protection to the national park at all.
Therefore, when the committee's turn to question the witnesses came, we started by telling them, "For heaven's sake forget about the southern route just for a moment. Try to think about the northern route on its own. Imagine that Okehampton is a coastal town and that Dartmoor is the sea. The only place that a bypass could go would be to the north of Okehampton. You, with your experience of bypass routes all over England, should compare the northern route proposed with other bypass routes in other parts of England and give the committee your opinion as to the reasonableness or otherwise of a northern bypass route". If one regarded the matter in that light, there was a fund of evidence that there was nothing at all unreasonable about taking the route round to the north of Okehampton.
I was disappointed by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Nugent. At Question Time not very long ago he told your Lordships that we must not nibble away at the Green Belt. I hoped that that splendid proposition was going to be advanced today in favour of the national parks, but I am afraid that the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, let me down very sadly.
Finally, let me say that I do not understand the argument that the Okehampton bypass, wherever it goes, will solve the road problem of the people of Cornwall. It was the honourable Member for Truro who I first heard say that the road from Okehampton to Launceston is the longest lane in Britain. The honourable Member for Truro should know what he is talking about in that connection. It seems to me that if one feeds a dual carriageway into the longest lane in Britain, that may be fine for the people of Okehampton, but all one is doing is pushing the snarl-up to the west, into the longest lane. So if the people of Cornwall have been led to believe that the Okehampton bypass will be their salvation, they have been misdirected and let down.
My last word is that it was very kind of the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, speaking from whatever pedestal he supposed he was speaking from, to look down on distinguished Members of this House, such as the noble Lord, Lord Molson, and my noble friend Lord Hunt, and tell them that he was dealing with them gently. I am sure they will hurry home and put that in their diaries: "I was dealt with gently by the noble Lord, Lord Sandford". If the noble Lord, Lord
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Sandford, had dealt a little less gently with the Department of Transport, he might have done more good. I should have thought that, after chairing a committee which had come out with those famous words,
"strongly for the protection of the national park",
and those words had been incorporated almost verbatim into a circular stating Government policy and, after all that, when the chips were down and a practical instance arose the Government flew in the face of their statement of public policy by agreeing to a road through the national park, the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, would have been the first to say to the Government, "How can you argue that the route to the north that was on the development plan ever since 1962 is not a reasonable alternative to going through a national park?" I was very disappointed with the noble Lord, Lord Sandford.
I do not think I can help your Lordships any further. It is terribly important to get this bypass in the right place and I think that our children and grandchildren will thank us for putting it in the right place; and I believe that the right place is to the north.
10.17 p.m.
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, when any road is to be built of whatever length or breadth, by its very nature it is inevitably going to cause deep resentment, very often fearsome anger, sometimes great sadness and unfailingly severe disruption not only to those who find themselves alongside it but also to those who live nearby. A road is an immensely unattractive object with yard after yard of grey tarmac layed by man across God's country. But in accepting that we have to have them, I decided the day before yesterday to see for myself just why so much controversy has raged for so long over the road scheduled to bypass the town of Okehampton to the south.
It would be totally insensitive and utterly unrealistic to pretend that this road, if it were to pass to the south of Okehampton, would not pass through a perfectly beautiful piece of England: England at its best, with that superb and dramatic mixture of a river flowing through a thickly wooded valley, one side of which is bordered by those characteristic small and undulating Devonian fields while the other side climbs steeply up past wooded slopes up onto a great shoulder of open moorland where lie the northern foothills of Dartmoor.
In the middle of the valley below nestles Okehampton which in summer, although surrounded by beauty on all sides, does itself become a hideous monument to the ghastlyness of late 20th century traffic and its attendant chaos, while its inhabitants go about their daily business in despair and misery as year after year passes with no sign of relief in sight; not to mention those wretched holiday-makers, lorry drivers and the inhabitants of Devon and Cornwall inching their way through the town and along the eastern and western approaches to the town. If you get caught in the Okehampton net the hell of it does not fade easily from the memory. Speedy relief for Okehampton is therefore essential if it is ever again to breathe in the sweet air of summer.

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Having therefore examined with care, both on maps and on the ground, the case for the southern route against that of the northern route, even as a layman—which I most certainly am when it comes to building roads—even I, as a devout defender of conservation, quickly perceived that the choice must lie with the route that passes to the south.
To be able to build a road just over five miles in length through low grade farmland, a road for the most part curling around a great shoulder of headland, through making maximum use of the existing lie of the ground, by cutting into the hillside and staggering the level of the carriageways, through planting a mixture of fast-growing trees and trees indigenous to the area, through upsetting a minimal number of homes—in fact, some 15 in all, which is small compared to the number being upset in the town at the moment—seems almost to good to be true. But true it is.
When one realises, furthermore, that having laid such a road it would from Dartmoor be virtually invisible, and that in some seven years' time, when the trees have grown, very nearly the whole route would be invisible from nearly every angle—when one realises that and at the same time takes into account the fact that if a road to the north were selected it would in all probability not even be built by the time the trees had grown up on the southern route, then at that point does the argument for the route to the south really become persuasive; nay, even compelling. Moreover, this southern route for much of its length would flirt very closely with the single track of railway line which takes stone from Meldon Quarry to Crediton. Very little of this line can be seen because it was a designer's paradise to lay track along a deep cutting against the side of a hill. So too today it is a road planner's paradise.
Those who love the moor make much of the so-called desecration of the national park if a road were to pass through it. However, I cannot agree that 0·06 per cent. of the whole of Dartmoor, which is the amount of land to be taken, can in any sense justify that argument. I think that it is important to be fully aware that there are already two huge areas of desecration just above where this southern route is to pass—first, the army camp with 54 acres and, secondly, the Meldon Quarry with 148 acres. For those of your Lordships who have not seen it, I can assure you that this quarry is a deep and offensive scar on the face of the moor while the machinery that works it is for ever darkly silhouetted against the sky behind.
While any route to the north would not pass through quite such beautiful country it would nonetheless go through many more smallholdings of better-grade land. It would be a mile longer; it is estimated that it would cost £5 million more to build; and it is unlikely that it would take much less than nine years to complete. But equally important, as this is the type of terrain across which the northern route would have to pass, because of the undulating type of ground that characterises Devon and Cornwall, much of this route would be immensely exposed. It would be impossible for it to be otherwise. It would be a horrendous scar across a very beautiful part of Devon and it would be visible from miles around and particularly from Dartmoor.
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It will be a sad and bad day for those who live in Devon and Cornwall if this, in my opinion, justifiable preference for the southern route is overturned. Indeed, if that were to happen my advice to any such noble anti-southerners here tonight would be to keep their heads well down and their car doors and windows locked for the next nine years when passing through the town of Okehampton. The northern route sticks out like a sore thumb, while the southern route is like one of those lines tucked away deep in the folds of the palm of one's hand, following the natural contours from east to west.
I submit that in the choice of one route or another the southern route is the undoubted one which possesses the qualities of sensitive planning together with the promise of speedy relief—qualities after which those who live in and around Okehampton have for many years now so desperately hankered.
10.23 p.m.
Lord Maude of Stratford-upon-Avon: My Lords, in view of your Lordships' patient suffering over the past six hours or so I shall try to be brief. Personally I happen to believe that the southern route would be environmentally less damaging than the northern route, and I have a lurking suspicion that had the inspector at the public inquiry been a qualified planner or had he sat with qualified planning assessors, he might just possibly at least have come to the conclusion that the northern route offered a reasonable alternative.
However, the arguments for and against the northern and southern routes have been put at such length that I do not want to go into that. I support my noble friend Lord Molson on the grounds that if we do not now come to grips with the way in which this shambles has been created, who has been responsible for it and how it has come about, and recognise the dangers for the future in what has been done, we deserve to have this sort of thing happen to us again and again, as it will.
Much has been made of the question of time and delay. The delay is entirely the fault of the Department of Transport. A northern route was on the Devon county plan from 1964 for nearly a decade. It was not until 1971 that the Department of Transport began to have discussions with the local authorities about a southern route. That was seven years after the northern route first went into the county plan. I submit that any official in the Department of Transport who did not warn his Minister that to plan a route through a national park in contravention of the accepted policy in Circular 4 of 1976 is not fit to advise a Minister. It was perfectly obvious that this would produce an enormous upsurge of indignation from all conservation bodies who were quite rightly determined as to the policy that the national parks should be inviolate, or as near inviolate as possible, and ought to be preserved. And this was a flagrant departure from it.
Really, I have no patience at all with those ranging from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, to others, who have suggested that this is not very important because the route only passes through the fringes of the national park. Apart from the fact that

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this is reminiscent of the excuse of the housemaid who had a baby, the fact of the matter is that, by definition, Circular 4/76 can apply only to the fringes of national parks. If a town lies wholly within a national park, it is perfectly obvious that the bypass must go through the national park. This circular was designed to protect the fringes of national parks from piecemeal encroachment. And it has been breached.
I submit that delay having been caused by the procrastination and incompetence of the Department of Transport, they have now compounded this in two ways. It is no reflection on my noble friend Lord Caithness or on his right honourable friend when I say that it is quite impossible to take seriously his assurance that this will not be used as a precedent and that it will never happen again. As the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, said, not only can he not commit another government, he cannot even commit a future Secretary of State. Knowing the way of the Department of Transport and of civil servants generally, if there is a precedent, you can bet your boots that when another case of this kind comes up, they will grab it.
It has, of course, breached an established policy. That is a very serious matter. But, in my view, the behaviour of the Department of Transport has done something worse. Two previous Ministers have given assurances about the procedure of going before a Joint Select Committee of both Houses with a petition from objectors. Both of them said clearly that the Minister ought to tell the objectors if he had any intention of overturning a decision adverse to him in the Select Committee. The noble Lord, Lord Foot, put with great force the question as to when the decision was made. I find it difficult to believe that it was a last minute change of heart on the part of the Secretary of State
The point is that the Select Committee procedure, which has been an invaluable buttress for the rights of citizens whose landscape and environment were affected, has now been very seriously damaged. If it is now known that the Secretary of State can and well may overturn any decision of a Joint Select Committee that he does not like, what body of petitioners will scrape together and risk £50,000 to go through that procedure in future? What it means is that this procedure will be gravely damaged and this will mean the removal of a very important right for the citizens of this country. What has happened is that both Circular 4/76—the policy of successive governments—has been seriously endangered and in my view rendered nugatory, and the Select Committee procedure has been so seriously damaged that I believe fewer and fewer people will be willing to take advantage of it in future. Both these are very serious losses and they are, I submit, of very considerable political importance and should be of importance to every Member of your Lordships' House.
In view of what has happened I have some sympathy with those who say that our entire procedure for dealing with problems of this kind, possibly involving a change in the substantive Act, should now be considered seriously. If we are going to get into this sort of shambles over and over again—and we have seen it with motorway inquiries as well—we ought to do something about it. If this brings us to the point of
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deciding to do something to clear up the mess which the Department of Transport has made of this case, it may not all have been in vain.
10.32 p.m.
Lord Saint Levan: My Lords, as I come from southwest Cornwall—far west—I have further to go home tonight than any of your Lordships, so I shall be very short indeed. I should first of all like to say that Dartmoor National Park is a very important part of the heritage of the south-west. It is typical West Country scenery, and has been rightly called the wild heart of the West Country. I have to say that, when driving from London to Penzance, looking towards the national park is, I think, one of the most beautiful scenes that one sees after leaving the M.5 from Exeter. I think we have nothing to compare with it in Cornwall, even on Bodmin Moor and even with the romance of Jamaica Inn.
The fact is that the proposed southern route passes through a national park and is a cause of deep concern. However, I should have thought, having heard all the arguments, that as a matter of judgment and balance, certainly from the point of view of people living in West Cornwall, there is a compelling need for a bypass. It would not be reasonable for a delay of 13, nine or even three years. In West Cornwall we arc now faced with a bypass being built at Long Rock which will ruin, in my view, the approach to the beautiful Mounts Bay. There has been an inquiry about a distributor road to Penzance, and there are proposals for further road-widening in the Indian Queen area of the A.30, so that the A.30 in Cornwall would be very much improved.
In Cornwall, as the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, said, conservation groups have a very heavy responsibility, because the county depends so much on the tourist industry. I happen to live in a National Trust property which is visited by many people—in fact, it is one of the most visited places in the country. It would not be in my personal interest for this bypass to be built so that my property is over-visited. But the tourist trade is altering very quickly; that is why the bypass is needed so quickly.
Fewer visitors now book well in advance of their holidays. They react very quickly to road traffic information. A good satellite television weather forecast produces a sudden surge of visitors, as it did in the first week of November this year. Many visitors complain to me about the long traffic queues. After all, they drive 200 miles to Exeter and after that there is a further two or three hours' driving to get to West Cornwall. The tourist trade is not an easy trade. I know of many recent bankruptcies of small businesses which depend on the tourist trade. It is a very risky business for people with very limited capital. But it happens to be a trade which employs more people for less capital, and its importance to Cornwall cannot be exaggerated.
Finally, I should like to mention two very important new reasons why there is a compelling need for the bypass to be built in the next three years. Perhaps more than any other county West Cornwall depends on the transport of fresh perishable goods to the markets in London and the Midlands. There is now considerable anxiety about the competition of Spain coming into

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the Common Market on 1st January. We have to compete with what might be called the Spanish Armada.
Another good reason is that arts and crafts in Cornwall are now attracting many more people, and if they do not give people a job they give them an occupation. It is important for them that their goods should be sold in the London stores or in the stores of the big cities of England cheaply and quickly, because this great enterprise is starting now in West Cornwall. In three years' time, in 1988, Cornwall County Council hope to sponsor an exhibition and festival in London to promote Cornwall in London. This will be the first time that an English county has done such a thing. For these reasons I ask your Lordships to support the Bill.
Lord O'Hagan: My Lords, I hope that all members of your Lordships' House who intend to vote against the Bill put forward by the Government have travelled along the proposed southern route. This Bill provides the best answer to an impossible question: how to organise a bypass round Okehampton. I respect the sincerity of all those who think or, as it seems to them, know that the southern route is wrong. In particular, I pay the greatest possible attention to the procedural and constitutional, or quasi-constitutional, points put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Henderson of Brompton. These must be examined so that the ghastly mess which we are discussing tonight never happens again.
I have come from Brussels for this debate and I am glad that I do not have to go back to Devon tonight. I work in Devon; it is my constituency in the European Parliament; I know it well and often have to travel in, through and near Okehampton. There is no doubt in my mind that the people of Devon and Cornwall, if they have a view, are in favour of this Bill and the southern route.
The noble Lord, Lord Underhill, in his elegant and one might almost say sinuous speech, gave some figures which were useful but not wholly illuminating. He did not mention that 100 per cent. of the West Devon councillors are in favour of the southern route, and I think that that fact should go on record.
Any road creates environmental problems. Those of us who know Okehampton, who have been to this edge of the moor, who have seen the proposed southern route, who have noticed the difference between the over-hanging lip of the moor and the exposed flank that would be traversed by the northern route, can easily understand how it is the best answer. Those of us who have not may have doubts.
However, I would suggest to your Lordships that, before voting for the amendments of the noble Lords, Lord Molson or Lord Underhill, you should think for one minute—and this is my concluding point—of the tourists, the residents and the inhabitants of the far south-west. They are looking to this House for justice and for a reasonably speedy bypass. I accept that what we are deciding tonight has long-term importance for national parks in general and for Dartmoor in particular. However, the immediate issue is the Okehampton bypass itself and the role that that bypass can play in
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helping to vitalise and revitalise parts of our economy in the far south-west which are in difficulty if not in danger.
I would ask noble Lords to remember their past holidays in Devon and Cornwall and, thinking of the people who live and work there all the time rather than they who come and go as visitors, to examine whether there is a real case for voting against this Bill. I support the Government.
10.40 p.m.
Lord McNair: My Lords, do not be too alarmed at the spectacle of somebody speaking in the gap in the speakers' list. I only do so because my noble friend Lord Winstanley is indisposed and will not be speaking at all. Moreover, the point that I wanted to make to the House has already been very able put, chiefly by my noble friend Lord Winchilsea, and it was also touched on in the cogent letter from which the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, quoted from the long-distance lorry driver.
The southern route is the wrong route. It will not totally bypass Okehampton. But I am not going into the reasons again because of the time on the clock. I would only say that the department is committing an act of blind folly in choosing this route and that it is likely, if the southern route is completed, as I fear it will be, that within a decade or so the people of Okehampton will be demanding and needing another bypass around the north. For that reason if there is any noble Lord in the House who has not made up his mind how to vote, and if he feels grateful to me for making the shortest speech in the debate, I hope he will show his gratitude by voting for the amendment so ably moved by the noble Lord, Lord Molson.
10.42 p.m.
Baroness David: My Lords, we have had a long debate but an interesting one, characterised by strong and indeed passionate feelings, and by the number of noble Lords who have personal and expert knowledge of the south-west. As at least a part-time resident of Cornwall I have spent many hours in traffic jams between Whitton Down and Okehampton, and I am well aware of the desperate state of the Cornish economy and the numbers of the unemployed. No one doubts that a bypass for Okehampton is absolutely essential, or that its construction must be given high priority. But what this debate is about is the size and the nature of the price to be paid for the needed action. It is an argument of principle versus expediency, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said some five hours ago.
The Government are pressing for the southern route because it would be the quickest and the cheapest to construct, and this consideration must override all others. Some of the Government's arguments are surely specious. They are using the argument of speed, speed, speed to crush all others. But this is not a factor to which they have given all that much attention in the past.
True, they were not responsible for the unfortunate illness of the inspector who held up the project for three years, but between the inspector's report and the announcement of the Government's decision, between that decision and the setting up of the joint committee,

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and between the report of the committee and the announcement that its advice was to be disregarded, the Government hardly acted with that alacrity that they now demand of others. Whatever may be the true figure for the extra time it would take to construct the bypass on a route that would spare the national park, the use of the pretext of speed comes ill from those whose own conduct has until now been anything but speedy, or indeed straightforward.
The noble Lord, Lord Molson, has analysed the actual procedures of the Government so acutely and so damagingly, in my view, and at the same time of course so delightfully, that I need say no more on that score, but I must say how much I enjoyed and sympathised with what the noble Lord, Lord Henderson of Brompton, had to say about the special procedure Act. I hope very much that after this disastrous series of events over the last 20 years, and the waste of millions of pounds in relation to this bypass, the Act at least will be looked at, amended, or possibly repealed.
I must also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Maude of Stratford-upon-Avon, on his very powerful and convincing speech. I think the situation as it is now, whoever is to blame—and perhaps a lot of people are to blame—should be looked at by Parliament, and probably the whole planning procedures, inquiry procedures, and much else should be looked at as well as our present Acts of Parliament.
Then there is the argument that the proposed route would affect only the fringe of the national park, and that the boundaries of the park were carelessly drawn anyway. Much play has been made of the fact that the boundary of the park is a parish boundary and so is a purely arbitrary or political line and nothing to do with landscape. This, to my mind, is a foolish argument, for parish boundaries, more often than not, follow and reflect natural features. The fringes of moorland, moreover, as has been pointed out, are often the most beautiful and most ecologically interesting parts of a moor. Certainly the view across the Okement Valley where the southern road would run to the heights beyond is one of the most beautiful in Dartmoor.
Have we not reached the limit of speciousness when the Ministers claim in both Houses that the route through the national park is less damaging environmentally than any other route would be?
What really worries us on this side of the House is something larger than the problem of Okehampton. The Government's actions here seem to us just another indication of their lack of seriousness when facing environmental issues and their readiness to sacrifice long-term principle for short-term expediency and to bow to the pressures of sectional interest rather than the national interest. We suspected this when the wildlife Bill was going through the House and we were proved right when the three-month loophole was exploited. That was put right when the amendment of my right honourable friend Dr. David Clark was passed last Session, but again the Government dragged their feet on other clauses in his proposed Bill which would have further safeguarded the. environment.
Again last week, when the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, asked a Question on limestone quarrying in the
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Yorkshire Dales the noble Lord the Minister made a lot of excuses for inaction, but he did not really seem to be at all worried that the park was being violated by a company that was in clear and deliberate breach of its agreements. If the Government had been truly concerned about the environment, surely some action could and would have been taken. One suspects that the leak of confidential Cabinet documents that appeared in the Sunday Times in November 1979 about the Government's medium- and long-term plans, which included as an item the words,
"reduce over-sensitivity to environmental considerations",
was probably a true side of the Government's attitude and intentions.
The Labour Party is proud of its record in setting up the national parks and we would wish to protect them. I regret myself that it was a Labour Government who suggested the southern route in 1976, but I hope that was an aberration that will not be repeated. It was a fact that the hoped-for route at that time was to have gone along the railway line when we thought the railway would be shut. I should also repeat what my noble friend Lord Underhill said—that the public inquiry had not taken place in 1976. Our amendment is an attempt, as my noble friends Lord Underhill and Lady White have said, to give help to national parks when they are under threat. It seems only fair that if there is violation, there should be recompense. There is no intention of suggesting that the parks authorities can be bought off.
My noble friend Lord Underhill has told the House what we consider we should do on the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Molson, in view of the nature of the Bill before us and the conventions of the House. Very reluctantly I confess that the Front Bench will not vote, but there is a free vote for our Back-Benchers. I suspect that there is no free vote on the other side of the House. But I should remind all noble Lords that the argument tonight is one of principle and that principle is the integrity of our national parks.
10.49 p.m.
The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Lord Elton): My Lords, I start by telling the noble Baroness, Lady David, that her party is not the only party which is the guardian of principle. What I shall address to your Lordships is not a matter of expediency but a careful review of the arguments put forward before your House and the conclusion that I believe your Lordships should reach.
We have had a somewhat bipartisan day, which is not surprising, because the Bill my noble friend has brought before your Lordships is a Bill introduced by this Conservative Government to implement a decision taken, as the noble Baroness readily admitted, by a Labour Government in 1976, using a procedure pioneered by the wartime Government but introduced by a Labour Government in 1945 and amended by another Labour Government in 1965. The decision was to build a bypass to take the A. 30 out of Okehampton, and take it to the south of the town rather than to the north.
Nobody denies that new major roads affect the countryside, but then nobody denies either that Okehampton needs a bypass. You do not need aerial

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photographs of traffic jams extending—in spite of the holiday route that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, says is coping fairly well—four miles to the west of the town and seven miles to the east of it, in August, to convince you of that. You do not have to be aware of the fury and frustration, nor to count the daily loss of between £3,000 and £5,000 caused by that appalling bottleneck to commercial goods vehicles. You only have to stand in Okehampton on a busy day to see what this dreadful stream of traffic, 13,000 vehicles a day in August, is doing to the town and its people, to know that there is a need to know that that need is urgent. That has been recognised freely by more speakers than I have time to catalogue.
Noble Lords: Hear, hear.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I am grateful for those "Hear, hears". I think there are 37 names on the list. If I gave each of them one minute, I should have spoken for twice as long as your Lordships would wish and not started my speech; so I shall not.
The question therefore is not, "Do we have to drive a road through the countryside at all?" but, "Which is the best way to do it?" That question was first answered in 1976, when the Government of the day decided, after public consultation (be it noted) that the southern route was the best. It was the same Government who embodied that decision in the very orders that we are now considering. Their decison was then tested by an independent inspector, presiding over a public inquiry. That examination in public lasted 96 days. In the course of it, he heard all shades of opinion on both sides of the question. At the end of it, he endorsed the decision, as had the majority of respondents when the Department of the Environment consulted the public in 1975: as do Devon County Council, in whose area Okehampton lies; as do Cornwall County Council, whose lines of communication with the whole of the United Kingdom are, as my noble friend Lady Vickers ably pointed out, strangled by the Okehampton block, with the results highlighted by the noble Lord, Lord Saint Levan; as do both the district council and the town council of Okehampton itself, and as do all the other parish councils in west Devon.
Every tier of local government has pronounced in favour of the southern route. It is not their objections that have required this debate. They have not any. But objections to the southern route there were, and a Joint Select Committee of both Houses sat to consider them. It heard objectors and it heard their witnesses. It also heard the Department of Transport and its witnesses. As my noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford pointed out, and as my noble friend Lord Henley confirmed, it neither called nor heard any of the private proponents of the southern route, nor the private opponents of the northern route, which is an interesting reflection given that my noble friend Lord Molson argued that the Bill should be stopped so as to protect the liberty of appeal by private interests.
The committee did not wish to go over the same ground as the public inquiry. Yet, after sitting for 15 days, it decided to overturn the conclusion that the public inquiry had endorsed. The effect of that decision was to give my right honourable friend the
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Secretary of State for Transport a choice between, on the one hand, dropping the orders and the Southern route entirely, and, on the other, bringing the matter to the Floor of both Houses. He chose the latter course. He did so because, apart from its intrusion into the national park (to which I shall return) the chosen southern route is preferable to any northern route on every count.
When I first heard of my right honourable friend's decision and reflected that I might get involved in this debate, I must confess I was a little apprehensive. At that stage, I was guided by nothing but hearsay and the press. The impression I got was, I think, shared by a great many people, some of them now sitting in this House. The Secretary of State was going against the recommendation of a Select Committee involving and including Members of your Lordships' House. He was proposing to drive a noisy and conspicuous shaft of traffic through the pristine acres of a national park. He would be flinging a viaduct over a peaceful valley, piercing the bird-embroidered silence of a sequestered wood and pouring tarmacadam over some 23 acres of statutory open space.
How easy it is to describe this proposal in those terms! And how seriously misleading they are! For a start, they ignore the fact that we have agreed that there has to be a road somewhere.
Lord Foot: My Lords—
Noble Lords: Order, order!
Lord Elton: My Lords, there was a battle between courtesy and expediency in my heart at that moment, which the noble Lord will understand. But I have been speaking for six minutes. Your Lordships want to go to bed. The noble Lord has spoken, I think, for over 30 minutes already. I think he has had his ration.
The next thing that that picture suggests is a roaring and conspicuous ribbon of traffic glinting across the skyline. In fact, for most of its length the road runs at the edge of the national park, next to a working railway tucked into a valley on an otherwise convex, tree-covered slope. If you walk a short distance up that slope across the projected line of the road, as I have done—and I do not doubt that many of your Lordships have, too—into the national park and then look back, the line of the road is hidden by the contours of the ground. Vehicles on it would also be screened by banks of earth and plantations of trees, as well as the existing woodlands that enclose the proposed route for nine-tenths of its length already.
If you look back, what you see is not, therefore, the line of the road. You see something else. What you see, spread out before you in all its fruitful beauty, is the rolling, unspoiled, productive agricultural land to the north of Okehampton. It really is a wonderful view. That view is one of the principal assets of the national park itself, from which you see it. So let us be quite clear. Whatever northern route is chosen—and none has been chosen yet—it would run right across that landscape, for all the walkers to gaze upon from the Tor, like (as my noble friend Lord Arran put it) a sore thumb.
Fourth, that description describes Meldon Wood as though it was a remote and silent spinney innocent of

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the 20th century. The facts are different. At one end of it is the A.30 packed with the thundering traffic that we wish to move throughout the summer months, and at the other is a quarry with blasting on Thursdays. The wood itself is bisected by a modern metalled road linking the two and in constant use by heavy lorries removing the stone that the blasting has fragmented. The noble Earl, Lord Iddesleigh, conclusively proved that, in addition, the wood is not of national ecological importance.
The fifth misrepresentation is that it omits to state that the land taken from the wood for the new road will now be more than compensated for by land closer to the town, more accessible to its people and less troubled by the working quarry; and that all this land will become statutory open space. And, finally, it gives no indication of the actual accessibility of the alternative route. No agreed and surveyed northern route yet exists. Noble Lords have suggested that one could be chosen and completed extra-specially fast. The normal time is 13 years. It may be disagreeable, but it is the truth. With our best efforts, we might get it down to nine. But a proposal for any northern route would provoke a huge rumpus and much hostility.
Your Lordships have been saved two minutes of my speech by the disappearance of my notes. All the alternatives would cause the closure of Aggett's Quarry, with the loss of 14 jobs locally, and would cause the destruction of a valuable archaeological site of the Roman period, the loss of much productive, agricultural land and the construction of a 90-ft high viaduct over the Knowle Valley on the doorstep of Okehampton, from which all the routes spring.
It would also emerge that the northern industrial estate cannot, because of the levels, actually reach the new road suggested by the objectors by a direct link at that level. The new route therefore might itself also fail to get approval and there would be no road. But even if it was accepted it would still take at least nine years from now to complete and open, whereas the present route can be completed and opened in three. To choose the northern route would be to sentence the citizens of Okehampton to six years more of conditions which your Lordships would not willingly suffer yourselves for more than six minutes.
The first of the noble Lords opposed to this Bill was my noble friend Lord Molson. My noble friend has given in his amendment four grounds of objection. I must say at the start how very much I enjoyed and admired the speech which he made in moving his amendment. He will not expect me to agree with him but he will allow me to admire the way he spoke.
The first of his four grounds of objection is that the orders breach assurances given by the Lord Privy Seal. Those assurances were given 40 years ago, and much water has flowed under the bridge since then; but they still hold good. My noble friend quoted extensively from Mr. Greenwood's speech in cols. 2180 and 2181 of Hansard. He finished by quoting the underlining by the Lord Privy Seal of his pledge not to use the procedure to beat down opposition, to carry though proposals without due regard to all the interests that ought to be considered. The Lord Privy Seal went on four lines later to say words, which my noble friend did
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not quote, in illumination of this undertaking. The words were:
"We hope to get on to the Floor of the House discussions which go to the root of Ministerial orders."
That was the undertaking he gave and that is what we are now doing. What the Lord Privy Seal said was that Parliament as a whole ought to consider issues of principle and policy and not just leave it to a joint committee. My noble friend's suggestion that because a policy issue is at stake we should have prevented the issue from going to a joint committee in the first place, I must most respectfully suggest, is not a realistic one.
Perhaps this is the moment to bring in the reference by the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, who sought to tie the decision by the Secretary of State after the inquiry to the memorial presented by the Secretary of State before the inquiry. The memorial presented by my right honourable friend reflected the fact that the special parliamentary procedure is specifically to deal with questions of open space—a technical term, my Lords—and showed in paragraphs 5 and 6 that the petition stated that its central concern was national policy open national parks and that it was put forward as some sort of test case to determine future policy on that matter.
That memorial in no way prejudiced his view of the case in question, and he did not form that view until the committee had reported. There was no basis therefore on which he could have baulked the committee's work or warned the petitioners not to embark on their chosen course. Nor do I believe that the reversal of the committee's decision will deter future petitioners from recourse to the special parliamentary procedure any more than reversals by the Court of Appeal of decisions of inferior courts does in practice deter people from recourse to the law.
Lord Melchett: My Lords—
Noble Lords: Order!
Lord Melchett: My Lords, the noble Lord will remember, as those who are sitting behind him and were not in the Chamber at the time will not, that I was interrupted twice by a Member of the Government Front Bench during my speech. I am very grateful to him for the courtesy he has shown in giving way—something not shown by those behind him. The noble Lord has not yet said what the question of government policy, of national principle, was which the Secretary of State for Transport had in his mind when he first made representations to the authorities in both Houses, and that was the issue I raised with him.
Lord Elton: My Lords, as I understood the noble Lord, he was referring to the memorial. I read the memorial and I extracted the relevant parts. If the noble Lord is referring to something else, I shall study what he has said in Hansard and I shall write to him. And, following the custom of the House, I will put a copy of the letter in the Library so that the noble Lord will not have to publish the results himself.
The second of my noble friend's grounds for objection was that the Bill contravenes the constitutional custom of successive governments. I turn swiftly—and I am contracting my argument for reasons of time—to the case to which the noble Lord

1519
himelf referred of the Mid-North Hants Water Board Order in 1949. It is a long time ago but it is a precedent. In that case as in this, the Government took the same constitutional course specifically provided for in the Act because issues of policy were at stake. In that case, as in this, the Bill was drafted to overturn decisions of the statutory joint committee. The fact that the Government accepted one of those decisions does not alter the fact that they overturned the rest of them; and I assure my noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford that it does provide a precedent.
My noble friend's third ground is that the Bill contravenes the policy in Circular 4/76. The policy at paragraph 58 is that no new route for long distance traffic should be constructed through a national park, unless it has been demonstrated that there is a compelling need that would not be met by any reasonable alternative means.
The issue of compelling need is not in doubt—your Lordships have concluded that, obviously, tonight—and with the inspector, quoted by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, I believe that it would not be reasonable to choose as the alternative a route that is substantially longer, that would cost considerably more, that would take at least six years longer to complete, that would have a considerable environmental impact, that would damage an archaeological site and that would take the whole of their livelihood from 14 quarry men and part of their livelihood from a number of farmers. That would be unreasonable and I maintain—and I reassure those concerned for the future of national parks—that the policy in Circular 4/76 is intact.
My noble friend's last objection is that this Bill would override the recommendation of a Joint Select Committee. Deep as is our respect for our committees, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Mulley. None of us has ever held that the authority of a part of either House is superior to that of the whole. A fear expressed by my noble friend Lord Molson, the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, and many other Peers, including my noble friend Lord Maude of Stratford-upon-Avon, is the fear that supporting the inspector would provide a precedent for building roads into the national parks. The noble and learned Lord has put beyond doubt that no public inquiry can provide a precedent for another.
That was the anxiety that noble Lords expressed. I am glad to endorse and to re-confirm, as I have, that the policy is intact. And all the care and trouble expended in both Houses of Parliament, including so many of your Lordships who have researched and so ably spoken this evening, have shown how little is the real danger of a road being slipped in unnoticed by the Houses of Parliament.
I turn therefore to the second amendment on the Order Paper, which none in favour of the northern route can in logic support, and to the noble Lord, Lord Underhill. The noble Lord regrets that under this procedure the Government have seen fit to introduce a Bill for this purpose. I shall not repeat what the Lord Privy Seal of the day said about it being a duty of future governments on their own judgment to bring matters like this to the Floor of the House. Your Lordships can see it when you read my noble friend's
1520
speech. It is what follows in his amendment that matters.
The noble Lords want the Government to compensate the Dartmoor National Park Authority in both cash and kind for loss of its land. The authority is not a substantial landowner and the route chosen has not taken a single yard of national park authority-owned land from it. There cannot therefore be any question of financial compensation to the national park authority for the loss of land which it has not suffered, even if that were appropriate. But I can assure the noble Lord that there will be cash compensation, paid of course to the proper recipients who will be the owners of the land taken for the road. That should take care of the first leg of the argument. The noble Lord's plea is not only for cash; it is also for compensation in kind, and compensation in kind there will be, too. There will be, for a start, over 70,000 trees planted to replace the 1,100 trees felled to make way for the road. The new trees will be placed to screen it from sight and to blanket the sound of the traffic. I should have expected the noble Lord, Lord Foot, to have welcomed that rather than to refer to them as green paint on the exhibition board. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, had land in mind rather than trees and he will now know that we are negotiating for about 40 acres of land to replace the 23 acres of open space needed for the road. The bulk of the new land will be closer to Okehampton and more accessible to it. So there will be compensation both in cash and in kind, as his amendment asks.
The question of adjustments raised the matter of the existing boundaries of the national park. The noble Baroness, Lady White, will forgive me if I spend one minute on that. She has reminded your Lordships that further to the east the route of the A. 30 trunk road is being moved to the north, so that it comes out of the national park, 920 acres of which at present it separates from the rest of the park. When the new route is opened that 920 acres will be to the south of it and so will 1,200 more acres that are not at present national park land. Your Lordships will understand that I can say nothing that might prejudice any future decision on the subject, but clearly the Countryside Commission will wish to consider whether this land will not form a suitable and welcome addition to the Dartmoor national park. I can tell the noble Baroness that the Dartmoor National Park Authority is consulting on this very matter now.
I put it to the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, and to your Lordships, that in every respect in which his amendment asks the Government to do what it is proper and possible for them to do his demands are already being met. Landowners will be compensated in cash. Users will be compensated in kind, including land in mitigation. We will of course keep the Dartmoor National Park Authority fully informed of developments and consult them as he asks about the effects that they will have upon it. I give that undertaking freely. It does not take an amendment to wring it from me.
Finally, the amendment is in any case defective because we cannot compensate the national park authority in cash for land which it does not own. As the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, has pointed out, the amendment also pursues an objective proper to

1521
legislation and not to homily. I hope that the noble Lord will not press his amendment tonight. If he were to do so, I should have to ask your Lordships to reject it most firmly.
In conclusion, the decision to drive a new road through open countryside is always a sad one, and the choice of route is always difficult. But in this case the need for a bypass is clearly imperative. The choice is therefore inescapable. It has to be made. The noble Lord, Lord Underhill, has rightly emphasised the importance of the environmental considerations. I have visited the exhibitions, I have toiled through the papers, I have examined the map and I have walked the course itself on the ground. I am in no doubt that if a choice must be made—and it must—then on environmental grounds, as well as on all others, the southern route is the route to choose. That is not a specious position just because the noble Baroness, Lady David, does not agree with it. The choice has in any case already been made. As my noble friend Lord Halsbury says, now is the time to stick to it and get on with the job. Let us do just that.
11.4 p.m.
Lord Molson: My Lords, it would be a very poor return for the courtesy with which your Lordships listened to my rather long opening speech if I made another one now. It has been a memorable debate and one of very high quality. I want to emphasise two things. One is that we have had renewed assurances from the Government that this will not be treated as a precedent for the future. They have emphasised in all their speeches, as have noble Lords in all parts of the House, the outstanding importance of the preservation of amenities, especially in the national parks. But on the matter of principle I feel that I must press the amendment and take your Lordships' opinion.
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone): My Lords, the original Question was, "That this Bill be now considered on Report", since when an amendment has been moved by the noble Lord, Lord Molson, in the terms set out on the Order Paper. The Question that I have to put to the House therefore is, That this amendment be agreed to? As many as are of that opinion will say, "Content"; to the contrary, "Not-Content".
11.15 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 27; Not-Contents, 112.

DIVISION NO. 1

CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Galpern, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L.

Caradon, L.

Grey, E.

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.

Hunt, L.

Dean of Beswick, L.

Kennet, L.

Denington, B.

McNair, L.

Ezra, L.

Maude of Stratford-upon-Avon, L.

Foot, L. [Teller.]

1522

Melchett, L.

Stallard, L.

Molson, L. [Teller.]

Wells-Pestell, L.

Nicol, B.

White, B.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Wilson of Langside, I

Rea, L.

Winchilsea and Nottingham, E.

Ritchie of Dundee, L.

Russell, E.

NOT-CONTENTS

Ampthill, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Arran, E.

Iddesleigh, E.

Attlee, E.

Kimball, L.

Bath and Wells, Bp.

Kinloss, Ly.

Bathurst, E.

Kinnaird, L.

Beaverbrook, L.

Lane-Fox, B.

Belstead, L.

Lawrence, L.

Biddulph, L.

Layton, L.

Bledisloe, V.

Lindsey and Abingdon E.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Liverpool, E.

Brentford, V.

Long, V. [Teller.]

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Lyell, L.

Bruce-Gardyne, L.

McAlpine of West Green, L.

Burton, L.

Margadale, L.

Butterworth, L.

Marshall of Leeds, L.

Caithness, E.

Merrivale, L.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Mersey. V.

Carnock, L.

Monk Bretton, L.

Chelwood, L.

Montagu of Beaulieu, L.

Chesham, L.

Mottistone, L.

Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

Mountevans, L.

Clinton, L.

Mulley, L.

Coleraine, L.

Munster, E.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Murton of Lindisfarne. L.

Cornwallis, L.

Napier and Ettrick, L.

Cowley, E.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Craigavon, V.

O'Hagan, L.

Crathorne, L.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Croft, L.

Penrhyn, L.

Darcy (de Knayth), B.

Plummer of St Marvlebone. L.

Davidson, V.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Roberthall, L.

Digby, L.

Rodney, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Saint Levan, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Saltoun of Abernethy, Ly.

Elliott of Morpeth, L.

Sandford, L.

Elton, L.

Savile, L.

Exmouth, V.

Sherfield, L.

Falmouth, V.

Skelmersdale, L.

Fisher, L.

Somerset, D.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

Stanley of Alderley, L.

Geddes, L.

Strafford, E.

Glanusk, L.

Strathcarron, L.

Gray of Contin, L.

Swinton, E.

Greenway, L.

Teviot, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Thorneycroft, L.

Haig, E.

Trefgarne, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Trumpington, B.

Truro, Bp.

Halsbury, E.

Ullswater, V.

Harvey of Tasburgh, L.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Henley, L.

Vickers, B.

Home of the Hirsel, L.

Vinson, L.

Hood, V.

Waldegrave, E.

Hooper, B.

Whitelaw, V.

Howe, E.

Young, B.

Howie of Troon, L.

Young of Graffham, L.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
11.24 p.m.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, as was the case with the noble Lord, Lord Molson, it would be wrong of me to make a further speech, particularly as I spoke for 22 minutes at the beginning of the debate. However, it will be noticed that the amendment in my name does not stop the Government from getting the Bill. What it does is express regret at the procedure that has been

1523
followed. Incidentally, there was not a single word in the Government's reply regarding the views of the Countryside Commission. It also emphasises that it is not felt that the procedure has been followed correctly in this case.
If passed, the amendment will serve as a warning to any Government to be very chary of using this procedure in future. Further, in the words of my noble friend Lady David, it might be that by passing this amendment we shall cause to be undertaken a review of the procedure for matters of this kind.
I welcome the Minister's point about compensation, but we want to ensure that consultation with the Dartmoor National Park Authority deals with the points in my amendment. For those reasons I hope that noble Lords will support the amendment. I hope that those who thought that they should not stop the Government from getting the Bill will vote solidly on this occasion for this amendment, which I now beg to move.
Moved, as an amendment to the Motion that the Bill be now considered on Report, at end to insert ("but that this House regrets the decision of the Government to introduce this Bill, and urges the Secretary of State, after consultation with the Dartmoor National Park Authority, to provide adequate compensation to the authority, both financial and in kind, to provide suitably for loss of amenities and land.").—(Lord Underhill.)
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, the original Question was, "That this Bill be now considered on Report", since when an amendment has been moved by the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, in the terms set out on the Order Paper. The Question that I have to put therefore is, That the said amendment be agreed to? As many as are of that opinion will say, "Content"; to the contrary, "Not-Content".
11.25 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 32; Not-Contents, 108.

DIVISION NO. 2

CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Kennet, L.

Birk, B.

Melchett, L.

Caradon, L.

Molson, L.

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.

Nicol, B.

Crawshaw of Aintree, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

David, B. [Teller.]

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L. [Teller.]

Dean of Beswick, L.

Denington, B.

Rea, L.

Elwyn-Jones, L.

Ritchie of Dundee, L.

Ennals, L.

Stallard, L.

Gallacher, L.

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

Galpern, L.

Underhill, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Grey, E.

White, B.

Henderson of Brompton, L.

Wilson of Langside, L.

Hunt, L.

Winchilsea and Nottingham, E.

Irving of Dartford, L.

1524

NOT-CONTENTS

Ampthill, L.

Howie of Troon, L.

Arran, E.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Attlee, E.

Iddesleigh, E.

Bath and Wells, Bp.

Kimball, L.

Bathurst, E.

Kinloss, Ly.

Beaverbrook, L.

Kinnaird, L.

Belstead, L.

Lawrence, L.

Biddulph, L.

Layton, L.

Bledisloe, V.

Lindsey and Abingdon, E.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Liverpool, E.

Brentford, V.

Long, V. [Teller.]

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Lyell, L.

Burton, L.

McAlpine of West Green, L.

Butterworth, L.

Margadale, L.

Caithness, E.

Marshall of Leeds, L.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Merrivale, L.

Carnock, L.

Mersey, V.

Chelwood, L.

Monk Bretton, L.

Chesham, L.

Montagu of Beaulieu, L.

Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

Mottistone, L.

Clinton, L.

Mountevans, L.

Coleraine, L.

Munster, E.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Cornwallis, L.

Napier and Ettrick, L.

Cowley, E.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Craigavon, V.

O'Hagan, L.

Crathorne, L.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Croft, L.

Penrhyn, L.

Darcy (de Knayth), B.

Plummer of St Marylebone, L.

Davidson, V.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Rodney, L.

Digby, L.

Saint Levan, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Saltoun of Abemethy, Ly.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Sandford, L.

Elliott of Morpeth, L.

Savile, L.

Elton, L.

Sherfield, L.

Exmouth, V.

Skelmersdale, L.

Falmouth, V.

Somerset, D.

Fisher, L.

Stanley of Alderley, L.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

Strafford, E.

Geddes, L.

Strathcarron, L.

Glanusk, L.

Swinton, E.

Gray of Contin, L.

Teviot, L.

Greenway, L.

Thorneycroft, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Haig, E.

Trumpington, B.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Truro, Bp.

Ullswater, V.

Halsbury, E.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Harvey of Tasburgh, L.

Vickers, B.

Henley, L.

Vinson, L.

Home of the Hirsel, L.

Waldegrave, E.

Hood, V.

Whitelaw, V.

Hooper, B.

Young, B.

Howe, E.

Young of Graffham, L.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
11.33 p.m.
On Question, Bill considered on Report.

Northern Ireland (Loans) Bill
Brought from the Commons endorsed with the Certificate of the Speaker that the Bill is a Money Bill; read a first time, and to be printed.
House adjourned at twenty-five minutes before midnight.