Lords Sitting of 9 December 1985

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

Helicopter Operations: Safety Procedures
Lord Balfour of Inchrye: 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 recommendations of the official inquiry into the Lands End—Scilly helicopter crash in July 1983 have been fully implemented for all helicopter operations over land and sea, both as regards improved safety procedures and supply of certain further equipment.
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, eight safety recommendations were made following the investigation into the crash of a British Airways helicopter near the Isles of Scilly in July 1983. The Civil Aviation Authority, which is statutorily responsible for aviation safety, informs me that six recommendations are to be implemented fully, and one other in part. An eighth, covering pilots' lifejackets and personal locator beacons, is the subject both of a research programme and of discussions between the CAA and the authorities in government responsible for search and rescue.
Lord Balfour of Inchrye: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Would the Minister agree that there can be wide differences between recommendation and implementation, and that there are still certain outstanding items recommended in the report, which so far it has not been possible to implement, that affect the safety of the personnel concerned? I know that some of these points require engineering knowledge; and there is also need for time to develop and conduct experiments. Even so, can we be assured
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that this is all being attended to? I wish to draw attention particularly to those matters affecting the safety of personnel who should have lifejackets which enable them to be independent whatever the weather and free to move about in the aircraft. If I put down a Written Question in about three months' time, will the Minister be able to give a report on progress on these matters?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I assure my noble friend that everything is being done to implement fully all the recommendations. Any outstanding delay is due either to technical problems, to which he has referred, or to the need to get international agreement on some of the items, or to both. Certainly, if my noble friend would like to put down a Question—I would suggest in six months' time rather than three—we would be in a better position to keep him fully in touch with what is going on.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, is the Minister aware that his reply seemed to be thoroughly satisfactory? However, did I hear the Minister say that one of the recommendations is not being implemented? If so, which is it, and is there any particular reason for that?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, the one that is not yet being implemented is the subject of a research programme and covers pilots' lifejackets and personal locator beacons. These matters are being looked into, and I hope very much that within a few months the problems will be resolved.

Swimming Tuition in Schools
2.40 p.m.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: 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 are satisfied with the arrangements for the availability of swimming in schools.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, Her Majesty's Government cannot be satisfied until as many young people as possible are given the opportunity to learn to swim. However, this is a matter of the local education authorities and for the schools themselves.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. Can he say what steps he has taken to confirm the information that I know he has received from the Welsh Schools Swimming Association indicating that in some schools tuition has been cut back or stopped as a result of cuts in central Government funding? Will the Minister also confirm that it is unlawful to charge for swimming tuition? Yet there are instances—about which he has been informed, as I have—of parents being asked either to pay for tuition or for transport from the school to the swimming pool. Will the Minister also acknowledge that to learn to swim at an early age is a right not to be denied to any child? Can he give some assurance that his department will take steps to emphasise to authorities that the provision of swimming is not only a right but a moral duty upon those authorities?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I can agree wholeheartedly with the penultimate supplementary question of the noble Lord. Record amounts of money are now being spent on the education of the nation's children—16 per cent. more per pupil in real terms than in 1979. However, it is a sad fact that this is not apparent everywhere. Too many authorities are failing to take advantage of falling school rolls and the general scope that exists for efficiency savings in order to redeploy resources into areas of greater educational benefit. I would agree with the noble Lord that swimming is most certainly one.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, bearing in mind that the provision of all forms of swimming facilities is the responsibility of the local authority, and acknowledging that there is a grave paucity of Olympic-size swimming pools throughout the United Kingdom, will the Minister be prepared to accept a proposition from those local authorities which believe that they can make a contribution towards remedying a serious situation and have a few more Olympic-size swimming pools built in Great Britain?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I do not regard this as a question concerning sport; I regard it as a general safety question. As a result, I do not think that the size of the pool comes into the matter. The important point is that children should be given the opportunity to learn to swim.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that in Russia, in some continental countries and in the United States they start to train their Olympic stars while they are at school? That is why they do so well. Will the noble Lord make a big endeavour at least to catch up?
Lord Skelmersdale: No, my Lords; the Question is about swimming in schools. As I have said, although it is quite obvious that basic swimming is the foundation for a number of sports, both in the
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international field and elsewhere, for me at least the availability of swimming in schools is a matter of safety and not of sport.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, I should like to ask my noble friend whether instruction in swimming is one of the matters which has been damaged by the totally uncalled for so-called industrial action by the teachers' unions.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, the unfortunate industrial unrest among teachers has been responsible for a great number of deleterious incidents as regards children's education generally. I do not know that swimming has been particularly affected in this respect.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, to follow up the normal, helpful question from the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, in which he introduced the matter of the effect of industrial action, may I ask this question? Will not the Minister agree that the purpose not only of the Question but of the representation which he has received from the Welsh Swimming Association is to point out the damage that has been done is a result of cuts by the Government in central funding? I hope that the Minister will accept that I am not pursuing this matter from the point of view of the excellence of swimmers as potential Olympic gold-medalists, although that is an aspect. I would very much welcome the Minister saying at the proper time and in a proper place that due emphasis should be given in our schools to this important activity. This difficult time has been brought about by the Government's financial priorities. The Government ought to ensure that every child at the age of nine, 10 or 11 is given the opportunity to learn to swim. The fact is that, as a result of cuts by the noble Lord's Government, children in many schools are not being given that opportunity.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, for the reasons which I gave in answer to the noble Lord's supplementary question, I do not accept that cuts are being made in the education service in this country.
Lord Somers: My Lords, I should like to ask whether the teaching of swimming is regarded as part of the curriculum, and therefore must be confined to school hours.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, my understanding of the Education Act 1944 is that when swimming is taught in school hours it automatically becomes part of the curriculum.

International Terrorism: Government Strategy
2.46 p.m.
Baroness Lane-Fox: 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 their strategy is for dealing with international terrorism.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of Stale, Home Office (Lord Glenarthur): My Lords, the Government's strategy is to promote an acceptance among like-minded countries that we have a common interest in fighting terrorism; to create an international climate in which state-supported terrorism and the abuse of diplomatic immunity are unacceptable; to ensure that it is difficult for terrorists to operate, that no substantive concessions are made to their demands, and that they are apprehended and brought to justice; to ensure that effective measures are taken to prevent hijacking; and to promote full co-operation and exchange of information and intelligence among friendly countries.
Baroness Lane-Fox: My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for that very informative Answer. Does my noble friend agree that, in order to combat the present problem and the threats to innocent communities, it is essential that closer links be maintained with other friendly countries?
Lord Glenarthur: Yes, my Lords, I think that my noble friend is quite right. International terrorism is terrorism which affects more than one country. Close co-operation is essential if we are to deal with it effectively.
Baroness Lane-Fox: My Lords, I should further like to ask my noble friend whether there are instructions given to those of us in this country if we get into our houses people who appear to be suspicious, making long-distance international calls and apparently taking down codes.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I do not know that I can answer that specific point. However, if people are concerned about individuals actually getting into a house it is very difficult to be specific about the nature of each individual effort. I should certainly be very happy to look into the matter and let my noble friend know.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: My Lords, is the noble Lord able to give an indication of the extent and the effectiveness of the co-ordination between the various international authorities—the United Nations and Europe itself—in the struggle against the wicked evil of terrorism?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, there are a number of fora. The matter is discussed at senior ministerial level and at official level at Summit Seven, the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, the Ten, TREVI, and in the Council of Europe. Therefore, a great deal is being done to meet this very serious problem.
Lord Chalfont: My Lords, I should like to ask the Minister two questions. The first question is a simple one; namely, what is the reaction of Her Majesty's Government to the proposal by King Hassan of Morocco that a high-level international conference should be held to discuss measures against international terrorism? Secondly, does he not agree that a recent disgraceful programme on independent television in which a known terrorist was given 50 minutes of prime time underlines the danger of giving
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to terrorists the publicity which they seek? Before the noble Lord tells me, as I am sure he will, that this is a matter for the Independent Broadcasting Authority and the BBC, will he please say what the Government propose to do when it becomes clear—as it now is—that neither of those bodies has the slightest intention of exercising responsibility in this matter at all?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, the first thing I have to say is that I did not see the programme myself, and so I do not think that I can comment on it, other than to say that which the noble Lord expects me to sad. Yes, it is a matter for the independent authorities, but I am sure that the weight of opinion which the noble Lord and others of your Lordships rightly draw to the attention of the authorities will be noted by them. So far as the King of Morocco's request is concerned, again I am not familiar with that, but I shall find out and, if I can, let the noble Lord know.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, can my noble friend say which are the countries which do not co-operate in the exchange of information to combat terrorism?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, so far as this country is concerned, those to which I have referred as the fora in which the matter is discussed are extremely helpful. There are, I suppose, one or two which spring to mind which may not be as co-operative as some, but I should not like to be held to any particular country off the top of my head.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, following the supplementary question from my noble and learned friend Lord Elwyn-Jones, can the Minister say what steps have been taken regarding security at international airports and with whom the discussions are taking place?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, so far as this country is concerned, the noble Lord will be aware that discussions are regularly held and that great care is taken to make sure that the highest possible standards are maintained. So far as other countries are concerned, I can tell the noble Lord that both the International Civil Aviation Organisation and the European Civil Aviation Council have done a great deal of work to tighten up aviation security.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, when the Minister says that he does not wish to name any particular government who encourage terrorism, is it not surprising that he did not name Libya, with whom we have no diplomatic relations, who openly support terrorism and are to be utterly condemned for so doing?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, that was an interpretation which the noble Lord put on the question which was asked from behind me. I would agree that Libya fit the particular charge that the noble Lord makes. So far as the concern expressed by my noble friend behind me is concerned, they are not helpful. There may be others as well, but I do not have the facts in front of me.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, following the question of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, is there not really a case now for an effective international inspectorate which can verify—I do not want to mention on the Floor of the House any particular airport of any particular country—internationally that there really are effective security arrangements?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, my noble friend mentions airports. I think I said in answer to the noble Lord opposite that both ICAO and the European Civil Aviation Council examine this closely and that they have done a lot of work to prevent hijacking and bombing of aircraft. An inspectorate is another matter, but I am sure that both these organisations keep that point in mind.
Lord McNair: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that in the United States there is at least one commercial training establishment where, if you have enough money, you can learn all the techniques of sabotage and guerilla warfare? If he is so aware, have any representations been made to the Government of the United States?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I was not aware of that, but I shall look into it.
Lord Lovat: My Lords, may I ask the Minister to inform the House, in regard to the recent massacre on an airport in Malta, how many men, women and children were mown down quite unnecessarily by so-called Egyptian commandos?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I think that 59 people were killed.

European Lakes and Forests: Environmental Damage
2.54 p.m.
Lord Ezra: 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 progress has been made in establishing the causes for environmental damage to forests and lakes in Europe.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, there are a number of possible causes, including air pollution, for the damage which has been observed to forests in central Europe. There is a wide consensus among involved scientists that lakes in certain sensitive areas of Europe have been damaged by acid deposition. Both forests and lakes are subject to many stresses and an extensive European research programme, including some £2 million worth of work supported by my department, is aimed at clarifying the factors responsible for the observed damage.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that information and express appreciation of the research work going on. However, is it not a fact that it is generally recognised that emissions of sulphur
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dioxide and nitrogen oxides are the prime causes of these troubles? If so, what are we doing to speed up the reduction of these emissions in this country? Will the noble Lord further indicate, in the case of nitrogen oxides, as the reduction in this emission seems to be somewhat less costly and could be more speedily done than in the case of sulphur dioxide, whether appropriate steps will be taken to deal with this?
Lord Skelmersdale: Yes, my Lords, sulphur emissions and nitrous oxides are both at the root cause of this particular problem. The United Kingdom sulphur emissions have come down substantially—42 per cent. since 1970—and we intend to achieve further reductions in respect of both sulphur and nitrogen oxides. We expect to achieve this through the development of cheaper and cleaner technologies than those presently available through an enlarged contribution of electricity generation from nuclear power and through further energy conservation measures.
Lord Inglewood: My Lords, can my noble friend tell us what particular industries are responsible for these emissions? Up to a short time ago, and not least in Germany, which is so sensitive about its forests, there was no damage in the forest and no reference to damage at all; now it is repeated the whole time. Apparently damage comes from particular industries. Can the noble Lord tell us which ones?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, so far as sulphur emissions are concerned it is principally those industries burning coal and oil:—for example, the electricity industry and the iron and steel industry, and heavy industry of that kind. So far as nitrogen oxides are concerned, it is believed that the principal polluter here is the motor-car engine.
Baroness Nicol: My Lords, can the Minister give us a little more information about the European effort to which he has referred? Does he agree that an international effort is needed and that up to now Britain has appeared not to co-operate to the extent that many of our friends feel that we are not be be relied upon in this particular area? The latest example of this is the Norwegian statement this morning that relations between our country and theirs are now at their worst since the Viking invasion. It would be a great relief to all of us to know that there is a truly international effort. Can the noble Lord please spell it out?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I am afraid that I do not have in front of me the figures of the amounts of money that various countries are putting towards research in this area, but I can tell the noble Baroness that there is no pretence about our research. We are spending nearly £3·5 million this year on work on the monitoring and movement of atmospheric pollutants, the acidification of fresh waters, the impact of pollution on historic monuments and other buildings, and the effects on trees and forests. So far as our relations with the Scandinavian countries go, to which the noble Baroness referred, I can only regret that they have reached such an unfortunate stage, and I hope that the situation will improve very soon.
Baroness Nicol: My Lords, I think that the Minister has misunderstood my question. What international effort are we making? The Minister refers to our research efforts, but what co-operation are we giving to other international research? Are we working with them?
Lord Skelmersdale: Yes, my Lords. I am speaking from memory here, but I know, for example, that there has been a joint research project based on the university of Uppsala in Sweden.
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the Russians are burning coal with a 5 per cent. sulphur content, whereas our own is something nearer 1 per cent.? It seems that the trouble in Germany is certainly caused by the sulphur coming from Russia and not from anywhere else. What steps are being taken to bring pressure on the Russians to do something about it?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, with respect, that is an extremely complicated question to answer. I can tell the noble Viscount that East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Finland, Bulgaria, Spain, the USSR and Denmark all emit more sulphur dioxide on a per capita basis that we do.
Lady Saltoun of Abernethy: My Lords, would the noble Lord care to comment on the fact that some research has tended to show that ozone is the cause of the trouble?
Lord Skelmersdale: Yes, my Lords; it is believed that ozone is increased by the pollutants from motorcar engines arising from nitrogen oxides.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, up to the last reply the Minister seemed to be making very definitive statements on the cause of this environmental damage. On what international basis are those statements made and are there any steps on an international basis worldwide to get scientists together to make a definite statement?
Lord Skelmersdale: Yes, my Lords; conferences are regularly held at which those scientists who are investigating these problems can communicate and share their ideas and their research work.

Business
Lord Denham: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 this afternoon my noble friend Lord Trefgarne will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement on British participation in the SDI research that is being made in another place.
It may also be for the convenience of your Lordships if I announce that it has been arranged through the usual channels that the House will now sit this coming Friday, 13th December. The main business will be a debate on the current proposals for a Channel fixed link. This will be preceded by the Third Reading of the Okehampton Bypass (Confirmation of Orders) Bill.

Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (Codes of Practice) (No. 1) Order 1985
3.2 p.m.
Lord Glenarthur Lord Glenarthur rose to move, That the order laid before the House on 30th October be approved. [2nd Report from the Joint Committee.]
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this order has been considered by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, who in their second report stated that the special attention of the House did not require to be drawn to it.
My right honourable friend the Home Secretary is required by Section 67 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act to lay before Parliament for its approval codes of practice governing the exercise by the police of their powers of stop and search, the search of premises and the seizure of property, and the detention, treatment, questioning, and identification of persons by the police. Your Lordships will be well aware that the codes before us today are the results of a long period of consultation. Some of them appeared originally more than three years ago, and they have been the subject of considerable discussion and amendment. They were published last January as a consultative document and we have received comments and proposals from a wide range of groups and organisations, including those representing the police, the legal profession, civil liberties interests and community groups.
We have paid close attention to these and have taken them into account wherever possible when preparing the final draft, which is now before your Lordships. It is, of course, inevitable that comments from different groups were occasionally in conflict with one another; but we have aimed as far as possible to reconcile these different approaches and to ensure that the codes of practice, like the Act from which they stem, are a balanced package which gives the police the powers they need in dealing with crime, but which also provides workable and effective safeguards for the citizen who comes into contact with the police. If the codes are approved they will come into effect on 1st January.
The codes of practice for the exercise by police officers of statutory powers to stop and search applies both to existing police powers of stop and search and to the new power which is contained in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act. It sets out the standard to be satisfied before the necessary reasonable grounds for suspicion can be said to exist which justify the use of the search power. It provides for how searches are to be conducted, and it establishes the action to be taken after a search has been carried out.
Stop and search powers play an important role in helping the police detect crime and prevent further offences. We fully recognise the sensitivities involved in the use of power like this. Used inappropriately or without a proper attempt to minimise the embarrassment that we all recognise is associated with being searched in public it could lead to damage to relations between the police and the community and could lead to tension with particular groups. The Act itself provides safeguards designed to ensure that such

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powers are used accountably and only in the circumstances intended by Parliament. The code completes this task by specifying in greater detail what police officers may do and how they should go about the task. I believe this code will enable them to make good use of this important power without the damaging consequences which critics have prophesied.
The second of the codes is concerned with the searching of premises and the seizure of property by the police. Clearly in a free society the searching of one's home by the police is not a matter which any of us can view lightly. However well prepared searches are, occasionally mistakes will occur with the homes of innocent people being subjected to search. It is vital, therefore, that the code should spell out the steps which must be taken to ensure searches are properly planned and prepared for, and that they are conducted with the greatest possible sensitivity to the feelings of those who are the subject of a search—while at the same time enabling the police to pursue the investigation of crime effectively and thoroughly. The Act and the code together are designed to ensure the police have the powers they need in this area, coupled with the necessary procedures and safeguards to ensure their reasonable operation in practice.
The code builds on the safeguards contained in the Act by providing detailed procedures for the police in respect of all types of search. It details how property may be seized, the time and manner in which searches should be carried out and the action which the police must take to record what has taken place. I believe the code will play an important part in ensuring that this vital police power is exercised with a minimum of unnecessary embarrassment to those searched, and in a way which avoids the threat to police/community relations which can derive from the insentitive use of such powers.
The code of practice for the detention, treatment and questioning of persons by police officers is the longest of the codes, and perhaps the most significant of all. It will replace the Judges' Rules, which have served the country well over many years in setting out the guiding principles which should direct any investigation. The code builds on those principles, but does so in more precise and detailed terms that will make clear to all concerned just what is expected of them, and when. By adopting the device of a code of practice binding on the police through the discipline code and explicit in the procedures it lays down, we believe this will mark a new era in public confidence in the questioning of suspects by the police.
Central to the scheme in the Act and the code of practice are the traditional safeguards: a person attending a police station voluntarily has the right to leave when he wishes; a person at a police station under arrest has the right to have someone informed of his whereabouts; and there should be a right to consult a solicitor. The Act has inevitably had to take account of the fact that there will be circumstances when the last two of these rights cannot be granted straightaway: your Lordships debated this long and hard during the passage of the legislation. But the principle remains and the exercise of the rights may only be delayed, not
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prevented. The suspect's right to silence is protected in the code by the requirement on the police to caution. And it ensures that suspects will be held in reasonable conditions and not be disadvantaged through inadequate rest or sustenance or the neglect of their health.
A major concern of the code of practice is with the position of those who, for whatever reason, are especially vulnerable in the context of police questioning—most obviously because of their youth or mental state. It was a case involving just such groups, the Confait case, which led most immediately to the calls for reform of the law and procedure in this area. Central to the scheme of the code is the requirement that the police must only question those who are likely to be specially vulnerable in the presence of a responsible adult who can safeguard the suspect's interests.
Deaf people are a further category who may be particularly at risk during questioning. The code deals at some length with their needs. Additional guidance to safeguard the rights of deaf persons is being included in the Home Office circular of guidance to police forces and others on the Act and the codes. Those whose native language is not English will have the right to an interpreter, and the notice which the police are required to give to all detained persons, setting out their rights, is being translated into the languages of the main ethnic minority communities.
The final code before your Lordships today deals with the identification of persons by police officers. The code is principally concerned with the procedures for holding identification parades and group identifications, confrontation of suspects by witnesses, street identification and the use of photographs, fingerprints and body samples. Additionally, it deals with the taking of fingerprints, photographs and body samples, and the circumstances in which these might later be destroyed. Once again, there are special arrangements for the protection of those who may be particularly vulnerable.
The law on police powers and procedures has undergone a major process of review and reform, beginning with the Royal Commission on Criminal Procedure in 1978 and ending with the Police and Criminal Evidence Act and the codes issued under it, which we are now debating. The Royal Commission felt that the Judges' Rules, which it regarded as vague and unspecific, should be replaced by explicit and workable instructions, subject to Parliamentary approval but sufficiently flexible to be able to reflect changing needs and circumstances. It has been our aim to frame the codes in clear and straightforward language which is readily understandable by police and public alike. Their provisions will be binding on the police and breach of them will constitute a disciplinary offence. And the codes will be admissible in evidence in criminal and disciplinary proceedings.
I believe the codes represent standards of good professional policing and that this is how they will come to be seen by the police. They have placed a major training task on the police which is now nearing completion and which has provided the opportunity for a fundamental re-examination by all officers of the aims and purposes of policing. So far as recruits are

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concerned, the training task should be greatly eased in future. There has of course been concern in the service at the burden that will fall on them in learning and operating new procedures and keeping records. We understand the natural apprehension that officers may feel at an apparently major change in the way they will be expected to carry out their work, but as officers become familiar with the new provisions they find that the codes are not as difficult as they feared and that they can make them work effectively. This has been the lesson of those police forces which have carried out trial runs, and I am sure it will be the general experience of the police after 1st January.
The codes of practice have been designed as a workable, practical scheme. They are not intended to represent an inflexible, unchangeable procedure, and we shall keep their operation under close review to ensure it works as Parliament has intended. Should the need arise, we shall be ready to propose any changes that we are satisfied are necessary.
We are coming to the end of one of the most closely debated and keenly scutinised processes in recent parliamentary history, and the time is coming to make the new provisions work. Our achievement, I believe, is to give the police the powers they need to investigate crime effectively, and to ensure proper safeguards for the rights of suspects. The benefit will be, I am sure, a coherent and practical structure which will enable the police to act with greater confidence, and will strengthen the public's confidence in the way the police carry out their duties. This has always been the foundation of effective policing in this country, and I believe the codes of practice will strengthen that process. I commend them to your Lordships. I beg to move.
Moved, That the order laid before the House on 30th October be approved. [2nd Report from the Joint Committee.]—(Lord Glenarthur).
3.15 p.m.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: My Lords, we return this afternoon to ground over which we disputed long and eloquently during, not what I will call "that long, hot summer" but during those months when we might well have been engaged in other activities. We are grateful to the Minister for covering again some of the ground in his introductory observations today. This debate is of considerable importance because it really provides the House with the only opportunity that it will have of examining these important codes of practice which come into force on 1st Janaury 1986. They are themselves of importance. The codes supersede some existing provisions, including, as the noble Lord has said, the Judges' Rules, which I thought he dismissed a little harshly although we have all had our battles with them. I can see some of the judicial and legal faces around me who have engaged in these battles over the years, and I do not think anyone will greatly regret the passing of those rules and their substitution by more precise and clear alternatives.
The codes also include new material. As the foreword states, the purpose of the code is to provide clear and workable guidelines for the police, balanced by strengthened safeguards for the public. They are put
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forward, as is claimed in the document, as a major statement of the rights of individuals and the powers of the police. Both, of course, are very important considerations to the public in the struggle against increasing crime, on the one hand, and maintaining the liberties of the subject, on the other.
The codes therefore call for careful scrutiny on the part of Parliament. The House has no power to amend them, but it is important to take advantage of the opportunity in this debate to identify any faults or omissions which are already identifiable in the codes. They are not Acts of Parliament, and have at least the advantage that they can be kept under periodic review, we hope, by the Home Office, and there is not a reliance on the Police Complaints Board or other procedures of that kind, so that they can be amended in the light of experience. We were glad to hear from the Minister that that is to be the approach of the Government to this matter.
The review procedure, which will be available for the future, may well become important, not only from the point of view of the liberties of the subject, which are very much involved in this matter, but also from the point of view of the police, because they will need to be kept informed of any necessary adaption of the codes in the light of judicial pronouncements or interpretation. For instance, a breach of the code could well lead to the exclusion of evidence under Section 78 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act because:
"the evidence would have such an adverse effect on the fairness of the proceedings that the court ought not to admit it".
During our long debates on the Act a frequent theme was the question of the authority of the codes, as contrasted with the authority of the Act itself. Anxiety was expressed on all sides of the House during our debates that the codes would not have the weight accorded to statute law. One learned academic at Brunel University has indeed suggested that reliance on codes of practice as opposed to statute law is,
'representative of a modem and unhealthy trend towards rules of indeterminate status. Much that is in the codes should be [and could be] contained in the Act [itself]".
It is the case that breach of the provisions of the code and abuse of police powers by the police can be punished by disciplinary proceedings—obviously of importance from the point of view of the police and of the public. What I think the codes do not make clear is what remedies will be available to the individual citizen who may suffer from breach of the codes.
There is still also unhappiness about the disparity between the authority of statute law and the codes of practice and concerning the relative value of the codes of practice themselves and the notes for guidance which accompany the codes. For instance, Note 1A in the first code, Code A, dealing with the exercise by police officers of statutory powers of stop and search, states:
"It is important that powers of stop and search are used responsibly and sparingly and only where reasonable grounds for suspicion genuinely exist. Over use of the powers is as likely to be harmful to police effort in the long term as misuse; both can lead to mistrust of the police among sections of the community. It is also particularly important to ensure that any person searched is treated courteously and considerately if police action is not to be resented".
The provision that powers should be used "responsibly and sparingly" is a crucial safeguard if we are to improve community relations, the relations

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between the police and the public. But I ask why that should not be a part of the code so that it has the backing of the police disciplinary proceedings which are available for breaches of the code. We are, frankly, not wholly satisfied with this three-tier system of police powers. Why, on the one hand, have the notes for guidance been separated out from the codes of practice when often the codes themselves are so vague as to be little more than advisory guidance notes?
One may take, for example, from Code A, at page 15, the provision:
"Every reasonable effort must be made to reduce to the minimum the embarrassment that a person being searched may experience".
But why, on the other hand, do the codes fail to draw clearly the distinction between what in the codes has the backing of statute law and what is simply a code of practice with only the backing of the police disciplinary procedure? Would the noble Lord perhaps think it helpful if in each of the codes those which are parts of primary legislation, such as 2.4 of Code A, should hereafter and in a future version of the code be labelled as such?
I welcome the statement that has been made in another place by the Minister responsible that the codes of practice must be made readily available at all police stations for the police themselves, of course, for the public and for any detained person who wishes to see them. I am glad to see an assurance that these codes are to be produced in Welsh, as well; otherwise great difficulty would arise in Llanelly, to say nothing of Llanfairpwll … and the rest of it. That assurance we have already received, and it is very welcome indeed.
We also welcome the commitment made by the Minister, to which I do not think the noble Lord referred, in the debate in another place, that the Government will take up the suggestion that a shortened leaflet setting out individual rights should be made available in the police station as well as the text of the codes of practice. The codes, well prepared, as I readily agree they are, will often be too complex for an individual who is not accustomed to legal technicalities and who is likely to be frightened and nervous at being within the confines of a police station. Perhaps the noble Lord can tell us whether or not that assurance by his colleague in another place will be fulfilled.
I am not proposing to endeavour to burden your Lordships with a detailed examination of the codes, but it is good to learn that noble Lords and noble and learned Lords who are to follow in the debate may well be disposed to pick up many of the important points that arise.
Code A, as we have been told, relates to the exercise by police officers of statutory powers of stop and search. A useful feature of the code is that it applies not only to powers to stop and search under the 1984 Act, but to all statutory powers to stop and search. The use of reasonable force, which is established by the Act, is very important in stop-and-search operations where the person may well be isolated and where neither record nor witnesses are going to be available to support his case if he has been injured or his property has been damaged.
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Paragraph 3.2 stresses that force may be used only as a last resort. Anxiety has been expressed that the stop-and-search procedure could be used to compile a record on people who are stopped and searched but who have not committed any crime. According to the Suffolk police computer system, a person stopped and searched three times within the county is then starred as a suspected person on the computer record, even though no offence has been, is thought to be, or is found to have been, committed by him. We cannot think that this is a satisfactory arrangement, for the purpose of the police making a written record was to protect the liberties of the subject and not to endanger them. I ask whether such records, in respect of the innocent citizen who has not been faulted by the stop and search, should not be destroyed after the relevant period.
As to Code B, regarding the search of premises, this is obviously an immensely sensitive field, as the incident which sparked off the Tottenham riots indicated. Paragraphs 4.1 and 4.2, on page 27 of the document, are unobjectionable, but I ask whether they are not qualified by paragraph 4.3:
"It is unnecessary to seek consent [to search premises] … where in the circumstances this would cause disproportionate inconvenience to the person concerned".
That seems to be far too wide a reserve position.
Code C covers some of the most sensitive ground of the Act, which caused us a great deal of concern; namely, the detention, treatment and questioning of persons by police officers. Note 3D at the bottom of page 41—I am not sure that all noble Lords have a copy of this document and so I shall cite it briefly—provides:
"The right to consult the codes of practice under paragraph 3.1 above does not entitle the person concerned to delay unreasonably necessary investigative or administrative action while he does so."
I cannot think that the creation of administrative difficulties ought to stand in the way of full opportunity to consult the code of practice. There are important provisions regarding the rights and protection of persons attending a police station voluntarily, to which careful attention will have to be given.
In regard to that code I have a small but perhaps not insignificant point to make regarding the definition of "solicitor" at paragraph 6.9. It is said that the suspect may receive the help and advice of a solicitor, but these days there exist law centres where, I am happy to say, members of the Bar are also engaged and employed and they, too, should have the right to take up the request for legal advice by a suspect held in police custody. I hope that that will be borne in mind in any future version of the code.
There are provisions in Code D regarding photographs and samples which are to be destroyed in certain circumstances. It is said that that will happen when someone is cleared, but the meaning of the word "cleared" is certainly obscure in the terms of the code.
There are a number of other important matters which could be raised, and, indeed, will be raised. I hope that we will be watchful of the way these important powers which have been given to the police—vital as no doubt most of them are in the battle against crime—are employed. Eternal vigilance

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in the exercise of executive power is obviously an important part of our democratic way of life.
3.30 p.m.
Lord Wigoder: My Lords, I know that my colleagues on the Alliance Benches will want to welcome these codes of practice as being, taking an overall view, fair and sensible and seeking to hold a proper balance between the rights of the police to carry out their duties efficiently in the interests of society and the rights of the individual not to be oppressed or harassed when those powers are being exercised.
Taking a general view of these four codes, I think that they are expressed in terms which reflect the spirit of the debates in your Lordships' House on the Police and Criminal Evidence Act. Indeed, the very fact that there was in the other place no Division the other day when these codes were introduced perhaps speaks volumes for their general acceptability. In those circumstances, I would not want this afternoon to make many detailed comments.
Code A, which deals with powers of stop and search, is clearly of crucial importance, not merely in that it is expressed in precise terms but, even more, in that it becomes clear when one reads it that it is the exercise of those powers with common sense—which cannot be legislated about—that the police have a very real contribution to make. It is important, I think, that they should be exercised in that way in order to prevent the exercise of those powers drifting into a situation in which the suspected person legislation eventually gave rise to so much ethnic disharmony.
Code B deals with the searching of premises, seizure of property, the obtaining of warrants, and so forth. I would want to make only one comment: it is not directly relevant as to a code of practice for police officers but it is really more about the desirability of having a code of practice for magistrates. I really want to underline, if I may, the point that was made in another place: how very important it is that magistrates, whether they are justices of the peace or stipendiary magistrates, do regard the issue of a search warrant as a very, very serious step indeed, do examine properly the information that is placed before them and do not deal with it as a matter of pure routine.
On Code C dealing with the detention, treatment and questioning of persons by police officers, I must confess I do not feel precisely the same regret as the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, at the disappearance of the Judges' Rules. They have given rise to an enormous amount of trouble in this country and I think perhaps they can now happily be bade farewell to. All I would venture to say about this part of the code is this. I would strongly believe—and I think very desirably so—that before very long most interrogations will be tape recorded. Therefore when we come to deal with the code of practice as it relates to the recording of interviews on tape the really important issues will arise under that heading.
On the fourth code, dealing with the identification of persons by police officers, I hope that I shall be forgiven for making two perhaps rather detailed observations in the hope that they might be considered by the Home Office either as a possibility for guidance to police officers in due course or even for subsequent amendment of the code.
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On identification parades—and one must recognise that they have been the cause of a great deal of unhappiness in some of the major cases where injustice has arisen—it always seemed to me, in the days when I used to defend people who were by definition always entirely innocent, that the really vulnerable point of an identification parade was one which existed in the past and which will still exist under this code of practice. That is that at some stage in the parade very often a police officer who has been on the parade and has seen everything that has happened then leaves the parade in order to bring on to the parade the next witness. Very often that witness is also in fact a police officer. Nobody knows what words are exchanged between the police officer going off the parade and the next witness.
It would be quite improper for any police officer on a parade to make any helpful observations to the next witness, and I say at once that I have no sort of evidence that anything of that kind has ever happened. It would be equally improper of any defending counsel, in the absence of any such evidence, to suggest that anything improper happened at that stage. But it is certainly not beyond the wit of ingenious defence counsel, without making any such allegation, to sow the seeds of doubt in the minds of the jury. It seems to me that is an important weakness in the present system and one which in fact without very much difficulty could be obviated.
It could be obviated either by making sure that the suspect always changes places on the line before the next witness is brought on or by giving the defendant's legal representative the opportunity of going out with the police officer and accompanying him when he brings the next witness on to the parade. Perhaps most simply, and in most cases without any difficulty at all, it could be done by avoiding that system altogether and having a method by which the officer who is conducting the parade can communicate directly with the room in which the witnesses are waiting in order to call the next witness on to the parade. I should have thought that in the present state of our scientific technology that would not be very difficult to arrange and it is perhaps a matter which could properly be considered.
The other observation I would want to make about this section of the code is this. It may be there is room for some comment somewhere about the undesirability of a police officer making any observation to a witness after he has identified the suspect either on an identification parade or when picking out photographs. I have in mind a particular illustration not very long ago, when I happened to see a woman pick somebody's pocket in a foreign country. I went in due course to the police station and there I was shown a large volume of photographs of various ladies. With a great deal of hesitation I picked one picture out and said that I thought that might just possibly be her. To that the police officer, through an interpreter, said to me, "That's an extraordinary thing, sir: you have picked out the most experienced pickpocket that we have in this town."
My doubt about the identification almost disappeared at once, and I am bound to say that if the woman had ever been arrested and I had had to go to court, I would not have expressed much hesitation

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about the accuracy of my identification. That is, in a sense, a piece of anecdotal evidence, but it is very tempting for police officers who have seen the suspect picked out, either on a parade or out of a series of photographs, to make some comment to the witness which will, in fact, strengthen that witness's identification almost unwittingly.
The final comment I would make is a general one and it is this. These four codes of practice occupy 97 pages. Every young police officer, as he goes on the beat, will be expected to know intimately the contents of each of those pages. It indicates two things. The first is that very careful training will be necessary to ensure that all the members of the police force fully understand both the letter and the spirit of these four codes. Secondly, it indicates that we ought all to recognise that if, in conditions of great provocation or great emergency, there are times when a young police officer departs momentarily from the wording of these codes, it is quite right that it should be mentioned and that it should be dealt with. But it should not be commented on in terms of public outrage, as though it indicates the wicked ways of the police at large. We must recognise the very real difficulties that the police will have in putting these codes of practice into effect, and we must all give them every possible support that we can.

SDI Research: British Participation
3.42 p.m.
The Minister of State for Defence Support (Lord Trefgarne): My Lords, with your Lordships' permission, I should like to repeat a Statement being made in the other place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Defence on British participation in the United States strategic defence initiative research programme. The Statement is as follows:
"The Government's policy towards the strategic defence initiative remains firmly based on the four points agreed between the Prime Minister and President Reagan at Camp David in December 1984: namely, that the Western aim is not to achieve superiority, but to maintain balance taking into account Soviet developments; that SDI related deployment would, in view of treaty obligations, have to be a matter for negotiation; that the aim is to enhance, and not to undermine, deterrence; and that East-West negotiation should aim to achieve security with reduced levels of offensive systems on both sides.
"It was in this context that, at Camp David, the Prime Minister told President Reagan of her firm conviction that the SDI research programme should go ahead as a prudent hedge against Soviet activities in the same field.
"Earlier this year, the United States invited her NATO Allies (and certain other nations) to participate in the SDI research programme.
"Following this invitation, we have engaged in detailed discussions with the United States government on the nature and scope of the research which could sensibly be undertaken by United Kingdom firms and institutions.
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"These complex discussions have now been completed and agreement has been reached on an information exchange programme, on the areas where British companies and institutions have expertise which might form part of the US-funded SDI research programme, and on the mechanisms to facilitate this co-operation.
"The confidential memorandum of understanding reached between the two governments safeguards British interest in relation to the ownership of intellectual property rights and technology transfer, and provides for consultative and review mechanisms in support of the aims of the MOU.
"Mr. Speaker, the SDI research programme goes to the heart of future defence technologies. Participation will enhance our ability to sustain an effective British research capability in areas of high technology relevant to both defence and civil programmes.
"Now that agreement has been reached on the MOU, British companies, universities and research institutions have the opportunity to compete on a clearly defined basis for the research contracts which are on offer from the United States government, as well as to participate in an information exchange programme on a fully reciprocal basis for the mutual benefit of the United Kingdom and the United States.
"To act as a focal point for British participation and to liase with the US SDI participation office, I am establishing immediately within the Ministry of Defence an SDI participation office with representation from other interested departments. This office will work in the closest concert with British firms and institutions interested in such participation.
"Mr. Speaker, this agreement opens for Britain research possibilities which we could not afford on our own, in technologies that will be at the centre of tomorrow's world. It will bring jobs that would otherwise be created abroad, and I commend it to the House."
My Lords, that is the Statement.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for repeating the Statement which has been made by his colleague in another place. However, is the Minister aware that this participation agreement locks Britain into the strategic defence initiative more firmly than ever? In our view this agreement will be seen in retrospect as a crucial part of the escalation of the nuclear weapons arms race. The question must be asked: what is there in this agreement for Britain? The very strong impression comes out of the Statement that, so far as equity is concerned, it will very much be a one-way traffic and it will not be coming in our direction.
I should like to put to the Minister a number of specific questions. Can the Minister explain why the memorandum of understanding has been signed at this particular time? For example, is the timing linked to the fact that the Geneva arms negotiations are scheduled to resume in January? What impact does the Minister think the agreement will have on those negotiations? Do the Government not agree that there

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is a danger of the agreement inhibiting progress, since it gives the impression of the NATO alliance hardening against the Soviet Union in its willingness to be flexible at the negotiating table?
Is it not the case not only that the Government have signalled to the world that they support the potentially catastrophic star wars programme, but that they have failed to secure any financial commitment on the part of the United States government for their pains? Is it not the case that the Secretary of State for Defence had hoped to ensure contracts to the tune of £ I billion, but came away with almost nothing? Is it not the case that federal law in the United States forbids giving contracts to anyone but the highest bidder? What assurances can the Government give that we will not see a repeat of the Trident fiasco, where United Kingdom companies have been awarded only £25 million of the workload of the £4.2 billion US-built component of the total £9.3 billion Trident programme?
Can the Government allay fears that the agreement will further encourage a brain drain to the United States? Perhaps the noble Lord can comment on the remarks of General Abrahamson, director of the SDI programme, who has said:
"allies could be invited to send selected and appropriately cleared personnel who can make real contributions to join specified US research teams in a scientific exchange programme".
What agreement was reached with respect to intellectual property rights and what potential will there be for commercial application of the research findings? I know that the Statement states that:
"The confidential memorandum of understanding reached between the two governments safeguards British interest in relation to the ownership of intellectual property".
I wonder whether the Minister can spell out a little more what is meant by that.
What influence will Britain have on the direction of SDI and do the Government believe that they will be able to draw a firm enough line between research and deployment? The Minister will be aware that in this House and in another place we have more than once raised the difficulty, once a research programme gets under way, of knowing precisely when research stops and when the actual implementation of the research takes place. What, in fact, will be the Government's response to the European defence initiative, which would apply European technical expertise to the development of European defences?
Finally, what is the Government's response to comments such as those of Dr. James Fletcher of the Defensive Technologies Study Team who said,
"there is no such thing as a nuclear umbrella",
and Dr. Richard Gavin of the Union of Concerned Scientists, who said of SDI that "it cannot work"?
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, is the noble Lord the Minister aware that we on these Benches will wait eagerly for his reply to a number of the pertinent questions put to him by the noble Lord, Lord Graham? Can he explain why, if this is the right course to take, not one of our European NATO allies supports it? Can he explain why this should be? How is it that so often, whether it is the Falklands or SDI, the British Government seem determined to break ranks with the majority of their natural friends and
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allies? As this agreement covers research into antimissile defence in Europe, and in particular the defence of cruise and Pershing, has it been plainly understood that the full cost of this will be borne by the United States?
Does the noble Lord recall that in discussions on Trident he has often defended the project by saying that the huge expenditure of £4 billion in the United States on Trident would be open to participation by British firms? Is he aware that so far £25 million worth of orders have been won, which is less than one-half of 1 per cent. of the £4 billion expenditure in the United States? Can he explain this failure in the case of Trident? What measures have been taken in this agreement to ensure that similar failure does not await those British firms which try to participate in SDI?
There are a whole number of questions on this huge subject and some of them have been asked by the noble Lord, Lord Graham. We wait anxiously for the Minister's reply.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I shall endeavour to reply to the points put to me by the noble Lord, Lord Graham, and to cover at the same time those put to me by the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, although as both noble Lords will recognise some of their points overlapped.
The noble Lord, Lord Graham, started by saying that this agreement locks us into the SDI programme in a way that he thought was undesirable. But the United Kingdom position on the SDI programme, which is not changed one jot by this agreement, was reflected in the four points which my right honourable friend the Prime Minister enunciated following her talks with President Reagan late last year. Those four points are set out at the beginning of the Statement. I shall not repeat them now, but they remain at the heart of our position on this matter.
The noble Lord, Lord Graham, asked me what is in it, if I may paraphrase what he said, for the United Kingdom. The agreement provides for the United Kingdom an opportunity to participate in this major research programme on a scale that I do not think could possibly have been envisaged had we not entertained the agreement as we have. As the noble Lord will be aware, the agreement specifically refers to a number of areas of technology in which the United Kingdom is pre-eminent at the present time and where clearly we may have an important contribution to make. Of course nothing in this agreement, nor for that matter in the Trident arrangements to which the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, referred, enables United Kingdom organisations, whether they be companies or institutions, to secure contracts in this area without having to submit themselves to the competitive process. Nonetheless, having regard to the preeminence of United Kingdom companies in this area I should be very surprised indeed if United Kingdom companies do not succeed; and, indeed, it would be very disappointing if that were to happen.
The noble Lord, Lord Graham, asked about the relationship to Geneva and about the forthcoming resumed discussions there on arms control. This agreement has no specific relationship to that. There was no question of our timing this signature to have anything to do with what may be happening in

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Geneva. What the United States is doing with the SDI programme and in connection with the research in which we are now to join them is of course to try to get on level pegging with the Soviet Union in this matter, because as is widely known that country has already embarked on a major research programme in this area.
The noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, asked about the brain drain which might emerge from this programme. On the contrary, I believe that if we had not entered into the agreement we would indeed have set the scene for a major brain drain, as the noble Lord calls it, because the programme in the United States would have continued in any event. I am certain that large numbers of our senior scientific and skilled scientific personnel would have been tempted to go to the United States to take part in the programme. As it is, a large number of projects can now start in the United Kingdom—and I hope they will—and so British scientists will have an opportunity to continue their work here in this country.
The noble Lord, Lord Graham, asked me to speak about the difference between research, development and deployment. I agree that there is something of a grey area—certainly in between research and development—but wherever that grey area is, we have not reached it yet. The noble Lord said that this concept cannot work. He was quoting some eminent scientists who have expressed that view. We do not yet know whether or not this concept will work. That is why we are embarking upon the research programme, and that is why we cannot yet say, therefore, when we are going to approach decisions on the point to which the noble Lord referred. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister has also made it clear that to proceed away from the research phase into the later phases would clearly need a renegotiation of the AMB treaty.
I think I have covered all the points, or certainly most of them, that the noble Lord has raised, and those raised by the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew.
Lord Home of the Hirsel: My Lords, my noble friend saved me from having to ask one of the questions that I was going to ask when he said that the Russians are pursuing exactly the same lines of research as the United States is pursuing now. Has not the offer been made by President Reagan to share the acquired American knowledge with the Soviet Union should they wish to do so, and to examine the case whether SDI might not be of mutual advantage, therefore, to both? Could not this sharing of knowledge be injected into the Geneva conference should the Russians agree?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, it is true that President Reagan has spoken as my noble friend has said, but I think he suffixed his remarks by the observation that the price would have to be first calculated.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the Prime Minister's famous four points, inadequate though they were even then, were enunciated a year ago at the time of Star Wars I, which was then sold by President Reagan quite
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erroneously—but he may have been ignorant rather than malign—with the proposition that this was to be a non-nuclear umbrella against the nuclear threat? Now we are into Star Wars II, which has no relation to Star Wars I, and therefore the famous four points do not accurately bear upon the situation as it is a year later.
Is the noble Lord aware that the position at the moment is already out of hand and that, if we gear ourselves to this situation, we shall wind ourselves up into a position from which we shall have the utmost difficulty in extracting ourselves? What is sold here as a defensive method intended to bring us up to a level basis with the Soviet Union is no more than a cranking up of the whole operation of the nuclear arms race. If the Government do not secede from it they will discover that they will find themselves bound to the American position in much the same way as they have found themselves bound, as my noble friend has said, with regard to their previous association with Trident.
In all the circumstances, is it not the case that the Government should consider very carefully what they are on about or they may find themselves tied to something to which they do not want to be tied, something that will bring precious little benefit and possibly a great deal of harm to the people of this country?
4 p.m.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Lord pours such cold water on the four points to which I referred earlier. I believe those points precisely meet the objections that he has raised. I will quote from just two of them. First, this is a research programme, and no more. Then, from the fourth point:
"And that East/West negotiation should aim to achieve security with reduced levels of offensive systems on both sides".
I thought that was what the noble Lord wanted.
Lord Chalfont: My Lords, is the noble Lord the Minister aware that many people who have been involved in the discussion about ballistic missile defence since the beginning of the strategic defence initiative will congratulate the Government upon this imaginative agreement with the United States of America? Would the Minister not agree that the points which have been put about the escalation of the nuclear arms race are wildly without substance? The entire strategic defence initiative is concerned with non-nuclear defence against nuclear weapons. Is the Minister not as surprised as I am that it is characterised in some quarters as an escalation of the nuclear arms race?
Is the Minister further aware that when Dr. Fletcher is quoted as saying that there is no such thing as a nuclear umbrella, Dr. Fletcher was referring to the total misrepresentation by the opponents of SDI, who characterised it as a complete umbrella when it was never intended to be any such thing but merely an increase in the deterrent posture of the West?
Finally, will the Minister accept the congratulations of at least one small constituency in this country on the Government's acceptance that we are in a new and totally revolutionary strategic concept raised by the strategic defence initiative? It is an area in which the

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Soviet Union is already well advanced, and more advanced than the United States in some respects. Will the Minister accept the congratulations of some of us that we have at last given a lead to our European allies in the matter of defence?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that support. As I have said more than once this afternoon, this is a research programme and it is of course the case that there are a number of questions properly raised by eminent scientists that have yet to be answered. But the history of scientific research in these demanding areas, particularly in some of the major programmes carried out by the United States in the past (for example, the man on the moon programme), is one of success and not of failure. The United Kingdom is therefore well advised to involve itself in the programme. It is also the case that the intentions of President Reagan have been misrepresented widely by those who would wish him ill.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, I should like to press the noble Lord a little further on the question put by the noble Lord, Lord Home of the Hirsel, who, when he asked about the negotiability of the programme, received what I thought was a very terse reply from his noble friend the Minister. Is it the Minister's view that the programme is not negotiable and cannot be put on the agenda for the Geneva talks? If the United States took the initiative, would not that ensure that the programme was on the agenda? Why does the Minister say that it is not a negotiable point on the agenda for the Geneva talks?
Secondly, is the Minister quite clear that there is adequate evidence that the Russians are in advance of the United States in this programme? He has said that they are on two occasions this afternoon. It will be of interest to the House to know whether the Government are in possession of clear evidence that such is the case. Finally, on the Statement itself, I note that it says:
"The United States invited her NATO allies (and certain other nations) to participate in the SDI research programme".
Is it not the case that no NATO ally of ours has decided to participate? Who are the "certain other nations"? Have any of them decided to participate?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, if I may answer first the noble Lord's final question, the other countries over and above those in NATO who were invited to participate were, I believe, Japan and Israel. I am not aware of what response they have made. As far as other European NATO allies are concerned, I dare say that they, too, will be responding in due course, although it happens that we are the first to do so on this occasion.
On the question of the negotiability of the star wars programme, I believe that the noble Lord was talking about something slightly different from the point made by my noble friend Lord Home. With regard to negotiability at Geneva, the United States have made it quite clear that if they were to negotiate away this programme then they would be abandoning their preparations in an area where the Soviet Union is
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clearly already involved. A number of examples have been mentioned in the past; one of them is the Krasnoyarsk radar, with which I dare say the noble Lord will be familiar.
Turning again to the point raised by my noble friend Lord Home, I believe he was referring to the observations made by President Reagan about the possibility of sharing that technology with the Soviet Union, which is quite separate from negotiating the system as part of the arms control process. President Reagan made an observation about that matter recently, when he said that that would certainly be possible, but clearly it would involve Soviet financial participation as well.
Lord Gladwyn: My Lords, the Minister has twice quoted the passage in the Statement which states that:
"The Government's policy towards the strategic defence initiative remains firmly based on the four points agreed … at Camp David".
The second point in that Statement was:
"That SDI-related deployment would, in view of treaty obligations, have to be a matter for negotiation".
Are we to assume that, in the opinion of the United States Administration, this means that it would have to be a matter for agreement? Or are we to assume, as I think is more likely, that if the Americans eventually embark upon negotiations they will reserve their right to go ahead with deployment whatever the Soviet Government may say?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I do not think that is the case at all. The United States has made it quite clear that it regards itself bound by the provisions of the ABM treaty. The United Kingdom is not a signatory to that treaty, but naturally we, too, will be guided by its provisions.
Lord Ardwick: My Lords, the noble Lord the Minister mentioned jobs in the original Statement, but is that not a very minor aspect of the contracts, since they involve research and perhaps not even development yet? The kind of labour involved will be of a very highly skilled nature, which is not a characteristic of mass unemployment today.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, clearly I cannot be specific as to the number of jobs that will be secured following British participation in these programmes. That will depend on a number of factors, not least—and perhaps most of all—the success that British enterprises achieve in the competitive process that will lead to the awarding of the contracts.
Lord Ironside: My Lords, will it be possible for my noble friend to place a copy of the agreement in the Library?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, this is a confidential agreement between Governments, so I cannot do so.
Lord Diamond: My Lords, the Minister has referred to the possibility of participation by British manufacturers, and obviously that in turn depends upon the competitive prices which British manufacturers can put in. Can the Minister tell the House why he is so sure that they will be competitive

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by virtue of our pre-eminence (which I believe is the word he used) in this field? Does the noble Lord recollect that there was an occasion recently when we sought to obtain a contract for a system relating to aircraft from the United States—indeed, his right honourable friend the Prime Minister took an interest in that matter—and where apparently the contract was lost by an enormous margin due to the fact that the tender was entered not directly by a British firm but by the American firm with whom the British firm was in alliance or in concert? Has that matter been examined, and can the Minister tell the House whether the Government propose to draw any conclusions from that particular misfortune?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I think the noble Lord is referring to the contract for the Ptarmigan system—the British system which was tendered in response to a recent United States requirement. In fact, the British component of that contract was comparatively small, so the total offer which was eventually made to the United States Government consisted not only of the United Kingdom contribution but of an important American contribution as well. Therefore, we were not wholly in control of the price that was tendered for the whole package. Nonetheless, it was disappointing that we did not achieve success on that occasion. There will, of course, be a very different arrangement under the agreement referred to in the Statement because the contracts will be made direct with British institutions by the United States.

Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (Codes of Practice) (No. 1) Order 1985
4.11 p.m.
Debate resumed.
Lord Denning: My Lords, may I bring your Lordships back to the codes of practice under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. These codes are unique. They are different from such codes as the Highway Code or the industrial relations code. Those codes do not have the force of law but they are to be taken into account in any legal proceedings; whereas these codes of practice under this Act, as I read it, have the force of law because there is a special provision that if any police officer fails to comply with the provisions of the codes, he is guilty of a disciplinary offence. He can be taken before the disciplinary tribunal. He can be dismissed, made redundant, be compelled to resign, fined or cautioned, and the like. It seems to me that these codes are very important for the police force. It is almost delegated legislation; not that I object to that, but I should like your Lordships to know the force of it.
First, I should like to say a few words in support of the duty of the police—there is so much about the restraints. It is the duty of the police to protect the lawful citizens of this country, to investigate offences and to arrest and charge those who are alleged to be guilty of those offences. On the whole the police do that duty exceedingly well and I would not wish
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them—and nor would any of your Lordships—to be unduly restrained in the fulfilling of that duty.
The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 is of first importance in law. We went through all its stages. Previously the law was unclear and obscure—even the common law. It did not show clearly and distinctly what a police officer could or could not do. The Act has the great benefit that it sets out the law for the future in this great and important field of police law and criminal law. However, I had my hesitations when we debated it because it seemed to me so complicated and so detailed that no one but a lawyer specialising in these matters would understand it.
Hence the importance of the codes of practice, which, may I say, have been well designed. They are clear in dealing with the many subjects concerned but, I have to say, are available for people of high intelligence. The codes are to apply to our good police officers who are honest, courageous and upright, but not bookish persons. They are not intellectuals. They are ordinary good people and the codes of practice should be so designed as to be understandable by them and applied by them.
I do not suggest that the codes of practice should be remodelled at once, but there must be courses of instruction for all the police officers, from the top to the bottom, in the operation of these codes. If opportunity permits they must also, if I may say so, be given illustrations of the way in which the codes should operate. Many of our text books in the law have a very useful device. They set out the principle and then give illustrations of how it would operate.
Therefore, I felt that I should give your Lordships three illustrations which I took to see whether I could find out from the code what the police officer should do in each case. First, let us take the case of a police officer who is on duty in a street and sees a man running down the street followed by others. Is he to stop and search him? He must first ask himself, "Do I suspect he has been guilty of theft?". He may say to himself, "Perhaps I do, but is it a reasonable suspicion or only a mere suspicion?" To find the difference between the two he must read a page-and-a-half of this book. However, the book does not help him. If a man is running down the street followed by others calling "Stop thief" I would hold that the police officer can stop and search the man at once. I would give that illustration if I were teaching on a course. But there is nothing in the codes about it.
I give a second illustration. The owner of a motor car loses it; it disappears. A little later a police officer finds it three or four miles away outside a pub. The man who had taken the car says to the police officer, "I was not stealing it. I was only taking it for a joy ride. I am not guilty of theft." Can the police officer arrest him? These codes do not give the answer. They say he can search for certain other theft offences. The police officer has to go to the Theft Act before he can find that taking away a car in that way is a case where he can arrest. He will not find it in the codes.
I take a third case. Under the new 1985 Act concerning sports ground procedure a police officer can arrest a man who is entering a football ground with a bottle or a can of intoxicating liquor. The police officer may say to himself, "That man does not have

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intoxicating liquor. He has only a bottle or can of lemonade. Can I arrest him?" He will not find the answer in the codes. He will have to look in the statute. Apparently, he can arrest even if it is only a bottle or can of lemonade because it might be used to cause injury. However, the police officer will not find that in the codes.
I have taken those three examples just to show your Lordships how important it is that there should be courses of instruction for the police, from top to bottom, in which experienced people can give illustrations and tell the ordinary constable on the beat what he must do in common situations like that. That is the way they ought to be taught because your Lordships must remember that in many such cases the police officer has to act at once. It must be second nature to him. He does not have time to read the codes of practice. It must be second nature to do what is right. Therefore, it is of first importance that the codes should be intelligible and understandable by the police officer, whether or not he is an intellectual.
I do not think that the codes can be improved as they are except after experience, but there should be courses of instruction with illustrations to enable the ordinary constable on the beat to know what he must do. Having made that suggestion, all I would add is that these codes are much to be welcomed. Properly carried out, they should do a great deal to restrain the police from any over-hasty action and should help them in their most important duties in our society.
Lord Hutchinson of Lullington: My Lords, on behalf of the Alliance I rise also warmly to welcome these codes. Six months ago on the Second Reading of the Bill I ventured to say that the codes might well turn out to be the most important part of the Act from the point of view of human rights, and I suggest that in fact that is how it has turned out. If—and it is a crucial "if" —senior police officers and the judges insist on the observance of these provisions by the police—and not only the provisions themselves, but also the spirit of the notes which go with them—then the codes may well stand out as a landmark in the long journey of the criminal process in England and Wales.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman, said at Second Reading that the criterion by which we should judge the codes should be: do they substantially advance the cause of encouraging people to trust the police? I have no doubt that these 97 comprehensive pages, which cover, as they do most remarkably, four of the most sensitive areas where police and public meet, could do just that. As has already been pointed out, each one is readily available for consultation by members of the public in every police station in the land. Perhaps I may say to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, who has just spoken, that I do not think any police officer, however young and inexperienced he may be, if he saw someone dashing along Piccadilly with a crowd of people behind him shouting "Stop, thief!" would be in any doubt that he had a right of arrest in those circumstances which was quite outside this code.
Through the Minister I should like to congratulate the Home Office, which drafted and redrafted these all-embracing provisions, in particular on the simple and clear language in which they are expressed. I am
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quite sure that the Minister's predecessor, the noble Lord, Lord Elton, also deserves his due share of credit.
There has been much justified complaint about the shortcomings of the Act itself, but we have had very little public appreciation of the extent to which the rights of the individual are in fact strengthened and upheld by the contents of these four codes and none at all from the Labour Party in another place. Nor, indeed, has there been much praise for, or comment on, the format itself of a code of practice attached to an Act of Parliament, such as in my view, and with due respect to the academic referred to by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, we see here in successful and healthy operation.
There are many parts of the codes which I should like to praise, but I shall not do so now. Of course there are some flaws, and I shall mention two in particular. First there is Annex B to Code C which in a mere 12 lines from a total of 97 pages gives the police a unilateral and unassailable power in more serious cases to delay access to legal advice for up to 36 hours. In this way it preserves the paramount reason for a series of unacceptable miscarriages of justice over recent years and the main cause of equally unacceptable delays in the completion of so many criminal trials. It is still a matter of the greatest regret that the code does not contain the essence of the reasoned amendment on the original code which was put forward from these Benches. I myself have no doubt that, in some future review of these codes, which perhaps may not be very far distant, this annex to Code C will be swept away, because the public will not for very much longer stand for fiascos such as the recent Cyprus case, where of course, if there had been legal advice available to those young accused persons, proceedings would probably never even have been started and six months of huge expense and personal trauma would have been avoided.
The second flaw is one which has already been referred to by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones: the codes are silent as to what sanctions may follow any breach of them. We in this House know that there may be disciplinary proceedings, there may be a complaint made through the complaints procedure and there may be a trial in which evidence may be disallowed if the fairness of the proceedings is adversely affected; but there is none of this in the code itself and no reference to any of it.
I should like to ask the Minister whether surely there should be some reference to the results of a breach in the foreword to the codes and some reference to it in the index, because people who read the codes will want to know first of all what may happen if there is in fact a breach? Of course, this is quite apart from the point, which many of us have urged over a long period, that those sanctions in themselves will surely turn out to be quite inadequate. I hope they will be looked at again when the codes come to be reviewed.
I should further like to mention that though the individual's rights are spelled out very well in these codes, it does not appear to me that in all cases the individual is made aware of those rights. If one does not know what one's rights are, there is not much point in having them put into the code. For the benefit of the noble Lord the Minister perhaps I may mention, for instance, that in Code B an occupier of premises has

31
the right to have someone present when the premises are searched. He also has a right to have a list of the property which has been taken away as a result of the search, and he has a right to take photocopies or other copies of this property. But there does not appear to be any duty on the police to tell that person of those rights.
In Code C a person attending voluntarily at a police station may leave at any time and has an absolute right to legal advice; but again there does not seem to be any provision for telling that person that in fact he has those rights.
In Code A, which is the stop-and-search code, though the suspicion required by the police for a stop and search is precisely the same as the suspicion required to arrest someone without warrant for an offence, when arresting someone without warrant a caution has to be administered before further questioning, whereas there does not seem to be any provision for a caution under the stop-and-search part of the code.
The whole effectiveness of these provisions in the code will depend, above all, on the manner in which they are operated. In the absence of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor from this discussion, I wonder whether the Minister will ask him whether he would be prepared to ask the Lord Chief Justice to commend the codes to the judiciary and the magistracy and call upon them all to uphold their spirit and letter with vigour during the conduct of trials in the higher and in the lower courts. It was, was it not, the failure of the judiciary finally to uphold and to put a gloss on the Judges' Rules which eventually brought those rules into disrepute?
These codes also will depend to a high degree on the provision of an efficient duty solicitor scheme, and an efficient scheme means a properly remunerated scheme; otherwise, all we shall get is a third-rate scheme, worked by third-rate members of the legal profession. In those circumstances these codes will not be upheld in the way that they should be.
On Second Reading I also said that we must be sure that the provisions of the code do not become a playground for time-wasting lawyers, nor a bureaucratic nightmare for the police. Having regard to the 89 pages of the code, I think that that is still a strong possibility and here is an added reason why the judiciary and senior police officers should play so important a part in seeing that the codes and their spirit are observed.
In general I reiterate my warm welcome for the codes which, if properly operated, could amount to a significant step forward in the protection of individual liberties in this country.
4.30 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, as in the case of all noble Lords who have spoken before me, I welcome this code of practice as a code of guidance which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, expressly acknowledges cannot seek to provide an answer to every question arising. In particular I welcome the changes made in the Judges' Rules and in the identification procedures on which the noble Lord,
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Lord Wigoder, made a most telling practical point, which I hope has come home to roost in the papers of my noble friend the Minister.
The code of practice sets a new adjustment to the balance between the need to fight crime and the need to maintain individual liberties. Whether it is satisfactory for this purpose to resort to codes of practice at all—which is a fundamental point raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord ElwynJones—instead of resorting to legislation is part of a very important and much wider subject on which there is a Motion for ballot for a short debate. The hope is that, with luck, the point to which he was speaking may receive full and considered attention in your Lordships' House at some later stage, because it is a very important point.
But we are here to approve a statutory instrument. That must imply—and the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson of Lullington, touched upon this—knowledge as to how these provisions affect the rights of the subject, remembering always that exclusion of evidence in the event of breach is at the end of the day only a matter of judicial discretion in criminal proceedings; that breach of that code of practice confers no legal rights in any civil proceedings; and that breach of the code of practice as such cannot be relied upon to set aside a conviction in any revisory court.
It is said at the back of the book which has the code that the code of practice provides,
"strengthened safeguards for the individual",
and a,
"statement of rights of the individual".
But this is not the sense in which such expressions as "safeguard" or "rights" are ordinarily understood in context with the maintenance of individual liberties, acknowledged and protected by law, for breach of provisions of the code of practice confers no legal rights.
The point touched upon again by the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, brings us back to Section 67(11), which is the trigger clause. With respect to the noble Lord, it is too late in the day to go back to the trigger clause which activates this statutory instrument and change the text of the statute. Section 67(11) provides that in criminal and civil proceedings the code shall be admissible, and goes on to say in so many words that it is left to the court or tribunal to decide, first, whether the provisions are relevant to any particular question and, if so, what account shall be taken.
I shall not weary your Lordships with cases, but in civil law the judicial approach where such codes are brought into effect by statutory instrument is to consider them as an integral part of legislation which lay down no principles of law, only standards of behaviour and what is good practice. Proof of breach of relevant provisions affords no redress whatever by judicial decision save in the very rare case of judicial review where there is genuine perversity and the decision on any view is contrary to the commonly accepted standards of fairness.
This is a code of exhortation; it is a code for guidance. As I and other noble Lords have said, as such it is very much to be welcomed, but it would be

33
wholly wrong to suppose, as the booklet appears to indicate, that there are safeguards or rights in the sense in which those terms are ordinarily understood.
Baroness Phillips: My Lords, I should like to make a different point, and I have given notice of this question to the Minister. I shall not detain your Lordships long as I am merely a layman and not of the legal persuasion. As your Lordships probably know, there are already operating about a quarter of a million people who act as security personnel and who carry out various duties before handing suspects over to the police or before suspects are brought before a magistrate. I notice that in the original Act Section 24 said that any person may arrest without a warrant. These security people—store detectives, and so on—operate under the citizens' arrest procedure.
My question is simple. At the moment such people act within the Judges' Rules and have been carefully briefed on them. Will the codes of practice apply to those acting under the citizens' arrest procedure, and, if so, will all the codes apply? We have not reached them all yet, but, for example, will cautioning equally apply?
This is very important. At the moment, a lot of completely confusing advice is being given. I should like to tell those of your Lordships who seem so worried about the magistrates that magistrates constantly have courses—far more, I suspect, than the higher courts. They are kept up to date with every Act of Parliament, including that which is now before your Lordships. I should also like to tell the other noble Lord who mentioned this that there is no doubt that the police are also having courses. I have sat in on a number of them. I am, however, bound to say that there is a great deal of confusion, and I should like a straightforward answer to my simple question. It may not prove to be so simple if the answer is, yes. I shall probably have to come back when we talk about the other codes of practice.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale: My Lords, I should not like this opportunity to pass without expressing my appreciation, as chairman of Mencap, of what is provided in the codes relating to the detention, questioning and identification of mentally handicapped persons. In expressing my welcome, I do so without any of the qualifications or reservations which previous speakers have attached to their welcome. During the long period of consultation the Home Office has been particularly forthcoming and patient in discussing and accepting suggestions put on behalf of Mencap. The Home Office, if I can speak entirely without prejudice, has again shown itself to be a rather splendid department.
As we know, there have been in the past some pretty distressing cases involving mentally handicapped persons. As the noble Lord the Minister said (a long time ago, it now seems) in introducing the debate, one or two of those have, in a measure, been responsible, in part at any rate, for the legislation that has led to these codes. I recognise that it will now be necessary to make sure that there are available appropriate adults, as the codes put it, with the necessary knowledge and experience to assist the detained persons and the police. A programme of education and training is now
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being planned in consultation with other relevant organisations. We shall keep in touch with the Home Office as this plan develops. But, for now, all that I wish to do is to say "Thank you" to the Government for the provisions in these codes in relation to the particularly unfortunate class of people on whose behalf I speak.
Lord Inglewood: My Lords, I should first like to refer to the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, who was, I believe, the first to mention the immense volume of work that we were imposing on the shoulders of individual police officers in accepting this document. I am not forgetting that there will be other documents of different sorts under the 1984 Act that must be learnt by individual police officers. There is more, I am sure, to come. This booklet contains 90 or so pages that will have to be learnt. I believe that there are bound to be more than a few traps when, in the light of practice, we discover how different parts of the procedures are working. I hope that we shall be able to remain in touch with the noble Lord the Minister. I am sure that we shall want a debate in, say, a year from now, at which time I should like to hear how matters are working out.
For the benefit of those noble Lords who are perhaps not so closely in touch with training, it is necessary to recognise that we are talking not only of training young police officers. We are talking about both older and younger. However, a young police officer, when he is sworn in, is endowed with full powers in the first half-hour of his service.
I should like to reinforce what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, has said about training. Over the last few months I have had the chance to be in close touch with police officers in more than two forces. I have attended their training classes and I have myself tried to help. I have come to understand the heavy burden that they now carry. I hope that they will get all the help that they need; and a great responsibility will fall upon the shoulders of sergeants who will be responsible for guiding young police officers. This will be most important.
4.45 p.m.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, we have had, I think, a useful debate on these codes. I am grateful to noble Lords for the many kind comments they have made about the net result of our deliberations on both the Act and on the codes, and for the encouraging remarks, particularly of the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, and the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson of Lullington, who were kind enough to say that they thought that the codes were, on the whole, balanced, and that they would be effective. I am also grateful, of course, for the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, about the Home Office draftsmen and about my noble friend Lord Elton. I shall certainly pass on his kind remarks. I am grateful, too, to the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, for his comments about the mentally handicapped. As the noble Lord will know, I had responsibility in that direction myself. I was pleased when I was transferred, so to speak, to see that the needs of the mentally handicapped had been met by these provisions.
I can perhaps now try to cover some of the points that have been raised, starting with the status of the

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codes and of the guidance notes, mentioned by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones. I was not here when the Bill was discussed. I was therefore spared a lengthy session. I am, however, aware that your Lordships debated long and hard the distinction between what should go into the Act and what was proper for the codes. The main safeguards for the public are contained in the Act. The codes develop that by spelling out how those safeguards and procedures are to be followed. Framing this material in a code enables that material to be kept under review and amended and developed as experience demands. That is, I believe, exactly what the noble and learned Lord was hoping.
As to the guidance notes, the provisions of the codes themselves are binding on the police and a breach will constitute a disciplinary offence. The guidance notes are intended to explain the codes' provisions, to provide examples of how different situations should be handled and to provide guidance on the correct procedure that should normally be followed. They also indicate the role likely to be played by those who are not police officers. They go into a fair amount of detail and are intended to help the police in carrying out the codes' provisions. Under normal circumstances, the police will be expected to observe the provisions of the guidance notes. But the guidance notes are intended to be flexible. There may be unusual situations where the guidance cannot be followed and where it would be right for the police to follow another course of action.
It is important to recognise the need for flexibility in this area. We cannot predict—nor can anyone—every problem that the police will face, and provide an answer for it. What we can do is lay down the principles that the police must observe and guidance on how to follow those principles. That is what we have tried to do. So far as the preservation of records is concerned—another point raised by the noble and learned Lord—I can tell him that there is no prescribed limit on the length of time for which records may be kept. But it is important that they are preserved for a reasonable period. The records will represent an invaluable means of monitoring the use made of powers and of ensuring that they are used responsibly and fairly. The use made of such records stored on computers will of course be subject to the provisions of the Data Protection Act.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, was concerned about search with consent. As I understand it, there may be circumstances in which it is clear that the police are likely to receive consent but where it would be more a disservice to the occupier of property for them to seek it. Guidance note 4C in Code B makes this clear. For example, if the police arrest an offender after a pursuit and he has taken refuge in the garden of a private house, it would be reasonable for the police to want to make a quick search of the garden to check that the offender has not discarded or hidden anything of interest to them. However, if it takes place in the middle of the night and the householder has not been woken, it is no kindness to him to require the police to wake him to secure his agreement to the search of the garden.
As regards the suggestion of the need for a shortened leaflet and the reference to the assurances given in
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another place, I can say that a leaflet has been devised setting out the specific rights available to suspects as indicated at col. 519 of the Official Report of another place for 5th December. I have a copy of the particular form which I can certainly let the noble and learned Lord have in due course.
Both the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson of Lullington, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, were concerned about sanctions, remedies. The provisions of the codes of practice are binding on all police officers. They are required to observe them and failure to do so may constitute a disciplinary offence. The penalty for a disciplinary offence may be as serious as dismissal from the service or a reduction in rank, as, I believe, some of your Lordships made clear just now. If a person believes that the police have behaved improperly by breaching the provisions of the codes, it is open to him to make a formal complaint against the police. As your Lordships will be aware, we have recently seen a major reform of the police complaints system with the implementation of Part IX of the Act on 29th April and with the creation of an enlarged independent element in the form of the new Police Complaints Authority.
However, if an abuse of the codes occurs, it may also become a matter for consideration by the courts. Section 67 of the Act specifically declares the provisions of the codes admissible in evidence in any criminal or civil proceedings. If a provision or its contravention appears to the court to be relevant to any proceedings, then the court is required to take it into account. If the code has been breached during an investigation in a way that reflects upon the reliability of the evidence which has been obtained, then the court is obliged to consider that fact.
As regards the consequences of a breach being made known on the face of the codes of practice, I point out that the consequences of a breach are set out in Section 67(8) of the parent Act which clearly establishes that it may lead to disciplinary proceedings. The position is also repeated in the police discipline regulations which your Lordships considered in April this year. I have no doubt that police officers will be fully aware of those provisions.
The noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, raised the potential difficulties with identification parades. The code of practice on identification, together with the forms to be circulated to forces for use in connection with identification procedures, emphasises the need to ensure that witnesses are not exposed to undue influence by each other and by the police. That is a major purpose of the exercise. However, we shall of course keep that aspect of the scheme under review. The noble Lord pointed to ways in which he thought matters could go wrong. If it appears to us that a further tightening up is needed, we shall not hesitate to take the necessary steps.
So far as the training of those who have to implement the codes are concerned, primarily the police—and this point was raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, and it was referred to by my noble friend Lord Inglewood—I point out that the code sets out the principles and guides the police on their application. Few examples of what is in mind are included. However, the general approach has been to

37
rely on the courses which the police have already been running and which have been successful so far as we can tell.
The Home Office Central Planning Unit, for example, has produced training material including detailed video films to teach officers how to apply the codes. A similar approach has been adopted by the metropolitan police. By the implementation of the Act on 1st January, every police officer in the country will have undergone extensive training. The norm is three days' training for most officers with an extra day for those who have special duties under the provisions—for example, sergeants. I certainly take the point made that the provisions are complex and that the officers will require careful training, but the training which has been carried out so far has been successful.
Turning to the point about delay of access to legal advice which was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, I point out that the code does no more than reflect the decision of Parliament on when legal advice may be delayed. I understand that it would not have been appropriate for the code to have sought to go back on what Parliament decided because, of course, the Act is, as it were, the parent of the whole issue.
The noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, kindly gave me notice of a particular matter which she wished to raise in connection with Section 24. Section 24 provides powers of arrest for any person in the case of arrestable offences. I am referring, of course, to the citizen's power of arrest which is exercised by people who are not police officers when they arrest an offender. As the noble Baroness indicated, such a power is exercised, for example, by store detectives, or by security officers when they arrest people whom they catch stealing from a shop or a factory.
In such a case it is the duty of a citizen to hand over the arrested person to the police as soon as practicable. It may be reasonable in the circumstances for the arrested person to be briefly questioned by the store detective or manager. In such cases perhaps I may draw your Lordships' attention to Section 67(9) of the Act, which provides that persons other than police officers who are charged with the duty of investigating offences shall have regard to any relevant provision of the code of practice. That of course reflects the present position which regard to the Judges' Rules. Store detectives or security officers are not charged under any law with the duty of investigating offences, but it is right and proper for such people to observe any provisions of the codes which might be relevant to them. For example, if they seek briefly to question a suspect, it would be appropriate for them to caution him first bearing in mind that the detective's conduct could be questioned in court proceedings. I hope that those comments will give the noble Baroness the reassurance which she seeks.
My noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway drew attention to the back of the pamphlet and talked about the question of rights and safeguards. I hope that I understood my noble friend correctly, but as I understand it there is no right in the subject in the sense of an avenue for civil redress. However, the subject can employ the complaints procedure where he believes that the rules have been broken. That can lead to action under the discipline code. It is open to
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a court to decide whether the breach of a provision is serious enough to lead to the exclusion of evidence obtained as a result of the breach. I shall certainly study my noble friend's remarks, but I hope that those comments give him at least some reassurance.
In conclusion, let me say that the Act and the codes of practice represent a major step forward in police public relations. The important point about the package is not whether it adds to or subtracts from police powers in this area or that area, although that has been the subject of many hours of debate in your Lordships' House; the essential point is that we have a real chance of breaking through the innuendo and suspicion which has so often bedevilled the treatment of suspects by the police. The whole area is a fruitful field for the types of fears and allegations which have dogged policing for such a long time especially in sensitive areas—for example areas concerning young people, ethnic minorities and so on—where most damage can be done.
These provisions, by bringing out into the open what has actually gone on in the police station and providing a clear means of checking afterwards what has happened, provide the opportunity of breaking through that web of suspicion. They will provide the opportunity for more effective internal management and supervision to ensure that the best practices flourish and the less good are brought to an end.
This is the chance of an important initiative for the police which I believe the police service recognises. It is up to us all to support them in this new venture, not uncritically but with understanding, which I am sure is what they will receive. I believe that it will usher in an important new era in an essential area of our national life, and on those grounds I commend the order to your Lordships.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Fraserburgh Harbour Order Confirmation Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and (pursuant to the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act 1936) deemed to have been read a second time, and reported from the Committee.
Fraserburgh Harbour (No. 2) Order Confirmation Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and (pursuant to the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act 1936) deemed to have been read a second time, and reported from the Committee.
Fraserburgh Harbour (No. 3) Order Confirmation Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and (pursuant to the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act 1936) deemed to have been read a second time, and reported from the Committee.

Marriage Bill [H.L.]
5.2 p.m.
Lord Meston: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
This is a short and simple Bill to allow a modest relaxation in the restrictions on marriage imposed by the rules of affinity; that is, the relationship itself created by marriage. Simply, it will permit marriage with a stepchild or step-grandchild subject to two important preconditions. First, both parties must be 18 years of age by the time of the marriage; secondly, the younger party must never, while under the age of 18 years of age, have been treated as a child of the other's family.
Your Lordships may utter surprise, or groans, at yet another Bill dealing with the making, or breaking, of marriage in general, and with the law of affinity in particular, and I should explain how this Bill comes to be here. This is an area of reform in which I am conscious that I am following in the distinguished footsteps of the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, and of my noble friend Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, whose more ambitious Bills relating to affinity have been debated in recent years. Indeed, I would wish to pay tribute to their pioneering efforts.
This Bill differs both in form and in content from their Bills. Furthermore, if I may say so, it has two distinct advantages on its way to the starting gate. First, its path has been illuminated by the report entitled No Just Cause published last year and produced by a group set up by the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury and chaired by my noble friend Lady Seear. That committee was set up in response to previous legislative attempts which I have already mentioned, and to the trickle of personal marriage Bills which there has been in recent years. The report itself displays a lucidity, conciseness and breadth of scholarship which is characteristic of my noble friend and a reflection of the many talents of her committee. We are indeed grateful to them.
Having said that, the conclusions of the committee were not unanimous. The majority proposed three substantive changes: first of all, changes in the law such as are proposed in this Bill; secondly, a complete removal of impediments as between step relations when both are over 21 years of age irrespective of whether one has been treated as a child of the family of the other during his or her minority; and, thirdly, a removal of the impediments as between in-laws. The minority felt unable to go so far, proposing only the changes proposed in this Bill. Thus it can be said that this Bill represents the common ground between the minority and majority conclusions.
The second advantage of this Bill is that the minority recommendations may claim the endorsement of a vote of the House of Bishops by, I think, 39 to 2—a substantial endorsement even if they were prudent enough to allow for proportional representation. It is nice to know, though, that it is not only lawyers and politicians who can disagree about things; but in view of the near unanimity of Bishops on this matter and the eminence of the speakers to come, I promise not to trespass into theology, and indeed time
40
will not permit me to give your Lordships a complete historical perspective.
The table of kindred and affinity was of course set out in Archbishop Parker's Prayer Book—that list which one was tempted to study only in the less gripping moments of school sermons, when one tried to work out who all these people were. The list itself derives from Leviticus, but the rules of affinity, as distinct from consanguinity, represent man-made compromises between biblical texts which are not always easy to reconcile. Before the list was settled in the Prayer Book the canon law had reached a height of convoluted sophistication, demonstrated perhaps best by the first divorce of Henry VIII. By an extensive list of impediments and an extensive power of dispensation, and the safety valve of nullity, what was in effect divorce by consent, or at least divorce on demand, was available to those who could afford it.
The list then crystallised, or one might say ossified, into English law with the Marriage Act 1835. Thereafter, there were piecemeal statutory relaxations. The 19th century was preoccupied with that lady, "the deceased wife's sister"—indeed, the "Parliamentary annual blister" referred to by W. S. Gilbert. It took a strong Liberal Government to pass that measure into law in 1907, since when other Bills have struggled into law. Last, but not least, there was the Act of 1960, promoted over the course of some eleven years by the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, which allowed marriage to a divorced wife's sister.
In commending this Bill I would seek to put forward four basic propositions. The first is that artificial family relationships should not stand in the way of marriage. There is a fundamental right to marry and to found a family which is set out, among other places, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the European Convention on Human Rights, recognising that the right to marry in an appropriate case should strengthen rather than undermine the family. Secondly, any such liberty brings with it the need for responsibility, the need for safeguards and, I of course accept, the need for limits. Thirdly, the most important of those safeguards are those needed to protect the integrity of the family and, in particular, the welfare of minor children.
Sociologists talk in terms of the establishment of a structure within the family and the definition of roles within that structure. If a function of the family is the careful upbringing of children, there should not be any hope, expectation or possibility of any sexual or marital relationship during, or immediately following, the minority of the children. To allow any such possibility or pressure could create strains which would be destructive, distorting and confusing for the marriages, the families and the individuals concerned. I suggest that those are strains which society is still not prepared to accept.
I draw an analogy with the area of law with which I am familiar: the law relating to adoption. Much of our law of adoption and the practice of that law is concerned to avoid the distortion of family relationships. It is a platitude in family law that one can dissolve a marriage, but cannot dissolve parenthood. One might therefore reasonably add that one should not seek to dissolve a step-parenthood, when that has played a useful part in the context of the

41
family. When parents separate and do the child the disservice of separating that child's world can fall apart. The fixed points in its life become of great importance. A step-mother or a step-father easily becomes one of these fixed points of that child's life and helps to pick up the pieces. In law, subject to Section 10(3) of the Children Act 1975 a step-parent has the option of adoption. I suggest that it would be curious and wrong that if a step-parent chooses not to adopt a child or is unable to adopt that child there should therefore be the prospect of marriage to that same child.
I would suggest that often there is no qualitative or logical difference between a step-parent and an adoptive parent of a minor child. The step-child has an enhanced need for security and certainty and is entitled to a freedom from sexual pressures which would allow him to develop to full maturity.
My final proposition is more practical. People should be spared the consequences of the artificial restraints to which I referred. They should not be put to the expense of having to go abroad to marry or of having to come to Parliament with a personal Bill. The defects of the personal Bill system are set out cogently in the report No Just Cause. Personal Bills are costly, embarrassing and time-consuming for this House. They add to the anxieties of the couple who should of course be a happy couple. They always receive a sympathetic hearing and the three recent Bills involving mature step-relations have passed through this House without any great difficulty. But it all tends to suggest that there is one law for those who hear of the procedure and who can then afford it in its practical consequences. Apart from a personal Bill or going abroad the other alternatives are for the couple either to live together without marriage, with consequences such as illegitimacy and the lack of any widows' pension for the lady, or for them to part with consequential distress for all concerned.
Having explained the thinking behind the substance of the Bill and having mentioned that there should be certain practical safeguards, I simply refer briefly to them. Your Lordships will see the basis of the Bill set out in Clause 1. In Clause 2 there is what is commonly called a conscience clause set out in standard form giving clergy discretion whether or not to solemnise or to permit the solemnisation of a marriage of this sort. One can only hope that in practice the clergy will err on the side of charity. The schedule sets out the detailed procedures. Within those procedures, which are already part of our marriage law in substance, there are other safeguards.
First, your Lordships will see that there is no possibility in this instance of a marriage after banns, although that is not to say that a church marriage under licence will not be possible. In every case both the couple involved will be required to make declarations. There is also a procedure for caveats and other written objections to be entertained. If necessary in cases of real doubt or serious objection there can be an adjudication either by the ecclesiastical judge or by a High Court judge of the Family Division. There is already under existing law the sanction of a prosecution for perjury. The ultimate sanction for entering into a marriage under this Bill, which should
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not have been entered into, is of course that that marriage will be void.
I mention one or two other points which may have occurred to your Lordships on reading this Bill. It does not apply to Northern Ireland, but I hope that that country will follow suit. It does not presume to legislate for Scotland. Your Lordships may have noticed that the next Bill on today's Order Paper relates to the criminal law of Scotland. Until the next Bill on today's Order Paper, proposed by my learned friend Lord Wilson of Langside becomes law, a couple married under my Bill could fall foul of the Scots law of incest, which might tend to spoil the honeymoon north of the Border!
On the assumption that both Bills receive a favourable reception, I should welcome any amendment from a suitably connected Scottish Lord at an early stage. I would not want the Scots to think that their law of marriage has somehow become an afterthought in this legislation. If my noble and learned friend Lord Wilson fails and I succeed, we may well be setting up together somewhere south of Gretna Green.
I suggest that this Bill meets a demand. One cannot accurately measure the demand. I do not see queues forming outside the register offices or the vicarages, but from the number of personal Bills there have been (and there are also some in the pipeline) and the greater number of inquiries the authorities have had, I suggest that there is a demand which should be recognised and that the problem will not go away. The fact of that demand is an inevitable symptom of the growing divorce rate, longevity and of the popularity of remarriage. The Bill will encourage without devaluing marriage. It does not go too far and for those who may suggest that it does not go far enough I ask them to recognise the value of half a loaf. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Meston.)
5.18 p.m.
The Lord Archbishop of York: My Lords, the whole House is indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Meston, for introducing this Bill. I am sure we are grateful for the gracious way in which he has done it and for the highly skilful way in which this Bill has been drafted. It is not easy to keep a clear head among the extraordinary permutations and combinations of relationships which are possible in discussing this kind of subject. If, as I hope, this Bill eventually becomes law, it will bring to an end a long debate which has occupied more time in this House than its intrinsic importance might seem to have deserved; yet there are important underlying issues behind it.
I remember when, five years ago, I was one of those who vigorously opposed the Marriage Enabling Bill of the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton. It was with sense that matters were being decided about the nature of marriage, and the kind of supports which our society gives to the status of marriage, without really thinking through their implications.
We were aware then, as we are aware now, of individual cases caught by what seem to them to be unfair and unecessary laws. As your Lordships will

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know, in the years between we have been forced into making a series of ad hoc decisions on personal Bills by procedures which have evoked more and more dissatisfaction.
However, now we have an opportunity to discuss the principles at stake on the basis of this excellent report for which we owe so much to the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, and which has already in some measure been discussed in your Lordships' House and extremely well received. If the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury were here today, I am sure he would wish to express again his own personal thanks to the noble Baroness and to her working party. As some of your Lordships may know, he has entered hospital today for an operation and so cannot be with us, but I take it that I may convey to him your Lordships' wishes for a speedy recovery.
Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
The Lord Archbishop of York: My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Meston, has said, his Bill puts into legislative effect the minority proposals in the report of the noble Baroness, Lady Seear. As your Lordships have been told, these received overwhelming support in the House of Bishops, which had two long discussions on the subject in June 1984 and in January of this year. In the end the bishops accepted the minority proposals by a majority, which I thought was 36 to one, but these matters are never absolutely certain and I have a feeling that the one who voted against them was the one who had been put up to speak in favour of the majority proposals and, in the end, decided that he could not let them down.
If it seems strange that such a report should be accepted only in terms of what the minority says, I should remind your Lordships that not every report commissioned by the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury receives overwhelming and enthusiastic endorsement immediately. The very fact that some of these reports arouse disagreements, discussion, and even controversy is a tribute to the quality and independence of those who produce them.
The House of Bishops did not feel it right to let the General Synod loose on the report—a fact which may give comfort to some of your Lordships. We believed that in a technical matter of this kind it was best to keep the discussion in the hands of those who already had some knowledge of the continuing debate.
As your Lordships have heard, the Bill steers a middle course by providing relief in the hardest cases—and here the kind of case one has in mind is of stepchildren who discover their relationship with a prospective spouse only when they are already adults. On the other hand, the Bill firmly protects certain vertical relationships within the family, whether these are with step-parents or parents-in-law. It was to avoid encroachments on these relationships that the bishops fought so hard against the earlier Bills. If we have been mild in our response to personal Bills, it is because there is a big difference between making occasional exceptions for individuals and conceding a principle by changing the law for everybody. This Bill, in our view, strikes the right balance, and we hope that it will
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be accepted by your Lordships without substantial amendment.
However, I am bound to say that if it was to be amended in the direction indicated by the majority report, in particular by permitting step-parents to marry stepchildren over the age of 21 when those children have been children in the family, or if it were to be amended by abolishing the impediments on marriage between parents-in-law and children-in-law, then we would have to oppose it.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, I wonder whether the most reverend Primate will forgive me, if only so that we who are trying to come to a judgment on this matter may learn from his remarks. He said that what was to be done was to protect generally, but in a particular case—namely, where the step-parent and stepchild did not know their relationship until they became adult; that was what the bishops were protecting. The most reverend Primate does not in any way, does he, suggest that that is what the Bill says?—because it does not.
The Lord Archbishop of York: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for enabling me to clarify something which clearly I have put in a way which has been confusing. I am supporting the Bill's provision, but the majority proposal in the report was that even when a child has been a child in the family, marriage between that child and a step-parent is possible when the child has reached the age of 21. It is that which the bishops wish to oppose and it is that which the Bill does not allow.
We believe that amendments in that direction, whether related to step-parents or to in-laws, would destroy the principle of protected vertical relationships within the family which we believe is an important element in the identity of the family as an institution.
Other Churches which have discussed the matter share the same view. The Bench of Bishops of the Church in Wales supports the minority recommendations—and this is something which your Lordships need to know, because the Bill extends to Wales. Further, the provisions in Clause 2 about clergy also apply to clergy in the Church in Wales.
The executive committee of the Free Church Federal Council has unanimously endorsed the minority recommendations and the Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland has also endorsed them. I have no direct information about the attitude adopted by the Roman Catholic Church, but no doubt the noble Lord who follows me will enlighten us. I suspect that the answer is that the matter is regulated by their own canon law; but this is of course not an answer which is available to the Church of England, since our canons are part of the law of the land.
In any case, what is at stake is not simply Church discipline or Christian feeling, but the nature of the family as a social institution in so far as this is embodied in law. I am one of those who believe that our Christian civilisation is rooted in certain stabilities, certain stable relationships, and in this particular case really goes back to the sacramental theology of St. Augustine, which was part of the stable basis on which Christian civilisation was subsequently built. However

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much those stabilities may be eroded by the actions of individuals, it seems to me terribly important to maintain in law that there are certain statutes which have permanent significance.
In previous debates it has been argued that laws of the kind we are now discussing do not prevent individuals doing what they want to do sexually without the benefit of marriage; and this is undoubtedly true. But laws create norms, they create expectations, they help to define what social institutions stand for, or, in the fashionable phraseology, they act as markers. And even if it is argued that little-known prohibitions cannot be very effective markers, it remains true that the removal of them arouses public attention and is interpreted as part of the process of eroding the institution that those markers were meant to protect.
One of the appendices to the report now just before us contains the depressing judgment from, I think, a social anthropologist:
"The modern English kinship system seems to be developing into one in which only primary kin are significant and affinal ties do not outlast the marriages which brought them into being".
Well, that is the judgment of an expert. If we want to hasten this process, then it seems to me we follow the majority recommendations and say that these relationships brought into being by marriage die with the marriage.
But if we want to reject that trend, then I believe we should follow the minority report and keep this Bill as it is. This role of the law as a marker is one reason for rejecting the view that a step relationship can somehow change its character when a stepchild who has lived as a child of the family reaches the age of 21. A law which allows the marriage of such children to a step-parent after the age of 21, and a law which, in contrast, permanently excludes the possibility of legal marriage at any age are two laws which are saying different things about the nature of family relationships.
The first kind of law, the law which would allow the marriage, is essentially about the protection of individuals against those who might be in a position to exploit them; and at an appropriate age that protection ceases. But a law which permanently disallows marriage between step-relations is, as I was saying, asserting something about the nature of the institution of marriage. It says something about the permanence of family relationships and, in particular, it says something about the relationships between children and those who stand in a parental or quasi-parental relationship with them. It is this permanence which those of us who support this Bill want to protect.
In the case of step-parents, as in the case of adoptive parents, about whom there is no argument, the case seems to me to be clear. But when we come to parents-in-law the argument is not so straightforward. There is an obvious analogy between step-parents and parents-in-law, and in certain debates on this subject earlier a good deal was made of the anomaly concerning brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law who of course are allowed to marry under present legislation. If these may marry after the death or divorce of the intervening spouse, why not parents and children-in-law? To be honest I am not entirely happy about what the law at present allows here, given the fact that family
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relationships are now so confused by widespread divorce.
But I accept that the law about brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law is here to stay, while denying that this must logically lead us to include parents-in-law. It seems to me that the relationship between parents and children is qualitatively different from the relationship between siblings. There are elements of responsibilty and dependence within that relationship and also there are possibilities of emotional exploitation within it which are unique. It cannot be for nothing that our culture has spawned endless jokes about mothers-in-law and more sinister stories about the dangers and drawbacks of having step-parents. In these many stories there seems to me to be an implicit recognition that these quasi-parental relationships are difficult to handle and need a kind of sensitivity and restraint within them if they are to be successful. And in my view this need for sensitivity is a strong reason for not exposing such relationships to the further complication of legitimised sexual rivalry.
Let me say a final word about Clause 2 of the Bill which deals with the consciences of the clergy. I am grateful for this clause, though I hope and expect that it will not often be invoked. I believe that the Bill before us is a modest and sensible reform which will win the assent of the clergy by its obvious reasonableness. But a radically amended Bill would raise a whole new set of problems. I therefore urge your Lordships to leave this Bill substantially as it is and to give it a warm welcome.
5.36 p.m.
The Duke of Norfolk: My Lords, perhaps I may preface my remarks by once again regretting that we do not have Roman Catholic bishops in this House. I should like to see, say, half a dozen Roman Catholic bishops or priests as Life Peers in this House. I have made the remark before that I should like to see, so to speak, half a dozen Catholic Lord Sopers to give your Lordships the benefit of their advice, so that you do not have to rely upon a lay Peer who is a Roman Catholic to give you his views—and it might he me or it might be the noble Earl, Lord Longford. But none of us can be as good as somebody who is a priest or a bishop of the Catholic Church.
I have been written to by the Archbishop of Canterbury to support this Bill and I most sincerely do so. I shall take a very short time. The previous efforts to deal with this matter by the noble Baroness, Lady Wooton, in her Marriage Enabling Bill were not the correct way of dealing with it in my opinion because her system was to abolish all forms of impediment raised by affinity. Let us go back to fundamentals. These impediments of affinity are there so as to protect the family and the marriage status and they are there so as to stop things happening which would cause family life to break up.
In the Catholic Church such matters are quite often dispensed with by reference to the bishops, who say quite simply, "Here is a case of two individuals where something is against the affinity put down"—and the impediments are listed—"but nothing untoward has taken place and therefore we will give a dispensation, allowing this marriage to take place". That is a very

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good and simple system of dealing with it. I understand that in New Zealand there are ecclesiastical courts which do the same thing for the Established Church. I think it is open to question whether that would not be a very good system in our country too.
Be that as it may, I commend this Bill to your Lordships' House because it will abolish the cases that have just been mentioned which hardly ever could have caused a marriage to be assailed or broken up. By the way the noble Lord. Lord Meston, has limited the cases he is talking about to the minority report of No Just Cause I feel that they are exactly what would normally be allowed after reference to an ecclesiastical court; in fact. they are something that are really no longer impediments. As I say, I commend this Bill to your Lordships' House.
5.41 p.m.
Lord Denning: My Lords, I would be against the Bill. I see no difference whatever between parents-in-law and children-in-law on the one hand and stepparents and step-children on the other. The majority report would let them all in. Let it be so. I would not let parents-in-law in any more than the Bishops; but first, let me take this qualification of under 18 years of age and not being a child of the family. That is quite unworkable; and I shall take my own instance just to tell your Lordships what happened to me and my wife. We were widow and widower: I was 45 and my wife was 44. We had step-children on each side. My wife had one daughter of 17 at boarding school, who came home for the holidays. Her other daughter of 20 was working in London and coming home at weekends.
If this Bill were passed, the result would be that my wife and I could divorce one another and I could marry the girl of 20 but I could not marry the girl of 17 because notionally she was under 18 and in the family. Those two daughters were exactly the same, and the importance of our law at the moment is that it stabilises marriage and enhances the value of it. My wife and I treated our step-children just as one family, and surely that is right. We would not dream of any other relationship between them. As this minority report suggests, it is the stabilisation of marriage which is important, as the law affirms at present, and the enhancement of the quality of it.
If you once allow this intrusion of possible sexual relationships between parent and child, you are immediately disrupting the stability of the marriage which, as I am sure your Lordships will appreciate, takes a lot of work to create so that there is one united family, as I think we have. But it is quite incredible and, to my mind, impossible that in my particular case the law should allow me even to contemplate severing the parent and child relationship and replacing it by husband and wife. That is quite incredible to contemplate. The minority report agrees with that with regard to parents-in-law; they agree with it all in respect of step-children, except for this one exceptional case, if the child in question is under 18 and has been a member of the family. But it has all got to be proved, according to them, and if need be proved by judicial reference.
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In my view that exception will not work. It would be a way round it; in other words, if I may say so, I am going to stick my flag to the post of the stability of marriage. If people are married, with step-children, let the marriage be stable: let it not be disrupted. Keep the parent and child relationship and do not let it be disrupted in any way by any thoughts outside the ordinary parent and child relationship. That is the thought which runs through the minority report. They paid lip-service to this exception, but let me just read from the minority report at paragraph 256:
"In contrast we believe there is a general consensus in society as to particular definitions, and that implicit definition of role operates both as a safeguard to the stability of the family and as a potential enhancement of it. Further we believe that some specific relationships in the family are free to flourish and convey benefit precisely because they are grounded on the assumption that certain roles preclude sexual expectations. First and foremost among these is the relationship between parent and child;".
In the next paragraph they say this:
"To license marriage between a step-parent and a step-child of the family would be to condone sexual rivalry between father and son, or mother and daughter, which, within the close confines of the family, would be destructive of the … relationships".
I agree entirely with that, if I may say so, and this supposed exception as regards a child under 18 will not work. I would not draw any difference in a personal relationship between a daughter of 17 who was at school and another daughter of 20, both of whom were coming home at weekends and holidays. So, my Lords, I would oppose this Bill root and branch.
5.46 p.m.
Lord Wilson of Langside: My Lords, I shall detain your Lordships for only a matter of seconds rather than minutes. The first thing I want to say is that we on these Benches welcome unreservedly this small Bill which has been introduced and whose Second Reading has been moved so lucidly this afternoon by my noble friend Lord Meston. I hope your Lordships will give it a welcome and that it will be equally welcomed in the other place and will have a clear and speedy run.
The only other thing I wish to say is that my noble friend Lord Meston touched, not too seriously, on a possibility that might befall English newlyweds were the legislation on which this afternoon we are involved to get out of hand. I wish to reassure him that we would appreciate that in any such situation the intervention of the Scottish police to interrupt English honeymooners would not be acceptable at all and would indeed put a quite intolerable strain on the Anglo-Scottish symbiosis in which I am a great believer. I have not asked the noble and learned Lord the Lord Advocate, but I am quite sure that I do not need to ask him because he would take all necessary steps to make sure that no such situation would be allowed to develop. And if in Scotland you have the support of the Lord Advocate, there is little in matters legal that you cannot achieve. I hope that your Lordships will welcome this Bill.
5.48 p.m.
Lord Simon of Glaisdale: My Lords, it is a great privilege on this occasion to follow with entire agreement the noble and learned Lord who has just spoken because the last time I followed him on a Bill of this sort I was astonished to hear him congratulating

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the English on having at last caught up with Scotland. I ventured to point out that Scotland had on that matter done in 1939 what England had done in 1753. But on this occasion I entirely agree with the noble and learned Lord and I entirely support this Bill in a way that I could not support the Bill of the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton. I could not support a Bill based on the majority report, though I humbly venture to be allowed to associate myself with the tributes paid to that report.
I intervene merely to give my experience, such as it is, as a former matrimonial judge. I can only say that, in my conviction, this Bill is not only right, but workable. I started my legal career at the Bar in the chambers of my noble and learned friend Lord Denning, so naturally I treat him with great respect. But on this occasion I simply could not understand how he managed to assert what he did.
The condition under which the marriage can take place is not merely that the parties have attained the age of 18, but also that the younger party has not at any time before assuming that age been a child of the marriage. In other words, if the younger party has been a child of the marriage, then affinity is still an absolute bar and makes the marriage void.
When the Bill of the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton, was debated I remember hearing one of your Lordships say—as I have heard over and over again in support of every relaxation of divorce, any undermining of the law of marriage and of the institution of marriage—"If these people cannot marry, you had better face it. They will simply live together in adultery." When one looks at that, is it really acceptable? Are the only two possible human relationships between a man and a woman either marriage or concubinage? Have there not been thousands upon thousands of relationships where one spouse has died and an in-law, or someone connected by affinity, has come in to help the family without concubinage coming into anybody's mind? If one accepts that view, the view that was put forward, of course one goes straight to the majority report. But for the reasons that were so splendidly given by the most reverend Primate that is not acceptable.
There is only one other point on which I may perhaps be allowed to give the fruit of experience. I remember that the noble Baroness, in summing up the debate, said that all the hardships—by which I think she meant difficulties, inconveniences and disturbances—are real. All the apprehensions are hypothetical. And, of course, that must be so. We know that there are cases where difficulties will be encountered under the existing law. But the difficulties that might be encountered under a change of the law are necessarily hypothetical. There is, however, a somewhat close analogy.
When I used to try divorce cases I was left with the conviction that there is practically never a divorce which is not attended with pain to one or other, or generally both, parties. But by far the most painful was a, happily, rare case that turned up where a father-in-law had entered into a sexual relation with his daughter-in-law, thus giving rise to a divorce and that seems to me an analogy in this case.
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Therefore I presume to echo what the most reverend Primate said. Let us have this Bill. It is workable and it is just. It seems to be acceptable to religious opinion. Obviously, those who found themselves implicitly on the Book of Leviticus will be guided by their convictions, but this is generally acceptable. Let us therefore have this Bill, but do not let us have it widened to make unacceptable exceptions.
5.55 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Ely: My Lords, reference has been made to the differences between the majority and minority recommendations which were contained in that very comprehensive report No Just Cause, produced under the chairmanship of the noble Baroness. Lady Seear. Since the Bill which is before the House this afternoon is, in fact, drawn up to be consonant with the recommendations of the minority, I hope that it may be of service to your Lordships if one of those who in the House of Bishops took the minority view tries to indicate the movement of his thought which moved him that way.
There is—I think I should like to emphasise—much common ground between the majority and the minority reports. There is agreement that there is need for changes in the law for reasons that have been appealed to in your Lordships' House not only this afternoon but often before. There is agreement between the majority and minority that if there is to be change, certain interests of the young, and in particular in the context of the family, must be safeguarded.
There is agreement (and this is important to be said) of a body which was commissioned by the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury—as it was, it will be remembered, at the point at which the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, generously withdrew his own Private Member's Bill—that its concern was with the general or secular law of marriage in a modern pluralistic society where, to quote from the minority,
"it is neither possible nor desirable for legislators to presume a general adherence to Christian morality".
The minority report expresses, indeed, the hope that Christian perspectives on marriage might be seen as relevant,
"not only to questions of church order, but also to the shape of secular law".
But in doing so the minority report appeals to an honourable Anglican tradition, whereby Christian thinkers, when attempting precisely to think about the world, have made use of all the understanding which the Christian faith has to offer, but yet have not seen themselves as having to,
"treat the world tyrannously as though it were the Church."
Here is an appeal, in fact, to reasonableness, Scripture and Christian tradition being seen as friends and not rivals to moral reasoning and with Christian love recognised as needing to be informed by an understanding of how the created order works.
Against that background where do the two reports, the majority and the minority, differ? We have been reminded this afternoon that in their recommendations they differ at two points, both of which are relevant to this afternoon's debate. The first is with reference to the proposal which the noble Lord, Lord

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Meston, sees as the principal object of his Bill—that is to say, to permit the lawful marriage of a step-parent and a stepchild provided, in a word, that the affinity has been a nominal or technical and not a substantial relationship: provided, that is to say, that the younger partner has not been treated as a child of the family of the older.
The majority, as we have been reminded, would have wished provision made that if there had been such a child of the family relationship, even so, when the younger party had reached the age of 21, the parties should have complete and unrestricted freedom to marry. "Never" the minority say—and I think I heard the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, say so with some resonance, followed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon.
The second point of difference between the majority and the minority in their recommendations is, of course, that the minority, like the noble Lord whose Bill we have before us, does not include any proposal for the lifting of the present inhibition on the marriage of a parent in-law and a child-in-law. The majority would have wished to see that freedom provided for.
What is at issue in this matter, as between the two sets of recommendations, majority and minority? There is I think a difference of emphasis, perhaps a difference of approach, and it concerns in the end how much you are looking to the law of marriage for. The point of departure for the majority is the liberty of the individual to marry. The majority report bases its view on the "natural liberty to marry". That liberty might suffer constraint from the law where the law must protect,
"either the individual or the institution of marriage for the benefit of all persons in the land—.
As an example of restriction for the protection of the individual, the majority quote the minimum age of marriage and the age of consent, and (I quote from the majority report),
"the principle of monogamy and the requirements of notice, public ceremony and registration are examples of the law defining, dignifying and strengthening the institution of marriage".
Those last words seem to offer an important recognition of a function of the law—to define, to dignify, and to strengthen the institution of marriage. But, says the majority report, let the individual's freedom to marry be restricted in as few cases as possible. So the majority, report, with its strong emphasis on the principle of freedom to marry, is disposed towards freedom from restraint.
I return to the particular point of whether the law of marriage should continue to forbid, and, in terms of the Bill before the House, forbid forever, as within the prohibited degrees, the marriage of a step-parent and a step-child who has been a "child of the family". It is the argument of the minority that what the marriage law is about at that point is the protection of a relationship within the family in a way that is crucial for the protection of individual liberty.
"That ill deserves the name of constraint which only hedges us in from bogs and precipices"
John Locke's words come to mind. But I think one could describe the function of the marriage law more constructively, even so, than that. In the family
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relationship which has marriage at the heart of it, and I emphasise that this is about the family relationship, among the other givens—let there be seen to be this given—the given-ness of it being known to all that the relation of a step-parent with a step-child of the family does not countenance the possibility of a sexual interest which might develop towards marriage. Let it be seen that the step-parent/step-child of the family relationship no more allows the thought of such an interest being acceptable than does the relationship of parent to the parent's own child permit the thought of it—or (and this has been brought to our remembrance again this afternoon and is seen by the minority as a significant observation) the relation of an adoptive parent with the adopted child permits the thought of such an interest. The minority report argues that the marrige law is there to be seen as marking out a feature of the marital family home, the marital state as it expresses itself in living, in a way which it is the fundamental function of the marriage law to do. The law protects and strengthens the institution of marriage by defining at a critical point a clear expectation.
In a comment on No Just Cause when it was published The Times observed that,
"with … new patterns of family life emerging in the wake of the divorce explosion … it will take time for society to shape and form the role of the step parent, defining the expectations and limitations of the role so that it becomes part of the common wisdom.".
That seems to me to be both a good glimpse of the role of the marriage law and a perceptive indication of the reason for caution in moving to dispense at this moment from the particular wisdom of the inherited tradition with regard to a step parent/step child relationship which has reality in it. If that comes to saving that society sees no liberty of the individual to marry a particular person he or she would wish to marry at that point, that is, I fear, the logic, and it is a matter of the integrity of the family.
I know, as the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York has reminded us, that for 20 years it has been the case that you can marry a brother's divorced wife. If a sister-in-law, why not a mother-in-law, in logic? But the restraint is there as a protection for the family situation in which it might be possible for the young son to bring in his young wife with the assurance that it was understood by all concerned that there could be no interest between the father and the young bride within the family. The minority report ventures to believe that the majority, in recommending the removal of the impediment for parent-in-law marrying a child-in-law, has over-estimated the capacity of those affected—and particularly the children who may be involved—to take in their stride such changes of role. The minority believe that, on the other hand, the majority have under-estimated the significance for our society, which finds itself disconcerted by the fluidity of marital and sexual relationships, of the given framework of relationships in the extended family.
It may fairly be said. I believe, that the majority report in No Just Cause is disposed to give any benefit of the doubt to removing a particular impediment in the interest of the individual's freedom to marry. If I take the more cautious line of the minority, it is

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because I see the marriage law as having the constructive purposes I have tried to indicate even where it may seem at a moment to be restrictive. If I may quote in conclusion from the minority report:
"To recommend that certain liberties of choice should be curbed in order to protect the integrity of the family seems to us to be consonant with the value that society still sets on the family; and to retain the prohibitions we recommend as a minority is not so much to go against the grain of libertarianism as to safeguard an institution which libertarians (as well as countless others) rely on".
I think that is well said and I gratefully support the Bill by which the noble Lord. Lord Meston, would bring in particular easements, but not more.
6.9 p.m.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, I should like first to thank the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York and others who have paid tribute to No Just Cause, the report commissioned by the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury, and to me as chairman. I do not propose this afternoon to argue in detail, or indeed even in principle, the case of the majority report which as chairman I personally support.
At Committee stage I shall, despite the warning given by the most reverend Primate, be bringing forward amendments that will enable me and those who support me to argue the case made by the majority report—although I take the warning that was so clearly given to me, that if by any chance I was to be successful in moving those amendments, then the extremely welcome support that this Bill has from the Bench of Bishops would in that case be withdrawn. I take that on board. Nonetheless, from my own position, and from the line taken in the majority report, I can only proceed in that way.
However, I will not—for reasons which will in part be all too clear to your Lordships as you listen to my voice—intend to go into this matter in any great detail. I thought that the most reverend Primate realised that, logically, he was not on the strongest possible ground when he was arguing that it is accepted that one can marry one's divorced brother's wife but not one's little son's wife. It is a question of where one draws the line. I suspect that the real reason behind the most reverend Primate's position is that there is regret—and he practically admitted this—in many quarters that permission to marry one's divorced brother's wife was ever given and that, as a consequence, the desire now is to draw the line.
As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ely said, the majority report rested on the liberty to marry; not on a right to marry conferred by any state but on an innate human liberty to marry, something inherent in the nature of man. That point was extremely strongly made by the cleric on the committee, the Reverend Gordon Dunstan, who went along with the majority report and who disagreed with the point of view taken by the minority report. He, along with the rest of us on the majority report, believed that the liberty to marry was our starting point. We of course accepted that there were arguments on the other side. We accepted the points that have been made, but do not consider that they override the fundamental liberty to marry. However, I do not intend to go into those arguments in detail today.
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I am very anxious that this Bill, limited though it is—too limited in my view—should go through. I am anxious in part because of the most unsatisfactory method which we have experienced on a number of occasions in this House by which individuals wishing to marry have to get a Private Bill through this House. I believe we have all felt that nothing could be less suitable as a means of deciding whether or not two people should be married. It is highly desirable that there should be some more appropriate method for marriages of the kind in question to be legally allowed to take place. If this Bill is the best that we can get, then I very much accept the principle that half a loaf is better than none.
I am grateful to the Bishops for the amount of trouble they have taken in considering the report we put forward. I am grateful also for the limited support they have given the recommendations. In fact, it now looks as though it will be possible for some Bill at any rate to pass through your Lordships' House and, I hope, to pass through another place so that some potential marriages can take place legally and in a more suitable way than has been the custom in the past.
I hope very much that this Bill will go through, if only because the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton, who has been mentioned a number of times this afternoon, and who produced I believe three Bills that failed in your Lordships' House, is, as many of your Lordships will know, ill and unable to attend the House today. She has been ill for some time. I am sure it would give her very great pleasure if she knew that although this Bill does not contain all that she asked, it is at least a step in the right direction.
When I told the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton, the contents of the minority report—because I sensed that it would be the minority and not the majority report that would receive the support of the Bench of Bishops and from there the support of your Lordships' House—she remarked that in this country we tend to use salami tactics and to approach matters step by step. I know that will not recommend me to the Bench of Bishops, who are extremely anxious to ensure that this Bill should not be a first step but a last step: but that is for the future to show. I support this Bill with regret that it goes no further, but I am glad that we can at least make some progress.
6.15 p.m.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, first I join with those who congratulated the noble Lord, Lord Meston, on the way in which he presented his Bill to your Lordships' House. Furthermore, I wish to join in the thanks that have been accorded from various Benches in acknowledging the services rendered by my noble friend Lady Wootton in what she deemed to be a most worthy cause. Indeed, I should like to pay tribute also to the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, who also attempted to deal with this very troublesome matter.
This is a troublesome matter; it is certainly troublesome to somebody who speaks personally at this Dispatch Box and who in no way represents the views of his noble friends. I am sure the House will appreciate that I would not wish to enter in any way at all into a theological argument with the very

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distinguished bishops who have honoured your Lordships' House by being present today and giving the benefit of their views. The reason for that will be obvious to your Lordships. I have to claim some distant relationship with the author of Leviticus and in those circumstances to argue on his behalf on this occasion would not be either seemly or of use to your Lordships.
I therefore intend to deal with this matter purely and simply upon one basis: are we doing for our nation what we ought to be doing in regard to respect for family life and the institution of marriage? Those are two very valuable principles, especially, your Lordships may consider, at this moment. I remember participating only last week in the debate that took place on the Shops Bill, when I tried to suggest to your Lordships, with as much humility as I could command, that in possibly breaking up the family by, it could be, the enforced labour of various married ladies who form so much a part of the shop assistants of this country we were not doing a great service to the preservation of family life.
I regard family life as being so precious to our nation, especially at this moment when, as I have said, we are dealing with problems of juvenile delinquency so often and see the results of the break-up of family life in all too many instances of that delinquency.
Speaking personally, as I said before, I find myself in some doubt as to the logic of this Bill. I do so for two reasons: first, because of what the minority themselves stated in the report; secondly, because the report deals in no way at all with what was said to be a most objectionable procedure. I have tried to point out on previous occasions from this Bench how objectionable I think that procedure is; namely, the reference by Private Bill to your Lordships so often, asking for permission for a marriage to take place within the degrees of affinity. That procedure will remain, in spite of this Bill, in the case, for example, of parents-in-law and daughters-in-law: but nothing at all has been said about it.
In regard to family life—and that, as I said, is the principle on which I go—I was interested in and much impressed by a paragraph other than the one which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, quoted. It is on Page 103 of No Just Cause. I start at Paragraph 260:
"It will be seen that our disagreement with the majority recommendations rests primarily on two points: first, that the value of relationships within the family is a matter for the law's concern not only when children are children in years but also when they are adults".
I stop there and go on to Paragraph 262:
"When for instance a husband leaves his wife to live (perhaps in the same neighbourhood) with his wife's daughter by a previous marriage, the children of the present marriage see their step-sister assuming the role of their mother in relation to their father, and their father assuming the role of brother-in-law to themselves. There are many elements here which are likely to cause special distress. The atmosphere of family acrimony may far exceed the acrimony caused when a father lives with another woman who has had no previous place in the primary family: difficulties of access of father to children may be more acute: the disapproval or repugnance of neighbours may be sensed by the children more painfully".
That still subsists when we look at what are, to use the quick phrase, the permitted marriages now under this Bill.
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I ventured to question the most reverend Primate in the course of his interesting, very lucid and indeed eloquent remarks on one sentence that he uttered. If I may say so, I do not think that I made myself clear, which is my fault, and it is not his fault if he did not understand what I was saying. The most reverend Primate used the phrase that what would be happening here would be, as I understood him, permitting a marriage between step-father and step-daughter only when the discovery of their relationship took place when they had become adults.
I said that that is not what this Bills says. Indeed, what this Bill says is that the step-daughter could be living two streets away, possibly with the mother. Indeed, the child might never come into the household of the father. What he may very well do is merely have access, not living access, to that child until the child reaches the age of 18. Marriage will be permitted between those two in the circumstances of this Bill. They may well have discovered their relationship long before the child became 18 years old; but that will still be permitted by this Bill unless the exception is in fact proved. That is a very different exception under this Bill.
If I am destructive it is only in this sense, as I hope your Lordships will realise. If, on the basis of family life and marriage, I find myself doubtful about the provisions of this Bill—and I do not make a debating point about what the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, said in her interesting remarks; indeed, I join in the tribute paid to her by the members of her committee for a most helpful report from which I have just quoted—the fact is, as the noble Baroness said, that this may be the first step. As the noble Baroness frankly indicated, she will be moving amendments to try to widen the Bill, and we all know what we are doing here. Undoubtedly the Bill will be given a Second Reading and the fact is that the debate will be headlined:
"Lords pass Second Reading of Bill permitting step-parents to marry step-children."
That will be the impression given to the whole nation. Your Lordships may think that that is advisable; or your Lordships may think that in view of the quotation which I made from the minority report that it is not advisable.
Before I sit down it is incumbent upon me to answer the question, "You have been destructive. Where is your constructive suggestion in the remarks you saw fit to make?" My constructive suggestion, which I put before your Lordships as an individual contribution, good bad or indifferent, is this. I find no clamour at all on your Lordships' House, in the other place, in the correspondence that goes to Members of Parliament, so far as I can ascertain, or in correspondence that comes to your Lordships, for step-parents to marry step-children. If that be so, and we are only doing this piecemeal, should we not say to ourselves that if there is no clamour, and we are all concerned about family life, why tinker with the fundamental principle when all of us know that the real cases we are thinking of are the exceptional cases of hardships? There are not many such cases because there have not been many Private Bills and it might be said that people do not know the procedure or cannot afford it but, I repeat, there is no clamour. So why do we not concentrate on

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a more civilised procedure for dealing with all the cases of affinity—parents-in-law and daughters-in-law, step-parents and step-children—and then say to ourselves that the procedure by Private Bill is wrong?
Lord Simon of Glaisdale: My Lords, will the noble Lord tell us what the procedure should be because I must say that I tried to find a procedure and, without any confidence, suggested one to the noble Baroness's committee. Having said that, I think that the noble Lord should tell us where the secret lies.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, before I receive a reproof from the noble and learned Lord for not telling your Lordships what I think ought to be done, he might have ascertained whether or not I proposed to do that in the closing remarks of my speech. If he had asked me I would have told him that I was attempting to do so before he intervened. However, I am grateful to him for now telling me that what I am about to say is what he wanted me to say.
What I want to say is this. So often your Lordships have heard in this House a plea for the family court. The plea has been made on the basis that we have many courts dealing with broken marriages, children in care and wards of court: some are still dealt with in the magistrates' courts sitting as a matrimonial court some are dealt with in the county court and some in the High Court. Some of us have been pleading over the years for the institution of a family court. When that family court ideal is reached in practicality—and the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has himself said (I paraphrase his remarks) that he can see many advantages in that but there are certain difficulties which one would hope could be overcome—when that family court is established, sitting informally, dealing with all the problems of a family in this informal way in one court, may I ask this? Would it not then be appropriate that the hardship cases should be referred to that court (I repeat, dealing informally), which is able to carry out the proper investigation that your Lordships cannot carry out with our present procedure? Should anyone ask about costs I would hope that, as a nation, with the very few cases of this kind that would come before that court on hardship grounds, we could spare the money and say that the applications will be dealt with free of charge. If advocates are required in any exceptional case I hope that this would be covered by the provisions of legal aid.
This is how I would approach this matter, without tinkering with it, as I believe this Bill does, without opening doors that possibly your Lordships do not want to open and, if I may turn respectfully to them, which the Bench of Bishops does not want to open either; and, if the Bill goes through in all its stages—not dealing with parents in-law, which is out, or the degrees of affinity—without inviting headlines such as, "Parliament sanctions marriage between step-children and step-fathers" in spite of what the minority report says about the harm that may ensue.
I give my individual opinion that we should be constructive about a procedure which we know to be wrong but which we are still allowing by this business of the private Bill. We are not even touching that problem. I hope I have been constructive as well as
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destructive, limiting my observations—as I say once more with deep respect to the Bench of Bishops—not to theological arguments, which I have not and would not touch upon, but to the sacred idea of family life and marriage which I believe is held not only, by me but also by all your Lordships.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, may I ask him whether he is aware that the late Sir George Baker, who had many years of experience in the Family Division dealing with matters of this sort and who was a member of the committee which produced No Just Cause—and we of course considered the suggestion now put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, which was an obvious one to consider, if I may say so—was strongly against using the family court for cases of this kind?
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, I believe that the noble Baroness may be under a misapprehension, but if it is I who am under the misapprehension, then I ask her to correct me. I understand that Sir George Baker, to whose eminence in this field I willingly testify, was considering this matter going to the Family Division of the High Court. I stand to be corrected, but I do not believe that he was thinking in terms of the family court, which does not now exist, where we hope there will be an informal procedure which is not quite that of the procedure in the Family Division. But even if Sir George Baker considered it and did not think it was right, with deep humility I still feel that it is a good thing for us to consider.
Lord Simon of Glaisdale: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down perhaps he will allow me to make another comment. I myself have been an advocate of family courts since 1954 when I gave evidence to the Morton Commission. Does the noble Lord really think that one can handle the matter at large without laying down any criterion?
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, that is exactly the procedure at the present moment when we have the Private Bill. The whole procedure is at large. There are no guidelines laid down and when they come to us we consider these Bills ad hoc, merely thinking to ourselves, "Is it right? Is it wrong? Is it just or is it unjust?" I hope that, when the family courts are set up and we have a Bill which refers this matter to the family court we shall lay down guidelines.
Lord Denning: My Lords, may I say that I have been in favour of family courts ever since 1946 and that this is a very appropriate matter to come before such a court when it is established.
6.35 p.m.
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, if I may be forgiven for interrupting this private debate, I think the time has probably come for the Government's view to be given to your Lordships.
I am sure that, whatever views we may take or are in the process of forming on this matter, we are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Meston, for giving us a chance to debate this Bill, which he has so ably explained and introduced. The issues raised by the

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Bill, particularly as they affect the family and, through it, society, are indeed important. The speeches of the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ely remind us also how seriously the Church views this Bill.
As the House knows, it is the established convention that the Government adopt a neutral attitude on the issues such as those in this Bill which have to be made on grounds of personal conscience in the light of arguments developed during debate. Thus, in debates on both personal marriage enabling Bills and on general enabling Bills such as this one the Government have not sought to advance a view, though they have from time to time brought aspects of the proposed legislation to the attention of your Lordships.
Your Lordships will remember that proposals to remove all the remaining restrictions in English and Scots law between persons connected by a previous marriage—between affines—were ultimately rejected in the Third Reading of the Marriage (Enabling) Bill of 1981 which was brought forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger. Subsequently, the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, presented rather more modest proposals to give the courts a dispensing power, similar to that now exercised by Parliament but enabling only step-parents and stepchildren (not in-laws) to marry subject to certain conditions. During the Second Reading debate of the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, it was announced that the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury intended to set up a committee to advise him on the working of the law; and the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, consequently withdrew his Bill.
The distinguished committee, chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, reported in January 1984. The majority recommended, broadly, and subject to certain restrictions, that legal impediments to marriage between all affines should be removed. The minority recommended the removal of legal impediments to marriage only between step-parents and stepchildren. It is the minority report which found favour with the House of Bishops and which is, in essence, before us today in the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Meston.
Parliament has from time to time enacted laws enabling particular couples to marry, notwithstanding that they are related as step-parent to stepchild or parent-in-law to child-in-law. I do not think that anyone has suggested that this is a particularly suitable way of deciding whether two people so related should be allowed to marry. It has been criticised as cumbersome, expensive and unseemly. In the Second Reading of the Sonia Ann Billington and Norbury Billington (Marriage Enabling) Bill my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor said that it offended his sense of justice that the House should be asked to decide without evidence whether a couple should be enabled to marry—and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, will agree with that. As your Lordships know, the Bill has been referred to a select committee. But the fact remains that however unsatisfactory existing procedures may be, under existing law only Parliament can decide whether a
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couple within the prohibited degrees of affinity should be allowed to marry.
This then is the general background to the proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Meston. I would just point out to your Lordships that, if enacted, the Bill would not of course remove all personal Bills from Parliament; couples such as the Billingtons who are related as parent-in-law and child-in-law would still, rightly or wrongly, have to go through the personal Bills procedure in order to marry. But it would, I think, remove most personal Bills from Parliament.
My second point is that the Bill does take into account many of the anxieties expressed in previous debates and more recently by the minority report; namely, that it is undesirable for a step-parent in loco parentis to a step-child to consider him or her as a possible marriage partner. The Bill therefore enables a step-parent to marry a stepchild who has not lived as a child of the family provided they are both over 18. The minority report, and also this Bill by implication, seek to retain the impediments on marriages between parents and children-in-law.
In considering this Bill, Parliament will no doubt wish to consider how best to protect society by promoting good and stable family life, which must be our common aim. Where we disagree, as some of your Lordships' speeches have shown, is as to whether the removal of legal restrictions on marriages between step-parents and stepchildren who have never lived as a child of the family is conducive to the general good, and whether the sympathy we all feel with particular hard cases should be, as it were, embodied in a general enabling law.
6.40 p.m.
Lord Meston: My Lords. I must say that I am most grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in the debate, and particularly to the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ely, who explained the wider principles involved and gave a good and clear indication of the position of the Bench of Bishops—that they will support the Bill but go no further. It is right, and I should make it clear for the avoidance of doubt, that the Bill in its present form will apply not only to people who happen to meet in adult life as almost strangers and come to find that they have an artificial restriction upon their marrying: they may know each other very well. The important factor is that they should not have formed part of the same family structure during the minority of one of them.
The noble Duke, the Duke of Norfolk, if I may say so, spoke with the authority and eloquence of at least half a dozen Roman Catholic Bishops and to that extent undermined his own case. Like the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, he touched upon the possibility of some judicial or ecclesiastical judicial discretion, and I shall deal with that in a moment.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, expressed himself with considerable force and personal feeling. He referred to two children in a family—his own family, as it happened—one girl aged 17 and one girl aged 20. I venture to suggest that they are not the same. There is a difference of age. All age limits are arbitrary. Above all else, there are the

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protections which I have already indicated in this Bill—namely, that there must not have been a situation which created the relationship that is well known to the law, that of child of the family. It is a concept which is entirely familiar and one with which the courts and those responsible for the administration of this area of the law are entirely familiar.
I venture to suggest to the noble and learned Lord that this Bill cannot destroy or undermine a happy marriage. The safeguards are there. There are difficulties of proof in difficult cases. The burden of proof, however, appears to be upon those who seek to marry. The difficulties of proof are not, in my submission, a defect of this Bill. They are a defect of the ramshackle arrangements that we have in this country for the preliminaries to marriage, which is another question altogether. The alternative is a continuation of and an enlargement of the personal Bills procedure which everyone agrees is so undesirable.
I am grateful also to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilson, for his contributions with his insight into Scots law; and also to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon, who correctly said that there is perhaps nothing more distressing in practice than a marriage breakdown which involves adultery in a close relationship. I am also grateful to my noble friend Lady Seear for not forcing me at this stage to advance the arguments against marriage as between in-laws; but I am also grateful to her for the fair warning of amendments to come and for the fact that she has taken on board the attitude of right reverend Prelates opposite. This is a limited Bill. I accept that. It should not be overloaded. I am further grateful to my noble friend for having reminded me and indeed the House that we are concerned as much with an individual liberty to marry as with some superimposed right.
I turn to the observations of the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon. Of course he is right; there is no logic in the development of our law relating to marriage. There never has been a logical development; it has developed piecemeal. He is right that the personal Bill procedure will remain. At present it would be presumptuous of me to seek to amend or alter it in this form of legislation I am quite sure that the Personal Bills Committee would reserve to itself the right to decide every case on its merit and every case which comes to it in the future on its merits. As it happens, the first three stepchild/step-parent marriages mentioned in the report would have all been covered by the Bill. But it is not an appropriate procedure.
As to the other observations of the noble Lord, I would simply say this. Parliament should not be inhibited by the headlines that it may see in tomorrow morning's newspapers. He says that there is no clamour. There are hard cases; we know that there have been individual hard cases and that there are more in the pipeline. But I am particularly troubled that he used his observations, eloquent as they always are, as a commercial for the family court. It would be wrong that this legislation or any other legislation of this sort should somehow be deferred until the family court (whatever that may amount to) comes into being. I am a member of the Family Law Bar Association. We have strong views on what the family court should amount to. We know that there are
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procedures in the pipeline to produce several models for a family court. We look forward to them. I shall have a lot to say about them, no doubt, when they come to the fore.
The noble and learned Lord suggested that the correct form for deciding the matters with which my Bill is concerned is that court or something of the sort. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon, observed, what criteria does Parliament give that court or any other court to decide such matters? With or without statutory criteria, the task imposed on such a court is one which, with all due respect to the wisdom of the Family Division judges, they would not wish to take on. I believe, and I have not studied it in detail, that there has been legislation of this sort in New Zealand and Australia, and it has not been a conspicuous success. Indeed, to require people to go to court is to retain many, though not all, of the defects of the personal Bills procedure.
To some extent in this country there is a precedent. People between the ages of 16 and 18 who wish to marry and cannot get their parents' consent have to go to the court to get consent if they wish to marry. But, having done several of those cases, I can tell your Lordships that the easiest way to tie at least one hand of the court behind its back is a well timed pregnancy. I do not think that that is procedure that we would wish to adopt or to continue. As it says in the report, if one has a freedom, one should not have to fight for it.
I am reinforced in that—and the noble Lord will forgive me for quoting it against him—by the observations of the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, in the debate on the Marriage (Enabling) Bill on 25th March 1981, which we can find at column 1236, when he said this:
"I can only say that people either ought to be admitted into the bond of marriage with our blessing or they ought to be refused it. But to have a certain category of citizen who has to go to the court to obtain permission to get married is a situation with which I have no sympathy whatsoever".
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, the noble Lord will forgive me, in sheer fairness, if I intervene at this stage. He is quoting from one part of the speech. He will remember that the court which was suggested then was the magistrates' court, and I said that in my view it was quite wrong that that court of all courts should be selected; it was very often associated with criminal work. If he does me the courtesy, however boring it may be, to read my speech, he will find that that was the central point that I was making.
Lord Meston: My Lords, I read it as a general statement of principle referring to the court in general, whatever sort of court it is. But I shall of course read the noble Lord's speech more fully and if necessary correct myself at a later date.
I repeat the point that I made. It is unfortunate that in the noble Lord's eye this legislation should somehow have to await the creation of the family court. It is another matter altogether, I venture to suggest. If the family court comes into being in whatever form in due course, all well and good. We still have to have criteria. And while I go so far in agreeing with the noble Lord that the family court or indeed any court having to make these decisions

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should only involve a limited role for the magistrates, I would not wish the discretion that he suggests to be vested in any court.
Finally, we have the helpful indication of the Government's position. I gather that, on this occasion at least, the Government are in some harmony with the Church. I also detected the wisdom of Bernard Shaw when he said that no Government will touch the marriage question if they can possibly help it. I am most grateful for all the contributions made to the debate. I commend the Bill to your Lordships.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Incest and Related Offences (Scotland) Bill [H.L.]
6.51 p.m.
Lord Wilson of Langside: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
The essential purpose of this little Bill is to alter and to restate in modern statutory form the Scottish law of incest. The necessity for, or at least the desirability of, this has been obvious to all who have known about it for a very long time indeed. Why our legal organisation has not earlier given birth to such a measure might, it occurs to me, be the subject of a learned treatise which might interest some lawyers, would probably bore most laymen and would certainly have no place in this Second Reading debate which the Whips, I gather, anticipate will not occupy more than one hour.
In 1977 this matter was referred under Section 3(1)(e) of the Law Commissions Act 1965, taking its place among many others, to the Scottish Law Commission which submitted a most useful and splendidly comprehensive report in 1981, The Law al Incest in Scotland. That is published as Command Paper No. 8422 which is available to your Lordships in the Printed Paper Office and which I would commend to the House.
For the avoidance of misunderstanding—I have occasionally perhaps been critical of the Scottish Law Commission in your Lordships' House—what I said about the time it has taken to bring forward a measure relating to this matter was neither impliedly nor expressly directed towards the Scottish Law Commission. The matter goes much further back than the time when the Law Commissions Act was a mere twinkle in the eye of that great Lord Chancellor the noble and learned Lord. Lord Gardiner—very much further back than that.
The Bill is taken in its entirety from the first appendix to that report. I have simply adopted it verbatim. In essence, I thought that it did the job which needed to be done. I do not present it as perfect in every respect. There will be room, as there almost always is, in Committee for improvement in a number of quite material respects. There may well be a difference of view as to the Bill's treatment of the relationship between adoptive parents and children. Indeed, the commission hesitated and, understandably, I think, vacillated a little before they
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came to the conclusion to which they did come in this context. I shall say a further word about that in a moment or two.
In a nutshell, the Bill simply does four things. First of all, it leaves all these consanguineous relationships which are at present within the ambit of the law of incest where they are and where they have been for many years. This simply means that sexual intercourse between the following people will remain incestuous in the eyes of the law: between parents and children, between grandparents and grandchildren, between great-grandparents and great-grandchildren, between uncles and nieces, between aunts and nephews and between brothers and sisters. Such intercourse will continue to be treated as incestuous in the eyes of the law.
The second thing is that the adoptive relationship is brought within the ambit of incest to the extent only of the relationship between the parent and child. That means, of course, sexual intercourse between an adoptive parent and an adopted child will be treated as incest. This may be a controversial issue and there may be different views about it. I say frankly that I had some reservations about it, but rather than take time to try to find the kind of amendment that might have met some of the reservations, expressed, indeed, in the commission's report, I thought it better, in the interests of expedition, to bring the Bill forward as it is.
My impression from the conclusion of the commission in this context was that they were swayed understandably or legitimately enough, to some extent, by the weight of opinion which they received from the very wide variety of organisations which they consulted as they were preparing their report. At any event, that is the second thing which the Bill does.
The third thing is that it takes out of the ambit of the criminal law of incest all these relationships by affinity which are presently within it. That means that sexual intercourse between a person and the relatives of his or her spouse will no longer be incestuous in the eyes of the law.
The fourth thing that the Bill does is to create the related offences of the Title of the Bill. The necessity for this arises, as your Lordships will readily appreciate, because some of the relationships by affinity which are taken out of the abmit of the incestuous will include children and young persons; for example, stepchildren. The new offences created are designed, of course, to protect them againt sexual molestation.
I say frankly that I am a little unhappy about some of the detail of the provisions in these related offences. I think many of your Lordships will feel that the age up to which the children should be protected should be significantly more than 16 years as at present provided. Some may think that it should be 18 years and others that it should be 21 years. In any event, in a nutshell those are the four matters with which the Bill deals.
Your Lordships may ask: why is a Bill to those ends necessary in Scotland? The present law of incest is based upon an Act of the Scottish Parliament of 1567 which in turn takes its stand on verses 6 to 17 of Leviticus, chapter 18. The language of the Act is a little archaic, though I am bound to say that I rather

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think that the ordinary educated man or woman in the street could probably reach a conclusion as to what the legislators of the 16th century were getting at more readily than they do sometimes when struggling with some modern legislation in such areas as town and country planning, taxation and the like.
However, the Act speaks of:
"the abhominabill, vile and fylthie lust of incest".
After some fulmination on the subject it comes on to Chapter 18 of Leviticus. (Incidentally, the report says that one of the commentators who appeared before the commission put the date of Chapter 18 in the 11th century before Christ.) Be that as it may, the matter does not end there, because in construing Leviticus Chapter 18 the text to be looked at is the Geneva Bible of 1562 which was current when the 1567 Act became law. Thus, in a case in 1969 the court had to be furnished with copies of the Geneva Bible from the National Library. As the presiding judge somewhat wryly observed this was:
"an advantage which might not be shared by all persons in doubt as to whether they were in the prohibited degrees or not".
Perhaps as a matter of interest I should quote to your Lordships from the verses of the Geneva Bible which are quoted in the commission's report at page 2. Verse 6:
"None shall come nere to anie of the kindred of his flesh to uncover (her) shame: I am the Lord".
One could talk at great length about the significance of that kind of language all those years ago, if time were not limited. However, I found that in the authorised version the text does not refer to "shame"; it refers to "nakedness". The New English Bible speaks of the sexual relation. I find much food for thought in the use of those kind of archaic expressions to describe what is involved in this very difficult and delicate subject.
In any event, in the light of all that history I should have thought that the commission, in their report, were not overstating the case when, at the top of page 2, they said:
"The language, as well as the terms of the foregoing provisions are thought to be sufficient in themselves to suggest that critical re-appraisal of this branch of the criminal law is necessary and indeed long overdue.".
As I have already said, what follows after that passage is a quite admirable and painstaking critical reappraisal. I should have thought that that reappraisal whatever improvements we may make to this measure at later stages of our discussions, puts the necessity for reform in principle beyond dispute.
I wondered whether I should say anything at all in support of the Bill's retention of incest as a crime. Apparently that was one of the questions the commission considered, they indeed devoted some eight pages of their report to a careful consideration of the question. I have not the slightest doubt that their conclusion that incest should remain a crime was the right one. Therefore, I shall not detain the House upon that matter unless perchance any questions are raised at a later stage. We might today—most of us—express our repugnance at the idea of sexual relations between close blood relations in language somewhat different from that of the legislators of 1567. However, I should have thought that the repugnance is surely at least as strongly and as widely felt. Moreover, that of course is
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only one of the factors supporting the view which is basic to the Bill—that incest should remain a crime.
The Bill incorporates the reforms of the law which I have indicated and the related offences into the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 1976. This is a style of drafting which is sometimes criticised, and understandably so. Indeed, I have criticised it myself at times. However, in this case it seems to me altogether sensible—and I think the report has adopted the proper solution—particularly since the provisions in the Bill are effectively self-contained. Therefore, the type of problems of incomprehensibility which can sometimes arise do not arise in this case.
There are many points of detail in the Bill upon which I have not touched. I know that it is the practice today even on Second Reading to go into the detail of the provisions of Bills. This is understandable, having regard to the nature of much modern legislation. I have not done that in view of the hour, and I do not intend to do it. The measure is long overdue. I hope that your Lordships will have no hesitation in accepting it in principle and I hope that we can then proceed to consider it in principle and I hope that we can then proceed to consider it perhaps in more detail in Committee and during later stages of the Bill. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Wilson of Langside.)
7.10 p.m.
Lord Morton of Shuna: My Lords, this is another instance which shows the value of the work of the Scottish Law Commission. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilson of Langside, is to be congratulated on presenting this Bill only four years after it was drafted by the Law Commission. It can do nothing but good to make the crime of incest, as defined by the statutes, capable of being understood, as the 1567 Act is certainly not now so capable.
I would agree with the noble and learned Lord that incest should remain a crime. It is clear from the cases that come to court that those cases which do come to court are only, so to speak, the tip of an iceberg, the extent of which we do not know. They are also cases which usually illustrate a family which has been very unhappy for a long time. It usually seems to be that it is only after several years of an incestuous relationship that the matter comes out into the open. Therefore, I consider that it is essential that incest should remain a separate crime.
It is also good that adopted children and illegitimate children should have the same protection as legitimate children. Where I consider the Bill and the Law Commission report to be wrong—and possibly this is due to my Presbyterian upbringing—is in their approach to stepchildren. I consider that they should be treated in exactly the same way as adopted or illegitimate children, and should have the same protection.
The Bill provides by Clause 2B that a stepchild is protected only up to the age of 16, and that below that age the offence is not incest but some innominate sexual offence. If a person marries another who already has a child or children, that child or those children are in fact normally treated exactly as if they were adopted. They are accepted into the family and

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the parent and the step-parent normally regard them as children of the new family. I would suggest that this is how society considers that they should be treated. Fairly often, for a variety of reasons, the step-parent in fact adopts the child of his spouse.
The proposal that where, for example, the daughter of the mother reaches 16 intercourse between the stepfather and the daughter is not to be criminal seems to me to strike a severe blow at the family relationship. Where the criminal law forbids an activity, the mere fact that it is against the law has some effect in diminishing the frequency of that activity and is a factor weighing against temptation, quite apart from the penalty that any conviction may bring.
It is fairly obvious that a 16-year or 17-year old young lady may be attractive to, and attracted by, a stepfather, and it appears astonishing to remove any sanction and so permit such a relationship which would be wholly destructive of the marriage between the stepfather and his wife. If the step-parent/stepchild relationship is not to be wholly forbidden by categorising it as incest, I would suggest that the prohibition should clearly extend not merely to 16 but to some age much higher, such as 21, or that there should be prohibited altogether (as in the provisions of the Marriage Bill that your Lordships' House has just discussed) any relationship between a step-parent and a stepchild if the younger party was at any time a child of the family as defined in that Bill. On the question of age, I would suggest the same age of 21 should be applied to deal with the situation covered by Clause 2C.
On the whole, the provisions in the Bill are to be welcomed, and especially the provisions which allow incest to be prosecuted in the sheriff court, either on indictment or in the sheriff's summary court. That procedure will be welcome to everybody who has ever been concerned in the prosecution of such cases.
7.15 p.m.
The Lord Advocate (Lord Cameron of Lochbroom): My Lords, I, too, should like to add my congratulations to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilson of Langside, for bringing this Bill before your Lordships' House and thereby affording us an opportunity to debate what is undoubtedly an important and sensitive subject. As the noble and learned Lord has explained, this Bill extends to Scotland only, and it seeks to implement recommendations of the Scottish Law Commission in their report on this subject. The Law Commission's proposals, which were carefully considered, suggested modernisation of the present Scots Law on incest contained in the Incest Act 1567, although that Act has in fact been restricted in part by the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1938.
The noble and learned Lord quoted from Leviticus in the Geneva Bible and the subsequent translations. I was only sorry that he did not also attempt to quote from the original Act, which is in a language with which I am sure he is familiar, the good Scots tongue. But I think it has to be accepted that there are difficulties in any event in obtaining the relevant text, and the Government think it right that the law in this area should be carefully looked at.
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It is not an area of law in which the Government themselves have a view. It is, however, a subject about which noble Lords may well hold deep personal and religious convictions, and it would not therefore be appropriate for the Government to seek to influence noble Lords in their consideration of this matter. I would only note that the Scottish Law Commission itself issued a consultative memorandum prior to preparing their report and making the recommendations in it, and out of some 49 organisations and individuals from whom they received comments, as the report states in paragraph 1.3, with the exception of one commentator, who took the view that the law should continue to be based on Leviticus Chapter 18, all other commentators agreed that the law of incest was in need of immediate reform. It is in that light that I particularly congratulate the noble and learned Lord in bringing this Bill forward.
The noble and learned Lord has set out the provisions of the Bill, and it would be otiose for me to seek to amplify his observations contained, as they were, within the nutshell of which he spoke. It would be tantamount to piling Pelion upon Ossa. But there is one matter to which I would allude, and that is the question of the relationship between this Bill and the Marriage Bill which has just received its Second Reading, introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Meston.
As my noble friend Lord Davidson has already said, that, too, of course, is a matter in which it is appropriate for the Government to adopt a neutral stance, but we are arranging to undertake consultations in Scotland to see whether, if that Bill were to be approved by Parliament so as to affect the law of England and Wales, it ought to be extended to Scotland also. The degrees of marriage which would cease to be prohibited by virtue of that Bill as presently proposed are at present relationships within which sexual intercourse would be a crime of incest according to the law of Scotland.
If it were to be the view of Parliament that the principle and details of the Marriage Bill were desirable, it would also be necessary to amend the present law of incest in Scotland so as to avoid the nonsense alluded to already by the noble Lord, Lord Meston, in the previous debate that persons who are legally married in England could, in law, be liable to prosecution for the crime of incest in Scotland were they to come north of the Border and there have marital relations. This would be true whether or not the Marriage Bill were to apply to Scotland. We must obviously cater for the possibility that persons married in England may at some time wish to visit north of the Border in safety.
The Bill now proposed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilson of Langside, will achieve that necessary amendment—something which not even a Lord Advocate at his own hand could achieve, notwithstanding the assertion by the noble and learned Lord in the debate which has just concluded. The Bill is therefore consistent with the aims of the Marriage Bill, and this Bill, or one having a similar effect, will be necessary before, or at the same time as, the Marriage Bill, if it be approved by Parliament, becomes law.
As I have said, this is not a matter on which the Government as such have a view. Important and

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difficult moral and religious questions arise, as has already been indicated in the speeches that have been made. I am sure that noble Lords will weigh all these points carefully. All I would say is that a change of some kind will be necessary if the changes in the law of marriage that have been debated already before your Lordships today were to be approved.
Lord Wilson of Langside: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Morton of Shuna, and to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Advocate for what they have said in relation to the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Morton, referred to the tip of the iceberg theory. This has been a theory which has been widely held. I recall when involved in cases of incest many years ago hearing this view expressed by many social workers, medical men and others: that the 10 or so a year cases that we had in Scotland of prosecutions for this crime were just the tip of the iceberg. To what extent this is precisely true I cannot be certain. It emphasises the desirability, as Lord Morton said, of keeping the crime on the statute book.
To some extent (although I do not know precisely what) I share some of the reservations expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Morton, about the position of stepchildren. I am sure we shall have the opportunity of discussing that problem both before and after the Committee stage of the Bill. Some changes may be effected at these later stages. I was glad, too, that the noble Lord, Lord Morton, welcomed the opening up of the sheriff courts to the prosecution and trial of these offences.
The noble and learned Lord the Lord Advocate referred to the difficulty raised by the noble Lord, Lord Meston, in the debate on his Bill. I know that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Advocate knows this well, but, for those of your Lordships who are not lawyers, there is a provision in Clause 1. It is provided in the proposed new Section 2A that there can be no guilt of incest if the accused proves that he was married to the person with whom he is alleged to have committed sexual intercourse
"at the time when the sexual intercourse took place, by a marriage entered into outside Scotland and recognised as valid by Scots law".
That is a valid defence, and I am sure that in such a situation no sensible Lord Advocate would dream of initiating a prosecution.
I am grateful for the attention that has been given to the presentation of this Bill. My Lords, I beg to move.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Southern Africa: Soviet Involvement
7.25 p.m.
The Earl of Kimberley The Earl of Kimberley rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they consider that Soviet involvement in southern Africa poses a threat to British interests in the region.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, one of Her Majesty's Ministers of State in another place not all that long ago warned the people of this country about the signs that were showing that the Soviet Union is involved now in strengthening the bridgehead which it has established
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in Angola. I think those warnings should be taken seriously, because there is substantiated intelligence information that the Soviet Union, through its surrogate Cuban force of over 30,000 combat troops, has prevailed upon the government of that country—the totally unrepresentative MPLA regime—to launch and sustain a major offensive against the guerrilla forces of Dr. Jonas Savimbi, the leader of UNITA.
This conflict between the MPLA and UNITA is not just another remote conflict between competing ethnically-divided factions on a troubled continent. Both regional security in the sub-continent and western strategic interests are directly threatened by an escalation of super-power involvement in military activity in that part of the world.
I do not need to remind your Lordships that of the 11 African nations south of the Equator, eight are Commonwealth countries. Three of these countries border on the south-east of Angola: Zimbabwe, Zambia and Botswana. The Soviet Union under Mr. Gorbachev's leadership, has, in a few months, asserted its influence and interest in the area to an alarming degree. Mr. Mugabe has, for example, just returned from Moscow with promises, so we are led to believe, of increased supplies of military equipment and expertise ringing in his ears.
The Soviet Union, as I think most of your Lordships know, is not concerned with helping solve regional conflicts or promoting regional peace. It perceives an opportunity to exploit and further destabilise the situation and it is aggressively advancing its objectives in the area. The region as a whole is of fundamental strategic importance to Great Britain. Besides our commercial and economic links with those countries, we are vitally dependent on a number of strategic materials which come not only from South Africa, but from other countries in the region. Zambia, Zaire and Zimbabwe are major suppliers of chrome and copper. To quote The Times of 2nd December, control of the Cape,
"remains a glittering prize for those who plan Soviet foreign policy".
On the same theme, the Yorkshire Post warned that the Soviet presence in Angola
"is a dagger poised to strike at the West's vital lifelines round the Cape".
We should not be deceived. The Soviets promote their objectives not through the humanitarian and economic aid so desperately needed in Africa, but through the export of weapons. A battle took place on the banks of the Lomba river in southern Angola on 30th September and 1st October 1985. It was the culmination of an offensive by FAPLA, the defence force of the MPLA, against the stronghold of UNITA. FAPLA was dealt a convincing and bloody defeat. However, the difference between this offensive and previous offensives against UNITA was quite dramatic. Never before had Soviet-supplied helicopter gunships and Mig aircraft been deployed to provide air cover for motorised ground columns in that part of the world.
I have available statistics for the supply of military equipment to the MPLA by the Soviets over the past 18 months. The Institute for Strategic Studies in London has documented this build-up but it has not

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kept pace with supplies pouring in by virtue of the Ilyushin transport air bridge between the Soviet Union, Cuba and Angola at this moment. We are witnessing a resupply and deployment of offensive weaponry in Southern Angola of alarming proportions.
In 1985, some 79 fighter aircarft, including 28 highly sophisticated Mig 23s and 45 assault helicopters, were shipped to Angola, not to mention missile and motorised weapons systems. In fact, only yesterday a Soviet transport aircarft had trouble and made a forced landing in Zaire. There were 40 Cuban and Angolan soliders on it, and they subsequently burnt the aircraft because they wanted to destroy any documents or equipment that were on it.
Ostensibly, this awesome hardware is intended to bolster the MPLA regime in Angola and I think we have to question the legitimacy of that government. In 1975, the Alvor Agreement established a government of national unity between the MPLA, UNITA and FNLA movements until such time as elections should take place.
With the help of Cuban and other such surrogate forces and an increasing degree of direct Soviet involvement, national elections were prevented and the MPLA unsurped power. It thereby gained "international recognition" as the government of Angola.
While insisting on democratic processes in South West Africa, Namibia and South Africa, the OAU and UNO totally ignored UNITA's legitimate claims for national elections in Angola. UNITA, indeed, stands for recognition and the formation of a government of national unity. It stands for legitimacy based on democratic elections; the rule of law; fundamental principles of the rights, responsibilities, privileges and equality of all citizens, and the adherence to the universal declaration of human rights. It stands for freedom of religion, worship and the press; free education, private enterprise, political independence and freedom from foreign aggression. Those are principles with which we should—and with which most of us do—have some sympathy, which are totally denied by the regime which her Majesty's Government recognise in Luanda today.
A new offensive against UNITA could be launched at any moment. In fact, there are signs that the setbacks suffered by the MPLA at the hands of UNITA regulars in September, unlike on previous occasions, has not discouraged reinforcement and preparations for a new offensive.
Great Britain cannot stand idly by with the possible wholesale massacre of people who support our values, which could take place in southern Angola. I should ask seriously if Her Majesty's Ambassador in Luanda should be instructed forthwith to convey this message unambigously to President Dos Santos.
Further, we should demand that all foreign troops be withdrawn from Angola. The South Africans have withdrawn from southern Angola in terms of the Lusaka Accord of February 1984. Their withdrawal was verified by a joint monitoring group. For their pains in seeking a diplomatic and peaceful resolution of the conflict in the region, South Africa, the major
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regional power, has witnessed how the Soviets and Cubans have filled the vacuum by installing a military force of daunting proportions across the northern border of South West Africa/Namibia.
If Her Majesty's Government remain supine, an attitude unbecoming to our nation even in its diplomatic posture, we may witness the defeat in battle of a Western orientated freedom movement; although on past record I should agree that it is unlikely. However, the notion that such a turn of events could conceivably be in our interests escapes me. Surely, we do not believe that the Soviets, once installed in the region, could be induced to withdraw their surrogates, a prop on which the MPLA is increasingly dependent.
The Soviet Union has broader ambitions than merely controlling Angola. The MPLA and SWAPO are vanguard parties for future destabilising activities against South West Africa/Namibia, South Africa and other countries in the region.
Her Majesty's Government can no longer shield behind American diplomatic efforts to remove the Cubans from Angola and bring about a settlement in the South West Africa/Namibia negotitations process. It must now defend its own interests in the region by asserting itself diplomatically. We have far more influence on all the countries in the region than the United States, besides important commerical links. Concerted pressure on the MPLA regime to commence a process of reconciliation with UNITA should enjoy the highest priority.
The hour is late, but Her Majesty's Government should review their policy of giving UNITA a cold shoulder. When a victory by UNITA over FAPLA seemed unlikely, to our shame, perhaps it made pragmatic sense to spurn contact with Dr. Savimbi. But the security situation has now taken a dramatic turn which calls for bold new policy directives.
The Soviets stand poised in Southern Angola to embark on a renewed offensive which will almost certainly have reverberations in the region and in the West. We should not stand mutely by as this drama unfolds.
7.36 p.m.
Lord Walston: My Lords, I am most grateful, as I am sure are other noble Lords, to the noble Earl for giving us this opportunity, despite a somewhat sparse attendance, to discuss what we both agree is one of the most important areas in the world, from our point of view in the West and also from the point of view of many other people.
I am very glad that the noble Earl phrased his Question in relation to Soviet involvement as opposed to Communist involvement, because I think that in discussions of this kind it is enormously important to have a clear distinction between Communism and Russian imperialism and potential aggression. I, for one, have no objection, if certain countries so wish, to their having what purports to be a Communist regime, although I personally should not choose to live under it. However, I have very strong objection where I find Soviet influence being extended in any area, indeed, but particularly in those areas which are, as the noble Earl has quite rightly said, of vital importance to this country.

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The noble Earl has concentrated his remarks on Angola. I shall not follow him along that path, because, with the greatest respect to him, I think Angola is of relative unimportance and is no more than a excrescence arising from a central focus of infection which is far more serious. If we are to succeed in our desires—and I think his desire and mine in certain respects coincide, though not in all—we must detach the focus of infection rather than the outward symptoms of it.
One could spend a very long time arguing with him, as possibly with other speakers, about some of his remarks over Angola. One could point out injustices and dangers in Namibia (and I call it solely Namibia and not South West Africa/Namibia); in the aggression from South Africa across the border into Zimbabwe, and, even more important, across the borders into Mozambique and supports to the rebels there against the government. However, I shall not embark on that kind of argument.
To my mind, the focus of this infection lies very clearly in the Republic of South Africa itself. And it does pose a threat to us. The threat is not to my mind so much military although undoubtedly, if there ever developed anything approaching a hot war, the military threat, the presence of the Soviet navy in South Africa or southern African bases, overflying rights and so on, would be of very great disadvantage to us. And the denial to us and to our allies of such things would also be of very great disadvantage. But to my mind a far more serious threat than that—which I believe without undue optimism is a very remote one—lies in the economic and political disturbances which already exist in that area and which undoubtedly are growing.
What is the best way to counter such threats? Put another way, if one can place oneself in the position of the Russian commissar in the Kremlin—and I seriously ask the noble Earl to do this, although he might find it a rather difficult exercise—whose remit is to advance Soviet interests as much as possible in the whole of South Africa and southern Africa, what would he do and what would he hope that we might do? I am quite certain that he would say: "The greatest ally that we here sitting in the Kremlin have in promoting our interests in southern Africa is the existence of apartheid and all the evils and injustices that go with it; the repressions and the disadvantages which affect the black population and which spread to and are known so well in all the surrounding countries". Undoubtedly, from his point of view it would be of enormous advantage if he were able to represent to Africans in South Africa itself, in Namibia, in Angola and throughout Africa, the West as a whole, and particularly the United Kingdom, as supporters and allies of the present regime in South Africa and as the opponents and the enemies of those who are struggling for change. That would be his trump card.
It is the tragedy of Nassau that we, the British Government, played into the hands of that mystical, mythical, shrouded-in-fog character, the commissar from the Kremlin, by our attitude, by the attitude of our Prime Minister, in discussions at Nassau with the other Commonwealth countries. It is all very well for us to mouth these fine words, which have now become platitudes, expressing our abhorrence of apartheid.
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There can be no gainsaying the fact that to the world at large, to our friends as well as to our allies, Canada, Australia and every other part of the Commonwealth, we now appear to be the people who are holding back the sort of actions which, in the minds of so many and in the comprehensive and co-ordinated mind of the Commonwealth, are necessary in order to minimise this real threat to our own interests in southern Africa and to perpetuate the greatest ally to the Soviet Union.
We must not fall into the error of the United States some 25 years ago in Cuba; there, the United States, by appearing to support (and to a certain extent doing more than appearing to support) an unjust and oppressive regime, forced the revolutionary Fidel Castro, somewhat unwillingly, into the arms of the Soviet Union. That is an object lesson which we must never forget. Happily—and I give credit to Her Majesty's Government for this—this is something we have avoided in Zimbabwe. The noble Earl mentioned the fact that Robert Mugabe has just returned from a visit to Moscow. That is perfectly true. As he may have heard on the radio this evening, the United States Secretary of State for Commerce and 400 American businessmen have just arrived in Moscow. Does that mean that they are dangerous, potential enemies? Of course, it does not. Of course the heads of government and those responsible for trade, defence and so many other things and for relations in general must look on it as one of their responsibilities to have the best possible relations with all their neighbours and with all the great powers if they can do so.
If Mugabe had not won the election and if Her Majesty's Government had not behaved in the way they so wisely did; if Nkomo had won the election. I wonder what would have happened. Nkomo owed his support to the Soviet Union. He was very much in their debt. I am not imputing anything evil to him. But it does show that when these struggles are taking place the people who eventually win are awfully inclined to go closer to those who have supported them openly than to those who have dragged their feet. I am tempted to draw more analogies with Zimbabwe but the time is late and I shall not do so.
Now, what we must do is to undo the damage done at Nassau, to show ourselves wholeheartedly at one with the Commonwealth as supporters of all those who want change in South Africa itself—and that includes talking not only with Bishop Tutu but also with Oliver Tambo when he comes to this country—and by establishing close and friendly relations with those people who are fighting for justice and freedom for their people. This we must discuss far more actively than we have done in the past with the whole of the Commonwealth and with all those in southern Africa and elsewhere who can help bring the present regime to an end by peaceful means. If that entails, as it well may, economic sanctions; if it entails threats and the actual implementation of those threats of action if our bluff is called, and if that action is going seriously to harm the economy of South Africa, so be it. It is better to have that than to have the violence which we already see appearing there and which inevitably, unless there is a very rapid and very drastic change there, will escalate into something which sooner or later will have to be described as a bloody civil war.

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That is not only for the sake of the oppressed people in South Africa. It is in order to counter the threat of Soviet penetration into this vital area of wealth and economic activity which we need in peacetime and which, in wartime, we shall need even more. Let us take the right steps now instead of waiting until it is too late.
7.49 p.m.
The Lord Archbishop of York: My Lords, I would not normally have had the temerity to speak twice in your Lordships' House on the same day and on two such different subjects as marriage and South Africa; but on Friday morning I returned from a meeting of Church leaders which had been held in Harare which I think has some relevance to the subject of this Question. Some of your Lordships will have seen in the press that a group of church leaders, mostly from Europe and North America, met some 40 or 50 leaders of South Africa and other representatives from some outside, neighbouring states of South Africa, together with representatives of the African National Congress and the Pan-African Congress. Our main concern in going there was to listen and learn at first hand from those most deeply involved in the present unrest in that area and to discover what kind of response to it was called for from the world-wide Church.
I will not repeat to your Lordships any of the moving stories which were told to us about the kinds of events which are now banned from our television screens. We are all well aware of what is going on there. Nor can I say anything specific about Soviet involvement, nor indeed about British interests, beyond noting in general that people find Marxists in all sorts of strange places these days. But I can say something about the opportunities which exist there for those who know how to exploit discontent and who have a vested interest in infiltration. Therefore, what I say follows on directly from what the noble Lord has just been saying so interestingly about the wider significance of the crisis in South Africa.
What I want to say relates directly to the crisis of leadership among the opposition groups in South Africa and the danger that that leadership will pass into more and more extremist hands. One of the most striking things at our two-day conference was the degree to which the representatives from South Africa were divided among themselves. These were all people who in one way or another were opposed to apartheid. But I suppose the divisions are understandable, partly because the situation is so very confused and partly because there are different pressures in the different regions of South Africa, but more particularly because a stable and coherent leadership is not allowed to develop.
We noticed that all the groups agreed on one thing; that is, that internal relationships within South Africa have moved into a new phase. As one white South African put it to me, for the first time in her experience blacks and coloureds in South Africa have the will to turn passive resistance and complaint into positive action.
A month or two ago a team from the British Council of Churches visited the region and produced the report to which they gave the title, Whose Rubicon? The
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reference was to a speech made by Mr. P. W. Botha in which he described the South African Government as having crossed the Rubicon. The report of this team made the point that basically there has not been very much change in the South African regime, but what has changed is that the people who have stepped across the Rubicon are the blacks—into quite a new attitude of positive revolt.
Also significant was that much of the leadership among the blacks has now passed into the hands of the young, who are not under the same sort of constraints as the older generation of leaders. One thing which was impressed upon us again and again was the significance of the school boycott now going on, not only as representing the involvement of the young, even to their own detriment, in the protests which are taking place but also as being full of danger for the future, in terms of that generation which has been educated at its most formative stage in the techniques of violence.
Among the Church leaders we met was a deep and growing split between those who advocate still some form of negotiated settlement; people such as Desmond Tutu, who is still a marvellously effective leader with a great charismatic personality. But I think he is conscious that his position is becoming weaker and weaker and that the initiative is passing into the hands of the more radical and violent elements.
At the other extreme there are those who see the destruction of the present regime as the only objective worth working for and their minds are only on how to bring this about, with little thought as to what would follow it or what would come into the vacuum thus created. To my mind, one of the most disturbing things was to question these good, dedicated and utterly self-sacrificial people about the steps that they saw if their wishes were to come true, and to find that in terms of thinking about reasonable political futures their minds were almost totally unformed.
As some of your Lordships may know, recently 150 South African theologians have banded together to produce what they call the Kairos document, subtitled A Challenge to the Church. This is an example of some very articulate and very prominent people who have now moved into the centre of the stage in sharpening the divisions which exist. In this document, which theologically is fairly simple, shall I say, they characterise three possible attitudes. There is what they call state theology—the theology which buttresses the apartheid regime; and that they reject as blasphemous. They then refer to what they call Church theology, which is the traditional Christian theology of reconciliation, of peace-making, of looking for ways forward through friendship, through self-sacrifice, suffering and so forth. They reject that as not having worked and now actively working against the interests of the black majority.
They advocate what they call a prophetic theology, which is a theology of action. They regard the present regime as irreformable and only right for destruction; and perhaps I may quote a single brief paragraph which will give your Lordships a flavour of this document. They say:
"This is our situation of civil war or revolution. One side is committed to maintaining the system at all costs and the other side is committed to changing it at all costs. There are two conflicting projects here, and no compromise is possible".

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That is strong stuff. It is not accepted by all the groupings that we met and certainly not by all the Christian leadership, but it does mean that the moderate leadership there is under very strong pressure to produce some results quickly. If it does not, it will be discredited, and the more extreme elements will move in and take over. I say this with no pleasure; I simply report what I have seen and heard.
Though we see here an obvious move towards a revolutionary stance by many in SouthAfrica, I do not believe it is Soviet inspired. However, I do believe it is terribly vulnerable to Soviet influence. Those engaged in it at present see it as an (some of them as the only) authentic Christian response. That is why it has to be taken seriously, and why what the Churches are doing there has to be taken seriously, because the Churches provide almost the only context in which those who are deprived of the normal rights of citizenship can express themselves.
I referred earlier to the crisis of leadership, and this, as we all know, is a crisis forced on the blacks in South Africa by the systematic removal of any leadership that arises. This is a recipe for the development of an underground and unaccountable style of leadership, and during my conversations out there I received some evidence that this is, in fact, what is happening. We were told over and over again by those looking for some negotiated settlement in South Africa that the only way of doing this would be by the restoration of those leaders now in detention. They were referring not just to Nelson Mandela, although he is obviously a key person in this, but to the need for an effective, broadly-based leadership that is actually in a position to negotiate with the Government.
I know all the objections to this. I know the objections to putting those who have been accused of terrorism into positions of responsibility. They are the same objections which have led to stalemate in the Middle East. I know, too, what our Government's hopes are in relation to the Commonwealth initiative in that part of the world. But I am bound to say that there was little enthusiasm for it among those whom we met and those whom it was designed to help. No negotiations are possible when one side is leaderless.
This is all very far from what the noble Earl was saying about arms movements in Angola and elsewhere, and the wider political questions. But I believe that if our Government are worried about Soviet policy in that part of the world the best preventive policy would be to press the South African Government for the restoration of an authentic black leadership.
8.2 p.m.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, there are times when, speaking in debates on southern Africa, it seems to me as though we are moving in a fantasy, and this is one of those occasions. I do not know whether it is hypocrisy or ignorance, but the kind of terms that have been laid out by this Unstarred Question are totally unreal. How many noble Lords recognise that between 1976 and 1980 the Soviet Union sent five large consignments of arms and munitions to the South African Government via Bulgaria? Perhaps the noble Baroness who is to reply can bring us up to date on this. I admit that my figures are somewhat out of
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date. But during that five-year period, five large consignments were received by the South African regime from the Warsaw Pact countries, obviously with the consent of the Soviet Union, though actually provided through Bulgaria.
How many noble Lords recognise that the whole of the Soviet Union's diamond production is marketed by the South African Government through its diamond institutions—a regular trading co-operation between the two countries? How many noble Lords recognise that the Soviet Union and the South African Government meet regularly to discuss gold production and the gold price? Of course, in the case of the United States and Western Europe there is a thousand times more provision of both arms and trading agreements with the South African regime.
But what I want to draw to noble Lords' attention is that there is a great deal of cynicism about the action of the great powers so far as southern Africa is concerned, and that we are not living in a world in which the Soviet Union is supplying all the forces of evil and the West is supplying all the forces of good. This is just totally unreal. It is a fantasy. What I suggest from that is that it is in the interests of the British Government and the British people above all to keep the cold war out of southern Africa, and to refuse to be drawn into this cynical, short-term self-interest policy which both the Soviet Union and the United States have employed and are employing.
The United States, which has oil installations there, pretends to be supporting the MPLA government, and yet what does it do when Kabinda is bombed and mined? Bombed and mined by whom?—by the South Africans via UNITA. It utters words of protest. And now Congress has given the President power to give aid to UNITA against the officially recognised sovereign national government of Angola. That is not in the interest of Britain. The noble Earl talked about the Cuban troops in Angola. There is nobody in Africa who wants Cuban troops or any other foreign troops in that continent, but why did Cuban troops go there? They were sent in 1975 after the South Africans had invaded Angola, which is now admitted officially by the CIA—
Lord Walston: My Lords, may I interrupt for one moment and ask the noble Lord whether it is true that, from time to time, Cuban troops are used to protect American oil interests in Angola?
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, I am certain that they are, and they are also used to protect the southern boundary of Angola. But my point is that the Cuban troops and advisers went there first, not because the MPLA government wanted them there, but because the MPLA government was attacked by South African troops and Angola was invaded. They went as a response, in order to defend a nationally sovereign state.
The noble Earl has mentioned the visit of Robert Mugabe to Moscow. Yes, my Lords, Robert Mugabe went to Moscow. Why? It was partly because he wants to get arms and, after all, the arms trade throughout the world does not follow ideology. But the reason Robert Mugabe went to Moscow was not principally for arms; it was because there has been a battle

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between Moscow and Peking for influence in the Zimbabwe government.
I can tell your Lordships about a personal experience of this. Fifteen months ago the department respresented by the noble Baroness who is to wind-up, twisted my arm very severely, at a good deal of inconvenience to me, to go to Harare in order to represent the British Labour Party at Robert Mugabe's congress. Why? I did not know until I got there why the Foreign Office was so keen that I should go. The reason I found on the first morning. Only the French Socialist delegate and myself were there to represent the West. On the international platform there were representatives from all over the world, except from the West. The Foreign Office was quite right. It was quite right that I should be there. But I saw something else on that international platform. I saw the Russians trying to outbid the Chinese in the simple matter of presenting presents to Robert Mugabe. The Chinese very quickly came back. There was a battle there. There was a battle there all the way through the Rhodesian war, a battle between the influence of the Chinese with Mugabe and the influence of the Soviet Union with Nkomo.
There is another fantasy in this debate. It could have been taking place six or seven years ago on the subject of Rhodesia, and we could have heard the same speeches. Is there not a danger of Soviet influence in Rhodesia undermining British interests? What happened? We found that eventually the only way to settle the issue in Rhodesia was to recognise that those Africans who were fighting in Rhodesia were not fighting for the aims of the Soviet Union and were not fighting for the aims of the Chinese. They were fighting for the aims of the Africans in Zimbabwe. We found that our role was to mediate and to provide the opportunities for negotiations and for talks to set up a state in which the Africans would have an equal—but only an equal—power of participation in their new nation with the white Rhodesians.
I suggest to noble Lords that we reflect on our experience in Rhodesia when we look at the current situation in South Africa. Of course there are more Africans in South Africa and the proportion of the whites is smaller. There are more whites in South Africa, too, so that the problem is much more difficult. But with regard to British interests, let us look at the situation encapsulated in the past 10 years. Since the Portuguese revolution of 1975 the clear policy of the South African Government has been to replace those two pillars of defence in Mozambique and Angola which, so long as they were held by the Portuguese, were considered to be buffers against any external attack on South Africa. Then after the fall of the East and West pillars in 1980 came the fall of the centre pillar, that of Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.
What has happened since then? The South African Government have consistently attempted to undermine the strength of those governments and regimes on their borders. They have bombed and invaded Lesotho, a Commonwealth country; they have bombed and invaded Botswana, a Commonwealth country. What have our Government done as a member of the Commonwealth? They have talked and they have protested. The same South
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African Government have been supporting the MNR in Mozambique and Unita in Angola in order to weaken those regimes. And at the same time, against the whole weight of world opinion, the South Africans have held on to Namibia.
I should like to put this question to the noble Baroness who is to reply. A great deal of the economy of Namibia is being raped today as quickly as possible by South African interests before, they fear, they have to give it up; but we have a stake in Namibia. How is it that the Rossing uranium mine, owned by Rio Tinto Zinc, of which I am sorry to say some Members of this House have been directors, continues to export uranium to this country? Is that not against international law? Is it not directly breaking international law in order to support the illegal South African regime in Namibia? Is that not an interest of the British Government? Is it not the interest of the British Government to preserve international law and to follow the resolutions of the United Nations with which this Government and previous British Goverments have concurred.
It seems to me that the basic British interests in southern Africa are, first of all, to refuse to line up with either of the great powers and thus to try to prevent the cold war from spreading into southern Africa; and, secondly, and much more difficult but still a role for Britain to play, to associate with our friends in the Commonwealth and in the EC in the desperately difficult attempt to help white South Africans and black South Africans to work out a new system of government, a new system of social and economic life in their country, so that we can avoid the violent revolution, so that we can help to bring to an end the present violence—for remember, my Lords, that the African national movement in all its branches, right from 1912 down to the present day, has attempted to use peaceful means in order to change the oppression under which it has been labouring. Remember that right from 1968 with the Lusaka declaration, it has been stated categorically that white South Africans are entitled to continue to live in South Africa, that they are considered to be white Africans. Remember that it was only when all the efforts, in which I personally participated—in the freedom charter, in the days of protest and in the stay at homes—failed because of the force of the South African state used unsparingly against those who were working for reform, only when the methods of peace failed, that the Africans were forced to turn to violence.
I suggest to your Lordships that it is in the interests of Britain to forget about the United States, which is totally cynical so far as southern Africa is concerned; to forget about the Soviet Union, which is equally cynical so far as its aims in southern Africa are concerned; and to take our place along with those of our friends in the Commonwealth and in Europe who genuinely recognise that their interests are best served by a peaceful resolution of the deep and bitter disputes going back for a century or so that have thrown southern Africa into chaos. I hope that the noble Baroness who is to reply will not again repeat that the British Government believe in dialogue and influence. Dialogue and influence has characterised the policy of the British Government since the beginning of this century. It has helped to produce apartheid. It has

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helped to take away from Africans rights that they had earlier on. It has deepened the conflict between white and black and it has brought no hope whatever of a peaceful resolution to this issue. It is time that the British Government took a peaceful but specific and definite role in the attempt to bring South Africa into a state in which all the people of South Africa will be able to work together.
8.19 p.m.
Viscount Massereene and Ferrard: My Lords, I should like first to thank my noble friend Lord Kimberley for initiating this debate. I heard about it only a short time ago, and so perhaps I should not have put down my name; but, anyway, I have.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, when he uses the word "fantasy". The noble Lord, Lord Walston, also mentioned oppression. I would point out that South Africa has by far the highest standard of living for Africans in the whole continent. At the same time, there are thousands of Africans from outside South Africa who are trying to get into South Africa. So the situation does seem to be something of a fantasy. The Africans in South Africa, as I have just said, enjoy by far the highest standard of living of all the republics in Africa. The urban population have seen a very great improvement in their housing. So the whole situation does sound like something of a fantasy to me.
It is not often that I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby, but I do so when he differentiates between what I believe he called Soviet imperialism, which I think is the correct description, and communism. The two are not exactly the same; the noble Lord has a point there. However, there is no doubt (and nobody can argue against this) that the Soviet has been in Africa for a long time now and has been rather stirring the pot—but it does that through-out large areas of the world.
The noble Lord, Lord Hatch, mentioned that South African troops raided Mozambique some time ago. He also mentioned the use of bombs, but I do not believe that they were dropped from aircraft. They undertook that attack because Mozambique was sending raiding parties into South Africa. But again we come up against fantasy. At the same time, Mozambique was sending a great many workers into South Africa. So to my way of thinking the whole situation there is one of fantasy.
I will not mention, as another noble Lord has done, the question of Angola, because that subject has been fully covered. What does concern me is that everything should be done to stop revolution in Africa. The world repercussions of revolution in Africa would be appalling. I have met many black Africans and have been to many parts of Africa, and in South Africa there are tens or even hundreds of thousands of black people who feel that the last thing they want is one man one vote now. They know that if they had that there would be anarchy, chaos and perhaps starvation. The whole fabric would break down. It is the duty of the West, whatever happens, to do everything it can to prevent that happening.
There is an old saying that time cures everything. I have no doubt that eventually it does. I have never agreed with apartheid. If there is a public place then
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everyone, regardless of the colour of his skin, must be allowed into it. I am all for equal rights provided that people know how to use those rights properly. I am now talking about the vote. One cannot really describe restrictions on the vote as being part of apartheid. I always regard apartheid as meaning that a person is debarred from certain public buildings and parks because of the colour of his skin. Perhaps I am wrong about that.
Nevertheless, to have one man one vote now would destroy the Africans. If there was anarchy and chaos, it would result in a white dictatorship—in a military dictatorship. One would not see a black dictatorship. The South Africans have an ordered country and a very good army. They are a very efficient people. Therefore, a white dictatorship would be the only answer if the country entered into chaos. Certainly there would not be a black dictatorship. The noble Lord might agree with me, but I do not know.
The most reverend Primate said that any gaoled leaders ought to be released immediately. I understand that the South African Government are prepared to release them provided they will renounce violence. Surely that is fair enough. Indeed, Bishop Tutu himself has renounced violence and says that he will not have anything to do with it. There has been the appalling killing of Asians, and incidents of Africans fighting Asians. I agree with Bishop Tutu in what he says regarding violence.
The other point that concerns me is the possible effect that anarchy in South Africa might have upon the West. Take our own country, and consider the question of unemployment. For example, in Southampton, half our export trade goes to South Africa. We have a very favourable balance of trade with South Africa. There is also the question of minerals. South Africa's minerals are absolutely essential for the industry of the West, and especially for heavy industry. If the West lost those minerals then unemployment would be far greater than it is now. Southampton Docks would probably lose a great deal of trade. That is a very worrying aspect of the situation.
Apartheid is not nearly so bad as it used to be. The West ought to concentrate on doing everything it can, even if it offends the third world and the Assembly of the United Nations, to prevent any risk of anarchy and revolution in South Africa. For example, the ANC is supplied with arms by some countries of the West. By all means have an embargo on the exporting of arms to South Africa, but at the same time one must also place an embargo on the supply of arms to the ANC.
The mineral position is extremely important. I understand that in South Africa there are 12,000 million tonnes of manganese. Our imports of metals from South Africa, and those of the whole of Europe, are very great indeed. I could quote the types of minerals and the quantities, but they can be easily ascertained. I have often wondered whether the Soviet's real purpose is to obtain control of these minerals. By controlling the market Russia can increase prices. Although Russia might allow the West to have some of them, it will have control of the market.
Some time ago, when I was a boy, Russia cornered the flax trade. To a certain extent the flax trade was in

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Northern Ireland, but the majority of the trade was in the Low Countries. Russia cornered the market, using direct labour—some people would call it slave labour. Russia can undercut any commodity. Having cornered the market, if anyone wanted flax they had to pay two to three times the normal price for it. Russia might well have that in mind as regards minerals.
I have spoken for long enough, but my last words are that, for heaven's sake, we must do everything we can not to allow anarchy to spread through southern Africa. If it does, it will go right through the continent.
8.32 p.m.
Lord Oram: My Lords, it is understandable that the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, should wish to call attention to the situation in southern Africa because obviously it is among the most dangerous, if not the most dangerous, region in the dangerous world in which we live.
There are many elements in the world's current instability, the most basic of which is the arms race and the confrontation between East and West. I suggest that on the basis of the noble Earl's Question we need to ask ourselves, as my noble friend Lord Hatch asked: to what extent is the situation in southern Africa one part of that overall confrontation between the major powers? I felt that my noble friend's speech, speaking as he does with a great deal of first-hand knowledge of the African scene, was very relevant to that question of East-West confrontation.
Racial conflict is another main cause of world instability. There can be no doubt that, in the form of apartheid, that is one of the basic causes of the troubles in southern Africa. Then again, mass poverty and economic exploitation are potential causes of violent eruptions; as is the absence of basic human rights.
In southern Africa all these elements come together in combination in a vast complex of highly combustible material which threatens at any moment to burst into a regional conflagration with unpredictable global repercussions. The difficulty, as I found it when I looked at the noble Earl's Unstarred Question, is that he invites us to select two of the elements of this highly complex situation. He seeks to isolate for examination British interests in the region and Soviet involvement in the region and to examine those apart from the many other basic elements of the southern Africa situation. I suggest to him that it is not easy to isolate two factors from the rest without falling into the trap of either exaggeration or distorting the whole picture. I suggest that in his speech he fell into that trap, as the noble Lord, Lord Walston, so clearly pointed out with his reference to the dominating element in the noble Earl's speech of Angola and the military situation there.
I shall deal first, in seeking to follow the shape of the noble Earl's Question, with the question of Soviet involvement. Soviet arms supplies to the region have hitherto been seen mainly in relation to the struggle in Angola with UNITA and also, on the other side of the continent, to the struggle between the Government of Mozambique and South African-backed rebel forces. Within the past week, as one or two speakers have pointed out, the canvas has become wider because Mr.
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Robert Mugabe has been to Moscow. I have little doubt that high on the agenda of the talks in which he took part was the question of arms supplies. I have no doubt, either, that the Soviet representatives who talked to him listened sympathetically to his description of the threats to his country which are coming from South Africa.
I was particularly struck by a leading article in The Times concerning Mr. Mugabe's visit. It dealt with the likely Soviet response to his visit. It asked the question:
"Are fears justified that the Russians are about to forge stronger links with the front-line states to bring down the South African government?"
Probably not, in the short term, was the answer in that editorial. The editorial went on to point to the growing list of countries in Africa in which the Russians have already burnt their fingers. They are in no hurry, was the editorial's conclusion, to get further involved. I believe that to be the true situation. I do not often agree with leading articles in The Times but I believe it is right in that conclusion.
The Soviet Union will help the front line states resist armed incursions from South Africa, but I believe that it will try not to get further involved. When we are weighing up the whole military situation as between South Africa and its northern neighbours, a major factor must be the South African attempts, by military means, to destabilise the regimes of those countries and to increase their dependence on South Africa's economy; particularly in respect of transport. My noble friend Lord Hatch gave some examples in Namibia and elsewhere of these incursions from South Africa.
I should like to quote just briefly from the Economist Intelligence Unit's report on the Southern African Development Co-ordination Conference. I quote from page 91:
"Transport links became a major target as South Africa tried to prevent traffic from being switched away from South African ports. It made it clear that SADCC was the target by stepping up raids on transport and fuel targets just before the annual donors' conferences in Blantyre in … 1981 and Mazaru in … 1983. In October 1981 South African commandos hit the bridges carrying the railway, road and oil pipeline between Beira and Zimbabwe and also hit marker buoys in the harbour to disrupt Malawi traffic. In December 1982 they hit fuel tanks in Beira and made a raid into the heart of Maseru."
I have no doubt that since those dates there have been many similar incursions.
Faced with that threat and those military activities from the south, is it any wonder that the front line states need arms to protect themselves, and that the Soviet Union, if asked, is willing to supply them?
Recently I had the opportunity of a talk with Mr. Makone, the executive secretary of the South African Development Co-ordination Conference, and I received from him a very clear picture of the devastation that has been caused by these incursions from South Africa and also of the brave struggle of the front line states to achieve economic development in the face of those difficulties that have been caused in their countries. I was therefore glad to note that in another place the Minister for Overseas Development has declared his support for the organisation and that he plans to go to Zimbabwe for the next donors' meeting in January. He also announced the totally inadequate amount of funds that he was able to take

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with him on offer—£12 million—which, compared with the devastation that South Africa has wrought in that region, is all too small. Nevertheless, one welcomes the fact that he is giving the conference his support. Indeed, anything that we can do to help the economic development in the region is not only good in itself but it can help to counter the Soviet military involvement which lies at the heart of the noble Earl's Question this evening. I think we are unlikely to find the Soviet Union rivalling us in the provision of economic aid.
I should now like to turn from the question of Soviet involvement and from my brief look at the problems of economic development to the question of British interests, which is the other part of the noble Earl's Unstarred Question. It is possible to have two very different views of how British interests are to be best served in South Africa. One view is that British commercial interests are our major concern and that our relationship with the South African Government must be such as not to place our industrial and financial investments in jeopardy. That means perhaps using words of disapproval of apartheid but refraining from taking any real action likely to bring apartheid to an end. It means in effect turning a blind eye to the fact that our investments bolster up an immoral and evil regime which is dependent on the cheap labour of an oppressed majority of the population. It means—and the noble Lord, Lord Walston, drew attention to this point in his reference to the Nassau conference—going to the brink of isolating ourselves within the counsels of the Commonwealth.
That is one view of British interests and how they can be served, and I believe it to be a narrow and mistaken one. All the evidence—and the right reverend Prelate brought evidence to our debate this evening—shows that the black majority of the South African population is determined to bring apartheid to an end. Demonstrations, strikes and riots are increasing in intensity and the brutality of the government forces is evident day by day, though there are limits now on the reporting of such incidents. Surely that is not the kind of situation in which British business interests can continue to thrive. If society in South Africa breaks down, if civil war breaks out (and the words "civil war" have come from the right reverend Prelate and the noble Lord, Lord Walston, this evening) then our business interests will indeed suffer grievously. But I believe that such a breakdown, if it comes, will not come through Soviet aggression. It will come through the internal forces of revolt against the apartheid regime.
Surely it is in Britain's interests to ensure that a breakdown does not come about. That means bringing all possible pressure to bear to ensure an end to apartheid, including economic sanctions if the forthcoming visit of a group of eminent persons fails to have the necessary impact on the South African Government. A few weeks ago we saw that some South African businessmen went to Lusaka to talk to the leaders of the ANC. By that visit, they showed that they were willing to seek an alternative relationship with black Africans. I believe that they do that in the interests of their business undertakings because they understand that the present policies will lead to ruin
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for their businesses and that to avoid that situation they must seek a partnership with South Africa's black majority. I believe that our influence should be brought to bear in this kind of direction, because in the long run that is the only true way in which the British interests to which the noble Earl calls our attention can properly be served.
Viscount Massereene and Ferrard: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, I should just like to say that 99 per cent. of the black Africans employed by British firms are paid above the lower level of earnings as actually laid down by the European code. The noble Lord spoke of starvation wages or something like that being paid by British firms there.
Lord Oram: My Lords, it may be that many firms conform with that code but the code is pretty miserable anyway and there are plenty of firms that do not conform with it. I do not think the noble Lord would suggest that the general lot of the black population in South Africa is a happy one or is as it should be.
Viscount Massereene and Ferrard: My Lords, it is a far happier one than the black populations enjoy in the other republics—and I have been to most of them.
8.48 p.m.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Young): My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Kimberley for tabling this Question at a time when Southern Africa and the Republic of South Africa in particular are so much a focus of world attention. Not surprisingly, in the course of this debate this evening the issue has been widened from the precise terms of the Unstarred Question. But the Soviet Union's involvement in this region, which is of considerable importance for Britain, reflects strategic, political and economic motives.
In strategic terms the Soviet Union is of course well aware of the enormous mineral wealth of southern Africa and of the shipping routes around the Cape—both of major importance to the Western economies. It has sought to establish client states in the region and it seeks to maintain and extend its influence by means of military aid, economic ties, such as fishing agreements, and propaganda.
Politically, the Soviet Union takes every opportunity to demonstrate solidarity with South African blacks and with other African countries in their opposition to apartheid and support for mandatory economic sanctions. It consistently misrepresents Western attitudes towards this problem. Perhaps ironically, as the two major producers of gold and diamonds, the Soviet Union and South Africa have a common interest in the maintenance of orderly markets in those commodities.
But what is the nature and extent of Soviet involvement in southern Africa? Taking South Africa itself first, Soviet links with the South African Communist Party and the African National Congress are well known. Moreover, the network of Soviet-controlled international front organisations led by the World Peace Council has long orchestrated its own campaign against white rule in South Africa. The

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World Federation of Trade Unions, for example, is committed to participate in
"any measures to eliminate apartheid".
Your Lordships will note the omission of the words "non-violent". This is not to say that the Soviet Union is itself engaged in fomenting unrest on the spot. Rather, it cheers from the sidelines hoping eventually to capitalise on the results of the violent insurrection which it is encouraging.
Where a government ignore the legitimate grievances and the political aspirations of the majority of their people, Communist revolutionary slogans can have a greater appeal to those who are deprived of an effective constitutional voice. Soviet opportunities for mischief-making in South Africa could best be reduced by a clear programme of reform, leading to a system which has the support of all the South African people. Peaceful change and a strong, stable South Africa are in our best interests.
Some people have argued that the only way to avoid violent revolution in South Africa is to introduce mandatory economic sanctions which, they say, would force the South African Government to agree to reform. We believe that such a move would precipitate, rather than eliminate, violence in South Africa. Far from leading to faster reform, it would stifle the tentative process already embarked on and alienate those elements in the South African business community and in the government who are now pressing for much more ambitious moves towards political dialogue and reform.
Under an economic boycott the white community would unite in the perceived common interest of ensuring its own survival. The South African economy would go onto a war footing; liberalism would give way to militarism. The losers in any such economic siege would be the black community, who would lose their jobs and face considerable hardships, probably for many years. On a siege basis the South African Government could ensure their own survival for a considerable length of time, certainly for longer than the 14 years which the Smith regime was able to hold out in Rhodesia. This would produce ideal conditions for fostering the very extremism and violence that we have been seeking to avoid.
We wish to encourage and accelerate the process of fundamental but peaceful change in South Africa. The question for British policy is how best this is to be achieved. Let me say right at the outset how interesting I found the speech of the right reverend Prelate the Archbishop of York. If I do not comment on it this evening, I shall certainly re-read the speech in Hansard and should like to think on it in the days to come. In the Government's view, dialogue and economic involvement in South Africa are more likely to help the black community than is isolation.
The noble Lord, Lord Walston, asked me why we did not speak to Mr. Tambo. The answer is that the Government will speak to all those who are not committed to violence for political objectives. There has been a call by the Commonwealth to the South African Government to lift the ban on the ANC, but that should be seen in conjunction with their call also for a dialogue to be accompanied by a suspension of
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violence on all sides. But at the same time we need to make very clear to the South African Government our disapproval of acts of repression and our view of the urgency of reform. We must also avoid causing further destabilisation of the South African economy which we believe would harm those whom we are seeking to help.
A realisation is dawning in South Africa that apartheid is both undesirable and unworkable. That growing realisation lies behind the limited but significant reforms so far undertaken by the South African Government. It is also the basis of the laudable efforts of the South African business community to secure reform; a point referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Oram. However, one would hardly strengthen the hand of the business community by attempting to wreck the economy through sanctions. The fact remains that apartheid presents artificial barriers to efficient economic progress. This is recognised by the business community and this is why the aims of economic expansion and the abolition of apartheid are compatible. We are working to secure change through the clear political signals we have sent to Pretoria in the Commonwealth Accord and through our continuing involvement in South Africa. In this we view the role of the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group as extremely important in helping to identify a way for South Africans to start that process of dialogue leading to fundamental reform which is so necessary for that country.
Perhaps I may add to the noble Lord, Lord Walston, who with other noble Lords urged the case for economic sanctions, that the Commonwealth Accord was supported by all members of the Commonwealth and has resulted in a positive step; namely, the appointment of an eminent persons group. The South African Government have indicated that they are prepared to examine ways and means of assisting the eminent persons group to acquaint themselves with the issues within that country. I think that we should give that initiative a chance to bear fruit.
The noble Lord, Lord Hatch, mentioned not only the Commonwealth Accord but also the Luxembourg Agreement. Let me say that on both those measures agreement has been reached with our partners in the Commonwealth and with our partners in the European Community on our approach to the whole question of South Africa. I confirm to my noble friend Lord Massereene and Ferrard that both the Commonwealth Accord and the Luxembourg measures include a strict enforcement of a mandatory arms embargo to South Africa.
The Soviet Union seeks, as I have mentioned, to extend its influence in other areas of southern Africa too. In Namibia it has armed SWAPO and was reluctant to endorse free elections, encouraging SWAPO to engage in a long-running and futile war. Britain, on the contrary, has sought to bring about Namibia's independence by peaceful means—by drawing up and negotiating with our Contact Group partners a United Nations plan providing for free and fair elections. The USSR abstained on the resolution endorsing this plan. We were able to secure the formal agreement of all parties, including South Africa and SWAPO, to this plan, which remains the only agreed basis for Namibian independence.

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That was in 1978, and we can understand the impatience of the Namibian people at the fact that a date has still to be fixed for implementation of the United Nations plan. But, despite the obstacles which South Africa has placed in the way of the implementation of that plan, we remain convinced that the South African Government will come to realise that it is in their own best interests, as well as in the best interests of the southern African region and of the West, that Namibia should be brought to genuine independence on the fair basis which Security Council Resolution 435 provides. We shall continue to put our best efforts into pressing home that point and to supporting those who seek the path of negotiation.
The noble Lord, Lord Hatch, asked me whether it was true that the United States was supporting UNITA. I can confirm to him that the United States has taken no decision about aid to UNITA. On the question of whether the United Kingdom might press the United States not to aid UNITA, our view is that that would be a matter for the United States to decide, but it is aware of our view that Western interests would be best served by peaceful negotiation of a regional settlement leading to the withdrawal of all foreign troops.
As for those who say that only force will make South Africans give up Namibia, we can point out only that the armed struggle has been going on since 1966, 12 years longer than the negotiating process, and has so far made no visible progress despite the misery and loss of life that it has caused.
The noble Lord, Lord Hatch, also asked me about imports of uranium. I take it that he is referring to the Central Electricity Generating Board uranium contract. That contract for the import of uranium from the Rossing mine in Namibia has terminated and imports of uranium from that source have ceased.
The large-scale presence of Soviet military advisers and Cuban troops in Angola has made the present government there dependent upon the Soviet bloc's military aid that has within recent years exceeded its economic aid by a ratio of 70 to one, one of the points that my noble friend Lord Kimberley made. We wish to see these foreign forces withdrawn from Angola as well as an end to South African acts of aggression. For these reasons, we support continuing United States diplomatic efforts aimed at reaching a negotiated settlement between the Angolan and South African Governments leading to the implementation of Security Council resolution 435 and the staged removal of Cuban forces from Angola. Such an agreement would increase the chance of peace and reconciliation in Angola and would open the way to the development of Angola's considerable natural resources.
My noble friend Lord Kimberley asked at the conclusion of his remarks two questions. The first was whether our ambassador in Angola would press harder for the removal of Cuban troops. I can confirm to him that we have said publicly and privately that we should like to see all foreign troops removed from Angola. We therefore support the United States-led negotiations aimed at securing the withdrawal of Cuban and South African forces from Angola in the context of a lasting agreement ratified by all the parties—that is to say, South Africa, Angola and the United States.
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As to my noble friend's second point about the Government's diplomatic relations with the Angolan Government, can I say that any Western aid to UNITA would immediately be matched by further Soviet and Cuban military assistance. It would therefore only lead to an escalation of super power confrontation in southern Africa; hence our support for the United States-led negotiations which would lead to the removal of foreign troops and to a reduction in the Angolan Government's dependence on Russian and Cuban military assistance. It is important to remember that these negotiations are still alive. A meeting between the United States and Angola in Lusaka was held on 28th and 29th November, and a further meeting is likely to take place soon.
The noble Lord, Lord Hatch, asked for up-to-date information on Soviet arms sales to South Africa. I am afraid that I have no information on the particular point that he raised. The noble Lord, Lord Walston, asked about South African cross-border action. I should like to say again to the noble Lord and to other noble Lords who raised the point, including the noble Lord, Lord Oram, that we have strongly condemned the South African incursion into Angola. We made our views known direct to the South African Government.
A number of your Lordships this evening have touched on the question of Mozambique. Mozambique has suffered very serious economic and security problems since independence in 1975 which the assistance provided by the Soviet Union and its allies was unable to solve. President Machel and his Government therefore realise that Western countries could make a real contribution to Mozambique's development, and they have now moved to a more non-aligned position.
In conclusion, while Soviet involvement in southern Africa is inimical to British and Western interests, its extent should not be exaggerated. With the exception of Angola, their role has largely been limited to trouble-making at long range. We consider that the right way to counter this is to encourage just and equitable government and the peaceful resolution of the region's problems through negotiated settlement.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, before the noble Baroness sits down, may I ask whether she can clarify the Government's attitude on two points? First, do the Government believe that without any further pressure from outside or violence from inside, the principle of white supremacy will be voluntarily surrendered by the present regime or by a white regime in the foreseeable future? Secondly, in the Government's policy towards trying to help to find a solution in South Africa, why do they take the attitude that the ANC must renounce all violence when, at the same time, the Government are prepared to speak to representatives of other organisations like UNITA and SWAPO which, like the ANC, have had to adopt violence when their peaceful means have brought only further subjugation?
Baroness Young: My Lords, the two questions that the noble Lord has put to me this evening are ones that

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he has put to me on many occasions in your Lordships' House. I think that the Government's position on apartheid has been made very clear. We do not support the policy of apartheid. The question before your Lordships is how to change the policy of apartheid. In our view, it is important to keep open the political and economic dialogue with South Africa in conjunction with the arrangements that we have reached with our friends in the Commonwealth and our partners in the Community towards the South African Government. We believe that economic sanctions, for the reasons I have given at considerable length in my speech, would not be the way to achieve a change in the South African Government.
On the second question that the noble Lord raised, I have already given in answer to an earlier question the reason why we have said that we will not speak to the ANC as it has not renounced violence. In the case of SWAPO, we talk to SWAPO as it is a party to the negotiations in Namibia. But we have never condoned SWAPO's use of violence.

Lothian Region (Edinburgh Western Relief Road) Order Confirmation Bill
Message brought from the Commons that they have ordered that the Bill be referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses, pursuant to Section 9 of the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act 1936.

Greater London Council (General Powers) Bill
Brought from the Commons, read a first time and referred to the Examiners.
House adjourned at seven minutes past nine o'clock.