Lords Sitting of 11 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.

St. Helena: Financial Aid
Lord Inglewood: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have for development in St. Helena.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Young): My Lords, our assistance to St. Helena this year will total about £9.5 million of which almost £4 million will go on development projects. Over the next few years the emphasis will be on natural resources and improving the infrastructure.
Lord Inglewood: My Lords, can the noble Baroness tell me whether any fraction of this sum of money has gone towards supporting the ship which calls frequently at the island? Can the noble Baroness say generally that communications must be very important to us, both surface and air? Would she also bear in mind that there may not be a large number of people on this island but they are very loyal, and I should like to think that they are given a fair share of what is available? It is not the same as giving to many of those to whom we heavily subscribe and who have little feeling for us at all.
Baroness Young: My Lords, I hope that I can assure my noble friend on the points that he raises. Yes, some money does go towards the ship, the RMS "St. Helena", and we have been considering the options for maintaining a shipping service to the island. In the light of the report by consultants, we concluded that a detailed appraisal should be carried out for a replacement vessel of similar size to RMS "St. Helena".
Lord Shackleton: My Lords, is the noble Baroness—
Noble Lords: Order!
Baroness Young: My Lords, regarding the airfield, proposals are currently being examined. On the question of the support which is given to St. Helena, with the exception of the Falkland Islands, St. Helena receives twice as much aid per head as any other dependency.
Lord Shackleton: My Lords, perhaps I may apologise to the noble Baroness for interrupting her—I am still suffering from jet lag. Is the noble Baroness aware—she is, I take it—that the 5,000 inhabitants are literally trapped within the island? It is difficult for them to go to any other country. Would she facilitate,
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if possible, the inquiries that I believe are going on about the possibility of the development of an airfield, which it is hoped would not be as expensive as the one in the Falklands?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I can understand the enthusiasm of the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, for asking a supplementary question. I am of course aware of the point that he raises about communications. As I indicated to my noble friend Lord Inglewood, the feasibility of constructing an airstrip for emergency use has been under review, but I must tell him that the indications are that the cost, even for a limited use facility, would be very considerable.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, is my noble friend saying that the intention is only to consider an airfield for emergency use? Surely in the modern world if a community is to survive it must have a regular means of access by air.
Baroness Young: My Lords, there is the possibility of consideration of an airfield for emergency use, and the cost of an airfield which is described as a low-cost airfield. But we are of course considering the whole question, as I have already indicated, of the replacement of RMS "St. Helena".
Lord Harvington: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether, concerning the sum of money that she has announced will be spent on St. Helena, she will go a little further and say if some of that money will be spent on what seems to me, as one who knows the island, to be of the utmost importance; namely, that there should be a suitable quay for unloading vessels? She did not touch upon that. Can she enlarge upon that aspect?
Baroness Young: My Lords, at the present time we are financing a new power station at the cost of £1·5 million; a new secondary school at the cost of some £3·5 million; another £1·5 million is being allocated to fisheries; over £1 million to irrigation; and three quarters of a million pounds to forestry. I have not, I think, any specific information about the quay but I shall write to my noble friend on that point.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that another method of helping St. Helena would be to develop the island of Ascension for tourist purposes? Ascension is the nearest neighbour to St. Helena. It has a delightful climate and many attractions for ornithologists and others, including a golf course; but it has no indigenous population. All the workforce for Cable and Wireless and the other users come from the island of St. Helena. If this island could be developed for tourism it would help the island of St. Helena considerably.
Baroness Young: Yes, my Lords, I note what the noble Lord says, and thank him.
Lord McNair: My Lords, can the noble Baroness assure us that in principle the Government will be as generous to the inhabitants of Pitcairn Island, who are no less loyal than the St. Helenans?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I hope that there is no doubt that the Government are fair to all these people.

Food from Britain Campaign
2.43 p.m.
Baroness Elliot of Harwood: 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 planning to continue their support for the Food from Britain campaign.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Lord Belstead): My Lords, my right honourable friend the Minister announced recently that for each of the three years from 1988–89 the Government will make available to Food from Britain's marketing activities £1 for every £2 contributed by industry up to a maximum of £2½ million a year, provided industry contributes at least £3 million per year. This is in addition to the £14 million pump-priming grant covering the organisation's first five years up to 1987–88.
Baroness Elliot of Harwood: My Lords, I thank the Minister very much for that excellent piece of news. Does he think enough publicity is given to the Food from Britain campaign, in view of the fact that it is so vital to sell the produce of this country? We all talk about producing more, but selling more is even more important. I wonder whether my noble friend can add anything to that.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I think that the annual report of Food from Britain, which had most excellent publicity within it and on its cover, shows that the organisation has made a most excellent start. Seventeen commodity sectors now bear the food mark as a guarantee of good quality to the purchaser. There is excellent progress with exports and sales both at home and overseas show an optimistic trend. I believe that Food from Britain is pushing this in its promotional work.
Lord Gallacher: My Lords, can the noble Lord the Minister say whether there has yet been any contact between the Food from Britain organisation and the Sea Fish Industry Authority? If there has been no contact will be use his good offices to bring that about, as marketing is part of the remit of the Sea Fish Industry Authority?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, it is indeed. I shall inquire whether there has been contact between the two organisations on that.
Lord Stodart of Leaston: My Lords, can my noble friend say whether, in the context of this admirable contribution by the Government and by industry, the Government have made any calculation about whether Food from Britain will, by exporting, make a significant contribution to reducing the surpluses that are growing up at home?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, if one compares the exports of food and drink from this country in 1982, which was the year before Food from Britain was set up, one sees that they were worth £3.6 billion; and last year exports of food and drink from this country were worth £4.3 billion, a growth of 19 per cent. There is no question that in the areas which Food from Britain covers—fresh foods and lightly processed foods—exporting abroad will be a great help in regard to the surpluses that are being produced.
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: Are those figures in real terms, my Lords?
Lord Belstead: Those are in actual terms, my Lords.
Lord Wallace of Coslany: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that I am very much in favour of homegrown food, and will the Government give similar encouragement to allotment holders?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I am delighted at what the noble Lord says. In the climate that we have and with the expertise we have, we produce the best food in the world.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: My Lords, in view of the fact that the Dairy Council is concerned about the amount of butter being produced due to the excellent results of good farming, are the Government considering the recommendation that those persons who are aged or on social security benefits should receive butter at a much lower price to enable us to get rid of some of the surplus?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I entirely understand the concern of the noble Baroness on this point, which goes a little wide of the Question. But however attractive a one-off scheme of that kind is, it would not make a tremendous amount of difference to the large surpluses of dairy products.

Stock Exchange: Insider Dealing
2.48 p.m.
Lord Bruce of Donington: 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 action has been taken in regard to cases of alleged infringement of Section 72 of the Companies Act 1980 passed by the Stock Exchange to the Department of Trade and Industry, stating, in particular, the number of prosecutions initiated by the department directly, the number of prosecutions brought by the Director of Public Prosecutions, and the number of cases still under investigation.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Lucas of Chilworth): My Lords, cases of suspected insider dealing referred to the department are considered with a view to investigation and prosecution if there is sufficient evidence. In five cases, six prosecutions have

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so far been brought by the department under the legislation on insider dealing, and two by the Director of Public Prosecutions. Six cases are under investigation.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that his Answer in this connection is thoroughly unsatisfactory? Is he aware that the Stock Exchange itself, over the past few years, has investigated some 25,000 prima facie cases of suspicious share movements? It has provided details of 80 cases to the DTI and very little action appears to have been taken. Is the Minister not aware that there is a general impression that when it comes to breaches, shall we say, of Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act, the DPP appears to be able to act as a matter of alacrity, but when it comes to matters of this kind it appears that somebody somewhere is dragging his feet?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I would not dispute the first two figures the noble Lord has given; but he, above many other people, will realise the great difficulty there is in bringing to court a prosecution that succeeds. There is no lack of effort put into the investigations, which take on average over a year to come to any conclusion as to whether there is a prospect of a prosecution.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, in view of the time the noble Lord has given for a case to be investigated (which I regard as excessive in the average case) is he satisfied that the DPP has adequate staff to deal with these matters? There have been reports that the department is grossly understaffed, and the figures he has given this afternoon seem to underline that.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, of course it is not only the DPP who brings prosecutions. They are also brought by my department. However, as my right honourable friend the Prime Minister stated in response to the chairman of the Stock Exchange, the Government are committed to pursuing financial fraud vigorously and effectively. We have already taken steps to make prosecutions more effective. In that response, my right honourable friend the Prime Minister said that the Government accepted the importance of ensuring that resources for investigating fraud were adequate. Those resources are now under review.
Lord Kinnaird: My Lords, would the Minister not agree that if the department is very understaffed, perhaps they could bring fewer prosecutions?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, prosecutions are brought where there is a probability of securing a conviction. That does not depend upon the number of staff.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that a senior official of the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions has referred to the quite monstrous workload facing officials in that department? What are the Government doing to rectify that situation?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, as I understand that reference, it had to do with matters concerning Lloyd's, whereas the Question on the Order Paper this afternoon really deals with insider dealings. I think the noble Lord's question is a little wide of the original one.
Lord Diamond: My Lords, perhaps I may pursue that matter. Do I understand correctly from the noble Lord the Minister that the same staff at his department would be concerned with fraud, be it allegations of fraud on the Stock Exchange or allegations of fraud in connection with Lloyd's? Therefore, if one section of the department is understaffed, can the noble Lord tell us whether that has any effect on the speed with which other prosecutions and investigations can take place? Does the noble Lord share my view that it is vital to this country's interests that the good names of Lloyd's and the Stock Exchange should be maintained and that they are likely to be maintained by investigations of this kind being taken up as quickly as possible?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, the fraud investigation group, which was set up in January of this year, was in part set up to deal with this growing problem. It is staffed by about 50 people. Altogether, there are about 100 people involved in investigation of fraud in various and different areas. It would not be possible for me to itemise exactly how many personnel are engaged at any one time on one specific aspect. However, I repeat that we are undertaking a review of the resources available in this area. Those resources will be made adequate to attend to this growing problem highlighted by noble Lords this afternoon.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the figures he has just given completely reinforce my original complaint? Is he aware that, in view of the existing work load, the numbers he has quoted need to be multiplied by at least three in order that there can be an effective organisation to deal with these matters?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I do not know whether it is by three. I said that the resources available were being reviewed. I am afraid I cannot guess at the outcome of that review.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: My Lords, in view of the anxieties that have been expressed in the House, can the noble Lord make a Statement at an early date about the result of the review of staffing, not only in his own department but, in view of the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, possibly also about the situation in the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I do not think it is for me to determine whether a Statement should be made. However, I feel quite confident that if the noble and learned Lord, any of his colleagues or any other noble Lord, were, in perhaps some weeks' time, to put down a Question inquiring of the progress of this survey, I may be able to give him further information and would be delighted so to do.

Business
2.54 p.m.
Lord Denham: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 this afternoon my noble friend Lord Belstead will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement that is being made in another place on the Agricultural Council meeting on the 9th and 10th December.
It may also be for the convenience of the House if I say a word at this point about the arrangements for this afternoon's short debates standing in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, and the noble Baroness, Lady Seear. It is customary in short debates that the mover is allowed approximately 15 minutes and that the Minister should rise to reply not less than 20 minutes before the scheduled end of the debate. In the case of the short debate in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, this means that all other speeches should be limited to a maximum of 14 minutes. In the case of the short debate in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, it means that other speeches should be limited to a maximum of 11 minutes. If any noble Lord should speak at greater length, it would be to the disadvantage of subsequent speakers in that particular debate.

Liverpool City Council
2.56 p.m.
Lord Harris of Greenwich Lord Harris of Greenwich rose to call attention to the position in Liverpool arising out of the actions of the city council; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Before setting out the case I wish to deploy this afternoon, on behalf of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool, I should like to express his regrets that he is unable to be here today, because he would have very much liked to participate in this debate.
We are discussing this afternoon a situation with few parallels in the local government history of this country. There have of course been previous cases where great cities have faced the prospect of bankruptcy. There was the case of New York City. There was the case of Cleveland in the State of Ohio. However, as far as I know, there has been no previous case where a city council has coldly and quite deliberately attempted to bring about its own bankruptcy. As we know, that is precisely what Liverpool attempted to do. They were frustrated only because of action which was taken in the courts by some of the teachers' unions when the city council attempted to sack 31,000 of its employees.
I propose to deal first with the economic and social background to the dispute: secondly, with the conduct of the council itself; and lastly with some of the longer-term implications. I turn first to the condition of the City of Liverpool. It is, as I think we all recognise, pretty desperate. We have in Liverpool an unemployment rate of 21 per cent., and in some of the central wards of the city there is now youth
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unemployment of around 90 per cent. There is no certainty that we have yet experienced the worst of the problem. Manufacturing industry, in decline for three decades or more, is likely to contract still further. The number of available jobs is likely to decline in the manufacturing sector by somewhere around 14 per cent. over the next six or seven years. There is little expectation that there will be a great deal of growth in the service area either. Indeed, some estimates suggest that there may be a further decline of employment here of around 8 per cent. in the same period.
I think we have a situation where there is great despair spreading through great swathes of the city. We have in many homes, one and sometimes two teenage children who have just left school and are unemployed; the mother who may have had a part-time job has also lost her job; the father is unemployed, and there may be one or two children still at school who also face the prospect of unemployment as soon as they leave. We have a situation where 50 per cent. of ratepayers are at the moment in receipt of housing benefits.
In addition to those sombre figures, we also have the accompanying problem of inner city dereliction. We have lamentably inadequate public services. Many schools are in a poor condition and there is one of the worst housing situations in England. A great deal of the postwar public housing is in a deplorable condition. Yet, unhappily, as we know, the city council appears only interested in expanding still further the quantity of public sector housing. They are unfortunately ideologically opposed to any private sector involvement or indeed to the work of the housing co-operatives.
That logically brings me to the second point that I want to raise this afternoon. That is the conduct of the city council. As we know, the city has been run by Militant Tendency. I believe that they have worked tenaciously to ensure that there is a policy of all-out confrontation with the Government. My noble friend Lord Evans of Claughton and I pointed out in a debate that we had in this House in March of last year that the one thing that one can say about Mr. Hatton and his colleagues is that they certainly have the merit of consistency. As soon as they had secured a majority on the council they announced that they would introduce a deficit budget. Last year, there was a very confused situation when they went on a delegation to see Mr. Patrick Jenkin, then Secretary of State for the Environment; and they came out claiming that they had won a famous victory. They persuaded themselves, and, I believe, many people in Liverpool, that they had won that victory.
Mr. Hatton and his colleagues thereafter boasted that a tough stand by them had made the Department of the Environment capitulate; and what had been a small majority for Mr. Hatton and his colleagues until then became far more substantial after the local elections of last year. At the same time they started to put large numbers of personal retainers on to the payroll of the city council. Senior officials of the council were put under heavy, and, in some cases, intolerable, pressure to conform. Let me give the example of one committee chairman. He still turns up every day. He is there when the mail is opened and he then decides which officials in his department should

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draft the response to those communications. He ensures that the papers are sent to those officials who he regards as ideologically sound. We have the case of the arrival of Mr. Bond as a race relations adviser to the council. His skills in that particular area were, I think, very limited. Indeed, there was great hostility expressed by ethnic minorities in Liverpool when he was appointed. Since then he has not been able to secure any degree of co-operation from them, despite the immense problems in his area—the community problems of Liverpool of which, after the Toxteth disturbances of 1981, we are all aware.
In addition they built up an organisation of muscle men given the Orwellian title of "the static security force". Again, it was staffed in the main by their own political supporters. At the same time they were operating in close collaboration with Left-wing shop stewards of the General and Municipal Workers Union, the interests of other trade unionists being swept aside as being of no account.
Armed now with the decisive majority that had eluded them until May of last year, Mr. Hatton and his colleagues announced that there would be no surrender. They said that they would produce a deficit budget, itself an act of blatant illegality, and that the Government would have to accept the consequences. It is still difficult to be absolutely certain of the motives of the leaders of the council. I suppose that some of them believed that once again they would obtain, or at least be able to claim, an easy victory. But when discussing the attitude of mind of a group of Marxist revolutionaries it is difficult to be certain of what their motives may be. No doubt some others hungered for the martyr's crown and others believed that commissioners would arrive in the city, as they did in Clay Cross after that dispute during the Administration of Mr. Heath. Others no doubt believed that there would be some form of violent action in the streets of Liverpool.
And so on to the final confrontation when, despite the slogan, "No cuts in jobs or services", the council sent out dismissal notices to 31,000 of its own employees. By that time schools were short of fuel and the interests of the old and the sick who needed the support of council services were dismissed as of no interest. We also had the point (which I dealt with in the House last week during Question Time) when funds were cut off from voluntary organisations which were working among some of the most deprived citizens of that city.
I turn lastly to the future of both Liverpool and its council. Of course, it is very difficult to predict what is now going to happen. The Labour Party itself is conducting an inquiry and it may be that the district Labour Party, which is controlled by the Militant Tendency, will be dissolved and that various councillors will be thrown out of the Labour Party as well. But that is for the future. It is difficult for us to predict precisely what will happen.
I think that the problems raised by this whole chain of circumstances raise two specific issues. First, there is the situation that will arise in Liverpool when Mr. Hatton and his colleagues no longer govern the city. It is possible that they will cling on to power for some time but, for reasons which are obvious, it would be wrong to speculate what is likely to happen over the
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next few weeks. What I would say to the Government is that the successors to Mr. Hatton will then face a series of massive problems. Not only will they have the difficulty of getting rid of the Marxist placemen who have been recruited by Mr. Hatton and put on the payroll, but they will also have the formidable task of rebuilding confidence in the city and dealing with the reconstruction of the council's finances which has been made even more difficult as a result of the way in which a loan has been raised with a number of Swiss banking institutions.
All I would say to the Government is that I hope that they will treat the successors to Mr. Hatton, whoever they may be, with some spirit of fairness and generosity; because I believe that that is what will be needed in the very special circumstances arising in Liverpool.
That brings me to the second matter that I want to raise. I believe that Liverpool is a classic illustration of the price that we pay in this country for adversarial politics. So far as that is concerned, it is, I am afraid, in no way unique. An official of NUPE, giving evidence to the Labour Party committee of inquiry, complained about the behaviour of Mr. Hatton and his colleagues in that they appointed a number of officials to the city council on grounds of their political beliefs. I wish that that was the only city in which allegations of that sort are made; but unhappily, as we know, that situation has been faithfully replicated certainly in upwards of 15 or 20 other local authorities in the country.
I think we also have to recognise that in most of these places the majority party on the local authority concerned has nothing approaching majority support in the local community. In Liverpool, for instance, in spite of all Mr. Hatton's strutting pretensions, the fact is that 54 per cent. of the people have voted against Mr. Hatton and his colleagues. In Lambeth—another case of a local authority with an enthusiastic policy of confrontation—Mr. Ted Knight has an absolute majority on the council despite the fact that two out of every three people who voted in the last local elections voted against Mr. Knight. Yet that is the system of voting which is favoured and supported with passion by both the Government and the Opposition Front Benches.
The problems of Liverpool will not await any future change in the system of voting in local government; of course they will not. There are a number of urgent matters which have to be tackled well before that. What I believe is needed in Liverpool is the creation of a climate of collaboration between all sensible people on the city council, whatever their political views may be, in order to rebuild confidence in the city.
That is the first pre-condition of recovery. Without it, I believe that the prospect of atrracting major, new private sector investment is almost non-existent. The second pre-condition will be an imaginative initiative by the Government using, I hope, the resources of the Merseyside Development Corporation and bringing in, I hope, a great number of people from the private sector in the way that Mr. Heseltine attempted to do when he was Secretary of State for the Environment.
Lastly, there will be a need to create an atmosphere of stability. Any prospect, any immediate likelihood, that there is a risk of return of Left-wing extremists to

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the city council, will snuff out any prospects of recovery. I hope that the damaging period through which the people of this great city have passed will soon be brought to an end and that government and Parliament will do their best to contribute towards its economic and political recovery. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.10 p.m.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, I think we should all be most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, for having brought before us a major subject of anxiety, both in respect of the welfare of the citizens of the city we are discussing and in respect of the structure of local government and its finances which have been involved in worsening the situation that there exists.
The case of Liverpool, seen from a distance, is of course not in its origins unique. There are three great port cities on the western side of this island whose fortunes were made in different proportions out of sugar, slaves, tobacco and emigration. Two of them—Bristol, to a considerable degree, and Glasgow, increasingly—it appears have managed to carve out for themselves new spheres of usefulness in the nation's economy and new forms of employment for their citizens. Of the three, Liverpool remains the one most seriously damaged and I have no reason to doubt—it has been said by many people in this Chamber on other occasions—that the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, is right when he points to the natural feelings of despair that must affect that community.
If one were to look at the major difference, the major concern that we have, I suppose, it is that whereas the attraction (as indeed the noble Lord said towards the end of his speech) of capital and of employment should throughout have been the first concern of the city fathers, it appears to have been their last concern. Their first concern appears to have been an idea that what was not provided through employment could be provided either by one direct form of employment—that is to say, by the council in public sector housing—or through the provision of various services. And of course the prejudice which they have shown—in the housing sector against housing associations and, in relation to social services, against voluntary bodies—reflects a political commitment. I think it is understandable therefore that a city in this position should have accumulated a very considerable level of public debt; and it is that debt, among other things, which now weighs upon Liverpool and its future.
I think that perhaps the noble Lord, in pursuit of one of his favourite themes, went a little far in suggesting that it has been due to adversarial politics and to the existence of a single party majority; because a good deal of the debt, I believe, was built up by Mr. Hatton's predecessors. I sometimes think that the well-known Liberal leader of Liverpool council, "Jones the Vote", might almost have been styled, "Jones the Note". He has certainly left a burden of debt to which Mr. Hatton has been adding.
When we come to look at the argument, the first point I should like to make to the Minister—and in a
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sense I think it applies to the Opposition—is this. It has been repeatedly stated by the leaders of the present Liverpool council that their purpose is to secure further funds from central Government, and though by now they have more or less abandoned hope of the present Government they expect that a future Government—a future Labour Government—would look at them with a more favourable eye. I think it has been made plain by the present Government (and I believe also by Mr. John Cunningham on behalf of the Opposition) that this hope is likely to be disappointed and that no Government are likely to have their policy in respect of financial assistance to a particular local authority directed by the fact that that local authority has built up an unbearable burden of debt.
Nevertheless, it is continually repeated by Mr. Hatton and his colleagues that what they are doing is democratic. They continually repeat the phrase that their policies are no more than the policies of the manifesto on which they fought and won council seats in previous elections. I have not seen this answered, and I think it is very important because it may be that the illegitimacy of this kind of conduct is something we must look into.
It should after all be pointed out that in fact democracy, even taking it to a fairly extreme point, might well indicate that the citizens of Liverpool had the right to decide who spent the money that they themselves were paying in the form of rates. It cannot be democratic that the citizens of one city, through their political leaders, should be in a position to tax the rest of the country; because this claim that is made is simply that Liverpool should fix the general rate of taxation in the rest of England, since clearly they cannot be helped unless there is a further degree of public expenditure directed towards themselves. I should like to have some indication of Government thinking in respect of the relations between local democracy and this particular situation.
As we know, and as the noble Lord, Lord Hams of Greenwich, reminded us, the immediate crisis has been postponed for perhaps a year by a fairly large-scale injection of cash in the form of a loan from a number of Swiss banks. It is not, I think, that banks are philanthropic institutions by and large. On the whole they are out, one imagines, for the main chance. Lenin said of capitalists that they would sell the rope by which they were themselves to be hanged—and Lenin spent some part of his life in Zurich. Nevertheless, one assumes that they have taken a cold-blooded view that this is a suitable way in which to invest cash.
One is entitled to ask, because it is germane to our argument: what gives us this confidence? Which of us could go along to a Swiss bank and borrow, not so large a sum but any sum of money, not merely on this very high rate of interest which the people of Liverpool are going to have to pay, without offering some kind of security? What is the security upon which the bankers of Zurich, or wherever else it may be in Switzerland, now rely?
It seems to me improbable that they visualise that the physical assets of the City of Liverpool—its public sector housing, its town hall, its recreation grounds—would be very useful if they were to foreclose upon them. It is possible, of course, that if

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they could foreclose on the whole city it might he run as well as some Swiss cities are, but that perhaps is Utopia.
The suspicion one has—and this is where I should like to hear the views of the noble Lord the Minister—is that the Swiss banks in question believe that no British Government will allow the actual repudiation of debt by an ancient and famous British city; that is to say that, in spite of the disclaimers by the Secretary of State for the Environment as to any responsibility for these transactions, there is believed to he an implied guarantee of this loan. It seems to me that if that is so it is extremely damaging for this country's credit in the world at large.
We therefore come back to the future and I think few of us would dispute the general prescriptions, at any rate for the immediate future—leaving outside the noble Lord's preference for different electoral arrangements—that he sketched out. But I wonder whether we can altogether rule out the necessity for some kind of action other than the mere substitution of the present Liverpool City Council by the voters of some city council not quite so far steeped in Marxist dogma. It seems to me that the Labour Party's investigation into whether its rules are being properly observed by the Liverpool District Labour Party is really a red herring. It does not go to the root of the very serious situation in which the inhabitants of Liverpool live, and one would have preferred to see the energies of distinguished members of that party's national executive concentrating on something of more immediate relevance to their condition.
It seems to me, and I think it must seem to many other noble Lords, that what cannot be done, even by a future, more friendly, more favourable, more socialistically inclined Government, is simply to put the past behind us and say, "Well, they have more or less come to their senses. We will pour a bit more money into their coffers and see how they get along"; because it is obviously important that if public money is given there should be evidence that public money is properly spent. That may mean that in Liverpool, and possibly in other areas and other districts, to which the noble Lord referred, we shall have to look at something quite different from the traditional assumption that the locally elected councillors can be trusted to do the job.
3.23 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I too am grateful to a certain degree for the fact that this debate has been initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich. I have taken note of some of his remarks and also of some of the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, in his speech, which preceded mine. But there are a number of factors that ought to be looked at very closely when we talk of what brought about this situation.
I make my premise on the basis that I give no support whatsoever to the action that Militant took in Liverpool, which is completely opposite to my views of what democracy and democratic socialism are about. As a former leader of Manchester council and chairman of its housing committee, I was involved when there was a campaign some years ago totally to ignore the Housing Finance Act and to break the law
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on that issue. I was one of the persons who was responsible for stopping that idea and the implementation of such policies, and who insisted that we acted within the law. What my own party does about Militant is its business. Its inquiry is under way and I hope that Militant will be dealt with.
But what provided such fertile ground in which Militant could operate? The noble Lord, Lord Beloff, referred briefly to the people who were in control of Liverpool before the present group took control because of the conditions there. I do not propose to go into that in detail, because my colleague and old friend from local government before I came here from Liverpool—I am talking about the noble Lord. Lord Sefton—probably knows more about that in detail than anybody in this Chamber. So I shall not go down that road.
But what I say is that what has happened in Liverpool is the same as what is happening in all our major cities. It is not what Militant has done. It is the conditions that have allowed Militant to fertilise and capitalise on the present situation. I had a Question down as to why we were having this debate, but it is probably opportune, and I know that in the not too distant future we shall be debating the inner cities and what is happening there. Also, I think it is widely known that there is to be a full day's debate in another place on this subject.
But what has brought about the position where people who are much less democratic than I have been able to manipulate the situation? I think noble Lords will agree that I have been most persistent in questioning the Government and Ministers on the financial allocations to the cities and only last week, or the week earlier, the noble Lord the Minister who is to reply to this debate read out a shopping list of Government measures that were designed to assist the inner cities. As I said earlier, I have no time whatsoever for what Militant has been up to in Liverpool, which is the complete opposite of what I believe social democracy to be. But the fact is that, because of a series of measures and because of what Liverpool was left with by its previous administrators, it lost a total last year of £112 million in rate support grant. You can apply that argument to other cities and major conurbations, such as Manchester, Sheffield and the London boroughs.
It is a fact that any assistance that the present Government give in order to deal with inner city deprivation has been more than 10 times lost by the reduction in rate support grant. The constituents or residents of such places have lost in rate support grant 10 times what the Government have ploughed back by other measures. I suggest that that is an absolute recipe for disaster, and it could only provide fertile ground for what we have seen happening in Liverpool.
Since his arrival in this Chamber, we have heard my old first Chief Whip, the noble Lord, Lord Mellish, talking about what has been achieved in dockland. Anybody who has had time to read the report of the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury on the inner cities will know that at present there are only two urban development areas. One is the east docklands of London, about which reference has been made by the noble Lord, Lord Mellish. I pay tribute to the wonderful job he has done. The other is Merseyside in a general sense. I must tell noble Lords

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that if some of the other major cities had not had financial resources taken away from them to provide financial assistance for the London docklands and the Urban Development Association, we may not have been having this debate today.
At the end of the war, Liverpool had a population of three-quarters of a million. Manchester had a population of three-quarters of a million, too. Since then—and this has been conveyed in the succession of reports that are coming through—deprivation has occurred. Liverpool and Manchester have each exported into the hinterlands outside their cities a quarter of a million people.
Lord Mellish: My Lords, the noble Lord has mentioned my name and the docklands corporation. The allegation is that if this money had been given to local authorities they would have done just as well, if not better. That is how I heard it.
Lord Dean of Beswick: No, my Lords.
Lord Mellish: My Lords, I want to put it on the record that they did in fact have a docklands joint committee, but they did not do anything about it. That consisted only of the boroughs.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, with all due respect to the noble Lord, Lord Mellish, we are not talking about the same thing. The noble Lord is talking about a conglomerate of London authorities which could stand to be criticised. I am talking about a series of big cities which stood on their own. Manchester and Liverpool, under historical control—and before Militant took control—had to export a quarter of a million people—mainly outside their borders. They received nothing like the financial assistance that was afforded to the Docklands Development Corporation, to the Urban Development Association or to the new fetish which came in—the new towns.
When the present Government came in they quite deliberately shifted rate support grant from the big cities, which are not their voting areas, to the rural counties, which are. This is all recorded in the debates in another place. That load had been carried on the backs of the ratepayers in Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester and the London boroughs. That is why some of their rate poundages have escalated so much. It is because of the disgraceful withdrawal of rate support grant from those deprived areas that rate poundages are so high. As I said to the Minister who is to reply to this debate, it is time that the Government got shot of their crocodile tears over the inner cities, because what has happened over the past five or six years can be laid very much at their door.
I opened on the basis that I am totally opposed to what Militant has tried to do in Liverpool. I go back to the days of Herbert Morrison who, with pioneers in the Labour Party, spent a long time convincing people that we had people in the Labour Party who could take responsibility for running the big cities and conurbations of this country with distinction and without any suggestion of corruption or non-sensible behaviour. If I have to charge Militant with anything it is that it has actually destroyed the reputation that
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was built by people who led Labour authorities, such as Liverpool historically, Manchester, Sheffield, Birmingham and the London boroughs. Those records are second to none. That is one of the gravest charges I make against it.
I go back to the city that I was privileged to lead for a time—I shall not say with distinction, but I think that I perhaps did it rather well. I think that if you are not prepared for a little self-praise you have no right to be in the business of politics. I pay tribute to my predecessor, Sir Robert Thomas, who was the founder chairman of the AMA and whose record stands comparison with that of any man in local government I have met. He would have been appalled by the kind of behaviour from this group of people in Liverpool.
I know I am nearing the end of my time, and so I must tell noble Lords that I took the trouble to read assiduously an eyeball to eyeball confrontation reported in the Manchester Evening News between the present leader of Manchester City Council and its political lobbyist, who works here. By leave, I quote, and this comes from the present leader of the Labour council in Manchester:
"We haven't solved our problem. We are coming through this year because we have used a lot of our reserves, which Liverpool didn't have …because the financial restrictions the Government has imposed are the same for Manchester as for Liverpool …eventually we'll get into a very difficult situation".
I must say before I close—I hope my advice is heeded—that what Militant has tried to do in Liverpool is a recipe for disaster for anybody else thinking of the same course. I think that Manchester is moving towards a Liverpool situation. It would be impudent for me to tell Manchester what to do. The present leaders in Manchester have made a lot of decisions that neither I nor the people who were in control of the Labour Party when I was there would have made. If they have any idea of going down the East Lancashire road towards Liverpool and of pursuing the same policies, the only people who will be hurt are the ratepayers of Manchester, the elderly, young people and my party. I say to them: forget it and get on with governing the city with some credibility to yourselves and to the party you are supposed to espouse.
Having said that, I repeat that the Government have a lot to anwer for. When I look at the financial resources that have been withdrawn from the major cities, I say that the Government should be ashamed of themselves.
3.38 p.m.
Lord Crawshaw of Aintree: My Lords, what we are debating today is nothing more or less than the hijacking of a party and of a city. Some people have gone back as far as the last administration in Liverpool. We will never understand the problem unless we understand why Liverpool was chosen for this particular takeover for the destruction of society as we know it—because that in fact is what it is all about. To do that, I go back not 10, 20 or even 30 years—I go back to the late 1940s, when I first became involved in politics in Liverpool.
I want to say this first of all. Reference has been made to how people have lived in Liverpool recently. The hardships and deprivations that they have

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experienced are nothing new. Liverpool helped to make this country great. It helped to make it a financial centre of the world, with its ports sending ships and exports to every place on the globe. It gave its men in two world wars and kept open the lifelines of this country, and, apart from London, suffered possibly the most severe bombardment of any city. Yes, you can go to the docks near the pierhead in Liverpool and you will see where the money went to. There are lovely buildings there. It is a wonderful city. But there is one thing that has never happened in Liverpool in any of those generations—the people who did the work never shared in that wealth.
Because time is limited, I shall have to telescope what I was going to say. If one goes back to 1846, because of the deprivation in Liverpool the first medical officer of health to be appointed in this country was appointed in Liverpool. What did he find? He found that half of the working people in Liverpool were living in what were called courts: houses back-to-hack and sometimes made into a square, in the centre of which was possibly one toilet, together with one water pipe, for all the families living in those houses.
When I became a councillor in Toxteth in 1957, I knew that 85,000 houses had been deemed unfit for habitation. I knew that the situation there was bad but I did not expect to find people living in such poor conditions. Squares and courts still existed. In 1846, there were 40,000 people living in 8,000 cellars. When I speak about cellars, I mean cellars with earth floors, not wooden floors. People were still living in cellars in 1957 when I became a councillor in Liverpool. In the past, an attempt was made to rectify that situation by introducing legislation that stipulated a certain amount of headroom for people living in cellars. What did the people who owned those properties do? They did not condemn them but dug the cellars another two or three feet below the fanlight that was let into the side of the road. Liverpool has never shared in prosperity. All too often it has given its all to this country but it has never shared in the benefits.
However, that is not the reason the events in Liverpool today have happened, but it is the reason the people who seek to destroy society, our country and all those things that we hold dear, have chosen Liverpool. Although what I believe is merely surmised from people who came to Liverpool, my belief is that the Workers Revolutionary Party realised that the only way it would ever get control was by infiltrating the Labour movement in two spheres. The first was the shop floor, and from there into the trade union movement. The second was into the constituencies. That is what it set about doing.
In the early 1950s, I was membership secretary for two different wards in the Walton constituency at two different times. I was amazed to find people coming from all parts of the country into Liverpool, living in lodging houses and transferring into the Labour Party. When I went to see them, I found that one thing they had in common was that they wanted not merely to get a job in Liverpool but a job in a particular factory in Liverpool. That is what they had been sent there to do. There was nothing that the factories had in common then. The only thing they have in common now is that they have all ceased to exist. That is what has happened in Liverpool. That has been going on for
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year after year for 35 years that I know of. For the first 20 years I was telling what is now the Opposition about that situation, and the Labour Party instigated inquiries. People were sent up there to look into the situation.
What happened to the inquiry that took place in 1981, when the SDP was formed because of what was happening in the Labour Party in Liverpool? Did we ever receive a report about that? Shall we receive a better report on the inquiry that is taking place in Liverpool now, or shall we see a whitewash? I have said for many years that I admire the dedication of the people concerned, who have for years and years suffered hardships in order to propagate their policy of the destruction of our society. I only wish that some of the political parties and some of the Churches had that same dedication.
Those people deceived me. Although they were seeking to destroy society, I never thought that they would seek to destroy their fellow working men. Although I have given them credit for their dedication, I found out only last year that they are evil people. It is only evil people who will divide an ethnic community by appointing a race relations officer from a housing department who knows nothing about race relations. It required ineptness as well to unite those two different sections of the ethnic minorities against the Labour Party in Liverpool.
It is evil people who, when there is no oil in the schools because they cannot afford to pay the bills, can find £10,000 to pay off the bailiffs so that they can get back their four limousines and ride round Liverpool in them. They used those same limousines to transport all the literature that they gave out at the Labour Party Conference in October. It is evil people who, when gardeners at a particular park refused to go out on a one-day strike, closed down the centre in question. Professional gardeners are now picking weeds and sweeping pavements. There are many evil people in Liverpool now, and they have been exposed.
It is circumstances which breed those evil people. Liverpool was chosen because of the deprivation that was there. No society can ever live in peace and security while one or two aspects of that society are facing such deprivation. I have been appalled at the criticisms that have been levelled against the bishops for their recent report. I was speaking to a bishop at the weekend. He was not the bishop who sat on the commission. He said, "If I give all my money to help the poor in Africa, then I am considered a saint. But if I tell others about the plight of the people in Africa, then I am considered a Marxist".
The Government have to make a decision. When Members of your Lordships' House or people anywhere else start telling the country what is wrong in our society and why riots and other things are happening, they should not have language of the kind we have heard used against them. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool and his counterpart, the Archbishop of Liverpool, have done more to bring the Churches together than any other people I have ever known. When I went to Toxteth 30 years ago, riots took place on the streets every 12th July between the Catholics and the Protestants. Now they have a service in one cathedral and walk to the other cathedral. That is correct. That is what happens in

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Liverpool. If people like them were looking after the situation in Northern Ireland, we might find a better solution there, instead of seeing them being criticised.
How did those evil people in Liverpool win control? First I pay tribute to my noble friend—and I call him my noble friend because he always has been—Lord Sefton of Garston, who in my view was one of the best leaders of any city council. I say that without fear of contradiction. If the memory of anybody goes back further than mine in respect of Liverpool, then his does. What happened to all the industries which his hard work and his council's work brought to Liverpool? We were swamped with factories. Your Lordships may have seen Michael Edwardes speaking on television the other night, when he was asked why the Leyland factory had closed. He answered that of all the factories they had, Liverpool had the worst record for disputes and everything else. That is what has happened in every factory in Liverpool, because dedicated people went there with the sole purpose of destroying our economy, not saving it. That is what Liverpool has been fighting against.
I say here and now that no one should write off Liverpool and the people of Liverpool. There are many people in Liverpool who have worked their whole lives there and who have never known what it is to spend a day on strike. Your Lordships will know about the Liverpudlian sense of humour. Indeed, we say up there that one must have a sense of humour to live in Liverpool. Liverpudlians are dedicated people. If anything, they have a misplaced sense of loyalty. One sees that in their football, and one sees it among their politicians; their team, right or wrong, and their mates in the trade union movement, right or wrong. And evil people have been there to lead them by the nose. I can think of at least a dozen factories which my noble friend Lord Sefton helped to bring to Liverpool but which are no longer there.
Those evil people have also gained control in the constituency parties. In the 1955 election, a number of us had to band together in order to stop the nomination of a particular candidate, the Labour candidate for Walton. Your Lordships will notice that I never mention names. I have been in politics long enough to know that if you cannot say anything good about anybody, do not say anything bad if you mention the name; and never mention anyone's name who is likely to be a candidate against you.
Did any of your Lordships see the article by the political editor of Militant in The Times on 21st November headed:
"It's Kinnock out of step"?
That is the person who was prevented from becoming the Labour candidate for Liverpool, Walton, in 1955–30 years ago this year. People talk as though this has suddenly come out of the woodwork in the last few years. It has been there festering.
I must make a criticism here. I regret what has happened in the Labour Party because the people in the Labour Party, who I hope we also represent, must have a voice in these Houses. They must have a voice, but because it was more expedient to cover up and to sweep under the carpet, this has been allowed to happen. Yes, there has been a great light flying—not
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Halley's Comet, but the light seen on the Damascus Road. There have been no end of people on the Damascus Road these past few weeks. In fact, the leader of the Liverpool City Council has been struck by that very light. Yes, he is the leader. Your Lordships might have thought he is only the deputy leader. But he has been twice blessed. He has been given the gift of tongues. He is now speaking. If half of what he says is correct, charges ought to be brought against the militants for keeping him incommunicado, for refusing to let him speak to people over the past two years. What is his excuse?—"I did it because I thought I was the great white hope of all the moderates." What crimes are committed in that name, not only there but in these Houses? Such people think they are God's gift to humanity. If it means saying that black is white in order to stay and protect the people they represent, they do it. In my parlance that comes under the term of "hypocrisy".
I regret that I must say this. We have been told that there is a maggot in the body of the Labour Party. It has been pointed out that maggots are generally found in dead bodies. The Labour Party is alive—very much alive. I regret to say that although the body is alive, it is not the body that Hugh Gaitskell meant when he said, "I will fight and fight to save the party I love". That did not come when people were lying on the floor, like the miners' leaders, or when Liverpool was being defeated by the other councils who refused to support it. That call came when his adversaries were at their greatest strength. That is what I call moral courage. Anything else I call hypocrisy.

Council of Agriculture Ministers: 9th-10th December
3.54 p.m.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, with permission, I should like to repeat a Statement being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The Statement is as follows:
"With permission, I will make a Statement on the meeting of the Council of Agricultural Ministers of the European Community on 9th and 10th December. I represented the United Kingdom accompanied by my right honourable friend the Minister of State (Commons).
"The Council agreed in principle, subject to the opinion of the European Parliament, to extend the quota system for sugar for the five years 1986–87 to 1990–91. For the first two years the A and B quotas will remain at their existing levels and the Council will take a further decision by the end of 1987 on quotas for the remaining three years. The maximum rates of levy on A and B sugar will also remain unchanged for the first two years except for a small additional levy designed to recoup, over the coming five years, the deficit that has accumulated on the levy account. The additional levy will be shared between member states so that those who have produced most quota sugar will pay the most; as a result the rate of levy will average 1·31 per cent. of the present intervention price for the Community as a whole, while in the United Kingdom it will be set at 0·8 per cent.

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"The decision to fix the quotas for two years, instead of five as the Commission proposed, is helpful. In making its further decision the Council will be able to take account of developments, in particular the expected increase in the use of sugar for industrial products. The Council agreed to postpone until a later meeting further detailed discussion of proposals on sugar for the chemical industry and for a revised starch régime.
"The Council also adopted a proposal intended to fulfil a commitment made during the price-fixing negotiations to extend the annual sheep premium to goats in certain regions, and also untupped ewes of certain breeds in mountain areas. The premium is to be paid at 80 per cent. of the full rate. I made it clear that the proposal on ewes is unsatisfactory since it does not cover all the breeds and regions which are affected. I accordingly voted against the proposal.
"There was further discussion of a measure setting minimum standards for battery cages for laving hens. Although falling well short of what I would wish, I recognised that the standards were the best on which agreement could be reached. The Danish Minister, however, was unable to accept the text at the present time, and the matter will be taken up at the next meeting of the Council on 19th December.
"Finally, the Council discussed the Commission's proposal to ban the use of hormonal substances for fattening cattle. All other member states were prepared immediately to accept such a ban from 1st January 1988. I continued to argue that, before reaching a decision, the Council should have available the scientific evidence from the Lamming Committee and should take full account of the implications of a ban for imports of meat and meat products. I also urged the Council to adhere to its previous decision to adopt such a measure only by unanimity."
That, my Lords, is my right honourable friend's Statement.
Lord Gallacher: My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating to this House a Statement made in the other place. As regards the proposals for the extension of the sugar regime for a further five years with quotas at present levels for two years, may I ask the Minister whether the Government are aware of the considerable dissatisfaction in the United Kingdom with the way in which the sugar regime, as such, is operating? On the one hand, manufacturers are saying that it results in sugar which is very expensive and that it disadvantages them. On the other hand, refiners are saying that the present arrangement of quotas is needlessly favourable to certain member states and consequently disadvantageous to Britain. Will the Minister suggest to his right honourable friend that the time may be opportune to ask the Commission in Brussels to institute a thoroughgoing review of the whole operation of the sugar regime? These dissatisfactions can then be looked at in some detail to see whether or not the regime, which is supposed to be self-financing, is achieving all that was hoped of it when it was first introduced and whether other measures might not be appropriate at the end of the five-year period to which the Statement refers.
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Having said that, perhaps I may say that Britain will be grateful for the fact that the Minister was able to ensure that those who produce most quota sugar will pay the most, and the differential levy on quota sugar for Britain will be appreciated, on the whole, by this country.
As regards the future use of sugar, I think there is considerable interest by the chemical industry. As regards the starch regime, I am sure my noble friend the Minister will be aware that your Lordships' Select Committee has produced a useful document on the proposed starch regime which I hope will be taken account of when the Council finally agrees to revising that regime.
We on this side of the House support the Minister's action on the ewe premium. The 80 per cent. is disappointing and the fact that all breeds and all regions are not to be eligible for the refund justifies the Minister's action in voting against the proposals.
I say nothing about battery cages for laying hens except that, as a regular user of the South-Eastern Division of British Rail, my sympathies are with the laying hens.
Turning finally to hormones, this is a subject of considerable interest to your Lordships' House because the Select Committee is currently examining one aspect of this matter; namely, the tests for the presence of hormones and other residues in meat. I notice that there is now a proposal that the total ban on hormones, except for therapeutic use, is to take effect from the 1st January 1988 and that the noble Lord's right honourable friend is reserving his position on that matter. May I ask whether that extension—because, as I understand it, the ban was originally to come into force on 1st January 1986—will allow a proper assessment of the Lamming Committee's evidence? It is of considerable importance to livestock producers in this country and indeed to meat consumers. If a total ban takes place, it is not merely the effect on the price of meat but also the effect on the rearing of livestock in this country which I think would justify the Commission in receiving the final report from the Lamming Committee, which they commissioned and which they appear to have decided to do without in order to proceed to a total ban in accordance with the recommendation of the European Parliament.
Perhaps I may also ask the Minister whether, in considering banning hormonal substances, the Council will have regard to the importance of such a ban so far as poultry meat is concerned, since a ban on red meat without a corresponding ban on white meat would seem to some of us to be dealing with only half of the problem?
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for repeating the Statement, though I cannot say that it is a Statement of immense significance bearing in mind the terrific problems that face us in the CAP. Nonetheless it tackles one or two important points.
I should like to ask the Minister about the quotas. We produce an enormous amount of surplus sugar in the Community and we export many millions of tonnes—I am not sure exactly how many and perhaps the Minister can tell us—to the enormous detriment of

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the third world countries which produce sugar. Again, we import into this country to the benefit of the Lomé countries about 1·3 million tonnes of cane sugar—and that is of enormous value—but at the same time the export of a surplus of 2 or 3 million tonnes does much more harm to third world countries than all the aid that they receive from us. I should therefore like to ask the noble Lord how much we export, how much C sugar is expected to be produced and how big the levy on that will be? Can he also say what is the size of the deficit which is to be repaid over five years?
I think also one must say that at least the Minister has done well in achieving the smaller levy being paid on the A and B quotas in this country; but, again, can he tell us which countries produce the enormous amount of excess sugar which we unload on the world market? Perhaps he can also say how far advanced are the biotechnical processes. Are we at an experimental stage? Could they use next year 20,000 tonnes or only 1,000 tonnes? How far advanced are we in the actual use of the techniques which are being evolved?
With regard to the yeld ewes, untupped, may I ask the Minister what this means? I know what a yeld ewe is. It is a ewe which is part of a flock and which has escaped having a lamb, but I always understood that it was counted as part of the flock. Does he mean untupped gimmers, and what breeds and what regions are excluded? It would be useful for us to know.
The hen appears to be a subject of some trouble in Denmark, but no decision has been taken.
Finally, as regards hormones, can the noble Lord say whether any decision has been taken? The Statement says that this matter was discussed but does not say when it will be discussed again. I agree entirely with what the noble Lord, Lord Gallacher, said—that the implications are really horrendous. If we start on the white meat poultry industry, which is the next one that people will look at, we see that that industry entirely depends on such techniques and the feeding of antibiotics in the food to keep the beasts alive in the conditions under which they are reared. If we start to ban hormones for cattle without investigating the harm that may ensue, I do not shudder, but I feel that we are getting on to extremely dangerous ground when we move away from scientific evidence into the field of pure prejudice.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Gallacher and Lord Mackie of Benshie, for their reception of my right honourable friend's Statement. Both noble Lords have made observations about the Statement so far as sugar is concerned.
The noble Lord, Lord Gallacher, said that the sugar regime was a matter for dissatisfaction both to those who wish to use sugar and those who produce it. In answering the noble Lord I shall simply say that at the moment it is not possible to agree a redistribution of quota. Indeed, I think it would be wrong to increase the total Community quota, in view of the surpluses in both Community and world markets. The only prospective increase in demand for sugar in our own country, notably for use in the chemical industry, which has been referred to by both the noble Lords, must depend on Commission proposals which have not yet been adopted for supplying sugar to the
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industry at reduced prices. I think that reply goes some way to answering a question which came toward the end of Lord Mackie's remarks. Of course, increased demand for sugar for chemical uses will take some years to build up.
Having said that, I am thrown back, as it were, on the "silver lining" part of the Statement so far as sugar is concerned. The levy—called the "elimination levy"—which will pay off the debt on the amount which has not been funded over previous years to make good the export refunds from sugar exported out of the Community is referred to as a small sum in the Statement. If I may reply to the noble Lord, Lord Mackie, the debt is small in Community terms, but it is quite a large sum of money in my terms. It is 400 million ecu (that is £250 million) and it has been agreed by the member states that it is to be paid off at the rate of 80 million ecu for the next five years. The advantage for the United Kingdom is that, whereas the other member states for the most part will be paying it off at 1.31 per cent., we shall only be paying it off at 0.8 per cent., because we, in this country, have not contributed to that huge surplus which has had to be exported in the way that many other countries have contributed.
The noble Lord, Lord Mackie, asked me which countries were the greatest producers. Perhaps I may reply in a rather circular way. I think it is fair to say that only Ireland and Greece as well as the United Kingdom have 10 per cent. B quotas, that is, 10 per cent. of their A quotas, and we are therefore low in the league as regards the production of sugar in the Community, together with Ireland and Greece.
I shall move on from that to mention starch very briefly. Yes, indeed, I have taken on board what the noble Lord, Lord Gallacher, said—that the opinions of the Select Committee of your Lordships' House with regard to starch ought to be taken into account when both sugar and starch for industrial uses are further considered in the Community.
Both the noble Lords referred to the difficult question of hormones and I was extremely interested to hear that they both took the view which, if I may say so, is taken by the United Kingdom. The noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, referred in his closing remarks to this being very dangerous ground and he specifically said that the Community ought to go on scientific evidence and not on any other basis. The noble Lord, Lord Gallacher, who is of course expert in this particular area, asked whether this would apply to poultry meat. The answer is, yes. If the ban were to be implemented from the beginning of 1988, as I understand it the intention is that it would apply to all uses for fattening animals including poultry.
I say to both noble Lords, if I may be perfectly blunt, that the discussions in the Council on the 9th and 10th on the five hormonal substances that are the subject of the proposal were not based on scientific evidence and were very much against our wishes. The Commission set up a special working party under the distinguished chairmanship of Professor Lamming to report on the five substances. As I think both noble Lords know, the working group had already reported on three and said that they were entirely safe. It was about to report on the other two when it was simply disbanded. The Commission has apparently decided therefore not to

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allow the scientific committee to complete its work. We are not satisfied that a ban, if it were imposed, could he effectively enforced; we believe that there would be danger in a black market; and we are at a loss to know what the proposals will be with regard to imports from third countries. The Government share the views of both noble Lords on this subject.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, does the last paragraph of the Statement mean that the Council has accepted the proposal by a majority view?
Lord Belstead: No, my Lords. The noble Lord asked me when, and I am afraid I am not in possession of that information; but the matter must be returned to.
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, perhaps I should inform your Lordships that the revised time for the ending of the debate to which we are now returning is5.43 p.m.

Liverpool City Council
4.11 p.m.
Debate resumed.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I rise to declare my interest. I am a former leader of a London borough council. I am president of the association of London authorities and a vice-president of the AMA. My best qualification to comment on the debate is having been leader of a London authority. I am certain that your Lordships listen more respectfully to those with local government experience when we are discussing such matters than to others who of course are entitled to be listened to with great respect too.
We arc grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harris, for the opportunity to debate this matter. He said that there were few parallels in history with the situation in Liverpool. He can say that again! He not merely dealt with his main purpose of an attack on Militant Tendency, but he sought to serve the House well by describing the circumstances and background which have in part led to the emergence of Militant Tendency and to the enormous problems that Liverpool council has faced over many years. He told us of wards in Liverpool with over 90 per cent. youth unemployment. No noble Lords, and few people in the country apart from the unemployed youths and their families, can conceive of what it means to live in such conditions.
We have had the enormous benefit of the observations of the noble Lord, Lord Crawshaw. We have yet to hear from the former leader of the council, the noble Lord, Lord Sefton. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, also served the House well by pointing not merely to the past dereliction but also to what he believed were the prospects for the future. Despair is rife and inner-city dereliction is seen nowhere more than in Liverpool.
I listened carefully when the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, was attempting to assist the House. He raised queries not merely about what is happening, but about the raison d'être of councillors being able to do what those in Liverpool have done, which has caused so much offence. I remind him that only today the four local authority associations, collectively and without
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equivocation, have said that the manner in which the Government are attempting to lay down guidelines and legislate on how local authorities shall conduct their business is opposed.
It is not easy for either central or local people to decide what is right or wrong. But I have a strong faith—stronger, I believe than some noble Lords who have already spoken—not merely in the people of Liverpool at the next election and the Labour Party at the present time, but also in people throughout the country to recognise danger of the sort that has been pointed out this afternoon.
Reference has been made to the deliberate tactics of the Liverpool council. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, said that the city was run by Militant Tendency. It is not; it is run by an elected council, and the elected council is Labour. It is heavily influenced by some of its members, but by no stretch of the imagination by a majority, who subscribe to the tenets and doctrines of Militant Tendency. They have chosen the adversarial road; if there is a way to avoid confrontation and a head-on clash with the Government, they have decided not to take it.
That would not have been my style. Thank goodness there was no necessity for that when I was involved in local government 20 years ago. But I tell your Lordships this for nothing. Many councils, both Labour controlled and non-Labour controlled, in attempting to persuade this Government to carry out their responsibilities so that they can serve their people, at the end of the day do not know what they can do to make them see the reality of the situation, with 90 per cent. unemployed and all the rest of it. I can have no truck with the tactics of the recent actions in Liverpool and ultimately the enormous damage to the city and the prospects for a return of a Labour council, but I readily understand the feelings of good people who have been elected when they are faced with the impossibility of persuading the Government, when they get the opportunity to talk to them from time to time, to come to their rescue.
The noble Lord, Lord Harris, talked of the unsavoury practice of some councils putting on the payroll councillors who serve in other places. If we are considering patronage, privilege and placemen, we can go beyond local government and look at central government; we can look at Whitehall as well as the city hall. If noble Lords are genuinely interested in rooting out every vestige of such matters, they should look not merely at local councils, be they Labour or otherwise, at this time.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harris, and, frankly, to the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, who told us about the record of "Jones the Vote." The phrase on the Order Paper is:
"the actions of the City Council",
and so we are entitled to look at a little bit of history. I cannot begin to compete with the noble Lord, lord Crawshaw. He has always had my respect not least for the manner in which he has fought his corner on this issue in Liverpool over many years. Some of the history needs to be given in this debate. I draw upon a document that the House, I believe, should accept as authoritative. It is the report that was produced by G. J. Folwell, J. A. Marlow, M. G. Pilgrim and M. F.

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Stonefrost, known as the Stonefrost Report. It was a report given to the chief executive of Liverpool and to the general secretaries of the major trade unions. The report begins:
"In discussions with the Department of the Environment in 1984, Liverpool City Council presented a case which considered Liverpool's treatment under the various Rate Support Grant regimes since 1965/66".
I stress this:
"The Government did not dispute the factual basis of any of the following arguments put forward by Liverpool:—

(1) Since 1981/82 (the first year for which comparisons can accurately be made) Liverpool's share of the national total grant has fallen from 1·35 per cent. to 1·07 per cent. In 1983/84;

(2) The 'needs' of Liverpool measured by the system of Grant Related Expenditure Assessments have declined from 1·1 per cent. of the national share of 'need to spend' in 1981/82 to 1 per cent. in 1984/85".

It adds:
"(4) From 1975/76 to 1978/79, the City Council reduced its expenditure by 6 per cent. in real terms".
That was not a Labour-controlled period.
"This resulted in expenditure being 10 per cent. less than it would have been had the City Council increased its spending in line with other local authorities;
(5) The relatively low spending position of Liverpool in 1978/79 formed the basis of its spending target for 1981/82. Liverpool further reduced its spending towards that target".
Finally, my Lords, comes the crunch:
"(6) The reaction to 1981/82 spending targets formed the basis of targets for later years".
That is the basis, not the excuse, for the actions. I listened carefully to the noble Lords, Lord Harris and Lord Crawshaw, who instanced events, happenings and actions that I would certainly not wish to be party to. Those are the proper subject of investigation by the Labour Party. I have more confidence than some noble Lords who have already spoken in the ability of the inquiry committee not only to come to the right conclusions and to recommend the right action but also to see that such action is taken.
Apart from that, I wish quickly to ask the House to take careful note of an article, The Real Crisis in Liverpool, by Michael Parkinson, that appeared in New Society. It is of recent vintage. Michael Parkinson describes the manner in which the demographic and economic decline took place. He talks of the financial restrictions, of the reserves built up by some authorities, then adds:
"But Liverpool, which under the Liberals had incurred budget deficits in six years out of ten, could not follow suit".
I would not myself have sought this debate but it would not be complete without acknowledging that situation. I am glad that my noble friend Lord Dean of Beswick reminded the Government that they have a heavy responsibility, not for the actions the details of which have been given, but for the fact that it is impossible for councils like Liverpool and others to meet demands. In 1980–81, the rate support grant received by Liverpool was £141 million. By 1984–85 it had declined to £112 million. In each of the years between, if all that Liverpool had received had been the 1980 level up-rated by inflation, there would have been an increase of almost £400 million. I recognise that in the Liverpool context figures are bandied about. I simply make the point that the Liverpool
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councillors have had an enormously difficult job in trying to do what this Government say they are committed to do—that is, to carry out manifesto commitments and to deliver to the people what they said they intended to do. The inability to do that lies to a large extent at the door of the Government owing to the manner in which they have assisted the council.
I was rather sad to hear the noble Lord, Lord Crawshaw, describe the current intentions of the Labour leadership as hypocritical in the light of what they have said and what they intend to do. The noble Lord, Lord Crawshaw, who, as I say, had a long-standing battle, has left the Labour Party. There are those of us who intend to stay in it and to fight for the kind of stance that we want to see. I have every confidence not only that the leader of the Labour Party, Neil Kinnock, intends to do his duty by the party, by the city of Liverpool and by Labour voters, but also that the Labour leadership collectively throughout the country recognises that there is a situation that we do not like, that this can be electorally damaging and that we intend to try to put it right. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, has served the House on this occasion, as on others, by seeking to concentrate upon a very narrow point, wholly, in my view, for electoral advantage. I do not believe that it will come off.
4.25 p.m.
Lord Sefton of Garston: My Lords, it is customary to thank the intitiators of a debate in this House. I do not intend to do so. I regret very much that the debate is taking place because the infantile mentality that infects some parts of the city of Liverpool thrives on publicity. The Labour Party did not make Mr. Hatton; the Liverpool people did not make Mr. Hatton; the Daily Mirror, sometimes the Daily Telegraph, and other newspapers, and the media generally, made Mr. Hatton. When one examines the political attitudes of that crowd of people in Liverpool, one sees that there is no sense in it at all. How on earth anyone trying to get by under the description of socialist can stand in public and still claim to be socialist, after borrowing money off Swiss financiers and after selling the mortgages of people to the money lenders, is beyond me. I just do not understand it. If it was not for the fact that this country is served by juvenile media experts, it would never have gained credence at all.
I do not therefore thank the noble Lord, Lord Harris, for introducing the debate. I regret it. But it has been introduced, and as someone who was once the leader of Liverpool City Council and who can boast of the almost total support of the noble Lord, Lord Crawshaw—Councillor Crawshaw as he then was—and two of his other colleagues who then went over to the SDP, I suppose that I should say something. My noble friend Lord Graham has quoted from the Stonefrost report. I do not intend to duplicate what he has said, except to pull out one item. It has to be seen against a background that will be recognised by everyone in the House and anyone with any political intelligence—that Liverpool, because of its history, is a special case. It has difficulties that no other city has experienced. That has been so for 50 years.
We had double the rate of unemployment in this country in 1945. What the South-East considered a

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hardship was normal living in Merseyside. They squealed when unemployment got up to 4, 5 and 6 per cent. We had lived with it. So no one will deny that Liverpool was a special case. But this Government put on record to the Stonefrost Commission in justification of the money—the so-called money that they gave to Liverpool but which, in fact, they did not—that Liverpool had been treated no differently from other authorities. That is the kernel of it. Of course, it had not been treated differently. But its needs, measured by any method at all, were much greater. They were tremendous. The Government said that they were treating it the same as all the rest.
I shall not go back as far as 1864, as the noble Lord, Lord Crawshaw, did. I shall go back to 1945. Liverpool had the second greatest problem in respect of shortage of housing and slums in this country next to London. London got assistance. They got a ring of new towns. What did Merseyside get? Nothing. We had to go out and arrange our own overspill. We had to go out and build Kirkby. We built Kirkby without any high-rise flats at all, you might remember. Of course when we were building those houses we made mistakes. Some were high-rise; and they were badly constructed. Do you blame Liverpool Corporation for that? If you do, you are blaming a Tory corporation—but that does not matter. Those creations of social injustice were the fault of private enterprise. Theirs was the bad design; theirs was the had construction. It is an ironic fact that in Liverpool alone the one block that was created by the direct labour department has no faults at all. All the faults in the high-rise flats were found in the privately-built tower blocks.
In 1945 everybody agreed that Liverpool should concentrate on the problem of housing. This we did. By the mid-1960s we were beginning to get housing queues down; we were even talking about phasing down the speed of the housing programme because we had solved the shortage of houses.
Then we turned our eye to the question that the noble Lords, Lord Harris and Lord Crawshaw, raised—the question of attracting private development to the city of Liverpool. So we produced some of the best planners. Professor Halford came down. Like Professor Beloff, they were talking about Liverpool from a distance. To some extent that reminds me of the description of an expert: a man who is a long way away from home. They came to Liverpool and told us what to do. We agreed with them. We produced a city centre plan. We produced a plan to release 48 sites in the city of Liverpool so that the private developers could move in—because money was awash then—and to leave offices ready for the other sectors of the private enterprise to fill in. We were going to concentrate the activities of the city council into one block and release 48 to 50 sites.
We produced a development plan for Liverpool. I am very glad indeed to see the noble Lord, Lord Crawshaw, agreeing with me, because he was one of my greatest supporters. Then we were stopped by a certain man in Liverpool who found that a crummy factory which he had on the dock road right in the front of Liverpool was going to be affected by Liverpool's development plan; and he therefore organised the Liverpool Development Association, as
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he called it. How ironic it is that we now see the noble Lord, Lord Crawshaw, sitting on the same Benches as those which back the Liberal party—because that man was "Jones the Vote". Who was it who framed the name for the block of flats in Liverpool that was causing us some trouble?—the Liberals. Who was it who left when this present administration took office in Liverpool? Who was it who had kept the rates down and spent 10 per cent. less than the average all over the country?—the Liberals. That is the position that we have arrived at.
The amazing thing is that all the debate that has taken place here today has been only within the context of local government. That is not the problem of Merseyside. The problem is that we were prevented from bringing the private sector into Liverpool. We are still being prevented from bringing the private sector into Liverpool.
Let me give your Lordships an example. I read on the tape machine outside this Chamber today that Tate and Lyle have just recorded a profit of £74 million for last year. Tate and Lyle were requested by me to assist an organisation in Liverpool called the Eldonian Association. This was an association of good Liverpool Labour supporters on the dockland in Liverpool who had suffered grievously from the run down of labour in Liverpool's dockland. They then received a smack in the face from Tate and Lyle who closed the factory after 100 years of excellent working relations. They were slapped in the face; but they did not lie down. They set up the Eldonian Association and now have planning permission—thanks to the Government—and intend to build 147 houses on a housing association site. Good luck to them.
That is a measure of how Liverpool people can respond. They are not all the kind of people we have been hearing about today. Liverpool people built, manned and ran a garden festival which achieved international recognition. They achieved international repute for being courteous, kind, warm hearted and efficient. Liverpool people have just told the motor industry on Merseyside, "You are importing too many cars and if you continue in that line, we are not going to help you." We now have a new investment in Vauxhall. And there are 101 examples of where Liverpool people deserve much better than this country is serving out to them.
The real truth is that central government cannot do it on their own: local government cannot do it on their own. We have had all the penny lectures from the Church and others. We have no Church members here at the moment, I am sorry to say. The Bishop of Liverpool was closely associated with me. He is not present. I should have liked to say this in the presence of those right reverend Prelates of the Church. If they really want to help Liverpool, why do they not shift some of their investment out of London to Merseyside and then try to persuade the Government to fill it with civil servants who are so congesting London that life in London is impossible?
London Dockland has been mentioned. Through the courtesy of the noble Lord, Lord Mellish, I have been astounded by the progress that London has made. As I told him when I left the bus, I am not only astounded and amazed at the progress that they have made in London Dockland; I am also frightened to

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death. While I was there I said to one of the senior officers this. "Tell me, what steps did London Dockland Development Corporation take to assess the consequences on the City of London of building in London Dockland?" They did not take steps; after all, I say, that was not their job. I shudder to think what Fleet Street will look like after London Dockland takes out of the City of London all the activity that goes on in Fleet Street. All the small cafes will fold up, and all the cleaners will go. That is the consequence that London Dockland will have upon the City of London. There is no thought, no attempt at a plan. When southerners down here begin to realise how that kind of decision can affect their own lives perhaps they will spare a thought for the northern parts of this country which have been suffering from that for two generations.
The answer is that somehow or other we have to get into Liverpool investment of which there is already too much down here, in order to stop these militants. And they are militants. I have said before that they cannot be socialists, acting the way they do. They say that they are going to save jobs—and then they issue redundancies.
When we last debated this matter on a Question from the noble Lord, Lord Harris, I said that the Labour movement in Liverpool will take care of them, given a chance. But it is a difficult job because the militants can point out the history of central government, Labour and Tory, in neglecting the city. It is then easy to get control. On the first occasion that this happened I said that an illegal budget would not get through Liverpool City Council; it did not. Six Labour councillors stopped it. They have paid the price since, but never mind. It is being stopped this time again by Labour councillors. So there is hope and I am fairly confident that the National Executive of the Labour Party will take care of that.
As for the other wild allegations which are being made against certain individuals in Liverpool regarding bribery, corruption and all the rest of it, I hope that the people who are mouthing those things will proceed right to the police and tell them. Then I am quite certain that the law of this land will get working and that in time any wrong-doers will be brought to justice. This is not the place to talk about it. If anybody has any evidence, they should submit it to the right people.
Where do we go from here? I have two minutes left. It is not much time. I should like to go on for 40 minutes, because I have an awful lot on this piece of paper. Let me pay tribute to the Daily Telegraph of this week. It carried a columnful of tributes to people in Liverpool who were going out and helping themselves. These included members of the Eldonian Association—and there are hundreds of people doing this. If we were really worried about the problems of Liverpool, we should have been telling people that Liverpool is a good place. The whole of the city centre has been revived. The Cavern shopping precinct is an example to the rest of the country. If you are a long distance away from Liverpool, just take a day off and go and see it. You may then develop an entirely different attitude towards Liverpool.
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It is terrible the way I have to turn over these pages without inflicting all my thoughts upon your Lordships. But let us see how public and industrial relations are in Liverpool. It houses the headquarters of the biggest insurance group in the world, the Royal. It refused to move to London. It houses the headquarters of the biggest friendly society in the world. I am close on 70—in fact, I am being optimistic; I have turned 70. I cannot remember one dispute in either of those offices, and they employ thousands of people.
The people in Liverpool are resilient. They will get over this. It is not that which worries me. Nobody has mentioned the real issue which is being posed to this country in the battle of Liverpool. It is not a question about Government finance. It is a question of whether or not the people Lord Crawshaw referred to can bring down our type of government. Of course they will always go to the weakest link in the chain, so they go to local government, which is beset by tremendous problems and is not being helped in the way it should be by the capital city; and I say "capital city" deliberately.
Tate and Lyle cannot get away with it. They have no social conscience, but there was no trouble at Tate and Lyle's factory. There was hardly any trouble at Dunlop, but they closed down. GEC had a good working relationship, and they closed down. They all went. Somebody mentioned Leyland's factory. That was closed. Was it because it had a bad record? Leyland's factory in Speke was turned over to producing the TR7. Some clever designer in the Midlands decided to design a car with a fixed top for the American market. Have you ever heard of anything so stupid as that? It was a flop. The truth was that it was a fault in design which led to the TR7 being abandoned. Once the TR7 was abandoned there was no reason for the factory at Speke to stay there.
My Whip is now telling me that my time is up. Somebody told me that he had worked it out before that I have another minute. However, I shall conclude by saying that the real threat to this country from the militants does not spring from the militants. It springs from that festering sore that is being left in the body politic upon which they can batten, and they can persuade moderate people that they are not being treated rightly. It is an old story. Hitler was able to suborn democracy in Germany because there were 3 million or 4 million unemployed, and in certain parts of the cities those sores were still festering and never being cured. Just as he did in Germany, so it can happen here. Therefore, if in any other city the militants can gain control and gain power, do not blame them; blame yourselves.
4.43 p.m.
Lord Monkswell: My Lords, following such a magnificent contribution from the previous speaker, I shall curtail the remarks I was going to make and make just one point. If one looks at the difference in the way that the leader of the Labour Party, Neil Kinnock, has handled the Liverpool situation compared with the way that the Prime Minister tends to handle the problems which face her, it is a revelation to us.
Neil Kinnock, faced with the situation developing in Liverpool—the redundancy notices to all the council staff; the possibility of the complete disintegration of

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council services—did not say, "I am going to abolish the city council. I am going to deny power to the local Labour Party. I am going to curtail the democracy of the trade unions". What he did was encourage the people of Liverpool and their trade unions to take control of the situation themselves and to say to their leaders on the city council, "That is not an acceptable tactic to employ, because it will not work. You are trying to take on a Government which does not care if the services for the people of Liverpool collapse, if 30,000 people are made redundant or thrown out of a job for three months. The Government of this country do not care. They will do nothing until there is such a state of chaos that they might move in then".
There were no moves, and there still are no moves, by the Government of this country to try to resolve the underlying dilemmas, problems, and the agony of people in our inner urban areas. The people of Liverpool are suffering, and the noble Lord, Lord Sefton, has explained that Liverpool is a special case for a number of reasons. But where Liverpool is a special case this year, the cities and the people of Manchester, Glasgow, Sheffield, Edinburgh, Bristol, Birmingham and London will be a special case next year. Surely it is time for this Government to recognise the agony of the people in our urban areas.
4.46 p.m.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, I really must begin, as the first speaker below the line, as it were, in two ways: first, by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Monkswell, for his remarkable and welcome brevity in view of the time which has already been expended. But I should like to begin, as did my noble friend Lord Harris of Greenwich, by regretting deeply the enforced absence from this debate of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool, whose advice would have been invaluable on this particular occasion. Perhaps I could add to that a word of regret that our constitutional arrangements do not allow of Archbishop Worlock being present with us. His advice too would have been invaluable, as indeed the work that he has done in that great city of Liverpool has been invaluable in these hard days.
My task in winding up this debate, a debate initiated by the Social Democratic Party—I am winding up as a Liberal—is something of an ordeal in three separate ways. First, I clearly have a duty to do what I can to preserve the integrity of the Alliance. That, if I may say so in passing, is something which we did not do very successfully in Liverpool during the last general election. It may be that the lack of integrity of the Alliance during that election in Liverpool possibly is not totally unrelated to the present chaos in that city.
However, like everything else, all clouds have a silver lining, and the silver lining in that case is that what happened in the Alliance on that occasion led to the presence in your Lordships' House of my noble friend Lord Crawshaw of Aintree. That is a silver lining for which I am grateful; and I am quite sure we all are, having heard him today.
Secondly, I must say nothing whatsoever in my speech today to impair the close relationship I have with members and officers of two of the metropolitan boroughs of Merseyside in my capacity as chairman of Operation Groundwork. Noble Lords will know that
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this is a trust which, in partnership with the Department of the Environment, with the Countryside Commission, with local authorities and local business and commercial interests, is doing a great deal to improve the environment in which Liverpool people live. Both those authorities, with which I work closely, are Labour controlled. I have no idea what kind of Labour, and, frankly, I do not much care. What I do know is that the support given by the members of those authorities to the trust is total and is uncompromising, and for that I am grateful. I have no wish whatsoever to do anything to jeopardise that support in the remarks that I make at the end of this debate.
Those are two reasons for this being an ordeal, and the third is that I am required in this debate to poke what is a Mancunian nose (I having spent most of my life in Manchester) into Liverpool affairs. That frankly is not always a popular activity. Perhaps I am justified, because I spend at least two days every month in Liverpool working on environmental matters and working with Liverpool councillors and others. Therefore, at the moment I have personal knowledge of that city on a continuing basis.
Also, perhaps I am justified in poking my Mancunian nose into Liverpool matters because I also have heard hints of what the noble Earl, Lord Stockton, might in another context have described as the Labour Party's "little local difficulty" in Liverpool. It seems to me to be a little local difficulty which might later arise in my own city of Manchester. I should deeply regret that but not because of the Labour Party's interest for whatever difficulties they may have, I would warmly welcome, but do not particularly want them in my own city of Manchester. Therefore, I welcome this debate in the hope that we in Manchester can learn some lessons from what has already happened in Liverpool. Some noble Lords will recollect that Bernard Shaw once said that the only thing we learn from experience is that we never learn anything from experience. Surely we must try, my Lords.
What are the lessons we can learn? First, it is folly, it is morally wrong and, in my view, politically inept to make people suffer to prove a point. That is what has been happening in Liverpool recently. When rate-capping was first introduced and when cuts were first announced in local government expenditure. I predicted at that time that some unscrupulous authorities would take the opportunity of applying those cuts precisely where they hurt most; in other words, so as to reinforce the message that the policies of the present Government were misguided and needed changing.
That message needed no reinforcement. It is a message of which all in urban areas in Britain are well aware. But it was a little unscrupulous to try to apply the cuts in the places where they hurt the people most. That is what has been happening. We have heard this referred to already. The noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, referred to other cities, including Manchester and Sheffield. But the fact remains—and this was referred to also by the noble Lord, Lord Sefton of Garston—that other authorities have had the same kind of difficulties, but they somehow have done their very best to apply the cuts in a way that is the least

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harmful to their own populations. That is obviously the way in which local authorities should conduct themselves rather than trying to make the deepest hurt to reinforce a message about something totally different; namely, a message about what central Government are doing.
The noble Lord, Lord Sefton, also said other things. He said that Liverpool has been treated no differently from other authorities, but he went on to say that their needs were greater. Perhaps their needs are greater; I confirm that their needs are very great indeed and have been so for a long time. But the principal difference has not been the difference in the needs, but the difference in the response. The response in Liverpool to this situation has been to carry out policies which injure the people of Liverpool as much as possible, to make a political point. I regard it as morally wrong and politically inept to make people suffer to underline a point, particularly when that point needs no underlining.
The second lesson I would draw is that all of us have to guard against confusion. We are frequently told in your Lordships' House that we must guard against confusion between capital and revenue expenditure. That is a message hammered home very often by my noble friend Lord Diamond, by the noble Earl, Lord Stockton and by others; and it has been referred to perhaps obliquely by the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, today. Here we have examples of that. Liverpool and its councillors have stated over and over again that they must defend their house-building programme. I am always in favour of house-building programmes and building houses to rent. I have supported the Government in their various policies to sell council houses because I believe it is helpful for people to own their own houses, but I do not believe it is helpful to encourage people to buy houses that they cannot afford to buy, which is what has been happening in many urban areas.
In many of these areas the real overwhelming need is for houses to rent. But what is the precise situation in Liverpool? The council feels it is necessary to take draconian steps to protect its house-building programme. To the best of my knowledge at present in Liverpool there are 6,000 unoccupied council houses. Why? Perhaps some of them need repair; but repair and maintenance, guarding against vandalism and other things is revenue expenditure and not a matter of capital expenditure, which is from where some of these difficulties have arisen.
The third lesson which arises from all this is the political lesson, and we have heard a lot of politics today. I was rather sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Sefton of Garston, felt it necessary somehow to try to manufacture spurious points of dire disagreement with the Liberals in Liverpool City Council. I know from my personal experience of him and many of those Liverpool city councillors in both parties that they worked very closely together in what they genuinely believed were the best possible interests of the local people. Does the noble Lord wish to intervene?
Lord Sefton of Garston: My Lords, is the noble Lord suggesting it was not true that Trevor Jones set up an
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association in Liverpool in the deliberate attempt to stop the city centre plan?
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, I think perhaps I should use the device so often used by Ministers and say that I will write to the noble Lord.
Lord Sefton of Garston: It is not a joking matter, my Lords.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, I genuinely believe that some of the things the noble Lord has said in this debate today are in marked contrast to some of the things he has said publicly in Merseyside on other occasions about his colleagues in other parties in Liverpool City Council. I regarded him as a very wise leader of that council and he did an excellent job. In particular, he did an excellent job by trying to harmonise the activities and the work of people in different parties. That is something which we must all try to do when a city is in great difficulties; and the noble Lord, Lord Sefton, tried to do that. I am sorry that he now appears to be departing from that course.
The political lesson we must learn is that we should guard against our parties, in whichever party we sit, being used by individuals, not to promote the ends of the party itself but to promote their own individual ends. I have seen that happen in all parties. I have seen attempts by members of the National Front to use the Conservative Party for their own ends. I should always do what I could to support the Conservative Party in trying to defeat efforts of that kind. I have also seen it in the Labour Party, and perhaps in my own.
I am bound to say that some of the troublemakers who have been referred to correctly by the noble Lord, Lord Sefton, as immature people now in the Labour Party were once in my own party. They came into my party at the time the Labour Party abolished the Young Socialist Group, presumably on the same kind of theory and principle that they now object to black sections. They abolished the young socialists and the young socialists, in pursuit of a platform, joined my party. I am very happy indeed to say that they have now left; they have joined the Labour Party, and I dearly hope that they stay there.
I must move on and draw to an end, but I should like to comment on one or two of the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, who asked some crucial questions. He referred to the ports of Liverpool, Glasgow and Bristol, but perhaps overlooked the fact that for many years Manchester was a larger port in tonnage terms than Liverpool. Manchester's port has been hit almost totally. But Manchester also lost another industry earlier, the cotton trade, and Manchester rather earlier than Liverpool took steps to bring in other industry. It perhaps did not have quite the same acute needs that Liverpool now has. There is a slight difference.
In addition, the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, took up the business about Sir Trevor Jones—"Jones the Vote"—having somehow piled up the debt. I do not wholly accept that accusation. I say it is water under the bridge now, but once again I should be delighted to write to the noble Lord. I hope that when I do write to him he will take the trouble to read what I write. The noble Lord, Lord Beloff, pointed to the crucial

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question; that is: who backs the loan? I hope very shortly that we shall hear an answer to that question.
I want to end with two specific questions to the noble Lord who is shortly to reply to the debate. As a simple person who has spent his life, as I have, unconfused by a very deep knowledge of financial matters, I ask the noble Lord to explain this to me. How is an illegal budget turned into a legal budget by Swiss bankers? I do not know the answer to that question. If the noble Lord knows the answer I should be very glad if he would shortly give it to me.
The second question I should like to ask the noble Lord is this. For a very long time now, I have been given to understand that the Government have, at the end of the day, control over local government expenditure. Do the Government have control over local government expenditure or do they not? It seems to me that what has now happened in the city of Liverpool has driven a coach and horses through any controls over local government expenditure which the Government claim to have. Thus, when the noble Lord, Lord Elton, comes to reply, I hope he will tell us whether the Government control local government expenditure or whether in point of fact they do not.
5.1 p.m.
Baroness David: My Lords, Liverpool has been a proud city and a great international port. It has now become one of the most deprived communities in the land, with the fifth worst unemployment rate of any authority and with appalling problems of overcrowding, bad housing and population loss. Merseyside is the fifth most deprived region in Europe.
The difficulties of the urban priority areas have been highlighted this week by the publication of the report of the Archbishops' Commision: Faith in the City. One might have thought that because of this one would altogether welcome this debate. I know it is customary to express gratitude to the mover of the debate, but this time I am afraid that, like my noble friend Lord Sefton, I am not sure that I am altogether enthusiastic because I think that publicity through the media is what the people who are on Liverpool council at the moment really want. I thought I should have been more ungrateful, because I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Harris, would probably be using this debate to wield the big stick on the Labour Party, but he was really quite gentle in that respect.
I want to make the official Labour Party position clear beyond doubt. The Labour Party totally condems any council if it acts illegally, and it greatly regrets the obstinacy and folly of the council in postponing and postponing the production of a balanced budget, when the Stonefrost report has shown that it was within its power to balance its books without serious loss of jobs or change in the housing programme, the need for which no one could deny. This could have been done months ago.
Stonefrost provided a number of options in its report of 29th October, only eight days after it was commissioned. Any of those options, if followed, would have restored the council's financial credibility and would have made maximum use of Government grant and avoidance of penalties. The Association of Metropolitan Authorities lent its support. It is
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incomprehensible that it was not until 25th November that the Liverpool Finance and Strategy Committee had, at last, the meeting which enabled it to reconcile its income and expenditure and to state its intention to act in a lawful manner. It has now done that and, even if some of us might think that one or other of the options suggested by Stonefrost would have been preferable, we now have to await events, not the least of which will be the case before the court in January. If the present Local Government Bill goes through Parliament, there will then be a legal requirement to set a rate by 1st April.
In fairness to my colleagues in another place, I should like to stress how much they have tried to influence and help Liverpool council over the past 18 months, in the interests of the people of Liverpool. A number of meetings took place in the spring of 1984. The rate increase of 17 per cent. announced on 11th July 1984 followed a successful outcome to negotiations initiated by Dr. Cunningham and his colleagues, together with city council leaders, with the then Secretary of State for the Environment, Mr. Patrick Jenkin. I think perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Harris, was a little unkind in the way he referred to all this and did not give credit to some of the people who took part in those negotiations.
In return for a balanced budget, Mr. Jenkin offered a package worth about £6 million which, taking into account penalties, meant an effective gain of the order of £14¼ million. In addition, the Secretary of State indicated, in a letter dated 29th June 1984, that more housing capital would be available for 1985–86. No figure was put on this but he promised—and I quote from his letter:
"to do his very best to ensure that allocations to Liverpool next year under the housing investment programme and the urban programme taken together will enable the council to make positive progress in dealing with the city's severe needs, having regard to the scale of your capital commitments and the resources available to you".
However, the HIP allocation for 1985–86 was down to £31½ million, compared with £38 million for 1984–85. Maybe now that the council has produced a balanced budget the present Secretary of State will be willing to reconsider that allocation.
Throughout this year, my honourable friend Dr. Cunningham has had a number of meetings with the leaders of Liverpool. It is regrettable that his common sense did not prevail and that his advice was not followed. The chairman of Labour's National Executive Committee, Local Government Commitee, David Blunkett, made proposals at the party conference which resulted in the NEC agreeing a resolution which recognised:
"the immediate need to take every possible step to balance the city council budget for the current financial year, whilst protecting services and jobs and maintaining the housebuilding programme".
The Stonefrost Committee got to work and produced its report on 29th October, but by 21st November the council had not acted. Dr. Cunningham wrote a letter on that date to his parliamentary colleagues, explaining what had been happening. I should like to refer to that letter and quote a little from it. He had arranged meetings with the AMA and the parliamentary leadership. He says:
"At the meeting on 11th November Liverpool agreed that they would produce a balanced budget in line with the NEC resolution.

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John Hamilton, Leader of Liverpool, confirmed this in a letter of 11th November to Jack Layden, AMA Chairman".
The AMA had agreed to try to find some capital to tide Liverpool over.
"A deadline of Tuesday 19th November was set for marshalling the transferred allocations. £3 million in total has been forthcoming. The AMA Labour Group met John Hamilton and Tony Mulhearn today"—
that was the 21st—
"to hear of Liverpool's proposals for a balanced budget in conformity with the NEC Resolution and John Hamilton's letter. But no proposals were forthcoming, despite … suggestions … by David Blunkett based on the Stonefrost Report, balancing the budget with a 5 per cent. rate rise".
That did not happen. The AMA of course took no further steps; and John Cunningham wrote:
"Liverpool could, without loss of jobs and services, settle its financial problems. Its unwillingness to do so is, in David Blunkett's words not only 'insane' but also 'an act of sabotage of the Labour Movement'.".
We know there was the last-minute retreat on 25th November. Whatever one may think of the council, one can only be relieved that the unfortunate Liverpudlians were to have their services and that the council staff were not to lose their jobs.
I must also emphasise that the Government bear a significant share of the responsibility for the position that Liverpool, together with the other programme and partnership areas, are in today. I have no doubt the Minister will today, as he did last week, list the schemes, the urban development, derelict land schemes, etc., etc., which the Government have started. But Liverpool's urban programme allocations at 1985–86 prices have steadily declined from £28·4 million in 1982–83 to £24·1 million in 1985–86. Liverpool, in common with other inner city areas, has lost very large sums in rate support grant since 1981. I refer to an Answer in the House of Commons Hansard on 28th October this year. According to 1985–86 prices, the rate support grant in 1981 was £147 million; in 1985–86, £34 million, nearly £35 million, a lost of £112 million, and a change in percentage terms of minus 76·4 per cent.—the biggest loss of any metropolitan authority either inside or outside London. And, of course, the urban programme money nowhere makes up for that.
The Church report, Faith in the City, rightly points out that although the urban programme has made an important contribution to stemming the tide of urban decline there is a long way to go if regeneration is the objective. Expansion is necessary because the urban programme is static. An increasing number of projects is being squeezed out. Instead of being a vehicle for innovation, it has increasingly to fill the gap caused by cuts in the main expenditure programme. No allowance is made in the RSG allocations for the funding of successive UP projects to be transferred to the main programmes or for the current expenditure consequences of capital expenditure under the urban programme.
My noble friends Lord Graham and Lord Sefton have described how Liverpool City Council arrived at this present financial position. Like the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, I must refer to the actions of the Liberal council which preceded this one and has a good deal of responsibility for what happened later. It is not often
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that I can agree so wholeheartedly with the noble Lord and I am delighted to do so on this occasion. He also referred to PR. I was rather surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Harris, so recommended PR for Liverpool because I think that part of the disasters at Liverpool over the last 10 years or so have come about because they had a hung council and there has been no overall majority for a number of years. I think that a hung council is what is very likely to result if PR happens.
The expenditure by the last council—and I am coming back to that—by the Liberal council, was reduced by 6 per cent. in real terms between 1975–76 and 1978–79 and the relatively low spending position of Liverpool in 1978–79 formed the basis of its spending target for 1981–82. Liverpool further reduced its spending towards that target and the reaction to the 1981–82 spending targets form the basis of targets for later years. The behaviour of that Liberal council during those years led to the unfortunate position that the present council inherited.
The present council's case against the Government is, first, that a major contribution to Liverpool's present financial position is the system of targets and penalties; and, secondly, that the spending levels of Liverpool City Council in the years up to and including 1981–82 disadvantaged the council because of the way targets have been constructed. So they started from a bad base. What is more, the Liberal budget of 1983–84 was dishonest in the extreme. Balances were cut to the bone and £7 million worth of cuts were assumed without decisions about how or where these could be made. All these factors led the Labour council to hope that the Government could look on them with some sympathy and offer some extra help, particularly in their housing regeneration programme which impartial observers have praised.
At this moment, the Labour Party is carrying out an investigation into the Liverpool district party. I was rather surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, criticised this. I am sure that the Labour Party would have been criticised even more firmly if it had taken no action against the Liverpool militants. He described it as a red herring. I do not accept that. Papers have been sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions with a view to prosecutions for corruption. The district auditor has issued a certificate and some councillors are to appear in court in January faced with surcharge.
The timing of this debate is not exactly satisfactory, but if it has served to open your Lordships eyes to the appallingly difficult situation in which the people of Liverpool find themselves it may have done some good and may have been worthwhile. I hope that the Government are grasping the point that if a city and its inhabitants are being harshly and unfairly treated and that life is hardly worth living, that may result in a situation where extreme and dangerous people can take over. My noble friend Lord Dean of Beswick has told us of his fears for Manchester in this context. Do the Government understand this? Are they going to continue tinkering with the problem; or are they really going to take some proper action?
5.15 p.m.
The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Lord Elton): My Lords, the Motion of the noble

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Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, for which I, by tradition, thank him for bringing to your Lordships' House is, in one sense, entirely superfluous. No one needs to draw your Lordships' attention to Liverpool, because the city council has devoted such huge and self-centred energy to drawing attention to itself that we are all aware of it already. But there are lessons to he learnt from the shambles that it has created and I am grateful to the noble Lord for the chance to dwell on them. The lessons for the country, I believe, are important. For the Labour Party, though, they are clearly momentous. I will try not to draw them too starkly myself because it must already be as clear to noble Lords opposite as it is to the rest of us that something must have gone dreadfully wrong in its system in Liverpool and that, if it does not fairly quickly put it right, it will be either a very sick or an unrecognisably different party everywhere else in the country until it does.
That is for it. It is not the health of the Labour Party but the health of local government in Liverpool that is the concern of the Government in this afternoon's debate. Your Lordships will be familiar with the background; and if you were not so before we started then you certainly are now. Your Lordships will realise that one cannot describe or even refer to it without bringing in the Labour Party, because, as the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, helpfully pointed out, it was the 49 elected Labour members of Liverpool City Council who delayed, up to the point when the auditor issued certificates of surcharge, the setting of the rate and who, even after that point, voted for an inadequate rate.
One can sympathise with noble Lords opposite in any wish that they may have to disown these people. But the fact is that although they were very free with their criticisms and even with a series of delegations, interventions and correspondence, as the noble Baroness, Lady David, has just listed for us, they did not disown them at any point from the moment when they moved into the local wards and branches to the moment when they took over the whole apparatus, first of the party and then of local government. The point at which they disowned them was marked by the admirably robust statement made by Neil Kinnock on 21st last month. But the timing of that statement fits, as the noble Lord, Lord Crawshaw of Aintree, pointed out—
Baroness David: My Lords, may I intervene for a moment? Mr. Kinnock denounced the Liverpool militants at the Labour Party Conference on 2nd October.
Lord Elton: My Lords, as far as it was discernable to the general public, the moment at which—noble Lords opposite are entitled to shake their heads. I am happy to stand corrected. If the light was seen sooner after the first invasion—was it 1955 that the noble Lord, Lord Crawshaw, said?—than 21st November this year, by a few months, so be it. But the committee of inquiry was not appointed until very recently. The conference itself did not take place in the summer. There had been no rejection in May when the city council was still refusing to set a rate; nor in June when it proposed one that was inadequate and hence potentially illegal; nor
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in September when it sent redundancy notices to all its staff. It was not until after that that eventually the thunder was called forth. We cannot look at the difficulties of local government in Liverpool as something entirely apart from the Labour Party; although we can acknowledge and welcome the distaste which the national party is now expressing for what has gone on there.
What has gone on there is this. The council resolved its 1984 budget very late without the massive concessions from government which its propaganda claimed. We warned the council then that its problems were not over. We urged it to look at all available sources of finance to help solve Liverpool's economic and social problems—to the private sector, to the local communities, to housing associations. It ignored this advice. It clung to its dogmatic approach, apparently in the entirely mistaken belief that if it threatened to take the city into chaos the Government would give it taxpayers' money with which to buy its way out of trouble.
This year, the council again refused to set a rate at the start of the financial year. When it eventually got round to doing so, it set a rate far too low to cover a highly inflated budget of £265 million. It ignored its duty to set a balanced buget and instead left a gap of about £100 million between income and expenditure. It is common knowledge that the council leaders considered setting a rate with an increase of 20 per cent. and balancing the books, and that they decided not to do so. They decided instead to defy the law and to force a confrontation.
At this point I suppose I should mention the way that Liverpool had been managing, or in some senses failing to manage, its affairs. It was already a very battered ship. If I apply a yardstick, your Lordships will see what I am after. The simplest one is to see what Liverpool pays per head of population for its services, and compare that with what the average metropolitan district pays. If you make that comparison, my Lords, you find that overall they pay 35 per cent. per head more over the whole range of services than do similar authorities. Liverpool pays 40 per cent. more for planning and 51 per cent. more for collecting rubbish. Even allowing for all the special difficulties of Liverpool, we calculate that simple efficiency in management could have saved them £34 million this year. Had the council tackled that problem—had it even started to tackle the problem—that would have been a useful contribution towards balancing their budget.
However, when in September the council decided to balance their books, they claimed to do so by the quite extraordinary tactic of making the entire workforce redundant and planning to run services down to the barest minimum. This amazing decision was as though the captain of a ship, already damaged by his misuse of it, was throwing the crew overboard instead of the cargo. I say "the captain" but I follow the noble Lord, Lord Crawshaw of Aintree, in wondering whether that is the right term. The captain, at least in name, is Mr. John Hamilton; but Mr. John Hamilton was quoted in New Society on the 29th November as saying that he is pushed into the background by Militant, that his office is bugged and that there is a TV monitor on Mr. Hatton's desk, showing him everyone

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who goes in and everyone who goes out of the "skipper's cabin". I hope the Labour Party's committee of inquiry has a chance to verify that statement and to draw from it several very important conclusions. Control, as the noble Lord, Lord Harris, suggested, is an interesting commodity in Liverpool City Council and its staff; and no doubt the inquiry will be looking closely into the static security force and so on, as well.
Having deliberately engineered a crisis and having refused to be rescued from it, the council was, by choice, on its own. It then staked the livelihood of all its 31,000 employees, and the welfare of the entire City of Liverpool on a final gamble to get large amounts of other people's money to pay for its own mismanagement and excesses. That is something, I can assure my noble friend Lord Beloff, to which we have no intention of giving our consent.
The Government were not going to be blackmailed on that occasion, either. My right honourable friend stood firm on the ground we had occupied throughout: that the council could and should itself sort out the financial mess that it had itself deliberately created. Once they were convinced that my right honourable friend meant business, it suddenly became clear to them that they could after all avert the crisis and insolvency by transferring some of the costs of the housing revenue account to their capital account, and by entering into a deferred purchase arrangement with foreign banks—arranged, oddly enough, by the very people Militant are used to calling "the gnomes of Zurich". It was they who hauled them out of the pit that they had dug for themselves, and it was this arrangement which enabled the council to balance its budget and maintain its capital programme.
The noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, asked me about that. I ought to tell him that deferred purchase is not borrowing. If it were borrowing, the security would be the ratepayer. Local government borrowing is not only secured against assets like parks or the town hall—somebody was rather hoping that the Liverpool Town Hall might be managed by the Swiss, but there is no prospect of that—if anything, it is secured against income.
That arrangement could have been entered into by the bankers, had they been asked to do so, long before the redundancy notices were issued and long before council services and support for the voluntary sector began to crumble. I understand that the deal was actually there for the taking in August. It is interesting, however, to note that deferred purchase does cost more than conventional finance and will use up more of the city's capital spending permissions. If, as they threaten, the council sign up for the second tranche of £30 million next year, making a total of £60 million in all, they could be committed to finding an amount equivalent to over half their entire housing allocation for 1985–86 of £31 million every year, from April 1987 to March 1994. When that money is spent in a blaze of publicity and self-congratulation, let us not forget that they are quite literally mortgaging the city's future. I can reassure my noble friend Lord Beloff that, as we have told the city council and the commercial organisations involved, deferred purchase arrangements do not require government approval or carry a
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government guarantee. It is the council, its advisers and its bankers who have to satisfy themselves that this is a prudent arrangement.
The noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, drew your Lordships' attention, as did many others, to the real and unavoidable difficulties in Liverpool, that underlie the unreal and avoidable difficulties superimposed upon them by the present council. Her Majesty's Government acknowledge these. We acknowledge the long history of economic decline, started by the move away from heavy industry and ocean-borne transport and trade that existed in Liverpool before the process was accelerated, as the noble Lord. Lord Crawshaw of Aintree—I am sorry to refer to him so often but it was an excellent and revealing speech—so dramatically illustrated, by a dedicated corps of political operators.
The council's claim that the Government do not care about these problems or about regeneration is simply not true. I would remind the noble Lord, Lord Monkswell, in thanking him for a courteously brief intervention, and the city council of a number of things. Merseyside is the only area in the country with its own task force. That was set up by a Conservative Government in 1981 to work with local authorities, government agencies and the private sector. My own department in this year is helping the city through the urban programme, the urban development grant—and here comes the list the noble Baroness has been patiently waiting for, but I think it is longer than she expects—through the Merseyside Development Corporation, through derelict land grant, through the Council for Sport and Recreation, through the housing investment programme and through the housing corporation.
The noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, suggested that we had started the policy of reducing Exchequer support for local government expenditure in all areas. The noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, seemed to think this policy was directed against inner cities and specifically against Liverpool. I have to tell the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, that I can find no substance to justify the figure he quoted and that the policy was in fact introduced by his own party in 1976. I shall give way to the noble Lord.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, very briefly, the point I was making was that they shifted resources out of the city to hinterland where their voters are; and that is established beyond doubt.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I shall not cross swords with the noble Lord on the detail of that: he will no doubt remind me of it in another debate and I shall then count on his persistence and actually have the figures at my finger tips. That will enable me to dispose of the point. This year, as in the past four, over £1,000 million of Government money is going to Merseyside. That is about £700 in grant for every single person in Merseyside this year—not every household and not every adult, but every single human being living in Merseyside. Divide that into the total and you get £700. Since 1979–80, we have spent a total of around £7,000 million. The grant distribution system recognises Liverpool's need. Liverpool has the second highest GRE per head of population of all the

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metropolitan districts. In rate support grant, it received about £1,150 per head of population in total between 1981 and 1985. Compare that, my Lords, with Birmingham which in the same period received only £830. Now that the council has brought its spending to the level of its target this year, it will be entitled to about £119 million in rate support grant. All this is money that was wilfully set aside by the present leadership.
I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, that the whole battery of Government-assisted programmes will continue to be available to Liverpool when there is a change of leadership there, and that GRE calculations will continue to take the real levels of need of Liverpool into account. I have already illustrated the way in which they have actually brought Liverpool up from, I think, fourth in the table three years ago to second in the table now.
It is not we who are keeping the council at arms' length. It is they who decided to go it alone. By insisting, as the noble Lord, Lord Harris, made clear, on a purely municipal approach to the city's housing problems, the council has refused full use of other resources available. When my right honourable friend the Secretary of State recently decided to support the refurbishment of houses by the Eldonian Co-operative, he had to do so, as the noble Lord, Lord Sefton, was kind enough to recognise, against council opposition.
The leadership of Liverpool City Council have used their office, they have used the machinery of their local authority, they have used their workers and they have used the citizens of Liverpool. They have used them all cynically, coldly and without pity in a calculated attempt to break the system of local government finance and hence of local government in this country. Their clear political aim, to which they subordinated every other, was that of breaking a system of government set up by a democratic Parliament. That is a threat too serious to ignore or to forget.
It failed because my two right honourable friends, Patrick Jenkin and Kenneth Baker, stood resolute and firm in defence of democracy. They were supported by Her Majesty's Government and, in the end, by Her Majesty's Opposition. Whether or not Liverpool City Council now decide to abide by the rules, we can none of us afford to forget what it was that they tried to do.
The lessons do not apply only in Liverpool. In Liverpool, the infiltration of Militant personnel through the roots has infested the whole plant until it bears a grotesque fruit which has brought the attention of the nation to what is going on. I hope that the noble Lords and Baronesses opposite, and their friends in another place, will look at other plants to see whether similar things are going on before they come to fruition.
But the debate is about Liverpool and if the national body politic is protected and redeemed, Liverpool can have a brighter future despite the problems. There are already signs that this is possible. Last year 3¼ million visitors went there to see the Garden Festival totally regardless of all the political developments going on there. It was the country's top tourist attraction bar none. The country's largest group of Grade I listed buildings at the Albert Dock is being brought back to a new and thriving life. It already houses the maritime
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museum, and in 1988 the Tate Gallery will open there. Wavertree technology park holds out the hope, and already the reality, of new jobs in high technology industries. The development of the Anglican cathedral precinct and the continued momentum of the co-operative movement, despite council opposition, show what can be done in the housing field when all work together.
All these have one thing in common. They result from co-operation between all concerned—government, local authorities, private and voluntary sectors. It is, as the noble Lord, Lord Sefton of Garston, sagely told us, this kind of partnership making the fullest use of all resources that can bring forth a better future for Liverpool to which we will contribute. But it cannot be done by central Government alone. It involves everybody—the Churches, the opposition, the local authorities, the voluntary movements, the co-operatives. Everybody. That is what proper politics are about, and I hope that the effect of this debate will be to remind everybody concerned with Liverpool, both those with responsibilities there and nationally, that we have a great prize for the taking in the future.
5.35 p.m.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, I begin by thanking all those who have participated in the debate, including the noble Lord, Lord Elton, with whose peroration I agreed entirely, as did, I am sure, the overwhelming majority if not all Members of your Lordships' House.
I was not totally surprised by the lack of enthusiasm of the Opposition Front Bench for this debate. Indeed, I would have been mildly astonished if the noble Baroness, Lady David, had got up and said how delighted she was to participate in this discussion today, because what we have been debating today is one of the great local government scandals in England, where a majority party has misused its power, as Mr. Hatton and his colleagues have done, and until the past few months nothing at all was done by the national party leadership to deal with that situation. That is the reality of the situation that we have been debating today.
The only other point that I would briefly make is this. The noble Baroness, Lady David, said that at one stage it was a problem facing Mr. Hatton and his colleagues when they took office that they were left with the Liberal budget, as I think she described it. She implied that, without that none of these appalling problems would have arisen, and I do not think she knows very much about Militant Tendency if she really believes that—
Baroness David: My Lords, may I say—
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, with great respect, I think the House heard the noble Baroness and it must draw its own conclusions from what she said. The fact of the matter is that at one stage the noble Baroness referred to the Liberal council. At another moment she referred to the hung council and said that one of the problems of Liverpool was that there had been a hung council. With great respect, she had better make sure which of the two arguments she wants to adopt.

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The last point that I would make on this aspect of the debate is this. This is not an internal quarrel within the Labour Party. The fact of the matter is that Liverpool does not belong to the Labour Party. I repeat the fact that 54 per cent. of the people of Liverpool voted against Mr. Hatton and his colleagues. Indeed, there certainly were wise people who decided to vote in that way, given the state to which Mr. Hatton and his colleagues have brought this great city.
I would end with the point that I made at the conclusion of my own speech. What is needed now, particularly with, I hope, the forthcoming departure of Mr. Hatton and his distinguished colleagues from the positions of power which they at the moment hold, is a climate of collaboration between all people, all democratic councillors in Liverpool, be they Labour, Alliance or Conservative. That is what is most urgently necessary and to have a sensible relationship with central Government, so that the immense problems facing the working people of Liverpool can at last be properly addressed. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Higher Education
5.38 p.m.
Baroness Seear Baroness Seear rose to call attention to the economic, social and cultural consequences of Government policy towards higher education; and to move for Papers.
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, anyone who has worked, as I have done, for a number of years in the higher education system will, I think, agree that all is not entirely well with higher education in this country, be it in the universities or in the polytechnics. Not surprisingly, there is room for improvement. It is perfectly true that some teachers do not see their students very often. It is true that some lecturers do not entirely enthrall the students who attend to hear them. It is also true that some dissertations do not get finished, and many of them would better never have been started. I recall the kind of would-be writer of dissertations who used to come up to me and say, "I wish to do research. Can you suggest a subject?"
It is not on people such as this that public money allocated to higher education should be spent. To this extent I agree that there the Government have some grounds for criticism. It is right and proper that the universities and the polytechnics and all the different aspects of higher education should examine what they are doing, should consider whether the way in which they are conducting their affairs and the kind of courses and teaching they are putting on and the way they spend the money allocated to them is appropriate for today and tomorrow and for the the furtherance of the purposes for which they exist.
But having gone along with the Government that far, I find it extraordinarily difficult to find out what policy the Government really have in relation to higher education. They say in their Green Paper that the higher education system should be making an effective contribution to the development of the
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economy. Of course they are right in recommending and in recognising that there is a contribution to be made to the economy by the higher education sector. If they could not see it for any other reason, it would surely be obvious because of the very much larger number of people in the countries of our successful competitors who do in fact receive higher education. We are still very low down the league in the proportion of people in this country who receive higher education. Those countries are markedly successful. I am not saying that it is a direct consequence, but at least it gives one food for thought that they spend more and have more of their people involved in higher education than we.
Naturally the Government want the higher education system to contribute. But what do they do to encourage that contribution? They cut resources. This is an extraordinary way in which to encourage progress in higher education. The Government can say—indeed they have said—that because of the change in the birth-rate about 20 years ago there would be falling numbers wishing to enter the tertiary sector in all areas. But that is as though what we are doing now is adequate. The falling numbers present a wonderful opportunity to repair the defects from which we have suffered until now, in particular to make it easier for large numbers of women who at present are not represented adequately in the higher education system to get into it; and also for large numbers of people from working-class families who in this country, in sharp contrast with other countries, have not penetrated to the extent that was hoped with the reform of the education system into the area of higher education. There can be little doubt that the economy suffers because women of real capacity and people from families not familiar with higher education fail to have the advantages that that system can offer. This is the chance to take advantage of that.
Then the Government say that, although they are cutting their resources, industry should be prepared to make up the difference; that there is money in industry and that industry can be tapped to finance the higher education system. I suppose most of us would agree that there is a case—and a good case—for a closer relationship between industry and universities and polytechnics in, for example, the development of research projects and perhaps in the financing of fellowships and studentships. A good deal has been done. There have been very considerable changes in this area in the past decade, but more could be done. Surely we should be extremely cautious before we rely too much on the financing of university work through grants and industry.
Naturally industry on the whole will want to finance the work which is of most immediate interest to it. Some very far-sighted organisations will also finance basic research but it is not to be expected that that is likely to develop on a very large scale. It cannot be said too often that although you can economise on basic research for a short period of time and you can live for a period of time on the capital that you have invested in basic research from which come the ideas—not always, I would be the first to agree—seized upon in this country for development, those ideas have come from the basic research that has been done. For a while you can economise on it, but not for long. If you fail

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adequately to finance basic research you are drying up the source from which the real contribution to industry from the universities can be made, and that source will cease to be there. The Government cannot back out of financing the developments they should be wanting and rely on finance coming from elsewhere.
They also say that parents should contribute more. May I ask the Government to look again at the reduction they have already made in the financing of people from middle-income groups and above? I agree that there are some people in the country who are so well off that they can afford fully to finance their children through higher education, but they are a very small proportion. I sadly have no doubt that where middle-income families and those slightly above that level have a son and a daughter both of whom are of an age to enter into higher education, and they are being expected to contribute very substantially to the cost of financing them, for all the advances that have been made in women's lib it will be the sons who get the money rather than the daughters, although it is perfectly possible that the daughters have the greater ability. Again, by relying too heavily on the financing from families we shall be cutting off people who can make that contribution to industry and to the development of the economy which the Government say they are particularly anxious to see and with which we would all agree.
Perhaps I may say in parenthesis that if the Government really want industry to contribute to financing it is perhaps rather a pity that they have discouraged by their change in the tax system those companies which have been doing something to help their employees who are financing their children through higher education. I declare an interest here because I am involved in a scheme of this kind. The cuts seem to be directly in opposition to what the Government say they want—the greater contribution that higher education can make to the development of the economy.
A second doctrine put forward by the Government is that we want more engineers, technologists and technicians. I have bored the House before with my family background in engineering. I am not in the least prejudiced against the engineer—on the contrary, they are the salt of the earth, and so on—but the patronising way in which the Government in their White Paper dispose of arts subjects requires some comment. They admit in one paragraph that art students can make a contribution to the economy. Otherwise they seem to be seen as a luxury to be indulged in only when the technologists have earned the money to pay for it. I would remind your Lordships' House that when Rolls-Royce went broke the entire board of Rolls-Royce was made up of engineers. I am not saying that Rolls-Royce would have done better with art graduates; I am saying that they could not have done very much worse, as they went broke.
I also remind your Lordships that there are some very distinguished leaders of the economy and of activities related to the economy who have come out of the arts graduate sector. I mention Christopher Hogg of Courtaulds, who I believe was a history graduate; and in the Government's own service there is Geoffrey Holland, who cannot be described as
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anything other than entrepreneurial—the Government's favourite word—and who I believe is a modern language graduate.
But what does industry need? Not all industries are engineering or technological. There is a great deal of wealth-creating and production work going on in which, it is true, people have to understand how to use modern technology, but they certainly do not all need to be technologists. We need marketing men. We need people who are good with negotiations. We need people who are good at industrial relations. Are these people necessarily best found among the ranks of the technologists? We need people who can speak foreign languages. Goodness knows, we are famous for our ignorance of foreign languages, although we are trying to sell right across the world. We need people who have subtlety in the use of words. Is that adequately dealt with in the training that is given to our engineers and technologists?
Once I had a graduate student who had been trained in the sciences. He produced for me a piece of written work and I said to him, "I have a feeling that you know more about this subject than you have put on paper". He replied—and your Lordships must understand that students speak rather peremptorily to their tutors these days—"You must appreciate that I have done only four pieces of written work since I was 14". It looked like it. After one year of wrestling to get it together, his written work was a little better. As a preparation for someone who is to go into a managerial position in industry, a facility with words, both spoken and written, has much to recommend it. But I suggest that one is more likely to find such a facility more among arts graduates than among scientist and technologists. Let me add however that of course we want more scientists and technologists; not for one moment am I denying that.
The Government make another unexpected requirement of the universities in the White Paper. They say that the universities should encourage the entrepreneurial spirit. That word is being a little hard worked by the Government at the present time. Personally, I have never found students to be lacking in the entrepreneurial spirit. I lived at very close hand to the student riots at the LSE in 1967. There may have been all sorts of things wrong with those riots but the rioters did not lack enterprise. They showed it in a whole variety of ways.
What may be wrong—and here I agree with the Government—is that enterprise is inadequately directed to the wealth-creating sector. That is a cultural problem that runs right throughout our society. The enterprising spirit which a great many universities show has not in the past been inadequately directed to that end. Universities could contribute more but so could society as a whole. From where has come the extraordinary tradition that it is perfectly right and proper, respectable and socially acceptable to work in the City in merchant banks and at Lloyd's but not to enter manufacturing industry?
However, one cannot put the blame for that at the door of the universities. The fact of the matter is that today we need in industry people working for the economy as a whole, who can develop new ideas and challenge the way we do things at the present time. We need people who have a great deal of knowledge about

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one subject but who are also very broad-based in their knowledge. We need, in the old phrase of Jowett, people who know everything about something and something about everything. That requires depth and breadth. There is no way that people can acquire both depth and breadth unless one gives them time to study, time to move around between different subjects, time and space to develop their ideas and themselves. We need people who are informed, who are rational, and who are non-conformist. That requires the space and time to develop the range of subjects to be studied that the good universities can give.
In my last minute let me say this. I have conceded the Government's case that the universities should be making a better contribution to the economy. But that is not only what universities are about. We want people who will ask the question "Why?" in all sections of our society; in our political system, in our social system, and in our cultural life. We need people who will challenge things as they are—not from a basis of ignorance but from a basis of information. We need people who have the intellectual vigour, the character and the courage to pursue the answers to those questions. My Lords I beg to move for Papers.
5.54 p.m.
Lord Annan: My Lords, I am sure we are all very grateful to the noble Baroness for introducing this Motion, and I agree with a very great deal of what she has said. If one cuts any system by 17 per cent. in three years and then announces that one is going to cut it at the rate of 2 per cent. regularly each year from then on, then one is bound to get a worse system, however efficiently universities or education as a whole are managed.
How efficiently are universities managed? I do not mean by that to question the efficiency of the university staff. The recent Jarratt investigation showed that universities are very well administered and that the char ladies do absolutely splendid work. But if one were to ask how efficient is the system of universities or higher education then one would get a very different answer. It is appallingly mismanaged for the simple reason that no person or government device for managing the system exists.
These days the Secretary of State gets a terrible reception in the universities. One can hear the dons muttering about him and the Government: "Solitudinem faciunt pacem appelebant." Or rather they would mutter it if they knew Latin. It is not what Sir Keith Joseph does that is so distressing. It is distressing that he is powerless to do otherwise. The only sanction he has to get universities to change their ways is to apply financial sanctions to the system. His advisers, the University Grants Committee, are in very much the same position because the chairman of that committee, if he really adopted radical procedures, would find that his committee would not back him. Why would they not back him? For the simple reason that most of them are men or women who hold posts in universities.
It is the same in the universities themselves. For generations the body in a university that makes the decisions has been the senate; a vast body of between 50 and 200 academic staff and a few students. It is the
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most perfect example in this country of worker control. But when the budget begins to be cut, worker control proves to be hopelessly ineffective.
For years now every government have been nudging and hinting at the universities to cut expenditure. The first man to do so was the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor when he was Secretary of State. When I was Provost of King's I remember being lobbied to vote against him being given an honorary degree at Cambridge because he had refused to accept the recommendations of the University Grants Committee on finance. I refused to do so, and I am glad to say so did all the dons at Cambridge refuse to do so. The Secretary of State received his honorary degree, thus showing the superior wisdom of the dons at Cambridge to those, at a later date, at Oxford.
Mrs. Shirley Williams was the next person to try. When she was Minister of State she put 13 points to the universities and the universities rubbished them. And so a war of attrition began between the universities and Government. It was a war on the part of Government and indeed other agencies to make universities change their ways. A few days ago I attended one of the most depressing conferences it has ever been my lot to attend. It was organised by the vice-chancellors' committee to publicise how valuable are the universities. Beforehand, I looked up the proceedings of a conference I had attended exactly 20 years ago, in 1965. Sure enough, the same old topics were on the agenda: the need to broaden the sixth form curriculum, the need to broaden undergraduate courses, the need to rationalise small subjects, the need to make our engineers literate and our historians numerate; the need to gear university research and teaching to industry.
I shall not say that there has been no progress but there has been very little. We still have highly specialised sixth forms because universities insist upon them. We still have largely single-subject honour degrees. Very little rationalisation of small subjects has taken place. The reason for that is not sheer bloody mindedness; it is because the system of governance is out of date.
I ask your Lordships to consider the 1981 restructuring exercise. Because university staff had tenure to the retiring age it cost £238 million to reduce staff. Three thousand staff had to be cut. How many were in fact able to cash in on the extremely favourable early retirement terms? A total of 4,400. The universities allowed their best engineers, technologists and computer science people to leave with their golden handshakes, regardless of whether that was in the national interest. Profound research by the sociologist Professor Laurie Taylor has revealed that in the universities, the restructuring exercise was called "the gravy train".
Is it any wonder that Sir Keith Joseph is determined not to let that happen again and is submitting a Bill to bring tenure in universities to an end? If the universities had come up in concert with an alternative scheme—say, for tenure from 35 to 60—and if they had shown, which they did not, during the restructuring exercise that they would sack inefficient staff, then I might be willing to oppose the forthcoming Bill. But not they. They cannot do so because there is no possibility of getting agreement to take really unpleasant

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decisions. Can your Lordships conceive the massed dons of Oxford and Cambridge voting for anything which really harmed their own interests? If one were to ask about that form of government, a more grotesque form of government could not be imagined. It is Athenian democracy; the slaves being the administrative, technical and manual worker staff who have no votes, with the probability that on many issues Pericles will be voted down and Cleon will triumph.
If we are to meet the challenge that the noble Lord, Lord Aldington, and the Select Committee put to us recently in this House we must reform the governance of higher education. We cannot continue to have polytechnics teaching liberal arts subjects. We could have them teaching how to write English, how to speak foreign languages, how to sift a thousand pages of complex documents and produce a précis with recommendations for action. We can no longer afford to have an audio-visual centre at a college in London which has three staff and which teaches nobody. We cannot have all universities treated as if they were all equal. They are not, and everyone knows it. There ought to be differences between them in salaries as well as in conditions of work.
What happened 25 years ago at the time of the Robbins Report was this. We rightly expanded higher education. We wrongly made it all Rolls-Royce education, from student grants to research facilities. I consider myself as very much to blame—as much to blame as anyone. For example, I wanted university students to be vocationally trained engineers doing a sandwich course in which university teaching and experience in industry is blended in the same course. So I advocated that the colleges of advanced technology should be upgraded to universities. That was done. All it did was to add millions of pounds to public expenditure without adding a single student. However, I do not apologise for wanting to have more and better trained students. It is because the Government are restricting the numbers of students coming into the system that I am opposed to their policy as it stands.
I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Butterworth, who was a member of the Jarratt Committee, will speak about making universities more managerially responsible far better than I can; but I must tell him that I am most pessimistic about the degree to which universities will respond to the report of that committee. What we have seen in the past few years is the reluctance ever to take bold decisions. The decision is always to cut across the board with equal misery for all, rather than to uproot whole subjects in order that the remaining subjects can flourish. That is just as true of the research councils as it is the universities. The Medical Research Council will not harden its heart and close whole units in order that its really elite institutions and units can work unimpaired. As a result, we see some of the finest centres of medical research—such as the Postgraduate Medical School which is going—each year getting weaker and weaker.
The chairman of the University Grants Committee, being a mathematician, is now working out a scheme for giving each university so many points for teaching and so many for research. I think that is disastrous. Sir Edward Parkes got it right when he increased the all
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round allocation for engineering and then slashed two universities—Salford and Aston. So badly hurt were they that the vice-chancellors of those universities did absolutely splendid work to save them from disaster and transformed them into first class institutions in their own rank.
The moral I draw today is this. If our institutions of higher education are going to make the contribution which they ought to make in the 1980s, there must be a change in their governance; otherwise the Secretary of State will find himself in the same powerless position as he is now in trying to change things for the better. We have a genius in this nation for protecting cultural institutions from day-to-day political interference. We have it in broadcasting. Equally, we could have it in universities. I think that probably the only way is to have a Royal Commission, but I am not dogmatic about that.
I make my apologies to the noble Earl, as I have to the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, that owing to an engagement which I cannot avoid I shall miss the end of the debate. I conclude by again saying how grateful I am and apologising to the House for an intemperate speech. For 20 years I have been making temperate speeches about universities so I thought the time had come to change. I applaud what the noble Baroness said about higher education as a whole and the cultural things which we all want to retain and improve, whatever our views.
6.6 p.m.
Baroness Lockwood: My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Baroness for introducing this debate today. I want to concentrate largely on continuing education, but to pick up one or two of the points that the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, made, particularly in reference to women.
On at least three occasions in the past few weeks in this House we have debated, in different contexts, Britain's industrial and technological performance. Inevitably, in those debates the role of education has been an important element. I think there has been widespread agreement that education contains one of the keys to a sound economic and industrial base. There has also been agreement that education and re-education, training and re-training are essential if we are to compete in the world. Therefore, there is agreement on the need to widen continuing education.
Continuing education has become an in-word much used in speeches and papers, but regrettably it is much less used in our education system. I have a particular interest in the subject as president of Birkbeck College. Birkbeck concentrates almost entirely on part-time courses for mature students who seek to take a degree for the first time, a second degree in a new subject, a top-up post-graduate qualification, or a short course. It is an appropriate model, I should have thought, for the kind of development that should be taking place in all our universities.
At a time when demand for this kind of education is growing one would expect extra resources to be made available; but not so. Birkbeck, like other colleges and universities, has suffered from cuts in terms of real funding, has had its share of early retirements with consequent temporary

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reappointments, and is competing in the market place with other academic institutions to sell its research and other expertise.
There appears to be a dichotomy in the whole field of continuing education. According to the Green Paper, the Government agree with the UGC and NAB that the provision of continuing education should be one of the principal parts of higher education work, but apparently the Government do not believe that it is their responsibility to fund it. For its part, the UGC set up a committee to examine continuing education and this committee produced a very comprehensive and valuable report.
So far, it appears that the UGC has not adopted the report or acted on its many recommendations. For example, in all the communications that have been passing to and fro between the UGC and the universities, there has been no mention of priorities backed by incentives of additional funding for continuing education. In contrast, as the noble Lord, Lord Annan, has mentioned, the UGC has made it clear that its policy is for differential funding of research. The universities have quickly taken up that message, and there is widespread activity throughout the universities with a view to trying to obtain high calibre research contracts carrying extra funding.
Let me be clear: I have no complaint about the universities seeking to maintain their research base. On the contrary, I support completely those who point with great concern to the erosion of research funding. But what I do complain of is that no similar message with financial implications has been sent out on continuing education. There is no point in just talking about it and telling universities that they should be providing updated courses, if extra resources are not available.
In a recent speech the chairman of the UK Science Parks Association said:
"Sadly, we are moving towards a time when a Professor is first and foremost a marketing man".
At this point I shall not take up the quotation by referring to marketing men only and not women. Of course the universities must interface with industry and commerce and with the social environment, but we must be careful that too much effort is not put into the selling end at the expense of teaching, which is surely one main purpose of the universities. If continuing education is to be a principal part of higher education, then a clear message and clearer policy guidance must come from the UGC, which must be backed by adequate financial support from the Government.
I have no doubt that the Minister will respond by saying that the Government has introduced "pick-up". This is true and it is quite a useful experience in terms of PR and in introducing pump-priming projects; but it is on a very small scale. With a budget of around £3 million a year and a staff of 16 in England and Wales as a whole, it can have no more than a slight catalytic effect on industry and on the educational institutions. We need much greater commitment than this by all concerned.
I also happen to have some connection with Bradford University, which is currently undertaking a comparative study of continuing education in Europe.
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The preliminary findings of this study suggest that much more is being done in these countries, particularly in West Germany, where the growth rate in continuing education has been something like 300 per cent. in the past decade compared with 60 per cent. in this country. Moreover, the balance between the contributors is different. Of the amounts spent on continuing education and updating—that is, on post-initial qualifications—the figures in the United Kingdom—bearing in mind that we start from a smaller base line—are: public educational service provision amounts to 10 per cent. and employer and private training provision amounts to 90 per cent. In West Germany the figures are: public educational service provision, 25 per cent; employers and private trainers, 75 per cent. In West Germany the public provision is shared by the federal and lander governments, and at both levels there is a greater commitment than we have in this country in terms of money and back-up legislation. Indeed, some of the lander provide a statutory right to study leave, for example.
This is a comparatively new situation for West Germany, too. There is nothing in their fundamental philosophical approach to education which would suggest why they should be so far ahead of us. In fact, their universities, like ours, were protective of academic standards and freedoms. It is by a deliberate effort of will that they have been able to make continuing education a part of mainstream activity, unlike in this country where it is still an optional extra to be taken up, perhaps, by the departments of management studies, or those who have a little slack or a special interest in continuing education. We must exert the same degree of determination, and the Government must facilitate this action by more funding.
I turn to the progress of women in higher education, which is closely linked with continuing education. The Green Paper refers to an increase in the number of part-time students. Like the overall projections for student numbers in the future, based on the "Y" variant, it is probably an understatement of demand. It is incomprehensible that the Government should not be using the interim between the present peak of 18-year-olds and the next peak, which will probably be some time in the early part of the 20th century, to widen and restructure access to higher education.
A restructuring of access would be particularly valuable to women. The potential growth in numbers of women participating in higher education, as the noble Baroness has said, is considerable. Yet women's position in the education system is still vulnerable to change: for example, variation in parental contributions, as the noble Baroness has mentioned; and the switch to science and technology is reported to have affected a greater percentage of women than men. So a careful look at the needs of women is required and it is important for those needs to be built into the structure of education.
Some measures could be of a temporary nature until the changes of approach in the school system work their way through to university and polytechnic entrance. But because of their central role within the family, it is likely that women will continue to take a break both in education and in employment.

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Therefore, the development of modular and credit systems with topping-up courses would suit the needs of many women. Such a pattern would fit in well with a growing system of continuing education and would meet the needs of the country and of industry.
6.13 p.m.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, I, too, must thank the noble Baroness for introducing this debate and indeed for giving the noble Lord, Lord Annan, the opportunity to make what I thought was a remarkable and forthright speech—as was the speech made by the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood.
This evening we heard from the noble Baroness a spirited attack on the effect of the Government's policy on higher education. Indeed, I thought that the noble Baroness seemed to imply that the Government undervalued higher education to such an extent that deliberately or by default they were doing great damage to higher education and thereby to the country. No noble Lord will deny that higher education is crucial in the ways that the noble Baroness outlined and in many more. But in discussing the effect of government policy I ask her with the greatest respect whether perhaps she does not protest too much. She says that the Government should pay more of the fees for middle income families, but I would ask her: need the fees be so high?
No one will deny that the past few years have brought problems to those who work in the sector and that coping with them has been, and for some still is, an entirely new and consequently traumatic experience. Until recently, after all, the higher education sector has been a comparatively comfortable place in which to work—satisfying, stimulating, for most people secure, with a remarkable degree of freedom to do one's own thing and little pressure to analyse its cost-effectiveness or the cost-effectiveness of one's institution.
As the noble Lord, Lord Annan, said, we hear a good deal of muttering among university staff. I suggest that the changes now being required of those who work in higher education, great though they may be, are no greater or more difficult to achieve than the changes being demanded of countless others elsewhere in the nation's workforce; nor is the higher education system necessarily going to be less fit for its job because it is leaner. In one respect at least it is having it easier than other sectors, because for all sorts of reasons the changes have come to it later and so could be anticipated.
None of that means that the problems have not been considerable. Big reductions in staffing were inevitable in many institutions. With the built-in protection from redundancy for lecturers—and the noble Lord, Lord Annan, talked about this in the universities—it has been fixed-term contract people who have gone, clerical and other non-teaching back-up people. It has been the teaching posts held by those willing to retire or to leave that have been frozen. All too often chance has dictated that the more skilled people left; those who might have been spared stayed. And the posts that were frozen were not the ones that the institution would have selected. In that and other respects it has not always been possible to conduct the shake-out in the manner most beneficial to the customers. But was
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that the Government's fault; and was every place lost to students the Government's fault and entirely unconnected with institutional and staffing inflexibility?
That having been said, increasingly the world of higher education—and I do not mean just university education—having seen and understood the need for change, is responding with considerable energy and searching eagerly for ways to meet the customers' new needs and for new sources of funding. We have been told that the expression "entrepreneurial" is being over-used, but I am bound to say that if the Open University is anything to go by—and I am a member of its council—entrepreneurial and marketing skills are blossoming in higher education like roses in June, and I do not believe at all that that is undermining the teaching capability.
I believe that the noble Baroness protests too much. A lot that is very new and very good is happening in higher education. But I would submit that there is still a long way to go, and I would agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, that we have to move furthest of all in the vital area of continuing education.
At the beginning of Chapter 4 of their Green Paper the Government state firmly that opportunities for education should be available throughout life for career purposes and for personal fulfilment; that the need increases with technical change; and that the provision of continuing education should be one of the principal parts of higher education's work. But is the Government's role simply to state the need and pay for some pump-priming experimentation and research?
The noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, talked about finance for continuing education. I shall not deal with that because I believe that my noble friend Lord Butterworth has it in mind so to do. I suggest that the Government now have to be much more explicit and to initiate a strong campaign of publicity and persuasion—a continuing education equivalent of the Manpower Service Commission's adult training strategy. I suggest that we need speeches, publications, broadcasts, emphasis by the University Grants Committee and work by advisory bodies, pointing out to institutions how they can and must increasingly put energy into that side of things, pointing out to local authorities what they can do, and pointing out to employers the importance for them of vocational continuing education.
The Green Paper states that more universities could be involved in continuing education. One could add that there is probably new scope here in one way or another for every higher education institution in the land. In this campaign institutions must surely be encouraged to co-operate very much more than they do at the moment; and the customers must be encouraged to see continuing education not just as provision by individual institutions but as a network of opportunity, some institutions doing one thing, some another.
The Green Paper rejects the idea of an over-arching body to make higher education co-ordination easier. The Scottish Tertiary Education Advisory Council in its report published two days ago proposes such a body for Scotland. I believe that both may be right.

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Scotland's circumstances are different; but, be that as it may, co-ordination across the whole country is nevertheless vital.
That is underlined by the fact that the new work patterns and the new technology make open learning an imperative and distance learning more and more important. Open learning is not genuinely open if institutions operate it in isolation. Distance learning techniques lend themselves ideally to co-operation. A number of institutions already have experience to share, but we are fortunate in this country to have among our higher education institutions the Open University which the Green Paper acknowledges as possessing an international reputation in distance and open learning techniques and a record of innovation in that field.
The Open University must be at the heart of the co-operation among institutions. No higher education institution in this country need spend time and energy re-inventing the wheel. A huge range of experience is available and the Open University is ready and able to help any institution adapt it for its own use.
I believe that we should be enormously positive about where we are in higher education. Things are changing, and they have to change much more radically than is yet accepted. But I am sure that if the Government will give that lead—will raise the profile of the whole subject and help institutions, the public, the customers and industry to understand where the possibilities lie—we shall get there and we shall get there with surprising speed.
6.30 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Ely: My Lords, I speak as someone much of whose life has been spent professionally in education at different levels and significantly at the higher education level and as someone whose work as a bishop for 12 years has not only put him in the chair of diocesan education committees but brings him also into constant touch with universities and places of higher education. I speak with an awareness of the Government's hope as expressed in the Better Schools White Paper for a greater proportion of school leavers moving into higher education in some form. I am conscious of the pressures from bodies such as the Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education and from such documents as the Lindop Report for higher standards within the higher education system itself. I am conscious that these things cost money.
I am conscious of the argument for the switch in the national interest towards more and better provision in the areas of science and technology which are more expensive to implement. So we are looking for, and committed to, an efficient higher education system. But the National Advisory Body for Public Sector Higher Education, the NAB as we know it, now advises us in a recent paper that on the basis of projected Government funding announced for 1987, the public sector will be forced to shed at least 16,000, possibly 18,000, student places. I quote directly the comment of the National Advisory Body in its recent paper:
"What is now at issue is a reduction in access in consequence of a cut in resources: it does not stem from a reduction in student
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demand or a reduction in the needs of industry, commerce, the professions and the public services for highly qualified manpower.".
The National Advisory Body has estimated that the projected cuts in intake are the equivalent of the total entry to four or five polytechnics or to eight or nine of the larger colleges of higher education. The number of courses that would have to be closed, mainly in the arts and humanities, would be likely to be in the region, we are advised, of 900.
Your Lordships would expect me to express concern from these Benches for a particular interest of the Church, the Church colleges. It would seem to be inevitable, if those figures are right, that among the eight or nine local centres to go would be at least one or two Church colleges. The Churches have welcomed the Government's declared view expressed in the Green Paper and in the Prime Minister's recent letter to the Bishop of London that the Church colleges have a particular character whose contribution to the flexible pattern of higher education is of continuing importance. But the Churches would ask the Government to consider whether, by their funding policies, the Government might inadvertently be undermining, and quite fatally, their own declared intention in the matter.
One is concerned not only for the Church colleges. Concern for them is only an instance of the Church's commitment to the cause of education at that level. There is wider concern among churchmen for what are seen as dangers facing the higher education system. I indicate briefly areas of concern. Is there a feeling among the economists influencing Government policy that highter education is not yet producing a good enough return? That is a question that comes to mind from reading the present Green Paper. How does one judge that return? To what degree is it to be a judgment based on measurables? The cultural benefits of higher education and the preservation of the stock of knowledge receive mention in the Green Paper. They receive mention as,
"other social benefits derived from higher education which are not directly associated with the education of highly qualified manpower and research.".
Such items, the Green Paper concludes,
"are not amenable to measurement with any pretensions of objectivity but it is important that their existence should always be kept in mind.".
It has seemed to some that the Green Paper could have kept them better in mind in the body of that paper.
I take a second point of concern—the suggested policy revealed in the Green Paper of segregating arts provision, for the most part, I think the phrase is, from technology by restricting arts provison to the universities. That seems to some educationists a recipe for cultural disaster.
Thirdly—a daring reference perhaps after the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Annan—three weeks ago, The Times Higher Educational Supplement gave it as its opinion in a leading article that the gap between what universities need and what the present Government are prepared to provide is now virtually unbridgeable. I observe—I have to say this—the genuine concern that regularly comes to me from the close contacts that I have with university teachers. I would not like it thought that the Churches are concerned only about the possible loss of Church colleges. We are talking

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also of the social impact, of the closure of perhaps eight or nine sources of local community enrichment and vitality. I might perhaps be allowed to stress that concept of community enrichment as someone who serves a diocese that not only contains the university of Cambridge but which also covers the county of Cambridgeshire, the pioneer of the village college concept. We are talking of long-term national assets in education when I express concern.
6.36 p.m.
Lord McGregor of Durris: My Lords, the education system is a filter through which children pass on their way to the labour market. No country would survive for long if it were to neglect that fact, but, as others have said in the debate, feeding the labour market is not the only function of education. A country needs citizens as well as workers—citizens capable of bringing a critical and informed eye to the assessment of the policies and promises of politicians. An electorate in a stable democracy must have learnt its letters. But a mature society demands more than competent workers and informed voters. It must equip citizens with the means of access to the cultural heritage not only of their own country but of the civilisation of which they are a part.
We ought to provide the young and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, pointed out so effectively, adults as well, on a continuing basis, with what they need and what indeed used to be called a liberal education. An education that fails in any of these particulars does not deserve to be called an education. A reader of the Government's paper on the development of higher education into the 1990s will gain no confidence that this is the view of the Government.
What little I have to say will concern universities. They feel themselves beseiged, and indeed they are. Their real income has been reduced by some 17 per cent. in the last few years. They are required to reduce their expenditure by 2 per cent. a year in the future because the Government reckon that we are too poor a country to afford more. I hope that the noble Lord the Minister will reflect a little on the experience of Scotland in the eighteenth century, then a very poor country indeed compared to England. The Scots invested in people through education, especially higher education. They had twice as many universities as had the English at that time. One result was that trained Scots brains and Scottish science made the English Industrial Revolution, with some help, be it said, from cheap Irish labour.
I do not believe that the need for economies in public expenditure necessarily ought to point in the direction of reductions in public expenditure on education, as the noble Lord, Lord Annan, seemed to accept. When listening to the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy of Lour, I doubted whether Adam Smith, for example, spent much of his time measuring his cost effectiveness.
My chief criticism of the Government's policy towards universities during the last six years or so is that there is no policy—a comment with which the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, rightly began her speech. Assuming that it was right to cut expenditure sharply in 1979, what were the Government's aims for the role
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of universities? Without a definition of purpose it is impossible to answer such relevant questions as: should there be cuts across the board; or, should a small number of universities be closed or merged with others? Do the Government wish to create an Ivy League? I do not suggest that any such policies would have been desirable; but they certainly should have been discussed and ought to be being discussed now. It may be that any clear policy would have been better than the aimless drift into penury that we have been experiencing. Instead of policy we have had a series of ad hoc expedients in the form of this or that inquiry into efficiency or academic excellence. The most recent is concerned with selectivity in funding; a pointer perhaps towards an Ivy League. As I understand it, this inquiry asks 28 questions and requires universities to give a profile which takes account of 37 subject areas. I am told that the weight of the first batches of answers received by the University Grants Committee already exceeds the weight of its chairman. In the last few years universities have been plagued with this kind of inquiry and with reams of paper. It strikes me that there is perhaps scope for an intervention by the noble Lord, Lord Young.
In the war of attrition, to which the noble Lord, Lord Annan, has referred, small matters reveal large attitudes. I may give one small example of what I have in mind. For the last 18 months or so the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals—and I derive no knowledge from that body, only from public statements—has been concerned to get a statement of policy from the Government in respect of the salaries of clinical academic teachers in medical schools. It has been the practice that these salaries move in step with those of consultants in the National Health Service, for obvious reasons. In the last round of NHS salary increases in April the Government made no move to provide the universities with the means of making up the difference between the 6 per cent. that the consultants were getting and the 3 per cent. which they had available to pay for the clinical academic teachers. As I understand it, they have been persistently attempting to obtain an answer from the Government as to whether or not there is any intention of paying. There was a recent correspondence in The Times from the vice-chancellor of the University of Edinburgh and then from the vice-chancellor of the University of London setting out the matter and saying in plain terms that the Government's refusal to meet the salary increase, or indeed to say whether they were going to meet it in the future, was making policy making for the universities in this small area absolutely impossible and putting them in an intolerable position.
I mention this small instance because it reveals an attitude of mind on the part of government which is not only conducive to inefficiency in the operations of universities but is also ill-mannered. This is no way for a government or a Secretary of State to treat serious people doing important work. It is indeed true, as the noble Lord, Lord Annan, said, that there is urgent need for reforms in the governance of universities which stem in part from the need for reform in the relations between government and universities and the attitude of government towards the universities.
The noble Baroness, Lady Seear, mentioned some defects of universities. I do not wish to be thought to

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have a superstitious veneration for the virtues of universities. They have not only the defects that the noble Baroness mentioned, but many others as well. I wish to mention one in closing. For 20 years there has been a succession of instances in which university students occasionally have shouted down speakers. I know that sometimes they are not the students of the university concerned but rent-a-mobs brought in for the purposes. There was a recent occasion when a Home Office Minister suffered that experience. I went to a university which, under its crest, carried the motto,
"They say, what say they, let them say".
Circumstances in which university vice-chancellors, both individually and as a body, have in many instances failed to denounce that kind of behaviour reflect the worst defect that we have seen in our universities for many a long time. But, that said, they are part of a great tradition and they are part of a tradition that present lack of money is eroding.
6.50 p.m.
Lord Butterworth: My Lords, I have had two recent opportunities of seeing one sector of higher education—namely, the universities—from particular viewpoints. First, as a member of the Jarratt Committee for Efficiency Studies in Universities, and then as deputy chairman of the Committee on the Review of the University Grants Committee under the chairmanship of Lord Croham. That committee is in the middle of taking evidence. I thought it might be helpful if I were to look this afternoon at the problems of higher education, and particularly universities, from the point of view of the Jarratt Committee. In doing so I should like to stress throughout that I think our concern here should be with higher education as a whole and by no means exclusively with the condition of universities.
The noble Lord, Lord Annan, seemed to imply two things about the Jarratt Committee—first, that it was only concerned with the administrative outskirts of universities, and, secondly, that in some way the universities were in bad shape and not able to look after themselves. I should therefore like to quote to your Lordships a conclusion that was reached by the Jarratt Committee when it found that universities were making outstanding contributions to our national life. They say that their,
"three-year degree courses are shorter than those of any other developed country and their wastage rate is low".
The universities,
"carry out the greater part of the pure research in the United Kingdom and much of the applied research on which future scientific and technological development depends. In consequence they provide most of the country's pure and applied research workers in science, engineering, medicine and other fields and they underpin in culture and the arts the quality of national life."
The committee went on to make certain recommendations about how the governance of universities could be improved in order that those important goods should be satisfactorily delivered. The difference between myself and the noble Lord, Lord Annan, is that he seemed to think that the universities could not deliver the right system of governance, and I should prefer to wait and see what happens as a result of the Jarratt Committee recommendations.
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Broadly, the recommendations were that each university should review its organisation to develop a rolling academic and institutional plan, and that the Government should provide the broad policy guidelines within which such a plan could be evolved. In the future planning, the single biggest factor is the expected fall in student demand which will occur between 1990 and 1996 because of the fall in the number of 18 and 19 year-olds. It is a fall of 14 per cent., or somewhere between 70,000 to 75,000 student places.
Now how is that problem to be dealt with? Assume for the moment that a cautious decision is taken and that the number of places in higher education in the 1990s is reduced not by 75,000 but by, let us say, two-thirds—50,000. The first question that arises is how that reduction of 50,000 places will be divided between the two sectors; between the universities and the public sector. No doubt students and parents would press for less severe cuts in the universities. The protection of science and technology and certain other national needs, such as the training of primary school teachers, would argue in favour of the public sector.
Therefore, for this evening's purpose let us assume that the 50,000 reduction is equally split between the two sectors. First, no doubt attempts will be made by the UGC and the NAB to divide that reduction among all the existing institutions, but 50,000 places is the equivalent of 12 complete institutions of average size—six universities and six polytechnics or other institutions in the public sector. There are of course arguments that if the reduction is to be so severe then whole institutions should be taken out of the system rather than that every institution in the system should be weakened.
As the noble Lord, Lord Annan, explained, the UGC is reorganising its method of allocating grant, and at the moment, and until the grant for 1986–87 is published in May, no university knows what is the shape of its financial future. But in the meantime it is the UGC which has advised the universities to plan on the hypothesis that there will be a fall in income of 2 per cent. a year in every year up to 1990.
If we are going to produce efficient plans in higher education, the universities and other institutions need to know, after the fall of 17 per cent. that they have already suffered between 1981 and 1983, whether there is really going to be a reduction of income of 2 per cent. in each of the four years between now and 1990. Moreover, if there are to be reductions, are they to be a contribution to any shrinkage which may be contemplated after 1990 because of the fall in the 18 year-olds? These are the fundamental parameters which the institutions need in order to make their plans.
I should like to take one example to show how it works out in practice. It is the example which was selected by the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood—continuing education. The need for continuing education is now so great and so urgent that it could well prove to be the most important educational development in this generation. Training our existing workforce to keep pace with the rate of technological change; training for leisure; training for pleasure; training to foster and improve, the cultural and economic wellbeing of society.

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Most institutions in higher education want to be more involved. The universities are at the moment limited because they are over-committed with the full-time degrees which will certainly be needed until the 1990s. But most universities wish to be more involved with more mature students, with more part-time degrees, with courses leading to other qualifications, and with short courses of retraining not leading to any qualification at all. For instance, the engineers say that their text books need to be completely rewritten once every five years, so great is the rate of technological change; that is to say, they need to be rewritten eight times during an average man's working life. Engineers and technicians therefore need refresher courses at the very least two or three times during a working span.
At present the financing of continuing education rests upon the principle that while particular and pump-priming grants will be made available, the primary responsibility for financing continuing education rests with the employer and the employee. Many courses can be so financed. The institutions in higher education, the universities and the polytechnics, will collaborate with industry, commerce and the trade unions to see that that is brought about. But the need is now urgent, our prosperity depends upon it and frequently the courses so badly needed lie outside the narrow ambit of employer and employee. The general efficiency of continuing education as a whole must become a national responsibility.
What is needed is the launching as soon as possible of an ambitious programme of continuing education and then this can be taken over and permanently financed by the spare capacity when it occurs in the 1990s. But we cannot wait until the 1990s to launch the programe. It may need special financial help immediately so that it can be launched as soon as possible.
Jarrat criticised the universities for not planning ahead and implied that the less one knows about the future the more important is a forward plan. However, long-term planning will be more effective if it can be produced within broad, strategic guidelines which will narrow the effect of some of the problems to which I have endeavoured to draw attention this afternoon.
7.03 p.m.
Lord Irving of Dartford: My Lords, in the debate last week on the report of your Lordships Select Committee on the European communities on overseas trade I spoke of the way in which British exporters were being disadvantaged by the failure of our Government to support British industry as well as the governments of our competitors. I also mentioned that among other things, we were not providing comparable research, education and training systems. Tonight we are inquiring into the consequences of such failure. Our policy for research has been described as a recipe for national decline. The Advisory Board for Research Councils said in June this year:
"In some universities, the well-funded laboratory no longer exists; and throughout the university system it has become very difficult indeed for even the most outstanding research scientists to secure research opportunities".
In another place the Select Committee on Education, Science and the Arts has recently pointed to the fact
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that the United Kingdom is now planning for a further 10 per cent. real cut in the science budget for 1985, when all our major competitors are increasing their national investment in research. Research in the universities has been forced to become excessively dependent upon insecure and sub-professionally paid contract staffs.
Cuts in research funding and real salary levels are now fuelling a new brain drain towards the United States in particular. I have a feeling that star wars will add to the process and indeed accelerate it. United Kingdom universities are finding increasing difficulty in filling chairs with candidates of sufficient quality and United Kingdom research finds it hard to attract and retain the best scholars. The United Kingdom already devotes fewer of its national resources than its principal competitors to the public funding of civil research. Our public funding is excessively concentrated into military research and areas in which industrial spin offs are few.
Between 1980–81 and 1984–85 more than 30,000 well qualified youngsters, who in the past would have gained university places, have been turned away. Despite the continuing increase in students with two or more A-levels seeking admission, British universities are forced to accept fewer students. The Government have seriously under-estimated the future demand for places at United Kingdom universities. Factors such as the steady increase in the numbers of women wishing to enter university and the many demands from mature students, from working class students and from some ethnic minorities will outweigh the effect of the decline of 18 year-olds in the population.
Britain is almost bottom of the international league in the proportion of students in higher education. An OECD survey in 1981 placed it 13th out of 15 countries below Italy, Yugoslavia, Norway and Spain. The Government have recently called on higher education to contribute more towards the performance of the economy. They express concern that our competitors are now producing more qualified scientists, engineers, technologists and technicians than in the United Kingdom. Yet just recently and prior to this view being expressed, cuts of 2 per cent. per annum in university funding for the next five years were announced.
More graduates are required to meet the needs of new industries and changing society. Specific skills are needed to meet the demands of the new technological industries, of commerce and of the professions. Graduates are also needed who understand foreign languages and societies and who can teach and resolve the social and economic problems of Britain's future. Britain also needs graduates with less specific intellectual skills, who are also needed by industry and the services in which Britain excels. The CBI and the Association of University Teachers together join in rejecting the excessively vocational basis of currrent government policy for higher education. This serious situation has come about because the funding of the United Kingdom universities has been cut by 10 per cent. in real terms since 1980–81 and has fallen per head of student by more than 25 per cent. since 1970.
Cuts in funding have led to losses of one in seven of academic staff. The planned cuts for the future will mean further staff losses: the University Grants

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Committee estimates that for each percentage cut in funds, 1 per cent. of the university staff must be axed. These cuts in staffing threaten the quality of university education. Since 1979 staff/student ratios in the university system have deteriorated by 6 per cent. in the arts and humanities, by more than 11 per cent. in the sciences and by a staggering 19 per cent. in the clinical sciences. Cuts in university funding also damage the economies of the regions in which the institutions are located.
The Prime Minister has broken her promise made during the 1983 election to guarantee level funding for universities. Level funding would be relatively cheap in terms of public expenditure. Excluding the deficits of the past it would currently cost only £30 million; as has been said, that is the cost of a medium-sized university or about 100 ft. of the Falklands Airport.
The consequences have been a collapse of morale in our universities because of low salaries and poor promotion prospects. The lack of research studentships means that universities find it hard to recruit top talent. Three in five of the 11,000 university research staff have less than a year of their short-term contracts to run.
Britain's economy during the next 10 years will be hindered by an acute shortage of trained and well-qualified graduates making it very difficult for us to match the achievements of our competitors whose industry is backed by research, education and training systems more related to their needs than ours.
Should the Government believe that this is special pleading—the thing the Chancellor accused manufacturing industry and the Select Committee on Overseas Trade of doing—I ask them to refer to the joint statement by the University Grants Committee and the National Advisory Body for National Authority Higher Education which read:
"The United Kingdom has a university system of outstanding quality. The universities provide the bulk of the country's science and engineering graduates and research workers, as well as qualified graduates for medicine, law, architecture and numerous other professions. Any policy that diminished the role and status of the universities would damage many aspects of our educational, cultural and industrial life.
But it went on:
"The (University Grants) Committee's aim in July 1981 was to minimise the damage caused by the cuts imposed by the Government. But those cuts were so severe that great harm has still been done."
Your Lordships have to remember that it is the University Grants Committee talking in this way.
"Academic planning has been disrupted, morale has been impaired, thousands of young people have been denied a university education, confidence in the Government has been shaken and will be difficult to restore. Expenditure has been reduced as Government required, but the university system left by the cuts is not ideal for meeting the nation's needs".
It is not a pleasing or encouraging prospect for the future of this country.
7.10 p.m.
Lord Gladwyn: My Lords, I propose to confine my remarks to an aspect of higher education in which I happen to retain an interest; that is the desirability of providing profitable educational facilities in this
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country for as large a number as possible of students from overseas.
Whatever the reasons for the introduction of the full cost fees in 1980—and I myself have always maintained that a reduction in numbers could have been accomplished in other and less brutal ways—the effect on the number of overseas students has been as dramatic as it has been deplorable, the number falling from 83,000 in 1979–80 to no more than 53,000 in 1984–85. It is true that in the higher education sector the drop was only from 57,500 to 48,000. However, in polytechnics and other institutions enrolment continues to decline, with the exception of a very small increase in the number of university post-graduates. I think that is correct.
What is even more significant and serious is that this great drop was almost entirely accounted for by a 40 per cent. decline in the number of students from the so-called developing or poorer countries. This fell from 70,300 to only 43,000. Moreover, the fall in the numbers of Commonwealth students—and we know the value that the Government now attach to the Commonwealth generally—was proportionately only slightly less than this, coming down from 43,000 to 27,000. I need hardly add to this tale of woe the fact that the fourth report of the Standing Committee on Commonwealth Student Mobility confirms that general student mobility in the Commonwealth also continues to decline, and this in spite of the importance attaching to this factor, recently recognised by all Commonwealth governments, including Her Majesty's Government themselves.
Let me here quote from the conclusions of the Nassau Communiqué from Commonwealth leaders. Paragraph 14 of the section on "Commonwealth Functional Co-operation" applies. It reads as follows:
"Heads of Government expressed appreciation of the work of the Commonwealth Standing Committee on Student Mobility; asked it to keep the situation under review; and invited all Commonwealth governments to give the closest consideration to its constructive proposals. Particularly encouraged by the potential for collaboration in higher education through distance education and the use of new technologies, they request the Secretary-General to explore the scope for new Commonwealth initiatives in the field of open learning".
I wonder whether the Government can tell us whether they are taking the initiative in the furtherance of such schemes and whether we are likely to see any of them emerge as practical proposals in the relatively near future.
What I suggest it all comes down to is this. If the Government favour a policy which will substantially redress both the overall decline in Commonwealth student mobility and the impact of full-cost fees on the whole developing world, then there must be serious consideration of a broadening of the current award schemes. The most recent figures on student enrolments show that the present system currently operates in favour of rich private scholars; students from the European community; sponsored scholars from the wealthier Commonwealth countries, and scholars from the very limited number of countries favoured by the country support schemes. While appreciating the reasons for these last schemes—that is to say, historical links, special relationship, underdeveloped tertiary education systems, traditions of sending a high proportion of scholars to the United

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Kingdom and so on—all these reasons must surely apply also to a number of other Commonwealth countries not singled out for support. Selective support may consequently create as much diplomatic damage as it was intended to redress.
A number of realistic, specific and well-considered proposals for broadening the basis of support to Commonwealth and developing countries have been submitted to the Government by the Commonwealth Secretariat, by the Council for Education in the Commonwealth, by the United Kingdom Council for Overseas Student Affairs, and others with expertise in these matters. They include recommendations that serious consideration should be given to concessionary fees for all scholars on Commonwealth, international or national awards; a concessionary fee for all Commonwealth post-graduate students; a concessionary fee for students of academic merit from the poorest developing Commonwealth countries, or a concessionary fee perhaps based on GNP or means test.
Even if the Government are committed to a policy of full-cost fees and no return to the so-called "indiscriminate subsidy", I suggest that it is shortsighted and counter-productive not to consider concessions of this kind, which would cost less than the current subsidy to EC students. In this context, it is important to note that in 1983–84 the income to the universities from full-cost paying overseas students was over £90 million; in other words, over six times the value of the famous Pym package of 1980 for one year alone.
It may be that the Government will say, "Oh dear, but all such proposals, however sensible, and, in the long run profitable, may well immediately cost us a few million pounds". So no doubt they would. However, if immediate cash is the only consideration in the Government's mind, how about in any case devoting to these excellent schemes all or most of the £6½ million that the Government will save next year as a result of their recent retreat or exit from UNESCO? This is a question to which I hope the noble Lord will respond.
In the two minutes available, I should like to make a very few remarks of a general nature. I suggest that the Government can hardly deny that 80 per cent. of the overseas students paying full-cost fees in Britain are not funded by the British Government, and that they represent a valuable source of additional income to the higher educational system. Nor, I think, can the Government ignore the fact that these purely economic considerations are to a great extent determining recruitment overseas; changes in the geographic origins of the overseas student population; and changes in institutional policy on the whole question of the admission of overseas students.
In spite of the fact that (unless I have been incorrectly informed) at least one university plans to take up to 30 per cent. of its students from overseas, neither the University Grants Committee, the National Advisory Body for Local Authority Higher Education nor the Government themselves, in their Green Paper, give any consideration to overseas students as an integral part of educational planning. A
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limited policy on scholarship awards is not a policy for overseas students. It is merely one small aspect of such a policy.
We do not yet have a policy for overseas students within an integrated higher educational system that includes an international dimension. The danger of this policy vacuum is that overseas students become fillers for courses that otherwise would not be sustainable, or become valued for their economic rather than their academic or developmental input into the system. A truly coherent, constructive policy on overseas students would include them in planning exercises, would consider issues such as the appropriate numbers of students in total at various levels within the tertiary system and their appropriate distribution throughout the system by geographical area, type of institution, level and subject of course.
In other words, the nature of the relationship between overseas students and their sponsors and the receiving institution has changed as a direct result of the Government's decision to introduce full-cost fees and to place institutions in the position where they are obliged to recoup their income loss from overseas students. The relationship is thus now a commercial one with massive financial implications for institutions, local authorities and sponsors. There are already sufficient indications of dissatisfaction at home and abroad, with questions being raised about value for money for the Government departments, UGC and NAB to begin considering and treating overseas students as a vital, important and valued integral part of our higher educational system, on educational, academic, ideological and developmental grounds, as well as for economic and trade-related reasons.
Perhaps in the last minute I may make this suggestion. What really seems to be needed is the creation here of something equivalent to the French Ministry of Culture which takes responsibility for France's place in the world, not merely in terms of overseas trade but in what they rightly conceive to be invisible exports. This would imply, of course, the appointment of a British Minister who could put the flow of students into this country in the context of our objectives in the world as a whole. I cannot enlarge on this now; there is no more time. But I look forward to hearing the Government's reaction to the various criticisms of the present system which I have ventured to put forward. I can hardly believe that even the Government can be wholly satisfied with the present situation, such as it is.
7.23 p.m.
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, I am sure that we are all grateful to my noble friend Lady Seear for giving us the opportunity for this debate. The noble Lord, Lord Annan, in his bracing speech, made a number of strictures on the governance of higher education. I see that he has a debate on this subject in the No Day Named list and we must hope that he gets a date for it so that we can discuss that further. Whatever the deficiencies to which he drew attention, the main deficiency in higher education is that there is not enough of it—as I think he recognised, too. There is

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not enough of it either to meet the Robbins axiom as re-stated by the UGC:
"Courses of higher education should be available for all who are able to benefit from them and who wish to do so"
or to meet the needs of the country. The root cause of this is that the Government for some strange reason presumably not unconnected with Treasury thinking, have decided that falling rolls in the school system mean automatically lower demand for higher education. Rubbing their hands, they have said to themselves: "This is great! At least the demographic factor is in our favour here, unlike in the health service; so let us snip this here and that there and we will have a slimmer, trimmer or more relevant higher education sector in the 1990s".
Those are words that I am putting into their mouths; but here are their own. In a very depressing paragraph in the Green Paper, in paragraph 1.13, they say:
"Adjustments in higher education are undoubtedly needed now. More will be required as a result of the decline in student numbers that is to be expected in the 1990s.".
What a lugubrious expectation! It is small wonder that The Times Higher Educational Supplement wrote of:
"the shocking and chilling experience of reading a document displaying such palsied imagination".
And is the demographic argument as simple as it sounds? Although 16-to-19 year-olds will decrease sharply over the next decade or so, I have seen no suggestion anywhere of the population as a whole being on anything other than a gently upward trend with the elderly and very elderly leading the way. It could therefore be just as convincingly argued that we need an even larger contingent of highly educated and skilled people to support this top-heavy population.
The odd thing is that this palsied imagination directly contradicts the Government's own hopes from its reforms in the schools. The UGC response to the Green Paper said in paragraph 11:
"We wonder why the Government should be so pessimistic about the chances of its own policies in relation to schools as to make no provision for this in its policies for higher education".
And here is the present vice-chancellor of the University of London on 4th December in the Albert Hall, my noble friend Lord flowers:
"The Government seem incapable of enunciating a coherent policy for education. The nation faces the certainty of a future dominated by the high technologies, a future in which trained minds will be at a premium and this is recognised in all the countries with which we would like to compete and it is acted upon. Accordingly, our schools are being urged to interest more of their pupils in science and technology and to prepare more of them to enter higher education. So unsure are the Government of the success of their own policies that they are simultaneously planning for a reduction in the number of young entering higher education, responding to the trends of a birthrate years ago instead of to the imperative of economic recovery".
Thus we are in the extraordinary position of a planned decline in university places when every other significant nation in the developed world is doing exactly the opposite. The international comparisons are instructive. If you look at the 18-to-19 year-olds in higher education, the current participation rates are as follows: Japan, 47 per cent.; the USA, 42 per cent.; West Germany, 26 per cent.; and the United Kingdom, 13·3 per cent. If you look at the percentage of the labour force with first degrees, you get the
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following: USA, 18 per cent.; Japan, 13 per cent.; West Germany, 10 per cent.; and the United Kingdom, 6 per cent. These figures speak for themselves and this is hardly encouraging in the most underskilled nation in Europe, as I think the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, has pointed out on a number of occasions. Indeed, her unemployment committee, on which I had the honour to serve, produced a picture of the United Kingdom as the "poor man of Europe", in educational and training terms. Although it was not possible to prove a link between that and high unemployment all the evidence points in that direction.
The next curiosity in the Government's attitude to higher education is the lip service that they pay to the importance of refresher courses and continuing education on which the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, spoke. In paragraph 4.9 they said:
"The Government is committed to the availability of higher education to mature students who are able to benefit from it".
So, in one and the same breath—or at any rate, one and the same document—they in effect extend the Robbins' principle up the age scale while forecasting a decline in numbers in the 1990s. The logic of this is presumably that school leavers' applications to the universities will decline by more than the increase in demand by adults. Therefore, it can all be done at 2 per cent. less per annum in real terms. What a miserable vision! And is it so certain that there will be a falling demand? I doubt it. High unemployment has already led to more people staying on at school and if means-tested educational maintenance allowances were extended to all over 16 as we advocate, then that demand would show a steady increase.
After all, is this not a question of policy? If you want to freeze or squeeze people out of higher education on to the dole because that is cheaper, you can of course do so. But it is not a very enlightened policy and not one that is likely to give rise to the higher skilled, more self-confident and more successful society that we—at any rate on these Benches—should like to see.
What are the areas of most concern?—many of them have been mentioned this evening, and I just want to touch on subject balance. I think it is generally accepted that there should be some shift to science and technology. At the same time it is very important to keep in mind, as Sir Peter Swynnerton-Dyer said in response to the Green Paper in paragraph 16:
"The training of the mind provided by an arts course is highly valued by industry in its own right and, in this sense, the humanities generally are no less vocationally relevant than the sciences. Vocational relevance is not confined to courses preparing students for a limited number of specific kinds of employment.".
This is backed up by the CBI who have recently advised Ministers that they will continue to need generalists and non-technical professionals. It is backed up also by Walter Goldsmith, who was the head of the Institute of Directors and is now a well-known management headhunter, who recently said:
"I think it would be a mistake for industry to look to the universities to produce specific job skills.".
Are the Government really seized of this? In paragraphs 2.11 and 6.3, they appear to give it some recognition but it would be of great help to morale in

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the higher education world (which is a subject to which the noble Lord, Lord Irving of Dartford, referred) if the Secretary of State would dispel the view that he is witch-hunting arts and humanities courses. After all, what we are talking about is intellectual rigour. That is what the university is about and it comes in many forms, not necessarily science-based.
Next, do the Government accept the UGC's view that a significant increase in the number of places in science and technology can only be provided if the necessary resources are made available, which is not the case at present? Will they further accept that it is neither desirable nor feasible to fund these at the expense of the arts?
I think I detect a familiar pattern which this debate on higher education has helped to bring out: that is the failure of the Government to provide realistically for the achievement of their own policy objectives—I repeat, their own policy objectives—let alone any additional ones that we or anyone else may consider desirable. It happens in health and it appears to be happening to an even greater extent in higher education. This is a trend the Government really must reverse if they want results. The noble Baroness, Lady Seear, pointed to a confusion of Government purpose, and I agree with her on that.
Turning briefly to research, the prospect of the purchasing power of the Science Vote declining by 25 per cent. over the next 10 years, which is the ABRC's grim forecast, coupled with a reduction in research funding through the UGC, is really very hard to accept with equanimity. This is kicking both legs of the dual support system at one and the same time.
Another piece of depressing reading is the sector on finance in the Medical Research Council's annual report which was published only the other day, from which it emerges that the council can only provide funding for 55 per cent. of alpha quality grant applications. The remainder were categorised as "approved but not funded." This means a whacking 45 per cent. of first-class projects turned down in a field in which we lead the world. I find that unbelievable. No wonder there is a serious brain drain developing, as the noble Lord, Lord Irving, said. I should like to ask the noble Earl: will the Government at least give a commitment to the councils to make up the cost of nationally agreed pay awards which they have to bear but which are quite outside their control?
Finally, what so appals me about all this is the lack of vision, the lack of any appreciation of the enormous potentialities in higher education both for the individual and for the success of the nation. The noble Lord, Lord Butterworth, gave us something of a feeling of this in his eloquent demonstration of the urgency of continuing education. Of course, not everyone has vision. That is a fact of life, but after the traumas higher education has been through in the past few years, could not the Government at least guarantee genuinely level funding and allow the men of vision—for they do exist—to get on with the job?
7.33 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I am doubly grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, for moving this Motion today. I am grateful of course on behalf of
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my noble friends for her having enabled the House to debate this important subject, but I am also personally grateful, as a tyro in these matters, for her extremely clear, lucid, vigorous and jargon-free exposition of the subject. As somebody who has been desperately trying to catch up after nearly 30 years away from academic life, I have become impressed by not only the volume of material which the education pundits are prepared to throw at those of us who speak on these matters but also the complexity of the thinking behind them and the language, unfortunately, which is used, together with the acronyms, which I have still 'not fully comprehended.
I must say, however, that I believe I have one educational distinction which no one else in this House has. I actually lectured on the British political system to the smallest university in the world, the Swedenborgian University in Urbana, Ohio, which, at the time when I lectured there in 1957 had seven full-time students and 11 part-time students. The university folded the next year, and I draw no conclusions from that.
However, in this new situation I cling to the disciplines in which I have spent my life—the disciplines of business. I try to find some analogies between education economics and education policy and the business world I am familiar with. I look at issues of supply and of demand, and I look to see whether there are management objectives in the education sector itself and whether the policies of government and of the higher education sector actually reflect those management objectives and whether they meet the needs of the customers, of the community and of the economy.
I find a great conflict of evidence about many of these matters and a great lack of clear objectives in some of them. We start by talking about demand for higher education. The crude figures are very clear. We have at present a figure of just under 14 per cent. of the relevant age groups participating in higher education. The Green Paper anticipates that by 1996 there will be a 15.5 per cent. participation. It does not seem to be a planned participation rate, but an interpretation of demographic events. There is no comparison with the fact that in the United States and Japan participation rates in higher education are at the level of 22 to 24 per cent., nor indeed with the point that the right honourable lady the Prime Minister when Secretary of State for Education said in 1972 that she looked forward to a participation rate of 22 per cent. There does not seem to be any appreciation in the Government statements that I have been reading that student numbers are in fact managed figures. They do not arise from any act of God; they come from the awareness of teachers and school students of the number of places available, the effect that has on expectations and the level of grants available. All those things will affect participation rates, and it is within the power of government, by changing the policies, to change the participation rates, if it is thought desirable to do so.
Again, we look at the population changes. Yes, it is true that there is likely to be a turn-down in the number of 18- to 19-year-olds but, conversely, with a relatively static population we are going to see a very considerable increase in the number of 30- to

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60-year-olds—those who are in a position to benefit from continuing education, which was so eloquently referred to by my noble friend Lady Lockwood and by the noble Lord, Lord Butterworth. I shall come back to that, because the experience of the Open University—perhaps the biggest innovator in continuing education in the last 20 years—has been that in those age groups there is no shortage of new applicants for higher education. Their experience was that the average number of new applicants from 1976 to 1979 was 32,000 per year; from 1980 to 1983 it was 38,000 per year, and in the last two years it has been of the order of 40,000 a year. The number of rejections, including rejections of those wishing to study science and technology, is increasing all the time. It is up to 24,000 this year and is likely to be 30,000 next year, on those figures. If we have that pent-up demand—a demand which I do not think anybody fully appreciated when the Open University started—surely the words of the noble Lord, Lord Butterworth, must be taken very seriously by the Government in thinking about provision for continuing education and rethinking the dismissive, cursory—even derisory—words on that subject in the Green Paper.
My noble friend Lord Irving referred to the whole question of access to higher education by groups which are unrepresented at present—those going to state schools, those with working-class backgrounds, women, the disabled, ethnic minorities, and so on. That is all evidence that the pent-up demand of those who are capable of benefiting from higher education is enormously greater than would be supposed by the rather crude and even controversial demographic projections which are the basis of the White Paper.
I now turn to provision of higher education. Many of your Lordships have expressed views on this more clearly than I can. I do not need to repeat the arguments which have been put. After the cuts which have taken place in the last five years a number of noble Lords have referred to the proposed cuts of 2 per cent. per year in real terms in universities between now and the end of the decade, which means, in effect, killing off one university a year. In the public sector the situation is even more serious. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ely referred to the fact that a continuation of existing policies could lead to the death of four or five entire polytechnics over the next few years or 600 to 900 courses.
It is not good enough—if I may say so to the noble Lord, Lord Annan, who I see is not in his place—to say that there is a lack of management in the universities and in the higher education sector, which is preventing a rational response to the reduction of resources. In fact, in the public sector a clear distinction is made between protected and unprotected programmes—12 protected and seven unprotected—and if the projections that are being made by the National Advisory Board are true, the unprotected courses are likely to suffer cuts of up to nearly 60 per cent in their funding.
In continuing education, where the demand is, as we have seen, almost limitless, the Government are proposing to rely more and more on fees and on contributions from students and employers. At the
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same time they are cutting down on the Workers' Educational Association, they are cutting down on university extra-mural departments, they are cutting down on a whole range of existing tried and proved provision of continuing education. It is no wonder that Maurice Shock, the chairman of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals, refers to the situation of universities now as being a lingering and terminal illness.
What does this mean in terms of management objectives? Are we adequately asking ourselves: what do we need of higher education? How do we set these objectives? It seems as though the Government's view is that it is just a question of value for money. If we look at the definitions of what access to higher education should be over the years, and look at the Robbins' definition, which the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, quoted, I must say that I am appalled by the decline that there has been since then.
The UGC referred to,
"all who can benefit from these courses and who wish to do so".
The Goverment have put a gloss on that. The Government now say,
"all who have the intellectual competence, motivation and maturity to benefit from higher education, provided that ability to benefit is stringently tested and is sufficient to justify the costs".
I can see officials putting on word after word to limit any sort of real commitment by the Government to the expansion of higher education. You can see the way in which a formula of that sort is built up, with caution upon caution and reservation upon reservation. That is not the way in which we should be approaching our policy on higher education.
I suggest and the Labour Party suggests, and will be suggesting in a document to be published early in the New Year, that we have an opportunity here to create a partnership between Government and the higher education world. The partnership would consist of a commitment by the Government, a Labour Government, to continue the funding—not just level funding—to meet the needs of the higher education sector for research and teaching. In return, I suggest, the higher education sector must take a very cool look indeed at its ability to meet the demands which will be made upon it by students and by society.
They have to look at the issue of qualifications. The Open University has shown very clearly that there are thousands upon thousands of mature students, and probably of younger students as well, who are capable of benefiting from higher education without having had any of the classical qualifications of A levels. But I am not going to get into the debate about preparation for school.
I suggest that the higher education sector needs to take a much harder look at credit transfer. The Open University pioneered credit transfer for Open University courses particularly successfully in a number of polytechnics, but with very much less success in the universities. This is an area where the flexibility which students demand must be met by the ability to choose courses wherever they are most relevant and most appropriate. I suggest—and this follows from something I said earlier—that there ought to be positive attempts to deal with the discrimination against all those groups who are

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underrepresented in higher education. I suggest that there ought to be much more flexibility in the structure of the higher education system. There is an example in Lancashire at the moment in the co-operation between Nelson and Colne College, Lancaster University and the Lancashire Polytechnic. That is a good example of what can be done to increase the availability of the whole spectrum of higher education.
Above all, I believe that the time has come to act on policies to increase entitlement—not just availability of continuing education through life, but entitlement to higher education through life. That is a commitment which the Labour Party made before the last election and gladly repeats now—that everybody should have an entitlement in the course of his or her working life to access to whatever form of higher education is suited to his or her needs and to the demands of technical change. The noble Baroness, Lady Seear, referred to the situation we have in front of us as a wonderful opportunity. I agree entirely with what she says. I very much fear that the present policies of the Government will not take advantage of that wonderful opportunity.
7.47 p.m.
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, for giving this House its first opportunity to debate higher education policy since the publication in May of the Government's Green Paper The Development of Higher Education into the 1990s. I can say that most sincerely. My predecessor at this Dispatch Box, my noble friend Lord Elton, said to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, that he felt he had to say that, but I really should like to say it most sincerely, because this debate will give us a chance to clear up quite a lot of the misunderstandings that have arisen during the afternoon about the Government's policies.
I am also grateful to the noble Baroness for the terms of her Motion, because they help us to focus on the positive and forward-looking nature of the Government's present policies for higher education and on the consideration they are giving to the promised further statement of policy on higher eduction in the light of responses to the Green Paper. So, before attempting to comment on some of the specific points that have been made in the course of this evening's debate, I shall try briefly to give your Lordships my assessment of the economic, social and cultural consequences of Government policy towards higher education. I start with the economic consequences.
I am no economist. When your Lordships will allow me, I am a simple farmer, but I am quite certain that my noble friend Lady Carnegy of Lour would be the first to agree that in order to make money out of farming at the moment you must not be too simple and you have to be something of an economist. So I am fully able to recognise the pressures on public expenditure created by an ageing population, high public expectations, poor economic performance and the present level of unemployment.
The Government's strategy is to restructure and revitalise the economy so that we can once again become fully competitive in world markets. Against
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that background, we have to seek the maximum possible economy in public expenditure and we therefore believe it reasonable to ask higher education to increase efficiency and to make economies. At the same time, we recognise the vital contribution that higher education makes to our national life in terms of the conduct of research and the education and training of the highly qualified manpower vital to the functioning of the economy. The needs of the economy therefore pull in both directions, and the Government's policies are designed to get the balance right between them. The economic consequences of doing so will be wholly beneficial. That is why the Government's policies for higher education focus particularly on the needs of the economy.
Both the noble Lord, Lord Annan, and the noble Lord, Lord Irving of Dartford, mentioned the debate of the noble Lord, Lord Aldington, last week on overseas trade, and I think that anybody who listened to that debate, or read the report of it, will have got that message loud and clear. I thought that the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Annan, although he himself described it as intemperate—I am not sure whether it was the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, who described it as abrasive or bracing—
Lord Kilmarnock: Bracing, my Lords.
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, I am sure that is more like it. I would say that it was a good and very brave speech. I certainly did not get the same impression as the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, that the noble Lord, Lord Annan, was slating the Government. If he was slating anybody, I thought the noble Lord was rather tending to slate some of his colleagues among the vice-chancellors, but perhaps I had better read it in the morning to make sure.
We are focusing very much on the needs of the economy. That is why, following the success of the Information Technology Programme, the Government last year launched the Engineering and Technology Programme, which will provide, at a cost of £65 million over the first four years, about 5,000 additional places in industrially relevant disciplines. That is why the Government are promoting more generally a shift of emphasis in higher education towards the scientific, technological and vocationally relevant. That is why the Government are providing an extra £34 million over four years to equip some of our best universities to the highest standards. That is why an extra £15 million has been added to the science budget for the year 1986–87, news which I am sure will cheer up the noble Lord, Lord Irving of Dartford. What this demonstrates is that the present Government, while seeking economy, efficiency and value for money throughout the public sector, are at the same time prepared to recognise the need for specific injections of extra funds to achieve particular purposes of benefit to society and the economy.
Similarly, the Government recognise that the needs of the economy for qualified manpower will not vary with the size of the 18 year-old population. Both the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, and the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, spoke about falling numbers in higher education. I think that in this case they have both got the wrong end of the stick. The proportion of young

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people entering higher education has grown from 12.4 per cent. in 1979 to 13.7 per cent. last year, despite the much higher population from which that entry is drawn, and is expected to increase to at least 15.5 per cent. over the next decade. I say "at least" because I entirely accept that these are matters of policy as well as demand, as indeed the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, has pointed out. Our policy is for review in the light of these projections and further evidence.
I stress that we expect, too, to provide for the increase in demand for mature students. Even before allowing for the effects of the Engineering and Technology Programme, we expect the output of science graduates to increase by 30 per cent. over the present decade, the output of engineering graduates to increase by more than 40 per cent., and the output of electrical and electronic engineering graduates in particular to increase by more than 60 per cent.
But we are not complacent. We know that much of the growth to which I have referred is the result of the present peak in the 18-year-old population and the consequent demand for higher education, and we know that that population is to fall by more than 30 per cent. between now and the end of the next decade. No falling off in student numbers is expected in the present decade, but whatever may actually happen to student numbers in the future we must ensure that higher education is able to deliver a workforce capable of responding and adapting to the needs of the economy into the first quarter of the next century.
This is where the thrust of our school and higher education policies come together, and why it is so important that avenues of choice should not be closed off at an early age. As well as the stimulus which we hope the Government's policies for better schools will provide to encourage more young people to qualify for and to enter further and higher education, including we hope more young women, we are already embarked on special surveys to give us more information about the aims and aspirations of school and college leavers to allow us the better to consider the future level of provision for higher education.
In all of this the Government are actively concerned to promote the interest of the economy, and we are similarly encouraging a much closer relationship between higher education and industry and, in particular, a greater recognition of the importance of continuing and in-career education which is vital to the continued vitality and relevance of the work-force. Yes, my Lords, I shall indeed refer to the Government's PICKUP programme, with respect to the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood. This in particular is helping to create a new awareness of needs and responsibilities in this area and already has many achievements to its credit. It is certainly more than a catalyst, as the noble Baroness says. It is a major step forward in an area in which little has existed before, and we are hoping to build upon it. It is particularly important, however, that employers should play a full part in the funding of retraining, too.
I hope I have said enough to demonstrate that the Government's policies towards higher education are focused very specifically on the needs of the economy and that their economic consequences are likely to be
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wholly beneficial. The same is true of the social and cultural consequences of our policies. First, a healthy economy is a necessary pre-condition of social and cultural development. Developments in the social services or in cultural provision, whether financed privately or publicly, have to be paid for, and it is only the revitalisation of the economy that can make them possible.
It has been alleged that the Government's proper concern to ensure that higher education is reasonably aligned to meet the needs of the economy, and in particular its greater emphasis on science, technology and vocational education generally, demonstrates a new barbarism, a disregard for cultural values, and a failure to recognise the quality of the intellectual training that can be provided by courses in the humanities and social studies. But the scale of the shift that the Government are proposing has to be seen, first, against the background of current claims from employers that they are unable to recruit sufficient qualified manpower in areas of industrial growth; and, secondly, against the uncertain prospects for the next decade when total demand for higher education may be expected to fall. In the universities at present about 47 per cent. and in the public sector of higher education about 60 per cent. of all students are engaged in non-science related courses.
I recognise that many of these are vocational in other ways, but the particular need is for higher education to produce more whose qualifications are scientific and technological. Given these proportions, to propose, as we have done, a modest shift into the area of science and technology does not seem to me to constitute the new barbarism, or even the slightest threat to the humanities and social studies. This has been mentioned by many speakers tonight. I shall not mention them all by name. Perhaps to allay their doubts even more than that, I should like to make two short quotations from a speech by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State to the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals at Leicester University on 26th September this year. I quote:
"But to argue that as a society we could benefit from greater scientific literacy is not in any way to undervalue the arts and the humanities. I cannot understand why the modest shift that I have in mind is thought to imply this. I made my position on the arts and humanities clear in my speech to the British Academy last July when I recognised that scholarship in the humanities 'helps to shape the framework for ideas, purposes and institutions within which we live. Such scholarship helps to set the moral and social framework within which economically useful studies and the harvest of those studies can function. Such scholarship thereby enriches, or at least potentially enriches, our existence'. I acknowledged then it was precisely because the benefits flowing from the humanities in raising the understanding and improving the framework within which man lives are not immediately encashable in the market place that it is particularly appropriate that the Government should use the taxpayers' money to support scholarship in the humanities".
Again, I quote another sentence later in the speech of my right honourable friend:
"But I am also passionately concerned for the future of the humanities. I need no instruction in the importance of both the humanities and the sciences to the education of our people and to the cultural side of our national life. I want our universities to continue to be respected for their excellence throughout the world".
Of course the humanities provide a rigorous intellectual training. But there is nothing wrong in insisting that training in science and engineering can

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provide just as rigorous an intellectual training. There is no reason why a really good, well-thought-out degree in engineering rooted in scientific principle and related to current industrial practice should not provide as good a preparation for a high flying career outside as well as inside the immediate area of specialisation as a degree of medieval literature, classics, philosophy or anthropology. Such a degree might actually provide a more relevant and useful preparation for working life. To say so is not to undervalue the humanities either in terms of their intellectual rigour or their intrinsic merit; the flourishing of humane scholarship both marks and helps to create the kind of society and civilisation in which we all wish to live.
I think I have pointed out that no one is more committed to that proposition than my right honourable friend, and I know that he personally was delighted that the Government's expenditure plans announced last month provide for the British Academy to be able to award each year about 25 fellowships in the humanities and social studies in order to provide more opportunities for outstanding scholars in these fields. This is another example of the Government ackowledging the reduction in opportunities for young scholars and, in the face of a clear and well-articulated case, making specific provision to help to ameliorate the situation.
I shall turn now to some of the specific points made in the debate. I was very grateful to my noble friend Lady Carnegy of Lour for mentioning the Open University. It is a concept that I personally support very much. The university has two programmes of courses. There is the undergraduate programme leading to a degree qualification, which is substantially supported from public funds, and the continuing education programme that provides short courses, often related to updating needs, which aims to be self-financing. It sounds to me from the speech that my noble friend made that it is enterprising—I had better not use the word which I know the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, would not like me to use.
One point that concerned me tonight was raised in the speech made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ely. It was mentioned also by the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh. It relates to future access to higher education, particularly in polytechnics. The figures that the right reverend Prelate and the noble Lord quoted for the possible loss of places in the public sector came from a discussion paper prepared for a study group of the National Advisory Body. I can assure them both that those discussions are at a very early stage. Funding for the public sector of higher education in 1987–88 will not be decided until next autumn. However, I can say that the maintaining of opportunities for access to higher education remains one of the Government's highest priorities in education. I hope that will give comfort both to the right reverend Prelate and to the noble Lord.
Many noble Lords—I can think of the noble Lords, Lord Annan and Lord McGregor of Durris, and my noble friend Lord Butterworth—spoke about the UGC's suggestion that support was to be reduced by 2 per cent. per year in real terms until 1990. That is the UGC's planning hypothesis for its current review and it provides a margin in case inflation is higher than
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expected and for the committee to retain a central reserve to promote restructuring and other initiatives. The Government's expenditure plans envisage small cash increases in grants to universities in the next few years. The effect in real tems will depend on the rate of inflation, but a reasonable expectation might be that universities will need to make savings of just over 1 per cent. in each of the next two years and rather less in 1988–89.
The noble Lord, Lord McGregor of Durris, accused my right honourable friend of rudeness in the way that he has dealt with the request from the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals for additional funding for the pay of clinical academics. This is not rudeness and I cannot prejudge his reply tonight but I can say that, although the Government are fully seized of the closer interrelationship between the work of clinical academics and doctors and dentists in NHS teaching hospitals, we do not yet know what gap there will be to be bridged between clinical and non-clinical academics if the settlement is to be implemented, because as yet there has been no settlement for non-clinical academics. My right honourable friend is waiting for these points to be considered before he writes to the committee. Certainly no rudeness is involved.
I was very grateful to my noble friend Lord Butterworth for reminding the House about the report of the Jarratt Committee, of which he was a member. He stressed how important it was that the Government should give the best indication of long-term policies for education that they can; I accept that. But experience has shown that for the whole of the public sector it is not practicable to give funding indications for longer than the period covered by each successive public expenditure White Paper. The Government expect their underlying policies to continue beyond that period and it is on that basis that the University Grants Committee has embarked upon its current planning exercise, in which it hopes to agree with each university an academic plan to the end of the decade, including student number indications, of the kind recommended by the Jarratt Committee. I cannot accept the criticism of the noble Lord, Lord McGregor of Durris, of that necessary planning process.
Several noble Lords mentioned international comparisons and that our figures were lower than practically anywhere else. Because of more open access, higher drop-out rates and longer courses, many other developed countries have proportionately more students in higher education than Britain. But surely the best like-for-like comparision is in the output of graduates and diplomates. On that measure, Britain is roughly on a par with West Germany, ahead of the rest of Europe, but some way below Japan and the United States of America. Britain's system of student support is still one of the most generous in the world.
The noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, asked about overseas students. Since the war, this country has tried to do more in the world than can be justified by its economic performance. The realisation of that and adjustment to painful economic realities led to the abandonment progressively by successive governments of a general subsidy for all overseas students. The Government are instead funding a

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programme of targeted support schemes costing more than £70 million a year. We believe that that is the right policy. The noble Lord did not mention that we are currently supporting 65,000 more home students than we were in 1979. That places very real pressures on our capacity to support overseas students. However, I agree with the noble Lord that we must keep the balance of various support schemes under review. I understand that such a process is under way at present. I see that my time is up. I hope that what I have said has convinced noble Lords that the Government are not so evil in this area as some of your Lordships may perhaps have felt. I hope too that I have demonstrated that the Government have the liveliest awareness of the need to co-ordinate the economic, social and cultural objectives of their policies in higher education and will have those concerns very much in mind in the formulation of the further statement of the Government's policies that has been promised in the Green Paper.
Lord Gladwyn: My Lords, before the noble Earl sits down—
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, I cannot answer—I have no time left to do so.
Lord Gladwyn: My Lords, may I take it that the noble Earl will reply in writing to the various questions I put to him?
The Earl of Swinton: I certainly will, my Lords. I should apologise; I had a lot more to read out but my time was up. To be fair to the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, and to other noble Lords, I will of course reply in writing to any points which I have had to miss out.
8.6 p.m.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, at this late hour, and with another debate to come, I shall reply as briefly as I can. First, I must thank all noble Lords who have taken part. I am very glad that it was possible to have this debate. A number of very important points have been raised; particularly points that I myself did not raise in the time allowed to me. One was the importance of continuing education, emphasised first by the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, and then taken up by speaker after speaker.
There was also the point raised by my noble friend Lord Gladwyn, to which he received no satisfactory reply, concerning overseas students. The Government have consistently taken a line that refuses to recognise the real long-term value of having overseas students in this country as a great cultural advantage to other students. I speak as someone who comes from a college that had at one time students of 42 different nationalities. That was of very great benefit to all concerned. There is also the long-term advantage that when foreign students return home they become purchasers who recommend Britain as a place for the expenditure of their own countries' money.
However, such a line is typical of the Government's whole approach, which is to see the entire issue of higher education in the short term rather than the long
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term. They look in the short term for the kind of return on money they expend that they look for in respect of purely commercial matters—for immediate value for money.
I must add that I have nothing against the term "entrepreneurial". I am all for it in its proper place, but as applied to what the Government are doing in higher education it does not seem to be an appropriate expression.
I thank the noble Earl for so nicely reading his brief, even if he failed to answer many of the points that were raised. I would be the first to agree that his noble friend—
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, I really think that the noble Baroness is being a little unkind. I was prepared to answer her noble friend Lord Gladwyn but I had to sit down because my time was up and I wanted the noble Baroness to have a chance to speak. Otherwise, I answered just about every question that was put to me.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, the noble Earl responded, but he gave no reply except that which we have heard over and over again when these issues have been raised.
Nobody would accuse the Minister's right honourable friend the Secretary of State of being other than someone who himself deeply understands—probably more so than most people in your Lordships' House—the value of art subjects and the study of art subjects. However, I feel that the interest of noble Lords in the Government party as a whole in these matters is well demonstrated by the attendance at this debate. On occasion there was no one sitting on the Government Benches except the noble Lord, Lord Butterworth, who criticised the Government, and there was the lone, loyal voice of the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy. It now remains for me to thank all those who participated in the debate and to beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Suicide Act 1961 (Amendment) Bill [H.L.]
8.10 p.m.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Nearly a quarter of a century ago when the noble Earl, Lord Stockton, then Mr. Harold Macmillan, was Prime Minister his Government decided that it should no longer be a crime to take your own life. In moving the Bill on behalf of the Government at that time Mr. Fletcher-Cooke had to face the opposition which naturally enough any progressive move must expect to encounter. To minimise that opposition he introduced a completely new offence—that of aiding or counselling or procuring the suicide of another, which carried a penalty of up to 14 years' imprisonment. There was no provision for any defence, so it became a new crime to assist in bringing about what was no longer a crime, except in Scotland. That is still the law.
In the course of time it was realised that to help another to leave this world was not necessarily a

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criminal act. Indeed, there were circumstances in which a reasonable person might regard it as brave and compassionate. Therefore, several attempts have been made to change the situation in which those who have to administer the law often feel compelled to apologise for it. These attempts over the years have all failed, perhaps because, with the best will in the world, they attempted too much. It is a fault with which I have much sympathy because I have always been prone to it myself. In this Bill I have learned my lesson; so much so that there will be those who no doubt will feel that I have not gone far enough.
Let me seek to justify my timidity. Bolder souls in the past have included my good and noble friend Lady Wootton, who made a very specific attempt in 1976. Noble Lords will be glad to know that our eminent and admirable colleague is on the mend from her accident and they will want to join me in wishing her well.
Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, these early attempts failed as a result of straying into the contentious field of what the popular papers call "mercy killing". This is normally dealt with in the Homicide Act rather than under the Suicide Act, which is the Act I am seeking to amend in this Bill. The Homicide Act is a quagmire and many well-intentioned efforts have disappeared in it without trace. All the same, public opinion is changing and I remind your Lordships that The Sunday Times, no less, gave outright and unequivocal support to voluntary euthanasia just a year ago, arising from the committal of Mrs. Charlotte Hough to nine months' imprisonment for assisting, or attempting to assist, an old friend to leave this earth when, for very good reasons, she urgently desired to go.
Nevertheless, I have resisted the temptation to go further and have not sought, neither shall I seek, to amend the Homicide Act. This Bill is confined to the Suicide Act 1961 and it does only two things. First, it provides the Director of Public Prosecutions with a reason not to subject a compassionate assister to the trials of prosecution and sentence if he judges that the defence provided for in the Bill would succeed. Secondly, it provides a compassionate judge and jury with justification to refrain from convicting in a case in which they might otherwise decide they have no alternative under the present statute.
It does those two things by its single operative clause which reads:
"It shall be a defence to any charge under this Act that the accused acted on behalf of the person who committed suicide and in so acting behaved reasonably and with compassion and in good faith".
I repeat:
"on behalf of the person who committed suicide and in so acting behaved reasonably and with compassion and in good faith".
It does not remove the offence, nor does it seek to do so. It simply provides a defence. That is all. Because that is all, it avoids the trap of placing, for example, a special responsibility upon doctors, many of whom I am sure would feel a dislike in being singled out—and, in earlier proposals, probably have felt such a dislike—for a duty or a responsibility which, although they may well act compassionately in practice, they have no wish to see spelled out in legislation.
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The Bill does not seek to do those things. It may be that if your Lordships decide that I may proceed to a later stage, an attempt will be made to include amendments to the Homicide Act. If that were to occur, your Lordships would decide what to do about that at the appropriate time. It may be that if this Bill became law, a bolder soul might attempt a more difficult task later on. If that occurred, your Lordships would decide what to do about that at the time. What I ask your Lordships to consider this evening is something much less than that. We shall all be eager to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, has to say on behalf of Her Majesty's Government.
For myself, I have in mind only a single amendment to the Bill. It arises from an error. Since the 1961 Act refers to suicide, or an attempt to commit suicide, the Bill should do the same. Therefore, I shall propose an amendment to that effect, if your Lordships permit the Bill to proceed to a later stage.
I have no complaints about the way in which the existing law has been administered. Cases have been few—two or three a year. Sentences have often sought, it seems, to take into account precisely those considerations which my Bill says should be taken into account. They have done so despite the fact that existing legislation gives no encouragement to do so. In fact, it does not distinguish between an obvious crime committed for gain and an act prompted by the highest motives.
So why legislate?—because it is desirable that the Attorney-General, the Director of Public Prosecutions, judges and juries shall be given the support of the law in what they are already doing and because we should bring the law into line with existing practice before even contemplating changing it in a substantive way.
The time may not be far distant when such a change will be generally acceptable, but I am not urging it upon your Lordships tonight. We have all read such phrases as "Nobody could have heard what has been said in this court without feeling the deepest compassion", or, "This has been a harrowing and heartrending case." Some of us may even have uttered them. If your Lordships decide to pass this Bill, many such cases will not need to come to court, and if they do come to court, there will be better reason than hitherto for the compassionate view that the courts have often taken; that is, of course, if the court decides that such a view is appropriate in the particular case.
A couple of years—a couple of dozen years—have passed since the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, supported in this House the Act which I now seek to amend, and I am enchanted to see him in his place tonight, though I freely confess to your Lordships that I do not know what he will say. It is my hope tonight that he will feel that my Bill finds a solution to a problem which has troubled many people and that it does so without the least danger of opening the way to murder. It does not even approach that way; it simply provides a defence for one who has clone what many of us hope we might have the courage to do if we were answering the plea of a friend or a relative. It also means that if we were in the position of asking for that assistance, we could do so without feeling that we were subjecting our reliever to a risk of up to 14

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years' imprisonment. We might well try to suffer in silence, if we could be silent, rather than take that course.
In both Houses it was pointed out in 1961, and it has been argued since, that Scotland has done without Clause 2 of this Bill altogether, without any ill-effects so far as is known. Even now I do not want to go so far as Scotland has gone. As I say, this is a timid Bill which in no way changes the fundaments of the law. It simply brings the Suicide Act 1961 into line with what has been the desire and the practice of the courts in most of the cases which have been determined in the 24 years of its existence. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Jenkins of Putney.)
8.22 p.m.
The Earl of Cork and Orrery The Earl of Cork and Orrery rose to move, as an amendment to the Motion that the Bill be now read a second time, to leave out ("now") and at the end to insert ("this day six months").
The noble Earl said: My Lords, I beg to move the amendment standing in my name on the Order Paper, and I need hardly remind your Lordships that if it is carried it will have the effect of killing the Bill. I must admit to feeling rather beastly—or I shall be rather beastly—toward the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, who has presented his Bill with such lucid charm and with such evident confidence in its total harmlessness that I find it quite difficult to contemplate the awful task which I have set myself of totally contradicting almost everything that he has said. I hope he will forgive me. It is done in compassion and in good faith, I assure your Lordships.
I have told several people who have not met it about this Bill—say, a dozen or so, inside and outside this House—and I have read it or given it to them to read or paraphrased it to them over the telephone, giving one reading only and offering no comment of my own. With one exception, they expressed themselves appalled. The one exception was a distinguished lawyer who reserved his judgment for 24 hours and then, so far as I was able to understand, came down on my side.
My speech will not be very long, and from the sound of it I think you may be reassured that it will peter out pretty smartly. I will do my best—I hope I am audible. Perhaps I may make a small preliminary remark to give an indication of what is to come. If a person is to be accused under the Suicide Act, he will have a defence which forms the substance of the amendment that the noble Lord, has proposed. He is to be accused, or not, as the case may be, of assisting or abetting, or whatever it is, a suicide. Suicide is something which a person does on purpose. One cannot do it by accident or in a fit of absent-mindedness. The word, by definition, means a deliberate act.
So, someone is to be accused of assisting in this deliberate act and he will defend himself on the grounds set forth in the Bill. In order to do that, in order for him to be accused at all, in fact, it has to be established that the deceased person committed suicide; and in order to do that, it has also to be
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proved, by the definition I have just mentioned, that he meant to die, that it was his wish to die. How is the prosecution to establish that fact in the case of a man who is dead? Probably the only person who can be asked in most cases whether this particular person wished to die or not, is the man whom it is proposed to accuse of the killing. I think this is the sort of difficulty that we shall encounter as we discuss this Bill and it is worth remembering that fact in connection with what the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, said about the fundaments of the law being in no way changed by his amendment. I think that they would change very considerably.
Noble Lords will remember that in the past 16 years or so there have been two Bills of the same general class as this particular Bill falls into. They were the Voluntary Euthanasia Bill 1969—I am not implying that this is a euthanasia Bill; that is not my point exactly—and the Incurable Patients Bill 1975. Both those Bills were defeated on Second Reading by means of the process which is now being employed. In their different ways and for different purposes those Bills were drafted in such a way that they provided elaborate and carefully thought out safeguards against misuse.
The patients, or whoever they were, who were requesting euthanasia, or whatever it might be, were required to do something like signing a document in advance, laying down the circumstances in which they wished to be relieved from continuing a life which had become to them a matter of nothing but misery or despair. Then—this, in general, was the principle that was employed—when the time came that they were apparently in that condition, probably two doctors would be required to certify that the circumstances in which the patient now found himself were those that the patient had originally foreseen when he signed his declaration. This was done in order to safeguard the person from wrongly being allowed to die or being put to death against his will.
In this Bill there is not only no such attempt at any safeguard, but there is no acknowledgment—indeed, there is a contradiction on the part of the noble Lord himself; and he has said so—that there is the possibility of any danger arising to the patient, or the sufferer whether he is a patient or not. I think there is and I shall make so bold as to say now that this Bill, in my opinion, for all its tiny size, is probably one of the most deadly Bills that has ever been introduced into Parliament—and I shall show you why.
The noble Lord used the words "reasonably", "in compassion" and "in good faith". Let us imagine—it is very easy I think for almost anyone to imagine—a fairly typical situation of a kind of which we have all heard which arises fairly commonly. Let us imagine an unmarried daughter, living with her mother, herself in her middle or late thirties; her mother is ill, housebound, demanding, dependent entirely on her daughter, who, in the straitened circumstances which this family seem to enjoy, has no life of her own. She can scarcely go out. Her whole time is devoted to the needs of her mother, who puts great burdens upon her.
She sees her life fading away and all chances of leading any form of worthwhile life receding into the distance while her mother becomes more and more

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difficult but has a considerable span of life left ahead of her. About this she can do nothing. Then, lo and behold! suddenly in what I insist is my imaginary story, there comes upon the statute book and to her ears this Bill from her noble benefactor, the noble Lord. Lord Jenkins. The clouds roll away. She can acquire a drug—it is not difficult to do that—which will provide the happy dispatch for her mother.
She puts some of the pills into her aspirin bottle, she waits quietly until the old lady has taken them, and the old lady dies. She then takes all the pills and puts them back in their own bottle, puts them on the table by her mother's bed and rings the police. No longer does she have to wait, hoping that her subterfuge will work and that she will have deceived the law into thinking that her mother has committed suicide when she has not. On the contrary, she will send for the police and she will say, "My mother has committed suicide"; and they will ask, "How do you know?" She will say, "Look at these pills. I found them by her bedside. I know what they are. I bought them. I gave them to her myself. I assisted her to commit suicide. I killed her practically, with her help". That is not an unreasonable action. The question is, was it compassionate?
It is not difficult for an unfortunate woman in the state that this lady is in by this time to display a certain amount of emotion, whatever it may be; but compassion would not be difficult to counterfeit, especially if she had been known to the neighbours and the few people who saw her with her mother as someone who had devoted her life to her mother and was continuing to do so with total disregard for her own comfort, safety or future. They will speak of her compassion.
Then we come to the phrase, "in good faith". Your Lordships know as well as I do what that phrase means. I have not the slightest idea; it could mean anything at any moment. I have not the slightest doubt that this highly reasonable Bill was drafted by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, in compassion and in good faith, but look at what it can do! It is deadly. When I said that before, the noble Lord laughed; he does not laugh this time quite so freely. This is a deadly Bill, and it is deadly because of those three words. It is deadly for another reason, too.
Lord Paget of Northampton: My Lords, the noble Lord continually refers to the old lady as, "this unfortunate woman". That indeed must be true while she was alive, but why should we pity her when she goes to a happier place?
The Earl of Cork and Orrery: Because, my Lords, she has been murdered when she did not wish to be murdered. That is not a fate that I would wish on somebody else's mother.
Two former Bills have failed, largely for one reason. They came upon a stumbling block which lies in the way of this Bill also. It is, I believe, though of course I cannot swear to this, because I am talking about something that may be only in the future, a stumbling block that is unavoidable. It will never be escaped; and it is simply this. It is the circumstance that the deed destroys the evidence. Never can one refer to the
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person who is dead to discover whether he wanted to die or not. Therefore never can one discover Whether he committed suicide, as in the case of this Bill, and so never can one discover whether the person who did it was helping him to commit suicide or was committing murder. I know of no way round that difficulty. I am very much surprised that the noble Lord himself did not see it. I am sure that he did not or he would have done something about it, because it is an absolute stopper on the Bill.
I do not wish to go too far, but to my way of thinking the Bill for those reasons only—and I do not propose to adduce any more—is for its size about the most deadly Bill that has been introduced into Parliament. To me it is a black widow spider of a Bill, so small and so deadly that one does not see it coming but by the time you notice it somebody is probably dead. I beg to move the amendment.
Moved, as an amendment to the Motion that the Bill be now read a second time, to leave out ("now") and at the end to insert ("this day six months").—(The Earl of Cork and Orrery.)
The Deputy Speaker (Earl Cathcart): My Lords, the original Question was, That this Bill be now read a second time, since when an amendment has been moved to leave out "now" and at the end to insert "this day six months". The Question that I now therefore have put is, That this amendment be agreed to.
8.34 p.m.
Lord Beaumont of Whitley: My Lords, with this Bill, small as it is, we are treading on the edge of a complex and emotion-charged matter. It is a legislative minefield which I for one have long felt needed clearing up, but I have always been too cowardly to attempt it lest I should do more harm than good. It is for that reason that I am heartfelt in my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, for bringing the Bill before us; and above all I am thankful for the ingenuity of those who have drafted it in this way. It may be that it needs improving and that it can be improved, but I shall come to that later. I think that the basic idea is right.
As this Bill comes before us we start with the Suicide Act 1961, legislation passed by Parliament virtually without contention as being a long overdue and necessary change in statute law. Suicide has been decriminalised and we do not need to go back to that argument again. If we did of course we could have quite fun. Whether suicide is sinful or not is another matter. Of course it is in the sense that all human actions are tainted with sin. Whether it is always wrong is another matter. A society brought up to admire the self-sacrifice of Captain Oates would probably find that view difficult to hold.
We could possibly get intellectual pleasure by discussing the case of Major Robinson. Noble Lords may remember that he was deeply in debt and his life was insured by a policy which could be paid out even if he committed suicide. It was due to expire at three o'clock one afternoon. He took a taxi past St. James's Palace, told the taxi driver to look at the clock and shot himself through the head. It was an action judged to be

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criminal and therefore he could not benefit from it and nor could his creditors. But the judge in the case commented on the sense of honour and decency which had led him to take the action that he did. Such are the difficulties of working out the morals and ethics of these cases.
But the law has decriminalised suicide, and we also know that the law is a bit of an ass if it decriminalises suicide and yet makes it impossible for those who may most need it—those who are incapacitated and unable to do anything for themselves, even to end their lives; those who want out not on a whim but as a result of many months or even years of consideration and thought and who suddenly find at the last moment that there is no way.
This is no party matter, but I think that it is a matter in which your Lordships should try to find as much consensus as possible. Those of us who speak from Front Benches have a duty to try to explore that consensus. I sense that there may be reasonably wide agreement so far as I have gone. If it were possible to decriminalise the acts of those who are genuinely and only helping people who wish to be helped in that way, we should do it. I did not understand the noble Earl to speak against that contention.
Is it possible then to do this? Is it possible to draft a law? The noble Earl said he did not think that it was. I used to think that it was impossible, which is the main reason that I have always refused when I have been asked, as I have, to bring in a Bill on this matter.
I incline to think, however, that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, and his advisers are moving in the right direction towards drafting an amendment to the law that might fulfil that condition. The important thing seems to be that the onus of proof should be placed on the accused in such a situation. If that can be done, it does exactly what we are searching for. The person assisting the suicide has not only to have clean hands and a pure heart but he has to be able to prove his possession of them beyond the shadow of a doubt or risk 14 years in prison. It is not a risk that many of us would want to take without making sure that every intention of the deceased was proved beyond the faintest shadow of that doubt. I very much doubt whether the hypothetical lady whom the noble Earl has brought before us would fall within the confines of what a judge and jury who are quite rightly suspicious, and the DPP who is even more rightly suspicious, would find to be justifiable.
What anyone wishing to help in such a situation would have to do to enable them to satisfy the DPP, it seems to me, is to provide evidence that the lady, if she ever got into a situation like this, had wanted to end her own life by means of one of those declarations with any necessary requirements for attestation and for genuineness. She would have to put up as a defence that she had incontestable proof that the person concerned had wanted to die. There will be those who think that even under such circumstances it is not right to legalise assistance to suicides. To them I say, "Are you sure your case is logical?" or "Does it hark back to a feeling that all suicide is a sin?" If the former, you are right to oppose the Bill. If the latter, you are wrong, I think, to take the argument back before the passing of the Act.
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As for me, I shall listen to the arguments. I am impressed by the case that the noble Earl has put forward. I do not believe, however, that I am impressed to the stage that I would not want to give the Bill a Second Reading. I think I am impressed to the stage where I would want to explore in Committee the possibility that the wording was not necessarily right. That, I think, is what I would urge on your Lordships this evening.
8.43 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Ely: My Lords, I must apologise for speaking a second time from these Benches in one afternoon. I wish to make one point clear at the start. I rise to express unease about this brief but very significant proposed amendment to the Suicide Act 1961. It is an unease which I feel very deeply myself and which I have good reason to believe would be felt by my own fellow churchmen. But let me say at once that I am conscious that the motive from which the Bill springs is that which is incorporated in the wording of the noble Lord's Bill itself—in the word "compassion". We are invited to acknowledge the compassionate concern that might prompt someone to help a fellow human being to find their way out of the pain and grief of life as it has become for them by ending it themselves. Put in those terms, who would focus the issue more quickly for us than the doctor faced with such a plea from his patient? My point—I hope that I am not misunderstanding the matter—is that surely we cannot form a mind on this proposed amendment to the law without taking account of the whole of that complex and subtle moral question, euthanasia. I could foresee great concern not only in the medical profession but also among churchmen at the passing of this Bill.
I should perhaps indicate that I have a particular interest and responsibility here. I serve as chairman of the Hospital Chaplaincies Council of the General Synod of the Church of England, a body that has particular responsibilities towards hospital chaplains in the advising not only of them—they are people likely to be asked for their pastoral wisdom—but also in the advising of the medical profession when asked whether the Church has something to say upon such deep and urgent moral questions as this. At its best, I would venture to believe that the Church of England has a tradition of approaching questions or morality rather particularly in the terms which make an immediate appeal to us in this Bill. Reasonableness, compassion and good faith are the criteria to be appealed to.
May I be particular and say that 1975 was the year in which your Lordships' House, as we have been reminded, rejected decisively by 83 votes to 23 a Bill to look with much sympathy on the person moved to suicide. I shall not go into details. It was the 1975 Incurable Patients Bill. In that same year, the Board for Social Responsibility of the Church of England published the report of a working party on euthanasia. The report has no more authority than that. But it was the work of a distinguished body of doctors and moralists and included a legal chancellor. It was entitled. On Dying Well. It attempted explicitly
"to do justice to the case for voluntary euthanasia".

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So it took account of the case of the doctor who might be asked by someone to help them to end their life. It addressed itself inevitably to the legal situation about suicide since the Act of 1961 and complicity in suicide. It asked about possible legal changes. On that, it reached the following conclusions,
"It would of course be comparatively simple to amend still further the law relating to suicide and murder so that it would no longer be an offence either to assist another to commit suicide or to kill another at that other's request. It would be comparatively simple but many people think that it would be highly dangerous, so dangerous that it is unlikely to be proposed save under severe limitations".
Whether the limitations that might be envisaged in this Bill would ever begin to be rigorous enough to give protection against the Bill's misuse is a question upon which one would surely want the most careful and rigorous advice. The report, having looked, as I have emphasised, most compassionately on arguments for change, concludes that a change in the law in this country to permit euthanasia would not be acceptable.
I lift out only two of the reasons given for that conclusion. May I try to put them in the form of the questions that we should apply to the particular proposal in this Bill? The first question to be applied along the thinking of the report that I have mentioned would be this: have you weighed whether your proposal, however well meant, would in fact have the effect, by the way that it was seen, of weakening that respect for human life which the present law helps to inculcate? In our present world it would be no kindness to our society or to any of us to risk something that might, by the way that it was seen in the law by the public, give the impression of weakening that respect for human life which the present law helps us to inculcate.
Secondly, to be particular, the question might be this: have you taken account of the pressure which such a provision in the law might put upon the infirm person, or the person who was grieved because he or she felt that they were being a burden on others and were useless, to ask someone else to help them ease themselves out of life? In a discussion on euthanasia I well remember that we once asked a charge nurse, "What do you do with someone in that extreme situation and condition?" "We nurse them," he said.
The compassionate-looking and no doubt compassionately intended provision of a defence is surely too wide and dangerous an opening of the door. Certainly it is not one with which we should proceed without much further thought.
8.52 p.m.
Baroness Macleod of Borve: My Lords, I feel that it is very difficult to follow the right reverend Prelate because he knows so much about the moral side as well as the problems of people and he has made a brilliant speech, if I may be allowed to say so.
As all your Lordships will be aware, nothing changes. The last such discussion that we had, which was on the Incurable Patients Bill, was in February 1976, very nearly 10 years ago. Oddly enough that was preceded on the Order Paper that afternoon by the Shops Bill, with regard to Sunday opening. I was present and had the pleasure of speaking that afternoon, and we had the benefit of an amendment
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couched in precisely the same words which was moved by my noble friend Lord Cork and Orrery and as the right reverend Prelate said, he very convincingly won that debate by 85 votes to 23. That Bill was introduced by someone who is very dear to everybody in this House, the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger. I am so glad to know that she is so much better. I have the Hansard report of that debate in front of me. At col. 196 the noble Baroness said:
"It is not a Bill that legalises euthanasia, or what is often called mercy killing"—
which is perhaps what we are considering this evening—
"It leaves totally unchanged the present law about homicide, so that any person, be he layman, doctor or nurse, who administers a legal dose deliberately and knowingly, or otherwise destroys the life of another person, is liable to a charge of murder—and will be liable under this Bill".—[Official Report, 12/2/76; col. 196.]
Those were strong words, but I think they carried the day.
Noble Lords and certainly I myself would never dispute the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, brought this Bill to us this evening with the best possible motives. Unfortunately it is so wide and there are so many implications in it that sometimes it is very difficult to follow it through. I for one must certainly resist the Bill and agree very much with my noble friend Lord Cork and Orrery who has presented the amendment particularly well this evening.
We all know elderly patients—I fear that I know several—with long illnesses who are being nursed, sometimes at home and sometimes in hospital, and this brings a great deal of unhappiness not only to them but also to their families and friends. Sometimes it is not possible to know whether they would wish to end their lives. This is where the wider implications arise because in my opinion if this section of the Suicide Act is amended, it will give a licence to kill to anyone and everyone who wishes to see the particular person out of the way. The murder—for that is what it could be—could be for personal gain, for money, for revenge, or for many other reasons. It could be committed by unscrupulous people who have axes to grind or scores to settle.
We live, unfortunately, in an age of social revolution in which the morals of the people of our society have changed considerably, I maintain, in the last 10 to 20 years. I am afraid that I have to say from my own knowledge that in the world today there are far more people who will try to end other people's lives—and not by gunfire. The noble Lord, referring to a hypothetical case, told us of somebody wishing to end somebody else's life; they can do it. The chemistry is possible and, unfortunately, an enormous number of people know how to do it. They could easily persuade somebody that they were old, that they were in the way, and that they should die, as the right reverend Prelate said. That, in my view, would be mercy killing. Whether that would stand in a court under this Bill is very unlikely because the Bill reads,
"It shall be a defence to any charge under this Act that the accused acted on behalf of the person who committed suicide and in so acting behaved reasonably and with compassion and in good faith.".
It is the word "suicide" that worries me because nobody would know whether the person wanted to commit suicide or whether he or she had been killed

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quite deliberately. I am afraid that I have to go against the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, though, as I have said, I am sure that he has brought this Bill before the House tonight in good faith.
8.58 p.m.
Lord Denning: My Lords, the discussion this evening raises ethical, moral and legal questions of the first importance: euthanasia and mercy killing. May I deal with the legal side?
For centuries suicide was regarded as the most heinous crime known to our law, a man rushing into the presence of his Maker unasked. His body was staked to the crossroads with a stone on his head; his property was all forfeited to the Crown; and he was denied Christian burial. Your Lordships will all remember Ophelia and the gravediggers:
"Is she to be allowed Christian burial that wilfully seeks her own salvation?"
That was our law for centuries. When I was first on the Bench, in cases of attempted suicide the usual sentence was six months' imrisonment. Later, when I was still there, we no longer sentenced attempted suicides to imprisonment. We realised that there was a case for compassion and treatment. We put them on probation, or the like, so there was no longer any punishment for suicide or attempted suicide.
As my noble friend has said—and I was engaged in that case in a major role—as a result of all that we had the debate (and I was here) in 1961, and how good it was to abolish from our law attempted suicide as a crime. That went. But then there was a danger unless we replaced it by something. We had to do that by amendment of the Act itself so that if anyone aids or abets, counsels or procures another to commit suicide, then he is guilty of a new offence, complicity. We could all see the dangers of complicity in suicide; the danger that a person who wanted to inherit property from another would therefore perhaps induce him to commit suicide.
We could also see the extreme other case of great pain, lingering illness, something to allay that anxiety and distress. Why should not a doctor be allowed perhaps to hasten the death? The law was well stated, and is still stated, in these words in the standard book of Smith and Hogan:
"The new crime of complicity in suicide is one which covers a variety of situations varying almost infinitely in moral culpability; from the person who encourages another to commit suicide in order to inherit his property, to that of a person who merely supplies a deadly drug to a suffering and dying patient who is anxious to accelerate the end".
Then this is the important part:
"In order to achieve consistency in the bringing of prosecutions, this is made one of those issues in which the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions is required."
There is what the law provides to deal with what I may call the hard cases. The consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions is required. He should not prosecute in the ordinary case of mercy killing, and I hope he will not. There was a difficulty in the past when prosecutions were launched perhaps by the chief constable or by the police. But now under our new Prosecution of Offenders Act the Director of Public Prosecutions takes it in hand himself—it is not the
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police any more—and furthermore under our latest Act he has to report to the Minister, to the Attorney-General, and to the public guidelines on the policy which he adopts in regard to prosecutions.
I anticipate, and hope, that in that way a policy will be evolved from case to case which he can report and from which it can be clear, and clear to the public, that, in cases such as my noble friend Lord Jenkins has mentioned, which really ought not to be regarded as criminal and certainly ought not to be prosecuted at all, there will be no prosecution. Therefore, in a sense, without any amendment such as my noble friend suggests, by this almost procedural means we can achieve the result which is desired.
However, that means not altering our present law. Let me tell you the dangers which underlie this amendment. Take the suicide pact. The law at the moment is that if one survives and the other is killed, the survivor is guilty of a crime. Now, in the very case that I take of a man and woman together agreeing to commit suicide, the man makes all the preparations, lays on the gas and turns it on, and the woman dies first. She may have turned on the tap, I do not know. The woman dies first. The man, deliberately or not, repents; he survives. At the moment, under our law, he is guilty of this very offence we are now considering, complicity in suicide.
I would suggest that that law should be retained. The man who agrees with a woman to commit suicide together, the woman dies, the man survives, surely that suicide pact ought to be condemned by the law, whereas as I read this suggested amendment he would have a get-out. He would allege that he was acting reasonably, and all that sort of thing. That is the one illustration I would take of the suicide pact.
The other thing that worries me is the effect of this amendment, if it is passed, on the publicity which can be issued by organisations such as Exit (they have been before the courts) issuing booklets explaining how people can commit suicide—how many tablets they should take, or what gas they should put on, or whatever—and thereby encouraging, inducing or persuading people to commit suicide. Those people at the moment may be caught as having complicity in the crime, but they might get out if this amendment were passed. In other words, from a lawyer's point of view, I see dangers in allowing this amending Bill which the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, has so ably put forward to be brought into our law. I should have thought it would be better to leave the law as it stands with cases of mercy killing or euthanasia being dealt with each time on their merits, not coming before the judges unless they were proper cases and the new prosecution service would only prosecute when there was a proper case to do so.
We heard yesterday all about the European Convention on Human Rights. The first paragraph of Article 2 of that convention reads:
"Everyone's right to life shall be protected by law. No one shall be deprived of his life intentionally save in the execution of a sentence of a court following his conviction of a crime for which this penalty is provided by law.".
In other words, no one shall be deprived of his life intentionally save by death sentence imposed by law. The convention does not say "save in the case of mercy killing or euthanasia". I wonder whether this

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amendment would not fall foul of the European Convention. I need not go into that because of the reasons I have mentioned. I feel it would be too dangerous to allow this amendment to be brought in, and for that reason I support the amendment of my noble friend Lord Cork and Orrery.
9.10 p.m.
Lord Paget of Northampton: My Lords, I have in the distant past often had the privilege of speaking before the noble and learned Lord. Now for the first time I have the opportunity of speaking after him and disagreeing with him.
First, I think that the noble and learned Lord is stretching logic when he suggests that a preamble to a declaration of human rights includes a mistatement that killing people is contrary to human rights. I do not think it is anything in the world to do with suicide. The second point which I challenge him on is that he said that when he was a young man suicide was regarded as the second greatest crime after murder. I would challenge that.
Lord Denning: My Lords, not when I was a young man.
Lord Paget of Northampton: I am sorry, my Lords. The crime next to murder, as juries were constantly told, was abortion. Now abortion is state-subsidised. Ethics change with experience. We have to consider life as it develops. The need to bring unwanted children into an already overcrowded world has been recognised and our acceptance of crime changes.
I base my case overwhelming upon the question of human rights. Of all animal creation, man alone has been given the right, the privilege, to decide whether he lives or dies. That is man's decision given to him as it is given to none of the beasts. The ox, poor brute, lives because he must. Man lives because he chooses, and to deprive him of that choice is to me an invasion of human rights and I should like to see it taken to the Court of Human Rights.
Having said that, it drives me to say that it is very much the experience of people I have known and loved and who have died that it is not a question of human pain. Pain is terminal; pain can end. It is the moral deterioration involved—the loss of courage which goes through the decaying of the body; the indifference to the burdens that are being imposed upon the living and the loss of self-respect. The noble Earl gave us an example of the old woman who continued carrying on a life which was hopeless and the price of which was ruining her daughter's life. Would she really have taken that decision when she was compos mentis? Would she have started the relationship of having her life carried on by a daughter whose life was being destroyed in the process? That she went on accepting that can only be the result of a moral decay that comes from dying, and it is that to which I refer.
So far as I am concerned, I have not been particularly afraid of death; I have been very afraid of dying. Death to me, so long as I am compos mentis and can meet it, is no great terror. I do not want to decay. From many years ago, I have formed a pact with a friend, in which we have each promised, at the request of the
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other, to come and give the assistance requested. I can assure my friend that he need have no anxieties so far as I am concerned. Whether or not this law is in being will not make the slightest difference to me in that pact.
However from the other end of it, can one ask for it? Again, I have an escape hatch: a window which is high enough to be certain, and has bricks under it. I can do it myself. But I believe that unless I am going to "make" by doing it that day, it will be very unkind to the person who would do it. I should vastly prefer to be able to take the necessary pills and have somebody with me who assures me I am not going to have the indignity of coming back to life. That is how the present situation strikes me and I think strikes quite a lot of other people.
Am I wrong in this? Here I think perhaps I must put in a mild protest at being lectured on ethics by the Anglican Church. The Anglican Church is now a very minority sect. It has told us in a recent report that in the inner cities it is down to 1 per cent. I doubt whether it is much higher anywhere else. I think the number of practising Anglicans in this country at the moment is probably below the level of that of the Mohammedans, if one measures in terms of the number of churchgoers. I think it has very much lost its position because its ethic has been rejected. Indeed, one is sometimes suspicious of a Church which finds itself in a position in which, when it has to appoint new bishops, it has great difficulty in finding one who believes in God. I do not accept lectures on ethics from a Church which, in war and peace, has been wrong on almost every ethical issue which has emerged and changed. I refer to abortion as one of them.
I say that this is an ethical matter. I should be utterly ashamed of myself if I denied my assistance to a friend who had taken the choice and determined that life was no longer tolerable. I am certainly not going to accept, and I think few people will accept, the compulsion which is in the Act at the moment. What we are doing, and what my noble friend is suggesting we do, is really to bring the law into relation with reality.
9.19 p.m.
Lord Robertson of Oakridge: My Lords, my aim is to say why I am against this Bill. I propose to centre my remarks on the very real problem of the severely handicapped and the chronically sick, especially elderly people. Although I do not agree with the Bill's answer to the problem, I acknowledge that those who support the Bill are sincere in their desire to find a humane and compassionate answer to it. I just do not believe that they have found the right answer.
In the first place, the wording of the Bill is so vague and subjective that it would be open to gross misinterpretation. It would be taken by some as a charter for euthanasia and by others as a cloak for murder. However, my fundamental reason for disliking the Bill is that it treats God-given human life as if it were disposable. It would open the door to those who might feel it right to end the life of another person because that person had become a burden or even an inconvenience.
In doing so, it takes us further down the road which started with the Abortion Act of 1967, the Act itself,

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and, even more, the liberal interpretation of it by some doctors. That road leads, and indeed has already led, to acquiescence in the killing of handicapped newborn babies. We now have in this Bill the proposed erosion of the right to live, at the other end of the human life span. To see where that road can take us, we have only to look at Nazi Germany where handicapped people were disposed of as an official policy. Of course, by no means am I suggesting that anyone in your Lordships' House is advocating that state of affairs. May I for a moment speak at a more personal level? Statistically, some Members of your Lordships' House are going to become chronically ill in old age. If I become one of those, I do not want those looking after me to be tempted to put pressure on me to take my own life. Nor do I want to spend my time imagining that they are trying to find ways to help me to do so.
Rather, what our society has to do is to find other more positive ways to help the chronically sick and the handicapped. The hospice movement points out one way and the social services another. Both do invaluable work to ease the emotional and physical burden on families responsible for the aged and chronically ill. We must put this work in the forefront of our priorities; and of course it will be costly. To help those people to take their own lives, as this Bill in effect would permit, is a solution only of convenience and expediency. I hope that your Lordships will decisively reject it.
9.21 p.m.
Lord Swinfen: My Lords, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, has already mentioned the first point that I wish to bring up on this Bill. That concerns my noble friend Lord Broxbourne's Bill of yesterday. I think that the two are totally incompatible. My noble friend yesterday said that he cannot think that there can be any dissent from the importance of those rights and the desirability of protecting their enjoyment, when he was talking about the first part of Schedule 1 of his Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms Bill. If I may quote from that Bill, it says:
"Everyone's right to life shall be protected by law. No one shall be deprived of his life intentionally save in the execution of a sentence of a court following his conviction of a crime for which this penalty is provided by law".
I realise that if this Bill we are now discussing becomes law, my noble friend's Bill of yesterday covers its provisions; and the two technically do not clash. But the spirit of each is fundamentally opposed to the other. I prefer the spirit in the Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms Bill that we agreed to yesterday.
There is one point that has not been covered this evening and that is that an attempted suicide is not always serious. It is very often only a cry for help. When someone cries for help, we go to their aid. When a man is in the sea and he is drowning, we pull him out; we do not hold him under. As I read this Bill, it is an invitation to hold the drowning man under the water and not to bring him out. I think it is quite
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wrong. I think that the noble Lord who has introduced the Bill intends to be compassionate, to help those in difficulty; but I do not think he is succeeding. I think he is running a very dangerous course. People recover from illness both physical and mental.
How often have we heard a person who is in some difficulty—and particularly a young person—a difficulty of no great importance, really, but which seems important to them at the time, say, "I wish I were dead!" If, when they say that, they clasp a pillow to their face and burst into tears, are we to put one hand on the pillow and the other on the back of their head and suffocate them? No, my Lords, we are not; we are going to give them comfort and courage to go on and face that difficulty. The overcoming of difficulties is part of life. The noble Lord, I am afraid, is offering a method of opting out without facing the difficulties.
We have also heard something about the difficulties for doctors. The modern hospice movement, both inside the institution and out in the home, is helping people to face dying in comfort and dignity—a great deal more comfort and a great deal more dignity than was present a few years ago. It is not an invitation to the doctor to give them a lethal dose for the sake of putting them out of their misery. It is not an invitation to prolong life in indignity and discomfort. The fact that some medicines may have the effect of shortening life does not mean to say that a doctor who is making someone comfortable is deliberately shortening that person's life. He is not: he is just trying to help.
There is also another problem here. A suicide that is not successful, whether helped or not, can very often lead, through physical or mental handicap caused by that attempt, to very many years of the most appalling discomfort and distress, not only for the individual whose suicide was attempted—and, if this Bill goes through, helped—and failed in this instance, but to family and friends. That is a point which I think the noble Lord has not taken on board.
There is also another point. I am not a lawyer but as I read this Bill I think anyone brought up before a court under the Suicide Act 1961 and pleading this particular Bill, should it become law, in his defence must physically prove his innocence. It is very difficult. I do not think this Bill helps in that respect at all. I am sorry: the noble Lord thinks it is funny but I do not. I think it is very serious.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, the noble Lord will forgive me. I was trying to discover which side he was on. He appeared to be arguing in the opposite direction just now to the one which he is now pursuing.
Lord Swinfen: My Lords, I think not. I may not be making myself very clear, but I do not think this Bill is going to help someone. I believe that people will feel that they have a licence to help people commit suicide, but in fact they have not. It could well be a disguise for murder in certain cases; and that worries me very much about this Bill. I think I have said enough to make it clear that if there is a Division tonight I shall vote in favour of the amendment.
9.28 p.m.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, I think that nearly all the points I wish to make have been made by previous speakers, but I will just say how much I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Cork and Orrery, about the vital importance of consent, about which this Bill says nothing. It does not even say anything about a request from the person who is to be assisted out of life. I found myself carried along, persuaded and in agreement with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, both on the legalities—the present ones and the probable future ones—of the situation and on the crucial importance of the European Convention on Human Rights, which we were discussing only last night.
I should like to ask the promoters of the Bill what consultations they had before bringing it to your Lordships' House. It seems to me that many people will be put at risk if the Bill were to become law, and some of those people are extremely vulnerable. I will start by mentioning young people under the age of 18. I think all parents know that adolescents are sometimes subject to quite violent swings of mood, swings which may bring on depression and suicidal feelings. Many parents have experienced threats of suicide from their children. I should therefore like to ask whether there were any consultations with organisations representing either parents or young people. Furthermore, it seems to me that the mentally handicapped and the mentally ill will both be at risk, and I wonder what consultations there were in that respect.
I have down at the moment on the Order Paper a Question for Written Answer inquiring about the number of suicides among prisoners. It is probable that there are far too many already and I fear that this Bill would encourage even more. Those who have experience of drug addiction and drug addicts advise me (though this is not my view) that the effect of the Bill would be to increase the risks among this group of the population.
I should also like to ask what consultations were had with representatives of religious opinion, for, by facilitating suicide, the Bill appears to flout the religious convictions and the consciences of many. What consultations were there with the medical profession, who are bound by their Hippocratic oath to preserve life and not to terminate it needlessly?
Personally, I believe that death should occur in the fullness of time. It should not be induced or accelerated. It is indeed an important part of life, a transition to a new life; or, as others may see it, a transition to nothingness. We all, I think, deserve help in dying. We need family support and also social help, medical care and spiritual aid.
As has already been mentioned, the hospice movement is leading the way in providing all these things, both in the homes of individual people and in purpose-built buildings. It is highly experienced in pain control and pain relief and enables people to die with the maximum of dignity. That, I believe, is the way forward and that is what should be more and more widely provided through the National Health Service. I suggest that this is a bad and possibly unnecessary Bill and I hope that your Lordships will reject it.
9.33 p.m.
Lord Broxbourne: My Lords, the matter under discussion today is difficult, delicate and in a sense distasteful. Nevertheless, I feel impelled to intervene in what I hope will be only a short speech, because I am conscious that I necessarily took up a good deal of your Lordships' time yesterday and I would not want to trespass on your good nature and tolerance. But I hope that when my noble friend comes to reply we shall have a more positive approach from the Government than we have yet had on this difficult matter.
On 23rd January last I raised at Question Time with Ministers the need for review, revision and rationalisation of the law relating to euthanasia. By coincidence it was the first matter which was televised live in your Lordships' House and perhaps for that reason it injected further caution into Ministers even beyond the caution customary of governments. This was repeated with his habitual charm of expression by the then Home Secretary in correspondence.
My noble friend Lord Elton said in this House:
"We do not believe that the general law should be framed in a way which might allow less scrupulous people to act for financial gain, from malice, or from other base motives against those rendered vulnerable by age or illness".—[Official Report, 23/1/85; col. 220.]
My right honourable friend Mr. Leon Brittan said:
"It is essential that the law is tightly framed so as to cause no doubt as to the protection afforded to the aged or sick from others who may act from less altruistic motives, and to ensure that the unscrupulous cannot place those most vulnerable under pressure to agree to have their life ended".
I am well aware of these considerations and I have no doubt of their great importance. Indeed, I proclaimed them in unmistakable terms, and referred in the House on 23rd January to,
"the paramount necessity of safeguards against abuse".
Of course there should be sufficient and effective safeguards; and equally it should not be beyond the ingenuity of Ministers and draftsmen to devise them. If they have not done so, is it because they have not tried; or, if they have tried, is it because they have not tried hard enough? Ministers give me the impression of having been content with the easier, negative approach at the expense of the more difficult but more socially useful positive approach, of having been dominated by difficulties with insufficient regard to the constructive possibilities and potentialities. They see the possible abuses but have no, or no sufficient, regard to the proven cases of hardship and tragedy such as when a respected judge felt constrained under the existing law to send to prison someone whom in passing sentence he described as a "Christian and compassionate lady".
At the heart of this matter there is an apparent paradox. Whereas suicide ceased to be a crime 20 years ago, it is still a crime to assist another. The onus must surely be on the Government to justify that paradox, and if they cannot do so, the noble Lord is entitled to a second reading of this Bill which removes that anomaly.
The trouble with Section 2 of the 1961 Act is that it is cast in a peremptory and inflexible form. It strikes down without qualification anyone who aids and abets

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the suicide of another. There is no question of mens rea, there is no question of guilty intent, there is no question of improper motive. The proposed amendment of the noble Lord seeks to cure this defect and the language seems to me to be appropriate for this purpose. Liability to imprisonment will not attach to a person who shows that he, or she, acted reasonably, with compassion and in good faith.
Of course these are criteria which may be interpreted differently by different people; they are not to be measured mathematically by a yardstick. But this difficulty should not be exaggerated. The test of reasonableness is deeply entrenched in English law and is daily applied in many and varied contexts; likewise, the concept of good faith; and though the criterion of compassion is less usual, the jury, under the guidance of a wise and experienced judge, should have little difficulty in applying it.
Perhaps I may make a final reference to the attitude of the Church, the Christian aspect, to which so much reference has been made. I was very pleased yesterday to have the support of the Church in my Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms Bill in the distinguished testimony of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford.
Reference has been made by my noble friend Lord Swinfen and by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, to the human rights Bill. There is no conflict between what is in the convention and what is in the Bill. The convention is dealing with people being deprived of their lives against their will—involuntarily. What we are here concerned with is people being deprived of their lives at their own initiative—at their own will.
So there is no conflict. I must say that I was a little surprised to hear the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, cite the convention on which he poured such eloquent scorn yesterday. I know that my old and distinguished friend will not mind me saying that there might be some temptation among noble Lords on hearing him now, and who heard him then, to ask: is Saul also among the prophets?
I, as the least of Anglicans, who have left undone those things that I ought to have done, and who has done those things that I ought not to have done, would not for a moment venture an opinion on this aspect in the presence of the prominent and powerful right reverend Prelates, whom we are pleased to see in the Chamber this evening. But I believe that I am at least entitled to ask them to identify any citations from the New Testament, in particular from the words of Our Lord, that amount to an express condemnation or prohibition either of suicide or of euthanasia. I am not aware of any. Nor do I know what passage Shakespeare had in mind when he put into Hamlet's mouth those poignant words:
"Or that the Everlasting had not fixed His Canon 'gainst self-slaughter!".
The Earl of Longford: My Lords—
Lord Broxbourne: Ah! The noble Earl intervenes.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, not if the noble Lord feels unhappy about my intervention. I was only going to say that the noble Lord is implying that anything not forbidden in the New Testament might be acceptable to Christians. But there are many things that come to mind. One will not find forbidden in the New Testament the more extreme forms of certain homosexual behaviour. Nor will one find abortion forbidden there. I say that only in passing.
Lord Broxbourne: My Lords, in the more than half a century that I have had the benefit of the noble Earl's friendship, since the days when I was trying to learn at Christ Church and he was a distinguished don, I heard him say many wise things; but not this, and not tonight.
After all, Christianity is a creed of comprehension and compassion, as in the words of St. Matthew, chapter 11, verse 28:
"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest".
"All", be it noted—not some; not the strong to the exclusion of the weak, not the well to the exclusion of the sick, not the righteous to the exclusion of the sinner, not the happy to the exclusion of the sad. No, it is an invitation to all. It seems to me that a modification of the law such as is here proposed can hardly be ruled out on the grounds of Christian teaching. The reasoning which led to the humanisation of the law in 1961 in regard to suicide itself should now equally apply to the further humanisation of the law in regard to assistance rendered in compassion and in good faith.
I would rather the Government had taken the initiative in this matter. I still hope that they will do so and review the law as I requested as long ago as January last. But in the absence of any such initiative and if there be no indication of it today I shall feel constrained to support this Bill if it comes to the Division Lobby.
9.45 p.m.
Lord Kagan: My Lords, I was not in time to add my name to the list of speakers published. I apologise to your Lordships.
The right to live should also imply the right to opt out of life. If it is now no more a crime to end one's life is it not time that it should become a right to end one's life? From 1941 to 1944 I was in one of Hitler's concentration camps—Kaunas, in Lithuania. In the course of two-and-a-half-years 30,000 inhabitants died at the hands of the Nazis and tens of thousands were brought into that camp from outside to be killed systematically. I witnessed the fears. The greatest fear was not of being killed, it was not of being dead, but the manner of one's death, the timing of one's death, the power of decision leading to one's death and not having the ability to prepare for one's death. It was not dying, it was not death, but that. There was the fear of torture without escape, without limit as to its extent and without a limit on its time.
The most fervent prayer in the camp was to acquire the means to end one's life, to achieve the death of one's own choosing at the time of one's own choosing

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and in the manner of one's own choosing. This became the ultimate liberation and the greatest prize. To achieve this in the camp one was prepared for any sacrifice and to submit to any deprivation. Having it proved to be a great comfort. It did not encourage one to use it, and this is what I should like to bring to your Lordships' attention. Having the means of the decision to end one's life in one's own way did not encourage people to use it. It gave one strength to carry on fighting because one felt one had the means, ultimately, not to buy or extend survival at any price. It prevented the collapse of courage, as my noble friend Lord Paget so eloquently explained. It prevented the collapse of principle if one got caught and, under torture, feared one would betray one's friends.
These extraordinary circumstances I have witnessed, but cruelty and despair can be suffered not only at the hand of man but at the hand of nature in circumstances of illness, particularly terminal illness. Doctors and priests know more about that. But if the reaction in despair is similar to the one which I have seen and lived with, then is it not time not only to stop making the ending of one's life not a crime but to establish it as a right?
9.50 p.m.
The Earl of Listowel: My Lords, I should like to support the case of my noble friend Lord Jenkins for the Second Reading of this Bill, and I shall venture to differ—not for the first time I am afraid—from the views expressed by the noble Earl, Lord Cork and Orrery. I support my noble friend because I believe that the principle of the amendment to subsection (2) of the Suicide Act is right, and after all we are considering the principle of his Bill.
In his amendment the noble Lord seeks to draw a distinction which should be drawn, and such as the Director of Public Prosecutions would certainly draw, between someone who assists another to commit suicide out of self-interest or personal gain and someone whose assistance is entirely disinterested and motivated by a reasonable and compassionate concern for another's welfare. Modified in the way suggested by my, noble friend, subsection (2) of the Suicide Act will be in full force to cover the classic case of the unscrupulous relative who has designs on the estate of an elderly person, while it will no longer catch as well in the catch-all of "aid and abet" those acting reasonably—I quote the words of my noble friend—with compassion and in good faith, on behalf of someone asking for assistance when his or her life has become intolerable.
I am not for a moment of course saying that this is a Bill which might not be improved in Committee. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, has himself suggested that this is the case. Indeed, I think there are several matters that might well be considered at a later stage of the Bill. Some of these were mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley. The need for consideration of amendments to this Bill is another reason, and I think it is a very valid reason, why the Bill should be allowed a Second Reading. For example, it may be that the words "on behalf of" do not express sufficiently clearly that the consent of the person considering a quick finish to an unbearable life
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is essential. I am sure that such is the intention of my noble friend. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, took the view that consent was omitted altogether from the terms of this amendment. Surely one way, and the easiest way, round this difficulty—
The Earl of Cork and Orrery: My Lords, perhaps the noble Earl will forgive me for interrupting him—and I apologise—but I am not quite clear whether he was trying to make the point that a request or a wish to be helped to commit suicide was essential or was not essential from the point of view of the law.
The Earl of Listowel: My Lords, I apologise to the noble Earl but my hearing is not very good and I am afraid I could not follow exactly what he said. However I am sure that he is perfectly correct. Surely the best way of indicating the circumstances under which someone would not wish life to be prolonged is by means of a written statement executed while in a normal state of health and well in advance of serious illness or extreme old age.
That has the advantage over an oral request that it shows a settled choice which cannot be mistaken for a sudden impulse, which was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, and which might happen in the case of an adolescent. A written statement or undertaking can be revoked at any time if the individual changes his mind. Although such instructions would have no mandatory effect in law, they could be used as evidence that the defendant had acted in accordance with the express wishes of the person seeking assistance.
It has been argued that modern medicine and nursing care can relieve terminal illness of pain, acute indignity and even acute discomfort so that nature should be allowed to take its course. That may be true of the best treatment in hospices for the dying, and references have been made to the treatment being given in these hospices. I have great admiration for Dame Cecily Saunders and the splendid work that she has done for the hospice movement. But it should not be forgotten that hospices are still available only for a privileged few. The majority of our large towns lack that specialised form of hospital treatment, and the great majority of our fellow men and women continue to die in the wards of general hospitals. One cannot see local authorities or the National Health Service setting up new hospices at a time like this, and the same financial constraints apply to voluntary bodies.
I am grateful, and I hope that others are too, to my noble friend for promoting this Bill. Whether it succeeds or not, it has stimulated thought about a subject in which we are all necessarily interested and on which conflicting opinions should be carefully expressed and weighed. I think that the principle of the Bill is right because it shields the merciful from a penalty that was intended for the evil-doer. I hope that your Lordships will give the Bill a Second Reading so that we can look at it more carefully in Committee.
9.57 p.m.
Baroness Ewart-Biggs: My Lords, I must admit that when I got out of bed this morning I did not think that I should be involved this evening in such a dark part of life as suicide. The only reason that I am at the

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Dispatch Box this evening is that my noble friend Lord Mishcon has taken to his bed with 'flu. I know that we shall miss a valuable contribution to the debate, and many noble Lords will regret his absence, but none more than I.
My noble friend Lord Jenkins made a clear and compassionate case that those unfortunate people wishing to exercise their right within the law to take their own lives should be allowed legally to be assisted to do so. The logic is strong that if suicide is not a crime, nor can aiding someone to commit suicide be one. But logic in this case is perhaps not everything. Although it is true to say that tragic circumstances will re-occur in which it would be an act of kindness and courage to assist a suicide attempt, surely we could not risk the dangers of opening such a legal loophole. The law in this case has to presume the worst and be formulated accordingly. It must be remembered that the law as it is at present provides that a person convicted of aiding and abetting suicide can plead as a mitigating circumstance compassion for the sufferer.
My noble friend Lord Jenkins said that the Bill would stop aiding and abetting being an offence and it would become a defence. But enormous difficulties would be created in the courts for the prosecution should there be that new defence. Say, for example, that an elderly person, perhaps an elderly person suffering from senile dementia or some kind of mental impairment, was asked to sign a document which such a person took to be innocuous but which was, in fact, a suicide agreement. Should such a thing happen, first, it would be most unfortunate for that elderly person. But, also, how would the prosecution fight that case since the defence lawyers would have documentary evidence? Secondly, by creating this new defence, people would surely receive encouragement to become involved in assisting suicide attempts. Some might be those who, as my noble friend Lord Jenkins had in mind, would become involved through compassionate and benign motives. But, equally, there might be others whose motives were malign and not in any way compassionate.
My noble friend Lord Jenkins said that doctors had expressed dislike of being singled out for responsibility. I can perhaps say one word about euthanasia. In doing so, may I give an example of how the trust that should exist between a doctor and his patient might be impaired if the patient knew that the law permitted the doctor to give him a dose of a pain-relieving drug that happened to prove fatal.
I should like to quote a story that Lord Cohen, when president of the General Medical Council, was reputed to have told. It was recounted in part of a book called Morals and Medicine. This is what he said:
"With regard to euthanasia I should just like to tell you one story. There was a very distinguished professor who made his doctor promise that if he ever suffered from an incurable disease he would give him an injection to end his life. Well, alas, this distinguished professor did develop a very grave disease. And he then refused to have any injections whatsoever from the doctor lest it was the final one. This is one reason why I see very grave objections to the legalisation of euthanasia".
I should like to conclude by saying that many noble Lords have referred to the very illogical side of the present law. Some have said that it was necessary that anomaly should exist. The noble Lord, Lord
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Beaumont, and also the noble Lord, Lord Broxbourne, were convinced that humanisation of law was necessary and that it was important that my noble friend's Bill should go on to the Committee stage in order that we might explore different ways in which such a humanisation of the law could be brought about. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, also wished for some change to be made in order that genuine cases of a difficult, miserable and unhappy life might be brought to an end within the law.
There was great concern among other noble Lords who spoke in favour of the noble Earl's amendment that my noble friend's Bill was too wide and that the dangers of its misuse were very great. There was mention of the difficulty of providing evidence that the person who had been assisted in terminating his life had in fact wished to terminate his life. The deed would have destroyed the evidence, the noble Earl said. That was a fairly powerful argument.
However, I was also struck by the point made by the right reverend Prelate that such a change in the law might weaken respect for human life. Surely, all of us must see that with paramount respect. The right reverend Prelate felt that intolerable pressure might be put on those infirm people who already feel themselves to be a burden on other people's lives and who perhaps might think they should avail themselves of assistance in removing themselves as a burden on other people's lives. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, made the same point, and the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, made the point by which I was very struck—that many attempts at suicide are made by people who need help to go on living and it would seem irrational in their cases to help them to die. Therefore, although the objectives of the Bill of my noble friend Lord Jenkins seem entirely right, the dangers coming out of the loopholes provided by his Bill would seem also too great to justify such a change. Although, as my noble friend has pointed out to me—and I was going to do so myself—there is a free vote on this debate on our side of the House, in my case I shall be voting for the noble Earl's amendment.
10.6 p.m.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, we should all be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney, for providing us with an opportunity to discuss this difficult, sensitive, and emotive subject. Many of your Lordships have sympathised with some of the concerns and intentions and indeed the compassion with which the noble Lord has introduced his Bill.
We are, I think, all aware of the distressing situation in which some people find themselves—which the noble Lord, Lord Paget, described with great personal feeling and conviction—that of seeing a deeply-loved friend or relative suffering but being unable to help. Many people must have considered, as he has, the possibility that they themselves may fall victim to, say, painful and incurable illness and have hoped that in that event their suffering will be short-lived. But, as my noble friend Lord Cork and Orrery reminded us when he pointed to the, in his view, many weaknesses in the Bill, this is an area in which we must proceed with caution. I am sure that the concerns expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, are genuine and deeply felt. But I fear that the solution which the noble Lord proposes is misconceived.

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As legislators, we must of course examine any proposal for changes in the law coolly and soberly and consider how even the best-intentioned proposals will apply in practice. This I think was the theme which the noble Baroness, Lady Ewart-Biggs, stressed just now. In my view, the Bill fails to measure up against that particular yardstick. For reasons that I shall explain, I fear that there will be very serious risks in amending the law in the direction which the noble Lord proposes. The danger is that if the law is amended to allow the weak and vulnerable to die at the hands of the compassionate and merciful it will also expose those who most need our protection to the risk of dying at the hands of the cruel and merciless.
Your Lordships know that on two occasions commissions have considered in the context of more extensive reviews whether "mercy killing" should be a separate offence, distinct, like infanticide, from murder or manslaughter. The Royal Commission on Capital Punishment, which reported in 1953, was impressed by the arguments of those who said it would be impossible to define a category which could not be seriously abused—particularly as it might often prove extremely difficult to determine the motive for killing in such cases. The commission concluded that there should not be a separate offence of mercy killing.
The Criminal Law Revision Committee, in its report on Offences Against the Person, published in 1980, similarly recommended that there should not be an offence of mercy killing. The committee drew attention to the risk that such an offence might lessen the protection afforded to the weak and handicapped because the basis of a new offence would rest upon the defendant's evaluation of the condition of the victim.
As my noble friend Lord Cork and Orrery said, Bills with a similar purpose were refused a Second Reading by your Lordships in 1969 by 61 votes to 40; and in 1976 by 85 votes to 23. Both reports, to which I have referred, revealed substantial difficulties and disadvantages in respect of a proposal essentially not very different from that which the noble Lord now advances. I have to tell the noble Lord that I am not in the least persuaded that those difficulties and disadvantages would in any sense be overcome by means of the rather different approach which his Bill incorporates. Therefore, I do not share Lord Beaumont's view, in which he was supported by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel—and I hope I quote the noble Lord correctly—that the wording is not exactly right. I would say that the general opinion, and indeed the Government's opinion, is that the principle is wrong, let alone the matter of the safeguards. This was a view expressed by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ely when he described the need for safeguards and the difficulty of finding them.
That is perhaps the answer which I fear my noble friend Lord Broxbourne will not have wished me to have heard, since he suggested that perhaps the Government had not tried to set about drafting something to meet his concern. I am sorry to have to be dampening to my noble friend's enthusiasms two evenings running, and I do not want to intervene in his Scripture lesson to the right reverend Prelate or indeed to the noble Earl, Lord Longford.
The noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, has described how the Bill would amend Section 2 of the Suicide Act
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1961. Section 2 makes it an offence with a maximum penalty on conviction on indictment of 14 years imprisonment to aid, abet, counsel or procure either the suicide of another or an attempt by another to commit suicide. The Bill will provide a defence for an accused person if he proves that he acted on behalf of the person who committed suicide and, in so acting, behaved reasonably and with compassion and in good faith.
As the noble Lord explained, the object of his Bill is to allow a person who has firmly made up his mind that he wishes to end his life to be helped to commit suicide without exposing the person assisting, who acts in good faith, to the risk of prosecution. There are some people in that situation who would find it difficult or impossible to end their lives without some form of outside assistance. Their feelings are understandable.
One can argue about whether it would be morally right to assist a person to die even in these circumstances, and I respect the views of those who believe that this would undermine the sanctity of life. There will be differences of view on that question. Be that as it may, I believe that a defence along the lines proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, although intended to be confined to those acting out of compassion and in good faith, could readily be exploited by the unscrupulous who stand to gain financially or act out of malice against those rendered vulnerable by suffering or age.
I am not even sure that, for the most part, the Bill would offer very much protection against conviction to those who the noble Lord seeks to assist. As the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, stressed, the Bill, entirely properly, places the onus of proof in this matter on the defendant. But it would not, of course, be sufficient for a defendant simply to assert in his defence that he acted reasonably, with compassion and in good faith; instead he must demonstrate this to the satisfaction of the court. I would venture to suggest that a person who assists in the suicide of another, for financial or other improper reasons, may well calculate in advance, perhaps over a period of several months, how to establish his defence. For example, he may extract a signed statement from the victim saying he wishes to die. But the person who acts from genuine compassion will have no such considerations in mind and may find difficulty in establishing a defence. He is unlikely, for example, to have troubled to provide himself with documentary or other evidence which could be deployed in court about the wishes of the deceased.
But the concerns are by no means only with the person who assists someone to commit suicide. We must also consider those who might be driven to take their own lives. They will include some of the most vulnerable people in our society; people who suffer from acute physical disability or pain, or even from depression. They are among those most in need of protection.
There is a grave danger that the Bill would place such people under an additional pressure if they knew that in certain circumstances assisted suicide was permitted. Such people could be placed under intense pressure by those who seek to persuade or cajole them to end their life—a point ably made by my noble friend Lady Macleod and by the noble Lord, Lord

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Robertson. It is all too easy to imagine how an unscrupulous person who perhaps stood to gain financially or who simply wished to relieve himself of the burden of looking after an elderly or sick person might exert pressure with a view to securing agreement to their signing a suicide note.
Further, the risk goes wider still because the Bill would not apply only to people such as the terminally ill, their physicians and members of their family. It could extend also to anyone who assisted a person suffering from a temporary bout of depression to end his life; or who, knowing an adolescent's suicidal tendencies, provided him with large enough quanitites of drugs to kill himself, or, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, has pointed out, to the survivor of a suicide pact who never intended to die. Surely an accomplice in such circumstances would not be morally blameless. It seems to me that such acts of participation could be disguised as aiding or abetting suicide by means of behaviour which was reasonable and compassionate, and which was undertaken in good faith.
The noble Lord, Lord Robertson, my noble friend Lord Swinfen, the noble Earl Lord Listowel, all raised the matter of hospices and pointed out how much they can do to help relieve the anxiety about that worrying "decay" which the noble Lord, Lord Paget, dreads. I share the views which they expressed. Some are run by the National Health Service, some by charities and some have the support of the health authorities. What a wonderful job they do—and I add to the wonderful job they do the job that is so well done by nurses and doctors elsewhere within the National Health Service. We all know that hard cases make bad law. This Bill is a good example. It has been suggested that it is incongruous and wrong to treat as criminal the participation in any act which is itself no longer criminal. But as I have sought to explain, the proposed remedy could have appalling consequences.
The Bill does not alter the law on murder or manslaughter. I understand why it has been drawn so narrowly and I do not propose that it should be widened. But I think it worth pointing out that the available information indicates that there have been only 10 convictions under the Suicide Act between 1980 and 1984. The noble Lord's target therefore is very narrow indeed. If the Bill were enacted, it would remain open for prosecutions to be brought for manslaughter; indeed, in some of the cases which I know have most concerned the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, the charge has been one of manslaughter.
As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, reminded us, after what for me was a fascinating legal history lesson on this subject, prosecution for an offence under the Suicide Act 1961 can be brought only by or with the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions. Where there is a conviction under that Act or a conviction for manslaughter, it is open to the court to make use of the full range of disposals available to it. In passing sentence, the full circumstances can be taken into account. This, I suggest, is the best safeguard against abuse and the best assurance that the sentence will fit the crime.
This has been an anxious and a concerned debate. Of course I respect the views of the noble Lord, Lord
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Jenkins, and those who support him with this Bill. I must tell your Lordships frankly, however, that I would have the gravest possible doubts about the wisdom of enacting it. To my mind to do so would be gravely irresponsible and utterly wrong.
We have a duty to safeguard the interests of those who are especially vulnerable through old age or illness, to whom the right reverend Prelate drew particular attention. We are all conscious of that duty and responsibility. But I fear that this Bill would weaken the protection afforded under the law to them, some of the most vulnerable members of our society.
10.18 p.m.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, as the noble Lord has said, this has been an interesting and, one might say, an important debate. There have been views expressed on all sides, of very different kinds. There have been different understandings of the Bill and, if I may say so, some misunderstandings of the Bill. I should have thought that after a debate like this, we should have at least one thing in common; that is, that your Lordships would not wish me now to reply in detail to all the points made in this debate, least of all the noble Lord, Lord Alport. However, I am under the guillotine. An amendment has been moved (and we are speaking to that amendment) as a result of which this Bill is being killed. What people have been saying about this Bill is, "This is a complex and difficult Bill but we do not intend you to have a Second Reading on it; we do not intend you to have a Committee stage on it; we do not intend you to go further on the matter but we do not want to look into these matters in detail". It would be unworthy of this House to say that.
I ask the noble Earl, Lord Cork and Orrery, not to press his amendment. I say that for this reason. I think that if we were to decide tonight that we should not travel through the Lobbies but that we should give the Bill a Second Reading, we could then proceed to Committee stage and consider the proposals that have been made, some by people who are opposed to the Bill and who have said, in the course of their speeches, that they would like to see an amendment to it. As I have listened to the debate, Members have persuaded me that there are perhaps some amendments which ought to be introduced. For example, ought we to exclude any possibility of minors being affected by the Bill? These considerations cannot arise unless we pass into a Committee stage. Therefore, my appeal to the noble Earl is to allow us to proceed to that stage and not to try to kill the Bill on Second Reading—which is not customary in this House.
I am bound to say, however, that I did not think an occasion would ever arise when I should prefer the company of my noble friend Lord Mishcon to that of my noble friend Lady Ewart-Biggs. One such occasion has arisen tonight, because I was discussing this matter with my noble friend Lord Mishcon, who was to reply from the Front Bench on this Bill. I am sorry to say that he is now in bed with 'flu, from which I hope he will soon recover. The last thing he said to me about it was, "There are some matters about your Bill that I do not like, but one thing of which I am absolutely sure is that we shall give you a Second Reading". We can then decide, at a later stage, whether we want to amend the

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Bill or whether we want, as we are perfectly capable of doing, to throw it out on Third Reading or on the proposition that it does not pass to the other place.
Thus I ask the noble Earl to let us examine these matters in the greater detail which they demand and which they deserve. Let us pass to Committee stage. Let us decide that we shall do that and not divide the House tonight.
10.23 p.m.
The Earl of Cork and Orrery: My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, I am quite certain that nobody wants me to make a detailed speech about other people's speeches. If I were to make a fully reasoned reply to the whole debate, all I should end up with would be a highly substandard paraphrase of that which has just been given so admirably by my noble friend the Minister, to whom I am enormously grateful for practically everything he has said.
I should like, if I may, to make a personal remark or two, though perhaps not so personal to begin with. As the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, has reminded us, we have been debating all this time an amendment that has been moved by me. I have noted with some care exactly who has spoken for and who has spoken against this amendment. I find that several noble Lords have spoken in favour of the Bill but none of those noble Lords has actually mentioned anything in the amendment. That is rather curious. I think if people are going to defeat my amendment, I am entitled to know exactly what they have to complain about in it.
I have objected to the Bill entirely on the grounds of danger. Nobody, or almost nobody, has said that there is no such danger. As my noble friend Lord Glenarthur has just said, there are great dangers in this Bill. I have adduced the argument that this Bill, like others that have preceded it, is fraught with danger at almost every turn. I have said that I do not believe that a Bill of this kind can be drafted in such a way as to avoid the great stumbling block represented by the fact that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Ewart-Biggs, quoted me as saying, evidence has been destroyed by the deed itself—the one reliable witness is dead.
The personal remark that I should like to make is this. The two former Bills which have been referred to throughout this debate—that is to say, the Voluntary Euthanasia Bill and the Incurable Patients Bill—were both defeated on Second Reading by amendments of exactly this kind. Both those amendments were, in fact, moved by me. I have not moved this one again today with any hope of being able to take home some suitably inscribed silver cup to put on my sideboard at having won the thing outright but because I see the same principle working against what I conceive to be the cause of justice in all three Bills. The danger is overwhelming.
There is no lack of compassion on my part. Several noble Lords have spoken favourably about the hospice movement. I have been for several years—and I was at the time of the Incurable Patients Bill—a member of the council of management of St. Christopher's Hospice at Sydenham, a great teaching hospice. I may therefore be acquitted of any lack of compassion. And I have never expressed in any of these debates, and I do
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not now express, any adverse opinion on either suicide or euthanasia. I take my stand entirely on the belief that, as my noble friend Lord Glenarthur has said, the principle of the Bill is wrong.
I wish to dissociate myself from any attack on the Anglican Church and its method of lecturing persons on ethics. I do not belong to it myself, but I would be very happy to listen to such lectures at any time. I hope that your Lordships will accompany me into the Division Lobby. I am bound to disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, over this. I think that the "black widow" should go quietly to rest. I beg to move my amendment.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Strabolgi): My Lords, the original Question was, That this Bill be now read a second time, since when an amendment has been moved to leave out ("now") and at the end to insert ("this day six months"). The Question is, That this amendment be agreed to. As many as are of that opinion will say, "Content"; to the contrary, "Not-Content".
10.27 p.m.
On Question, Whether the amendment to the Motion shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 48; Not-Contents, 15.

DIVISION NO. 1

CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Lawrence, L.

Alport, L.

Lindsey and Abingdon, E.

Attlee, E.

Long, V.

Blease, L.

Longford, E.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Brentford, V.

McAlpine of Moffat, L.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Buckmaster, V.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Coleraine, L.

Mar, C.

Cork and Orrery, E. [Teller]

Margadale, L.

Craigavon, V.

Masham of Ilton, B.

Craigmyle, L.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Cranbrook, E.

Napier and Ettrick, L.

Denham, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Denning, L. [Teller]

Robertson of Oakridge, L.

Dormer, L.

Sheffield, Bp.

Elliott of Morpeth, L.

Sherfield, L.

Ely, Bp.

Sidmouth, V.

Ewart-Biggs, B.

Simon, V.

Faithfull, B.

Skelmersdale, L.

Glanusk, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Glenarthur, L.

Sudeley, L.

Hylton, L.

Swinfen, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Swinton, E.

NOT-CONTENTS

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Lockwood, B.

Broxbourne, L.

NcNair, Ls.

David, B.

Molloy, L.

Jeger, B.

Paget of Northampton, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L. [Teller]

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

Kagan, L.

Strathcarron, L.

Kilbracken, L.

Underhill, L.

Listowel, E. [Teller]

Resolved in the affirmative, and amendment agreed to accordingly.

The North: Regenerative Measures
10.36 p.m.
Lord Alport Lord Alport rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will appoint a Secretary of State for the North, pari passu with the Secretaries of State for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, with special responsibility for representing in the Cabinet the need, in the interests of national unity, to promote the industrial regeneration and social progress of the Northern counties of England.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I rise to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. I regret that this debate has started so late at night, particularly because it deprives me of the support of the noble Lord, Lord Banks, and the noble Lord, Lord Rhodes. But I am encouraged by the fact that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Sheffield has chosen this occasion to make his maiden speech. I will not have the opportunity, I am afraid, of congratulating him publicly on it when he sits down, but I know that we will be very interested to hear his views and experience of this sort of subject and the problems of the North. He will have the satisfaction, at any rate, of knowing that he has made his maiden speech later at night in your Lordships' House than any maiden speech has been made, certainly since I have been here in the last 25 years and probably, I think in this century.
If any of your Lordships saw County Councillor Ellatson's "Comment" on Channel 4 a fortnight or so ago, or have recently read the press in the North or studied the pamphlet of the honourable Member for Manchester, Withington, you will recognise that my Question reflects a growing volume of opinion in the North of England, born of desperation. I speak, of course, as an Essex Peer living in a part of the South-East which has had everything going for it during the last 20 years. Perhaps it is no bad thing that the initiative which this Question represents should come from someone in your Lordships' House who has no local axe to grind and no special interest to represent.
As I have indicated on more than one occasion, I have been deeply concerned at the increasing alienation of the North from the South of England and at the political and social consequences which this must have for the unity of the nation. It has generated a sense of bitterness and despair, which is playing into the hands of those who seek, by unconstitutional and even revolutionary means, to undermine and destroy our free and democratic institutions. It is engendering a sense of unfairness—and fairness is the criterion by which all political leaders and their parties are ultimately judged.
I think that my own strong feelings spring from the recollection of one dark winter's evening in Sheffield in 1937. England had begun to recover from the shock of the crisis of 1931. Unemployment was still high. We were living not under the shadow of the nuclear bomb but, even for someone like myself in his middle 20s, the certainty of a second European war. As a southerner, knowing little of England beyond the Home Counties, the prospects were anxious and daunting and I wondered how, and if, England would survive. I remember as I walked along the dreary, rain-
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soaked Sheffield streets—returning no doubt from some political meeting—seeing behind the closed steelyard gates the glare and smoke of the great furnaces and hearing the clamour and rhythm of the machinery.
It made an unforgettable impression—an impression of power. It brought home to me, a callow visitor from the South, that it was there, in the heartland of the North, with its great industries of shipbuilding, coal mining, steel-making and textiles, and with the skill of the men who spent their working lives there, that the real strength of Britain lay. I took heart because I realised that, despite the financial crisis in the City, the cloth capped, bedraggled columns of unemployed marching south, the defeatism of the older generation of that time, it would be from the great industrial complexes of the North that Britain would draw the strength to survive the great storm which was then preparing.
The counties north of the Humber-Mersey line have a population of some 13 million, twice that of Scotland and Wales combined. The average unemployment ranges from 15.6 per cent. in Yorkshire and Humberside to nearly 20 per cent. in the counties further north, as compared with 11 per cent. or less in the south-east. Average earnings are 16 per cent. lower for men. Of the 1 million jobs lost in England since 1977 three-quarters were lost in the North. If a man is unemployed in the North he stands two and a half times less chance of getting a job than he would in the South. The North has a higher percentage of school-leavers leaving school without qualifications than any other region in the kingdom. I shall not weary your Lordships with more statistics or try to support my proposal with a description of the atmosphere in the communities around the coal mines which have closed, the silent shipyards, the great textile mills now derelict and empty, or the miles of streets in which one bread winner in five is unemployed and has little chance of finding a job.
I do not underestimate what has been done to help by local authorities, by successive governments and by the enterprise and self-reliance of the people of northern England themselves. But the fact is that what has been done is not enough. Apart from a sense of hopelessness and abandonment felt by the adult long-term unemployed, there is an even greater sense of deprivation and desperation among the young who are flooding south in the hope of finding something better than a lifetime on the dole. One organisation in London, the Piccadilly Advice Centre, which has made itself responsible for helping and advising youngsters coming to London to find work; which tries to find them safe accommodation; to help them when the money runs out as so often happens and to keep them out of the evil influences to which they are so easily a prey, tells me that of those who came to them for help during three months nearly 3,000 came from the North while only 700 or 800 came from the whole of the South of England. Beyond and behind all this is the abundant evidence that it is in the great industrial conurbations of the North that the worst and most tragic examples of deprivation and urban decay exist. exist.
My noble friend, when he replies, will tell us what the Government have done and will be doing. He will

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tell us of the £67 million from the EC for Merseyside and of the Government's regional policy announced by the Minister of State for Industry in November 1984. But when all this is said, the fact remains that the disparities between the North and South continue and grow. What is more important, so does the sense of grievance and of neglect by what appears to them to be a Southern orientated Government relying on the South for the bulk of their political support. A mood of increasing desperation is spreading inexorably over Northern England.
When one proposes what amounts to a major administrative change such as is embodied in the Question, it is always wise here in this country to cite precedents. There are several. Historically, the Council of the North, after its re-establishment in the 16th century, did
"great service in removing many social grievances".
More recently, in our own times, was the short period when my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor was given special responsiblity for the north east of England. He describes his experiences in his memoir, The Door Wherein I went; how he assembled a small but highly motivated staff, how he set out the priorities, and how within a comparatively short time he was able to formulate his proposals. They were embodied in Command Paper 2206 of 1963.
At that time my noble and learned friend was Lord President of the Council, and thus the historic continuity of our administration was maintained. At the end of his account of what he terms in his memoir "a pilot experiment" he writes:
"I intended that what had started as an empirical approach to a problem of regional development should end by becoming the foundation for a policy of regional devolution on a scale and of a type never before seen in this country."
The paradox is that the trends of policy during the past few years, so far from being towards regional devolution, have been in exactly the opposite direction; towards increasing centralisation of power and responsibility in Whitehall. That is one of the reasons why some Conservatives have, like myself, become critical of the Government.
I recognise that the contemporary second industrial revolution, based on advances in science and technology, have deprived the North of England of many of the advantages that contributed to its prosperity in the first. However, I do not accept that the social and economic consequences which that inflicts today on communities in the erstwhile prosperous centres of the North are inevitable and beyond the power of the Government to mitigate or even solve.
I am suggesting that the North of England should have its own man (or woman) in the Cabinet, with appropriate status and resources, to show that the Government are determined to do what is humanly possible to try to solve the problems of the North. A step such as that would be far more dramatic, vivid and understandable by the people of the North than the general display of statistics that I am sure my noble friend will be producing for the House later.
Let me try to clothe the idea I am proposing to your Lordships in more detail. The Secretary of State for the North would be a senior member of the Cabinet holding, perhaps for historic reasons, the office of Lord
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President of the Council, and having the headquarters of his department in York—also for historic reasons, although one of my noble friends who lives in Northumberland tells me that he regards York as being in the Midlands.
The Secretary of State would have two principal bodies responsible to him: an industrial development council analogous to the Scottish Development Agency, and a council for urban renewal, to assist the Secretary of State in tackling the dire problems of the inner cities of the great northern conurbations. He would also need to have an advisory body to consider the agricultural and conservation problems of the North; in particular, the state and prospects of hill farming.
While his staff would include representatives from the various departments of state, as was the case with my noble and learned friend's pilot experiment. I do not believe that he would require or should have the full panopoly of administrative back-up available, for instance, to the Scottish Secretary. In time, he might find it advisable to have the support of a council of the North, but that would be a matter for his experience and judgment. He would, of course, have to be confident in having the wholehearted support of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
There is a current phrase about solving problems by throwing money at them. Perhaps I may ask my noble friend: how much money has been thrown per head of population at Scotland and Northern Ireland during the past eight years as compared with England, north of the Humber-Mersey line? Of course money would be needed if the Secretary of State for the North is to do his job. But if he is appointed, there will be someone in the Cabinet to argue for the special interests of the North and to attend the discussions in the so-called Star Chamber over which my noble friend the Deputy Prime Minister at present presides. There would also be someone of weight and authority to represent the North of England when decisions are made in Cabinet on issues directly affecting the North, such as the third international airport and the building of the Channel tunnel. There is no one there today.
Last week there was a debate in another place about the problems of the North linked more, so it seemed to me, with a by-election. I raise this matter and ask the Government to give consideration to this Question not from any motive of obtaining some transitory party advantage—though if I were concerned with that, I would have no difficulty in assessing the political dividends which would accrue to the Government from such an innovation. I do so because I believe—and I think that perhaps one senior member of the Cabinet may also believe—that such a radical change in the administration of this country will have far-reaching advantages to the future good government of Great Britain as a whole.
10.51 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Sheffield: My Lords, I am reminded a little of an occasion when I conducted the three hours devotion and in the central hour the congregation shrank to one; but we kept going.
For a lifelong Northumbrian nationalist to be able to make his maiden speech, even at this late hour, on

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a Motion such as this is a great privilege. We all have our little vanities. I know that I am too ready to boast of my 100 per cent. pure bred Geordie ancestry; four generations, I believe, with no dilution of south country blood in my veins. I rather fear that I might be able to claim, too—and this is no credit to the Church of England—to be the first 100 per cent. Tyneside born and bred diocesan bishop since poor Bishop Ridley was martyred in 1555.
When, so unexpectedly, six years ago I was uprooted from my Tyneside seaside parish to become a bishop in South Yorkshire it was a great relief to know that the diocese of Sheffield lay securely within the ancient kingdom of Northumbria. I can assure the noble Lord's friends that York is not in the Midlands but is, indeed, the proper capital of Northumbria up to Bamburgh.
I was delighted with what the noble Lord had to say, not simply because of the actual concrete proposal he made for a Secretary of State for the North, but even more because of the tone in which he expressed our needs. It was a tone of sympathy and understanding and it was greatly appreciated, at least by me. I believe that what we really need is a change of attitude. Given that change of attitude, the new Secretary of State would do a grand job. But if the change of attitude had happened, would there be a need for a new Secretary of State at all? In truth we in the North have three needs that are greater than that. We need to be loved, we need to be respected and we need to be trusted.
We need to be loved. I apologise for the word; it is a preacher's word and I know I should not be preaching to your Lordships. But we are told, "Let the cobbler stick to his last", and my "last" is that of a preacher and of a parson, not a politician. It is only when we are loved that the miracles which change things can begin to happen.
Years ago a tract with the title Who Would be a Priest made a great impression on me. In that booklet one of the phrases used to describe the work of a priest was, "loving people into holiness." I know now that it is the only way to change things. Loving people into anything is the only way to get things done. Help is only really acceptable from those whom we know in our hearts to be on our side. A hint of contempt, a hint of patronage, and the most generous gifts will be slung back—and surely rightly slung back—into our teeth. "Keep it!" we say. I imagine that this is true of all people; it is certainly true of the north countrymen. To a sudden outburst of south country generosity, if it were without love, we would say, "No thank you—keep it."
We need to be respected. We are proud of our history. When Edwin was king of Northumbria and Bretwalda, there was so great a peace in Britain, we are told, that a woman with a new-born child could walk throughout the island from sea to sea and take no harm. Alas, it is not like that now in our United Kingdom. The bones for which Durham is really famous are those of Cuthbert, Oswald and Bede—which are powerful reminders of the time when the light of Christian civilisation shone more brightly in Northumbria than anywhere else in Western Europe—and, some would say, the world.
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We are equally proud of our more recent past. Our Northern muscle, industry and manufacturing skills produced the goods that made possible the trading miracle that was the British Empire, and from all that springs our still surviving civic pride. Sheffield Town Hall proclaims in solid stone the self-confidence of a Victorian Northern city. Even today, to share in some great occasion—I almost dare to say "state occasion"—in the Town Hall or the Cutlers' Hall gives me a proper pride in being a Sheffielder, albeit only an adopted one.
But we deserve even more to be respected for what we are now. Despite the harsh consequences of the economic collapse, in the North we do not grumble at life. Far otherwise. We do not want to be anywhere else. Surely our stability, our loyalty to and affection for our own neighbourhoods, our commitment to our families, and our contentment are qualitites to be respected. Yet, whenever I venture south, I am assailed with legends of abundant work and foolish Northerners who are too stupid to leave their wretched hovels for the promised land of plenty in the South. Reluctantly—not only because it is late—I turn my back on the self-indulgence of filling out this tale with illustrative anecdote. I simply say again that the North of England is beautiful and its people are strong. We need not your pity but your respect.
Above all we need to be trusted. The last great rising of the people of the North was the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536. Decree after decree came from King Henry's London. In those days, too, there was no consultation with the people of the North. The rising was settled with a treaty and a solemn promise: Parliament would meet in York. We are still waiting.
We are not a conquered province of the South, though at times it feels like that. Underlying our United Kingdom is a federalism—peoples with their own history, their own language, their own understanding of reality, who have chosen to share in the life of the one nation. But we have a right, surely, to some say in the decisions that affect the nation as a whole, and an even greater right, most certainly, to be trusted with the conduct of our own local life. Metropolitan arrogance, metropolitan ignorance (the phrase is borrowed and not my own) are hard to bear.
To a Londoner it may be incredible that the people of South Yorkshire were grateful for all that their county did to make the area more beautiful. It found it pit heaps; it left it woods and forests. But we were not asked before all was torn down.
In England there is a tradition of local independence as ancient as the Kingdom itself. We of the North do not wish to see it lost. In Sheffield for generations industry and the council, though perhaps politically divided, have been able to work together for the good of the city and its people. In Newcastle, I am told, at this very time great efforts are being made to bring together unions, industry, the boroughs and many others so that together some of the fearful problems that that city faces can be tackled. If such initiatives are to bear fruit we need to be trusted.
I speak too long for a maiden speech; I must end. But at the heart of all this is a question of waste. The nation as a whole is not getting the benefit that it deserves from having the North of England. We are a

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resource; not a problem. Not just for our sake but for the sake of the country as a whole we need to be loved, respected and trusted, and I would welcome the appointment of a Secretary of State for the North on the terms that have been outlined if it was the outward sign of such a new deal.
11.1 p.m.
Lord Elliott of Morpeth: My Lords, it falls to me to have the considerable honour and pleasure to congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Sheffield on his maiden speech. It may interest him to know that I count it an extra pleasure above what it would possibly be for anyone else, for two reasons. The first is that it is a very short time ago that I made my maiden speech, so I had some conception of how he felt tonight.
On the occasion when I made my speech the House was full; and I regret that it is not on this occasion, because his speech was delivered with great feeling and ability and he spoke warmly of his native area. Although few of us are present this evening, I say to the right reverend Prelate that at least two of us are Geordies, and I particularly appreciated his remarks about the ancient Kingdom of Northumbria and particularly the North-East of England from whence he came; and he is still not too far away in Sheffied. I, and I am sure all of us who are here this evening and the many more who read his speech and possibly listen to a recording of it, look forward with the greatest possible pleasure to his many future contributions in this House.
I turn to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Alport, who began by saying that he was an Essex Peer. I am sure that those of us who came from the northern half of the country are extremely grateful to him for the enormous interest of an Essex Peer in our affairs. For him to raise the question of the North and its problems is appreciated, although I have a great deal of criticism of what he said. I agree very much with the noble Lord when he determined on a dark night in Sheffield in the 1930s, if I remember rightly, that the great industrial strength of this country is in the North of England. It was in the North of England; our prosperity was built there. But I do not agree that at the moment, for instance, there are miles of streets with few people employed. Other than one or two, I do not for a moment agree that there are silent shipyards—not at all. I believe that he is thinking of the 1930s and the time of that dark night in Sheffield.
I say to the noble Lord that we certainly still have problems in the North of England—many problems with regard to renewing our old industries and creating new employment—but in my opinion the greatest problem that we face is the continuation of the suggestion that there are two nations within the one, North and South. There is nothing of the kind. We are one nation. The North of England has played its full part in our industrial well-being in the past; it is still playing its part. It wants nothing other than to play its fullest possible part in our future industrial prosperity.
The noble Lord suggested that we needed our own man or woman as a respresentative in government. For many years we had a Minister for the North, granted not at Secretary of State level, which is what he
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is now suggesting. But we had Ministers for the North who did not manage to accomplish a great deal and who would express to me—they were both labour Ministers—their frustration at lack of personal power. To suggest a Minister for the North brings up the constant criticism of such a possibility. If you have a Minister for the North of England, then why not a Minister for the West of England? If you have a Minister for Tyneside, why not a Minister for Humberside and a Minister for Merseyside? The answer, of course, is that you would have devolved government and sectionalised government that would achieve nothing at all. It is often argued that there is a Secretary of State for Scotland and a Secretary of State for Wales, a development body in Scotland and another in Wales. The best possible, balanced system was that of a development area in Scotland and Wales and the enterprise board for England. That seemed to me to make all sorts of sense.
The great test of what the noble Lord, Lord Alport, has said is quite simple. Is the Northern region, in Government terms, disadvantaged at this time? To that, I give the unqualified reply, "No, of course it is not. Not at all." Indeed, the North-East of England, where I come from, has been very much aided in recent years. Almost a third of total Government aid has come to the North of England. Since 1979. the Northern counties of England, which we call the Northern region, has had aid totalling £l billion. We have improved communications and an improved educational system. We are training and retraining on an unprecedented scale. Since 1983, we have had £140 million spent on the youth training scheme and 61,000 young people have been given some qualification. In Newcastle-upon-Tyne alone, at this very moment, 35,000 young people are receiving some form of training in our educational establishments of one kind and another.
Much has been done to overcome the northern area's undoubted particular problems. The problems can best be represented against the background of what we have had to do. The Northern region, as the noble Lord rightly said, knew great industrial strength and prosperity in the past. But, in the late 1950s when the dole queues began to form again and when the clouds of unemployment appeared again, we had to recharge completely an area and change its form. The main, old industry was declining. We had to replace it with new. We have done this to an advanced degree through Government policies. In my maiden speech not so long ago, I paid tribute to governments of both major parties for what they have done over the past 25 years for areas such as the North-East of England. Their methods were different; their aim was the same. We have now a great new complex of new industry and young people being trained for it. We are on our way to a new prosperity. It is wholly misleading, as I see it, to suggest that the North-East of England at this time is a deprived area with silent yards and silent streets. Nothing of the kind is true.
After all, the North-East of England has just managed to obtain the Nissan project. The most sought-after scheme in the United Kingdom for the past four years has come not to the South but to the North-East of England. That is a £350 million development. Is this deprivation? Is this neglect of an

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area? Two thousand new jobs will come with Nissan, and another 2,000 in spin-off to other industries. A month ago, Her Majesty the Queen Mother opened the most modern coal processing plant. Where? Not in the South of England but on the Tyne. It is the most modern coal processing plant in the whole of Europe and one of the best in the world. We have had so many new and successful businesses doing so well. English Estates have done a tremendous job even in places like Consett, a town so badly stricken when a steel works was closed.
There we have an English industrial estate which is prospering at this time. There we have unemployed people of the town of Consett and other parts of the North-East of England being encouraged to set up their own businesses. So I would suggest that once again this evening there is danger to the future and continuing prosperity of the North of England in the suggestion that it is a deprived area of our country. I do not believe that this is so at all. I pay great tribute to the present Government, in their understanding of our problems. I am in a better position, I believe, than most to know how deeply my right honourable friend the Prime Minister feels about our problems and how anxious she is to go on overcoming them through her Government's effort and enterprise.
It is therefore no service to my area to suggest two nations within the one. I do not believe the situation justifies a Secretary of State for the North, or that this would solve any problems at all. I believe that the entire Government at this time have full sympathy with the North-East of England, with the Northern counties of England, and are doing all that is possible to overcome our present problems.
11.12 p.m.
Lord Bancroft: My Lords, may I voice my own unbounded admiration for the right reverend Prelate's maiden speech, its eloquence, its conviction and its substance. Like the other noble Lords who have spoken, I, too, look forward to his contributing frequently to our future deliberations. Indeed, it is singularly fortunate for us that he chose this debate in which to make his first speech. It is a very important debate, if not apparently a very popular one. I give a wholehearted welcome to the aim of the noble Lord, Lord Alport; namely, to promote the industrial regeneration and social progress of the Northern counties of England. I am sure that I speak for all of us when I say how deeply grateful we are to him for initiating this debate and for his graphic, indeed moving, opening speech.
Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Alport, I was born and spent my early boyhood in Barrow-in-Furness when it was the most northerly tip of Lancashire. It is now part of Cumbria. I spent my later youth in Coatham near Redcar, which was then the most northerly tip of Yorkshire. It is now Cleveland.
I must disagree with the otherwise powerful speech of the noble Lord, Lord Elliott of Morpeth. I acknowledge the role which successive governments have played in seeking to regenerate the North; but both the Furness peninsular and Cleveland have seen hard and rough times for the past 60 years. In East Cleveland especially they are harder and rougher than they have ever been.
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In both areas, as has been pointed out, the smoke stacks and their industries are down; and the sunrise industry—nuclear submarines, chemicals, advanced steel making—employ fewer people. Too many places are derelict. If noble Lords doubt what I say, I ask them to make the railway journey—not a very long one—from Middlesbrough to Redcar. One passes through a lunar landscape, most of it quite dead, clad in the uniform colour, rust. It used to be a rather ebullient and exuberant Dante's Inferno crackling with movement, action, steam and flame.
I am totally with the noble Lord, Lord Alport, as to ends, but, regretfully and respectfully, I cannot go all the way with him as to means. I see and acknowledge the attractions of a powerful Cabinet Minister arguing the case for the North with his colleagues like the Scottish, Welsh, and Northern Ireland Secretaries of State. But these Ministers have powerful multifunctional departments underpinning them. In my experience, a Minister, even with three councils under him and a small staff, cannot punch with the necessary weight when the argument is about resource allocation. He must have a strong department.
We must remind ourselves that like all spending Ministers he will be fighting on two fronts—against his other spending colleagues and against the Chief Secretary and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The last two will be doing their best, and understandably, to divide and rule. I can assure noble Lords there is no more pleasing sight to a Treasury Minister, or to a Treasury official, than dog eating dog.
Even the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor would, I fancy, have found difficulty in keeping his end up permanently when Minister with special responsibility for the North-East. Decentralisation and devolution, as has been pointed out, are not exactly flavours of the month at the moment.
I am professionally sceptical about creating a new Northern department. Going back many years it would be recreating a Department of the North, and I am not now referring to the Council of the North. I do not believe that one can successfully superimpose a territorial system on to a functional system unless there is a strong sense of national identity already there, as is the case with the three existing territorial departments.
The new department would, in my view, have to be a big one. It would spend years filching and fighting to haul the levers of power away from the functional departments and into its own territory. Organisational battles of this sort are, I believe, best avoided. There are no winners, only losers, and the battle is always a long one. It took the Treasury five years—and I was there—to dance on the grave of the Department of Economic Affairs. Alas for a wasted quinquennial!
I repeat, the Northern department would have to be a big one, and I am a firm believer in the proverb that all large organisations are in a permanent state of near breakdown, and the larger the nearer. I would prefer, therefore, at a time when the public service is having to contract, to see the existing machinery of government used more effectively. As I have said before, I should like to see an existing Secretary of State and his department, either Environment or DTI, given, and being universally recognised as having, an unambigous lead role in regional policy.

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On a previous occasion we have been told that the Department of Trade and Industry has this function, but is it not the case, I ask, that the Department of the Environment leads and chairs the regional boards while the DTI has the lead responsibility for industrial aid and development policy? However that may be, the perception needs to be cleared up. Much else, I suggest, would then fall into place.
Whoever was the clearly recognised Minister with the lead responsibility for co-ordinating the totatity of regional policy would of course need to lay special stress on the problems of the North. The Minister should, I suggest, be seen as the Secretary of State for England, and his department as the Department for England, as indeed the Department of the Environment was once seen in the first half of the 1970s. The prime task should be the unlocking of local initiative, the attraction of new industries, and the preparation of coherent plans for the proper exploitation of the community regional development fund.
I am quite aware of the fact that the present Administration has an idiosyncratic definition of the word "plan". In that case let us by all means use the euphemism "strategy", as in the "medium-term financial strategy". It might be possible to revivify the regional economic strategy boards, or even recreate in a modified form the regional economic strategy councils in the place of the Northern, North-Western, Yorkshire and Humberside Regions, with specific timetabled tasks to undertake. I suggest that Newcastle, Manchester and Leeds were and are the natural centres, though I say so with respect to two of the previous speakers. I believe that in revived or resurrected form, these bodies should—and I use the frightful jargon of our times—be more bottom-up and less top-down. The close involvement and the strong leadership of the local communities are, as they always have been, absolutely essential. Indeed the revivified or resurrected councils could meet jointly at regular intervals under the chairmanship of the designated Secretary of State, perhaps as a council for the North, perhaps, indeed, in York.
Something on these lines, which is in conformity with the existing pattern of machinery of government would equip the lead Secretary of State with a rather better armoury than he has at his disposal now. It would go some way to meet the aim of the noble Lord, Lord Alport, short of a totally new department or a new development agency, though it is true to say that the latter would in my view be far less messy in terms of machinery of government.
I have tried to be constructive. I end by repeating that my fear of going along the precise road of the noble Lord (though we share a passion for the same destination) is threefold: first, a new Minister without a strong department would cut no ice, however fancily he skated. Secondly, the superimposition of a big territorial department on to a functional system in England would not work, or not quickly enough, in my view. Thirdly, to institutionalise it by creating a new Minister and a new department might conceivably emphasise rather than moderate the deep division which I believe is now developing between North and South. That would, sadly, work against the noble Lord's concern for national unity; a concern which, as Lord Elliott of Morpeth said, we must all share.
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As the noble Lord, Lord Alport, has stated so eloquently, there can in my view be no doubting the very real desperation and real despair felt in many parts of the North.
11.23 p.m.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Alport, for putting down his Question and highlighting what is not just a Northern problem, but a problem for the whole of the nation. As other noble Lords have said, if it only gave us the opportunity to hear the maiden speech of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Sheffield that alone justified the noble Lord putting down his Question. The right reverend Prelate showed not only compassion and deep sincerity, but also pride in the people he represents.
The noble Lord, Lord Alport, said that he was an Essex man; so am I—but just over the border in the first district council of Essex. He referred to the debate in another place on Tuesday last which dealt only with the Northern region, but which gave us some valuable information, statistics and views. I note that the noble Lord's question refers to the "Northern counties of England" and I am assuming that covers not just the North, but the North-West, Yorkshire and Humberside.
I shall not repeat all the statistics which the noble Lord, Lord Alport, gave us. I shall say merely that I agree with all the figures he gave. However, I remind your Lordships of one matter in particular; that is, that the northern areas to which I have referred have lost 730,000 jobs since 1977. That is 60 per cent. of the whole national job losses. That is what we are faced with. We have a situation in which 60 per cent. of the new firms start up in the South-East. Regarding the problems of North and South, I may have something more to say on this on Friday afternoon when we deal with the Channel tunnel.
The right reverend Prelate reminds me that I am three-quarters of the way through reading the Church Commission's report, Faith in the City. The commission has reported:
"We have been deeply disturbed by what we have seen and heard".
Despite the personal knowledge of the noble Lord, Lord Elliott of Morpeth, the report stresses that the Church Commission saw the serious disparity between North and South. It says in the report:
"The poverty reflects the structural inequality of the nation".
There is social deprivation in many parts of the three regions to which I have referred. The North of England Regional Consortium was set up some four years ago by the local authorities and other bodies in those three regions, first, to fight the proposal to develop Stansted as a third London airport, which was something they believed would further endanger development in the North; and, secondly, to promote jobs in those three northern regions. The consortium issued recently a report which the Daily Telegraph of 30th September described as giving a bleak picture of creeping economic and social depression in the North of England.
As the noble Lord, Lord Bancroft, has said, the problems are not only in the North. As I think noble

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Lords know, for a period I worked in the West Midlands. Although I am an Essex man, I still feel that I have some attachment to the West Midlands. Incidentally, that is why I always run a British Austin Leyland car. Seasonally adjusted, the unemployment figure for the West Midland is 14·9 per cent. That is less than one point lower than in the North-West. Therefore, when we are talking about special proposals for the regions, the West Midlands, as the noble Lord, Lord Bancroft, said, would also wish to be considered.
I must express much sympathy with the administrative view which the noble Lord, Lord Bancroft, expressed. We have the success of the Scottish Development Agency, the Welsh Development Agency, the Industrial Development Board in Northern Ireland and the Highlands and Islands Development Board in Scotland. The party for which I am now speaking has no current proposal for an individual Secretary of State for the North. We believe that our industrial, economic and financial policies should be ones for the whole nation, but it may be that we shall need to give some particular attention to special regions.
In our 1983 election manifesto, we reaffirmed a commitment to the establishment of a Northern regional agency, and said that there should be similar agencies extended to other English regions where there was acute need. Our new document, dealing with a jobs and industry campaign, proposes to assist the growth of local economies through a network of regional enterprise boards. We are also working out a new approach to regional policy.
Many local authorities are already doing what they can to help to rebuild their local economies. That was one of the tragedies of the destruction of some of the metropolitan counties, which had established enterprise boards which had started to develop on a regional basis—because that is what the conurbations were—to cope with some of the economic problems in those areas. We have no firm decision yet on how best to reform local government. That is still being examined, particularly in the light of the recent Local Government Bill. But certain regional services such as health, water, sewerage and the various regional ministries need to become much more answerable to elected members than they are at the moment. We have to study not only regional development, and this does not require just the appointment of a special Cabinet Minister. It can be done by a proper national economic financial policy which gives special attention through these development agencies to the regions as and where they are required
This Unstarred Question from the noble Lord, Lord Alport, reminds us once again that there is a dangerous inequality between North and South. Anybody who journeys, as I did from the Labour Party Conference, not on the motorways but travelling by the side roads from Bournemouth back to my home on the north side of London, and then travels up North, will see that we are in grave danger of creating two different worlds which do not understand each other. That, I believe, is the importance of Lord Alport's Question tonight. There is a dangerous inequality. Not only must we seek to solve the problem of that inequality, but
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certainly we must do nothing whatever that will aggravate that problem further.
11.32 p.m.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, during the previous debate I had occasion to telephone my wife. Earlier this evening, she had been listening to the "PM" programme and was somewhat surprised to hear the noble Lord, Lord Alport's reply to a question on what response he expected to his debate tonight. He apparently said, "An ill-considered one". I can assure the noble Lord that many man-hours have gone into speech today. Furthermore, I have listened intently to what has been said by your Lordships tonight. I am not convinced there is a need for a Minister for the North. The boundaries of the North are open to individual interpretation; but, for the purposes of the debate, I will (like other noble Lords) assume the region broadly lies north of a line from Liverpool to Hull.
Even so, this vast area of the country covers smaller regions which would, I believe, not countenance being grouped in this way. They would say with some justification that their problems are different from those in other areas in the region.
This Government have in the past considered the matter of a Minister for the North, and stated that the main reason for turning down this idea is their belief that the institutions we now have are already providing effective help to the North. Indeed, the region receives more industrial and commercial investment aid per head than any other region in England; although not, I accept, Northern Ireland or Scotland. Furthermore, it would not be possible to add a Minister to those institutions, and an increased burden of Government would prove necessary. What is more, other regions would certainly ask to be treated in the same way. We would be back on the road to regional government. Indeed, there is currently no regional Minister either in or out of Cabinet.
That is not to say that the Government are not aware of problems facing the North. My Lords, we are very well aware of the problems, many of which your Lordships have mentioned tonight. The Government's present structure provides a number of Cabinet Ministers whose responsibilities include regional matters. For example, the Secretaries of State for Employment, the Environment and Trade and Industry have responsibility for local employment, regional tourism, and regional infrastructure and industrial development. These responsibilities of my individual colleagues are in addition to their responsibilities for national policies.
Under the scheme that the noble Lord, Lord Alport, has outlined to us this evening, these, so far as they pertain to the North, would be stripped away from them. And to what advantage? This arrangement that we have now allows for exactly what the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, was asking for—that is, the targeting of resources to areas of particular need and at the same time does not lose sight of the principal aim of strengthening the national economy.

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The Government are convinced that a strong regional economy of the type we all seek comes from a strong national economy; and we cannot escape the fundamental link between them. Our Government therefore strive towards a healthy national economy, which in turn bolsters confidence in, and performance of, local economies. The success of a region must rest primarily on the success of the state as a whole.
Many of the problems evident in the North, which have been so ably described tonight, are, as my noble friend Lord Elliott of Morpeth has said, a direct result of technological change, market shifts and the world recession. We know that many thousands of people have lost jobs in the last couple of decades. The problems are deep-rooted, and the Government are not turning their backs on them. However, we are very far from gloom and despondency, especially as the picture is getting much, much brighter. My noble friend made this point much more fully than I am able to do at this late hour.
Since the Government came to office in 1979 their key contributions to increasing the stability of the economic climate, in which industry can flourish, have been to bring down and control inflation and public borrowing and to encourage business enterprise.
The national economy is now better, in many important aspects, than it has been for some years. British output is rising—now at its highest ever level. This continuing growth means that people have more money to spend on goods and, what is more, more money to invest for the future. There has been a good deal of concern in the North—and it has been expressed in your Lordships' House tonight—about the need for more capital investment. This is happening. Investment in business, in manufacturing and in construction and service industries all rose strongly last year; in fact by about 14 per cent. Total fixed investment in 1984 was valued at £55 billion. That was an all-time high, but it is expected to rise even higher this year.
So there is real growth nationally, with higher output, more investment and more industrial activity. Much of this encouragement comes from the hundreds of new businesses which are starting up every week. Not all of them thrive, I know, but in the five years from 1980 to 1984 there was a net growth of 140,000 businesses registering for VAT purposes. So the national picture is not gloomy; and the results of the Government's policies to energise the economy are not lacking in the North.
November was the third consecutive month in which the underlying level of unemployment has dropped. Between April and November this year 385,500 job vacancies in the North were notified—9 per cent. up on the same period last year. And I should add that only about one-third of all vacancies are notified to the public employment service. Last month the unfilled job vacancies in the North of England totalled nearly 35,000. That is nearly 17 per cent. more than in the same month last year. There are currently about 250,000 people benefiting in the North from the Government's continuing wide range of employment and training measures.
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I know, too, that the industrial base of the North is still largely dependent on traditional or largely declining industries, but the region is becoming increasingly less reliant on these as other industries grow. For example, 10 years ago the pharmaceutical industry hardly existed in the North-East, but it now employs at least 5,000 people. Well over three times that number are engaged in electronics-related industries, ranging from component manufacturers to computers, radar, fibre-optics and opto-electronics. The retail and distribution trade is also performing well and thousands of jobs are being created from new developments; for example—one among many—Argyll Stores' £25 million investment programme will create 500 new jobs; and the shopping centre at Coulby Newham, South Middlesbrough, should create 1,500 extra jobs.
There is no shortage of good news in the North. Industry is on the increase. My noble friend Lord Elliott referred to Vauxhall Motors' plans to build the new Belmont four-door saloon car at its Ellesmere Port plant, and this will create 600 jobs next year, with a further 600 in prospect by 1989. A £3 million computer-aided design and manufacture computer centre recently opened in Middlesbrough and could bring more than 5,000 high-tech jobs to the area by 1995. British Petroleum's plans to build a £100 million acetic acid plant at Saltend, near Hull could create an estimated 1,000 construction jobs over the next few years. Over 200 new firms have been established in Consett since the closure of the steelworks in 1979. A shopping and leisure complex costing over £100 million—the Metrocentre—is due to open in Gateshead next year, creating between 4,000 and 5,000 jobs. It may even be more.
A similar scheme due at Elswick, West Newcastle, could provide another 1,500 jobs. When the Greater Manchester Exhibition Centre has been completed, it will provide about 1,000 jobs. In Leeds, the Burton Group propose to develop their former factory site into a transport and warehouse complex providing 1,000 jobs. J.I. Case have taken over the former International Harvesters plant in Doncaster, creating 300 to 500 jobs. This surely is evidence that industry and employment in the North are not all bad.
So far as long as long-term unemployment is concerned, help is to be provided to assist the long-term unemployed in looking for work by expanding the number of Jobclubs—11 of which are already operating in the North. The postal contact initiative, recently announced by my right honourable friend the Paymaster General and to be launched in the near future, will help around half a million long-term unemployed people get back into the job-hunting habit, and give them the opportunity to benefit from the professional advice and support and wide range of services offered by Jobcentre staff. Two new ideas to help the long-term unemployed were announced on 12th November and will be pilot tested for six months from January 1986: the Job Start Scheme and in-depth counselling for every long-term unemployed person. Three of the nine pilot areas announced on 28th November are located in the North, at Billingham, Preston and Huddersfield.
I am not using these hard facts in order to fudge the problems. I am simply trying to illustrate the positive

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side to the region's economy. A stronger economy with many more people being able to take up employment is of course what the Government are aiming for. So the position in the North is improving, but it is a long road and we must not be steered off course. The revitalisation of the North will be accelerated when it can attract new investment.
The right reverend Prelate in, if I may say so, a notable maiden speech, said that we need to be loved. How I agree with him that this is so of the North. I am afraid, however, that, as he remarked, the negative image of the North which some people, including, on occasions, some of your Lordships, choose to put forward is one of the reasons for the difficulties of which we have heard tonight. If those whose task it is to boost the North persistently sell it short by stressing its problems, to the total exclusion of its successes, its prospects are so much the worse. I hope that we shall hear again from the right reverend Prelate, both soon and often.
And so, my Lords, I have sought to show that things are happening in the North, and positive things at that. Can anyone really believe that all that I have outlined happened spontaneously, without departmental—hence Cabinet—involvement. Can any noble Lord believe—the noble Lord, Lord Bancroft, obviously does not—that it would be right to create a new department of state, at a time when things are improving so much in the region, and when it is Government policy to ease the burden on both taxpayer and business by reducing the number of Civil Servants—a process, I might add, in which we have been spectacularly successful since 1979. What extra could a Minister for the North possibly accomplish? The arrangements I have mentioned do exist and they are working well. I see no reason why they should not continue to work and to protect the interests not only of the North but of the whole country.

European Communities (Spanish and Portuguese Accession) Bill [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons agreed to.
House adjourned at sixteen minutes before midnight.