Lords Sitting of 22 July 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 Oxford.

Limb and Appliance Centres: McColl Report
Baroness Lockwood: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government when they expect the McColl Report on the review of the National Health Service limb and appliance centres to be available.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Baroness Trumpington): My Lords, I understand that the working party expects to submit its report later this summer.
Baroness Lockwood: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness the Minister for that rather brief and unreassuring reply. Can she indicate why there has been a delay in issuing the report, which I understand was to have been available in May? Is she aware that there is considerable disquiet in the artificial limb and appliance industry about the delay and about the possible effects of this report on the viability of the industry? Can she assure me that every effort will be made to speed up the publication of the report and to ensure that there will be adequate time to discuss possible recommendations for change with both the industry and the patient services?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, the working party has taken evidence from a wide range of interests. It has received more than 1,000 pieces of written evidence from voluntary, professional and other organisations concerned with the service, and also from users, individual doctors, therapists and manufacturers. A number of these have also given oral evidence. The amount of consultation that has gone on is one of the reasons the report has taken time, but we will consider whether further consultations are necessary when we have received the report.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, perhaps I may ask the noble Baroness, who has had close personal experience with severe disability, whether, when the report comes out, she will do her very best to persuade her colleagues to be helpful and sympathetic to physically disabled people who need help in terms of appliances and other equipment.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, in answer to the noble Baroness, I am looking forward to visiting Roehampton in the near future and I shall certainly take on board her remarks.
Baroness Ewart-Biggs: My Lords, will the Minister assure the House that when the review report is being considered, the emphasis will be not so much on short-term economies and commercial concerns but rather on the long-term interests of both the patients and the industry?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I am sure that the members of the working party are already aware of those facts, but I shall see to it that they hear the words of the noble Baroness.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, even before the noble Baroness visits Roehampton, does she accept that over many years the limb and appliance centres have done a very remarkable job for disabled and handicapped people, especially ex-Servicemen? Perhaps I may ask the noble Baroness two brief questions. First, can she give an assurance that the working party's report will be published? Secondly, can she give a further assurance that if the working party recommends that the work of these centres should be allocated to health authorities, the money will be there to enable the work to be effectively carried through?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, in answer to the first part of the noble Lord's question, we will consider the question of publication when we have received the report. In answer to his second question, I am unable to comment until the report has been received.

Drug Traffickers' Profits: Legislation Proposals
2.41 p.m.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: 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, following the speech by the Lord Chief Justice on 9th July, they will indicate when they propose to introduce legislation to deal with the illicit profits made by convicted drug traffickers.
Baroness Cox: My Lords, our proposals are at an advanced stage of preparation. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary hopes that there will be an opportunity for legislation in the next Session.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that reply. Is she aware that most of us are most eager to see this legislation come before Parliament? Is she aware that the statement made by the Lord Chief Justice at a judges' dinner represents the overwhelming view of public opinion in this country that one must make now a determined attack upon those responsible for making fortunes out of this trade? Secondly, may I ask whether the legislation will cover the Channel Islands as well as the situation in Great Britain, given the fact of an increasing number of allegations that financial institutions in the Channel Islands are being used in the course of this traffic?
Baroness Cox: My Lords, we would indeed agree that drug traffickers bring untold misery into society. I think that everyone in your Lordships' House will agree that it is intolerable that even after conviction they should enjoy the proceeds of their crimes. Therefore I am sure your Lordships will welcome the fact that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister only last Monday indicated the Government's intention to introduce a law in the next Session of Parliament to strip traffickers of their profits from the sale of these drugs. In regard to the second of the supplementary questions of the noble Lord, Lord Harris, concerning the Channel Islands, this matter has been the subject of discussion with representatives of Jersey and Guernsey. The Home Affairs Committee have been looking into this matter and we look forward to learning their findings.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that the proposed legislation will receive the strong and unanimous support of this side of the House? Can she give an indication of whether it will be in the early, the middle or the later part of the coming Session that we can look forward to this?
Baroness Cox: My Lords, perhaps I may say how much we welcome the support that the proposed legislation has had from all Benches in your Lordships' House. I am afraid that I am no oracle and cannot give an indication of at what stage the legislation will be coming forward.
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, will the noble Baroness confirm that the new legislation will make some attempt to follow through the profits, however they may have been disposed of and however difficult it may be to do so?
Baroness Cox: My Lords, I am not sure what the noble Viscount means by "follow through the profits". However, I assure him that we regard provision for freezing assets at or just before the time of arrest as essential to the effectiveness of the new confiscation powers.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, will my noble friend bear in mind that these people are apt, when threatened with prosecution, to transfer some of their ill-gotten gains to their immediate families in the hope that they may share the proceeds with them when they are released? Will my noble friend make sure that the legislation will deal not only with property in the hands of the convicted man but also of his known relations?
Baroness Cox: Indeed, my Lords, I believe that the people working on the proposals are aware of the fact that that is a very real problem, and cognizance will be taken of it.
Baroness Gaitskell: My Lords, is the Minister aware that I was one of the first people in favour of televising this House, and all that I received was contempt and laughter, and such like? I am very pleased to see that noble Lords are in favour of it now. Thank you very much.
Baroness Cox: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness very much for that contribution.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, as the drug problem is a world-wide problem, can the Minister say which other countries already have this proposed legislation?
Baroness Cox: My Lords, I understand that a few countries, most notably the United States, already have legislation in this respect. Many more are actively considering its introduction. I may also point out that that trend is being encouraged by extensive discussion of confiscation issues which has taken place in the United Nations and in the Pompidou group.
Lord Balfour of Inchrye: My Lords, although we do not normally like making legislation restrospective, is there any chance of doing so in this case?
Baroness Cox: My Lords, I am not in a position to comment on that suggestion, but I shall draw it to the attention of my right honourable friend.

St. Thomas' Hospital: Future
2.45 p.m.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will make a statement on the future of St. Thomas' Hospital, the South-Western Hospital and the psychiatric unit at Tooting Bec, all of which are the responsibility of the West Lambeth Health Authority.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, it is for West Lambeth Health Authority to devise a strategy for the future of these hospitals within resource assumptions set by South-East Thames Regional Health Authority.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, will the Minister therefore confirm that the future of St. Thomas' Hospital is in the balance because of financial restraints? Does that situation not cause her great concern? Also, bearing in mind the recent decision by the Minister of Health to close the cardiac surgery unit at Westminster Hospital, the plans to withdraw 63 beds at Guy's, and now the uncertainty about the future of St. Thomas' Hospital, is not the promise that the National Health Service is safe in the hands of the Government beginning to look just a little bit tattered?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I totally reject the noble Lord's final remark. With regard to St. Thomas' Hospital maintaining its role as a major international medical centre, the answer is that, yes, it will. The strategy of the West Lambeth Health Authority is likely to involve rationalisation of local services and their concentration on St. Thomas' Hospital.
Lord Annan: My Lords, is not the noble Baroness a little surprised by the Question put to her, because

987
does not the situation at hospitals depend to some extent on the implementation of the findings of the Resources Allocation Working Party—RAWP—and was it not at a time when the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, was Secretary of State for Health that the proposals of that working party were adopted? Part at least of the shortfall in resources for certain hospitals in that neighbourhood come from the perfectly understandable conclusion of the previous Government that resources should be moved out of London to the regions.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I have several answers that I could give the noble Lord, Lord Annan. The point is that West Lambeth Health Authority, like every other district health authority in the country, has a statutory obligation to stay within its cash limit. We believe that the current problems in that particular authority are a matter for managerial action by South-East Thames Regional Health Authority. West Lambeth Health Authority's members agreed last Friday to produce a satisfactory short-term programme for 1985–86. That is a very encouraging piece of information.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, is the noble Baroness not aware that there is considerable concern among staff at St. Thomas' Hospital about the future of that famous hospital? May we take it that her Answer is of a reassuring nature and that it is possible to say now that the future of that great hospital need not cause the medical staff there the concern they are currently feeling?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I thought that I had already replied to that question when I said that St. Thomas' will continue to be a major national hospital.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, is the noble Baroness not aware that there is a good deal of concern felt about many centres of excellence? Westminster Hospital is one such case, and there are many others. While we all agree that those hospitals must be administered regionally, as they are, they also have a national importance. Many of them are accessible and available to people living beyond the boundaries of the regions concerned. Is there not a case therefore for the Government to produce a paper—a White Paper, possibly—giving a national strategy in relation to those important centres of excellence—not all hospitals—and will she discuss that suggestion with her right honourable friend?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I feel sure that the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, will agree that the subject of other hospitals is a little wide of today's Question, but I will certainly see that his suggestion is passed on to my right honourable friend.
Baroness Lane-Fox: My Lords, is my noble friend the Minister aware that those of us who are heavily committed to the £1 million appeal for moving the Phipps respiratory unit from the South-Western Hospital to St. Thomas' Hospital are deeply worried, because if this Question holds any water we are bound to feel that we are working on a false prospectus?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, the regional health authority has agreed to provide some capital for the move of the Phipps unit to St. Thomas' Hospital. Provided the district health authority produces a proper strategic plan and the patients' association is able to meet its fund-raising target, there is reason to be optimistic about the proposed move.
Lord Richardson: My Lords, is the noble Baroness the Minister aware that on 30th October last year, at a meeting in the other place between her right honourable friend the Minister of Health and representatives from those concerned in the region of St. Thomas' Hospital and the district, the Minister said there was no likelihood of any of the three teaching hospitals in that area being closed? He went on to say that the worst thing that could happen would be that those hospitals should be destroyed by attrition. Is the Minister aware that the staff of St. Thomas' Hospital—of which I am an exmember—will be reassured by what she said, but only up to a point? St. Thomas' Hospital is facing an acute incompatibility. It is being required by the region, on the one hand, to take over—
Noble Lords: Speech!
Lord Richardson: My Lords, is the Minister aware that St. Thomas' Hospital is being asked to take over many commitments while at the same time having its budget reduced to the extent of approximately £1 million a year? Finally—
Noble Lords: No; order!
Noble Lords: Carry on, carry on.
Lord Richardson: My Lords, finally, is the Minister of the opinion that the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, put an extremely important question when he asked whether these hospitals should be treated nationally rather than as local problems?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, it really is not for me to answer this question of whether or not the big hospitals should be treated nationally. As I said to the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, I shall certainly pass on the remarks made on that score.
One of the reasons that this Question has been asked today is the worry about St. Thomas' Hospital, much more than about the other two hospitals which come into that area. The South-East Thames Regional Health Authority's policy is to move resources in line with population movement in recent years. Districts like Medway have been relatively deprived of local health services for many years and need additional revenue for improvements. West Lambeth has been overprovided for—with acute beds in particular—and the pattern of services must change there to meet today's needs. On the other hand, St. Thomas' Hospital, as I have already said, is safe.
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, is it not the case that some special arrangements were agreed for the teaching hospitals within the RAWP formula, and is it not important that these should be honoured?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I am sorry, but I could not hear the noble Lord.
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, I beg the noble Baroness's pardon. I simply asked whether it is not the case that some special arrangements were made for the teaching hospitals within the RAWP formula, and whether it is not of the greatest importance that these should be honoured.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, these will be honoured.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, will the noble Baroness take very fair note of the point made by her noble friend Lady Lane-Fox and understand that I am concerned with the three hospitals, not just with St. Thomas' Hospital? Will she also accept that the RAWP formula (which was introduced when I was Secretary of State), with the provisions made by the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, has happily also been totally accepted by the present Government? Does the noble Baroness not agree that there is no difference between the previous Government and the present Government except that at present it is very difficult to apply the RAWP formula when, in real terms, the rate of growth is so small?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Ennals. West Lambeth Health Authority, like other London districts, is still over-provided with acute beds to meet the need of its declining population, while its priority services need considerable improvements. Large amounts of revenue can be released by rationalising acute services and hospital sites within the district health authority.
Lord Annan: My Lords, may I ask the noble Baroness one further question? The findings of the Resources Allocation Working Party were based on mortality rates—that is, the resources for hospitals were judged on the number of cadavers wheeled from the wards to the mortuary, or the number of deaths recorded in that area. Does the noble Baroness not agree that it would be a much more significant statistic if the morbidity rates were taken?—that is, we should take the number of patients who enter a ward in a hospital in a morbid condition and are discharged having been cured or, at any rate, with their morbidity alleviated. That would surely be a more significant statistic on which to base the resources allocated to a hospital than is the number of deaths recorded in the hospital.
Lord Ennals: Both, my Lords.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, the noble Lord's question is a general one of great interest.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, may I ask a very quick question arising from what the noble Baroness said? What about the thousands and millions of tourists pouring into central London and the additional load which arises on the casualty departments of both St. Thomas' and Westminster hospitals?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, that question is a little wide of the original Question, but I thank the noble Baroness for asking it.

English Housing Condition Survey
2.58 p.m.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they propose altering the basis of the 1986 English housing condition survey, and, if so, whether this will invalidate comparison with the 1981 survey.
Lord Skelmersdale: No, my Lords.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, in thanking the noble Lord for that laconic reply, may I ask whether he is aware of the widespread concern about the condition of housing in this country which, based on the 1981 survey, indicated that one in four houses were in urgent need of repair? May I also ask the noble Lord for his confirmation that he agrees that regular, detailed and comparable information should be provided on this subject?
Lord Skelmersdale: Yes, my Lords, I am well aware of what the 1981 English housing condition survey revealed, and this is all very much part of the infrastructure debate which is going on within the confines of Neddy at the moment. As regards comparability between the 1981 and 1986 surveys, I totally agree with the noble Lord.
Baroness Birk: My Lords, is the noble Lord not aware of his Government's own Green Paper on this subject, published on 9th May, which encourages the repair and improvement of housing? Is he further aware that in that Green Paper there are proposals for redefining "repair" so that "disrepair" means, "dangerous structural disrepair", and "damp" is defined as, "dampness so pervasive as to be a threat to the health of the occupant"? Does this not mean a great lowering of standards? Perhaps the Minister can tell the House how many houses now classified as unfit would, under the new proposals, be reclassified as fit.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, yes of course I am aware of the Green Paper and the standards of fitness paragraph contained in it. But since the minimum housing standard dates back to 1968 and the last minimum standard in England and Wales was set in 1957 it is small wonder that consideration of it should be required from time to time. As the noble Baroness well knows, a Green Paper is a consultative document. The document has gone out to over 500 interested organisations and there are no plans at the moment—in fact it would be impossible—to change the fitness standard before the 1986 English housing condition survey got underway.
Lord Davies of Leek: Is the noble Lord aware of the urgency in the demand to improve the infrastructure in regard to modern housing? Sewerage and drainage

991
systems are of paramount importance and many now need attention. Some of them are more than a century old. While there is currently unemployment, this is a chance to provide work for people, and some jobs could be done more cheaply now than if we wait until the situation grows worse.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, this is a point of view which is gaining very wide currency. I have already referred to the infrastructure debate which is going on within the confines of Neddy. However, if such action has to be taken it has to be based on modern, up-to-date scientific sureveys.
Baroness Birk: My Lords, I am sorry to come back on this matter but the noble Lord has still not answered the point that these redefinitions were proposed and put down in the Government's own Green Paper. Is the noble Lord saying that there is no redefinition intended; or if there is redefinition intended, is he also then prepared to agree that this will lower the standards considerably and mean that there will be more and more housing in a lamentably poorer condition even than there is at the present time, which is making it as low as it can be?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, as I pointed out when the noble Baroness asked her first supplementary question, we are consulting on redefinition of the minimum housing standard, but we do not intend that this should be lower or would change the figures substantially. We do not know of course what will be in the new definition until we have consulted upon it.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: My Lords, after the Minister has obtained the new figures and the redefinition, will the Government be considering putting any more financial resources into overcoming the problem, which is of paramount importance now, without having any further reports?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, spending on housing is one of the very important matters which are considered every year in the Public Expenditure Review, and it would be absolutely impossible for me to pre-empt what will be in the next or any future one.

Business
3.2 p.m.
Lord Denham: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 this afternoon my noble friend Lady Young, with the leave of the House, will repeat a Statement which is being made in another place on the relief of famine in Ethiopia.

Hastings Pier Bill
Read a third time, and passed, and returned to the Commons with amendments.

Televising the Proceedings of the House
3.4 p.m.
Lord Soames Lord Soames rose to move, That this House takes note of the First Report by the Select Committee
992
[H.L. 213] and approves the continuation of the televising of the proceedings of the House on the basis of the current experiment until such time as the House takes a decision on whether or not to permit the permanent televising of its proceedings.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I rise to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. The issue before your Lordships' House, between the Motion on the one hand and the amendment on the other, covers, as it were, a limited front of a major problem, but the result will be extremely important, for reasons that I wish to put to your Lordships.
First, there is a question of what this debate is not about. It is not about the long-term decision as to whether or not this House will continue to be televised. The House will clearly wish to debate this question and clearly will debate it in the next Session, when your Lordships will have received the considered report from the Select Committee on Televising the Proceedings of the House, when the committee will give its mature consideration to the results of the experiment and will put its views before the House. So I do not think it would be right today to take up the time of the House and to use this debate to deploy the arguments which in my view should wait until that definitive debate.
What we are considering today is whether, given the circumstances in which we are now placed, your Lordships would wish to agree to the televising of the House continuing on the present basis for the few months after mid-October, when the House returns, until the House comes to consider the definitive report of the Select Committee—we are talking in terms of months, though obviously I cannot say how many—or, on the other hand, if the amendment were to be passed, whether televising should be brought to an end now (for that is what the amendment calls for), so that when we return in October there will be no televising in the House. Presumably everything will be removed from the House and there will be, as it were, a hiatus, which may or may not be filled after the definitive debate.
What are the arguments in favour of letting the present arrangements continue? The first point that I should like to put to your Lordships came out in the Select Committee's interim report: the fact that both the BBC and ITV have requested that the experiment be allowed to continue. I recommend that those of your Lordships who have not already done so should read the letters that have been written to the committee by those two organisations, because they show that they believe that their audiences wish it to continue, and that their audiences appreciate the programmes that have resulted from such televising. The listening figures are available. They show that the audiences have reached many millions. Further than that I should not wish to go in this debate.
At the other end of the scale is my second reason, which is that I do not think that many of your Lordships feel that either our debates or noble Lords individually have been affected for the worse because of the presence of cameras in your Lordships' House. I think that even the lighting, which I remember caused much anxiety in the debate before the matter was settled, has come to be accepted as tolerable by your Lordships.
Lord Mowbray and Stourton: My Lords, no!
Lord Soames: Well, generally speaking, my Lords. I cannot speak for the noble Lord, who has always been hostile to this idea, but generally speaking I should say that that was true.
Then there is the fact that much evidence would seem to support the greater respect and repute of your Lordships' House in the country and an improved understanding among the people of the part that the House plays in our national life. I repeat that I should not think it right to pursue this most powerful argument until we come to the definitive debate. Suffice it to say today in general terms that I believe that the great majority of your Lordships consider the experiment to have been successful in those terms. Indeed, I believe that there are more of your Lordships who might have been doubtful in the beginning about the wisdom of televising your Lordships' House but who have now come to accept it as a good thing as opposed to the other way round—those of your Lordships who thought it was a good thing but who have come to doubt it as a result of the experiment.
The televising of the House has gained a certain momentum in the country. I hope that your Lordships will feel that the time to bring it to an end, if it comes to that, would be after the Select Committee has presented its definitive report and the House has considered it and taken its decision. But there must be, to say the least, a good possibility that when that time comes the House will decide that televising should be continued for a notably longer time, in which case what a pity it would be to throw away all that has been gained in the past few months.
I think that the timetable was made by your Lordships for what seemed right at the time—an experiment for six months. We see now that it has been, in the minds of many of your Lordships, a success; but now is not the time to decide definitively what is to happen. It would be a pity to lose these large audiences which have been built up now—those who are taking an interest in the business of your Lordships' House—and to have to create them again, beginning from scratch, perhaps in a few months' time. I hope that your Lordships will decide to support this Motion, which I beg to move.
Moved, That this House takes note of the First Report by the Select Committee [H.L. 213] and approves the continuation of the televising of the proceedings of the House on the basis of the current experiment until such time as the House takes a decision on whether or not to permit the permanent televising of its proceedings.—(Lord Soames.)
3.13 p.m.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil Lord Peyton of Yeovil rose to move, as an amendment to the above Motion, to leave out all the words after ("and") and insert ("requests the Select Committee to use their best endeavours to produce a full and considered report on the television experiment, together with recommendations concerning the future of televising the proceedings of the House on a permanent basis, before the Christmas Recess.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I rise to move the amendment which stands in my name on the Order
994
Paper. My noble friend Lord Soames has, as one would expect, moved the Motion in fair and lucid terms and I am sure that his words will be carefully weighed by your Lordships, whatever your present opinions may be.
I think that it is fair that I should remind your Lordships that on 27th November last year this House agreed to an experiment which was to be of six months' duration. In June, a month ago, the broadcasters asked that the experiment should continue. Today, 22nd July, six months almost to the day from the start of the experiment, it is suggested to your Lordships that it should continue and that it should continue until, first, the Select Committee has reported—and it is indicated to us in the report of the committee that the final report will not be available until after the Christmas Recess—and that meanwhile the experiment should continue until your Lordships are ready to make a final decision.
It is not, I think, unreasonable to comment that six months will have turned quite easily into 12 before that decision is made and that we shall at least have given the appearance of sliding smoothly from the temporary towards the permanent. This quite modest amendment says that we have had the experiment for which your Lordships asked, that we should now have a report and that we should have it, if at all possible, before Christmas.
I think this debate is a welcome opportunity to reflect upon what has happened during the period of the experiment. I should find it not all that ease to go along with my noble friend Lord Soames when he says that we should simply confine ourselves to the issue of whether the experiment goes on. I think that we should reflect upon the experience that we have had during the currency of it. It may be that some of your Lordships' opinions will even be helpful to the Select Committee when it comes to consider the matter.
For my part I must say that I have found the interest in your Lordships' proceedings greater than I had expected. I was surprised also that the broadcasts, particularly as the experiment went on, were as frequent as they were—much more so than I had expected. I also concede that the lights, though hideous in themselves, have been less intrusive than I had anticipated. I would make the same comment about the cameras, which I think have been admirably handled by those responsible.
However, the experiment has not removed or diminished other anxieties, particularly those which concern the question of editing. It has not removed either the suspicion that your Lordships' House is being used as a key to the door of another place; nor has it removed my own fear of the consequences for Parliament if it permits the permanent intrusion of this very strong and powerful medium.
If I may remind your Lordships, my noble friend Lord Soames in moving his Motion on 8th December 1983 conceded immediately the importance of editing. He said (at col. 1190 of Hansard):
"I am in no doubt that provided the business of the House that is transmitted is carefully selected and well edited, under strict ground rules designed to facilitate the imparting of information rat her than the knocking or mocking … the televising of this Chamber must do more good than harm".
The noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, went rather further than that, and in doing so certainly had my agreement in what I thought was a very able speech in November of last year. He concerned himself with the need for parliamentary control and the reluctance of the broadcasters to concede it. He said:
"I am convinced that your Lordships should continue to have a substantial, indeed, a decisive, voice in the way in which the cameras are used and the way in which the proceedings are edited and transmitted.
"Some kind of parliamentary television unit for this purpose would, according to the initial memorandum submitted by the BBC and set out in the committee's report, 'raise grave questions of editorial responsibility and freedom to report'".
The noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, also went on to say later in the same column:
"I have no doubt that in the course of the six months' experiment there will be the most impeccable exercise of editorial responsibility by the broadcasting authorities. I am not entirely convinced that this would necessarily be any guarantee for a permanent arrangement".
I share those anxieties to the full.
Of course, I admit that it is easy to see bias even where there is none. But the difficulty which I think broadcasters will always face in an attempt to be fair in a Chamber such as this, is that accusation is always, or almost always, short, sharp and exciting, whereas explanation is often—and your Lordships have frequent experience of this—very much the reverse.
I come to my next point, the fear that your Lordships' House is being used as the key to the House of Commons, for it is there, rather than here, that events which constitute good material for television occur. Concern as to whether the screening of those events will be beneficial, either for Parliament or for the nation, is in my view unlikely to be uppermost in the minds of broadcasters. They will in my opinion be more concerned to make immediate impact. It will be easy for them to overlook, to brush aside, interests of an institution such as Parliament, easy to prefer the dramatic to the truthful, the excitement of the moment to matters of more enduring worth. It is tempting indeed to use, and to be used by, men of violence and to give prominence and therefore support to those who look elsewhere than to Parliament or the courts for means of resolving differences.
By coincidence the Economist has a very interesting article on the subject this week. I quote:
"In their competition for viewers media-managers often forget that they have a power which they should restrain".
I have no wish to detain your Lordships for much longer. However, perhaps I may be permitted to finish with the comment that there is no need in the modern world to remind your Lordships of the dangers to human liberty which exist all over the world, but perhaps it is as well to remember the need to uphold and protect those institutions which have their foundations in that liberty.
Moved, as an amendment to the Motion, to leave out all the words after ("and") and insert ("requests the Select Committee to use their best endeavours to produce a full and considered report on the television experiment, together with recommendations concerning the future of televising the proceedings of the House on a permanent basis, before the Christmas Recess.").—(Lord Peyton of Yeovil.)
3.25 p.m.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, in my view the advice given to noble Lords by the noble Lord, Lord Soames, was extremely wise: that we really should direct our attention to the two choices, one choice being that offered to your Lordships' House in the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Soames, and the other choice being that contained in the amendment just moved by the noble Lord, Lord Peyton of Yeovil. Therefore, I do not think that this is the occasion on which we should be debating the general issues which we have debated at length on many occasions in the past.
To be helpful to noble Lords in assessing the extent to which they will wish to heed the advice I shall presently give them on that choice, it may be fair if I make my position on the general issue crystal clear. I have always been in favour of the televising of Parliament, and the limited experiment we have had so far has reinforced me in that view. I take the view that television is now the public's principal source of information—information on everything; news, current affairs, foreign affairs, sport, politics and the weather. It is not the press; it is television. I think for Parliament to turn its back on the principal source of information would be very unwise indeed. I take the view that the arguments against it are on the whole the same arguments that were advanced year after year, years ago, against allowing the press to come into Parliament.
Let us go to these choices. First, I should like, as did the noble Lord, Lord Soames, to underline what I regard as the possible benefits which could accrue from the extension of this experiment under the terms of the noble Lord's Motion. First, I think it is well established that any damage done to the fabric of this very beautiful building is not done by the presence of the lights or the wiring; it is done by
putting them up and taking them down. We are advised that that is the only source of possible damage to our roof and to the rest of the fabric of the building.
As the noble Lord, Lord Soames, wisely said, if, at a later stage, your Lordships' House is to take the view that we should continue with televising, it would seem to me to have been very wasteful indeed to have taken down all the apparatus and then to have to put it back again. It would be costly and also it would cause some damage to the fabric of the building. Therefore, I think it is better to leave the equipment here and, as it is left here, to allow it to be used within the terms of the Motion.
The second benefit of extending the experiment is that it would allow time for further experiment and possibly further improvements in the way in which it has been done. From the experiment already, the broadcasters, the BBC and ITV, have already become aware of the reservations that certain noble Lords have and they have already made some attempts to meet those reservations and to meet objections. An additional period would allow them time to make further attempts with regard to, for example, the lighting.
The Select Committee, as will no doubt be apparent when we, in the fullness of time, produce our full report, have had the benefit of seeing pictures

997
produced with much less lighting, with more sensitive cameras. We have been very impressed with that. We have also had the opportunity of discussing the possibility of removing the fixtures—which the noble Lord, Lord Peyton of Yeovil, described as hideous. I do not quarrel with him. However, I think the intensity of the lighting is advantageous to some of us. Some of us find it difficult when the lighting goes down and we should quite like the lighting to stay up even when the House is not being televised. However, I agree that the lights are unsightly and it may well be that in the further period of the experiment the broadcasters will be able to find more acceptable ways of increasing—perhaps doing so to a lesser extent—the level of lighting in your Lordships' Chamber.
In addition, new technical advances are being made almost daily. We have had the opportunity of seeing new remote-control cameras and cameras of greater sensitivity, the use of which requires a less intense level of lighting. The further experiment will possibly allow the use of that. In addition, continuation of the experiment will allow further opportunities for the broadcasters, both BBC and ITV, to experiment in the use they make of the feed taken of our proceedings. Much has been done during the period of the experiment. It started with little pieces of broadcasts of actual debates, then small snippets in the news. Then we had the truly excellent reports of your Lordships' proceedings on Channel 4, which I think were very acceptable indeed. I think there are many opportunities for imaginative uses of the feed which have not yet been experimented with and which perhaps could be used by the broadcasters during this additional period, if we have one.
I would say this, my Lords. I believe that the experiment we embarked upon some months ago has, in part, already been successful. The experiment was not only to decide whether we liked it or whether we found it tolerable. It was also to find out whether the public were interested in it. It has always seemed to me that it would be pointless for us to go to the trouble of having our proceedings recorded on television if, then, no one watched it. It would be like composing music—maybe very good music—that no one ever hears. I believe that that part of the experiment has been conducted. We also wanted to know, in part, in relation to the experiment, whether the broadcasters themselves found it technically possible to broadcast the proceedings of your Lordships' Chamber in a manner that was acceptable to noble Lords. They have had that experiment. They have found it technically possible and also, I believe, desirable.
What have we discovered by the experiment so far? We have discovered, first of all, that programmes of your Lordships' House are popular. The viewing figures, which have been published recently and which will no doubt be published in great detail in due course in the Select Committee report, show that, without doubt, a very large number of viewers have actually chosen to watch programmes about your Lordships' House. They have not been compelled to do so because the programmes are on every channel. They have sought them out and have positively watched them. Secondly, there is substantial evidence already that the general public is now better informed of the
998
nature of your Lordships' House and the manner in which it conducts its proceedings. Thirdly, I do not think that there is a shadow of doubt—
A noble Lord having been taken ill:
Lord Denham: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure for five minutes.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
[The sitting was suspended from 3.32 until 3.41 p.m.]

Ethiopia: Famine Relief
3.41 p.m.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Young): My Lords, with the leave of the House I shall now repeat a Statement which is being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Minister of State for Overseas Development. The Statement reads as follows:
"With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a Statement on the relief of the Ethiopian famine.
"I visited Ethiopia from 16th to 19th July to assess the current famine situation and the need for further relief there. I revisited the feeding centres at Korem, which I saw last November, spent half a day at Assab port, went on an airdrop operation in an RAF Hercules, and had discussions with Ethiopian Ministers, the United Nations co-ordinator, Mr. Kurt Jansson, the Ethiopian Relief and Rehabilitation Commissioner, and representatives of international and voluntary agencies.
"The international relief effort, in which both the British Government and people have played an important part, has alleviated much of the worst suffering which we saw on our television screens in the latter part of 1984. Rain is now falling in many parts of Ethiopia, some crops have been planted and livestock is beginning to recover.
"However, there are still large areas, notably Wollo and parts of Tigre and Eritrea, where the rains have been only intermittent or have yet to come at all. It will be several weeks before any reliable assessment of the probable 1985 harvest can be made. It will be several months before that harvest can be gathered. All to whom I spoke in Ethiopia agreed that even with the most favourable rains this year's harvest will be well below that of a normal year. It is essential, therefore, that the relief efforts are maintained into 1986.
"What are the immediate priorities? The United Nations co-ordinator estimates that with current stocks in Ethiopia and firm pledges of further deliveries, the overall food supply should be adequate for the rest of this year. At Assab I saw the considerable flow of European Community food aid into Ethiopia—three ships were unloading food grain from the Community. Effective use is being made of the dumper trucks, grain conveyors and tarpaulins we have provided—we shall be sending in

999
the next few days a further supply of tarpaulins for use at Massawa and on relief trucks.
"The overriding priority now is to improve food distribution. There are still not enough trucks available. The situation should soon improve significantly with the arrival of trucks pledged earlier. The United Nations co-ordinator's assessment is that perhaps another 400 long-haul and short-haul trucks will still be required. It is of course essential that the Ethiopian Government make available all the trucks that they can.
"As the House is aware, our major contribution to food distribution in Ethiopia has been the provision since 3rd November last year of two RAF Hercules aircraft and their accompanying detachment, including a team from the Royal Corps of Transport. This operation has now airlifted well over 12,600 tonnes of grain and dropped a further 7,000 tonnes to places inaccessible by any other means of transport. It is an operation which, as I have seen for myself, calls for the highest professional skills and cool courage. It is admired by everyone in Ethiopia.
"As I told the House last Monday, one of the purposes of my visit to Ethiopia was to judge whether we should maintain the decision I announced on 10th June to withdraw our aircraft by 30th September. We had expected then that by 30th September the ending of the rains and the buildup of trucks would enable food to be distributed more widely and efficiently by road. My visit has confirmed that this remains the most cost-effective way of moving large quantities of grain, but the buildup of road transport has gone more slowly than expected. Areas inaccessible by road will continue to depend on food brought from outside until their own harvest is in, as we all hope it will be, at the end of the year. The Hercules also provide a much valued flexibility.
"We have now been able to weigh up carefully the future of the Hercules operation, and to discuss it fully with the Ethiopian Government—who asked us to extend it—with the UN co-ordinator and with other relief agencies. We have concluded that the aircraft will continue to be needed until the end of the year. We are therefore conveying to the Ethiopian Government our offer to keep the two aircraft and accompanying detachment on relief operations until the latter part of December.
"Mr. Speaker, this new commitment, together with the further 10,000 tonnes of food aid which we shall send when the ports are ready to handle it, demonstrates the Government's continuing concern for the victims of the Ethiopian drought. Our contribution has been prompt—we helped the Save the Children Fund with its feeding centre in Korem early in 1983; generous—£70 million of emergency aid since 1982; and sustained. We shall continue to do all we can."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Lord Oram: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Baroness for repeating the Statement which was made in another place. We on these Benches very much welcome the decision to continue the Hercules
1000
service in Ethiopia. If I may say so, we had been very disturbed by the earlier decision to end the service in September. We are glad that the Government have decided to respond to the pressure of public opinion on this issue. In more general terms, I should like to express the hope that the Government will also respond to the public opinion which was roused by the Band Aid concert a few days ago and increase the aid programme so that we can more adequately respond to needs such as those illustrated particularly in Ethiopia at this time.
However, is it not the case that the RAF operation in Ethiopia, highly commendable though it is—and indeed vital in some remote areas because it is the only means of getting food to those areas—accounts for only a small part of the food distribution? Are not the voluntary agencies, which are doing such noble work in Ethiopia, wrestling praticularly not only with the problem of the shortage of lorries, to which the Statement refers (and we welcome what is being done in that respect), but also with the continuing problems of shortage of petrol, spare parts and maintenance mechanics? I wonder whether the noble Baroness heard my right honourable friend Mr. Neil Kinnock on the radio this morning speaking from Addis Ababa? He had just been speaking to a mechanic who was helping to repair lorries out there and he was pointing to the dearth of that type of skill. Is the noble Baroness able to give us any hope that that kind of skill will be mobilised and that young people will perhaps be sent out in an emergency operation in order to overcome that type of problem with which the voluntary agencies are so gallantly wrestling?
The Viscount of Falkland: My Lords, we too on these Benches should like to thank the noble Baroness for repeating this most important Statement which has been made in another place. Nobody would dispute that the Government, and indeed the country, have responded most generously and most efficiently to this emergency. We stress the word "emergency"; we always act in this way to an emergency. I am very glad to hear that the Government are considering extending their use of these aircraft for the very important aspect of the transport of grain in Ethiopia.
However, it would be useful if the noble Baroness could elucidate one or two matters. First, what kind of influence are we able to bring to bear upon the Ethiopian Government so that they match the type of effort which we and others are making in this country by supplying trucks for the movement of food and not for the movement of military personnel and armaments?
Secondly, it would be useful if the Government could also guide us on how they see the enormous funds which have been raised recently by voluntary efforts—and of course I mean particularly the Band Aid effort—dovetailing with the voluntary agencies. How do they see a useful and productive use of this enormous amount of money? Can they assure us that it will not be wasted by duplicating effort in certain areas, and that it can be used in the most sensible and productive manner possible?
Lastly, we on these Benches would like to have some view from the Government as to what lessons have been learnt so far from the Ethiopian disaster and our

1001
involvement in it. Have we been able to learn from our activities there, and from the activities of the voluntary agencies, something which will enable us to lay the ground plans for a long-term approach to famine in Africa?
Have we any further information, any further expertise, which will help us take the long-term view—which is not the emergency aid; which is not the food shipped out in a hurry—on the kind of influence we can bring to bear in Ethiopia (and indeed other countries where perhaps it is easier for us), so that these countries themselves can take steps to contribute to avoiding these kinds of disasters in the future?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I should like to thank both the noble Lord, Lord Oram, and the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, for the welcome they have given to this Statement. I am sure that we are all glad that we have been able to extend the use of the Hercules aircraft and the detachment to look after them, because their value has already been shown in all the relief efforts.
The noble Lord and the noble Viscount asked me about the Government's response to the magnificent sum of money that has been raised by Band Aid. We recognise that this is a remarkable achievement and that every effort must be made to see that the money that has been raised will be well used. We believe that the Ethiopian authorities will co-operate fully over this matter.
The noble Lord, Lord Oram, asked me whether the voluntary organisations are still wrestling with these complicated problems of distribution of supplies. The two planes to which I have referred operate only in Ethiopia. We are paying for a separate airlift by charter plane in the Sudan. I can tell the noble Lord, on the question of providing more trucks, that we are considering providing more trucks for any British vehicles. However, most transport is in fact of non-British make and the UN co-ordinator has made a plea not to add to the multiplicity of vehicles, so we have agreed to provide some trailers. We have also provided an engineer to advise on the rehabilitation of the relief and rehabilitation commissioner's Land Rover fleet, for which we have provided spares. We have also provided 23 new Land Rovers and 28 trucks.
I was asked also what influence we could bring to bear on the Ethiopian Government. We have expressed our concern to the Ethiopian Government over the continued fighting in Eritrea and Tigre, and we have pointed out the benefits which an end to hostilities would bring to the people of those areas, and indeed to the economy as a whole. We have supported the efforts by the UN co-ordinator, Mr. Jansson, to arrange the safe passage for relief convoys.
Finally, the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, asked what lessons have been learnt from all this. He has made some valuable points and raised some serious questions which are being addressed in the course of this disaster. The Statement addresses itself once again to an immediate situation. My right honourable friend the Minister for Overseas Development has just returned from Ethiopia and from getting once again a first-hand view of the situation, but I think that the
1002
noble Viscount is quite right in the points he raises: that we need to learn from this lessons for the future. If he will forgive me, I shall not go into that this afternoon, because I think it is more properly a subject of debate. However, I note very much the point he has made, and I shall draw it to the attention of my right honourable friend.
Lord Reay: My Lords, can my noble friend the Minister say what contributions have been made by Eastern-bloc countries toward the relief of famine in Ethiopia? Would she like to compare this with the contribution made by the United States of America?
Baroness Young: My Lords, my noble friend asks an important question. I have not the figures for the contribution made by the Eastern-bloc countries, but I can tell him that the major contributions have been made by the United States, the European Community, and the countries of the West, and relatively little has been provided by the Eastern-bloc countries.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, may I pay tribute to the noble Baroness's personal involvement in the tragic situation in Ethiopia? Perhaps I may ask her two questions arising out of her Statement. First, is it not the case that the aid provided by this country, by the Government, to relieve famine in Africa is only aid within the already agreed aid budget, and therefore has been taken from aid which was destined for other hungry countries?
Secondly, the noble Baroness mentions the use of the Hercules aircraft in Ethiopia. Is it not the case that only half the cost of those aircraft is borne by the Ministry of Defence, and the rest has to come out of the Overseas Development Administration's budget?
Baroness Young: My Lords, in answer to the second question of the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, yes, it is true that half the costs of the aircraft are being borne by the Ministry of Defence—the costs amount to about £750,000 a month—and half is being borne by the Overseas Development Administration. The answer to his first question is that the money for the emergency aid has come from the contingency fund of the Overseas Development Administration. We regard this as a proper use of that money because clearly this is an emergency, and that is what this money is set aside for.
I can confirm that our total expenditure for drought relief in Africa in the financial year 1984–85 was £95 million. This is in addition to the £125 million of longer-term aid Britain plans to spend directly on the 20 African countries most seriously affected by drought.
Lord Walston: My Lords, the Statement that the noble Baroness has made mentions that there are not enough trucks. Does she agree that in addition to trucks there is a need for spare parts for trucks; that spare parts are of no use unless there are qualified and experienced mechanics to fit the spare parts; that in order to have such mechanics it is necessary that people should have some training and above all that they should be literate; and that for the trucks it is necessary that there should be roads along which they

1003
can run and places along the roads where they can get fuel? In other words, a whole complex of infrastructure, not only of transport but of education, is needed both for famine relief and for enabling these countries to develop their own agriculture and grow sufficient food so that these crises do not arise in the future.
Will she assure the House that, as a result of this crisis, Her Majesty's Government are aware that there is a need for a greater expenditure on a long-term basis on infrastructure, not only in Ethiopia but in many other countries affected and threatened by famine, and that steps will be taken to avoid the recurrence in the long term of this sort of thing by expenditure on infrastructure?
4 p.m.
Baroness Young: My Lords, I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Walston, has said about the complications of distribution and the importance of having both trucks and spare parts, and people who are capable of repairing the trucks and keeping them in order. Indeed, the latest information available to us suggests that sufficient food is being shipped to Ethiopian ports and stocks are building up in the warehouses, but distribution problems persist. We and other donors are keen to ensure that the Ethiopian authorities continue to make more vehicles available for distribution purposes. As I indicated in an earlier answer, we are providing spare parts for trucks and have provided an engineer. But the point the noble Lord makes is important, and I recognise it.
The second point raised by the noble Lord is similar to one raised by his noble friend Lord Falkland. We are aware of the problems that this crisis has thrown up. There are long-term problems in Africa, and these are points which I shall draw to the attention of my right honourable friend. I recognise that in all parts of the House we are concerned about the future problems of drought and its causes and also about the other problems of Africa.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the people in this country are proud and excited about the aid that we have sent both in money and in other ways to help deal with the famine? But is she also aware that the one doubt as shown from all kinds of media is the lack of enthusiasm from the Ethiopian Government to make the best of the aid which is going there? Can my noble friend say whether that doubt, which is there and has been expressed, is well founded or ill founded? The only words my noble friend has used in answer to the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, were that we were hopeful that the Ethiopian Government would be 100 per cent. helpful, but there was rather a muted response to something which may injure the whole purpose of the exercise in which everyone else is trying to help.
Baroness Young: My Lords, everyone has been immensely impressed by the work of the Band Aid group and the unbelievable amounts of money that have been given so generously by so many people. Before the work of the Band Aid group it was a measure of the very real concern shown by the overwhelming majority of people in Britain that so
1004
much money had been raised voluntarily for the work of the voluntary organisations in this country to help towards famine relief in Ethiopia and other parts of Africa. We all acknowledge this and what my noble friend has said.
On my noble friend's second point, we have to remember that all this is taking place in another country. We can only use our influence with the Government of that country to see that the food goes to the right people and is being properly distributed. What I can say is that there have been reports that too much food goes to the militia in Eritrea, but I confirm that a team comprising representatives of the United Nations Co-ordinator, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Relief and Rehabilitation Commission is to investigate this. I can confirm to my noble friend what I said earlier: that we have expressed our concern about the continued fighting in Eritrea and Tigre, none of which helps the distribution of food or the indigenous population.

Televising the Proceedings of the House
4.5 p.m.
Debate resumed.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, perhaps I may now conclude my earlier remarks, which were so unhappily interrupted, with three short sentences. First, I hope that all noble Lords will vote at the end of this debate believing that whatever decision they take is entirely without prejudice to the decision which the House will later take when it has had the full and final report of the Select Committee. Secondly, it seems to me entirely appropriate, consistent and sensible that those who were opposed to television before the experiment, and remain of that mind, should support the noble Lord, Lord Peyton of Yeovil. But with regard to the rest, particularly those who still remain uncertain, I would say that if we would allow the experiment to continue it may permit questions to be answered which are not yet answered and it will also assist us greatly in that later debate.
Finally, we have already done a great deal in the public mind by allowing this experiment. I believe your Lordships' House has become popular, people are more interested in it and are so much better informed about it. If we were now seen to halt this experiment prematurely, as I think the public would think, that would have a damaging effect on the way we appear to the viewing public.
4.6 p.m.
Lord Beswick: My Lords, I rise to support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Peyton. I cannot believe that as a society and as a nation we have yet learned how to control, how to use beneficially, for the general good, this immensely powerful means of opinion and behaviour forming. Nothing in the last six months suggests to me otherwise, so far as our Parliament is concerned. The inherent danger in this power is its capacity to exaggerate, to exaggerate to the point of distortion, the faults and failings as well as the virtues of individuals and organisations. In political presentation, especially in extracts, it tends to amplify

1005
differences between us, when the crying need is for steady, unspectacular and maybe unnewsworthy discussion. I can understand the noble Lord saying that these wider factors should not be discussed on this Motion of his, but those wider factors should in my view always be clearly before us whenever we discuss this problem.
It was said by the noble Lord, Lord Soames, in his earlier Motion that Parliament is about the only facet of our national life which is not televised. Of course, he was right, but he cannot claim that all those other facets have been improved or are being improved in quality and purpose because of television.
In the case of sport, for example, television's influence has been to drag down, to despoil, rather than to raise in quality. The Lord Chief Justice of England the other day had much evidence before him to support his charge that television was a significant factor in the spread of violence. If the television cameras turn to the crowd at a football match the invariable reaction on the part of some is to wave arms and clench fists. If there is a foul on the field of play it gets the full television treatment. The pictures do not simply report incidents, they create a climate for more of the kind to follow. Cricket has not been unscathed. The running on the pitch is not unconnected with the fact that the scene is depicted on the screens. I cannot think that the pictures of international cricket matches played in coloured pyjamas beneath the are lights in Australia do anything to improve the image of cricket.
I confess to being enthralled by some athletic contests I have seen on the screen, but the contamination is now spreading there. The Times' correspondent spoke recently of one hyped race as a soap opera. There was certainly a soap opera last Saturday at Crystal Palace. We learned that at the Friday athletic meeting one competitor did not run because they would not pay him an additional £1,700 appearance money. The big money which now changes hands in sport arises solely from television intervention. In the parish in which I live we now have one Sunday a year dominated by the traffic to the tennis tournament. The finals are staged on the Sabbath simply because the TV companies will pay extra millions of pounds if it is on a Sunday rather than on a Saturday. Looking at these and other factors, I am not convinced that our democratic processes should be subjected to the same influences as are now being brought to bear on these other facets of our national life; and our six months' experience does not lead me to vary that opinion.
The very interruptions and interventions that there were when the noble Lord, Lord Soames, was talking earlier this afternoon were uncharacteristic of the House I knew in pre-camera days. The most weighty argument in favour of the television cameras, I believe, is that advanced by my noble friend, the former journalist, Lord Ardwick. As he says, parliamentary reporting in most of the modern press does not, cannot or will not tell the electorate what is being done by their elected representatives. A contributor to a debate in Parliament has to say something fairly outrageous in order to get a mention in the tabloid press. In that deplorable context of the tabloid, I agree that the television news from all stations are absolute beacons
1006
of invaluable light. Nevertheless, the competition for readership, for an audience, which is now the prime cause for this denigration of values in the tabloids, is not entirely unknown in the broadcasting world. What might be called the "Dallas syndrome" is more a matter of widening the audience than of raising the standards.
If we were being asked to vote for or against the allocation of a cable for the separate and continuous live broadcasting of Parliament for the benefit of those who choose to select that channel, then maybe I would go into the Lobby of the "Contents". Despite the fact that he says the opposite, I still believe that the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Soames, leads us further along another path in which unnamed individuals would have the task or the opportunity to select what should be shown.
I wonder if on this point I might be allowed to refer to my own experience. It so happened that the Labour Opposition had an allotted day for debate in January and there was a discussion, as usual, about what should be put forward. It was known that at some future date I would seek to put forward certain ideas and I was invited to take that available date. When it was realised—or, certainly, when I realised—that this would be the start of the six months' experiment, I tried—and, as my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition would say, I tried hard—to pull out. I considered that I had a significant and reasoned argument to put forward and I wanted to stimulate a reasoned debate. The television cameras, it seemed to me, would not help that objective.
In the event, I was proven right. The heat, the light, the overcrowded Benches, the extra-long list of speakers were all alien to our normal debates. They did not help the reasoned discussion which Parliament should really be about. There were, I recall, offensive comments in the press beforehand that my opening speech should be cut short so that viewers could come the more quickly to a rather more spectacular speaker.
In the days after the debate, I received around 300 letters—which is a large mail for me although I have no doubt it would be small for other noble Lords. They were from across the country, from Cornwall to County Down and Aberdeen. One or two were from individuals whom I had known in wartime experience and had heard nothing of since. That in itself, I must confess, was a warming and indeed moving experience. But it was notable that those who wrote constructively and commented on the debate had all seen the actual live broadcast. Probably five or six of that total had seen only recorded extracts. It was, I think, quite significant that those who had seen something of both the live and the recorded broadcasts all commented on the different impressions that had been created.
I myself saw later in the Moses Room one of the extracts of a BBC recording. It made very good viewing. But it made no mention of the Labour Motion; there was no word or sign of the mover of that Motion. My noble friend the Leader of the Labour Opposition, who had so well supported my Motion, was not mentioned. Nor was the Deputy Leader, who gave a masterly reply at the end of the 10 hours' debate.

1007
They were kind enough to show me at around 1.30 a.m. and mentioned that I had the right to speak at the end, a right which of course noble Lords would appreciate I did not wish fully to exercise. I understand that complaint was made by our Select Committee about that particular extract and since then, certainly, more balanced extracts have been shown. I am sure that every effort will be made in any further extension to avoid that example. But, as was said on another occasion, if the right is once secured to take the cameras into both Chambers of Parliament on a permanent basis, who can then guarantee that such good behaviour will survive?
In my view, the experiment has provided us with sufficient experience already on which to base a judgment. We entered on the experiment on the basis of a six-month period. We should now reflect on that experience and come to a definite conclusion within the next few months. I hope that the House will be able to support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Peyton.
4.17 p.m.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, that television is a very powerful factor in this country's affairs, and indeed in the affairs of all advanced countries; although I shall say at once that I do not share Lord Beswick's manifest dislike for it. It is a very powerful factor, and I suggest to your Lordships that it is a factor which it is important that we should seek to direct so far as we can in sensible and nationally beneficial directions.
When the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, calls in aid violence on television, he has obviously something there. There is too much—much too much. But the application of that argument to the televising of your Lordships' House does not seem to me to have any very direct connections. Whatever effects the televising of your Lordships' House may have on the British public—except for perhaps a reaction of tedium in respect of, what shall I say, myself or other noble Lords who may be speaking—surely, whatever else it does, it does not provoke violence. I hope that we can dismiss that argument pretty firmly.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, about the reaction of the House, and indeed the televising of the first day of the procedure in January. My impression, subject to that of others of your Lordships, was that on that first day there was a tendency in the House, particularly at Question Time, a little bit to play to the cameras; and it is certainly true that the editing of that part of the debate which was not broadcast live—the first few hours were broadcast live and there can be no complaint about that—was less good than it should have been. I would agree with that. But I would say with some confidence as a reasonably regular attender of your Lordships' House that since then the effect of the cameras has not been at all harmful, and that your Lordships as a whole have come completely to ignore their presence. Therefore the fears which some people have that the cameras might constitute a temptation to certain of your Lordships to play to the cameras, make silly points, and so on, have really not been borne out.
Perhaps I may turn now to the, as always, impressive speech of my noble friend Lord Peyton.
1008
The House always listens to him with respect because he speaks with clarity, force and experience. However, I venture to demur when he says, "If we go on while the Select Committee are considering the matter we shall drift further into making the televising of the House permanent." With respect, that is not so. As I understand the procedure, whatever happens this afternoon, the Select Committee (still called rather curiously, I think, the Sound Broadcasting Committee) will report, and then I have no doubt that your Lordships' House will have a full day's debate—I am sure that my noble friend the Leader of the House will confirm that—on the decision whether or not to continue.
What is in issue this afternoon is simply whether or not, while those processes are taking place, we should continue to be televised. Here I would pick up something which my noble friend said. He said that we should reflect on our experience and in that way help the Select Committee. If we cease to be televised at the end of this month and we return to the spill-over period without it, some months will have passed and the recollections of all of us as to what exactly was the effect of televising on the House will be less sharp, clear and immediate than if the process were continuing.
I would therefore suggest to your Lordships that if the process is continuing while the Select Committee is sitting and while, as my noble friend Lord Peyton very properly suggests, those of your Lordships who desire to assist the Select Committee will give it advice, that advice will surely be more up-do-date and vivid than if we were discussing a matter which had faded back for some months. Your Lordships know that the long recess represents a real gap in parliamentary life, even though most of us are profoundly thankful to get away and have our holidays. Therefore, I suggest that my noble friend's very proper suggestion that the Select Committee will want to hear the views of your Lordships tends to the view that it would be much more effective if the experiment were to continue.
I originally agreed very much—and I still agree to some extent—that the difficult issue in this connection is the editing. I myself, when the experiment started, had considerable misgivings. I wondered whether the editing might not be quite damaging in its selection. I would not wish to pretend that I have entirely agreed with the editing. I have known occasions when I thought I had made quite a good speech but the editor apparently did not, and it was not reproduced on television. No doubt that has been the experience of many of your Lordships. But on the whole I think a very strong effort to be fair has been made by those charged with this singularly difficult task. And on the whole—though one can always quote exceptions and indeed I have had them quoted to me—this extraordinarily difficult task has been discharged in a way which clearly indicates that those responsible for it have been really doing their best to try to give a fair account.
When my noble friend refers to what he called "an intrusion into our affairs", I really must part company with him. Parliament is not a private debating society. We are part of Parliament and if our fellow countrymen can be given the opportunity to hear our proceedings and if they want to do so (as they apparently do), I think that it is quite wrong to regard

1009
their watching and listening to our proceedings as an intrusion.
Indeed, if your Lordships will cast your minds back to the beginning of modern systems of government in classical Greece, your Lordships will remember that public business was conducted in the Agora, the market-place, where every citizen could attend and listen. It is perhaps not fanciful to suggest that the wonders of modern technology have made the marketplace rather larger. But in any event Parliament is not a private matter. Parliament is a matter of great public concern and when the public want to watch and listen, and are able to do so, it seems to me that the onus must be on those who would deny them that opportunity rather than on those who would argue in its favour.
Another point which my noble friend Lord Peyton made, to which I listened with great interest, was that he thought the broadcasters regarded the televising of this House as a key to the House of Commons. Whether or not that is a strong argument, it does not really affect our immediate decision. Whether or not we continue to be broadcast while we are considering whether to make it permanent or not, cannot affect the decision of another place one way or the other. When we come to the final decision whether to be broadcast or not, then there is an argument for that; but there is no argument for saying that our continuing to be televised in these next few months affects the situation one way or the other.
I regard this anyhow as very much a matter for the other place and I do not think that your Lordships should get involved in it—though when my noble friend went on to say that if another place were broadcast then every sort of extremism, exaggeration and dramatic action would be televised and other matters would not, I could not help recalling that precisely the same thing was said the best part of 200 years ago when consideration was being given to the admission of the press to the Gallery of another place. If your Lordships turn up the old records you will see that just the same things were said: that all eccentricities, violence, and so on, would be publicised and serious debate would not. But, my Lords, for something like the best part of 200 years the press have been present both in your Lordships' House and in another place, and that is an accepted part of our constitution.
I do not want to be tempted into the main issue because that would only prolong this debate; but I would say on the temporary point, which is all we are concerned with, that both the broadcasting organisations are anxious to continue. I think that is significant. It must be all but unique to have the BBC and the editor of ITN taking the same point of view. It is quite interesting and quite encouraging for your Lordships' House that both those great organisations should want to continue to broadcast our proceedings.
I shall leave the House with this thought. There is really very little doubt that the past six months have done a great deal of good to this House. They have destroyed many illusions about it and they have made people outside realise what they had not fully realised before: that this is a House which conducts civilised and intelligent debates contributed to by people of
1010
great expertness and knowledge on a whole variety of subjects. I do not want to intrude upon party political issues but it is not long ago that your Lordships' House was what is called in another context "a threatened species". It is perhaps not a bad thing in the longer run for your Lordships' House to be seen in action by the public because I do not believe that a public which sees us in action will contemplate our destruction.
4.29 p.m.
Lord Ross of Marnock: My Lords, I too can declare this measure of interest: I did not vote either way on the original Motion. I had not my mind made up as to whether it would be a good thing or a had thing, hut I appreciated the value of an experiment. The decision the House took was that we would have the experiment for six months; then we would have a considered report and, having debated and considered that, we would make up our minds.
I have more than a feeling that to change from that decision, and, while the experiment goes on, to ask us to continue it for another three or four months—we do not know how long—is asking us to come to a premature conclusion. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Soames, said that this is not the definitive decision. He must think we are very naive. Let us read the letters which we were asked to consider. The reason given by the BBC is to continue to satisfy this new public interest. There is nothing short-term about that. The ITV base their request on their sense of where the public expectation lies. Those are not arguments for a mere extension; they are arguments for the continuation for all time of the televising of the House.
I think we all have our ideas about how this has worked. I see it from this seat here, and I am a fairly regular attender. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, that in many ways it was good television. On the day we started we had the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Stockton. No one would love to have missed that. But we do not get it every day. We do not get such interest when discussing the District Salmon Fishery Boards (Scotland) Bill. We do not even have the lights on. I can tell your Lordships this about this great population interest: the people of Scotland are not all that interested in the GLC. Yet this was what the last six months have been all about. We have had dramatic votes.
It is suggested that this House has more respect. I think we have. We have more interest. That was natural, because it was new, it was different. People wanted to see inside the House. We had the curiosity interest. Did we get understanding? I do not think so. People do not understand how we had great victories and they have suddenly disappeared because the Bill went elsewhere and something else happened there. There is not the understanding of Parliament. It is not just understanding of the House of Lords but understanding of Parliament. There is a job to be done there and it could only be seen with the televising of another place. It is the other place that ITV and the BBC want to televise. There, they will have the drama and interest; and we shall get very little consideration thereafter.
I should like to say something about the BBC programme, "Today in Parliament". I have probably

1011
had more publicity for anything I have said since I came here than I had as a Back Bencher in the other place. They do it well; they do it fairly; and they do justice to the House of Lords. They have a good listening audience at night, and more particularly in the morning. I do not think one can achieve that with television. When one comes to the editing and to the control of cameras, there lies the difficulty. I hate to say this, but sitting here I have watched the behaviour of people and I think there was a decline in standards. The first day was dreadful. At Question Time even the noble Lord had to get into the act. Everyone was getting into the act. Question Time lasted longer; it was noisier. I do not know how many speakers we have had in such a debate before, but on that occasion the debate went on until one or two in the morning, which is not usual.
We have to concern ourselves as to how televising affects this House. I have seen Members in our House moving around to get into camera shot. If the noble Lord, Lord Soames, had been here a little more often he would probably have seen it. This was the effect. I saw Ministers interjecting while other noble Lords were speaking. That would not have happened before. I have heard debates that were more like party political broadcasts and not entirely related to the kind of much more mature, much more considered approaches we have to many of the subjects we debate. That has gone to a certain extent.
It is wrong to say that the cameras are not intrusive. Of course they are intrusive. You cannot avoid them altogether. There are the lights and the heat. We have had a little of the effect of that today. It may well be that these can be put right, but we have to consider these matters and get views from the report that we sought and that we thought was coming. One does not change the rules in the middle of games. I refuse to be bounced. I see a number of noble Lords sitting there who were formerly Ministers. They know how civil servants used to try to bounce one into a hasty decision; and if one had the courage to do it, one said, no.
Let us take this the way we first laid it out. Let us have our six months; let us have the report, and then decide. We shall not forget the effect of televsion in two months. I think that it is quite wrong of the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, to suggest that. This can be of advantage to us, if we use it well and if we control the cameras to a certain extent. Certainly as I sit here, with the state of my eyes, the effect of these lights is that my head goes down. I have seen noble Lords and noble Baronesses with their heads down, and people automatically say, "Everybody is sleeping in that place". They are not. They are seeking to protect themselves from the glare of these lights.
We have a lot to learn. I think we have a lot to think about. We should not be bounced into this decision today. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Soames, is well-meaning, but he is so wrong. I shall certainly vote this time and vote for the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Peyton.
4.36 p.m.
Lord Thomas of Swynnerton: My Lords, I speak with the gravity and brevity which your Lordships
1012
would expect of a Member of the Select Committee whose name—if I may venture to correct my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter—has indeed become the Select Committee on Televising the Proceedings of the House.
In this Select Committee we shall take the business of writing the report extremely seriously. I am sure that we shall all look on our membership of that committee as a privilege and will feel that this debate, like the other debates on this subject which have preceded it, will have been of great value to us in making the report. We shall certainly take into account everything that has been said today, including the euphoria of the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, and the scepticism, so well-expressed, of the noble Lord, Lord Beswick. But what I think is important for us in preparing this report is that the experiment should be over. It will not be anything like so easy to write in the mood of tranquillity which noble Lords would expect of us if the lights are still on, the cameras are still buzzing, and the functionaries of the media are still to be found waiting in the corridors while we finished our report. This is surely logical.
Lord Soames: My Lords, will my noble friend permit me for a second to intervene? Do I understand that he says he is talking as a member of that committee? Can he then tell me why this recommendation was not made in its preliminary report?
Lord Thomas of Swynnerton: My Lords, I think the reason why that was so was that the committee felt that the decision as to whether the televising should go on for the period after we rose this summer until the report was finished was a matter that the House should decide upon, and not the Select Committee itself.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, will my noble friend allow me to intervene? Surely if the Select Committee feels that it would be embarrassed by the continuation of the experiment while it is deliberating, it might have said so in its report. It does not.
Lord Thomas of Swynnerton: My Lords, I see no reason for that suggestion. I think that it was thought in the committee—there are members of it present in the Chamber at the moment—that it would be better if the decision to go on were taken by the House itself.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, will my noble friend allow me to intervene? I understood, listening to the noble Lord who now has the Floor, that he was speaking in his own capacity and not on behalf of the committee. I should have thought that membership of a committee in no way debars a noble Lord from putting his point of view. But as a member of the committee he has done it with more thought as to the detail which may flow from it.
Lord Thomas of Swynnerton: My Lords, my noble friend has described the situation extremely eloquently and lucidly, as one might expect. When my noble friends asked for my explanation for my introduction of this, I thought it appropriate to explain what the Committee thought. I think that that was a service of value to the House.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: This is not true.
Lord Thomas of Swynnerton: My Lords, it is I submit true. The second point that I would make is one which has been made before by several noble Lords. If the House requests a Select Committee to write a report on the understanding that the experiment about which it is going to write is to last six months, it seems very odd to change the rules in the middle. After all, if you have a cricket match which has been planned for a day and the moment when stumps are to be drawn is at 7.30, you do not go on playing until 8.30 or 10.30 simply because you happen to be enjoying it.
There is the point which was made by the noble Lords, Lord Beswick and Lord Ross of Marnock, that there is obviously the possibility that this temporary arrangement would become a permanent one. The noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, was sceptical about that, but nevertheless in this country we have had, as noble Lords will remember, a long history of temporary experiments becoming permanent or at any rate being very long lasting. I need not remind noble Lords of the consequences of Mr. Gladstone's temporary occupation of Egypt in 1885. For all these reasons I hope that when it comes to vote the House will support the amendment of my noble friend Lord Peyton of Yeovil.
I have one other point to make. The terms of the letter from the chairman of ITN seem to me to give full support to the point which was made five minutes ago by the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock. The writer of the letter assumes that we were involved in this House in an experiment which was going to lead to a permanent arrangement. No one who did not think that would use phrases such as:
"It would be a pity to halt the momentum while the project is going so well".
But this is not a project; this is an experiment in the upper house of a legislature. Consider the phrase,
"at this vital stage of the experiment".
It is not a vital stage because at the time when that letter was written the author of it must have supposed that the experiment was drawing to the end of the six months.
So, my Lords, I hope very much that we shall draw the conclusions which we should from this interesting and important experience—I agree with noble Lords who have paid tribute to the tact and skill of the cameramen and of the editors on most occasions—and prepare a useful, even an important, report and present the report to the House for future discussion.
Baroness Phillips: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, as a member of the Select Commitee also, who had very carefully kept quiet in all these debates as befits those who are members of a Select Committee, may I say that he did not make it absolutely clear that he was speaking entirely for himself? If noble Lords are to consider anything, it is the report, and not the noble Lord's understanding of the report.
4.45 p.m.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, perhaps I should make it clear from the outset that I am
1014
speaking entirely for myself. I rise to support the amendment that has been moved by the noble Lord, Lord Peyton of Yeovil. The holding of this debate at all at this stage on the Motion put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Soames, is itself indicative of the effect that television is already having on the affairs of this House because it is normal in your Lordships' House, once a course of action has been determined, once a resolution has been passed, for it to be carried out. The procedure envisaged by the original resolution setting up the committee was that there should be an experiment for six months and that thereafter the Select Committee would report to the House. We are now departing from that procedure and this is just one small sign of the influence that the media are already having upon your Lordships' House.
I must say that as a general principle I am in favour of televising the proceedings of this House but that view is subject to a number of considerations. The first is its continuity and the second arises from the apparent present necessity for editing. If the House were to be televised continuously so that anybody in the United Kingdom could plug in at any time that the House was sitting and could see and hear what was happening there, my support for it would be quite unhesitating. However, until I have seen the report of the Select Committee and have had time to consider it, I am a little doubtful whether or not I agree that the proceedings should carry on in their present form.
Perhaps I may say at the outset that technically there can be little to take exception to. Initially the lighting was a little discomforting, but one now takes it for granted. Indeed, the noble Viscount the Leader of the House said that it had helped him to be able to read his papers without glasses. Anything that helps the noble Viscount the Leader of the House to discharge his duties is most agreeable to me.
It must be admitted straight away that the presence of the operators and of the cameras here has been quite unobtrusive. The only thing that I have noticed
in physical terms has already been remarked upon by my noble friend Lord Beswick. I have found that my mail has increased very substantially, arising perhaps from the very fleeting glimpses that an admiring population occasionally may have of me in the broadcasts that do happen to occur. But I do not think that I am unique in your Lordships' House when I say that I have not seen any one of the broadcasts. I have not seen or experienced what has been done. This is partly due to ordinary parliamentary pressures, but there are of course business pressures as well. I was looking forward to the opportunity of considering what the Select Committee was going to say about the whole matter.
The televising of this House takes place in my opinion within the context of this House being one of the two public fora in which great debates on national issues take place. This is one of its most important functions, if not its leading one. It is therefore very important that if its proceedings are to be televised they should be televised as nearly as possible truthfully. When we set up the Select Committee many of us had in mind certain dangers which we thought might arise to which the Select Committee could address itself, particularly in view of the fact that the broadcasts were not going to be continuous but would be subject to editing.

1015
Some of us were a little worried, and some of us remain worried, about the impact upon the institutions of this House. One aspect which worries us, and about which we await the comments of the Select Committee, is the extent to which the party organisations—and I refer particularly to the Whips—influence the type of debate that is to be televised, the timing of debates, and connected matters.
Whips in your Lordships' House have not been unknown to seek to persuade their colleagues on the Back Benches, and they have not been unknown to try to arrange affairs as suits the usual channels rather better, perhaps, than they may suit individual Members of your Lordships' House. It is therefore a question of the choice of occasion and the choice of suitable debate. I will not enlarge on that aspect because my noble friend Lord Beswick has already dealt with it.
The other misgiving we have, particularly in regard to the editing of the proceedings in your Lordships' House, is the choice of what the broadcasting authorities consider to be newsworthy items. Sometimes the items considered newsworthy by the media are not always the vital matters of serious concern to the nation as a whole.
We were worried also—at least I was—about the tendency of the broadcasting medium to follow the priorities already established by the printed medium. The distinguished political editor of The Times, Mr. David Wood, who was held in considerable respect, and whose departure many of us regret considerably, offered himself of this opinion. He said when commenting on the BBC news programmes in the early morning, and indeed in the late morning, that they tended to give to the subjects discussed by them the same emphasis as was given in the press itself. He commented that this practice does not always result either in impartiality or in the correct selection of items which might be more in the national interest than those of mere temporary notoriety and popularity.
Some of us are worried too by what we call "the six o'clock syndrome". Your Lordships will be aware that, so far as the printed medium is concerned, anything said in your Lordships' House after six o'clock in the evening is virtually extinct for ordinary purposes because of the time at which the newspapers "go to bed". That is not invariably so but it is mostly so. One would like to have the views of the Select Committee as to how far the broadcasting companies have followed that same precept.
The other misgiving we had was that the editorial side of the new television medium might as a matter of pure inclination or convenience attempt to focus its attention on what one might term known personalities (I speak of those who already have a reputation in television) rather than allow their cameras and microphones to stray from time to time onto Members of your Lordships' House of distinguished character and quality who so far have proceeded to pursue such an unobtrusive if intellectual life that they have not attracted the attention of either the press or television. Those are the misgivings we have.
1016
As I indicated to your Lordships at the beginning of my remarks, I myself have had no personal experience of viewing the results of the broadcasts of this House. Speaking for myself alone, I would therefore wish to await the detailed and considered views of the Select Committee before I proceed further. One thing is vital. The noble Lord, Lord Peyton of Yeovil, quoted from this week's Economist, and he was dead right. Television is a very powerful medium. One of the most important things we have to ensure is that the relationship between ourselves and that medium results in truthful and impartial representation being made to the British public.
4.55 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, has given a fascinating exposition of his view of some of the important problems which arise. However, with respect to the noble Lord those problems do not assuredly lead to the conclusion which he contends. The question as to whether to extend or discontinue the experimental period in no way pre-empts the substantive decision. That is so, irrespective of the letter and irrespective of what the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, or my noble friend Lord Swynnerton may say about it.
This of course is not the occasion for any dress rehearsal or for me to seek from these Back Benches to refute the committed speech along the lines given by the noble Lord, Lord Beswick. I do not propose to do so. However, the very careful argument of my noble friend Lord Peyton of Yeovil demands a reasoned response.
There is no reason to suppose that continuance could in any way have a detrimental effect upon the dignity and status of your Lordships' House, upon our working relationships with another place, and upon the conduct of our own affairs—as the noble Lords, Lord Beswick and Lord Ross of Marnock, have suggested. It is true that there was a measure of criticism in the early days, but is there not cause for criticism in the early days of any experiment? Furthermore, having got over the initial days, the situation now seems, I hope your Lordships will agree, to be wholly satisfactory. To suggest that it is in some way conducive to lawless violence is to my mind beyond all comprehension.
Much has been said about instruments of intrusion and the oblongs of torment which disfigure our Chamber, but they are not to the point, as my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter has observed. We are a public institution and the fact of the matter is that, whatever may be said about anything, a reasonable account of our proceedings has been taken into the homes of the people and this, among many people from all walks of life, has evoked an acute interest in politics. If the art of the possible is to be made possible then it will be by communication. Television is the great and universal communicator. It would be irrational, premature and arbitrary to discontinue the experiment at this stage, and wholly unnecessary. It would be irrational because, the longer the experiment, the greater the material on which to make the ultimate decision. We should cease to help the Select Committee if we were to discontinue at this stage.

1017
I must say to my noble friend, with all respect and with total sincerity—and I wholly accept that he is speaking in his personal capacity—that I do not understand the case that he makes for a pause for reflection. As I see it, it is nothing to do with what the Select Committee thought or did not think. If one looks at the problem straight on, why should there be any need for a pause for reflection and how could this help in any way? The reverse would appear to be the case. The more information that is before the committee the better it will be able to make its recommendations and the more information we shall have on all sides of the House to consider what we do in the ultimate decision. I took a little time on that point, with respect to my noble friend, only because I could not see his logic.
It would be arbitrary because it might be seen by the viewing public as arbitrary to discontinue at this stage. That is perhaps the last thing that your Lordships would wish. Moreover, it might be seen as some sort of veiled criticism of the television companies and their employees, who have done a fair job in difficult circumstances. That appears to be common ground, from all the speeches made in your Lordships' House today. Why should that impression be given? What good would it do? What sense would it make?
Finally, it is unnecessary because there is no justified anxiety of which any noble Lord has yet spoken and no cause for complaint of which any noble Lord has yet spoken. As to the key to the argument in regard to the other place—and this is my final point in trying to deal with the points made by my noble friend Lord Peyton of Yeovil—that is surely a matter for the other place. What is a matter for your Lordships' House is surely that the threat of abolition recedes with every day's coverage of our proceedings on television. Whatever may be said about the editing—and that no doubt will come out in discussion, negotiation and, if you like, in the melting pot—at all events the electorate is entitled to see, and is entitled to continue to see, the workings of the institution which it is being invited to abolish. For that reason I support the Motion.
5.4 p.m
Earl Attlee: My Lords, like many other noble Lords I was not in favour of the proceedings of this House being televised—so much so that I made a point of leaving your Lordships' House at the start of business and did not return until eight o'clock in the evening when, I was told, the television cameras would be off. I returned to stay until midnight only to find that the cameras were still operating.
I was worried—and to a certain extent I am still worried—that selected proceedings in your Lordships' House could be presented in a light which is favourable either to one particular party or one particular point of view. I believe that it has become obvious that the television companies have gone to a great deal of trouble to produce a balanced view for the general public. That is not really surprising since up to now they have been, as it were, on probation. We must ask ourselves whether, if this become a permanent part of your Lordships' House, that balanced picture will be retained. Personally I believe that it will.
1018
I have to admit that I was also worried that the television companies might broadcast pictures of our more elderly Members either in deep concentration as they listened to a debate or on entering or leaving your Lordships' Chamber not exactly at the run. That did not happen either. My overriding worry was that the lights would be obtrusive. I regret to say that my worst fears have been realised. I find that after two hours, let alone six hours, when I leave the Chamber I am suffering from what I call television eye-tis. That may just be me, because the noble Viscount the Leader of the House says that the light helps him. For myself, I find it very obtrusive and I should like to come into the Chamber wearing dark glasses; but I have refrained from doing that.
If the brightness of the lights is not bad enough, it is undoubtedly true that on a hot summer's day they add to the amount of heat being produced. As noble Lords mentioned earlier, there are television cameras which will work in a very much lower intensity of light. I hope that the television companies will use those new cameras if the experiment continues.
What no one can deny is that since the advent of televising the House the general public have a far greater knowledge of how we operate and what we do. I think it is probably true to say that today there are very few people outside the House who would agree with the words written by W. S. Gilbert:
"The House of Peers, thoughout the war,
Did nothing in particular,
And did it very well".
Now the public know that we down awful lot. They know that we sit very late. They know that we can affect legislation from another place; and of course they now know that we do it very well.
There are a surprising number of noble Lords who wish to speak whenever a note is posted saying that the House is to be televised on a particular day. That is possibly not all that bad because it has meant that, overall, speeches have become slightly shorter.
Noble Lords have referred to editing and have said that they would like the House to do the editing. That would be very dangerous. The radio programmes "Today in Parliament" and "Yesterday in Parliament" have been mentioned. We do not have any say over those programmes because we do not know whether or not we are being recorded. It just happens that the editors, in their wisdom, have never so far as I know shown me speaking. They have televised me sitting down and possibly have shown me in contemplation, but never have I appeared actually standing and speaking. Some of my friends have asked me, when I say that I have been in the House of Lords, whether I was actually there. Then they say that they heard me on "Today in Parliament" or "Yesterday in Parliament". It would seem that my voice fits better than my face.
Therefore I join other noble Lords on these and other Benches and will vote for the continuation of the televising of our proceedings.
5.10 p.m.
Lord Mountevans: My Lords, like the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, I shall vote for the continued televising of the proceedings in your Lordships' House. When on the 27th November last we debated the ground rules

1019
for the television experiment I spoke in favour of allowing it to proceed, not least because I argued that television was an educating medium which we could no longer afford to do without if we wished to enhance understanding among our fellow citizens of the role played by your Lordships' House. I believe the experiment or "trial" as the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, called it, has contributed very much to the enhancement for which I then hoped.
Perhaps I may briefly tell your Lordships why I support the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Soames. When he introduced his Motion the noble Lord touched upon the greater respect for this House and the improved understanding of it which television had brought about. It is only a small proportion of the population which listens to Today in Parliament; a somewhat larger number reads the quality press in which our proceedings are reported to some extent, and though a very much greater number reads the tabloid press, it is not particularly interested in our proceedings. Our debates do not suit the tabloid format nor is Parliament one of the institutions which is uppermost in the minds of many readers of tabloids. Lastly, there is a proportion of the population which does not take a paper at all and which does not listen to radio. We do not reach and never have reached the great mass of the population, but I believe very sincerely that during the experiment we have reached a great deal of it.
For a considerable proportion of the population, the televising of the proceedings of your Lordships' House has been quite literally an eye-opener. As regards the role that we play in the parliamentary process, I will not say that it is better understood but that it is suddenly understood. Where there was darkness there is now perhaps light. Also much better understood is the relevance of this House to the government of the country. The press is largely national and London oriented, but both the BBC and the IBA have regional structures and their regional organisations have made quite considerable use of material covering our proceedings, for example on the Local Government Bill. Our fellow citizens have become aware of the very great expertise which is available here and which is frequently deployed. I believe that all this stems from the experiment.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, that the coverage and the penetration of television have served your Lordships well. Thus, I hope that your Lordships will not treat the Motion passed on the 27th November as sacrosanct and/or inviolate, but will support today's Motion and thus enable what I believe to have been a good and qualitative experiment to continue.
5.15 p.m.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, in supporting the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Peyton of Yeovil, I should like to call your Lordships' attention to the fact that we may all, in our different ways, be deluding ourselves. We have been talking about an experiment and the idea that this experiment should continue for a few more months. I would submit that the word "experiment" in this connection is ill taken.
When we talk about an experiment in the scientific or the medical world we are discussing certain
1020
procedures which are undertaken—for instance, in the medical world a certain number of patients may be given a particular drug, while other patients are made to believe that they have taken the same drug, and then the difference in health is observed. These are procedures which, when concluded, will normally have the unanimous agreement of those who have directed the experiment, and indeed of the scientific or medical body which may be concerned. In that sense our Select Committee neither can conduct nor have been conducting an experiment.
One can experiment with the physical questions relating to televising your Lordships' House, such as how painful the lights are—and I am among those who find them very trying—or whether or not a good picture technically can be obtained, or whether adventitious noise can be cut out; but these are all features which cannot be assessed by a Select Committee of your Lordships' House but surely only by experts in broadcasting who can compare the televising of your Lordships' House with the televising of other comparable assemblies of persons. Beyond that are the questions of whether or not it is a desirable matter, or whether it is a good or bad thing that televising should continue.
The kind of questions that the Select Committee will
be looking at no doubt are important. They are questions such as: is it or is it not possible, in an abbreviated programme of some 15 minutes duration, to give a fair and unbiased picture of the course of a discussion which may have gone on for several hours. No doubt the Select Committee, perhaps unanimously, or perhaps by a majority, will come up with an opinion about that, but it will be an opinion which any of us who have watched some of the video tapes that have been put on for our benefit—and I have only watched a few—could arrive at for ourselves. As other noble Lords have pointed out, the fact that during a certain period one or both television channels have done the job very satisfactorily is no particular guarantee for the future. We would be making a bet.
Therefore, if over a six-month period the Select Committee has not by now obtained enough material to deal with the very limited number of questions which it is qualified to answer, then it seems to me there is no argument for us to give it more material, or we shall be told at the end of the period that it is now so overwhelmed with material that it requires even longer to produce its report. I submit that the people who are qualified to judge whether this is or is not a desirable measure are not a Select Committee of your Lordships' House, and I should be very surprised if it came up with a unanimous recommendation. They may not even be your Lordships' House as a whole, since the argument from some noble Lords has been that the public have a right to this access to your Lordships' House. I suspect that nothing as dignified or as important or far-reaching will in the end colour our decision.
I suspect that the decision lies between those such as the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, and some other noble Lords who think that television is a boon and a blessing to mankind, and others such as the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, and myself, who feel that on the whole the world without television would be a nicer place. That is something which no Select Committee

1021
will alter in the case of either the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, or the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, and myself.
It therefore seems to me that the noble Lord, Lord Peyton of Yeovil, has right on his side when he says that the House decided—and rightly or wrongly the House decided by a good majority—that six months should be given to what I shall have to call an experiment, that the material has been provided, the issues which fall to be resolved cannot be affected by the provision of further material, and therefore, unless there is a case for saying that your Lordships positively enjoy the lighting, the cameras and the attention, which it is assumed we command in the country, then we have the right to say that we shall keep to our original decision.
Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, I cannot say that my post-bag has been in the least increased during the course of this experiment. I have no evidence that anyone has seen me or heard any speech that I have made in your Lordships' House. However, my younger son rang me the other day and said, "I have seen you on television; you were leaving the Chamber". The Lord may watch my comings and my goings but I should much rather my family did not.
5.20 p.m.
Lord Stallard: My Lords, it is not often that in following the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, I can say that I agree with him. Seldom perhaps can I make that comment. But on this occasion I agree with him, and I wholeheartedly confess to having a great deal of respect for what he said this afternoon.
It is true that we are not this afternoon debating the merits or demerits of televising the House. Would that we were. If we had the report I should be only too happy to do so. I am ready to debate the issue at any time, whether at the end of six months, seven months, eight months or whatever.
I was surprised that I could find no recommendation from the Select Committee that there should be a debate. It did not ask for one; there was no recommendation. I suppose that it will be argued that the House got the feeling from a Question that was asked the other week about whether the experiment should continue. It is interesting that that Question provoked three supplementary questions in favour of continuing and one against, and the edited version of our debates on television that evening gave the three questions in favour and ignored the one against!
I use that only as an example. To me it is indicative of the partiality that has been shown throughout the piece so far. I do not think that it was a good basis for the normal channels to go ahead—because that is what this is all about. The normal channels go ahead and organise a debate, and two letters from directors of the corporations support them in the organisational process. My noble friend Lord Ross was quite right: these two letters give the impression that it is not just an experiment but that already there is an element of permanency.
We all knew from the beginning that there is not a great deal of interest in the media in televising the
1022
proceedings of this House. Anybody who thinks that is being conned. The demands of the television companies are for televising the other place. That is why they want to extend the experiment—to keep it alive. It is not as the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, said, that the Select Committee or we will forget the effect of it. That is nonsense. If I were
a member of that committee. I should be a wee bit insulted to think that it was suggested that by now I had no views and needed another six months, and if the experiment finished now I should forget what had happened. If I was on that committee and somebody said that to me, I do not think I should be very pleased. There is no way that the members of that committee I know will have doubts or will forget. None of them is that kind of person. It is an attempt to keep the experiment running while the other place builds up to a debate, with all the publicity and the extra pressure that that will put on it. That is another subject for debate; but that is the fact of the matter.
We have discussed today the intrusion of the cameras. In a debate some months ago I quoted a comment made by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor many years ago. I heartily endorse what he said. He said that all an experiment can do is tell us whether the lights and the cameras are in the right place, and whether the lenses are strong enough to catch Back-Benchers as well as Front-Benchers, and other such technical details. He said that we should not know the effect on the House and on the public perhaps for many years. That is what those of us who have a gut reaction against the intrusion believe.
The intrusion takes a number of forms. It is not just the lights, though they are bad enough. The effect of the lights and the heat on the fabric and on the beautiful renovated roof has been mentioned to me. I do not know whether the heat will have an effect or whether it has been evaluated. But people to whom I have spoken who have sat in the Gallery say that sometimes in some parts the heat is unbearable. If it is unbearable to them, what is it doing to the building? But that is an aside. The lights and the television cameras are one thing.
The real intrusion is into the business of the House. Like many noble Lords, I do not often miss attendance at our debates. I have noticed the arrangement of business on the days when the House is being televised. I do not object. I rather enjoy the speeches of the noble Earl, Lord Stockton, the noble Lords, Lord Home and Lord Rochester, and the right reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury, who have all taken part in these arranged debates. But we know that it has been arranged. The long list of speakers is indicative of another part of the arrangement. In my view that cannot be good for the kind of debate that ought to be taking place in this Chamber.
That might sound like sour grapes. People may say that I and others like me object because we have never been televised. I do not object. I know why I have not been televised. I specialise in and tend to speak on matters such as social security, which is of no interest at all to television. It is never here for those debates. In fact, there are few noble Lords here for such debates. Perhaps if they were televised we should have a good attendance and a lot more speakers. I think that that would augur well for public consumption.

1023
I also take an interest in transport, and millions of people up and down the country are also interested in it. But it is not sufficiently important to be televised; or perhaps there are not enough big names in those debates. That is the result of television. We are being manoeuvred into becoming part of the entertainment world. That is what it amounts to. We shall be televised if our debates are entertaining enough and good television, but not necessarily if it is good for Parliament. That is one of my main objections.
The editing has been mentioned, and I mentioned the instance of the recent Question. There are many others, and we shall probably come back to them when we eventually get the report from the Select Committee. There is no doubt that the editing has left much to be desired.
There is another point. I speak to as many people as I can, most of whom, thank goodness, still go to work or to their business during the day and therefore cannot sit in front of a television set when the broadcasts take place. I have had the odd comment of interest or curiosity but there has certainly been no greater understanding, although we hear about these millions of people from the directors or from certain other noble Lords. Neither have I had an increase in correspondence, and I know of few noble Lords who have. We have had the massive lobbies on such questions as the abolition of the democratically-elected authorities up and down the county, the privatisation of the sick pay scheme and transport; but they would have taken place in any event. Of course I have had correspondence on those matters, but that has nothing to do with television. On the contrary, it may be in spite of it. I certainly do not know of any great increase in interest as a result of television.
Party conferences are televised all the time. The only editing is by the consumer in turning the knob in the front room, the kitchen or wherever else the television is watched. That is the kind of television that I hoped we should be arguing for, rather than this edited version at the whim of whoever. I do not know who it is and I may never find out, but I know that he does not do a very good job. But if our debates were on a channel which catered for local government, politics and so on by themselves, people could control what they watched, and we should then understand how they were editing it. That is a different argument, a different debate, and perhaps I should have no hesitation in reviewing my stance on that.
However, until that happens, I am bound to say that the whole matter is damaging to the institution and will be even more damaging to Parliament when it becomes permanent. I shall certainly withhold much of what I should like to have said until we receive the report of the Select Committee. In the meantime, I would say that we could well afford to end the experiment now, and await the report of the Select Committee.
5.30 p.m.
Baroness Macleod of Borve: My Lords, before the experiment that we have had in our Chamber for the last six months, I asked myself three questions. Like other noble Lords, I wanted to reason with myself as to why we should have televising of our House. I now have the answers. The first question was: why televise
1024
either House of Parliament at all? Why invite the cameras into your Lordships' House? It has been called an intrusion—I do not agree with that word. The next question was: why should we—and should we—give the electorate an inside insight into how government works? The third question was: would it enhance our reputation and thereby give confidence to the people of our country? Then, would it help in communication between Government and those who elect the Government and, anyway, pay for this part of Parliament? Furthermore, would it give much of an opportunity to put Members, either collectively or individually, across to the public?
Having thought that those questions were important, I then voted for the experiment which we have now had for the last six months. At the end of the six months, I have had to answer every question in the affirmative. This means that, despite the fact that halfway through, about three or four months ago, I thought, "Never again; we are being imposed upon; we do not like it; the lights are too bright", et cetera. I now feel that this is an experiment which might well be here to stay. I think it might well be here to stay if the other place do not have television. Therefore, all my queries are answered in the affirmative.
Before saying that I shall certainly be voting for the continuation, I should like to ask my noble friend the Leader of the House if the cost of the televising of this House will be the same as it has been up until now? Before we started the experiment, I remember that there was talk of a great many thousands of pounds that would have to be paid by Parliament.
I, like every other noble Lord, read the letters from both channels, the BBC and the ITN. I was amazed. They have obviously colluded but I was very interested that they both wanted to continue. Therefore, having agreed that the answers are affirmative, perhaps I may say en passant that the question whether it would give an opportunity to put Members collectively or individually across to the public was to my mind answered overwhelmingly in the affirmative.
I should like to take this opportunity of congratulating all three Front Benches in the way that they have been able to obtain the big audiences that the channels now tell us we have. The public have certainly enjoyed it. I do not think they would miss it if we did not have it; but I think also that they have been made aware of how Government is run, how it works, and certainly that so far as this Chamber is concerned we have some of the best brains in this country.
There are two provisos. One is that both channels shall in the future work together as they have in the past. Another one is something that has been put to me by very many people—too many for my liking. It is, why are so many of your Lordships asleep? I take great trouble to reply that your Lordships are not asleep but are listening, sometimes in the only way that we can, through the speakers at the back of the Benches. Very few noble Lords are listening by this means at this moment, so perhaps they can hear me easily—if it is worth it to the television cameras or anyone else!
With those two provisos, I should prefer that the extension went on until the spring. I do not think there is any point in pushing the committee to provide us

1025
with a report, which has to be in depth, by Christmas. I think that that is far too soon and would perhaps make the members of that committee work right through until we meet again at the end of October. With those few words, I hope that the Motion will be passed, and that the amendment will be either withdrawn or rejected.
5.37 p.m.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, I shall try to be brief for two reasons. First of all, many of the points that are to be made have already been made and I do not want to bore your Lordships with tedious repetition. The other reason is that I intend to speak in the debate following this one and therefore the sooner we come on to it the better pleased I shall be.
The first point I want to make is this. I should draw your Lordships' attention to the fact that when you made the decision as to whether or not the House should be televised, you did so on the basis of a considered Select Committee recommendation. On that occasion the Select Committee had studied the matter in depth; it had interviewed all kinds of people and it had considered the matter very closely indeed. Your Lordships were therefore able to have the benefit of its recommendation and took the decision upon the basis of that recommendation.
The situation today is completely different. The Select Committee is unable to make a recommendation. Indeed, it makes no recommendation. It passes the matter over to your Lordships. It has done so no doubt because it has not been able to give the proper and considered consideration to the experiment we have had so far. Therefore, the debate today is quite different from the one we had on 27th November. It is of a different quality. We are not being asked now to decide upon the basis of a Select Committee recommendation but upon a simple Motion by an individual Member of this House. Therefore, the quality of the debate and the quality of the recommendation is quite different.
I shall vote tonight in favour of the amendment put down by the noble Lord, Lord Peyton. I think that is the proper thing to do under all the circumstances. Your Lordships were good enough to elect me to the Select Committee. Indeed, while I have been a Member of the Select Committee, and bearing in mind the decision to which your Lordships came on 27th November—against my will; I did not vote for it—but bearing in mind the decision of the House that there would be an experiment for six months, I decided, because I am a true democrat, that my duty to that committee and to this House was to try to make the experiment work.
I believe that Members of the Committee will agree that I have done everything possible to see that your Lordships should be presented with a reasonable and proper experiment after which the Select Committee should consider everything that has gone on, should consider all aspects of the experiment, should get the views of your Lordships and the views of other people, should sit down to evaluate all the information and should then, following due consideration, come forward to your Lordships with a proper recommen-
1026
dation. That, in my view, is the democratic thing to do. That is the right thing to do. That is the proper thing to do. It is the most efficient thing to do. It will be the most beneficial thing to do so far as the future televising of this House is concerned.
It would be a pity, frankly, if we now pre-empt the result of the experiment because that is what we shall be doing. In our individual way, without the benefit of a recommendation of the Select Committee, we shall be saying that the experiment has been a success. But we do not know. We have not fully considered all the aspects of the experiment and the implications of the experiment for the future. That is why I think that it would be wise of the House, and that it would be in the interests of the future of the televising of this House, if your Lordships voted tonight for the amendment rather than for the Motion.
The noble Lord, Lord Soames, said at the beginning of his speech that all the lighting would have to be taken down and that this would be a pity. As a matter of fact, all the lighting will have to be taken down anyway. A different sort of lighting, a different sort of televising, is required at the State Opening of Parliament. On that technicality, I hope that the noble Lord will accept that it makes no difference at all. I repeat that I hope that your Lordships will take the wise decision tonight, that you will end the experiment on the 31st July, and that you will allow your committee to evaluate it and come forward with a proper, considered recommendation for the House to consider.
5.43 p.m.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, I agree absolutely with what my noble friend Lord Soames tried to do when introducing this Motion. My noble friend suggested that we should not attempt a re-hash of the general principle but should try to confine ourselves to the narrow point that is involved in the difference between the proposal and the amendment. I am afraid that it has not come off. I am afraid—it was, I suppose, inevitable—that the House has strayed into the general principle as well. But one thing is absolutely clear and cannot be gainsaid. It is that we debated and eventually voted upon the principle as to whether or not we would allow the cameras in. There was a full day's debate allowing for discussion of all the detail with no restrictions. The conclusion reached very clearly by the House was that it would agree to an experiment for six months and that, at the end of six months, a Select Committee would give a report. That was clear. If we allow ourselves to be pushed off that course, we shall be advertising an inconsistency that would not be to the benefit of the general reputation of the House.
Quite apart from the views that any of us may hold on whether or not we should have television, the conclusion was that we would have it for six months and that, at the end of the six months, the Select Committee would review the whole thing, principle as well as detail, and would give a recommendation after which the House could once again see how it felt on the matter. I personally would not like to see us deviate from that. I believe that our reputation for knowing what we are doing and being consistent is very important. The amendment of my noble friend Lord

1027
Peyton achieves exactly that. The amendment is in conformity with the general instruction of the House as a whole. My noble friend's amendment reflects a consistency that the Motion moved by my noble friend Lord Soames would depart from.
Having said that, one has to recognise of course that so long as one lives, one can change one's will. There is nothing wrong with that. If, however, one wants to change what in this case was a definite decision, clearly given by a full House in proper debate, there should be very good reasons for a change of view. I wonder whether my noble friend Lord Soames, in the light of his criteria of judging the matter on the narrow points thrown up by the Motion and the amendment, can say that there are good reasons.
What are the arguments that have been produced for extending the experiment? The whole of the argument of my noble friend Lord Soames can really be summarised as the belief that it would be a pity, having gone so far and when there is a chance of carrying it on, were it not to be carried on. I do not believe that this view, standing alone, is very formidable. Then there was the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, whose main argument really was the trouble to which people would have to go to take down the lights and the equipment, with the possibility of their having to put them back again later if the House decides to have television as a permanent feature. I am not impressed by that argument. Why should the lights be taken down? They are not doing anyone any harm. If there is a possibility that in three, four, five or six months' time we want them back, they can be left in place until we have had our next vote, following the report of the Select Committee, on whether or not we want television. The cameras can be moved out. That is no great problem.
The other argument came from the persuasive tongue of my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter. The burden of his argument was that this great experiment belongs to the nation and that the people, as individual electors, are entitled to see all that is going on at all times, especially what goes on in Parliament. My noble friend produced the old chestnut of the first Parliament meeting in the market place. There was no question then of covering it up. But the big difference between what my noble friend suggested we should continue here and what took place in the market place is that those listening to Parliament in the market place were reaching a judgment with their own two eyes. They were forming a judgment on what they heard and what they saw. It was not the judgment of someone manipulating a camera at the time.
My noble friend went further in producing another old chestnut, if he does not mind my saying so. There was a time when Parliament would not even allow in the press. Because a mistake had apparently been made in keeping out the press, it is argued that we should allow the cameras in now. No one knows better than my noble friend that there are innumerable sketch writers to tell us what is going on in the Chamber. On many occasions, one completely contradicts the other. I agree that if one reads the lot, one will get some picture of what happened. But there is no question of having a thousand cameras with different people showing different facets and giving the whole of the story.
1028
It is confined to one. It is a power that is very dangerous.
To continue the experiment—if your Lordships wish to call it that—while the Select Committee is supposed to be giving thought to the matter is absolutely equivalent, in my view, to sending the jury into the jury room to come to a verdict while evidence is still being given in the main court. I do not believe that this is a very clever thing to envisage. At the end of the day, Parliament is really based upon procedures in law. In law, we insist on all the evidence, all the facts, and the cross-examination, after which the jurymen go into a room to consider quietly and calmly their verdict remembering as much of the proceedings as they are capable of doing. If one juryman forgets, another will remember. In that way, one achieves a calm, considered decision on which to form a judgment. I wonder what credence we would give to any critic who gives a write-up on any show having written the critique before he has seen the show right through. I believe that the general idea or thinking is that it would be a pity to stop what is happening now because the continuity would be helpful.
A real problem has arisen out of this debate. If there is no real argument—and I have not heard one yet—to justify continuing beyond the six months, which was clearly and definitely given by the House after a detailed debate and with all the advice that we could get, if there is no argument to justify going beyond that instruction, then what has caused noble Lords to want to reflect an inconsistency by going back on what the House had decided? The only thing that has happened is that two letters have been written by the people who want to be able to extend their territory into both Houses of Parliament—and into another place more than this one. Those letters are the only things which I can see have brought about any need to give any rethink to the decision which we made.
I have been disturbed a little—excellent though the speeches have been—by the insular approach by many of my noble friends and noble Lords everywhere in the House. They have said that it has been a good thing for the House of Lords. In many respects I think that it has been a good thing, so far. Indeed, I am rather proud to be a Member of this House of Lords as should everybody who is here—
Noble Lords: Well done! Hear, hear!
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, there is no need for satirical comments. I was making a serious point which should be the view of everybody here. It is not funny. We are an important part of Parliament, and being a part of Parliament gives us great power. However,—if it be that we are grown up—I do not think that we ought to approach this particular issue on the basis of whether or not it is good only for the House of Lords. I should have thought that, from the point of view of the cameras and the pictures, the House of Lords could not lose on that score with the crimson—
Lord Somers: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord?
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, the noble Lord interrupted me last time. I have been in the game long enough to recognise that if you cannot win an argument on merit, try and laugh them out of court if you can. This is not a laughing matter. I am saying that it may be good for the House of Lords for the time being. Indeed, it could not be otherwise. The crimson, the gilt and the way in which we conduct ourselves, our general manner, could not help but give a good impression. However, if we approach this matter without the naivete with which some seem to approach it, then we ought to know that the people from outside who want to bring in the cameras—not my noble friends—are using this House deliberately as a stalking horse to get into the other place. There is no doubt about it. I believe that we must take that into account when we come to our conclusion.
If we support the proposition of my noble friend Lord Soames today, the impression would be—whether or not it is true I do not know—that the Lords have confirmed the need to have Parliament televised. The impression along the corridor would be that our considered view is that is has been an outstanding success and that it ought to be done. I do not believe that that is an impression which we ought lightly to give, but that is precisely what would happen.
I hope that my noble friends and colleagues in all parts of the House will be consistent. We came to a conclusion. It was a fair conclusion. It was one with which I did not agree, but it was a fair conclusion and the majority was clear. We said that we would try it for six months. My guess is that many noble Lords voted for the Motion on the clear understanding that it would be for only six months, that then the matter would be considered by a Select Committee, and then we would come to our formal conclusions. Be consistent; keep to that. I do not believe that the letters which have come from the television companies ought to be taken into account at all.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, may I ask him one simple question? This is a serious question in view of his analogy. Does he agree that the more evidence which goes before a jury the more likely they are to return a useful and true verdict?
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, my noble friend is also a learned friend and I thought that I had dealt with that matter in my general submission that we follow the law courts. You give the evidence, then you put the jurymen quietly into a room without any other intrusion and they come to their decision. I believe that there would be the opposite effect if you still have the experiment taking place while they are supposed to be giving their supposedly calm and objective consideration.
5.56 p.m.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, all my instincts and impulses are to do everything possible to open Government; to open every institution of Government; and to give the public the widest and deepest possible opportunity of seeing how the Government, who are responsible to them, are working. I believe that the "experiment", as it has
1030
been called, of the past six months, has to some extent fulfilled that task. It has certainly been popular with the public, and in some ways that frightens me. It frightens me because I believe that the televising of this House has given this House an importance above that which it actually possesses in our constitution.
I should like to see a good deal more examination of the mass votes which have taken place in this House while the House has been televised, and I should like the viewer to understand how those votes have been collected, what conclusion they represent, and how representative they are of public opinion. To that extent my fear is that the televising of the House of Lords has given the public not just an insight into this Chamber, but also an often false view of the way in which this Chamber can be exploited within our constitution. It may be that to that extent, if the experiment continues, we shall be asked many questions, and very relevant questions, as to why we are sitting here, what right we have to sit here, who we are representing when we speak and, above all, who we are representing when we vote.
Nevertheless, I believe that in general the experiment has been a success and I should like to see it continued. I am prepared to take the risks which I have mentioned in the belief that if the experiment continues there will be more and more public questioning of the role of this House and, I hope, questioning which will result in the reform of this House.
However the fair question has been asked about why we should continue the televising when we had first decided that the experiment would last only for six months. The very simple answer to that—and I admit that it is not a conclusive answer—is that it would be rather silly to give it up for a few weeks or, indeed, for a few months, and that the Select Committee and Members of this House would gain from the extra experience. I hope that those who are responsible for the camerawork and the editing would also gain from the extra experience.
I do not want to criticise unduly the camerawork, the editing and the mechanical side of the televising over the past six months. Indeed, I believe that there is a good evidence that the people who have been in charge of the televising have learnt very quickly. I would mention one aspect of this in particular which has not been at all prominent in previous speeches. It is the televising not just of this Chamber but of the Select Committee on Overseas Trade, of which I am a member. When the cameras first came in there was severe criticism of the mechanics of the way in which they did their job, particularly the way in which they focused on the witnesses rather than on what is essential in a Select Committee—the interchange of question and answer. I think they learnt that lesson quickly. I believe, from what little I have seen watching in the Moses Room, that the televising of that Select Committee has now got to a much higher standard than it achieved at the beginning.
Therefore, on balance it seems to me that the argument should be in favour of the Motion by the noble Lord, Lord Soames, to continue this experiment. I believe that the people of the country have just as much right as the people now in the Public Gallery to see the affairs of this House, and indeed to

1031
see the affairs of Parliament as a whole. When one considers the great advantages of those who live in the vicinity of Westminster compared with the majority of the country, I think television can redress that balance.
However, I should like to finish by giving two warnings to both the television organisations which have been responsible for the televising over the past six months. First, that if they continue to concentrate (as they did very much at the beginning and do to a lesser extent now, but it is still there) on shots of well-known personalities as entertainment, then they will turn the House, or the majority of the House, against them.
The second criticism, or warning, is much more serious. So long as this House exists as it is today I think we would all agree that its greatest value is the interchange of view and opinion on all sides of the House. I do not believe that this has been adequately expressed in what little I have seen of the reproduction on television. If the television authorities continue to concentrate on Front Benches; if they continue to assume that the Government must always have the last word; if they continue to portray the Government view from their Front Bench and the Opposition view from their Front Bench as the major items of interest in this House, they will miss the purpose and the value of this House.
My suggestion to those organisations responsible for televising is that, if they get this extra period, and if they wish the majority of Members of this House to see, through that extra period, a reason to continue televising this House, then they have to enter much more into the spirit of the arguments from all sides of the House, and they have to get away from the Establishment attitude that the major task of Opposition is to provide the Government with a mouthpiece and a set of faces, even if that has been balanced earlier by the Opposition. They have to show that the value of this House lies in the views which come from all sides and from all Benches.
I would suggest that this extra period on which we are now deciding could well be used for that purpose to show a much wider, much deeper and much more genuine view of the work of the House of Lords than has been apparent so far.
6.5 p.m.
Viscount Cross: My Lords, I shall not detain your Lordships long. Perhaps I may say straightaway that I shall support the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Peyton of Yeovil. I support many of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock. The noble Baroness, Lady Macleod of Borve, has told us that the public think that some of us are asleep some of the time. I do not want to exaggerate, but it is possible that some of us may have had our eyes closed to avoid the glare from the lights.
The television cameras are here today, and they are here because there is an agreement, although I should otherwise be surprised that they are here. It is rather like the headmaster and the masters of a school meeting to decide whether there should be an extra half-holiday, and that meeting takes place in the presence of the whole school.
The cameras have, in a sense, already changed the character of this House. They have changed it in the
1032
sense of the length of proceedings and perhaps in the number of speakers. The debate which was first televised in this House was a great success. I happened to see that debate on television. It showed the workings of this House and the kind of work that the House does. On the other hand, I do not think we want every day to be, as it were, coronation day with these powerful illuminations.
On another occasion I have seen the House when it was almost empty. A camera has been on the speaker, and another camera appeared to be televising the comings and goings in the public gallery or the press gallery. Of course a lot of the material will have gone into what, I think, is called "the can". What will happen to that material in years to come? BBC Radio sometimes bring out their sound recordings from the archives, with a commentator, and the way they do that makes me have considerable misgivings as to the future.
We have been described as "good entertainment". Well, we are not supposed to be good entertainment. We are here to help to further the good government of this country. Television has been compared with Hansard, with the press, with the public gallery, with sound recordings. Television is not like any of those things. At the receiving end one makes a choice to go out and buy a newspaper to read a debate, or to buy a copy of Hansard to read a debate.
My last point is that I think it is most important that this House should be in total control of every aspect of its proceedings. It has always been in control, and in the case of television it is in danger of losing that control. It would be nice to know in advance in the whip whether or not the cameras are going to be present. It is not for me to suggest what should be in the whips of parties opposite, or other parties, but other noble Lords may think that that would be an agreeable thing to happen.
The cameras are able, as we have seen, to come and go with great ease. The lights are there. I agree with a previous speaker that there is no need to take the lights down, but they can be switched off and switched on again when required. Perhaps that compromise solution might be considered in the future.
6.10 p.m.
Lord Reay: My Lords, I support the motion of my noble friend Lord Soames wholeheartedly. I have met no one outside this House who does not consider the televising of our proceedings to have been a success. It has brought an enormous increase in public interest and esteem to the proceedings of this House. It has even added to the prestige of Parliament as a whole, redressing the balance given by the badly-received sound broadcasting of Question Time in another place.
It has been widely acknowledged that many of the worst fears, which those who were opposed to the experiment had at the outset, have not been realized: the lighting is less harsh, the heat less obtrusive than once expected. Any encouragement given by the presence of the cameras to attention-stealing behaviour by noble Lords seems to have declined since the opening days of the experiment. Personally I think that the net effect of television upon the behaviour of

1033
this House has probably been beneficial, because it has encouraged the House as a whole, from a desire to present a good image of itself, to be stricter with individual Peers who threatened to transgress what the House as a whole thinks to be desirable standards of conduct.
Millions, perhaps tens of millions, now know us through television. The live debates, the two sets of nightly and weekly special programmes developed by ITN as well as the coverage of the investigative work of the Overseas Trade Committee, have attracted audiences which exceeded all expectations. When "Their Lordships' House" was shown late at night the final close-down audience averaged some 20 per cent. above what it had been in an earlier comparable period. As to the news programmes—which is how the really large audiences see us, in items usually of between one and three minutes in length—taking ITN alone, items on House of Lords affairs figured in 56 news programmes during the experimental period compared with the 10 programmes during the whole of 1984. By these means the House of Lords has reached unheard of levels in public awareness and recognition.
Having made this advance, I do not believe that we should now retreat. If we were to vote out the cameras it could be years before they were back, even if they did come back. The House of Commons is unlikely to be in a position to start an experiment, even if it were to decide to do so at the earliest opportunity, until the autumn of next year, given the severer technical problems which I understand there are of televising proceedings in that Chamber. If we keep the cameras the television companies can continue to learn and experiment with different types of programme. I here suggest that the BBC has some catching up to do on ITV which has been markedly more adventurous.
In any case, I do not think we should break the continuity. The televising of our proceedings provides us with a precious assurance against wilful, politically motivated misrepresentation. It is thus a guarantee for our future and, having forged this shield, I do not think that we should put it down now.
Ostensibly we are this evening only deciding whether to allow our proceedings to be televised until we can draw our considered conclusion in January. But in practice our vote this afternoon will be taken as our judgment on our experiment. So an article in last Friday's Financial Times referring to today's debate had the headline,
"Peers to decide if TV trial was an error"—
in other words our vote today would be taken as an indication of whether we approved or disapproved of our experiment. I think that the House of Commons is also likely to see it this way. I find that Members of another place are interested to see how we shall vote on this experiment. How we vote will doubtless be one of the influences on how they will vote themselves. But if they vote as it is expected they will in November, this will be our only chance to influence their decision.
So a vote against by us will be interpreted as our having voted out the cameras, or at least as revealing a very modified rapture, to put it mildly, with the results of our experiment. On the other hand, a vote to
1034
permit the cameras to stay beyond the period originally agreed, and without a change in the conditions originally laid down, would be the strongest indication that we could give that we welcome the televising of our proceedings and judge the experiment to have been a success.
It would not prejudice the decision as to whether we wanted our proceedings to be televised on a permanent basis. I do not think we would ever wish to take that decision without knowing where the other place stood on the subject at the time at which we were to decide. The outlook on this point is likely to be clearer when we debate the matter next year.
I should like to return finally to a point which I made in the debate last November. This House has enjoyed a great advantage from being the only one of the two Houses to have had its proceedings televised during the trial period. This has ensured vastly greater public attention than we would have had otherwise. It has also ensured from the television authorities the most scrupulous care in presenting our proceedings fairly and with due respect, so keen have they been for the experiment to be judged a success, not least because the great prize, the televising of the proceedings of the House of Commons, remains beyond their reach. These conditions still apply and we should continue to take advantage of them. I suggest we should make hay while the sun shines. The time gained can be used for experiments in programme making, which is particulary essential for the day, if it comes, when both Houses will be televised together, whether experimentally or permanently. By then we need to have firmly in place arrangements that will protect us from suffering more than is necessary the consequences of a switch of interests by the television authorities from what goes on in this House to what goes on in another place.
Meanwhile, I think we should continue as we are, for the longer we continue to be televised in these favourable conditions which apply today the more natural and accepted will be the image of this House and its activities to an ever larger section of the population. We need to entrench ourselves as deeply as possible for our own salvation in the minds and hearts of the nation.
A vote today is not only reaffirmation of a belief in the public's right to know what is done in the legislature on its behalf—although for some it will be that; it is also a vote of self-confidence by ourselves in the value of the work of this House and our belief in its ability to stand up to continuing public scrutiny. I hope therefore that the motion of my noble friend Lord Soames will be carried by a convincing majority.
6.18 p.m.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, as the last Back-Bencher to speak before the heavyweights of the establishment pronounce, it would be churlish not to voice at least a tribute to the television staff who have been working in very cramped conditions, I understand, in two Portacabins in Black Rod's Garden, which cannot have made their task at all easy. It is common ground, too, that we all appreciate the discreet behaviour of the cameramen in the House.
I see and have heard no good reason why our guests should ask their hosts to be allowed to outstay their

1035
welcome—that is apart from their own desire to build up pressure on your Lordships' House and to try to pre-empt the Select Committee's decision, to say nothing of their desire to maintain pressure on another place.
So, without any difficulty or trouble of conscience, I have no hesitation in supporting the amendment of my noble friend Lord Peyton. We have been told, and it is surely the case, that the cameras, their crews and the editorial staff behind the scenes have all been on their best behaviour. Yet one thing that comes out from all quarters of the House, from those who support Lord Soames' Motion and those who support Lord Peyton's amendment, is a degree of anxiety, varied, it is true, from place to place, but a degree of anxiety about editorial control.
It would be madness to allow this opportunity to pass without some friendly but critical observations. First trivialisation has triumphed. We have had snippety snapshots without the sense of the speech being conveyed. The answer to that might be—and perhaps the Select Committee will take this "under advisement", as the Americans say—that, while showing the features and maybe a striking phrase or two from this or that noble Lord, an editorial voice should at the same time give a succinct summary of the speaker's argument which cannot, of course, be encapsulated by the camera.
Shots have not always been fair in party political terms. For example, the film is moved, shall we say, from the Alliance to the Opposition Front Bench, to a rebel Tory Back-Bench speaker without—I say "without" and I quote a particular case—a showing of the Government spokesman in between. There has also been trivialisation in another sense. As is sometimes the case with the media—and I speak having been a newspaperman for some 20 years; I travelled the world for the press, so that I am an ex-media man—I will say that I have seen occasions when the reporter missed the point altogther, usually to the delight of the PR groups stirring the pot. A number of points in my view have been consistently ignored. Unlike another place, the vote here does, in fact, indicate which side has won the argument. That is because the Cross-Benchers are entirely volatile and free of direct party allegiance so they switch from side to side. That is one of the merits of this House; but in six months of the experiment I have not seen that point made.
There is no such thing as an inbuilt Tory majority any longer. The hereditary element, warts and all, is spread all over the House and the Cross-Benches as well and they contribute—perhaps I should say, "we contribute"—a kind of commonsense jury-service element which is rather different from that of the Lobby-fodder politicians. No man ever chose his father. In six months, I have not heard that point made.
This House, for all the flummery and ceremonial beloved of the cameras, is in fact democracy's long-stop. Winston Churchill said many years ago, "The function [of the Lords] is not to govern but to enable the people to govern themselves". We have absolute power to veto any tampering with the "quinquennial Act" so that we are the sole guarantee that elections take place every five years, whatever the majority may
1036
wish in another place. In six months I have not heard that point made, either.
The arguments of the Establishment boil down to this: that television has brought government nearer to the people and that generates sympathy for this House against the day that a majority elsewhere seeks to abolish or at least to castrate it. Neither is valid. Entertaining snippets teach the public nothing, absolutely nothing, about the facts of government or about the great issues.
Should a majority in another place seek to abolish this House, as the election manifestos of the party opposite have twice proposed—one of them said, "Abolish the Lords' veto power"; but that is what it is all about—it would have to do several things. It would need to prolong its own existence more than five years to accomplish it and it would have to flood this place with its placemen. The first would risk the rebuff of the veto and the second would risk the total blockage of Government business. In either case, this House would be news in its own right. In either case, the cameras would come back in a flash even if they had been banished. They would be back because we would be news Therefore, the thought of the cameras being the protection of this place meantime is, I believe irrelevant.
Now is the time when we should ask again—and no doubt my noble friend the Leader of the House will refer to this in his summing up—about costs. They have not been mentioned except tangentially in this debate. Now is the time, I believe, for a pause not least to enable the Select Committee to propose much clearer editorial guidelines if it does recommend that the cameras be allowed in permanently. In that context, I beg your Lordships very seriously and sympathetically to consider the amendment proposed by my noble friend Lord Peyton.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, before the noble Earl sits down, I wonder if he would answer one question. I did not want to interrupt his speech. He stated during his speech that one of the virtues of this House is that a vote reflects the argument. Has he come across the case of a debate on a Bill in this House in which every speaker except the Government speaker spoke against the Government and then the Government brought in their "dining-room vote" and defeated the argument by people who had never heard any part of that argument? If he has not, I can give him a number of specific instances.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, if the noble Lord had been here as long as I have, he would know many examples not only of such a case but where a Back-Bencher's Motion was proposed, all the speakers backed it and then people trooped in to vote it down. This happens. But the point is that in this House on a matter of most general interest the decision of the voting normally does reflect who won the argument. That is where this place differs greatly in my view from that down the corridor.
6.27 p.m.
Lord Aylestone: My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, in his opening remarks referred to those of us who are speaking at what is known as "below the

1037
line" as the heavyweights of the Establishment. I accept being a heavyweight but I cannot possibly accept being a member of the Establishment. A day or two ago when I first saw this Motion and the amendment on the Order Paper, I said to one of my colleagues, "This will be a narrow debate with a very few speakers". I was wrong in both cases. There have been 25 speakers and it has been a very wide debate. It ought perhaps to have been a narrow one, but in fact we have not only discussed the televising of the House of Lords but included in it the televising of Parliament as a whole. We have also discussed partially, and by one Member only, the questions of violence on the football field, of snooker and of golf.
Perhaps at this stage, if we get back to the Motion on the Order Paper it may be of value. We are not here to discuss whether this House shall be permanently televised. We are simply here to decide whether or not the experiment—and the word "experiment", I remind the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, (although I am inclined to agree with him that it is probably the wrong word) was in fact used in a decision of the House; and the House called it an experiment—should continue.
There has been some criticism of the Select Committee, of which I am a Member, during the debate this afternoon, in that perhaps the Select Committee should have brought a recommendation before the House. The Select Committee has no such authority. The decision was that of the House to conduct an experiment for a six-month period. What could the chairman and the members of the Select Committee have done? Certainly they could not have turned down the letters without bringing them before the House and so they did the only thing possible in this very brief report, with the object of leaving it entirely to the Members of this noble House who have to take the decision.
In November 1984 when we discussed the experiment, I am on record as saying that I doubted very much whether six months was long enough. I said that at the time, and I am still of the opinion, that a further period of experimentation is necessary. On the other hand, the amendment put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, would suggest that the experiment should end now. He has made that absolutely clear. When I say "now", of course I mean on Wednesday of next week, when the House will rise for the Summer Recess. The amendment suggests that we should discontinue broadcasting entirely until such time as the Select Committee reports to the House, I should think, early in the New Year.
The noble Lord, Lord Peyton, in his amendment expresses the hope—and one does not object to that—that the Select Committee's final report will be available by Christmas. However, I doubt very much whether that will be possible. The committee would find it very difficult indeed to reach that deadline. One has to remember what needs to be done in the very short period between mid-October and Christmas —some nine or 10 weeks—to come to a conclusion, to have a report printed and to have it presented to this House. We could start work immediately, as I hope we shall, but the taking of evidence will take some considerable time. I think perhaps the word "considerable" has been badly chosen because it may
1038
not take all that time but, on the other hand, members of the public are entitled to ask to be heard, as are Members of this House; and they would unquestionably be heard. Also, broadcasting organisations other than the BBC and ITN would wish to give evidence; and so the taking of evidence may take some considerable time, as I have said.
Then there is the question of our own deliberations, and that is not going to be a very easy job. I can assure your Lordships that in deciding who should sit on the Select Committee the House has done an excellent job, in that all possible views are represented there. Therefore any hope of getting a report by Christmas ought to be forgotten at this stage, I think.
Probably the most difficult task which the Committee will have to face up to is the assessing of the actual cost of permanently televising this Chamber. Having reached a figure, whatever it may be—and I am not going to pluck a figure out of the air—the decision then has to be taken as to who pays for it. Whether it should be divided between the broadcasting authorities and public funds or, hopefully, whether it should all come from the broadcasting authorities will not be an easy decision to reach, because at the present moment, so far as the BBC and the independent companies are concerned, they are not in the mood for spending additional money; they are looking for additional revenue. So that is an added problem which we shall have to decide upon, as to who picks up the bill
Many of us, I am sure—and I think we would all agree here—would like to thank the broadcasters of the BBC and ITN for the work they have done during the experiment. Putting it my way, I think that they have put the House of Lords on the map. They have made people interested in the House of Lords who simply knew of it before, but knew no more than that about it. Also they have put it on the map despite its hundreds of years of history, and they have done that in a period of relatively few months. People have been tuning in regularly, not so much to hear individual speakers as to see exactly how the House functions.
I think the coverage of our debates has been fair and completely impartial. Many members of the general public have seen this Chamber in operation as a part—and a part only—of our parliamentary system and they have also seen the beauty of this Chamber in a very short period of months—something like 17 or 18 weeks, in view of the Recesses. During that period more people have seen the Chamber and have heard us deliberating in debate than have been in the Galleries during the centuries that either House of Parliament has existed. That, too, has to be borne in mind. We have created a new interest, and it is one that I hope will remain.
I have heard no complaints at all from Members of this House about the cameras. Earlier this afternoon one speaker referred to the "clicking" of cameras. I am not sure whether or not the cameras are working now but I can hear no "clicking". I think it is perhaps a wrong use of the word. On the other hand, I do accept that some Members have been disturbed to some extent by the intensity of the lighting. It may be that during the parliamentary Recess, whatever our decision today, there may be an opportunity for the

1039
authorities of the House and the broadcasting authorities to get together and see what can be done to ease the lighting, possibly by repositioning or something of that description.
Personally, the intensity of the lighting does not affect me, but I do not like to see the horrible scaffolding which is supporting the lighting. It ought not to be seen as part of this Chamber, and perhaps we could do something about it. Nevertheless we also ought to bear in mind that, with normal lighting and before the television lights came to this Chamber, the standard of lighting here was and is lower than is permitted under the Factory Acts for any factory or indeed for any office.
One knows that the producers of our programmes had to start de novo. Full praise goes to the technicians, the cameramen and the rest, but they are not unused to working in difficult and awkward circumstances. The producers, however, have had no previous experience of a Chamber like this one. It does not of course compare with a party conference: I think we should bear that in mind. So they had to learn their job anew and I think all credit is due to them for what they have done in their brief period of weeks. They have got to know something about our procedures, our traditions and even our courtesies. They have managed to assess and measure the whole of that during this period.
If this Motion is agreed, the experiment will have run over a full parliamentary year. I believe it is important that the viewers then should have the opportunity of seeing and hearing what I regard as the best procedure during any parliamentary year: that is, our discussion in this Chamber (or for that matter in the other Chamber) of the gracious Speech—though not the Speech itself. The discussion that I am referring to goes on for three or four days and we have the most knowledgeable people in this Chamber who speak on defence, on foreign affairs and on the economy. I believe that discussion ought to be televised, and if we pass the amendment, we are going to knock it out. If we carry the Motion it will be included within the period.
In speaking during the debate, I said, as I have mentioned before, that six months was not long enough. I am still of that opinion. There is considerable advantage in maintaining the impetus of the experiment. And we might perhaps remember that it is now almost 20 years since the first closed-circuit television experiment took place in this Chamber. It was a completely closed circuit, when the television cameras operated and we were able to view them outside. I say "almost 20 years"—that is a guess—but I think that it is bound to be that sort of period. It has taken a very long time for us to come this far. I would hope first that the House will permit the experiment to continue and that in fact the decision in the Select Committee's final report will be that the broadcasting authorities are able to bear the greater cost of it. For that and other reasons I support the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Soames.
6.40 p.m.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede: My Lords, in expressing the view from this Dispatch Box this afternoon on the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord
1040
Soames, and the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, I am inevitably expressing a personal view and not an official view. As has been said, the Motion before your Lordships this afternoon is not a Motion on whether the experiment has been a success or not—the debate on that will come later—but a Motion as to whether the experiment should continue for a further period or not.
A number of noble Lords have been tempted to comment on the experiment. I shall try to refrain from doing so, save to say that I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, in that I think the experiment has done a great deal of good for this House. The question to which your Lordships are asked to direct yourselves this afternoon is whether the experiment should be continued for a further period or not. The report of the Select Committee contains the text of the correspondence from the BBC and ITN. Neither of these letters in any way indicates that the length and breadth of the experiment have been insufficient for the television companies to come to a considered view of the value which they place on the experiment.
The only reasons put forward for requesting the increase in the length of the experiment appear to be that it would be a pity to halt the momentum while the project is going so well—but that momentum will inevitably come to an end next week in any case when we go into Recess—and that the public enjoy watching extracts of our proceedings. Neither of these reasons seems to me to be adequate for extending the experiment. If the companies had said that the time was inadequate, that they wished to experiment in certain other ways about broadcasting the proceedings, I would have had much more sympathy with their requests.
Indeed, in the letter we have from Independent Television News Limited, Mr. Nicholas comments that:
"various forms of programme outlets have been tried and developed: the open-ended live coverage of major debates; the daily summaries; the extracts in news programmes; the weekly review programmes"
and other items have been used in various regions. In no way do they say in fact that they have not been able to try to do everything they wished to do during the experimental period.
Mr. Milne of the BBC says:
"We have been able to try different kinds of programmes".
The only person who has suggested this afternoon that there were other things which ought to be tried is in fact my noble friend Lord Hatch of Lusby, who said that there was a certain type of experiment which had not been tried. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, asked whether it would be helpful if there were a greater amount of material to help the television companies to come to their decision. He quarrelled—if that is the right word—with the noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls, on that point.
However, I think the point which has been made is that if one is continuing to gain evidence during the period when the Select Committee is considering these matters one will put the Select Committee in a difficulty of being forced inevitably to continue to rewrite its report again and again as additional information, if there is any, comes forward. Indeed, I think

1041
that it might not be long before somebody demands a report on the extended television period as well as on the original period. I should have thought that the original decision to have an experiment for a finite period and then to make a proper assessment of that experiment before coming to a decision as to whether we would agree to the televising of our proceedings on a permanent basis, was a right one.
I voted for the experiment last November. I believe that the experiment, as I have already said, has been a success. I shall have to see the Select Committee report in due course, but I very probably shall vote to make the televising of our proceedings permanent. But this personal decision will depend on a number of factors, some of which are not known. For this afternoon, however, I shall vote for the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, because I believe that that would be in the proper interests of the House.
I should like to say one final thing. If the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, is carried, nobody should interpret this as a vote against televising the proceedings of the House. It will be a vote for the proper conduct of the proceedings of this House. The noble Lord, Lord Reay, has suggested that it would be a vote against televising the House. It will not. It will not be a judgment on the experiment. That is not what we have been asked to judge this afternoon. I should be very unhappy if the press come out tomorrow, if the amendment is carried, with headlines, "The Lords throw out TV cameras".
Noble Lords: They will!
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede: If they come out with that headline it is because of the misguided action of pressurising your Lordships to take a decision on this matter this afternoon. I believe that that is the proper decision for your Lordships to take. I hope very much that permanent televising of this House will come. But if the House is to conduct its proceedings properly I believe that we should now move forward to the Select Committee meeting, taking evidence, and producing a report for your Lordships' consideration. I should say, as I started by saying, that I of course am expressing personal views.
6.48 p.m.
The Lord President of the Council (Viscount Whitelaw): My Lords, I am acutely conscious that one of my main tasks as Leader of your Lordships' House is to sense its mood. I sense the mood of this House that it wishes to come to a decision now after a long and very interesting debate. I shall therefore not be tempted into commenting on the various points that have been made by noble Lords on the issue. Some noble Lords have tempted me very greatly indeed and I shall, uncharacteristically, hold myself back from making any comments at all on some of the points which have been made with which I happen personally profoundly to disagree. I shall not do so—it is very difficult but that is what I must do.
I therefore make only one point on the narrow issue that arises. It is a narrow issue and must remain so. We are deciding whether this House should continue the television experiment for the few months involved
1042
before we have the opportunity to consider the further report from the Select Committee. Many of the speeches have ranged wider than that, but that is the Motion, and indeed the amendment, that is before us.
I must make myself quite clear. No one will be surprised at this. My personal position has always been that I have wished to see the televising of Parliament. Since I left another place I have been very careful never to express a view about televising another place, for two very good reasons. I realise that my influence in another place—if it ever was at all great—has gone to absolute zero. I therefore would not wish to try to persuade them on my line of thought because they would almost certainly reject it, and immediately so. The other reason is that it is not my business because it is their business. It is not the business of this House to tell another place what they should or should not do.
Since I left the other place I have longed frequently to tell them what I think they should and should not do—and sometimes have done so, privately or semi-privately. But I shall not do so today. I personally support the Motion of my noble friend Lord Soames and I am opposed to the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Peyton. On that basis, perhaps I should come to one or two of the main points which concern me as Leader of your Lordships' House and then say no more.
First, I should like to join the noble Lord, Lord Aylestone, and my noble friend Lord Lauderdale in thanking all those who have contributed to the experiment—the cameramen and all the people who have been dealing with it. I believe that we owe them a considerable debt of gratitude and, whatever view your Lordships may take on televising this House, I hope you will join me in feeling that that is correct.
I now turn to the question of costs. My noble friend Lady Macleod asked me about continuing costs. Modest costs on installation were met by the PSA. Those, having been paid once, will not now recur. The main running costs have been met by the broadcasters, and if we continue during the period afterwards until such time as the Select Committee reports, they will continue to be paid by the broadcasters. I am advised that the only continuing costs to public funds will indeed be very small—for example, the extra cost of electricity in your Lordships' House with the television experiment on compared with the cost with the television experiment off. I do not believe that there will be any other continuing costs.
My noble friend Lord Lauderdale asked me about the long-term costs. I think it must be very clear that this is a matter which, if your Lordships decide—I shall come to the means of that decision later—to continue with a permanent televising, would have to be settled at that time. I doubt whether they can be wholly settled by the Select Committee in their report on the experiment. There is a very powerful reason for what I am saying which I must repeat very firmly to your Lordships' House as I did at the time of the original debate. I have absolutely no authority to commit public funds in any way at all at this stage until such time as the decision is taken on the permanent televising of this House. If it were to be taken and the question of public funds arose, that would be another matter which I should have to

1043
pursue with my colleagues. I must emphasise once again that I have no authority so far as public funds are concerned.
I turn now to the arrangements for debates which were raised by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, and the noble Lord, Lord Stallard. The television authorities decide when the cameras are coming in. I must make it perfectly clear that no debates have been arranged in response to the the television authorities. Indeed, when the usual channels set up the debates in advance they have no idea whether or not the cameras are coming in. That can be confirmed not only from one side but from all sides of the usual channels. Perhaps I may say something else to the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, and the noble Lord, Lord Stallard. The fact is that during the summer, whether your Lordships have liked it or not, much of our time has been inevitably occupied on the Local Government Bill, for which I notice that the cameras came in most of the time. That meant that any room for manoeuvre through the usual channels on ordinary debates was very limited indeed in view of the number of days—I make no complaint of this—on which your Lordships decided to continue on the Local Government Bill. I make complaint about that, but not to your Lordships.
On the point of my noble friend Lord Cross about notice in the Whip, I think personally—this is purely a personal view—that would be undesirable because it might encourage some noble Lords to attend that day when they were not otherwise coming and possibly behave differently. I do not think that they would but it might encourage them to do so, and I do not think that they should be given such encouragement. They should come if they wish to come. Anyway, even if we wanted to do that it would be quite impossible for us because the broadcasters do not have to give a period of notice, and frequently they make their decision as late as the day before the broadcast.
There is only one other point I should make in answer to what was said because there has been some confusion about it. The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, said that my noble friend Lord Soames was wrong about the present lighting having to come down. The position is quite simple. Although extra lighting will be needed for the State Opening it is not true that the existing lights need to come down on that account. Therefore, if today the Motion were passed, and we were to continue with the experiment, the existing lights could, as I understand it—and I have taken advice on this aspect—be left in position. The question of the State Opening therefore would not change that situation.
I turn finally to the amendment of my noble friend Lord Peyton. My noble friend made it quite obvious that it is a clear negative to the Motion that is being proposed with the addendum about the need for the Select Committee to complete their report by Christmas. I share the anxieties of the noble Lord, Lord Aylestone, about that. I think that there may be a difficulty which we cannot foresee in the deliberations of the committee. When my noble friend Lord Peyton asks for a full and considered report, I am sure that that is what he really wants. If in fact the Select
1044
Committee felt constrained in any way by the timetable, I hope that they would be allowed to go on longer and that my noble friend would not press the exact time too strongly. I hope that it will be possible to achieve it in that time but it just might not be if unforeseen difficulties arose.
I have only one other point to make. My noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter asked me about any decision after the Select Committee had reported. I can confirm that at that time there will be an opportunity for a full day's debate in your Lordships' House before any decision is taken. That will be the moment when we in this House will be taking the decision whether or not to continue permanently with television. That is the moment when that decision will have to be made. The decision today is the narrower one that is set out in the Motion.
6.57 p.m.
Lord Soames: My Lords, I am most grateful to all your Lordships who took part in the debate. I feel that I should perhaps explain to your Lordships why I put down the Motion. I seemed to me necessary for a Motion to be put down by a Back-Bench Member of your Lordships' House so that it could be debated without any question of whips or authority of any character being imposed upon your Lordships; and also because if something like this had not happend the Motion which was passed some time back by your Lordships for the experiment to last six months would have been invoked and it would all have come to an end today.
It seemed to me that there was—to put it no higher than this—a prima facie case that the experiment had been sufficiently successful to make it (I make no apology for the word), a pity to stop it in its tracks until the House had been able to consider the full and definitive report of the Select Committee. The main argument that was repeated over and over again by those who are opposed to this concept was that the House had taken the decision that it should be an experiment for six months, a decision taken roughly six months ago, and that therefore it was immutable and should not be changed.
I do not accept that view. I put it to your Lordships that it is for your Lordships' House to decide. Greater dangers would be involved in stopping it and in losing a considerable audience which has been built up of those who wish to watch your Lordships' House in action than in allowing it to go on for these extra few months.
6.59 p.m.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, I suspect that if I were to say anything at great length I would only be in danger of alienating support for the amendment which stands in my name. I thank those noble Lords who have been good enough to support it in their speeches, and I formally beg to move.
7 p.m.
On Question, Whether the amendment shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 52; Not-Contents, 135.

DIVISION NO. 1

CONTENTS

Allerton, L.

Lindsey and Abingdon, E.

Bauer, L.

Lloyd of Kilgerran, L.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Margadale, L.

Beloff, L.

Maude of Stratford-upon-Avon, L.

Beswick, L. [Teller.]

Blyton, L.

Merrivale, L.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Mersey, V.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Monson, L.

Bruce-Gardyne, L.

Montgomery of Alamein, V.

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Coleraine, L.

Nicol, B.

Colville of Colross, V.

Northesk, E.

Cross, V.

Oram, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Orkney, E.

Davies of Leek, L.

Pender, L.

Davies of Penrhys, L.

Peyton of Yeovil, L. [Teller.]

Dean of Beswick, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

Faithfull, B.

Ross of Marnock, L.

Fisher of Rednal, B.

Rugby, L.

Galpern, L.

Stallard, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L.

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

Gray of Contin, L.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Thomas of Swynnerton, L.

Jeger, B.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Kaberry of Adel, L.

Vivian, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Whaddon, L.

Lewin, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Aldington, L.

Grey, E.

Amherst, E.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Ampthill, L.

Ardwick, L.

Halsbury, E.

Attlee, E.

Hampton, L.

Aylestone, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Banks, L.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Barnett, L.

Hayter, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Henderson of Brompton, L.

Belstead, L.

Heycock, L.

Bessborough, E.

Hill of Luton, L.

Bethell, L.

Holderness, L.

Blake, L.

Hooson, L.

Boardman, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Howie of Troon, L.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Brooks of Tremorfa, L.

Ingrow, L.

Broxbourne, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Buckmaster, V.

Kennet, L.

Buxton of Alsa, L.

Kilbracken, L.

Caithness, E.

Killearn, L.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Kilmarnock, L.

Caradon, L.

Kimball, L.

Cathcart, E.

Kinnaird, L.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Lane-Fox, B.

Colwyn, L.

Lawrence, L.

Cox, B.

Listowel, E.

Craigmyle, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Crawshaw of Aintree, L.

Lockwood, B.

David B.

Long, V.

Davidson, V.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Denham, L.

Lyell, L.

Diamond, L.

McAlpine of Moffat, L.

Dilhorne, V.

McIntosh of Haringey, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Elliott of Harwood, B.

McNair, L.

Elton, L.

Marley, L.

Elwyn-Jones, L.

Masham of Ilton, B.

Ennals, L.

Mayhew, L.

Fortescue, E.

Meston, L.

Gainford, L.

Mishcon, L.

Glanusk, L.

Mottistone, L.

Glenamara, L.

Mountevans, L.

Greenway, L.

Napier and Ettrick, L.

Gregson, L.

Norfolk, D.

1046

Norwich, Bp.

Soames, L. [Teller.]

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Somers, L.

O'Neill of the Maine, L.

Stamp, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Stedman, B.

Rea, L.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Reay, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Reigate, L.

Strathcarron, L.

Renton, L.

Sudeley, L.

Rochester, L.

Swinfen, L.

Russell of Liverpool, L.

Swinton, E.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

St. Davids, V.

Teviot, L.

Saltoun of Abernethy, Ly.

Thorneycroft, L.

Sanderson of Bowden, L.

Tordoff, L.

Seear, B.

Tranmire, L.

Sempill, Ly.

Trumpington, B.

Shackleton, L.

Underhill, L.

Shannon, E.

Walston, L.

Sharples, B.

White, B.

Shaughnessy, L.

Whitelaw, V.

Shepherd, L.

Winstanley, L. [Teller.]

Sherfield, L.

Young of Dartington, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Zouche of Haryngworth, L.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Royal Assent
7.10 p.m.
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone): My Lords, I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts:

Town and Country Planning (Amendment) Act,

Social Security Act,

Shetland Islands Council (Omnibus Services) Order Confirmation Act,

Scarborough Borough Council Act,

Durham City Council Act,

British Railways (Trowse Bridge) Act.

Oil and Pipelines Bill
7.12 p.m.
The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Lord Gray of Contin): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
The Bill proposes important changes to the structure and extent of public sector involvement in the oil industry. It may be helpful if I describe briefly what has happened over the past year. Last July, prices in the spot market fell sharply. This fall appeared to be based on speculative pressures. The British National Oil Corporation accordingly, and correctly, maintained its prices. If BNOC had reduced its prices at that time, the speculative pressures would have been confirmed and reinforced; that could have risked triggering off a competitive downward spiral of term prices.
In October last year BNOC did reduce its term prices. Downward pressures on spot prices continued, however, and BNOC found that it could not maintain sufficient customers on term contracts. So the corporation found itself caught in a trap. By holding its term prices it was forced to sell oil on the spot market and incur losses. If, on the other hand, it had reduced

1047
its prices, it risked enhancing the speculative downward pressures.
This then was the background to the Minister of State for Energy's announcement on 13th March. In the past BNOC had possessed a temporary ability to contribute to stability in the market through the timing and manner in which it proposed prices for the considerable volumes of United Kingdom continental shelf crude which it sold on term contracts. But it had now lost that ability because of the massive growth of spot and spot-related sales. Indeed, it could now change its prices only at the risk of destabilising the oil market by setting off a cycle of speculation and competitive price-cutting.
This Bill puts in place an appropriate structure for those parts of BNOC's activities which need to remain in the public sector. BNOC's principal activity was the trading of participation oil. Now that this activity is not going to be continued, it is appropriate that a much smaller body with more limited powers is established to carry out the residual functions. Some BNOC staff have already moved off to other jobs; more will do so during the next few months. The board of BNOC have provided a package of compensation in line with the benefits paid by oil companies when they have made staff redundant. The Government's decision to abolish the corporation should not be regarded in any sense as a reflection on the calibre of BNOC's staff.
When this Bill was considered in another place, a number of debates took place about how the national interest in securing our oil supplies at a time of shortage will be preserved. In a minor crisis our own stocks will be sufficient to cover any deficit until the participation agreements have been reactiviated, should that be necessary. In any event, since our consumers will need oil products rather than crude, the important defence will be the assurances which the Government have obtained from refining companies. In a major crisis, the IEA oil sharing arrangements and, if appropriate, our powers under the Energy Act 1976 would come into play. I am content that the abolition of BNOC will in no way diminish the country's security of supply.
The course of the oil market since the announcement of BNOC's abolition on 13th March has reinforced the correctness of our judgment that it was inadvisable and certainly unnecessary for a public sector body to trade very substantial volumes of United Kingdom continental shelf crude when world production capacity is well in excess of world demand.
The Government envisage that the new Oil and Pipelines Agency will have three principal functions. The first of these is the continuation of BNOC's role as managing agent of the Government's pipeline and storage system. Currently the system consists of over 1,000 miles of pipelines and a number of storage installations. Commercial use of the system has expanded steadily over recent years, and the system now has an important role for both civil and military purposes. The Government will be looking to the agency to explore how additional commercial revenues could be generated.
The agency's second function is to be responsible for the disposal of royalty in kind oil. At present some
1048
260,000 barrels a day of royalty in kind oil is lifted. The agency's roles, both in managing the Government pipeline and storage system and in disposing of royalty oil, will be governed by contractual arrangements between it and the Secretary of State for Energy.
The agency's third activity will be to maintain in existence the rights and obligations under the participation agreements, so that it could lift petroleum under these agreements should that ever be necessary. Consent to exercise options will only be given by the Government if such an exercise was finally justified by an existing or imminent threat to the security of the nation's oil supplies.
The agency will have powers to trade in petroleum on its own account, subject to the consent of the Secretary of State. That consent will be given only as necessary to maximise the proceeds from the disposal of royalty in kind. The agency would also need to be able to trade effectively should the participation agreements ever be reactiviated. BNOC has already shed all its pure participation supplies in co-operation with the licensees, and also shed a good part of its supplies under third party contracts. BNOC is currently trading only one-tenth of the volumes which it was handling before the abolition of the corporation was announced. The agency will not continue BNOC's role in trading liquid petroleum gases. This LPG trading can now be handled perfectly adequately by the private sector.
My right honourable friend has announced that, subject to the passage of this Bill, he intends to appoint Mr. George Dunkerley as part-time chairman of the agency when it is established. Mr. Dunkerley will shortly be retiring from his present position as deputy senior partner of Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Company in the United Kingdom. We intend to appoint Mr. Kenneth Vaughan as full-time Chief Executive of the agency. Mr. Vaughan joined BNOC in 1978 after working for British Petroleum and the Kuwait National Petroleum Company; recently he has been BNOC's general manager with responsibility for managing the Government pipeline and storage system and for LPG trading. We also intend to appoint as a part-time member Mr. Owen Heald, who has recently retired as a director of Shell UK Ltd. He has wide experience in trading and marketing of crude oil and in pipeline operations.
Finally, let me briefly describe the provisions which the Bill contains. Clause 1 and Schedule 1 establish the Oil and Pipelines Agency and provide for it to have between three and five members, to be appointed by the Secretary of State. Clause 2 sets out the continuing functions of the agency, which I have already described. Clause 3 and Schedule 2 provide for all BNOC's property rights and liabilities to be transferred to the agency on an appointed day, the transfer date. Clause 3 also contains powers for BNOC to be subsequently dissolved. Clause 4 places an obligation on the agency to dispose of, on the best terms reasonably obtainable, any property rights or liabilities which are transferred to it from BNOC but which are not required for its continuing functions. Clause 5 and Schedule 3 give the agency a duty to comply with any general or specific directions given by the Secretary of State, and also contain financial provisions which will govern the agency's activities.

1049
The remaining clauses and schedules are supplemental.
By March of this year, BNOC's role in trading participation oil had gathered the potential for introducing instability into the oil market. BNOC, having to face the future without its traditional trading pattern of term contracts, had been forced to become a heavy seller on the spot market. The Government and many outside commentators recognised that it was not good enough to let things carry on as they had done, and that it was imperative in the national interest to tackle the problems created by the changing structure of the oil market, even though that involved some difficult decisions.
The Bill before us is the result. It removes what, if this had remained, would have proved to be unnecessary and undesirable state intervention in the oil market. My Lords, I warmly commend the Bill to the House.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Gray of Contin.)
7.22 p.m.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Gray of Contin, for explaining concisely and succinctly the Bill which is now before us. He did so very briefly indeed and I suppose that should commend itself to the House, bearing in mind that the Bill came before your Lordships at five minutes past seven rather than at three o'clock this afternoon. Quite clearly the House felt that a debate on the televising of the proceedings of the House was more important than a major Bill of this sort. That is something which I very much regret and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Gray of Contin, will join me in that regret.
Lord Gray of Contin: The cameras have gone away.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: That is right, my Lords, the cameras are away. We now know the degree of importance and the priorities which the television media give to the work of this House; but that perhaps is something for another day.
I am afraid I cannot be as brief as the noble Lord. I think I shall take rather longer than he did; but, of course, he has two bites of the cherry and I only have one. No doubt he will wish to reply to what I and other noble Lords have to say in the debate. I must say that when the announcement abolishing BNOC was made on 13th March, I said in your Lordships' House that I was profoundly shocked. That was not mere party-political rhetoric. I meant it very sincerely indeed. There had been no previous warning about any possibility that BNOC was to be wound up. True, there had been concern expressed about so-called losses—and I say that advisedly—made by BNOC as a result of their intervention at the Government's behest in the oil price markets, but nobody really believed that as a result of these losses BNOC would be wound up, and I very much regret that, under this Bill, it is to be wound up. Indeed, there was every expectation following the Minister of State's speech in the House of Commons on 18th December that BNOC was held in
1050
favourable regard by the Government, and that the Government's view was that it should continue its operations without radical alteration.
The noble Lord will remember the speech of his right honourable friend the Minister of State on the 18th December, which was reported in col. 230 of the Official Report of the House of Commons, when he said:
"Simply because we transparently have a surplus, we should not dismiss the argument about security of supply. We should also bear it in mind that security of supplying is of interest to other consuming countries".
He also went on to say:
"We must ensure that the United Kingdom continental shelf and the price that Britain secures for oil in international markets is not entirely under the control of international integrated companies. We must also ensure that there are some arms length sales at transparent prices. That is an important function which BNOC performs in setting the reference price".—[Official Report, Commons, 18/12/84; col. 230.]
So certainly on 18th December 1984 the Government saw a continuing and important role for BNOC in matters of security of supply and the reference price for taxation purposes.
What then are we to make of the Government's apparent change of heart in only three short months? We can only conclude that they were playing for time on 18th December and that they knew all along that their real intention was to abolish BNOC in their own good time. In my view the Government's intention right from the start was to dismantle BNOC in two stages. The first stage took place in 1982 through the Oil and Gas Enterprise Act when exploration and production was removed from BNOC and Britoil, a private organisation, was set up. We all know what a debacle that was, and still is indeed. Tory dogma took over from sound commonsense and good business acumen, and thereby destroyed a successful, efficient and profitable corporation managed by throughly competent staff who were dedicated not to private profit but to the interests of the British people.
BNOC was then respected throughout the oil industry and indeed acted as the Government's eyes and ears in the North Sea, thus enabling them to plan for the future and to ensure that the interests of the British nation were not set aside by the multinational oil companies and their desire to maximise profits which were to be repatriated to foreign lands.
In this Bill we have the second stage which winds up BNOC completely. Apart from its role in the security of supply and reference prices, BNOC played a significant role in offering a commercial service to small, independent oil companies which had small amounts of oil in the region of between 8,000 and 10,000 barrels a day. They trusted BNOC and expected a decent deal from them. My Lords, what is to become of them now? The noble Lord did not mention them during his speech. Are they to be left completely at the mercy of the big fish, and is a Conservative Government who are constantly prating on about their concern for the small man to give them no help at all? Is the noble Lord really satisfied that the major oil companies will treat the small boys with the same fairness and consideration as BNOC did? I am sure that in his heart of hearts he cannot be satisfied and I should like him to elaborate on this aspect when he replies.

1051
I should also like to refer briefly to the oil reference price and the considerable help that BNOC has been to the Inland Revenue in ensuring that tax losses are not incurred. The Minister of State himself recognised that BNOC has been useful as a reference point in fixing prices, not in arm's length arrangements but in a situation where artificial pricing is designed not to benefit the Inland Revenue but the oil companies themselves. The fact that BNOC is trading on a massive scale is bound to be of considerable benefit to the oil taxation office and that benefit will be lost when BNOC is wound up. We are not here talking about small sums of money that might be lost to the Inland Revenue. We are talking about perhaps hundreds of millions of pounds. If the price of oil is reduced by 1 per cent, £150 million is lost to the Exchequer, and this is a serious matter. Perhaps we can be told what arrangements are to be made to safeguard the position of the Exchequer on the demise of BNOC.
I now want to return to the most important matter of security of supply. I would remind the House again that on 18th December last year (in col 230 of the Official Report, Commons) the Minister of State made the strongest case for retaining BNOC on the basis of its role in achieving secure supplies of oil. In my view what he said then is just as valid today. Because he is able to perform a volte face with complete indifference to his reputation, he should not expect others to follow suit.
I would remind the noble Lord, Lord Gray, that although the oil supply position at present is very easy, the position in the future could—indeed, is likely to—be transformed. In the short term prices may very well fall still further, but in the long run they are bound to rise significantly in real terms. Indeed, speaking after the International Energy Agency meeting in Paris, the Minister of State recognised that there would be an energy shortage in the 1990s. Mr. Buchanan-Smith said:
"I believe IEA warnings to be very timely: most projections of the world supply/demand picture indicate a tightening of the world energy market in the 1990s. We have a well developed flexible set of plans for dealing with energy supply disruption and are ready to join with other IEA countries in taking any necessary co-ordinated action".
In his statement, he says that Britain has, "a well developed flexible set of plans for dealing with energy supply disruption", but we have not. Indeed, by this Bill we are ditching the best safeguard for security of supply in a shortage. All the Minister really has to offer is a set of vague assurances from the big oil companies, and I shall return to those so-called assurances shortly.
But of course as well as the long-term there are the short-term difficulties to be faced. To begin with the downward pressure on oil prices persists and an end of the Iraq-Iran war could herald a complete collapse in oil prices. What that would do for our economy and the Exchequer I shudder to think. The Government have certainly not prepared for such an eventuality. Indeed, they have dissipated tens of billions of pounds in oil revenues in paying unemployment money to 3¼ million people, and in the process have allowed our manufacturing industry to decline to a dangerously low level. Furthermore, from next year our exportable surplus will decline and in the 1990s, which the Minister predicts will be an era of energy shortage, oil
1052
production in the North Sea will be on a steep decline due to the Government's failure to adopt a depletion policy which would have extended the oil plateau over a very much longer period and to the benefit of this country.
No doubt the Minister will contend that BNOC can have no influence on world oil prices, but that was never its primary purpose. Indeed, on pricing, BNOC was acting under Government orders, and paper losses, if there were any losses at all, arose from decisions of Ministers and not of BNOC. But, as I have said, pricing is not the real concern. We are talking about security of supply and the undermining of that security through the ending of participation agreements. We shall lose around 600,000 barrels a day of participation oil by this Bill and thus lose a powerful weapon in any shortage. Furthermore, the state will lose trading expertise and will no longer serve, through BNOC, on the technical and operational committees in the North Sea.
At present, the state, through BNOC, is involved in the detailed decisions of lifting, transporting and the destination of oil. Henceforth we shall be at the mercy of the big oil companies whose prime interest is not the British state but the maximisation of profit. That is not to criticise the big oil companies. It is their role to maximise profits; that is what they are there for. But I criticise the Government for their neglect of the interests of the British people and the sacrifice of those interests on the altar of Tory Party doctrine.
The noble Lord opposite will no doubt protest that the participation agreements can be reactivated on the basis of six months' and twelve months' notice periods. A fat lot of good that will do! By their very nature crises erupt at a moment's notice and can subside just as quickly. While the Minister is fluttering his hands and reactivating his participation agreements, the crisis will have come and gone, probably leaving the British economy in ruins behind it. Nero, who fiddled while Rome burned, will look like a saint compared with the Minister of State scribbling reactivation agreements while the country's economy collapses around him.
But of course the Government's second line of defence is that they have assurances from the oil companies. What sort of assurances they are we do not know; the Government refuse to give Parliament any details. Are they assurances by way of formal agreement, are they letters of intent between the chairmen of oil companies and Ministers, or are the real assurances made through the old boy network in London clubs or on prestigious golf courses? We do not know because the Minister will not tell us. Parliament is to be kept in the dark about Britain's oil supplies in an emergency because Ministers are too coy to reveal the dubious nature of those assurances.
Some idea of the nature of those assurances was given
by the Minister of State at Second Reading in another place. He said that they were informal—informal, mind you, when so much is at stake! What on earth are the Government thinking about to subject vital national interests to informal arrangements? They were elected to safeguard Britain's national interests and not to subordinate them to informal assurances which when the crunch

1053
comes will not be worth a light because they cannot be enforced. The Minister of State has still not told the country the nature or the extent of those informal arrangements. He was pressed at the Third Reading in another place following the article in last Monday's Financial Times which gave some insight into the nature of the oil companies' assurances. As the noble Lord will know, the Financial Times report referred to a letter from a Mr. David Simon, head of BP's refining and marketing division, to an under-secretary at the Department of Energy.
The letter does not even have the status of a communication between the chairman of the company and the Secretary of State. According to this letter, BP agrees in the event of an emergency to keep United Kingdom customers supplied in accordance with the relevant contracts and established business. But BP is prepared to make that affirmation only provided that there are no legal or governmental constraints on its ability to raise prices.
Frankly, those assurances are worth very little. We cannot know whether they would be adequate in times of crisis the nature of which we certainly have little idea of at the present time. They are certainly no substitute for the real and positive influence that BNOC would have in a crisis; and at what price are those so-called assurances? There shall be no constraint on prices. It is incredible that the Government can be satisfied with such assurances, which I can describe only as impertinent.
But I wish to be fair to the Government. As the noble Lord knows, I always try to be fair to the Government. This letter from BP to an undersecretary was dated November 1983, 21 months ago. I think that the Government can help us this evening by saying whether there have been further letters at a higher level and more significant for the protection of our oil supplies in an emergency. Has the Secretary of State rejected the dictatorial demand that he should not intervene on prices if he believes that it is in the national interest to do so?
I sincerely hope that the noble Lord will not shelter behind the ludicrous and undemocratic charade of commercial confidentiality as his right honourable friend the Minister of State did in another place on 15th July. That simply will not do. We are not talking here about simple commercial transactions; we are talking about the nation's lifeblood in time of emergency. It is an insult to Parliament and to the British people that a Minister should seek to deny them information to which they are entitled, on the basis of commercial confidentiality. I ask the noble Lord to come clean on this matter and to tell us tonight the nature of the oil companies' assurances, whether such assurances will be legally binding and whether the Government have told the oil companies in no uncertain terms that they are not prepared to accept the assurances on a conditional basis. If the noble Lord is not prepared to give this information to the House, I can conclude only that the Government are scared of revealing yet another scandal to add to the already big heap that has accumulated since they came to office.
The Bill before us is an extremely important one. The smallness of the numbers participating in the
1054
debate I believe arises from the complicated nature of the issue and the oil industry itself. There is much more that I could have said, much more detail that I could have explored tonight. However that would have been wearisome and I believe, at this stage of the Bill, unproductive.
However, before I sit down I wish to make it absolutely clear that the Labour Party believes that this is a bad Bill in that it loosens the Government's control of a vital part of our economy and in a most cavalier way throws away its vital weapon of securing Britain's oil supplies, particularly in emergencies. The fact is that BNOC has a vital role to play in securing our oil supplies, and the Government, in abandoning such an instrument, are, in the Labour Party's view, acting irresponsibly and without proper care for the vital interests of the people they were elected to serve.
It is inconceivable that a future Labour Government would leave the people of this country unprotected and continue to allow the fate of our oil supplies to rest entirely in the hands of foreign multinational companies. I feel sure that, after the next election and the formation of a Labour Government, we shall return to this matter.
7.42 p.m.
Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran: My Lords, I hope the noble Lord the Minister will not think it too amiss of me if at the outset of my remarks I comment that I was rather surprised at the complacency with which he introduced this important Bill. In his opening, he referred to the measures replacing BNOC as "appropriate". He used the word "appropriate" twice and he almost left his speech at that stage. I must say that it seemed to me that the speech of the noble Lord the Minister begged as many questions as it answered on these vital matters of security.
Perhaps I may remind the noble Lord, as I feel that I ought to from these Benches, and support to some extent what the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, has said, that this Bill is concerned with measures for securing the future supplies of forms of energy which are at the very heart of our national welfare, on which our standard of living depends, and on which our national defence, the performance of our industry, transport, water supply and so on are so heavily dependent.
The Minister's speech was in great contrast to the general view expressed at a meeting which was held a couple of weeks ago in your Lordships' House when the director-general of the International Energy Agency, Frau Delga Steeg, from Paris, who no doubt is well known to the Minister, spoke of the work of that agency to the Parliamentary Group for Energy Studies, of which I have the honour of being a founder member and still a deputy chairman.
Speaker after speaker at that meeting, especially those from industry, emphasised the vital importance of adequate procedures for securing supplies of energy at all times and deprecated that so many countries, including the United Kingdom and other EC countries, had not yet formulated a coherent energy policy to this end. Indeed, one industrialist rather dramatically said, as I recall, that had the countries been meeting at the present time to form the European

1055
Economic Community the basic question upon which they would have concentrated would have been a common energy policy rather than a common agricultural policy, a subject which is at present dominating EC discussions. Another even suggested, on this question of having an energy policy, that so vital were energy considerations that there should be set up in the defence field an energy North Atlantic Treaty Organisation to supplement the present NATO emphasis on arms control.
I agree that the subject with which we are dealing is of immense complexity and that forecast after forecast over the past few years by experts has been found to be wrong. The Minister, who has such a distinguished experience of energy matters in the other place as well as in your Lordships' House, was perhaps right to be brief and cautious and not to venture into details and forecasts. He may have adopted the same view as did Sir Frederick Tombs, the chairman of Rolls-Royce, when he addressed the Parliamentary Group for Energy Studies a few weeks ago. He said that his main qualification for addressing the group appeared to be that he was an experienced energy practitioner who, for many years, had made his share of wrong energy forecasts.
I do not propose to follow the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, in his interesting and cogent analysis of the situation leading up to the sudden abolition of the BNOC in its present form. I agree with much of what he said. I wish merely to raise a number of points relating to this Bill which I feel require further clarification and perhaps form the basis for amendments.
The main reason for this Bill is that the Government eventually formed the view that there have been important market changes which now prevent BNOC in its present form from making a substantial contribution to the stability of oil markets in the short term. That is their forecast. I agree of course that there have been major changes in the structure of the oil market away from term contracts and towards spot and similar short-term contracts. In these circumstances I think there was a prima facie view that little advantage remained in retaining a public sector body such as BNOC to operate on its present basis. So far as I am concerned this evening, the question arises as to the adequacy of the new arrangements in this Bill.
I should first like to ask the Minister whether he is able to give any indication of the scope of discussions that the Government have had or may have had with OPEC, with the OECD and perhaps with the EC before arriving at a decision to modify so drastically the constitution of the BNOC. I mentioned our recent meeting with the director-general of the International Energy Agency. She was very careful to say that it was not the place of the agency to dictate to governments what should be done in their crises. I am afraid I did my best to tempt her to make comments on the action of the Government, but she quite properly resisted my lures in that direction.
Of course that was understandable since the function of the International Energy Agency, so far as I understand its operation, is directed to dealing with dramatic changes, with shortfalls of the order of 7 per cent. At the meeting with Frau Steeg some doubt was expressed by industrialists as to whether the
1056
mechanism laid down by the agency could be rapidly triggered to deal with sudden shortfalls of this order. However, I understand that this Bill is concerned with times when less severe market disruption may occur.
The next point I wish to raise is: what is to be the position of the small oil companies as a result of the Bill? Hitherto, these small oil companies dealing usually with less than 15,000 barrels a day relied heavily upon the BNOC to dispose of this oil. Now it seems that such small businesses will be at the mercy of the large oil companies and will probably go to the wall. That a Government that have expressed publicly so much general support for small businesses should apparently sacrifice the small oil businesses in this way passes my comprehension.
The next matter to which I wish to draw attention relates to the adequacy of the safeguards that the Government propose to rely upon by retaining the custody of participation agreements. I appreciate the powers that the Government possess under the Energy Act 1976 in the case of declared national emergencies. It can also be said, I suppose, with a considerable amount of fairness, that substantial security of supply of oil in an international emergency will be achieved because pipelines from so many offshore installations and platforms come direct into the United Kingdom and do not go anywhere else.
The present arrangements relating to participation agreements with large oil companies, as the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, indicated, do not seem to me to have adequate legal force, if any legal force at all. Indeed, the BNOC, with its control of about 800,000 barrels of North Sea oil, represented prima facie one of the vital means of ensuring power supplies in times of shortage. This is being replaced by a series of supply assurances from the major oil companies particularly those with refining capacity in the United Kingdom. I would also like to have more details of the character of these assurances.
The noble Lord has spoken at length on this matter. The arrangements of these participation agreements were referred to in the other place as being informal. I do not know whether these assurances may not be described as gentlemen's agreements. As a lawyer, specialising in intellectual property and commercial matters, I have always had a horror of so-called gentlemen's agreements. They always lead to trouble when a dispute situation arises.
There are other matters that I may be developing at Committee stage, There is the scope, for instance, of Clause 2 which sets out the agency's general functions and objectives. Again, under Clause 3, can the Minister say—I do not expect him to answer tonight but at some other time we shall be discussing this again—whether the properties and liabilities to be transferred will include any form of intellectual property rights and contracts involving third parties in this country and abroad? That question could give rise to serious commerical matters.
There is also the question of why the Government do not propose to trade in liquid petroleum gas. This is, I understand, a profitable market. No doubt the answer will be, and will continue to be, the answer that the Minister gave today—that it is better to leave liquid petroleum gas to be operated by industry. I

1057
should like to ask what will be the effect on the arrangements in the Bill if the Government proceed with their plans to privatise the British Gas Corporation. This privatisation could expand vastly the demand for gas particularly in the United Kingdom and northern Europe and create conditions in which supply of, and demand for, energy could be in hopeless disequlibrium.
Some clarification also appears to be required relating to the problems faced by the staff of BNOC whose careers have been so abruptly disrupted by the Government's sudden decision to abolish the BNOC in its present form. I join the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, in taking this opportunity to praise the staff for their past work.
There is, again, the question of the power to dispose of royalty in kind. I could not understand what the noble Lord, the Minister, had to say about this question of the disposal of royality in kind. No doubt, we shall hear about this at a later stage. Other matters have been raised by the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, with which I agree and concerning which it is not now necessary for me to take up the time of your Lordships.
If I may say so, what we have heard so far from the noble Lord, the Minister, has been less than satisfactory. His assurances do not seem to me sufficiently specific and may not be adequate when a market crisis arises. It seems to me that much of the reorganisation contemplated by the Bill may be directed largely to producing revenue to sustain the Government's economic strategy. I should like to urge the Government to take this opportunity now to turn their attention to developing a comprehensive energy policy for the continued management of the country's energy resources so vital to national welfare.
7.55 p.m.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, as joint founder with the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, of the Parliamentary Group for Energy Studies, perhaps I may be permitted to comment on the meeting with Frau Steeg, director general of IEA, to which he referred. She pointed out quite clearly and publicly that no country was seeking, preparing to seek, or proposed to seek, intervention in the free oil market and no country thought that was worthwhile or profitable while prices were falling. When the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, with his great exposure to energy problems, talked in a rather glib, and I might even say liberal, way about EC energy policy, he has perhaps yet to realise that that is grounded on the wide opposition of interest between countries that produce energy and those that are principally consumers.
Listening to the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, I could not help feeling, as he proceeded, that it was a pity that the cameras had gone. We have had a great performance, a great rhodomontade. We were told that Tory dogma had taken the place of British interests in the Government's consideration and that BNOC was widely respected by the oil industry. Well, I think that it was at one stage. But that wide respect has gradually diminished. We were told of the great dangers to the United Kingdom Exchequer of a fall in
1058
price. But any suggestion that BNOC could now affect the oil price has really been killed by events.
We were told by the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, if I have got him right—he spoke rather quickly and my shorthand is rather rusty—that we were ditching our defences against an oil price collapse. Finally, he said that we were fiddling while Rome burns. I was only sorry that he did not repeat his great phrase on 13th March when the Statement was made in this House. The noble Lord said at the time that this was,
"another example of this Government's centralist, corporatist attitude. I thought that Stalin was dead, but he seems in tact to have been revived, resuscitated, and brought back to life by this Government."—[Official Report, 13/3/85; col. 188.]
That is splendid stuff. It is a great pity that the cameras missed it.
The fact is that all this arises from a structural change in the world oil market partly influenced by OPEC's own internal difficulties and partly also by the OPEC countries' treatment of foreign oil companies. Arising from both, there has been a distintegration of the vertical supply system as the multinationals share of oil production has shrunk, believe it or not, from more than 70 per cent. to less than 20 per cent. of the world supply. As this has happened, spot transactions have come to account for nearly half of the some 45 million barrels a day of non-Communist oil trade as term and barter contract terms have shrunk altogether. Finally, a lively futures market as arisen as a result. That was the context in whch BNOC traded about 1.3 million barrels of oil a day, which amounted to about 5 per cent., of the total of spot transactions.
As emerged from the proceedings of the Select Committee in another place last December, such a small proportion might, as the Minister of State, Mr. Buchanan-Smith, said help to "smooth out" volatilities in the price pattern. However events have shown that it certainly could not stem a serious price fall even by operations on that scale at the margin. Of course, BNOC suffered one great disability in facing a falling market. It had no storage facilities and therefore could not buy and hold. The BNOC was indeed a shrewd trader while spot prices were rising due to OPEC, on the one hand, and the Gulf War, on the other hand. But, as I have said, in a falling market BNOC was compelled to trail behind, unsupported by storage facilities.
The effect of the slide in price is beginning to be felt everywhere and not so much in trading as in exploration. We are beginning to see the effects on the continental shelf. The drilling rate is pretty steady in the Norwegian, Dutch and German parts of the shelf and is even moving up in the Irish, Danish and French sections, and the number of rigs in the North Sea overall is still rising. But on the British side of the continental shelf—the British shelf—the overall number of spuds, that is, holes actually opened, was down 12 per cent. in the first six months of this year as against last year. There has been a slide this year up to June of some 20 per cent. in the number of exploration spuds and there has been nearly a 40 per cent.—in fact, it is 39 per cent. to be exact—fall in appraisal well spuds on the British side of the shelf. So the question which prompts itself is whether the Department of Energy and the Treasury are right in their approach to the exploration and development of the continental

1059
shelf, however right they may be—and I think that they have got it right—with regard to BNOC.
We saw a pretty equivocal series of answers given to the Select Committee in another place last December and it is worth quoting just one passage from the report in this context. We were told that the Committee:
"considers that Government denials that it has tried to exercise any influence in establishing North Sea oil prices are at best unhelpful and at worst misleading".
Those are harsh words. Although I believe that the Government are right in the steps which they are taking now because we cannot influence the oil price today, the question to be asked is whether the department in general has the right approach to the oil industry with regard to the shelf.
The department is sometimes suspected of trying to compete with the Treasury in exercising the maximum squeeze on the oil companies in regard to their drilling programmes and so on. We are beginning perhaps —who knows?—to see a decline in drilling. Therefore, the real question now is not whether or not we should proceed with this Bill, although in my view I think that we should do so. The operations which we saw in a period of rising price have turned into something quite silly with a falling price and there are all kinds of reasons to suppose that the price may well continue to fall.
It is not usually realised that taking the world motorcar industry as a whole, over the last 10 years or so the average number of miles per gallon driven by a car has now been increased by five. It is not usually realised that fuel per tonne-mile of air freight has dropped nearly 40 per cent. (39 per cent., to be exact) since 1973. It is not usually realised that oil used per unit of consumption in the OECD countries came down some 34 per cent. between 1973 and 1985. Those are all factors making for a slide in oil prices to say nothing of other factors which are now current daily news.
Mexico is dipping below the OPEC level; Venezuela is very likely to follow suit; a new Iraqi pipeline across Saudi Arabia is likely to open in September carrying half a million barrels of crude oil a day; and Iran is certainly tiring of the Gulf war so that peace may come about. Those are all factors which point to a continued slide—let us hope a gentle slide—in the world market for crude oil which no single country, so far as I am aware, can arrest. OPEC combined cannot arrest it. Certainly BNOC trading with a maximum of 1·3 million barrels a day cannot arrest it. Therefore, this legislation is necessary.
We want to make sure that the agency which takes over the residual activities is effective and that the department is adequately staffed for that purpose so that when the time comes in, let us hope, five, six, seven or 10 years time when the market begins to rise again, the facilities are there for dealing with that situation.
8.8 p.m.
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, we have had a short if very informed debate. I am most appreciative of those of your Lordships' House who have seen fit to wait after the cameras have switched off to get down to the really important business of the House. Like my noble friend Lord Lauderdale, I feel rather sorry that
1060
the cameras did not have the benefit of the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon. Those of your Lordships who have been with the noble Lord in another place are not unused to his contributions, although latterly in another place he had certain restraints of the Whip's Office although of course they were not quite so severe as they are for those in Government. However, we are glad that he can contribute to the full in this place. I shall try to deal with some of the points which the noble Lord raised, but I am sure that he would not expect me to deal in detail with all of the many rather involved points which he raised. We shall have an opportunity of going into them at a later date.
I am also very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, who, with his distinguished legal background, has been able to bring a new dimension to our energy debate. We look forward to the Committee stage to hear what he has to say on some of the specific points which he mentioned. I am also most grateful of course to my noble friend Lord Lauderdale for his support and indeed for the very interesting résumé which he gave us of the present situation within the oil industry. In view of his knowledge and experience, he has a great deal to contribute in this sphere.
The noble Lords, Lord Stoddart and Lord Lloyd, both raised with me the question of security of supply. The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, tended to belittle the role of company assurances in the security of supply and magnified the role of the British National Oil Corporation. United Kingdom consumers cannot use crude oil, however much oil BNOC could bring back to the United Kingdom. In view of its long-term contracts it could not bring back all that much anyway, certainly not quickly. It would be useless unless we had the assurance of our refiners that it would be refined to maintain product supplies to the United Kingdom market. If we have assurances that our market will be covered, then we have no need of BNOC's crude oil supplies. It is as simple as that.
However, I am not going to leave it there. It is not appropriate to discuss the particular circumstances of individual private companies. What is relevant is that each of the United Kingdom refineries has recognised its responsibility to its British consumers, and will do what it can, within the law, to keep United Kingdom consumers supplied unless any shortfall reaches such a level as to invoke our international obligations.
Given the circumstances of today's oil market there is fortunately little chance that there will be any shortfall of supplies in the forseeable future. It is therefore perhaps instructive—indeed I think it is important—for us to look at how the last Labour Government sought to safeguard supplies in the mid to late 1970s when there was a very real prospect of supply difficulties.
For a start, the Labour Government failed to secure a single assurance from a United Kingdom refiner. Instead their policy relied on the operation of the participation agreements and on BNOC. When the crisis came in 1978–79 this policy demonstrably failed because BNOC had committed large volumes of its crude oil availabilities to overseas purchasers on long-term contracts.

1061
It is also interesting to note the Labour Government's policy on oil pricing in a crisis. Those were the days of statutory price controls. So when the companies' supply costs went up they has no assurance that they would be able to recover the increase in prices promptly. That did not promote eagerness to keep the United Kingdom market supplied. Nor did it, nor could it, have isolated the United Kindom market from the international increase in crude oil costs. So up prices went in due course in line with the market, but only after a delay which threatened supplies.
I make these points because they are important and relevant in view of what the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, said. I noticed that he chose his words carefully, and he did not say that a future Labour Government would allow the history of Clause 4 to overcome and blind the initiative in the future, but he hinted that there would be the creation again of something not dissimilar to that which we have abolished. I do not think that that is the sort of policy which is likely to encourage oil companies to explore in the North Sea.
As my noble friend Lord Lauderdale pointed out, there is just the slight hint of a falling off, although I must remind my noble friend that last year was a record year in the North Sea, when more wells were drilled than have ever been drilled since the discovery of North Sea oil. However, I have little doubt that the sort of threat which the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, gave tonight would do little to encourage the oil companies to increase their exploration should there ever be another Labour Government elected, which of course is very questionable.
The noble Lord also raised the question of tax reference. The value of the BNOC price as an indicator of market value had already disappeared with its contract sales at that price. Given the considerable growth in arm's length spot sales, the Oil Taxation Office is confident that it will have sufficient evidence of the market to make price assessments in the changed circumstances. Obviously this is a complicated area, and the Oil Taxation Office is consulting the oil companies about how the revised arrangements will best work. It has not suggested that any role for the agency would be appropriate or desirable.
The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, also raised the point, as did the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, of small companies. There is no intention of overriding BNOC's contractual commitments under oil purchase agreements. These will be inherited by the agency, but small companies are aware of Government hopes that it will be the agency's duty to discharge the rights and liabilities it inherits from BNOC.
There are other options available to such small companies if they do not wish to establish their own marketing functions. Several large producers with integrated and non-integrated companies have offered to handle their oil. They are also free to set up cooperative arrangements if they so desire. The fact so far that it appears that insufficient volumes have been committed to any co-operative scheme is itself witness to availability of attractive alternatives.
1062
After all, over the years small companies have gone alongside their big brothers in order to gain experience when exploration and when licensing takes place. It is not new for the small companies to be faced with this sort of situation. Indeed, even the biggest of our oil companies started off as small companies.
The noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, was largely correct to say that the IEA arrangements are concerned with major crises. This Bill of course is concerned with the agency's role in a minor shortage. I can remember in debates in another place many years ago there always being great arguments as to what constituted a minor shortage, but I suppose that if we take the 7 per cent. figure which triggers off the IEA commitment and we take something less than that, broadly speaking we are dealing with minor shortages.
However, the IEA has developed, and is developing, arrangements to meet the threat to world oil prices from a lesser shortfall. It is only by international cooperation, to which BNOC is not really relevant, that we can contain such economic threats to the world's well-being so far as oil is concerned.
The noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, also raised the question of royalty in kind. He rightly said that that is an involved subject. I shall not deal with it in detail tonight. What I would say is that the Government's powers to take royalty in kind are incorporated in licence model clauses and are not altered in any way by this Bill. The policy as announced by the previous Secretary of State on 30th June 1982 of taking royalty oil in kind from most offshore oil fields continues in force. BNOC's losses have arisen largely through not being able to sell oil at as high a price as they paid for it. Royalty oil is sold on behalf of the Government. BNOC makes no payment for it, and remits the proceeds to the Government. Variations in the proceeds have not affected BNOC's financial position. The agency will be in an identical position so far as that is concerned.
The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, raised a number of other issues but I think he will understand if I do not deal with them in detail tonight because we shall have further opportunities to do so. In some quarters the Government have been accused of acting like a member of OPEC by trying to prop up the price of oil. That charge is unfounded. We have no view about the most desirable absolute level for the price of oil. As the country is responsible for only about 5 per cent. of the world oil production, we should not be able to influence this even if we wished to.
What the Government have recognised is that sharp movements in oil prices are in nobody's interests. A sharp fall adds to the risks of the world banking system, threatens important debtor countries and reduces the incentive of energy conservation and substitution away from oil. That could mean that in a few years' time OPEC's powers might become restored and we should face another sharp rise in oil prices and the inevitable damage which that would have on the world economy.
This Bill gives the Government powers to dissolve the British National Oil Corporation, whose principal function in recent years has been to trade in participation oil. These powers are needed because

1063
with the changes in the structure of the oil market and the current surplus of oil supplies—this was well illustrated by my noble friend Lord Lauderdale in his speech—there is no advantage in trading participation oil and there would be a number of disadvantages in continuing to do so. If participation trading continued, BNOC would need to continue offering a price to its suppliers. The events of the last year have demonstrated that this need to set a price is undesirable because it is apt to destabilise the market. Perhaps a comparison here is relevant: our need, for example, for bread at a time of war does not require us to trade bread through a public sector trading organisation during peacetime. Oil is hardly any more important to our economy than food.
I shall be happy to deal in more detail with the particular points which concern Members during the Committee stage, but in the meantime I commend this Bill to your Lordships' House.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Video Recordings (Labelling) Regulations 1985
8.22 p.m.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby Lord Houghton of Sowerby rose to move, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Video Recordings (Labelling) Regulations [1985 S.I. 911], laid before the House on 21st June, be annulled.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I think it will be for the convenience of the House if I move the Prayer, which is the first of the two Motions, but discuss the two Motions together, make one speech—I cannot promise that it will be a short one—but at the end of the debate I shall ask leave to withdraw the Prayer and not move the second Motion. I think that will be the convenient procedure to follow.
[The Motion referred to above reads as follows: That the revised proposals for designation of persons as authority to determine the suitability of video works for classification, laid before the House on 14th June, should not be made.]
Although there is no space given to me at the conclusion of the debate on the printed list of noble Lords who are to speak, I believe that I shall have if I wish a few minutes at the end of the debate, if only for the formality of withdrawing the Motion. With that understanding, I can now embark on my rather complicated task.
It is just over a year ago since the Video Recordings Act was passed and these two Motions relate to the first essential steps towards its implementation. The delay of a year has been partly due to the tragic and lamentable death of Lord Harlech in full health and vigour and quite clearly a man who was to play a key role in the implementation of the Video Recordings Act. His death was a grievous loss and setback to all concerned. Those of us who knew him and admired his talents in other directions apart from this feel a keen sense of loss.
The delay was due also to the unavoidable difficulty in the circumstances in which the Act was passed of
1064
not having made adequate preparation for it. The Government were not ready for what happened. The sponsors of the Bill were unable to provide the administrative background to the implementation of their own Bill. Much of the work which has already been accomplished and much that still lies ahead had not been fully thought out by the time the Bill became law.
The second Motion on the Order Paper relates to the first essential of the whole enterprise, which is the appointment of the so-called designated authority under Section 4 of the Act. I am very much confused about the constitutional position of the British Board of Film Classification in relation to the designated authority and the respective functions which belong to each, if there are two. There may be a difference, but no real distinction. They may be really one body. The noble Baroness knows that I wish to have this matter cleared up.
Section 4(1) of the Act empowers the Home Secretary to designate any person. Section 4(2) enables him to designate two or more persons jointly as the authority responsible. In the result the Home Secretary in his proposed letter of designation, which is the second of the two orders with which I am dealing, has designated three: the noble Earl, Lord Harewood, the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, and Miss Monica Sims. These three persons are the officers of the British Board of Film Classification. They are designated as the authority under the Act. I am advised that in nominating persons it is possible to be nominating a body. But this again is an obscure matter with which I am not competent to deal.
I wish to remark, however, that after 70 years of the British Board of Film Censors, they have discarded the term "censors" and cleverly found the word "classification" which keeps the initials the same and I believe they find it an apt and convenient substitute. I may also add (if it is true) that the new chairman of the British Board of Film Classification desired this change because he did not believe in censorship. I say "Good for him" and express that as my humble opinion.
I have two matters to raise on the designated authority. I have given the noble Baroness a full brochure of my points and arguments for tonight and have therefore shown my hand to her, if she can read my handwriting! Nothing that I say or ask will come as a complete surprise, or very little. The first question I ask is: what is the constitutional position of the designated authority? In some communications the Home Secretary refers to the British Board of Film Classification; in another connection and also under a section of the Act the British Board of Film Classification decides on the fees. I am a little confused about who is doing what. I am also ignorant as to who is paying for what. I am not sure what the finances of this kind of Siamese twin are going to be. If that can be cleared up, I think that we shall then know whether to talk about the British Board of Film Classification or some other name which the designated authority may have. I think that is about all I need say on that particular matter.
I can now go on to the second point related to the designated authority—that is, the numbers and the composition. I take it that what the Government have

1065
done is to accept the three new officers of the British Board of Film Classification who are not appointed by the Government and take them over as the persons named for the designated authority. The first question that I ask is this. Why is the number limited to three, especially, if I may say so with respect, when of the three, two are Members of your Lordships' House? The third is a retired officer of the BBC, a former controller of BBC radio. I need scarcely say that I have not a single word to say against any of them. I am sure that we are all impressed by their talented experience. But is three enough for this particular task? Here we are dealing with video recordings and not with film in the sense that the British Board of Film Censors (now Classification) were dealing with the film industry and films for public exhibition.
This is a much wider task with a much wider range of products and of activity never before experienced by this board throughout its whole history. The video world is a rapidly expanding world and its full potential cannot be foreseen at the present time. After video will come cable, and after cable may come satellite. One can only imagine what the world of communications will look like in a few years' time. In asking whether three is enough, and having referred with great respect to the three members of the board—I call them the "Big Three" of classification—I think I had better refer also to the composition of the consultative council and the composition of the Video Recordings Appeals Committee, because the same point arises on the composition of all three.
Take first the Video Consultative Council. There are 24 members of the consultative council and there are 12 members of the video appeals committee. I want to remind the House that this Act was believed to be necessary to protect the children of working-class families who were said by a body of researchers to be especially at risk because of the repulsive, nasty stuff which was the subject of so much emotional condemnation at the time the Bill was going through. I want to ask where is the voice of the people, as distinct from the professionals, on all these bodies. The professionals are estimable people; there is not a word to say against them. But they are the people who are professional in the art of saying what is good for other people. Their job is to advise on conditions and tastes and what is suitable to be used in the homes of the mass of the people.
The consultative council, in the words of the Home Secretary, in the proposed letter of designation of authority, requires them to take account of the views of the wider public. How wide is the range of the body, which is composed as to one-third by direct representation of commercial and trade union interests and as to one-third by direct representatives of local authorities? They and the remaining one-third are quite independent but are scarcely closely identifiable with the outlook of working people from the homes where most video viewing takes place.
Where is the mother of three who has to look after the kids on a wet Saturday afternoon and wants to put on a video to keep them quiet and entertained but who has now to undergo the guidance of the classification process to decide what may be good for them and who will not be allowed to put on something which the
1066
classification authority say should not be there at all? There is not even the statutory housewife on any of these bodies; and you know how indispensable she is on nearly all Government committees.
I wonder what consultation has taken place with what I would call the working-class viewpoint. I do not like the term "working class"; but working classes were mentioned in the propaganda in support of this Bill and they are undoubtedly the largest section of the community looking at videos. Was the education committee of the TUC, for example, consulted about having someone on at least the consultative council and the appeals committee who might be identified with the more earthy outlook and be more familiar with the conditions of working-class people?
I think it is a great lack in all the authorities that have been appointed. As for the board itself, three may be a very convenient number for a committee; although it used to be said in my day that the best committee is a committee of three with two of them away sick. I would not suggest that the British Board of Film Censors would operate under those conditions. But three is a very small number to be this supreme director of the whole operation—
The Earl of Halsbury: My Lords, will the noble Lord give way? What is his quarrel with three? We have three persons of the trinity who govern the universe, we have three graces, three muses, three fates or what-have-you. What is wrong with three?
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, what is wrong with three is that it is not a large enough number. Three does not give the scope for the representation of interests or outlooks. I should have thought that the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, knows enough about committee life to realise that some committees are regarded as too small, as some are regarded as too large, for the discharge of their particular tasks. All that I am saying is this. Show me where in the whole outfit of the board, the consultative council and the appeals committee the authentic voice of the working class and the general run of homes in Britain is to be heard. Certainly it is not on any of these committees or boards.
That is all I have to say about that, because I have made the point. I have asked the Minister whether consultations about the composition of the consultative council and the appeals committee extended to the education committee of the TUC, of which I used to be a member. In connection with other matters relating to harmful publications for children and so forth, which went through both Houses years ago, the education committee of the TUC was very much involved.
I want now to turn to a matter of policy to be followed by the designated authority. The Home Secretary's proposed letter of designation and direction sticks to the letter of the Act. He has quite properly relied on the wording of Section 4(1)(a) that in issuing classification certificates the authority must have special regard to the likelihood of video works being viewed in the home.
That is a guiding principle and the world of video will be classified through three pairs of eyes of the board. Their examiners will have to do much of the

1067
practical work, quite obviously, and they will almost certainly be given some guidelines to follow in their own judgment of what they see. Therefore, my next question to the Minister is: Will those guidelines be available to the consultative council which I believe is to meet for the first time on 11th September, and will they be made public? Can we all know what the examiners of video works are following in the conduct of their judgment?
Another point of policy which I must raise relates to the use of the Obscene Publications Acts. The Home Secretary's letter of direction says that the BBFC will continue to avoid classifying works which are obscene. The material point here is how far proceedings under the Obscene Publication Acts are to be taken to test the court's judgment of what the board may do. At the present time considerable harassment is going on of retailers and others by the police authorities, and a large number of prosecutions are being undertaken under the Obscene Publications Acts in extremely dubious circumstances. I hope that will cease when the new system of a prosecuting authority begins in the New Year. I know there is likely to be an entirely new regime for prosecutions under these Acts when the new system begins, but at present I believe that the Obscene Publication Acts are being misused by the police authorities because in many cases prosecutions are taking place on the same work in different places, even though acquittals have been secured. Each police authority seems to be on its own, doing what it likes to try to get convictions in its own area if it wishes.
Up to now there have been more acquittals than convictions by far, and I wonder how much public money is being spent on unsuccessful prosecutions which juries probably regard (as I do) as having been undertaken in unsatisfactory circumstances. Therefore, I am going to put to the Minister that when the designated authority has classified a video work, only in the rarest cases and for exceptional reasons should the judgment of the designated authority be challenged in the courts under the Obscene Publications Acts.
Of course, we know that if the board decides not to classify a video work, anyone who deals with it and puts it around is liable to be prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Acts: he has no protection. But surely when we have this high level—élitist, if you like—body of people to look at the classification of works, when the board or the designated authority has classified a work then it should stand and not be open to challenge at the whim of any police authority. There is a good deal of feeling about this in the industry at present.
I turn now to an important matter of administration, and it relates to exempt works. Here an awful lot of trouble is already brewing, and I am getting a lot of it. Exempt works under Section 2 of the Act are also related to exempt supplies under Section 3, so that video works which fall within the description and condition of Section 2 of the Act are exempt from classification and need not be submitted for labelling.
I brought out this point very clearly during the course of our debates on the Bill: that Section 2 refers to educational works, to sport, religion, music or a video game. I am telling people who consult me on this that those who produce works which they believe are
1068
exempt works are entitled to use their own judgment and to follow it in what they do. That means they need not submit anything for exemption: there is no such label as "exemption". If a work is exempt, somebody has to exempt it, and it is the producer of the video who is entitled to do so. There is a great deal of difficulty and doubt about this at the moment in various quarters.
I have sent the Minister copies of letters and memoranda which I have received from some people, and
I have sent him letters and memoranda sent on behalf of others who are involved in the rapidly expanding use of video for education, information and instruction. There is a Society for Education in Film and Television, covering a wide interest in charitable and non-profitable video. There is a head of education of the British Film Institute; there is a national children's home and they are making increasing use of video for training and fund raising. There is a home mission division of the Methodist Church who are providing audio visual material for church use for sale or rent on free loan.
Therefore, I make two points here. The first is that it is essential that the designated authority should produce helpful advice for the benefit of the growing number of bodies and persons in this field of exempt works. They must be spared the doubt, the worry and the possible expense of submission for classification. They need their fears allayed and they need to be reassured. I think it should also be made clear that the producer of a video work which is
for use within the purposes of Section 2 should use his own judgment as to whether it is an exempt work. If his judgment is wrong, he may take advantage of the provisions of Sections 9 and 10, which deal with the defence of a person who may be charged without good reason. Can the Minister make it clear for the record that this is correct, so that it can be quoted among those who are very much concerned?
Only a few minutes before the debate began, I received a paper from the Cambridge University Students' Union, who run a video co-operative. They have already done some films and are about to produce others. They issue information about the admission, the procedures and other matters related to getting into the universities. There is a film also about student life in Cambridge. I would say that these films would be exempt works, but they want to make copies for schools from which students may come to Cambridge and who may be interested in what student life at Cambridge is like. Will these copies be exempted supplies if they charge for them? I think here one may feel some doubt as to whether an exempt work is also an exempt supply if it is distributed for use by others for reward, for hire or for loan.
All I know is that I am told by the Cambridge Students' Union that if they have to pay labelling fees for these films that they are doing, and have done already, they will have to give up all this work because £35 a time for labelling is something they cannot afford when all their works are done for nothing and they wish to circulate them to others for the smallest recompense of the cost incurred.
I have sent details of the letters I have received to the noble Baroness. I have also sent some representations that have come from the industry regarding the

1069
labelling regulations. I have mentioned particularly the most tiresome part of the labelling regulations which requires the sleeve in which a display case may be put for a hirer to take away to be labelled as well as the display case, so that where the retailer is putting the display case in a sleeve for protection while it is in the hands of someone hiring it it has to be labelled three times: first, on the spool; secondly, on the display case; and thirdly, on the sleeve. But the sleeve is no more than an overcoat. Nobody can use what is underneath without getting into the display case which is fully labelled.
The trouble is that nearly all regulations go too far. The real aim and purpose of the Act is obscured in the detail of how people must conduct their affairs to comply with the requirements laid down. I hope that this matter will be dealt with by the advisory council who will have on it representatives of the industry. I have said already that they begin work on 11th September; and I wish them a good start. Their job is to see that the implementation of this Act is not made a nightmare and a hindrance to honest trade. This Act was not passed to make criminals and expose respectable traders to harassment by the police.
The great shame of it is that the rapidly-growing video industry failed to get properly organised in time to police itself. It was the victim of a whipped-up emotional rampage against so-called video "nasties" and a Government too weak to withstand hysteria. I am glad to learn there is now a new Confederation of Information and Communications Industry—CICI—which has been formed to embrace the publishing trade as well as films and videos. It also embraces the two main broadcasting authorities. Such a body should see to it that they are not again swept aside by the upsurge of exaggerated fears.
The only interest which I have in all this is to see fair play and to check any unnecessary inroads into civil liberty and the consequent spread of bureaucratic interference with the way in which we wish to live and to make our own choices on our own responsibility. I think that this Act should be watched closely in operation and challenged whenever it goes too far. It needs to be monitored and researched with unremitting care and integrity. I have myself adopted a humble role as convenor of many societies with interests in a group which I hope will see that all this research is undertaken. I therefore now move the first Order standing in my name.
Moved, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Video Recordings (Labelling) Regulations [1985 S.I. 911], laid before the House on 21st June, be annulled.—(Lord Houghton of Sowerby.)
8.54 p.m.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, I listened with interest to the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, who repeated many of the things that he said last year, particularly in his peroration. I should state that in so far as Parliament was moved—not just this House but the other House as well—to legislate on this matter it was moved because families up and down the country were anxious, worried, about the material which their children were seeing. That is not just working-class
1070
children but all families. The noble Lord draws a distorted picture, as he did last year. It was because Parliament was convinced that the danger was there that it has enacted the legislation which we have before us and has made this first pair of statutory orders designating the authority and making regulations in connection with the tapes.
There are one or two points which I should like to take up on what the noble Lord has said. The noble Lord asked some questions about the composition of the Video Consultative Council. I have some to ask too and I share with him the concern that the views of the consumer—that is to say, families throughout the country—should be heard. But I make the point very broadly that this is for the protection of all families. There are hundreds of thousands of families up and down the country who are concerned to have this protection. But the protection is not what the noble Lord is constantly inveighing against: that they are being prevented from seeing what they want to see. What this scheme does is to classify the tapes so that they will know when they go into a shop to buy or hire a tape what they are getting.
That is the job which the authority does. That in my view is an extremely valuable one. I am very grateful to it for taking on a difficult, onerous job, often unpleasant, when one considers some of the material the members have to see. The noble Lord has spared himself seeing this material but perhaps one of these days he will pluck up his courage to go and have a look at it and then he will understand just what a difficult job it is and how important that it should he done properly.
I should say straight away that I am most grateful personally to these three admirable people who have taken on the job and accepted designation. At the same time I should like to record, as the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, did, my deep regret at losing Lord Harlech—a most distinguished president of the past—and very much missed in this context when this very heavy load is now falling on the British Board of Film Classification. They have changed the name from "Censors". I make the point to the noble Lord—and I am sure he accepts it—that their job is to classify. They will not prevent anybody doing anything. If a family are foolish enough to take home tapes which are not suitable for children to see, so much the worse for that family The only tape which they cannot get in an ordinary shop is the Restricted-18, and that can only be obtained in a sex shop. That, as the noble Lord will remember, was one of the provisions in the Bill. This structure is one which has had a very proper regard to the liberty of the subject, at the same time making a reasonable protection for families up and down the country against the inadvertent purchase of hire of tapes which are thoroughly unsuitable to be brought home for the family circle.
I should like to put the point to my noble friend with regard to the appeal system. Who will appoint this independent body of persons of distinction and integrity for the appeal system? I think we should all be interested to hear that. It appears that the appeal system is set up primarily to provide appeal machinery for the trade. But perhaps my noble friend can tell us this. Can other interested people—a mother or a father—who are worried about the classification

1071
appeal too? Or can any other outside person? What is the provision for the members of the public appealing if they wish to? When the appeal body is in action, will it have public sessions or private sessions? Both from the point of view of the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, and indeed from that of the rest of the world, I should have thought that it was better to have public sessions so that members of the public who are interested can go and listen to the process.
With regard to the consultative council, like the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, I should like to know who the one-third who are members of the wider public are going to be. I entirely approve of the structure of one-third from the video industry and one third from local authorities—that all seems very sensible—but how are the wider public going to be picked and how are we going to ensure, as the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, rightly said, that we get a fair representation of the general consumer interest?
With regard to the actual functioning of the authority, I assume that the president and the two vice-presidents are going to be appointed for a period of years. Perhaps my noble friend will tell me for how long they are prepared to be appointed for this very onerous task.
I say straight away that I am very pleased to see these orders. I congratulate the president and the two vice-presidents and the examiners on the progress they have made. I recognise that they have an enormously heavy task in sheer volume, apart from the technical difficulties, so I feel we all have a deep sense of gratitude to them for taking it on. They have done well to bring along the first tranche now. I certainly wish them well in their heavy work in future in doing what is an essential job of classifying this material to ensure that the vast range of material which is entertaining, amusing, exciting and entirely wholesome is clear for them to see and the material which becomes bluer and bluer as it goes down the range is clearly defined so that those who do not wish to see such material will not see it.
I give my noble friend warm support. I am glad to hear that the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, having given us this opportunity to have a brief debate on this matter, intends to withdraw his Prayer at the end of the debate.
9.3 p.m.
Earl Attlee: My Lords, when the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, stood up, for a second I thought that I would have an awful thing to do. I thought that I would have to apologise to him when he said that he was withdrawing his Prayer and his Motion—apologise not for anything I had said but for what I was going to say. I was under the genuine impression that the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, was going to push these through. I thought that we would even have a Division. I thought back to the hours and hours that we spent discussing this Bill and I thought, "Oh no, not again!"
However, as the noble Lord progressed in his speech, we once again heard those lovely words that those who were opposed to video nasties were being emotional and that this had been drummed up by people who are against the video interests. Now we are told that this Bill was introduced to protect working
1072
class children. This surprises me. Why should so-called working class children require protection rather than any other type of children? The Bill was brought in to protect all children regardless of religion and colour. It was nothing to do with enjoyment. It was to do with censorship. In this life we have to accept a certain amount of censorship—this is because we live in a democracy. I demand the right that my children—if they were young enough—and those whom I love should be protected by law from being subjected to the possibility of seeing degrading and disgusting video nasties. I am not talking about so-called "soft" pornographic films, most of which are rather humorous, or even "hard" pornographic films; but there is nothing funny about real video nasties.
I join the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, in saying that I wish the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, would watch the video nasties that we saw. I am sure that the police would be very happy to show them to him. I found them sickening—and I did not exactly grow up in a sheltered environment when I was young. I can assure the House that in five years in the merchant navy at the end of the war one saw almost everything.
I said that I was afraid that I might be in a position where I would have to apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Hougton. To my amazement, I now find that I am actually going to agree with him—I should add that it is on only one or two things. It seems to me that the classification boards are rather few in number. They do not seem to be very representative of the country as a whole. If they were broader based I feel that it would give the noble Lord. Lord Houghton, less reason to talk about the protection of working-class children. There are problems. I think that the orders are possibly not as good as they might be. If this is so, it really is the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, himself who is partly to blame. That is because the Bill took an extremely long time to pass through your Lordships' House, and it was only because of the grace of God and the Government Chief Whip that the Bill became law. It is therefore very possible that not enough time was given to working out the detail of the Bill.
However, having not quite apologised to the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, and having almost agreed with him, I should like to conclude by thanking him for his words at the beginning of his speech, when he said that he would not be pressing his Motion.
9.8 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Norwich: My Lords, I listened with the greatest care to what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, but I found myself not recognising areas of this country in the way that the noble Lord appears to recognise them. I was surprised to hear him speak in such protectionist terms about the growing video manufacturing industry. It is a very large industry, as the noble Lord reminded your Lordships.
The noble Lord's phrase, as I heard it, was that these very modest attempts to understand, regulate, label and classify videos are presenting "a nightmare and hindrance to honest traders". I believe those were the noble Lord's words. I find it hard to recognise that that is so in the light of the hard evidence of the past five years which painstakingly, fairly, carefully and professionally our own parliamentary all-party video

1073
group has gathered together for all interested people to study closely, and on which that group is still working.
It seems to me that to refer to a "nightmare" for the industry is almost to forget the nightmares which small, innocent, and at first unsuspecting children have suffered. It will be very hard to know whether they will ever be able to throw off the scars of what they have seen. Because the nation, in both Houses, had so firmly agreed with this particular Act, which is now part of the national life, it is surely proper and sensible for your Lordships not to object to this initial pattern of the Video Recordings (Labelling) Regulations 1985 but to give them at least a fair chance. Perhaps in 12 months' time, the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, may do us the honour of helping by bringing this matter forward again. But to attempt to deny the workings of these useful public citizens before they have even started seems to me to be verging on the unfair.
I recognise that if the noble Lord desires to show compassion to the growing video industry then it is fortunate that it has such a doughty, energetic and good supporter. But throughout the whole of the 32 minutes of the noble Lord's speech, I did not hear him once speak in terms of compassion for those who have suffered grievous harm through the videos which the industry has produced and which have made it necessary, in the public interest, for the Video Recordings Act 1984 to pass into law.
I should like to draw the attention of your Lordships to an important piece of research by Redecki which he laid before the Committee on Culture and Education in Strasbourg in 1983, simply to underline both the importance of the Act and the need for it to work well, and therefore for the classifications to be implemented with the greatest care.
One of the discoveries made by Redecki in his research, using television in the wider sense but taking videos even more closely into his purview, was that,
"It teaches such a tolerance for violence that we are allowing increasingly horrendous amounts in our homes, schools and society without taking real action to eliminate its source".
Because the industry is producing good material, I believe that it must not be castigated for all the video nasties. I believe also that the industry as a whole will be glad of these regulations which will help the industry to put its house in order.
I intend to speak for only another minute, my Lords; but I should like to put in a contrary word to the phrase about the police used by the noble Lord, Lord Houghton. It seems to me wrong to use such a generalised statement as "harassment" and to speak of extremely dubious methods used by our police force. That is a statement with which our police force ought not to be labelled without a dissenting voice being raised or it may appear that it is the view not of a single Member of the House but of the whole House.
Those of us who work closely with the police force and who know it well in all the areas where we live and work, know that the police force needs not only our support but our encouragement and our congratulations. In the evils which have accosted the children of our nation before the passing of the Act last year the police have been one of the bastions of care for our children and I should not like it to go unrecorded that
1074
many of your Lordships support the police in the distasteful work that they have to do, working with the instruments to their hands. With that, therefore, I should like to put my voice on the other side to that of the noble Lord, Lord Houghton.
9.15 p.m.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Houghton has been let off lightly this evening, I think, because at the beginning of his speech he made it clear that he was not pressing the matter to a conclusion. I think that he is right not to do so but he is nevertheless entitled to some support as well as being let off with a caution having, as it were, confessed his guilt and said that he was not going to do it again.
The atmosphere is entirely wrong, because, in my judgment, my noble friend has performed a public service throughout the whole operation of the Act. He has exposed the fact that Parliament has once again been led into making a fool of itself. The consequence is that we have this absurd dog's dinner of legislation which will cause us endless trouble before we are through.
None of us wants the things that noble Lords have suggested, but it would have been perfectly simple to prevent them without going into the complicated arrangements which we are now establishing. As I said during one of the stages of the Bill, one of the great absurdities is that we have, on the one hand, the British Board of Film Censors, which was perfectly capable of taking on the job, had it been given it. It is a private organisation which exists virtually without legislation. To that we are adding a whole barrage of official legislation. Nobody knows what is the relationship between the two. Perhaps we shall be given that information when the noble Baroness replies to the debate, but at this moment neither my noble friend nor I know precisely what is the relationship between all these different committees which are being created. What a nonsense we are now in.
The tragedy is that Lord Harlech is no longer with us. I deeply regret his passing. In so far as it is possible to replace a person of his calibre, I think that it must be said the Government have done well. The fact that those who are taking on this particular job include two Members of this House seems not to be harmful because they are civilised and liberal people. That is the main thing. In so far as it is possible to do a decent job in the circumstances in which they find themselves, they will do it. But the fact that it is an absurdity appears to have escaped noble Lords. We have the creation of odd committees and the creation of other committees privately in order to respond to the committees which have been created publicly. The new private committee which has been set up by the industry itself—the Confederation of Information Communication Industries—has, I understand, been set up in order to respond to the new legislation and was created at the suggestion of the Cabinet Office. I would be most interested to know from the noble Baroness whether the Government, not content with creating all these other small committees under the Act, are now creating another little batch of private committees to prevent the committees they are creating from doing too much damage. Is that what the Government are doing?

1075
This whole operation could have been done much better if it had not been done in a panic and quickly shoved through the other place in a couple of days and if it had not gone through your Lordships' House in an atmosphere of alarm and despondency in which we felt we had to pass new legislation to do something which could have been adequately dealt with by the old legislation. If we had not got into this situation we would not have the consequences with which we are now faced.
Well, we are in it, but just to show noble Lords that I have not been talking nonsense, I should like to offer just one document which sets out what one of the committees—the Video Appeals Committee—has to do. It has a right of appeal and then someone has laid down the appeal procedure: the appellant's notice of appeal; the board's reply; the appellant's reply; the service of documents; interested persons and their rights; the procedure; the committee; the hearing; the decision of the committee; the costs—all these have had to be laid down. And this is only one of the committees which have been set up under these regulations. It runs into page after page of description of what everybody has to do and their rights and responsibilities: how the hearing is to be conducted; what should be done with the decisions of the committee; how they should be made known; the costs; under what circumstances they are dealt with, and so on. This is just one of the burdens that have been hung around the neck of this industry.
Of course there are also the costs. The works in a spoken language which is predominantly English are charged at £4·60 per minute up to two hours. If it is predominantly English there is a standard rate of £3·45 per minute thereafter. Trailers and shorts up to 10 minutes long cost £46—so there is a cut price there. Subtitle works in a spoken language which is predominantly other than English cost £3·45 per minute up to two hours and £2·30 per minute thereafter. So it goes on—detailed information on what everybody has to pay. The whole thing is really a most astonishing collection and I have some sympathy with noble Lords in this House who have to deal with the situation.
Nevertheless I do not think it will do an awful lot of harm. It is a lot of aggravation, a lot of nonsense and causes a great deal of difficulty, but the real concern in the industry is not really the forms which we shall all have to fill up, the money we shall have to find, and so on. The real concern is what will be the effect of this legislation upon other restrictive legislation; what will be the reaction of the Obscene Publications Act? All this
has been touched on by my friend. Will there be a collection of other pieces of legislation which will have to be introduced in order to clear up the mess which has been created by this legislation? Are we into that kind of scene? There is some concern about that. I hope that there will not be. As I said, I do not think it will do an awful lot of harm—at least I hope not—but of one thing I am utterly sure: that is that it will not do any good.
9.22 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, perhaps I may be permitted to put two sentences into "the gap". I confess my ignorance in that I was not aware that
1076
there was a speakers' list for Prayers to annul orders. I ask your Lordships to forgive me. I rise not only to express my support for my noble friends, Lord Houghton of Sowerby and Lord Jenkins of Putney, but also to say that I think that if George Orwell were alive today he would be wryly amused by the "Newspeak" that has developed in the naming of the body with which we are concerned.
For many years we have had a British Board of Film Censors, which in fact has been a British board of film classification, because if it refused to give a classification to a film there were other ways of dealing with whether or not a film could be shown in a cinema, which were either through local authorities or indeed through the Obscene Publications Act and its predecessors. As soon as that British Board of Film Censors ceases to become a classificatory body and in fact becomes a British board of film censors—because whatever the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, may say, this Act is a censorship Act because it imposes penalties on video films to be shown in the home which are not given approval by the designated authority—as soon as the activity changes from classification to censorship, the name changes from censorship to classification. I think, on reflection, that George Orwell would be less than amused!
9.24 p.m.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, if there is one virtue among many that my noble friend Lord Houghton of Sowerby has it is consistency, and I suppose that I could add another—persistence. All of us respect the consistency of his attitude to the causes that he espouses, one of which is the liberty of the subject and as little interference with it as possible. I suppose the other noble Lords who sit behind me and who have spoken in support of him have precisely the same virtues. Having said that, some of us could possibly take exception to phrases such as, "the absurdity of this legislation has escaped noble Lords". I do not want to reply aggressively to such remarks. I merely say to my noble friend who uttered those words that some of us would have said that the phrase, "the weakness of a Parliament which failed to deal with an evil", was something that would appeal to us as more appropriate to this legislation.
I want to make a few points, if I may, and to do so as quickly as possible. The Bill has been called a dog's dinner. I wish to return to my own, which may not deserve that description, as soon as possible at this hour. First, may I make the point that there is no justification whatsoever in this industry for using the parallel of the British Board of Film Censors, whether called by that or any other name. The film industry decided to have a voluntary body—and it is a voluntary body—and it decided, except for an appeal procedure, to abide by that voluntary body's decision on classification. If anybody thinks that the seamy minority end of a very fine video industry would be prepared to abide honestly by the decision of a voluntary body, the absurdity of the suggestion has possibly escaped such a person.
Secondly, everybody has been talking about children, and it is very emotional to talk in terms of the protection of children. Of course, they need protection. The purpose of the Act was to protect all of

1077
us from one simple thing. We want to know before we purchase a video for the members of our family what sort it is. If that is harmful, pernicious and an interference with liberty, I have another definition of the rights of the subject and of liberty.
The noble Lord, Lord Houghton—my noble friend—then talks about these regulations, which obviously are necessary once the Act is passed; and it has been passed by both houses of Parliament. I notice with interest that in his speech he did not object to any of the classifications. That is an interesting point because these regulations deal mainly with the whole description of the classifications. He is a very stern critic of legislation which sometimes has ambiguous and unnecessarily complex wording, and so I was waiting for my noble friend, with a smile, to read out Article 2(7)(b) of the regulations, but he did not. It states:
"For the purposes of this paragraph … the statements within paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) of section 7(2) of the Act are to be regarded as being progressively more restrictive so that the statement within the said paragraph (a) is the least restrictive and the statement within the said paragraph (c) that no video recording containing the video work in respect of which the certificate was issued is to be supplied other than in a licensed sex shop is the most restrictive".
I must say that I did not feel that that was language that was going to be clear to a great number of people. I thought that my noble friend Lord Houghton, in the course of what is always an interesting speech, was going to quote that Article 2(7)(b) of the regulations as being a little less than well worded.
What is the point of objection to regulations and procedural steps set out in a document in regard to an appeal? That was what my noble friend Lord Jenkins seemed to think was the strongest part of the attack that he wanted to make, was the most heinous part of the regulations and the documents that had been issued. One cannot have it both ways. When the Bill went through Parliament, some of us fought for the right of appeal. If one fights for the right of appeal one can be criticised if one does not make it clear how one can exercise that right, how the appeals are going to be dealt with in a very fair way. Those who are charged with the duty to put the case against the appeal should ensure that one knows all about it beforehand. If I may say so with respect, to cite this as something to attack under the regulations or in the procedure again escapes me.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, perhaps I may assist my noble friend to comprehend what I was getting at. I was not suggesting that the consequences of the legislation were so much heinous as inevitable—the collection of mess which has arisen from this, one example of which my noble friend hmself has very fairly drawn attention to. The consequences arising from this Act I think were inevitable, and what I was saying is that it was in my view unnecessary.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, yes; I appreciate that my noble friend has put his case very fairly. I was saying merely that I could not see any ground for criticism in regard to an appeal procedure being very clearly set out and I was glad the appeal procedure was there. Of course, I was not talking about anything that was
1078
unnecessary in the regulations; I was merely pointing out that in regulations it is obviously advantageous to have simple language which everybody can understand, and I was saying that this was unecessarily complex.
To conclude, these regulations are, in my personal judgment—and I emphasise the word "personal"—completely necessary to carry out the provisions of an Act which were meant to protect members of the public, in order that they might know precisely what kind of video they were purchasing and also to protect everybody, including children, against the kind of videos that are a disgrace to a great industry and which are extremely harmful—and that is an understatement—to our young people and even to our not-so-young. The judges, the social workers, the church, all are united in thinking that the voice of violence on television is a harmful voice; so is the pornography that sometimes comes on to our screen. I see—I do not use the words "no harm"; but I see benefit in the Act. I originally said so—I see benefit in these regulations which carry out the provisions of the Act—and I say so now.
9.34 p.m.
Baroness Cox: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerhy, for providing us with an opportunity to discuss my right honourable friend's proposals for designation under the Video Recordings Act 1984 and his regulations on the labelling of video recordings and their containers. Perhaps I may say personally how grateful I am to the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, for giving me advance notice in his own fair hand of the questions he intended to raise.
As your Lordships are aware, this Act is designed to provide a swift and effective means of dealing with "video nasties" and to provide guidance—to retailers and to parents—about the suitability of video works for persons of different ages. Video nasties, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich and the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, rightly reminded us, have caused a great deal of justifiable concern. The Bill received widespread support during its passage through your Lordships' House when it was piloted with great skill and effectiveness by my noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford. I welcomed very much his contribution and, indeed, those of all other noble Lords to this evening's debate.
My right honourable friend made clear, when the Bill was first introduced, that it was his intention to designate the principal officers of the British Board of Film Censors, or the British Board of Film Classification as it is now known. Under Section 4(1) of the Video Recordings Act—this, I hope, clarifies a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby—the designated authority is responsible for making general arrangements for the classification of video works. As already stated this evening, my right honourable friend proposes to designate the noble Earl, Lord Harewood, the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, and Miss Monica Sims, who are, respectively, the president and the vice-presidents of the British Board of Film Classification, on the understanding of course that the board itself will carry out the classification of video works. In other words, the functions of the

1079
designated authority are to make the arrangements for the classification process to be carried out.
The BBFC will carry out the detailed classification process in accordance with arrangements made by the designated authority. In response to a query by my noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford, who asked about the term of appointment of the designated authority, the answer is that it is indefinite. Looking to the future, my right honourable friend would naturally envisage designating any future presidents or vice-presidents of the board on the same basis.
The board has been classifying films for the cinema for more than 70 years. Although local authorities are ultimately responsible for deciding what films may be shown in cinemas in their areas, they are, in almost all cases, content to rely on the recommendations of the board. This demonstrates vividly, I would suggest, the respect and public confidence in which the board is held. It is against this background that my right honourable friend considered it sensible to entrust the important new task of classifying video works to the BBFC. In the view of my right honourable friend, the board has the expertise and the experience to enable it to take on this task. It also has the benefit of public confidence built up over more than 70 years. In his view, there is a good deal of advantage in entrusting arrangements for classifying films for the cinema and responsibility for classifying video works to a single body.
The noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, referred to
some of the delay that has taken place. It was always recognised that it would take several months from the enactment of the Video Recordings Act to make the necessary arrangements to enable it to be brought into force. The BBFC will be taking on a substantial new task which has considerable resource implications and which raises many considerations of policy and practice that have had to be properly explored and settled.
As the House is aware and as mentioned already this evening, the board suffered a very severe blow at a crucial time with the tragic death in January this year of Lord Harlech, who was president of the board. Lord Harlech was distinguished in a great many fields. I should like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the wisdom, the understanding and the sensitivity that he brought to bear as president of the BBFC. He is very sadly missed by all who knew him, either as a friend or as a colleague.
The British Board of Film Classification is most fortunate that the noble Earl, Lord Harewood, has agreed to become the new president. As I have already indicated, the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, and Miss Monica Sims have joined the board as vice-presidents. My right honourable friend is confident that the new president and vice-presidents will form a strong and effective team to provide the guidance and leadership which will be especially important as the BBFC takes on the task of classifying new video works and grapples with the many problems which that is bound to generate. Perhaps I may say that I am glad to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney, that he is satisfied with the choice of those people and has confidence in them. He has expressed that this evening.
1080
I turn briefly to the question of the composition of the consultative council which was also queried by the noble Lord, Lord Houghton. As foreshadowed during the passage of the Bill through Parliament, the BBFC is setting up a consultative council to advise it on its work in the video field. It is to comprise members of the video industry, representatives of local authority associations and individuals of distinction. That category includes Dr. Alan Gilmour of the NSPCC, Mrs. Anne Jones, a head teacher, and Mrs. Susan Baring who I understand is a representative of the Council of Probation Committees. I am sure that such people will provide a wide cross-section of advice, opinion and experience. Of course those not directly represented will no doubt be quick to get in touch with the board with any criticisms of its performance.
Mention has also been made during the debate this evening of the appeals committee. The appeals committee is similarly to be balanced in its composition with people of integrity who, I am sure, can be relied upon to serve conscientiously and responsibly. I shall be happy to arrange for the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, to receive a list of members of the appeals committee. However, in answer to my noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford and his query about the appeals system, let me point out that the BBFC nominated the members of the appeals committee and its nominations have been approved by
my right honourable friend. My noble friend also asked how many of them there would be. The number is 12.
In response to my noble friend's query concerning opportunities for the public to appeal against the board's decisions, perhaps I may say that I think it is expected that the designated authority and the board will have the interests of members of the public in the forefront of their minds in their deliberations and decisions. It would not be practicable for a certificate, once issued, to be withdrawn. Consequently direct appeals by members of the public cannot be readily built in; nor does the Act require or contemplate that. However, there is of course nothing to prevent members of the public from representing their views to the designated authority either directly or through the consultative council with a view to influencing its judgment in future cases.
The noble Lord, Lord Houghton, also raised another question in terms of implementation and timing. Perhaps I may point out that my noble friend Lord Glenarthur indicated in an Answer to a Question from my noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford on 1lth June that it is proposed to bring the Act into force in a series of stages. It will come into force on 1st September this year for new works. It will then come into force in a series of further stages over the next three years for existing material in such a way that potentially objectionable material will be dealt with as early as possible. As explained by my noble friend, use is to be made for these purposes of the register of films maintained by the Department of Trade and Industry. Alphabetical lists of films on this register will be made available to video dealers so that they will be able readily to ascertain at what point particular video works will become subject to the requirements of the Act.
I entirely accept that under this scheme not only will material too extreme to be shown in the cinema, and

1081
thus not on the DTI register, fall within the scope of the criminal provisions of the Act at the end of the first stage, but so also will a good deal of innocuous material. However, the latter will simply need to be classified sooner rather than later and I do not think that there is any great unfairness of hardship in that.
The noble Lord, Lord Houghton, also raised some questions with regard to labelling regulations. The purpose of these regulations is to make provisions to enable video dealers, customers and parents to see at a glance the age group for which a video is suitable. The regulations are made under Section 8 of the Video Recordings Act which envisaged the labelling of both video recordings and their containers, and the regulations provide accordingly.
The classification certificates for which provision is made in Section 7 of the Act are based on classifications currently used by the British Board of Film Classification. Similarly, the labelling regulations before your Lordships this evening take due account of the symbols associated with films classified for the cinema.
The regulations require an indication of the classification given to the most restrictively classified video work on a video recording to be contained on the recording itself and on, or visible through, any container in which the recording is kept. These regulations should ensure that it will be possible to see immediately whether a particular recording contains only works suitable for general viewing or whether, on the other hand, it contains material suitable only for persons who have attained the specified age. This will achieve the same sort of effect as the notices displayed in cinemas as to the classification of the films that they are showing.
These labelling regulations have been drawn up in close consultation with the video industry and the British Board of Film Classification. We have made a number of modifications to their original proposal as a result of representations which they have received. I hope that some of those points put the question of labelling regulations into context. We believe that they are important because the requirements will provide clear and helpful guidance to consumers and suppliers. We do not believe that they will impose unreasonable burdens on video dealers.
Perhaps I may turn briefly to the question of exemptions, which was also raised by the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby. His comments about educational and religious material raise the whole question of exemptions in Section 2. That part, Section 2, exempts works designed to inform, educate, or instruct, or works concerned with sport, religion or music, subject only to the proviso in Section 2(2) about material containing sex or violence. I imagine that much of the material used by educational establishments will benefit from this exemption. The noble Lord, Lord Houghton, showed me copies of some of the letters he had received from bodies particularly concerned with education, and I think their concerns will be met by this exemptions provision.
I would also point out that Section 3 exempts a range of different kinds of supplies—including supplies which are neither for reward nor in the course or
1082
furtherance of a business—regardless of the content of the material concerned. If a work is an exempted work, no question then arises as to whether or not the supply of the work is also exempted. The work can be dealt in without it having been classified. I hope that clarifies the point for the noble Lord.
The noble Lord, Lord Houghton, also raised the question of fees. I think the answer to that question is that the tariff of fees has been designed to cover the cost of the classification process. I think the last of the specific questions raised by the noble Lord. Lord Houghton, with which I can deal tonight, refers to his concern about the Obscene Publications Act. In making no provision in a Video Recordings Act concerning the application of the Obscene Publications Act to video recordings, Parliament must be taken to have decided that works classified by the Board should not be automatically immune from prosecution. Nevertheless, we share the noble Lord's concern about local variations in prosecution policy, that they should be avoided, and that any prosecution should be undertaken only after the most careful consideration of the case.
My right honourable friend therefore has it in mind to advise chief officers of police, with the concurrence of my right honourable friend the Attorney-General, that a specimen recording should be submitted to the Director of Public Prosecutions for advice before any steps are taken to proceed under the Obscene Publications Act in respect of a work which as been classified by the board. If this suggestion is followed by chief officers of police, as I am sure it will be, consistency will be achieved in advance of the introduction of the Crown Prosecutions Service, to which the noble Lord is looking forward. May I also take this opportunity to echo on behalf of your Lordships the words of appreciation to the police which were made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich?
In coming to a conclusion I should remind your Lordships that the Video Recordings Act is widely supported both in Parliament and outside. It responds to the real public concern about video nasties and I believe that the publicity which it generated was an important factor in helping to stem the availability of that material. It also establishes a classification system which will provide guidance about the suitability of video works for different age groups. I am particularly grateful to the noble, Lord, Lord Mishcon, for his warm support of the proposed regulations.
I have tried to pick up some of the more general points made during the debate. I will write to noble Lords whose questions have not been answered in my reply. But the decision which now has to be made is not about the Act—that is already on the statute book—but about the orders to bring it into effect. Noble Lords will appreciate that if the proposed designation were to be rejected, fresh proposals would have to lie before Parliament for a further 40 days, excluding the Recess, before a designation could be made. That would take us well into the autumn and would delay the implementation of the Act by several months. Such a delay would be contrary to the wishes of the great majority of your Lordships and of the general public and I believe it would also be contrary to the interests of the video industry.
The Government have every confidence that the

1083
British Board of Film Classification will continue the good work for which it is widely recognised as it now takes on responsibility for the classification of video recordings. All concerned appreciate the importance and sensitivity of this new responsibility. Parliament will be kept informed by means of the annual reports which will be required to be laid before each House. The British Board of Film Classification is determined to make these new arrangements work and I am sure that we all wish it well.
I conclude by saying that am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, for enabling us to discuss these important matters. I hope that I have been able to provide him with some of the reassurance he was seeking and I am pleased to commend to the House both the proposed designation of the president and vice-president of the British Board of Film Classification and the regulations on the labelling of video recordings and their containers.
9.54 p.m.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, I am sure the best service I can do for the House at this hour is to keep my concluding remarks as brief as possible. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate, whether or not I agreed with what they said. It was probably unavoidable that I and others should rehearse some of the arguments that we used in the course of the passage of the Bill. It is difficult to confine oneself wholly to the administration and the nitty-gritty of the scheme when there is this emotional background on both sides. All I will say to the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, and others who have been a little concerned at my working-class overtones, if I may put it that way, is that we are a democracy and democracy involves participation. That is all I am pleading for. I know it is only classification, although there are marginal qualifications to that. After all, part of classification is to exclude things from classification altogether and expose them to the rigours of the criminal law.
However, I am not saying for a moment that the opinions of some people are better than those of others. When my noble friend Lord Mishcon says that what people want to know is what sort of video it is, the answer is that it depends upon a person's opinion. What sort of video it is, is a matter of opinion, very largely; and opinions can differ. All I have been advocating is the presence of something that is not there in any of the bodies connected with the administration of this Act. The voice of the people, I think, should be represented there. Their opinions may be no better than those of others, or not as good; but participation means that people who are concerned should be there, and they are not there. That is what I am saying. It is an important thing to say, nevertheless.
I think that democracy should be seen in all our institutions. The representativeness of institutions should be visible when we are doing things of this kind. But I leave that now. I am grateful to the noble Baroness for so much that she has said and I wish to stress the special value of this debate at this moment. It is the only occasion upon which opinions, facts and predictions of the noble Baroness can be read just now about the working of the Act. That is going to be of
1084
great value and I shall be very surprised if today's debate is not widely and anxiously scanned in a number of quarters for guidance as to their own part in the matter for the future administration of the Act.
I am especially grateful to the noble Baroness for what she said about the use of the Obscene Publications Act. That has been very tiresome indeed and has put a lot of people to a great deal of anxiety and a great deal of expense. I am sure that what the noble Baroness has foretold in this regard will be widely welcomed and I am sure that if that is done we shall cease to have, in this field at any rate, many of the complaints about the use of the Obscene Publications Act that I am getting at the moment.
I am grateful for all that and I am very much obliged to all who have taken part in the debate There is nothing in this Act that my noble friend Lord Mishcon has raised that I object to. I thought that we had accepted tacitly, if not overtly, the classifications that were being used by the British Board of Film Censors and that they are being translated into the field of video. I think that they are generally acceptable as having gone through a fairly long period of experience and tests. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the first of the two Motions on the Order Paper.
Motion, by leave withdrawn.

Revised Proposals for Designation of Persons as Authority to Determine the Suitability of Video Works for Classification
Lord Houghton of Sowerbyhad given notice of his intention to move, That the revised proposals for designation of persons as authority to determine the suitability of video works for classification, laid before the House on 14th June, should not be made.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I shall not move the second Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.

Dartmoor Commons Bill Lincoln City Council Bill
Returned from the Unopposed Bill Committee with amendments.
Insolvency Bill [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons on Friday last agreed to with amendments; the amendments printed pursuant to Standing Order 48.
East Lothian District Council (Musselburgh Links etc.) Order Confirmation Bill Shetland Islands Council Order Confirmation Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and (pursuant to the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act 1936) deemed to have been read a second time and reported from the Committee.
British Railways (Trowse Bridge) Bill [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons earlier this day agreed to.

Social Security Bill
Returned from the Commons earlier this day with the amendments agreed to.
House adjourned at two minutes before ten o'clock.