Lords Sitting of 26 July 1985

Preamble
The House met at eleven of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR Oil the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Oxford.

Ethiopia: Famine Relief
Lord Brougham and Vaux: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the value of aid given to Ethiopian famine victims by (a) the United Kingdom (b) the Common Market (c) the United States of America and (d) the Soviet Union.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Young): My Lords, since the beginning of 1983 the cost of British famine relief to Ethiopia, including our share of European Community relief, has amounted to £65 million. During the same period the European Community, as such, has provided £84 million. We do not have comparable figures for the United States, but in the United States' fiscal year ending on 30th September 1984 the United States provided £12 million and in the current year plans to provide about £112 million. We do not know the value of any famine relief provided to Ethiopia by the Soviet Union, but overall the famine relief assistance provided by the Soviet Union and its allies is on a very small scale compared with that being provided by the West.
Lord Brougham and Vaux: My Lords, I should like to thank my noble friend for her reply. Will she not agree that from not only this quarter of the House but all quarters of the House a debt of gratitude is owed to Bob Geldof and all involved in Band Aid for the tremendous work they have done to help these poor people in Ethiopia? Will she not further agree that the Answer to the Question shows that we and our allies are providing a lot of aid to these people and that the Russians seem to prefer to give aid in different ways?
Baroness Young: My Lords, yes. I am glad to publicly acknowledge the extraordinary amount of money that has been raised by the Band Aid group, which I think reflects the very real feeling of all British people of concern about the famine in Ethiopia. I think the figures speak well for what has been provided by the Western countries in this tragedy.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, is it not the case that the Government have already admitted that they have provided no new money for the famine relief in Ethiopia or elsewhere, and that all the money that has been provided has been transferred from one part of the ODA budget, including the contingency fund within that budget, to another part? Does this not mean that some of the normal recipients of our aid are
1460
having to go without? In this connection, is it true, as has been suggested by the Leader of the Opposition in another place, that one of the sufferers from this transfer of aid is Tanzania and the money that was to go to the support of hospitals in that country?
Baroness Young: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, has asked that question before, and I shall confirm the answer that I gave him earlier: that the money which has been provided for famine relief in Ethiopia has come largely from the contingency fund; and that if he looks at the Answer that has been given by my right honourable friend the Minister for Overseas Development in another place, he will see that he has confirmed that it has come from the contingency fund, the purpose of which is to provide money for such emergencies.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, so far—
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, I was asking where the money has been transferred from. Will the noble Baroness answer my question? Where has the money been transferred from?
Noble Lords: Order!
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, so far as help from the Soviet Union to Ethiopia is concerned, can my noble friend confirm that it has mainly taken the form of arms provided to enable the Marxist Government of that country to fight their enemies?
Baroness Young: My Lords, there is some evidence that that is the case.
Lord Oram: My Lords, if the purpose of the original Question was to prove that the Soviet Union is cynical, self-seeking and ungenerous in its attitude to developing countries, is that not something that is well known, has been very much on the record for some 40 years, and applies as much to Ethiopia as to the third world in general? However, if the purpose of the Question was to seek to prove how generous our Government and the United States Government have been, why compare them with the Soviet Union, which has such a drastically poor record in this matter? Would the noble Lord not be well advised to study the report of the all-party Foreign Affairs Committee on Famine in Africa, which was highly critical of the degree of support that the Government have given?
Baroness Young: My Lords, it is not for me to question the reasons a particular Question has been put down on the Order Paper; it is for the Government to respond to it. I have given the figures as asked, and I think the House can draw its own conclusions from them. I have already indicated that, quite properly, we have given very generously in response to the very tragic situation arising from famine in Ethiopia and indeed in other parts of Africa. I should add that not only has there been the money that we have given through the ODA but also the Ministry of Defence has contributed some £9 million as its share of the RAF airlift in Ethiopia.
Lord Harvey of Prestbury: My Lords, can my noble friend say whether the figures she has given include the cost of operating the Hercules aircraft in Ethiopia?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I have just indicated that the Ministry of Defence has contributed a certain proportion of that. The other part will come from the direct money from the ODA.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, may I ask a question that is intended entirely in a constructive sense? The noble Baroness says that a large part of our £64 million came from the ODA contingency fund. Can she say where the other part came from, and what was the breakdown?
Baroness Young: My Lords, if the purpose of the noble Lord's question is to identify some projects that have been lost, my understanding of the situation is that the money has come from the contingency fund and that, in the course of a year, not necessarily all the money is actually spent, because for a variety of reasons it cannot be spent. I do not have any reason for thinking that we have switched money from one project to another for Ethiopia.
Lord Reay: My Lords, can my noble friend say whether Her Majesty's Government are going to be involved in any way in the distribution of the money raised by the Live Aid concert?
Baroness Young: My Lords, how the money is spent and how any of the supplies may be distributed is of course a matter for the Live Aid group and their supporters. However, if we are asked for help or advice, we shall be very happy to give it.
Lord Oram: My Lords, has not Mr. Bob Geldof struck up a partnership with USAID in this matter, and was there not an opportunity that, possibly, our Government missed in offering help in the distribution of the funds that he and his colleagues have raised? Did we miss an opportunity?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I am not aware that we have missed an opportunity. Our position has been absolutely plain all along. We wish the aid to get to the people who require it. If asked, we would help in any way we could in the distribution of it.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, am I correct that the noble Baroness's answer to the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, indicates that money has not been switched from Tanzania, and particularly from hospitals in Tanzania, in order to fund relief work in Ethiopia?
Baroness Young: My Lords, that is my understanding of the position.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: My Lords, apart from the Government contribution, is there any estimate of the amount of money collected and sent from individual British people and provided in that way?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I do not have that figure in front of me. I know, however, that it amounts to a very generous sum of money. My understanding is that it is quite a proportion of the sum of money that the Government have raised. I believe that this reflects the real concern of the British people.

Magnifying Spectacles as Tools of Trade
11.16 a.m.
Lord Rugby: 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 take steps to ensure that workers and craftsmen in industry are able to obtain from general supplies spectacles with the magnification appropriate to the needs of their occupations, and whether such spectacles can be classified as tools.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, Her Majesty's Government are not aware of any reasons why there should be difficulties with the supply of magnifying aids where these are required as a tool of trade.
Lord Rugby: My Lords, the noble Earl will have received a paper from me yesterday showing how the Association of Optical Practitioners has been operating a restriction on what it describes as magnifying spectacles in the form of twin lenses of indentical power. These are used extensively in industry, and the different magnifications are applicable to different jobs. Does the noble Earl agree that it is extremely important that people in industry should always have access, without prescription but by choice, to these particular magnifications? Will he assure the House that within supplies to industry these optical applicances will be available?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Rugby, in particular for giving me advance notice and sending me a copy of what he intended to ask. I can tell him that the Office of Fair Trading published a report on opticians and competition in December 1982. As a result of that report, the Association of Optical Practitioners withdrew a particular restrictive practice about which the noble Lord was concerned, as it did another restrictive practice concerning empty frames.
Lord Rugby: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl very much for that reply. Does that mean that they can be obtained without a prescription?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, if they are magnifying aids they can be obtained without prescription. If the spectacles or goggles are required to remedy a defect of sight, then a prescription will be needed.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, can the Minister give an assurance that such activity, if embarked upon, will conform to all the elements involved in safety at work legislation?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, indeed I can.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, my noble friend has referred to remedying a defect of sight. What about using machinery with spectacles such as mine, which are there to assist a defect of sight?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, if my noble friend has to wear glasses which are purely magnifying aids,

1463
then he will not need a prescription. If they are to remedy a defect of sight, which might involve a small magnification, he will need a prescription.

Traffic Congestion in Central London
11.19 a.m.
Lord Boothby: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have given further consideration to the problem presented by the density of traffic in central London; and if so, what conclusions they have reached, and what action they propose to take.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, traffic congestion in central London is at present primarily a matter for the GLC as traffic authority. However, the Government are discussing the many aspects of the problem with representatives of the London borough councils and with the police and other bodies concerned.
Lord Boothby: My Lords, arising out of that Answer, does the noble Lord not recollect that when I asked this question about a month ago he said that the traffic authority for central London was the GLC, and he went on to say that good progress was being made? Since then, the only progress that I can see made by the GLC has been towards the grave. I want to ask the noble Lord for an assurance that Her Majesty's Government now intend to set up some kind of effective traffic authority in London that will do a good job and have adequate powers and that will not just sit by and watch London traffic invaded from all sides by heavy vehicles, especially coaches, to the extent that it is being steadily reduced to chaos. That is what is happening at the present time.
Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, as I hope I indicated in my original Answer to the noble Lord, the Government are concerned about the problem. We have several proposals in hand. The White Paper on Pleasure, Leisure and Jobs, published earlier this week by my noble friend the Minister Without Portfolio, proposes Government action on coach parking in central London and the possible use of sites owned by the nationalised industries. We also intend next year to bring in the improved fixed penalty system under which unpaid penalties will be enforceable as a fine with a 50 per cent. premium. That should considerably improve their deterrent effect. We are also studying how new technology can best be used to aid enforcement and lead to better traffic flow. Furthermore, we have commissioned assessment studies of the problems in four of London's main traffic corridors in order to identify the problems and assess the options for improvements. The consultants' reports on the first stage of that exercise are due later this year, and they will be published for comment.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, do the Government recognise the contribution made towards solving this problem by the Greater London Council's fares policy, which it is generally recognised increased the number of passengers travelling on the bus and Underground services and which thus helped to relieve the transport problem? Also, in the light of the problem revealed in the Question, why are the Government so critical of the GLC's ban on lorries at certain times? I believe this ban was reached after some two years of inquiry.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, the Government are critical of the GLC for the obvious reason that traffic conditions in London are bad, and traffic has been the GLC's responsibility for a number of years. As regards the GLC lorry ban, the noble Lord will be aware that my right honourable friend has lodged an appeal against the High Court ruling. Therefore the matter is sub judice and it is not appropriate for me to discuss it at present. However, the Government have made clear all along that the current issue is not whether lorries should be uncontrolled—and we have encouraged local authorities to apply sensible local policies—but whether a blanket ban is the right approach.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, did not the Minister find it surprising that, when the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, called for a comprehensive traffic authority for London, the noble Lord's friends sitting behind him said, "Hear, hear"? I say this bearing in mind that they have consistently trouped through the lobbies against that proposal over the past few weeks.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, Lord Boothby's Question specifically relates to the density of traffic in central London, and that will be of concern mainly to the Westminster City Council and the surrounding boroughs. I hardly think that any input from the outlying boroughs, such as perhaps Hillingdon or Hounslow, can help in the present situation to alleviate the problem in central London.
Lord Strabolgi: My Lords, arising out of what the noble Lord said about the Westminster City Council, is he aware of the chaotic conditions prevailing around the Victoria Coach Station and that one of the reasons for those conditions is the number of long-distance coaches—such as the Green Line and the express lines—going to distant parts of the country, combined with the tourist coaches? Will the Government take steps to allow the Westminster City Council to control the routes which those coaches can take rather than diluting their powers through the present legislation?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, first, I do not accept that the present legislation dilutes their powers. We have had several meetings with Westminster City Council and one took place as recently as yesterday. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State and my honourable friend the Minister of State intend to meet the leader of Westminster City Council next Tuesday to discuss these matters and to point out to the council the very real powers that they currently possess under the Road Traffic Regulations Act, under Section 6 of which they can prescribe routes to be

1465
used; ban coaches from particular streets; establish bus or coach lanes; exempt buses and coaches from no right turn bans; allow or ban waiting; and regulate the queues of people waiting in the streets. Those powers are fairly considerable.
Lord Morris: My Lords, would not my noble friend agree that the day when we should really start worrying is the day when the overseas and long-distance coaches cease visiting London?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, overseas tourism to London is a very important part of London's economy and a major provider of jobs. I very much hope that we can find a satisfactory solution to this problem which does not stop these coaches coming into London but which will, hopefully, find—as I indicated earlier in our discussion—somewhere better to put them.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, does the noble Lord not agree that the routes out of London to the South are a sheer disgrace for a capital city and that the routes out to the North and the East are very little better? Does he not agree that the situation requires two things—first, overall traffic planning for London, and secondly, a great deal of capital investment?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I have already indicated that the department has initiated four traffic assessment studies and I hope that something positive will come out of them. I would not agree entirely with the noble Lord that all the routes out of London are unsatisfactory, particularly those which I know of to the West and the South-West. In my view, they are reasonably satisfactory.
Lord Stallard: My Lords, will the noble Lord accept that not all the problems mentioned in the Question as being presented by the density of traffic in London occur above ground? A great number of the problems occur underneath the roads in London, especially those roads onto which heavy traffic is being funnelled in order to alleviate some of the problems in the centre. I point to the recent tragic result of heavy traffic in Putney, where the gas explosion was attributed directly to heavy traffic which should not have been going over that road at all and which fractured the gas main. There are sewers and mains of all descriptions being damaged daily in London because of the density of traffic. Are the Government doing anything about it?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I am aware of the report to which the noble Lord has referred, which I think came out only today and therefore I have not had time to study it myself. The noble Lord will also be aware that we have not gone ahead with the Common Market proposals to raise the weight of heavy lorries and I hope that he will be pleased with that decision.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, notwithstanding the traffic jam of proposals which the noble Lord has announced, does he agree that it would be very worthwhile if the Government were prepared to consider—and perhaps
1466
he could refer this matter to the top source available—examining the results (and the statistics are available) of the GLC's programme of Fares Fair, which caused a considerable reduction of traffic on the London roads and increased the profits of the London Underground and London Transport? It was a very sensible idea which was knocked on the head by the judges. Should it not be reinstated as it made a real contribution?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I am aware of the Fares Fair controversy which took place some years ago. I point out that, under the current management of LRT, traffic is still increasing and in our view at the moment, the balance between ratepayer and passenger is the correct one.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that one of the problems is the lack of co-ordination between municipal authorities and the police in London which makes it quite distinct from other capitals and from other towns? Is it not the case that one of the consequences is the growth of on-street parking, which is now becoming worse instead of improving in London and is actually filling-out traffic routes? Will the noble Lord discuss the matter with his right honourable friends and see whether something cannot be done about it?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: Yes, my Lords.
Lord Annan: My Lords, will the noble Lord agree that, despite the fact that there are many ways in which to improve traffic in London, the situation in our capital city is far better than that in Rome, New York and very often Paris?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I am afraid that I have not visited the first two cities which the noble Lord mentioned, but I have visited Paris. However, I am grateful for what the noble Lord has said.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, perhaps I may inform the noble Lord that most people in London do not live in the places which he has indicated.

Prison Building Programme
11.29 a.m.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the new prison building programme is on target.
Baroness Cox: Yes, my Lords. Wayland Prison, the first of the 16 projects in the current programme, was completed last year and is now operating at full capacity. The new Stocken Prison, which was completed in April, has just begun to receive inmates, and a third project, Thorn Cross Youth Custody Centre, will do so shortly. Two more projects will be completed in 1986 and three in 1987. The remainder of the programme will come on stream as planned between 1988 and 1992.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that reply. Is the Minister aware that this Question is raised at a time when the prison population, at 48,100 is the highest on record? Was this intolerable and unacceptable total at this time taken into account when the building programme was framed? If it was not, is the Minister satisfied that the programme is capable of taking account of the upward curve in the prison population? Can we be assured that professional bodies, such as the Prison Officers' Association, are always fully consulted on the design aspects and many other aspects of prisons upon which undoubtedly they have expertise?
Baroness Cox: My Lords, the commitment to the building programme to put us on course to end overcrowding by the end of the decade was based on long-term projections of the growth of the prison population. The current projections, published in May 1985, continue to indicate that the commitment is still intact, suggesting a total population in 1991 in the range of 47,500 to 49,600.
However, these projections do not take account of the recent and indeed disturbing sharp increase in the prison population which currently stands, as the noble Lord said, at around 48,000. It is too soon to say whether this increase is a temporary fluctuation or represents a long-term upward shift. We shall review the position in the light of the next set of projections, which will be available in the new year. To deal with the noble Lord's second question, on consultation, there are established arrangements for consultation with the unions representing governors and also other prison staff at all points during the briefing and design stages of projects, and the views of staff are fully taken into account by the design teams.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, may I ask the noble Baroness whether the new prison programme will relieve the problem of remand? Is she aware that Scotland and then England have the highest percentage of young prisoners under 21 in prison in Europe?
Baroness Cox: My Lords, on the question of relief of the pressure on remand places, five of the schemes in the programme are for new local prisons and one is for a new remand centre. Together these will provide some 3,500 additional remand places. The creation also of new places in training prisons will help to relieve pressure on local prisons, by facilitating the transfer of sentenced prisoners in the locals for whom training places are currently unavailable. Major modernisation and redevelopment work is in progress or planned at almost all the existing local prisons. The other point which the noble Baroness made is an important one.
Lord Renton: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that at no time since 1945 have there been enough prison places for those for whom they should be provided? The nearest we formerly have got to meeting the requirements was the programme a quarter of a century ago by Mr. R. A. Butler, as he then was, when he was Home Secretary. The Government's present building programme, which my noble friend has announced, is the greatest
1468
contribution made since Mr. Butler's prison-building programme and should, if reasonable expedition is used, go far towards solving the problem.
Baroness Cox: My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend for making that point.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, following upon what the noble Lord, Lord Renton, said, is not the real position that the new building programme will only serve to replace in part old prisons which are falling apart? Are the Government really considering sufficiently alternative proposals to custody? Are the Government, for example, able to announce a speedy programme in regard to the building of bail hostels?
Have the Government considered—and, if not, will they consider favourably—the offers of the National Association of Probation Officers in their publication of May 1985, in which they say that a great opportunity is being missed; that if only they had the necessary facilities and numbers they would be able to increase back-up facilities to extend that service's work with alcoholic, drug dependent, and mentally disturbed offenders, increase involvement in work within the community aimed at preventing crime, and indeed increase attention to the large group of young adult offenders involved in motor crime and burglary?
Baroness Cox: My Lords, the current total estimated cost of the programme to which the Government are committed is just over £360 million. In 1985–86 we plan to spend a total of about £48 million on building new establishments—which I think goes some of the way towards meeting the first of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon—and also £75 million on building work at existing establishments. So there is a considerable commitment of resources not only to renovation but to new institutions. So far as alternatives to custodial sentences are concerned, there is already a wide range of non-custodial sentences available to the courts. I am sure that my right honourable friend will take note of all representations made to him by professional bodies.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, I should like, if I may—
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, on the particular point of—
Noble Lords: Lord Mishcon!
Lord Mishcon: If the noble Lord will permit me—
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, with great respect, the noble Lord has already had one question. I am now following it up. Perhaps I may ask the noble Baroness whether she will give particular attention to this question of bail hostels. Is she aware that the growth of the prison population is already outstripping the growth of the number of new places which are being provided in this building programme? That being so, will she consider particularly whether some of this money could not be diverted to the construction of bail hostels, which apart from anything else are a great deal cheaper than places in prison?
Baroness Cox: My Lords, I shall certainly undertake to draw my right honourable friend's attention to that important point.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harris, for having repeated the question that I previously asked.
Lord Wigoder: My Lords, and putting it, if I may say so, very much shorter.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, that might of course mean a not complete knowledge of the subject. I do not want to continue a debate at Question Time, and shall not do so; but is the noble Baroness able to give any answer to the question about the expedition of the building of bail hostels?
Baroness Cox: My Lords, as I have already said, I shall ask my right honourable friend that question. I do not have an answer this morning. I shall write to the noble Lord.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I am grateful for the fullness and fairness of the Minister's original reply to my Question. Will she also take on board the crucial nature of the design of new prisons, bearing in mind the disaster of the design of the new prison at Holloway? Will she also acknowledge that no amount of money in the world spent on building new prisons will be any use unless there are discussions in respect of the proper manning levels within the prisons? Will she undertake that that matter will be considered in consultation with the prison officers and governors?
Baroness Cox: My Lords, the noble Lord may be reassured to know that the Home Office is currently conducting an appraisal of recent American prison designs in order to assess the extent to which we ought to take account of developments elsewhere. Concerning the important question of the relationship of manpower to buildings, my right honourable friend has already announced a major increase in the size of the prison service over the next few years in order to provide the staff to man the new prisons which are being built. Future manning levels are taken fully into account, along with capital costs, before new schemes are added to that building programme.

Okehampton By-Pass
11.39 a.m.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport.
"With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a Statement about the by-pass of Okehampton on the A30. The House will know that earlier this year the Government's compulsory purchase orders for a route for the by-pass to the south of the town were referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament under the Statutory Orders (Special Procedure) Act 1945. That committee, by a majority of 4 to 2, recommended rejecting the orders, and proposed instead a route to the north of
1470
the town. This recommendation was contrary to that of the independent inspector who held a 96-day public inquiry during which all the issues were exhaustively discussed. He endorsed the southern route, which has been the route preferred by all successive Administrations since 1976. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment and I agreed with the inspector, that the balance of environmental and economic advantage lies in favour of the southern route, and we proceeded to make the orders.
"Mr. Speaker, one thing is clear: everyone is united about the need for a by-pass, although I am fully aware of the strong and conflicting opinions which the route of the proposed by-pass has aroused, both in Parliament and in the South-West of England. This issue must be resolved once and for all.
"The Joint Committee believe that a route to the north could be constructed quickly. I must tell the House that it takes on average 13 years to plan and build a road. With the best will in the world and no difficulties arising I doubt if we could complete a northern route in much under eight or nine years. It could be much more if there were difficulties, or if the inspector was again to recommend the southern route. For the people of Okehampton and the people of Devon and Cornwall the long delay and the uncertainty would be intolerable, when the southern route could be completed in three years.
"Parliamentary Select Committees make reports to Parliament, and it is for Parliament to accept or reject them. In this case a procedure for doing this is laid down in the Statutory Orders (Special Procedure) Act. It provides in Section 6 for a confirming Bill to be brought in. Accordingly, the Government will introduce such a Bill at the earliest opportunity to confirm the southern route."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the Minister for repeating that Statement. But the only thing on which I believe there will be universal agreement is the recognition of the need for a by-pass at Okehampton, not only for the people of that town, but for the road users—and I have had some experience.
The Statement refers to the acceptance of the argument of this inspector on the environmental and economic advantage of the southern route. Does this mean that the Government are now abandoning the 1976 circular, which has been accepted by successive Governments, that there be no main trunk road development in the national parks? Does it also mean in the reference to economic advantage that where farming land is affected that will not be regarded as an alternative route? If so, does that mean that many other proposals will be considered again by the Government, not least the development at Stansted? Is this not a slap in the face for the Joint Select Committee, which I believe spent some 15 days hearing counsel and witnesses before it made its recommendation to reject the order? Clearly, as the Government have not dealt with the points I raised on the 1976 circular and the alternative route, the time

1471
factor is a specious argument. I believe the Government themselves visualise that a Channel tunnel could be built in four years, and surely one could deal with a road more quickly than is suggested here, particularly in view of the praise we gave only recently to the speedy work done on the reconstruction of the M.1.
This is not a political matter. It is not a matter for a general debate, but I hope that all noble Lords will read the debate held in this House on 3rd December (at cols. 1151 to 1178 of Hansard) before this Bill comes to the House. We can assure the Government that the Bill will be strongly contested on non-political and all-party grounds.
11.45 a.m.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, I should like to endorse that last remark of the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, that this is not a party matter. It will certainly cut across party lines and people will find themselves on different sides of the argument. As he earlier said, there is no doubt that Okehampton must have a by-pass and there is general acceptance of that on all sides. Certainly, the people of West Devon and of Cornwall are well aware of the fact that there should be a by-pass but there could have been a by-pass in existence already if successive governments had not chickened out to the farmers. We could have had a northern route some years ago. It is because of that that we find ourselves in this pickle. As the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, has rightly said, this contravenes the Government's policy on national parks as set out in Circular No. 41/76, although I think he was unfair in not quoting the full wording of that circular which said, "if no alternative exists". Nevertheless, I argue that an alternative does exist in the shape of the northern route. I find it difficult to accept that the Government believe in their own heart that it could take 13 years, or even the eight or nine years referred to in the Statement. I am convinced that with the work that has taken place already on this subject, with the knowledge that everybody has of the facts of the case, there could be some way of short circuiting the planning cycle. If not, then by Jove! it is about time we considered carefully our planning inquiry system.
Finally, I think the cavalier way in which the Government have overturned the decision of the Joint Select Committee of both Houses, which is a quasi-judicial committee, is intolerable. There are two aspects of this case with which we disagree. On this I speak for all my noble friends. The first is the dangerous precedent which is set by taking a new road through a national park in this way, and the second is the way in which the Select Committee of both Houses has been treated. To suggest that because the independent inspector spent 96 days on a public inquiry and the Select Committee spent only 15, then somehow or other his judgment is better than theirs is nonsense because the committee had all the results of that inquiry before them when they took that decision. It was a clear decision by 4:2, and I am sure that if the Government have a 2:1 majority on anything they do not consider that is a weak decision. It is a sad day in my view both for procedures in this House and for national parks while at the same time recognising that West Devon and Cornwall need this by-pass,
1472
especially the people of Okehampton. So surely there is a better way.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I shall try to answer one or two of the points raised by the noble Lords, Lord Underhill and Lord Tordoff. The noble Lord, Lord Underhill, asked me whether this meant an abandonment of the principles of the 1976 circular. I should remind him that the route proposed was announced in 1976 after the circular had been issued by the Administration of which the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, was a member and it is not for me to speak on their behalf.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, I was a supporter.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I beg the noble Lord's pardon. It is unwise to assume that that Administration did not consider in the interaction of national roads a national parks policy before reaching their decision. There is no question that a decision by Parliament to proceed with the southern route would ruin the national parks policy. The Government have to consider the balance of advantages and disadvantages when policies interact as they do in Okehampton. We decided that the balance lay in favour of the southern route and, following exhaustive debate, the inspector agreed. Both noble Lords in effect asked me whether this was not a slap in the face for the Joint Select Committee. Not at all. The 1945 Act, under which the Joint Committee considered this matter, also provides for a confirming Bill procedure. An Act of Parliament can hardly be considered unconstitutional or a slap in the face for the Select Committee. Furthermore, there is a precedent for this and it has already been used in 1949 in the case of the Mid-Northamptonshire Water Board Authority.
Regarding the timing of the new route, I must disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, that we could hope to achieve a northern route in much under the eight or nine years that I mentioned. This would only mean that we could do it without a public inquiry on the northern route. I assure the noble Lord that a public inquiry on the northern route would be bitterly contested, not only by farmers but by environmentalists as well. This is because the northern route would take the road through land which is just as attractive—if not more so—as that lying on the southern route.
For those reasons, I do not believe that an inquiry will be likely to be available before mid-1990 unless those affected or interested by it waive their rights of objection; and I can see no possibility that that would be the case. As I have said, that would mean that the road could not start much before 1992 or be completed before 1994. The southern route, on the other hand, could be completed within three years of now if Parliament decides to pass the confirming Bill that we propose.
Lord Molson: My Lords, do the Government recognise that by introducing this Bill they will be breaching the undertakings given to me by the late Arthur Greenwood when Lord Privy Seal on the Report stage of the Bill in order to facilitate its passage? I was speaking for a body which called itself

1473
the Conservative Active Back-Benchers and we were much concerned about the very wide powers which this Bill contained. We did not object to it in principle but it was agreed by the Government, and in emphatic words by the Lord Privy Seal, that they would not use a majority in the House of Commons in order to override individual rights as expressed to joint committees of both Houses upstairs. That principle has been observed with meticulous correctness by all Governments for the last 40 years and, until today, by the present Government. There is now a departure from what has been a constitutional respect for the promises given by the Minister in charge of that Bill at that time; and this departure is being made in order to breach the policy laid down in Circular 4 of 1976.
I hope that the Government will give further thought to this and will continue to respect what has become an established constitutional principle and recognise that in a certain sense the Joint Select Committee of both Houses acting under the Statutory Orders (Special Procedure) Act is analogous to (shall I say?) the Law Lords sitting and acting on behalf of the House and advising the House. I would ask the Government, even at this late stage, to reconsider the matter rather than to go back on an established custom which has been observed by both parties for so long.
I would only add that it will be necessary for us to oppose the proposal in principle. It is not that we are going into the details of the route; that is a matter that has been gone into fully. This is merely a matter of raising two important constitutional issues.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I am afraid that I cannot entirely agree with my noble friend. First of all, I have quoted the precedent of 1949, when the confirming Bill procedure was used. Secondly, I should like to quote from Hansard (column 2181 of 14th November, 1945) the words of the then Lord Privy Seal. He said:
"I should like to make the position of this Government, and I think of any other Government, clear in this matter. The present Government are just as anxious as were the previous Government, which first introduced this Bill, that all interests which ought to have a hearing shall be heard but—and I do not think that honourable Members opposite can dissent from this—it must rest with the Government of the day, whatever its complexion, to advise Parliament whether a particular issue raised on a Ministerial order is or is not one of policy on which the Government may feel bound to use their Parliamentary resources in support of their point of view. I should imagine that would be accepted by the Front Bench opposite. I gather that it was certainly in the mind of the previous Government when the Bill was under consideration by them".
Again, I repeat that I cannot believe that it is unconstitutional to continue with the Joint Committee procedure through to bringing in the confirming Bill, which will be laid before both Houses of Parliament and both Houses of Parliament will have opportunity to debate and make their decision on it.
Lord Mulley: My Lords, while understanding the concern of the noble Lord that Ministers have decided to overturn the recommendation of a Joint Committee, nevertheless I welcome the decision because this is an outstanding delay in the construction of a most important road. I should like to get the Minister's assurance that this could mean the beginning of a
1474
revision of all the archaic, exhaustive and exhausting procedures that have to be gone through before road decisions can be taken—which, in my view, are a public scandal.
With respect to the point of the noble Lord, Lord Molson, events have moved—except for our road system—since 1945. Frankly, it is a disgrace that so many important road developments particularly, for example, the M.25, have been held up for an interminable time and at enormous additional cost by prolonged and very often quite irrelevant aspects of public inquiry.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Mulley, for his remarks. I can confirm that we are looking at the planning procedure in general terms and I do not know how close we are to reaching any sort of conclusion. I should like to repeat the assurance that I have given the House that in no way does that alter our attitude to the national parks policy of Circular 4 of 1976.
Lord Renton: My Lords, can my noble friend say what is the length of new road that would require to be built for the southern and the northern by-passes respectively, because that must affect the timetable? Can he say whether this breach of the principle of the 1976 circular is to be regarded as a precedent giving freedom to Ministers to breach it again in future, or is it to be regarded as a rare exception?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, in answer to the second point which my noble friend raised, it certainly will be regarded as very much the exception hut I would point out that the circular itself says:
"Application of the policy to some parks does, however, give rise to particularly difficult considerations because of their geographical locations".
I should have thought that, in this case, that particular sentence in the circular was fairly relevant. Regarding the difference between the mileages between the southern and northern routes, the proposed northern route would be longer by some five miles.
Lord Stallard: My Lords, will the noble Lord accept that, as a member of the joint committee in question, I can assure him that the committee took the decision very seriously? We were all much aware of the possibility of delay and the effects that any delay would cause. In fact, we included in our recommendation a mention of the delay and our concern over it, though some of the delay had been the fault of the inspector originally and was unavoidable because of illness. Since then, there has been a great deal of delay caused by Government actions. In fact, the Joint Committee reported in April. We are now in July, so there has already been three or four months' delay added to that. There was this concern.
The noble Lord seems to be brushing aside the 4:2 majority on the committee and rather downgrading the committee. I imagine that there will be a great deal of consternation among people who are interested and involved in this road project—as there was in my own case when I learnt this morning that there was to be a Statement. We have become quite accustomed since 1979 to major policy Statements on a Friday. But to make one on a Friday when the House of Commons

1475
has risen and this House is half risen, I think is taking matters much further. It is not really the time or opportunity to mention major policy. It is a major decision even if some noble Lords do not think so. The decision to override that Joint Committee will be regarded as a major problem throughout Parliament.
The noble Lord mentioned Circular 4/76. The committee went into that in great detail and we examined witnesses for days. It is quite true that it was after the issuing of the policy, but nonetheless there was a firm commitment in that circular that no new trunk roads would be extended or constructed through a national park. On that basis, the DoE recommended the northern route. Everyone was aware of this; and had they acted on that decision the road would have been built by now. Whose fault caused the delay in that instance? The committee discussed the environmental objections, which included an evaluation of the land, and so a great deal of the work the Minister has mentioned—that the value of the land, and so on, would have to be gone into—has to a large extent been done. We also visited the area and saw for ourselves the shattering effect that the type of construction would have on that unspoilt and very precious part of England and of a national park. We were very much aware of that.
In regard to the constitutional problem—and I have not had a great deal of time to check on this—I understood that to override a Joint Committee is in itself very unusual. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Molson, said he did not recollect within his experience that that had been done, and the noble Lord has far more experience than I have. It is certainly unusual, to say the least, and I should have thought that will be hotly and fiercely debated in both Chambers when they deal with it. I also understand that it would be very unusual for any Bill that is produced to do other than support the committee. According to my understanding of what is being discussed, it is because of that that the Bill will be deemed to have had its Committee stage and that in fact it will be introduced at its Report stage. The noble Lord will correct me if I am wrong. It is deemed to be like that because the proceedings of the Joint Committee are alleged to be accepted as the Committee proceedings. Therefore there are a number of issues which are going to be contested, I can assure your Lordships, when the House is fuller and when the other House is in session. There will be many questions to be answered, and not least the question of delays and what has caused them.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, we are of course grateful for the work which the Joint Committee did. Many of the matters the noble Lord has raised, as he quite rightly said, will no doubt be hotly debated when this Bill comes before your Lordships' House. I can confirm that the Bill will reach us, as it were, at the Report stage and we shall then have a Report stage and Third Reading; so there will be at lest two opportunities to debate the matter. It will be a very short Bill—a matter of one clause only, I understand—so the issue will not be difficult to decide.
With regard to the timing of the Statement today—incidentally, the other place is sitting today and my right honourable friend has made the Statement there this morning—this was a matter for
1476
the usual channels in the other place yesterday. We were originally going to take the Statement yesterday, but I gather that the usual channels in the other place thought yesterday that the thorny problems of rate support grant would probably occupy much of their afternoon.
Perhaps I may take this opportunity to correct one answer which I gave to my noble friend Lord Renton. When I said that the northern route would be five miles longer than the southern route, I was incorrect. The southern route will be approximately five miles and the northern route will be six miles, so the northern route is only one mile longer.
Lord Renton: My Lords, in view of the correction my noble friend has made, will he explain how it is that the southern route would take such a very much shorter time although it is not a much shorter distance?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, because, subject to these two compulsory purchase orders (which is really what we are talking about today), the rest of the line of the route is decided and construction can start as soon as, or if, the two compulsory purchase orders are agreed to by both Houses. As regards the northern route, time would have to be taken on a public inquiry and we would need to establish a new line of route. I would also point out—although this is probably a matter to be dealt with when the Bill comes before us—that there are important engineering difficulties to be dealt with on the northern route.

Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 1985
Pensioners' Lump Sum Payments Order 1985
Child Benefit (Up-Rating) Regulations 1985
Family Income Supplements (Computation) Regulations 1985
Housing Benefits (Increase of Needs Allowances) Regulations 1985
Supplementary Benefit (Resources) Amendment (No. 2) Regulations 1985
Supplementary Benefit (Requirements) Amendment and Up-rating Regulations 1985
Social Security Benefit (Dependency) Amendment Regulations 1985
12.5 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Baroness Trumpington)The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Baroness Trumpington) rose to move, That the draft orders and regulations laid before the House be approved.
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I beg to move that the draft Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order

1477
1985 be approved. This order is accompanied by a report from the Government Actuary on the effects of the proposals on the National Insurance Fund and by a statement on mobility allowance.
With your Lordships' permission, I will also deal with the other seven Motions in my name on the Order Paper—rather a few, I fear. I propose to deal separately with the Vaccine Damage Payments Order since my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway has given me notice of his intention to raise a number of quite specific points which are best perhaps looked at apart from the generality of up-rating considerations. These instruments put into effect the up-rating of social security benefits announced by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services in another place on 18th June. They also provide for the payment of the £10 Christmas bonus and make certain other changes which I shall come to later.
Perhaps it will be to your Lordships' convenience if I briefly outline the major features of the up-rating package, which will take effect during the week commencing 25th November. As your Lordships are aware, this is the last time that benefits will be increased in November. The next up-rating will be in July 1986: and in 1987 and from then on the increases will take place in April. But to return to 1985, the majority of benefits, including retirement pension, unemployment benefit, widows' benefits and war pensions, will be increased by 7 per cent., in line with the movement in the general index of retail prices in the 12 months to May this year. Supplementary benefits will he increased by 5·1 per cent.—in line with the Retail Price Index minus housing costs. Almost all housing benefit needs allowances will be increased by between 5·5 and 6·2 per cent., according to the usual formula, and child benefit will be increased to £7 a week.
The major feature of this up-rating is the protection of almost all the main benefits against inflation. We have not let the temporary up-turn in the inflation rate alter our determination to keep our pledge to pensioners and other long-term beneficiaries to protect the value of their benefits. Furthermore, we are also protecting unpledged benefits such as unemployment benefit and supplementary allowance. Because these increases are significantly higher than the rate of inflation expected in the latter part of the year, your Lordships might wish to reflect that, were we still using the forecast method of up-rating favoured by the last Labour Government, pensioners and others would be receiving an increase substantially less than that set out in the instruments before you today.
The one major benefit which will not be increased in line with inflation is child benefit, which will go up by 2·2 per cent. to £7 a week. As your Lordships will be aware, increases in child benefit are extremely expensive, and having decided that it was right to retain child benefit in its present non-means-tested, non-taxable form we would be doing less than our duty if we did not look very carefully at whether any increase in the level of child benefit was justified in the context of the burden imposed by a social security up-rating of this size.
We shall, however, direct most help to those families who are on low incomes. Accordingly, we
1478
have increased the family income supplement prescribed amounts by more than 7 per cent. and have modified the scheme to take account of the higher costs faced by families with older children. The new prescribed amounts for a one-child family will therefore be increased to £97·50 a week where the child is under 11, £98·50 where the child is 11 to 15 years old, and £99·50 where the child is 16 to 19 and still at school. For each additional child the prescribed amount will increase by £11·50, £12·50 and £13·50, again depending on the age of the child.
As well as targeting help more effectively, this measure will help mitigate the effects of the unemployment trap, by aligning more closely the rates paid to low-income working families with children and the rates paid to families who are unemployed and receiving supplementary benefit. To the same end we are increasing the housing benefit child's needs allowances by nearly £1 a week more than the normal up-rating formula would require.
Invalidity pensioners will also receive an up-rating beyond the rate of inflation—some 12 per cent., in fact, worth over £4 a week to single beneficiaries and £6·50 a week to married couples. This is because, as your Lordships will know, we are restoring the 5 per cent. abatement of invalidity pension, despite the fact that there are, at present, no plans to bring the benefit into taxation.
We propose to make a couple of changes to the heating additions paid with supplementary benefit, which will be up-rated as normally by the rise in fuel prices—4·4 per cent. between May 1984 and May 1985. From 5th August there will be no new awards of central heating additions. These additions were introduced in the early 1960s, when the few claimants with central heating spent more than other claimants on fuel. Now about half of all claimants have central heating; central heating is more efficient; and claimants with gas and electric central heating systems spend less on average than claimants without central heating. These heating additions have thus outlived their purpose. I would stress, though, that these proposals will not affect existing claimants: anyone who is receiving a central heating addition on 5th August will continue to do so while they stay on benefit and remain eligible under the current rules.
We also propose to extend lower-rate heating additions, which will be worth £2·20 a week from November, to all sick and disabled claimants on the long-term rate of supplementary benefit. This is in recognition of the extra heating that claimants in this position may need. It is expected to benefit around 18,000 claimants.
The Social Security Benefit (Dependency) Amendment Regulations provide for an amended earnings rule for adult dependants of recipients of certain long-term benefits. The level of the earnings rule will be set at the rate of unemployment benefit—more generous than the existing rules applying to husbands of wives getting a long-term benefit but less than that for wives of men getting benefit. The regulations thus provide for equal treatment of men and women. By linking the level of the earnings rule to the rate of unemployment benefit we are ensuring that the rule will be regularly increased. There will be transitional protection for

1479
existing beneficiaries so no one will actually lose. The new limits will apply to new claimants from 16th September.
The limits on payments for board and lodging do not form part of the regulations before your Lordships' House today. However, the Government undertook, when announcing the new limits in March, to give further information around the time of the up-rating debates about the arrangements for review.
As your Lordships know, we have set in hand extensive arrangements for monitoring the operation of the revised board and lodging rules as well as commissioning research. By the turn of the year we hope to have at least preliminary results which will enable us to conduct a comprehensive review of the limits. In association with this review we intend also to review the level of the meals allowances for boarders and people with no fixed abode. We are not up-rating these allowances in November, unlike the boarders' personal expenses allowances. The meals allowances already stand at nearly £30 a week—more than the total benefit available to most non-householders for all purposes, not just food. We have had several representations about this anomaly. The underlying assumption—that people have three cooked meals a day—is increasingly out of touch with current lifestyles.
We intend to implement the outcome of our full review at the time of the next up-rating, in July 1986. But that is not all. Without prejudice to the outcome of the review we have also decided to make some increases this autumn in the limits which apply to residential and nursing homes. Early reports from our monitoring suggest that the limits set earlier this year, though based on the best information available at the time, were tighter than we intended, particularly for nursing homes. Naturally we want to put this right at the earliest opportunity.
The information available to us is still limited and certainly does not permit fine tuning; that must await the full reviews. Meanwhile, as an interim measure, we shall this autumn be increasing the limits for all types of residential homes by £10 a week, so that these limits will fall in the range of £120 to £180 per week. We shall also be increasing the supplement which is added to these amounts for nursing homes to £50 a week. This means that the limits for nursing homes will be increased by nearly one quarter and will, after November, fall in the range of £170 to £230 a week.
In conclusion, I should like to say that, with this up-rating, at a cost of over £2,000 million in a full year, we have shown our determination to keep our pledges over pensions and linked long-term benefits; we have gone further by protecting almost all other benefits; and we have given extra help to invalidity pensioners and to many low-income working families. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 5th July be approved [28th Report from the Joint Committee];
That the draft order laid before the House on 5th July be approved [28th Report from the Joint Committee];
That the draft regulations laid before the House on 5th July be approved [28th Report from the Joint Committee];
That the draft regulations laid before the House on 5th July be approved [28th Report from the Joint Committee];
That the draft regulations laid before the House on 5th July be approved [28th Report from the Joint Committee];
That the draft regulations laid before the House on 8th July be approved [29th Report from the Joint Committee];
That the draft regulations laid before the House on 8th July be approved [29th Report from the Joint Committee];
That the draft regulations laid before the House on 22nd July be approved [30th Report from the Joint Committee.]—(Baroness Trumpington).
12.15 p.m.
Baroness Jeger: My Lords, I have a great sympathy for the noble Baroness, and for the rest of us, in the way we are having to handle these complicated matters today. I have said before that I do not think our business managers in either House, or of either party, have yet achieved the right way in which we ought to deal with these complicated social security affairs. We have had the Green Paper debate; we have had a Social Security Bill; and now we have all these orders today.
It is quite usual to have orders which are formal and only intended to meet the rise in inflation. But I feel that this mass of orders before us today is commencing the implementation of the Green Paper. I understood that consultation on the Green Paper was supposed to continue until September. There are many points in these orders today which seem to pre-empt consultation and which reaffirm the thoughts of many of us that consultation was never intended to be real: it was just a pleasant phrase thrown into some rather difficult documentation.
I promise your Lordships that I shall not go into a lot of detail, although I should quite enjoy going line by line through every single order today; but we are beginning the elements of the restructure which is not supposed to have begun yet. I think that that must be the background to however short a debate we have. For instance, I have been trying to find out—especially after the noble Baroness said how much more money was being spent—how much money was being saved by the totality of today's changes. Having got up early enough to read yesterday's Hansard for the other place, I find in col. 1356 that the Government are expecting to save—not spend—£2,000 million in a full year as a result of this handful of pieces of paper that we are discussing today.
Most of these orders are referred to as up-ratings. But they are not up-ratings for everybody. In fact, they are downratings so far as child benefit is concerned. There is of course an up-rating of 7 per cent. for pensioners which we welcome. But the effects of adverse changes which are being made in housing benefit and in heating allowances, and the proposed cuts in single payments under supplementary benefit, will erode that 7 per cent. improvement in income for very many people.
I must say something friendly. I welcome—I am sure that we all do—the increase in the limits of

1481
payments for nursing and residential homes. The original limits have caused a lot of anxiety and distress to residents who felt that they were likely to be put out on the streets, because their charges were not within the limits. I hope that the Government will continue to watch that very carefully so that these people continue to be protected as much as possible.
But so far as child benefits are concerned, this is the greatest disappointment to many people of all parties, and when one reads the reports of debates in another place one can see that the concern is not limited to any particular party. I remember—I cannot think why I did it—that I inflicted on myself the pleasure and displeasure of watching the last Conservative Party conference on television. It was very interesting because several speakers emphasised the importance they found in their constituencies of the child benefit arrangements. I understood that undertakings were given that the care of the family was nearest to the heart of this Government.
Now there is to be an increase of 15p and the amount is to go up from £6·85 to £7. If it were to keep in line with inflation of 7 per cent. the amount would go up by 35p. But instead of getting a 7 per cent. up-rating, as for pensioners and other beneficiaries, the child benefit is going up by only 2·2 per cent. I cannot see how that can be justified. I do not know why the Government picked on 2·2, instead of 1·2 or 3·2 per cent. It seems an extraordinary way to have gone about this very important question because we know that the most effective and cost-efficient way of dealing with family poverty is through child benefit. When I was in another place this was agreed between all parties when arrangements were made to abolish the income tax allowance for children and to abolish family allowances and instead to bring in this child benefit. Like the question of SERPS, which we discussed the other day, it is a great pity when some all-party arrangement, which has been made one hopes for the benefit of the community, is overturned in this unilateral way.
I understand that because the child benefit is going up by only 2·2 per cent., the Government will save £175 million. Because I cannot count I took that figure very carefully from col. 1349 of Hansard of the other place for 25th July. The noble Baroness said—and I know her colleagues have also said it on many occasions—that the whole idea of these changes is to target on the poorest, so the attitude is that, instead of spreading out the 35p over every child, there shall be a targeting on the very poorest children, and the Government save £175 million by this policy.
Then I tried to find out how much they are spending on the targeting on increases in family income supplement and other benefits. The figure that was given in the other place was £26 million. The Government saved £175 million, but increased expenditure by £26 million. I cannot see where the targeting on the poorest families is going. It is not a transfer of benefit from the well-off; it is a straight cut and it is from the poor to the poorest.
I rather liked a letter which I read in the Daily Mirror. It is not a paper which I read every day, but one mother wrote this on 9th July 1985:
1482
"The child benefit rise of 15p during November will, at least, pay for another pair of shoe laces for my son, provided I save it for two weeks, because they cost 25p now. By November they will probably be 30p".
That is an illustration of the sort of expenses which families have to meet and of which I do not think Ministers are always aware.
We are in a situation—and I do not apologise for taking a little while on this because it is fundamental; we ought not to be discussing fundamentals on an order today, but this is the background of it—where the combined value of the child tax allowances and the family allowances that we used to have amounted to more public expense than the cost of child benefit today. It certainly was not our intention—and, as I understood it, it was not the intention of leaders of other parties—that that should happen. I know the Minister hopes that the improved rates of the family income supplement will help the poorest, but there is a very low take-up of family income supplement. I know of many families which, for reasons best known to themselves, do not take it up, and which will suffer from what is in reality a cut in the child benefit.
I want to say a word about the fuel changes. I understand from what the Minister said that there are to be no new central heating awards made after 5th August. What is magic about 5th August? Some half blind old lady may not find out until 6th August that she might have applied. What is the difference between 5th August and 6th August? I want to ask the Minister what steps are being taken to inform people of this magic date? If I were not in the unfortunate position of having to see all these pieces of paper in your Lordships' House, I would not have known, and I am not sure what steps the Minister is taking to inform the public of this deprivation. How are the Government to explain this to old people? Are there to be no exceptions? Are there to be no appeals?
The Minister made some glib statement about how central heating is improving and how it would not cost very much. I can take her to places where it is not improving and where the situation is as had as it ever was. I want to know why these people, who have expensive and not very efficient central heating, have to be penalised. At the same time, the Government are artificially raising costs of heating by the hidden taxation which they have imposed, particularly on the electricity industry. The noble Baroness the Minister said that there are many people with central heating who spend less on average than people with other forms of heating. All right, there may be some in that category, but what happens to those who pay more than the average because of their central heating costs?
We got into a terrible muddle over heating costs in the last severe winter. We had the absurd situation where, if you lived in Scotland you had to be colder than if you lived in Kent, and if you lived in Sussex you had to be colder than if you lived in Cornwall. I hope that the Government will have a complete overhaul of this business of the prevention of hypothermia and of keeping people warm in severe weather, and avoiding the situation where if people keep warm they do not eat, because that is not good for them, either. Instead we have this quite incredible new rule with a date plucked out of the blue, as far as I can see: a date when I imagine many of your Lordships will be sitting in the

1483
warm sunshine of places healthier than this and not thinking about next winter's central heating bills. I leave that question with the noble Baroness. How will the public be informed? The new claimants had better get their letters in quickly or else, just because of a fluke in the date, they will miss this help.
12.30 p.m.
I understand that we are to take the vaccine order separately. Is that right?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, yes.
Baroness Jeger: My Lords, then I shall not refer to it at this point.
The changes in housing benefit are again very fundamental and I think should have waited until the new legislation, to which we look forward with dread and despair in the next Session. This is not the way to deal with matters which affect so many people. At least 460,000 people will lose their rate rebates and very many people will lose their housing benefits. This has to be put together because people's expenditure is not divided up into little parcels for the rates and the heating. All they know is that they have a lot of bills to pay.
I had hoped that we were going to have something more comprehensive. I know that before we have the next round of legislation the only way for the Government to bring in what are, on the whole, unhelpful measures is to use the procedure through which we are going today. But I can assure the Minister that these measures add up to a total of meanness and deprivation. However many people the Minister says will be helped, more will lose; otherwise it would not have been possible for the Minister in another place to give the figures that he did. He said that by these measures he was going to save the Government £2,000 million in a full year and that the extra expenditure would be much less than that.
I leave it there. I hope I have made it clear that we shall be continuing this argument for a long time, because we feel that fundamental principles are involved in spite of the casual nature of these orders.
Lord Banks: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, for her explanation of these orders. As this is the last July when we shall be discussing up-rating orders, perhaps I may be permitted to say that this is the eleventh successive year in which I have had the privilege of taking part in these discussions. I do not know whether that is a record.
The noble Baroness told us that the cost of the up-ratings would be £2,000 million in a full year. She also had some interesting things to say about board and lodging, which are not actually covered by these orders; and like the noble Baroness, Lady Jeger, I welcome the fact that there is to be a relaxation of the limits. This is a matter which has caused a great deal of concern and we shall want to analyse very carefully what the noble Baroness has said.
I return to the up-ratings which the noble Baroness said would cost £2,000 million in a full year. We ought to be clear that this is not largess. It is to make up for
1484
the rise in prices, this year standing at the higher figure of 7 per cent. As far as national insurance benefits are concerned—they are the bulk of the benefits which we are considering: not all of them by any means, but the bulk of them—they are financed by national insurance contributions on earnings for the most part with a reduced Treasury supplement these days in addition. Those earnings on which the contributions are based have risen faster than prices. Therefore there is a buoyant revenue available to help cope when there has to be an up-rating because of inflation. I say that just to put the matter in perspective, because sometimes it sounds as though the Government are being tremendously generous in providing in this case another £2,000 million per year.
The Government say that between November 1978 and November 1985 the retirement pension will be up 10 per cent. more than the cost of living and that there will in fact have been a real increase. I should like to ask how much this is due to the link with earnings which existed in the early years of the present Government as far as the pension is concerned, but which they subsequently abolished. The Government said when they abolished it that pensioners would share in increased general prosperity. The question that I should like to ask is: when will they share?
Earnings have been increasing faster than prices but nothing seems to happen to raise further the real value of the retirement pension. Of course the earnings-related pension, which it is proposed to abolish, would have helped in the future. Indeed, the substitution of a 4 per cent. contribution to private pensions, if that is eventually introduced, will help in the future. It is significant that in looking to the future in the Fowler Review the Government felt compelled to provide something over and above the basic pension for those who retire in the future, feeling it was not right for them to have only the basic pension. But what about those already retired? I very much regret that in the Fowler recommendations the increased contributions of those formerly contracted out are not to be used to increase the basic pension.
But for the break in the link with earnings, the single pensioner would be getting £3·90 a week more than he is and a married couple would be getting £6·15 per week more than they are. The increase in the rates taper above the needs allowance for housing benefit from 9 per cent. to 13 per cent. means that pensioner couples with incomes of more than £670 a year above the pension level of £3,187 per year will be worse off. The cuts begin to take effect at £3,857 per annum, which is rather a low point at which to begin making cuts—cuts which will in fact save £57 million in rates rebate.
We have already expressed from these Benches regret that child benefit is not to be increased by 7 per cent. but in fact by less than one-third of that—by 2·2 per cent. I should like to ask the noble Baroness what is the future for child benefit and what role do the Government see for it in the future. The noble Baroness, Lady Jeger, reminded us justifiably that child benefit replaced family allowances and the income tax allowances for children. It is true that child benefit today is worth considerably less than the combined value of child tax allowances and family allowances 30 years ago. Is child benefit to be run

1485
down further, as it is being run down this year? That, after all, is what is happening year by year to the £10 Christmas bonus for pensioners. When will the point be arrived at when the Government say that this is now too small to be maintained any longer?
Returning to the subject of the child's allowance, I should like to try, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jeger, did, to see whether we can get the figures right. The noble Baroness had a go at them, and I shall have a go at them. The family income supplement has been increased by slightly more than 7 per cent. and the prescribed limit for older children has been increased. The child's needs allowance in housing benefit has also been increased. These increases are welcome; I say that without any reservation. However, is my arithmetic right? I calculate that the increase in family income supplement will cost £17 million per annum and that the increase in housing benefit child's needs allowance will cost £12 million per annum—£29 million in all—but that the saving on child benefit will be £175 million. It therefore appears that £146 million less will be spent on children. Have I given the right figure? If not, what is the right figure?
The trouble with family income supplement, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jeger, said, is that it has such a poor take-up—only about 50 per cent. whereas child benefit has a take-up of about 100 per cent. Analysis of low incomes in Volume III of the Green Paper shows that in 1982 about 700,000 families with children were headed by a wage-earner in the bottom fifth of income, but only about 200,000 families receive family income supplement today, compared with 158,000 in 1982.
Although there are a very large number of families in that low income bracket, less than half of them are receiving family income supplement. The others are receiving child benefit, and child benefit is now to be reduced in value. I should like to ask the noble Baroness: since family income supplement is taken into account in calculating housing benefit, how much of the increase in family income supplement will be lost from housing benefit?
We welcome the restoration of the 5 per cent. abatement of invalidity benefit but regret that there is no recompense for the loss of benefit while the abatement prevailed. This was a point we stressed during discussion of the Social Security Bill. There do not appear to be any matters of concern in the Government Actuary's report this year, but I will conclude by stressing again that we are very concerned indeed about the future of child benefit.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I have listened with interest to the points which have been made to me. I shall try to answer as many of them as possible without taking up too much time on this particular day. I shall write to those concerned in respect of any points I fail to mention.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jeger, if she carefully reads my speech in Hansard, will see that a number of her questions have already been answered. As to her remarks concerning lack of consultation on the Green Paper and her suggestion that the measures we are considering today pre-empt the Green Paper, I could
1486
not agree with her less. My honourable and right honourable friends who conducted the reviews received a mass of evidence and now there is a short time for further consultation. The changes we are making, clearly, are broadly in the same direction. It would be absurd to make changes that were contrary to our proposals. Certainly we are carefully consulting before introducing our proposals in the next Session.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jeger, said also that the cuts in housing benefit pre-empted consultation. The proposed increase in the rates taper from 9 per cent. to 13 per cent. is not included in the orders before the House today. We are still consulting the local authority associations on this proposal. However, that change does not pre-empt consultation on the Green Paper. Given that changes were necessary to contain the cost of housing benefit, it made sense to make changes which were consistent with our long term proposals. The November changes will be a useful step in the right direction, but they do not pre-empt the radical structural changes which are proposed in the Green Paper.
I hope that the noble Baroness reads the Daily Mirror more carefully than she did yesterday's Hansard for another place, because it reports that the changes
"will cost over £2,000 million in a full year".—[Official Report, Commons, 25/7/85; col. 1356.]
The total extra cost of the up-rating will be £2 billion in a full year. The changes we have made involve both savings and extra expenditure. The net effect of the savings is to reduce the extra cost of the up-rating by about £250 million.
12.45 p.m.
The noble Baroness said that we need to consider the combined effect of the changes. I am glad to say we have some figures showing the effect of several of the changes on low-income families. Taking the effect of the reduced national insurance contribution announced in the Budget, the improvements in the family income supplement, the extra expenditure on the child's allowance in housing benefit and the lower increase in child benefit, a family with two children aged four and six earning £60 a week will be £2·3p a week better off. On the same earnings, a family with children aged 12 and 14 will be £2·70p a week better off.
The noble Baroness was concerned about the impact of cuts on housing benefits. We approached the changes very carefully and were determined that the poorest should be protected. First, no householder receiving supplementary benefit will be affected by the changes in housing benefit. They will not lose benefit. Secondly, no householder whose income is below the housing benefit needs allowance will lose benefit. Indeed, some 200,000 families with dependent children will gain from the real improvement to the dependent child's addition to the needs allowance.
Thirdly, only those with higher incomes will lose; that is, those with incomes above the needs allowance. Even here the smallest losses will be experienced by those only a little above the needs allowance. The largest reductions will generally apply to those whose incomes are the highest above the needs allowance.
The noble Baroness expressed concern about the central heating allowance and the date specified of 5th August when we propose to make the changes. Perhaps I may clarify the position. Anyone entitled to a central heating addition before 5th August will continue to receive one as long as he or she remains on benefit and eligible under the current rules. If someone has claimed and been awarded benefit before 5th August and is then found after 5th August to have been eligible for a central heating allowance continuously since before that date, then the addition will be paid with arrears. For the time being, we are continuing to publicise those additions in our leaflets.
The noble Lord, Lord Banks, asked about the link with earnings. We are pledged to protect the value of basic pensions against rising prices. This we have achieved despite the present difficult economic climate. Of course we should like to do more, and we shall do so when resources permit. With regard to the first group of figures which the noble Lord gave, he is quite right. May I at the same time congratulate him on his stamina in achieving his eleventh anniversary of dealing with these matters? That is quite an achievement.
As to the impact of the proposed rates taper change on pensioners, average losses for pensioners will be less than those for other groups—about 47p per week as opposed to about 51p per week for other groups. No pensioner with income up to £10 above the basic retirement pension will lose, and pensioners will still benefit from the £2·50p per week increase for single pensioners, £4 a week for couples, in the state retirement pension.
I remind the noble Lord that it was this Government who made the Christmas bonus a regular statutory benefit. It costs more than £100 million a year, and to increase it now would therefore be costly. Once again, it is a question of priorities.
Lord Banks: My Lords, can the noble Baroness say whether it is intended to phase that out, as must surely happen if it is never increased to meet inflation?
Baroness Trumpington: No, my Lords. I believe there was one year when the previous Government did not pay it—at least one year—but we have no intention of phasing it out.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way. Can the noble Baroness say when it was last up-rated? How much has this Christmas bonus been shrinking away?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I do not think that it has ever been up-rated. I believe it has been £10 from the start, bar the years when the noble Lord's Government did not pay it at all.
Lord Stallard: My Lords, I join my noble friend Lady Jeger and the noble Lord, Lord Banks, in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, on her introduction of this marathon list of up-ratings of social security benefits. I welcome, too, as they did, the changes announced in the board and lodging allowances, and her promise that a review will take place at, I think she said, the turn of the year.
1488
We certainly look forward to the outcome of that review and the discussions which will then take place.
My noble friend Lady Jeger mentioned this question of Friday statements. I go further and say that I object to the way that social security matters have been treated by the Government—or the usual channels, whoever is responsible—throughout the whole of this Session. They have been seriously skimped. The agenda has always been overloaded, and there has always been insufficient time for those of us who do not have the benefit of research resources, and so on, of our own. I have the impression that the whole issue has been handled in something of a rush and a panic.
This also emerges from some of the Government spokesmen when they make these statements. They seem almost to be making policy on their feet, as they go along, monitoring policy and changing policy as they are criticised and as debates develop. That is not the best way to deal with social security legislation. Therefore, I hope that we shall have proper opportunities in the next Session for the much more important debates which will take place on the outcome of the reviews, and that they will not be crushed up and skimped as has been the case in this Session.
In introducing these up-ratings the noble Baroness was at pains, as she always is, to intimate how much the Government are pledged to protect these benefits and to protect pensioners. That is fine if one has a very short memory. However, of all people pensioners have very good memories, and they, like me, query this protection of benefits. For example, they will remember the 1980 Acts. They will remember the 54-week year, when they lost two weeks' benefit because of the extension of the benefit year. They will remember the clawing back because of a mistake in the estimates as to the rate of inflation. Some was clawed back, in spite of the assurance that if the rate was the other way round and the estimate was below, there would be no making up of the losses. They remember, too, the break in the link between wages and prices, whichever was the higher, and they remember that they lost on those changes.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, I am grateful for my noble friend giving way. I do not intend to make a speech, and that is why I ask him to give way. The noble Baroness made a merry quip about the one year when the Christmas bonus was not awarded. Will my noble friend accept that that was the year when pensioners were getting their pensions week by week, linked with the earnings level and not the inflation level?
Lord Stallard: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend. I had intended to mention that because I clearly remember that occasion.
As I was saying, pensioners remember when their pensions were linked with wages or prices, whichever was the higher. My noble friend Lord Ennals has just mentioned one of the consequences. There is another. Unfortunately, the latest figures for 1985 are not yet available so we are unable to make a direct comparison with the November increase. However, we can make a comparison with 1984. Had the link with the average earnings index for the whole economy continued, seasonally adjusted, in 1984 single persons

1489
would have received £38·85. In fact, single people received £35·80. Therefore, they could quite rightly argue that they lost a further £3·05 as a result of that breaking of the link. A married couple would have received £62·71 but instead received £57·30—a loss of £5·41. Those figures would be higher if one followed the same comparison through to 1985. Therefore, pensioners will have long memories as to the protection they have had since 1979.
As has already been mentioned, the £10 Christmas bonus gets smaller, in effect, every year that it remains at £10. Like the noble Lord, Lord Banks, I can envisage that it will disappear, like the death grant, maternity allowances, and so on, which are allowed to dwindle until they are worthless, which is the excuse for cutting them altogether. I would have far preferred the noble Baroness, who is at pains to protect pensioners' interests, to have announced this morning that the bonus would be increased by at least the rate of inflation. That would have been a move towards protection; and perhaps she will be able to reconsider that and advise us when she next speaks.
I now want to deal briefly with the housing benefit. I was able only to scribble a few notes while the noble Baroness was speaking, but she will know of my interest over many years in housing benefit. I have had a Motion set down for exactly twelve months seeking a debate on housing benefits. I do not know how long one has to wait while this process of choosing debates takes place, but I have been waiting for twelve months. Such a debate would enable me to draw attention to a whole series of anomalies which still exist in regard to housing benefits. It is true to say, in talking about protecting benefit, that the housing benefit scheme has been subject to cuts ever since it was introduced in 1983. Almost from the word "go" it began to be cut. In fact, in 1983 because of cuts 400,000 people lost entitlement altogether—that is, in the first year of operation. One and a quarter million people lost part of the benefit as a result of the cuts. The cuts amounted to £50 million and the ink was hardly dry on the Act introducing the benefit. The following year, 1984, a further 500,000 people lost entitlement altogether and 1·75 million people lost some of their benefit—in fact, quite a lot of it. The amount of those cuts was £215 million. Where is the protection element there? The scheme was introduced and, within months, cuts of almost £300 million were made.
I was not the only one to criticise this. The cuts were condemned by all the professionals and people involved, including the Government's own Social Security Advisory Committee. At the time of these cuts the committee stated;
"It is clear that for many people the loss of income will be very severe. We join with all those who gave evidence to us in deploring the reductions, which we believe will have an unduly harsh effect on many individuals. It seems extraordinary that so much money should now be taken out of housing benefit within so short a time."
That comment was contained in the February 1984 report of the Social Security Advisory Committee, Cmnd. 9550. Therefore, I do not think that the people who are entitled to that benefit will accept that their position has been protected. It is exactly the opposite.
I understood that from this November the withdrawal rate—that is, the rate at which rate rebate
1490
is altered as income changes—was due to increase from 9p to 13p. I thought the noble Baroness said that that would not now take place, or that it is not included in to-day's up-rating. I shall be glad if she will confirm that. If it goes up from 9p to 13p we have to recall that in 1983 it stood at 6p, so the 13p will be more than twice what it was in March 1983. If this takes place—and I have no confirmation that it will not—many more thousands of people will lose benefit altogether and many more thousands will lose part of the benefit. I do not think that that is an example of protecting the benefit.
My noble friend Lady Jeger has already mentioned child benefit and the fact that it will not be increased by the rate of inflation. It goes up to £7 instead of £7·35. But even that is not the whole story with regard to child benefit on this protection theme about which I am talking. The tax allowances that have been changed in recent years have on the whole never applied to child benefit. Child benefit always lagged behind the tax allowances that were given over and above inflation. Had it risen in line with the higher increase in tax allowance in the past three budgets, it would now need to be raised to £8·25 instead of £7·35, so on that basis the increase in November 1985 would have been £8·25.
As well as that, if it had been operated in line with the allowances, as I have mentioned, whichever was the higher between the tax allowances each year since 1979, child allowance would now be standing at £8·65, so the real cut in child benefit is £1·65. Parents and people who are involved in that will not consider that the Government have protected their interests or their benefits.
I thought I should make those one or two comments following the noble Baroness's boast (for which I do not blame her because the boast is repeated everywhere) that the Government are protecting the benefits. I say the contrary is true: they are cutting them.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I have listened with interest to the remarks of the noble Lord. Lord Stallard. He raised two points which I should like to answer. He was concerned about cuts every year since the introduction of the housing benefit. The noble Lord conveniently overlooks the improvements we have made to the scheme. For example, on the introduction of the scheme we improved the tapers below the needs for pensioners by 12 per cent. on rates and 25 per cent. on rents. Over one million of the poorest pensioners gained an average of £1 per week. Last year we were able to make a real improvement, 50p, in the child's addition to the needs allowance. We shall be improving it again this November by 95p.
But the fact is that we do not have limitless amounts of money. Housing benefit expenditure has more than doubled in real terms since 1979. To hear noble Lords opposite talk, one would think there was a limitless supply of money. The fact is that they, the party opposite, put forward a series of expensive proposals in their manifesto at the last election without the slightest attempt to explain where all the money would be found.
The noble Lord, Lord Stallard, said that the increase in rates taper from 9 per cent. to 13 per cent. would not

1491
now take place. I think the noble Lord misunderstood my earlier comments on our proposal to increase the rates taper above the needs allowance from 9 per cent. to 13 per cent. I said the provision for this change was not included in the orders before the House today. That is because we are still consulting the local authority associations on the proposal. Subject to their views we shall be laying regulations providing for this change in the Recess. The change will come into effect in November.
With regard to the link with earnings, the present Government are not prepared to make promises to pensioners which the country cannot afford to meet. The link with prices means that the pension maintains its real value. Where we have limited resources, and when the number of pensioners has risen by 800,000 since the Government came into office, this represents a good deal for pensioners.
I think I have managed to answer nearly all the questions I have been asked. These matters are very important indeed. As far as I am concerned, I am prepared to stay here until closing time going through the orders, line by line if noble Lords so wish. However, in conclusion, I should like to emphasise to your Lordships that in the period since November 1978 retirement pension will have increased by over 96 per cent. when the new rates come into force in November. Over the same period the rate of inflation is expected to have risen by about 86 per cent., giving a real increase to pensioners and others and linked long-term benefits. Surely this answers those who claim that we are not a caring Government. My Lords, I commend the orders to your Lordships.
Lord Banks: My Lords, before the noble Baroness sits down may I ask her a question arising out of her last point, which is about this 10 per cent. increase in pensions? I did ask her how much of that was due to the link with earnings, which is no longer there.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I shall write to the noble Lord on that matter.
On Question, Motions agreed to.

Vaccine Damage Payments Act 1979 Statutory Sum Order 1985
1.5 p.m.
Baroness Trumpington Baroness Trumpington rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 22nd July be approved. [30th Report from the Joint Committee.]
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I beg to move that the draft Vaccine Damage Payments order be approved. As I have said, I am taking this order separately at the request of my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway, and of course I am glad to accede to his wishes. I am grateful to him for giving me prior notice of his questions.
This is an order which I am sure will be welcomed by the whole House, enabling, as it does, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State to double to £20,000 the vaccine damage payment, which has stood at £10,000 since the Act was first introduced in 1979. Any successful claim made on or after 16th
1492
August, when the order comes into effect, will attract a £20,000 payment. In addition, we are making arrangements for the same sum to be paid in the case of any successful claims made on or after 18th June, when my right honourable friend first announced his proposal to increase the payment. We should have needed to increase the payment to £17,750 had we wanted to give the payment its original 1979 value. Thus the increase is significantly beyond what was called for by inflation. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 22nd July be approved. [30th Report from the Joint Committee.]—(Baroness Trumpington.)
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, I am extremely grateful to my noble friend the Minister for having made arrangements for this order to be taken separately. I shall be brief, but that is not because it is not an extremely important matter. No doubt at the outset noble Lords on all sides of the House would welcome this order as the Government's immediate response to the mood of your Lordships' House when this matter was last raised by the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, and would acknowledge the debt which we all owe to my noble friend the Leader of the House for his good offices and timely intervention in this affair. I am sure that all noble Lords, wherever they sit, will endorse that sentiment.
But there is a problem of clarification. Clarification is sought of the draft and the Explanatory Note, which your Lordships will see at the end of the order. Unless Section 23 of the Social Security Act 1985 (which is not yet available, so one cannot see it) relates to the increment on the date on which the claim is made as distinct from the date of determination of a claim made before 16th August 1985, then there is nothing on the face of this order to exlude the increment from those determinations which are at this moment under consideration on claims made before 16th August, 1985.
I agree that if Amendment No. 5 to the Social Security Bill is now Section 23 of the Social Security Act, such increments on claims made before 16th August pending determination are inevitably excluded. They are excluded from increment, as stated in the Explanatory Note to the order. I am merely seeking confirmation from my noble friend the Minister because, unless Section 23 does what Amendment No. 5 appears to do, the order and the explanatory note would lie in conflict.
I have given my noble friend the Minister some notice of the questions that I now propose to put. First, would she agree that the Pearson Committee found that these brain-damaged children were in a special category of disability because the vaccine was administered in the public interest? Secondly, is my noble friend the Minister aware of any intention on the part of Her Majesty's Government to replace this statutory regime, which is temporary—it was introduced by the party opposite as a temporary measure—by implementing any of the recommendations of the Pearson report on strict liability irrespective of percentage disability (it is now 80 per cent. of nothing) and payment of true compensation analagous to that which would be awarded by a criminal injuries compensation board?

1493
Fortunately I have given notice of the question; otherwise it would not be very fair to ask it. If the answer is no, is my noble friend aware of any intention by Her Majesty's Government to review the workings of the vaccine damage tribunals, which have attracted a measure of criticism in the courts on judicial view? Thirdly and lastly, is my noble friend the Minister, in any event, aware of any intention on the part of Her Majesty's Government to consider the introduction of strict liability, on certain drugs and on certain vaccines, which excludes the development risk defence? Or is she aware of any current intention on the part of Her Majesty's Government to adopt the concept of the draft directive in the European Community on product liability which will afford both the development risk defence and the state of the art defence?
I wonder whether, in this context, my noble friend the Minister can deal with these matters. With respect, they are related to the order that deals only with a temporary Act. These are therefore matters of public interest that have really no political content whatever.
1.15 p.m.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, I am very grateful that the noble Lord. Lord Campbell of Alloway, rose to speak before I did. The noble Lord, with his legal knowledge, has mentioned one or two questions that I was going to raise. He has also had the courtesy, which I did not show, of indicating the nature of those questions to the noble Baroness the Minister. I cannot criticise myself more than that.
This is an interesting example of the way in which this House can change the course of events, even if only mildly. I do not believe that the Minister would doubt that it is largely because of the question that was tabled by my noble friend (if he does not mind being called a friend of mine; he has been a friend over many years) Lord Allen of Abbeydale and the strong feelings addressed not only by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, but also by my noble and learned friend Lord Elwyn-Jones, by myself and by others on all sides of the House. I have already expressed my thanks to the Leader of the House for having picked up this issue and for conveying it, obviously, to those who take these decisions, so that we have now before us the result of our pressure.
I really want to know now the extent of the thanks that I owe to the noble Baroness the Minister, because I am a little doubtful. I wish therefore to put a few simple questions expressed in my own simple way. We have to examine matters from the time when the scheme was introduced in 1978. For instance, how many recipients have there been since the scheme was introduced? How many have therefore received a £10,000 award? I had intended to go on to ask how much the Government have paid out, but my simple arithmetic should enable me to work that out.
We expected, at the time that I introduced the Bill and the scheme, that it would be something of the order, at that stage, of between 600 and 800 people. I have to say that at the time that we were introducing the scheme I was not allowed to use the word "interim". That is because "interim" always implies that there is going to be something to follow. The
1494
Pearson Commission report had not been considered in detail and therefore I was not empowered to say, although I wanted to say, that this was an interim payment that would be followed by a system of compensation such as that referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway.
My first question, as I say, is to ask how many recipients there have been. It would be interesting to know how many applications have been rejected. That would enable us to see roughly what was the proportion. But the first major question that I wish to put is whether the measure is to be backdated. It would appear from the wording as though it were not to be. If that was to be the case, it would be very unfair. Here we have a relatively small number of families responsible for a child, or even a young adult responsible for himself. After all, it was possible to claim right back to the beginning of the National Health Service—a considerable period of time. Those who received an award three, four or five years ago will not have had any of the benefit of the increase unless the noble Baroness is able to say that there will be some element of backdating. I am certain that there should be.
This leads me to my second question, which is to ask what is roughly the estimate of the Government of the number of people who will benefit from the extra payment. The number estimated to apply each year is quite small. The number of people who have been vaccine-damaged and whose disability is to the tune of 80 per cent. cannot be very large. So no doubt the Minister, with appropriate assistance, will be able to say roughly what is the number over the last two or three years. There was of course a rush when the scheme first came about. We have now reached a stage at which we can estimate roughly how many people each year are applying. If there is no back-dating, we are simply dealing with the number who are vaccine-damaged to the extent of 80 per cent. per year. That would enable the Government to estimate the cost to them of this order. In fact, as my last question was the same as the first question or the major question which was put to the Government by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, I hope that the Minister will reply to it.
We cannot go on for too many years without a proper system of compensation such as was recommended by the Pearson Commission. As I understand it, the Pearson Commission—and my noble friend Lord Allen of Abbeydale will be able to correct me if I am wrong, because he was a member of it—sat for five years. I remember that at the time, because I was concerned about vaccine-damaged children, I had what could be described as secret meetings with the noble Lord who chaired the commission to find out what was going to happen, what they were going to say about vaccine damage, and also when the report was due to come out, because it was taking so long. I was extremely anxious that we should get at least an element of extra support to those families who have suffered so much. On the last occasion the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, argued that the policy was simply for the protection of the individual. I argued—and I certainly argued at the time when the legislation was introduced and I carried it through another place—that vaccination is public police. It has

1495
always been said that there are certain circumstances in which a doctor will advise that vaccination should not take place. For example, he may advise someone not to have a vaccination if that person has signs of 'flu, and so on. However, normally it would be wise to be vaccinated.
The batch of questions which I have asked all hang together. I do not feel that I should necessarily have given notice of them, because most of them are simple, factual questions, the answers to which no doubt the department has readily at its fingertips.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, will the noble Lord accept my apologies for having spoken ahead of the Official Opposition? I intended no discourtesy.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, if there were anything for which to apologise I would of course accept the noble Lord's apology. However, I do not think that there is anything for which to apologise. I said right at the beginning that I was pleased that the noble Lord had spoken before me, because he dealt very adequately with an important issue which I had planned to raise; but I would probably have done so inadequately, bearing in mind the noble Lord's legal background and knowledge which I do not possess.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale: My Lords, as some reference has been made to me perhaps I may say a few words. It is slightly strange that we should be discussing this order made under powers which are not currently available to us. However, far be it from me to complain about the speed with which the order has been drawn up and presented.
I welcome the opportunity of thanking the Government for the concession which they have made and for the expedition with which the law was amended. It has been pointed out that the House of Lords can claim credit for persuading the Government that there was a case for change—a fact which readers of the recent articles in the Sunday Times and listeners to the BBC programmes may have found rather hard to identify. While I welcome the concession, I hope that the Government will not think that this is the end of the story. There are other things wrong with the 1979 Act—if it survives.
Although this is not the occasion for developing the argument for a more substantial change in the law in the direction of making the appropriate public authority strictly liable in tort without proof of fault, nevertheless it is only right to put the Government on notice that, at a suitable opportunity, I hope to return to this major theme. Who knows?—perhaps on that occasion we may even be told why it is that, in the interests of the community, it is possible to hand out payments to victims of crime comparable with those which are awarded by the courts, but not to do anything remotely similar for those who suffer serious damage in consequence of vaccination, also carried out in the interests of the community, as the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, has suggested, notwithstanding the points to the contrary which Government spokesmen have made in the various debates which we have had on this topic.
However, I return to the draft order. I suppose I was in Government circles too long not to appreciate the
1496
reasons the powers have not been made retrospective, although I regret it. I am bound to say that the amendment as drafted in Section 23 of the Social Security Act—if, indeed, we have the right words—seems to be unnecessarily mean in relating the award to the time of the claim and not to the date of payment. However, I understood the noble Baroness to say that, notwithstanding that legal provision, there were to be ex gratia payments in respect of applications made after the date of the announcement in this House. I may not have understood the Minister correctly and therefore perhaps the noble Baroness will be able to tell us again just what concessions have been made in this direction.
As for the rest, I await with great interest the replies to the various questions which have been posed, particularly that posed by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, in relation to the products liability agreement which we were discussing in another context here yesterday and on which we are hoping to hear more from the Government before we go away for the summer break. Apart from that, there can be no doubt that we should approve the order.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords who have spoken on this important matter. I am glad to say that the answer to the first point raised by my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway is a simple Yes; the amendment does what my noble friend requires. As regards the first point, of which my noble friend was good enough to give me notice, my answer is, "No, my Lords". My noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor in his reply to a debate on compensation for personal injuries, initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, on 8th May this year, made it quite clear that the Government do not accept the recommendations of the report of the Pearson Commission on this matter. I do not think that I could usefully add to what my noble and learned friend said on that occasion.
As noble Lords will be aware, we have just started the biggest-ever survey into the needs of disabled people and it is sensible to await the outcome of that survey before considering further arrangements for compensation for this or any other group of disabled people. In the meantime, this increase represents significant extra help for this particular group of people, the vast majority of whom are likely to qualify for severe disablement allowance when they reach the age of 16 years.
In answer to my noble friend's second question, I should first like to put the matter in perspective. The seven vaccine damage tribunals have between them heard some 1,360 cases since the scheme began and there has been very little criticism. What criticism there has been as regards the three cases which have been subject to judicial review has, I understand, been concerned with the failure to give adequate reasons for a decision. The decision itself is of course a medical one.
As noble Lords may be aware, the 1983 Act—the Health and Social Services and Social Security Adjudications Act—set up a new system of adjudication with the prime aim of increasing the expertise of adjudicating bodies. The Act established that the offices of president of social security appeals

1497
tribunals and medical tribunals, including those for vaccine damage, are part of this system. I am sure that the president, His Honour Judge Byrt, will have noted what criticism has been made and will have noted the remarks of my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway.
With regard to the third question my noble friend asked, I am pleased to be able to say that the directive on the approximation and administrative provisions of all member states concerning liability for defective products was adopted yesterday evening by the Council of Ministers in the EEC. The directive, which must be implemented within three years, covers all products, including pharmaceuticals, and will make producers throughout the Community strictly liable for damage caused by defective products that they put into circulation.
I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, for his kind remarks addressed to my noble friend the Leader of the House. The noble Lord asked me some lovely short questions. First, the number of recipients at £ 10,000, and the answer is 800. I have written down his second question as, "How many rejected applicants?". I can tell him that the total number of applicants, including those rejected is 3,096 up to April 1985.
Thirdly, the noble Lord asked whether it was going to be retrospective. My answer to that is, No. That answer also includes the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale. We have accepted that the people who claim now should have a revalued sum in the light of the passage of time since the Act was first introduced in 1979. However, those who claimed earlier did so on the basis of the Act as it was, and £10,000 was the sum then. Most of these people have already had their payments. It would be unfair to pay the increased amount to those who claimed some time ago but whose claims have not yet been settled.
The fourth question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, was approximately how many people will benefit each year. The answer is that mercifully the number of children found on the balance of probabilities to have been severely disabled as a result of vaccination is not large. The numbers are difficult to estimate, but we would expect to make about 20 to 25 payments in a full year, some of which will be from earlier claims and they will continue to receive the £10,000 payment. The cost will be about an extra £120,000 a year. I am grateful to those who have taken part in this brief debate. I beg to move.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Gas (Northern Ireland) Order 1985
1.34 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office (Lord Lyell): My Lords, I beg to move that the draft Gas (Northern Ireland) Order 1985, which was laid before you on 11th July, be approved. Before referring to the order itself, it may be helpful to review briefly the recent history of the Northern Ireland gas industry. The industry has been in relentless decline since the mid-1970s when its
1498
dependence on oil-based feedstock for the manufacture of towns gas first became a major problem as the price of oil began to soar. Added to this difficulty were the drawbacks that derive from the industry's fragmented structure, comprising as it does 13 separate gas undertakings, nine of which are owned and operated by local authorities and four by private companies. The economic frailty of the industry is emphasised by the fact that it now accounts for less than 3 per cent. of the Province's energy supply to final users, and is utterly dependent on an escalating level of Government support currently amounting to £12 million per year—and that is an average of 70p a therm.
In July 1979, the then Under-Secretary of State in another place with responsibility for energy matters in Northen Ireland set out the basic framework within which the Government's policy towards energy in Northern Ireland in general, and the gas industry in particular, would evolve. The Under-Secretary pointed out that natural gas from the British mainland could not be provided at a competitive price in Northern Ireland without massive support from public funds, and that the Government had concluded that for the foreseeable future public expenditure of the order required could not be justified in terms of additional security of energy supply, the price at which natural gas could be economically provided or the total number of consumers who might hope to benefit. In the circumstances, there could be no jusitification for supporting the loss-making town gas undertakings in the Province on a continuing basis.
In December 1980, however, the industry's closure programme was effectively suspended when it became known that a supply of natural gas might be available from the Kinsale gas field in the Republic of Ireland. Over the next three years discussions with the authorities in the Republic were aimed at determining whether this source of supply could provide prospects of financial viability for the gas industry in Northern Ireland. These discussions culminated in an announcement by Government in October 1983 that agreement, in principle, had been reached for the construction of a natural gas pipeline from the Republic to the Province. This agreement was contained in a memorandum of understanding between the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland Governments and was followed by detailed negotiations on a legally-binding contract for supply.
While negotiations on this contract were proceeding, factors developed which rendered the project economically unviable for Northern Ireland. These factors included a marked increase in the price of gas from the Republic over the original projected price; this was calculated to add almost one-fifth to the gas purchase price throughout the life of the project. The prospects for the project were further diminished by the results of surveys on consumer demand, carried out for planning and operational purposes, which estimated total demand about one-third less than the previous forecast.
Despite further discussions with the Republic, it was not possible to secure agreement on a revised purchase price, and in September 1984 the Government reluctantly concluded that the project could not proceed. It is a matter of regret to the Government that

1499
circumstances did not permit the continuation of this enterprise. We must of course respect the judgment of the Irish Government regarding the minimum price at which it can afford to sell natural gas. At the same time, Her Majesty's Government did not feel able to proceed with a project which would, far from being a commercial success, make heavy calls on public expenditure resources at the expense of other priorities in Northern Ireland.
In announcing the abandonment of the project on 6th September last, the Government made clear that they were prepared to receive proposals for a viable, commercial gas industry. In response to that invitation, a joint working group from the industry announced that it would put forward a revised Kinsale gas scheme for consideration. Ministers permitted the accumulation for a further six months of subsidy, at approximately £1 million per month, while the group developed their proposals.
Once these became available they were subjected to a thorough appraisal, with the Department's advisers exploring points of difficulty with the group's own consultants. The Government were hopeful that the scheme might represent a way forward, but in the end we were forced to conclude that the proposals did not begin to offer the prospect of a commercially sound industry. In particular, the scheme did not overcome the fundamental problems of a purchase-price formula for gas which effectively made it uneconomic. At the same time the plan obliged us to assume that annual sales would increase tenfold over 20 years. This is more than 50 per cent. greater than the previous highest forecast and must be set against the background of an industry which in the great city of Belfast alone lost some 10,000 consumers, or one in seven of its total last year.
When we took into account the fact that, in the event of failure, financial guarantees from the Government amounting to some £70 million would be called, following which the Government would still be faced with the cost of closure, it became clear that rejection of the plan was the only responsible and honest course for the Government to take.
In the absence of continuing public subsidy all but one of the Province's gas undertakings have decided to close. There is no legal obligation on the Government to finance the closure process but, through this draft order, we propose to provide funds which will permit closure to be planned and orderly and which will minimise hardship to employees and consumers alike. The Government's terms for support will allow undertakings to pay enhanced redundancy terms up to British Gas Corporation levels; consumers will receive grants to permit conversion to alternative fuels.
The estimated cost of this package of support is £97 million. This figure has been calculated on the basis of our discussions with undertakings and takes into account detailed technical advice from the British Gas Corporation. The British Gas Corporation has been commissioned by the Department of Economic Development to advise and to assist on the rundown process and the corporation's normal practice on disconnection and purging of mains will be followed. I must assure your Lordships that safety
1500
considerations will be paramount, and our estimates of cost reflect this priority.
If I may now briefly turn to the order itself, your Lordships will see that the draft gas order has been brought as a whole before Parliament to permit the orderly rundown and closure of those undertakings which decide to cease operations. The most important features of the order are three in number.
First, Article 4 provides for the removal of the statutory obligation to supply which is, at the moment, laid on 10 of the 13 undertakings. For reasons both of economy and of public safety it is important that the gas distribution systems are closed down in a controlled and orderly manner. To accomplish this, the undertakings need legal power to terminate the supply of gas to individual consumers and, where necessary, to enter premises in order to ensure that this termination is accomplished in a technically competent and safe manner. Articles 4 and 7 between them provide the necessary powers. Direct financial support of the undertakings is necessary to enable them to continue operations while an orderly rundown takes place and to help the undertakings meet the direct cost of closure, including any outstanding liabilities. Payment will be made under Article 6 to cover these requirements.
Finally, the third point to which I wish to draw attention is that Article 8 provides for a scheme of assistance to gas consumers faced with the cost of converting or replacing their town gas appliances. Since publishing the order, the Government have announced their proposals for this scheme: domestic consumers will receive a grant which is deemed sufficient to cover the least-cost conversion or replacement of their existing gas equipment. Commercial and industrial consumers will receive 30 per cent. grant on the same basis but they may also be eligible for energy conservation grants. Consumers in this category may also be eligible for tax relief on essential expenditure.
Many of us are saddened at the prospect of the closure of the Northern Ireland gas industry. Nevertheless, your Lordships will agree that we must face the fact that, given the extent of its plight and the absence of any hope of viability, closure of most of the undertakings is inevitable. It is essential that we have this order on the statute book so that those undertakings which have opted for closure can do so in a planned, orderly and safe manner. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on llth July be approved.—(Lord Lyell.)
1.45 p.m.
Lord Prys-Davies: My Lords, this is a very important order indeed because it assumes the removal of the gas industry, lock, stock and barrel (except possibly for the purged pipes in their grave), from Northern Ireland. Many people believe very strongly that this should not happen.
The procedure for considering orders of major significance to Northern Ireland (and this is in that category of orders), is wholly inadequate. Never was this more apparent than today. We are spending public money and public time on an order which we cannot amend, which we cannot alter or reject. This means that Parliament is having legislation foisted

1501
upon it by the Executive, and the Executive are in the greatest hurry. Because they are in the greatest hurry the legislation may sometimes be inferior. Not only in the interests of Northern Ireland but in the interests of Parliament, members of all parties want substantial alterations to the system of legislating for the Province so long as the Province is subject to direct rule.
I voice this conviction. My noble friend Lord Underhill has voiced it since I have been a Member of the House and it is a conviction that I am sure will be voiced by other Members this afternoon. We voice it today in the hope that our deep unease will be noted by those in authority. But meanwhile it behoves us to make every possible use of this round of debate, formal and ritualistic though it may be.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, for the background to the order and for his very clear explanation of its provisions. As the noble Lord pointed out, from about 1977 there have been major uncertainties facing the gas industry in the Province. That point should be emphasised because this is a factor which should not be overlooked in seeking a proper explanation for the decreasing demand for gas in Northern Ireland, although there are other factors. It now appears that as long ago as 6th September 1984 the Government had taken this decision to kill the gas industry in the Province, but this was not then public knowledge. It was locked in secrecy within the department.
The then Minister of State advised the industry on 6th September 1984 to take stock of the position, but he also went on to declare that the Government would he glad to receive representations about the future. The industry assumed from that statement that there could he a future for the industry. Indeed, who is to blame them from coming to that conclusion? So in good faith the public construed the statement of 6th September 1984 to be an open invitation to provide options for the future of the industry, provided that those options did not involve continuing subsidy.
But since 18th April this year we have known that that statement was misleading. The present Minister of State, giving evidence to the Assembly on 18th April, said this:
"In any case the decision was not made now (in 1985). As I have said clearly, it was made on 6th September".
So that is when, how and where the lid came off the truth. The Minister of State, at the Assembly Committee, spoke of the Government standing by that decision and described how the Government had never deviated from the September decision.
If the September 1984 statement was intended to be misleading, that would be the gravest stricture to level at the Government. I do not level that criticism at the Government. I believe that the then Minister of State was honourable and possibly trying to be kind to the Province. On the strength of the 1974 Statement the gas industry, as the Minister has explained, set up a working party representing the gas undertakings and the gas industry trade unionists and advised by experts of international standing; namely Coopers and Lybrand, no strangers to the Government and no strangers to Northern Ireland, and Congas Engineering of Canada. With commendable speed, the working group produced its own revised Kinsale gas scheme for the industry, and an advance copy of this scheme was rushed to the department in February.
1502
There then followed a series of meetings between the DED officials and the working group consultants, but not with the working group itself. Indeed, as almost an afterthought, the Minister of State told the Assembly that the officials had spent seven hours talking to the consultants who compiled the report. Seven hours was not long enough. Then, within five or six months, it was decided to extinguish the hope which the Government had offered the previous September. It had been arranged for the representatives of the working group to meet the Minister of State on 11th April 1985 to discuss this scheme. That meeting did not take place. The Government were in a hurry and on Good Friday, when Parliament was not sitting and probably the Assembly was not sitting, the Minister met the working party and pronounced that their rescue plan was unviable. Those are the facts.
However, the fact also remains that the working party had advanced a prima facie case for an alternative proposal to the Kinsale scheme. Compared with the original Kinsale project, it was a much scaled-down project, concentrating, in phase 1, on supplying Newry and the Greater Belfast area. Nevertheless, it had many things going for it. It would have given immediate access to 90 per cent. of the Northern Ireland gas market at a much reduced capital cost to the United Kingdom Government; it would have shown a surplus of £159 million over a period of 20 years; it would have saved about 400 jobs in a Province where unemployment is very high; and it could have been the base for further development.
The Minister of State, when he appeared before the Assembly on 18th April, may have given the impression that the rescue plan was based on hope, and no more, to sell more gas. The revised plan was of course based on hope to a certain extent; but it was also based on judgment and calculation. That was acknowledged by Professor Black, the department's trusted expert of many years' standing. The issues involved in the revised plan are complex and the consultants who advised the working group were cautious. The fact that the working group's revised scheme rested on at least four major but not unreasonable assumptions, each in turn involving a number of other assumptions, illustrates the complexity of the matter which was disposed of by the department in six or seven weeks.
Perhaps I may remind the House that the scheme was based on assumptions as to purchase price at the border; the capital costs; the level of consumer demand, in particular over the initial eight-year period; and the financing of the scheme and the source of finance. These four major assumptions have been attacked by the Minister of State. But they have not been demolished. Indeed, sometimes the Minister of State's attack was misconceived, and it demonstrated that on this occasion he had not fully mastered the details of the plan.
Considering the significance of this decision for the people in Northern Ireland, we on these Benches assert that the revised plan should have been presented to a body of experts outside the department for analysis, testing and report. With the greatest respect to the officials in the department and to Professor Black, the necessary testing could not in our view be undertaken by department officials in the course of seven hours'

1503
discussion with the working group's consultants, or in the course of seven weeks, or possibly at all. Fresh minds should have been brought to bear on the revised plan. I will explain why. This was necessary because we know that the department, since September last year, had adopted a line; and experience tells us that once a department adopts a line, it usually sticks to it. That is why it was necessary, in our submission, to bring in outside experts' fresh minds.
In any event, in our view the Government would be wrong to base their decision on the financial viability of the revised scheme alone, without having due regard to other economic and social considerations. They should take into account the considerable doubts, including the unease of the Northern Ireland Economic Council, about the reliability of the department's estimates of the substantial costs to be incurred in closing down the industry.
I say to the Minister, with the greatest respect, that his speech did not reflect at all the unease which has been expressed in the Province that the estimates of the department are far too low. Those who have inquired into the costing believe that the ultimate figure will be much nearer £147 million than the Government's estimate of £97 million. The Government should have taken into account the effect of the decision on the Northern Ireland economy generally and the extent to which it will imperil other businesses, maybe small businesses; and its effect on the desirability of maintaining a fuel choice for consumers, at a reasonable price.
They should have taken fully into account the painful consequences for the men and women who are employed in the industry and the consequences for groups of consumers, such as the elderly and the handicapped, who are very heavy users of gas. Indeed, Age Concern has been moved to circulate briefing material showing how this decision will adversely affect elderly people in the Province.
2 p.m.
Looking to the future, full regard should be given to the possible discoveries of natural gas reserves elsewhere. We would wish to know whether British Gas is likely to find commercial reserves of natural gas under the waters of Morecambe Bay. If the reports we have heard turn out to be promising, would it be feasible to lay a pipeline from Morecambe Bay to Northern Ireland? When the Government are so concerned to seek a solution to the immense problems of the Province, they should have taken into account such political considerations as the effect of this decision on Irish confidence in Anglo-Irish joint ventures in the future, bearing in mind also that the Kinsale initiative originated in the Republic in 1982 or 1983.
All these factors should have been placed in the scales if the Government were to arrive at the right decision, but we feel—and it can be no more than a feeling—that inadequate attention has been paid to them. We therefore feel that the Government have arrived at a decision which may not stand the test of time.
This afternoon, however, we cannot reject the order or amend its provisions. Nevertheless, can we at this
1504
eleventh hour seek to influence events? Since this order was laid before Parliament there has been one new and relevant development. We know that Lloyds merchant bank have shown an interest in financing a pipeline project to import natural gas from Kinsale to the Province. That was reported in the Belfast Telegraph on 19th July, and it has been reported in Oilman, the weeky newsletter circulated among business interests in Britain.
A bank spokesman has indicated that it might take a few months to complete the evaluation: if the evaluation is successful and private funding becomes available, that will be a new factor of considerable significance. When the Minister of State gave evidence to the Assembly, he was very quick to point out that the rescue plan did not provide for private funding; but this is now a possibility, even if no more than that. Therefore, the question to the Minister is whether the Government will delay the execution of this order for a few months to give Lloyds merchant bank a reasonable opportunity to complete their evaluation.
According to the Minister, the cost of delaying execution will be £1 million per month. That is relatively small beer in the context of the costing of the run-down of the industry, which the Government put at £75 million and others put at some £140 million. If the Ministers tells the House that the Government cannot agree to maintain the status quo for a few months, will he also then explain to the House why there should be this extraordinary hurry? Has there been another secret decision that, cost what is may, whoever offers the money, the Province is to be deprived of a gas industry? If so, it is the only comparable Province in the whole of Europe which would be without a gas industry.
However, the order is here to stay, and this compels me to mention briefly three matters which are not dealt with in the regulations. First, there is no express reference to the need for a safety policy. Regulations 5 and 6 refer specifically to the efficient and orderly rundown of the industry. In fairness to the Minister, today he used the words "safe" or "safely" three times, but neither word appears anywhere in the regulations. If there is to be a run-down we want it to be safe, because we have been taught to be cautious with gas. We know how it can occasionally lead to explosions, causing dreadful damage. Should there be an explosion during the next three or four years in consequence of the run-down of the industry, people will ask: who is to be blamed for it? Is there a clear answer to that question? Has the department addressed its mind to the need for a safety policy which will apply to the innumerable points along the pipeline? Will there be a adviser on safety policy at each of the undertakings to be closed down? Perhaps the Minister can give us some reassurance.
Secondly, there is no reference in the order or the regulations, express or implied, to an appeals procedure in the event of a householder being dissatisfied with the financial assistance he or she has been offered; but we can readily appreciate that there will be many problems arising in assessing and determining the financial assistance payable in the circumstances of the case. On the 26th June in the other place the Minister of State said that the department was considering whether there should be a

1505
right of appeal. Four weeks later we still do not know the answer to the question. Why is this proving such a complex matter upon which to come to a decision? If the department can come to a speedy decision on the revised plan it should certainly be able to come to a decision upon whether or not there is to be an appeals mechanism. We want the Minister to know that we attach importance to the need for an appeals procedure, and a speedy one.
Thirdly—and this is my final point—if ultimately the critics are proved to be correct and the costs of running down the industry are in excess of £97 million, where will the additional funds come from? Will they come from the Treasury or will this be another burden to be imposed on the Northern Ireland budget?
Lord Hampton: My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for his introduction of this order. Nonetheless, it must be made clear from the outset that we on these Benches, as well as the Labour Opposition as explained so well by the noble Lord, Lord PrysDavies, consider that the whole position with regard to the gas industry in Northern Ireland looks to us like being mishandled. The Explanatory Note to the order sums it all up when it says:
"The purpose of this order is to facilitate the rundown and closure by gas undertakers of their gas undertakings".
The right honourable gentleman Mr. Peter Archer, speaking in committee in another place on 26th June put it well, I believe, when he said:
"The Opposition are not seeking a post-mortem. We want a consultation about treatment while the patient is still alive".
We should like to be associated with that comment.
The order was in due course negatived in Committee by 18 votes to 10. But the Government have pressed on with it in the full House of the other place regardless. It would hardly be acceptable that your Lordships' House should reject outright an order passed by the elected Chamber. But I shall later come back to the question of whether some delay for further consideration might be possible.
"Profitability" is a fair word, but it is clear that the gas industry in Northern Ireland would need propping up for the foreseeable future if it were to continue. Our argument is that we think £12 million per annum—which the Government quote as the current subsidy required to continue to run the present gas industry—should be made available at least until some more happy solution to the present impasse can be found. The noble Lord has mentioned that some £97 million will be necessary for compensation anyway—and this figure might well have to be bigger—and added to this is the extra cost, as well as the human tragedy of numbers added to the unemployed.
I have had, as have other noble Lords, a personal appeal from the Gas Industry Joint Working Group to help if possible to persuade the Government, as they say:
"to re-examine vigorously the possibility of retaining a gas service for the people of Northern Ireland before irrevocable steps are taken to close it."
I think significant are the words "irrevocable steps". I accept that there are many problems facing the gas industry in the Province. There are no easy answers. But we feel that there are two powerful reasons for
1506
suspending action at the present. First, great inconvenience will be caused in a part of the United Kingdom which is already disadvantaged. Secondly, the dangerously high level of unemployment can only be substantially increased by the proposed closures.
It seems probable, so far as can at present be estimated, that the compensation payable to houseowners who are forced to convert from their favoured use of gas to some other form of heating or cooking will be inadequate and that considerable hardship may well be caused. I shall come back to this.
In a telling reply to a Question for Written Answer on 18th June of this year the Minister of State, Dr. Rhodes Boyson, said:
"In disconnecting consumers from supply it is not the existing practice of the industry to remove pipes and fittings on private property once they have been purged and made safe".—[Official Report, Commons; col. 99.]
They may have been, "purged and made safe"; but all the inconvenience of unwanted equipment will remain and conversion to the use of solid fuel would often need major adaptation to a building. The sum of £ 12 million is indeed a sizeable subsidy required to prop up an ailing industry, but we believe that the damage that would be caused by withdrawing this payment and running down the gas industry in Northern Ireland should be seen as unacceptable.
I suspect that the Government made up their mind on this issue some time ago and that further consultation has been only cosmetic—the case not really open to further consideration. As I mentioned earlier, the lack of confidence expressed by the Northern Ireland Committee in the other place was ignored and the Northern Ireland Assembly found that the order was duly announced only after it had risen for the Recess and it had no opportunity to debate it. In view of the great concern about this order and the serious opposition it has so widely aroused, I now ask the Minister whether it is possible to delay this order—the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, also raised this point—to pause and consider further. Who knows what opportunities for the use of natural gas might yet arise if irrevocable steps are not taken prematurely.
Added to that, I have been approached by Age Concern, as have many other noble Lords, to see whether there is a possibility that the arrangements for compensation can be much more fully debated in Parliament than is at present proposed. It seems to me that unfair arrangements could lead to devastating dissatisfaction and even despair. If we were debating a Bill, the safeguards would have to be much more readily open to scrutiny. Can the noble Lord. Lord Lyell, when he comes to reply, reassure me on this point? We are not happy with this order but we shall not oppose it when the Motion is put. I should be grateful for answers to my two questions.
2.15 p.m.
Lord Moyne: My Lords, I have a personal interest in this subject, though not of course a financial one, since a gas pipeline was laid some time ago through our small family farm near Dublin. We understood that it was to bring gas from Kinsale to Belfast. I have therefore been thinking for a year or more what a splendid instance this would be of North-South cooperation. But now the whole project is apparently to

1507
be scrapped. There is keen disappointment, I understand, in Irish Government circles. An agreement for the supply of the gas was apparently initialled by the British Government. There was, I understand, to be a fluctuating price tied to the price of oil, and I am told that the proposed price has never moved beyond the agreed range. That is not quite what the Minister said and I wonder whether there may be some misunderstanding there which can be cleared up.
Can my noble friend Lord Lyell tell us in due course whether in working out the agreed fluctuating price there was some miscalculation which has caused the British Government to go back on their word? Furthermore, can he tell us whether this question of abolishing gas supplies in the North has been debated by the Northern Ireland Assembly? There has been a tendency to regard the Assembly as something of a failure, through the non-co-operation of some of the Northern Irish parties. If its views are to be flouted on a matter of this kind, are we not making a farce of a body of which so many hopes were entertained? I understand that there is an agreement between all parties in the North, both Nationalist and Unionist, in favour of the proposed economic co-operation with the Republic in bringing the gas from Kinsale.
I am told by the joint working group of the Northern Irish gas industry that the supply of natural gas from Kinsale could be introduced at a cost of no more than £3.94 million by utilising available EC grants and loans and, at the same time of course, replacing the expensive methods used at present to produce gas from naphtha. On a present labour force of 1,000, I am told that the Kinsale gas would preserve 600 jobs, though 400 people would become redundant instead of the whole 1,000 jobs disappearing as proposed by this nefarious statutory instrument. Can my noble friend in due course confirm these figures?
Can he tell us whether an advance payment of £5 million has already been made to the Republic, which will be forfeited if the Kinsale project does not go ahead? Does he agree that the Department of Economic Development has estimated that the closure of the gas service in the North would cost as much as £97 million in compensation and that even this enormous figure has been challenged as much too low because of factors left out of account? Is there any reason why the North of Ireland should not have the benefit of natural gas enjoyed by this island of Britain, by the Republic and by other European countries? Bodies such as Co-operation North have received widespread support from all of us. Is not our praise of their work no more than insincere lip service if such a measure as the ending of the Kinsale scheme is to be accepted without question?
In spite of the sincere efforts made by Westminster and Whitehall to help with the problems of the Republic and the North and their relationship in living with the Border, is not this wretched order yet another example of the deaf ear so often turned in the past at Westminster and Whitehall to Irish pleas, whether Unionist or Nationalist? Is not this order a step backwards in the journey towards achieving harmony through economic co-operation?
We are apparently not at this stage allowed to vote against the order, but if my noble friend could at least
1508
give an assurance that the Government will look at the question again and take all these factors into account, before plant is irreversibly destroyed and pipes irreplaceably ripped out, he would make me a great deal happier. I should like to think that the North of Ireland might after all not be deprived of the use of a great natural resource which belongs to the island of Ireland as a whole.
Baroness Ewart-Biggs: My Lords, I think that the proof of the very great importance with which the House regards this order is the number of speakers present on a Friday afternoon who wish to take part in this debate. Before I make one or two points I should like to apologise to the Minister in case I am unable, because of the debate having started a little later than I thought, to be here when he replies. I look forward to reading his responses in Hansard.
My noble friend Lord Prys-Davies has already enumerated the very serious consequences that the passing of the order will have on the people of Northern Ireland. My noble friend has also traced the whole series of events which led to the Government's decision to close Northern Ireland's gas industry. Likewise, he has described the extraordinary episode whereby the report of the joint working group set up by the industry was rejected by the Minister of State in another place without his having fully discussed it with that group. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, has already mentioned this. My noble friend has made the seriousness of this measure very clear. If half the people of Wales were suddenly denied the use of gas, and if one thinks of what would follow in the way of a Bill, in the way of amendments, in the way of discussion, in the way of debate and in the way of argument, it brings home the implications of the order that is before us today. One cannot make too much of this point.
However, I should like to stress my own concern that the people of Northern Ireland should be denied the choice of the use of gas. Secondly, I should like to question whether the reasons for closing the industry were valid and deplore the manner in which the Government have carried out the whole exercise. Lastly, I should like to ask the Minister a few questions about compensation for present gas users, about the provision for appeals by dissatisfied households and about how the safety standards will be applied. I know that my noble friend Lord Prys-Davies has made these points too, but I should like to ask the Minister one or two specific questions.
First, there seems to be a considerable discrepancy between what the Government think will be the total cost of closing down the gas industry in Northern Ireland and what others, such as the Northern Ireland Economic Council and the joint working group, think. It would seem that against the Government's estimate of £97 million which has already been mentioned, independent sources put the figure as high as between £143 million and £155 million.
Those same sources believe that the Government have underestimated the cost on three different counts. First, in regard to the conversion of public housing to new fuels, the Northern Ireland Housing Executive puts the figure at £5·8 million higher than the Government estimate. Secondly, the Government are

1509
working on the assumption that the service will be closed by 1987–88, whereas the Northern Ireland Housing Executive's plans are to finish conversion by 1990–91, or in 1992. Each year of delay will cost the Department of Economic Development an additional £12 million.
Thirdly, the Government have admitted an advance payment of £5 million to the Republic of Ireland, to which the noble Lord, Lord Moyne, was referring. Under the Department of Economic Development's own previous plan, that sum of £5 million will be lost if the service closes. If the higher estimated costs prove to be correct, then, as my noble friend Lord PrysDavies asked, from what source will the Government find the additional money? That is a very important question and one which must be put to the Minister today.
Perhaps I may say a final word about the Northern Ireland consumers. In order to understand the implications to the Northern Ireland consumers, it is necessary to consider them as forming two separate groups, each of which will be affected very differently by the loss of the gas service. The first group is made up of 15,000 consumers who are tenants of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. Although they will lose the use of gas, they will be fortunate in being offered a full fuel choice, including oil, electricity, bottled gas, etc. The cost of any redecoration resulting from conversion will be met by the executive. Finally, I understand that a system of dealing with complaints will be set up within the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. That is the first group affected.
The second group will be less well provided for. They are the 80,000 consumers who are either owner-occupiers or private tenants who will be compensated by the Department of Economic Development on the basis of the least cost conversion, which the Minister was good enough to explain to the House. This means that they will be denied a wide choice unless they bear the additional cost themselves of choosing a more expensive fuel. Moreover, they will receive nothing towards the cost of any necessary redecoration. Finally, it is not apparent from the draft order that householders who are justifiably discontent with the way in which their conversion has been carried out will have any right of appeal. Again, my noble friend made a point of asking the Minister about that aspect of the issue.
Further, it is not yet known whether voluntary housing associations, which normally work to the standards of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, will be recompensed at the same level as the executive consumer or the private consumer. I shall be grateful if the Minister will say how the voluntary housing associations will be looked after.
There can be no doubt as to the difference between the various ways in which different groups of householders will be affected. It seems to me to be a great anomaly and injustice that they should be dealt with in such different ways. I hope that the Minister will say a few words also in order to quieten our fears about the safety aspect. I am not a great expert on the subject of gas installations but I will give the Minister one example, and perhaps he will respond to it.
1510
Suppose one has the situation where there were one or two owner-occupiers among a long line of terraced houses owned by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. The houses would currently be piped for gas and the Northern Ireland Housing Association would make arrangements to convert them to, say, oil or electricity. However, the one or two owner-occupiers living in that line of houses might opt for solid fuel. Does the Minister not accept that there would be considerable danger where there is a different use of fuels in the same row of houses? As my noble friend said, specific qualifications on how the safety strictures will be imposed do not appear to be included in the order.
2.30 p.m.
Finally, perhaps I may say one word about the people who will be affected most by the loss of the gas service: that is, the elderly. It goes without saying that it is mainly the old houses which have gas installations, and very often there are old people living in them. I understand that, taking the Province as a whole, as many as 48 per cent. of the gas consumers are over the age of 50 and that in Greater Belfast alone, in the households headed by people over 60, 55 per cent. are gas users. I too have been asked by Age Concern to present some of its worries about the elderly in Northern Ireland and I ask the Minister to comment on the following point made by Age Concern.
First, Age Concern is worried that elderly consumers will not be fully aware of all the implications—financial, mechanical and technical—involved in these conversions. It is felt that the only way of helping them in this regard is through advisers from the Department of Economic Development visiting them personally in their homes and explaining the implications to them.
Next, Age Concern urges that the choice of alternative fuel supply should be based on consideration of the long-term needs and wishes of elderly people and not on the basis of the least-cost option. Failing this, it urges that the right of appeal against the least-cost option be built into the compensation scheme for this very vulnerable group of elderly people. Age Concern also urges that provision be made for internal gas supply pipes, meters and other fittings to be removed and that the compensation scheme to provide for the cost of the necessary redecoration should be adequate, as old people are unlikely to be able to carry out their own redecoration and would not be able to pay for it themselves.
Age Concern also urges that elderly people with arrears exeeding six months should be regarded as special cases unless this can be demonstrated to be inappropriate. Finally, Age Concern considers that elderly people entitled to grant under the compensation scheme should receive priority when grant payments are made. It is vital that elderly people are not penalised, or put at risk, by delay in payment of a grant.
In conclusion, there is a very great worry that it will be the old people who will find it hardest to adapt and, therefore, every kind of consideration should be made. I am happy to say that the Minister of State in another place gave that assurance and I should be grateful if the Minister would confirm that.
I have nothing else to say except to add my plea to that of previous speakers that the Government should consider putting off for a few months the implementation of this order. It is an absolutely radical change in the lives of those who live in a part of the United Kingdom. I should be most grateful if the Minister would answer some of those questions.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I rise briefly to support the plea that has been made from this side of the House asking for delay in the implementation of this order. If the order is acted upon now we shall be at a point of no return. I have read, as no doubt have the other noble Lords and the noble Baroness who have spoken in this debate, the proceedings in Committee in another place. Certainly the case for this action was not compellingly made by the Minister in that Committee. I shall not attempt for one moment to go into details, as my noble friend on the Front Bench did in a very technical review of what has happened. Certainly in this House today the Minister has not had any more of a convincing argument to put than was put in another place.
Anybody listening to the debate will realise that quite clearly the force of the argument is on the side of noble Lords on this side of the House, including my noble friend Lord Moyne, who have asked for some delay in implementing this order. Technically, I cannot answer this question, nor do I think can anybody else in this Chamber, but if, for instance, natural gas was found within reach of an economically viable area of Northern Ireland, I was wondering what would be the situation if this order had been fully implemented. We may be placing the people in that area of the United Kingdom in a situation in which they would then not be able to take advantage of a natural asset that had been found. I can think of nothing more disturbing and economically disastrous than for that to happen.
I have always had a concern for the events in Northern Ireland. It dates back to my days in another place when I was a Government Whip and then an Opposition Whip with, so to speak, a brief to liaise on the effects of policies on Northern Ireland and what was happening in the Province. Of course, we have always tried to approach the difficult problems of that place in an almost bipartisan manner. However, I am rather surprised that during his statement today the Minister did not take an opportunity to deal with something that was said in Committee in another place by a Member representing a constituency in Northern Ireland which to me cuts right across what I know from experience to be the true way in which we are governing Northern Ireland.
It is not usual for Members of your Lordships' House to make reference to Members in another place. However, I think that when assertions are made in another place which I certainly do not think are creditable, people are entitled to give their views on them. I speak of the honourable Member for the Strangford constituency in Northern Ireland, where he said during that debate (I shall quote very briefly):
"But we have direct rule, and the Ministers who come to Northern Ireland for review days every month and go away again"—
Viscount Long: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord will give way for a moment? I have been
1512
advised that in this House one is not allowed to quote from speeches in another place. I apologise to the noble Lord.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I will paraphrase it by saying that the comment was made by that Member that there was a lack of attendance in Northern Ireland by Ministers over a recent period. That is not my phrase: that is the phrase that was used during the Committee stage. I know from my experiences, both under a Labour Government and under successive Conservative Governments since, that any Minister who has had to serve in Northern Ireland has had to do so very often at great personal risk both to himself and to his family. I know that irrespective of politics they have done that assiduously, and I think they have done it very well.
Of course, we must remind ourselves that Northern Ireland is in this situation because there seems to be an inability on the part of political leaders in Northern Ireland to come together to provide solutions that would be acceptable in normal political and governmental terms. However, I found the comment rather strange, coming from a Member who has the good fortune to serve not only in another place and in Europe as an MEP but also in the Northern Ireland Assembly. I question whether a person sitting on three such bodies would be able to compare their own attendance at those venues with that of some Ministers who serve the Government today and some Labour Ministers of the past. I believe that this merits some reference. That is why I make it. I believe that it was a rather callow remark that was made, and that it would have been better unsaid.
Having said that, I hope that the Minister will urge the Secretary of State to have regard to the points that have been made: I hope that he will give thought to them over some months to see whether the gas industry, or a basis of it, can be retained in Northern Ireland. To burn our boats now would be a rather tragic blunder from which we could not return.
Lord Fitt: My Lords, since the abolition of Stormont and the introduction of direct rule in Northern Ireland in 1972, there has not been a single issue on which the political parties in Northern Ireland could be united or could find any agreement—except this one. Every political party in Northern Ireland, every representational group, everyone who is concerned about the energy needs and the energy prospects for the future in Northern Ireland, speaks with a voice of total unanimity when they claim that the Government have taken a disastrous decision to close down, once and for all, the gas industry in Northern Ireland.
This is a decision of major importance. It affects the whole way of life of 100,000 consumers in Northern Ireland who hitherto have had the opportunity to use gas. It affects also the whole economic future of 1,000 employees in the gas industry in Northern Ireland. Many of the men who will be made redundant will never work again. Men who are 50 years of age and even those who are not yet 50, will never again have gainful employment in Northern Ireland. And people of all ages, particularly old people, who have become accustomed to using gas will have that opportunity withdrawn from them.

1513
Sitting here a few moments ago, I heard the Whip on the Front Bench telling my colleague that it was not procedurally right to quote from Hansard of another place. It offends the procedures of this House. And we must live by the procedures of this House. We must not do anything which may offend the susceptibilities of another place. I must tell all noble Lords present that this is not how I see this House. I believe that if the 100,000 consumers in Northern Ireland who will be affected, and the 1,000 men who will lose their livelihoods, were to be sitting in the Gallery of this House or were within the confines of the House at the moment and saw the atmosphere in which their future is being decided, they would be bitterly resentful.
I am delighted to see that we have enlisted another recruit. The noble Lord, Lord Moyne, has spoken this afternoon. A noble Baroness sat on the Government side on the last occasion that we debated Northern Ireland. I am delighted to see that, one by one, and step by step, there are people who are beginning to listen to Northern Ireland. However, it would be less than honest to say that there is a great deal of enthusiasm shown in this House or indeed in another place when the affairs of Northern Ireland are discussed.
2.45 p.m.
We hear repeatedly—the papers including the Financial Times one day last week, are full of it and it has caused great comment among all political pundits—that the Government are trying to find some agreement with the Government of the Republic to see whether together they can grapple with the problems of Northern Ireland and find agreement on some cross-border co-operation which would help in bringing the warring communities together in Northern Ireland. Here was an absolutely obvious way in which they could have put their money where their mouth is. They did not have to have secret discussions, and they did not have to have leaks one way or the other. We hear these days a lot about the atmosphere of secrecy. I read an article in the Financial Times last week, and I read in the Guardian this morning an article saying that we should not believe what was written in the Financial Times.
The Government could have taken the decision which has already been referred to by the noble Lord opposite; they could have agreed with the Government of the Irish Republic to the installation of the pipeline. Such a decision would have economically helped the Government of the Republic and it would also have helped the people of Northern Ireland. It would not have been a unique decision, a one-off decision or something which had never happened previously. We only have to look to Europe to find that that is so. Take, for example, Western Germany, which is allegedly living on its nerves every day in case there may be a nuclear holocaust thrown at it from the Soviet Union. In spite of that, it is building a pipeline to the Soviet Union in order to use supplies of Soviet Union gas in Western Germany. That proves that it would not be a one-off decision. The situation, the atmosphere, the fears and suspicions which exist between Western Germany and the Soviet Union are far more acute than those which exist in Northern Ireland.
I speak as someone who was formerly chairman of the Belfast Corporation Gas Committee. We first
1514
began to suspect that decisions may be taken by the British Government to wind down the industry—and I have to say this because it would be less than honest to say otherwise—in 1977. There was a Labour Government in power; but within two years the Labour Government were out of office. However, I think I am correct in saying that had that Labour Government continued in office, they certainly would not be taking the decision which is being taken today by this Government.
Whatever disagreements I may have had—and I had many—with the former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Mr. Roy Mason, I know that he was so concerned with trying to create economic prosperity in Northern Ireland, outside of other political decisions, that I have no doubt in my mind that he would not have imposed the decision which has been taken by the Government.
Therefore, we find ourselves in a situation where there is great disagreement and great argument about how much it will cost. The Government say that it will cost £97 million. Those who are closely identified and associated with the industry say that it will cost £143 million, and I am prepared to accept their figures.
The Government on occasions have employed economic analysts. Indeed, they have employed a very reputable firm of economic analysts—Coopers and Lybrand. When the Government want to prove a case they employ that firm, and then, whenever it suits the Government, they will point out that firm's economic expertise—in other words, whenever its decision comes down in favour of what the Government are intending to do. However, when Coopers and Lybrand, after a very close assessment of every aspect of the gas industry, say, "We do not believe that it is right that this industry should be brought to an end", the Government, in the words of their Minister of State, say, "That is Alice in Wonderland talk" The Government cannot have it both ways. The Government should accept the expertise of Coopers and Lybrand whatever its decision may be, whether it be for or against whatever the Government's attitude happens to be at that time.
This is one decision which unites every aspect of political opinion in Northern Ireland. The Government took the decision one day last week when there were very few representatives in the House of Commons. Today there are very few Members of your Lordships' House here this afternoon. This is something with which we have had to live since direct rule. I think I said the last time we debated Northern Ireland in this House that we do not see a great influx of Members running through one or other of the doors into this Chamber to listen and to take account of the problems which daily affect Northern Ireland. The same thing happened in another place.
That attitude is a direct condemnation of direct rule. That is not the best way to govern the troublesome Province of Northern Ireland. But here is an issue where politics are set aside. There is no question of the border, or of flags. There is a question of the border in relation to the pipeline, but it is not a question of one's allegiance to the British connection or an aspiration to the Irish Republic. It is an issue of bread and butter which will affect people of whatever political persuasion or religious denomination in Northern

1515
Ireland. The Government have taken a disastrous decision.
Many of my noble friends who spoke before me pointed out that they had had communications from Age Concern in particular. I have read the document. They express a great deal of the fears which are at present felt by those people whose gas supplies will be affected. My noble friend Lord Blease is the only person who will be affected by the decision who is in this House at the moment. My mother will be affected by it because she lives in Northern Ireland. I shall not be affected by it because I live in Britain.
I could easily have absented myself today because I do not live in Northern Ireland. I left Northern Ireland in rather controversial circumstances. I consider myself to have been harshly treated by a certain section of the Northern Ireland electorate, and it would perhaps be understandable for me to absent myself from this debate, or even to agree with the Government. But I could not do that because I know how many people will be affected.
I have heard my noble friend—and, so far as I am concerned, I have no noble enemies in this House—Lord Hampton say that we cannot oppose this order. I have heard my noble friend on the Front Bench say that we cannot. I am not particularly concerned with the niceties and procedures of this House. This House is part of the British parliamentary system. That was why I accepted the honour of coming into this House. I did not think I was finished with politics, or was being sent out to grass, or that you do not say or do anything controversial in this House.
Since I became a Member of this House two years ago there have been other issues in regard to legislation of which I totally disapproved; for example, the Prevention of Terrorism Act and the Emergency Provisions Act. They were two issues to which I was totally opposed, and yet I did not think it necessary to divide the House. I say here and now, in the closing words of my remarks, that if there is an opportunity to divide this House today I hope that those noble Lords who have spoken against this order, and others who may be in this building, will realise the enormity of the decision which has been taken and will vote against the Government.
What would be the consequence of that? I am not naive enough to believe that there would be enough noble Lords in this House to defeat the Government. I do not think that is possible, but it is one way in which we could register our total disapproval. Those Members on this side of the House who because of their adherence to procedure feel that they cannot go into the Lobby do not have to go into the Lobby at all. They do not have to vote with me in the Lobby, but at least they could abstain from going into the Government Lobby in order to show their disapproval of the actions which have been taken.
I believe that this Government, had they been anxious to do so, could have had further consultations and agreements with the Government of the Irish Republic, with EC sources and with other people who might be anxious to retain the industry. I believe that, as has already been stated by my noble friends, persons associated with Lloyds Bank have said that they would
1516
be willing to have a further assessment made of the viability of the gas industry in Northern Ireland.
I remember many years ago when it was suggested that there should be an electricity link between the Republic and Northern Ireland. Some of the more bigoted Unionists objected forcefully to such an electricity link being established, on the grounds that they did not want republican hands on the levers of energy in Northern Ireland. Those days have gone. Unionist spokesmen have been prepared to accept flak from some of the more extreme factions of unionism in identifying with the Republic of Ireland in an attempt to have this gas line created.
I do not want to believe that the Government have taken an irrevocable decision. If they have, there is no way that I can sit in this House today and say that I agree with that decision. I shall do whatever I can, between now and the closing speeches, to mobilise whatever support I can to show my disapproval of the Government's attitude in the Lobbies of this House this afternoon.
Lord Pitt of Hampstead: My Lords, I rise to say that if the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, chooses to divide the House I shall be happy to be his Teller.
Lord Blease: My Lords, we have had a wide ranging debate and a good debate. I do not wish to detain the House by repeating what has already been said about this gas order except in one respect. As has already been mentioned by the Minister, and other noble Lords, over the past 10 years the future of the Northern Ireland gas industry has given rise to much argument, debate and much documentation. Today because of the present Government's policies—I should perhaps say lack of efficient policies—we are not debating the future of the Northern Ireland gas industry. Sadly and tragically we are discussing the closure, the demise, the death of the gas industry in Northern Ireland. This Gas (Northern Ireland) Order 1985 is not about the possible role of the gas industry in the economy of Northern Ireland, but about its funeral arrangements. The contents of the order are not precise or satisfactory arrangements for the industry or its consumers.
One thing is evident: the considerable distress that the order has given rise to in Northern Ireland as regards the future of the 1,000 skilled workers and members of management and as regards the future for 90,000 householders who represent 300,000 people in the Province who are users of gas supplies. There is also concern among the 3,000 commercial and 120 industrial firms who depend on gas as a primary source of heat and energy in the production of goods and services. They have considerable concern and anxiety about methods of replacement and how they can continue their production because of the possible changes.
Apart from these difficult questions that arise from this order, there is a further impediment to discussions and any meaningful, informed or reasoned debate. It has already been mentioned and I and others have spoken about it repeatedly in the House. The impediment is the procedural arrangements and the

1517
undemocratic way that some inappropriate parliamentary conventions are applied in this House to Northern Ireland orders. Instead of upholding the strong and valuable traditions of this House as a revising Chamber, we are here called upon today to be a mere rubber stamp.
3 p.m.
If we could amend this order or even suggest changes that hopefully could give rise to some genuine positive consideration by the Minister and the Government, it would at least give some semblance of reality to the totally bemusing and ridiculous situation. Unless the noble Lord the Minister can today in his reply to this debate give us some satisfactory answers to the serious questions raised and unless the noble Lord the Minister can give some assurances on the points made in the debate that they will be earnestly and seriously considered by the Government, we—and let us be honest and let us face up to it—are taking part in an exercise of futility: futility so far as this order concerns the future and the present users and employees of the gas industry in Northern Ireland.
If there is anything useful that I can do at this stage in the debate it is perhaps with my few remaining remarks, to allow the noble Lord the opportunity to get his replies in order, which I am sure he will do. I am sure that the noble Lord will attempt to meet some of the requests that have already been made. He always responds favourably in respect of modest requests and we look forward to his replies on this occasion.
However, I would wish to add that while I do not accept the arguments made by the Minister in his opening remarks calling for the approval for the order, I find the tone and tenor of his approach more politically sensitive and perhaps more understanding than those of his honourable friend the Minister, Dr. Rhodes Boyson, when he has spoken in another place in debates on this order. I believe that no one should object to plain and forthright speech in the presentation of political objectives, and Dr. Rhodes Boyson has certain qualities in that regard. But, along with many others, I take strong exception to the arrogant manner in which Dr. Boyson has dealt with the many approaches to him about the gas industry and about this order. I would particularly draw attention to Dr. Boyson's statement during the debate on the order in another place on 19th July. The report is in Hansard, in Volume 83, No. 159, column 691. Dr. Boyson stated:
"None of those who voted against the proposal before the Northern Ireland Committee and none of those who voted it down in the Northern Ireland Assembly carry any responsibility for Government policy. Obviously it was possible for them to vote against our proposal because they were not responsible for the budget. Their action was one of those freaks of freedom which occur from time to time and which people enjoy".
I consider it despicable to imply to honourable Members of another place who voted against this order and to Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly that they are irresponsible and that perhaps they take some form of inverted joy or thoughtless pleasure in voting against what I consider to be government by diktat, conflicting arguments, unqualified pronouncements and unanswered questions on important issues such as that represented in this order. I am sure that noble Lords will agree with
1518
me when I say that in no way are our approaches in this House today motivated by any sense or degree of joy in what we are considering. Nor do we consider that those who voted against the order were in any way acting irresponsibly.
I conclude by appealing to the Minister that, in the interests of the general democratic process, in the interests of the concern that has been expressed in Northern Ireland and in the interests of some realistic approach to Northern Ireland orders and the manner they are dealt with and debated, he will give attention to what has already been said by my noble friend on the Front Bench, Lord Prys-Davies. Perhaps my noble friend may be made a Minister at some future time. I understand that my noble friend Lord Prys-Davies has sent a letter to the Minister. He also put forward a plea that the date of operation of the order should be delayed. That is my own plea and it has also been put forward by others who have taken part in this debate.
I should like to place on the record that I welcome and support the views that were expressed by my noble friend Lord Prys-Davies, the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman. I know that I speak with the goodwill of the Northern Ireland Gas and Electricity Joint Working Group, whose secretary, Mr. Pimley, has been busy in the Westminster Lobbies concerning this order. I am grateful for the support and the earnest help that has been given by other noble Lords and by the noble Baroness, Lady Ewart-Biggs, who has left the Chamber. Their assistance has been warmly appreciated by the gas industry in Northern Ireland and the help given by the noble Baroness has been considerable in this regard.
In my view, the cogent arguments and reasoned points that have been put forward today should be considered and should have some influence on the Minister's reply to this important debate today.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, I think the noble Lord. Lord Fitt, and others of your Lordships make possibly the valid point that there are rather few noble Lords who make a habit of attending these sometimes technical and sometimes esoteric debates that we have on various orders concerning Northern Ireland. I would stress to the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, and to your Lordships that there is more than a grain of truth in the fact that we do have very high-quality speeches and a great degree of knowledge expressed here in our deliberations, as has been shown once again during our debate on the order this afternoon.
The Government know of the concern that is felt in the Province on this matter of gas and gas supplies. I would ask the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, to take it on board that his contributions, together with those of other noble Lords—the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, and others—are very valuable. Incidentally, may I welcome the presence of the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, who, we hope, given a short holiday, will be in full voice and full strength soon, in the autumn. We look forward to that, and indeed all your Lordships who speak and debate on Northern Ireland affairs are looking forward to that. We are very grateful that he has been able to come today. We admire his fortitude in having attended right through this debate: and he will know that we are due to discuss another subject which is of interest to many of your Lordships—

1519
betting, gaming and the like—immediately after this order. I think that subject is very dear to the hearts of many people in Northern Ireland—probably almost as many as are concerned with gas. However, at the moment we are concerned with gas.
The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, began traditionally by commenting on the procedures and, indeed, the inadequacies of direct rule. I have written down here the words "direct rule syndrome". He may have his opinion, but I would say to him what I have said to your Lordships collectively, which is that I believe we have had a very useful debate. I stress to the noble Lord, and indeed to all your Lordships—I shall be filling this out later on—that there is no question of killing the industry. This draft order gives permission to any or all of the 13 gas undertakings to close if they wish. It is in no way compelling.
The first point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, concerned the Kinsale project. On 6th September last year, as I and many of your Lordships will be aware, the United Kingdom Government announced that the Kinsale project would not proceed, and that subsidy for the gas industry in Northern Ireland would cease. It was that decision to which my honourable friend the Minister of State in another place referred in his evidence to the Northern Ireland Assembly. I give the undertaking that the Government were sincere in their offer to consider any proposal which was seen to offer a viable way forward. I stress that this expression "viable way forward". I have to say that this viable way forward simply did not make itself known to us, and indeed was not apparent.
The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, and I think my noble friend Lord Moyne also, referred to the Northern Ireland Assembly. As your Lordships and those who have read the report of the Northern Ireland Assembly will be aware, that Assembly accepted that the Government's decision to withdraw subsidy was irrevocable; and the inevitable outcome of that decision will be the closure of the industry. But, of course, the Assembly was of the opinion that the Government should make every effort to ensure that the rundown of the industry will be conducted as swiftly as possible, so that consumers are not left in a state of uncertainty. The Assembly also made specific proposals with regard to the rundown of undertakings and the conversion of their consumers' needs to other fuels. These are being considered, and a reply to the Assembly will be issued shortly.
The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, also raised the question of gas from Morecambe Bay. I am advised that the Department of Economic Development in Northern Ireland has examined various options for the supply of all types of gas to the Province, and for that purpose I am including the supply of gas from Morecambe Bay. I am able to tell the noble Lord that there is no indication that natural gas could be provided on a viable basis from Morecambe Bay. When I say "viable basis", it would be on a lower cost than our calculations up to the present moment.
The noble Lord was also kind enough to give me advance notice of his suggestion as to a possible stay of execution of the draft order pending various projects
1520
or inquiries which are being carried out now by Lloyds merchant bank, to enable them to complete their evaluation of a pipeline project to import Kinsale gas to the Province. This question was raised also by the noble Lord, Lord Dean, the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Ewart-Biggs. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, will accept that the Government maintained subsidy to the industry for a period of six months at a cost of £1 million per month while the Joint Working Group developed its rescue plan. But we believe that it is unfair to the industry, and indeed to the consumers, for the Government to prolong this uncertainty by continuing their subsidy on the basis of what can only be speculation about yet another possible scheme.
This gas order is purely an enabling measure—I stress that to the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, who rose to speak—which is intended to facilitate the closure of those gas undertakings which no longer wish to remain in operation. Those gas undertakings may choose to remain in business while investigations into private sector proposals continue. But from my point of view, and from the point of view of the Government, the Government cannot finance any further delay.
3.15 p.m.
The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, and others of your Lordships asked about possible assistance for a scheme for conversions. The Government have undertaken to consider the possibility of the need for some form of appeals mechanism in respect of this scheme. But it is still under careful consideration—I hope that that is an improvement on what may have been said in another place—and we must and will consider equity and fairness to consumers in relation to what is feasible in our own administration. Above all, it must be subject to accountability for public funds. The noble Lord may have heard that we may be proposing various schemes for conversions for consumers who are left without gas, but the final details have yet to be worked out. However, I hope that we have been able to give an outline.
The noble Lord quite rightly referred to the question of safety. The noble Lord may be aware—certainly I was not aware until, during the course of the debate, a note reached me—that what is called town gas can be made up of many different types of gas. I am sure he will accept, as I certainly do, that safety requirements might be different for these various types of gas, and if we insert the word "safety" and try to define it too tightly in the order we could find ourselves in trouble.
However, I give the noble Lord and your Lordships an undertaking that we shall be following precisely the advice of the British Gas Corporation on all safety procedures and on technical matters, as regards the operations which may be carried out. So far as the order is concerned, we shall be following all this advice from the British Gas Corporation. I am sure your Lordships will accept that it is pre-eminent in this field and that we could not have better advice on aspects of safety. I am able to say that our estimates reflect this major priority.
The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, and, I am sure, your Lordships will accept that the Government have responsibility to make a decision on the gas industry.

1521
I am afraid that we cannnot farm out this responsibility. The Department of Economic Development has taken advice all through from expert sources before arriving at the decision.
The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, also referred to the possibility of private enterprise rescue, and the speech which was made by my honourable friend the Minister of State in another place. I think my honourable friend went out of his way to applaud any role of private capital in the gas industry in the Province, and indeed in any industry in general. The Government would certainly not stand in the way of any private investment in any plan to revise this undertaking, or to set up a new gas industry, so long as there was no recourse to Government guarantees and protection. I am afraid that what the Government could not do is invest taxpayers' money when they do not believe this to be prudent. All your Lordships will know that I have had to stand in this very position and debate the results of Government expenditure on what were rather unsound commercial ventures.
The noble Lord, Lord Hampton, and others of your Lordships raised the question of consumers converting to other fuels. Domestic gas consumers will be entitled under the gas conversion assistance scheme to a grant which will be sufficient to cover the least-cost conversion or the replacement of their gas appliances. This may involve conversion to liquid petroleum gas or electricity, in the case of cookers, with the possibility of solid fuel or oil as further options in the case of heating, central heating, bath water heating, hot water heating and the like. Industrial and commercial consumers will be offered, as I stressed in my opening remarks, the 30 per cent. grant on the same basis; and they may also be eligible for energy conservation grants. I hope that that will be of some help to the noble Lord.
The noble Lord, Lord Hampton, was concerned—and I think that this was the general tenor of the debate—about the question of job losses arising from any decisions to close by the undertakings in Northern Ireland. Nobody has a monopoly of concern on this issue, but the wish to preserve jobs is not a feasible basis for the success of any industry. Indeed, in recent years the desire to maintain employment in the gas undertakings in the Province has persuaded the Government to provide ever-increasing subsidies only to see the industry's decline continue relentlessly. I referred to that aspect when I opened my remarks on the draft order. The jobs factor is not a simple issue. The growth or the decline of jobs in any one industry, especially in the fuel industry which we are discussing this afternoon, has a direct bearing on employment patterns among its competitiors—oil, electricity, solid fuels or the like. I hope that the noble Lord will accept that.
The noble Lord, Lord Hampton, and other noble Lords, were also concerned with continuing the subsidy. The Government's fundamental difference with the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, is that the Government have set their face against continuing subsidy in the absence of any prospect of viability. If I may continue with this concept of viability, we have taken advice and we have I hope consulted on the fullest possible basis. The noble Lord, Lord Hampton,
1522
asked one question which I think is of relevance and has been uppermost in virtually everybody's mind this afternoon. I stress to him that arrangements for the payment under the gas conversion assistance scheme will be comprehensive and flexible. We are going to discuss arrangements for this conversion scheme with Age Concern and with other bodies which have in mind consumers and particular groups such as the elderly and those who are dependent on gas. I was interested in the figures of the noble Lord, Lord Fitt. I give that undertaking and I hope that it will be of some assistance to the noble Lord, Lord Hampton.
My noble friend Lord Moyne was kind enought to give me some advance warning about his thoughts this afternoon. My noble friend startled me with the thought of the gas pipeline in the Republic proceeding through his farm. When the noble Lord and I rise in our places to discuss pipelines going through our farms it tends to cause mirth. Certainly, in another place one of my honourable friends said that compensation for the pipeline proceeding through one's farm outdid much of the crop proceeds. I hope that that is not the case with my noble friend Lord Moyne.
My noble friend referred to disappointment n the Republic of Ireland. In his announcement of 6th September last year, my right honourable friend Mr. Butler expressed his bitter disappointment. I know from personal experience that he was especially upset that, despite the intense effort which had been put by all sides into the negotiations and into the discussions by both Governments, the project to supply natural gas to Northern Ireland from Kinsale simply could not proceed as it was not viable for Northern Ireland. The Government have reiterated their sorrow that the project, which at one time appeared to offer the prospect of a mutually advantageous cross-border enterprise, should have foundered. We regret that. But we are firmly convinced that the scope for developing improved cross-border economic relations—this is only one aspect of it—would not have been served by proceeding with a project which clearly was not to the commercial benefit of Northern Ireland.
My noble friend failed to grasp one of the prime reasons for the decision of the United Kingdom Government not to support a natural gas project. One of the prime reasons for that decision was that the pricing arrangements over the period of supply would result in a gas price that was insufficiently competitive with other fuels. Also, the market available to gas is not adequate to provide for a viable project. I referred in my opening remarks to the drop in demand for gas over a period of some four years. I stress to my noble friend that those problems have not been resolved. I assure him that the public are not being misled. I wish to make it clear that the Government simply have no plans to make a re-examination of that particular project.
The noble Lord, Lord Dean, made mention of a possible delay. I hope that I covered that point in my earlier response to the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies. I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Dean. I hope that he is not too upset about the procedural gap that might have been created—certainly I have done it. I am sure we can resolve the matter. However, we are all particularly grateful for the noble Lord's words of praise for those of your Lordships who serve in

1523
Northern Ireland. Any possible risk or danger is totally outweighed by the welcome which all of us receive in Northern Ireland, even in matters such as we are discussing this afternoon. The sympathy and understanding that I find there is unbelievable. I wish to pay my own tribute to everyone in Northern Ireland who helps this Government and others to do their particular jobs.
I would stress to the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, and to all of your Lordships, that the draft order before the House today is an enabling and permissive measure. It does not compel any closure. I stress also that to vote against the draft order this afternoon would be to vote against any undertaking being permitted to close, even though that undertaking deemed it imperative to do so.
A vote against the order this afternoon would also indicate opposition to the provision of support. There may have been discussions as to the level of support, but your Lordships will surely agree that support of the order of £97 million is not ungenerous. From my own side of life in Northern Ireland, I can put every £1 million to extremely good use. I believe that the support we are providing for the planned and orderly rundown really is particularly generous. Your Lordships may think that I have said enough. I am sorry that I have not been able to be more helpful. I have tried to explain the Government's reason why we believe this order will be to the benefit of Northern Ireland. We hope to be flexible and generous. With that, I commend the order.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Cullen of Ashbourne): My Lords, the Question is, That the draft order laid before the House on llth July be approved? As many as are of that opinion will say, "Content"; to the contrary, "Not-Content". I think the "Contents" have it. Clear the Bar.
The Tellers for the "Not-Contents" have not been appointed pursuant to Standing Order No. 50, and the Division therefore cannot take place. I declare that the "Contents" have it.
Motion agreed to.

Business
3.32 p.m.
Lord Denham: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I should like to make a short business statement. It has been agreed through the usual channels that the Unstarred Question in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, shall not now be taken this afternoon. It will instead be taken next Tuesday, 30th July.

Betting, Gaming, Lotteries and Amusements (Northern Ireland) Order 1985
Lord Lyell: My Lords, I beg to move that the Betting, Gaming, Lotteries and Amusements (Northern Ireland) Order, a draft of which was laid before this House on 26th June 1985, be approved. Your Lordships may have thought we were debating
1524
this subject on the last order, but I hope not. It is a much more bulky order than the last one but I hope it will not give rise to a lengthy debate. It may give rise to a detailed debate, especially from the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, and I look forward to a profitable contribution from him.
The purpose of the order is to bring up to date the social law in Northern Ireland on all forms of betting, gaming, lotteries and amusements with prizes. As noble Lords who come from Northern Ireland will know, these laws are outdated and are proving increasingly difficult to enforce. They have fallen into disrepute in many respects. The order seeks to remedy this highly unsatisfactory situation by replacing all existing enactments with legislation which will reflect current attitudes to gambling and demands for gambling facilities, and which can be expected, therefore, to command general public respect and be capable of proper enforcement.
The order before us is lengthy and complex legislation. I shall not weary your Lordships with all its detail but will concentrate on the main provisions. If any noble Lords want explanation or information I shall do my best to provide it accurately and swiftly.
Part I, which deals with the title, commencement and interpretation is self-explanatory. Part II largely re-enacts the existing law on betting but makes several changes aimed at making the whole procedure more efficient in its operation. The major change of substance is to allow greyhound tracks to operate a tote. Through a quirk in the existing law only horserace courses may be licensed to operate the totalisator in Northern Ireland, even though the law in the rest of the United Kingdom permits the tote at greyhound tracks. The Government see no reason why greyhound racing in Northern Ireland should not have the same facility, thus giving the punters at the greyhound tracks the choice between betting with bookmakers or on the tote. There are new rules for the conduct of bookmaking offices. Restricted sound broadcasts of race commentaries—in other words what I am advised is the "Extel" service—will be allowed. Also, in line with recent changes in the corresponding law in Great Britain, it will be possible to relax by subordinate legislation the restrictions on the facilities which may be provided in bookmaking offices, including television broadcasts. The Government have no immediate plans to exercise this power in Northern Ireland.
Part III of the order deals with gaming. It has five chapters. The first applies to gaming of a private kind—for example, within a family or between friends. Its aim is to force all gaming with potential for abuse into the control system which is to be established by Chapters II and III, as well as prohibiting all gaming in public places. Bankers' games and games which by their nature are not of equal chance are prohibited except on domestic occasions, as in one's own home or in places such as hostels.
We now turn to the question of bingo, and I am advised that Chapter II provides a comprehensive code for the control of bingo which is promoted commercially in private bingo clubs licensed by the courts for that purpose. The Government considered carefully whether to provide as in Great Britain for the

1525
licensing of gaming clubs, such as casinos, in which other forms of commercial gaming may take place, but we concluded that, apart from bingo, there was no evidence of any significant demand in Northern Ireland for this kind of gaming club.
Chapter III of this part deals with gaming by means of gaming machines. Anyone who wishes to supply or maintain a gaming machine will have to obtain from a court a certificate or permit authorising him to do so. The purpose of this and the other provisions of this chapter, is to prevent racketeering and the spread of machines in places where there is no real public demand for them.
I understand that there are also machines which go traditionally by the names of "jackpot" machines. I am told that these are gaming machines which may pay big prizes. These are prohibited except in registered private members' clubs or when used for fund-raising at bazaars, sales of work, fetes or similar entertainments promoted for non-commercial purposes. To have gaming machines, a club must register with a court, either under the order or under the Registration of Clubs Act (Northern Ireland) 1967. As in Great Britain, a registered club will be limited to a maximum of two gaming machines. Quite a few clubs in Northern Ireland already have more than that number—because the existing law has been interpreted by the courts as permitting the use of machines as a means of running private lotteries. I shall spare your Lordships the details. I have not the legal case, but, if anybody wanted it, I am sure I could find the decision of the court. However, Government see no good reason why clubs in Northern Ireland should have a greater entitlement to machines than clubs in the rest of the United Kingdom, where the limit of two applies.
Apart from any objections on social grouds to a greater number of machines, the Government are concerned on the basis of advice from the Royal Ulster Constabulary that in certain clubs in certain areas of Northern Ireland the proceeds from the machines are financing the operations of paramilitary organisations. Indeed, there is a strong case for a complete ban on the use of machines in clubs. However, the Government recognise that such a ban would be unreasonable, as clubs have had such machines for many years and as it would unfairly penalise the vast majority of highly respectable clubs which have absolutely no links with the paramilitaries. Taking all this into account, the Government have concluded that the limit of two—that is, two gaming machines in each establishment —is reasonable.
I see that my next heading is "Amusement With Prizes Machines". I assume that that may be clear to your Lordships. Certainly I am never quite sure whether when I go to a prize machine it is amusing when I seem to lose most of my stake. However, I am advised that amusement with prizes machines which pay prizes not £exceeding in value, are restricted to travelling showmen's fairs, licensed bingo clubs and premises of a type prescribed in regulations which are made by the department and either licensed for the sale of intoxicating liquor or granted an amusement permit by a district council.
1526
These provisions are much more restrictive than those in the law in Great Britain, where virtually any type of premises qualifies. In Northern Ireland, primarily to prevent exploitation of the machines by paramilitary organisations, but also on social and other grounds, the Government consider it essential to have the power to limit the range of premises entitled to install machines. In the short term, the Government intend that only amusement arcades and similar premises used mainly for the provision of amusements shall be allowed to install machines—subject, of course, to the grant of an amusement permit by a district council.
There is no prospect in the immediate future of the Government allowing machines in other types of premises, in particular, in public houses. I appreciate why, in this respect, the licensed trade in Northern Ireland should feel that it is being treated unfairly compared with the clubs, which will continue to be allowed to have their two jackpot machines. I hope, however, that your Lordships will accept and possibly that you will understand why the security advice must be a major consideration in deciding if and when any particular types of premises, which are, after all, open to the general public, should be prescribed. The Government—I give this undertaking—will keep the position under close review.
Turning to Chapter IV, we find that this provides for small gaming, which consists of games played at entertainments promoted otherwise than for private gain. This type of activity will cover such charitable and non-profit making activities as bridge and whist drives. But it will also allow other games such as bingo to be promoted by, for example, clubs for the benefit of the membership in general.
Chapter V is the last chapter of Part III of the order dealing with gaming. It allows clubs to make modest charges for taking part in equal chance, non-banker gaming, without contravening the general prohibition on participation charges in Chapter I. Clubs will be able to make small charges sufficient only to cover the cost of providing the facilities for the gaming. The department may by order vary the limit on the daily charge specifying different limits for different games. The chapter also prohibits, subject to the specified exceptions, the advertising of facilities for gaming and allows a landlord to evict a tenant or occupier of premises convicted of using the premises for illegal gaming.
Before leaving this chapter, I should like to mention the various regulatory and enforcement functions which, in Great Britain, fall to the Gaming Board. These will be discharged in Northern Ireland by other agencies—namely, the courts, the district councils, the police and, for some purposes, I am advised, the department.
Part IV of the order deals with lotteries. It makes all lotteries unlawful other than small lotteries at exempt entertainments, private lotteries and public lotteries promoted by a registered society for the support of charities, sports, or games or cultural activities or for other non-commercial purposes. The provisions for small and private lotteries largely re-enact the existing law. The major change is that societies registered with a district council for the purpose will be able to

1527
promote public lotteries. For the most part, these provisions mirror similar provisions for societies' lotteries in Great Britain. I should like to mention one particular protection. It is that anyone who wishes to act as an external lottery consultant or manager will have to hold a lottery certificate issued by the court. In Great Britain we have local lotteries which a local authority may promote for specified objects. I have not referred to these. But the Government's published proposals have provided for these primarily to test reaction, particularly of the district councils in Northern Ireland. The responses from the councils indicated that very few, if any, would want to run local lotteries. Furthermore, the Northern Ireland Assembly and several councils strongly opposed the provision on both moral and social grounds and because there had been no demand for it by councils. In the circumstances, the Government decided against local lotteries.
Part V deals with amusements with prizes and prize competitions. It allows amusements with prizes other than by gaming machines at non-commercial entertainments and, subject to specified restrictions, on a commercial basis at travelling showmen's fairs, in licensed bingo clubs and in premises that are used wholly or mainly for the provision of amusements, again under a permit by the district council. This part, Part V, re-enacts the existing law in Northern Ireland relating to newspaper and other competitions. It prohibits the conduct through any newspaper or in connection with any trade or business of any prize competition which involves forecasting the result of an event or any other competition in which success does not depend to a substantial degree on the exercise of skill.
3.45 p.m.
Part VI covers a variety of matters. Cheating will continue to be an offence and gambling debts will remain irrecoverable in law. However, the police will have rights of entry without a search warrant to all premises with facilities for engaging in betting, gaming, lotteries and amusements with prizes and, with a warrant, to any premises.
I am advised that that is a brief outline of the main provisions of the order. I hope that your Lordships will bear with me, because there are 187 articles to the order, 21 schedules and an index which comprises nine pages. I shall not draw the attention of the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, to Article 155 onwards. I, too, found difficulty in defining a "pleasure permit"—perhaps it is not listening to Ministers taking 10 minutes to make brief remarks!
I hope that I have given a brief outline of the main provisions of this fairly thick and fairly detailed order. I have tried to give an adequate picture of the principal aims of the order. I assure your Lordships that the provisions of the order have been very carefully thought out. I emphasise that, while they have been based broadly on comparable provisions in the law in Great Britain, the Government have taken the maximum possible care to ensure that the provisions are tailored to meet the particular needs and circumstances which apply in Northern Ireland. I believe that the new laws will provide both a clear and
1528
a firm framework which will enable gambling to take place in Northern Ireland under proper controls. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 26th June be approved.—(Lord Lyell.)
Lord Prys-Davies: My Lords, this lengthy order of 187 articles has been described by Ministers in another place as one of the most significant pieces of legislation in social policy to be produced for a number of years and which will influence social policy up to the end of the century and into the next. Some may say that if that be a true description of the order, it is a sad commentary on social policy in the Province. The underlying philosophy is clear enough; it is the philosophy of the Royal Commission on gambling which reported in 1978.
Consistent with that philosophy, the order seeks to achieve three objectives: first, to reflect present-day attitudes to gambling, a more easy-going attitude than in former days; secondly, to produce a law which will command public respect; and, thirdly, to produce a law which will be relatively straightforward to enforce. That sounds very reasonable to reasonable people. Yet the department cannot take everything for granted.
I am impelled to draw attention to the fact that there are grounds for concern about the preparation of the order. It is said that the consultation was undertaken in too much of a hurry and that it was undertaken too late in the day, and it was felt to be inadequate. The Assembly complained bitterly about the inadequate time allowed for discussions and it spoke of dismay and disappointment at the refusal of the department to extend the consultation period. It appears to me that it is not fashionable in the department to extend the consultation period or a stay of execution. I notice that the Methodist Church and the alcohol and other drugs education committee of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland also complained of the lack of opportunity to give consideration to the terms of the order.
Therefore, there emerged a feeling that the consultation was not a consultation—it was merely a form of softening-up process. That comes through very clearly in the written evidence of the Belfast and Ulster Licensed Vintners' Association. I shall quote one sentence from their evidence:
"It appears to us from the whole scheme of the Order that the decision is already made and our alleged opportunity to comment on the Order is only to give a cosmetic appearance in that the legislature and drafters of the Order will be able to say that, 'representations were received and all views considered'.".
They are strong words. If their criticism is valid, that could be damaging for democracy in the Province.
I notice that the Assembly favoured the setting up of a Gaming Board for Northern Ireland—mindful, no doubt, that the Gaming Board of Great Britain is highly regarded and has acquired a reputation for firmness and fairness. However, the proposal was not acceptable, the Government pointing out that the Gaming Board had been established originally to police the casino industry, which had swollen in the 1960s, and also to get rid of criminals who had invaded the territory. These were the historical reasons for setting up the Gaming Board, but it is not obvious

1529
to many that this can be used as a good reason for rejecting a different kind of central authority for the circumstances of Northern Ireland.
The Assembly wanted all forms of commercial bingo banned, but again this was not acceptable to the Government. Commercial bingo caters for a genuine social need by providing places where people can meet in a friendly atmosphere to enjoy an agreeable flutter, and one just wonders whether the Assembly paid adequate attention to its beneficial social role. In the absence of any evidence from the police, or from a body such as the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, that commercial bingo was leading to family neglect or to pressures on the family budget, I think the Goverment were right in rejecting the Assembly's proposal.
But the Assembly and many other organisations and individuals in the Province will be pleased that the Government have abandoned the proposal that local authorities should have the right to promote lotteries to raise money. Fortunately for the department, it did not have to come to a conclusion on whether or not this was a desirable proposal in its own right as there was, as the Minister explained, a lack of any positive demand by the local authorities for this fund-raising facility.
The Government have considered but refused the application by clubs to have more than two gaming machines, or the jackpot machines, and the Minister dealt with this refusal. I listened with great interest to the explanation which he advanced as to why the Government had not acceded to the request for more gaming machines. Whether or not the response of the police was hypocritical, as some people maintain, I know not, but it is nevertheless a revealing comment because it shows how difficult it can sometimes be to press the facts of Northern Ireland into the England and Wales mould, although I appreciate that even in England and Wales you can have only two jackpot machines in relation to a club.
With those few comments I should like to support the order, and I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Lye11, for having outlined its framework. We welcome and support it.
Lord Fitt: My Lords, in introducing the order the noble Lord the Minister said that this was one of the most voluminous orders that we had had before us. I hasten to assure him that the size of the order will not dictate the length of my speech. I think I spoke long enough on the last order. However, some things should be said. I want to pose the question right away: why are the Government so resistant to bringing about a gaming board in Northern Ireland? On setting up the gaming board in Great Britain the Government said that they were doing so because they believed that the coming into being of such a board would prevent criminal elements from having any significant say in gaming in Great Britain. If it is good for Great Britain, the Northern Ireland industry is asking for exactly the same type of treatment. One would go far and wide to find a parallel, because this industry is saying, "Let us have a gaming board. Let it be constituted by personnel of integrity, people who will ensure that
1530
there is no criminal involvement in gaming in Northern Ireland". It is to the credit of the amusement industry in Northern Ireland that it wants to impose restrictions on the possibility of any criminal element being involved. The Government say, "No". I do not believe that there can be any adequate answer to that attitude.
We hear repeatedly, and Ministers are foremost in coming to the Dispatch Box to say it, that the Government regard the Northern Ireland Assembly as a worthwhile institution. They say that it is composed of elected representatives who have been elected by the will of the people in Northern Ireland and therefore their voice should be listened to. That Assembly is unrepresentative at the moment in its sittings. It is mainly the majority community that is represented. There are a few members of the Alliance Party, but there is a total absence of the minority community as represented by Sinn Fein and the SDLP. However, those who were elected and have taken their seats in the Assembly have deliberated in the Assembly Committee on this order. They came to a conclusion which was unanimous and made 15 recommendations to the Government. The Government say that they will accept two of those recommendations but will not accept the other 13.
That is blatantly unfair because the Government are not as representative or as closely in touch with opinion in Northern Ireland as Members of the Assembly, because no Government Minister has had to seek votes throughout the constitutencies in Northern Ireland. I am well aware that I do not have a vote to speak here this afternoon. The Government should listen more intently to the voice of the Assembly because they keep saying repeatedly that it is an elected Assembly and performs some useful functions.
I listened to the debate in another place. I do not want to break any other procedural conventions in this House, but I heard the Under-Secretary of State who piloted this order through the other place say, to paraphrase his words, that he had absolutely no knowledge of the subject and what knowledge he had was not based on anything so vulgar as experience, but that he did once go into a betting shop. My God! He once went into a betting shop! He was the Minister in charge of piloting this order through the House. What a terrible admission to make in the House of Commons!
I go into a betting shop nearly every day of the week. I back horses, I back dogs, I do the pools; and as soon as this debate is over I shall have a very large gin and tonic. I do not think that that is anything to be ashamed of. But the elected Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly, representing as they do opinion in Northern Ireland, would be more in tune with what would be acceptable or not acceptable in Northern Ireland. The Minister has already put himself out of court by saying that he committed the terrible sin of going into a betting shop once in his life. From whom did he seek advice? Did he seek it from the civil servants in the Northern Ireland Office? Did he seek it from the police in Northern Ireland? Did he talk to all the Sabbatarians in the Civil Service? Did he talk to the non-drinking fraternity in the RUC? From whom

1531
did he seek this advice? I believe that there are elements within the Civil Service and within the RUC who would be totally opposed to some of the restrictions which are placed on the Northern Ireland community by this order.
4 p.m.
I recognise that there is a very real difficulty in relation to the para-military organisations; and the Government quite rightly want to take whatever steps they can to make sure that the activities of the paramilitary organisations, both of the extreme Republican and the extreme Loyalist kind, are restricted. Formerly representing West Belfast, and knowing of the existence in these areas of extreme Republican clubs and extreme Loyalist clubs (because West Belfast at that time had extreme Loyalist and extreme Republican areas), I believe that there is absolutely no doubt that the para-military organisations are in control of some of the clubs in those ghettos. The fact is that they are asking to have numerous gaming machines, which have an attraction for young people. Once those young people are attracted into those clubs, they immediately become under para-military pressure to join one or other of their organisations. I think it right that the Government should take whatever steps they can to ensure that no machines of this kind are allowed to be operated in those clubs.
But those clubs are situated in areas in Belfast and in Derry, I suppose, and in Newry, I suppose, which can be very clearly identified; they are the Republican areas and Loyalist areas of Derry and Newry. But the vast majority of clubs in Northern Ireland are frequented by decent people. This applies throughout Northern Ireland, including the city of Belfast. Outside the ghettoes, there are a large majority of clubs which operate quite legitimately and in the interests of their members. I do not think that the Government by trying to impose restrictions on para-military clubs, should apply those restrictions to what would otherwise be quite legitimate clubs.
The restriction of two machines per pub on publicans is also very unfair. The publicans in Belfast pay rates and pay staff. Their overheads are much higher than the overheads involved in running a club elsewhere in Northern Ireland. I think that the publican fraternity in Northern Ireland has been very harshly dealt with over a number of years. There would not be any clubs of the type to which I have just referred, the type under the control of the paramilitary organisations, had it not been for the actions of the para-military organisations in blowing up pubs, causing explosions in pubs, in both the Loyalist and the Republican areas. When these para-military organiations cause explosions to wipe out the public-houses, then they begin to operate clubs of their own in those areas. It is like the black taxis on the Falls Road in Belfast and on the Shankhill Road. The paramilitary organisations burned all the buses that were operated by the public transport. As soon as there were no buses left, they then began to bring over a lot of black taxis from London; and we have the black-taxi trade in both Loyalist and Republican areas.
I can understand the restrictions that the Minister may want to impose, and I would certainly support him on the restrictions that he wants to place on these
1532
organisations. But I can see no valid reason why there cannot be a gaming board. The only objection that I would raise is on the residential qualifications which are imposed upon directors of the organisations which are mentioned in this legislation. It appears that one has to live in Northern Ireland. I can quite understand the logic of that but there are a few cases involved in this legislation where people who have formerly lived in Northern Ireland still carry on their business in that area. They are now living in England and are to be "disfranchised", or not allowed to be directors. Again, I think that the reasoning behind the Government's intention was to prevent some mafioso-type characters from London taking over in Northern Ireland.
All I can say to that is that we have our own mafiosi in Northern Ireland, and they are very well able to carry out their own requirements. Someone from outside, whether from London or Sicily, would be very easily identified by the republican or the loyalist sections of the community in Northern Ireland and might find himself getting his kneecaps blown off; so I think this was an unnecessary restriction that was placed on people who formerly lived in Northern Ireland and who still have connections there.
As I say, it has taken a long time for this legislation to come to fruition. An honourable Member speaking in the other place said that the vast majority of the people in Northern Ireland would not want to see machines in either clubs or pubs. I know the constituency that he represents, but I do not think that he is expressing the view of the Northern Ireland people, because there are many people in Northern Ireland who want to see legitimate interests operating. I think they are entitled to have those interests catered for.
On the question of lotteries, the Government have said that lotteries should not be made available in Northern Ireland. My Lords, lotteries are lotteries, and premium bonds are lotteries. Many thousands, if not millions, of people listen to their radios every Saturday or Sunday morning to find out whether their number has come up in the national lottery, otherwise known as premium bonds. If it is legitimate here, then it should be legitimate in Northern Ireland, if in fact people want lotteries. I do not think there is any great clamour for them, but on the other hand I do not think that any unreasonable restrictions should be placed on them.
On the question of the machines in the clubs, I think it may be that on advice which will be given to the Minister he may be able to increase the number of machines that are allowed to be operated legitimately in those clubs. But I ask myself: from whom will the Minister—because it will be the Northern Ireland Office which will be overseeing this legislation—be seeking this advice? If there was a gaming board, he could seek advice from the gaming board because its members would be appointed with those functions in mind. But if the Minister seeks advice from local authorities, from certain people in the RUC, from some of the courts or from some of the legal representatives, he is liable to get conflicting advice. And if, as he has said in another part of this building, he has absolutely no experience of gambling or gaming, he may come to the wrong conclusions.
I do not think this order has been given the attention that it should have been given. I believe that more

1533
recommendations promulgated by the Northern Ireland Assembly should have been accepted. I believe that the Government are right to take whatever action is possible to stamp out paramilitary involvement in those clubs, but I do not believe that enough consideration has been given to this order.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, and the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, for taking part in the discussion of this order. I am pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, has been able to give us, if I may put it so vulgarly, the benefit of his experience. However, I will say more about that later if time permits: I am aware that your Lordships have other business and I will try not to delay that for too long.
The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies—and we are grateful for his remarks—referred to the consultations that we might have held with outside interests on the contents. Over the years (and these are more than a few) the Government received numerous representations from many different sections of the community, all of whom had an interest in the reform of the law in Northern Ireland relating to betting, gaming and lotteries—not all, as the noble Lord will appreciate, constructive. Many of these organisations deplored any form of betting, gaming or lotteries, or indeed amusements of this type. But before publishing any of their proposals the Government had extensive discussions with any bodies which were known to have views on particular aspects of the law or on particular sections of what we have been discussing in this particular order. When the proposal for the draft legislation was published last year, all the interested parties who had not already made their views known to the Government were urged to do so. I am able to tell your Lordships that many bodies availed themselves of that particular opportunity.
I stress to the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, that in addition there was full consultation with the Royal Ulster Constabulary prior to and during the preparation of the draft order. I shall convey his thoughts to (what did he call it?) the non-gambling or non-drinking section of the RUC. That will no doubt be treated with "horse" or, perhaps, "greyhound" laughs tonight. I shall convey his compliments to that august and brave body of men. I have certainly found that some of them are non-drinking, but not so many as the noble Lord clearly has.
The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, was also concerned about extending the consultation period. We were anxious that the introduction of this legislation should not be unduly—and I stress that word—delayed. Normally the consultation period on legislation of this type is limited to six weeks, but because of the complexity—the bulk of this particular report and, indeed, this legislation—the Government decided that the period should be extended and that nine weeks would probably be adequate in this case. But I stress that full consideration was given to every single view which was expressed.
The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, and indeed the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, referred to a Gaming Board. I enjoyed the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Fitt,
1534
about the Mafioso. No doubt writs will soon fly from that esteemed firm Messrs. Sue, Grabbit amp; Runne", if the noble Lord is not careful about deploring one section of the community or another. But the need for the Gaming Board in Great Britain arose primarily from the decision to allow what I am advised are commercial gaming clubs here in Great Britain. But since there is no apparent evidence of a demand for such clubs in Northern Ireland—and, indeed, the order does not provide for them—we consider that the setting up of a Gaming Board would not be justified. But the certification and the policing functions which are related to other types of gaming activities which are carried out by the board in Great Britain will be discharged, in appropriate cases, by other bodies in Northern Ireland, which include courts, local authorities, the police and, for certain purposes, the department.
The noble Lord, Lord Fitt, made a number of points. He asked where I sought advice. I am afraid that the order does not attempt to stop any gambling. What it seeks to do is to allow many forms of gambling or games of chance to take place under adequate control. I am sure that the noble Lord would be at one with that.
The noble Lord referred to gaming machines in certain clubs. The huge majority of the clubs, of course, are law-abiding, but, as he will know, and your Lordships I am sure would accept, it is simply not possible to differentiate in legislation such as that which we have before us between those who are good and those who are less reputable among the club fraternity.
The noble Lord mentioned the licensed trade in Northern Ireland. I appreciate that they feel they are being unfairly treated compared with clubs in that the registered clubs would be permitted to have two of these gaming machines and the pubs would not be able to have any at all for the present. But the fact, which may be regrettable, is that because of police advice about the prevailing situation of security, the Government felt it necessary to exercise really tight control over the types of premises in which gaming machines can be installed. This is much tighter than the corresponding law in Great Britain.
Lastly, the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, took me to task for disregarding the strong views and the recommendations of the Assembly. I accepted one of the major recommendations of the Assembly, as I am sure the noble Lord will agree. That was that the provisions for district council lotteries should be removed. I explained why the Government did not feel that they could accept the Assembly's other main recommendations, which were that there should be a gaming board, that commercial bingo clubs should not be permitted and that clubs should be allowed more than two gaming machines.
But the Government accepted several other minor recommendations from the Assembly; for example, that applicants for licences, including the directors of companies seeking licences, should reside in Northern Ireland. I see the noble Lord nodding. Clearly he has knowledge. I do not know whether he will have an accommodation address and be involved in that industry, will take out a bookmakers'—or, as they call themselves in Northern Ireland, guardians of the

1535
turf—licence. But that will be old hat for the noble Lord. Certainly, we insist that applicants should reside in Northern Ireland, but the noble Lord himself questioned the acceptance of that recommendation.
I conclude by taking strong issue with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, about my honourable friend who I noted in col. 646 of Hansard of another place of 19th July had done such vulgar things as visiting a betting shop when discussing legislation. The noble Lord and I—he crosses himself busily—were both discussing sex shops recently. Any suggestion in your Lordships' House, or anywhere else, by the noble Lord that he or I would be in such establishments will be met with the full force of that great firm of libel lawyers, to which I referred earlier—I think it is Lord Strobes and Lord Gnome—which will descend with full fury on the noble Lord. On the other hand, he and I might have fruitful discussions in private as to where we can continue our researches. With that, I beg to commend the order before your Lordships.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Food Imitations (Safety) (Amendment) Regulations 1985
4.17 p.m.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I beg to move that the draft Food Imitations (Safety) (Amendment) Regulations 1985, laid before the House on 21st June, be approved. The effect of the amendment is expressly to exclude products made entirely of food ingredients from the scope of the Food Imitations (Safety) Regulations 1985 (Statutory Instrument 1985 Number 99), which your Lordships approved on 28th January this year.
Such products are already excluded where they are "food" as defined in Section 131(1) of the Food Act 1984, since food (as so defined) is excluded from the definition of "goods" in Section 9(4) of the Consumer Safety Act 1978, under which the principal regulations were made. Under the latter Act, there is no power to make safety regulations in respect of things which are not "goods" as defined in Section 9(4) of the Act.
There are products made entirely from food ingredients—in particular, modelling compounds marketed for children to use in play. This has been verified by the Laboratory of the Government chemist and if ingested these products would be no more of a problem than food properly so called. My Lords, I commend this order to your Lordships' House.
Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 21st June be approved. [26th Report from the Joint Committee.]—(Lord Brahazon of Tara.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Merchant Shipping (Radio Installations) (Amendment) Regulations 1985
Merchant Shipping (Grain) Regulations 1985
Merchant Shipping (Fire Protection) (Amendment) Regulations 1985
Merchant Shipping (Fire Appliances) (Amendment) Regulations 1985
Merchant Shipping (Fire Protection) (Ships Built Before 25th May 1980) Regulations 1985
Lord Brabazon of Tara Lord Brabazon of Tara rose to move, That the five draft regulations laid before the House be approved. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move that the Merchant Shipping (Radio Installations) (Amendment) Regulations 1985, laid before the House on 5th July, be approved. With the leave of the House, I should like also to move the other four merchant shipping regulation orders standing in my name on the Order Paper.
These regulations will implement, in part, the first set of amendments to the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS 1974), which was adopted in 1981. For ease of reference, I shall refer to them as "the amendments". Various sets of regulations have already been made to apply other parts of the amendments to United Kingdom ships and to non-United Kingdom ships while the latter are within the United Kingdom or our territorial waters. The five sets of regulations to be approved will complete all the regulations necessary to implement the amendments.
The 1978 Protocol to the 1974 Convention required that no more favourable treatment in meeting the requirements of the convention—and that includes amendments to it—be given to ships of non-convention countries. It is in this context that these regulations extend to ships of all other countries while they are within the United Kingdom or our territorial waters.
The amendments were laid by Command on 5th October 1982. Their purpose is to improve the safety of ships and of those who sail in them. Overall, they provide for improvements in passenger and cargo ship construction; steering gear systems for tankers; radiotelephony and telegraphy and radar systems; inert gas systems; fire protection, detection and extinction; and for the carriage of grain.
I trust that your Lordships will find this brief explanation satisfactory. I shall of course be able to deal in more detail with each regulation separately if any of your Lordships wishes me so to do. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 18th June be approved. [27th Report from the Joint Committee.];
That the draft regulations laid before the House on 18th June be approved. [27th Report from the Joint Committee.];
That the draft regulations laid before the House on 5th July be approved. [28th Report from the Joint Committee.];
That the draft regulations laid before the House on 5th July be approved. [28th Report from the Joint Committee.];
That the draft regulations laid before the House on 5th July be approved. [28th Report from the Joint Committee.]—(Lord Brabazon of Tara.)
Lord Underhill: My Lords, any orders which seek to implement international conventions, and particularly those which deal with the safety of life at sea, deserve our serious consideration. I noted that the noble Lord referred to discussions with the shipping industry. I do not know whether or not that included the appropriate trade unions but I am informed that the National Union of Seamen has considered these orders and found them eminently satisfactory, and therefore the Opposition welcome them.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord.
On Question, Motions agreed to.
House adjourned at twenty-two minutes past four o'clock.