Lords Sitting of 15 May 1985

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

Lord Silkin of Dulwich
The Right Honourable Samuel Charles Silkin, QC, having been created Baron Silkin of Dulwich, of North Leigh in the County of Oxfordshire, for life—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Lord Elwyn-Jones and the Lord Boston of Faversham.
Lord Russell of Killowen—Took the Oath.

Remand Hearings: Production of Prisoners
2.48 p.m.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many inmates of prisons in Greater London were not produced for remand hearings in April 1985 because of staff shortages.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Glenarthur): One hundred and twenty three, my Lords.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that remarkable Answer. Will he not agree that there is something most unusual about a situation in which the Government are incapable of fulfilling their responsibilities to produce remand prisoners at the appropriate time, as required by the law?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, the problem, as I think the noble Lord will be aware, largely concerns Brixton and the difficulties with staff there. The fact is that we are exploring ways of improving the timetabling of production of cases, of encouraging remands in the absence of the accused and of transferring cases to reduce multiple court appearances, and all that should help.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, has not the prison population in this country risen to a record figure of 46,000; have not the latest figures of those on remand shown an increase of some 26 per cent.; and has not the Secretary of State announced that he needs to recruit 5,000 more prison officers? Does not all this, including the Answer to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, show a most critical state in our prisons?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, the Question on the Order Paper is strictly related to the production of
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prisoners for remand hearings. The noble Lord is quite right when he says that the prison population generally is much higher than it has been, and is in excess of 46,000. But so far as the recruitment of prison officers is concerned, yes, there is a full recruitment programme under way. Priority has to be given to the staffing of new accommodation; and, of course, there is a large programme of building taking place as well.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, can the Minister tell the House the extent to which there are currently discussions going on concerning the manpower levels in prisons? Will he bear in mind that if he is in fact to eliminate the staff shortages which are indicated in the Question he really ought to prevail upon his right honourable friend to give higher priority to the promises he has already made about increasing the number of prison officers?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I note the points which the noble Lord makes, but they are, I think, quite wide of the immediate Question in front of us on the Order Paper.
Lord Hutchinson of Lullington: My Lords, will the Minister agree that the staff shortage is due entirely to the enormous number of prison officers who are being used on escort duties at the moment? Will he also agree that the reason why that enormous number is being so used is because the Government do absolutely nothing about the scandal of the remand prisoner situation?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, the noble Lord may be right in part about the escorting side. Yes, there is some effect so far as that is concerned. I think that I indicated in answer to an earlier supplementary question that the Government were concerned about the remand situation and that they were taking steps to try to resolve it.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: My Lords, have not the difficulties referred to in the Question been made far worse by the deplorable increase in the number of untried and unsentenced prisoners from 8,376 in February 1984 to 9,728 in February of this year? Is that not a deplorable development?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, it is the case that the figures have increased. With the rise in the number of those untried the number of prisoners required to be produced has increased dramatically over the past few years, which is the point the noble and learned Lord is trying to make. Brixton, for example, now faces about five requests for productions every day, and to fulfill this would require 10 staff. I think that that gives some indication of the sort of problems associated with escorting, which was part of the question of the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, may I just put to the noble Lord the question which I asked him a few moments ago, namely: what are the Government's statutory responsibilities in terms of producing remand prisoners? At a time when the Government rightly ask everyone else to observe the law, why are they not doing it themselves.?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, as far as I am aware, we do fulfil what is perfectly legitimate practice. When we cannot provide people to escort remand prisoners we produce them at a later date. I acknowledge the noble Lord's concern about it, but it is not simply a question of redeploying staff, of providing more staff or of implementing various other suggestions to mollify the situation. But we do comply with the law.
Lord Ferrier: My Lords, can my noble friend say what is the position with regard to the introduction here of the system in Scotland, where if a prisoner is not charged within 100 days then he is released?
Lord Glenarthur: Not without notice, my Lords.

Non-EC Almonds and Hazelnuts
2.54 p.m.
Lord Mottistone: 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 accession of Spain and Portugal to the EC will have an effect on the supply of almonds and hazelnuts from non-EC countries to United Kingdom food manufacturers.
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, the terms on which non-EC almonds and hazelnuts enter the Community will be unaffected by the accession of Spain and Portugal.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his reply, which seems favourable. Is he aware that the nuts referred to in the Question have to be bought outside the Community because of their quality? Is he aware that over the past few years there has been difficulty in getting import duties on them reduced because of objections by Italy? Will my noble friend please expand on the reasons for his obvious optimism in this area?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, there is no evidence that producers in the Twelve will suffer from competition from California and Turkey. In the case of almonds, the United States product is the only one which provides a guaranteed supply of non-bitter almonds, which are required for confectionery. Turkish hazelnuts likewise fulfil a market requirement which cannot be met by Mediterranean products. A commission study has stated that after accession the Community will be far from self-sufficient in these products.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, are the Government in favour of bringing the 7 per cent. almond duty to an end, and are they confident that Spain and Portugal will accept this? So far as hazelnuts are concerned, if I may enter this esoteric field a little further, do Her Majesty's Government favour increasing the Turkish imports of hazelnuts into this country and into the EC generally?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, non-EC imports of almonds and hazelnuts enter the Community at a
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tariff rate of 7 per cent. and 4 per cent. respectively, except for a small tariff-free quota for Turkish hazelnuts. After accession the tariff rate on imports from Spain and Portugal will be progressively reduced during the transition period. The Government indeed recognise the importance of maintaining access for supplies from traditional sources to meet the United Kingdom demand for nuts with specific characteristics, such as non-bitter almonds from the United States of America and Turkish hazelnuts.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, can we therefore expect that the Government will be firm when the Spaniards and the Portuguese come to support the Italians in making it more difficult, or in hoping to make it more difficult, for us to import, and that they will make sure that changes do not come about except those which are favourable to United Kingdom manufacturers?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, yes, the Government will be firm. I should like to correct my noble friend on one matter. He keeps mentioning the objections from Italy. I have no knowledge of this at all. The United States is offering to reduce customs duties on certain agricultural products—table grapes, olive oil and pepperino cheese—in return for the Community agreeing to reduce its tariff on almonds from 7 per cent. to 2 per cent. As part of the same package the Americans are also offering to increase by 2,000 tonnes their cheese quota to benefit Italian-type cheeses of Community origin. This matter has been discussed on a number of occasions by the Article 113 Committee, and in fact we, Denmark, Germany and Italy are in favour of accepting this offer. I do not think that the Italians have been in the least bit unhelpful.
Lord Maude of Stratford-upon-Avon: My Lords, can my noble friend tell me why this country should need to import hazelnuts at all? They grow prolifically all over the southern parts of this country and are of excellent quality.
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, I have not sampled them. Obviously, with my figure, I try to keep off sweets, but I understand that the ones from overseas are better for use in the production of confectionery.

Teachers: New Pay Structure
2.58 p.m.
Baroness David: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will make clearer the basis upon which a new remuneration package for teachers would be acceptable.
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science has made clear the basis upon which he would commend a new renumeration package to his Cabinet colleagues. It must be agreed by both teachers and employers; it must be good for education; and it

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must be affordable. No proposals for a new renumeration structure have yet met even the first criterion.
Baroness David: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Could he perhaps persuade his right honourable friend to say something a little more positive and helpful about the package he wants, and in a little more detail? When his right honourable friend speaks of assessment and appraisal, could he perhaps link them with staff development and in-service training, and not give the impression that they are a form of punishment, which is how it sometimes comes over? It is very important that encouragement should be given to the teaching profession if it is hoped to attract and keep able people in that profession.
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, my right honourable friend has spelt out all the conditions he places on a reform package, and he stands ready to seek extra resources to offer greater rewards to teachers performing especially well. He would very much like to do something for the good teachers who, in the days of growing pupil numbers, would have received promotion. This means a salary in which pay is more directly linked to performance.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, does the noble Earl not appreciate that the pay of teachers has fallen well behind comparable callings in recent years, and that that, together with the fact that the Secretary of State is consistently talking about bad teachers—indeed, the noble Earl has just just referred to "good teachers", implying that there are bad teachers—is destroying the morale of teachers throughout the country? Is the Minister not aware of the fact that there is no greater number of bad teachers than there is of bad anything else, including Cabinet Ministers? When will the Government give a fair deal to the teachers of this country?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, I really must point out that it was the noble Lord who mentioned bad teachers; certainly I did not mention bad teachers. I should like to pay tribute to the many hundreds of teachers who daily bring skill, commitment and dedication to their difficult task.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: Thousands of teachers, my Lords.
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, I should also like to remind the noble Lord, if he will listen to my anwer to his question, that teachers' pay has in fact more than kept pace with inflation since the general election in 1979.
The Countess of Mar: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that in the package that was presented to the teachers a head of department, for example, would suffer a loss of £500 a year under the new arrangements and regrading?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, I am not sure to which package the noble Countess is referring. I understand that there is a general atmosphere in which all kinds of things can be said and discussed.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, can my noble friend say when and why the teachers reduced their advantages resulting from the Houghton award?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, that occurred prior to 1979. The noble Lord, Lord Houghton, will correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that his award was made in 1975.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: It was in 1974, my Lords.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, does the Minister not agree that the noble Lord, Lord Short, in saying that there are no more bad teachers than there are Cabinet Ministers, has in fact admitted there are bad teachers?
The Earl of Swinton: Yes, my Lords; and I believe that he is named Lord Glenamara.
Baroness David: My Lords, will the Minister please recognise that assessment linked with merit awards is exactly what offends the profession?
The Earl of Swinton: I cannot think why, my Lords.

Youth Training Scheme: EC Support
3.2 p.m.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Winchilsea and Nottingham on the Order Paper:
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what action they propose to take with reference to the Youth Training Scheme, in view of the recently announced rule changes affecting the allocation of the EC's £1·2 billion social fund.
Lord Denham: With his permission, my Lords? At his request?
Baroness Seear: Yes, my Lords.
The Minister Without Portfolio (Lord Young of Graffham): My Lords, no decision has yet been made on the amount of money which the social fund will allocate to the Youth Training Scheme in 1985. The European Commission has recently announced some changes in the fund guidelines for 1986, but it is too soon to say how these will affect Community support for the scheme.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, in view of the fact that successive Governments have not taken any account of the additionality principle as laid down by the Commission and have in fact determined their own expenditure on the basis of what contributions were coming from the Community in one form or another, will the noble Lord give the House an assurance that if the amounts received from the Community are rather less than that for which the Government budgeted when fixing their own expenditure, the Government will increase the expenditure by the amount by which the contributions from the EC fall short of the originally anticipated total?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, for that question. The Government are always deeply conscious of the contribution made by the social fund. Nevertheless, the Government have made their plans for the Youth Training Scheme and do not intend to depart from them.

Business
Lord Denham: My Lords, it may be for the convenience of your Lordships if I say a few words at this point about the arrangements for this afternoon's short debates standing in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Rochester and Lord Kennet. The custom in short debates is that the mover is allowed approximately 15 minutes and that the Minister should rise to reply not less than 20 minutes before the scheduled end of the debate. In the case of the short debate in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, this means that all other speeches should be limited to a maximum of 10 minutes; in that of the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, 14 minutes. If any noble Lord should speak at greater length, it would be at the expense of subsequent speakers in that particular debate.

Trade Union Balloting Procedures
3.5 p.m.
Lord Rochester Lord Rochester rose to call attention to the need for trade union balloting procedures to operate so that they reflect the views of union members accurately; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I hope it will be generally agreed that the time is opportune to have this debate on a matter that is clearly of immediate public concern. It is particularly gratifying that so many distinguished former leaders of the trade union movement are to take part. The subject of trade union balloting procedures is potentially an emotive one, but I do not doubt that it will be discussed dispassionately, in accordance with the best traditions of your Lordships' House. I shall endeavour to give a lead in that direction by treating the matter as even-handedly as possible.
Accordingly, I shall begin by saying that I am a strong supporter of trade unions and of the rights of individuals, except in the most exceptional circumstances, to belong to them. Indeed, it is my view that management needs trade unions to keep them up to their job.
It is the publicity given recently to last year's election for the post of general secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union which has made this debate so timely. I should acknowledge at once that, along with other noble Lords, in our discussions last year I acquiesced in the Government's view that the provisions of the Trade Union Act 1984 relating to union elections should apply only to voting members of their principal executive committees. In the light of recent events, I have changed my mind. The chief executive officers of large, powerful and sometimes monopolistic trade unions may not in
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every case have a vote at the meetings of their governing bodies, but in the past 12 months their great influence has been amply demonstrated.
I naturally welcome the fact that having uncovered balloting irregularities in their leadership election, members of the Transport and General Workers' Union have, under their own rules, succeeded in bringing about a re-run of that election. But it is in my view regrettable that the union did not permit the director of the independent Industrial Society to carry out a full investigation into all the allegations that have been made. The second ballot is to take place under basically the same conditions as the first and there are no indications that, in that election, branch voting returns are to be published.
In the case of the forthcoming election for a successor to the retiring general secretary of the General, Municipal and Boilermakers' Union, I understand that voting is to take place under the unrepresentative and, I should have thought, now discredited branch block voting system.
As to the National Union of Mineworkers, which was formerly so much admired for its democratic processes, it appears that its present leaders are seeking to alter the union's rule book in such a way as to do away with the casting vote of the president, acting in his capacity of chairman of the National Executive Committee, in order to ensure that he does not have to submit himself for re-election at all.
In these circumstances, I believe that the time has come for procedures relating to the election of the chief executive officers of all trade unions to be brought within the law, as in the case of voting members of union governing bodies.
On the more general question of the relative merits of workplace and postal ballots, it is clear, first, that there is a duty on every trade union to have compiled by 1st October next a central register of the names and addresses of its members so that the presumption in favour of postal ballots under Section 1 of the 1984 Act can apply. Moreover, there are no financial impediments standing in the way of postal ballots, since under Section 1 of the Employment Act 1980 payments may be made to unions which hold them.
Beyond that it seems to me that it should now be made a statutory requirement that the distribution, counting and return of voting papers should be supervised by some suitable independent body. I do not see how in workplace ballots in many cases this independent scrutiny can be undertaken except by making arrangements so elaborate as to render them impracticable. It follows in my view that postal ballots should be the norm unless a union can itself convince the certification officer that an exception justifying an independently supervised workplace ballot should be made in its particular case.
It may be argued that in imposing such statutory constraints on the electoral procedures of trade unions an invidious distinction would be drawn between them and other organisations. To that I would reply that trade unions still enjoy exceptional legal immunities, and as has recently been all too clearly shown, more particularly in the public sector they wield enormous monopolistic power.
I turn briefly to the question of pre-strike ballots,

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and I should like, first, to reaffirm that my noble friends and I support wholeheartedly the principle that ballots should precede industrial action whenever that is feasible. Particularly is this so in the case of major national stoppages such as that we have recently had to endure in the coal industry. Last year I expressed misgivings, stemming from my own experience, lest in other cases the statutory means chosen by the Government to deal with industrial action authorised or endorsed by a trade union without the support of a ballot might give rise to even more unofficial action than there already is. But the Government's view on the matter prevailed, and as the problems involved are intricate I shall not now dwell on them further.
I turn instead to the question of ballots concerning the application of trade union funds for certain political purposes. Under the 1984 Act, all trade unions which have political funds and have not within the past 10 years held a ballot to approve them must, before 31st March next year, give their members an opportunity to vote on the matter. One such union, SOGAT, has already done so; others will follow very soon. More than any of the other ballots in question these are therefore of immediate concern and it is, in my view, imperative that the procedures under which they take place should operate so that they accurately reflect the views of union members. Yet there are no indications that in practice there will be independent scrutiny of these ballots.
Moreover, if they do produce a majority vote in favour of the retention of a political fund, that fund may continue for a further 10 years; but there are no safeguards to ensure that the money accruing from the levy that may then be imposed will be applied so as to accord with the political views of those who pay it. There will not even be a system under which union members have to contract into, rather than out of, paying the levy. Furthermore, the so-called check-off system under which the levy may be deducted from an employee's pay may still operate even where an individual has contracted out of paying the levy, unless he certifies to his employer that he is exempt from paying it or has notified his union that he objects to doing so. Surely, as a matter of principle, all this is wrong.
My noble friends and I consider that there is an urgent need to find ways of financing political parties that are different from, and fairer than, those that now exist. Indeed, I have come increasingly to dislike all forms of corporate political funding by either trade unions or business interests.
In conclusion—for there are many noble Lords who wish to speak in the debate—may I say that in this whole matter of balloting procedures, in my view much the best course would have been for trade unions to have put their own houses in order. However, to judge from what has happened, and has not happened, during the past year—most recently, if I may say so, from the inaction of the TUC Policy Committee on the question at its meeting last month—it appears that more legislation now needs to be enacted to protect union members from further abuses of power that have been identified over the past year. Unfortunately, this will do nothing positive to encourage management and employee representatives to work together to
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achieve what should be their common purpose; namely, the production of goods and services for the benefit of the community.
Much more conducive to that end is the private Member's Bill which has just been introduced in another place with the support of members of all political parties. It seeks to place on the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service a duty to promote the Code of Practice and Action Guide earlier drawn up jointly by the Industrial Participation Association and the Institute of Personnel Management, with the aim of stimulating greater employee involvement at the place of work. I very much welcome this development as a way of reinforcing the provisions of Section 1 of the Employment Act 1982. I hope that when the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, replies to the debate he will be able to tell us that the Government will do all that they can to facilitate the passage of that Bill through both Houses of Parliament. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.20 p.m.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, it is the pleasant convention of this House that subsequent speakers express gratitude to the opener of the debate for opening and initiating it, but on this occasion it is no mere empty convention. I am sure the House as a whole is very much indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, for introducing a debate on this most important subject, and perhaps I may also add that his sense of timing is clearly impeccable. I believe that that proposition is supported above all by the remainder of the list of speakers.
Your Lordships' House has the advantage of containing among its membership many of the leading figures of the trade union movement and no fewer than five leading figures, major figures, in the trade union world have put down their names to speak in this debate; and that of itself would justify the debate. Also, the fact that we in this House can muster a larger number of top level trade union leaders than can conceivably be found in another place is indicative of the way this House has developed so that it absorbs in its membership all the leading figures in all the important activities in this country.
The specific point that the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, has raised is that of ballots and I have no doubt that your Lordships as a whole will agree that if we are to have ballots, it is absolutely essential that they should be conducted fairly and in a way that is seen and recognised to be fair. Obviously, ballots which are fiddled or which can be even suspected of being fiddled are worse than no ballots at all because a ballot carries with it, as it were, a statement of the views of the members of a union, and if its outcome is not a true expression of the views of those members, it is positively dangerous and harmful.
I know there are some people who are doubtful about the value of ballots. On the other hand, there are in this country a number of unions which, without any compulsion or pressure from authority, have had a system of balloting for various important aspects of their work for many years; and therefore there is no doctrinal conflict about the value of ballots. What is essential—and I should have thought that your Lordships would agree entirely—is that ballots should

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be fairly and properly conducted. I have no doubt that in the great majority of cases they are, but your Lordships cannot but be impressed or depressed by the developments in the biggest of all the unions, the Transport and General Workers, in connection with the election last year of its new general secretary. That was a thoroughly depressing affair and I agree very much with the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, that the union has acted very properly indeed in deciding to hold that election over again. But confidence will not be restored unless that further election is plainly seen to have been fairly conducted, whatever its outcome.
I believe in general in the value of postal ballots, but I do not want to seem dogmatic about it, and obviously there are occasions when all the machinery and expense of a postal ballot is not justified. For strike action, yes; for the election of very important officers, yes; for the institution of a political fund, probably yes; but where there are, as in some unions, a very large number of elections it would be cumbrous and expensive. Even though if the union so wishes, central Government will finance it, I think it would be extravagant and unnecessary to have it. Therefore, I am doubtful as to whether it would be sensible, as I believe some of my noble friends would like to see done, to make postal ballots compulsory. However, there is one point which I should like to put to your Lordships which has been put to me very strongly in the last few days by several very experienced trade unionists. It is the importance in any major ballot of publishing the results branch by branch. This is, I understand, laid down by the rules of the Transport and General Workers' Union, but was not in last year's case complied with. The advantage of branch by branch publication is obvious because certainly the local branch secretary and active members of the branch will have a very good idea as to how their members, particularly in the smallish branch, have voted, and therefore any opportunity for fiddling, for distorting the results, is very much diminished.
I very much hope that those who speak with far greater authority than I do on trade union matters and who will follow in this debate will say something by way of commendation of the suggestion that as a general practice in publishing the results of a ballot there should be given not only the total result, but also branch-by-branch figures. I believe that this is perhaps rather more important to the proper conduct of ballots and for confidence in them than might at first sight appear.
I have only one other point to make. It arises from something that I mentioned a moment ago. Under recent legislation where a union wishes to undertake a postal ballot Government finance is available. I am sorry that a great many unions—not all, but a great many, and I think basically they dislike the legislation as such—have taken the view that they will not take the Governments money to finance such a ballot. In this day and age to refuse Government money has almost a touch of rather engaging asceticism about it, but I hope unions which take that view will give it very serious thought.
The fact that a Government who are very keen on restraining public expenditure think it so important that ballots by these powerful bodies should in many cases be undertaken by post is indicative of the real
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anxiety that is felt about these ballots. The fact that the Government are prepared to put up money indicates that they really acknowledge that, and I hope that those who carry the great responsibility of leading these powerful bodies will give further and careful thought to this. I hope and believe that this debate can do nothing but good, and I sincerely trust that my small contribution will not be thought to have done any harm.
3.27 p.m.
Lord Murray of Epping Forest: My Lords, some 20 or so years ago a leading industrial correspondent wrote and published a book entitled What's Wrong with the Unions? I have long believed that a great part of the sales of that book must have come from people observing the title and thinking that if anyone can write a whole book about it, there must, indeed, be a great deal wrong with trade unions. I would not compare it in too narrow a sense with the Motion confronting us this afternoon, though there may be those on the other side who think that if this noble House can take time off from defending democracy in other parts of our society, there must, indeed, be something deeply wrong with balloting inside trade unions.
However, in indicating my gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, for introducing his Motion perhaps I may say that it is predicated on the proposition that we would not be debating this at all unless unions were themselves widely perceived as models of democracy, as organisations which inherently and differently from many other organisations are themselves democratic. To trade unions democracy is not a matter for debate. It is a matter for practice day by day, and day in and day out. At the end of the road, and sometimes it may be a tortuous and stony road, it is union members who make the decisions which bring their needs to account, as I know to my cost having had decisions turned over more than once by members.
However, it is right that the House and society should expect high standards from trade unions, and perhaps standards that we would not expect from other organisations in our society. After all, there would be little point in our debating a Motion expressing concern about defects in ballots relating to the election of those who own and control our great newspapers. We should not find very much time to spend on that, or, indeed—and I say this with the deepest respect—on a book entitled, What's Wrong With the Bishops? with a suitably lurid cover, which might command a wide and quite unjustified readership.
Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Lord Murray of Epping Forest: But I am not going to talk about our noble House or, as has been proposed, the argument about whether we should be subject to annual reselection—although having seen the marvellously caparisoned Members this afternoon, I am perhaps tempted to wish that that were an annual occasion. However, I would suggest that people who live in undemocratic glasshouses should not be the first to lift a stone.

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I am not by any means arguing that unions are perfect in their arrangements or procedures. There is a case to answer. Of course we all join in condemning deviations from the standards which should be maintained. Certainly I wholeheartedly join both the leading candidates in the election within the TGWU to which reference has been made this afternoon in demanding—indeed, insisting—that there should be a re-run of that election. I am grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Rochester and Lord Boyd-Carpenter, for adding their views to the general approbation of the conduct of those two leading candidates.
I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, that I share his hope that in the re-run there will be the publication of results branch by branch. I see no reason whatsoever why that should not be done. I hope that that practice will be followed, although frankly—and I say "frankly"—I do not believe that there is any comparison between what has happened inside the TGWU and what happened inside the electrical trades union some years ago. No doubt the noble Lord, Lord Chapple, with his great experience in the field of ballots and his knowledge of ballot rigging, will be able to illuminate us on that score. But however few deviations there may be—however exceptional this may be, and reference has been made to that—we should condemn them, seek to correct the situation, and above all seek to avoid it.
I suspect that implicit in this discussion are two propositions. The first is that balloting is the best—indeed, the only—way to give effect to democracy in the trade union movement. The second is more worrying—that trade unionists cannot be trusted to conduct their own affairs honestly. It is not a question of debating the value of balloting as such, as has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter. Many unions already hold that in their rules. In the guidelines laid down by the TUC in 1979 the strong recommendation was made that all unions should incorporate in their rules provisions for strike ballots, including provisions for ballots to be held where a strike is contemplated or during the course of a strike, and that those provisions should include strictly defined procedures for the conduct of the ballot, for sanctions, for breaches and for dealing with complaints. As has been said, many unions have these already.
The noble Lord, Lord Rochester, called in question what he described as inaction by the TUC. Let me tell the noble Lord and this noble House the problem of extending and developing the application of that code which goes well beyond ballots. The problem was resentment on the part of affiliated unions at the decision taken by the Government, with no consultation with the trade union movement, to impose legal shackles upon trade unions as part of what I can only, and with a heavy heart, describe as the anti-union ideology.
As bad currency drives out good, so bad laws drive out good voluntary practices, and moreover voluntary practices which are more effective than laws. I take leave to suggest that the TUC has sorted out or prevented disputes, which, with deep respect, no learned judge could have understood, let alone dealt with. But when I as general secretary approached one
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union in the course of a dispute I was told: "Keep out. We have laws now which deal with these matters. We shall deal with the law and the lawyers. We are not interested in the TUC's code of practice". That I found distasteful but understandable.
I am not opposed to the judicious application of law in industrial relations or in relation to trade union affairs. I believe that if in 1979 the newly-appointed Secretary of State for Employment had had the freedom to respond to our request that he should set out the issues and problems of industrial relations and of the conduct of trade unions which we asked for as a basis of discussion, accommodation might well have been reached with the Government. I am sorry that that was not available then, and I say almost with distress that I believe that it is not available now with the present Administration since the point of no return was reached over GCHQ some 12 months ago. I believe that that dashed whatever hopes there might have been of securing an agreement in that and other areas.
I still hope that means may be found, perhaps through discussions between the TUC and the CBI, to establish an agreed caucus of good practice in industrial relations—including a caucus of agreed law in industrial relations. In 1969 we were as near as a wafer's thinness to achieving that with CBI until the Heath Government introduced their new legislation in the wake of the election at that time. But I believe that it is in that direction and in that area that we should be looking for solutions to the problems such as those which have been raised this afternoon.
I would put one request to the noble Lord, Lord Rochester. It is to join me in urging the Government to allow the members of unions to conduct secret ballots—properly supervised and properly monitored—on whether they should have the Government determine and lay down the rules under which that union has to operate or whether they themselves should continue to determine their own rules and practices. This is an offer which has been made to the Government previously. Since the whole purpose of this Motion, indeed the purpose of the legislation, is claimed to be the restoration of freedom to union members, that they shall control their own affairs and be seen to control them honestly, I should like to believe that the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, would join me in reiterating that request to the Government that they should allow secret ballots to take place to that end. I would guarantee that the TUC would abide by that result.
I am appreciative of the occasion which the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, has given us. I hope that in the course of the Government's reply we shall hear from them a rather more co-operative and responsive attitude to the relationships between the trade unions and the Government than unfortunately has prevailed in recent years.
3.41 p.m.
Lord Denning: My Lords, so far as the general public is concerned, perhaps the most important provision regarding ballots was in the Trade Union Act last year, Part II: "Secret Ballots Before Industrial Action". Let us consider what that entails in law. Before the National Union of Railwaymen can call a one-day

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strike and put everyone to the greatest discomfiture, they must have a secret ballot of their members. Before transport undertakings can prevent coal being delivered to the steel works (that is blacking) they must have a secret ballot of the members who are affected. There must be a secret ballot before there is industrial action.
My Lords, what is the way in which it is enforced? If there is no secret ballot, the courts can issue an injunction. If the trade union goes ahead in spite of the injunction, if it disobeys it, it can be fined for contempt of court. If it does not pay the fine its assets can be sequestrated. If it tries to send those assets abroad they can be hauled hack. The law is now effective to deal with trade unions which disobey the law. It was not until 1982 that this could be done. From 1906 to 1982 the trade unions were immune from any processes of law. No action could be brought against them for any wrong done or to be done. No injunction could be sought, no fines imposed, or the like. There was no process whatsoever against trade unions. However, now there is.
I am glad to follow the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Epping Forest, because he made a most important pronouncement in the Shah case. Your Lordships remember how the National Graphical Association wanted to have a closed shop in premises in Stockport, and how there was mass picketing and the like. Injunctions were granted by the courts against those illegal acts. Furthermore, those injunctions were disobeyed and the NGA was fined I think £600 or £700.
Then the NGA appealed to the Trades Union Congress for support. The noble Lord, Lord Murray, in a most important pronouncement, said the Trades Union Congress would not support action which was unlawful. That was one of the most important pronouncements which we have ever heard from that important body the Trades Union Congress. Thus I hope that in future the courts can deal with unlawful action.
This now brings me to the crux of the case. In regard to strikes or industrial action there must now be a secret ballot. However, although we passed the Act in the utmost good faith last year, it does not give any guidance or regulation as to how the ballot is to be conducted. We have recently heard about the Transport and General Workers' Union ballot. That was another matter, the matter of a ballot for the election of the general secretary. However, from the way it was conducted there could be ballot rigging in that place.
Your Lordships can imagine how such ballot rigging happens. The trade union official is given a whole hatch of voting papers which he has to distribute to the men as they come off work or come in to work. The men then make a mark, for example, in the case of the Transport and General Workers' Union, indicating whether they are in favour of that general secretary; or, in other cases, whether they are in favour of a strike or against it. What opportunities there are for ballot rigging!
If the men pass by and say, "Oh, I cannot be bothered with that", it is said that in some cases the trade union official himself can fill in the papers which are in his hand. If a man discards the papers, a trade
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union official can fill them in himself. In fact, one man boasted of having voted 130 times because he had been able to fill in the papers which were not used.
There are infinite ways of ballot rigging unless there is proper scrutiny and control. I am afraid that our statute of last year did not do anything about it. It simply said that the trade union must hold a ballot and the votes must be counted for "Yes" or "No". There ought to be guidelines as to how a ballot is to be conducted. There ought to be scrutineers. There ought to be independent people to see that the ballot is properly conducted. There is nothing in the statute about it.
Can there not be a code of practice drawn up? It would be better if there could be postal ballots. They would be much more difficult to rig than the others. However, why not have a code of practice? Perhaps it could be drawn up by consultation between the Trades Union Congress and the Department of Trade, or whatever it may be. Why can there not be a code of practice to say how these ballots are to be conducted; how there is to be an independent scrutineer to see how they are distributed and to watch. In other words, a code of practice should be drawn up to see that the ballot truly represents the votes and the feeling of the members. There ought to be a proper code of practice to deal with these ballots. There ought to be proper scrutiny in order to fill in the omissions which are in the statute which we already have.
I make a plea for the proper conduct of ballots, and for secret ballots, before industrial action. Then this country would be relieved of a great deal of trouble such as it has had in the past with all these sudden one-day strikes and the like which have been called without any consultation with anybody or any ballots. With regard to the mineworkers' strike against the National Coal Board, if only this clause in the statute had been on the statute book before that strike was called, the strike could not have been called unless there had been a ballot of the members. If it had been called, the courts could have granted an injunction. If the injunction had been disobeyed, then the courts could impose a fine for contempt and in due course sequestrate the assets of the union. The law in this country should prevail. It is the one way to restore the proper conduct of industrial relations.
3.49 p.m.
Lord Orr-Ewing: My Lords, in the absence of the next speaker on the list I think I should follow on. I should like to endorse the remarks that the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, has done a great service to this House in raising this issue. My only disappointment is that today the official Opposition Benches are rather sparsely populated. Admittedly, they make up for that in quality, because there are three prominent ex-trade union leaders sitting on the other side of the House, and we shall listen with interest to what they have to say. I have just been counting the number of Members sitting on the different Benches. Perhaps this is not shown on television. There were 20 Members from the Alliance Party; 12 Members from the official Opposition; very large numbers of Cross-Benchers, and some 35 Tories. Thus the Opposition is very thinly represented, with scarcely a dozen Members.

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No system that can be worked out in this matter can possibly be perfect. However, I cannot help feeling—and I think many moderate trade unionists must feel the same—that steps should be taken to reduce the chances and opportunities of ballot-rigging. I am sure that such a reform would strengthen the hands of the moderate, dependable members. Perhaps more importantly, it would weaken the influence and hold of the hard Left on the top jobs.
Last June and July, this House was pressing the Government to institute postal ballots of a nature that the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, has suggested, with independent scrutineers—a vital part of any such process—built into the 1984 Act. I recall that two of my noble friends Lord Renton and Lord Beloff moved and seconded amendments at the Committee and Report stages. Sadly, neither is able to be here to take part in this debate. The voting on that occasion, with a lot of Alliance support—I think that we had 18 Alliance Members with us—was 85 for postal ballots with scrutineers and 65 against. It was a combination of the official Opposition and the Government party that defeated the Motion. The majority of the House pleaded with the Secretary of State for Employment, Mr. Tom King, in that vote, but he was not to be persuaded. He, together with the officials at the Department of Employment, and of course the trade unions, said that it should not be mandatory but that it should be done where possible. This was despite the fact that MORI polls at the time showed, and still show, huge majorities of union members preferring secret postal ballots with independent scrutiny. This is especially true in the big unions.
A year ago, 75 per cent. of Transport and General Workers' Union members were asking for secret ballots and only 18 per cent. were against that. In the NUM, 81 per cent. of members were for secret postal ballots, with 12 per cent. against. And in the General and Municipal Workers' Union, the other big one, 87 per cent. were in favour of postal votes. Yet the suggestion was rejected and time allowed in the hope that the TUC would press ahead and reform methods. I have re-read the Second Reading speech of the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, at that time. The noble Lord has, I think, firmed up his view as a result of what has happened in the past year. He is now rather more in favour, whereas a year ago he had some reservations.
Much discussion has touched upon the Garnett report. I have re-read the report in recent days. We owe a debt to John Garnett of the Industrial Society for undertaking the report. However, I cannot help feeling that the restrictions placed upon him were unnecessary. The report would have been more valuable if it had been more comprehensive and less rushed. One has to ask whether the report would ever have been undertaken but for the publicity given by BBC Newsnight, the Observer and The Sunday Times. The noble Lord, Lord Murray, did not touch upon this. I cannot help feeling that without this publicity these matters would never have emerged. It is now a year since the Transport and General Workers' ballot when Mr. Ron Todd, one of the hard left, was elected. It was only following this publicity that the union moved gently and rather reluctantly. Then it acted in a tremendous rush so that John Garnett had to
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conduct the whole operation, as he says in the report, in 13 hours—13 hours to undertake a major investigation examining malpractices confined to the London area. He picked out 12 cases where more than 95 per cent. of the votes were cast for one candidate. That is a pretty high level. I would have thought that he could have examined cases involving more than 75 per cent. of the votes. But the figure was 95 per cent. Two of the cases have been widely publicised. In one, involving 800 votes, 799 were cast for one candidate with one spoiled paper. In another case of 150 votes, 149 were cast for one candidate with, again, one spoiled paper. That is the only regularly recurring item. It is, I am afraid just the tip of the iceberg that is shown in the report, good as it is and highlighting some of the points that need to be highlighted.
It has been suggested in the past—I am not sure whether the noble Lord, Lord Scanlon, will mention this again—that these are rare occurrences and that when they occur they must be put right. They are not so rare occurrences. In the parliamentary debates on the 1984 Act, reference to possible malpractices in trade union elections evoked outraged responses and shouts of "smear" and the like. We were told that it was not true. Such protestations of universal innocence are made perhaps on the assumption that although malpractices may be suspected, they can very rarely be proved. It is very difficult, especially a long time afterwards, to prove to what extent malpractices occurred.
In post war years, in many national unions, the election rules have been changed because members, quite rightly, were profoundly dissatisfied with the existing rules. This happened on very good grounds in the case of the National Union of Seamen, the Bakers' Union, the Furniture Trades Union, the AUEW and the EEPTU. I name just a few. In recent elections for general secretary, major disputes have arisen in the boilermakers' society, the National Union of Mineworkers and the TGWU. The current controversy in the TGWU is not the first in that union. In the 1977 election—I have been looking up the figures—in which John Cousins stood, he said, when the result was announced:
"There were irregularities but because of Mr. Moss Evans's wide margin of victory—230,000 votes—it was not worth contesting".
That is a quotation from the Financial Times of 16th April 1985.
Leadership elections in the NUM have been generally held up by supporters of work place ballots to be the highest expression of the mode. One has felt oneself aligned sometimes in the past with that claim because the ballots seemed to have worked rather well for special reasons. But they cannot stand close scrutiny. The ballot is issued at the pithead by the branch scrutineers with active physical assistance—I stress—"active physical assistance"—as well as what is called "verbal guidance" as to how the member should exercise his democratic right. There is an abundance of spare ballot papers to hand should the scrutineer decide to improve on the member's choice. What prospect exists, with a red guard as ballot master, that this will be a faithful report on how people wish to ballot.
The Observer reported, following Peter Heathfield's victory in the poll for general secretary of the NUM, that John Walsh, the defeated candidate—a

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moderate—had listed a number of grounds for taking out an injunction. These included early closing of polling at some pits, failure to issue figures for unused ballot papers and an unusually high percentage of spoiled ballot papers. Many cases have reached the law courts despite the difficulties of proving corrupt practices in systems so open-ended that almost everything goes. In East Kilbride, however, two members of the AEUW were sent to prison in the early 1970s. This and other examples of abuse led to the present postal ballot system now used in the AUEW.
Public concern is based more on what is intuitively understood—little bits of the iceberg emerging—than on the findings of the courts. There has come into my possession a document—I have it here—handed out by polling officials when giving polling papers to members in an election currently going on for the CPSA, an important and one of the biggest Civil Service unions. It says:
"National elections. The branch executive committee recommends that you vote for the candidates listed below who were nominated at the AGM".
And of course Mr. Ray Alderson, an accepted Communist, is recommended as president. So it goes on down the list in fairly bright terms which do not demand that you put on your glasses before you vote that way.
I stood in parliamentary elections for 20 years, always in a marginal seat. One knows that one is forbidden to approach a polling station. You cannot even operate a loudspeaker within 100 yards. I remember finding the Daily Mirror containing the statement "Whose finger on the trigger?" alongside a polling station. I had it very promptly removed at the time of the 1951 election because I reckoned that it was propaganda. On the whole, we are very good at keeping influence right out of the place where the vote has to be cast. That is not so, I am afraid, in trade union elections. Something must be done to strengthen the monitoring and the scrutiny, as the noble Lord, Lord Murray, said.
I come now to one or two points that must have an impression on moderate trade unionists 'when they read—if they read—the Garnett report or its summary. Both inside and outside the Transport and General Workers' Union, there is deep concern about its limited scope. I have already mentioned that it was hurried and limited to those places which showed 95 per cent. support for one candidate. There has been no examination of the basic methods of election and no reference to the possible and probable areas of abuse. This happens, I am afraid, for example, in the distribution of ballot papers from head office to the branches and in the inaccuracies of membership lists—we are constantly being told that postal ballots are not possible because the membership lists are not up to date. Then there is the distribution of ballots from the branch to various workplaces, with at the moment self-supervision and control of workplace voting by shop stewards and very energetic branch activists by their side. No investigation of a number of selected sites was conducted nor were comparisons made between the sampled results and the alleged returns at the regional office. A whole host of questions arise. Why has this not been looked at one year after and looked at with rather more maturity and thoroughness?
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I should like to endorse what the noble Lord. Lord Boyd-Carpenter, said in his admirable and short speech when he remarked that surely the moment has come where we have to have scrutineers overseeing this—scrutineers of independent mind—and not rely on activists who are generally of the extreme Left. In moderate circles, the recommendations arising out of the report I think are seen as useful but cosmetic, not very thorough, and as an interim measure until full-scale revision of the system can be introduced There should be publication of branch and work-place results together with detailed lists of those who have voted, and the count should be independently verified.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, is it in order to draw the attention of the House to the fact that the 10 minutes of the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, are now 13?
Lord Orr-Ewing: My Lord, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway; I am most grateful for that intervention. I was in the middle of my peroration, perhaps I may just finish. Detailed lists of those who have voted should be published and the count should be independently verified. The provision of such lists creates no serious problems because presumably such lists are necessary and are the basis on which ballots are issued in any case.
4.2 p.m.
Lord Chapple: My Lords, before I refer to the subject under discussion, I should like to apologise to the House for my absence from the winding-up of the discussion on the airport inspector's report which was the occasion of my maiden speech. Your Lordships have my assurance that I will not do it again!
I am very pleased on this occasion to be able to support the desire of the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, to secure procedures by which union members' views and wishes are more adequately represented by trade unions and their leadership, for, despite all protestations to the contrary, such an improvement in union affairs would strengthen the arguments and demands put forward by trade union leaders. At the same time, it would give at least some respectability to the block vote. Of course I am aware from the enormous number of letters I have had from trade unionists from all parts of the trade union spectrum of the disquiet they feel about the ballots taking place on the political front as well as those for executive councils and principal officers.
Inevitably there are more ways of rigging ballots than have yet been exposed by the numerous discussions which have taken place both here and in another place. For example, the manner of the question and the timing of the ballot are devices well understood by public opinion pollsters. Each vested interest has its own self-perpetuating preferences, but it flies in the face of all logic to claim, as some do, that fairer, easier, simpler, cost-free postal ballots would weaken trade unions.
It it understandable, of course, that those who manipulate or who see that the present chaotic state of union ballots advantages them should not wish to change. They feel that honest ballots will radically change the power structure that currently imprisons

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thousands of ordinary trade unions. Such an attitude, however, is not in keeping with the democratic traditions of our Labour movement or, indeed, of the trade unions. Trade unions need to be doubly sure that, in any respect in which they claim to be acting for the majority of the members, their view is really that of the members they claim to represent. Indeed, it is one of the lessons to be learned from the miners' strike—and not just by the NUM. Another important feature is the damage which can be inflicted on the whole of society: in my view, that requires the maximum accountability to the whole of society.
I would like briefly now to turn to two other matters which have recently come to cloud the issue of ballots. The report of John Garnett already referred to by other noble Lords, and his conclusion that it was all a mistake, reminded me of the case in which I took a prominent part in 1961, when Mr. Lawson, speaking for the then defendants, said that the defendants did not now seek to uphold the validity of the election and agreed that a new election must be held. It had come to their knowledge he said—and your Lordships can imagine that it had only just come (this was in the court)—first, that, owing to mistakes made by branch secretaries in their returns to head office of the number of members entitled to vote, a large number of papers had been issued by branch secretaries to persons not entitled to vote and, secondly, that a substantial number of members entitled to vote had not been issued with ballot papers at all. Further, in the course of election scrutiny, irregularities had occurred which made it impossible for the defendants to contend that the rules had been observed. He concluded:
"Since the rules of the union make it doubtful whether the union can declare an election void because of a lapse of time it may well be that your Lordships at some stage will make the appropriate declaration".
Well, it was one of the findings of John Garnett, that there were some malpractices, but it was not a conspiracy and it was indeed mainly accidental mistakes—things that could be accounted for by rough working men not knowing the ways of handling ballot papers and clerical matters.
The other matter which has come to cloud this debate is the ballot rigging case to which the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Epping Forest, referred that I was involved in, and which I have just briefly touched on. It is alleged by none other than the General Secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union in a recent broadcast that ballot votes were at the root of the rigging in that case. I should like to spend a few minutes in dealing with this issue to put it in perspective.
The case of the old ETU postal ballots was not a question of postal ballots of the kind being advocated—that is, that the ballot papers should be sent by an independent organisation at the behest of the union to the member with a prepaid envelope for return. The method of postal balloting in the case of the ETU was that the ballot papers were distributed to branch secretaries, who then redistributed them or not, as was their wont, either to workshops and shop stewards or by sending them in the post, when they felt like it, to the homes of members who they could not otherwise contact.
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These votes were then returned via shop stewards in a block form as from workplace ballots or sent back to the branch by post, or delivered by the individual voting member to the branch, where they were then counted, or not, as the case might be, and a report made on a form duly signed by the branch chairman and secretary. That form was then posted to the head office.
In those cases where it became known to the leadership that the votes of that branch would not be for their man, they substituted a different return form, or in this case different envelopes, either to alter the result of the voting in the branch or to make it appear that the return papers had arrived at headquarters too late to be counted and therefore were disqualified. It was in no way a postal ballot of the sort that has been advocated in the debates both here and in another place.
For these reasons I think that the current second ballot for a new general secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union is essential; and it is also essential that the details of branch votes should be published branch by branch. Stronger cardboard boxes at polling stations are not enough. Supervision of the ballot by officers of the union who are committed to one or other of the candidates is not enough.
The Transport and General Workers' Union is a rather unique case. It is the largest union in the land. We depend on it for the sort of leadership that the Labour Party provides in this country, both in terms of political leadership and policy. It is vital that the people who speak on behalf of the membership of that union speak beyond argument for the views of the members and do not put forward a view that can be challenged in some form or other.
Therefore, I conclude my remarks by once more agreeing with the proposition of the noble Lord, Lord Rochester; and I hope and believe that, if there is the slightest doubt about even the second ballot for leadership of the Transport and General Workers' Union, further ballots will be held until the whole membership and, indeed, the movement are satisfied that the election has been conducted properly.
4.12 p.m.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, I am sure that the whole House will agree that the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, introduced this debate in a spirit of objective analysis of the very complicated problem. I listened to my noble friend Lord Murray of Epping Forest, as we all did, to see what his approach to this matter would be. I am sure that we all recognised the reproaches contained in his speech against the way in which the Government introduced trade union legislation last year and in earlier instalments. We had a good deal to say about that at the time; we deplored the lack of consultation and probably regretted the disinclination of the trade unions to enter into consultation. Both sides were probably reluctant in this regard.
However, I suggest that it would be a mistake to allow resentment at what happened in the past to make us indifferent towards the reputation, prestige, efficiency and integrity of the trade union movement in this particular connection. Whether or not we like

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it, the 1984 Act introduced a new phase in trade union management and organisation. I believe that that has come to stay.
I think that we must discard any belief that a future Government—even a future Labour Government —will repeal the parts of the 1984 Act which provide a wider franchise in the democratic process of trade unions. I believe that it would be a grave political mistake for the Labour Party to pledge itself to repeal the ballot procedures set out in the 1984 Act. I think that the Labour Party should stick to that view no matter what the trade unions themselves may say. One would no more justify repealing the ballot procedure of the 1984 Act than one would justify repealing the Representation of the People Acts and going back to the hustings. We now have a new system which will become entrenched in trade union practice. Therefore, we must make it efficient, effective and fair.
However, our problem is to define the role of the state in the more permanent balloting arrangements in trade unions which I think the 1984 Act has produced. In the course of the debate on the 1984 Bill I took the view that if the state compulsorily required institutions to adopt certain methods of electoral practice in the interests of members and of the public, it was the duty of the state to ensure that the methods adopted were fair, efficient and reliable. However, in the 1984 Act we did not do that. We laid down the basic principles that should be followed in organising balloting arrangements, but we said little or nothing about the way in which they should be conducted.
There is probably a feeling that trade unions are less efficient in this field than they should be because of some underlying resentment against being required to introduce balloting. In some cases we underestimate the inexperience of trade unions in regard to ballots on the scale now required in order to satisfy the requirements of the Act. I believe that the trade unions need more help than they have yet received to get the best procedures in order to apply the provisions of the Act.
I suggest that trade unions need an advisory service on ballot procedures. I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, that we ought to begin to introduce amending legislation to the 1984 Act this soon. Nor do I believe that the trade unions can put their own houses in order in every case. There are some houses that are so difficult and so complex that the people inside them cannot put them in order. It requires outside help to do so, and that does not apply only to trade unions.
I believe that ACAS is the body whose services should be used to advise trade unions on the best methods of adopting balloting procedures. I am all in favour of guidelines for conduct, advisory schedules, and so on, but what is needed here is the application of the trained and experienced mind to the particular problems of particular trade unions, which all have different types of organisation and different methods of government. What is right for one union may not be right for another. I believe that the Government should actively promote help to the trade unions from an independent source and one which can be relied upon as satisfying all reasonable requirements.
The choice between workplace ballots and postal ballots is probably difficult and depends on different
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circumstances in particular unions. However, I am quite clear that the message should go out to the trade unions that they are now part of the major institutions in the country, wielding enormous influence and in many cases very great power. That power can he used constructively or it can be used clumsily or inefficiently, but unions should now be efficient. Although it may require the installation of expensive forms of modern technology, unions should begin to get their records in good order and have full and proper lists of members, no matter how the personnel and membership numbers may change. The building societies and other large organisations have this problem of large-scale records and they have to overcome it in one way or another, and there is no reason why the unions should not do it too.
Another thing that must be borne in mind is that with the best will in the world, and the utmost confidence in the honesty and integrity of ordinary people, mischief does creep into these electoral arrangements unless they are properly monitored and supervised. Here I would say that a firm principle which should be put at the forefront of an approach to the balloting problem and which should be observed in all cases is that ballot papers should never pass through the hands of persons, or officials, who might have a bias to satisfy in the result. That was the point made a moment or two ago by my noble friend Lord Chapple.
This is a cardinal feature of our parliamentary and local government elections and it should be made a feature of our trade union elections. This has to be faced by the unions if they are going to meet the ordinary requirements of the public interest. After all, when a union is balloting on strike action, and may decide on a small margin of votes in a considerable total electorate between going on strike and not doing so, with disruption of public services involved in the decision, surely that ballot is just as important as one for the local parish council or even a parliamentary constituency, and it should be conducted with exactly the same high standard of integrity and efficiency.
Ballots, unsupported by vetted procedures which are not scrutinised in even an elementary way, can, where they are inflicted on members by statute, prove to be not a help, not an assistance to the democratic processes, but almost an inadvertent fraud upon them. To sum up, first, we should not embark on amending legislation to the 1984 Act at present. Secondly, we should not expect unions to solve all their problems by themselves. Thirdly, we should provide a satisfactory, comprehensive, and intelligent advisory service to meet the requirements of particular unions so that they can get their procedures right.
I think, fourthly, that we have to put it plainly to the unions that they not only have a statutory duty, they have a public duty which they must discharge more and more, and especially in the public sector where strike action is being debated and balloted upon. Strike action has been balloted upon in public service unions in the past few weeks which would have been undreamt of 10 or 20 years ago, where public servants regarded themselves as not being involved in strike action in any circumstances whatsoever because they were employees of the state. But now ballots are taken in the case of one union within a matter of weeks on

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whether first of all to have a one-day strike; and, secondly, to have a more permanent strike in an area of great public sensitivity and of likely disruption.
Lord Shinwell: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend a question?
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, I am pushed for time.
Lord Shinwell: My Lords, just one point. If everything is satisfactory, all the rules are carried out, there is thorough efficiency, a secret ballot is taken, and even by, say, half a dozen votes they decide to have a strike, does that mean that the strike then becomes legal?
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, I am not saying for a moment that the strike does not become legal, although I am not sure that I could pronounce on the legality of some of the strikes. All I am saying is that the result of a ballot may determine whether or not there is a strike. If that is so, then the ballot should, in the public interest, be seen to be fair and efficient. My final word is this: trade unions will never be privatised; they will always be publicised. I think they should bear that in mind in what they do in relation to their obligations to the public as well as to their own members.
4.25 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, especially on this occasion as I find myself in substantial agreement with everything that he has said in his approach to the 1984 Act in saying that there is no profit in jobbing backwards; in saying that in this we have to find the role of the state. In other words his philosophical approach squares with mine.
The subject of this debate in its true dimension transcends the trappings of party politics. It is a subject which is really of prime importance not only to all members of trade unions irrespective of party affiliations, or none, but to the status and authority of trade unions and of the trade union movement generally. It is common ground that there is the need to ensure that the balloting procedure should not be tainted with manipulations, malpractice, and intimidation, and so fail to reflect the views of the rank and file membership. The authoritative contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Chapple, is of crucial importance in this context; the cardinal feature, as it was put graphically by the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby.
The question is whether this need, which is common ground, can be fulfilled by self-regulation within the structure of the Act of 1984—the line taken by the noble Lord, Lord Murray—or whether further statutory powers are requisite, as proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Rochester. On this matter I am on the side of self-regulation, which is understood to be the attitude of Her Majesty's Government. I support the proposal of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, that, in consultation, codes of practice should be drawn up. I support the proposal of the
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noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, that an advisory service is requisite—it is not so easy to get things right—and that help is needed. Indeed I support both proposals.
The three areas in which the mandatory balloting procedures operate are as follows: the election of officers; taking industrial action; and the political fund. The political fund raises questions on balloting procedures which do not obtain in the other cases, and I wish to deal briefly with some of such questions. One of the problems is that the Act of 1984 on the political fund, although it makes useful amending provisions and provides for the 10-year ballot, still leaves the situation that the certification officer's model rules require the ballot paper to state whether there should be a political fund but do not require an answer to a question as to the destination of the political fund.
This is perhaps the question which should be asked because the union ruling bodies can still affiliate—and still do—to the Labour Party without the consent of their members. This brings in about £3 million out of the £4·5 million of the funds to the Labour Party, notwithstanding that the 1984 MORI Poll showed that 52 per cent. did not wish their union to pay for the Labour Party, and only 38 per cent. in favour.
This is an aspect of contracting-in and contracting-out. This has been a parliamentary shuttlecock since 1913 when the Liberal Government introduced the Act to rescind the decision of the Appellate Committee of your Lordships' House in the Osborne case and so enabled trade unions to collect and administer funds for political purposes. Then it was contracting out in 1913. Under the Act of 1927 it was contracting in; under the Act of 1946 it was contracting out, and so it has remained under the Act of 1971, and so it remains today.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Shawcross, said, when he was Attorney:
"The question here is very simple—whether trade unions which by a majority have decided to have a political fund should benefit by it, if you like from human inertia, to the extent of throwing the onus on the dissident minority".
Since then the situation has changed dramatically, as the dissident minority has now become the dissident majority. A poll taken after the last election speaks for itself: 39 per cent. of trade union members voted Labour, 31 per cent. Conservative and 29 per cent. Alliance.
On a Division in this House your Lordships rejected an amendment to the 1984 Act to introduce contracting in. No consideration was given to the inclusion in the ballot paper of the destination of the political fund or of the check off.
On the question of state funding of political parties, corporate political funding is, in my opinion, preferable to state funding. State funding is unacceptable as providing an even greater degree of artificial support than contracting out. So the resolution of this problem of ensuring that the balloting procedures reflect the views of members is left in the hands of the 38 per cent. who do not wish to subscribe to the Labour Party; and rightly so, because if one adopts the suggestions of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, and the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, one will get a true reflection in due course.

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On the question of self-regulation, now is not the time to introduce further legislation. The intendment of the Act of 1984 was interventionist in trade union affairs, albeit, but it was to leave a wide area of self-regulation in the hands of members of trade unions. It is the members of trade unions within the constitutional framework of the rules and the statutory balloting procedures under the Act who can themselves ensure that their views are reflected accurately in the conduct of trade union affairs. It was for this reason that the concept of mandatory postal ballots was rejected, and rightly so. Although there is a presumption in favour of postal ballots, workplace ballots tend to attract a much higher turnout and also are subject to mandatory procedures. Although the postal system is more likely to be free from malpractice, it is assuredly not impervious to it.
Irrespective of whether the Act of 1984 is working as well as it should or whether it is not, there can be no question of immediate introduction of an amending Act. If it is not working satisfactorily, give it a little time to work. No useful purpose could be served by rushing one's fences. The suggestion made by Dr. Owen, I think, and adopted by the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, that an amending Act should be passed to introduce a mandatory postal ballot and to outlaw the traditional workplace ballot is not well conceived. Indeed, though such is not the intention, it would be seen by many trade unions as an act of unwarranted confrontation and could lead to a deal of trouble to no good purpose.
It would be inopportune and, indeed, premature that the amending Act should also introduce mandatory independent supervision of balloting procedures. That is not appropriate, for again it is open to the members of the trade unions, within the constitutional framework of the rules, to introduce such procedures. Again, it is a matter which was left to self regulation by the Act, and rightly so.
Surely the essential question is not whether we should have postal ballots or workplace ballots, but that procedures should be free from hint of malpractice and should reflect accurately the views of members. This lies at the heart of the Motion. The introduction of a voluntary system of independent supervision of all ballots and branch-by-branch publication would serve the best interests of any union which sought to put its house in order and ensure that it was kept in order. The hope is that the TUC, in consultation with trade unions, could take a lead on this, could take this on board, provide some initiative and offer some guidance. If they were to do this, it would stifle all argument about malpractice, it would silence all motivated criticism, it would afford a prudent measure of self-regulation, it would enhance the status and authority of the particular union and of the trade union movement generally. It would also be seen as an overt affirmation of the concept of fair play.
To conclude, this approach to balloting procedures is the correct approach, because law is but the servant of society. It should never move too fast or too far ahead of public opinion and so become its master. Far better that it should be derided, as Mr. Bumble's ass, but observed, than it should be feared as a tyrant and flouted.
4.35 p.m.
Lord Scanlon: My Lords, almost without exception every speaker has claimed that the main barrier to achieving what the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, set out in his Motion, the one and only barrier, is somehow, someway, the malpractices that go on in the trade union movement. I want to give the lie directly to that. I want to go even further and say that those who utter it and, even worse, believe it, are either expressing naivety or effrontery. In case I am misunderstood, let me say at the outset that I am completely in favour of secret ballots, ballots for the political levy, for the election of trade union officers on a far wider scale than anybody has referred to here and on the issue of members being consulted and giving an affirmative vote before any industrial action is taken. I hope that those unequivocal words will allow your Lordships to consider what I am saying more dispassionately than would otherwise be the case.
We know that this Government in four years have introduced three separate Bills. The 1984 Bill dealt, in the main, with elections. I shall not deal in any detail with the ballot for the political fund. I think it is a blatant use of political force by a party which has power to ensure that the lifeblood of its political opponent is stopped. I say that here; I said it in the debate when the Bill was before your Lordships' House. If we are really concerned—the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, came perilously near and then backed off—that no corporate body should make donations to political parties without being sure that it is properly representing the views of its constituents, should we not have every shareholder balloted before any corporate body makes a decision? Should we not have contracting-out forms for all those shareholders? Should we not allow every shareholder to be given assurances that if he contracted out he would not be treated any less favourably than those who did not contract out? That is the penalty on the trade union movement. But nobody in the debate has raised this—except for a hint from the noble Lord, Lord Rochester. Nobody has raised this in the issue of fair representation of constituents.
Now we come to the question of ballots before industrial action. Have we yet realised the legal minefield that has been laid down for trade unions, with crippling financial penalties, if they as much as step over the line? I noticed the vigour with which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, relished the involvement of the courts. Of course, the courts have to administer justice—not fairness, justice! We all know the difficulties of any body in keeping up to date with the names and addresses of its constituents. This is particularly true of trade unions. One could even say that they have been prompted somewhat by the "Get on your bike!", and have gone to look for work elsewhere, with a consequent change of address.
So the difficulty of any trade union, and more particularly one with a million members, in keeping such a list up to date is apparent to all. Yet, waiting in the wings are those people within the trade union and outside, employers or suppliers or anti-unionists, who will receive all sorts of financial support to take the union to court if it can be proved that one individual did not get the vote to which he was entitled. These are the restrictions, notwithstanding the difficulties of the

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previous Act about picketing and so on, that trade union executives will have to take into consideration.
The danger is not that the trade unions will take industrial action based on some fiddle of a ballot. The danger is that they will be so apprehensive about the legal minefield that has been laid for them, with its crippling financial penalties, that they will not even dare to go along the line that perhaps the membership desire them to follow; but I will say no more in that connection.
On the question of ballots for full-time officials, again, notwithstanding the Acts of 1980, 1982 and 1984, and all the difficulties of the legal minefields there, I, with everyone who has spoken, am in favour not only of secret ballots but of ballots which can be demonstrably proved to be free from every type of fiddle or whatever people may like to call it.
Why do we stop at the election of an executive council? If democracy means anything, it surely means that the viewpoint of the people in the branch, in the district and in the region is equally important, if not more important, in the myriad of disputes that arise in those localities. And it is important that they have elected officials who can reflect that view. Therefore, it seems to me that one of the reasons why we stop at the executive is that we want an executive influenced by the media, elected on the basis of that influence, and then to appoint officials whose vested interest is to secure the continuation of that executive in office because they are the ones who can remove them from office if they fail to support them.
Is that democracy? Is that the widest representation of the trade union movement? Surely, if we are going for the election of officials, it is everybody from the shop steward to the national president, upwards or downwards, depending on your viewpoint. That truly is democracy and one would have been more convinced of the genuineness of the people who support this particular provision if it had spread as wide as I have suggested.
This brings me to my main point. All three Acts, in my view, have nothing whatsoever to do with either democracy in the trade union movement or ensuring the representation of the membership. All three Acts seek to establish a neutered, innocuous trade union movement; because an innocuous, neutered trade union movement is absolutely essential to the wellbeing of an economy such as ours in the present day based upon market forces. Noble Lords will disagree, but at the end of the day, in my submission, that is the purpose of the whole gamut of the legislation: to produce a minefield of legal difficulties leading to an innocuous trade union movement. And we can then all sit back happily because the only thing that market forces must not apply to is to the trade union leaders, who are selling labour, whether it be by hand or by brain.
These things, I know, will not be supported; nevertheless I have to conclude on this note. This policy of continually attacking the trade union movement, this policy of confrontation by the Government and, through its agents, opposing the trade union movement is going to have an awful backlash. And it is of no use appealing to trade union officials as we were appealed to in the 1960s and 1970s, "Be calm! Don't use your muscle! Get round
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the table!". All these things now are being operated in reverse. Political and industrial muscle is the order of the day. I regret it. I wish that we could do something along the lines suggested by my noble friend Lord Murray. Why is it not possible for the trade union affairs to be regulated on the basis that I have suggested, outside the courts, outside the political arena and as a result of discussions between the trade union movement, the CBI and other groups of employers' associations? Of course it is possible if the political will and the industrial will was there.
Let me say that the strength of the trade union movement cannot be measured as you measure the strength of a multinational—not by money in the bank or by palatial offices. It is measured by the spirit, conviction and determination of the membership. And when that is put to the test, as it is put to the test now, that backlash will come if we continue on this policy of confrontation.
I finish, my Lords, on this note. On postal ballots, it is the order of the day in my union that matters be determined by a democratic vote. But, if postal ballots are so democratic, why do we not have them for parliamentary elections? Why do we not have them for municipal elections? I think the answer lies in the fact that it is not what is most democratic, it is what is likely to give the result that most people opposed to the trade union movement desire. I hope that we can get away from this attitude of mind that the trade union movement is built on fiddlers and get down to the real issue of how we can develop a spirit of co-operation as opposed to the spirit of confrontation which pervades the air at the present moment.
4.48 p.m.
Lord Aylestone: My Lords, the House is grateful to my noble friend Lord Rochester for initiating this debate. I think we are fortunate in that we have had contributions from three very distinguished trade union leaders. They have not agreed among themselves, but this is not unusual. There has been a criticism from one noble Lord that we have spent a half of one of our very few and precious days discussing the trade union movement. We felt that the subject was topical and we felt that the country was interested, and one has to remember that there are millions of individual trade union members who are watching what is happening in what is known as the T and GW case.
From time to time we on these Benches have made our position absolutely clear, and I hope that by now it is obvious that we support and recognise the value of the trade unions in our society. No sensible political party would do otherwise. The trade unions are here, they have been here for a very long time, and we must work within a society which has in industry, on the one side, organisations like the CBI, and, on the other side, the trade union movement. But this is not to accept that the trade unions are something apart. They are not organisations that are above the law, or which ought to be above the law. It is regrettable that there are still within the trade union movement, even at top level, people who feel that immunity from the law is an entitlement of the trade union movement; but it is not.
There are hundreds of thousands of members of trade unions who, while absolutely loyal and paying

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their subscriptions, never attend a branch meeting. I would go so far as to say that it is probably true that the majority never attend a branch meeting. It is certainly true that attendances are somewhat higher when there is an industrial dispute on and when there is a question of pay or conditions within an industry. But, even then, the vast majority take no part in the day-to-day running of their union and it is wrong for it to be said, as it has already been said this afternoon, that it is the individual members who are in charge of the unions. They are not. They ought to be—no one questions that; but they are not.
The result of that is that you leave very fertile ground within the branches for matters that are very often outside the trade union movement altogether, for purposes quite unrelated to trade union matters, and that have more political content than industrial. We see this in operation at the annual meeting of the TUC, we see it in operation at the annual conference of the Labour Party, where block votes in massive denominations are used in support of a motion or to oppose a motion which has not even been discussed by many of the branches, apart from many of the individuals. For example, you will get massive votes in favour of, if you like, abolition of the House of Lords, allegiance to the CND, or any other subject. There will be thousands of trade union votes at that conference in support, even though not a single item has been discussed at very many of the branches.
I find it very difficult to understand —and I was a trade unionist for many years until I retired on age grounds—why there is an objection to fairly held ballots for the election of officers, for the election of executive committees and for other matters that are important to the trade unions. Thinking back over the last 12 months, taking into consideration the distress, the misery and the unhappiness of the long miners' strike, we really must ask ourselves whether it would have occurred at all had the individual members been given a chance to vote on whether or not they wanted to strike. But they were not given such a chance. Every member of the NUM was entitled to be heard, but they were not heard.
This debate is about trade union ballots, which we know are not always fairly held—some are; some are better than others—and which can lead to corruption. But what frightens me rather more than corruption is intimidation by one colleague of another at the machine, at the workbench or in the mine—and it does happen. I believe that the unions will now, as a result of the 1984 Act, make every possible effort to get complete records of their memberships—they find no difficulty in doing it at branch level—and I suggest, as have done my noble friend Lord Rochester and the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, who has considerable knowledge of the trade union movement, that some responsible organisation should undertake the balloting. I should like to suggest that it could be a body such as the Industrial Society; or let us find an extra job for ACAS to do under the direction of a certification officer. I believe that ballots could then be carried out fairly and freely, which would be of great value not only to the trade union movement but, because of the results arising from them, also to the country itself. This cannot be the wrong thing to do if one believes at all in democracy. It may be a
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cliché—and I have said it before—but let us give the unions back to their members, which is what balloting means and what we believe.
4.55 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, perhaps I may first join other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, on introducing this subject for debate, and on the moderate way in which he did so. It seems odd, when we have so many illustrious ex-trade union leaders who have led the national trade unions, for a mere shop steward to be sweeping up on behalf of the official Opposition.
I know that your Lordships will bear with me for a moment if I pay some regard to a colleague who was a very prominent trade union officer at a very high level, though he was not quite a national leader, who passed away suddenly on Tuesday morning. I am talking about Lord Donnet, who was known to his friends as Alec. Those who knew him in the Labour and trade union movements will certainly want to have on record their appreciation of his tremendous career in the trade union movement. He will be sadly missed by those of us to whom he was a very close friend, as well as a trade union colleague.
I have to ask myself what is the real purpose behind this debate, because this is not the first time that a debate has taken place on what happened in the Transport and General Workers' Union. Let me say immediately that I have no time at all for malpractices in union ballots on anything. One vote fiddled is one too many. I do not condone it, and I certainly would not encourage it in any respect. But the Alliance have already had one bite at the cherry in another place. I refer to a debate on 23rd April, which was led by the leader of the SDP, Dr. David Owen and, by leave, I shall quote from that debate as follows:
"I took no exception in any personal sense to what the right honourable Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) said, but on an issue as important as this, he could have done the House the courtesy of being more careful about his facts. He was wrong about the position of the president of the National Union of Mineworkers, about the position of the general secretary of the GMBATU and about the powers of the certification officer in the example that he used. He was also wrong in the letter that he wrote to me, and I sought to set out his inaccuracies. This is an important subject, and the right honourable Gentleman owes it to the House to come better prepared and equipped with the argument."—[Official Report, Commons; cols, 768–9.]
That was the first thrust on the ballot of the TGWU which has to be rerun. Those were not the words of the Labour spokesman. They were the words of the Secretary of State for Employment. So in another place, which is the more important debating Chamber, where the legislation would have to start if there were any legislation, the official spokesman for the Alliance was totally misinformed on the subject. In fact, I understand that he was an embarrassment to his own people who were there.
Let me first deal with some of the points that were made by the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, in his opening speech. He gave as his reason for the debate the Transport and General Workers' Union issue and the fact that postal ballots ought to be the norm. I would not for one moment demur from that. I have been a lifelong member of the AUEW, and it is to the credit of my noble friend Lord Scanlon that the postal

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balloting which takes place was introduced during his presidency, and it has stood the test of time.
I would go along with most of what the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, and other noble Lords have said about self-certification and a code of discipline that could be worked out. I would concur with the noble Lord, Lord Scanlon, when he said that he thought that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, for whom I have the utmost respect, seemed to relish that part of this speech when he almost had mythical trade union leaders in the dock.
I must say to the noble and learned Lord that I do not query that trade unions as corporate bodies appearing before the courts will receive justice. But in the opinion of the present Master of the Rolls—he said it quite clearly, and it was quoted in a debate in your Lordships' House last year—the present legislation is heavily biased against the trade union movement. Those are not my words but the words of the Master of the Rolls. How can people expect trade unions to respond objectively when that is said by people in such responsible positions?
I was a little disturbed by the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, about a certain person. I do not like it when a person who is not a Member of your Lordships' House is mentioned in a debate and does not have the right to defend himself. The noble Lord, Lord On-Ewing, referred to Mr. Ron Todd, who I have never met and to whom I have never spoken personally, as a member of the hard Left. From my knowledge of him and from what I have been told, he is no such person in terms of how I would class hard Left. I think it is unfortunate if we fall into that trap.
I was greatly interested to hear the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Chapple, on the subject, because I, too, have memories of the difficulties in his own union. He gave us a very interesting resume of what took place just over 20 years ago. At that time I was working at the massive Metro Vickers factory in Manchester, where a good many of his members were employed. I worked alongside some people who had been victimised by his predecessors, who were eventually dealt with. I acknowledge what he said, and I think he has done us a service by reminding us of it.
But I would differ from the noble Lord slightly when he talks about one of the practices that can be introduced into trade union organisation being a ballot which is run at the best time to produce the most favourable result. What is wrong with that? Do Prime Ministers of this country call general elections at the most unfavourable time? Of course they do not. Why did the present Prime Minister literally run for cover but come back with a commanding success on 9th June two years' ago? It was because she feasted on the success of the Falkland Islands war. I would not hold it against anybody to call an election at the most favourable time to suit them. It is up to people to respond accordingly.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Chapple, was making the point that nobody with bias should have access to the procedures. That is how I understood the noble Lord.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I take the point, but I think I am right in saying that the noble Lord questioned the practice of people calling elections at times to suit themselves.
Lord Chapple: My Lords, I do not want anyone to put words into my mouth. Is the noble Lord suggesting that a single malpractice is all right?
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, no, I am not suggesting that any malpractice is all right—
Lord Chapple: Including timing, my Lords?
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I do not think that one could argue about the timing of any election. Obviously, whoever is in charge, whether it is in the trade union movement or in the political field, can call the election at the time most suitable to themselves.
One point with which I want to deal very quickly in the few minutes I have left is the one made quite forcibly by my colleague and life-long friend, the noble Lord, Lord Scanlon, regarding the provisions in the 1984 Act on ballots for political purposes. There is no question at all that the Act was a quite deliberate thrust at the political opponents of the Government. I said during the later stages of that Bill that a future Labour Government would have to legislate to correct the injustice. It may well be that they will legislate far more positively, because in the journal of my own trade union this month there is a list of donations to the Conservative Party by national companies. Not one of their shareholders was asked whether it was all right.
I recall that some weeks ago the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, put a question on this very subject to the Minister who is to reply. The Minister replied that of course the shareholders can protest—at the next general meeting. If there is a better case of locking the stable door after the horse has bolted, I do not know it. It is probably a political con trick of the worst kind.
There is one point on which I do disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, and I think he would expect me to refer to it because there has to be some political context in a debate like this. Quite recently there were some questions in another place about a massive donation to the Liberal Party by the British School of Motoring. I do not suppose that people who have shares in the British School of Motoring were asked whether it was all right for them to make a donation of f 185,000 to the Liberal Party. There were other questions asked in another place as to the propriety of this donation, and whether it was to sabotage a very progressive Private Member's Bill dealing with minimum standards for driving instructors. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Epping Forest, who said that people in glasshouses should not throw stones. We have to be very careful indeed when we start on that trail.
I started by saying that I—and I speak for my party—am totally opposed to, and do not condone, any irregularity in a ballot in the trade union movement. Before I finish I should like to leave your Lordships with one thought on the question of a ballot before every strike. I think the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, mentioned it. I responded to an official

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strike call when my noble friend Lord Scanlon was president of the AUEW, and before that. On very rare occasions have I had to go on strike at the drop of a hat. But there are situations—I am not suggesting that I support illegal strikes; I do not—for which the law cannot cater.
I went on strike for a fortnight once at what they call the Big House in Manchester, where both the noble Lord, Lord Scanlon, and I, and the late Lord Lee, worked at different stages. A shop steward who was operating on behalf of the men was sacked at a minute's notice in the most outrageous manner by the then employers. There was no point at all in bringing in the local officials because the problem had to be dealt with then and the feelings of the men had to manifest themselves immediately to make the management aware of the seriousness with which the workforce viewed what had happened.
Having said that, I realise that my time is up. I am glad to have had the opportunity to put the record straight for my party. Once again, I should like to express my appreciation to the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, for introducing what could be a very fractious subject in a fractious debate, but which I think has been conducted mainly in a very constructive manner.
5.8 p.m.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Lord Belstead): My Lords, this debate has attracted a very distinguished list of speakers, and I have listened with very great interest to the many and varied speeches. Perhaps I may first of all say that when, at the end of his speech, the noble Lord, Lord Dean, said that he was putting on record the views of his political party, I accept absolutely that the noble Lord said not once but more than once that he believed that ballots must be scrupulously fair down to the last vote if they are to command general confidence.
An interesting remark was made by the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Epping Forest, early on in his speech when he very fairly said that he would not assert that trade unions were perfect in their arrangements and procedures. It is because the Government share that view that the legislation we introduced on balloting last year represents a part, albeit an important part, of a wider ranging programme of reform stretching back over the past four years.
The 1984 Act represents the third and most recent step in a programme of measures which we have been following. The first step was in 1980, when we introduced legislation to tackle the most urgent problems then facing us: the need to make secondary picketing unlawful, to deal with the worst forms of secondary action, and to provide some basic protection to individuals within a closed shop.
In 1982, as your Lordships will remember better than I, following extensive consultations by way of a Green Paper, we tackled some of the more deep-rooted problems in our system of industrial relations. We introduced into the law the concept that all closed shops should be put to the elementary test of having a secret ballot. At the same time we ended the anomaly which had existed virtually uninterrupted since 1906,
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under which trade unions had almost unlimited immunity against civil proceedings in tort when they and their agents acted unlawfully.
These steps, together with the 1984 Act, have, I suggest, transformed not only industrial relations practice in this country but also the very terms of the debate about it. For we have demonstrated once and for all that, far from having no place in industrial relations, the law stands at the very centre and heart of the matter. I was most grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, for bringing out this point with his accustomed clarity. Indeed, I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Rochester—to whom we are indebted for today's debate—for recognising this very point in the Motion he has put down for discussion.
Today's debate is not about whether the law has a role to play: it is about detail. It is not about ends, or even about means, but purely about which i's to dot and which t's to cross. This change, which has come about literally in the past couple of years, must surely rank as a remarkable achievement in this country. I suggest to your Lordships that nowhere is this change of attitudes more clearly to be seen than in the 1984 Act. When your Lordships debated the Government's Green Paper at that time, my noble friend Lord Gowrie pointed out that the absence of legislative safeguards in respect of unions' internal affairs was quite remarkable when compared with the position of a great many other bodies.
For instance, the position of companies as legal entities has been statutorily controlled for more than a hundred years. The legislative safeguards for companies have always been seen as the quid pro quo for the great privilege of limited liability. By contrast, what has been the position of the trade unions? They, in common with companies, have had great privileges conferred upon them by law: the privilege of blanket immunity against civil proceedings in tort when they organised industrial action. Here was the great difference. While Parliament had imposed on companies a huge volume of statutory regulations in return for the privilege of limited liability, there was virtually no attempt to regulate the running of trade unions in return for their great privilege of immunity against action in tort.
First the 1982 Act and then last year's Act changed all of that. In particular, the 1984 Act (which I realise is what this debate is really about) transformed the position of individual union members—giving them, in effect, their first charter of rights. It introduced for the first time ever the statutory requirement that unions should consult their members on a regular and systematic basis as to their wishes before acting on their behalf. The Act makes unions systematically accountable to their members.
If a union now wishes to take strike action and to retain its immunity, it must first inform and ballot its members. If a union now wishes to spend money on political objects—a matter about which noble Lords have spoken with some feeling in this debate—then, according to last year's law, it must first inform and ballot its members. And as from 1st October, those who wish to lead their unions—with the caveat that, of course, it is those who are leading provided that they

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have a vote, which is another matter which your Lordships have been speaking about—will have to stand for periodic re-election and will have to inform and ballot their members.
I realise that during the passage of the Bill last year and again this afternoon some of your Lordships criticised the detail of the 1984 legislation. I remind the House that we responded to several of the comments made when the 1984 Bill was going through by amending it in respect of many points related to those which were made today. For example, we introduced the requirement that all unions should establish and maintain up-to-date registers of their members' names and addresses. We introduced the postal presumption in Section 3. We introduced also the requirement that courts will have to order that any re-run of an election must be by postal ballot, except in exceptional circumstances; and we introduced a separate, quick and informal route of complaint by union members to the independent certification officer as well as to the courts.
My noble friend Lord On-Ewing, the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, and other noble Lords argued that we should have gone further and made postal ballots mandatory in every case—although I was interested when my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter said that he would not be dogmatic about this point. I agree, to this extent. The Government's view—and I am glad to give it today—is that postal ballots are by far and away the best means of conducting elections. While I admit that our legislation does not require that every single ballot should be postal, it does not stop very far short of that requirement. Sections 2 and 3 of the Act, taken together, present a very powerful presumption in favour of postal ballots.
A union that is considering holding a workplace ballot will have to bear in mind, first, that it will still have to meet all the stringent safeguards for free and fair elections which the Act lays down for postal balloting. Secondly, it will have to meet additional requirements concerning the supply of ballot papers and giving electors a convenient opportunity to vote—those enormously important words from last year's Act. Thirdly, the union must satisfy itself in advance of the ballot that there are no reasonable grounds for believing that any of the Act's electoral safeguards will be breached.
Those are extremely tough tests. Only if all those requirements are satisfied will it be safe for a union to opt for a workplace ballot. One case of intimidation, as I think we all agree (and picking up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick), is one case too many. It could put the whole ballot at risk, because if the requirements are not met then members will take their union to court, as they have shown they are very ready to do in their own and in their fellow members' interests.
I realise that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, was critical nonetheless of the situation that exists at the present time for the holding of strike ballots. With respect, I suggest that there are certain criteria for the holding of strike ballots. There is the criterion that only members likely to be involved in industrial action should be given the entitlement to
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vote. There is the criterion that those so entitled must, so far as is reasonably practical, be given a convenient opportunity to vote. Also, it must be a properly conducted secret ballot, and so on.
I listened very carefully indeed—as we always do in your Lordships' House—to the noble and learned Lord's remarks also about the desirability of a code of practice. This point, I realise, has been raised before, and no doubt it will be raised again. I have to say in reply to the noble and learned Lord today that my right honourable friend is still not convinced that this avenue is one he should go down—particularly at the present time, when we are talking about legislation, some of which still has not been brought into effect. However, I give an undertaking to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, and to my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway, that I shall draw this point to the attention of my right honourable friend.
The noble Lord, Lord Rochester, and my noble friend Lord Campbell also spoke, in slightly different terms, about the whole question of contracting in and contracting out. As your Lordships will very well know, my right honourable friend held discussions last year with the TUC as a result of which the TUC issued guidance to its affiliated unions. However, my right honourable friend has made it quite clear that he would be prepared to consider further legislation if the TUC's voluntary steps do not ensure that union members are able to contract out freely and effectively. If the two noble Lords, Lords Scanlon and Lord Dean of Beswick, will forgive me for saying so, I think that this is a very fair attitude by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State. I was surprised that both noble Lords feel that the whole issue of political funding, as it is now dealt with by the law, is something with which they cannot live.
Many of your Lordships, including the noble Lord, Lord Chapple, who made a very interesting speech, the noble Lords, Lord Houghton and Lord Aylestone, towards the end of the debate, raised the whole question of the need, as your Lordships put it, for external supervision. It is suggested that the TGWU election shows that this need exists. I reckon that that is absolutely right, but we do not live in an ideal world. When we drafted the Bill we had to have regard to what we judged to be realistic and practicable to expect at this time. Those who advocate supervision sometimes fail to point out what might be needed. Not only would supervision in the counting of the votes be required but also in the compilation of voting lists and the dispatch of the voting papers. Considering that there are some 400 or so trade unions the scrutineers required would far exceed the resources of the Electoral Reform Society—a suggestion by one noble Lord—and I think it would suffer from that particular criticism. A veritable quango of inspectors might be required and the costs would far exceed the funds for trade union ballot schemes.
There is just one final point which I shall deal with, raised by the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, on the need for advisory help for trade unions. If I may say so, the noble Lord was perhaps uncharacteristically a little less than generous in the sense that the Government have already made considerable help available to unions through the Employment Act 1980, which introduced the funding scheme for secret ballots. Of

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course, any union can apply for these funds and we all of us know what the situation there is at the present time. As to advice, I am sure that the Electoral Reform Society would be happy to provide advice and assistance to any union seeking it. Where political fund ballots are concerned, of course, the independent certification officer has already issued model rules for the unions concerned and is in discussion about them with a number of unions.
In conclusion, perhaps I may just make one more comment. The Government have introduced three major and powerful pieces of legislation in the field of industrial relations. We have brought the law back to its proper place, centre stage, in this area. We have introduced the Trade Union Act 1984, which puts the ballot box in place of strife. When the provisions of the Act come fully into force this autumn I believe that they will operate not only with the overwhelming support of the country at large but also with the full-hearted support and endorsement of trade union members.
5.24 p.m.
Lord Rochester: My Lords, I am most grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. For my part I have learned much from noble Lords who have spoken and that is hardly surprising in view of the great experience that has been brought to bear on the subject from all sides of the House.
A number of constructive suggestions have been made and I certainly hope to have time—and this may apply to other noble Lords—to read in Hansard tomorrow what has been said and thoroughly to digest and consider it. May I say to the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Epping Forest, that his agreement that branch voting returns should be published, not only for the forthcoming election for the secretaryship of the Transport and General Workers Union but more generally, is greatly to be welcomed?
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, made a constructive suggestion about a code of practice. The noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, had a suggestion concerning ACAS. Perhaps I may say to the noble Lord, Lord Scanlon, since there may be some misunderstanding between us, that I did say that I have come increasingly to dislike corporate political funding, whether by trade unions or by business. During our debates last year on the 1984 Act, I drew a specific conclusion and for the removal of doubt I make that explicit now. For so long as corporate political funding continues I think—indeed, I speak for my noble friends in saying this—that before any gift of money is made by a company for political purposes it should first be approved by a specific resolution of the shareholders of the company concerned. I hope that that removes any doubt there may have been in the noble Lord's mind.
The noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, raised a somewhat controversial point. I did not raise it, he did. He did not take it very far but for the record I must respond in the two or three minutes that remain to me. It concerns the Road Traffic Driving Instruction Bill. In another place certain suggestions were made that the attitude taken by my honourable and noble friends in relation to this Bill might have been influenced by or have been the result of, certain financial pressure.
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The fact is, I am happy to say, that we took the view that the Bill needed to be discussed. The changes we proposed were highly desirable and widely supported throughout the country. In our view it would have been absurd to ignore the advice given to us by someone with the experience that he was able to bring to bear on the subject simply because he was an active Liberal, or to disqualify that advice because of the fact that he was a contributor to the funds of the Liberal Party. I am happy to give to the whole House this categorical assurance that in this case the subscription by the British School of Motoring to the Liberal Party, in my understanding, was given with the specific support of the shareholders in that organisation.
There is one point I must make specifically to the noble Lord, Lord Belstead. I did not suggest, if he will recall, that postal ballots should in every case be made mandatory. What I said was that it should, in my view, be a statutory requirement that the distribution, returning and the counting of voting papers should be supervised by some suitable, independent body. I said that I did not see for myself how that could be done without a postal ballot and that it followed in my view that those ballots should be the norm unless in a particular case a union was itself able to satisfy the certification officer that an exception justifying a workplace ballot under independent scrutiny should be made in that particular case.
I am sorry to have had to make all those points, but I think that it was desirable for the record. For the rest, perhaps I may again say how privileged I have been to introduce this debate, thank all those who have taken part, and beg leave, just in time, to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Ports (Finance) Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.

The Strategic Defence Initiative and NATO
5.30 p.m.
Lord Kennet Lord Kennet rose to call attention, in the light of the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary's speech of 15th March, to the debate among NATO countries on the United States strategic defence initiative; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this House has a fortunate freedom to discuss large issues on which the future of humanity itself may depend. Such an issue is the strategic defence initiative taken by the President of the United States and I think there is no need for us to apologise for bringing on a debate about it three months after the last.
First of all, let us look at the opinion of the British people, because there is scarcely a Government in the world who are wiser than their own people. Governments should listen more and preach less. For years some 60 per cent. or more of our people have favoured a nuclear strategy and only about 25 per cent. have been unilateralists. The numbers supporting and opposing the presence of United States

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military bases in the United Kingdom have been, near enough, equal for the last year. The presence of United States nuclear cruise missiles here has been disapproved by a majority since 1981, except at the time of the election itself. The latest figures are 35 per cent. for and 56 per cent. against; and 68 per cent. think the United States would fire those cruise missiles without British consent, 18 per cent. think they would not; 94 per cent. want a physical dual key on them, and 74 per cent. would even pay Mr. Heseltine's mythical billion pounds to get it.
An interesting general question has been asked at intervals since 1977: "Has your confidence in the ability of America to deal with world problems tended to go up lately, to go down, or remain about the same?" In 1978 11 per cent. said up and 19 per cent. said down. In 1984 5 per cent. said up and 52 per cent. said down.
These figures can help us to judge the meaning of the figures on the strategic defence initiative itself. Eighty-four per cent. of the British people think the United States will do it with or without the approval of their allies and 84 per cent. also think the Russians will follow suit, leading to a continuing arms race; and a majority naturally thinks this would make our country less safe.
So much for the British people's reaction. The polls also show that the American people recognise SDI as a sure recipe for more and more arms race.
When we last debated this subject on a Question of my noble friend Lord Gladwyn, in January, the West European governments' reaction to President Reagan's proposals were still amorphous. Their outlines are now beginning to appear, and nothing has done more to hasten that process and make sure that it is carried out in a responsible way than the speech referred to in the Motion before us of the right honourable gentleman the Foreign Secretary at the Royal United Services Institute on 15th March. It is one of the founding texts around which European policy will precipitate.
The first such founding text was of course the four points agreed between the President and our own Prime Minister in December of last year. I feel sure the Government will read them out again in this debate, as they did last time, and as they should every time. They are the basis for much of the intra-Western agreement which has since been achieved.
Another such basis is the declaration of the Secretary-General of NATO, the noble Lord, Lord Carrington:
"It will at the very least be extraordinarily difficult to devise a system of strategic defence which meets the objectives of balance, no superiority, and enhanced deterrence."
General Rogers has let us all know that SDI is not what he thinks N ATO governments should be spending money on.
The basis for East-West agreement is the Shultz-Gromyko declaration of January this year about the Geneva negotiations, which made preventing an arms race in space an inseparable part of the whole negotiations.
The guidelines for our own Government's decision are laid down in the four points of the Foreign
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Secretary's speech. Those adopted by our European allies individually have recently been becoming clearer. Canada has said she will not take part in any United States star wars system. As far as the research stage goes, their position is very close to ours. Mr. Trudeau probably reflects the general perception in Canada about disarmament and detente when he says:
"I believe President Reagan would like to make progress. I have no reason to believe the advice he will get will permit him to make progress and I don't know if he will be in a position to judge if he is getting the right advice or not".
The position of Germany is the least unfavourable to SDI of any in NATO. The German Government have stated their wish to ensure that the research carried out should lead to co-operative solutions. In the context, that means co-operation between the United States and the Soviet Union. Mr. Genscher has called Sir Geoffrey Howe's speech "notable", and President Weizsäcker himself made his personal opposition to the concept of SDI clear at this year's Königswinter meeting. The German Government at all levels emphasise the danger of anything which would impair the "strategic unity" of the Western Alliance.
France has taken up a position of forthright scepticism, even disapproval. The President of France has described SDI in the following terms:
"This involves a further build-up of weaponry of which there is too much already, and that is not the right course to take. We should be heading towards disarmament, that is towards achieving a balance at the lowest level".
The Prime Minister of Italy has said that the United States should now give to the Soviet Union guarantees that it will not break the 1972 ABM treaty in the future. Greece has called for the prohibition of the development, testing and production etc., of SDI weaponry. This formulation, which was adopted at the recent Athens meeting of several heads of non-aligned and hardly aligned countries, is in fact no more than a call for the observation of the ABM treaty.
Norway broadly follows the United Kingdom and has proposed multilateral efforts towards the solution of the problem in the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva; that is to say, it believes bilateral contacts between the super powers are not enough.
Denmark, where parliamentary supremacy over the executive is well established, is perhaps in the clearest position of all. The Danish Parliament has passed a resolution, against the opposition of the Government, which reads:
"Denmark is against placing weapons in outer space and participating in research and development for such weapons … and instructs the Government to work actively in pursuance of the above viewpoint".
That was last month. In spite of being voted down, the Danish Government have not fallen. They are doing what parliamentary democracy requires; namely, getting on with the job which they have been instructed to do.
The opinion of Australia has been much clouded by the recent fracas between the United States and New Zealand about United States nuclear vessels entering New Zealand ports. But as long ago as January the Prime Minister of Australia told Mr. Shultz that his country was opposed to the development of SDI weaponry and would not contribute to it. New

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Zealand itself, of course, has not been invited to take part in any SDI activities because it is in disgrace.
The position of Japan is still far from clear, but the Japanese Government appear favourable to a joint research programme with the United States.
The Western European Union foreign and defence ministers last month declared their hope that the Geneva negotiations would lead on to agreement preventing an arms race in space, and agreed to achieve as far as possible a joint response to the United States invitation to participate in the SDI research programme.
Lastly, at the very recent Bonn Summit the Heads of State and Government of the developed capitalist world gave their warm backing to the present bilateral disarmament talks. They "appreciated" the American proposals at Geneva—that unusual word is presumably a translation from the French—but they were not prepared to endorse or even to mention the SDI itself.
Now that we have all made our reservations about SDI itself clear, we are tempted for economic reasons to join in the scientific and engineering research which the American Administration propose. It will of course be Congress that disposes, and military expenditure is no longer immune from Congress. Within Europe Germany is most tempted by the proposals and France least. Britain is somewhere in between. The Prime Minister was asked at a press conference in America on 22nd December last year whether Britain had any interest in or plans for participating directly in the SDI research programme. She answered:
"No, sir, not unless by any chance there are some of our scientists already participating in it, because they are already in the United States".
On the other hand, when she went a month later to address Congress her wording was a little different. She said that she,
"hoped that our own scientists will share in this research".
I think that the House would be grateful to her if the Minister of Slate can tell us whether there was a significant change of emphasis between her two statements or not.
What is "participating"? It could be so many things. It could be European government funding, but I do not think that it will be. It could be encouraging our firms to tender for American financed contracts. It could be merely permitting them to do so; and whatever it is it must surely be subject to some restrictions to prevent either another brain drain or a one-way ideas drain.
Of course the attractions are obvious. It looks from outside as though, if we get in on this act, we shall get an accelerated intellectual "freebie" into passive sensing; into extending the usable range of the frequency spectrum; into ultra-violet sensing; into thermo-luminescence; into the development of chips which are capable of ten-to-the-ninth operations per second and put themselves right when they go wrong; into the co-ordination of a system of sensors which will identify 100,000 objects in outer space; into high energy lasers which will shorten the stony path to controlled thermo-nuclear fusion; into rocket technology, cryogenics, measurement technology, robotics, and so on, down the line from here to
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Kingdom-come. Our mouths water when we think how we could be in on all that, and our heart misses several beats when we think what it would be like if the Japanese and the Americans were in on it together and we were not.
But we now know that things would not be quite like that. General Abrahamson, the director of the strategic defence initiative, said in a useful interview with a Belgian paper that the allies would be allowed to do only unclassified work. Europe would be making the tea outside the door.
But now the main point: whatever work is available would come to us not because President Reagan in his wisdom and kindness has decided that the United States should make a great new effort in research and technology for the good of mankind—no! It would be because President Reagan wants to realise his dream of an entirely new array of weapon systems to add to those which he already has. This is not pure research. This is research into definite and foreseeable weapons against other systems of weapons.
If the United States did not want the new weapon systems, it would not be doing the research. There is nothing wrong with research as such, but if there is something wrong with the reason for which it is being undertaken, then the research should not be undertaken. If the end is wrong, the means are wrong, too. There is no point in researching into how to do something that you ought not to do: it only makes it more likely that you will do it. Should an alcoholic buy a crate of whisky in order to find out if he wants to drink it?
Now this is where the Foreign Secretary's powerful and authoritative speech comes in. Ought star wars to be done? In his speech he asks 15 questions, by my count, on the answers to which the large answer to that one large question must depend.
I wish I had time to go through them all. They cover the military, political and economic fields very well: it would be a fool who endorsed the construction of an SDI system without answering all of them, and I much doubt the wisdom even of going into the research without answering all of them.
The Foreign Secretary's speech was immediately greeted with a philistine and bellicose sneer from the United States Administration and with a bit of a deathly hush from everyone else. Important questions often are greeted that way at first. But time is going by, the questions are on the table, and we in this country can be proud that it was our Foreign Minister who put them there.
They must now be answered. Who by? We have endorsed the setting up of a committee on weaponry in space by the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. It can provide some answers. The Foreign and Defence Ministers of the Western European Union at their recent meeting instructed their officials to study the matter and they met in London this morning. Perhaps they can provide some answers. Institutes for strategic studies and institutes for the study of international relations throughout. Europe are at last taking the matter up systematically and they will no doubt provide more. Incidentally, may I say here how much I regret that our own normally admirable International Institute for Strategic Studies in London did not take the star wars question up when it was first pressed to do so by some of its members in 1980.
Europe's response is still, however, all over the place. What we now need is a short, sharp study, to be undertaken by qualified people appointed by their governments from all the European NATO countries, into the whole doctrine of strategic defences, including the form the United States has decided on, as it affects Western Europe's interests, those interests being defined by West Europeans themselves. There is a case for a sort of outer circle to this group, containing people from Japan, Australia and New Zealand; and it goes without saying that the study should be carried out with the full knowledge of the American Administration, although without their formal participation.
Such an exercise would not be a threat to the Alliance: it would certainly be very much less of a threat than President Reagan's original bombshell in March 1983, and the subsequent classified studies about which I informed the House that same year. It would allow us and the others, if they want, to sharpen our perceptions and see what answers to Sir Geoffrey's 15 questions we can agree upon. NATO is going to outlive a good many American presidents yet.
Even now, before any systematic or agreed answers can be formulated, one fact stares us in the face: if you want sudden progress in a whole raft of scientific concerns from thermo-luminescence to cryogenics, you fund research into a whole raft of scientific concerns from thermo-luminescence to cryogenics. The weaponry is simply a distortion of what might otherwise be a wise and logical course. If you want high energy lasers for power stations, it is the purest waste of time and money to wait for the development of one light enough to be put into orbit. The way to get what we want is to go point-blank for it.
The reaction of France to all this, like so many French reactions, has been worthy of far more attention in this country than it has had. For years France has been advocating an international satellite monitoring agency, which is relevant now indeed. We have scarcely stirred a finger to help it forward. The first thing France did when it heard of the SDI was to set aside 60 million dollars for a new study of the ability of its own independent strategic deterrent to penetrate the ABM defences which the Soviet Union would in due course set up as a counterpart to the American ones. I have not heard that anybody in Britain is doing that for ours. Trident is presumably deemed talisman enough for anything.
The next thing the French did was to call in rather vague terms, first, for a European technological community and now for a project called Eureka which is still at a formative phase. But it has, or could have, or is susceptible of being made to have, some highly useful purposes. It could promote that direct R and D drive for what we do want.
What I suggest then is two things. The first is a small study group of wise persons appointed from European NATO to consider the military, political and economic desirability of what our allies propose; and the second a large co-ordinated inter-governmental programme, mobilising very large financial resources, of hardware and software research. The first would produce its own answers quite quickly: perhaps in six months. The latter would need a good deal more study before it could be launched.
At least until the first study—the, as it were, "15 questions study"—we should not rush to board General Abrahamson's bandwagon. As my right honourable friend Dr. Owen said in a recent lecture:
"Western Europe should not be sucked into endorsing this research and development programme".
There are two great reasons for this. The first is that star wars would be destabilising if realised, destabilising if decided on, and is already destabilising now, when it is only being talked about. Oddly enough, the White House has itself twice stated this quite clearly. Once was in the President's own first speech back in 1983. He said:
"I clearly recognise that defensive systems have limitations … If paired with offensive systems they can be viewed as fostering an aggressive policy and no one wants that".
That is good thinking and clear speaking.
Lord Home of the Hirsel: My Lords, will the noble Lord give way for one minute? I do not necessarily dissent from much of what he is saying. However, I am bound to say that one would not get the impression from his speech that the same kind of research has been carried on by the Russians for many years, and that they are still going on with it.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, of course I take it for granted that the same kind of research has been carried on by the Russians for many years. It has also been carried on by the United States for many years. What we are talking about is a sudden acceleration of the United States programme over what has been going on previously.
The other time the White House described the destabilising nature of SDI was in a statement on 3rd January this year. It says:
"the Soviets are engaged in research and development on a rapidly deployable ABM system".
That meets the noble Lord's point.
"That raises concern about their potential ability to break out of the ABM treaty and deploy a nationwide ABM defence system in the next 10 years, should they choose to do so. Were they to do so, as they could, deterrence would collapse and we should have no choices between surrender and suicide".
The White House can see that if the Soviet Union were to kick aside the ABM treaty and develop a full-scale strategic defence, that would leave the United States of America with no choices between suicide and surrender. How can the White House fail to see that if the United States were to do the same that would leave the Soviet Union with no choices between suicide and surrender? What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
At different times the United States Administration has described a full-scale strategic defence system in three different ways: as something which will lead to improved deterrence; as something which will progressively supplant deterrence; and as something which will leave the other side with no choice between surrender and suicide. We must not help our friends to develop something which they cannot describe more clearly than that.
The second reason for us not to be sucked in is that the development of ABM weapons for use in space, or

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stationed in space, would break the bilateral ABM treaty between American and Russia. The Prime Minister talks happily of all that being "subject to negotiations" with the Russians. However, does she think that the Russians are really going to change their spots that easily? If they do not, we will in the future have to ask who we agree with: the treaty preservers, or the treaty destroyers?
The Reagan Administration has unfortunately shown scant respect for international law, either conventional or customary law—and customary law is now developing in the arms control field. This, I believe, accounts for the diminishing confidence of the British and European peoples in its wisdom. We feel no parallel diminution of confidence in the American people, or in possible future American Administrations.
We expect the United States to observe the law, so that we may require the Soviet Union to observe the law.
My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
5.53 p.m.
The Earl of Bessborough: My Lords, I am not sure whether I should have been tempted by the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, to speak in this debate, because I feel that perhaps I either know too much or, on the other hand, perhaps too little. Too much, because I was of course a member of the Select Sub-Committee, presided over by the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, which was concerned, among other matters, with remote sensing by satellite. I have also read Dr. Geoffrey Pardoe's classic work on The Future of Space Technology, which was published last year and for which I wrote the foreword. In connection with this debate I suggest your Lordships should read, or should have read, the chapter on Military Space Systems and what Dr. Pardoe says about anti-missile missiles—and, indeed, anti-missile-missile missiles, to say nothing of anti-satellite-satellite satellites. Here, the mind begins to boggle.
I have also recently attended a series of meetings in London and in Washington with one of President Reagan's principal scientific advisers on SDI, as well as with Mr. James Beggs, the head of NASA, and also administrators of NOAA, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. These latter talks, of course, were not directly concerned with military space applications except in so far as it is admitted that the American Permanent Manned Space Station, to which British Aerospace will be providing an associated free-flying platform, could well have military applications.
I certainly agreed with my right honourable friend the Prime Minister when she said that Her Majesty's Government were in favour of the United States going ahead with research concerned with the strategic defence initiative, and also that she hoped that British scientists might also be associated with this research. However, the whole project is very long-term and we still do not know the extent to which defence against the latest ballistic missiles will be effective. That is why I say perhaps I know too little.
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I am not only in favour of the United States going ahead with this research, but, speaking entirely personally, I consider it essential, as it has been historically, that the West should develop adequate defence measures in the event of such weapons being used. Historically, nations have always had to do this whenever new weapons have been developed. Also, I agree with President Reagan when he asked in 1983:
"Would it not be better to save lives than to avenge them? Are we not capable of demonstrating our peaceful intentions by applying all our abilities and our ingenuity to achieving a truly lasting stability?".
To this, the President replied:
"I think we are—and indeed we must".
I agree with him that it is right to embark on a defensive programme to counter the missile threat. However, the funding of this programme, estimated to amount to some 26 billion dollars up to 1989, is nonetheless horrendous. I shall not say more about that this evening, since I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, who also has the very latest information from Washington on this matter, will say something on it.
However, I should like to ask my noble friend Lady Young what Her Majesty's Government's latest views are on this multi-layered space-based defence concept. In January of this year the Reagan Administration described the general concept which SDI research would consider as being a defence that used various technologies to deter attacking missiles during each phase of their flight. As I understand it, some missiles could be destroyed shortly after they are launched and as they burn their engines and boost their warheads into space. By destroying a missile during this boost phase it would, at the same time, destroy all the nuclear warheads which it carried. Indeed, in the case of intercontinental ballistic missiles they could probably be destroyed before leaving the territory of the aggressor.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, will the noble Earl please give way?
The Earl of Bessborough: My Lords, yes, except that we have this problem of time.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, yes, of course. Would the noble Earl favour taking it one step further and destroying the missile on the ground before even the boost phase?
The Earl of Bessborough: Yes, my Lords, if this can be done. At any rate, then there is the next phase, with which the noble Lord is also familiar, when it would be possible to destroy those nuclear warheads that survive the boost phase by attacking them during the post-boost phase. During this phase it would be possible to target the device that sits on the top of the missile, and which is used to disperse its warheads, while it is in the process of releasing its cargo. By destroying this device, the post-boost vehicle, it would be possible to destroy all the warheads which had not yet been released. All this is the doctrine of my friends in the United States.
I am repeating it, and I shall be interested to know the comments of my noble friend on it later. Those warheads that have been released and survive would

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travel for tens of minutes in the void of space on their ballistic trajectories towards their targets. It would then be necessary to locate, identify and destroy the individual nuclear warheads themselves. This relatively long mid-course phase of flight offers time to exploit advanced technologies to do just that. Finally, those warheads that survive the outer layers of defence could be attacked during the terminal phase as they approached the end of their ballistic flight.
I am sorry that it is not my 10-year-old grandson who is describing these possibilities. I believe that he understands them probably better than some of us in your Lordships' House. At any rate, I know that he believes that a considerable number of satellites would be needed mainly as platforms for launching but also, of course, for surveillance and tracking. Various possible weapons, also known to my grandson, have been suggested. They include different sorts of laser, particle beams, plasma guns and kinetic energy weapons. The noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, may have something to say about whether or not the Americans are proceeding with research on these weapons. I shall be interested to hear what he has to say.
An important matter from Europe's point of view seems to be that the United States Government have made clear that they think of the system as protecting their allies as well as America. As President Reagan pointed out in his speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg on 8th May, the Soviet Union has been engaged, as my noble friend Lord Home implied just now, in research into SDI, I believe, for the last 20 years. Again, I would be interested to hear whether my noble friend Lady Young agrees about this. sss
We know that the Russians have already in service probably the only operational ground based anti-ballistic missile system in the world. I think that my honourable friend Mr. John Stanley, our Minister of State for the Armed Forces, has said that his department broadly endorses this. Again, I should be glad to know whether my noble friend agrees that the Russians also have an operational anti-satellite system and that the Soviet Union is ahead of the West in laser research and electronic pulse beams. I think it right that the West should not aim to achieve superiority but mainly to maintain balance, taking account of Soviet defences.
On the question of our own British scientists sharing in this research—a point made by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister in her speech to the United States Congress—I should be interested to know, again from my noble friend, the terms—not only the American terms, but also our own terms—under which our scientists would share in this research. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, would agree on this point.
There are, of course, many questions that need to be considered. I understand that even the most enthusiastic supporters of SDI do not claim that it could provide a 100 per cent. protective umbrella against a mass attack by such missiles. I am sorry that my noble friend Lord Home has left us because we were discussing this matter only the other day. I know that he agrees with me that you are not likely, in the shooting field, when 20 or 30 birds fly over you at the
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same time, to get more than two birds with one gun having two barrels; and that with two guns, you are not likely to get more than four. I should be interested to hear what my noble friend Lady Young, who may not perhaps go into the shooting field like my noble friend Lord De L'Isle has to say.
Then there is the difficult question as to what effect ballistic missile defence will have on arms control. I hope that my noble friend will have something to say about this and also on the effect that SDI will have on the ABM treaty of 1972.
I should like to hear something about Trident and whether it might become ineffective as a deterrent. As I understand it, we shall still need Trident, which will be in service long before any effective Soviet defence could be in place. As I have already implied, no one knows how long it will take the Americans to develop this strategic defence capability. I think, therefore, that Trident should be in service long before—my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Defence, Mr. Heseltine, agrees, I think—the star wars programme could be implemented.
As to Eureka, I am insufficiently briefed to make a judgment having only read a press report in the Daily Telegraph of 1st May and, of course, the references in The Times today. As I understand it, Eureka is a French proposal that the European Community should develop an independent space defence initiative of its own and that this would involve research into laser technology, micro-electronics and robotics. On the face of it and due to the very considerable cost, I am doubtful whether the Community should attempt to duplicate research done by the Americans and it would be better within the NATO context to co-operate with the United States rather than promoting a purely Common Market defence capability. In this case, however, I think that the funding is so vast that as many NATO countries as possible should co-operate together even if Denmark and Canada do not—perhaps Japan will join—and I shall be interested to hear what my noble friend has to say on Eureka.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, that study groups should be set up. That is obviously essential. I have no doubt that they are already being set up. I am grateful to the noble Lord for having raised this matter, hesitant as I was about taking part in a debate on such a complex issue. I look forward to hearing what the Government have to say.
6.7 p.m.
Lord Rea: My Lords, the reason why I, as an amateur in this complex area of defence strategy, have ventured into the debate is my belief, which I have stated on at least one previous occasion, that war and its prevention can and should be regarded as part of the concern of those such as myself working in the health field. Nevertheless, I feel somewhat humbled to be speaking in the presence of such experts, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, who is to follow me. Most of us are very unhappy about MAD, mutually assured deterrence or destruction, which is the basis apparently for the modus vivendi between East and West. It is a remarkably dangerous way of keeping the peace with too many possibilities of accidental, unintentional or impetuous unleashing of

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disaster. However, many believe that it has been the main reason For 40 years of peace in Europe. I do not agree with that view, but that is for another debate.
All of us, I think, regret that the many long, drawn-out discussions on arms limitation that have taken place have been so unsuccessful. Again, this is not the time to hand out blame for this. Nuclear arsenals and delivery systems on both sides have reached a prodigious proportion of overkill with far more destructive power than could ever be needed. However, the anti-ballistic missile treaty which was part of the SALT I Treaty of 1972 has been largely adhered to because it suited both sides then, and has continued to do so until now.
As the Foreign Secretary said in the speech on which this debate is based:
"It represents a political and military keystone in the still shaky arch of security we have constructed with the East in the past decade and a half".
Now however the strategic defence initiative concept threatens this precarious balance, however idealistic the thoughts in the mind of President Reagan when he launched it two years ago. His words then were:
"Let me share with you a vision of the future which offers hope … let us turn to the very strength in technology that spawned our great industrial base, that has given us the quality of life that we enjoy today".
But however much his enthusiasm may have impressed some Americans, others, such as Dr. Harold Brown the much respected ex-Secretary of Defence quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, in this House on 30th January this year, have been sceptical about the possibility of an effective anti-ballistic missile shield. To quote him, he says:
"American political and military leaders should publicly acknowledge that there is no realistic prospect for a successful population defence, certainly for many decades and probably never".
One wonders why, in view of such authoritative and critical statements, the idea was launched with such a fanfare. At present, it is only research into possible ABM systems that is proposed, and in which we are invited to join. But as Sir Geoffrey says:
"Research may acquire an unstoppable momentum of its own, even though the case for stopping may strengthen with the passage of years".
I think the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, indicated that we may already be going along that line now.
Research may not in itself be contrary to the ABM Treaty, but the march of events started by research will certainly threaten to do so. Matching research in the USSR, which the noble Lord, Lord Home of the Hirsel, pointed out has already started, will probably gain the same momentum, and the joint Camp David declaration that,
"SDI deployment would in view of treaty obligations have to be a matter of negotiation",
would, I suggest, go by the board.
The cost implications of the strategic defence initiative are quite prodigious. One estimate is 25 billion dollars for research and 200 billion dollars for the actual programme. These figures have been suggested, but they are really "guesstimates" with little that is definite to go on. In addition, though, there would be an extra boost to nuclear weapon manufacture since more would be needed to saturate
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and penetrate any ABM system. It was suggested by Paul Nitze in his Alistair Buchan memorial lecture in March of this year that it could be that the United States economic giant could stand this military expenditure while maintaining something like the present standard of living, although I am sure the welfare provision and overseas aid would suffer severely.
It is doubtful whether the less developed and efficient Soviet economy could handle this—a fact which I think was doubtless taken into account by the backers of the strategic defence initiative. However, to push the USSR down this road might have extremely dangerous consequences. Certainly it would not allow Mr. Gorbachev to liberalise the regime in ways we might hope for and expect if a further detente could be achieved. It could even push the "hawks" in the Soviet leadership into ascendency and they may be driven to desperate measures before the anti-ballistic missile cover was fully achieved. In all probability, Europe would be taking the brunt in the middle of it.
So, faced with considerations of this kind, the approach of the Foreign Secretary is statemanlike, cautious and diplomatic. Perhaps I myself would have gone further than him, but I am a realist. His approach is the kind which is most likely to influence the United States and perhaps dissuade them from rushing precipitously into this dangerous territory. But it is always difficult to restrain an excited horse which is rearing to gallop off down a track even when there is a precipice around the corner. It is even more difficult when the rider seems unaware of the precipice and can only see the beautiful country on the other side of the canyon.
I very much hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Young, can reassure us that the views of Sir Geoffrey are fully backed by the Government as a whole and that the answers to his 15 questions will be sought assiduously.
6.15 p.m.
Lord Zuckerman: My Lords, when the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, introduced the debate on this subject in January of this year I knew it would come back again to your Lordships' House, but I did not realise it would come back so soon. On the other hand, I have been impressed by the force of the introductory remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Kennet. I do realise that this is a subject on which we should focus a lot of our attention.
However, perhaps I may begin by saying that I am sorry that on this occasion the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, is not in your Lordships' Chamber. I disagreed with some of the things he said in the debate in January and exchanged some letters with him afterwards. We reached some measure of agreement, and even in his absence, I am sure he would like me to put one or two matters right for the record.
The noble Lord referred to a report which he thought had been written—and I am quoting now from Hansard—
"by a body called the Union of Concerned Scientists"—
a report which he understood was,
"conspicuous largely for its extraordinary number of inaccuracies, tendentious statements and false assumptions".—[Official Report, 30/1/85; col. 704.]

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As a result of our exchanges, the noble Lord now knows that in fact the report was based on the work of a group of fourteen scholars, including four highly distinguished American physicists, one of them a Nobel laureate and at least three of whom have had as continuous an experience of defence research and engineering as almost any of the American scientists moving in and out of Washington.
What the noble Lord was really referring to was what I would describe as a tendentious and intemperate criticism of the report, in which reference was made to only two errors: those two errors had been corrected publicly well before our debate in January. I think that matter ought to be put right, because the correction was made before a Senate Committee. It is on record there, and we should not have the record wrong in our Hansard. I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, would have wished me to take the opportunity of correcting what would otherwise have been regarded as a slight on the reputation of some very distinguished men.
Since our last debate there have been several new technological reports on the whole of this issue. They are continuing to appear, together with critiques of what had been intended strategically in the first instance. I do not know if it was the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, or the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, who said that SDI had taken several shapes since its launching by the President in March 1983. It has also taken numerous technological shapes. There is a great deal of uncertainty now surrounding the whole concept of SDI, which, certainly from the R & D point of view, has been transformed in direction.
One of the points the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, made related to the number of space platforms necessary for the laser beam apparatus. I am sure your Lordships all know what a laser beam is. Consider that if all these television lights were concentrated in a single beam of energy, that beam could burn through the desk over there. Your Lordships also know how a magnifying glass operates. You will have some idea of what a laser beam is. Laser beams, which are spoken about in the context of SDI, are extraordinarily powerful beams of energy within the electromagnetic spectrum which can be focussed over thousands of miles, given it is known how to focus them. The number of orbiting space platforms that are necessary, with the necessary apparatus mounted on those platforms, depends upon the number which at any given moment are in position to survey the Russian mainland. These are very complicated calculations. Indeed, when the noble Earl referred to equations about the number of birds that can be knocked down by what number of guns, he ought to see some of the equations which appear in some of the latest papers to which I have referred.
The fact of the matter is that what is demanded technologically when we talk about the SDI laser beam—and I will get away from that in a moment—is an apparatus which can be retargeted—and this is the goal of the R & D programme—from one missile rising from its silo within a tenth of a second to another missile. It depends upon the extent to which that goal can be achieved how many laser platforms would be necessary in space.
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A special panel, set up by the President under Mr. Hoffman, made it quite clear that any space defence which could withstand a small attack but which would collapse under a larger onslaught, would be highly provocative. Therefore, if we are conceiving of any space defence system, whether operating with particle beams or laser beams, which have to destroy missiles as they rise from their silos, which have to be directed through infra-red sensors on other space platforms through a computer system, and if we are to get the whole system right, you must realise that we are up against a major technological challenge.
Strangely enough, and by accident, I happen to know that all that is likely to be academic. The day before yesterday I was sent a copy of the Washington Post of three days ago. I have informed the noble Baroness the Minister of State that I have it and I shall hand it to her afterwards. It is not an official document, but it is an extremely well-informed article by a Washington reporter based upon a talk that he had just had with General Abrahamson and four of his chief officials. They are quoted verbatim and therefore I must assume that they would immediately have corrected what is said here had it been false.
The picture which this document gives is not very dissimilar from the contents list of the document on the Strategic Defence Initiative sent to Congress by the DoD three weeks ago. It is a lengthy report. The R & D goals are properly set out in the first set of chapters. Then we have the R & D projects necessary to achieve them. Only four relate to directed energy weapons technology. The rest relate to surveillance, acquisition, tracking and kill assessment, and then there is an enormous list on kinetic energy weapons technology, to which the noble Earl referred.
To summarise, it would appear that there is a growing conviction among top officials in General Abrahamson's organisation that the use of lasers will remain beyond United States' technological reach for many years. Instead, the emphasis is now being placed on kinetic energy weapons, or what they are brightly calling "smart rock" technology. By "smart rock" technology they mean what we used to talk about in the ABM debate at the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s. If you can put a ballistic missile into a path which is predetermined through a knowledge of Newtonian laws of motion, you can put in its path a load of gravel travelling in a contrary direction which will hit the warhead. I am talking about the warhead on its middle course, and on the assumption that all this can be done, which I doubt. General Abrahamson is talking about the use of railguns to shoot small projectiles, small rocks, (and I am told that the General has a sample of rock on his desk) into space at a sufficient velocity to destroy ballistic missiles in mid-course.
There appears to be some confusion as to whether or not such guns would have to be mounted on space platforms. This is a point which the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, made in the question which he asked the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough: whether or not he would disapprove of weapons on the ground. The question is whether or not these railguns could be directed from Earth or whether they too would have to be on space platforms. That is a point which is most important, and to which I shall briefly return at the

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end of my contribution to this debate. Either way, of course, it would be necessary for the railguns, as they are called, to be aimed and directed by means of proper sensor devices in space, and those would have to be guided through the necessary computer systems.
While this appears to be the preferred focus of present technological efforts, we must realise that General Abrahamson himself, to quote this newspaper article of two days ago:
"believes that even this technology will not be there until the early 1990s before the next administration could go ahead with what would be the development phase of a first generation system".
Therefore, for the first time we are now talking about first-generation systems in the SDI as opposed to later systems. The present system is based upon known technologies which are properly listed.
There is just one further point to which I should refer. In that same article General Abrahamson is quoted as saying that he is not certain whether the amount of energy which can be provided by conventional energy sources—electrical energy sources—would be sufficient for those guns. What he is hinting at is what two new reports are also saying: it might be necessary to conceive of minor nuclear explosions in the system to provide the necessary energy. I do not want to say any more about that. Clearly, the whole of this programme about which we are talking is so vague that I at least do not know what it is we are talking about.
However, we do know that the United States Government has invited its allies, together with Japan and Israel (which have been referred to a great deal), to co-operate in the R & D programmes for an SDI. We have been invited both directly and indirectly, through NATO. The problem which we now have to face is whether, given that it is decided to co-operate in this R & D programme—which may be funded at a very high figure; it may not be the $3.7 billion which is spoken about for this current year; it may just be $3 billion—we do this unilaterally or in concert with our allies, and in particular our European partners. It is a very difficult decision.
I know that the Minister of State is fully aware of the advantages in unilateral co-operation. It is extremely difficult to arrange multilateral co-operation but, worse than that, were the 1958 agreement on the exchange of nuclear information to apply, there would be no hindrance to real technology transfer in a bilateral arrangement. There would most certainly be a hindrance to any such transfer given a multilateral arrangement.
This is a political matter. Given that the decision was taken that in some way or other we should co-operate in this R & D programme, the question that needs to be answered is whether the greater benefit we derive from doing so unilaterally counterbalances the benefits we lose by cutting ourselves off from our NATO partners. This is a matter for our political masters to decide.
In the particular programme which was laid before Congress, there were any number of matters with which we might well concern ourselves which do not in themselves affect the arms race as such. Many of these things will go on anyhow. They have been going on for years. They have been going on to a limited extent in
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this country, and they have certainly been going on in the United States, on the Continent, and without question in the USSR, and these are matters relating to information technology in general, matters relating to radar discrimination, and so on.
What we should be clear about is this: if we do become partners in any part of the research programme, it should be a partnership which helps us in our own technological future. Many of the technologies involved, particularly in the general field of information technology, can—and we must remember this—be applied both in the field of conventional arms and in the consumer electronics industry. It would be pretty awful for us if we were to contribute in a joint research programme and find ourselves barred, by the usual obligations, from using any of the new technology we might learn—given that there is new technology that we could learn—where we wanted to, or where our industry thought it would be wise to use it.
In other words, I would say that it is a necessary condition of our co-operation that it brings us benefit, and that it does not damage our own prospects. This means that there should be no limitations—and the Government should not agree to any limitations—on technology transfer, at any rate so far as we are concerned. We should be aware of any such restrictions which may occur if we engage in any multilateral arrangement with the United States.
The noble Earl asked which way co-operation can take place. As I see it, there are three ways. One is through companies, and then the companies would have to decide whether they bid for contracts on their own or in concert with American partners, and how much of their own resources they are likely to put into the kitty in order to find themselves in the front row of those chosen. Whether there are many companies, I do not know. My hunch is that there will not prove to be many.
Secondly, the Government might decide to help some of our research establishments co-operate directly with in-house research establishments of the Department of Defence. That would mean more money. If that were done I would again impose the condition that there be no bar to the use of any technology which might be learnt.
The third one is the dangerous one to which the noble Earl referred; namely, another brain drain. Here I should like to give some figures. The sums we are talking about now, or the sum which was originally talked about, was 3·7 billion dollars. Calculations have been made—and I know of three lots, two of them official—about the number of new, trained professional engineers and scientists who would be called for if this money were to be spent, and the first figure I had was 42,000, and that was an official figure. The figure I had this morning was 30,000 professional scientists and engineers additional to those who are already employed in the United States. I ask your Lordships, where are they coming from?
When the Apollo programme was launched in the 1960s and when the United States went hard on its civil nuclear power programme—and my friend the noble Lord, Lord Aldington, knows more about this than I do—they would never have got off as fast as they

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did in their civil nuclear programme had it not been for British nuclear engineers. I should like to know how our own average salaries for professional scientists and engineers compare with those which would be offered in the SDI programme. The rough figure which is being used to equate the money that is going to be available, or may be voted, per man is 100,000 dollars.
The figures I have been given for average salaries for professional scientists and engineers in this country are far lower. There will be an inducement. But I am quite sure that this matter will be kept under close review and scrutiny by Her Majesty's Government, and I am sure that the noble Baroness will see that attention is drawn to this particular problem in the right quarters.
Finally, I refer to one point, but it is a major point, and that is the ABM treaty. The Prime Minister was assured by the President that the ABM treaty would not be contravened. I myself had the good fortune to have a lengthy conversation with Mr. Weinberger and he said the same thing. On the other hand, the annexe to the report presented to Congress is highly disquieting because it refers there to a new category which can be tested; namely, sub-components. That I do not understand.
As the treaty reads at the present moment it is impossible to test or deploy ABM systems and components which are "space based, air based, sea based or mobile land based". Now we have a new category put in, sub-components. I have no doubt whatever that this is a matter which should be looked at closely. I am also impressed by the fact that the whole of the SDI programme, in the light of that annexe, has been described in a recent issue of Nature in this country and in the American newspapers as a sham and a fraud.
Just one last word about the Russians. The President has said that if his SDI succeeds he will provide them with the technology that comes out of the R & D programme. It is possible that the R & D programme would not succeed even if the Russians co-operated. But one thing I am quite certain of is that the Russians know as much about space—even though they may not know about fifth generation computers—as we do. They were there first, they were in the field long before the United States and they are there now. If the present situation of stand-off deterrence were in danger of being disturbed, I am certain that the Russians would take every possible step to see that it was not.
6.38 p.m.
Viscount Mersey: My Lords, as they say, "follow that". I am positively dazzled by the expertise of the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman. Like the noble Lord, Lord Rea, I am indeed an amateur. My arguments will by comparison be primitive and broad, and I shall happily give way to the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, on his great expertise if any of them are wrong.
I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, for initiating this so far fascinating debate. I agreed with a lot of what he said. I only felt that he gave a slightly too precise definition of what the strategic defence initiative might turn out to be, particularly in view of what we have later heard from the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman.
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The odd thing to me is that the deployment of what one might call strategic defence initiative weapons could well be dangerous, but conversely I do not think that there is anything new in the broad concept of strategic defence. It was towards the end of the Second World War that Werner von Braun announced that he had invented a weapon against which there could be no defence. This was the ballistic missile, the V2, which fell on us. Just before that, as noble Lords will remember, we had a cruise missile, the doodlebug, or V 1, which also fell on us. We learned how to down the doodlebugs, but we never learned how to down the V2s. Is not that possibly the root, and the historic, problem?
I do not think anyone can be stopped from looking at methods by which we might try to destroy a ballistic missile. Surely that is what the West has been doing ever since the first V2 hit London. In a way President Reagan's SDI is not much more than a large grant towards V2 defence. Yet it could be a dangerous grant because the warheads have changed completely from high explosive to nuclear, and that changes not just our attitude to strategic defence; it alters the theory of war.
Clausewitz wrote:
"War is a continuation of diplomacy by other means".
That used to be the first commandment of military theory, but now nuclear weapons make a nonsense of all that. Nuclear war is not a continuation of diplomacy, or of anything. It is Armageddon: it is the end of everything. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary was fully aware of that when he said in his speech to RUSI that the nature of warfare between major powers was irrevocably altered 40 years ago, and he quoted Bernard Brodie, who said:
"Thus far the chief purpose of a military establishment has been to win wars. From now on its chief purpose must be to avert them".
My right honourable friend expressed the view that the "D" of MAD (mutually assured destruction) should stand not for destruction but for deterrence. I think that is preferable, though I noted what the noble Lord, Lord Rea, said about that.
Therein lies the 64,000 dollar question about the stragetic defence initiative. What might it achieve? Might it increase deterrence, or might it make destruction more likely? The main conclusion that my right honourable friend draws is that we must wait and see. We must consider the implications of each development in research and, if deterrence seems more likely, we should pursue it; but if destruction seems more likely, we should stop.
Much of my right honourable friend's speech was not a speech so much as a series of questions, 15 of them. For example, he asked whether the process of moving towards a greater emphasis on active defence could be managed without generating dangerous uncertainty? He asked:
Uncertainty apart, would the establishment of limited defences increase the threat to the civilian populations by stimulating a return to the targeting policies of the 1950s?"
and:
"Most fundamental of all, would the supposed technology actually work?"
We have just heard a great deal about that from the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary does not himself answer

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those questions. He says simply that they are key questions to be answered by the research that is being undertaken on both sides. It is both sides, indeed, for, as has already been said, the United States of America has no monopoly of strategic defence.
Noble Lords will know that Moscow is encircled by an ABM screen called GALOSH. This is in order under the ABM treaty of 1972. The Americans could similarly encircle New York or Washington, but they have not done so, presumably because they think it simply would not work.
I should be grateful if my noble friend Lady Young could tell us more of the nature of GALOSH; yet I shall be surprised if she does, because any intelligence she may have is presumably secret. I wonder whether she could tell us what this curious acronym stands for, at least. If I illustrate the various forms GALOSH might take, the benefits and dangers of any form of SDI become apparent.
As has been said already, the easiest way to stop an enemy missile attack is to destroy the missiles in their silos, submarines or aircraft. My noble friend Lord Bessborough was in favour of this. Particularly in view of what the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, has said, I regard that as incredibly dangerous. I regard it very nearly as a pre-emptive strike and I should think that there would be a strong chance that Word War III would break out if we tried to destroy these things in their silos. However, that is the easiest way to do it.
The hardest way is to wait until the missiles get to the other end, to the point where they become MIRVED. At the start of the trip only one ABM would be needed to destroy one ICBM, but by the end of the trip 10 or 20 would be needed, and there are only a few seconds in which to hit them.
I should imagine that the strategic defence initiative is concerned with the middle ground, with an area between these two extremes: one very dangerous and the other very difficult. The enemy missile could be attacked high in the sky before it had released its warheads and that would probably be over the North Pole for either side, for either America or Russia. In the case of Russia I doubt that Moscow would be the best point of departure for such an attack. Rather the ABMs or, much later, the lasers, would best be deployed along the Kola peninsula; and in the case of the United States of America they would best be deployed in Northern Alaska. Either of those deployments would break the 1972 ABM treaty. I suspect that GALOSH is Moscow based. If so, I do not see how it could stop more than a minute fraction of incoming missiles.
But the oddity about SDI is that it is not really about warheads but about missiles. A cruise missile is outside the ABM treaty and is therefore fair game for either side to attack. But a ballistic missile is within the treaty. It cannot be attacked and presumably if one comes over, we are meant to shout "Pax" or some such thing as: "Don't shoot it, you'll break the treaty", for all the world as if the ICBM was like a hen pheasant out of season. But that particular brand of hen pheasant could destroy a million of us. That is why it seems so logical to erect defences against it; defences, moreover, which are non-unclear and would kill no one.
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The whole difficulty about the strategic defence initiative is that that argument, which is logical and seductive, could so easily increase the danger of a nuclear exchange. That is why it must be right to research it by all means but on no account deploy it unless NATO can agree with the Warsaw Pact that such a deployment would lessen the nuclear threat. Then both sides could negotiate a deployment, both would agree that the ABM treaty was obsolete and, very hopefully, both sides could make massive reductions in their nuclear arsenals.
But all that, as the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, has said, could be 10 or 20 years away. SDI is at the moment little more than a nebulous concept. It is hard to attack it, as we cannot know exactly what we are attacking. I was surprised to read in the paper this morning, as will have many noble Lords, that Denmark has dissociated itself from what is no more than a concept. I am also alarmed by Eureka, the French European system. I also read that the Germans were considering another system. The reason for that alarm is that there is an unfortunate precedent in the diversity of systems; that is, in radar that we have defending the NATO airfields. The radars are American, French, British and German systems which are incompatible. They have different IFFs. It is reckoned that in a conventional war we would lose three-quarters of our aircraft to our own surface-to-air missiles as they came back to land at the airfields.
If NATO is to have a strategic defence initiative, it must be uniform. That much is certain, but not much else is. Should NATO have strategic defence? We do not know. Let us see if it will work. Let us examine its psychological impact. Let us at every stage ask ourselves whether this is a contribution to deterrence or to destruction. Let us do so in consultation with our opponents in the Warsaw Pact. As the various SALT and START talks have shown, it is next to impossible to reduce weapons already deployed. But is is possible to agree on a weapons limitation, or even a ban, if the weapon is not yet deployed or developed. I feel that therein lies hope, and that is the way to look at the strategic defence initiative. Both sides should research it, then discuss its implications round a conference table in Geneva.
6.50 p.m.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, if I may, in a moment I shall follow the noble Viscount, Lord Mersey, on one of the points that he raised in his interesting speech, but first of all I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, on introducing this subject again. I do so for two main reasons. The first is because of the intrinsic importance of the subject itself. There is no other subject which we could discuss which has greater impact on the future of humanity. The second is because of the rapidity of movement in the subject itself—not merely the rapidity of technological movement, but the rapidity of opinion. For this reason it is appropriate, I think, to discuss this matter at fairly frequent intervals, as it is quite easy to find oneself out of date because of changes in position taken up by people who hitherto have seemed to take up rather different positions.
The speech to which reference has been made throughout the debate—an important speech made by

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the Foreign Secretary—is a case in point. As the noble Viscount, Lord Mersey, has said, the speech was a number of questions. The nature of the questions themselves, the fact that they were asked, the qualifications and the points at which the Foreign Secretary occasionally seemed to indicate an answer to some of his questions was all indicative, I think, of a very great deal of concern. The consequence of this concern has been a moving together of opinions. The noble Lord, Lord Kennet, pointed to a movement together of opinion in Europe. He pointed out some differences, but I think that he would agree with me when i say that there is, as it were, a coagulation of concern among European nations about the position in which they find themselves at the moment.
Equally, I think that, inside our own country, those of us who used to argue on such questions as unilateral and multilateral can now see, I think, in the light of present developments, that these matters are no longer questions which should occupy our minds. We are in a different ball game. We are in a ball game in which we are, if I may mix the metaphors a bit, all in the same boat. It is this, I think, which is bringing us together in what one might call a gathering together of concern. I think it is also the case that opinion in political parties is beginning to move together a little. The Alliance and the Labour Party, and, I think, substantial elements in the Conservative Party and in the Government as well, are no longer concentrating as much as they used to on differences of emphasis. I think it is realised on all sides, or at least on many sides, that the issue is no longer anything short of survival or extinction. This is the question that we face.
In these circumstances, I think it is rather unfortunate that American Presidents seem to get themselves advised by such unfortunate people. Take the case of Mr. Richard Perle, for example, who devoted much of a long speech to an attack upon the Foreign Secretary—one which verged upon a personal attack. This issue is far too important to be dealt with in terms as to whether or not the people on both sides are off their heads. We are beginning to move into the situation in which the debate is starting to degenerate to that level. There is no point in discussion taking place at that level—"You are mad", or, "I am mad". Once you get down to that level, you have ceased to make any valuable contribution to the discussion whatsoever. This is why I was very glad to hear the distinguished contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, although so far as I understood it I do not think I agreed with all of it. Nonetheless, I recognised it as a valuable and intellectually distinguished contribution to this discussion.
I said just now that the questions were important. As the noble Viscount, Lord Mersey, said, one of the questions that the Foreign Secretary asked is whether the supposed technology would actually work. But the noble Viscount did not mention that the Foreign Secretary went on to say—and I quote:
"If the technology does work, what will be its psychological impact on the other side?"
This is an extremely important question. One always ought to ask oneself, "What are the consequences of my action upon my supposed opponent?" If one does
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not ask oneself that question, one avoids the consequences which may flow from one's own actions. That is why I think it is important that the Foreign Secretary went on to say:
"President Reagan has repeatedly made it clear that he does not seek superiority".
In parenthesis, I may say that it does not seem to me to be consistently made clear, certainly by a large number of President Reagan's advisers, that they are not seeking superiority. But the Foreign Secretary continued with these words:
"But we would have to ensure that the perceptions of others were not different".
There can be no doubt at all, I think, that whatever President Reagan has to say about it, the perception of many people is that President Reagan and his advisers are seeking just that superiority which the Foreign Secretary says that President Reagan himself denies seeking.
Of course, if it is the perception that this superiority is being sought, the consequences inevitably are (as has been made clear hundreds of times by various Soviet leaders over the position) that it will be responded to; that they will match weapon with weapon, system with system. This has been the record over the period.
Therefore, I think that the views expressed by such Americans as McGeorge Bundy and Robert McNamara deserve consideration in this context. This is something that they said in a recent joint article published in Foreign Affairs. I say "recent", but it was not that recent; it was published just before the death of President Andropov, I think. They said:
"When the President launches a defensive program openly aimed at making Soviet missiles 'impotent' while at the same time our own hard-target killers multiply, we cannot be surprised that a man like Andropov saw a threat 'to disarm the Soviet Union'. Given Andropov's assessment, the Soviet response to Star Wars is certain to be an intensification of both its offensive and defensive strategic efforts".
I think that this must inevitably follow, and I think that it is obviously the argument, perhaps the chief argument, against the whole star wars concept.
Perhaps I may refer to a couple of the other questions put by Sir Geoffrey in that important speech. He said:
"if the ballistic missile indeed showed signs of becoming"—
and the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, touched on this—
"in President Reagan's words, impotent and obsolete, how would protection be extended against the non-ballistic nuclear threat, the threat posed by aircraft or cruise missiles, battlefield weapons or, in the last resort, by covert action?"
Fundamentally, why star wars is out of the question, I think, is that you cannot shelter under a canopy because your canopy can always be got under. If you cannot get under it by any other means, you can send your agents there; and the situation is now arising—and I am told that it is not very far away—in which the nuclear weapon will be available at a level at which it can be conveyed by an individual into a different country. If that is so, then, however you cover yourselves (and even if it works, which most people do not seem to think it will) you will not be getting the protection that you imagine you are getting. If that is the case, we are embarked upon a very sad and serious course of events.

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That brings me to one other point raised by the Foreign Secretary. He said:
"If it initially proved feasible to construct only limited defences, these would be bound to be more vulnerable than a comprehensive system to counter-measures. Would these holes in the dyke produce and even encourage a nuclear flood?"
'The fact that the Foreign Secretary asked that question indicates that he must realise—I am sure he does; otherwise, he would not have touched on it—that there is a grave danger here that, if it is seen that here is a situation which will never recur, the temptation to pre-empt will become very great. For this reason I believe, as I have long believed, that the direction in which the safety of the world can be maintained is not by the proliferation of weaponry but by the reduction of weaponry. We must return to the conference table. We must seek to reduce, not to increase.
The description of weapons as defensive and offensive is often very unreal. One's defensive weapon is nearly always seen by one's opponents as an offensive weapon. Consequently, the notion that we can, as it were, protect ourselves and, as a result of that, create a safe position which everybody will recognise to be a safe position is an illusion. For that reason, President Reagan's star wars programme is one that is increasingly likely to be resisted in Europe, irrespective of political party, and it is one over which I hope the growing body of opinion in the United States, which has grave doubts about this whole proposition, will eventually prevail.
I have one final quotation from the Foreign Secretary. He says:
"Finally on the technology side, could we be certain that the new systems would permit adequate political control over both nuclear weapons and defensive systems, or might we find ourselves in a situation where the peace of the world rested solely upon computers and automatic decision-making?"
There is a very grave danger here. It is possible that, without even initiative on either side, a situation may develop in which we find that our ingenuity has taken the decision-making process out of our own hands. We may find, having become so clever, that we have succeeded in destroying ourselves. I suspect that the position is becoming urgent, and for this reason I think it right that this Chamber should discuss the matter again tonight.
Finally, I should like to quote something from Dr. Dahlitz, who has written an interesting book on this subject and who has studied the whole question of the growth of nuclear weaponry at close hand in the United Nations and in Geneva. She said:
"The adverse consequences of the SDI programme will not be limited to the superpowers. The strategy being adopted by the United States is just as relevant to the future of every nation, perhaps even more so to some. Two alternatives are sharply drawn: an accelerated arms race in the unattainable quest for superiority under the guise of SDI; or more arms control and mutual restraint in accordance with the principles of the United Nations Charter".
I am encouraged by the thought that it is that thinking which informed the Foreign Secretary's speech, and it is that thinking which I hope will inform the reply which we are eager to receive from the noble Baroness, Lady Young, tonight.
7.3 p.m.
Lord Kagan: My Lords, I believe that the Foreign Secretary's speech has been misrepresented. One cannot read into it that he is presuming to advise the
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Americans whether it is right or wrong to pursue the SDI. I think he pointed out the difficulties for Europe; but there is no indication there that it was unwelcome. When one reads the European press—the German press in particular—one finds that their point of view is that the Americans are right in pursuing it but that Europe is not strong enough either technically or financially to take part in it. That is the conclusion and it is right, because the whole concept of a defensive system depends on the distance and on the time it takes for a missile to travel from its origin to its target.
To reach Western Europe from Russia is half the distance, and to reach Western Europe from the Warsaw Pact countries, like Czechoslovakia or Poland, is only one-third of the distance. You have only seconds to deal with it and the expense is enormously increased because of the short time that is left to deal with an incoming missile. So that, in the long run, the SDI system is a possibility for the Jnited States, but it would certainly not produce a shield for Western Europe. Furthermore, as has been pointed out so much more competently by previous speakers, one can get through with small aeroplanes, bombers and so on. This is one reason why the French have rejected outright anything to do with it, and why the Germans have reservations. It was Manfred WOrner, who is the Minister for Defence in the present German Government, who has stated that it would not help Europe to associate with it.
The Americans know that the Soviet Union is now over-concerned with China, and the Americans can always take the easy course of out-spending the Soviet Union. America's most cost-effective way of neutralising any danger from Europe is to support China because maintaining the balance of power between Russia and China will make America secure. All of my other points have already been made so ably by other noble Lords that I shall not detain your Lordships any longer.
7.7 p.m.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, the strategic defence initiative has found very few friends indeed in the course of this debate. Indeed, after listening carefully, I can recall only one substantial argument against the very powerful and well-informed case put by my noble friend who introduced the debate. This is a point which the noble Lord, Lord Home, raised in an intervention which was followed up by the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough; namely, that the Russians are going ahead with their research and the West cannot be left behind.
I would ask the noble Baroness whether, when she replies, she can tell us what is the Government's assessment of the Soviet capability in space ABM. We all know that the Russians are way ahead in ground-based anti-ballistic missile defence, but that is not the point. That is permitted by the ABM treaty. It was tried by the Americans and discarded because it was not cost-effective. There is no question here that the Russians are ahead in that form of research and development. But my question is: what evidence is there that they are ahead in space-based anti-ballistic missile defence? To be honest, I should be surprised if they were. I have never seen any evidence that they are.

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What I have noticed over the years is that there is one common factor in all Soviet proposals for arms control and disarmament. The one common factor is that, if carried out, those proposals would tilt the balance of power in favour of the Soviet Union and against the West. I challenge anyone to find an exception to that rule. Therefore, when the Soviet Union propose a ban on the development of space-based ABM, I believe it is common sense to assume that they are not ahead and that they would consider it to be in their interests to have an agreement to ban the development and production of these weapons. I would add this. If they are ahead or are catching up, is that not a further argument for the West and the Soviet Union reaching agreement about the development and testing of these weapons? That was really the only substantive argument I heard during the debate in favour of the strategic defence initiative.
A very interesting point was made by the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, to whom we are all so particularly grateful for his simple illustration of the basic defect of the strategic defence initiative. Suppose, he said, 30 birds come over and you have one gun. You can kill only two birds. This is of course a profound remark and goes to the heart of the problem of the SDI. One can no longer doubt the capability in due course of the United States to produce the means of knocking down a missile in flight. We know they can do it. The question is: what proportion of missiles can they knock down? The noble Earl put his finger on it in a very homely illustration, or, perhaps I should say, in an illustration which a noble Earl might be expected to find homely.
The Earl of Bessborough: My Lords, perhaps I may intervene for one moment and go back to the earlier point of the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, about whether or not the Russians are ahead of us. The noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, has returned, fortunately, because it would be better if he intervened now. The noble Lord said that in space he thought the Soviet Union were ahead of us and that they had started earlier, though they might not be ahead in the fifth generation of computers, which of course will be very important in space. But I think that it was not only the noble Lord, Lord Home, or myself who made the point that the Soviet Union were ahead; the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, himself, said that they were ahead.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, I hesitate to speak for the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, and so I shall simply say this. Whoever is right, even if it is right that the Soviet Union are ahead, it is all the greater reason for reaching an agreement with the Soviet Union to stop the development and testing of these weapons.
One argument which we have not heard today but about which we heard a good deal in the last debate was that this is only research, that it may well come to nothing and that it may well be abandoned. We have not heard it this time. I think that we would agree on both sides of the House and in all quarters that, if in fact this research fails, if the project peters out, the decision to launch this initiative will have done a great deal more harm than good to the West.
At the very least it has diverted resources which could have been used in developing the advanced
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technology which could strengthen the conventional forces of NATO. It has diverted attention from other paths to peace. It has complicated and undermined the arms control discussions at Geneva, because the Americans decline to discuss and negotiate about SDI. There is no question that if the research fails, it will have done a great deal of harm. It has divided the NATO countries; not only the European NATO allies from the United States, but to some extent one NATO ally from another in Europe. Finally, if it fails, it will have further weakened the reputation of the United States as a world leader. If the research fails, it may prove to have been much better not to have launched the initiative.
But let us now suppose that it succeeds. What then? Two predictions at least can be made with complete confidence. First, if the research succeeds, testing and development will follow almost immediately. Of course there will be negotiations—I know that the noble Baroness is ready to talk to us about the assurances that the Prime Minister received about negotiations—but what will these negotiations mean? Will they really mean that President Reagan will agree with the Russians to stop development and testing? Will he turn to Congress and to the huge military, industrial and research interests that will have built up and say, "Thank you, the research has been successful. It will work now. We know that SDI will work technologically. We know that a lot of public money has been sunk into it but I have decided to scrap it"? Do we really think that President Reagan will ever say, "I have changed my mind. I said that SDI would be a great blessing to civilisation and to the United States, and I said there was great moral purpose behind SDI, but I have changed my mind. Admittedly, the research has succeeded, but I have decided not to do it"? Of course that is nonsense. If the research succeeds, almost immediately—
Lord Zuckerman: My Lords, will the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, repeat what he said about President Reagan? Is he assuming that President Reagan will be taking the decision about deployment? Do I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, thinks that President Reagan will be in office and will take the decision about deployment?
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, the noble Lord has corrected me quite properly. President Reagan cannot have a third term. Some will be disappointed at this and some will be perhaps reassured. He cannot have a third term and therefore I should have said the United States President. No United States President in these circumstances will turn and change his mind and abandon the project if the research has succeeded.
Lord Gladwyn: My Lords, I do not think President Reagan ever said that he would scrap it. He said that he would give the secret to the Russians.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, I wish to create a precedent in keeping to my time in this debate—a very valuable precedent which has not been observed by every previous speaker. Therefore I do not propose to give way again.
The first thing that can be predicted is that testing and development will go ahead if the research succeeds

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and the negotiations will be quite meaningless. The United States will go through the motions of negotiating and go on to test and develop.
The second prediction that can be made if the research succeeds is that there will be a long transitional period, 20 years at least, while the United States is developing, producing and deploying this huge, enormous and expensive weapon system and achieving the capability to intercept and knock down a proportion of ballistic missiles—the two birds out of 30 to which the noble Earl referred.
During this 20 years, we ask ourselves, what will the Soviet Union be doing? That is what we ought to ask ourselves. First, they will be increasing the number of their offensive ballistic missiles. They will be able to increase their number probably more quickly and certainly more cheaply than the Americans can produce the means of knocking them down. They will specially produce the air breathing weapons. I have not seen any technology with any promise of knocking down cruise missiles. They will be improving their decoys, their jamming and all their counter-measures to the new ABMs. They will also be developing an anti-satellite capability to knock down the command and information structure and also the actual space-based weapons of the United States. If the research succeeds, theses two predictions are quite inevitable.
How much safer will the world be at the end of it? How will this vast escalation of nuclear capability benefit the people of the world, either in the East or in the West? Many of these weapons will have to be designed to fire automatically. The noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, mentioned knocking down ballistic missiles in the boost phase. It can be done in theory and in principle, but of course it has to be done within three minutes because that is as long as the boost phase lasts. So the weapon has to be capable of targeting itself, firing itself and hitting the target in the boost phase within three minutes. It must be automatic. It is a fine prospect to have these weapons trigger happy at three minutes notice and automatic.
Noble Lords on both sides of the House have paid tribute to the statement made by the Foreign Secretary on this subject. The Foreign Secretary said in coded diplomatic language exactly what I myself have been saying. I would beg the noble Baroness the Minister, when she answers this debate, to assure the House that Sir Geoffrey Howe will show the courage of his convictions; that he will have the support of his Cabinet colleagues; and that the United Kingdom Government will distance themselves from this dangerous and ill-considered project.
7.21 p.m.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I begin by confessing that when we last debated these matters my first optimistic reactions to them, arising from their announcement as part of a package, had begun to wane. I reminded the House then that in an earlier debate the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, had contrasted his views with mine and had stated that he took a more jaundiced view of the SDI than I did. I said then that his jaundice was contagious; but in view of developments since, I venture to suggest that we have a raging contagion.
That is no bad thing. Even within tight time-scales or with pleas for early decisions, it is healthy for our
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democracy and for our relationships to encourage scepticism, especially on a matter so fundamental to the future of mankind. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, that we have no need to apologise to the House for returning to this subject. He deserves our thanks, and he has mine, for a very good opening speech. His proposals for British action struck a very sympathetic chord here. I put the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, in the same category.
Whatever one may think of many other aspects of the Government's foreign and defence policy, the speech made by the Foreign Secretary on 15th March deserves not only our attention and appreciation but also our thanks. I do not seek to drive in wedges, or to reveal cracks in the Government or divisions between the Foreign Office and No. 10. Nor do I seek to underline apparent contradictions with previous positions. I simply read the Foreign Secretary's speech and concluded that it was made by an honest man with honest doubts—and with the honesty and wisdom to state those doubts openly and publicly, with profit to the debate and to our country. I assume that his speech must be taken as an authoritative statement by the Government; I take it to be just that.
I do not view the recent and current signs of unease or questioning by the European Western allies as a matter of either high drama or deep depression. The search for a joint response to the United States invitation to participate in the star wars research programmes is a public sign that all is not well—or, at least, that all is not unified—within the relationships with the United States. Let the debate continue. Yes, it may turn into an open dispute and there may be consequences for the Atlantic alliance. So be it.
Recent history shows a clear relationship between the now more vocal public scepticism of the SDI and the lack of enthusiasm for the progress of the Geneva arms talk. The acceleration of the SDI was sprung upon us at the same time as the parameters for the Geneva talks were revealed. I suspect that first natural questions on the SDI were stifled—not least due to a desire to ensure that the Geneva talks got off to a good start.
Our own Prime Minister received much credit for the balanced package she agreed with President Reagan last December. It was designed to straddle the twin objectives of alliance loyalty and implicit reservations about the SDI. While we have seen the Geneva talks getting bogged down in arguments over procedure, we have watched the whole SDI initiatives come alight by the speeches of our own Foreign Secretary and West Germany's Foreign Secretary. I, for my part, applaud them both for their candour and political wisdom.
However we may view the present open debate, there is little doubt that the reaction of the United States has been swift. I make no complaint about that. In fact, provided the debate is conducted in a comradely spirit, without rancour or an accusing tone of disloyalty, it will do the alliance no harm at all. I put the recent visit to London by Mr. Paul Nitze in the bracket of indicating that the United States sensed immediately that there was a rift in the lute.
Mr. Nitze took the opportunity, when delivering the Alasdair Buchanan Memorial Lecture in late March,

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of trying to smooth ruffled feathers. In essence he told his audience that the SDI was not an attempt to achieve strategic superiority; that it would provide an incentive for arms control; that it would involve a co-operative relationship with the Soviet Union; and that it would assist the management of the transition towards a more defence-based balance.
In any case, said Mr. Nitze, the present structure of mutual deterrence based on the threat of nuclear retaliation would necessarily obtain "for many, many years". It was Ian Davidson, writing in the Financial Times on 1st April, who described the speech by Mr. Nitze as depending too much on faith, hope and charity:
"Faith in the can-do of American technology, hope that the Russians will play along, and charity from the sceptical Europeans".
It is well understood but not universally agreed that hitherto there have been powerful supporters of the view—based on real evidence—that for the past 40 years the peace has been kept by what is sometimes called the balance of terror or mutual assured destruction; it is sometimes rephrased as mutual assured security or deterrence. There is nothing wrong—a great deal that is right—in the view that before moving positively away from that premise one needs to be very certain of the new alternative defence policy.
We are still little further forward in understanding, let alone agreeing, where research ends and development begins—never mind where production, procurement or deployment begin. Hanging over every move must be a constant assessment of shifts in policy by one side or another which threatens stability. The destabilisation of regimes or of world peace should not be either an option or a consequence of pursuing with vigour the star wars initiative. Let us not lose too much sleep if we fear damage arising from genuine doubt. It is not only Britain, or the British Government or British political parties, or the British people, who are concerned so far as star wars are concerned. They are all at it. In the United States we noted the comments of Mr. Slesinger of the Republican Party, of Mr. McNamara and of Mr. Brown of the Democratic Party, and of the former President Ford.
Let us examine what is happening in Western Germany. In a recent debate in the Bundestag, Chancellor Kohl praised President Reagan literally to the skies—justifying the SDI as politically necessary and in the security interests of the West as a whole. Chancellor Kohl said that President Reagan would go down in history as a great figure. The House may not be surprised to learn that in the same debate the West German SDP accused the Chancellor of ignoring the strategic and political complexities of the strategic defence initiative and of spreading the na¼ve or cynical illusion that existing defence strategy could be overcome by technological innovation rather than by political negotiation.
Yet it was Hans Dietrich Genscher, West Germany's Foreign Secretary, who said at the same time as that debate, less than a week before the statement by our Foreign Secretary which we are debating today, that the ties which bind the United States with Western Europe should be developed
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through close and trusting consultation, and that the two partners
"should not be decoupled through technological innovation".
It was in that statement that Herr Genscher gave the clear signal to Moscow that the deployment of the SDI must not be taken as a foregone conclusion. According to a report in the Financial Times of 19th March, Herr Genscher said:
"As long as there is no better strategy for deterring war, the strategy of flexible nuclear response must remain. Nothing, but nothing, must be allowed to happen that endangers this highly moralistic goal. Every new development must therefore be examined to see whether it brings us closer to the goal of preventing war or not".
In an editorial, the Financial Times commented that Herr Genscher's statement marked probably his most public expression of, if not open opposition then at least suspicion about the efficacy of the American space weapons plans. But it is not only those who may be viewed as natural critics who have raised questions. The shifting nuances of the commitment of the United States in recent months has caused worries ever since the talks in January between Mr. Gromyko and Mr. Shultz.
My right honourable friend Mr. Dennis Healey told the House of Commons in the foreign affairs debate on 25th April that the real trouble is that the American Administration's position has changed in worrying ways since the SDI was announced. In December the National Security Adviser, General McFarlane, said that America would be prepared in negotiations to bargain about research as well as deployment. In January, President Reagan said that America would not bargain about research but would bargain about deployment, yet in recent months Mr. Weinberger, and many other American spokesmen, have said that America will not bargain even about deployment if deployment appears to be feasible.
Uncertainty about the future is being fostered by such vacillation. It was also my right honourable friend Mr. Dennis Healey who made the undoubtedly strong, but true, assessment of what such vacillation can mean when he said that there is little argument in the United States that the euphoria engendered by the strategic defence initiative is rapidly subsiding; no longer being seen as capable of making nuclear weapons obsolete as President Reagan initially suggested.
We can do without the remarks of the American Defence Secretary, Mr. Weinberger, if he is quoted correctly, when he said:
"If we can get a system which is effective and which we know can render their weapons impotent we would be back in a situation we were in, for example, when we were the only nation with a nuclear weapon".
We have to see the current debate, in which the remarks of Mr. Weinberger are a contribution, as one in which the Foreign Secretary's speech is seen by me as a helpful, not detrimental, force. If we are to be taken seriously as Europeans and as allies of America we have to conduct such debate in public so far as this is prudent or possible.
I am glad that the speech by the Foreign Secretary has stimulated noble Lords into returning once more to this matter. My noble friend Lord Rea described that speech as cautious and diplomatic. It was all that,

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but we have to ask ourselves—and no doubt the Minister who replies will answer—what was its purpose? What did it seek to achieve? For my part, the way in which, one after the other, speakers returned time after time to the 15 questions it contained is indicative of the effect it has had. Clearly, by design, the speech was long on questions but short on solutions. I make no complaint about that, but such questions by such a senior British politician assume a significance that we cannot ignore.
The questions Sir Geoffrey raises are of some considerable importance. They are: what should happen if and when decisions are required on moving from the research to the development stage? How best do we curb rather than stimulate a new arms race? Will the supposed technology actually work? At what stage will the judgments be made which will depend upon technical assessments about the feasibility of defence? What weight will be given to the wider strategic implications of the switch in defence strategy? Can we afford, even now, to wait for the scientists and military experts to deliver their results at some later stage? He also said:
"Research into new weapons and study of their strategic implications must go hand in hand otherwise research may acquire an unstoppable momentum of its own".
There was much more that I wanted to say but time is not on my side. I simply conclude by saying that a growing convinction exists, as Sir Geoffrey referred to in his speech, that there are ample grounds to justify the SDI research programme; if only on the ground that Russia has been pursuing similar studies for many years. That the hostility towards the American initiatives from Russia have been so sharp clearly indicates Russia's appreciation that, in this particular field, a gap once pronounced may—I stress "may"—be in the process of being closed.
We just do not know, as the Foreign Secretary told the House of Commons on 20th March. He said:
"As members of the American Administration have made clear, we cannot know what the research programme that the President and Secretary Weinberger have directed will uncover".
We can but blanch at the enormous costs to be borne by taxpayers everywhere on that journey of discovery. We should have no such reservations in thanking both the Foreign Secretary and the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, for creating the opportunity for holding this debate tonight.
7.35 p.m.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Young): My Lords, we are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, for introducing today's debate. The implications for alliance security and the future of arms control of the strategic defence initiative are clearly worthy of the fullest possible examination. While I do not find myself in agreement with everything that has been said I am confident that today's debate has been an important contribution to that process.
I believe that it is necessary to keep firmly at the forefront of our minds just what the strategic defence initiative is. It is first and foremost a programme of research designed to establish whether technological advances will make it possible to create non-nuclear defences against the threat of nuclear ballistic missiles.
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As President Reagan said in his speech of March 1983 which originally launched the initiative—and he repeated this only last week in Strasbourg—such an ambitious undertaking will take time. Indeed, it is certain that many years of effort will be required on many fronts before clear results can be expected, far less achieved. It is also important to bear in mind the long established and wide-ranging space research programme being conducted by the Soviet Union. Indeed, I am sure we all appreciate the point made by my noble friend Lord Home in his interjection earlier in the debate. Given the considerable scale of this activity, I find it inconceivable that we should allow them a potential advantage in this area.
A number of noble Lords in the course of this debate—in particular my noble friends Lord Bessborough and Lord Mersey and the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew—asked about Soviet research on ballistic missile defences. I confirm that the Soviet research programme has been in operation since the 1960s. ABM defences around Moscow are the only type in existence in the world. There is an extensive programme on ballistic missile defence relevant technologies and these include high powered lasers, electric pulse beams and heavy lift capability. I refer to what the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, said about space. The Soviets were the first to put a satellite into space, to deploy ICBMs, a fractional orbital bombardment system, and have the only operational ASAT in existence. Since the mid-1970s they have conducted more than twice as many space launches as the rest of the world.
We need to remember also that existing treaty obligations permit research activity by both sides: indeed, it is impossible to conceive of an arms control agreement which would enable the parties to monitor the diverse research activities under way in the institutes and laboratories on both sides.
At this point I respond to the question asked by my noble friend Lord Bessborough about the Government's view on the multi-layered defence concept. My noble friend outlined the major elements of the defence system currently envisaged by the United States Administration. Many of these are at the limits of existing technology. The whole point of the SDI research programme is to establish whether advances are possible which would make reliance on defence systems a feasible option. It will be a formidable undertaking, to overcome the technical obstacles involved and to circumvent the likely countermeasures.
At the same time I believe it is clearly understood in the United States as in Europe that the possible deployment of new systems of defence against ballistic missiles would be a matter for negotiation under the ABM treaty. This is a point to which the Prime Minister drew attention in her address to the United States Congress on 20th February and it is a view fully shared by President Reagan. In the speech before the European Parliament to which I referred earlier, the President said:
"When the time for decisions on the possible production and deployment of such systems comes we must and will discuss and negotiate these issues with the Soviet Union".
In this connection the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, asked a question about the US attitude to international

1219
law and, if I understood him correctly, he suggested that the United States Administration are adopting a somewhat cavalier attitude towards the observance of international agreements. That, I suppose, is a matter of opinion but I would only observe that, as far as concerns the arms control agreements, which are relevant to our debate today, the United States Administration have consistently made clear their intention of abiding within existing agreements.
It is against this background that the Government are giving our full support to the United States research programme. The basis of our position is clearly and succinctly set out in the statement agreed between my right honourable friend the Prime Minister and President Reagan in December last year. The Camp David four points, as they have come to be known, remain fully valid today; and, as the noble Lord, Lord Kennet suggested, I will repeat them. They are, first, that the United States and Western aim is not to achieve superiority but to maintain balance, taking account of Soviet developments; secondly, that the deployment of active defences would, in view of treaty obligations, have to be a matter for negotiation; thirdly, that the overall aim is to enhance, not undercut, deterrence; and, finally, that the East-West negotiations should seek to achieve security with reduced levels of offensive weapons on both sides.
I should now like to say a few words on the current United States-Soviet negotiations in Geneva, the first round of which ended on 23rd April, a matter to which the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney referred. I have already had occasion to tell the House of the Government's warm welcome for the opening of these talks and of our strong support for their primary objectives—terminating the arms race on earth and preventing one in space.
The first round of talks confirmed predictions that they will be long and difficult. This should not surprise anyone, given the nature and complexities of the issues being addressed, but in many respects I am bound to say that the Soviet performance in the first round fell short of what we might have hoped for. The proposals referred to recently in public by Mr. Gorbachev were in essence a restatement of previous Soviet positions, and would merely enshrine existing imbalances in favour of the Soviet Union. That is not acceptable to the West, any more than is the Soviet position that progress in the reduction of nuclear weapons is dependent upon US acceptance of an unverifiable agreement restraining defensive research.
The Government very much hope that during the next round of talks, which begins on 30th May, the Soviet representatives will be prepared to get down to serious negotiations, conducted around the table, and not through an exchange of public statements. There is no doubt in my mind that such an approach would be clearly welcomed by the West and would receive an equally constructive response.
The noble Lord, Lord Kennet, drew attention to the speech delivered at the Royal United Services Institute on 15th March by my right honourable and learned friend the Foreign Secretary. I am most grateful for the constructive comments on this speech made by, I believe all noble Lords taking part in the debate this evening; and perhaps I may confirm right away to the
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noble Lord, Lord Rea, who asked about the support of the Government for this that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister has made it clear that the speech was made in pursuance of the policy set out in the four points which she had agreed with President Reagan at Camp David in December. As the speech made clear, the questions raised were not a priori judgments. All agreed that these questions need addressing as research proceeds.
From what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, and other noble Lords, I am confirmed in the impression that my right honourable and learned friend's speech was a valuable stimulus to the debate on the implications for the NATO Alliance of the SDI. Given the nature of some of the views expressed by some commentators immediately after the speech was made, it is important to be clear what it was that my right honourable and learned friend was trying to do. First of all, he was not trying, as some have suggested, to point up differences of approach between the United States and its allies. On the contrary, the overall approach was firmly anchored in the Camp David four points to which I have already referred. Lest there be any doubt about this, I remind the House that at the time the State Department spokesman said that there was no divergence between British and American views.
Secondly, my right honourable and learned friend did not set out to propose cut and dried answers to the questions raised by the SDI; far from it. As he was careful to point out, the questions he raised about the future were questions and in no sense a priori judgments. Moreover, the questions raised by my right honourable and learned friend are those which the American Administration have been addressing over recent weeks and months. Current research may eventually produce an answer to the question whether it will be possible to enhance security through increased reliance on defensive systems, but for the foreseeable future we shall have to continue to rely on deterrence based on the ultimate threat of nuclear retaliation. While research continues, we need to study a range of complex issues: the effectiveness, survivability and cost of defences; the impact of the introduction of new defence systems both on the Soviet Union and on the alliance as a whole and the implications for arms control.
The noble Lord, Lord Kennet, also referred to the debate among the NATO countries and this was referred to also by the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton. The speech of my right honourable and learned friend on 15th March was intended as a balanced contribution to that debate. The Government attach the fullest importance to NATO cohesion. This is not possible save on the basis of thorough consultation among allies. We therefore welcome the assurances of American spokesmen, most recently from the President himself in Strasbourg, that the United States will continue to consult in the closest possible fashion with the allies as the SDI research programme proceeds.
For our part, we shall continue to contribute actively to this process of consultation. That process is now firmly launched. In addition to extensive bilateral exchanges, noble Lords will be aware that the SDI research programme was discussed at the NATO

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Nuclear Planning Group ministerial meeting in Luxembourg on 27th March. It will, I am sure, again be discussed when the North Atlantic Council meets in Lisbon later this month. Indeed, one might wish that there had been evidence of as much debate in the capitals of Eastern Europe on the implications of the Soviet research programme as there has been in the capitals of North America and Western Europe about the SDI. I believe the debate hitherto has shown a common determination to maintain alliance security while working for arms control agreements which would preserve that security at lower levels of weapons.
Within the consultative process one issue of particular topicality is the possible participation of the United Kingdom and of other countries in SDI research. I am sure we all listened with great interest to what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, on this matter and I think we shall all read what he said in Hansard tomorrow for better understanding of it. During her visit to Washington in February my right honourable friend the Prime Minister told the United States Congress of her hope that British scientists could be associated with SDI research. Since then of course we, in common with a number of other countries, have received a formal invitation from the US Secretary for Defense to participate in the programme.
As noble Lords will readily appreciate, response to this invitation raises a large number of practical questions covering a wide range of interested parties which deserve proper study; and noble Lords this evening have raised a number of questions about them, but the Government intend to reply to the United States invitation soon and to reply positively.
The noble Lord, Lord Kennet, in the course of his remarks asked a question about what we meant by participation in SDI research. I can only respond to him by saying that participation can obviously assume a number of forms. For instance, it might simply involve British and American institutes getting together to tackle a particular theoretical problem, or it could entail a British company tendering either on its own or in association with other companies to undertake a discrete element of the research programme. British scientists and engineers have a wide range of talent and experience. We shall want to ensure that whatever form participation takes those skills are utilised in the most advantageous way possible.
The noble Lord went on to make two proposals about how this discussion might be carried forward and what Europe might do. The first proposal was to establish a study by a group of what perhaps might be known as "wise men" appointed by NATO governments. I hope from what I have just said on the amount of consultation taking place that the noble Lord will understand that we believe that adequate forums already exist within the alliance for the discussion of questions such as those which were raised by my right honourable and learned friend in his speech.
On the second point that the noble Lord raised, which was also raised by my noble friend Lord Bessborough, on what has been known as the Eureka project, there is common ground among the leading technological nations in Europe that means must be
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found to close the technological gap between Europe and the Japanese and the United States. We believe that the weakness is not so much in the quality of European research but in shortcomings in its exploitation which progress towards the establishment of common European standards and the completion of the internal market will help to remedy. But we are also interested in ideas for increased research collaboration, particularly if the initiative for that comes from the firms and research institutes involved, and we are in close touch with the French on their Eureka proposal. Discussions on that are continuing and the United Kingdom will remain fully involved in those.
The noble Viscount, Lord Mersey, and the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, asked whether SDI was negotiable with the Soviet Union and pressed that point. I can only confirm that we have consistently welcomed the readiness of the United States to discuss with the Russians research programmes on strategic defence and the whole offensive-defensive relationship. There are problems in constraining research, but any SDI-related deployment would in view of treaty obligations have to be a matter for negotiation. I repeat again that President Reagan and my right honourable friend the Prime Minister are in full agreement on that. The President has said that SDI will be on the table in the negotiations along with everything else. He has confirmed the readiness of the United States to negotiate any BMD deployment so that it might reduce the nuclear threat without giving the United States any unilateral advantage.
Perhaps I may answer one further question put to me by my noble friend Lord Bessborough about British scientists taking part in the SDI programme. As my right honourable friend the Prime Minister said, we support SDI research and hope that British scientists will share in it. We welcome the invitation of the United States to participate. Some British companies have already engaged in preliminary studies which are relevant to SDI, but there is no question of unconditionally endorsing activities beyond research. It is also important that any participation should be based on fair access to United States research and markets, which is a point that was made by the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman.
Finally, I should like to return to the central theme of our discussion this afternoon—the debate within NATO on the SDI programme. To those noble Lords who have expressed doubts about the wisdom of proceeding down this road—and there have been some this evening—I feel that I cannot do better than refer to recent remarks by someone who is no stranger to your Lordships' House—the Secretary-General of NATO. My noble friend Lord Carrington gave it as his view that:
"It would be very imprudent of the United States not to be conducting research of its own in the light of what we know of Soviet capabilities and interests in this field; and that America's Allies would have reason to be critical if they woke up one morning to find that the Soviet Union had made a strategically significant breakthrough for which the United States was unprepared"
That is the point of departure for the Camp David four points on which Her Majesty's Government's approach to SDI has been and will continue to be based. The need for research, not to achieve superiority but to maintain balance in the light of Soviet activity, the requirement to respect treaty obligations

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should research lead to the possibility of deployment, and the agreed aim of enhancing and not undercutting deterrence will continue to inform both our contribution to the NATO debate and our own approach to participation in SDI research.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, may I first put one fact very briefly on the record? Both the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, and the Minister of State drew attention to the fact that the Soviet Union alone had an operational anti-satellite capability. In judging the significance of that fact we must never forget that the United States had an operational anti-satellite capability 20 years ago, which it discontinued because it was not cost effective. One has to think why things are done the way that they are done.
I think that it has been a remarkably satisfying debate. The House is grateful to the noble Baroness for the gloss that she was able to put on the speech of Sir Geoffrey Howe, which said in effect that it was what we thought it was; that he meant it, and it said neither more nor less than it said.
I think that it is seldom that a speech by a British Cabinet Minister completely unites either House of Parliament. This one did. It completely united this House. Perhaps it would not be out of place at this moment if we were to remind ourselves that for the first time in its history this House is now more representative of the political opinions of the British people than the House of Commons is. It is therefore of more importance that a given statesman should unite this House than it would have been if he had succeeded in uniting this House five years ago. My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Prohibition of Female Circumcision Bill
7.57 p.m.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
This is the third time that your Lordships have had a Prohibition of Female Circumcision Bill before you in recent years, the previous two Bills having been introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Kennet. Many hours have been spent discussing this barbaric procedure, and this Bill which I hope that I shall have the honour of taking through your Lordships' House incorporates much of what we agreed to on previous occasions.
Many people have worked very hard to make this Bill acceptable to as many people as possible, not least the honourable Member for Broxbourne, Mrs. Marion Roe, who introduced the Bill in another place and ably steered it through its various stages.
Government Ministers have looked at every possible means of drafting. It is important that there should be no loopholes; on the other hand, doctors must not be impeded in their normal work. When the British public realised that young girls, adolescents and women were being mutilated and impaired because of the practice of female circumcision being undertaken in Britain there was an upsurge of revulsion and horror among many people.
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It must be clearly spelt out that there is no place in our society for this custom and that it is no part of our way of life. I do not think that it will be possible to please everyone in your Lordships' House, but I should like to make it clear that the honourable Member, Mrs. Marion Roe, and myself do not wish to offend anyone.
With a Bill of this kind, clarity is paramount. It must be clear beyond doubt that the practice of female circumcision should be illegal in Britain.
The last two Bills were lost, first, because there was a general election and Parliament was dissolved, and, secondly, because of the problem of surgery necessary for mental health. How many people may have experienced pain and suffering since that time, although, as the law stands, it might be argued that to perform such an operation constituted an act of actual bodily harm? There is no precedent detailing this. We must eradicate any uncertainty. The Bill, though short, is both concise and exact, and I hope will achieve that purpose.
This Bill has had all-party support in another place and has been through all its stages. The Bill seeks to prevent an appalling practice which leads to no physical benefit and is associated with a number of health hazards, including haemorrhage, pain, shock, infection, septicaemia and long-term obstetrical problems.
In Britain we are not alone in our desire to legislate. Other European countries, including Sweden, have banned the practice. In Kenya it is illegal, as are all but the simplist procedures in the Sudan. However simple, in my view they are cruel and should be stopped altogether.
Education is of the utmost importance. Education and correct counselling among the communities in which female circumcision has been a custom and practice is absolutely vital. I cannot stress this enough. I hope the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, will give an undertaking tonight that help will be forthcoming to ensure that this happens. Legislation would be pointless without it, and education without legislation would take too long. They should go hand in glove.
In this Bill we are not dealing with anything to do with religion. It is a family cultural tradition, passed down from one generation to another. For example, traditionally all girls have had to be infibulated and circumcised as an integral part of the Somali culture. Males have grown up without questioning the practice of genital mutilation. They are liable to expect to marry an infibulated woman. Both boys and girls need educating. In Britain we should have good health education and information for health professionals and all families who need it.
I hope the message will be put over to all the groups concerned that in Britain women cannot be mutilated in this way; it is just not done. These groups should be treated with kindness, sympathy and understanding. Self-help groups are often very good at passing information and at counselling each other, as long as they have good leadership. Leadership and support are both necessary.
Having legislation will, I hope, give many women, both children and parents, freedom from this cruel

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imposition. If the Government can give support, these funds will, I hope, show the people concerned that they are being given help which is discriminating in their favour, as this is not part of our British culture.
The Bill is clearly laid out. Clause 1(1) makes it an offence to excise, infibulate or otherwise mutilate the external genitalia of a woman. It also makes it an offence to aid, abet, counsel or procure that mutilation by any person on her own body.
Clause 1(2) sets out the penalties on conviction on indictment. The penalties available are a fine or up to five years' imprisonment, or both. On summary conviction, the maximum penalties are a fine, as specified in Section 74 of the Criminal Justice Act 1982, or six months' imprisonment, or both.
Clause 2(1) allows necessary surgical operations performed by medical practitioners and midwives to be exempted from the offence created by Clause 1. Clause 2(2) prevents the medical practitioner, in deciding whether an operation is necessary on the grounds of mental health (subsection (1)), from taking any account of a belief that such an operation is required as a matter of custom or ritual. This has the effect of limiting the exception on mental health grounds to legimate surgery and excluding female circumcision.
Clause 3 is a technical clause. It ensures that the offences created are treated in the same way as other offences of like seriousness, insofar as extradition and the position of members of visiting forces are concerned. Clause 3(2) is technical and concerns visiting forces which, in certain circumstances, are not liable to be tried by a United Kingdom court.
Clause 4 contains the Title and says that the Act shall be cited as the Prohibition of Female Circumcision Act 1985. Clause 4(2) states that the Act shall come into force two months after the day on which it is passed. Clause 4(3) extends the Act to Northern Ireland, so it will cover all of Britain.
I hope your Lordships will give this humane Bill a Second reading. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Baroness Masham of Ilton.)
8.7 p.m.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, I think the first thing to say about this Bill, which, as the noble Baroness has just mentioned, has come round for the third time, is that on all sides of the House there has been a declared intention that it should not be taken to interfere with anyone's customs abroad. Secondly, we are all agreed that female circumcision of any kind is abhorrent to those of us who live in this country and should be declared unlawful.
Indeed, those noble Lords who attended the Second Reading debate on the first Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, will recall that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor made a very powerful statement that, in his regard, the carrying out of the operation is unlawful today, is an assault upon the person. I have yet to hear how that statement which he made at that time has been reflected in the actions of the Director of Public Prosecutions in those cases which have been publicised as having taken place in this country.
Having said that, I feel that we should severely censor the Government for the attitude that they took
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to the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Kennet. It will be recalled that that Bill was passed in all its stages through this House. When it reached the other place, Members of the Commons were prevented from discussing it by the single voice of a Government Member, who stated the one word, "Object". That simple word killed the Bill, and it was never discussed. The other place was never given the chance to approve what we had spent so much time in doing here.
Now we get another Bill, another Private Member's Bill, but I ask your Lordships to notice that this Bill in essence has had included in it the amendment that the Government tried to persuade us to support during the Committee stage of the second Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, and which we rejected. I consider this sharp practice. More than that, I am a little surprised that the noble Baroness who has just spoken is prepared to sponsor this Bill, because she and, indeed, every other person who spoke at the Committee stage of the second Bill—every speaker with the exception of the Government Minister—spoke against the Government amendment. That amendment, in essence, has been included in the Bill. Indeed, one of the speakers at that time was the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, now a Government Whip, who presumably will not be able to express the opinions that she clearly expressed during the Committee stage of the last Bill.
It will be recalled that every Member who was present in the House during that Committee stage voted against the Government amendment. And that amendment was supported only by people brought in who had never heard any of the arguments although this is a non-party Bill and has always been a non-party Bill.
I have only two points to make about the Bill. In its essence, we all approve of it. We welcome our third opportunity to put it through this House—with the exception of Clause 2. I would suggest to the noble Baroness who has sponsored the Bill that there is a very great danger that the whole character and flavour of the Bill can be soured among public opinion because of what is contained in Clause 2. If it goes out from this House, if it goes out from Parliament, that we have passed an Act of Parliament that has within it a clearly racially discriminatory clause, that has been described as such by the Government's own statutory body, the Commission for Racial Equality, then all the good that we are doing in suppressing this horrific act will be besmirched because the emphasis of public debate will be upon whether or not this is racially discriminatory.
Even if noble Lords opposite argue that it is not in practice racially discriminatory, it has been so described widely and publicly and by the Government's own statutory body. Therefore, it will be taken, it has already been taken, by members of the ethnic minorities to be a discriminatory Act against them. And so easily—I hope this will be done during the progress of the Bill—this aspect of the appearance of the Bill could be removed. In the second Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, Clause 2 read:
"Section 1 above shall not render unlawful the carrying out of a surgical operation on a person if a registered medical practitioner is of the opinion that such an operation is necessary for the physical health of that person or for the rectification of abnormality."
That is sufficient. We do not need to go any further.

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But this new Bill includes, as did the Government amendment on the previous occasion, not just physical disability but the issue of mental health. I would beg the sponsors of the Bill to think again about this. What this clause actually is leading to is that if a black girl—a girl from a society, African or Asian, where female circumcision is the norm—gets mental depression or psychological depression because she is not allowed to be circumcised in this country, she, by the terms of this Bill, has to work her way through that mental depression. If, on the other hand, another girl, white or black—but certainly the vast majority, if not all such cases, will be white—gets mental depression because she cannot have a cosmetic operation, she is allowed to have that operation on the grounds of mental health within Clause 2 of this Bill.
I suggest that this is going to ruin the whole impact of the Bill outside, in this country and abroad. We are concerned—noble Lords have expressed this concern in previous debates—about the impact of this among those very brave men and women, particularly women, in societies where female circumcision is traditional, who have fought against it and who are in the process of reducing it. This will be thrown against them as showing that in Britain, when female circumcision is outlawed, it is outlawed on a basis of racial discrimination between white women and black women. I would say, in passing, that during the Third Reading of this Bill in the other place it was suggested that this House might very well improve the Bill during the time that it is considered by us.
The second issue is very simple. In the other place it was pointed out that one of the important concomitants of the Bill is a campaign of education to help the girls and the women and, indeed, the men of those societies, resident in this country, where female circumcision has been traditionally practised either before they came to this country or, as we know on a few occasions, since they came. Education is all important. It was stated in the other place that the Government were prepared to fund women's organisations in particular that would undertake this education. I believe that some promises have already been given. I hope that the noble Baroness who is to wind up will reaffirm what was said in the other place—that the Government are prepared to help financially in the funding of such education.
I come back, however, to the central issue. I beg the sponsors of the Bill and, indeed, the Government to recognise the dangers that are being thrust upon the Bill by the inclusion of Clause 2. We need a Bill that simply outlaws female circumcision. And that is all we need. That clear declaration from these Houses of Parliament, without any equivocation, without any suspicion of discrimination, is the way both to outlaw this horrific operation and to bring people with us as we do so rather than to divide them outside on grounds of race.
8.20 p.m.
Lord McNair: My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Masham of Ilton, is surely to be warmly congratulated on her courage in taking up sponsorship of this Bill.
When we were discussing the Bill of my noble friend Lord Kennet, in the last Session, I took no part as a
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speaker, but I did take part in the crucial Division. I voted, and as I now think, voted in the wrong way. Having come to that conclusion, it seemed to me only honest to stand up and say so tonight. Of course, as everybody agrees, this is a non-party Bill. I speak from this Front Bench only because it would look a little empty if I did not do so. But I think I can say on behalf of all my noble friends in the Liberal Party that everyone wants the Bill in general.
If it were not for Clause 2(2) there would be very little need for a debate at all and this could go through virtually on the nod. I shall not quote the offending Clause 2(2) because the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, has already done so but it comes down to the three crucial words, "custom or ritual". That is what nearly all our debate will centre round. We shall hear medical arguments, and I am much looking forward to listening to the noble Lord, Lord Rea, because I find his contributions on these matters extremely informative. We shall hear psychological arguments. However, I should like to approach the matter from an anthropological point of view, as it were.
My mind goes back a very, very long way, to when I read Fraser's Golden Bough and Freud's Totem and Taboo. In those works, and in many other anthropological works one finds described many macabre practices. Fraser particularly was writing in the 19th century, and Freud was writing towards the end of it. These things happened in various parts of the world, human sacrifice, the eating of the heart of your vanquished enemy, and even the ritual slaughter every five or 10 years of the leader of the tribe—a rough and ready substitute for a general election which I do not think would commend itself to any but the most shortsighted politician in this country because he might win!
In more modern times we read of voodoo in Haiti and other islands, and of the grotesque and bestial practices associated with the Mau Mau oath in Kenya. All these practices were sanctioned by the quasi religious beliefs of their practitioners. In fact, they were matters of custom or ritual, but none could possibly be tolerated in this country.
I think we are all agreed that female circumcision is a practice which must not be allowed to happen here. But we have been told, as the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby, reminded us, by no less an authority than the chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, that the inclusion of those three words "ritual or custom" is, to quote him, "discriminatory and therefore to be avoided". We cannot lightly dismiss an opinion coming from that quarter. But because we cannot lightly dismiss it, it does not necessarily mean that it is right. Is it conclusive?
I think I can say I have always supported the most liberal immigration and anti-discrimination policies. From an aesthetic point of view, I actually prefer a polyethnic, multilingual society to the dull monochrome which racial purists would impose on us. I do not honestly think I have anything which can reasonably be described as racial prejudice; but I wonder whether people whose whole working lives are in that sphere of race relations are immune to the danger of going over the top, of over-sensitivity. We see this clearly enough in the case of the women's liberationists, the more extreme of whom go so far as

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to defeat their own cause and make it ridiculous. I wonder whether in the sphere of race relations it is not possible to suffer from the same excessive sensitivity, seeing offence where none is intended.
I referred to the women's liberationists. Presumably they are on our side tonight since surely we would all agree that this practice we seek to render illegal is a gross exploitation of women by men for their own purposes. So, my Lords, I have changed my mind. I am now prepared to accept the words, "ritual or custom" unless some semantic genius can come up with a better formula which means the same thing and gives less offence. I say this because I want the Bill. I want to be sure that these tragic, pathetic, latterday Ephigenias will never again be sacrificed on the altar of what I regard as unenlightened and distorted masculinity.
8.26 p.m.
Lady Kinloss: My Lords, once again I speak to support a Bill to ban female circumcision in this country. I hope this third time will be lucky and that we shall not seek to surpass the successful run of "The Mousetrap", now in its 33rd year! In two previous debates I have already given detailed reasons why I am convinced of the iniquity of this practice, its cruelty to children and women. In this view I know from direct social contact that I have the support and full sympathy of many African women who have told me of their experiences and their hope that it will soon fall into disuse.
In a previous speech, I compared it with the practice of slavery, a practice rooted in custom but not in religion or ethics. I can well understand the pressure of tradition on women to have their young daughters circumcised, and more especially the pressure of grandmothers whose influence is so important in family life. It is not just in England that mothers-in-law or mothers put pressure on their married young to conform to whatever may have been their family tradition for centuries.
In Ghana they are about to start a survey to find the extent of female circumcision in the country, and to follow it up with education in proper health practice and care. The influence of older women is very strong in African countries. As a Ghanaian lady said to me only on Monday. "The young are very respectful to their elders and obey them so that is where one should go when older". The older women need to be educated to understand the dangers of the practice, just as much as the young.
The Foundation for Women's Health, an organisation based in London, are acting as advisers and assisting in finding funds for this survey. The Gambian Government have sponsored a women's bureau and have just completed a study of the extent of the practice in that country. Again, the Foundation for Women's Health acted as advisers, but Oxfam funded the project.
The Foundation is hoping for financial support, and trusting that at will come from Her Majesty's Government who at present are looking at the request with sympathy. The Foundation for Women's Health hopes not only to do research in this country, to define the extent of the practice here, but also to continue their educational programme. The Foundation spends
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money on postage, telephone calls, stationery and photocopying and the rest of the needs of a small office. Their director, Mrs. Stella Graham, gives lectures to nurses and health visitors, but hopes that doctors, nurses and midwives, as well as health visitors, could have courses in the clinical care of such patients. Only yesterday a nurse told me that when she was doing her midwifery training she was confronted with such cases and was at first amazed at what she saw. The foundation is now a charity and at present relies on small subscriptions and donations for its educational work. It has considerable postal expenses in answering doctors and health visitors who have written for information in the course of their work.
The Royal College of Nursing and the Royal College of Midwives hope that this Bill will soon be on the statute book. I should like to refer to two letters signed on behalf of the Royal College of Midwives. Both letters refer to the substance of what is now Clause 2 of the Bill, which raises the question of mental health. The first comments that the carrying out of operations for real physical deformity are safeguarded by the Bill, and that treatment for any mental disturbance or illness is more appropriately administered through psychiatric approaches than surgery.
The other letter, addressed recently to a Member in another place, hoped that the clause would be strong enough to prevent abuse of the spirit of the Bill, particularly where assessment of mental health is made. Clause 2(2) appears to me to guard against any possible misconstruction of this Bill. There is now an inter-African committee consisting of 21 African countries which are having a conference in June this year in Nairobi to discuss the World Health Organisation's recommendations on this practice.
As I have mentioned, there is a great deal being done in this field, from surveys to education on health care. Not only is this being organised here but in Africa, too. Although there are one or two points which need clarifying in Committee, for the reasons which I have just spoken of and because people are suffering I hope that this Bill will have a speedy passage through your Lordships' House.
8.32 p.m.
Lord Rea: My Lords, my only reason for speaking tonight is to confirm that I still wholeheartedly support the basic purposes of this Bill as described by the noble Baroness, Lady Masham. We debated it at great length in both the last two parliamentary Sessions. The arguments supporting the need for the Bill are all in Hansard for us to read. In fact, only one problem remains, which is Clause 2(2), the wording of which, as my noble friend Lord Hatch has mentioned, is thought to be racially discriminatory by the Commission for Racial Equality.
I agree with my noble friend Lord Hatch that it would be extremely sad for a Bill which is to rectify a wrong which emanates from countries in which mainly black people live to pass onto the statute book in this country and be thought to be racially discriminatory. I very much hope that, during the subsequent stages of this Bill, a formula can be found which will please everyone. I think that the appropriate place to achieve this would perhaps be outside this Chamber in

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discussions. I very much hope that we shall be able to settle this matter, and that this Bill will have a smooth passage through this House.
8.34 p.m.
The Viscount of Falkland: My Lords, when I put my name down to speak to this Bill I thought that it would be a simple matter. It seemed a short Bill and a fairly clear issue. Over the last two days I have spoken to a number of noble Lords and I now realise that I am in an area of great expertise. I did not realise that the matter had been so widely debated. The animation and enthusiasm with which this subject is discussed is rather like joining a meeting of the Porsche owners club. Not to be flippant about this, a number of matters have drawn me to the Bill, but my travels in Africa over a number of years have made me recoil at the dreadful practices which take place in certain countries in East Africa.
The noble Baroness, Lady Masham, mentioned that this practice is now against the law in Kenya but, of course, it has not stopped in Kenya. Unhappily, it still takes place under the carpet, with enormous danger to health, because, as other noble Lords have mentioned, these dreadful mutilations are often carried out by older women in the tribe or in the family.
In this country we are dealing with a slightly different set of circumstances because, as I understand it, these mutilations, if we can call them mutilations—I have looked up in the dictionary the meaning of the word "mutilation", and I do not think that in all cases it is entirely appropriate—are in some cases carried out by qualified doctors who obviously perform a service for money, which some of us may consider to be reprehensible; but in some cases these operations are carried out by people who are semi-qualified, which is dreadful. The after effects of these operations are dreadful, and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Rea, will confirm the infections, and so on, which follow.
It is the global horror of practices which have grown up over a number of years which has drawn me to the Bill. I understand that there is no real understanding of the origins of these practices as there is an understanding of other practices which could correctly be called rituals and customs, where one can see a kind of continuity. It seems that this whole business of female circumcision is the domination of women by men, and it is continued by women and has become a kind of cult. It is totally repugnant to us. Without stressing the word "culture", which the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, mentioned so strongly, I would say that it was inappropriate.
This leads me to Clause 2, which causes me so much offence. I should also like to echo the sentiments of my noble friend Lord McNair; I, too, believe in a multiracial society. I see benefits in a multiracial society, and many noble Lords will disagree with that. I think it is provocative to use the words "custom" and "ritual" in this particular Bill. I confess that, because I was not party to the other debates, I do not understand the area which deals with the cosmetic aspects of operations of this kind. It seems to me that the Bill could quite clearly say, without introducing this provocative and discriminatory suggestion, that
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this is a custom and ritual, and a custom and ritual from which we wish to distance ourselves because culturally it is unacceptable to us.
I should like to see a Bill which outlaws these practices. As has been so rightly said by others, we could reinforce the Bill with programmes of education financed by the Government which in time would ultimately make such a Bill unnecessary, but we would take note of sensibilities. I tend to agree with my noble friend Lord McNair that there are over-sensitive areas in race relations in this country, as there are in the feminist movement, but we must recognise these sensibilities. I think that the Bill would be much more effective if it just said that we could make these practices illegal without having the emphasis on the custom and ritual aspect, which I think will give rise to a very difficult and complicated area of discussion. I very much hope that your Lordships will find some way of excising this particular aspect from the Bill.
8.40 p.m.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, I rise to support this Bill. I have listened with great interest to the contributions of other Members, as I remember so clearly the last Second Reading, although I was not in the House or involved the first time that this Bill came before us. The fact that it has had to come a third time indicates how important it is, and how impossible it was to reach a satisfactory solution before. As it stands now, many of the problems which came up last time have been solved in the Bill as it is before us.
We have had comment from several Members on the Lord Chancellor's clear statement that he considers even at the present moment that any operation of this type could be prosecuted as actual bodily harm. But we have not seen that done, and it is obviously difficult to bring such a prosecution. Therefore, it is essential to have some more definitive legislation on this topic.
The noble Lord, Lord Hatch, said that we have no intention of interfering with anyone's customs abroad. I agree with that. But we also have a responsibility as the leading country, the mother country of the Commonwealth, to set an example to people abroad. My small post as United Kingdom representative on the United Nations Status of Women Commission has involved me in many discussions with people from other countries, not on this particular topic but on similar topics.
In one case I said to an African delegate, "It would be embarrassing or difficult for you if we put this in, would it not?", referring to a paper we were preparing. The answer was: "Quite the contrary: it would be of enormous help to me to be able to show that other countries in the world who were enlightened and far-thinking would not accept these practices".
I believe that the same applies in this case, and that we would be setting a good example. Other countries have already done it. I understand that it has already been done in Sweden. It would be wrong for us in this country to continue to allow this operation, which, as has been stated here tonight, so many women in their own countries are working to have made illegal there.
The noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, mentioned that although it has been made illegal in Kenya it is still

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going on. The same applies in relation to the wives who are burnt for not bringing a dowry. All these countries are making these things illegal, but it takes a long time for the reality to change the practice. Unless the laws are passed the practice will never change just automatically.
I do not accept that it is racially discriminatory. I think that there is an over-sensitivity, and I think that it is unnecessary. Although I think the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, said that there are countries where this is the norm, I cannot remotely imagine that we have large ethnic minorities in this country to whom this is the norm. The numbers of people resident in this country who would have come from countries where this was the norm would be small. The cases we have read about have occurred where people have come temporarily to this country. We cannot accept that it is in any way the norm. If it was, then I would think it even more important that we pass this Bill.
The noble Lord, Lord McNair, mentioned that there is this over-sensitivity in racial affairs. I, as a member of the Greater London Council, was rather amused to read the recent finding against the GLC for refusing a white girl a job. Things have reached quite a silly point, because it was apparently a position where there was a genuine need for someone from the ethnic minorities, but because the law is so firm one way or the other it can work against a genuine interest.
I think the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, said that circumstances were slightly different in this country. I know that the British are noted for under statement, but that was about as understated as anything could be. Things are very different in this country, and long may it be so. The only way I should like to see it change would be to see a change in these other countries.
I believe that, in this country, until the 1980 Mid-Decade Women's Conference in Copenhagen people here had never heard of female circumcision. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, was at that conference. Vast publicity was given there, and the women of the rest of the world woke up to what was going on and were asked to help. This is what this Bill will do: it will be helping.
Any suggestion that it would be in any way opposing people of other cultures would be wrong. It is not a matter of culture: it is a matter of a most unfortunate custom and practice in these countries. It is not a matter of basic religion or culture. We must not be side-tracked from this Bill. If it does not pass this time, then I believe that we shall never get this Bill—and we should be much the worse for that.
I should emphasise that we are not debating the topic of a multiracial society. That was mentioned by two speakers, both the noble Lord, Lord McNair, and the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland. We are not debating the subject of a multiracial society. The Liberal Benches always take the opportunity to make it clear that they are not racist. We could all be saying that, but that is not what this Bill is about. We are not here to discuss that point. That is a red herring which has been introduced tonight.
To return to Clause 2, and in particular to subsection (2), I think that this is a very necessary clause. It clearly defines the medical limits of what can
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or cannot be done. I think that subsection (2)—and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Rea, will agree with me—is important. To define the grounds of mental health under which an operation can be performed must be one of the most difficult things for anyone contemplating surgery. Unless there is some narrowing down of the limits, as there is in subsection (2), then it would be a clause that would permit anyone who wished to do so to carry right on performing these circumcisions, and that is what the whole Bill is intended to prevent. Without that subsection this Bill would be ineffective.
I shall not go on any longer. I have heard a lot about feminism, and I often feel that as the United Kingdom representative I have had feminism thrust upon me; but there is a good deal of good to be said for a lot of it, too. I know that the women of the world will welcome this Bill being supported by your Lordships' House.
8.48 p.m.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, I rise to support the Second Reading of this Bill. Perhaps I may first say that my position below the gap on the speakers' list does not indicate any suggestion that it might ever become a party matter. I hope that all parties can remain quite resolute that it should not. I should like to join my plea to that already made clearly by the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, that this time round if there are amendments tabled there should not be any move to bring into the Chamber people who come for reasons of party loyalty rather than because they have heard the debate, have understood it, and have formed their own opinion.
First, a word about education. It has been raised several times already in the debate, and rightly so. It would be quite unpleasant, something we should not tolerate, if this Bill were to become law and the first thing that were to happen were for some grandmother, or aunt, from an immigrant family who perhaps did not even speak English very well, to be arrested and tried for having broken a new law which she did not even know about.
There is a certain danger of that happening. It is important that there should be an educational effort now, well before the Bill can become law. The Government may wish to consider—they will judge this better than anyone else in the House—whether it might not be good to carry in a provision to postpone the application of the law for, it might be, three months, or six months, or something, after it has passed in order to give time for the educational effort to crank up. I am ready to endorse all applications from minority communities that I know for funds and help in mounting educational programmes. I have already endorsed some and intend to endorse others. I was glad to see both Mr. Clarke and his junior Minister in the House of Commons speak kind words about the likelihood of those applications being entertained.
Clause 2(2) is the only difficulty in the way of an absolutely straight passage for the Bill. There is not much left for me to say after the admirable précis made by Lord Hatch of Lusby of the history and of the arguments on both sides; also there was his warning about the possible bad effects on the ethnic communities concerned in this country of this Bill passing into law as it stands. They are not quite so

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small as the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, may imagine. Nobody can tell, but I believe there is a risk that if this wording goes through—the communities are well aware of the wording already and have debated it—it will have the effect of making the women in the communities close ranks around their custom, which they will perceive as being attacked by name, in a way which would not happen if the Bill were differently phrased. There is also a risk of greater involvement of the men in resistance to it, if there is an open attack on custom and ritual as the Bill now stands.
I do not think that the difficulties in the way of changing it are as severe as the Government think. Obviously the detailed argument is for the Committee stage, not now. Let me remind the House of the wording of the objection from the Commission for Racial Equality to what is now Clause 2(2). The letter from the chairman of the Commission reads as follows:
"However well intentioned in seeking to avoid any circumvention of the Bill's purpose, Clause 2(2) could be indirectly discriminatory in effect".
Let us follow the reasoning closely:
"A doctor when assessing mental health as justifying the performance of an otherwise prohibited operation will normally base his judgment on the patient's state of mind as he finds it. To suggest that some reasons for that state of mind may be acceptable and others, broadly confined to those that might affect persons of African origin and descent, are not is in our view discriminatory and therefore to be avoided."
That is not an immediately obvious point. It is fairly subtle, but it is expressed very clearly. I am quite ready to go with Lord McNair in kicking over the advice of our statutory advisers if I think that it is wrong. But what I invite the House to do is to listen to the arguments on both sides. We should think about that argument, and the other arguments we shall be hearing from the Government and see which we prefer. That is the way to achieve good legislation. This House is boss; let it listen to the arguments, and not to who is speaking.
I shall continue to the end of this letter. There is one more paragraph in the letter from the Commission for Racial Equality, which reads as follows:
"On a more general point, so far as I am aware this is the first time, at least in recent years, that draft legislation has explicitly sought to exclude from consideration the relevance of a custom of an ethnic group settled in the United Kingdom. Any such exclusion or precedent would be undesirable on principle".
I said a moment ago that the communities in question had already come to grips with the matter. I should like to read from a press release issued by an organisation, which I know, called London Black Women's Health Action Project, which may prove to be the organisation most useful to the people concerned in this country in the process of education which we are all agreed must take place. Among other things, the letter says:
"This Bill"—
the language is far from the language of the Commission, it is far from the language of the Royal Colleges, it is far from the language of the Government and the normal language of this House. It is the language we hear from the people who will have to
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change and we must pay great attention to it—
"is blatantly racist or could be interpreted as such in that it prohibits female circumcision for women where the operation is required as a matter of custom or ritual—Clause 2(2)—yet does not make it unlawful when the operation is necessary for the physical or mental health of the person on whom it is performed",
and so on. The point has been taken.
We have to go back over this for a moment. I should like to clear a minor point out of the way. The new formulation of Clause 2(2) does not mention, as its predecessor did, physical abnormality. One speaker has said already that there is no need for that. I think that is a judgment that may require second thoughts. It is easy to see and know of conditions, usually congenital conditions, in girls or young women, which leave them in perfect health and perfectly cheerful, so that neither physical nor mental health is involved, yet they would like to have the abnormality corrected. Let us imagine the case of a baby, who may be perfectly healthy, but has a small abnormality which it is advantageous to correct. That would not be allowed under the Bill at present since there is in this case no consideration either of physical or mental health, and I believe we ought to think carefully about putting it in.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, did the noble Lord just say that there was no consideration for mental health? Did I hear him correctly?
Lord Kennet: My Lords, I said mental health. I was talking about three things: physical health, physical abnormality and mental health. The Bill considers physical health and mental health but does not mention physical abnormality, which may be present without affecting either physical or mental health. I see the noble Lord, Lord Rea, nodding.
To come to the mental health provision. I believe there is another way of doing it instead of saying that mental health is a reason for doing it, provided that it is not mental health based on custom or ritual. What are we talking about here? Who are the people who desire operations, but who are in good physical health? They presumably exist. They desire operations because they are depressed, and they are not black or brown women living in a community where it is the custom. These are the people whom the Government wish to allow to have operations. Earlier I opposed that idea; but I, too, have changed my mind, though not as drastically as Lord McNair, and I believe now that if we want girls to be free to have cosmetic operations, which is what we are talking about, we should say so. What would be against having an exception, along with physical health, for such operations as may be necessary for mental health provided that they are only cosmetic, or of a minor nature, or words to that effect? I am an amateur drafter, and I hope the Government will agree to help.
In doing that, we would let through some of the smallest procedures commonly known as female circumcision; some of the smallest procedures which would come under that umbrella are really only cosmetic. All right, say I. If the procedure is all right for a white girl who is depressed about her appearance then it should be all right for a black girl who is depressed about a matter of custom. We are not

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against the smallest trimmings and corrections. What we are against are the grosser procedures, major or total excision of the labia, clitoridectomy and, above all, the major horror of infibulation. If one could define a form of words which used concepts such as "cosmetic" or "minor", I think that would make it possible to remove the difficulty of "custom or ritual" from the Bill altogether.
There is just one more small point on the discussion of amendments which will have to come. I expect that it may be that the Government will say that there is no clear definition of "minor" surgical procedure or of "cosmetic" or what is cosmetic and what is not. That is perfectly true. But there is also no very clear definition of "health" or of "physical health" or of "mental health", on which the Bill at present rests.
The Government may say that the Bill, if we introduce the word "cosmetic", will be going to the intention of the surgeon and will not be a matter of scientific description. Of course it already goes to the intention of the surgeon when it clears operations for the physical health or for the mental health of the patient. The surgeon is pursuing his intention of improving the physical health or the mental health. As long as it is his intention to do that, it does not mean that he has to succeed. He may fail. But he will not be prosecuted for a professional failure. I hope that it will be possible to have a meeting of minds on the fact that we are dealing with a Bill in which every word is subjective and lacks precise definition.
The Bill will come back after Committee either amended or unamended. It is perhaps not too soon to think of what we should do with it on Third Reading if it comes back unamended. I believe that on Third Reading the House will probably want to remember the very firm conviction expressed by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor on Second Reading the first time round (that is; two or three years ago now) that female circumcision is already illegal under the Victorian Acts: those dealing with gross bodily harm, and the Offences Against the Person Act. That is the opinion of the Lord Chancellor; and who should know better?
We note, though, that there have been no prosecutions. We all know that the operation goes on. We have to ask ourselves this: given that it is probably illegal under the existing legislation—and the Lord Chancellor thinks that it is—why have there been no prosecutions? Is it because the Director of Public Prosecutions differs from the Lord Chancellor and believes that it is probably not illegal under present law and that those charged would therefore not be convicted? Clearly not. It is because of the difficulty of getting evidence. The House will want to consider on Third Reading the fact that this Bill does nothing to make it easier to get evidence. It is going to remain difficult, whatever the Bill says, to get evidence. If the House were to judge that the advantage of having this Bill when compared with the advantage of resting on present law were only small, it would then be necessary to think again about the disadvantage of passing it into law containing that difficult phrase "custom or ritual".
Something has been said about other European countries. The only European country to my knowledge recently to legislate against female circumcision is Sweden, where the Bill quite simply
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says—and how lucky they are!—"Female circumcision is banned". Swedish law is like that. You can say that without niggling around with the definitions; and the courts are left to use their common sense. I wish that we could, but we cannot in this country and we all realise that. There have been successful prosecutions in France. There is no legislation against female circumcision in France. Those prosecutions were obtained under existing French law, Articles 309 and 312 of the Penal Code, which are pretty close to our own Victorian legislation.
My Lords, we shall want to remember all that when the time comes. I am sorry that I have spoken already for too long and in too great detail for a Second Reaing debate.
9.4 p.m.
Baroness Jeger: My Lords, I should like to make it quite clear that although I am speaking from the Front Bench, on this side of the House we have a free vote and there is no party line on this matter at all. I hope that there will not be a party line in any quarter of the House. I want to thank all the speakers who have made their contributions to this important debate, especially my noble friend Lord Kennet. I am not sure that I should call him "my noble friend" any more; but socially, if not politically, I shall call him "my noble friend" because he has worked so hard on this subject. We all remember the way he introduced previous Bills on this matter and I think that the whole House should be very grateful for his efforts.
I feel that what we want to do tonight is to make it absolutely clear that this country establishes a clear statement of its rejection of the mutilation of female circumcision. That has got to be absolutely clear. It is not a question of our trying to impose our standards imperiously on people from other countries who come to live here. It is they, almost without exception, who are asking us to do this. I was very glad that the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, referred to her experience at the United Nations because I was the United Kingdom delegate to the Status of Women Commission. It was they who came to me and said, "Why do you not do something about this?"
It is very important for us to realise that we are not trying to impose standards on other people but that there are women in other countries who want us to help them. And it is not only women, my Lords; there are many brave politicians, teachers, professors and doctors who cannot understand why this country is not outlawing this evil mutilation. Therefore, I think that we have to do away with the idea that in this Bill tonight we are trying to impose our standards on other countries. Of course there is an element in that but, on the other hand, I understand that Kenya has made this practice illegal and that in the Sudan the authorities are trying to stamp it out. Therefore, they are looking to us to help them; not to impose on them some standards which they do not want to accept. I could give your Lordships a long list of international bodies, such as the WHO, which are trying to get this awful situation corrected.
I am unhappy about Clause 2(2). I should prefer references to mental health to be excluded altogether. Girls and women who have mental problems should have mental treatment and should not have surgical

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problems inflicted on them. This will create enormous uncertainty in the courts. How is a court to decide whether a doctor has performed a circumcision on a woman who had a mental problem? How is this to be enforced? Who are to be the witnesses?
I can see one or two reasons why women should go to a doctor and complain that they need mental help in this surgical way, but I cannot accept them, because there are women who come here who may want to accept Islamic customs, which involve cutting off hands, or suttee. We are not going to have Indian women burning themselves on their husbands' funeral pyres because that is ritual. That is just not acceptable here. We are not going to accept child brides of 13 because it is ritual for them to be made into brides. We are not going to accept polygamy or ritual scoring. Therefore, it is quite wrong to oppose this Bill on the grounds of ritual practices.
The correct course is to take out of this Bill the whole question of mental health, because that is a very vague thing. We would not be sitting here in your Lordships' House tonight if we were not concerned about mental health problems. We have to accept that there are pressures and anxieties imposed on young women who come to live here from overseas—and I know many of them. The purpose of this Bill is to establish that female circumcision for custom and ritual is a criminal offence. It has to be a criminal offence in this country and should be lawful only for clearly defined physical reasons.
By references in Clause 2 to mental health as justification, except if the mental state arises from custom and ritual, the Government have confused the whole situation. Maybe a girl's mental distress is brought about by pressures from male relatives. The whole custom arises from sadistic male discrimination and it is an act of violence against women. That is what female circumcision is. It is an act of violence against women and unless that is accepted we cannot make any progress. So release from that, together with counselling, would be a kinder way of helping a woman's mental health.
I must remind your Lordships that we are also concerned with the rights of children. Female circumcision happens in some communities to children of 10 years and under. Their mental health is more likely to be harmed than improved by this mutilation. I must say that the junior Minister was very confusing in the Committee stage in the other place, because he seemed to think that this is not a definite problem. But in the view of myself and many other Members of this House, it certainly is.
The Minister said in Standing Committee C on 3rd April at col. 9 of the Official Report:
"Without it, the Bill would allow female circumcision to be performed on grounds of mental health. That would be the biggest loophole that one could imagine in such a Bill. It would make the rest of the Bill totally ineffective and drive a coach and horses through the purpose of the Bill".
I have a lot of sympathy with that view.
However, what is more important is that when patients present themselves to doctors claiming that because of mental health problems they need to have circumcision there should be adequate provision for counselling and for help. I am very much encouraged
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because of the number of communications that I have received from women in communities from other countries who say that this is what they want.
During the Committee stage in another place it was suggested that the best way to deal with this matter would be for the Government to provide counselling services and advice so that women in communities in this country would be able to get help. I know there have been representations from the Commission for Racial Equality suggesting that there is something racialist about this Bill. I think that the best way to deal with that is to take out the mental health references altogether. If a women has a mental health problem then it should be dealt with mentally and not surgically. If we bring into this the question of the minority of women from overseas who feel that, because of pressures from their mothers, their grandmothers and, much more, from the men in their communities, they have to go through this painful process, it is for us to try to help them to see that this is not the way.
I am very encouraged as I was when I was at the United Nations by the number of brave women, midwives, doctors and teachers who are begging us for our help. I think that it would be an absolute disgrace if this House were to impede the passage of this Bill because it would not only affect the women and the girls who are living in this country, for whom we can only directly legislate, but it would be a total discouragement for those people who are trying to stop this practice, as I know many politicians and leaders in Kenya and the Sudan are doing.
I was very encouraged to receive a letter from the Foundation of Women's Health Research and Development asking this House to support the Bill. Everything has to be expressed in short lines now so that organisation is called FORWARD. The director, Mrs. Stella Graham, is from Ghana. I am very happy to see on the foundations's notepaper that the sponsors include the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, Dame Josephine Barnes, Dame Judith Hart, the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood and many other people who are devoted to forwarding this emancipation.
Though I accept that at Committee stage we may want to go into more detail, it is absolutely essential that tonight we agree the Second Reading of this Bill.
9.18 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Baroness Trumpington): My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, on her sponsorship of this Bill and on her comprehensive speech, as opposed to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Hatch—sound and fury signifying nothing. This Bill addresses a problem which has aroused strong feelings not just in this House but among the general public. There is widespread repugnance that the practice of female circumcision should be undertaken in this country. We believe that female circumcision has been done here only in a handful of cases; yet that does not alter the compelling reasons for this Bill.
The main objective of course, as the noble Baronesses, Lady Masham and Lady Jeger, said—and I must really emphasise this to the noble Viscount,

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Lord Falkland, and to the noble Lord, Lord Kennet—is to put beyond any shadow of doubt that the practice of female circumcision is illegal in this country. It may be of course that female circumcision as such, which can consist of severe mutilation, is already against the criminal law. Certainly, if any cases were referred to the Department of Health we would pass the information to the Director of Public Prosecutions for him to consider criminal proceedings. However—and here I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kennet—I am not aware that this point has ever been tested by the courts, and there could be no certainty until that were done.
As the law stands, it is conceivable that a different view would be taken of the act performed on a child as opposed to an adult. The importance of this Bill is that it puts the matter beyond any doubt. If the Bill is passed then female circumcision will not only be against the law but it will be apparent to all that the practice is against the law.
Effective legislation on this subject must satisfy three criteria. First, it must clarify the law. That is the whole purpose of the Bill. The second consideration is that the legislation must successfully prohibit female circumcision; there must be no loopholes. The third criterion is that the legislation must not interfere with legitimate forms of surgery. It is this last criterion that has caused problems in previous attempts to carry effective legislation.
In strict anatomical terms, many of the procedures adopted in female circumcision differ little from those used in necessary, legitimate surgery. It would be quite unacceptable if a Bill with the wholly laudable aim of prohibiting female circumcision also, as a side effect, interfered with a patient's right to receive legitimate surgery. I must say in response to the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Jeger, that the question of mental health was raised in a previous debate. I believe it would be positively counter-productive for me to go through the details of that aspect again this evening.
I am glad to say that the Bill does not interfere with a patient's right to receive legitimate surgery. Where other Bills have failed, it successfully manages to achieve our common aim without at the same time bringing within the scope of the offence it creates necessary surgical operations. The sponsors of the Bill are to be congratulated on the precision of its focus.
The technical difficulties of achieving that precision should not be under-estimated simply because the Bill is short and to the point. It is these difficulties which have led in the past to some misunderstanding about the Government's attitude towards legislation to prohibit female circumcision. As I have said, we share the repulsion generally felt about this practice; yet we must also ensure that an attempt to clarify the law in one area does not cast doubt upon the legality of other surgical procedures for quite distinct, often highly sensitive, purposes. The Bill we are considering this evening successfully overcomes all those hurdles, and that is why the Government can give it their full support.
Many of your Lordships sat through the previous attempts to legislate on this subject. Various different formulations have been considered in the past few years for either the definition of the offence in Clause
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1 or the necessary medical exceptions in Clause 2..1 have to say that of all the proposals we have seen—and there have been many over the years—the present Bill as currently drafted is the only one that has been found to be fully satisfactory against all the criteria I mentioned earlier.
The Bill effectively prohibits female circumcision—but only that—and it clarifies the law on this point beyond any question. If it did not do that, or if it muddied the water at all, then it would be bad law and we would probably do better without it. This evening we are concerned with the general principle of the Bill. I repeat that there is no doubt in our minds about the Bill as currently drafted.
It may help if I deal with one particular criticism that many noble Lords have spoken about in regard to the drafting of the Bill. Many noble Lords have suggested that Clause 2 is in some sense racist. I cannot accept that. If we thought—I hope the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, and the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, will listen carefully—that that had any foundation, the Government could not support the Bill. I am sure that if the sponsors of the Bill considered the clause or the Bill to be in any sense racist or discrimatory, it would not have been introduced. In fact, I believe that fear to be misplaced. It was discussed in detail in another place and I think convincingly laid to rest.
The argument goes that Clause 2 should not seek to discount anyone's belief that an operation was necessary because of custom or ritual when a doctor determines whether surgical procedures are necessary on mental health grounds. The noble Lord, Lord Kennet, and I share a secret. I wrote to him today and he quoted from my letter. I will quote the paragraph in the letter—
Lord Kennet: My Lords, I did not quote from the letter from the noble Baroness. I received it, and I thank her for it, but I did not quote from it.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, the noble Lord will forgive me. He used certain words from my letter which I shall take up. The paragraph reads:
"If you introduce the concept of mental health then it is necessary to have a saving clause such as that now in Clause 2(2). Otherwise there is a loophole that would impede successful prosecution. There is no sensible definition of 'cosmetic', 'minor' or 'abnormality' that would prevent difficult questions of law. There are probably forms of quite legitimate surgery that are neither 'cosmetic' nor 'minor'. All of this serves to raise doubts and legal questions about what ought to be straightforward clarification of the law".
That concludes my quote from the letter I wrote to the noble Lord, Lord Kennet.
We need to look once more at the whole purpose of the Bill. The Bill ensures that female circumcision is against the law and is an offence. The reason for doing that is to protect young children or young women from pressures within some communities to conform to a ritual which results in mutilation and impairment potentially damaging to health whether at the time of the operation or later at marriage or childbirth. Yet the prohibition is not in any sense linked to the fact that the practice is a custom or a ritual. It is the practice itself that is being made an offence.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, will the noble Baroness permit me to ask a question? If the prohibition is, not

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linked to the fact that the practice is a custom or ritual, why is it necessary to use the words "custom or ritual" in the Bill?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, if you do not put them in, you create a loophole, as I have already explained. Perhaps the noble Lord will allow me to continue. As I said—and it is well worth repeating—it is the practice itself that is being made an offence. The Bill as drafted makes sure that the defence that the practice is a custom or ritual is not sufficient to allow it to escape illegality. If the noble Lord had waited one minute, he would have had a written answer spoken; as it was he got the verbal equivalent.
The use of the phrase "custom or ritual" in Clause 2(2) makes explicit what is the implicit intention of the whole Bill and I hope that that reassures the noble Lord, Lord McNair, and the noble Lord, Lord Rea. I might just as well add at this stage that I see no reason to adopt the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, to postpone enactment of the Bill.
We heard wise words from the noble Lady, Lady Kinloss, and my noble friend Baroness Gardner of Parkes. This Bill is part of the wider campaign to eradicate female circumcision in this country and abroad. In some communities this custom has been a tradition for many centuries. Legislation has its place in this campaign. I commend to your Lordships an excellent pamphlet published by the Minority Rights Group which gives details of those countries in Africa as well as those in Europe, as has already been said, where there has already been legislative action.
I noted with great pleasure that the noble Lord, Lord Kennet is a council member of the Minority Rights Group, but it will take more than legislation on its own to eliminate such a deeply rooted tradition. I entirely agree with the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Masham of Ilton, and the remarks of others that we also need education and counselling within the communities in which female circumcision is practised. I hope that the publicity arising from the passage of this Bill will assist those who are working in these fields. Already we have received some applications, as was mentioned by some noble Lords including the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, for financial support for this work. My answer to the Lady Masham of Ilton's question on that subject is that the Government have undertaken to consider these applications as sympathetically as possible, and officials will be discussing them with the organisations concerned. I know that there are many groups, particularly women's groups, who share the anger that these mutilations should be done to young girls and women. I hope that these groups, many of whom have written in support of this Bill, will be able to turn their energies to the next stage of the campaign. I wish the Bill a trouble-free and I hope speedy passage through your Lordships' House.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, before the noble Baroness sits down, would she just answer one question? Has she read the criticism of the mental health clause in the Committee stage of the last Bill? Has she read the criticism made by her colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, and does she consider that that signifies nothing?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I have indeed read the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Cox. When I spoke about the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby, of sound and fury signifying nothing, I was referring to his very strange comments on the Government's actions in previous attempts at this Bill.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, I should like to thank all noble Lords who have debated this Bill. First of all, perhaps I can try to answer the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby. My reason for changing my mind was rather like that of the noble Lord, Lord McNair. I found my wish to help eradicate female circumcision for good overrode any other problems, and that is my truthful answer to him. I do not think we should be over-sensitive about using the words custom or ritual. Do your Lordships remember the film which was shown about female circumcision? If not, perhaps we should see it again before Committee stage. Young sensitive girls were taken, dragged and held down screaming while they were circumcised. Their sensitivity, their pain and the cruelty done to them is far more important perhaps than a few people being worried about the words "custom or ritual". They must realise what it means to a female, and it is the males in this Chamber who seem to be more worried than the females. They do not realise what a sensitive part of the anatomy it is that we are discussing.
I wish very much that we had in this House a member of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists; but I shall do the second best and will read to your Lordships a passage from a letter from the president, Mr. M. C. McNaughton to the honourable Member Mrs Roe:
"Firstly, we are at one with you in seeking to prohibit female circumcision of any kind being performed in this country. However, there are a variety of surgical operations that are necessary for the physical and mental health of women which have nothing whatsoever to do with circumcisions performed for traditional or cultural reasons. I wish to make it clear that the College would be opposed to any statutory limitations on these legitimate procedures".
As a lay person I cannot argue with the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.
Baroness Jeger: My Lords, why not? They are only men.
Baroness Masham of Mon: My Lords, they are the people who really know. They are the people who have to put operations right when they go wrong.
It was very difficult for me to hear the questions put by the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, because there was a terrible machine banging away at my side about which I have complained on previous occasions because it drowns the speakers beyond me. I shall read very carefully tomorrow what he said. But I heard the noble Lord say that it would be difficult to get evidence. If something is clearly illegal I feel that people often go to the police or the press to report it. Also, if girls are circumcised and infection occurs and they become really ill, I am sure that they will be taken by their parents to hospital, and then the fact will come to light.
Also, if there is a six-month prison sentence and/or a fine, I hope that people will be wary of taking the

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risk. I hope that the Act will work as a deterrent. I am sure that no one in this Chamber would want a girl to be circumcised, or anyone else to get into trouble for doing it. Therefore, I hope that the Bill, if it becomes an Act, will be a deterrent.
I agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, said. There should be clear communication. I was also glad to hear what she said about education. I hope that the ethnic groups involved will come forward and work closely with the department. I am sure that that will be helpful and useful.
I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. I hope that the House will give the Bill a Second Reading.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
House adjourned at twenty-three minutes before ten o'clock.