Lords Sitting of 21 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 Chelmsford.

Lord Kimball
Sir Marcus Richard Kimball, Knight, having been created Baron Kimball, of Easton in the County of Leicestershire, for life—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Lord Manton and the Lord Soames.

Drug Abuse: Minister's US Visit
2.49 p.m.
Lord Rodney: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will make a statement on the recent visit to the USA by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office to study drug abuse.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Glenarthur): My Lords, my honourable friend visited the United States of America from 7th to 14th April. He had a series of meetings with representatives of several federal departments and agencies and with other organisations and individuals. His discussions focused on enforcement issues, including the forfeiture of drug traffickers' assets, American experience of the cocaine problem and international aspects. The visit was valuable both in identifying matters of common interest and in highlighting developments of potential significance for this country.
Lord Rodney: My Lords, I should like to thank my noble friend for that Answer. May I ask him whether he can enlarge on one or two of the more important points that his honourable friend learnt during his visit to the United States, in particular with regard to the cocaine problem there?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I think that my honourable friend learnt too much perhaps for me to encompass in one fairly brief reply, but I know that he found particularly valuable his discussions about cocaine and about the tracing, seizure and forfeiture of assets. Cocaine poses a very grave threat to this country. Last autumn the Customs established a cocaine target team to step up the fight against drug smuggling, and we are also examining the case for posting liaison officers to Latin America to improve liaison and intelligence. I can tell my noble friend that the rise in cocaine misuse in the United States over recent years has been fairly dramatic.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, after what was obviously an extremely useful visit to the United States by his
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honourable friend, can the Minister say anything about what was learnt of the problems of treatment centres in the United States for drug abusers and also what sort of campaign he may have heard about, especially to educate youngsters against this grave danger?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, treatment was certainly one of the aspects that my honourable friend discussed in America. I think that there are some similarities between the way that we carry out treatment and the way that they carry out treatment there. The lessons learnt by my honourable friend will of course be put to the group now considering the matter in conjunction with the Minister in the Health Department.
Lord Auckland: My Lords, bearing in mind the number of tourists visiting both this country and America, can my noble friend say whether our embassy in Washington and the American embassy in this country are communicating about the problem?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I am certain that they are.

EC Voting: Dooge Report
2.52 p.m.
Lord Gladwyn: 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 in view of the fact that their attitude is shared only by the Governments of Greece and Denmark they will now reconsider their opposition to the recommendations of the Dooge Report to the European Council on the principles of voting in the EEC Council of Ministers.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces (Lord Trefgarne): My Lords, the Dooge Report reflected the views of the members of the committee which produced it and not necessarily those of their Governments. We consider that more use will need to be made of the majority voting provisions of the treaties in the englarged Community. These matters will be discussed between Heads of Government at the Milan European Council in June.
Lord Gladwyn: Yes, my Lords; but do the Government not realise that, apparent rejection of all the compromises (if one may believe the report), and simple insistence on the letter of the so-called Luxembourg compromise—that is to say on the principle of a potential political veto on all Council decisions—which has resulted in the Community's working only at half-cock with a majority of 10, will make it increasingly difficult for it to function at all after the increase in membership to 12 after the accession of Spain and Portugal?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, we have of course proposed some qualification with regard to the Luxembourg compromise. I draw the noble Lord's attention to that. It is on page 26 of the report.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that an amendment of the Treaty of Rome itself may be more efficient in bringing about what the noble Lord wants rather than at this stage removing the veto? The affinity among the nations is not such as to make it a community; it is merely a meeting of nations. Does he agree that to remove the veto now may well do more damage than if it is allowed to continue until we have more experience of how it works and have amended the treaty?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I think my noble friend makes a good point. Among the other proposals that we endorsed, and indeed brought forward, during the deliberations of the Dooge Committee was the one that provided for members to take greater advantage or make greater use of the possibility of abstention in accordance with certain articles of the treaty. I hope my noble friend will find that helpful, too.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, as there is now a proposal to hold an inter-governmental conference on a new draft treaty for European union, can the noble Lord say, first, whether the Government are in favour of reform and, secondly, in the event that there is such a conference, whether they would be represented there?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, we have not closed our minds to some element of reform in this matter. However, as for an inter-governmental conference, we are not clear what that conference could achieve that could not be achieved by a European council.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, is it not the case that in the field of financial control Her Majesty's Government have already surrendered the right to veto under Article 2 of the Fontainebleau agreement, where majority rule now has to be applied?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, the noble Lord is no doubt right, but of course the position is not quite as black and white as he makes it out to be.
Lord Morris: My Lords, my noble friend may not know, but can he hazard a guess as to what the governments of Greece and Denmark may feel about being referred to in the noble Lord's Question as, "only.…the governments of Greece and Denmark"?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I do not think it is for me to speculate on what view such governments may take upon the assertions of the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, I shall be grateful if the noble Lord will answer the other part of my question concerning the proposal to hold an intergovernmental conference; namely, will the Government attend such a conference if it is held later on this year?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, that is a hypothetical question because the conference has not yet been agreed upon. Indeed, the Government's view is that it would serve no particularly useful purpose.
Lord Gladwyn: My Lords, if I am right in thinking, from what the noble Lord the Minister has said, that the Government are considering possible modifications of the Luxembourg compromise, in accordance with some of the proposals made on pages 25 and 26 of the Dooge Report, is it not a fact that at the end of the last paragraph on page 26, it says:
"When a Member State considers that its very important interests are at stake, the discussion should continue until unanimous agreement is reached",
which of course is the Luxembourg compromise? Then it says:
"This proposal is supported by Mr. Møller, Mr. Papantoniou and Mr. Rifkind"—
in other words, by the United Kingdom, Greece and Denmark? Is that a fact? It seems to me that it is an uncompromising statement of support by Her Majesty's Government of the Luxembourg compromise. One can hardly read it in any other way.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, perhaps this is not the right moment to go into the detail of what the noble Lord has said. However, if he looks at the paragraphs ahead of the one that he read out he will see that they, too, are relevant.

Small Businesses: New Technologies
2.56 p.m.
Lord Orr-Ewing: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what further action is being taken to help small businesses understand the management and financial implication of applying new technologies to manufacturing processes.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, the Department of Trade and Industry is joining with Barclays Bank and PA Technology to present a series of seminars in all parts of the country, helping small firms to understand these issues. The department also provides extensive business and technical advisory services for small firms, and has recently published a new booklet summarising the support we give and the grants available to innovate export and invest.
Lord Orr-Ewing: My Lords, whilst thanking my noble friend for that good news, may I ask whether he can say how many small firms have taken advantage of this service? What is the charge made to these firms? During the last year, how many inquiries in this area have the Department of Trade and Industry received from small firms?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, during the last year the department received approximately 270,000 inquiries and arranged 35,000 counselling sessions. Of these counselling sessions the first three are free; after that they are £30 per session.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the services referred to in the Question are available in the Greater London Enterprise Board

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and also in the various metropolitan enterprise boards where they have fully technically qualified staff to deal with these matters, where the services are free, and of which many firms up and down the country have taken advantage in the last year or so?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, that may well be so, in which case I should say that this was an example of duplication, and another reason to abolish the GLC and the metropolitan counties.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, is the noble Lord really serious in what he has just said? Does he find it humorous that we have a record of bankruptcies among small firms? Is he aware that it is the endeavours of the organisations listed by my noble friend Lord Bruce of Donington which have saved many small businessmen from going down the Tory road to bankruptcy? Is the noble Lord aware that therefore these organisations should be given more assistance? If the Government really believe in small enterprises thriving in Great Britain, why do they not stop this ridiculous business of abolishing the great authorities that are helping them so much?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I should say that while bankruptcies among small firms are running at a fairly high level, so, too, are new firms starting up; in fact, they are, I think, at a record level.

The Royal Opera House: Priestley Report
3 p.m.
Lord Davies of Leek: 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 support the findings of the Priestley Report on The Royal Opera House Covent Garden.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Arts (The Earl of Gowrie): My Lords, the Government did accept the main findings and conclusions of the Priestley scrutiny and included an additional £2.8 million in the Arts Council's grant for 1984–85, which was passed on to the Royal Opera House and has been built into the Opera House's baseline funding for 1985–86.
Lord Davies of Leek: My Lords, while thanking the noble Earl for that welcome Answer—he is a sparkling champion of cultural activities—may I ask whether he is aware that with modern techniques for putting on film the instantaneous translation of operas as they are being sung, music is being brought to the people? Does he agree that television is to be congratulated upon this facility by which words written in English can be seen as they are sung by the artist, so bringing to the people great operas and ballets such as "Don Giovanni", "Swan Lake" and others? I hope that the Government will encourage this.
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, as a long-time fan of opera, I very much agree with the noble Lord. I
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welcome the enormous interest in opera that television and video have brought, even though I recognise that this brings any arts Minister a certain amount of headache.
Lord Strabolgi: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that Sir Claus Moser is on record as saying that at the Royal Opera House they are in despair about the grant and face draconian cuts? Will he launch an urgent inquiry to see what effect these are having on operatic standards?
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, I am well aware of Sir Claus's despair, which I find a little operatic. In 1983–84, the Royal Opera House got a rise, so to say, of 10 per cent; in 1984–85 a rise of 7 per cent. Last year—I recognise that this poses real difficulty for Sir Claus and his board—the rise was only 2 per cent. But one cannot have a good year every year.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that if the sparkle discerned in him by my noble friend is not apparent at the Royal Opera House, it is even less apparent elsewhere in the country? Will he look again at the whole question of funding? Does he agree that the underfunding discerned by Priestley at the Royal Opera House is rife throughout the country? Will he do something to put it right generally?
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, I have to say that I do not believe in an ever upward movement of funding for the arts. I believe in a good baseline of Government subsidy that is supplemented by an inflow of private funds. I am glad to say that this is taking place.
Lord Davies of Leek: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl, with the permission of the House, whether he will consider removing value added tax from cultural and musical activities, as happens in many parts of Europe?
The Earl of Cowrie: My Lords, I do not think that any Government would contemplate that. It would be very difficult to ring fence the arts, culture or music from a general demand to be removed from a tax which, whatever one thinks of it, is needed and is very efficient to gather.
Lord Diamond: My Lords, will the noble Earl remind us of the fall in the grant in real terms in the current year?
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, I do not have that information. There is some fall, but that is compensated for by the fact that there have been real term rises in previous years.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that some of us take a different view about the Royal Opera House and feel that the patrons of Covent Garden, in the main, could afford to pay a great deal more than they do? Is he aware that the money saved could be devoted to the provinces where incomes are lower and the need very much greater?
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Glenamara, will perhaps be aware that one of the

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reasons why the Opera House finds itself in some difficulties—I have every sympathy for that—is that the Arts Council has decided to divert a greater portion of its grant towards the regions, including of course opera companies in the regions.

Business
Lord Denham: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. my noble friend Lady Cox will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement to be made in another place on the higher education Green Paper. It may be for the convenience of the House if I announce that the Committee stage of the Local Government Bill will be adjourned at approximately 7.30 p.m. for a short period. During the adjournment, the Second Readings of the Rent (Amendment) Bill and the Motor Cycle Crash-Helmets (Restriction of Liability) Bill will be taken. If your Lordships agree to the business Motion that is about to be moved by my noble friend the Leader of the House, the remaining stages of the Rent (Amendment) Bill will also be taken.

Business of the House
3.5 p.m.
The Lord President of the Council (Viscount Whitelaw): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That Standing Order 44 (No two stages of a Bill to be taken on one day) be dispensed with for the purpose of taking the Rent (Amendment) Bill through all its remaining stages this day.—(Viscount Whitelaw.)
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, the purpose of the Motion is to enable the Rent (Amendment) Bill to be taken through its Second Reading and remaining stages during the dinner break this evening. The Bill has already been passed in another place, and if your Lordships agree to take it through all stages this evening, it will receive Royal Assent on Thursday. The purpose of the Bill is to correct an anomaly arising out of a recent judicial decision. It has been agreed through the usual channels that the Bill's progress should be accelerated in this way.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Housing Bill [H.L.]
3.6 p.m.
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
This is the first of the four Bills on the Order Paper in my name. If I may, I shall speak to all four together and then move the other three formally, together with the consequential Motion in connection with the fourth. This has been a mammoth task both for the Law Commission and the draftsman. To both I offer my own gratitude and I trust also the thanks and compliments of the House.
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The Housing Acts were last consolidated in the Session of 1957–58, in the Housing Act 1957 and the Housing (Financial Provisions) Act 1958. That was the fourth consolidation in this area of the law. Since then, there have been 17 further Housing Acts, most recently the Housing and Building Control Act 1984 and the Housing Defects Acts 1984. Some idea of the number of Acts involved may be gathered from the fact that the repeal schedule for this consolidation makes repeals in some 85 Acts of Parliament, and the present Housing Bill and Housing Associations Bill take up nearly 550 pages, compared with 198 pages in the 1957–58 consolidation.
The size of the task and the fact that material was drawn from so many different Acts over such a long interval has necessitated the adoption of a radical approach. There was no alternative but to redraft the legislation in a consistent, modern style. The topics within the scope of the consolidation are, broadly speaking, those which give rise to functions of public authorities: public sector housing, housing conditions and housing subsidies, grants, loans and other financial matters.
As well as provisions of the Housing Acts strictly so called, the opportunity has been taken to incorporate so much of the Small Dwelling Acquisition Acts 1899 to 1923 as is still operative and the provisions of the Public Health Act 1936 relating to common lodging houses. Provisions relating to "landlord and tenant" and housing benefits (which are more closely related to social security legislation) have been excluded from the main consolidation.
Essentially this is a single Bill consolidation. The main Housing Bill contains by far the greater part of the provisions within the scope of the consolidation. Two subsidiary topics are, however, separately dealt with and these are contained in the Housing Associations Bill and the Landlord and Tenant Bill. The legislation relating to housing associations is a distinct sub-division of the law on this topic. The relevant provisions also extend to Scotland and are, in significant respects, not capable of being stated separately for England and Wales on the one hand and for Scotland on the other. It would be inconvenient and possibly even distasteful for the Scottish reader to have to refer to an Act of Parliament otherwise entirely English in order to discover the relevant Scottish law. Accordingly, the subject has been separately dealt with in a separate Bill which extends to the whole of Great Britain.
The reason for the separate Landlord and Tenant Bill is that it is necessary for the purposes of the arrangement of the statute book to distinguish the subject under title "Housing" from the subject under title "Landlord and Tenant". This Bill consolidates a number of provisions of the Housing Acts which fall under the latter heading, so that it would not have been appropriate to include them in the main Housing Bill. They are, however, of considerable practical importance, and it would therefore be undesirable to take the alternative course and leave them isolated in various Housing Acts otherwise entirely, or almost entirely, now to be repealed. In fact, the provisions of the Landlord and Tenant Bill form a coherent sub-division of the law of landlord and tenant, consisting of

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those provisions which relate specifically to residential accommodation.
Fourthly, and I hope finally, there is the Housing (Consequential Provisions) Bill. This deals with a number of technical matters arising from the three substantive Bills: repeals, consequential amendments, transitional (natters and savings. They are of secondary importance and more conveniently contained together in a separate Bill.
In the course of preparing the consolidation a number of anomalies and inconsistencies came to light. The Law Commission has, in accordance with its usual practice, issued a report making some 38 recommendations for minor technical amendments to enable the law to be stated in a clear and straightforward fashion. These include a number of proposals for repeal of enactments either obsolete or no longer of practical utility. Therefore, the Bills before your Lordships give effect to these but they will, of course, in due course fall to be considered by the Joint Committee if the Second Reading is passed.
Finally, the House will note the special Motion on the Order Paper relating to the last of the four Bills. This is necessary because that Bill, although a necessary part of the consolidation scheme, is not strictly a consolidation Bill. It can thus be dealt with, along with the other Bills, by the Joint Committee more conveniently. The rules of the House require that it be referred specifically. The other Bills, of course, go in the usual way and automatically to the Joint Committee without any special Motion. That is the plan we followed last November in the almost equally complicated companies' consolidation which I introduced.
As I remember, my noble friend Lord Molson reminded me in a Starred Question last February that the housing legislation has remained unconsolidated for too long. It is a body of law which is of immediate practical importance to a large number of our fellow subjects. The Bills now before the House will make a major contribution to its clarity and accessibility. I therefore commend them to your Lordships. My Lords, I beg to move that the first of the four Bills be now read a second time.
Moved, that the Bill be now read a second time.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
Lord Elwyn-Jones: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble and learned Lord for undertaking the huge task of explaining this mammoth piece of consolidation. One wonders what will be the dimensions of the new Housing Bill. I suspect that it will add considerably to the size of the statute book. Indeed, we can see a great bundle in the Lord Chancellor's hand. One also wonders what is being done about the hoped for process of reducing the size of the statute book when we are enlarging it so signally on this occasion.
The Law Commission is undoubtedly to be congratulated on its achievement in completing this process. The next task I suppose will be to reform the law of housing and of landlord and tenant. Is not that also overdue? When can we look forward to some progress in that direction?
Lord Simon of Glaisdale: My Lords, this consolidation and the events which have led to it raise some important issues and questions. Therefore, I should like to remind your Lordships of its immediate background, which concerns what happened as regards the Bill mentioned by my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor; namely, the Housing and Building Control Act of last Session.
Part I of that Bill amended, by reference, the Housing Act 1980 in dealing with the right to buy council houses. It was never gainsaid that that amendment by reference was utterly incomprehensible. It was entirely incomprehensible to the persons who would be principally concerned; namely, council tenants and, only with great difficulty and with the use of scissors and paste would it be understandable to the local authorities who had to administer it. It led to very great indignation, not least because it was the second Session in which the same department had put forward a Bill a major part of which was incomprehensible.
When protests were made, not least by the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, and the noble Lord, Lord Molson, the most that could be offered by the Minister in charge of the Bill was that there should be a, so to speak, unofficial consolidation of the 1980 and 1984 Acts by the republication by the Statutory Publications Office of the 1980 Act, as amended by the 1984 Act. It was said that that could only be done in four months by which time, of course, it would be far too late.
As regards the consolidation which was pressed, the important consolidation had been in train for a long time and it has now come to fruition. However, no term could be put on its completion. Such was the indignation that an amendment was put down that Part I of the 1984 Act should not come into force until there had been consolidation. There was then considerable alarm and the heavy artillery in the shape of my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor was called up. By the time my noble and learned friend made his powerful speech there were two significant changes. In the first place, the four months could now be reduced to two, by which time it would be useful. In the second place, my noble and learned friend hoped, without giving an undertaking, that the consolidation could be completed within a year, which would bring it to this spring. The assurance of publication by the Statutory Publications Office was honoured entirely and to the minute. The consolidation is slightly later than my noble and learned friend hoped, but now we have seen its dimensions it would be most churlish to complain.
Therefore, may I make three points. First, I congratulate my noble and learned friend, the Law Commission and their draftsmen on a superlative piece of consolidation. Secondly, I draw your Lordships' attention to the fact that a strong-minded Minister does not immediately accept a negative or dilatory plea from a Government department. When my noble and learned friend came to intervene there was a substantial improvement.
The third point is a matter of legislative technique: the publication prior to consolidation of a Bill in its amended form by the Statutory Publications Office. That is alternative to another technique which I do not

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think would have been suitable here; namely, the well-known Keeling Schedule whereby the original Bill is published as a schedule to the amending Bill with typographical distinctions between the old matter, the new matter and the excluded matter. As I say, I do not think that that would have been suitable in this case because the dimensions were too great. The alternative of the publication in an amended form by the Statutory Publications Office, your Lordships may think, is a valuable addition to our legislative techniques.
I have only one other thing to say, since my noble and learned friend has dealt with all these Bills together. The last Bill, the consequential provisions Bill, is not a consolidation Bill. It contains some provisions, for example on page 14, which strike me as potentially controversial although they embody existing law. I merely wanted to be assured, as your Lordships will wish to be, by my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack that the fact that this is not a consolidation Bill will not throw the whole subject open to argument on its merits, but that Parliament will exercise the same restraint as it does on Law Commission amendments such as we have here, and not discuss the substance of the measure. I should be most grateful if my noble and learned friend could reassure your Lordships on that.
3.24 p.m.
Lord Renton: My Lords, as one who has persistently pressed for more consolidation, especially on this branch of the law, I hope that I may briefly endorse what has been said by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale. This particular piece of consolidation has been a most formidable task. The measure of it can be seen by looking at the 52 pages of derivations which we find at the end of the main, newly consolidated Housing Bill, which is in two volumes.
I am sure that it was right, and useful guidance for the future, to try to split this consolidation effort into several parts. If it had been all done in one part these two volumes would certainly have had to be three volumes and the whole thing would have been completely unmanageable. Therefore, as a guide to future consolidation, I suggest that that is a useful precedent.
May I just mention in passing, especially as it has been suggested that the law should now be reformed, is it not rather a strange reflection upon the parliamentary habits of the great British Parliament that a matter which touches the ordinary citizen in his daily life and in his home life should have to be expressed by Parliament in such enormous detail as we find in these volumes, which even then are, as has been pointed out, not the whole of the story.
I hope that in further legislation on this subject, and in any attempt to reform it, that will be borne in mind. To the extent that we can enact matters in clear general principles and try to avoid much of this detail, we shall be doing a great service to our fellow subjects.
Lord Molson: My Lords, it would indeed be ungracious on my part if I did not say a few words of
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thanks and congratulations to my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor for what he has achieved in this matter. The length, complexity and difficulty of this matter have been set out by the noble and learned Lord. Lord Simon of Glaisdale, with that mastery of detail for which he is so well known. With him and my noble friend beside me, Lord Selkirk, we protested vigorously during the debates on the 1984 Bill that it was to a large extent only an amendment of the 1980 Act, and that really it was impossible for anyone to understand what the outcome was going to be without carefully collating those two measures. In addition to that of course there was the existing corpus of housing law.
In answer to our representations, my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor undertook, as has already been mentioned by the noble and learned Lord, to do his best to bring a consolidating Bill on to the Floor of this House within 12 months. I do not think that anyone, possibly not he, realised what a tremendous task this was going to be. Therefore, I should like to express I am sure the appreciation of all of us at the way in which my noble and learned friend has managed to achieve this within one year, which is what he did not promise but undertook to endeavour to do.
We are therefore now confronted with four separate Bills— 149, 150, 151 and 160. That is a measure of the magnitude of the task. The repeals alone cover seven pages in one of the schedules. I would only say to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, that although this does nothing to reduce the volume of the statute book it at any rate goes a long way to simplifying it for those who wish to look up the law upon the subject.
The matter has been carefully covered from the technical point of view both by my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor and also by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, but I should like to go a little further and mention another substantial achievement, and one which my noble friend Lord Renton would be too modest to mention himself. This consolidation marks a great step forward because for almost the first time we have a statute which is lucid and intelligible in its drafting.
I often used to think that parliamentary draftsmen gloried in their own obscurity to demonstrate their ingenuity. This was criticised by my noble friend Lord Renton in a remarkable report: remarkable because of its painstaking and perspicacious analysis of the whole of this immensely complicated and difficult problem. I think that this legislation marks a turning point in the direction of the long due acceptance of many of the recommendations made by my noble friend in the Renton report. The old style consisted of long subsections without a single full stop extending perhaps to 20 lines. The main verb might be in the first line and the rest of the main sentence in the 21st line. The intervening lines would deal with exceptions, reservations and sometimes with irrelevancies.
The new style is exemplified in these Bills. In the main Bill there are 18 parts—each with a logical and sensible title which enables one to know what it is about—and within them 624 clauses clearly stating the subject. Finally, and most important of all, the subsections seldom exceed seven lines in length, and

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all exceptions and reservations are set out separately and clearly. I think my noble friend would say that that is entirely in line with the constructive suggestions that he made in his report which has been too long neglected.
Credit for an important step in the clarification and rationalisation of the law, making it in the words of the 39 articles "understanded of the people", attaches first to my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor, who promised this consolidation and, against great difficulties in a tight timetable, has seen it through; to my noble friend Lord Renton whose memorable report has at last been remembered; and thirdly to Parliamentary Counsel and their assistant who have departed from the antiquated tradition of ponderous complication in favour of a simpler, orderly and logical style of draftsmanship. This is greatly to the credit of all those concerned.
3.33 p.m.
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I should like to thank most sincerely all those noble Lords who have taken part in this debate and to reply to some of their excellent points. It is true that the statute volume for 1985 will be greatly enlarged by this legislation, if it passes its remaining stages, but the number of statutes on the statute book will be comparably reduced by virtue of this consolidation. That is a step forward because, instead of having to look in many places, the practitioner and the subject will be able to look in one place alone, namely, the 1985 statutes. The main process of the reduction of the number of statutes on the statute book is the work of the Statute Law Revision Committee whose work was begun before my first term of office, from the term of Lord Gardiner onwards. The number of statutes on the statute book has, contrary to general belief, diminished rather than increased. I sympathise with the other remarks made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones. I should greatly like to see a simplification of the law, indeed, a reform of it, but we pass laws relating to landlord and tenant and housing almost every year. The number of laws which are now being consolidated indicates that.
I was grateful to my noble and learned friend Lord Simon of Glaisdale and I accept on behalf of the draftsmen and on behalf of the Law Commission his congratulations on this stupendous piece of work. He also was good enough to add words in praise of myself. I can only say that, like Jeeves, I endeavour to give satisfaction, but I cannot claim that I have done more than give it such backing as I was asked to do with such enthusiasm as I am capable of giving. I fully share my noble and learned friend's belief in Statutes in Force as a tool for the practitioner and the user of statutes and I have always backed it from the very first. The whole sequence is now complete but the price, I am sorry to say, is enormous. On the other hand, those who are interested in particular parts of the law can buy separate parts at something less than that enormous price. I certainly hope with my noble and learned friend that the minor consequential provisions in the last of the four Bills will not be made the subject of debate unless there are controversial animadversions on some of those by the Joint Select Committee which will be considering them in detail.
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I was also grateful for what was said by my noble friend Lord Renton whose work in this field was generously acknowledged by my noble friend Lord Molson, and I should like to be associated with what Lord Molson said. As regards the extraordinary length of English legislation, we have to recognise that our laws are, on the whole, more verbose than those of comparable democracies on the Continent. But this is primarily the fault not of our parliamentary draftsmen, that dedicated body of men, but of our technical rules of legal construction, which are often the subject of debate in legal books but which we have never yet quite been able to get round.
Our doctrine is that Parliament is supreme. Therefore, the draftsman has to think of every possible detail which can be the subject of debate in the courts, otherwise it is said that the judges are making laws. This is the difficulty which no Lord Chancellor, no judges and no draftsmen have been able to get round. But we are moving slowly but firmly, and I hope that with the general consent of the profession and Parliament, towards a more purposive construction of the statutes, which in the end should lead towards a more concise style of draftsmanship. I am also grateful to my noble friend Lord Molson for his constructive contribution both on this and on a previous occasion, and I am grateful for all he said.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, I hope that the extravagant plaudits directed at the Housing Bill, as distinct from the "Renton Amendment Bill" which comes later, will be justified. They were extravagant. I doubt whether they will live up to the words used. I have never known extra words to simplify anything, and this consolidation means extra words.
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I am much obliged to my noble friend.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.

Housing Associations Bill [H.L.]
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read a second time, and referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.

Landlord and Tenant Bill [H.L.]
3.40 p.m.
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read a second time, and referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.

Housing (Consequential Provisions) Bill [H.L.]
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read a second time.
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.
Moved, That the Bill be referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills. —(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to and it was ordered that a Message be sent to the Commons to desire their agreement.

Higher Education: Green Paper
3.42 p.m.
Baroness Cox: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement on the development of higher education into the 1990s which is now being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science. The Statement is as follows:
"I wish to make a Statement about the Green Paper published today on the future development of higher education. Copies of the Green Paper are available in the Vote Office. The Green Paper covers the United Kingdom as a whole and I am therefore speaking with the agreement of my right honourable friends the Secretaries of State for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
"The purposes of the Green Paper are to present the Government's thinking on future development of higher education, to set the scene for the next decade, and to invite the views both of those involved in higher education and of the taxpayers and ratepayers who finance so much of the cost.
"The paper has been prepared in the light of advice on future strategy from the University Grants Committee and from the National Advisory Body for Public Sector Higher Education in England, published last September. In Scotland a review of strategy and of planning and funding arrangements for higher education is being undertaken by the Scottish Tertiary Education Advisory Council. The application in Scotland of the policies addressed in the paper will be considered in the light of the council's advice, which will be available later this year.
"As well as reaffirming the view of the aims and purposes of higher education defined in the Robbins Report in 1963, the Government believe that it is vital for our higher education to contribute more effectively to the improvement of the performance of the economy. This is not because the Government place a low value on the general cultural benefits of education and research or on study of the humanities. The reason is simply that,
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unless the country's economic performance improves, we shall be even less able than now to afford many of the things we value most—including education for pleasure and general culture and the financing of scholarship and research as an end in itself. The Green Paper therefore emphasises the need for higher education to become more responsive to changing industrial and commercial circumstances, and the importance of close links between higher education on the one hand and business, the professions and the public services on the other.
"Since 1963 successive governments have endorsed the so-called 'Robbins principle' that 'courses of higher education should be available for all those who are qualified by ability and attainment to pursue them and who wish to do so'. The UGC and the NAB have advised that qualification for higher education should be interpreted broadly and that the test should not be paper qualifications but 'ability to benefit'. So long as the taxpayer continues to bear most of the cost of higher education, however, the benefit has to be sufficient to justify the cost. Subject to that, the Government accept that the criteria for entry to higher education—which will, as at present, remain under the control of institutions themselves—should place more emphasis on intellectual competence, motivation and maturity, and less on formal qualifications. These criteria should be applied as rigorously to those with paper qualifications as to those without. The Government do not expect this change of emphasis significantly to affect the numbers of students for whom higher education should be provided. A consultative paper on student support arrangements will be published shortly, as part of the review of such arrangements which I announced on 5th December last.
"As with their policies for schools, in higher education too the Government are committed to raising standards and the pursuit of value for money. In both these areas important reports have recently been published, and are under active consideration.
"The report of the Committee of Inquiry into Academic Validation in Public Sector Higher Education, chaired by Sir Norman Lindop and published in April, deals with the approval, and monitoring of standards, of degree level courses in polytechnics and colleges. It recommends substantial changes in the arrangements of universities which validate public sector courses and of the Council for National Academic Awards. One proposal is that some institutions in the public sector should in future take full responsibility for their own academic standards and award their own degrees. The Government have invited comments on the report and will consider these before coming to decisions.
"The report of a Steering Committee chaired by Sir Alex Jarratt, based on efficiency studies undertaken in six universities, has proposed significant changes in universities' planning and management structures. The present arrangements were developed in a period of increasing resources. Now that resources are no longer expanding,

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changes are needed if universities are to be able to spend to best advantage the public funding likely to be available. The Jarratt Report will also be relevant to the rest of higher education where other efficiency studies are in hand.
"In research, the Government wish to ensure that the available resources are used to the greatest possible advantage, which requires more selectivity and planning. The University Grants Committee is developing and promoting new selective allocation and planning arrangements. It is also important that commerce, industry and the public services should take full advantage of what higher education has to offer through research, technology transfer, business start-up facilities and consultancy services. The Green Paper stresses the need for higher education to pay more attention to the development of such services.
"The Green Paper recognises that continuing education should be a growth area in higher education, whether for vocational or non-vocational purposes. The Government and local authorities have an important role in stimulating such provision and the Government contribute directly to the development of in-career vocational education through the Professional, Industrial and Commercial Updating Programme. But the cost should not fall principally on the tax- and ratepayer. Employers are urged to recognise more fully their need, in their own interests, to encourage and to pay for the development and updating of their staff, while adults in work can be expected to contribute substantially to the cost of courses that they take for career advancement or for personal satisfaction.
"The Jarratt Report recommends a review of the role, structure and staffing of the University Grants Committee. The Government have accepted this recommendation, and I shall announce the terms of reference and form of the review as soon as possible.
"The Government's Expenditure Plans published last January indicate the sums that the Government plan to make available for higher education up to the end of the present planning period. Beyond this there are the same difficulties about providing projections of future funding for higher education as there are for other public expenditure programmes. The Government accept that they must give the best indications of longer-term policies for higher education that they can, but planning also requires institutions to manage their commitments and the funds available to them so as to be able to pursue their objectives effectively in circumstances of change and uncertainty. Present projections of student demand suggest that there will be a substantial fall in student numbers in the 1990s and planning for the changes that will be necessary must begin shortly.
"The Government will review their policies for higher education in the light of the responses to the Green Paper, and hope to be able to make a further statement of intentions in the course of 1986."
My Lords, that concludes my right honourable friend's Statement.
Baroness David: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Baroness for repeating that Statement,
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which was extremely long but did not really have in it anything very exciting or new to make up for its length. In fact, we find the Statement disappointing, unsatisfying and unsatisfactory. It tells us very little. It may be that the Green Paper, when there is time to read it, will tell us a little more, but the picture we get is depressing. It is a picture of a contracting system of higher education, with the possibility of expansion only if industry or the individual can pay for it. Many of us had hoped that the decline in the number in the 18-plus age group in the 1990s would provide the opportunity for the greater involvement of women, mature students and those who had missed out on a first chance to be involved in higher education. But the Statement, while paying lip service to continuing education and saying that it should be a growth area, also says (and I quote):
"But the cost should not fall principally on the tax- and ratepayer. Employers are urged to recognise more fully their need, in their own interests, to encourage and to pay for the development and updating of their staff, while adults in work can be expected to contribute substantially to the cost of courses that they take for career advancement or for personal satisfaction".
There is nothing about those who are out of work and who might perhaps need the stimulus of further and higher education.
Moreover, all this is at a time when every report we get from industry or from Select Committees of this House and elsewhere urges a great interest in and need for graduates with skills in science and technology for the nation's good. Instead, we know from the UGC letter to the heads of universities sent out last week that that committee has decided (and I quote):
"on a working hypothesis of an average annual decline in the recurrent grant for each institution of 2 per cent. in real terms".
An increase in the number of places in science and technology depends on the production of extra resources, as the UGC says; yet the Government are expecting them to be supplied within existing resources. This is totally unreal if the Government are seriously encouraging the international competitiveness of industry.
I have one comment on the Jarratt Report. That report did make some helpful and sensible suggestions, but it did not indicate that any very substantial savings could be made, as the UGC said in its letter last week. Yet the Government seem to be relying on Jarratt to provide the additional funding, which really is the Government's business if they want industry to be revitalised. We agree with the Jarratt recommendation that there should be a review of the role, structure and staffing of the UGC. If it is to cope with the task which it set itself in its letter to the universities last week, it certainly will need very substantial extra manpower.
We are glad that the Government are re-affirming the view of the aims and purpose of higher education defined in the Robbins Report, and we welcome the Government's acceptance of the recommmendation of the UGC and the national advisory body that ability to benefit should be a qualification for entry to higher education. We welcome the Government's acceptance that the criteria for entry into higher education should place more emphasis on intellectual competence, motivation and maturity, and less on formal qualifications. These criteria, it says, should be applied as rigorously to those with paper qualifications as to

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those without. I hope that perhaps the noble Baroness will be able to give a little clarification about that.
Finally, we do not understand why this Green Paper, expected about six months ago, has been delayed all this time. We were told it was because of the need to discuss student support systems further, but there is nothing on student support here: just the promise of a consultative paper on the subject later. May I ask when we might expect that?
Lord Rochester: My Lords, from these Benches I should like to join in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, for having repeated this Statement—not, as the noble Baroness, Lady David, has already said, that it tells us very much. We are happy to endorse the emphasis placed in the Green Paper on the need for higher education to become more responsive to changing industrial and commercial circumstances and on the importance of close links between higher education and business.
The Government appear to think that the Robbins principle should be interpreted broadly to mean that the test for entry into higher education should be the ability to benefit from it, provided that the benefit is sufficient to justify the cost. The question I should like to ask is: what cost? More precisely, have the Government closed their minds altogether to the advice given earlier by the University Grants Committee that universities should receive level funding, or is any increase in the grant for the rest of this decade to be below the rate of inflation?
The Statement refers to changes recommended in the Jarratt Report on universities' planning and management structure, For my part, I welcome this, and indeed I know from my own experience that, to that end, committee structures are already being examined in universities. The UGC are said in the Statement to be developing and promoting new selective allocation and planning arrangements for available resources. Again I have to ask: what does this mean? Are the Government willing to give due consideration, at any rate, to the advice of your Lordships' Committee on education and training for new technologies, that in bringing about the desired shift from the arts to science and engineering in the number of higher education places to be made available because science and technology places cost more, this will require new resources as well as the reallocation of existing ones?
Finally, the Green Paper urges employers to recognise more fully their need for continuing education and indeed to help to pay for it. May I ask whether the Government, for their part, have given any thought to the possibility of offering some form of tax remission to those employers who demonstrate their willingness to contribute to the national interest in this way?
3.57 p.m.
Baroness Cox: My Lords, may I thank the noble Baroness, Lady David, and the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, for their comments and constructive contributions in response to this Statement. The noble Baroness said that she was very disappointed that it
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seemed to be such a negative Statement, with very little in the way of positive policy proposals or encouragement. May I just emphasise that I think the Green Paper is positive in many respects? It is important to remember that the Government are currently investing some £3·8 billion in higher education and research, that there are now 65,000 more students in higher education than there were in 1979 and that the age participation index has increased over those years.
However, as was made clear, the Government's policies, as set out in the Green Paper, are designed to make sure that more effective use is made of the inevitably limited resources available for higher education. In doing so, the Government are keen to ensure that standards and quality are maintained and, where possible, enhanced and that higher education is better managed, more flexible and more attuned to the needs of industry and commerce. The Green Paper sets out to establish the framework in which sensible planning for the challenges ahead can proceed and in which those objectives can be maintained.
The noble Baroness also raised the question of students who are unemployed. The Green Paper does not ignore the needs of students who are out of work. For example, in paragraph 4.4 there is particular reference to students seeking new or strengthened knowledge and skills who themselves might he unemployed. The Statement makes a point of saying that the unemployed deserve and receive special attention. Fees are often waived or abated. The Open University, for example, has funds to assist enrolment by the unemployed and some other groups and the MSC also offers support to many other students under adult training schemes.
The noble Baroness also asked about the growth or otherwise of the numbers of students in science and engineering. I should like to point out that there has been a significant growth of home students on full-time courses in science and engineering in recent years from 125,200 students in universities to 132,300 now, and in the public sector there has been an enormous growth from 54,200 in 1979–80 to 84,000 now, Projections for the future anticipate a growth in those subject areas.
On the question of the alternative interpretation—if one may so call it—of the Robbins principle with regard to the right of entry to higher education, we are delighted that the noble Baroness agrees that there is a case for broadening the interpretation of "qualifications" for higher education beyond formal qualifications, as has been the case, of a minimum of two advance levels, and that the new interpretation rightly includes other aspects, such as ability to benefit, motivation and maturity. I think everyone would agree that that would be very beneficial in encouraging students into higher education who will be both motivated to benefit from it and able to make maximum use of the opportunities that it provides. Perhaps if there remain any other questions which the noble Baroness raised, I may deal with them later.
I now wish to move to the questions raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rochester. He asked whether or not the Robbins principle would allow interpretation of admissions policy commensurate with funding and with the interpretation of cost. As I have already

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indicated, the Government are committed, through their advance planning on the public expenditure programme on higher education, to maintain the level of funding for the proposed limits with regard to the numbers of students who are currently receiving higher education, and are committed to allowing for demand as worked out in the principle entitled Variant Y of Report on Education 100 dealing with gauging expected student demand.
So far as the question of selectivity is concerned, with regard to the university sector the UGC has always had to be selective. It is of course up to the UGC itself to decide the criteria on which it ascertains its priorities for selectivity in line with the existing constraints that are conditioning the resources available.
I think that there was some concern about the balance between science and engineering and other subjects and about whether the Robbins principle can ensure that there is adequate provision for students of arts and humanities as well as of science. The Green Paper is adamant that the Government value the study of humanities and arts as well as of the sciences, though they recognise that with a growth in science and engineering places competition for arts places will inevitably be a little more difficult. But there is and always has been in recent years sufficient places in higher education for all students who have applied. If there is to be any concern in the future about non-availability of places for students qualified and wishing to enter higher education, I would point out that the Government have commissioned a survey by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys to monitor the situation with regard to matching demand and supply and ascertaining whether or not there will be students who might be qualified according to the Robbins principle in its reformulated version, and whether there will be places available for those students who wish to embark on courses in higher education.
With regard to the final question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, on tax incentives, I am afraid that I cannot comment on it. It is not dealt with specifically in the Green Paper. But I wish to remind your Lordships that this is a consultative document, and clearly those people who might feel that they could make a helpful contribution would be in a position to make their views known.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, I should not like it to be thought that the very grudging response of the noble Baroness, Lady David, represents the totality of reactions to this interesting and important Statement. On the contrary, I think the Statement gives us some reasonable hope that the long decline in the capacity of this country adequately to organise and finance higher education may be coming to an end. It is, after all, an extraordinary anomaly that we go along with the University Grants Committee system set up on 1919 in a totally different world.
The question I should like to ask the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, in consequence is this. Will the committee of inquiry, which I regard as the pillar of the whole new system, be entitled to look not merely at the staffing and membership of the University Grants Committee, but also at its general remit? Will
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it be able to look at other and more complex forms of finance? In particular, will it have the facilities to profit by the experience of other countries, and most notably of the United States of America?
Baroness Cox: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Beloff for his welcome of the Green Paper and the very helpful comments he has made. So far as the terms of reference of the UGC inquiry are concerned, they are still under review. But it will certainly be an external inquiry: it will have an external chairman; and it will not be an elected representative body. However, its terms of reference, as I understand it, are still very much to be determined.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, I find it extremely difficult to believe that the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, and I have been listening to the same Statement. I listened to every word of the Statement and I could not discern a single strand of new thinking anywhere in the replies of the noble Baroness. The one thing that emerges loud and clear from the whole Statement is that there will be a considerable contraction of higher education by the middle 1990s. For a country which must sell its goods and services overseas in the face of increasingly sophisticated competition from Japan, America, West Germany and other countries this will be sheer idiocy. It amounts almost to national suicide. It is the most idiotic thing that this idiotic Government have done in their term of office.
Baroness Cox: My Lords, perhaps I may put the noble Lord right. There is not a major contraction anticipated which is out of line with, for example, falling student numbers. When one considers the projected planning for the expenditure on higher education until the 1990s, one sees that there is also a projected fall, demographically determined through the falling birth rate, of students going through. I should like to emphasise that the demand for full-time courses is likely to stay fairly constant, and will then fall by about 14 per cent, but provision for higher education for students is intended to meet such demand as will take place. There is also intended, and provided for, other categories of students, such as part-time students and mature students of whom full account is taken, and they often receive very real benefit from involvement in higher education.
As for comparisons with other countries, international comparisons always present a very great difficulty. However, from the point of view of our age participation rate—and the proportions of our people on a cohort basis going into education—I should like to point out to the noble Lord that the United Kingdom compares favourably with many other countries in Western Europe in particular. We have entrants rates which compare very favourably with, for example, West Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, though Japan and the United States have higher rates. But we hope that the encouragement of more students into science and engineering courses will go some way towards meeting the need of the economy for more graduates and for technologically qualified personnel.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, as one of the Ministers departmentally responsible 22 years ago for

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acceptance of the Robbins Report, I should like to congratulate my noble friend on the fact that the Government are now having a look at the structure which resulted from that ambitious and enterprising report. Is my noble friend aware that that report was accepted, despite its very heavy financial implications, against the background of very different economic circumstances from today and against the background of a steadily expanding economy? To ask her a specific question arising from that, is it the fact, as has been suggested in certain elements of the press, that the Government are contemplating the closure of certain university departments which are thought to duplicate the work of other and more efficient ones at other universities?
Baroness Cox: My Lords, perhaps I may first thank my noble friend for his encouraging remarks with regard to the implementation of the Robbins principle, in spite of the financial situation. To try to answer the question with regard to potential closure, the situation at the moment is that the Government have asked the various bodies concerned with the university sector and the public sector to consider the position with regard to rationalisation and the more effective use of resources. The UGC will be undertaking such a study so far as the universities are concerned; the National Advisory Board will be undertaking such a study with regard to the public sector. At the moment there is no question whatever in the Government's mind of any candidates for closure as such, but should that be deemed necessary in due course, legislation may be required. But that is not at the moment in the thinking of the Government and it would be wrong to pre-empt the findings and the deliberations of those bodies.
Lord Taylor of Blackburn: My Lords, after listening to the Statement which the Minister has made, may I say that this is a very sad day indeed for higher education in this country? Many of us who have worked so hard feel very sad after listening to that Statement. The question that I should like to put to the noble Baroness is: does this confirm something that many of us have been thinking for some time—that the UGC is now an instrument of Government rather than an independent body?
Baroness Cox: My Lords, I see no grounds whatever for the assumption underlying the noble Lord's question. The UGC is the determining body with regard to the allocation of the university funds that are made available to it. It has been suggested in the Jarratt Report that there might be a review of the UGC, and the Government are considering that review. But at the moment the UGC functions as it always has done. I am sad that the noble Lord feels so dismayed, because the record in regard to the increase in provision for higher education over recent years has been highly commendable and, I should have thought, cause for a certain amount of satisfaction. Perhaps I may remind the noble Lord that the total number of students in higher education, to whom we all feel a deep commitment, has increased from 454,000 in 1979–80 to 519,500 in 1983–84, and that there is a projected increase beyond that up to 1989–90. So I
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think that there are no grounds for the dismay which the noble Lord expressed.
Lord Leatherland: My Lords, may I ask the noble Baroness—and I do so as one who was for many years the treasurer of a university—whether the universities are to get more financial help from the Government in future, rather than less, taking into account the increased cost of living?
Baroness Cox: My Lords, the future expenditure plans, as they are at present outlined, are for a modest increase in cash terms. But, of course, that increase must be seen in the light of other general factors, such as inflation, and it is impossible to determine exactly what will be the relationship between the actual increase and the net increase.
Lord Leatherland: Then, my Lords, may I ask the noble Baroness whether it is a fact that universities will get less financial help from the Government in future than they have done in the past?
Baroness Cox: My Lords, it is impossible to ascertain in a hypothetical way the relationship in the future between an increase in actual terms and an increase in real terms, because it is impossible to make allowance in the future for other factors such as inflation. But perhaps I may point out that the Government are making some specific grants in addition to current levels of expenditure to the universities, and particularly on the research side, to encourage research which is of such importance for our performance in the whole area of industry and technology.
For example, the Government are making available specific grants for universities to update their equipment. There is to be a fund of £4 million for 1985–86 and £7 million for each of the financial years 1986–87 to universities to help them, as I said, to bring their equipment up to first-class standards. There are various other initiatives which have been made available to encourage the growth of students and the opportunities for them, particularly in these areas of science, technology and engineering. So there is new money going in over and above the general level of expenditure.
Lord Leatherland: My Lords—
Noble Lords: Baroness White.
Lord Leatherland: That is right. Protect her.
Baroness White: My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that, in spite of the slight ameliorations which she has touched on, the universities have been told that they are to expect indefinitely a 2 per cent. reduction in their grant? Does she also agree that if they have to sustain more or less present student numbers by adding other categories to the people in the 18 year-old entry group, they cannot do this adequately and also sustain the higher cost courses which the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, mentioned, if there is the switch to technology and scientific work for which the noble Baroness takes credit? The two things simply do not match. It is extremely depressing to feel that, unless

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one qualifies for some of these selective research grants, one has very little hope of being able to make progress in the near future.
Baroness Cox: My Lords, I should like to point out that the Green Paper is concerned with higher education as a whole and not just with the university sector. It is very important that one considers the totality of higher education, and the Government's present expenditure plans—if I may emphasise this point—should provide sufficient resources for higher education for the current planning period to allow demand to be met at the level which is currently projected for that time.
Lord Parry: My Lords, will the noble Baroness accept from me that the hope of higher education for their children remains possibly the main hope of many parents throughout this country? It is the one hope that encourages them to believe that their children can rise above the difficulties of the shrinking economic face of Britain and the difficulties that this nation has to face. Will the noble Baroness, in that case, reassure this House now—because the divisions that have been opened by this Statement cut across party lines; the reaction to them is, of course, predictable—that we can have a debate on this subject? The frustrations of asking questions, trying to observe that we do not tread across the protocol, are so great that we really need a debate. I ask that question as a classroom teacher of 32 years' service.
Baroness Cox: My Lords, I am happy to agree with the noble Lord opposite—I am sure we all do—that access to higher education is of immense importance. The Government are committed to ensuring that there should be places available for pupils and students who are qualified in terms of formal qualifications, and/or in terms of the other criteria which have been elaborated in the Green Paper. The policy is such that there is a commitment to ensuring that courses of higher education should be available to all those who can benefit from them, in either a university or the public sector. As regards the question of a debate, the noble Lord is well aware of the normal channels through which to proceed should such a debate be requested.
Lord Parry: My Lords, I accept—
Lord Kaldor: My Lords, what is the maximum rate of inflation which is consistent with the universities not getting a smaller allocation in real terms in the future than they are getting now? I ask that question because at one point the noble Baroness said that whether there is a real expansion, and how much, will depend on future inflation.
Baroness Cox: My Lords, perhaps I may say to the noble Lord that, of course, everyone recognises that the development of higher education is taking place in the context of financial constraint, and I have never sought to indicate anything other than that. But higher education is, I think, expected to respond to that positively in terms of increasing efficiency and cost-effectiveness. One of the ways in which that has been accomplished, and may continue to be enhanced, is
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through a change in staff-student ratios in a way which would not diminish the quality of teaching but might bring about certain economies. Staff-student ratios have been altered slightly in both the university sector and the public sector, but in ways which I think are still very generous compared with other international ratings of other comparable countries.
Lord Parry: My Lords, if the House will allow me to return—
Noble Lords: Lord Annan!
Lord Annan: My Lords, may a Cross-Bencher be allowed to intervene? Is the thrust of the Government's intentions in this Green Paper to maintain numbers in higher education and even possibly to increase them despite demographic trends, and at the same time to try to lower the cost of institutions in higher education? Does the noble Baroness agree that one of the mistakes possibly in the Robbins expansion was that the institutions which were created were too high in their costs? If we want to keep numbers up in higher education we have to reduce the cost of the institutions.
Perhaps I may ask a further question about the humanities. I understood the noble Baroness to say that there must be some attenuation in the cost and in the numbers of those reading humanities. Will the Government go back to the Robbins Report and remember Lord Robbins' plea that there should be fewer single subject honours degrees not merely in universities of course but also in other institutions such as the polytechnics? If we are to have young people well trained for industry and business, do they not need some of the skills in the humanities such as the ability to write persuasive English? Could there not be more joint courses which bring such skills into courses designed primarily for technology and science?
Baroness Cox: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Annan, for his contribution. There is an intention that there should be an increase in participation commensurate to some extent with the demographic changes which will take place over the next 15 years or so. There is very much a commitment to greater cost-effectiveness and to a certain amount of rationalisation in higher education in both sectors, the university sector and the public sector, perhaps with some of that being brought about by a greater concentration of research in those universities which have a record of excellence in that subject and perhaps by a removal of some of the research which is spread rather thinly across other institutions.
In regard to the noble Lord's concern about arts and the humanities, perhaps I may reassure him that the Green Paper has a very strong commitment to this matter and emphasises that the Government are convinced of the importance of providing adequately for the arts. It also refers to the study of humanities and non-vocational social studies for the sake of scholarship and to give students with true potential to benefit from such study the opportunity to do so and to acquire the associated intellectual skills. There is some discussion here of the possibilities of developing different kinds of courses—degree courses and other

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kinds—which would allow for that greater flexibility of subject mix which I think the noble Lord prefers.
Perhaps I may make a final point in this respect. It is hoped that some of the recommendations developed in the recent White Paper entitled, Better Schools, which will enable pupils moving on to university to have a rather more broadly based education with which to embark upon their higher education, may also facilitate that greater flexibility of study in higher education.

Local Government Bill
4.24 p.m.
The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Lord Elton): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now again resolve itself into Committee. — (Lord Elton.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD in the Chair.]
Clause 51 [Compensation for loss of office or diminution of emoluments]:
Lord Winstanley Lord Winstanley moved Amendment No. 136B:
Page 35, line 9, after ("1972") insert ("such regulations to be made by the Secretary of State and to provide for compensation giving benefits broadly comparable to, or greater than, those available prior to 2nd March 1984 to employees in any similar local authority affected by this Act").
The noble Lord said: With this amendment we return to the various amendments which seek to provide greater protection for staff than is now given explicitly in this Bill. I say "explicitly" and underline "explicitly" because very late last night, in response to an amendment similar to mine, the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, gave us a very reassuring reply; although the noble Earl will know that since the hour was so very late we have not had an opportunity to study the Hansard report which is not yet available, so we cannot know precisely how reassuring that reply was. But it seemed to me that the Government were showing a willingness to make explicit in the Bill certain things which perhaps they intended to do, anyway.
This amendment is proposed as a means of equalising the schemes for compensation payments to staff who are made redundant. As the noble Earl and indeed the Committee well know, this Bill would limit compensation payments to those payable under regulations made by the Secretary of State under the Superannuation Act 1972 except that it allows any payments to which an employee is contractually entitled under any scheme introduced before 2nd March 1984. It is that particular provision which has caused great concern among staff in the relevant authorities.
Prior to 2nd March 1984, three, I think, of the seven authorities to be abolished introduced enhanced schemes for compensating staff made redundant in
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anticipation of abolition. On that date the Secretary of State announced that no further such schemes would be permitted. This clause as it now is reflects that statement. The staff in the authorities who did not have a scheme agreed are thus excluded even though in some cases schemes were drafted and were subsequently adopted.
I should like to make it clear that I fully accept that the Government could not possibly have allowed authorities to enter into binding contractual obligations without any restraint whatsoever. I hope the noble Earl will recognise that I accept that. But I was saying to your Lordships' Committee that we have now passed that stage. The Government are now apparently happy with those agreements which were made prior to 2nd March, but this has of course left others in other authorities in a very different situation indeed.
This amendment has three main objectives: first, to provide equality of treatment for staff in all the affected authorities. At the moment, they do not all have equality of treatment. It would appear that some staff in some authorities are perhaps treated more equally than others. Certainly there is no genuine equality across the board. Secondly, it aims to encourage staff to stay with the authorities until abolition to ensure the maintenance of services. That really is a serious problem and the loss of some of the staff at the moment is possibly having a serious effect already and indeed has other potential effects for the future. Anything which we could do to halt that drain of very valuable staff should now be done and this measure could perhaps assist in halting that drain.
Thirdly and finally, this amendment aims to ensure that compensation payments are at reasonable levels. If those levels which were agreed before 2nd March 1984 are accepted now as reasonable—presumably the Government do accept them as reasonable, because they allow them in the Bill as it now is—it necessarily follows that those arrived at subsequently on less favourable terms are unreasonable. It seems to me that some effort should be made to equalise these things, and I very much hope that when the Minister replies we will hear that some efforts are being made. I beg to move.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: May we have some help? Can we speak only to Amendment No. 136B or is it in order to speak to other amendments?
Lord Dean of Beswick: My information is that we are going to take Amendment No. 136B and my amendment, Amendment No. 136BA, together, because they deal with the same problem although they are worded differently. I rise to move my amendment which is, as I said, very similar to the amendment. moved by the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley.
Amendment No. 136BA: Page 35, line 15, leave out ("2nd March 1984") and insert ("the passing of this Act").
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Nugent of Guildford): The noble Lord cannot move his amendment now. He can debate it but it has to be moved later.
Lord Dean of Beswick: We can debate this subject as guided by the noble Lord in the Chair. With many other noble Lords I have sat for a great number of days on the Committee stage of this Bill. We discussed various wide-ranging subjects which have had plenty of time on the Floor of the Committee with, on odd occasions, setbacks for the Government. These wide-ranging debates have covered such subjects as refuse disposal, road plans, and so on. However, this amendment is dealing with the most valuable commodity that we are handling in the present circumstances. Probably most of your Lordships are familiar with the figures I am about to give, but I have to tell noble Lords that we are talking about 51,000 people employed in the GLC and the six metropolitan counties. But it does not end there, because dependent on those 51,000 people are a number of other people, such as the families, who are sustained by the fact that these people are in regular, constant and reasonable work.
It seems odd to me that we have had to get this far in our procedures before we have been able to talk on this subject. I think that the Minister, in his reply to the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, last night, briefly referred to the fact that there has been little discussion, if any, with the full-time officers of the trade unions involved. I believe I am correct in saying that that was the message he conveyed. I do not want to go into the reasons for that but I regret it, because it may well be that had that process taken place some of the debates that we are now having could have been avoided. I have said before in this Chamber, and will say it again and will always say, that the best people for resolving and agreeing to terms of employment and contracts of employment are the people involved; that is, the employers and the employees, which in this case would be the successor authorities.
It is a fact, as the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, said, that there are three counties that have already put these schemes into being. I have made inquiries and understand that there was no local political friction regarding them. The three counties concerned are West Yorkshire, with over 7,000 employees; Merseyside with over 5,000 employees and Greater Manchester with over 7,000 employees. These schemes were brought in with the general support of the councils concerned. As I understand it, there was no visible opposition from the Conservative Oppositions in those areas.
I think that my amendment is certainly more easily understandable than the amendment so ably moved by the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley. I do not want to delay the Committee on this issue because it is so straightforward that the Minister may want to reply fairly quickly. The three metropolitan counties who have their proposals literally through the sausage machine and have them accepted should obviously stay as they are. I can understand the guarded stance taken by the Minister in putting an embargo or moratorium on the other three metropolitan counties doing the same, and then on the GLC. However, it is alien to all members of the Committee that we should have two sets of circumstances applying to the people involved in the same jobs and to their transfer.
I have to tell noble Lords, as one who was involved very heavily during the previous local government
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reorganisation as the then leader of Manchester, that while many of the people who went into these jobs were senior officers (obviously they opted to do so because the wage or salary structures were made so generous by the commission which was, I believe, chaired by the late Lord Greenwood) along with them had to go many other people: literally hundreds and, in some cases, thousands of employees, very often in the manual grades, because there was nowhere else to go. It was Hobson's choice.
It is a little unfair—and I know the Minister to be a fair man although we differ on occasions—that 10 years after the Government should say to these people "We have had a 10-year experiment but it has failed". As a result they will be the only sufferers. Redundancies will take place. Figures have been mentioned but no one really knows the full effect. The noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, made the point that these three metropolitan counties have already passed their schemes, so it would be just a question of the date being altered, as proposed in my amendment, to allow the employees to partake of the terms already agreed by the other three authorities.
I conclude by saying that the schemes are not over generous. They are not so generous as a code that was adopted some years ago—I understand it was the Crombie code—when a change took place which was in most ways considerably in excess of this one. I said I did not want to detain the Committee for long. This is a straightforward issue and on that basis I ask the Committee to support my amendment.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: I want to put one question for answer by my noble friend when he replies, as I hope he will be doing shortly. The tone of the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, was moderate and reasonable, as it so often is, and pitched in a way that the Committee likes. However, he touched on the point that I should like my noble friend to deal with. I refer to the matter of discussions with the staff concerned. The noble Lord said that there had been very little discussion with the full-time officers of the unions concerned. I ask my noble friend to tell us whether the unions have, in fact, been ready to go into discussions, or whether the reports which we have seen in the press that under, no doubt, inspiration of a political character they have been disinclined so to do.
At the same time I ask my noble friend whether, particularly in the case of the GLC as reported in the press, the staff concerned will not enter into discussions with the successor authorities and regard themselves as inhibited from so doing. A good deal has been said about this. It is rather disturbing and I hope that my noble friend will take the opportunity of dealing with the issue when he replies to the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick.
Lord Plummer of St. Marylebone: I wish to express my concern for the staff of the GLC and the way they are to be treated in this giant upheaval. The greatest asset that any organisation has is its staff and it is very important that they should be fairly treated. It is not their fault, speaking of the GLC in particular, that they have irresponsible masters who appear to have prevented them from opening these discussions to which the noble Lord referred.

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The compensation terms and staff transfer arrangements for the GLC are, I believe, unsatisfactory compared with previous reorganisations. This situation has been made worse because the administrative task of dispersing thousands of staff to the successor bodies cannot be achieved, even taking the most optimistic view, within the limited timetable proposed by the Government. To give an example, the transfer of the GLC housing related staff alone to the borough of Tower Hamlets, with effect from 1st July 1985, required two years' preparation; and this was for a discreet function moving only to one borough.
How then can this massive transfer be made in the short time before 1st April 1986? These impediments, coupled with the fact that the terms of the compensation are less favourable than those payable in the statutory reorganisations ever since 1948—during which time I believe they have been applied on some 20 occasions—are unlikely, to say the least, to encourage staff to co-operate unless the terms are improved. It is clear that in the preparatory period before 1st April 1986 the success of the abolition proposals of the Government will be heavily dependent on staff co-operation. Staff who may suffer loss of employment or other detriment will not be motivated to co-operate if they consider that they are being treated unfairly compared with what happened in the previous reorganisations. Indeed, it is ironic that the more favourable terms are to be applied to the GLC staff transferring to the borough of Tower Hamlets with the GLC housing stock in July 1985.
I should like to ask the Minister whether he feels that services can be protected if, unlike what happened in previous reorganisations, staff are not transferred with the work they are doing; also, why, unlike under previous reorganisations, the Secretary of State has not obliged the exporting authorities to draw up staff transfer schemes; and, finally, why, unlike under previous reorganisations, employees and individuals are being denied the basic rights of consultation and appeal. Those are my fears and I hope that reassurance can be given on those points.
The Earl of Gowrie: Before my noble friend sits down, may I say that he presents me with a slight quandary? The very questions that he has asked I dealt with in considerable detail, and I think offered reassurances on, on an amendment last night. I do not know whether it would try the patience of your Lordships' Committee if I simply repeated what I said. May I therefore suggest that my noble friend, not in respect of his remarks about the amendment generally but in respect of his last remarks about this reorganisation compared with previous ones, should read in Hansard tomorrow what I said last night, and if he is not happy, he can of course then come back on Report?
Lord Plummer of St. Marylebone: I should be very happy to do so.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: Of course all noble Lords share the concern for the staff of the GLC and indeed considerable concern about the problems that have arisen on trades union negotiation. But, dealing
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with the reasoning behind the speech of my noble friend Lord Plummer, surely that essence of reasoning must support elasticity and a voluntary scheme which is wholly different from mandatory legislation and the principle of imposing a fetter on the way in which the boroughs are to function after abolition. We come back over and over again to the question, in different manifestations, as to whether we are to fetter the discretion of the boroughs after abolition.
There it is. Whatever else they do these amendments seek to pre-empt the content of subordinate legislation by introducing mandatory provisions. They are mandatory provisions which are to require that compensation shall be comparable to or greater than that which would have obtained under the terms of the dismissal provisions in contracts of employment, whether in writing, or in this case with these employees very often by custom, on the basis of—and here we go (and I think that it is fairly complicated) to Clause 51(2) —
"Compensation in respect of any such loss or diminution".
That arises irrespective of whether on abolition the new engagement is taken up outside or within local government service or whether no new engagement is taken up at all either because no such engagement is offered or because there is no wish to take up the offer.
4.45 p.m.
It is entirely right that the compensation should be related to that which was available prior to 2nd March 1984 by virtue of entitlement under contractual rights. The 2nd March was the date when the Government announced their intentions. Although it is common ground, I think, that certain salaries of those in local government service have been grossly excessive, the right to that remuneration and compensation should not be affected by that; hence the date. Indeed, the Commission of Human Rights, or if it did not, the court, would take the view that in any event such rights could not be removed without compensation, irrespective of whether it was alleged that they were to some extent abuses of the rating system.
But the further amendment, Amendment No. 136BC, if it is in order to speak to it—I think that it has been spoken to—binds successor councils on re-engagement—
Lord Winstanley: No.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: It has not. I am much obliged to the noble Lord. Then I would merely have submitted on the single amendment, Amendment No. 136B—I understood that the other one had been spoken to, but I am wrong about that—
Lord Winstanley: It was Amendment No. 136BA which was spoken to together with Amendment No. 136B. They are on virtually the same point.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: I am much obliged to the noble Lord for putting me right. Amendment No. 136BA really cannot be acceptable. If it were carried, it would lead to a further abuse of the rating system to fund compensation through the residuary body on the basis of salaries which have been even further inflated, and consciously inflated, since the date of the

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announcement. In my submission, that cannot be right on any showing.
For those reasons—and I hope that I have been sufficiently brief—it would, I should have thought, be wholly wrong to put persons in local government employment in some special legal condition beyond such as is warranted by their terms and conditions of service either under the common law on termination of contract or by statute on termination for redundancy. There your Lordships' Committee will find the cross-reference to Clause 57(3) in the Bill which deals with the entitlement to damages at common law in the case of no continuation of employment, in addition of course to the redundancy payment. As your Lordships appreciated, if there is a continuation of local government service, there is no redundancy in any event.
Lord Rochester: Briefly, may I say that it will not surprise the Committee to learn that I find myself much more in sympathy with what the noble Lord, Lord Plummer, had to say than with what the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, has just said. If I may, I should like briefly to support the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Winstanley. I am equally happy to support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Dean. In my view, broadly they both seek to achieve the same purpose.
The principle is quite straightforward. Where redundancies have to be enforced, surely it is inequitable that compensation for loss of office payable to people currently employed by certain metropolitan county councils should be greater than that available to people employed in other such councils simply because in some cases more favourable severance schemes were adopted just before the date of 2nd March 1984, which was arbitrarily, if I may say so, determined by the Government as the cut-off point for the introduction of such schemes.
As I see it, both these amendments seek, in somewhat different ways, to give equality of treatment to people losing their jobs in consequence of reorganisation. The principle involved seems unexceptionable. I hope very much that the noble Earl, when he replies in a moment, will resist the blandishments of his noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway and respond in a positive way to at least one or other of these amendments.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: I shall be equally brief. I should like to support both the amendments which have really the same end product, if one can so describe it. One has to take into consideration what was said by the noble Lord who has just spoken. Because of the way they were organising their annual review, three metropolitan counties were able to bring forward their severance schemes before 2nd March. At the moment, I am not discussing the GLC. The other three metropolitan counties were not so far advanced. However, I understand that the West Midlands were placing theirs before their financial resources committee at the beginning of July and it was a case of putting their suggestions through all the voluntary bodies, all the various committees.
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The amendment relates to severance schemes. One knows that it was the Government's proposal that abolition of the metropolitan counties and the GLC was to secure cash economies. Those cash economies arise from cutting the numbers of staff employed in what they call the two-tier authorities. I think it would be most unfortunate if one half of the metropolitan counties was dealt with in one way on severance schemes and the other half dealt with in a lesser way. I feel sure that the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, will not want to be as unfair as that. Therefore, I should like to feel that when the noble Earl replies, if he does not accept the amendment, he will say that he will look very seriously at the implications that could arise in relation to the metroplitan counties.
The Earl of Gowrie: If I may, I, too, will speak to this amendment and to Amendment No. 136BA in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick. When the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, moved this amendment he was kind enough to say that at a very late hour last night I had provided some reassurance. I can assure the noble Lord and the Committee, or anyone who was not here at about midnight last night, that this was not a mere matter of a spring midnight but that I meant it and that I hope that it will be looked at carefully when the Official Report is published tomorrow.
Without delaying the Committee by repeating myself, the point I tried to put across was really threefold. It was, first, that this exercise in the abolition of the upper tier of local government is not an exercise about putting those who work in that tier out of work. In the long term it is an exercise which, among other things, is designed to save posts. However, most of the redundancies that have been mentioned have been the subject of very considerable confusion, that is to say, the number of 7,100 posts, which will in the end be saved, has been confused with 7,100 jobs to go, and that is a very different matter indeed.
The other important point is that the vast majority of people who are affected by this exercise are liable to be transferred to the successor bodies. Those left to seek recruitment will be a relatively small proportion of total staff, about 30 per cent., supporting councils which will no longer exist. Most genuinely operational staff engaged on functions can expect to be reemployed by successor authorities. Our insistence is simply that it will be for the successor authorities to recruit them.
I also talked about our desire for a voluntary early retirement scheme of the kind which goes equitably across this whole economy, particularly in the public sector. I mentioned the fact that, since the previous reorganisations, a new body—albeit amended by this Government but nevertheless a substantial body—of employment protection law had come into being and that that was a different situation in the 1980s from that which obtained in the 1960s or in the early 1970s. That was the burden of my general remarks. I hope that for the fine print, so to say, they will be looked at again tomorrow.
In moving his amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, emphasised the consequences of this clause for the staff of the metropolitan county councils, in particular of the West Midlands, who do

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not have a contractual entitlement to local severance terms. The noble Lord and others have claimed that this is unfair, and that this clause, notably in its retrospective effect, discriminates against the staff of those authorities, who, for one reason or another, were slower to introduce their own schemes.
Our objective is, and always has been, to provide compensation terms which would apply generally to this reorganisation and which are fair both to those staff of the GLC and the metropolitan county councils who are left redundant through no fault of their own and to the ratepayers who will have to bear the costs. The position whereby some of the employees of some authorities will be treated more generously than those of others is not of the Government's making, but arises as a result of the pre-emptive and, I should say, misguided and irresponsible action by some (happily, not all) of the authorities concerned.
As I have said, in deciding what terms we should propose we have had to balance the interests of the staff with the interests of the ratepayers. Not surprisingly, therefore, our proposals, which were set out in the November staffing paper, are not quite as generous as those which the metropolitan county councils' own local schemes provide. However, all the metropolitan county council schemes were introduced by those authorities after we announced our general intentions on compensation in the White Paper in November 1983, and safe in the knowledge that they would not have to bear the resultant costs—they would have been abolished and that problem would fall to their successors. I do not think that is really very responsible behaviour, and it is certainly no sensible basis upon which one can prepare regulations.
Amendment No. 136B would require just that. It would require the terms for which our regulations will provide to match, if not better, those resulting from the various local severance schemes existing at 1st March 1984. Our minds are not closed on compensation terms; indeed we have repeatedly invited the unions and the employers to discuss our proposals without prejudice to their opposition to abolition itself. With my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter, who put this to me, I very much regret that most have not taken up this invitation and that the opportunities for discussion are diminishing. I welcome, with my noble friend, the suggestion in the remarks that the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, made, that unions should discuss this matter. I hope that the noble Lord will urge his own honourable and right honourable friends, particularly, in another place, to use their influence in that same sensible direction.
It may be that the unions' reluctance to come to the negotiating table on these matters also reflects the view that many among their metropolitan county councils and GLC branches enjoy a contractual entitlement to terms more generous than our proposals and which the Bill does not disallow. If this is the case, I am sorry to say that the confidence of many of their members could be quite seriously misplaced. The information available to us suggests that none of the staff of three authorities—Tyne and Wear, South Yorkshire and West Midlands—enjoys a contractual entitlement to local terms which he or she obtained before my right
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honourable friend's announcement last year. The other three metropolitan county councils introduced their schemes before that date, in all probability by giving those staff then in post a contractual entitlement to such terms. However, any individual recruited or who has been re-employed by one of those authorities on a new contract since 1st March 1984 will not have such a contractual entitlement. The position of GLC staff is even more uncertain. The council has local Act powers to make compensation payments in excess of those provided by regulation and its staff code describes a scheme which the GLC has operated. However, we have seen no firm evidence from the GLC to suggest that its staff enjoy a contractual entitlement to enhanced terms.
5 p.m.
I have explained these uncertainties at some length but we believe it important that individual GLC and MCC employees should not be misled, either mistakenly or perhaps even deliberately, into believing that they have a right to protected terms which, in practice, under this clause, they do not. The unions' and employers' unwillingness to discuss compensation issues only adds to the uncertainties which their members and employees respectively face.
We hope therefore that unions will yet reconsider their attitude. Our door remains open. But it would be wrong, I believe, to use the MCCs' local severance schemes, adopted, as I have indicated, to anticipate our proposals and without regard to the consequences, and therefore to fetter the negotiating position of my right honourable friend in this way. Against this background, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, will not press his amendment.
Before turning to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, and in connection with the two amendments, my noble friend Lord Plummer has correctly described the difficulties which have arisen with the transfer of staff to the London borough of Tower Hamlets consequent on the transfer of housing. I understand that these difficulties arise from this staff transfer being by statutory order and on the GLC's terms and conditions. In dealing with transfer of functions and property under the Bill, we propose instead that the boroughs should be free to recruit the staff they need on their own terms and conditions. As my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway has shown, this, backed up by detriment compensation, will avoid the problems facing the Tower Hamlets transfer.
The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, would effectively disable the main purpose of this clause. In making the announcement on 1st March 1984—the announcement that foreshadowed the clause—my right honourable friend was following an accepted procedure whereby Governments have sought to ensure that the intended effects of their legislation are not undermined by anticipatory actions. That date is the only date that can be justified. We cannot disallow contractual entitlements obtained before that date and the authorities that have introduced schemes subsequently did so knowing full well that we intended to disallow them in this Bill.
Moreover, this amendment would not merely vary the operative date arbitrarily. It would effectively

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render irrelevant any discussions with the unions or employers, the very discussions that I have urged should be happening. The amendment would of course allow all the existing local severance schemes to stand provided that they give individuals contractual entitlement. But it would also allow any authority to provide even more generous terms between now and Royal Assent. In providing any such enhancements, the GLC and the MCCs would not need to have regard to the cost of their decisions. I am sure that the Committee will appreciate therefore that the amendment, however well intentioned, would be in the nature of a blank cheque. I hope therefore that the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, who is not an imprudent man, will not seek to press it.
Lord Dean of Beswick: Does not the Minister in his reply indicate that there are not two sets of conditions? If one has regard to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Plummer—no one could have put it better—there are now three sets of conditions in operation. The people transferred from the GLC, with the housing stock, to the boroughs are in receipt of a scheme that I understand is much more generous than the proposals put by the Government some time last year, I think, as the Minister said. So we really have a dog's breakfast, from whatever angle you look at it. You have people moving through no fault of their own—it is a Government decision that is forcing them to move—who, if the Government's proposals as they stand are accepted, will certainly be at a disadvantage compared to people alongside whom they have worked all their lives who had to move because the Government took a decision on another matter a couple of years in advance.
Both decisions are based on political ideology. I do not grumble about that. But it is only reasonable to accept that people affected by the end product should at least expect fair and equal treatment. I have not seen any particular evidence to substantiate the claim made, I think, by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, of gross inflation of salaries by some of the local authorities in order to inflate severance pay. Certainly I have not met anyone who accuses the people with whom I am in contact. There have been some rather loose reports in the press. Whether those can be substantiated, I do not know.
I have never found in local government any local authority—because of the way salaries are structured under binding national agreements—that is able to do what it wants with the salaries of officers. Like teachers' salaries, they are often restricted within a tight ring fence. Unless there is a clearer assertion by the Minister that he will look sympathetically upon equal treatment and that there will not be three sets of conditions appertaining to people who have had no say in the decision, I am afraid that I must test the view of the Committee.
The Earl of Gowrie: If the noble Lord must, he must. The fact is that there is no way that any Government, in taking the normal legislative provisions for anticipatory action on the part of those affected by proposed legislation, can retain equity for those who got in under the wire. It was, in the Government's view, mischievous of them to make
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that particular kind of anticipation. I do not think that the settlements before 2nd March 1984 were reasonable. By implication, in view of our terms, they are not reasonable. Indeed, they are over-generous. They create an inequity in regard to subsequent employees. As I say, it is not—
Lord Dean of Beswick: Will the noble Earl—
The Earl of Gowrie: I want to make the point. Then, of course, I shall give way. The Government are not in a position to legislate retrospectively to remove contractual rights. Apart from anything else—there are other considerations here—as my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway said, we would run right up against the European Court of Human Rights if we did so; and quite right too.
Lord Dean of Beswick: I am grateful to the noble Earl for giving way on this point. He has repeated more than once that the schemes that have been brought into being by the three metropolitan counties that have got them through are more generous than they should be. However, it is a fact that they are less generous than the scheme brought in by the previous Secretary of State in the last Conservative Government in order to facilitate the transfer of houses from the GLC to the London boroughs. That is the point that I am making. They are, I understand, quite considerably less generous than what was imposed by Mr. Heseltine when he was Secretary of State.
The Earl of Gowrie: I do not think that anything has changed in my right honourable friend's character between then and now. But the world has become a much rougher place.
Lord Winstanley: The noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, must clearly do as he chooses as regards his own amendment. We have discussed his amendment along with my own Amendment No. 136B. However, I point out that it is Amendment No. 136B which is at present before the Committee. If at a later stage the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, decides to press his own amendment, then that will be another matter.
Having heard the debate on both amendments taking place simultaneously, which is a logical course which has been helpful to your Lordships' Committee, I am bound to say to the noble Lord, Lord Dean, that, of the two amendments, I now, perhaps not surprisingly, marginally prefer my own. However, if I could not have my own amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Dean, should know that I would of course support his amendment.
It seems to me that what we are trying to achieve is equality of treatment in respect of redundancy for employees in the relevant authorities irrespective of the particular authority for which they may happen to work. That is what we all wish to achieve.
I listened with the greatest care to the reply given by the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie. The noble Earl gave a lengthy reply, about which I make no complaint. His reply needed to be lengthy and it was very full. Moreover it was complex and I am sure that the noble Earl will agree that I shall wish to study it with

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great care in the same way as I shall wish to study what he said last night, which we have not been able to read in the Official Report because it has not yet been printed.
However, there was one particular passage in the noble Earl's reply which I noted and which seemed to imply that he was anxious that, by some means or other, by the time this Bill was finally enacted the treatment of these people in respect of redundancy should have been equalised or been made broadly the same. I noted that that appeared to be his intention by one means or another. There are many means by which that can be done, quite apart from my amendment.
In addition, the noble Earl went on to say that he hoped that by pressing my amendment I would not seek to fetter the Government's hands in their negotiations with the unions. I should perhaps be able to answer that question more clearly if I had a clear understanding of the noble Earl's intention as regards his negotiations with the unions. Indeed, in that respect the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter—who is usually so helpful in clarifying matters in your Lordships' House—on this occasion rather muddied the waters, because the noble Lord directed our attention not to the fact that people are being treated unequally in an area in which they should not be treated unequally, but to the faults of the unions which have perhaps brought about some of the inequality.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: I do not think that "muddying the waters" is a particularly accurate or particularly attractive description of what I was trying to say. I simply asked my noble friend the Minister, who has full knowledge of these matters, whether or not the unions were entering fully and fairly into negotiations. He told us that they were not doing so for doctrinal and political reasons. The noble Lord calls that muddying the waters: I call it clarifying the issue.
Lord Winstanley: If the noble Lord does not like mud I should not dream of throwing any. I would merely say that it seemed to me that the issue had become a little more opaque rather than a little clearer. Perhaps the noble Lord prefers that description.
In my view, if there has been an injustice, it little matters who has caused it—it should be put right. If there has been a fault on the part of the unions, it may be the fault of those unions who are actually getting more than justice rather than those who are not doing so.
The Earl of Gowrie: As we are on the subject of unions, I should like to repeat, perhaps to a marginally wider audience than I enjoyed at midnight last night, the fact that some unions have with great courage defied their national leadership and entered into negotiations with the employers. I hope that more will do so and will find the settlements very reasonable.
Lord Winstanley: I am grateful to the noble Earl for that further clarification. I should like to seek yet more information. If I were right in assuming from what he
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said that his intention in pursuing negotiations with the various unions—and I gathered that he wished to do so if that were possible—would be to negotiate arrangements whereby the treatment of all the employees of the relevant authorities would become perhaps broadly equal, then I certainly would not wish the Government's hands to be fettered in going about that particular business. However, perhaps the noble Earl will confirm that that would be his intention?
The Earl of Gowrie: Obviously we want broad equality in terms of reasonable settlements. However, as I said at an earlier stage, I cannot rectify the position in respect of those who, mischievously in my view, got in under the wire on 2nd March 1984.
5.15 p.m.
Lord Winstanley: I am grateful to the noble Earl as, I am sure, is the whole Committee. This is an important matter. I really would like to support what was said at an earlier stage by the noble Lord, Lord Plummer, that the success of this whole exercise depends fundamentally on the co-operation of staff. We shall not have the co-operation of staff, or the continued co-operation of staff, unless we have fair treatment of staff on an equal basis for all.
My intentions as regards this particular amendment are as follows. I really should like a little more time to study what the noble Earl has said to us today and also to study what he said last night, because I believe that his statements were important. I should like to assess and balance the extent of the undertaking which I received with regard to his aims and objectives in entering into consultations with the unions. Therefore, in the light of all that, and while reserving my right to return to this matter even perhaps on Lord Dean's amendment, but certainly on another occasion in the Bill, I shall for the moment beg leave to withdraw Amendment No. 136B.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Dean of Beswick Lord Dean of Beswick moved Amendment No. 136BA:
[Printed earlier: col. 184.]
The noble Lord said: Let me finally say that, had the Minister said that he was prepared to discuss the whole question from the start with trade union representatives with a view to giving broad-based, absolutely equal treatment to everybody, I might have been sympathetic as regards not testing the views of noble Lords present. However, the Minister was quite adamant that those who already have it will keep it and that those who do not have it will never get it. On that basis, I should like to test the view of the Committee, because it is essential that we know where we stand.
5.17 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 136BA) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 120; Not-Contents, 178.

DIVISION NO. 1

CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Kagan, L.

Amherst, E.

Kaldor, L.

Ardwick, L.

Kearton, L.

Aylestone, L.

Kennet, L.

Banks, L.

Kilmarnock, L.

Barnett, L.

Kirkhill, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Lawrence, L.

Bernstein, L.

Leatherland, L.

Beswick, L.

Listowel, E.

Birk, B.

Lloyd of Kilgerran, L.

Blease, L.

Lockwood, B.

Blyton, L.

Longford, E.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Bottomley, L.

McIntosh of Haringey, L.

Brockway, L.

McNair, L.

Brooks of Tremorfa, L.

Mar, C.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Melchett, L.

Burton of Coventry, B.

Milford, L.

Campbell of Eskan, L.

Molloy, L.

Caradon, L.

Monkswell, L.

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.

Morris of Grasmere, L.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Mulley, L.

Collison, L.

Nathan, L.

Darling of Hillsborough, L.

Nicol, B.

David, B. [Teller.]

Ogmore, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

Oram, L.

Dean of Beswick, L.

Parry, L.

Delacourt-Smith of Alteryn, B.

Phillips, B.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Denington, B.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L. [Teller.]

Diamond, L.

Elwyn-Jones, L.

Prys-Davies, L.

Ennals, L.

Rea, L.

Ewart-Biggs, B.

Reilly, L.

Ezra, L.

Rochester, L.

Falkender, B.

Ross of Marnock, L.

Falkland, V.

Sainsbury, L.

Fisher of Rednal, B.

Serota, B.

Fitt, L.

Shepherd, L.

Foot, L.

Shinwell, L.

Fulton, L.

Silkin of Dulwich, L.

Gaitskell, B.

Simon, V.

Gallacher, L.

Stallard, L.

Galpern, L.

Stedman, B.

Gladwyn, L.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Glenamara, L.

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L.

Stone, L.

Gregson, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Grey, E.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Hampton, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Hanworth, V.

Tordoff, L.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Hayter, L.

Walston, L.

Head, V.

Wedderburn of Charlton, L.

Howie of Troon, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Irving of Dartford, L.

Whaddon, L.

Jacobson, L.

White, B.

Jacques, L.

Wigoder, L.

Jeger, B.

Willis, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Winstanley, L.

John-Mackie, L.

Wootton of Abinger, B.

NOT-CONTENTS

Abercorn, D.

Bessborough, E.

Airey of Abingdon, B.

Blake, L.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Ampthill, L.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Annaly, L.

Brentford, V.

Argyle, D.

Bridgeman, V.

Arran, E.

Bruce-Gardyne, L.

Auckland, L.

Buckmaster, V.

Barber, L.

Burton, L.

Bathurst, E.

Buxton of Alsa, L.

Bauer, L.

Caccia, L.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Caithness, E. [Teller.]

Beloff, L.

Cameron of Lochbroom, L.

Belstead, L.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

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Carnegy of Lour, B.

McAlpine of West Green, L.

Cathcart, E.

McFadzean, L.

Cawley, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Cayzer, L.

Margadale, L.

Chapple, L.

Marley, L.

Chelwood, L.

Marsh, L.

Clinton, L.

Marshall of Leeds, L.

Coleraine, L.

Maude of Stratford-upon-Avon, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Constantine of Stanmore, L.

Melville, V.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Merrivale, L.

Cottesloe, L.

Mersey, V.

Cox, B.

Milverton, L.

Craigavon, V.

Molson, L.

Crawford and Balcarres, E.

Monk-Bretton, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Monson, L.

Dacre of Glanton, L.

Morris, L.

Darnley, E.

Mottistone, L.

Davidson, V.

Moyne, L.

De La Warr, E.

Munster, E.

Donegall, M.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Onslow, E.

Dulverton, L.

Orkney, E.

Dundee, E.

Pender, L.

Eden of Winton, L.

Peyton of Yeovil, L.

Ellenborough, L.

Portland, D.

Elphinstone, L.

Quinton, L.

Elton, L.

Radnor, E.

Faithfull, B.

Rankeillour, L.

Fanshawe of Richmond, L.

Rawlinson of Ewell, L.

Fisher, L.

Renton, L.

Foley, L.

Renwick, L.

Forester, L.

Rochdale, V.

Forte, L.

Rodney, L.

Fortescue, E.

Romney, E.

Fraser of Kilmorack, L.

Rotherwick, L.

Freyberg, L.

Rugby, L.

Gainford, L.

St. Aldwyn, L.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

St. Davids, V.

Geddes, L.

Sandford, L.

Gibson-Watt, L.

Savile, L.

Gisborough, L.

Selkirk, E.

Glanusk, L.

Sharples, B.

Glenarthur, L.

Shaughnessy, L.

Gowrie, E.

Simon of Glaisdale, L.

Gray of Contin, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Soames, L.

Grimthorpe, L.

Somers, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Southborough, L.

Stamp, L.

Halsbury, E.

Stanley of Alderley, L.

Hanson, L.

Stodart of Leaston, L.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Strathcarron, L.

Harvey of Tasburgh, L.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Henderson of Brompton, L.

Henley, L.

Swinfen, L.

Hives, L.

Terrington, L.

Holderness, L.

Teviot, L.

Hood, V.

Thorneycroft, L.

Hornsby-Smith, B.

Torphichen, L.

Hunter of Newington, L.

Torrington, V.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Trefgarne, L.

Ilchester, E.

Trumpington, B.

Ingrow, L.

Tryon, L.

Ironside, L.

Ullswater, V.

Kemsley, V.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Kimball, L.

Vickers, B.

Kinloss, Ly.

Vinson, L.

Kitchener, E.

Vivian, L.

Lane-Fox, B.

Whitelaw, V.

Lauderdale, E.

Wilberforce, L.

Layton, L.

Windlesham, L.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Wise, L.

Lloyd George of Dwyfor, E.

Wynford, L.

Loch, L.

Young of Graffham, L.

Long, V. [Teller.]

Zouche of Haryngworth, L.

McAlpine of Moffat, L.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
5.26 p.m.
Clause 51 agreed to.
Clause 52 [Continuity of employment in certain cases of voluntary transfer]:
The Earl of Gowrie The Earl of Gowrie moved Amendment No. 136BB:
Page 36, line 1, leave out ("relevant authority") and insert ("person").
The noble Earl said: This amendment is intended to benefit those GLC or MCC employees who may be recruited by non-successor local authorities in accordance with the provisions of Clause 52(1). As it stands, this clause will provide continuity benefits to GLC or MCC staff recruited by successor authorities. This amendment will provide the same benefits to GLC or MCC employees similarly recruited by non-successor local authorities, or indeed by any other employer to which the 1983 Modification Order applies. It will mean that a GLC or MCC employee who at abolition, or when made redundant if earlier, takes up a post elsewhere in local government will derive the same benefits irrespective of whether or not his new employer is the successor authority—an arrangement which was sought during discussion of this clause in another place.
This amendment will obviously benefit those individuals who obtain a post in a non-successor local authority, but, as your Lordships will appreciate, under Clause 48(3) such authorities will be outside the Staff Commission "ring-fencing" procedures. They cannot therefore be required to give any preference to GLC or MCC employees. We have therefore refrained from proposing this amendment until we were satisfied that the accrued rights which a GLC or MCC employee will take with him to his new job under this clause would not discourage potential employers from taking him on. The Staff Commission and others we have consulted have advised us, I am glad to say, that this is unlikely to happen.
This amendment also complements the one which we shall propose to Clause 57 (and to which I referred during our discussion of Clause 48 yesterday) intended in part to facilitate the recruitment of GLC or MCC employees by non-successor local authorities by enabling a voluntary early retirement scheme in which those authorities could participate. This is of universal appeal and benefit, and I commend the amendment to your Lordships.
5.30 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick: Briefly, I welcome what the Minister has proposed in these amendments. They will benefit the people involved. I wish he could have been more generous on the previous amendment: however, having said that, I welcome this one.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 52, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 53 [Offers of employment by successor authorities]:
Lord Rochester Lord Rochester moved Amendment No. 136BC:
Page 37, line 29, at end insert—
200
("( ) Where a successor authority engages a person who is currently in the employment of the Greater London Council or a metropolitan county council it shall enter into a contract of employment with him such that his tenure and conditions of employment including the scale of his salary or remuneration are not less favourable than those he enjoyed in his employment with the Greater London Council or a metropolitan county council so long as he is engaged in duties reasonably comparable to those in which he was engaged in his employment with the Greater London Council or a metropolitan county council or is engaged in work of equal value; and the expression "work of equal value" means that the person is employed on work which is, in terms of the demands made on him (for instance in such matters as effort, skill and decision) of equal value to the work on which he was employed with the Greater London Council or a metropolitan county council.").
The noble Lord said: Late last night, or it may have been early this morning, I spoke to an amendment which sought to require the Secretary of State to designate for transfer to the appropriate successor authority under their existing employment conditions all staff who are in the service of the Greater London Council or a metropolitan county council immediately before the date of abolition and who are wholly or mainly engaged in functions that are to be transferred. One purpose of that amendment was to ensure equality of treatment in relation to the employment conditions of all staff so transferred, rather than that there are eventually two sets of people working alongside each other one set having preferential treatment over the other.
The amendment did not seek to place a limit on the number of redundancies that there might eventually have to be, but rather to ensure that in conformity with past practice they occurred only at the final stage, following reorganisation, if a successor body needed fewer employees. In reply—and the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, has already made similar comments this afternoon—if I understood him correctly, he said that the reorganisations contemplated under this Bill were different in kind from earlier ones and that boroughs and district councils must be free to recruit staff from scratch, so to speak. In doing so they could offer what pay and employment conditions they chose but they would give first refusal of jobs to people currently employed by the Greater London Council and the metropolitan county councils.
The matter was left in the setting that I would read carefully in the Official Report—which, as we already know, is unfortunately not yet available—all that had been said and meanwhile I would reserve my position so that if necessary I could return with an amendment framed on similar lines at Report stage. For the moment, therefore, the Committee should assume that the arrangements for the recruitment of staff by boroughs and district councils will be those proposed by the Government.
In moving this amendment, I will, with the leave of the Committee, speak also to Amendment No. 136BD.
Amendment No. 136BD: Page 37, line 46, at end insert—
("( ) A successor authority shall not refuse to engage a person who is currently in the employment of the Greater London Council or a metropolitan county council without first affording that person an opportunity to appeal against such a proposed refusal to the staff commission established by section 4 of the Local Government (Interim Provisions) Act 1984 and upon hearing any such appeal the staff commission may direct the successor authority to engage the person under subsection (2) above.").
This amendment, which immediately follows Amendment No. 136BC, makes this assumption. Its purpose is clear cut and simple: to ensure that where people currently employed by the Greater London Council or a metropolitan county council are engaged by a successor authority, their pay and conditions of employment will be no less favourable than those they currently enjoy, so long as their duties in the new situation are reasonably comparable to those in the old. There would thus be continuity in, for example, their pension rights.
If the Government insist on leaving open the possibility of there being some diminution in the pay of such people to being it into line with that of people already employed in or to be recruited from outside by a successor body, then those adversely affected in this way should, in accordance not simply with all precedent but with what is now universally accepted as good personnel practice, receive appropriate compensation.
I am talking here not of recently appointed political nominees, I am speaking of dedicated people who, in many cases, have served administrations of various political complexions for a long time. Some of them have expertise which brings benefits extending far beyond the authority employing them. An excellent example is the scientific branch of the Greater London Council whose work we shall, before long, be discussing. The basic principle which I suggest should command the support of the whole Committee is that reorganisation of local government must on no account be used as a means of obliging people like this to continue to exercise the same levels of skill and diligence at a reduced level of pay or under less favourable conditions of employment than those they now enjoy. Given the severe financial constraints under which the successor authorities will be operating, this could easily happen if staff are not given the protection that this amendment seeks to provide.
As to the new subsection proposed in Amendment No. 136BD, the appeals procedure for which it provides is needed to ensure that the successor bodies cannot—unless they can in an appeal by a complainant convince the staff commission of the validity of their case—escape from the terms of the first amendment by recruiting people who are not affected by it. Clearly that would be detrimental to former GLC and MCC staff, since they might then find themselves with no job at all. Thus local government would be deprived of skills which would be invaluable in mitigating the disruption which will inevitably be occasioned by reorganisation.
A provision of this kind is surely needed to make certain that effect is given to the Government's declared intention, made more explicit by the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, last night, that as many as possible of the staff who would otherwise be displaced should be employed by the bodies taking over the work on which they have been engaged. I beg to move.
Lord Dean of Beswick: I rise as a signatory to the amendment to support what the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, has said. This amendment expresses the wish to give a continuity of service that perhaps was missing in the Bill as drafted. It has become common practice, when a like-to-like job is transferred where
202
the employees have not been the people who have motivated the change, to suggest that some protection ought to be given. On the previous amendment I moved I said that the metropolitan counties and the GLC—my own experience is with the metropolitan counties—at officer level were manned and started almost entirely by people who transferred from the metropolitan districts within the large conurbations.
I think that it would be true to say that probably most of the top officers who were there a decade ago are perhaps now retired. In the main, a lot of their staff followed them into these particular jobs because they were under the impression that they were jobs that were going to last a long time; and of course recruitment has gone on indefinitely on the basis that these establishments were fixed and were going to be there so far as one could see.
I do not quibble with the political decision to alter that structure. That is what politics is about. If you win an election, you do what you have to do or you do what you said that you would do. Sometimes we do not do that; but that is what we are supposed to do. I think that it is incumbent on us when we do that, irrespective of our political colour, to give the utmost protection to the people who are involved and who have no say whatsoever in the process. On that basis I think that the amendment in the names of my noble friend Lord McCarthy, the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, and myself, and which was so ably moved by the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, deserves support. I said that I did not intend to detain the Committee. I think that the motivation or message behind this particular amendment has been quite clear so far.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: I feel that at any rate in London which is the area with which I am most familiar, the adoption of this amendment would give rise to very serious practical difficulties. It is notorious that salary levels, at any rate in the higher grades in the GLC, are above those existing in the boroughs. If therefore someone transferred from the GLC to one of the boroughs is to carry with him at least his GLC salary then his pay will be quite out of line with that of other people in the organisation in which he is working. One does not need to emphasise that to be very clear what discontent and difficulty that would cause.
The noble Lord, Lord Rochester, says airily that he is not speaking of recently-appointed political nominees. But there is absolutely nothing in his amendment to exclude them. If his amendment is adopted it would apply; and, as your Lordships know, there are plenty of cases of people whose appointments appear to be politically motivated and whose salaries are very high by local government standards. Therefore this amendment would really have an extraordinarily dislocating effect on the successor authorities.
As regard the second amendment which we are discussing, it seems very odd to say that a local authority which for perfectly good reasons may not wish to offer employment to someone redundant as a result of the departure of the GLC, shall not refuse to engage him, really without any apparent qualification unless there is an appeal to the staff commission. That, again, would seem to cause very great difficulties for

203
the successor authorities. I am sure that all your Lordships are anxious about this transition and whether, as on this side of the Committee, we want it; or whether, as on the other side, it is not wanted, we all want it to proceed smoothly. From that point of view it seems to me that these amendments are very counter-productive.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: I do not see how the Government could accept these amendments. They are too rigid. The arguments in support of them are very acceptable indeed. They show the proper compassion that we all feel. We would like to have continuity for people in work; and that is right. But to write into a Bill certain rigid instructions such as these are would, I think, make it almost impossible for the new organisations to work anything like efficiently. I, too, was interested in the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, when he said that he did not intend to include the politically appointed ones but those who were dedicated and who had given their lives to the work.
There is nothing to say that there is that division in the amendment that he wants the Committee to accept. I should have felt that those who were dedicated and who had the experience would be the ones most likely to be acceptable to the new authority. The strength of their appointment would be their dedication, their experience and their knowledge. But I should have thought that to make it a rigid instruction to the new authority in this way would make certain that the alternative to the existing councils could not work at all. I think one has to have a certain belief that the people who take over will want to be fair and just, and that in doing that they will take into account experience and service. I do not think they need this sort of rigid instruction.
5.45 p.m.
Lord Howie of Troon: I hope that the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, will not be quite as commercial as the noble Lords, Lord Harmar-Nicholls and Lord Boyd-Carpenter, who spoke a moment ago. The noble Lord, Lord Rochester, rightly distinguished between two types of employees concerned in this redundancy, for that is what it is: those who are political appointees and for whom I myself hold no brief any more than does the noble Lord, Lord Rochester; and others who are employees in the ordinary way of their profession—professional men such as engineers and scientists and others who have been in local government for many years. These people are, in this instance, victims of something which is quite out of their own control. They are being made redundant just as though there had been a commercial takeover. But there is a difference here. This is not a commercial takeover; this is a political act which the Government feel it right to carry out and which the Government are entitled to carry out if they have a majority to support them.
But a political act is different in essence from a commercial one, and the commercial notions of redundancy which are in the redundancy Act which we all know about need not apply where the redundancy is a political one. A political act has
204
political consequences and these political consequences are economic in the case of the employees with whom we are concerned here.
I should have thought that the way for the Government to approach this redundancy was the commonsense one: to try to ensure that the first step in any redundancy in any field of life is carried through; that is, to try to ensure that people are given employment equivalent to the employment that they have lost and the equivalent of the employment is in terms and conditions and salary. I noted that the noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls, said that he saw strength in Lord Rochester's arguments, although I noticed that he did not see strength in their conclusions. That did not surprise me, because he never does.
I hope that the Government will see the strength in the arguments and the strength in the conclusions. I think that these amendments ought to be accepted and I sincerely hope that the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, will go a great way towards doing so. It may be, as the noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls has said, that the amendments do not quite do what they are intended to do. But this is the Committee stage and there is plenty of time for the Government to put that right. They can accept the principle involved in these amendments and come back at Report stage with the form of words that meets the objections of the noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls, and others. I hope that the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, will react to these amendments in this way.
Lord Monkswell: I rise in response to a comment which I think I heard the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, make from the Benches opposite a few moments ago. He seemed to imply that employees of the GLC and of the metropolitan counties were, so to speak, over-paid. I think that I am right in saying that the employment situation in local authorities is rather different from that appertaining in private industry. In private industry, it is quite possible for an employer to over-pay one of his employees with no harmful effects to himself. In fact, I am sure that we are all aware of numbers of people employed in British industry who are paid over-inflated salaries.
But the situation with regard to local authorities is somewhat different. If a local authority overpays a number of their staff, an individual ratepayer can take them to court, I believe, and it can effectively be proved to be illegal. I seem to remember—no doubt the Minister will be able to give some advice on this—that some councillors in the past have actually been disqualified from serving as councillors because of this very factor. I may be wrong in my remembrance of recent history, but I think the Minister will advise us that in fact it is almost impossible for local authority employees to be overpaid as such. Therefore, that part of the argument against these amendments will not hold water.
The Earl of Gowrie: I welcome the rather robust view of manifesto commitments taken by the noble Lords, Lord Dean of Beswick and Lord Howie of Troon. I shall recommend them to any of my honourable or right honourable friends in another place who might be wavering.

205
In moving this amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, made an eloquent plea, if I may say so, on behalf of the GLC and MCC staff who are facing an uncertain future about jobs and, moreover, are not guaranteed their present terms and conditions in the post-abolition structure. Uncertainty is, I think, the handmaiden of all forms of change, and it is something we have to recognise. I have tried, both last night and today, to emphasise that the uncertainties for individuals as against the future of some of the posts they currently fill is in fact greatly over-estimated. We would anticipate that the vast majority of people are liable to be redeployed on reasonable terms and conditions and that those who are not redeployed will be involved in our voluntary—and I stress that word—early retirement scheme. Therefore I am not a person who wants in any way to add to the uncertainties which individuals, however misguidedly in my view, may be feeling at the moment. Nevertheless, I cannot, alas, accept these amendments because, as I have made clear, this reorganisaton differs in very signal ways from previous ones, and I feel that the staffing arrangements we are trying to make, while they must be fair and be seen to be fair, must reflect these differences.
In the 1974 or 1965 reorganisations the over-whelming majority of staff were transferred with protected terms and conditions to new employers. In those reorganisations smaller authorities were in general being combined into larger ones and the successor authorities themselves were, by and large, new. What I meant when I said in an earlier intervention that the world was then a rougher place is very simple. Growth in that sector of the economy was proceeding apace. That is not a political point; it is an economic point, because growth has been contracting in this area under successive Governments since the 1970s.
On abolition in this case there will be no successors to the GLC and the MCCs at the same level. Their responsibilities will be dispersed to the various successor authorities and bodies and, as I explained during our earlier consideration of the previous staff clauses, transfer is inappropriate where responsibilities are being devolved and divided rather than being aggregated. Nevertheless, as I have said, most staff will in practice be transferred on their existing terms and conditions. The paper issued last November by my right honourable friend the Minister of State for Local Government set out those groups of staff who will definitely be transferred by order under Clause 50. That paper also set out examples of other groups whom the successor employers may wish to have transferred to them by this means.
All such staff are engaged in activities which will pass to a single successor in each area, but for staff engaged on other GLC or MCC functions our approach has to be different. Those staff will have to be dispersed among the many successors by way of recruitment. This will be within the so-called "ring fence" procedures which the staff commission has just announced in its circular No. 6. These procedures will require the successor authorities to give first consideration to GLC and MCC employees. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State has endorsed the commission's scheme and has confirmed to the
206
commission that it will be his general policy, subject of course to a consideration of the merits of any particular case, to use his powers of discretion over authorities, should the commission find it necessary to ask him to do so. Of course we hope that will not be necessary, and we do not expect that it will be. The commission's guidance and the Secretary of State's reserve power of direction give both GLC and MCC staff an excellent measure of protection.
Clause 53 also places a duty on, and gives a financial incentive to, successor employers to get ahead with working out their staffing requirements and make job offers to GLC and MCC staff before abolition. This will enable former GLC and MCC employees to benefit from the continuity provision of Clause 52, which we have just discussed.
The amendment seeks to extend this by protecting GLC and MCC employees' current terms and conditions when they are recruited to comparable jobs with a successor. My noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter put very clearly and precisely the disruption that that could cause. However, most of these, and especially the boroughs and districts, already exist and have well-established staff structures which could, as he said, be disrupted. In many cases the numbers of GLC and MCC staff they will take on will be small relative to their existing staff. We therefore believe that those employers should be free to integrate any GLC and MCC employees into their existing structures.
I have no doubt that the amendment is designed to assist GLC/MCC staff and would indeed benefit some by protecting their current pay and conditions of service. However, in practice I believe that this amendment would add to the uncertainties faced by GLC/MCC staff. The amendment acknowledges that there must be some relationship between the nature of a job—its skills, responsibilities and so no—and the rewards that it attracts. However, where functions and responsibilities are being devolved to the boroughs and districts, and especially where the functions are concurrent, there will not necessarily be a straightforward or one-to-one relationship between a GLC or MCC employee's job now and the job to which he will move on abolition. The successor authorities may discharge their new responsibilities rather differently and their existing staff structures may also be rather different. In these circumstances it is likely to be far from self-evident, in many cases, whether an individual's pre-and post-abolition jobs are of "equal value" or involve "comparable duties". Successor authorities could of course avoid this by taking on all GLC/MCC employees whom it recruits on their existing terms, but that would be inappropriate because of the knock-on effects which I have described.
Our approach is designed for—and in my view succeeds in—avoiding these problems. Staff will be recruited by successors on their own terms. If GLC or MCC employees suffer detriment in this process, they will be eligible for compensation for loss or diminution of emoluments. That will be paid by the residuary body and not by the new employer. It will take the form of a lump sum. The successor employers' established terms and conditions will therefore not be affected. Individuals will know their likely entitlement when considering particular job offers and will therefore be able to decide matters in the full

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knowledge of the facts. At this point perhaps I may say to the noble Lord, Lord Howie of Troon, that that is hardly victimisation. I hope, therefore, that with that assurance the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, will not press his amendment.
I shall now refer to the rather different, though related, Amendment No. 136BD. I do not disagree with the objective underlying the amendment. On all sides of the Committee I think that there is the common object that GLC and MCC employees should take priority in filling the jobs that will arise in the new structure.
6 p.m.
The staff commission exists precisely to further that objective but we cannot accept this amendment which, in our judgment, is unnecessary in the case of the GLC and MCC staff who are to be transferred by order, and also misguided where successor authorities will be in the business of recruiting. Where groups of staff are to be transferred by order, the successor employer will have no rights to refuse to engage any individual who is within the terms of the transfer order. The staff commission, under its powers in the 1984 Act as amended by Clause 48 of the Bill, will be able to advise my right honourable friend whether particular individuals do, or do not, fall within the terms of an order. The commission will design its own procedures for this purpose. Therefore no amendments to the Bill are necessary.
Where staff are to be recruited it is inevitable that for many, if not all, posts there will be more than one applicant from among GLC or MCC staff, each of whom is of course likely to pursue more than one post. The amendment would give all unsuccessful candidates a right of appeal against the successor authority's decision. The final decision would fall to the staff commission, which would have to consider each and every case on its merits.
I am sure that I do not need to spell out in detail to the Committee the implications of this for the process of recruitment and the terrible burden that it would impose on the staff commission. Delay would be inevitable and employees, especially whose who thought that they had found a replacement job, would find themselves in a position of even greater uncertainty.
May I say to the noble Lord, Lord Monkswell, who raised the issue of overpayments, that we are not talking about overpayments that can be challenged before the auditor, but about differences in grading and salaries arising from different rates and scales in the case of the GLC and the local borough councils; and differences arising from sizes of authorities in the case of the MCCs.
Throughout these amendments pertaining to the terms and conditions for staff, I have tried to provide not merely emotional assurances but very practical indications of the structure which the Government have set up to protect employees after abolition; and to allay their anxieties now. I hope therefore that both noble Lords will not seek to press their amendments.
Lord Rochester: I am not altogether satisfied, if I may so put it, with what the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, has just said. The Committee will recall that the principle on which I sought to base my amendment was that reorganisation of local government should not on any account be used as a means of obliging the long-serving and dedicated people, of whom I was speaking, to continue to exercise the same levels of skill and diligence at a reduced level of pay or under less favourable conditions of employment than they were enjoying. The Committee will recall that the intention was that the amendment should apply only insofar as the jobs to which the people concerned were going were reasonably comparable with those in the old situation.
The noble Earl said that he felt that more, rather than fewer, uncertainties might arise as a result of these amendments being included in the Bill. I must acknowledge that until the very last remarks that he made in relation to the first of the two amendments to which I have spoken, I was minded to put the matter to the test by dividing the Committee. But I took considerable comfort from what I understood the noble Earl to say; namely, that where people suffered some diminution in their pay in the circumstances I have been outlining compensation would be available to them.
I take sufficient comfort from that to enable me, I hope as a reasonable person and seeking to sense the feeling of the Committee, not to press either of these amendments at this stage. But I should like to examine rather more closely and in more detail what the noble Earl has said, in particular in relation to the second of the amendments, when he went into a great deal of detail, and in that way to reserve my position and to leave me free to come back to this general matter if—together with those who have been kind enough to support me—that is the conclusion we reach. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the first of these two amendments.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 136BD not moved.]
Clause 53 agreed to.
Clause 54 agreed to.
Lord Melchett Lord Melchett moved Amendment No. 136BE:
After Clause 54, insert the following new clause:
("Scientific services authorities
PART
SCIENTIFIC SERVICES
.—(1) On the appointed day there shall be established in Greater London and each metropolitan county a body corporate to be known by the name of the London Scientific Services Authority or by the name of the county with the addition of the words "Scientific Services Authority", as the case may be.
(2) Each authority shall consist of members of the constituent councils appointed by them to be members of the authority.
(3) The constituent councils in relation to the London Scientific Services Authority shall be the London borough councils and the Common Council.
(4) The constituent councils in relation to a metropolitan scientific services authority shall be the councils for the metropolitan districts comprised in that county.
(5) An authority established in pursuance of this section shall provide scientific and technical services in the area of the authority.
(6) In subsection (5) above, the provision of scientific and technical services includes the employment of staff engaged in, and the provision of facilities for, scientific research and

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development including ecology and nature conservation or the application of science and technology in support of any function of an authority established under section 9 or Part IV of this Act or the constituent councils of such an authority.
(7) Each authority shall be a joint authority within the meaning of Part IV of this Act and the provisions of that Part shall apply to this section as if this section were included in that Part.").
The noble Lord said: We now return to the questions concerned with the scientific and technical services provided by the GLC and the metropolitan counties. We touched on these issues in debating Amendment No. 59 and that particular group of amendments when we dealt with the powers of highways and traffic functions; and on Amendment No. 73 where we looked in detail at the question of waste disposal. But an earlier group of amendments, Nos. 131 and 132, which affected scientific services, were in fact withdrawn. I hope therefore that your Lordships will consider that a further debate and some further, I hope helpful, information from the Government about what will happen to these specialist services is warranted at this stage in the Committee.
I believe we shall, at the same time as discussing this amendment, talk to Amendment No. 137 and my amendment to it, Amendment No. 137A. I think that would be convenient for all concerned.
Amendment No. 137: After Claue 60, insert the following new clause:
("Residuary scientific and technical services
.—(1) Without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing section, and subject to subsection (3) below, on the abolition date there shall be transferred to the appropriate residuary body the scientific and technical facilities and staff of the Greater London Council or a metropolitan county council.
(2) In subsection (1) above "scientific and technical facilities and staff" means facilities for, and staff engaged in, scientific research and development or the application of science and technology in support of any function of the relevant authority.
(3) This section does not apply to any such scientific or technical facilities or staff which on or before the abolition date are transferred to another body under an agreement made in respect of services of the Greater London Council between the London borough councils and the Common Council or in respect of services of a metropolitan county council between the district councils for the area concerned.").
Amendment No. 137A (as an amendment to Amendment No. 137): Subsection (2), line 3, after ("development") insert ("including ecology and nature conservation").
Your Lordships will be aware by today, if you were not previously—and I am sure that anybody taking part in the debates on this Bill was already so aware—that the House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee, of which I am a member, although I was not a member of the particular sub-committee that looked at local government scientific services, made some forceful recommendations about the need to continue the sort of scientific and technical services which are now provided by the GLC and metropolitan counties. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, at Second Reading, acknowledged that, and the force of the arguments put forward by the Select Committee, when he said on 15th April, [Official Report; col. 441):
"There is … scope for accommodating a good deal of what your Lordships' Select Committee on Science and Technology says about scientific and support services…".
We have touched on a number of these issues before, so I do not intend to go over all the ground in detail, but I should like very quickly to say a word
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about the sort of services which this amendment covers. I do not think there is any difference anywhere in the Committee about the importance of these services and about the importance of keeping them together and keeping them going in the future, uninterrupted. I want to say a word about the scientific services and to give as an example the Scientific Services Branch of the GLC, just to touch on ecology, which we have debated at previous stages, and to say a word about information technology—something to which the Select Committee paid particular attention.
The Scientific Services Branch of the GLC has its origins over 100 years ago, when a chemist was appointed to the Metropolitan Board of Works. But since that time the scope of the scientific services at the GLC has expanded very considerably and, for example, the branch now monitors environmental pollution, air pollution levels, in London; it provides direct support for fire prevention and detection services to the London Fire Brigade and it provides chemical analyses of food and water. Incidentally, to provide that service it needs an input from trading standards officers, which would be true of metropolitan counties as well, and it seems to me that there is a good argument for those officers coming within the remit of the scientific services authorities which this amendment proposes.
The Scientific Services Branch also has a major role to play in waste disposal, in investigating whether wastes are hazardous and advising on their disposal; it advises on building materials and construction, making cost-saving and energy-saving suggestions and so on; and it advises in a similar way on the purchase of materials, carrying out tests on performance, on wear and tear and so on. Any of your Lordships who have seen one of those Hazchem warning signs on the outside of a building in London or anywhere else in the country, might be interested to know that that scheme originated from work done by the GLC Scientific Services Branch, and from its work it is now a nationally operated scheme. There are many other examples which I shall not go into—fire protection of historic buildings, improving the quality of water in swimming pools, changes in institutional furniture to reduce the hazards of fire, establishing safety standards for floors and play surfaces and so on. There are a number of very important examples of work which that branch has done.
I do not need to spend a great deal of time on the arguments for maintaining this service as a centralised service. Quite clearly, there are economies of scale. In particular, a branch of this sort needs to attract, can attract and has attracted specialists in particular areas and can then employ those specialist skills to the full—something that will be quite impossible if the services are spread throughout a number of different boroughs. Once you get a group of specialists working together, the quality of their work is enhanced by the fact that they are working often in co-operation and with advice from colleagues in the same branch. Different disciplines being able to collaborate together is extremely important. This is what your Lordships' Select Committee meant when it spoke of centres of excellence being difficult and slow to create, but very easy to destroy.
Much the same arguments apply to the ecology branch of the GLC and the expertise that has been built up there. It is a much smaller branch of the technical and scientific services, with six people, but in a way that reinforces the argument about it being impossible to break it up. It is not possible that those six different specialists could be spread around the different boroughs in a way that would make any sense.
6.15 p.m.
It is worth saying that while this amendment, and my Amendment No. 137A to Amendment No. 137, suggest that the ecology unit should be included with other scientific and technical services, there are some disadvantages in that proposal. For example, the link between planning and the ecology unit would be broken. But we are going to face some disadvantages, however these services are reorganised, if the GLC and the metropolitan counties are no longer there. Bringing these services together makes good sense and there is no way of getting round that, if the metropolitan counties and the GLC are to be abolished. Nevertheless, it seems to me that, with other scientific and technical services, it would be sensible to include the ecologists, the specialists in that unit in the GLC, and any similar people working in the metropolitan counties.
I come now to information technology. This, again, is something which the Science and Technology Select Committee of your Lordships' House looked at in great detail. For example, the GLC is a major user of IT. It provides computer services to the ILEA, to all the London borough councils, to other London public authorities, to the Thames Water Authority, to the voluntary sector and so on. Indeed, there are 1,000 mini and micro computers and word processors in the GLC and in the voluntary sector, and over 1,000 terminals throughout London linked to the GLC's main frame computer. This technology is available for over 200 applications, providing up-to-date management information, as operational tools to deliver specific services.
As your Lordships can imagine, this represents a very heavy investment in staff and equipment. It is estimated that to disperse these facilities might cost over £30 million, would take several years and, of course, would lead to massive disruption, the loss of expertise, operating efficiency and so on. Once again, the same arguments for keeping the services together apply—the enormous additional cost that duplication would involve, the tremendous economies of scale which are available if the services are grouped together, the retention of expertise, if the service is kept together and maintained, and the future potential, particularly in the case of information technology, which has a great future potential yet to be realised with the use of this technology. It is for these reasons that it seems to me vital that the scientific and technical services should be kept together in a single unit.
In conclusion, there is another argument which I should like to put to your Lordships in support of Amendment No. 136BE; namely, that centres of
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excellence do not just depend on the availability of computers and on the fact that a lot of people are working together in a single unit. They depend on the people themselves—on the scientists and technologists. They depend on their experience and on their relationships with their colleagues. These things cannot be replaced, even with the expenditure of very large sums of money.
For example, if the information technology really were to be broken up and spread around the London boroughs, it might be possible to do it at a cost of £30 million or £40 million, or something of that sort, but the relationships between the experts concerned could not be replaced. There would be a very considerable loss, and there will be a very considerable loss, unless there is some certainty among these staff about where their future lies. That seems to me to be the main argument for your Lordships passing an amendment of this sort and putting it in the Bill.
We know that the Government are sympathetic. We know that they recognise the force of these arguments. We need to go one step further, to assure the staff concerned that they will have a future continuing to work together to provide these vital services. I beg to move.
Lord Tordoff: I rise to talk about Amendment No. 137 which is in the names of members of the sub-committee of the Select Committee. In doing so, I offer to your Lordships the regrets of the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, who unfortunately is out of the country at the moment. Indeed, I regret his absence because he would have moved this amendment much better than I can.
I think, as the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, said in moving his amendment, that there is fairly genuine agreement in all parts of the Committee that certain services should be kept together. We reached a consensus on highways and on waste disposal, and I think that particularly on waste disposal the arguments apply to these other scientific services. I am specifically not speaking to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, because whatever my views may be I feel it is my job today to speak purely on the Select Committee's proposal. If other noble colleagues on these Benches wish to give a view for the Alliance, it is up to them. I am speaking on behalf of my colleagues on the Select Committee and therefore it would not be right for me to offer a view at this stage on the noble Lord's amendment, save only on his Amendment No. 137A, which is an amendment to Amendment No. 137 to include reference to ecology and nature conservation. There is no doubt that the Select Committee is prepared to accept that amendment although I think the feeling is that the meaning is already subsumed within the wording of Amendment No. 137. Certainly there was no intention on the part of the Select Committee to exclude from its considerations questions of ecology and nature conservation.
As the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, has said, we have had one or two nods, winks and hints from the Government at earlier stages of the Bill that perhaps on this question of residual scientific services they might be more amenable than perhaps they were in the earlier stages of the Bill on either the transport and

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highways amendments or on waste disposal. I hope therefore that it is not necessary to say very much to prod them into giving us an answer which we would all like to hear.
Perhaps I may remind your Lordships' Committee of what the Select Committee said on this subject in its conclusions. It recommended,
"that the Local Government Bill should be amended,

(1) to empower the residuary bodies to provide scientific and technical services, if that power is not already available under clause 60;

(2) to empower the Secretary of State by order to confer on any joint authority established by the Bill the further power to provide scientific and technical services"—

in other words, to put into one of the existing joint arrangements the scientific and technical services about which we are talking under this clause—and,
"(3) to empower the Secretary of State by order to establish a joint authority with the power to provide scientific and technical services".
Those last two recommendations were contained in Amendments Nos. 131 and 132, which were not moved the other night because it was rapidly approaching midnight and we felt it would be a mistake to get deeply into this general debate at that stage. I am glad that we are now able to discuss this whole area at a much better time of the day, although it is perhaps later in the day than some of us would have wished.
The noble Lord, Lord Melchett, has dealt extremely well with the scope of the scientific services. I shall spend not more than a minute or two talking about them myself. I am sure that if your Lordships had been able to come with the Select Committee on its visits to the GLC, to Greater Manchester, to the West Riding and so on, and had seen the teams of people and the equipment that is being used there for the benefit of consumers, for the benefit of trading standards, for the fire services, for the police, for forensic services in some cases, and indeed for coroners' courts in some cases, you would have been quite surprised at the amount of scientific expertise, knowledge and equipment that is at the disposal of local authorities today.
I do not know how many of your Lordships know that on the upper floors of County Hall, which I had a feeling was being sold off yesterday, there is a very large series of laboratories which are performing the sort of functions to which the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, referred. Those laboratories will be very difficult to replace if they are broken up. Certainly the teams of people who are working in those laboratories are I believe irreplaceable, not because certain individuals cannot be transferred, as we have heard earlier today during the debates on some of the amendments on staffing, but because some of the people who are, as it were, at the pinnacle of those teams could not be afforded by the boroughs.
Individual boroughs simply would not need one of those in each borough. It is because of that more than almost anything else, that we need to keep these teams together. It is because of the fact that the Bill as it stands simply does not seem to provide for the retention of those sorts of people within the system, that the Select Committee felt strongly that it had to put down amendments to the Bill on this subject. I
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may say that it is an unusual procedure in your Lordships' House for a Select Committee to get involved in what is in many ways a highly political Bill. There was a suggestion the other day by a noble Lord from the Benches opposite that it was somehow slightly improper, that perhaps the Select Committee was getting a bit above itself and that the Government were here to govern and Select Committees were here to mind their own business.
I should like to make a particular point here to your Lordships' Committee on the information that we have received. As the Committee will know, it has not been easy for political reasons for the Government to obtain information from some of the existing authorities. When it came to the Science and Technology Select Committee going around on its visits, we had a completely different response. People were perfectly willing to discuss scientific and technical subjects in detail with the Select Committee with no feeling of holding anything back from us. So it may be that your Lordships' Select Committee is in fact rather better informed on some of these subjects than some Government departments. It is a rare occasion and it is caused by attitudes that I deplore; but nevertheless I believe that it is something that noble Lords might like to take into consideration when considering the amendments which are before us.
In addition to some of the services which the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, has mentioned, there are many others such as the estimation of asbestos fibres in air samples taken from schools. Many of these things require extremely sophisticated equipment that a single borough would not be able to afford. Even the question of noise pollution—the monitoring of helicopters flying over the whole of the Greater London area or over the whole of a metropolitan county area—could not be engaged in by a single borough.
In Greater Manchester the public analyst serves all the 10 metropolitan districts. The public analyst's laboratory is widely respected not only within the public service but outside. They have links into the universities and they are able to bring their local government expertise and their scientific expertise together in a way in which an outside body, whether it be a consultant or a university department, is totally unable to comprehend. Indeed the evidence that we have received is very much that there should be a greater move towards regionalisation of facilities rather than a breaking down of these facilities. This evidence came to us both from the Government chemist and from a number of other outside bodies that certainly cannot be regarded as political.
I should like to quote from evidence that we received from the Royal Society of Chemistry. The Royal Society of Chemistry is a learned society which is responsible for chemistry for 40,000 or more members throughout the length and breadth of this land and for many overseas as well. It is the body responsible for the examination of public analysts and for the verification of their ability to serve their local authority as a scientific support. When one talks of public analysts, one must recognise that they are now not just a testing station but offer scientific support over a wide range of different subjects. The submission by the Royal Society of Chemistry says:

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"Trends over recent years partially in response to environmental considerations have been for scientific service units to be built up on an inter-disciplinary basis and for a large body of knowledge and expertise to be developed within them. These scientific service units have come to serve regional needs especially in the most populous areas of the country, and similar trends are likely in the field of information technology".
The society goes on to say:
"As regards any abolition of the GLC and the metropolitan counties, the Royal Society of Chemistry believes it is essential for existing scientific service units to be retained and for the Local Government Bill to incorporate legislative provisions to this effect".
Furthermore, it believes that a,
"network of scientific service units should be provided ideally established as regional laboratories".
Those are the words not of a political party, and not even of your Lordships' Select Committee; they are the words of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
I believe that this document—and I do not propose to read out large tracts of it—emphasises everything that has been said so far in this debate. It underlines the reasons why the Select Committee came to its conclusions. The question, therefore, is: how do we achieve this retention of services since, as I have said, the Bill makes no specific provision?
6.30 p.m.
The Select Committee believes that this reassurance is necessary if we are not going to run into a period, as it were, of human planning blight. There is a great fear that expert knowledge is already being lost. People who fear for the future are already seeking jobs outside the public service in this country and, indeed, outside this country. In some of these cases we have expertise here which is of the greatest possible use to local authorities anywhere in the world. The sooner they can be given an assurance by the Government that their future is secure and that they are able to carry on in the way in which they have been doing—but not necessarily in the same organisation—the better it will be for the future of science and technology in this country as a whole, and particularly in relation to local government.
The Select Committee believes that the obvious place to put this for the time being is with the residuary body. I know that we have had many discussions about matters going to residuary bodies when dealing with earlier amendments, but in this case the Select Committee is not saying it should be put into the residuary body and then democratised, or anything like that. That is far from the minds of its members, because they have also put down amendments which, as I said, have not actually been debated but give an indication of the intention of the Select Committee, which would take these scientific services out of the residuary body at some suitable time and into a more permanent and stable position. It is that position that we seek to achieve and it is that position that we hope to hear from the Government can be achieved.
It is one of the most important sectors of the Bill for the future not only of local government but of science and technology in this country. On behalf of my colleagues in the Select Committee I urge that the Government give as clear a response as they can for the sake of these services and for the sake of the expertise and the people involved.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: Your Lordships may well think that the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, has made out an all but unanswerable case that a specialist service, with specialist staff and specialist equipment and a wealth of expertise, ought to be kept together, in London and in each metropolitan county. I have considerable sympathy with the object and spirit of the amendment. The reason why I cannot support it in its present form is that it would set up another series of authorities as joint authorities within the meaning of Part IV of the Bill, which runs against the principle of the Bill especially when linked, as the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, linked it, with highways and waste disposal.
The hope is that on the merits there could be some scope here for give and take and a measure of compromise. Perhaps these functions could be transferred to the residuary bodies with what my noble friend Lord Elton once described as a catalytic role, as in the case of archives, to enable the transition to operate without unwelcome effect; or perhaps some other better solution may be found which would be acceptable to the Government and to the noble Lord, Lord Melchett. Taking into account the relationship of this amendment to Amendment No. 137, and other amendments to which the noble Lord spoke, it is surely right that the problems concerned with the ecology units should be taken into account when consideration is given to this.
Therefore, it is hoped that this amendment will not be pressed to a Division as both the amendment and the Bill as it stands, as I see it, are open to a measure of objection. In the long run, whichever way the Division goes, that does not exactly assist the process of constructive compromise; the scope for accommodation referred to by my noble friend Lord Elton. Perhaps one could devise an accommodation along the lines of the technical services and the archives which are highly specialist technical situations even if, as I would oppose, aligning this to the question of highways or waste disposal.
Lord Sherfield: I rise to intervene in this discussion for the purpose of making one point only. Your Lordships have heard a great deal—perhaps rather too much—about the interim report of the Select Committee on Science and Technology in regard to scientific and technical services available to local authorities. Unfortunately, the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, is away and I speak for a moment in his stead. Also, my name appears to the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff. This amendment has been well explained by the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, and I need add nothing more in support of Amendment No. 137. I want to say only this. Amendment No. 137 does not go as far as the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, but, if adopted, it would achieve the result of keeping the scientific services together. In fact, the Select Committee debated the question whether it should recommend the setting up of an authority but decided against it for reasons which it described; but it did not exclude the possibility of an authority for the future.
If there is a Division on the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, which is then lost, the work of the Select Committee in this respect will possibly be

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frustrated and, perhaps more importantly, the message which would go out to the staff of the scientific services in these authorities from this Committee this evening would be exactly the opposite of what the Select Committee intended. In that respect I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, on the need to give assurance to the staffs involved. Therefore, I join with the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, in suggesting to the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, that he should not press his amendment to a Division. Could not your Lordships wait to hear what the Government have to say in response to the Select Committee's recommendations and then, if necessary, return to the matter on Report?
Baroness Lockwood: As a member of the Select Committee on Science and Technology, and its subcommittee which produced the report to which reference has been made, I support the principle behind these two amendments; but I should like to follow the noble Lord, Lord Sherfield, and the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, in asking the Government to try to find some accommodation for these services. The import of the Select Committee's report is contained in paragraph 44 where it says:
"The Committee feels that the retention of the facilities is more important than the precise methods involved".
We have already been reminded that the Minister said on an earlier occasion that there is scope for accommodation. I should like to feel that this evening he can assure us that that is something which the Government are now able to take on board and that he will come back to us at a later stage in our deliberations on the Bill to indicate how the services and the teams involved can be retained and kept together to continue the leading work that they have been doing in the whole area of science and technology.
We have been reminded in the course of the discussion that some amendments to the Bill have been made and to a certain extent they have covered aspects of the scientific and technical services. Perhaps the solution would be, as the noble Lords, Lord Campbell and Lord Tordoff, said, to bring the services into one of the joint authorities concerned either with waste disposal or urban traffic and highways; or, alternatively, it may be better to take them into the residuary body until such time as we can determine a permanent future for them. But I think that what we want to hear tonight is that these services will be retained as a unit so that they will continue to function effectively.
The Earl of Halsbury: I should like to reinforce both sets of pleas which have been made this afternoon—both that made by my noble friend Lord Sherfield to the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, not to press the amendment to a Division, and that of the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, and others to the Government to come clean and tell us what it is they really want and ought to do.
Two themes have been woven like strands through the whole of these Committee proceedings. One is what I might call the strategic theme of wanting to see the Bill on the statute book and then tidying up the loose ends by powers given to the Minister in the Bill. The other is the tactical theme of wanting to see all the
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"i"s dotted and all the "t"s crossed before we put the Bill on the statute book. The Government support the strategic theme, and so do I. I think that if we tried to dot all the "i"s, cross all the "t"s and tidy up the loose ends in this Bill we should be in Committee until doomsday. But we cannot apply that principle too heavy-handedly because some services must not hiccup on vesting day. The fire services cannot hiccup, and the Government of course acknowledge that. I think that the scientific services come within the same rating.
In your Lordships' wisdom and through the wisdom of honourable Members in another place, from time to time we legislate statutory obligations into existence. A very large number of them are carried out by public analysts. If I seem to be overemphasising chemistry I must ask forgiveness. I am a chemist and I am a member of the legal and parliamentary committee of the Royal Society of Chemistry which gives the evidence to which my noble friend Lord Sherfield and the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, referred. It has not come to an end of it. It was at it last week. It was interesting for me to exercise my prerogative of sitting in on a Select Committee to listen to my colleagues in the Royal Society of Chemistry presenting the evidence that in part I had helped to formulate for the benefit of the Select Committee.
If one is dealing with the disposal of toxic waste, you do not know whether the waste is toxic or not until a chemist has told you that it is. Those services must continue. If you want to know whether recycled water is to standards laid down by the public health authority, again it is to a chemist you can go. Public analysts are quite rare birds. They have to have a master's degree in analytical chemistry as specified by the Royal Society of Chemistry and then receive an appointment as a public analyst. Some of them operate as servants of a local authority; some of them are what are called consultant public analysts; and they are like a doctor, partly on the national health and partly in private practice. They will take on public analyst work if they have the requisite qualifications.
I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, on behalf of the Government will be able to give us in more or less detail what it is that he plans to do to see that there is no hiccup on vesting day and that these highly qualified, professional people simply carry on with their work unchanged. I do not want to follow the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, into the Division Lobby. As I say, I agree with the Government's strategic philosophy. I just hope that, since the noble Lord now has had a month to think over what was said at Second Reading, he is able to give us the assurance for which we have all asked.
6.45 p.m.
Lord Elton: I have been asked to come clean in order to avoid hiccups and to prevent our staying in Committee until doomsday, which are desirable aims in themselves; and I shall do my best. I regret with the rest of your Lordships, because of his special interest and expertise in this Committee, that my noble friend Lord Cranbrook cannot be with us today. But I must say that we have not suffered too much from his absence because of the admirable expositions of those

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who have spoken on his behalf round the Chamber. He chaired your Lordships' Science and Technology Committee which recently reported on precisely these issues.
May I break for a moment in order to put one possible misunderstanding straight? I know that unintentionally I gave the impression at an earlier stage in Committee that in some way I was making a comparison between the recommendations of your Lordships' Select Committee and those of the Select Committee in another place. What in fact I said was that I thought it would be a pity to use the recommendations of your Lordships' committee unnecessarily to prevent the implementation of the recommendations of a Select Committee in another place. I meant what I said, but I hope that there will be no incompatibility. I must be very careful not to offend Select Committeemen of another place, so I shall say only that I think that your Lordships' Select Committee has at least as much authority and expertise as any Select Committee in another place.
I think that it may help your Lordships if I start by briefly trying to pull together the amendments mentioned in the debate so far. Amendment No. 136BE, which was moved by the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, with great concision and clarity, if I may say so, requires the establishment in all seven areas of a joint authority to provide scientific and technical services. It has the same basic effect as the earlier amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Cranbrook which was then called Amendment No. 132; but there are two differences. First, the present amendment provides for the authorities to be established directly rather than by order of the Secretary of State; and, secondly, it includes specific reference to ecology and nature conservation, thus betraying the noble Lord's considerable interest and expertise in that side of things.
Amendment No. 137 was spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Stedman, and in the process he—
Noble Lords: Lord Tordoff!
Lord Elton: I saw a reference to the "Baron" Stedman on the Marshalled List at a point that we have not reached. I had not realised that I was so subliminally open as to transfer that. I meant to say the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, who also referred to Amendment No. 131.
Amendment No. 131—and I suppose that I am speaking to the ghost of Amendment No. 131—would have allowed the Secretary of State by order, after consulting the joint authorities involved, to transfer responsibility for scientific and technical services in relation to police, fire, passenger transport, highways, waste disposal and any district function to one of the joint authorities established to carry out any of those functions.
Amendment No. 137, which is ahead of us on the Marshalled List, and alive and well, would transfer the existing scientific and technical staff and facilities of the GLC or the metropolitan county councils to the appropriate residuary body.
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That may seem rather a confusing range of options. However, I believe that the basic intention behind all of them, and specifically of the two that remain on the Marshalled List, is to implement recommendations contained in the report of the committee chaired by my noble friend. I should add that Amendment No. 137 is clearly an interim measure. I am very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, made that specifically clear. I shall hold him to it because of course if he had not, it would have been open to all the objections which the Committee has repeatedly accepted as rendering that course of action unacceptable. So it is a temporary home that he is looking for, and that brings his designs very close to my own.
The Government fully recognise, I repeat, the importance of the scientific and technical services. We are as anxious, as is your Lordships' Committee, to ensure that valuable support services in this field, as in others, which will be required after abolition, should be retained.
I fully accept the force of the point that in the time between Royal Assent and 1st April 1986 it might not be possible to resolve to the satisfaction of all the parties the future arrangements for these services. I therefore understand the purpose and importance of Amendment No. 137.
I think it may help the Committee to come to a view on Amendment No. 136BE—and noble Lords have echoed this around the Chamber—if I expand a little on that statement and our intentions as to that amendment. I think I can go a considerable way towards meeting the noble Lord's point on it. My right honourable friend the Minister of State for Local Government has of course already made it clear that our department of Government will use its good offices to ensure that support services and facilities can be maintained where successor authorities so wish. This of course includes the possibility of temporary transfer to the residuary bodies until permanent arrangements can be made, as, indeed, Amendment No. 137 proposes.
I can go further than that and repeat that we shall ensure that the residuary bodies take the initiative in encouraging such arrangements; the catalytic role referred to by my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway. I give an undertaking that we shall invite them to make special studies of existing facilities and to have discussions with successor authorities well ahead of abolition. I believe that this will achieve what I understand to be the noble Lord's real objectives and those of the Select Committee.
What will happen will be that the residuary bodies will be given a crucial role, as catalysts, for preparing the future of these services, taking over the services on a temporary basis, if necessary, and deciding on permanent arrangements. This will give the successor authorities time to consider permanent arrangements for scientific and technical services. They will in fact be considering it while they are gaining experience by exercising responsibility for the statutory functions which these services support now and which they will be supporting from their temporary base with the residuary bodies.
To establish this point beyond peradventure I shall bring forward at Report an amendment to make it

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clear that the residuary bodies will take an active part in identifying and securing the future of worthwhile centres of expertise. As has been made clear previously, however—and I refer now to Amendment No. 137 on the Marshalled List—the residuary bodies themselves are not an appropriate long-term solution. It is such a solution that is being sought in Amendment No. 136BE.
I recognise that many noble Lords would like us to determine now how these activities will be organised in the future. Let us look at the alternatives. The first is that preferred by the Government, and I believe the most likely: a joint agreement by the boroughs and districts with one of them probably taking the service on, on behalf of all, on a reimbursement basis. The boroughs and districts already have powers to do that under the Local Authorities (Goods and Services) Act 1970. Moreover, in relation to research and information collection functions, the new clause which we shall be discussing on Amendment No. 140A provides powers for a scheme to designate a lead council. I shall return to that in a moment.
The second alternative is that proposed by those who favour the approach expressed as Amendment No. 131. That consists of using one of the new joint authorities created by the Bill to do the job. However, it is already proposed to give the joint authorities powers to enter into arrangements with local authorities to provide services to those authorities. This is done by paragraph 47 of Schedule 14. The paragraph amends the Local Authorities (Goods and Services) Act 1970 for this purpose. In the event of such arrangements being made, the residuary bodies would already have powers under Clause 55 to ask the Secretary of State to transfer the property concerned in accordance with the arrangements reached by and with the authorities.
The third alternative is that proposed in Amendment No. 136BE, the one now before us. This would provide for the setting up of an additional new body for the specific purpose of entering into arrangements with local authorities for the provision of these services. However, again, Clause 65 already provides for this. Thus, both the first and second of those powers will already be open to us at any time.
Agreements between boroughs and districts and the new joint authorities can be made in time to take effect on 1st April 1986 or after and the staff and property can pass to the body that is to become responsible for support activities. If it takes rather longer to decide on these arrangements, staff and property can be transferred to the residuary bodies on a temporary basis, pending a move from the residuary bodies to their new homes. The Bill allows for that.
Clause 65 also provides powers for the Secretary of State to set up new bodies, if necessary. This means that if the successor authorities see that as the most appropriate way, arrangements can be made under Clause 65, as at present in the Bill, to establish the new body.
The noble Lord, Lord Melchett, asked that such new authorities should specifically include ecology and nature conservation and that they should be mandatory rather than permissive. Of course, we have discussed the future of ecology and nature
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conservation at an earlier stage. I do not want to go over that ground in detail again any more than he did. However, I hope that the noble Lord will accept two points: first, that the assurances I have given generally apply equally to the particular expertise that concerns him; and, secondly, that in including a highly specific prescription of the kind he wants, there is always a danger that the result will be too narrow when put into practice. I think the noble Lord acknowledged that when he said that there were disadvantages in what he proposed.
My noble friend Lord Skelmersdale assured the Committee on 7th May that the residuary bodies would provide a temporary home for expert units and that we would be looking carefully at the Bill to see how it can be improved. Today I have gone further and explained the active role that we envisage for the residuary bodies and have undertaken to bring in an amendment. I have shown the Committee the flexibility that exists under the long-term arrangements in the Bill. Therefore I hope that the noble Lord is reasonably content that we have sought to meet his anxieties.
However, I hope that all those who feel so strongly about this issue will recognise the unreality of seeking to preserve, for ever, the present services provided by the GLC and the metropolitan county councils. The raison d'être of a support service is the service it supports. Changes in the latter will mean changes in the former. To limit the discretion of successor bodies to avoid what might be seen as a reduction in these services could well have the effect of limiting beneficial change and improvement. These centres of expertise have grown up because there is a need for them and they have proved their worth. There is no reason for that need to disappear. I am confident that successor bodies will see the benefits that such services can provide.
I now direct the Committee's attention again to what I have signalled we propose for later in the Bill, the new clause, after Clause 85, which appears as Amendment No. 140A on the Marshalled List.
Amendment No. 140A: After Clause 85, insert the following new clause:
("Research and collection of information.
.—(1) A scheme may be made for Greater London or a metropolitan county by the constituent councils whereby one of those councils designated by the scheme has the function of—

(a) carrying out, or assisting in carrying out, investigations into, and the collection of information relating to, any matters concerning that area or any part of it; and

(b) making, or assisting in making, arrangements whereby any such information and the results of any such investigation are made available to any other local authority in that area, any government department or the public.

(2) Any such scheme shall require the other constituent councils to contribute as provided by subsection (3) below to the expenditure incurred by the designated council in carrying out its functions under the scheme.
(3) The constituent councils shall be required to contribute to any expenditure of the designated council which has been incurred with the approval of a least two-thirds of the constituent councils; and the amounts of the contributions shall be determined so that the expenditure in respect of which they are payable is borne by the constituent councils in proportion to the populations of their respective areas.
(4) For the purposes of subsection (3) above the population of any area shall be taken to be the number estimated by the Registrar General and certified by him to the Secretary of State by

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reference to such date as the Secretary of State may from time to time determine.
(5) A scheme may provide that, if two-thirds of the constituent councils so decide, the designated council may require all or any of the constituent councils other than the designated council to carry out in respect of their respective areas an investigation into, or the collection of information relating to, any specified matter concerning the area covered by the scheme or any part of it; and where such a requirement is imposed on a council—

(a) that council shall comply with the requirement in such manner and within such time as may be specified in the requirement; and

(b) if that council fails to comply with the requirement the designated council may itself do what was required and recover the cost of doing it from that council.

(6) The expenditure which is to be borne as mentioned in subsection (3) above shall not include—

(a) any expenditure of the designated council which is recoverable by virtue of paragraph (b) of subsection (5) above; or

(b) if a requirement is imposed by virtue of that subsection on all the constituent councils other than the designated council, any expenditure incurred by that council in doing in respect of its own area what is has required the other councils to do in respect of their areas.

(7) Any information collected by the designated council, and the results of any investigation carried out by it, in the exercise of its functions under the scheme shall be made available, on request, to each of the other constituent councils.
(8) A scheme shall not come into force before the abolition date but shall continue in force until the end of at least two financial years after that in which it is made.
(9) A scheme may, in the absence of agreement between all the constituent councils, be made by a majority of those councils so as to be binding on all of them; but a council shall not be designated by a scheme except with its consent.
(10) A scheme may contain such supplementary provisions as the councils making the scheme think necessary or expedient and, subject to subsection (8) above, may be revoked by those councils (or, in the absence of agreement between all of them, by a majority of those councils) with effect from the end of any financial year after that in which the decision to revoke the scheme is made.
(11) The council designated by a scheme may by giving not less than twelve months' notice to the other constituent councils withdraw its consent to act as the designated council with effect from the end of any financial year not earlier than the second financial year after that in which the scheme was made; and in that event the scheme shall terminate when the withdrawal takes effect.
(12) For the purposes of this section the constituent councils are—

(a) in relation to Greater London, the London borough councils and the Common Council; and

(b) in relation to a metropolitan county, the councils of the metropolitan districts comprised in the county.

(13) Whether or not a scheme is made under this section a London borough council, the Common Council and a metropolitan district council shall have power to exercise any of the functions described in subsection (1)(a) and (b) above.
(14) The appropriate Minister with respect to any matter may require any such council as is mentioned in subsection (13) above to provide him with any information with respect to that matter which is in the possession of, or available to, that council in consequence of the exercise of any powers conferred by or under any enactment.").
I have today received a letter from the London Boroughs Association which I think the Committee will wish to consider in connection with this amendment. It is written by Councillor Randall, who says:
"I am writing to you on behalf of the association to tell you that you have our full support for the new clause that you have proposed should be added to the Local Government Bill in respect of research and information. The new clause, with its wider powers, should
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allow the London boroughs to provide a comprehensive research and information service on all matters that are generally agreed as essential or most effectively undertaken on a London-wide basis.
"The association's committees have already given their initial consideration to a number of areas of research and information likely to be required following the abolition of the GLC. These include planning, traffic and housing data collection and analysis, and the scientific services and research library and related facilities currently provided by the GLC. The association's officers are now preparing a comprehensive report that will be considered by the association's committees in mid-June. I cannot say to you that we will by then have a definite blue-print for the future of research and information services for London. Nor do I think it would be appropriate for the association to reach final conclusions at this stage. The association will want to consult with other interested parties and particularly with those London boroughs that are still at this stage refusing to consider the implementation of the Local Government Bill's provisions. Nonetheless, I should conclude by again reiterating the association's support for the new clause which will make the realisation of a joint London borough research and information service far easier to achieve".
7 p.m.
I have given an assurance that we shall safeguard scientific and technical support services through any potential difficulties in the transitional period, if necessary by ensuring that the residuary bodies actually take on the staff and the property on a temporary basis themselves. I have assured your Lordships that the residuary bodies will assist in ensuring satisfactory long-term arrangements. Your Lordships do, I hope, now see that these long-term arrangements can be secured under the provisions of the Bill. If your Lordships accept them, then, the noble Lord, Lord Sherfield, may be reassured that the work of his Committee would not be frustrated and that no sinister message would go out from this House on the matter to those who work in this important field.
I have told your Lordships of the reaction in the field to the new provision that we propose to put into the Bill after it has been published for barely a fortnight. I think that there is sense in the advice that your Lordships have had that you should consider whether this does not actually answer every point that has been raised by the Select Committee, to which I pay the greatest tribute.
Baroness Stedman: The noble Lord referred to paragraph 47 of the schedule, which enables a joint authority to be set up under Part IV of the Bill. If it is agreed that there shall be such a joint authority will that authority have precepting powers, or will it only be able to do the work by agreement with the other authorities?
Lord Elton: I rather hope that some others of your Lordships will have questions to ask.
Lord Tordoff: I can perhaps help the noble Lord the Minister while certain negotiations are going on in response to the question that has been put to him. Before the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, decides what he wishes to do on his amendment, I should like to respond on behalf of those of us who are supporting Amendment No. 137. The Minister went a long way, I believe, in the earlier part of his remarks, to offer reassurance. I then felt that he started, not to back away, but to cause further confusion. I rather regret that. If that part of the brief had gone back to whence it came, we might have been a little more reassured. I

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fear that the message that the noble Lord, Lord Sherfield, asked for, is not coming out quite as clearly as we would have wished. Nevertheless, it is my belief that the message is there. We shall clearly have to look in the Official Report at what the noble Lord the Minister has said.
I fear more than anything the reliance of the Government still on the lower tier local authorities getting together and doing these things. Certainly, the Select Committee was very worried about that. It did not really believe that the evidence was there to support that view. The Minister clearly believes that this is still a possibility. I hope that his assurances that the interim bodies are to take an active role will at least for the time being be sufficient reassurance to the people, for whom both I and, I believe, the rest of the Select Committee are speaking, that their future is secure. We await with interest the amendment that the Minister has undertaken to put down at Report stage. From my point of view, I would certainly not wish to press the matter any further this evening. I daresay that the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, may take the same view. I would certainly urge him to do so.
Lord Elton: We must remind ourselves that this is Committee stage. We get into an awful sort of Second Reading stance on this Bill for some reason. It is, however, Committee stage and we can get up and down. In answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, the order would make provision for the money to be raised and it could be raised in the form of a precept.
The noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, has, I think, decided to consider what I have said. I hope that I did not sound as though I was retracting anything in the later stages. I was saying something that I should perhaps have stated at the beginning. I have to say it on every occasion. Any prudent manager has to say it. I am not even the manager. The Government are not the manager. One cannot guarantee absolutely that everything now happening will go on happening for ever. One must give the people who use the service the chance to decide what service they want. They may want more; or they may want less. It was right that I should say that.
What I have said is that by the three powers that I have indicated in the Bill, it will be possible for all these services that are wanted to be continued. If the arrangements cannot be made before the abolition date, there is a safe home for these services with the residuary bodies. When they emerge from the residuary bodies, they will emerge in a form in which they can be financed, as I have described to the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman. Indeed, if there was such a voluntary agreement, then the residuary body might actually be a staging post on the way to the regional arrangements that the Select Committee of the House recommended.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: I have only one point to make. The noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, was, I believe, uncharacteristically unfair. I thought that my noble friend Lord Elton gave an almost 100 per cent. assurance to the noble Lord, Lord Sherfield. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Sherfield, thinks that too. The only reason I butt in is that the noble Lord, Lord
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Tordoff, produced once again a problem which, if you sense it, makes you doubtful about the whole Bill. The noble Lord said that he still had doubts as to whether or not the smaller local authorities could come together. We should always keep in mind, when that thought and doubt arises, that the Minister has reserve powers under the Bill to see that, if they do not voluntarily come together, what is wanted will be done under his authority.
We should take it into account that when my noble friend was making his statement in answer to the two well-presented amendments he was talking with authority as a member of the Government. Whatever doubts one might have about the possibilities of the smaller local authorities coming together, we should have no doubt that, on the authority of the Government spokesman, stated clearly in answer to the noble Lord, the general implementation of preserving what is needed and what is good will, indeed, be carried out.
Baroness Birk: I was a little unclear about what the Minister said. I share what may be some of the confusion that the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, expressed. My feeling, when the Minister started speaking, was that he was talking about bringing forward an amendment which, as I understood it, would be very much along the lines of Amendment No. 137, now before the Committee. Further into his speech, the noble Lord seemed to be relying upon what is already in the Bill. He explained how, under various clauses and schedules, what had been mentioned was built into the Bill. It is this aspect that is rather mystifying some of us. Is the Minister intending to bring forward an amendment on Report? Or is he relying on what, as he explained carefully, is in the Bill? We are a little confused.
Lord Elton: I am obliged. I have clearly not been as lucid as I would have wished. There are two amendments in question. One, already on the Marshalled List, is Amendment No. 140A. That is the amendment which elicited the letter which I would have thought would have allayed almost all the fears subsequently expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff. He will tell me in a minute why it has not done so.
The other amendment is not on the Marshalled List but I have undertaken to bring it forward at Report. That amendment will specify what I have described as the "catalytic role" of the residuary body, and that is a departure from the scheme in the Bill. So the residuary body is no longer an inert shelf on to which you put this valuable treasure: it is an organisation into the care of which you take it, and that organisation has the duty of finding a home for it before its demise, which is scheduled in five years.
Therefore, if we put those two new items into the Bill and ally them to what is in the Bill already which is old but not sufficiently understood, I still think that we are giving a package which answers all the concerns that the Select Committee can hope to have satisfied. I cannot satisfy the hopes that some of your Lordships may have that every single one of these functions will continue as it does now. That would be something which the noble Baroness, if she were back behind this Dispatch Box, could not do, either.
Lord Tordoff: I am most grateful to the noble Lord. Certainly I do not wish necessarily to see every function continued in perpetuity as it is at present. Certainly that is not the view of the Select Committee.
I should like to return to the question of the letter, which I have only heard read out and which I should very much like to study in the Official Report tomorrow. It seems to me that, as regards that letter and also the amendment which is already tabled as Amendment No. 140A, there was a reference to research. When Mrs. Lynda Chalker appeared before the Select Committee, she dwelt to a considerable extent on research. Of course, we are not just talking about research; we are talking about a wide range of technical and scientific duties which reside in the bodies that we are discussing. It is just the slight overemphasis on research rather than on the full range which is a little worrying. I am most grateful to the noble Lord for his most recent summary—
Lord Elton: I am not sure of the date, but I think that the amendment that they wrote about appeared on the Marshalled List, at the most, about a fortnight ago, or rather less. You would not expect the whole thing to be seized upon in a moment. It is a profoundly encouraging reaction.
Lord Melchett: The noble Lord, Lord Elton, said a little earlier in the debate that we sometimes seem to be slipping into a debate rather like a Second Reading debate, and he wondered why that was so. I must say that during this debate and on previous occasions during our discussions on this Bill I have had to pinch myself to remind myself that we are not debating a Second Reading in another place, and that the Bill has been all the way through another place and through a Second Reading in your Lordships' House, and is now getting very close to the statute book. What we have had from the Government on crucially important issues of this nature is still, to my mind, incredibly vague, extremely uncertain and not at all carefully thought out. The discussion which the noble Lord has just had with the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, seems to me to underline the situation. We have crucial scientific and technical services, and we are still not clear whether we are talking about them or research, what the London Boroughs Association are on about, and so on. I think that the noble Lord should be surprised that any of us has managed to convince himself that we are actually taking part in a debate at a very late stage in the passage of the Bill.
Lord Elton: If the noble Lord accuses me of being vague, I ask him to read Amendment No. 140A at some stage. I do not ask him to read it now, because it will take some time. It is fairly detailed.
Lord Melchett: I listened to what the noble Lord, Lord Elton, had to say about that. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, who spoke from behind the noble Lord, urged me to withdraw the amendment. Of course, I shall study what was said in Hansard tomorrow, but I must say that I was left with the impression of some vague hope that this would all be all right in due course, heavily qualified by remarks about it all being possible anyway because of
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provisions already in the Bill. All of that has led to an extremely uncertain outcome.
I made a note at the time that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, talked about this being given initial consideration by the London Boroughs Association. These are crucial services; and these are expert people. Uncertainty has been hanging over them for months and months. The noble Lord comes to the Committee and says that the matter has been given some initial consideration. It should have been given initial consideration years ago, not weeks ago. The noble Lord went on to say that if they agree, "it may be possible", and, "these things can be done" under the existing legislation. He did not use words like "will", or, "we shall ensure", or anything of that kind. As he said himself, he felt it necessary to qualify all that he said, and in my view he did so in terms which did not meet the concern of your Lordships' Select Committee or of those of us who spoke in favour of the amendment.
7.15 p.m.
If I had been left simply with the urgings of the noble Lord on the Government Front Bench and the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, to withdraw the amendment because by pressing it and risking losing the vote we would be increasing uncertainty, I must say that I would have pressed the amendment immediately to a Division. It seems to me that nothing could be more vague than the type of terms which the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, used to suggest that we should withdraw the amendment to reduce uncertainty. However, the noble Lord, Lord Sherfield, and my noble friend Lady Lockwood made some telling points—as did other noble Lords who spoke earlier in the debate—about leaving the matter.
I am quite happy to acknowledge that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, has again gone some way towards assuring us of the Government's commitment to see that if something can be done it will be done in some way or other. However, all of it is extremely uncertain. For example, the noble Lord said that the residuary body would now be acting as a catalyst. It may be appropriate, as this is something proposed by the Science and Technology Select Committee of your Lordships' House, if I dredge up some A-level chemistry from many years ago to remind your Lordships of the function of a catalyst.
As I understand it, a catalyst is used to speed up the reaction between two or more chemicals of known qualities and quantities, with the intention of producing a reaction which will produce a known and desired product or outcome. That is not what the residuary body will do. The residuary body will not be acting as a catalyst as I understand the term: it will be used to look at something with a whole lot of things chucked in—who knows what, but there are a lot of them around, as the noble Lord told us—and it will come up with some type of reaction. Whether the laboratory will be blown up in the process, the noble Lord and the London Boroughs Association do not know and will not tell us.
Lord Elton: The noble Lord has a much better recollection of A-level chemistry than I do. He has warned me, and I undertake to stay out of the

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laboratory in future and to use a different analogy. However, I think that your Lordships knew what I meant.
Lord Melchett: My concern—and this is a serious point—is that it will not just be the noble Lord who will be staying out of the laboratory in future but the scientists and technicians employed by the GLC and the metropolitan counties who will be leaving the laboratories in their droves and going to work elsewhere. The exact outcome which your Lordships' Select Committee feared will come about. It seems to me that that is a shameful way in which to treat what your Lordships' Select Committee quite rightly described as centres of scientific and technical excellence.
I do not believe that it will be good enough to leave the matter where the noble Lord has suggested we should leave it. We shall have to come back to the matter at the next stage of the Bill and convince those experts—because I believe that that is the job which your Lordships now have—that they will have a place to which to go, and tell them where it is and what they will be doing. So far the Government have not come clean in any of those respects. In the hope that we shall be able to do that at the Report stage, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 55 [Establishment of residuary bodies]:
Lord Elton Lord Elton moved Amendment No. 136BF:
Page 38, line 38, at end insert—
("( ) Of the persons first appointed to be members of the residuary body established for Greater London or a metropolitan county one shall be appointed by the Secretary of State from among the members of, and after consultation with, the joint committee established for that area under section 93 below.").
The noble Lord said: This amendment seeks to establish a link between membership of a residuary body and membership of the organising committee of councillors which Clause 93 requires the borough and district councils to set up in each area. I am sure that it would help if I placed this in the wider context of appointments in general to the residuary bodies and of the tasks which will fall to be carried out before abolition day.
The residuary bodies are required to wind up the outstanding affairs of the expiring authorities. At abolition they will take on a number of important but uncontroversial tasks, especially winding up the accounts, administering external debts, administering the superannuation funds, making compensation payments to staff and taking responsibility for residuary property and legal rights and liabilities. These are technical tasks and they are to be transitional responsibilities. The residuary bodies will either wind them up or prepare them for a permanent home with the borough and district councils. That is why we intend to appoint, as chairman and members of the residuary bodies, people committed to working themselves out of a job—people with financial and other related experience, people with public and local government confidence and people with an ability to work with local government in their areas. We do not rule out appointing elected members but the residuary
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bodies are not representative, nor should there be any potential for conflict of interest with successor authorities.
We intend to make initial appointments of a chairman and perhaps two key members of each body on an advisory basis—in accordance, I should add, with normal precedent—before the Bill is enacted. They will be able to start planning for the formal establishment of the bodies after Royal Assent. Later appointments at that stage might be expected to take account of the final form of legislation.
The residuary bodies will have a considerable job to do between Royal Assent and abolition day. They will be indentifying the property, rights and liabilities which will fall to them. They will be preparing to take over their functions at abolition. They will be identifying and approaching the staff they need, and they will be acting—it says here because I wrote it, as "catalysts", but I withdraw the word, and your Lordships can substitute another—as the agents of change.
These preparations will clearly bring the residuary bodies into frequent contact with the successor authorities. As those authorities will be required by Clause 93 to set up organising committees to coordinate their preparations, and as those authorities will set up the new joint authorities soon after Royal Assent, it follows that those authorities should co-ordinate with the residuary bodies. Accordingly we propose this amendment to secure a link by way of one member in common between each residuary body and the appropriate organising committee. I beg to move.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: I wonder whether this might be an appropriate moment to raise something I recollect has appeared in the newspapers in the last two or three days, and whether I am right about the first named appointee to carry some responsibility in this field? I have warm regard for Mr. Tag Taylor, having worked with him in a number of spheres in the past. But would the Minister care to tell the Committee whether he has in mind that the kind of political background that Mr. Tag Taylor has—and of course one of which he is proud, as he is entitled to be—is a forerunner of the kind of political appointee who will find himself as head of the bodies we are discussing, or whether there will be a wider remit to find the best possible people?
The Minister might say that the best possible people are those with the political background of Mr. Taylor. But could the Minister enlighten the Committee as to how wide his remit will be to ensure, for instance, that there will be senior, or near-retired, or recently retired chief officers of local authorities, et cetera? I am sure that the Minister appreciates that I raise the question genuinely to find out precisely what is in the Minister's mind in these matters.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: I am sorry that the noble Lord has raised that question at this stage. I do not see how anyone other than the head of the armed forces, or a civil servant of the highest rank, can be found who has not paid some interest in politics in their lifetime. I should have thought that the knowledge of politics, and having taken an interest in them, is an adjunct rather than a disadvantage.

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If we are going to start denigrating people because they have been interested in politics, we are ruling many people out. The noble Lord in a way has done just that. I am rather sad. The objection to this name (which has not been officially announced, so far as I know, but which, like so often, has been bandied about in the newspapers) is because he was known to have been interested and to have played some part in one political party or another.
I do not think that that matter ought to be taken into consideration. If the noble Lord can say that this has been mooted as a possible name, and he does not think that he has the personal qualifications, or he has not got the knowledge to do this job, that is another matter. But to say that because he has shown some sort of interest in politics is a disadvantage, and that somebody ought to be found who never had shown any interest in politics, will make the choice a pretty narrow one.
I have heard it so often, but as one who has played some part in politics at various small levels for many years, and who I hope has been able to be a worthwhile councillor and a not unreasonable Member of Parliament, I hope that the fact that I have been interested in politics in no way removes any abilities I might, or might not, have in business generally.
I am sad that this factor has been brought in. It is unnecessary. The noble Lord is one for whom I have the greatest admiration, and he has great experience, and I would not like him to be kept out of doing a job that he could do well because he has been interested in politics at some time.
Lord Elton: Before the noble Lord defends himself may I remind him that the gentleman in question is now called Sir Godfrey Taylor.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: I knew him as "Tag". The noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls, has completely misunderstood—and I believe accidentally—the tenor of my inquiries. On the first public announcement of a named person with some responsibility, it emerges that this man—and Hansard will show that he has my greatest respect for the quality of the work that he has done in the past—has been selected. My simple question was: are we to hear from the Minister that it will be that kind of appointment? —that is, political, or people with political experience.
The Minister may well say, yes, in which case the question then is begged, will they be Conservative politicians or will they be from other parties? The Minister knows that there will be some argument, particularly among members of my party, as to whether they wish to be considered to be the heads of residuary authorities, and in effect presiding over the demise of these authorities.
It was a question genuinely raised in order that we could be helped. The noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls, not unfairly but unjustly, accuses me of motives which I did not have. I am sure that the Minister will understand why I asked the question.
Lord Elton: At least I will answer it. I attribute no malice to the noble Lord at all in asking this question,
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but he should know that I can confirm that Ministers have been discussing with Sir Godfrey Taylor the possibility that he might chair the London residuary body. Firm arrangements, however, have not yet been made, and when they are made we shall make an announcement in the normal way. We have made no approaches to individuals in respect of appointments to the metropolitan county residuary bodies, but again we are thinking about possible candidates.
There was a bit of a stir yesterday when people said that we should not have got even to this stage. But noble Lords opposite and their colleagues in another place have doubtless cast their minds back to 1975, when after Commons Second Reading of the Shipbuilding Bill the Labour Government of the day started doing exactly the same thing. I need not rehearse other precedents. There are plenty. The only qualification for the job is that the person shall be suitable and able to do it. That is the criterion that will be applied.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 55, as amended, agreed to.
[Amendment No. 136C not moved.]
Schedule 13 agreed to.
Lord Skelmersdale: With the leave of the Committee may I say that I am in more than a little difficulty. As I understand it, the usual channels have not yet come to a decision on whether we should break at this point. However, judging by the feeling of the mental pressure around me I understand that it is the wish of the Committee that we should do this. I would therefore suggest that we do not return to this business until half past eight. I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

Rent (Amendment) Bill
7.30 p.m.
Lord Renton: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time. This is a short Bill which was introduced into another place last week by my honourable friend Mr. Michael Mates, MP for Hampshire East. Its purpose is to cure a defect in the Rent Act 1977 which is in the same terms as the Rent (Scotland) Act 1984 and of an order in council made under the Northern Ireland Act 1974.
It is a defect which has been brought to light by the decision last November of the Court of Appeal in the case of Pocock v. Steel in which the plaintiff, Mrs. Pocock, was a constituent of Mr. Mates and was the unsuccessful appellant in the appeal and the owner of the house in question. I can put the problem quite shortly and simply. Under Case 11 of Schedule 15 to the Rent Act 1977 and the equivalent provisions in Scotland and Northern Ireland it was thought, when it was enacted by Parliament, that an owner who wished to recover possession of a dwelling (so that he or she or

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his or her family could return to live in it) could do so so long as certain simple conditions laid down under Case 11 were complied with. The principle condition was the giving of a written notice in advance. If those conditions were complied with it was then mandatory for the court to grant an order for repossession. The courts, therefore, under Case 11 had no discretion as to whether to grant an order. Those of us who were familiar in the courts with these Rent Act cases know that the discretion of the court arose in those cases in which there was a difficult and very tiresome issue of greater hardship—whether it would be greater hardship for the owner if no order was made or greater hardship for the tenant if an order was made.
So many of us were in Parliament at that time, and we must assume that Parliament thought that under Case 11 the court had no discretion and it was mandatory for it to make an order. However, in that case of Pocock v. Steel the Court of Appeal decided otherwise and they held that if the absent owner had made a further letting since first letting the house and having to go away, then Case 11 would not apply. That is what the Court of Appeal held. This unexpected result causes considerable hardship to people who let their homes temporarily while they are away—perhaps overseas on employment in Crown service, in any employment or for business reasons, Service or other reasons which require them to be absent temporarily—or, if not on a temporary basis, for several years, perhaps, but without any intention of surrendering their own home. They may also have left their furniture and other possessions in the dwelling. It may have been a furnished letting. That is the reason for the Bill.
I should explain the terms of the Bill. They look a little technical and, thanks to the Bill being short, they have to be rather technical otherwise we should have had to re-enact provisions that have already been enacted. However, there is no need to do that if the Bill is properly drafted by the textual amendment method, and this Bill is so drafted.
Clause 1 is the operative clause, especially subsections (1), (2) and (3). I should point out that subsection (4) is retrospective. Parliament always leans against retrospective legislation when it operates against the citizen. But frequently in the past Parliament has been willing to make legislation retrospective when it operates, and justly operates, in favour of the citizen who would otherwise be subjected to an injustice. The result is that cases which have already arisen will not, thanks to subsection (4), be adversely affected by the case of Pocock v. Steel.
That is really all I need say at this stage by way of explanation. I have the right to reply to the debate and shall be glad to try to answer any point which any noble Lord may raise. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time. —(Lord Renton.)
Lord Denning: My Lords, this little Bill is an important constitutional Bill. Let me tell your Lordships how it arises. There was a lady, Mrs. Pocock, who lived near Petersfield in Hampshire. She wanted to leave her house for a time and to let it furnished, but she wanted to be sure of being able to get it back when she wanted it for herself or for any of
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her children. The law permits that. The Rent Acts permit it so long as certain requisites are gone through. She gave all the notices and all the necessary requisites. A year or two ago there was a tenant living in the house and Mrs. Pocock wanted it for her son and daughter who were then growing up. She brought proceedings in the county court for possession, relying on all the provisions of this statute being in her favour, but I am afraid the judge refused to give her possession and the Court of Appeal approved and affirmed that position. Mrs. Pocock therefore left the court without getting her cottage and having to pay the costs of the tenant who was occupying it. The tenant is one of the citizens affected by this.
It was in November last year that the Court of Appeal gave that decision in Pocock v. Steel. In a way I do not blame them. I remember those Rent Acts from the old days, the obscurity of them and the amount of trouble we had. The judges then were inclined to blame the trouble on the draftsmen and on your Lordships' House. Lord Justice Scrutton said in 1929—I was in the court and heard him:
"I regret that I cannot order costs to be paid by the draftsmen of the Rent Acts and the Members of the legislature who passed them and are responsible for the obscurity of these Acts".
That is what Lord Justice Scrutton said at that time. I know the Court of Appeal made a mistake when Lord Justice McKinnon said:
"Anybody may be forgiven for making a mistake about this chaotic series of Acts, the horrors of which are prematurely hastening many of the judges to an early grave".
That is what we thought of the Acts in 1928 and 1930 when I was dealing with them all.
I am afraid that history is repeating itself in this case. I fear I must say that I think the Court of Appeal in this case got it wrong, because all depended on little words in the original Act of 1965, that the landlord could get possession if he has occupied the house and let it. Simple words applied also to Mrs. Pocock. She has occupied it and had let it. Then, not in a new Act but in a consolidating Act to make it, as the draftsmen thought, a little easier, they missed out the word "has". Instead of saying "who has occupied", they said, "who occupied". Instead of saying, "who has let", they said, "who let". In a consolidation Act I should have thought that none of us would think that there was any difference at all. I am afraid that the Court of Appeal said that there was a difference and the words in the consolidation Act were said to be clear and to overrule the meaning which had been given in the original Act of 1965.
I fear that in my view the Court of Appeal were wrong. They ought to have gone by the purpose of the legislation and not by the mere literal words of it, on the meaning, on the word "has" being brought in or not. As in an earlier debate this afternoon, how glad I was to hear the Lord Chancellor say that the court should now give a purposive interpretation of the Act and not go by the literal words, following my noble friend Lord Renton's excellent report. That is where the Court of Appeal went wrong.
But is it for me, is it for us, to say that the Court of Appeal were wrong? There is the constitutional point. That case was not appealed to the House of Lords. What this Bill says changes the law. It reverses the case of Pocock v. Steel and says that Mrs. Pocock, if only

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the Court of Appeal had been right, could have got possession. And there it is. It is not only doing that, it is making it retrospective. That is subsection (4). That is the constitutional change. It is making it retrospective so that the law is changed. If a person such as Mrs. Pocock brought an action in the courts now, after this Bill, she would get possession, even though the matter had taken place weeks and months before it was psssed.
It is making it retrospective. That is the important point in this Bill. My noble friend said, "Oh well, we do allow retrospective legislation when it affects the private citizen". Does it not affect the tenant here, the tenant who is being turned out? So it is really, to my mind, a new and important point of retrospective legislation which, for myself, I am glad to see. But I should also like to see this. Could not Mrs. Pocock now in some way get that tenant out? The case was decided against her. I think that the only way that I can see that it could be done is by her applying for leave to appeal to the House of Lords, out of time, or getting leave to go, and getting the position reversed. Then she would not have to pay those costs.
At all events, my Lords, there it is. I am saying all this just to show that we are on an important constitutional point. I wholly welcome the Bill. It is putting the law right. It is changing the law where the Court of Appeal went wrong; and a very good thing that their Lordships should do it. But it is a new thing. It is a new thing, but I am very glad that it is being done.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, from these Benches I should like to give an unqualified welcome to and an appreciation and acceptance of the decision of the Government, who clearly were seized of the arguments that had been advanced in regard to this matter. I believe that they also appreciated the sense of injustice that pervaded the whole situation. I look the noble Lord, Lord Renton, in the eye (in my phrase) and he will appreciate, as I do, how very lucky we are in this House at this moment to have more time than was available in the other place last Friday. I spent a great deal of my time in the other place as a "Friday man" and I know how very rarely this kind of procedure was tolerated by a Government of any colour and by the Whips of either side. There was a natural reticence to allow things to go through literally "on the nod" at all stages. I have read the very short comment and the quite proper remarks of the Speaker drawing the attention of the House to the desire on the part of all parties to make the maximum speed. That is why it literally went through at break-neck speed last Friday.
I think the House is indebted to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, because there will be people outside this place who will be delighted by the decision but who nevertheless will also want to hear the exposition and the arguments backwards and forwards which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, gave and, finally, without any qualification the indication that this was a proper thing. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, used the word "purpose"—the interpretation of the purpose. I had already jotted down the phrase "true intention".
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There may be a difference semantically, but I gathered that what the Minister and his advisers had sought to get the House to agree to and what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, and the noble Lord, Lord Renton, and a great many other people had been seized of was the original purpose or true intention.
I am only sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, is not here because it is only three weeks ago since she raised this very matter here in this House as a Question, and I had the opportunity of drawing the attention of your Lordships to the matter. I can simply say that a good friend of mine, Mrs. Gladys Bunn, who is the principal of an estate agents in Haywards Heath, drew my attention to this question and to the agitation in the area of Haywards Heath because I did not know the quantity—whether they were in tens, hundreds or thousands—of the properties in this category. When she sent me a note of the position she enclosed correspondence from the National Association of Estate Agents. There is no doubt at all from what she told me that this decision, the impact and import of the Bill, will be seen as providing enormous relief and clarifying what had been the past position. The retrospective aspect of it—16th November—is very important indeed. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, and the noble Lord who introduced the Bill quite fairly drew attention not to the uniqueness but to the rarity of Parliament actually taking retrospective action of this kind.
I think that the Member for Hampshire, East is to be commended on his diligence. I believe that he has recognised that if he had not a cause célèbre, he had a very good wicket on which to bat. He has pursued it with vigour and, at the end of the day, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, has dissected and analysed the Bill in parts. I have read it, of course, and it substantially means that the uncertainty and perhaps its effect on the availability of accommodation will not be there in the future in the way it would have been had the ability of the returning landlord to gain possession remained in as much doubt as it was after the decision referred to.
All told, my Lords, I believe that Parliament has acted very wisely. I congratulate the Minister who wrote to me and said clearly that he wanted to put the matter right. He has put it right at the earliest possible moment and I believe that the honourable Member for Hampshire, East deserves our congratulations on co-ordinating matters and demonstrating that his concern for his constituent and many others deserved to be redressed. From this side of the House I certainly give this Bill an unqualified acceptance.
7.49 p.m.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, the Government warmly welcome this Bill which has been so fully, and, may I say, briefly, described by my noble friend Lord Renton. This matter first came to the attention of the House by means of a Starred Question from my noble friend Lady Gardner of Parkes which I was privileged to answer. I promised then on behalf of the Government urgent action to correct a situation which I said at the time (at col. 474 of the Official Report of 3rd May) has arisen because the Court of Appeal has

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overturned the widely accepted view of the effect of Case 11 of Schedule 15 to the Rent Act 1977.
Speaking on behalf of the official Opposition, the noble Lord, Lord Graham, agreed with me at that stage, and obviously he still does from the speech which he has just delivered to the House. I do not know whether the Court of Appeal got it wrong, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, said, but I feel in any event that it would be presumptuous of me in the extreme to comment on that particular aspect of the matter. However, my noble friend Lord Renton's object is to put this matter beyond any doubt, whether in the legal or common sense or anything else, if, saving the face of the noble and learned Lord, I might distinguish between the two adjectives. The noble and learned Lord, from his speech, is obviously convinced that this Bill does precisely that, and of course so am I.
My Lords, today's proceedings, in regard to which Standing Orders have been suspended, are a reflection of the urgency of this matter and I am very pleased that the House agreed to this course earlier today. I therefore thank the House in advance for its co-operation in correcting an anomalous situation, both prospectively and in respect of existing lettings.
I am advised that the element of the Bill which applies retrospectively to existing tenancies is not truly retrospective in the accepted sense of that word, in that the tenants who were given increased rights by Pocock v. Steel and will now have them withdrawn—and this is the important part of what I have to say—never thought that they would have those rights when they accepted the tenancy. I hope that is clear to somebody. My Lords, I fully expect that, if your Lordships pass the Bill today, Royal Assent will not be long delayed.
Lord Renton: My Lords, I would like to thank those noble Lords who have spoken and who have supported this Bill. So far as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, is concerned, I would remind your Lordships that his decisions so often corrected the statute law by filling gaps in it in ways which enabled justice to be done and to be seen to be done. We remember in particular his establishing the innocent wife's right to remain in the matrimonial home. That was an example which Parliament eventually followed—rather the reverse of the present situation. I am glad that he referred to purposive interpretation and that my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor did so earlier today. It is not for me to say whether such an interpretation would necessarily have resulted in a different decision in this case, but certainly "purposive intention", or, as the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, so aptly put it, deciding cases in accordance with the true intention of Parliament is what purposive intention is, and I am grateful for the translation of it which the noble Lord has given me.
My noble and learned friend Lord Denning suggested that Mrs. Pocock might not get the benefit of this Bill, but I suggest, with deep respect and polite hesitation, that she will get the benefit of the retrospective provision in Clause 1(4), because it applies to all cases prior to the Bill, and Mrs. Pocock is not made an exception in the enactment of that clause. So if she finds that she has to take further
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proceedings in court—but I would very much hope that the parties would be reasonable and that she would not have to do so—then she could pray in aid the provisions in subsection (4). That is how I see the matter.
Lord Denning: My Lords, with the leave of your Lordships, perhaps I may say that there is a judgment of the Court of Appeal against Mrs. Pocock and in favour of the tenant. I do not know, unless it is specifically done by this House or by the Bill, that that judgment can be reversed just like that. Therefore, although I have some hesitation, Mrs. Pocock would have to do it by fresh proceedings, or something, or, as I should like it to happen, by agreement, whereby she could get possession now, reverse the order for costs and get costs. But I am not sure that that ought not to be done specifically by this House legislatively, or by an intermediate appeal to the House of Lords. I expect it will all go through by agreement, because if the House of Lords did hear the appeal they would of course apply the present Act and reverse the decision. I only hope that in some way or other Mrs. Pocock will get the decision of the Court of Appeal reversed and get the order for costs in her favour, and not have to pay costs; but the Act does not do it expressly.
Lord Renton: My Lords, my noble friend is quite right in drawing attention to the fact that express words in the statute are needed to overrule the common law or the decision of the courts, but in my respectful submission the terms of subsection (4) of Clause 1 are express. They are abundantly plain for all to see; and where there is that conflict between a recent decision of the court and a recent statute, I would have thought it is beyond doubt that the statute must prevail. However, we must leave that for events to follow.
I am so glad that the question raised by my noble friend Lady Gardner of Parkes was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Graham, and my noble friend Lord Skelmersdale, and I am sure she will be pleased at the prompt action which has been taken.
May I say in conclusion that the passage of this short, necessary Bill through both Houses of Parliament in eight days shows that Parliament, with the aid of Whitehall, can be both efficient and expeditious when necessary. It is unusual for a Private Member's Bill to get through both Houses so very quickly. May I say how grateful I am and how satisfying it is to know that the law can be so quickly and well corrected in a matter which is essentially a human problem.
On Question, Bill read a second time; Committee negatived.
Then, Standing Order No. 44 having been dispensed with (pursuant to Resolution), Bill read a third time, and passed.

Motor-Cycle Crash-Helmets (Restriction of Liability) Bill
7.58 p.m.
Lord Strathcarron: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.

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This Bill is of a non-political nature, and I hope that your Lordships will agree that it is also non-controversial. The Bill relieves from criminal liability the rider or passenger on a motor-cycle for the failure of the other to wear a crash-helmet. It will mean that the rider of a motor-cycle cannot be charged or convicted of aiding and abetting his passenger if the passenger is not wearing a crash-helmet. This would bring motor-cycling into line with the car seat-belt legislation which was passed in 1981.
This legislation stipulates that drivers of cars, although liable to themselves, are not liable if their passengers do not wear a belt. It is fair and just that motor-cyclists should be treated in the same manner. If the Bill is enacted it will still be an offence for anyone to ride on a motor-cycle without a helmet, though passengers in a sidecar are not required by law to wear a helmet. It would be quite feasible for a pillion passenger to remove his or her helmet when the motor-cycle is at rest, or even when it is on the move, without the knowledge of the rider, and to attach it over an arm. So it would be wrong for the rider to be blamed should that happen.
I am very much aware of the dangers affecting very young people who may not understand the helmet regulations. It is right and proper that the rider should be responsible for the safety of such people and be liable in law should they not be wearing a helmet. The Bill puts at 16 the age at which the pillion passenger becomes responsible for his own liability. This is the age when it becomes legal to ride a moped. The rider would certainly know that the helmet must be worn. Sixteen is also the age at common law when parental rights come to an end.
The front seat passenger in a car has a seat belt provided and it could be argued that a motor-cyclist should carry a spare helmet. Some motor-cycles have provision for carrying a helmet, but many do not; and in any case it is almost as dangerous to wear an ill-fitting helmet as it would be not to wear a helmet at all. If the crash-helmet fits well and the strap is done up correctly, it should not be possible to dislodge the helmet forwards, even applying considerable force.
Everyone is concerned at the high accident rate among motor-cyclists. I have always supported motor-cycle training, although I do not agree with all aspects of the present legislation concerning the two-part test. Training teaches the skills of riding motor-cycles safely, but once the test has been passed human nature takes over and most casualties occur in the 16 to 19 age bracket. Those young people are tempted to show how much faster they can ride than their friends or how superior their bike is compared with others, before they have had time to understand road surfaces and to gain general motoring experience.
I have been riding motor-cycles for 45 years and have learned to ride defensively, while still enjoying the freedom from traffic and parking problems which only motor-cycling brings. Experienced motor-cyclists will never ride close to the edge of the road but will ride nearer the centre where they can be seen by drivers emerging from side roads; also, they will never ride in the blind rear quarter of a car, because the driver will not see them. I could continue, but that would not be relevant to the Bill.
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However, it is relevant that although the majority of accidents occur to solo motor-cyclists, in 1983, 75 pillion passengers died. Should this Bill pass through your Lordships' House, I hope that publicity may be given in motor-cycle training schools to the laws relating to the wearing of crash-helmets, and in particular to the fact that the rider will be legally required to see that a pillion passenger under 16 years of age wears a helmet.
This Bill makes the position of motor-cycle riders the same as that of car drivers under the seat belt law, which seems to me to be sensible. I therefore commend this Bill to your Lordships and I beg to move that it be read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Strathcarron.)
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove: My Lords, I think this is a Bill that we are all anxious to have on the statute book and I am sure we are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Strathcarron, for agreeing to aid his honourable friend in another place by introducing this Bill into your Lordships' House and moving its Second Reading today. From my knowledge of the noble Lord, Lord Strathcarron, and from what he has said, few people are better qualified to give an opinion on the desirability of the wearing of crash-helmets by motor-cyclists and pillion riders. In fact, the noble Lord was quite specific about the importance of the riders themselves, as well as their pillion passengers, wearing a properly fitting helmet.
I am sure that the noble Lord's wide experience will be appreciated by those who drive motor-cycles and that they will appreciate his insistence on his recommendation that helmets should be well fitting and properly fitted. There is no doubt that the injury rate in respect of motor-cyclists is extremely high, with roughly 1,000 killed and 20,000 seriously injured every year. Those are fearsome figures, but I am afraid there is no way of stopping people from riding motor-cycles, even if we wanted to do so. As the noble Lord says, it gives a great sense of freedom to ride a motor-cycle and certainly it is something that most young persons would like to do—and particularly young men, if it is permissible to say that these days. They like the idea of owning a motor-cycle and the thrill they get from it.
I was pleased that the Minister and the Committee in another place gave the assurance that the Bill will in no way impede the enforcement of safety helmets legislation. This Bill represents an addition to that legislation. As the noble Lord says, it is asking that the owner or driver of a motor-cycle takes the responsibility for anyone under 16 years of age who takes a pillion ride from him. This can be a defence of young people, in the atmosphere of a group of motor-cyclists themselves, because the motor-cyclist can say, "I would love to take you, but in the absence of your having a proper helmet I am not able to take you". I think that the wheedling way of 14- and 15-year-olds with their slightly older brothers or friends can be very difficult to resist, and for that reason alone I think this Bill is very worthwhile.
It is also worthwhile for many other reasons, particularly the fact that there is no question that wearing a helmet is a great help to safety and may avert

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injuries. In the Committee in another place there were suggestions that injuries could be avoided if a helmet was worn. Because of the extra safety provided by the helmet, many head injuries were avoided, including head injuries that could have been consequential upon other injuries—even a broken neck. There is no doubt that a properly fitted helmet is a great help.
I should like to make one further point on the general question of motor-cyclists in traffic. That was also referred to in the Committee in another place. I am sure that all of us who have recently been driving in London, especially in the last couple of years, have frequently been given rather a start by seeing motor-cyclists weaving in and out of the traffic. I am sure that the motor-cyclists who do this are very capable people but in some cases—and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Strathcarron, when he speaks again, will make some comment on this—the weaving in and out by the motor-cyclists causes distraction to car drivers, particularly in traffic which is moving intermittently; and it could cause drivers to be involved in accidents.
I think this is something that could be included in the training of motor-cyclists. It should be stressed that they as well as the car driver have a responsibility, though I agree that the car driver is in a much more stable position and has the greater responsibility. He should be encouraged to look out for the motor-cycle and the motor-cyclist should be encouraged to be careful. However, I welcome the Bill. I think we all welcome anything that will give additional safety to anyone on the road and particularly to young people using motor-cycles. I commend the Bill to the House and hope that it gets an uninterrupted passage.
Lord Brougham and Vaux: My Lords, my name is not on the list of speakers, but I should like to take a couple of moments of your Lordships' time. I congratulate my noble friend on introducing this measure into the House. It had a fairly easy passage in another place. I am glad to see that they got the age group right, thanks to our friends the RAC. I think that in some of the proposals the age of 21 or 14 was wrong. I think 16 is right.
I think this is a very good measure and if we can protect the head, so much the better, because the head is the most vulnerable part.
8.12 p.m.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I should like to congratulate my noble friend Lord Strathcarron on introducing this Bill. We are fortunate in this House in having his long experience of riding motor-cycles. I do not know whether he came to your Lordships' House this evening on his motor-cycle; he certainly came to my office on it the other morning.
I can say that the Bill has the full support of the Government. Successive Governments have considered that wearing a safety helmet must be required as a matter of law as an essential aid to road safety—a view which the Government wholeheartedly endorse. Nevertheless I fully support my noble friend's argument that there is no good reason why the helmet law should include a facility for bringing aiding and abetting charges against a rider whose pillion passenger fails to wear a helmet. As my noble friend has explained, the only exception is where the offender
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is a child under 16 years of age—a situation which the Bill takes into account. Otherwise, I consider it entirely right that only the person actually committing the helmet offence should be prosecuted for it. This is broadly the position of drivers under the seat belt law and there is no reason why motor-cyclists should be in any different position in respect of safety helmets. I therefore welcome this Bill. It will remove an unnecessary and anomalous feature of the law which is in no way essential to the effective enforcement of the law or to the promotion of road safety, and it will be welcomed by motor-cyclists.
Lord Strathcarron: My Lords, I should like to thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. The noble Lord, Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove, mentioned motor-cycles weaving in and out and frightening everybody. I do so agree with him. I think they are mostly despatch riders and, what is worse, they have blaring radios as well, and often they ride worn out motor cycles emitting clouds of blue smoke. They are rather anti-social, and, though I have been a supporter of motor cyclists all my life, there are ways and means of getting to the front of the traffic quite quietly, without frightening everybody.
My noble friend Lord Brougham mentioned the age of 16 being suitable. I am very pleased that he believes that to be the correct age. I should like to thank my noble friend Lord Brabazon of Tara for his support for the Bill and the help he has given me.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure until half past eight.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
[The sitting was suspended from 8.13 to 8.30 p.m.]

Local Government Bill
House again in Committee.
Baroness Birk Baroness Birk moved Amendment No. 136D:
After Clause 55, insert the following new clause:
("Strategic plan by residuary body.
. The Secretary of State shall by order taking effect on the abolition date make provision for the London Residuary Body and each metropolitan county residuary body to have the function of preparing and from time to time reviewing a strategic plan for Greater London or the metropolitan county, as the case may be, which shall set out general policies for the use and development of land.").
The noble Baroness said: This amendment is concerned with planning. I told the Minister that my noble friend Lady Stedman and I would be moving this amendment and that it is more in the nature of a probing amendment. So, as a result, we are hoping to get a lot of information from the Government.
This is the second time that town planning has been debated in this Committee. However, the first debate came rather in the backwash of the amendment to set up new elected metropolitan authorities, and I think that the ensuing excitement and victory on the one

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hand, and the distress by four votes on the other, rather took the edge off the planning amendment and I do not think it received the attention it deserved from the Committee generally. Therefore we felt that the Government's intentions deserved much deeper exploration.
Despite everything that has been said, this is still a very confused subject. Let us look at this new system which is proposed for London and the metropolitan counties after 1986, which is the whole core of what we are trying to find out. The Bill does two things. First, it abolishes the metropolitan county planning authorities; and, secondly, it changes the planning system for almost 40 per cent. of the country's population. The present system has existed for 20 years in London and for over 11 years in the metropolitan counties. Over that time, it has been developed and refined, and although no one would claim that it is perfect—far from it—it is a system which is established and effective, and indeed it has been copied by many other countries in the world.
As recently as last year, after a long period of consultation, the Department of the Environment published its Circular 22/84 which advises local authorities how to draw up their structure and local plans. I had intended at this point to wave it at your Lordships, because it really is a thick document. I think that the Minister has a copy and perhaps he will wave it and show your Lordships how thick it is. It is a definitive and weighty document. Yet within two months of its publication in September 1984, the Government set about recasting the whole planning system in our larger cities.
So this is now the situation. Dorset, Cumbria and Norfolk, being shires, will still have a two-tier planning system as outlined in the circular, but we are still in the dark about the precise arrangements for London and our larger cities, which situation creates a lot of problems and a tremendous amount of uncertainty. There is considerable concern not only in this Committee, but also among professional bodies outside. Criticism of the Bill's plans for planning has been expressed on all sides of the Committee since the first day. The noble Lord, Lord Plummer, attacked the proposals vigorously; the noble Lord, Lord Broxbourne, and the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, had strong reservations and the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, transmitted the concern of the counties around London about the proposals in the Bill.
If, as I imagine he is, the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, is to speak on this matter tonight, I hope that he will be able to make the position clearer and plainer to people who are not so well versed in planning law as he is. I often find it so very difficult to follow him, so I assume that he must be right, but perhaps I am not always right about that. On one occasion, I think he said that the Government were two-thirds right, and I tried to fathom out which third they were wrong about.
Certainly the Government's confidence that the Bill's proposals for strategic planning are adequate is, I am afraid, shared by very few. When proposing major constitutional change, which is what this Bill is all about, it is incumbent upon the Government to ensure that the new system which they are setting up
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improves on the old and that we move forward. This must certainly apply in the field of planning, which is a very difficult and complicated one. However, what is proposed at the moment not only is not improving the system, but is making it very much worse. It will be a retrograde step for strategic planning, since it fragments the present arrangements and places undue powers in the hands of the Secretary of State.
The essential weakness of what is proposed lies in the absence of a single statutory plan for each metropolitan area. The amendment seeks to rectify this, by requiring the residuary body in each area to produce a strategic plan. I know the feelings of the Committee about the residuary bodies, and I am not suggesting that this is a catalyst, about which we had a great deal of discussion on the last amendment; but this is the only opportunity left to us at Committee stage to secure the retention of a strategic planning function. That is the important point. By whichever means it is achieved, that is really the objective.
The amendment would result first, in seven strategic plans instead of 69, which of course is counting the boroughs and the districts together. Secondly, the Secretary of State would not be required to produce strategic guidance—I shall return to that in a moment—thus saving his time and his involvement in local matters. The obverse is that it would save local communities having the central hand of the Secretary of State interfering in their affairs.
The bodies which will be involved in land use planning, the 69 district and borough councils, the new waste authorities, the new passenger transport authorities and the various existing and new quangos, will be better co-ordinated. There will also be continuity with the existing system, and the present work being undertaken on structure plan reviews will be carried forward into the new arrangements and not lost, as indeed they will be lost under the Bill as it stands at present.
Finally, the amendment would retain the essential expertise for planning research and data of the existing metropolitan authorities. We have just been discussing an amendment which took in research and I know that the Minister referred frequently to Amendment No. 140A. I shall not pre-empt discussion on that but I really do not think that it provides the necessary or adequate answers.
There are many unanswered questions about the arrangements for planning in this Bill. Chief among these is the mysterious animal called "strategic guidance", which makes only one brief appearance in Schedule 1. I believe that this is the first time it has ever appeared in legislation, although the phrase may have been used in a more informal manner; but there it is in this little paragraph in Schedule 1. Certainly it has been hiding its light under the weight of the Bill.
What this guidance consists of is, I am afraid, still the 64,000 dollar question which I am rather hoping the Minister will be able to answer tonight. What is clear, however, is that the strategic guidance, whatever it may turn out to be, will be the monoploy of the Secretary of State. The guidance may be brief, and I think I am right in saying that the noble Viscount rather hoped it would be—I believe he said so on a previous occasion; if I am wrong, he will no doubt tell me so—in which case I ask: will it be adequate?
The guidance may be detailed—and I think there is a certain amount of feeling against that—in which case, may I ask: are there the resources and skills available now in the Department of the Environment? I rather doubt it, due to the running down of the department and also of its regional offices, which seem strangely empty compared with how they were some years ago when I visited them. It may vary from place to place. Therefore, will this not expose the Minister, the Secretary of State, to charges of unevenness and unfairness? I am certainly not blaming the Minister here for any of this.
If the strategic guidance is to mean anything at all then there are certain criteria which it must fulfil. It must consider the transport network in each conurbation and how it will shape the whole urban area. It must allocate land for waste disposal in one district or borough in order to meet the needs of others. It must ensure a consistent approach for planning river valleys, moorland or similar areas which cross district or borough boundaries. It must make decisions about the fair distribution of shopping areas. It must provide for the correct areas of land for industry or offices. It must preserve a consistent approach to the green belt. It must direct resources to our inner cities. It must balance the needs for minerals against environmental problems. It must provide certainty for the private sector if we are to get the best use of the investment resources available. In other words, it seems to me that what we want are again structure plans. We do not want to see them go. They are what we need and want.
I would remind the Minister that the criteria which I have spelt out are all contentious issues on which people do express and will continue to express strong opinions. If all these issues and many others are to be dealt with adequately, then the guidance will have to be detailed, it will have to be specified and therefore likely to lead to controversy and debate between interested parties. This is perfectly proper and has always gone on. Indeed, the guidance would be of little use if it were not controversial, because the guidance would be asked for only if there were some dispute or something that could not be solved without going to the Secretary of State for his strategic guidance.
However, this in turn means that the Secretary of State will require a team of professionally qualified staff to collect and sift information, analyse options, consider views expressed by third parties and give advice on the form of strategic guidance. But as I have pointed out, the department does not have, and is unlikely to have, sufficient staff in terms of numbers, skills or experience to produce the kind of guidance which will be necessary. After all, we have been told that one of the purposes of the Bill is to cut down on expenditure and to cut down, presumably, on resources, including staff. I think that is set out at the end of the preamble to the Bill. Nor do the planning commission proposed for London or the planning conferences proposed elsewhere really meet the demands that will be put on them. In contrast, we must remember that these are precisely the resources which exist at the moment in the GLC and the metropolitan counties.
I am not arguing for a retention of the GLC as it is or of the metropolitan counties—there are no doubt
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many ways in which they could all be improved—but what I am very concerned about is that we are moving into a situation where what is proposed will all be very much more inadequate and very much less effective than the planning system is at the moment. It will create a great many problems, and I think it is our job in this Chamber to see how we can not only elucidate what it is that the Government have in mind, but try to improve it and solve some of these knotty problems which are present and just will not go away.
In conclusion, I come back to the need for a strategic plan. Strategic guidance tucked away in Schedule 1 is not sufficient. In truth, arrangements should be made for the other elements of the strategic planning service; but, as the noble Viscount, Lord Esher, said on an earlier amendment on the third day of the Committee stage. I am proposing this amendment as an exercise in damage limitation. I beg to move.
Baroness Stedman: I should like to support this amendment which has been moved so ably by the noble Baroness.
Lord Elton: I am left in some doubt by the noble Baroness, who had led me earlier to suppose that this was a probing amendment. She addressed it as a probing amendment to start with but, as she became wound up towards the end, it became clearer and clearer that she really thought that it was a great improvement on the Bill.
Baroness Birk: I do.
Lord Elton: Oh, the noble Baroness does. I should just like to know, that is all. I do not agree with the noble Baroness.
Baroness Birk: It is an improvement on the Bill. I am not misleading the Minister. I am not going to press it to a Division, but as I think that most things would be an improvement on the Bill, it would be awfully difficult for me to speak about the Bill without saying something improving.
Lord Elton: The noble Baroness took elegant advantage of the opportunity I gave her, but I understand what she means.
8.45 p.m.
Baroness Stedman: In supporting this amendment, perhaps I may also say that it is only a probing amendment at this stage and we do not propose to divide the House. With my noble friend Lord Esher, I put down a series of amendments to Clause 3 earlier in the Committee stage. We listened carefully to the Minister's reply before we withdrew them to decide what we would do on Report. This amendment is really designed to elicit more information from the Government to help us to make that decision. I hope the Minister will accept that we are genuinely worried about the planning situation after abolition.
I see a very real need for co-ordination between the various public bodies which are involved in the development and the use of land in London and in the metropolitan counties. As it now stands, the Bill allows the districts or borough councils, the passenger

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transport authorities, the waste disposal authorities and the Historic Buildings Commission all to make important decisions about the use of land. How will this be co-ordinated? Is this what the strategic guidance will attempt to do?
When the strategic planning authorities were set up following the earlier reorganisations, it was understood that one of their most important functions would be the co-ordination of land use and transport decisions, that they would try to ensure that roads would be planned to avoid wholesale upheaval of people in their homes and established communities, and that new buildings and areas would be located convenient to the local traffic and public transport routes and vice versa. What will happen in the future? Will it all be left to voluntary co-operation; or is the Minister thinking of some kind of adequate mechanism which will ensure that these relationships are kept in the future?
Is he satisfied that the district and the borough councils will readily agree voluntarily about the priorities for road building and that they will readily agree with the waste disposal authority about the need for and the location of waste disposal sites? Is the Minister quite sure that the good sense of local authorities will lead them to put aside their own often legitimate forms of local anxieties to achieve that sort of co-operation over the area as a whole? Or does it really mean that the Minister will be drawn more and more into local disputes which are outside his normal remit?
I believe that the Minister is in danger of being drawn into local disputes over the competing uses of land. If so, how will he reconcile his position as an independent arbiter on plans and planning appeals and as the person responsible for drawing up the strategic guidance on which the new planning system will be founded? At the moment, as I understand it, the Minister issues guidance either by nationwide circulars or on a regional basis. This guidance is of a general nature and is not pre-empting any of the policy decisions.
The strategic decisions at county level are at the moment left to the county councils. In future, that guidance will have to be given for counties and perhaps for their immediate surroundings. That guidance will need to be much more locally orientated and to tackle the potentially controversial problems of where investment should be encouraged and where it should be restrained. This means, if the Secretary of State takes his new responsibilities seriously, he must be involved in local issues at the formative stage of policy making. How, then, can he sit in judgment over disagreements between the planning authorities themselves and among the planning authorities, the landowners and the developers? Having set the policies himself, how can he hope to be seen as an impartial judge able to settle the disputes?
I believe the Minister has a very important national role, and he should not become occupied with local matters. That is what I feel will happen when he has no county council, or its equivalent, to act as a capable intermediary between himself and the local planning authorities.
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At an earlier stage the noble Lord, Lord Molson, raised the need to examine strategic guidance in a proper manner. If strategic guidance is to mean anything at all it must be open to challenge so that it can be tested and eventually accepted by those who have to follow it, or even by those who may be directly affected by it. Would it not be possible to subject the guidance for London and the metropolitan counties to some kind of inquiry, or examination, before it is finally issued to the local planning authorities? Am I right in thinking that it seems likely that the examination of guidance will have to await the preparation of Part I of the first unitary plan in each area?
Let us assume that the strategic guidance can be altered after the examination of an emerging unitary plan. What will happen if it remains unaltered after the examination of, perhaps, the first four unitary plans in an area but that it is still found wanting at the fifth examination? Let us assume that that guidance is then altered as a consequence. What is the consequence for the four earlier plans that were within the guidance? Will they have to be revised? In a similar manner, if the strategic guidance can be altered after examination, should the production of all the unitary plans in a county be halted whenever one of them is subject to examination in case the strategic context or guidance has to be changed again? That would surely be quite intolerable, and it strongly suggests to me that guidance ought to be produced and examined for the county as a whole in one process.
All in all, the situation will be a difficult one for the Minister. It is a situation which will introduce great complexity and confusion in the process. The sensible way to cut through all this would be to have a single authority in each county responsible for drawing up, issuing and reviewing a straightforward strategic plan. But will it be acceptable to landowners and to other interested bodies to have to wait for an examination in public into a unitary plan before they can challenge the Secretary of State's strategic guidance in an independent forum?
The strategic guidance that is to be issued by the Minister may suggest land release in very broad terms in a particularly sensitive area. Although interested bodies can make representations to the Minister, they are wholly dependent on the Minister's judgment of the rights and wrongs of the matter. There is no independent hearing for their case at this stage and there is no appeal against the Minister's decision. This must wait, we presume, until the examination of the local authority's unitary plan, which relies on that same ministerial guidance. Unless the Minister decides to call in Part I of that unitary plan for separate examination, anyone concerned could have to wait a very long time for the detailed preparation of the entire unitary plan before he could even start to challenge the underlying assumptions or guidance. This could mean waiting one or two years, and perhaps even longer, during which time the uncertainty over what is proposed will linger on, with all the debilitating effects of blight this can have on landowners and others.
That is the kind of delay and uncertainty which flows from the complexity of the proposed system. Surely it would be better to have the guidance properly

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examined as a whole at the time that it is to be issued. That would not only be fairer, but it would give some legitimacy to its content. It would also smooth the way for unitary plan production. We need answers and clarification on these points, and we need to be assured that the proposed planning arrangements will be an improvement on the present ones.
Baroness Vickers: I should like to say a few words on this subject, and in particular to deal with minerals. Minerals play a very important part in our national life. They are required for the erection of buildings and for new roads, and some for use in manufacturing industry. It is, therefore, essential that adequate supplies are made available to satisfy the national need.
Minerals can be worked only from where they exist in the ground. Therefore, it is essential that not only should there be proper planning of their development and of their use, but also that these factors should relate to those concerning the protection of the environment. Some years ago regional aggregates working parties were set up covering England and Wales. These working parties consist of representatives from the minerals industry and the county planning authorities. Their duties are to prepare overall regional guidelines as to the amount of land required for mineral extraction within their region, and for this information then to be broken down to the county level. The regional working parties reflect the national guidelines, which have been endorsed by the Secretary of State for the Environment.
This method of co-operation has been found to be successful so far as the minerals industry and the county planning authorities are concerned. It has been a successful story of co-ordination to ensure that adequate provision for future workings has been prescribed at the county level.
The proposals contained in the Bill are to fragment the minerals planning authorities, which are the county councils in the metropolitan areas, and in future minerals planning will be undertaken by borough or district councils in their areas. This will be unsatisfactory in that at this level of local government there will be an insufficient breadth of responsibility to take full account of strategic considerations in relation to the supply and demand of minerals. At the district level it is expected that the councils will see their role as protecting local interests. Political pressures are likely to weigh heavily on council members, who will be too close to the problems which arise in relation to minerals developments, and the chances of the overall approach to the regional guidelines on a county-wide cohesive plan will not follow.
The need for overall planning at county level is fundamental if the minerals industry is to be given a proper opportunity of developing to meet the needs of the country. Furthermore, technical expertise to deal with minerals planning is unlikely to be available, and the present county teams of experts which have been built up over a number of years will be broken up.
In the last decade the Government commissioned two reports to deal with minerals planning—Stevens and Verney. Both of these reports said that minerals
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planning should be carried out at the county level, and the Government, together with the previous Administration, agreed with the contents of those reports dealing with this matter. I should like to know what has changed. So far as the minerals industry is concerned it clearly wishes to see an overall view taken in respect of its activities; and from the planning authority's point of view it is only possible to achieve this in the long term if they are prepared on a wider basis than the district council areas and with the proper technical expertise.
9 p.m.
In the debate in the House of Commons on this Bill Sir George Young, speaking for the Government, said:
"I accept that it will be necessary for some authorities to operate within a wider overall framework depending on the minerals in their areas".
It is essential that all authorities operate within a wider overall framework. This framework exists at the present time through the regional aggregates working parties and the present county councils which in the area of which I am speaking are seven in number and are the mineral planning authorities.
If there is to be continuing and satisfactory minerals planning in England and in the metropolitan areas in particular, it is essential that the work of deciding planning applications for minerals development, together with the planning of the release of future minerals resources, should take place at county level, and the proposals put forward by the three chartered institutes, the Royal Town Planning Institute, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and the Royal Institute of British Architects, should be supported. They have all supported what I am now saying, and I shall say no more about their documents, but I hope that the Minister will be able to give me a satisfactory answer.
Viscount Colville of Culross: I think that by her choice of the subject of mineral planning my noble friend Lady Vickers has perhaps illustrated rather well the way in which we should be looking at this question. Perhaps in order to simplify matters, I may confine myself to the question of sand and gravel aggregates, because this is perhaps a slightly easier subject and one which may be familiar to a number of Members of the Committee.
Perhaps I may come back to that in a moment and first address some of the rather more general points that the two noble Baronesses opposite have made. I would suspect—I do not know what my noble friend will say about this—that they have painted a very black picture and one which draws extensively upon the worst possible case. I think, moreover, with the greatest respect to them—and both noble Baronesses are very experienced in central and local government—that they have perhaps failed to appreciate what has been going on in the field of planning since effectively it was invented, or at any rate perhaps perfected, by the party opposite as a result of a good deal of homework by all parties and came to fruition in the 1947 Act.

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The noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, must, I think, differentiate between the positive planning function of preparing development plans, to use a very broad word, and the negative function of implementing planning control within the confines of those plans afterwards. It is no use saying that it is impossible for the Secretary of State to be involved in the preparation of positive plans because he is going to have to act as the court of appeal on the negative planning issues on purely local matters at the stage when a planning application has been submitted and has been refused, called in or failed to be resolved. One must not confuse those two issues, because it has been inherent that there are those two functions ever since the beginning, and there has not been proved to be any discrepancy between the two roles that the Secretary of State has in that respect.
Let us therefore concentrate on what I think the amendment is directed to, which is the positive planning function. Let us take just a glimpse into history. When this was first introduced the development plans that were produced for the positive planning purposes were extremely elaborate Ordnance Survey-based documents, the inquiries into which took months and months and were enormously elaborate to the extent that every square inch of the countryside was looked at and ultimately decided upon in some particularly contentious areas. The party opposite in 1968 decided that that was so laborious a process that not only was it in itself unproductive but it had led to such colossal delays that the strategic side of it must be simplified and turned into what we now know as the structure plan.
Going back to the role of the Secretary of State, according to my recollection, when this process began, although it must have been apparent to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government that it had to do something to co-ordinate the various county or county borough development plans as they came forward, they came forward at a slow and inconsistent rate. I do not remember in the early days anything particular being issued by way of guidance for larger areas. It started to come in the shape of circulars such as the one on green belts in 1955 when the concept which obviously comprised an area much bigger than any of the individual planning authorities began to be put forward and eventually became implemented by virtue of amendments to development plans. But when it came to structure plans in the 1970s and more recently the whole idea developed very much more rapidly, and my noble friend Lord Sandford knows all about this.
It has been abundantly plain that, whether organised as a group of county boroughs—and the noble Baroness, Lady Fisher, can tell me how many county boroughs there were in the West Midlands County Council; I think probably 10 or 11 at the end of the day after Solihull had been added—or whether done in the form of the Greater London Council and the surrounding home counties, or in any other shape or form, there was a tier of strategic planning which exceeded the limits of any of the individual local authorities, and it is bound to be so.
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The result of that was that when one looked—let us perhaps stay with the West Midlands for the moment—at either a group of county borough development plans in the West Midlands or the West Midlands metropolitan county council structure plan later on, there was no way in which one could avoid looking at what was going to happen in Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Staffordshire and any other immediately adjoining county—I cannot think of another one at the moment, but perhaps Shropshire can be added—which might be affected. Therefore at the stage of dealing with major issues of strategy—for instance, the green belt which inevitably goes outside the areas of urban authorities, whether they be county councils or any other sort of local authority—you got on to a scale which exceeded the areas of any one of those.
It is very true that the guidance which has been given by the Department of the Environment on regional planning, whether it is in the South-East, the West Midlands or anywhere else, has been very general in its concept. Nevertheless, it has set the pattern on exactly the sort of thing which the noble Baronesses opposite have mentioned; for instance, transport, the requirement for a sufficient stock of housing land, opportunities to bring in employment, the green belt and other matters of that sort which have been of a general regional nature. This has been prepared hitherto not by diktat of the department, as I understand it, but by a series of consultations in which all the local authorities concerned, and not just the metropolitan councils, the GLC or whatever it may be, have been involved. Indeed, in the South-East it has been formalised to some extent under SERPLAN, which is chaired by my noble friend Lord Sandford. However, that is a very much larger concept than just the GLC.
We then come to the point made by the noble Baroness, that if the Secretary of State is going to be involved in this supra-local-authority exercise which co-ordinates a policy for an entire region, he may find himself, at some stage or another, with a Part I of a unitary plan or, for all I know, a revision of a structure plan by a county council outside one of the metropolitan areas which does not necessarily conform to the propositions that he has put forward. Does that matter?
I have to remind noble Lords and noble Baronesses opposite that there are other issues of this kind where the Government put forward a proposition on their own account, and where they are ultimately the confirming authority and where they have to take part in public inquiries and where nowadays, fortunately, they have to come along and make their case pretty strongly in the form of evidence by a senior official of the department. I think I need mention only two examples. One is a centre line order for a major trunk road, or a special road such as a motorway, where the whole matter is prepared and ultimately confirmed by the Department of Transport. These are well-known forms of inquiry. They have been refined very greatly. Nevertheless, the basic proposition is that it is the department which initiates the matter, the department which ultimately confirms it and the department

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which is there at the inquiry, trying to justify what it has said is its preferred choice.
An even more stark example occurs. It has not occurred very recently but I remember a number of such examples. It is when the Department of the Environment, as it now is, designates an area for a new town. That is wholly a matter for the Secretary of State. It is for him to confirm or not to confirm, as he thinks fit. Nevertheless, the statutory procedure, which dates back to the legislation of the party opposite and has not really been altered very much since, has been made to work perfectly well. What happens is that, at the inquiry into the draft designation order, a senior official of the department has to go to the public inquiry and justify his case. He is asked a number of questions. He may have rather a rough time. Sometimes the result of it all is that for one reason or another the designation order is not confirmed and there is either no new town or no extension to the new town.
There is nothing new about this. This has all been going on perfectly well since the war. It may be a delicate British balance. It may be a constitutional oddity for the rest of the world. However, in central and local government in this country we are very familiar with it.
I think that is all that is being put forward in this Bill, perhaps with one exception. I said that we needed to look at history. Very well; we reached the stage of the structure plans. However, now, except I think in West Yorkshire, there are confirmed, and in some cases I think reviewed, structure plans for all the metropolitan counties. I hear utterings that suggest not all. At any rate there are a very large number of them. It is most unlikely that regional policies will be such as to require major upheavals in those structure plans when they come to be reviewed.
The new unitary plan authorities which appear under this Bill will take over the broad and confirmed structure, so far as it relates to their area, of the previous structure plan. All they will have to do is to review it. There may be issues which are new and which require a good deal of consultation. However, I do not see that they will be so fantastically difficult or novel that they should frustrate the entire process of a review of the plan within the broad boundaries of what has previously been decided upon in the confirmed structure plan that exists.
If there are new issues that come along, then, as I believe the situation to be, there will be wide consultation at a stage before the strategic guidance is prepared. The Department of the Environment will not suddenly emerge from a cloud with a tablet upon which is written the strategic guidance. It will have had a great number of consultations with all the local authorities before that stage is reached. For all I know—and I believe this happens now—there will be an opportunity for anybody who so wishes to comment upon drafts of it. Thus, when it appears, it will not be wholly unaltered from the original ideas because it will have been the recipient of a good deal of consultation and possibly change as a result.
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Thus I do not understand why it is that this is all going to be difficult. There may be technical problems about the co-ordination of Part I of the unitary plan. I take the point of the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, on that. But it will be possible, I believe, for this to be foreseen from afar because the consultations must have thrown up some indication that there is going to be a difficulty in a particular area. If there is a Part I of a unitary development plan where the local authority decides that it will go in the teeth of the strategic guidance, I do not necessarily see any harm arising. It will be an occasion when the department has to justify what it has agreed with everyone else. It may, or may not, succeed in doing so at the examination in public. This issue, no doubt, is one that will be chosen for examination in public.
I believe, however, that having got to where we are, with a system evolving in the way that it has, and with the whole concept of strategic guidance already firmly built into it, we can take this in and incorporate it into the unitary plan concept and into the methods of preparing it in a way that will not only not be slower but, I strongly suspect, will be quicker than it has been done hitherto.
My noble friend will correct me to the extent that I am wrong, if I have got anything right at all, but I hope that this time I have succeeded in explaining the matter as I, at least, see it to those who did not understand me last time. I also hope that I have explained why I envisage that it will work.
9.15 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: I should like to make two short points. All noble Lords must be grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, and also to the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, who have raised some important questions. These will no doubt require considerable consideration before definitive answers can be given to many of them. The substance of the amendment—I realise that it is a probing amendment and I raise this purely in a irenic spirit—is open to objection because the argument in support assumes a permanent retention of the residuary bodies. Secondly, the mandatory duty to set out general policies for use and development of land is inconsistent with only giving guidance if asked, which was the way the argument was put by the noble Baroness, Lady Birk. It transcends what is requisite for co-ordination and is therefore an unnecessary interference with the devolved power.
The aspect of co-ordination, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, spoke, is common ground. On any showing this warrants serious attention. As I understand it—I am open to correction if I am wrong—my noble friend Lord Elton specifically undertook, in relation to Amendment No. 19, to give serious consideration to this aspect of the matter, saying in terms that it could be pursued with some profit.
Lord Sandford: I can perhaps mention in that connection that my noble friend on the Front Bench and I are meeting tomorrow to pursue Amendment No. 19. As soon as we have done so, I have it in mind

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to send a letter to those Members of the Committee who have been taking an interest in strategic planning with a copy of the draft regional guidance that has been prepared by SERPLAN and now out for consultation among the member authorities. This means, I hope, that when we reach Report stage all of us will have had a look at a sample of the kind of thing we are talking about.
I should like to confirm what my noble friend Lord Colville has said. When Members of the Committee see the document and know that the 12 home counties, which are the structure plan authorities outside London, and the 98 district councils in the home counties, which are the development plan authorities, can participate quite conveniently in working out this document, I do not see that there will be any great difficulty in regard to the 32 London boroughs which are becoming structure plan authorities and which are already development plan authorities being able to participate in much the same sort of way. I shall be in touch with noble Lords on that point after our meeting tomorrow.
Lord Elton: It is not often that a Minister at the Dispatch Box has the agreeable feeling that, thanks to the support of members of his party behind him, his presence is really superfluous. I shall therefore not detain your Lordships very long, though I am slightly wounded by the pleasure with which that statement is received.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: Not intended.
Lord Elton: The noble Baroness will be relieved to learn that what I am holding is not the document that she has in mind. What I have is a blank pad on which I send urgent messages asking for answers to the difficult questions that she puts to me. I am sorry that she felt at the beginning of this evening that she was still in the dark because I think that we covered most of this ground carefully at an earlier Committee sitting. However, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for being in the dark because she spurred my noble friend Lord Colville to elucidate much more clearly than I could—and, in almost every respect, absolutely accurately—what is contained in the Bill.
I shall therefore pick out just a few points. First, I shall deal with the matters raised by the noble Baroness, who was concerned about the memorandum, Circular 22/84, and that so soon after it was sent out—and it was a great thick document which I do not have in my hand any more than the noble Baroness does—we began dismantling those parts of it which apply to the abolition areas. We issued the memorandum in order to establish proper procedures throughout the country. The reason we are now rejigging those parts which deal with the abolition areas is that we are restructuring local government. It would have been wrong to delay the one in order to allow the completion of the other.
There will be a parallel memorandum for the procedures in Greater London and the metropolitan areas, but Circular 22/84 will continue to apply
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without change in the shire counties. Even in Greater London and the metropolitan county council areas, sections 1, 4 and 5 of the existing memorandum will continue to apply. The difference is that the procedures described in section 2, which deals with structure plans, and in section 3, which deals with local plans, will be telescoped. We believe that this is a very important improvement for those areas. It is one-stop planning for one-tier local planning authorities and, as my noble friend has said, that will be quicker than what we have at present.
Part 2 of a UDP will include all the local plans. The strategic guidance is not a substitute for structure plans. As I have tried to explain previously, Part 1 of the UDP performs that function. The guidance will certainly cover matters like the future provision needed for housing. However, the essence of the Government's approach is that the guidance will be worked up from the bottom in consultation with the boroughs and the districts. The Secretary of State will work with the boroughs and the districts, and it is not anticipated that many staff will be needed.
I planned to say quite a lot about the lack of conflict between the concept of the Secretary of State being involved early, as the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, would have it, and not getting into a situation where he had tainted his judgment on appeal, as the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, thought he might have done. However, my noble friend Lord Colville dealt with that matter with great lucidity and pointed out that it is really all exactly the same, and will be the same under the Bill, as it was when both noble Baronesses were in office operating the system. That must be the most reasssuring comment that I can make to them.
My noble friend Lady Vickers asked about the future of regional aggregates working parties. The Government intend—I was going to say the "RAWPs"—the R-A-W-Ps to continue with borough and district representation, but I can reassure her that we do not intend that representation to swamp the existing membership. Wider minerals planning issues will be covered in the strategic guidance of which I have spoken, and that will provide the overview for which my noble friend asked.
I have with me a rather workmanlike speech about how all this will work. However, I honestly think that, if your Lordships read Hansard, you would be better advised to read what is already in it rather than what I might be tempted to add.
Baroness Birk: There were a number of points that I wanted to take up, but they were mainly points that were raised by the noble Viscount. He talked about how the Secretary of State had issued guidance for areas when he was in the territory of my noble friend who sits behind me—the area of the West Midlands. When he spoke about the Secretary of State's guidance, a great deal of what he was saying was really being done by the West Midlands County Council and the forum of county councils. However, that is by the way.
Viscount Colville of Culross: I am sorry, it is not. I have the document. It was specifically issued to all the

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local authorities in the West Midlands by the Secretary of State and it dealt with the sort of things I mentioned. It was not a West Midlands County Council document; it was a regional planning guidance document.
Baroness Birk: The work in the past had been done by the West Midlands County Council, unless we are talking about two different areas of work. Perhaps we should sort that matter out afterwards. I do not think that strategic guidance is firmly built into the present system, but structure plans are built in. I thank the Minister for his reply. We have given the subject another airing. I do not think that we have had a great meeting of minds on it, but in view of the time and the number of amendments still to follow on, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 56 agreed to.
Clause 57 [Redundancies and compensation payments]:
Lord Elton Lord Elton moved Amendment No. 136E:
Page 40, line 14, at end insert—
("( ) With a view to reducing the cases in which redundancy payments will fall to be made to such persons as are mentioned in subsection (1) above the Secretary of State may make a scheme for the making of payments by the residuary bodies to employers offering such persons employment which, by virtue of sections 84, 94 and 95 of the said Act of 1978, will preclude their becoming entitled to redundancy payments.").
The noble Lord said: This rather technically worded amendment disguises a proposal intended to improve the job prospects of GLC and MCC employees. We recognise that there could be scope for a voluntary early retirement—or VER—scheme in connection with abolition. There is support for such a scheme outside this House. The staff commission has indicated that such a scheme could be helpful in reducing the number of GLC or MCC employees who would otherwise be left without a new job to go to at abolition, and my right honourable friend the Minister for Local Government and I have also been much influenced by the ideas on this front put to us by the representatives of the West Midlands branch of NALGO.
The Government have accepted the case put to them by the commission and the West Midlands NALGO representatives. We agree that it would be in everybody's interest if a VER scheme were set up. It would help those who so wished to stop working, and by enabling those younger than themselves to remain in employment it would minimise the number of redundancies. Such a scheme needs careful prepara-tion, and even more it needs the support and commitment of the parties to it.
We shall therefore be writing shortly to both unions and employers inviting views on our proposals, and that is why what we propose at this stage is an enabling power. It will allow the Secretary of State to make a scheme for a residuary body which has been saved the expense of redundancy compensation to make a contribution to the costs of the authority allowing the related early retirement.
The authorities already have the power to let staff go early and to recruit the replacement staff they need. This amendment would provide the one missing piece in the powers available; it is the fruit of trade union members who have been prepared to talk to the Government, and it will benefit their colleague. I beg to move.
Lord Rochester: Perhaps I may say a word about this new clause, for it is the clause to which the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, referred briefly last night when my noble friend Lord Winstanley put forward an amendment, seeing the need for early retirement schemes and enhanced pension benefit. My noble friend was sufficiently impressed then with what the noble Earl had to say to feel that when he had been able to read Hansard—an exercise which has not yet been possible, for these exchanges took place at about midnight last night—he would be in a better position to determine whether or not he would wish to return to the subject at a later stage. He will now have the benefit of being able to read also what the noble Lord, Lord Elton, has had to say. My initial reaction, for what it is worth, is that this is a helpful clause. For the moment therefore I am happy to receive it with a tentative welcome.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 57, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 58 to 60 agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 137 and 137A not moved.]
Clauses 61 to 65 agreed to.
9.30 p.m.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Earl Cathcart): Before calling Amendment No. 137AA, I should inform your Lordships that if it is agreed I cannot call Amendments Nos. 137B, 137134 and 137BB.
Clause 66 [Precepts]:
Lord Barnett Lord Barnett moved Amendment No. 137AA:
Page 47, line 14, leave out subsections (4) to (6).
The noble Lord said: The purpose of this amendment is to exclude the proposed joint authority from the rate-capping provisions of the Rates Act 1984. Before I go any further, I should like to make it clear at the outset that I very much agree with the need to control local government expenditure. The more that is spent on local authorities the less there is for other public expenditure, regardless of whatever the total may be; that is to say, within any given total, the Government, regardless of the figure, must be concerned that the total should not be uncontrolled because it could leave less for public expenditure that any government may consider to have a much higher priority both socially and economically. For example a government may wish to spend more, as it should at the present time, on the National Health Service or capital expenditure in terms of public investment, but these are bound to be restrained if local authority expenditure, no matter how good, has already pre-empted that level of public expenditure.
The Earl of Gowrie: Hear, hear!
Lord Barnett: I hope the noble Earl will say "hear, hear" from now on, because that is rather different from what he said the other day—in my absence, unfortunately. In col. 166 of Hansard on 30th April, he quoted from my book Inside the Treasury—I am grateful to him—where he said:
"The intellectual basis to the policy"—
that is, the policy of the Government—
"is argued brilliantly and cogently on page 90 of the book, Inside the Treasury, written by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury in the previous Labour Government".
Lord Boyd Carpenter: Hear, hear!
Lord Barnett: I am obliged to the noble Lord for saying "Hear, hear", but the noble Earl got it wrong on two counts. For that public statement he has written a personal apology to me for getting the page wrong, but he got more than the page wrong, as I have already suggested. He was referring to page 76 of the book.
I am not ungrateful to him for his constant references to my book—published by Andre Deutsch, price £9.95—and for the fact that he told me that the Prime Minister keeps it by her bedside I am equally grateful. But he got it completely wrong because he was attempting, in reply to my noble friend Lord Stewart, to argue that what I said on that page gave intellectual support—intellectual support, if you do not mind—to the arguments that he was putting forward on rate capping. The noble Earl will correct me if I am wrong, but that is what he was arguing. There is no where on page 76 or anywhere else in that chapter that said anything whatsoever in support of the need to have rate capping or anything that is in this Bill or any other Bill that this Government have introduced.
The Earl of Gowrie: I am grateful to the noble Lord. Neither of us I think has the text of the sacred work in front of us. Nevetheless, the phrase that I was referring to was in the sentence where, just after a description of a particularly difficult set of Cabinet meetings on local government expenditure, the then Chief Secretary said: "We were always looking for ways of exercising control".
Lord Barnett: The noble Earl really must not misquote. I am sorry he has not got my book there. What I was saying in that paragraph to which he is referring was that I certainly was in favour of using measures like squeezing local authority expenditure by reducing the rate support grant; but nowhere at all in that chapter of my book or in anything that I have ever said—and I hope that the noble Earl will agree, because I do not wish to pursue this at too great a length at this hour of the night—would there be support for the idea of compulsion from Whitehall, where officials cannot be aware of the detailed needs of local authorities.
Rate capping is a clumsy and ineffective way of achieving the objectives of central Government—which I support—to have control of total public expenditure, as the noble Earl knows. I do not resile
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from anything I have ever said, whether as Chief Secretary or since, and he knows that; but I have never at any time argued for compulsion or the case for central Government to intervene and to tell individual local authorities what should be their detailed expenditure. I hope that the noble Earl will accept that from me, because that is certainly the case.
But that is not to say, as I have repeated again tonight, that once you allow totally uncontrolled expenditure in one area of government, whether it be local or central, that it must then pre-empt other areas of public expenditure—and I am glad to see the noble Lord, a predecessor of mine at the Treasury, nodding in agreement. But that is an entirely different matter from anything that I argued at that time or thereafter in my book. What I was arguing then was about a squeeze through rate support grant allied to an advisory, voluntary consultative committee whereby one got the maximum co—operation from local authorities of all parties. In that way—and I said this in the book as well—we achieved a greater degree of success than anything that has yet been achieved by this Government with their rate-capping proposal.
In fact, this amendment seeks to remove from the Bill what the Government are proposing here because the Government do not just want discretionary power to rate-cap; they want an automatic power to rate-cap—because that is what Clause 66(4), (5) and (6) provide: for the new authorities, that is to say, to be automatically rate capped as from 1st April 1986 for three years. The use of Rates Act 1984 powers in this way is contrary to the Government's own legislation, contrary to Section 2(2) of that Act which requires that designation shall occur only because of expenditure:
"likely to be excessive having regard to general economic conditions".
The abuse of Rates Act powers can be highlighted by quoting from the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, who said during the passage of that Bill:
"The Bill provides that authorities can only be selected for rate limitation if they are excessive spenders".
I refer to Hansard, volume 450, No. 106, col. 903 on 9th April 1984. But the current criteria for rate-capping involves a comparison of an authority's expenditure with its Department-of-the-Environment-defined Grant Related Expenditure Assessment—and I hope that your Lordships will forgive me; it is a terrible phrase: it is GREA—and the target. But the Secretary of State is not in a position to make a reasonable estimate of the likely relationship between expenditure GREA and target for a joint authority before the authority has been set up and has established itself. Confirmation is in fact to be found in a Government interdepartmental working party minute, to this effect:
"The Home Office said that … although they had sufficient knowledge for criticising budgets"—
Who has not?—
"they did not have the expertise to formulate them."
Of course, we all know that to be the situation. All of us could find means of criticising almost anything that any government or any local authority does, but to ask Marsham Street or the Home Office to formulate detailed proposals is an entirely different matter, as they themselves concede.

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Here we have a government department in possession of the most detailed information about fire and police services, yet it is unable to formulate budgets for the proposed joint authorities. So what special expertise can the Secretary of State for the Environment bring to bear on the problem in order to supply the required figures? The Departments of State responsible for the three major joint authority functions—there is the Home Office and the Department of Transport—presentaly provide advice and guidance on policy initiatives and expenditure levels to be applied at the local level. While doubtless close links between the decision-makers at the local levels and these Departments of State will remain after the 30th March 1986, a new set of relationships between local decision-makers and the Department of the Environment is to take precedence.
Does this imply a lack of confidence on the part of the Department of the Environment in the influence that the other Departments of State are likely to have over local decision-makers? Perhaps the noble Lord will tell us when he comes to reply. But the dangers inherent in giving the Secretary of State for the Environment powers that allow the detailed control of budgets have been revealed in the outcome of a court action between not a Labour local authority but the Conservative controlled London borough of Hammersmith and Fulham and the Department of the Environment. After a four-year legal tussle over wrongly set expenditure targets, won by the London borough earlier this month, a precedent has been set for local authorities throughout the country,
" … to sue the Environment Secretary over and over again on individual items of expenditure".
This is what the Guardian had to say on the 16th May. An increase in the number of legal actions would be no more or no less than a response to detailed meddling in local affairs by remote bureaucracy, the Department of the Environment. Frankly, if this were being done by any other government than this one, I have no doubt whatsoever that there would be many noble Lords on the opposite side of the Committee who would be complaining bitterly about interference and meddling from a government in Whitehall, and about the shambles that is being created by this Bill. All I am seeking to do now is just to put a little of it right. It surely must be better to exclude joint authorities from rate capping for the reasons I have given. I therefore beg to move.
Lord Elton: I will not join issue with the noble Lord on the merits of his admirable work on the workings of the Treasury, nor on the page references that my noble friend quoted. The quotation was correct, the page was wrong. I will address myself simply to the amendments on the Marshalled List.
The first of the amendments, Amendment No. 137AA, would exempt the new authorities both from automatic control of their precepts for the first three financial years after abolition and entirely from the provisions of the Rates Act, 1984, on the selective limitation of rates and precepts. The amendment, in the name, I think, of the noble Baroness, Lady David, which is less radical, deals only with the new ILEA, and I take it that we are to address them together. Am I wrong? I merely need guidance.
Baroness David: I think in fact it is just a slightly different issue from the main issue, so it was preferred that they were taken separately.
Lord Elton: If I referred to it inadvisedly from time to time, it is because I see it as a problem within a problem rather than as a problem beside a problem—if I make myself clear. That would exempt the authority from automatic precept control for the three-year transitional period.
9.45 p.m.
When we were preparing this Bill we did so in the light of experience—our experience of the considerable inflation in bureaucracy and administrative costs which followed the two major reorganisations of local government in 1965 and 1974. We were also having the experience of the considerable and damaging overspends then being indulged in by a number of local authorities. The joint authorities seem to us to be at risk of developing into overspenders both because all of them will be new authorities, just as the authorities we set up in 1965 and 1974 were new authorities, and because some of them, though not, of course, all will be inheriting a tradition of overspending from their predecessors.
Your Lordships—not even the noble Lord, Lord Barnett—would not have forgiven us had we simply let administrative inflation rampage out of hand a third time; nor would the ratepayers. We therefore resolved to bring in a means of firm restraint for the first formative three years, and for those years only. We made this clear in the White Paper.
It has been suggested that the controls in Clause 66 will result in the services being run by Whitehall. That will not be the case. If they are not satisfied with them, the new authorities will be free to apply to the appropriate Secretary of State for a derogation from their initially determined permitted expenditure levels and will be free to negotiate with him over those same levels.
It will also be entirely for the new authorities themselves to determine their own priorities for expenditure within the total resources available to them. This is not a Whitehall takeover. It is a sensible provision to see that brand new authorities are watched over and guided by those with overall responsibility for overall local government expenditure during their first few formative years. I was heartened to hear the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, say that that was a central Government responsibility.
Those were generalities; but I ought to say something about the effects on each of the services for which new authorities will be responsible after abolition. First, I shall refer to the police and fire authorities. These authorities have a safety net of statutory duties below which they must not and cannot fall. In the case of the fire service there are nationally recommended standards of fire cover. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary has made it clear on more than one occasion that he will entertain no applications from fire authorities to close fire stations or to remove appliances where the operation of the recommended standards of fire cover would be affected. We have heard a great deal of misleading and

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mischievous propaganda on this point, particularly in London, and I hope that those responsible for such propaganda will reflect on the effect of their statements on public confidence in and on the morale of the fire service. That service stands in very high esteem in all parts of your Lordships' Chamber.
Police authorities receive a 50 per cent. specific grant on the basis that they maintain an efficient and effective force. Their establishment is subject to the approval of my right honourable friend the Home Secretary. Again, there is no way that standards of policing are going to be affected by the substitution of joint authorities for the metropolitan county council police committees in the metropolitan areas. But that does not mean that there may not be efficiency savings to be made in these services. In relation to the fire service in particular, my right honourable friend has made clear on a number of occasions the scope for such savings. Precept control under Clause 66 is one means by which the achievement of such efficiency savings can be encouraged.
The bulk of expenditure by passenger transport authorities is, and will continue to be, on revenue support to public transport in their areas. We have long believed that revenue support in the metropolitan counties is too high. The application of the protected expenditure level mechanism under the Transport Act 1983 reflected our policy of reducing that expenditure towards the provision in successive public expenditure White Papers.
In their 1984–85 revenue grant determinations four out of the six metropolitan counties demonstrated their willingness to co-operate with this policy. Our application of precept control will also clearly take account of that policy. In the letter of advice issued to passenger transport executives last year, for their preparation of plans for 1985–86 to 1987–88, we advised them to plan on the assumption that the level of revenue support over the three years of the planning period might be reduced by around 25 to 30 per cent. in cash terms below the PEL set for 1984–85. The provisional expenditure levels set for 1985–86 are consistent with that advice and are 10 per cent. below those set for 1984–85. I should perhaps not touch on ILEA since the noble Baroness has reserved it.
I turn therefore to Amendment No. 137BB, which I take it is on the table in front of us.
Amendment No. 137BB Page 47, line 33, leave out from ("years") to end of line 42.
This amendment would remove the discretion of my right honourable friends to determine expenditure levels for each of the new authorities on criteria appropriate to those authorities individually and would require them instead to act according to general principles applicable to all the authorities responsible for the same services.
This amendment, too, misconceives the purpose of the transitional controls. It also ignores the significantly different responsibilities which are proposed for the PTAs. Merseyside and Tyne and Wear PTAs will assume responsibility for the Mersey and Tyne tunnels. Some, but not all, PTAs may assume the MCC's interests in airports.
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The transitional precept controls must take account of those different responsibilities. They must also take account of the fact that, unlike councils subject to selective limitation, not all the MCCs are currently excessive overspenders; nor is the pattern between the services for which the new authorities will become responsible consistent. Some MCCs spend very highly on some—but not necessarily the same—services, and not on others.
The amendment would require my right honourable friends to operate precept control as a blunt instrument, demanding across-the-board savings from all new authorities because a few of them will inherit excessive spending levels. The amendment, incidentally, would also delete the purely technical provision in Clause 66(6)(b) to deal with the situation if, during the transitional period, the Government found it necessary—as we sincerely hope they will not—to introduce general rate limitation under Section 10 of the Rates Act.
It makes it clear that the new authorities would remain subject to precept control under this Act. Without the provision, both sets of procedures would apply with slight, but important, technical differences. I do not think that that would be sensible, nor do I think it was intended.
I hope that I have said enough to allay what I appreciate are real concerns about the controls proposed in this clause. I address myself particularly to the new joint authorities because I believe that that is where the anxiety is greatest. I have not referred to ILEA because I understand that we are to have that pleasure later.
Lord Barnett: I do not think the noble Lord will be too surprised if I tell him that I do not find his reply at all satisfactory. Indeed, his reply seems to indicate to me, and I should have thought to most noble Lords, a lack of confidence in the legislation itself because it is a fact, as we all know, that single-function authorities are more likely to turn out to be pressure groups for particular items of expenditure; whereas it would have been much better if one had multi-function authorities county-wide. But the Government had decided by a simple sentence in the manifesto to abolish those without having thought through what they will put in their place. But they did not abolish the functions—may I finish the sentence?
Lord Elton: The noble Lord is traducing—
Lord Barnett: I shall give way in a second; but if I may finish, having decided to abolish authorities but to keep functions, the Government have not known precisely what to do with those functions. That is why they are in the shambles that they are in at the present time.
Lord Elton: I do not know whether the noble Lord wants to expedite proceedings or to delay them; nor do I know whether he was present at the Second Reading or at most of the Committee stage days. But we have disposed of the myth or canard that this is an ad hoc policy dreamed up in a few minutes before the election programme and imposed upon the party by a single sentence in the manifesto. I will dispose of it now,

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because it simply is not true, and if the noble Lord wants to go back to the Second Reading and have a furious political debate about that, I am perfectly happy to do so. But if he does not, he should not raise the matter and should get on with the subject in hand.
Lord Barnett: The noble Lord is in danger of getting as angry as his noble friend Lord Gowrie. He should not get too upset about these things. He must be prepared to accept that not everybody agrees with what, by bringing in a few hundred Members, he was able to persuade the House to vote for; that he is not able to persuade everybody else of the truth of what he says. The plain fact is that I do not accept that argument, and neither does anybody who has really studied the matter. The plain fact is that the Government are retaining functions and do not know where to put them. That is why they have residuary authorities; that is why they have joint bodies, and all the problems that we are now discussing. The noble Lord knows the situation, and he must not get too excited about it.
That is a fact, and the reason why I raise it now is not that I particularly want to stay up through the night, though I am used to that. I must tell the noble Lord that his colleagues in the other place, including the present Chancellor, used to keep me up on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from four o'clock in the afternoon to eight o'clock the following morning week after week. If he likes, we shall be happy to oblige him. That is not my intention, but if he keeps getting angry and annoyed about these matters I am bound to continue. He must not get too angry. He must understand that there are different views about what he said.
Lord Elton: I accept that there are different views about what I said before, and I shall get as angry as I please according to what the noble Lord says. But as to the length of the proceedings, I only want to put it on record that when the noble Lord says, as he has said several times already, that I must accept something, or, "It is the case that …", your Lordships must not take the silence which I display in order to expedite matters this evening as being in any way assent to anything he says.
Lord Barnett: I do not expect the noble Lord to accept what I say. We are debating matters about which we disagree, and he must therefore accept that there are many others who do not agree with what he has said for the last three weeks. The fact that he has
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been able to persuade some of his colleagues to vote for matters that he has moved in this Chamber does not mean that we on this side of the Chamber, or those on the other side, either, or those outside, have to agree with him. I am sorry that he is annoyed about it, but that is the way I feel about it. I am bound to tell your Lordships that.
Having said that, and having upset the noble Lord—and I apologise for upsetting him; I hope that he still sleeps all right—he said earlier (and I hope he will consider it in order if I reply to him) that I would not forgive him if the Government did anything to add to the inflationary spiral. I have not done anything to add to the inflationary spiral. Anything I say here tonight will not do a thing. It is what the Government have been doing that will add to the inflationary spiral, and not what I am doing.
The plain fact—and the noble Lord has not replied to this straight point in relation to this amendment: it is no use his getting angry about it, he has not replied to it—is that there is no basis for the judgment that these newly-created authorities will be high spenders. What grounds has the noble Lord? He has not said anything at all. He has no comparison to make, as I said was necessary in order to have the discretionary power to rate-cap, let alone to rate-cap automatically. So why do the Government want to have this automatic power?
I thought that the Government were supposedly abolishing what they had described as, and which the noble Lord tells us was accepted by a majority as, a wasteful and unnecessary tier of Government. I quote the noble Lord. Presumably the Government must think that the new authorities will, by contrast, be efficient and necessary. Yet having decided that, they now decide that they want an automatic power to rate-cap. How has the noble Lord replied to that argument? He has not replied at all. The Government apparently have such little faith in their own proposals that they feel it necessary to subject the new authorities, not merely to the possibility, not merely to a discretionary power, of rate limitation like other authorities, but to automatic rate limitations for the first three years of their existence. In effect, the Government are presuming the new authorities guilty before they have even had the chance to prove themselves innocent. I should have thought, even at this late stage, that your Lordships would accept that the noble Lord the Minister has not replied to the arguments.
On Question, amendment negatived.
10 p.m.
Lord Renton Lord Renton moved Amendment No. 137B:
Page 47, line 28, after ("fire") insert ("and civil defence")
The noble Lord said: With this amendment goes Amendment No. 137C.
Amendment No. 137C: Clause 67, page 48, line 34, after ("fire") insert ("and civil defence").
Both these amendments are consequential upon amendments that were agreed to on Clause 25 a week ago. I beg to move.
Lord Skelmersdale: Since it has been some Committee days since this subject was referred to, I should say that, of course, I totally agree with my noble friend.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness David Baroness David moved Amendment No. 137BA:
Page 47, line 30, after ("authority") insert ("other than the Authority established by Part III of this Act".).
The noble Baroness said: The reason that I wish to take this amendment separately from Amendment No. 137AA in the name of my noble friend is that the position of ILEA is slightly different from the position of the joint boards in that ILEA is to be a directly elected authority. I totally agree with everything my noble friend has said, but it seems to me that from the point of view of ILEA it is even more important that it should be left to get on with its own business for its first three years as a newly elected authority and should, even more than the joint boards, have the right to make up its own mind and not be handicapped by this ogre standing over it for the first three years of its existence. I beg to move.
The Earl of Gowrie: I do not know whether it falls to me to be wheeled on as the ogre, as the noble Baroness has said, but we consider it essential to include ILEA within the coverage of this clause. ILEA is clearly over-spending. That its provision is generous to say the least can clearly be seen by looking at its pupil-teacher ratios, its numbers of non-teaching staff, its expenditure on books and equipment and the like.
The precept maximum of 77.25 pence for 1985–86 approved by the House on 6th February was consistent with the expenditure level of £900 million announced last July by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State. That expenditure level required only a small reduction in cash from ILEA's likely out-turn for 1984–85. Over the past few years some 20 authorities have cut their spending on education by 5 per cent. or more in real terms in one year. The expenditure level for ILEA was more than 60 per cent. above its GREA. In practice, therefore, ILEA will be spending a great deal more in 1985–86 by using reserves.
Whatever reductions the body may eventually make in 1985–86, it is inevitable that on abolition the new ILEA will inherit a level of expenditure well in excess of its GREA. The public expenditure White Paper published on 22nd January made clear that the Government will be making special efforts to curb
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over-spending, particularly by ILEA, in order to bring expenditure on education within the planned totals. The use of precept controls over the new ILEA for its first three financial years is obviously one of the means we shall use to achieve that aim. The amount of any reduction which we shall require in any one year clearly cannot yet be determined, but there is no reason to suppose that it will be any more harsh than the small cash reduction which was implied by the expenditure limit for 1985–86.
The noble Baroness has argued that we should rely on the existing provisions of the Rates Act 1984 for selective precept limitation of ILEA, and that it should not be subject to automatic precept limitation for the three-year transitional period. But this is to ignore the central purpose of these transitional controls as I have already explained them. I put it to the noble Baroness that it may help the new ILEA in responsible forward planning and in negotiations with my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science to know right from the outset just where it is and within what controls it will be required to operate. I should have thought that the noble Baroness would welcome that and that therefore she could withdraw her amendment.
Lord Kilmarnock: Before the noble Baroness decides whether or not to withdraw her amendment, can the noble Earl say whether any special arrange-ments will be made for the removal of asbestos from school buildings? Will a special fund which will not be subject to rate capping be made available for that purpose? The removal of asbestos from school buildings could be a very expensive job.
The Earl of Gowrie: I shall look into that and let the noble Lord know.
Baroness David: Clearly, there are many problems which have to be resolved. The noble Earl has given a long reply—
The Earl of Gowrie: Not very long.
Baroness David: Long compared with my speech in moving the amendment. I shall read what the noble Earl has to say. I am not convinced by his arguments. A new authority should have a chance to be treated responsibly and be allowed to make its own plans. After that time, if it has behaved, as the noble Earl put it, irresponsibly, then something should happen. However, it should be given a chance during its first three years to be trusted and to have a real opportunity to prove itself. However, for the moment I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 137BB not moved.]
Clause 66, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 67 [Block grant]:
Lord Renton Lord Renton moved Amendment No. 137C:
[Printed 21/5/85; col. 267.]
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 67, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 68 to 71 agreed to.
Clause 72 [Levies]:
[Amendment No. 137D not moved.]
Clause 72 agreed to.
Clauses 73 to 76 agreed to.
Clause 77 [Audit]:
[Amendment No. 137E not moved.]
Clause 77 agreed to.
Clause 78 [Transitional provisions relating to block grant and expenditure levels]:
The Deputy Chairman of Committees: In calling Amendment No. 137F I should say that if it is agreed I cannot call Amendment No. 138.
Lord Barnett Lord Barnett moved Amendment No. 137F:
Page 54, line 10 leave out subsections (2) and (3).
The noble Lord said: I move this amendment standing in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Stoddart of Swindon and also of the noble Lord, Lord Diamond. The purpose of the amendment is to ensure that the same principles are applied in determining block grant entitlements and total expenditure levels for the proposed joint authorities as are applied for other local authorities; which seems a perfectly reasonable objective, as I hope your Lordships and the Minister will agree. I see him smiling in assent, so perhaps he will.
Clause 78, as amended on Report in the other place, provides for the Secretary of State to determine notional 1985–86 grant entitlements and to set 1986–87 grant-related expenditure assessments—GREAs—and expenditure targets. In subsections (2) and (3) the Secretary of State seeks the power to depart from the general principles presently applied when settling GREAs and expenditure targets for relevant authorities; that is, for the successor bodies to the metropolitan counties and the GLC.
In introducing the amendment to insert subsection (3) at the Report stage in another place the Minister for Local Government, Kenneth Baker, said, and it is worth quoting:
"Without this amendment, we could face the situation where it was obvious that one selected authority needed to spend more than another on transferred functions, but we could not allow for this because there would be no general principle to describe it. I should stress that we shall still have to apply principles to each authority, which will have to be reasonable. We shall have to justify the reasonableness; we cannot pluck figures out of the air."—[Official Report, Commons, 28/3/85; col. 728.]
It is an innovation for Ministers, I must say, not to pluck figures out of the air. Ministers have been doing it for a very long time. I confess to having done a bit myself and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, did. Now we are expected to accept that they will never ever do such a thing again: all Ministers in future will be very reasonable. But if they intend to be reasonable—and let us assume for the moment that
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they will be reasonable—why on earth will they not adhere to the common principles?
Is the reluctance to adhere to those common principles a vote of no confidence in the GREAs and the target system designed, redesigned and detailed by successive Conservative Secretaries of State? The departure from common principles allows scope for the exercise of bias against or in favour of individual authorities which has been known to happen over the years under successive Governments.
It is disturbing in the context of subsections (2) and (3) to read a letter from the Secretary of State for the Environment to the leader of Sefton Council, Ronald Watson, dated 22nd January 1985. He declares:
"As to the future, I am well aware of the view that the y ear when the abolition of the metropolitan counties takes place should be seen to coincide with a nil increase or ideally a reduction in the ratepayers' bill. This is certainly something I shall have in mind".
That is a perfectly understandable statement of objectives. In Clause 78 the Secretary of State is seeking to take powers to secure that objective regardless of what rate rises might or might not be imposed on shire counties; that is to say, as a result of cuts in rate support grant, regardless of the implications of a nil increase or a reduction in rates in metropolitan areas on the standard and level of locally provided services.
At the House of Commons Report stage Kenneth Baker, the Minister, said that he would examine the practicality of publishing details of the principles applied to individual authorities where subsection (2) and (3) powers are invoked. While deletion of subsections (2) and (3) would be the best protection, in my view, against bias in Government dealings with individual authorities—not just the present Government but any future Government—publication of details of the principles applied to individual authorities under subsection (2) and (3) powers would at least be a second best safeguard. But there has so far been no indication from the Government as to whether they propose to publish that information. Perhaps tonight the Minister will give us the details that I have indicated we are entitled to expect. I beg to move.
Lord Elton: The purpose of the subsections which this amendment would delete is to enable the Government to take account of the actual distribution of the cost of transferred functions in setting expenditure guidance, or "targets", for successor authorities and expenditure levels for those successor authorities selected for rate limitation. Clause 78(2) concerns targets, and Clause 78(3) concerns expenditure levels. Both provisions are transitional and apply to the first year after abolition only.
I should first say that the Government have repeatedly made it clear that we do not want to retain the system of targets and grant holdback any longer than necessary; But I am not yet able to say whether targets will be set for 1986–7. However, if they are retained, Clause 78(2) will be essential, as I shall explain. Although we have taken no decisions on selection for rate limitation in 1986–7, I can say with

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confidence that some of the successor districts are likely to be selected, and Clause 78(3) is certain to be required.
Our object in adjusting targets and expenditure levels for the consequences of abolition will be to take account as accurately as possible of the actual incidence of the costs of transferred functions. Precisely how we will do that will depend in part on the quality of the information we get from the GLC and metropolitan counties. Without these provisions we should have to set targets on the basis of general principles applying to all authorities and expenditure levels on the basis of principles applying to all authorities in a class.
10.15 p.m.
Concern has been expressed about the magnitude of the discretion these provisions give the Secretary of State, but he will still have to act reasonably and in accordance with principles under the common law. Moreover, we made it clear, and I can repeat, that the discretion will be used only to make adjustments between authorities for differences in the costs of tranferred functions. It will not be used to require bigger savings from successor authorities on their inherited spending, by way of targets or rate limitation, than we would have required from the appropriate metropolitan authority if it had survived.
I detect that the noble Lord's anxiety is that we shall use the availability of differences between the authorities to penalise those that we do not like. However, what I am saying to the noble Lord is that we shall use it merely to carry forward existing policy in a uniform manner.
The provisions at issue are thus both technical and transitional. Without them, some successor authorities would have difficulty meeting the costs of transferred functions while others would have more than they needed. I know that this is not a result that the Committee wishes to achieve, and I do not think the noble Lord does either. The noble Lord asked me about publication. I can tell him that the Secretary of State will explain how he has made the adjustments to targets and, where appropriate, for successor authorities.
Lord Barnett: The noble Lord, Lord Elton, will not be surprised to hear that I do not find his reply at all satisfactory. However, not wishing to upset him again at this hour of the night, I will not press this amendment. I beg leave to withdraw it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Kilmarnock Lord Kilmarnock moved Amendment No. 138:
Page 54, line 14, at end insert ("and any principles used for any authority shall have explicit regard to the need to ensure continued funding of voluntary organisations comparable with that which obtained before the abolition date.").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 138. I think it will be for the convenience of the Committee if I speak also to Amendments Nos. 139 and 140.
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Amendment No. 139: Page 54, line 20, at end insert—
(" ( ) In setting any expenditure level under section 3 of the Rates Act 1984 or any maximum rate under section 4 of the Rates Act 1984 in authorities in the Greater London and metropolitan county areas, the Secretary of State shall have explicit regard in the three years beginning with the abolition date to the need to ensure continued funding of voluntary organisations comparable with that which obtained before the abolition date.").
Amendment No. 140: Clause 81, page 55, line 41, at end insert—
(" ( ) Any arrangements for operating a London Rates Equalisation Scheme under section 66 of the Local Government Act 1963 shall have explicit regard to the need to ensure a distribution of rate burdens and grants within the Greater London area which allows continued funding of voluntary organisations comparable with that which obtained before the abolition date.").
We have all heard the Government's arguments on a number of occasions that the boroughs and districts will be free to levy rates equivalent to the precepts of the GLC and the metropolitan counties and the Government will divide up the grant-related expenditure of the upper-tier authorities among the boroughs and districts.
These assurances are not at present, in my view, explicit and specific enough. This batch of amendments enjoins the Secretary of State to have explicit regard to the need to ensure a broadly comparable overall flow of funding to the voluntary sector when he is calculating the level at which expenditure targets and rate caps should be set and when arrangements are made for operating the London rates equalisation scheme. This will give an appropriate weighting to the expenditure on voluntary projects, when available to the boroughs and districts, without affecting their freedom to choose to disburse those resources as they may decide. In passing, perhaps I may say that I am assured that the computer in the Department of the Environment is quite capable of adding this explicit consideration, this kind of weighting, to its deliberations.
This evening I want to use these amendments to seek a little further clarification of some undertakings that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, gave yesterday If he is able to give me the assurances I seek, these amendments may be superfluous, or partly superfluous. At col. 22 of Hansard yesterday, the noble Lord said:
"My third undertaking, therefore, this afternoon is that both RSG and targets, if we still have them, will be adjusted to take account of their…responsibilities"—
that is, the expenditure of the authorities—
"for this expenditure".
I stress the word "this", because I am uncertain whether it refers only to transitional funding or to the collective scheme under Clause 47 as well.
At col. 88 the noble Lord spoke of the effects of the Government's undertakings (and I quote again),
"in respect of the amount of money which the Secretary of State allowed to be expended through GRE … or rate capping".
He went on to say:
"We will adjust the GRE and if they continue, reduce the targets in order to see that expenditure by the local authorities of these sums of money does not militate against them".
Again, I am not quite sure of the value or weight that should be attached to the word "these". I seek definition of "these sums".
At col. 91 the noble Lord mentioned, in addition to GREs and targets, rate capping assessment, and said that:
"the expenditure which I have encouraged local authorities to make with the hacking of Government money will not bring them into that sort of penally".
As with the previous quotations, it is important to know whether the broader or the narrower interpretation of expenditure is correct; that is to say, whether we are talking only of transitional funding or whether we are talking of all the collective borough and district expenditure under Clause 47; whether that will receive the same treatment, too.
The amendments on the Marshalled List refer to all voluntary sector grant expenditure inherited by boroughs or districts from the GLC or the MCCs. If the noble Lord's undertakings are to be interpreted in a narrower sense than that, we may want to return to the amendments at the next stage of the Bill. For the moment I am simply seeking clarification from the noble Lord, so that I may know how to proceed.
Lord Elton: To save time, may I ask the noble Lord whether his real concern is with clarification of the undertakings, or does he wish me also to address the amendments themselves?
Lord Kilmarnock: The noble Lord has addressed me with commendable directness. I shall reply in the same spirit. At this stage I am simply seeking clarification. I have no intention of pressing the amendments.
Lord Elton: I think, then, that I should be able to dispel the fears that have been voiced. In recent years the great majority of GLC spending has been financed from the rates through the GLC's precept on the boroughs. On abolition, the GLC's precept will, of course, cease. In its place the successor boroughs and districts will start to levy their own rates and successor joint authorities to levy their own precepts to finance the services that they take on. The fire board will levy a precept but by far the greater volume will be raised by the boroughs for their own use. There is absolutely no question about the boroughs' access to the major source of GLC resources because it is their own ratepayers.
There has been concern about the distribution of these resources. It has been pointed out that there are rich boroughs and poor boroughs and that the GLC's precept redistributes these resources within London. The noble Lord will forgive me if I reassure others than those he has spoken for. We have made clear from the start that we intend this redistribution to continue after abolition. The main mechanism will be an extended London rate equalisation scheme under which the very rich central boroughs will continue to contribute towards the cost of these services elsewhere in London. Together with the redistributive effect of the block grant system, this will ensure that the poorer boroughs are not worse off than those with higher resources. We have also given an assurance about the overall level of block grant for these services after abolition.
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In recent years the GLC's high spending has meant that it has got very little grant. In 1983–84 and 1984–85 it got none at all. Nevertheless, had its spending been lower, it could have earned a substantial amount of grant. We have made it clear that the London authorities can expect to get the same level of grant for any given level of spending as the GLC would have received if it had remained in being and spent at the same level. This safeguards London's overall grant position from the effects of abolition.
Within the block grant system we have also given the boroughs assurances that we will adjust the various figures—GREs, expenditure levels and targets, if these are retained—to take account of their new responsibilities. The GLC's GRE will be split between the successor bodies on the basis of the national formulae that apply throughout the country. If targets are retained, successor bodies' targets will be adjusted in a way that takes account of the geographical distribution of GLC spending. We will also allow for additional functions being taken on from the GLC by the boroughs when we set the expenditure levels for any of these boroughs which we select for rate capping in 1986–87.
I hope that what I have said will allay the very real concern that has been expressed during earlier discussion in the Committee. Provided that the GLC's successor bodies take responsible decisions about the services they take on, the resources will be there to finance them. I have spoken specifically about London because that is where the situation is most complex. However, with the exception of the London rate equalisation scheme which is necessary in London because of the very high resources of the central boroughs, the assurances which I have given apply also in the metropolitan areas.
I have stated our commitment. If its effect is exactly to match the case of each successor authority, we must have the information on which to base our calculations. Successor bodies that wish to use our commitment in order to protect themselves, must give us that information, and I also ask them to impress on the abolition authorites the need to do the same.
What I have just outlined is the general position that applies to all the services being taken over by successors. Let me answer particular questions about how this applies to support for the voluntary sector. Under our proposals for transitional aid on projects taken over from the GLC and the MCCs, the boroughs and districts will bear a proportion of the cost. I can confirm that both that expenditure and the contribution each borough or district makes under the collective scheme for its area will be taken into account in the way in which I have described.
In fairness, I must make it clear that the resources available to boroughs and districts are not ring-fenced by the system for them to spend on voluntary bodies alone. Just as the GLC and the MCCs have been able to set their priorities within their overall budget so, too, will the boroughs and districts. However, I hope the message will be clear to authorities that resources are released by abolition and that the voluntary sector has a claim to some of those resources.
Lord Kilmarnock: I am most grateful to the noble Lord. I think that what he said was music to my ears, but I shall obviously need to read what he said with close attention tomorrow. I understood the noble Lord to say that in fact both the transitional funding and the collective expenditure under Clause 47 would be considered in setting these levels. If that is so, I am glad of it.
I assure the noble Lord that we are not asking for earmarking, but simply seeking to set the targets in such a way that no authority can say that it is having to cut back on voluntary service provision because its target was hopelessly inadequate. I think that I have said enough on that matter. It is too late to go into the complexities of the London rate equalisation scheme. I shall read very carefully tomorrow what the noble Lord has said. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 139 not moved.]
Clause 78 agreed to.
Clauses 79 and 80 agreed to.
Clause 81 [London rate equalisation schemes]:
[Amendment No. 140 not moved.]
On Question, Whether Clause 81 shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord Barnett: This is a very important clause and I hope that your Lordships will not mind if I say a few words about it. In the consultation paper The Disappearance of the GLC Precept, the Secretary of State affirmed his intention:
"to ensure that the disappearance of the GLC precept does not result in an inequitable shift of burden either between ratepayers within London or between London ratepayers and those in the rest of the country".
London equalisation is an esoteric and complex subject; therefore, I shall briefly explain the background to Clause 81. Noble Lords will be aware that the GLC precept serves an equalising purpose over the Greater London area. That is to say that the GLC's net expenditure is financed by means of a broadly equal rate poundage across the whole of London. One effect of this is that the richer boroughs, such as Westminster and the City of London, which are high in rateable resources—and I suppose I should declare an interest—pay more than the poorer boroughs, such as Hackney and Lewisham.
When the GLC is abolished, the distribution of its service responsibilities—and therefore its financial responsibilities—will inevitably be uneven and will have no regard whatever to the resources available to individual boroughs. A borough which has low rateable resources, but heavy transferred responsibilities, could therefore be severely disadvantaged by the abolition of the GLC, whereas a more fortunate area would have a windfall gain. These are facts which are generally recognised, and I know that the Government recognise them. It is this problem which the Government are attempting to address with their commitment to ensure that "no inequitable shift of burden" takes place, either within London or between London and the rest of the country, as a result of abolition.
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10.30 p.m.
The key to achieving this lies in the proposal to extend the existing London equalisation scheme whereby the City of London and the City of Westminster make a contribution to all the other inner London boroughs. The proposal, as I understand it, is to remove the windfall gains from Westminster, the City of London, Camden, and Kensington and Chelsea and to distribute the proceeds to all the other boroughs, outer London as well as inner London. The effect would be at the end of the day that services transferred from the GLC would continue to be funded by London as a whole rather than by the individual boroughs receiving the responsibilities. In other words, this would be a kind of life after death for the GLC precept.
Doubts have been voiced as to the logic of this idea. If boroughs are to take on these services, it has been argued, then surely they should take on the financial responsibility for these services in exactly the same way as they bear the financial responsibility for the services they have now. The taxing of one borough for the benefit of other boroughs breaks the nexus between expenditure decisions and taxation consequences, and therefore weakens accountability, at a time when I would hope your Lordships would agree that accountability should be increased. This issue of accountability and the way it is to be effected by the extension of the London equalisation scheme is an important and controversial issue in itself, but it is not the issue which concerns me here.
The issue which concerns me is that the Secretary of State has given an undertaking, which of course I accept, but that there is unfortunately nothing in the Bill to ensure that the undertaking is fulfilled either by this or, even more importantly, by any future Secretary of State. I must emphasise that there is a conspicuous absence of any provision in the Bill to give authority to the undertaking that the Secretary of State has given. It therefore creates great uncertainty for all boroughs, rich and poor alike. The poorer boroughs could be deprived by an unsympathetic Secretary of State of the resources essential to carry out their new responsibilities. Another Secretary of State might be unable to resist the temptation to soak the ratepayers of the City of London and Westminster for the benefit of other areas. There is no guarantee for any borough.
Even the experts do not seem to know how borough rates will be affected. The London Working Party—a group of officials from the DoE and the London boroughs—has produced a report which attempts to illustrate the effects of abolition on individual London borough rates. Yet paragraph 3 of the report tells us to take no notice of the figures. Probably that is good advice. It says:
"the new figures appear at first sight to indicate that there might be an overall reduction in average rates in London as a result of abolition quite apart from the effects of any cut in spending levels. This is misleading, and no such conclusion should be drawn".
The report goes on to record the view of the London Boroughs Association representatives that the range of variation in rate poundage changes faced by the London boroughs on the basis of the scheme as developed thus far would be "unacceptable". It would seem, therefore, that there is still great uncertainty

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even in the minds of the expert statisticians and accountants of the DoE and the London boroughs as to the effect on borough rates.
The uncertainty is further illustrated by the remarkable turn-around in the prognostications of the City of Westminster. A year ago they were predicting a saving of £369 million from abolition of the GLC, equal to a rate of about 19p in the pound. Now they say it could actually result in rate increases. The fact is that as yet no one knows what the financial effects would be, and no one knows how to deal with them. There is even uncertainty as to which boroughs will fund the scheme and which will receive.
One appreciates that there are formidable technical problems in the way of ensuring that the Secretary of State's promises and undertakings are carried out. Yet if they are not overcome the financial effects on ratepayers in some parts of London could, as will be clear, be very serious indeed.
There must be added to all these problems which I have outlined the impenetrable complications of the block grant system. I should be the first to concede that all systems relating to equalisation and anything to do with allocation of local authority grants from local government are somewhat complex, to say the least. As I understand it, there was only one official in the Department of the Environment who understood it, and he has left. We have the impenetrable complications of the block grant system and the labyrinthine network of joint financing schemes, inter-borough charging and lead borough cost recoveries so that the end result, inevitably, is likely to be a financial shambles, incomprehensible even to the DoE and the local authorities, let alone to ratepayers, electors or anyone else.
The Bill gives little comfort to the very ratepayers who are supposed to be helped by abolition. They have been told that abolition will not disadvantage them in any way. After the traumas of this Bill that is not an enormous offer and so I hope that the Minister will now spell out just how even this minimum assurance can be made effective in practice.
Lord Elton: The noble Lord is showing all the sparkling form that my right honourable and honourable friends in another place endowed him with in the long training that they gave him in staying up until four in the morning, about which he spoke earlier. I congratulate him on the incisiveness of his appraisal of this part of the Bill, though I cannot say that I entirely share his analysis.
The clause relates to the future arrangements for the London rates equalisation scheme: the scheme made annually by my right honourable friend under Section 66 of the Local Government Act 1963 to reduce disparities in rates levied in different areas of Greater London. The LRES in its present form dates from the introduction of the block grant system in the financial year 1981–82. I am happy to tell the noble Lord that we have since recruited several people who understand the system; otherwise I doubt I should have had the courage to stand here.
To a great extent the more sophisticated arrangements for equalising resources under the new system
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make it possible to take account of different rateable values in London without a special rate equalisation scheme for London. The exception is for authorities in London which receive no block grant because of unusually high rateable values, principally the City and Westminster. The present LRES is designed simply to ensure that these two boroughs make some contribution towards the costs of providing services in the rest of inner London. This is taken into account in determining the block grant entitlements of inner boroughs through the rateable value discount given to them. The LRES for future years is to be extended to take account of the loss of the GLC precept which currently plays an important role in the equalisation of resources in London. It will ensure that ratepayers in all the high resource boroughs, including Camden and possibly Kensington and Chelsea, do not make windfall gains as a result of abolition. Such gains would be at the expense of ratepayers elsewhere, I swiftly say so that those who are encouraged by the thought rapidly discard any encouragement.
We are already well into consultation with the boroughs. It is clear that they have every expectation of our fulfilling our undertaking and it is essential that the detailed mechanics of these arrangements, complex and changing year by year, should not be fixed once and for all in primary legislation. That is another way of saying that the exact undertaking that the noble Lord should like to see engraved on the face of the Bill cannot be there because the ground to which it refers changes too quickly.
Clause 81 agreed to.
Clause 82 agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 140ZA and 140 ZB not moved.]
Schedule 14 agreed to.
Clause 83 [Exercise of functions by new authorities in initial period]:
Baroness David Baroness David moved Amendment No. 140ZC:
Page 56, line 25, after ("authority") insert ("other than the Authority established by Part III of this Act")
The noble Baroness said: In moving this amendment I should like to say that the aim is very similar to that of Amendment No. 137BA, which I moved earlier and which is that the new ILEA, the elected authority, should stand on its own feet and be treated as a responsibile elected authority like any other local authority. The purpose of this particular amendment is to remove ILEA from Clause 83; that is, from control by the Secretary of State for the first three years of staffing, provision of services and administration. The Bill proposes in Clause 83 to provide the Secretary of State with power to require the new authority to submit schemes for his approval concerning, first, the number of persons employed; second, arrangements for obtaining services, supplies and facilities; and, third, for the authority's organisation and its arrangements for managing its affairs.
During the debate at Committee stage in another place the Minister reiterated what the Secretary of State for Education and Science had stated in a Written Answer on 5th February: that an administrative structure already existed for ILEA and that

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ILEA would be facing the prospect of rate limitation under current proposals. However, the Government said that they did not then, and do not at present, propose to make regulations under Clause 80 in respect of the new ILEA.
The Minister then continued to say:
"However, I must make it quite clear to the Committee, and to people outside that if there are signs that the new ILEA intends to take decisions which will have implications for manpower considerations that are not in accordance with the objectives of economy, efficiency and effectiveness, it might be necessary to seek that regulations are made under the provisions".
That was in Hansard on 5th March, 1985.
These arrangements, if implemented, would result in the Secretary of State becoming involved in the detailed administration of the new directly-elected authority; and that must be seen to be intolerable for responsible officers trying to run the new ILEA. The third of the areas listed above (that is, the authority's organisation and its arrangements for managing its affairs) seems capable of wide interpretation; but on the face of it would enable the Secretary of State to intervene in almost any aspect of the authority's work, In light of the decision made last week in this Committee when we agreed to the amendment preventing the abolition or reconstruction of the new ILEA, it is evident that there is strong support for stability to be maintained within the education service. Therefore, such intervention by the Secretary of State as proposed in the Bill would have a contrary effect and would lead to disruption and instability. I beg to move.
The Earl of Gowrie: I have a long, splendid brief, including a paragraph 13 which has the immortal heading: "If pressed on Guardian leak". But I feel that I have not been pressed on the Guardian leak, so I shall cut this out.
It may help the Committee if I describe our intended use of the controls in Clause 83 in relation to each of the new authorities, and how we expect that the obligations which it places on those authorities will work in practice. The clear intention behind these controls was expressed in the White Paper. The Government are determined (and I am quoting)
"that the creation of the new authority shall not be used as an opportunity to set up extravagent and expensive new organisations. The Secretaries of State will wish to be satisfied that the new authority's administrative structures will result in the economical operation of the services and that, where appropriate, arrangements will be made for the sharing of administrative and other staff and the contracting out of specialist services".
The controls in Clause 83, together with the controls over the new authority's precepts in Clause 66, which the Committee has already debated, of course, are the means by which we propose to achieve these aims.
10.45 p.m.
Now the noble Baroness's amendment would exempt the new ILEA from the provisions of Clause 83. I do not think that would be right. As my right honourable friend made clear in another place on 5th February, however, the administrative structure is already in existence in the case of ILEA; nor will ILEA be facing the prospect of rate limitation for the first time as regards 1986–87. In the circumstances,
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therefore, the Government do not at present propose to make regulations under the clause, Clause 83, in the case of the new ILEA. This, I hope, will help reassure the noble Baroness and the Committee.
It should, I think, though, be clearly understood that, as my right honourable friend also said, if there are indications that decisions taken by ILEA will have implications for manpower that are not in accordance with the objectives of economy, efficiency and effectiveness, regulations under this clause will be made. The content of any such regulations would depend on the circumstances that they were intended to meet. So I do not think the Government are doing anything but giving the new ILEA a chance to operate with the independence and freedom that the noble Baroness seeks, and I hope therefore that she will not insist on excluding the new ILEA from the scope of the transitional controls under this clause.
Baroness David: I think the noble Lord must have reduced his brief very cleverly if it really was a very long one. It does seem maybe that there is a better chance being given to the new ILEA than I had thought. I should not like to commit myself on that until I have had a chance to read what he has said tomorrow in Hansard; but for the present I shall be pleased to say that I will study his reply and reserve my right to come back at the next stage. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Clause 83 shall stand part of the Bill?
Baroness Birk: It is very late, but really I cannot let Clause 83 pass without making as brief a comment as I can. I do not intend to oppose the Question but I must make some comment on it, as the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, who has joined me on this, has had to go.
What the clause does is make provision for the Secretary of State to make schemes, the effect of which would be to allow him to intervene in the affairs of a new authority. This will be in regard to staff numbers, the buying in of external services, and the authority's internal organisation and management arrangements. The power is available for a three-year period from abolition date. The clause will also, in subsection (4), enable unlimited supplementary provisions to be contained in any regulations laid down. The Secretary of State will be able to change his mind and he will be able to vary schemes already approved. He will be able to draw up such transitional arrangements as he thinks necessary to effect an end to the period for which these controls are to be applied under present proposals.
If accepted, this clause will mean a significant transfer of power from local to central Government in respect of those functions to be taken over by the new authorities. In other words, there will be an even further move from the local authorities towards centralisation. This has been commented on not only in the newspapers but also by Government departments and other Ministers as well. I am cutting this down at this stage in order to speed up the time factor.

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If this clause is adopted unchanged and the powers are applied the result will be further confusion of accountability. Who ultimately will be responsible for the police civilian dealing with staffing matters? The police come very much into this division of powers. Will it be the Secretary of State or will it be, as it should be, the elected representatives of the community served by that new authority?
When accountabilities are confused, what is it that suffers? It is ultimately the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of the service. I am aware that that is a truncated account of an extremely important clause, but I did not feel that the Committee stage should go by, even at this time of night, without making some comment. I intend to return to it on Report, with amendments.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: Has the noble Baroness made the situation unnecessarily terrifying? Would such regulations as she envisages be so terrible? Would they not have to come before both Houses? Therefore she is not objecting to the powers given to the Minister; she is objecting to Parliament having the final say on things—and the other place is an elected assembly, and so they would be representative of the people. Is it not, when one recognises that the regulations have to be approved, unnecessarily terrifying for the noble Baroness to put the position as she did?
Baroness Birk: I did not say it was terrifying; it was the noble Lord who said it was terrifying. What I said was that it was very bad. It does not have to go to the councils because if the Secretary of State makes the decision and intervenes, that is where the matter rests. It is the Secretary of State's power against which I am arguing, which removes from the local council—whether it be district or borough—the power to make decisions in its own right. I am sorry that, probably through having condensed by intervention so much, it may not have been as clear as it should have been. But the noble Lord need not fear; I shall return to it.
Clause 83 agreed to.
Clauses 84 and 85 agreed to.
Lord Elton Lord Elton moved Amendment No. 140A:
[Printed 21/5/85; col. 222.]
The noble Lord said: This amendment is one to which I have already spoken. It is intended to replace the present Clause 86 provisions for research and data collection in the metropolitan areas. Its purpose is to strengthen the arrangements whereby London boroughs and metropolitan district councils will be able to undertake research and to collect and have access to information on a consistent London or county-wide basis.
I shall be very brief, but I think the minimum that I must say to your Lordships is that the new clause does go further than the existing provisions in providing a mechanism for the borough and district councils to designate a single council to act as the focal point for research and for the collection, analysis and dissemination of information. This mechanism is similar to that in Clause 47, dealing with arrangements for collective funding of voluntary bodies.
The new clause provides for a simple majority of boroughs and districts to make a scheme, designating a lead council to undertake research and intelligence functions, with expenditure under the scheme subject to the approval of a two-thirds majority. It also provides a mechanism for the apportionment of a designated council's costs.
Thus, the new clause which I have tabled in this amendment retains the essential features of the existing Clause 86 and adds some valuable new ones. Boroughs and districts will be able to use the provisions in this new clause to make arrangements so that they may continue to collect and have access to information on a consistent London or county-wide basis. It will be for them to take a view of the type of information which they consider valuable. It may be that existing computer facilities and data bases will need to be transferred to the residuary bodies while appropriate longer-term arrangements for these services are being worked out.
I am happy to table this amendment. I have already read out in full a letter welcoming its provisions from the London Boroughs Association and I hope that your Lordships will welcome it in the same spirit. I beg to move.
Baroness Birk: I am sorry, but certainly I cannot possibly welcome this new clause. One reason why I am speaking to it now—and I shall do so briefly—is because the Minister brought it in aid when we were discussing the scientific and technological amendments, but it did not seem right at that point to go into the ins and outs of this question because we were in fact discussing those amendments. I think I am right in saying that the Minister did not actually move it or speak to it: he just referred to it in passing. He did not say he was going to speak to it. Exactly the same sort of thing occurred on Clause 47, bringing in the two-thirds majority and so on. I only wish that we could stimulate as much interest in this, to help make it successful in a Division, so that it may receive an "endowment fund", but there are not enough of us present tonight to be able to promote that point.
To be serious, I shall not quote at this stage from the Select Committee proceedings because that matter was gone through fairly thoroughly previously. What I am concerned about is that under this clause the collection of information and the retention of research at the proper county level will be at best ineffective and, at the very least, potentially damaging. This, like Clause 47 in a different context, is relying on district co-operation despite the fact that boroughs and districts have different policies and priorities. I think that that provides an even greater argument against because the districts have very little knowledge or experience of the more sophisticated data and research requirements, for example, of modern highways and all sorts of other functions and services which need to be retained at county level.
As we heard in the debate on the other amendments, the uncertainty over the specialist services is causing expert staff to leave both the GLC and the metropolitan county areas for jobs elsewhere. To rely on this new clause in order to back up the alleged Government support for the other

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amendments is entirely wrong. Report stage will certainly be the time to move an amendment or amendments on this clause because at the moment this proposal is just not good enough.
Lord Elton: I must say that even at this late hour I am very disappointed in the noble Baroness's reaction to this amendment because it is entirely negative and entirely pessimistic. The noble Baroness should bear with me for a moment, and look at this matter in the light of recent events. This is a scheme which can be made mandatory by the voluntary agreement of a majority of the boroughs; and the majority of the boroughs have already written to us to say that they want to set up the scheme. So why the noble Baroness thinks it will not happen I do not know. The only other disappointment she can have is in believing that the people concerned are incapable of running the scheme when they have it. That seems to me to ignore the scale of operation of the London boroughs as we know them, and the availability of the expertise which we discussed at some length earlier this afternoon to be put into this sort of organisation.
We spent a great deal of time saying how good and valuable it is. We now have a place where it could potentially go. We have an assurance that it will go there. There is not a lot more that the noble Baroness can be given, I am afraid. I shall be interested to see her amendments at Report stage, but I am glad that she is prepared to allow the amendment to go into the Bill in its present form at this stage.
Baroness Birk: I cannot do anything else about that. It is beyond my control. It is not because I want it to go in. But I am absolutely certain that when it was referred to earlier in Committee many Members of the Committee were then concentrating on the other amendments and probably had not read this one very thoroughly. It is not a good enough alternative. To put the specialist services into a residuary body for the time being is one thing; but I think the Minister will find that I shall not be alone in my opposition to putting them into something like this. I shall not repeat myself all over again because I think everyone is getting very tired.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 86 [Research and collection of information.]:
On Question, Whether Clause 86 shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord Elton: Clause 86 has now been replaced, with however little benefit of the approval of the noble Baroness opposite, by the amendment that we have just accepted. So I ask your Lordships that this clause should not stand part of the Bill.
Clause 86 negatived.
Lord Denham: I think that this is the place to which we hoped to get tonight. I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

Clwyd County Council Bill [H.L.]
Reported from the Unopposed Bill Committee with amendments.
House adjourned at one minute past eleven o'clock.