Lords Sitting of 23 April 1986

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

Home Improvement and Maintenance
Lord Dean of Beswick: 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, if any, action they propose to take regarding the recent NEDO report, which calls for a state fund to be started to encourage house owners to maintain their homes in better repair.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, the Government welcome the NEDO report as a useful contribution to the continuing debate on home improvement. I note that the report does not recommend a state fund as such, but that:
"Government must fund expenditure required by houses owned by householders with inadequate financial resources".
This is of course a welcome confirmation of existing Government policy, which seeks to direct help to those who most need it.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that helpful reply. He must be aware that now that owner-occupied houses have reached 62 per cent. of our total housing stock they are one of our greatest assets. There are reports indicating that varying sums of money are required to put houses into good repair. The sums vary from £2,500 to £7,000 per house. As most of those houses are occupied by people who are growing older and do not have the finances to put them in order, will the Government consider some form of assistance—perhaps loans at a cheaper rate of interest than in the market—to stop the deterioration gathering pace?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, the Government have been considering that consistently since 1979. During that period a record sum of nearly £3 billion has been spent on home improvement grants. Spending last year was £450 million and was considerably higher than in the best year of the Labour Government—£130 million in 1974–75.
Lord Simon of Glaisdale: My Lords, if it is not too far from the Question, will the Government look again at the old Schedule A income tax? Apart from questions of fiscal equity, was it not a potent incentive to home improvements?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I am afraid that I am too young to have the memory of the operation of Schedule A that the noble and learned Lord obviously has. I shall, however, consider his request, though I think that it is wide of this Question.
The Countess of Mar: My Lords, is there not a difference between home improvement grants and the maintenance grants to which the Question refers?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I would say that it is a grey area and that the one slides into the other. I think that both questions are relevant to the Question on the Order Paper.
Lord Paget of Northampton: My Lords, if we are to be asked to discuss the NEDO report, would it not be convenient to provide a glossary which would tell us what it means?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, NEDO means National Economic Development Council. I am not sure whether the report is in the Library, but if it is not, I shall make certain that a copy is placed there.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, the noble Lord speaks of those most in need. Will he tell the House what the Government estimate to be the number of those most in need? Have they not increased substantially since 1979? When he gives figures for Government expenditure is he giving them in gross or real terms? Is it not the case that that need has increased greatly over the past seven years? Should the Government therefore not be increasing their funding of improvement grants?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, the figures that I gave were in cash terms. I have already made it clear that we are in fact increasing gross provision for improvement grants. I am afraid that I do not have the figures on those in greatest need, but we are to have a debate on that subject on Wednesday week and I shall be delighted to provide them then.
Lord Wells-Pestell: My Lords, will the noble Lord the Minister see whether the Government would be prepared to advise local authorities to draw up a list of competent, skilled and reliable builders and repairers in the locality so that when elderly people need things done they can be sure that they will be done properly?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I shall certainly consider that point, but of course local councils provide a short list under the right-to-repair scheme.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, did I hear the noble Lord aright when in answer to me he said that he was giving the figures in cash terms? If so, is that not an attempt to mislead the House? Why does he not give us the figures in real terms?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, because my mathematics are not quick enough.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord the Minister will be gracious enough to allow a question which might be on the edge of the original Question? There is a serious problem affecting about 1 million people throughout the country. They have rented houses from private owners and in desperation to get homes have signed to accept full responsibility for maintaining that rented property, and then they find that they cannot afford to do so. Can that matter be taken on board for consideration?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I shall certainly look at that, but at the moment I have no evidence to suggest that it is a major problem.
Lord Taylor of Blackburn: My Lords, in his answer the noble Lord the Minister referred to improvement grants. I admit that over the years with Government aid—not just from this Government but also from previous Governments—local authorities have assisted in that way, but many people slip through the net because they are not in one of the areas involved. It is most difficult for such people to receive any help.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, the Question is essentially about private house owners, and it is not only centrally funded money which comes into that; it is equally a matter for the local authorities, financial institutions and, of course, the Federation of Housebuilders and Repairers.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, may I assure the Minister that in my first supplementary question I was not trying to place the blame on the present Government? This is a difficult problem which has been accelerating and growing over a number of years under successive governments. The point I am making is that according to figures produced in various reports the problem is accelerating quite quickly. So would it not be prudent for the Government—whether this one or the next—to do something soon to halt this decline?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, we are about to have a modern version of the report on the state of the housing stock, the figures for which will be available in mid-1987. Based on that we will then make our policy absolutely clear.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, has the noble Lord studied the very detailed report of the Audit Commission on this subject? There is surely no need for any extra research in order to get at the extent of this problem.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, by definition the Audit Commission's report was concerned more with money than with the actual state of houses. What we need to know is the actual state of houses.
Baroness David: My Lords, is it not absolutely clear that the state of houses is very bad indeed? Also, I must say that I consider the Minister's replies today to show an extreme complacency.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, the most recent report on housing was the AMA one on the state of London housing. I note with interest, though I have been able to glance at it only fairly cursorily so far—it was received at the department only last Monday—that while there has been little change in the level of disrepair since 1979, there has been considerable progress in reducing the number of properties that are either unfit or lack basic amenities.
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, has the noble Lord noticed that I am old enough to remember Schedule A? Also, is he aware that the return of Schedule A would not fulfil his purpose, since it is by definition a
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tax and is therefore of use only to those who have money which is taxable? Is it not the policy of the Government to confine scarce resources to those who really most need them, and therefore is not something much more specific than that required in this case?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Viscount. Of course, as I said in my original Answer, our policy is to direct help to those who most need it. Equally, by definition—that seems to be a favourite phrase of mine in answering these questions—they are very unlikely to be paying tax.

Falkland Islands: Fish Conservation
2.45 p.m.
Lord Moran: 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 the light of the reported views of the Falkland islanders, as expressed in a petition to the Baroness Young, on the continued depletion of fish stocks around the islands by foreign fishing vessels and the growing threat to bird life, they will now declare a 200-mile economic and fisheries zone around the Falkland Islands.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Young): My Lords, as I made clear when I was in the Falklands last February, our policy is to work for a multilateral conservation and management regime under FAO auspices. We have been pursuing that goal actively both with the FAO and in contacts with all the nations involved. A technical study by the FAO, which is an essential preliminary to the imposition of a multilateral regime, is now under way.
Lord Moran: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for that reply. Does she not think it somewhat odd and illogical that, having conducted a very spendid operation at a distance of 8,000 miles in order to liberate the Falkland Islands, and in order to meet the expressed wishes of the islanders that they should remain British, we should subsequently do nothing effective to protect the principal resource of the Falkland Islands—that is, the fish stocks—from the depredations of foreign fishermen, despite the strongly expressed wishes of the islanders that we should take effective steps to establish a 200-mile fishery zone?
Baroness Young: My Lords, our claim to sovereignty is not in doubt, but our first priority is to secure a fishing regime which is both workable and effective. I hope the noble Lord will appreciate that we are working actively with the FAO to establish a multilateral regime, and the first stage of that, which is to undertake a technical study, is now under way.
Viscount Massereene and Ferrard: My Lords, is my noble friend the Minister aware that penguins are now dying in their thousands around the Falklands area? The reason is that foreign fishing boats are over-fishing squid, which is the penguins' main diet. Is my noble

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friend also aware that I was pleased to hear her Answer to the noble Lord's Question, that the Government are taking the conservation of the fisheries around the Falklands seriously?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I am grateful for my noble friend's last remark. I hope I can assure him that, although it seems that the number of dead penguins is greater than usual, there is as yet no definite knowledge about the total numbers involved or, indeed, the cause of the deaths, and there is no evidence to link the deaths of the birds with squid fishing in the Falklands.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, is the noble Baroness telling the House that the talks on the proposed multilateral regime are now in suspension pending the FAO survey? Can she say when the FAO survey is likely to be published, to what extent Her Majesty's Government are tied to the recommendations of the survey, and whether the Argentine is tied to the survey as well?
Baroness Young: My Lords, what is happening at the present time is that under the FAO a technical survey is being conducted to establish the state of the fish stocks. I am glad to confirm to the noble Lord that the study is well under way, technical experts from the FAO have been visiting capitals of the fishing nations, and Argentina is participating in the study. Talks to implement any possible scheme will, of course, follow the publication of this study, but we have not yet reached that stage.
Viscount Montgomery of Alamein: My Lords, following on from what the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, has said, will my noble friend not agree that there can be no long-term solution to the very vexed fisheries problem in this area unless Argentina agrees? Will she therefore not consider that this is a very worthwhile opportunity for the resumption of a more direct dialogue with Argentina on a subject on which we probably all agree?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I can confirm, and gladly do so to my noble friend, that co-operation with Argentina on a multilateral fishing scheme would be the best basis for a successful regime. I confirm that Argentina is currently taking part in that. I can also confirm that such a regime would be without prejudice to sovereignty on either side.

Housing Corporation Development Programme
2.51 p.m.
Lord Crawshaw of Aintree: 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 percentage of the Housing Corporation development programme for 1985–86 is represented by the programme for 1986–87 in areas other than those designated as inner city stress areas.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I hope that it will be helpful to the House if I answer this Question in terms of new projects. Outside the 80 designated housing stress areas where the Housing Corporation has been asked to concentrate its new approvals in 1986–87, the total scheme costs of new fair rent and home ownerships approvals in 1986–87 will be £88 million. This is just under 50 per cent. of the £180 million lotal scheme costs for new projects in these areas in 1985–86.
Lord Crawshaw of Aintree: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that reply. Is he aware that those of us who have been trying to get extra funds for the inner cities feel a sense of shame when we realise that any success that we may have achieved has been gained at the expense of other areas of the country? As the Government have been profuse in their praise of the housing associations' work, is it not strange that many of these associations will now be in a position where it will be necessary to get rid of in-house management which has been built up laboriously over many years? Is this the most efficient way to run a housing programme?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, housing associations are only part of a housing programme, but I point out that the Government have provided for a programme by the Housing Corporation of £685 million in England in 1986–87. Together with the funding of housing associations by local authorities, which was about £250 million in 1985–86, that will enable the housing associations to make a substantial contribution towards meeting housing need. With regard to the noble Lord's general point, I think that this total provision for housing, both with the housing association movement and outside it, is a sensible way of running a housing programme.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, following on from what the noble Lord, Lord Crawshaw, said, is my noble friend aware that the allocation for the west region of the National Federation of Housing Associations is 30 per cent. less this year compared with last year, and that the Isle of Wight, in which I have particular interest, is 33 per cent. less? I do not mean down by 30 per cent. but 30 per cent. of last year's total. Is that not too dramatic a decrease? I take my noble friend's point about the overall housing programme, but with what are to a large extent voluntary organisations, although some are more organised than others, is it not reasonable for them to have a much greater amount than they have been promised this year and something nearer to last year rather than the sum being down to under one-third?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I think I am right in saying that my noble friend's figures concentrate entirely on Housing Corporation grant in the areas that he mentioned. On one matter I agree with the Official Opposition: housing is about people, and where there are particular needs in an area, that is where we shall concentrate our resources.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, in the county of Somerset, where the noble Lord the Minister and I both live, is not the position similar to that of the Isle of Wight

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although not quite as bad? Is he aware that in Somerset the housing associations are receiving in the current year only just over 50 per cent. of the money that they received last year? Are we not robbing the poor to pay the poor? Should not new money be put up front to deal with the inner-city areas rather than money being taken from other poorer areas of the country in order to relieve inner-city stress?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, it is awfully easy to think that the answer to all our problems lies in more and more and newer and newer money. But where on earth is it to come from?
The Earl of Selkirk: My Lords, is the distribution of money the decision of the Housing Corporation or is it directed by the Government?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, it was a decision by the Housing Corporation on a request for reconsideration of its policy by the Government.
Baroness David: My Lords, is the Minister aware that it is no use trying to bamboozle the House about what money is spent on housing when expenditure on housing between 1979 and 1984–85 has gone down in real terms by 54.6 per cent.?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, the figures that I have are, as usual, in cash terms. I note that in that period expenditure went down by 19 per cent. In the period of the last Labour Government, on exactly the same basis, expenditure went down by 45 per cent.

Rural Sub-Post Offices
2.56 p.m.
Baroness Elliot of Harwood: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether in view of the concern expressed in many isolated rural areas, they will obtain assurances from the Post Office that no programme exists to close rural sub-post offices.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Lucas of Chilworth): My Lords, I am assured by the Post Office that there is no programme to close rural sub-post offices.
Baroness Elliot of Harwood: My Lords, I am delighted to have that reassurance from the Minister. May I urge him to ensure that that never happens, because the use of sub-post offices in rural areas is absolutely vital to the community? I hope that the Government will continue with that principle.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, it is not a principle with which the Government can continue, as it is a matter entirely for the Post Office to deal with in
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terms of operational requirement. But I am assured that there is no programme as such to close rural post offices.
Lord Hooson: My Lords, the noble Lord says that there is no programme to close rural sub-post offices. Is it right that there is a policy to close them? Does he not realise that that causes great hardship in areas where public transport is virtually non-existent?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, there is no policy to close rural post offices. Rural post offices do close, usually when a sub-postmaster retires or resigns and the Post Office cannot find a suitable replacement to take on the office. Of the 1,100 rural post offices there have therefore been some closures and some openings. In the past six years the result is a net figure in closures.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that the closure of rural post offices, especially in the remoter areas of the country, is a severe deprivation to those who live in the villages concerned and in the surrounding countryside? I refer, for example, to pensioners and other such groups. Is there not a policy? Do not noble Lords and Members of another place receive representations, as I have done from Lleyn in North Wales, from areas where it is proposed to close post offices? Is the fact that the postmaster has died a sufficient reason for declaring that post office closed? Would it not be a good thing for the Government to have a clear policy which makes it plain that rural post offices will be kept open where there is a strong case for it?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition raises a number of points. The House will know that the Post Office is under a statutory duty to provide its services economically and efficiently while having regard to the social needs of the United Kingdom. That, I am quite sure, the board of the Post Office has in mind. We, as well as the Post Office, are aware of the impact that the loss of a village sub-post office has on a rural community. Nevertheless, there are some 1,100 post offices in rural areas. With regard to the death or retirement of a postmaster, while the Post Office may very well wish to maintain the service in that area, it depends upon a suitable postmaster or postmistress coming forward to take up the vacancy.
Baroness Robson of Kiddington: My Lords, does the Minister agree that where it is not possible to find a new sub-postmaster for a sub-post office in a rural area, perhaps because the work does not justify a full-time job, it ought to be possible for a bigger central post office to send out for one or two days a week a member of its staff?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, the Post Office has on a number of occasions reviewed the opportunities that there may be, first, for opening on a part-time or limited basis, and, secondly, for operating a mobile post office. Such matters are given consideration on appropriate occasions.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, in spite of the carefully worded replies that the Minister has given today and the assurances that were given in another place a few months ago, is he not aware that throughout the country there is widespread disquiet and uncertainty among sub-postmasters about their future? In view of the unique services that sub-postmasters give to their communities—and they are extremely valuable services—will the Minister say something to give rather more reassurance to sub-postmasters?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: Not on this occasion, my Lords, as the matter is wide of the original Question on the Order Paper. In an earlier answer I may have said that there are 1,100 rural post offices in operation; I should have said 11,000.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that in some areas there is a strong feeling that insufficient care has been taken to discover whether there is a social need or a strong local demand for the maintenance of a post office before it is closed? Will the Minister use his influence to make sure that steps of that kind are adequately publicised locally so that the local population may make its view well known to those in charge?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I am not able, with my knowledge of the board of the Post Office, to agree with the noble Lord's suggestion. Nevertheless, I give an assurance that I shall draw his comments to the attention of the chairman of the board.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, may I make an appeal to the noble Viscount the Leader of the House before Question Time finishes? Will he use his influence to see that when Ministers come to answer Questions they are fully briefed? Is it not misleading the House to give comparative figures in cash terms when they ought to be given at least in cash and in real terms?
The Lord President of the Council (Viscount Whitelaw): My Lords, the noble Lord invites me to suggest that my Ministers are not fully briefed when they come to answer Questions. I totally repudiate that. The noble Lord would expect me to do just that. I shall discuss with Ministers the various points made, but equally I must point out to the noble Lord and others—and I hope that I am not being unreasonable in doing so—that the Procedure Committee has laid down that supplementary questions should be material to the original Question. If they are outside the original Question or are wide of it, it is inevitable that sometimes Ministers will have to say that it is a matter that they will answer if a direct Question is put down. I hope that the House will remember that.
The noble Lord frowns, and he is entitled to frown if he wants to. However, I am making a point, and I know that the House feels that we must try to stick to the Questions that are asked. Ministers will be briefed. They may not give answers that are satisfactory to noble Lords, but they certainly will be briefed. But they cannot be expected to answer questions that are totally wide of the original Question that has been put down.

Business
3.3 p.m.
Lord Denham: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. this afternoon my noble friend Lady Young will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement that is to be made in another place on the Foreign Affairs Council on 21st and 22nd April.

Harrogate Bogs Field etc. Bill [H.L.]
Bill read a third time, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

Violent Crime: Protection of Public
3.5 p.m.
Baroness Faithfull Baroness Faithfull rose to call attention to the serious increase in violent crime and the need for measures to protect innocent persons; and to move for Papers.
The noble Baroness said The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. Throughout many parts of the world there is an escalation of violent crime, bringing unhappiness to both victims and their families. Today, however, I shall confine my speech to the domestic scene in our country. It is hoped that by debating this Motion today we will on all sides of your Lordships' House, in some measure, influence the climate of opinion that acknowledges that crime, and particularly violent crime, is a way of life that is unacceptable in this country.
Furthermore, I hope that innocent persons who suffer as a result of violent crime will be encouraged to know that in your Lordships' House sympathy is shown for their plight. My noble friend the Minister will, I know, be dealing with measures to protect innocent persons.
It needs to be said—and it seems an extraordinary thing to have to say—that crime is wrong. There may be extenuating circumstances such as unemployment, poverty or poor housing; and it is acknowledged that we should work towards the eradication of those social problems. However, we diminish the dignity of our people if we excuse crime for whatever reason, except perhaps that of a mental state of illness. Excuse is one thing: forgiveness and compassion is quite another.
Crime, and particularly violent crime, contravenes the beliefs of the Christian religion and, indeed, of other religions. It is encouraging that two books have just been published on the subject. One of them, Breaking Out, is a Christian critique of criminal justice. The second, entitled Social Work—A Christian Perspective, was written by 13 social workers.
The principles underlying this speech are the qualities of responsibility, involvement and partnership. I propose to give a kaleidoscopic picture of practical suggestions that encompass the different

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aspects of this debate, which will be taken up in detail by other Members of your Lordships' House.
I will touch on the responsibility of the community overall. We congratulate Her Majesty's Government that, at a national level, a ministerial group has been set up consisting of Ministers and officials from 12 departments to deal with crime prevention. That group is based on the Home Office. I suggest that the remit of that group should be widened to form a joint framework for social policies, of which crime prevention should be one. That would provide for an effective mechanism for determining coherent and consistent policies in the whole field of social policy, including crime prevention. That view is based on a paper that was first brought out in July 1973, but never implemented.
Ministries tend to work in isolation. However, it is often the case that where there is a joint policy between ministries money spent in one department can save money on social matters in another department. At a local level, a corresponding structure ought to be set up in each district. I know that a statutory duty has been imposed on all police forces to set up proper consultative arrangements with local communities, but it is well known that there are some local authorities who have not implemented such schemes. Perhaps I may ask the Minister whether he does not agree that a more comprehensive method would lie at local level, with a council for order and justice allowing for the responsibility and involvement of the whole community. Serving on such a council would be, I suggest, representatives of the many excellent schemes already in existence throughout the country but which are unevenly developed; such schemes as the neighbourhood crime prevention projects and victim support schemes. I suggest also that on such a council there should serve representatives of the churches, voluntary agencies, the local authority—particularly the education department—the health authority, police, magistrates and, indeed, members of the public who are willing and who are chosen to serve. Moreover, the council would be non-political. The remit of such a council would be to monitor and promote schemes to prevent crime.
The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, will speak on one such innovative scheme and my noble friend Lady Gardner of Parkes will speak on preventive measures. These councils would link with the ministerial group. I believe that such local councils could work. Perhaps there could be some local experiments in the first instance. Such a council for order and justice could spread the responsibility for local consultation and action—and again I say that it would be non-political.
One cannot consider violent crime without considering drugs. The Drug Trafficking Offences Bill which is passing through your Lordships' House deals with those who are responsible for the trafficking of drugs. Should we not think of the drug takers, the glue sniffers and particularly young people? As a social worker I have dealt with drug addicts. They can become violent when wanting money to purchase drugs. Only a proportion of them seek help at the splendid centres where treatment is given. The most that one can hope for is that they will commit an
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offence of the type which will warrant a custodial sentence, thus distancing them from the supply of drugs.
Drug abuse among young people is increasing rapidly. Has the time not come for positive help to be given to young drug addicts and glue sniffers who will not voluntarily seek treatment? Would it not be possible for a court to issue a care and treatment order, whereby they are treated in accommodation which temporarily contains them, where they are treated with care and skill and released only when they no longer wish to have drugs?
Other noble Lords will be speaking on police recruitment and training. Her Majesty's Government have increased the manpower of the police by 14,000 since 1979. The present shortfall is 2,000. But with a £50 million grant from the Government—£28 million from the Home Office and £22 million from the Department of the Environment—the police authorities will have the resources to recruit the 2,000 personnel required, which will include trainees from the ethnic groups. The police belong to the people and it is surely the responsibility of every individual in this country to develop a sense of partnership with them and to seek to help them in their task as we look to them to help us.
I now turn to prisons. Successive governments have neglected expenditure on prisons. Since 1979–80 there has been an increase of 30 per cent. in the prison service. There has been an increase of 18 per cent. in prison staff. It is recognised that the prison population has risen by 10 per cent. Other noble Lords, in particular my noble friend Lord Mersey, will be speaking on prisons. I therefore confine myself to three unusual questions.
May I ask my noble friend the Minister why more use is not made of volunteers? I know that unions are suspicious of volunteers, but they can enrich an establishment and, dare I say it, prove invaluable in, for example, the workshops, in the field of art and in games both inside and outside the prison. I am sure that the volunteer centre under the chairmanship of Lady Wagner would co-operate with the Prison Officers' Association. I am not suggesting that volunteers should in any way take on the role of prison officers, but they should be an adjunct to the service, thus enriching it.
Secondly, perhaps I may ask my noble friend the Minister whether the time has not come for a time and motion study to be done on the waste of prison officers' time in relation to the courts. Is he assured that the management of the courts is run as efficiently as is practicable? I am told that this is open to question in some areas, particularly where there are local prisons.
Thirdly, the rise in crime is a trend common to the rest of the Western world. Why do we in the United Kingdom hold more men and women and young people in custody than does any other country in the EC? Many of your Lordships will take up this point recommending, I am sure, greater use of community service orders, day care and help in the community, such as is given by the diversionary scheme in Northamptonshire and the minders scheme for young offenders in Leeds.
Non-custodial care is cost effective. The building of many new prisons is expensive, both in capital and revenue consequences. If it were ever decided to set up local councils for order and justice, I am sure that it would be part of their remit to help discharged prisoners or those who are not sent to prison but given a community service order.
It is perhaps inevitable that my final and perhaps most significant point should concern children and young persons, their families, their education and the personal responsibility of their neighbours. In a remarkable lecture to the local authorities and chiefs of police associations the late Dr. Kellmer Pringle spoke of the "roots of violence and vandalism" in children. She maintained that violence and vandalism were symptoms. I believe that in our children and young persons they are the consequence of a failure to meet the spiritual, emotional and physical needs basic to the mature development of a child or young person. By the time a young person is apprehended the damage is done. The answer to crime by young people must be sought at a much earlier age.
It may seem strange to your Lordships that I start with the young baby and children under five. It is during these formative years that a child learns to establish relationships. It has been said that the seeds of violence and vandalism are linked, not wholly but to some extent, to the most basic emotional needs and the extent to which they are met or remain unfulfilled. We face a dilemma in that more women are going out to work and there are more single-parent families. Many women do not have the energy to be aware of the emotional needs of their child; nor do they have the time to respond sensitively and in a way that is satisfying to the child.
Her Majesty's Government are to be congratulated on financing a unit to be set up in the National Children's Bureau to look into and advise on the needs of children under five and their families and to consider how, in modern times and under modern conditions, a scheme can be worked out which will give equal opportunities to women, men and children.
As I said earlier, this country had more children and young persons in custodial care than had any other country in the European community. It is good to know that the figure has dropped this year. Throughout the country in different ways efforts are being made to prevent children from appearing before the courts; and either before or after a court appearance the Government, local authorities and voluntary organisations are financing intermediate treatment projects to help young persons in the community. Both the party opposite and the present Government—as is well known to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt—have supported these community projects which are run by local authorities and voluntary organisations. We recognise that for a proportion of children and young offenders there must be custodial care, but we maintain that it is a last resort.
Both research and experience indicate that family discord and separation are often crucial factors in vandalism and delinquency among children and young persons. For this reason I support the work of the conciliation service, which gives help to both
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parents and children at the time of a marriage breakdown. I also support family courts. It may be asked: what does supporting family courts have to do with crimes of violence? I would say in reply that "the child is father to the man".
Family law issues are now dealt with in the juvenile court, the magistrates' domestic court, the county court and the Family Division of the High Court. The result is that many cases are inappropriately brought up in a jurisdiction which may be inadequate to deal with the particular matter in dispute and require to be transferred between jurisdictions. The result of this is confusion for children and their families at what is bound to be a time of great emotional stress; it creates a difficult situation in their lives.
The variety of jurisdictions can be a procedural nightmare. For instance, in family proceedings there are no less than 20 ways in which a child can be made the subject of a care order under a local authority, with different considerations and a different legal effect in each, and it may be mere chance that determines the route along which a child is directed.
Society has had to come to terms with rapid increases in the divorce rate and in family breakdown. It may be unrealistic to suppose that a unified jurisdiction could alter these trends, but we believe that a more rational and easily understood system would make family disputes less traumatic and the effect of family breakdown less severe for the children. A new system such as we propose would be part of society's investment in the overall stability of family life.
We have heard of distressing cases of child abuse, battering and sexual abuse. Case histories show that in a proportion of cases those found guilty have themselves experienced emotional and physical deprivation and often cruelty in their childhood. I believe that family courts and a change in the juvenile justice system, such as to that which is practised in Scotland, would lead to greater parental involvement and responsibility and provide a more effective mechanism for help.
Turning to education—and this is not my subject; my noble friend Lady Cox regrets that she is unable to be present today—suffice it to say that research has shown that delinquency, vandalism, and indeed acts of violence are considerably lower in schools where the interest of the children has been captured by good teaching, where there is enjoyment in learning, where each child experiences a sense of personal achievement and where a sense of responsibility is developed.
Children pattern themselves on their families, on their parents and on the staff of their schools. I believe that a better relationship needs to be developed between education, health and social services, in particular where delinquent children are concerned.
This "grasshopper" speech has touched somewhat inadequately on a wide number of aspects of crime and violence. It was stated in an article in The Times of 21st April that Mr. Gerald Kaufman the Shadow Home Secretary in another place,
"was making a dramatic bid to wrest the law and order initiative from the Conservatives and promote Labour as the party to beat crime".
We all know Mr. Kaufman to be a man of considerable ability. In the article in The Times allusion is made to

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the probable policies of Mr. Kaufman. On the 10th April I was present at a lecture arranged by the Prison Reform Trust given by the Home Secretary, Mr. Douglas Hurd. He gave a penetrating, impressive and thoughtful paper which indicated his quiet and purposeful resolve to deal constructively and effectively with the law and order issue. What is interesting and perhaps encouraging is that the apparent policies of both our parties do not differ widely. The difference is perhaps one of emphasis.
I believe that the basic problem is a moral one and that it must be dealt with by the influence, attitude of mind and sense of responsibility and service of every individual in this land. I believe, too, that on all sides of the House we must pursue the means of dealing with crime both humanely and effectively—I repeat effectively—remembering that "no man is an island unto himself. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.28 p.m.
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone): My Lords, my noble friend has just made a wide-ranging, constructive and very interesting speech, to which I think my noble friend Lord Glenarthur will be replying at the end of the debate. I am speaking with a slightly different purpose, which is to analyse and expose some of the more direct matters concerned with crimes of violence. It is nearly two years since this House had an opportunity for a full debate on the subject. Perhaps I may say at once that the Government welcome this Motion and the opportunity for an examination of the issues.
No doubt during the course of the debate others will explore many aspects of the subject. Partly because I expressed myself rather fully on the previous occasion, to which I have referred, and partly because on this occasion I am opening, I believe that the best service that I can render to the House is to analyse the size and nature of the problems that we shall be examining and expose the questions involved in violent criminality so that we are reminded of the characteristics of this social evil and the main ways in which the Government's policy is striving to combat it.
The Motion refers to the serious rise in violent crime. In the fairly near future I intend to make a speech of my own elsewhere on the subject of terrorism. In the meantime, I should like to make plain at the outset that I do not intend on this occasion to explore that subject at all and that I shall be speaking about crimes of violence other than terrorism.
When we speak of a serious rise in crimes of violence of this sort we should not lose sight of the fact that the recent rises above the level in the year 1984–85, the latest for which statistics are available, of 7 per cent. in offences of violence against the person and 6 per cent. in sexual offences are not out of step with recent trends in criminal behaviour generally. For many years all crime has increased steadily and remorselessly. That is a fact to which my noble friend has already referred. Crimes of violence have increased in proportion with the general rise in criminality. All are distressing and, apart from terrorism, crimes of violence are among the most distressing of all.
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Nevertheless, while it is important to consider crimes of violence as part of the wider trend, it is also essential to appreciate the characteristics peculiar to crimes of this nature that justify the claim to make them a special category. Despite the impression that we have all received from dramatic events, violently and legitimately reported, violent crime as such remains statistically relatively rare against the background of general criminality.
In 1985, nearly 165,000 offences of personal violence, including sexual assaults and robberies, were recorded by the police. That is a shocking fact. But it represents under 5 per cent. of all notifiable offences. The most serious of these offences of personal violence, namely, rape and crimes endangering life, amounted to 9,800. That is about one-third of 1 per cent. of recorded offences.
These figures compare with 800,000 burglaries and over 1,800,000 offences of theft and handling stolen goods. It is also, I believe, important to stress that one should not talk about violent crime as a single and homogenous category in any sense except one—the effect that such offences have on their victims, on the families, friends and neighbours of victims and on society at large.
Far from being a single, separate category, crimes of violence cover a wide range of different offences. Not all have the same motivation. Not all are committed by the same type of offender. Not all injure the same type of victim. We must be careful, therefore, in our search for generalisations not to overlook the specific aspects of each type or to propose simple solutions that fail to take account of the complexity of the facts involved. There is, however, one fact to which I should allude. Sometimes violence seems to be used wantonly and for its own sake. But in others it is used as an aid to some other offence: theft, sexual assault, riot, political demonstration, drug-peddling.
In the light of my noble friend's close and longstanding interest, I do not think that I should ignore some special facts relating to the young offender. Most offenders against criminal law are young, and most of them are male. The peak age for all these offences is 15 for males and 14 for females. In 1984, over 419,000 offenders under the age of 21 were cautioned or found guilty of an offence of some sort. Of males born in the year 1953, no less than one-third had one or more criminal convictions before they were 28 years of age. This is fact. But there is a widespread belief that young people are predominantly responsible for unacceptable acts of violence, in particular vicious attacks on the frail and elderly. That such offences by the young take place is true, but the generalisation is not true.
Violence is not a predominant feature of crime by young people, and violent crimes are not predominantly committed by young people. Crimes of violence form about 7 per cent. of all their offences, and there is one important difference that critics of the younger generation should remember. While adult crime has been going steadily up since 1980—that is, during the last six years—the number of young people guilty of indictable offences has remained broadly unchanged.

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It is also fair to say that we cannot fairly lay at the door of the young our legitimate sense of outrage at attacks made on the most helpless victims; the old, for instance. Over half of the offenders in street attacks on the elderly were aged over 25. Characteristically, the victims of such violent attacks as are committed by young people are others of the same age group as themselves. I would not seek in any way in what I say to minimise the scale or seriousness of the problem that we are discussing. The official statistics do not tell the whole story, not by any means.
The British crime survey commissioned by the Home Secretary completed its second sweep in 1984. It has done much to fill in the gaps in our knowledge and to add a little more subtle shading to the black and white picture of the statistics. It is clear that a large number of crimes, and, in particular, a large number of crimes of violence, are never reported at all, and so they do not appear in the statistics. Recorded cases are, therefore, to use a cliché, the tip of an iceberg.
The survey estimates that less than half the serious crimes of violence and about one-third of the less serious crimes of violence are reported. It also shows that sexual offences generally and crimes of violence within the family may be reported proportionately less than others. The iceberg at this point is therefore rather more deeply under water than the rest.
No analysis of the scale and nature of this problem can be a substitute for concern and a determination to combat it. We must not blunt our personal sense of outrage and shock at violent crime. We cannot ignore the deep sense of frustration, almost rage, among the public, who feel, rightly and with passion, that every single violent attack or sexual attack is wholly unacceptable and that, to the utmost of our ability, we have to rid ourselves of this growing scourge of violence before we have lost our capacity to react to it.
My noble friend referred to the article in The Times stating that the shadow Home Secretary, Mr. Gerald Kaufman, intended, and I quote the words, to "take over" the issue of law and order from the Conservative Party. The subject is too important to become a party political football. We should all be glad to put our constructive thoughts into the pool. The problem is one that affects us all and we can all benefit from the wisdom of others.
The Motion calls for measures to protect innocent persons. I have no doubt that my noble friend Lord Glenarthur will be speaking at greater length about this. I take it that the phrase does not primarily refer to the availability of compensation orders made by the court at the time of disposal, although it has been my constant endeavour from the time when the subject was only a gleam in the then Home Secretary's eye, about 40 years ago, to the present to urge the use of compensation orders where funds are available in the perpetrator to take advantage of them. I take it of course that we are not referring to the compensation scheme brought in some years ago under the criminal injuries board.
In the seven years of our term of office we have pursued a balanced strategy to combat crime on all fronts, giving encouragement, resources and legislation as each was found to be necessary, and where appropriate a combination of all three. There
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are and must remain legitimate limits on the Government's power to control criminal justice, still more on our ability directly to influence the figures. Within the powers available, we have taken measures which aim to prevent crime taking place, to enhance investigation and detection, to deal effectively and justly with those convicted and to give support and assistance to the victims. My noble friend will wish to say more on this aspect in summing up.
One of the principal responsibilities of any Home Secretary must be to provide an appropriate legislative framework for dealing with offences. This is a field in which there are many views and many conflicting needs. Justice requires that sentencing should be fitted to the circumstances alike of the individual offence and of the individual offender. It should be sufficiently severe to mark the condemnation by society of the crime which has been committed.
Particularly where juveniles are concerned, sentencing should also take into account the future of the offender. It must have some different effect without confirming an incipient criminal career. It must also have regard to the needs of the victims. From all this one essential is clear. This is that we must provide the courts with a wide range of powers so that they can make appropriate disposals against the relevant criteria and the facts of each individual case. The Government have worked steadily to develop this range of disposals, and we will continue to do this. At one end of the spectrum it is essential that maximum penalties are adequate. Therefore, we have increased the maximum sentences for attempted rape, indecent assault on a woman and trafficking in class A drugs, a subject to which my noble friend made particular reference.
The White Paper on criminal justice contains proposals for increasing the maxima for carrying fire-arms in the course of crime and for certain offences of corruption. In addition, we have continued to apply restrictions on the release of certain life sentence prisoners and the restrictions on parole for some violent offenders. These changes were announced in 1983 by my right honourable friend Mr. Leon Brittan. This severity for the worst offenders is just. Law, we must remember, is normative of conduct, and a severe face against deliberate offending is socially salutary. Moreover, it is essential if we are to have public support, as we need public support, for approaching less serious crimes in a rather different way. Either excessive lenience or excessive severity can easily undermine public confidence in the system as a whole.
My noble friend referred to custodial cases. I have never taken the view that to deprive a man or woman of liberty is necessary to improve his or her character. Prison is the right place for the worst offenders, and as my noble friend has said, prisons must be provided. But, as she had also said, it is a last resort. No one should be deprived of liberty unless it is necessary, nor for a longer period than is necessary.
From the outset the development of non-custodial sentences has been a fundamental part of Government strategy. To win the confidence of the public, and perhaps more importantly of the courts, we have also had to strengthen considerably the non-custodial

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disposals available. Although one must provide for reformative practices within the custodial system, this provision of non-custodial sentences is an essential part of penal policy.
On the probation service expenditure has doubled since 1979. In 1979 fewer than 24,000 convicted offenders received probation. Since then the probation order has been strengthened by giving the courts power to attach specific requirements and thus making the order more demanding for offenders. Both these factors may have contributed to the greater use of probation. By 1984 probation was used in 36,000 cases—that is, in 8.5 per cent. of all disposals.
The most successful development in this field, and one to which my noble friend referred, has been the growth of the community service order. In 1979 13,500 orders were made, representing 3 per cent. of disposals. Since that time the nature of the order, which makes serious demands on the offender yet provides him with a positive task and brings him back to offer some service to society, has won the interest and confidence of the courts, employers and public. In 1984 33,000 orders were made—that is, 7·5 per cent. of all disposals. The order is available throughout England and Wales.
The Government continue to fund ways of enhancing the effectiveness of existing non-custodial sentences—for instance, fines which have declined in use—and to develop new ideas. One idea which may deserve mention because it hinges on the bringing together of the offender and the victim in the local community is that of reparation. A number of reparation schemes are now in operation. These are administered by the probation services. All have one thing in common, the voluntary agreement between the victim and the offender to a meeting at which the offender can apologise for his offence and both parties can talk it through. The experience is intended to reassure the victims and to teach the offender consideration for others.
Four of these schemes are funded by the Home Office on a two-year experimental basis to see whether they are likely to provide the basis of a new statutory order, and we recently published a discussion document which sought wider views. It is too early to say whether a statutory reparation order would be a valuable addition to the framework of penal treatment. But we shall continue to look for new alternatives to custody which are creditable and credible and satisfy the various requirements which I have said must apply to sentencing policy.
The provision of alternatives to custody is of course particularly important for juveniles. I have already mentioned community service. The Criminal Justice Act 1982 created a new structure for young offenders and placed emphasis upon avoiding custody wherever possible. This, for the first time, made the community service order available for 16 year-olds. The new power has been well received by the courts. About 2,000 community service orders a year are being made for this age group. The 1982 Act also strengthened the supervision order by giving the courts power to intervene more directly in the lives of the offenders concerned, but without the need for the extreme
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sanction of removing them from home. This was accompanied by the provision by central Government of £15 million of additional money to encourage the development of community-based facilities for young people under supervision orders. These changes too have been well received; but since the 1982 Act came into force experience has shown that some modification is required. Proposals for further strenghening the supervision orders are set out in the White Paper on criminal justice published earlier this year.
I turn back specifically to the subject of the Motion by my noble friend which is confined to crimes of violence. There are some offences that even when committed by young people can only be dealt with custodially. Where that is the case the 1982 Act provides a flexible range of orders enabling the punishment to be matched to the circumstances of the offence. It has been represented that the present arrangements for custodial sentencing of juveniles are not adequate and that there is a range of offences, some of which involve violence, for which stronger penalties are needed. The Government are of course concerned that those views should have been expressed, and for that reason with the White Paper we issued a discussion paper on custodial sentences with particular reference to juvenile offenders.
There is much which the Government can and should do. They should certainly be seen—and all governments should be seen—to be in the lead in this matter. There is much that we have already done, some of which has shown some good results. But as yet we have not seen the improvement in the crime figures for which we had hoped. No government can legislate for a total end to crimes of violence, and government action alone will never be sufficient to destroy it. The criminal justice system, for all its virtues and vices, is not by itself a solution but it is a necessary response. My noble friend Lady Faithfull has made a moving reference in the course of her speech to the need for involvement at grass roots level and I would endorse what she said.
I look forward to a well-informed debate. The public is deeply concerned about this, and not unnaturally feels a deep sense of outrage at the lurid, dramatic and horrific details quite properly reported in the press. But this has led to levels of fear which are not justified by the actual risks. Nevertheless, the British crime survey has shown clearly that many members of the public take a realistic view of criminal justice and a balanced and fair attitude towards punishment. It is essential that we develop ways of harnessing this degree of public concern with common sense. If we succeed, many juveniles can begin to give useful service. Much of the progress we have made has focused on this important area: the development of neighbourhood watch schemes; the provision of more and better deployed police, better policing so that officers may be brought nearer the community, education to enhance the role of the schools—another topic which my noble friend handled—in the development of young people into good citizens. However, as I hardly need say, and as my noble friend said, that is a task for all of us.
I end with a word of my own. This has a direct relevance to the way in which my noble friend closed

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her speech. Criminal justice is a necessary evil. It is necessary because crime exists and evil because crime is evil and punishment in itself is not good. The moral climate of a society at large is the ultimate determinant of social and anti-social behaviour. The moral climate of society depends upon the behaviour of good neighbours to one another. Criminal justice is therefore not our front line. Writing long before the birth of the Redeemer, and uninfluenced so far as we know even by Jewish scriptures, the orator, statesman and philosopher, Cicero, wrote these words with which I close. He said:
"We have a natural propensity to love our fellow man and that is the foundation of all law".

Foreign Affairs Council, April 1986
3.55 p.m.
Baroness Young: My Lords, with the leave of the House I shall now repeat a Statement on the Foreign Affairs Council which is being made in another place by my right honourable and learned friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Sir Geoffrey Howe. The Statement is as follows:
"With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement about the meeting of Foreign Ministers of the Twelve that took place in Luxembourg on 21st April, and the meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council which followed on 21st and 22nd April. My honourable friend the Minister of State, the Member for Wallasey, and I attended.
"The Meeting of Foreign Ministers concentrated on the urgent problem of Libya. We had already agreed in the emergency meetings on 14th and 17th April on the importance of taking effective collective action to prevent further acts of Libyan state-directed terrorism and to defend ourselves against that threat. On 21st April we agreed to a series of measures to this end: a severe cut in the size of People's Bureaux throughout the Community; confining members of those Bureaux to the city where they are officially assigned; restricting the size of other official Libyan bodies to the minimum necessary for their stated business; applying a much stricter visa regime to Libyans; ensuring that any Libyan expelled from one member state will be expelled from the Community as a whole.
"The Twelve also reaffirmed their ban on arms sales to Libya, and will be pressing other countries to join it. They agreed to look urgently at further action on the abuse of diplomatic immunity. Interior Ministers of the Twelve will be meeting today in the TREVI group to concert the closest possible cooperation between Interior Ministers, the police and security services of the Twelve. Transport Ministers have been asked to step up their co-operation urgently on aviation security. We shall follow up all these decisions urgently with our partners.
"To have achieved an effective package of measures against Libya, in force throughout the Community, is a considerable step forward. We shall continue to press for further action and for vigorous implementation of the programme of action now agreed.
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"The Foreign Affairs council briefly reviewed the issues likely to be discussed at the Tokyo Economic Summit. Ministers discussed improvements to the Community's mandate for the negotiations with Mediterranean third countries on the adaptation of their Co-operation and Association Agreements to take account of the accession of Spain and Portugal.
"There was a brief discussion of the new EC/Thailand Manioc Agreement; this is expected to be formally agreed at another council in the near future. The Council also reviewed and confirmed the position to be adopted by the EC at the ACP/EC Council of Ministers which begins in Barbados on 26th April.
"The Council discussed the United States' complaint about alleged trade loss as a result of the enlargement of the Community. It reconfirmed the EC's readiness to settle the issue in early GATT negotiations and agreed a mandate for the Commission to conduct those negotiations. Ministers regretted the United States intention to take unilateral retaliatory action and noted that the European Community would be bound to take equivalent measures to defend its interests.
"The Council reviewed progress on implementation of the report of the People's Europe Committee and agreed to adopt the Council of Europe flag for use on appropriate occasions. No requirements are placed on member states by this agreement.
"There was an exchange of views on the budgetary situation. It will now be for the Council of Finance Ministers, meeting on 28th April, to consider in detail the 1986 budgetary situation and the 1987 reference framework for expenditure.
"That too will clearly be an important meeting".
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Baroness for repeating that Statement. We support the further measures now agreed by the Community, although we wish that more specific multilateral economic sanctions could have been agreed upon because we believe that these would have been more effective than anything that has hitherto been tried. Does the noble Baroness not now agree that effectively applied economic sanctions are preferable to attacks from the air?
The Foreign Secretary said (and I quote) that the measures would,
"go a long way to persuading the United States that we are serious".
I assume that that means that the Foreign Ministers in the Economic Community are serious. Can we be told precisely what the Foreign Secretary meant by that, how much further would he like the Community to go, and whether economic sanctions were in his mind when he made that statement? Furthermore, can the noble Baroness tell us the present level of EC sales of agricultural surpluses to Libya, and the element of EC subsidy in this? Can the noble Baroness say whether these sales of subsidised agricultural produce to Libya are now to cease?
I understand that an announcement has been made during the last hour or so that the Libyan Government

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have today expelled 300 EC and US journalists. Can the noble Baroness confirm this news and clarify the position, especially with regard to the security of the British subjects?
On the other important matters raised in the Statement, can the noble Baroness say what will be the precise nature of the United States unilateral retaliatory action and the equivalent measures proposed by the European Community? Can she say how this may affect United Kingdom trade with the United States? Could not these steps of retaliatory action by the United States and the response by this country be postponed pending the new GATT negotiations, to which the Statement refers?
Lord Gladwyn: My Lords, we, too, should like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Young, for repeating this Statement. The measures taken against Libya by the Council of Ministers and announced in this Statement are obviously good as far as they go. But why should not members of the Community be prepared, like us, to sever all diplomatic relations with the Libyan Government so long as that government maintain their insane policy of terrorism? After all, in our case, even in the absence of any diplomatic relations, our 5,000 nationals in Libya do not seem to have suffered in any particular way, and our trade with Libya seems to continue quite happily. Therefore, why should members of the EC not follow our example and confide their interests, as we have confided ours, to some neutral state, such as Switzerland? If they did so, they would not be worse off, and the pressure on Colonel Gaddafi would, I should have thought, be very great.
As regards expelling Libyans—and, incidentally, there is no mention in the Statement of students, and I do not know whether or not that is significant—would it be possible for our security services to distinguish on their records between known Gaddafi opponents—because there are quite a lot among the students—and those who may be presumed to be potential terrorists? Would that not be a sensible step to take?
As I think the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, said, there is no mention in the Statement of any economic measures at all. Is it really a fact that we are continuing to export agricultural surpluses to this revolutionary regime? I cannot believe it and I should like some assurance from the noble Baroness to the effect that we shall stop these exports as soon as possible. After all, if we are considering serious economic pressure as members of the Community, why should we not indulge in an oil embargo? Would it really be intolerably expensive and counter-productive if we did so? No doubt it would have some ill effects on the economies of some members of the EC, but if it were done the effect on Gaddafi would be tremendous and might very well result in toppling him—something which continued bombardment is quite unlikely to do.
Finally, even more important than Libya from the point of view of its potential effect on the whole North Atlantic Alliance, is the announcement in the Statement, which I did not in fact know, that even now the United States is taking unilateral retaliatory action
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against our trade. Does this mean that we are now in the middle of a trade war? Perhaps the noble Baroness will comment on that and say what is the position. However, is it still possible, in the near future, to arrive at some compromise in GATT which would put an end to a trade war which, unless I am wrong, is in operation at the moment?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, for his support for the measures which have been agreed in the European Community. The noble Lord said that he welcomed them, though he regretted that nothing had been said about economic sanctions—a point which was also made by the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, who also referred to an oil embargo. I think that both noble Lords will be aware of the Government's view on sanctions against Libya. The possibility of a trade embargo has been considered on a number of occasions, but the Government have always concluded that it would not be an effective response. As my right honourable friend the Prime Minister told another place on 22nd April, sanctions will only work provided everybody operates them. With regard to an oil embargo, we believe that this would be most unlikely to be effective, and no such sanction would have an impact comparable to a reduction in the price of oil.
Both noble Lords raised the vexed question of the sale of European Community food surpluses to Libya. I can confirm that my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary raised with his Community colleagues and the Commission the need to examine what uncovenanted benefits Libya receives from the Community's agricultural policies. Our latest information from the Commission is that no further subsidised dairy sales are in prospect.
The noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, asked about the expulsions of Western journalists. I can confirm to the noble Lord that we understand that all European Community and United States journalists—about 250 in total—have been asked to leave Libya as soon as possible. We have seen reports that the reasons given range from retaliation for the measures agreed by Foreign Ministers of the Twelve on 21st April to administrative problems. I can only say that we deplore this unjustified and vindictive action.
The noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, also raised with me a point about Libyan students in Britain. There are in fact about 1,800 students, and this number should fall as their studies are completed. The number admitted has been reduced from 2,350 in 1983 to about 264 in 1985, and we have circulated to our European Community partners the names of Libyans who have been expelled from Britain.
Finally, both noble Lords raised with me the vexed question, which arose in the Statement, of the United States complaint about an alleged trade loss as a result of the enlargement of the Community. These accusations, that the accessation of Spain and Portugal will lose the United States trade, are, we believe, completely ill-founded. On the contrary, we believe that enlargement will bring them trade benefits. The United States threats of aggressive unilateral action are most regrettable and would indeed be contrary to the GATT rules. We hope that this matter can be settled

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in the new GATT round, and the Community is ready to begin negotiations in the GATT to settle this issue as soon as possible. It agreed a mandate for negotiations at the April Foreign Affairs Council, and we are urging the United States to do likewise.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, will the noble Baroness not agree that there is an element within the Statement which is totally disappointing and completely perplexing? Certainly many of our European partners, together with Members on these Benches, have expressed grave apprehension at what the Americans did in their belief that they could stop terrorism. Yet our European partners seem to be totally reluctant to apply sanctions against Libya. I do not think that they can have it both ways, and it is up to the Government to press very hard on this. Nor can we say in future that all state terrorism inflicted on people with black skins in South Africa ought to be answered with sanctions. It does not lie within the mouths of our European partners to condemn the United States, on the one hand, and then not to have the courage, on the other, to apply strong economic sanctions against Libya.
Baroness Young: My Lords, I fully appreciate the strength of feeling of the noble Lord and on the part of his noble friends on the question of sanctions against Libya. I have explained again our view about sanctions. We do not believe that they would be effective, and they are certainly not effective unless everybody applies them. We have, after all, had some experience in applying sanctions. As the noble Lord will be aware, we took steps against Libya two years ago following upon the assassination of Woman Police Contable Yvonne Fletcher. We are glad that our Community partners agreed the steps they did at the last meeting held on Monday.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, did the meeting not discuss the root causes of Middle East terrorism? Will the noble Baroness confirm reports that the Prime Minister is proposing to take an initiative for a settlement at the forthcoming meeting in Tokyo?
Baroness Young: My Lords, the topics discussed at the Foreign Affairs Council were the ones on which I have reported in this particular Statement. I cannot of course say what topics might be discussed at the Tokyo summit, and I do not believe that the noble Lord would expect me to do so on this occasion.
Lord Alport: My Lords, although it is obvious that Libya is implicated in the terrorism of the present time, the fact that this is happening relates to the general problems of the Middle East in the sense of the relations between Israel and the Palestinians, the position of Syria, and the fundamentalist movement. Is there really any chance of our being able to deal with terrorism simply by dealing with Libya without at the same time trying to take some steps in order to find some tolerable solution to the major problem? Was this problem discussed at any length at the Council of Foreign Ministers?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I have already confirmed to the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, and I
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shall confirm to my noble friend, that the topics that were discussed to the Foreign Affairs Council are the ones on which I have reported. I take entirely my noble friend's point about the importance of a discussion and a search for a solution to the problems of the Middle East, but that was not one of the topics discussed at the Foreign Affairs Council.
Lord Chalfont: My Lords, would the Minister make it clear that the view of the Government on this matter is, irrespective of what are called the underlying problems in the Middle East, that no political situation of any kind justifies the indiscriminate murder and maiming of innocent men, women and children m the pursuit of political aims?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I am glad to confirm what the noble Lord has said. We do not believe that the use of terrorism is justified on behalf of a political cause.
Lord Hankey: My Lords, can the Minister give us any more comfort about this question of the GATT negotiations? They have traditionally been terribly slow to get going. If the United States are already contemplating, or even taking, action which damages trade with Europe. which, I should have thought could be terribly damaging to all of us and to the Americans themselves, could the Government do anything more to hasten the GATT negotiations and to get them going more quickly than would usually be the case?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I take the point of the noble Lord. Preparations for the new GATT round are under way in Geneva. I would share his view that what could develop is serious, because if the United States takes unilateral action in the way that has been suggested, as the Statement makes clear we would not hesitate to retaliate to defend Community interests. This cannot be in the best interests of either the United States or the Community. That is why we hope that this problem can be resolved in the GATT negotiations.

Violent Crime: Protection of Public
4.15 p.m.
Debate resumed.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, in introducing this interesting and topical Motion, the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, delivered what she called a grass-hopping speech. Indeed, she hopped with her usual graciousness from point to point, as sometimes, if I may be allowed to say so, was the case with the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, in areas not strictly covered by the Motion before the House. I want to restrict myself in the remarks I have to make on this topical subject to the increase in violent crime; what is the size of it; what are we to do about it; and what, if anything, can we do in order to assist the victims of violent crime.
But previous speakers saw fit to quote the shadow Home Secretary, Mr. Kaufman, and The Times, which reported him. The noble Baroness limited

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herself to the quotation that Labour was to take over from the Conservatives the issue of law and order. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, with all the authority that his voice conveys, sounded a note, and a highly moral one, to the House that this was a matter of national importance which should come out of the political arena.
I plead for one thing: just a little bit of sincerity in the political life of this country if observations of this kind are made. Who started putting this subject in the political arena? It was the cry of the 1979 election by the Tory Party: "Law and order. We are the party of law and order". The Conservatives would not let it go, and this was very irresponsible, even in the 1983 Tory manifesto, when the boast was made politically:
"Already street crime is being reduced, and public confidence improved, in some of the worst inner city areas".
The facts are that since then, and since that boast, notifiable offences have increased by 62 per cent. in the police force areas that contain most of the inner cities. Having said that, I propose to take this out of the political arena, but let those who put it there accept courageously the burden that they take upon themselves and have the courage to admit that it was politically irresponsible, if not morally wrong, to put it in the arena in the first place.
Looking at it as a national problem, what are the facts? One of the tragic facts is that in 1984, 20 per cent. of mugging victims were school children. The noble and learned Lord referred to that in passing by saying that most victims were among the young—and I shall refer to that again in a moment, because there is a current popular misunderstanding—and that, by and large, it is youngsters attacking youngsters. Twenty per cent. of mugging victims in 1984 were school children. It is a commonly mistaken concept that the main victims of mugging are the aged, sympathetic though every one of us is to the cases which occur, and shameful they are, of old people being attacked.
I took the trouble to look at the interesting and informative Research Bulletin issued by the Home Office Research and Planning Unit. It is No. 20 of 1986. I am sure that your Lordships will forgive me if I quote the findings:
"Two findings have emerged consistently from the BCS—and from analysis of police statistics … young people are more at risk of violence than their elders, and men more than women. Table 1"—
I shall not go through Table 1, if your Lordships will forgive me—
"shows that for all three categories of violence, the likelihood of victimisation falls sharply with age, and that for every age group men are more at risk than women, (with the exception of mugging where risks for the over-30s are equally small for men and women)."
There is another aspect where I believe there is some misunderstanding and where I have found myself helped by the same Research Bulletin. In the course of her interesting speech the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, properly referred to drugs. I believe that unless one makes a relevant comment on that subject in this debate the public might be misled. The Research Bulletin contains an article headed,
"Criminal convictions of persons first notified as narcotic drug addicts in 1979–81".
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It is very informative. There are two conclusions. The first is that although half of the males and two thirds of the females notified as drug addicts
"had not been convicted before the age of 28 … Those notified as drug addicts were almost three times as likely to have been convicted … as those of a similar age in the general population".
We can gather from that that those who were notified as drug addicts are much more likely to be convicted as criminals in regard to criminal charges.
One then finds, in regard to crimes of violence, the fourth conclusion on page 29 of the Bulletin:
"The proportion of their convictions for violent offences did not change over the period before and up to two years after notification and was lower than the equivalent figure for the general population".
It is interesting that those who were registered as narcotics, though prone to general criminal charges, appear to have less proneness (if I may use that word) to crimes of violence.
Those are interesting observations. Even though statistics do not tell the whole story, in a debate such as this, that deals with the increase in various kinds of violence, we ought to concentrate on what the increase represents. We can then try to analyse it, try to find some reasons for what has happened and consider some of the things we ought to be doing nationally about it.
In relation to violence against the person, in national terms for England and Wales the figure in 1985 was 121,731, up 7 per cent. on the 1984 figure. I make no point of the fact that 1984 was a leap year and therefore one might have hoped that the figure for 1985 would have been a little less; but it was 7 per cent. up. What was the change in that category of violent crime against the person since 1979? It was up 40 per cent. The crime clock, as they call it, registered during that year one violent crime against the person every four minutes. We are told that the biggest deterrent to committing crime is the rate of crime detection. The clear-up rate for 1978 for violent crimes against the person was 77 per cent. In 1985 it was down 5 per cent. to 73 per cent.
What about damage to property? In 1985 there were 538,964 notifiable offences. Since 1984 the figure is up 8 per cent. It is up 76 per cent. since 1978 and the crime clock last year registered one offence for each minute of that clock. The clear-up rate in 1978 was 30 per cent. and in 1985 it was 23 per cent.—down 7 per cent.
What are the figures in the metropolitan area—of great concern to us all? In 1985 the figure for violence against the person was 20,242; up 7 per cent. since 1984. Since 1978 it is up 61 per cent. The crime clock registered one such offence every 26 minutes in the metropolitan area. The figure for vandalism and criminal damage was 113,094; the change since 1984, up 10 per cent., and the change since 1978, up 88 per cent. The crime clock registered one such offence every five minutes. Mixed up among these figures are those dreadful cases of rape and brutal killing of children that make every single one of us sick in our stomachs.
The object of this debate, I freely admit, is not just to register statistics, not just to claim credit or to cast discredit on any government. Governments should realise that their policies can help in this terrible

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national difficulty. No government have the monopoly over being able to cure. The nation is looking to see whether instead of making empty election boasts, as has been done in the past, we are realistically considering proper solutions to the problem, if we can find them.
I shall not touch on family matters or other points of that kind because my noble friend Lord Prys-Davies will deal with them in his speech. But I want to present some suggestions to your Lordships. I do not pretend that they are terribly original, but they ought to be introduced into this debate. The first is the need for real collaboration between the community, the police and the Government. Crime and all that breeds it has many causes and there is not the slightest doubt that part of the trouble, certainly in regard to our youth, can be found in poverty, bad housing, and unemployment as well as in other factors that my noble friend will deal with hereafter.
We have talked about partnership, but what ought the partnership to be doing? It ought to be thinking of practical matters at local authority level, as well as national level, and at voluntary community level, as well as in any Civil Service directives that may be issued. What about improved street lighting in regard to crimes of violence? What about more policemen on the beat? What about better community relations with the police?
What about entryphones and other improvements for the security of the home? What about a very good class of resident caretaker on estates; and what about grants by local authorities to low-income households to help them with home security? What about tighter control on the availability of guns, and what about a licensing system for shotguns? It might interest your Lordships if I were to say that the number of recorded offences involving firearms doubled over a period of 10 years. We ought to be looking at these matters, and we ought to be looking generally at the whole aspect of the community joining with the police and government, and government and local government being responsible for practical measures.
I have only a moment or two to deal with the other part of this Motion and I shall not be speaking for more than that. What about the innocent victims of crime? There ought to be, without any doubt at all—and this has been said in your Lordships' House whenever this matter has been dealt with—substantial financial help for local and national victim support schemes. There is no doubt at all that sympathy, trained sympathy and warm sympathy, for the victim just after an assault comes at a most critical time in a citizen's life and can make all the difference in the world. What about the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board? We have debated that. We have debated the quantum of the awards; we have debated the personnel available and the question of time being taken by the board in regard to the compensation of victims.
I am not going to say any more. The noble Lord the Minister knows the views of the House and of many of us who are worried about these matters. I know that he is concerned about them. I have not wandered into whether our prisons are full or are not full. I have not wandered into other matters that the noble and
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learned Lord sought fit to include in his, as always, extremely profound speech. I have tried to confine myself to the Motion before us. I hope that our combined wisdom, irrespective of party, can get rid of one of the pernicious elements of our time, violence.
4.34 p.m.
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: My Lords, I start with a sincere tribute to the noble Baroness. We over here regard her as practically our only friend on the other side where penal matters are concerned. This week I heard two Tory Whips saying "Well, her Ladyship never votes with the party". I would not mind if that were true, but that is not so. The truth is that she never votes with the party on penal affairs, and why? It is because the Government are always—I was about to say "wrong", but that is not correct—stonewalling. We are always pressing for action and they are always refusing. This is based on five generations at least at the Home Office. I have been dealing with the Home Office for over 30 years and it has not changed at all, yet the people are all entirely different. They are good, intelligent, ready to listen and ready to give you any information you want, yet nothing ever happens.
I should like to give three instances of this which are not wholly irrelevant in that I do not think that we can deal with violence as a thing by itself; we have to deal with the whole picture of crime. My noble friend, who first of all told me to speak and then told me what to say, also said that she wanted to keep the debate pretty wide, so I am helping her! On three occasions that I merely happen to remember—and I have looked up the dates—I, or a colleague from this side of the House, have put up a suggestion which has been adopted, in two cases entirely and in one case partially, after something like 10 years to 15 years.
The first was the Jellicoe Report, which we started from NACRO and which made one or two perfectly obvious recommendations that had to be accepted. I am glad to say that a week or two ago they had the main thing not as coming from Jellicoe but from a different inquiry. I shall not tell your Lordships what it was because we do not have time to go into all this. That is one instance. I, and other people also, over 15 years ago asked about censoring letters; about whether it was necessary for anyone except Category A prisoners to worry about letters at all. Could they not get access to telephones? Within the last two years or 18 months, this has begun to happen. The noble Lord will correct me if I am being unfair, which I have no intention to be. I do not mind if I am a little, because the point stands.
Thirdly, and thus most importantly, there is the question of executive release. In a debate on the May Report in 1982 I brought out a suggestion which had been made in the report that executive release of one kind or another could be a useful solution. Just before the Criminal Justice Act 1982, because there was a prison officers' strike threatened, the then Home Secretary took the right to use executive release in an emergency and then did not use it. But we succeeded in getting it into the 1982 Act in the permissive form. Now, with the prison officers again on the verge of a strike, the Home Secretary says that he may have to use it. It was not used earlier because it was always

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said—and this applies to each Home Secretary concerned—that it would be used only in an emergency. I suppose that they do not think that a rise in prison population from, I think, 42,000 to 47,000 during that period is a crisis. But I repeat what I have said in this House at least eight times: we do!
Those are three instances of where, however hard you press, it takes 10 or 15 years to adopt a constructive solution. Each of these suggestions is a constructive one. The censoring of letters has ruined the business of running prisons for years. It is high time it stopped. The use of telephones in a proper way, not for Category A prisoners, is right and I hope that it is being done. My point is that a situation which most of us here have been watching for a very long time (I, like the noble and learned Lord, certainly for over 30 years) has been getting absolutely, steadily worse in every single respect every year.
More people commit crimes. More people are recidivists. More people commit crimes of violence. No one has a clue about what to do. I certainly do not. That is why I found it depressing to prepare a speech for this debate, and partly why I have been talking about something slightly different.
I should now like to return to the subject of violence. First, it is a difficult subject, because violence is a result of what in old-fashioned terms I would describe as the aggressive instinct in man. I dare say that psychologists will say that there is not one, but I do not always believe what they tell me. Every nation begins by living by violence as being the only good. The fighting man is the ruler, and he is the only man who is respected. To some extent this applies in schools, as we see from the occasional film, such as that delightful film about a hawk (I cannot remember what it is called) where the boys fight and they are admired if they win. Early Wodehouse stories tell us the same thing. There is something real here. Young people, particularly boys, like the whole of this, and have no criticism of it.
I could give a sad case as an example. When I was in Northern Ireland a fine priest was running an approved school. He came to me almost with tears in his eyes. He asked me what he was to do. He said that boy after boy was brought in there for having helped the IRA and had been caught by the police. He said that his school was not secure and that he could not hold the boys, who went straight back to the men who are their ideals and are the ones whom they love. They thought of them as brave fighting men who were not frightened of throwing bombs at people, and all that sort of lovely thing. The boys were good boys who, if they could have been kept away, might have been diverted to something else. How do we deal with that? We cannot change human nature. We must accept it and deal only with one's little bit of it, such as one's family. That is all that we can do. No government can do anything except it be of a defensive nature.
I want to talk about one thing which is hopeful. Things are not nearly as bad as they were 100 to 150 years ago. At that time there was a horrifying level of state violence. People who offended were flogged. In the navy and the army the flogging was incessant and was boasted about by everyone. The treadmill was used as a punishment. We have moved a little way
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since then. Children do not hoot at hunchbacks in the road today. They do many other things, but they do not do that. Not everything is going backwards. That is the only good thing that I have to say.
I certainly grew up, and I think all young people grow up, reading books of adventure and, to some extent, horror. One of my favourite books was, A Gentleman of France by Stanley Wayman. We were told that the hero had killed 17 men in duels. We thought that was splendid and it made the book exciting to read. I remember to this day the crack of the back of the wrestler whom Beltane was supposed to have killed in front of the count, or whoever it was. The book was called Beltane the Smith. I cannot remember who wrote it. I have never struck a man in anger in my long life. The stories had no bad effect on me; they are probably not too bad. The point I am trying to make is that there is something innate with which we are trying to deal which becomes twisted and abused and leads us to where we are now.
At lunch only today I as talking to a member of an old family in this House who boasted that her ancestors had been pirates. I should not think that there is one really old family here of which something of that kind could not be said. There we are: this is not an easy problem to deal with. There are more people, and they are becoming worse.
The sad thing is that Christianity, or religion in general, seem to have almost no effect. It makes some people better and others worse. Look at Northern Ireland. I say no more. It is a deep and difficult subject.
Penologists not only differ from one another, they talk in statistics, but the problem is made up of a series of individual personal problems. I tried to do what the noble and learned Lord did much better, which was quickly to write down the categories of violence. The first, clearly, is terrorism, which he left out because he is going to speak about it somewhere else. I am not, and so I shall say a word about it now.
The point about terrorism is that one can do nothing except fight it or agree with it and let it go. There is no middle course. Wherever we have been in our empire we have always chosen to fight it. Sometimes terrorism has a good case and sometimes it has a bad one. The IRA has no case at all. If it won the whole of the rest of Ireland would be horrified, but that is by the way. It is no good trying to change terrorists; it is no good trying to deter them. However, they must be given maximum sentences.
I have always argued against long sentences, but I am in favour of long sentences for terrorists. The only deterrent effect that long sentences have—it is sometimes seen when they come out—is on the parents, who, having lost someone for 10 or 12 years, do not want to lose them again however much their friends may try to get them back. I think that is general in every form of terrorism, wherever it is.
The second category is that of the professional criminal. He is a different matter. He must be fought. He can be deterred. There is no doubt that a long sentence worries a professional criminal. I have often talked to men coming out of prison who say, "I am going to go carefully now because next time it will be a very long sentence, and I do not want that." There is

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a deterrent element in long sentences for the professional criminal.
I do not know whether anyone heard MacVicar on the wireless two or three days ago, but he had the last word on that subject. He said, "Of course, if you want to cure the professional criminal all you have to do is give him enough money." The professional criminal is working for cash. Clearly we cannot do what he suggested. Someone serving a six-year or seven-year sentence, in a well-run training prison, can probably be made to become interested in earning money in a different way in probably three out of 10 cases. Some of those people are skilled, and something like that could be done.
Thirdly, there is the crude robbery, the mugging, which is a new and most frightening crime. I think everyone in the country would agree that mugging to obtain money for drugs is a most difficult problem, and I think that most muggings nowadays are for drugs, as they are in America. All I can say is that we shall continue to press the Government all the time to do more and more about that. It is a frightfully difficult problem. The worst difficulty arises in inner city areas with groups of dissatisfied black people who are being sold drugs, and some of whom run drugs. The police must deal with the problem, and those people then begin to hate the police. The chances of bringing the people together with the police become fewer and fewer.
The next category consists of crimes of petty violence related to public-houses and drink. We want to deal with the drink laws. A good deal could be done which is not being done. The care of people arrested for drunkenness is still in its more primeval state. We have been pressing for reform for years, and it has still not been properly dealt with.
There are two issues on which I think there is still some hope and about which the noble Baroness asked me to speak. I shall not say much, because I have said it all before. It would bore the House; and, worse still, it would bore me. The first point is about Grendon. In so far as there is irrational violence which is not committed out of greed, lust or vengeance, Grendon has shown that it is possible to deal with it. First, such people can be contained there reasonably well without violence; and, secondly, it can go some way towards curing them.
I made a long speech about Grendon the other day, and the poor noble Lord the Minister who must reply should not have to hear it again. I shall not make that speech again. Something can be done there. I have made it clear that we do not think that the treatment is being carried out as fully as it could be.
Then there is the inner city area which I spoke about three or four months ago. I referred to Ted Watkins, who is a black trade unionist, and who was in Watts during the riots of 1961 and 1962. He formed groups of people to put the place right, he borrowed money and started an organisation. He has done an extraordinary job and is now employing 1,000 people there. The young people who hated the police, and who in fact rioted against the police, now have telephone links and use walkie-talkies with the police. They ring up the police if anything is going wrong.
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It is possible to change violence into something quite good. He has shown how to do it, and in fact has done it. The Government—I think it is the concern of the Department of the Environment—are starting groups in local areas with extra subsidised money from the inner cities and it is essential that they use the technique that was worked out there. What that chap said was, "If you give people the chance to put their home right, if you give them the money, the material and the training, they will not only do it but they will do it far cheaper than a contractor, and they will end up by loving their home and loving their country". Those are the two things which are hopeful today. Those are the two ways in this appallingly difficult problem which are worth trying. On that note, I hope that both of them will be pursued. Lastly, may I say that I think it is a very gloomy subject.
4.52 p.m.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, we have listened to an entertaining speech from the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson. He showed us where he felt that hope lay, and I am bound to say that I was momentarily encouraged. But I did not really believe it and when the noble Lord finally sat down I did not think he did either. I thought he had momentarily and uncharacteristically distanced himself from this side of the House, when he said that my noble friend was the only friend that he had on this side, and then he recovered the position by saying: "on penal matters". The noble Lord has many friends on this side of the House. I was deeply impressed that my noble friend had instructed the noble Lord to speak and told him what to say. That shows she is very effective at lobbying. I was the recipient of neither such privilege, but maybe because my noble friend thought I was both beyond hope and beyond help.
But I should like to express my thanks to my noble friend for having introduced this debate on a matter which is of very considerable concern and importance, and in a speech which was astonishingly wide-ranging and knowledgeable. Looking at the list of speakers today, I realise that most people are experts on penal matters and on this subject. I claim no such expertise. I am merely one who stands on the sidelines and does not particularly like what he sees.
What I wish to say this afternoon will mostly centre around fear, because there is hardly a person who is not shocked or alarmed by the increase in crimes of mugging, rape and assault which are going on at present. It is literally terrifying—terrifying for those against whom the crimes are committed, and terrifying for those who think that they will be among the victims—and that category is far bigger than the former category.
It was always relatively safe to walk around the streets of London, save for a very few areas; but it is not so now, nor in other cities, nor even in the countryside. It is with horror that night after night, in the solitude of their own homes, people have projected into their sitting rooms by television scenes of the battered and scarred faces of those who have been beaten up—often defenceless old ladies—and the stories of how that has come about. It is almost too horrifying to believe that this happens here; yet it does,

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it goes on and it strikes fear into the hearts of the viewers.
Rape used to be a rare thing, something which few people came across, and yet it is now commonplace. Accounts of rapes appear every day in the newspapers, even of gang rapes, and of the terrifying ordeals and experiences which those unfortunate women, girls and children go through. Those experiences will never be erased from their minds. No wonder is it that many of them suffer from nervous tensions and even nervous breakdowns, and no wonder is it that their attitudes to life and to others take an irreversible twist.
Fear is contagious and it is incipient. The daily diet of rapes and muggings, which is related in detail on television and in the newspapers, terrifies countless hundreds and thousands of others who have not been, and who never will be, the victims but who fear that they might be. Television has a captive and often a lonely audience. It is a fertile ground for fear. Television companies will say that by reporting these incidents the perpetrators of the crimes are more likely to be caught and that people have a right to know what is going on. Sometimes, I think that people would rather not know.
But it goes further than that. The reporting of these events sows the seeds of ideas into the minds of others; it stimulates them to do things which otherwise they might not do; and the details which are given show them how to do it. Civilisation is a very thin veneer and the surface of it can easily be stripped away. The media have a responsibility to take the right balance between reporting and informing, and on the other hand inadvertently creating fear.
The noble and learned Lord who sits on the Woolsack told us that all crimes have increased. That is what most people feel. That is no cause for satisfaction. Society is uneasy because the simple values of humanity and respect for the other person seem to have gone. Robbery is not sufficient. It has to be accompanied by mugging, with the added inducement of fear to get your way. Rapes are not just the result of lust. They now extend to women of 70 and even to children of four. And we now have the pitiful increase in sexual and other attacks on children.
Twenty years ago, I did not know anyone who had been raped. I now know three people, daughters of three of my friends, who have been raped, one at five o'clock in the afternoon in her own house in a residential part of London. This kind of attitude towards innocent people cannot go on. Is it not surprising—and indeed is it not a shocking reflection on what we like to call our civilised society?—that people become scared stiff in their own homes?
The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor acknowledged that fear exists, but said that it was not justified by the facts. That may be true, but fear does not respond to statistics. It disorientates people; it turns reason on its head, and the fact that it cannot be justified does not mean that it can be abated. I know a middle-aged intelligent lady who is on the verge of a nervous breakdown because of what she has seen on television and because she thinks that that is therefore bound to happen to her.
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She is not alone in this. She is merely one of many who feel this way. She is not a lady who lives on her own. She is a lady with a husband and she lives in the country, not in the town. The fact that she has a bouncing, aggressive Alsatian dog, who puts the fear of God up anyone who goes anywhere near her or the house, does little, curiously enough, to assuage her anxiety. Irrational it may be, but factual it is. These people are frightened; and if people like that are afraid, what about the old ladies living on their own in the big cities, in Glasgow and Leeds, and in parts of London such as Brixton? They have every reason to be frightened and they have every reason to look to Parliament for protection.
Fear is a foul weapon. It destabilises people. It destabilises society. It creates anxiety, anxiety which is lifelong where children are concerned as parents grieve over what they did wrong that allowed their children to become the victims of some of these practices. We have seen only too much recently of the viciousness of international terrorism. Some people, Americans in particular, now fear to travel. Governments have a duty to protect their people from a hostile enemy from without. Governments equally have a duty to protect their people from a hostile enemy from within. These people who rape and mug trade on fear to get their way. They use the knife, the cosh and the boot with as much rejection of humanity and with as much indifference to feeling and to morality as does the international terrorist. This form of internal terrorism, unco-ordinated and unorganised though it may be, has to be countered with equal severity. It is no use us saying, "How terrible it is, but it is not our fault. It is the times in which we live. It is happening everywhere".
It is our fault. As parents or teachers or Parliamentarians, in our different and varied respects we set the standards. We are responsible for the society in which we live. In some ways we reflect it. In some ways we mould it. In our compassionate way we sometimes say that these people are sick. Sometimes they are, my Lords, but sometimes they are plain evil. Unemployment, disenchantment, disaffection, drugs—none of these excuses personal responsibility for personal actions. None of these justifies the self-indulgence or self-gratification of one at the expense of the degradation and denigration of another.
For the hideous crimes of mugging and rape the punishment in my judgment is inadequate. A period of imprisonment or a fine is a pathetic condemnation for the defiling and destruction of the body, and sometimes the mind, of another. The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, said that the greatest deterrent is the fear of detection. So it may be but the type and quality of the punishment when detected frequently determines the worthwhileness of the risk involved in undertaking the criminal act. One man put the respect for his conviction and for his victim into true perspective. When he was fined £300 for raping a young woman, he said:
"Well, it was worth it".
Here I know I shall part company with some of your Lordships but I have no hesitation in saying that, in my judgment, for that type of person who perpetrates that type of crime a sentence of corporal punishment ought to be available to the courts for use where

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appropriate. Fines have increased; prison sentences have been increased; prisons have been built and are now overflowing. They have not worked. Crime continues to increase. The severity of the punishment should reflect the severity of the crime and the system which we adopt at present is painfully and transparently inadequate. As a result, others suffer.
I do not believe that it is right for us in Parliament to wring our hands in horror at what is happening but to do nothing. Our first duty must be to protect law and order. Our highest priority must be to protect the innocent. So far we have failed, and the facts reflect that. I hope that as a result of this debate the Government will seriously consider new measures to protect our countrymen from this offensive and frankly uncharacteristic wave of terror which is affecting our country today.
5.5 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Lincoln: My Lords, I should like to join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Baroness for introducing a debate into your Lordships' House which has enabled so many valuable, interesting and important things to be said and to be heard. I should not want in any way to minimise the importance and the seriousness of the present crime rate in this country but I should like to enter a caveat about the way the matter is sometimes presented, because I think it has important implications. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has already spoken about this.
The way that the crime statistics are presented can have a very important bearing on public attitudes to crime. The annually published crime statistics include only offences which are recorded by the police. This has already been said. The British Crime Survey that was conducted for the Government in 1982 and 1984 adds the considerable figures of unrecorded crimes. The survey certainly indicates that more crime occurs than is recorded and therefore more than is publicly recognised but it also presents some important facts about crime: that most law breaking is of a petty nature; that the vast majority of offences are against property and not against people.
It may sound frivolous, but these are not the words of some bright journalist but of the British Crime Survey. It has estimated that a statistically average adult can expect to be robbed once every five centuries, assaulted with injury once every century, have his car stolen once every 60 years and be burgled at home once every 40 years, and that the chances of robbery are less than the chances of being admitted to hospital as a psychiatric patient. Those points are made by the British Crime Survey. They serve a point in trying to get things into perspective which is very important for public opinion.
The media talk a great deal about a rising tide of crime but comparisons cannot actually be made because the survey of crime took place for the first time only in 1982. The so-called "rise in crime" is, the survey says, and as the noble and learned Lord has told us, probably the result of more people being concerned about crime and therefore reporting it and about the police being more efficient and therefore recording it.
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To say these things is in no way to deny that in this country we have a serious problem. This has been made clear by a number of noble Lords. It is to say that it is important to be as rational and accurate as possible about the facts of the situation if we are to develop a more just and more effective penal system. We are not served by the way the media often play on sensationalism with regard to this whole matter and the way sensationalism in turn plays upon our own inner unconscious feelings and reactions to crime, which very often give rise to insensitively punitive attitudes by all sorts of people and make them block off more informed approaches to penal issues.
I should like to say a word about the National Association of Victim Support Schemes, which has been mentioned in your Lordships' House today. I say it here not just because the pioneering work that it is doing deserves our thanks and our encouragement but because those involved say explicitly that they want to avoid publicity which will increase the fear of crime. They press other bodies involved in the field of crime to do the same. They are saying the same thing—that it is really important to try as hard as possible to get the facts straight and to be rational about this. The association works closely with the Home Office Crime Prevention Unit and currently works on various projects with it. They are concerned with the impact on the victim, which can be deeply disturbing and distressing, and also with the effect upon the community as a whole, in respect of the fear that is generated by that kind of situation. They urgently wish always to contact the victims of crime immediately. The police are now fully in support of the association but it needs all the voluntary help it can get. That is worth saying in your Lordships' House and it is important that it should be said.
I believe that the association's concern to avoid sensationalism is very important because sensationalism sends out powerful ripples that can affect people in general and greatly increase public fear. That can make for punitive and irrational attitudes which do not help to achieve the right kind of community awareness and the right kind of penal system. Rational and informed public opinion is most likely to be able to view straight and clearly the problems we are talking about.
I fully realise that the bishops are not in your Lordships' House in order to preach sermons—they have other places to do that—but I should like to try a little riposte to what was said just now by the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, when he remarked that Christianity was not of any help in a situation where one was faced with problems that one did not know how to solve.
We live in a culture in which a whole lot of things have happened over the past few centuries that have made belief in any spiritual values very difficult for many people to hold. Those developments include the scientific revolution, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, urbanisation and two world wars. One could build up a whole list of things that have happened to Western society that have made it difficult for many people to hold spiritual values.
Some people look at the spiritual values that are on offer—Christianity among them—and come to the

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conclusion, with great intellectual integrity, that such values are not something to which they feel they can aspire. I highly respect that position of complete intellectual integrity, but there are many who turn away from Christianity particularly—and from other spiritual values, too, but let us say Christianity—because of the risks involved in turning to it and because it demands such a reversal of values and convenience.
If that touches the heart of anyone as I speak, it is worth thinking that that may be holding them back from making exactly the kind of contribution to the saner society that we have all been saying we need as the background to being able to do anything more about the problem we are debating.
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: My Lords, before the right reverend Prelate sits down, the point I was making was that religion was very much stronger in this country when flogging men around the fleet was considered a perfectly good thing to do. Christianity does not deal with the matter as it stands; of course it should. The fact that it does not is not really a criticism of Christianity—it is a criticism of us.
5.13 p.m.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for bringing this subject to the House for debate today—and it is a most interesting subject. I note the first part of the Motion concerning the increase in crime, but I intend to speak about measures to protect innocent people.
The greatest protection would of course be the elimination of crime, but as a magistrate of many years' standing I am not at all confident that we are likely to see that happen. The best that we can do is to reduce the opportunity for crime and increase protection. Fear—an aspect that was discussed widely by my noble friend Lord Ferrers—is a very powerful emotion. Fear can also be a cause of violent crime. The criminal who did not set out to be violent, if interrupted during the course of a robbery or other crime, may in a moment of fear and panic turn to carrying out a most violent injury. That is another way in which fear may operate.
Fear is also a major factor in preventing crime and in protecting the innocent, as people who are afraid go to the trouble of doing what they can to protect themselves. The environment in which we live is very important. It can either be an environment that extends an invitation to crime or it can be one that is protective. There are architectural designs that have proved disastrous. I cite the Mozart Estate in north Westminster, which, just a few years ago, won all sorts of design awards. Today, no one is willing to accept housing on that estate because the crime statistics there are so high. The elevated walkways put there for the comfort and convenience of residents have proved instead to be rat-runs and a means of escape for all kinds of muggers and criminals. The tenants are delighted that the council is now taking action. I believe that something like £2 million is to be spent on removing the walkways, which are already coming down. That will change the whole atmosphere of the
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estate and give the people living there a feeling of security, that they will not be subject to surprise attack.
The location of tenants within a block of flats is also highly significant. It is difficult for a mother living on the tenth floor of a building to be certain that her child is safe and not liable to be attacked or kidnapped—as so many children have been recently—when that child is playing in a space 10 floors below and her mother can only watch from a kitchen window. Again, the design of modern council housing provides for small backyards and gardens—and very attractive they are, too. Such designs have only been developed through the experience and discovery of how disastrous some award-winning architectural designs have turned out to be.
In conservation areas, there is of course resistance to improved street lighting of the kind to which the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, referred. However, I am a great supporter of modern street lighting. In one street in which I lived, the council installed bright lighting. Those residents who liked the previous rather eerie, gaslit effect were up in arms because they felt that the new lighting destroyed that atmosphere. However, it has caused such a reduction in crime and in the risk to residents walking home at night that tenants and residents in Westminster are now welcoming bright street lighting. It certainly means that one no longer risks finding someone lurking in a dark corner.
In the same way, lighting should be arranged in porches and on stairs. In the case of local authority housing it is very important that broken light bulbs should be replaced. No matter how good may be the lighting plan, it is no use at all if it is not operational.
Secure doors and windows are also very important. Entryphones have been mentioned, and I came across many such devices during my canvassing days. I must say that I do not believe that they are as reliable as one might expect. There is always one tenant who has no idea of the risk involved in admitting strangers. I do not remember ever calling at a block of flats where, if one pressed enough buttons, someone did not press the remote entry button without querying who was there. I am told that the current ploy is to press the entryphone button and say, "Flowers", and then someone will let you in. We must become more aware of the need to check who is at the door.
That applies particularly to old people. I was interested when the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, mentioned that 20 per cent. of crimes of violence were against school children. He did not give a figure for crimes against the elderly. I do not believe that statistics tell the whole story. Today, the elderly live under a curfew, almost, and that is why the statistics for crimes against the elderly are much lower. The fear about which my noble friend Lord Ferrers spoke is so strong that the elderly tend to remain indoors from the time when it is dark until the next morning. Indeed, there are so many daytime muggings that it is difficult for the elderly to venture out in safety even then. There have been occasions when elderly ladies coming to my surgery for new sets of teeth have been knocked down in the street just for the 10p or 20p that they have in their handbags. Very often there is no thought of stealing a large amount of money because young muggers are after anything they can get.

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The elderly are gullible and vulnerable. They have a reputation for keeping a bundle of cash hidden away somewhere. Many people believe that the elderly do not trust banks and will keep something of value under their bed or in their stocking, and so they present themselves at the doors of the dwellings of the elderly. They say they are calling on behalf of the social services or the gas board. All sorts of excuses are produced. Often the elderly person makes no check as to who these people are. They let them in and, of course, all sorts of unfortunate results follow. Sometimes it is only a case of robbery, but in other cases very serious physical injuries are inflicted on them.
Alarms in old people's dwellings are very important, not only for the security of the old people in terms of illness but also if they have cause to need urgent help. Again, Westminster Council has an excellent arrangement linked to the telephone system. Old people do not need to get to the telephone. They carry a small gadget and, by pressing it, activate an alarm call. There is a man on 24–hour duty in the council house attached to the system who can respond instantly, knowing that someone needs help. That is a good system because it is extremely important that any alarm or protection system for the elderly does not, as it were, put a notice in the window saying, "I am elderly and at risk". That is just inviting the attention that is not wanted.
Therefore, as we have heard from the statistics, the old and the young are in a very vulnerable position as regards violent crime. There is a very fine line to be drawn between fear and alarm and caution. One must try to give people a sense of caution without creating alarm, and that is not easy. There is this requirement to be aware of the need for the protection of oneself and of others. I noticed from the paper this week that personal alarms have just been issued to nurses in Bristol; and the women students at Essex University have been given personal alarms.
Perhaps the statistics which have been quoted showing that men are more at risk arise because men consider themselves more brave, and perhaps are not so keen on having personal alarms as are women. However, women certainly welcome something of that nature which will emit a loud screech if they are attacked and which can be carried with them. I know that there are many different devices which are illegal in this country. In other countries people carry aerosols, but I have had experience in court of people who have come to this country with such items, which are perfectly legal as self-protection in their own country but which are not legal here.
Burglaries form a large part of the crime figures. As I said earlier, the risk is where a burglar is interrupted when committing a crime. The statistics, which show that 70 per cent. of drivers in London leave valuables in their cars which are visible, explain the very high number of broken car windows that can be seen. What we must do is change the climate of public opinion in such a way that people no longer accept that crime is inevitable and ever-increasing, and so that they work together to support one another and the community.
Reference has been made to violence in the family. Much is being done on that front. Assistance centres
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have been established. There is the Chiswick shelter for women who have been attacked, where violent crime was involved and who have left home. This is a very good movement in this country, and it is growing all the time. However, I was alarmed to see a report this week in the medical press of a doctor who was mugged in his local building society, with many of his patients standing watching outside the window He recognised these patients and wondered why none of them went in to help him. He said that there was only one man in the building society with him, and when he was attacked by the two men that man was seen to sidle out of the building society. That was an extraordinary incident.
More alarming, and certainly something we should consider now that the Government have just issued a blue discussion paper on primary health care, is the fact that in London some areas are becoming "no-go" areas for visits by doctors at night. This applies particularly in South London. Doctors call in a deputising service because they cannot go as a single doctor into those areas at night. That situation has existed for some time. It is prevalent in South London, but not just in the poorer parts. The situation has now got a degree worse. The answer service, which normally sends a doctor and a driver with radio-communication, now finds that if the doctor goes to the door on his own he is mugged, and if the driver remains in the car on his own he is mugged. The latest suggestion is that they might have to take guard dogs with them. It is certainly a matter of serious concern. People who call for a doctor at night desperately need that doctor and it is essential to have the doctor's visit.
The medical press says that doctors in such areas should always be accompanied by a police officer. However, I should not think there are enough police officers available to accompany every doctor who is called out at night, so I do not think that is a practical answer to the problem. The days of the rent collector who went round collecting cash payments in bags of money have gone. It was abolished in the Greater London Council area largely because of the murder of a young rent collector.
However, there are still people from the London Electricity Board and the gas boards who call to empty coin meters, and it is important that those people should be protected while they are working, f am pleased to be able to tell the House that in the electricity world new types of payments for the prepayment meters are being introduced. Coin meters will become a thing of the past. Small meters are being developed where one has a key which can be electronically recharged at the electricity board and will be prepaid. The key will be usable only in your own meter so there will be no incentive for anyone to steal it. That will be a great protection and will mean that much less money is carried about. We all know about telephone boxes and how the card-operated telephones are gradually being installed because the old money-operated boxes were being broken into and were such a source of crime.
The London Electricity Board also suffers from violent customers. Yesterday we were considering the plan of a new showrooms and offices which is being set up in one part of London. The board is having to make special provision to receive customers who might

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become violent. The board is getting an increasing number of people who are attempting violent actions against the staff. Separate interview rooms are to be designed to deal with that problem. I have suggested that they install closed-circuit television in the interview rooms. In New York there are closed-circuit television cameras in most lifts. In that way an observer is able to watch that no one gets mugged or attacked in a lift. One man is always watching.
In London, transport is the big problem. The amount of violent crime against conductors and drivers is increasing all the time. Although the bus crews now have two-way radios, that has not eliminated the problem. In the constituency I represented, there was an establishment known as The Pink Elephant. All attempts to have a late night music and dancing licence were refused by the Greater London Council. Eventually, and fortunately, the place was closed, more or less because the licensing courts so restricted the hours when alcohol could be served that it became unprofitable. I understand that it is now to be demolished. Bus loads of local residents had complained and opposed the granting of that licence, year after year.
Then the police had to be called in because Southgate Station was regularly closed by London Transport as it was not prepared to cope with the frightening number of uncontrollable people who arrived at the station. When the police were called there were thrown down on the station the large number of sharpened sawblades, sharpened into the most lethal-looking hooked knives, and deadly weapons, it was quited disturbing to see. Therefore, these are ways in which we can help, and I believe that local councils will help because they will now have more control over the licensing of such establishments.
There are the young and the disturbed. The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, mentioned that there are fewer registered drug addicts involved in crime than other people; but I think that it is the unregistered drug addicts about whom we must also think. Many people have told me that their children who are drug addicts will not register or attend any clinics because they are not prepared to be subjected to even that degree of discipline which is involved in receiving a supply of drugs. Registered addicts receive a regular supply of drugs. They are not the ones who are desperate to obtain drugs and who go out and attack people to get money in any way they can.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, perhaps the noble Baroness will forgive me for intervening, but the point I made was a comparison with the percentage of registered drug addicts concerned in ordinary crime which was three times that of the general population, whereas in regard to crimes of violence it was less. There seems to be something to be deduced from that statistic, though I take the noble Baroness's point.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord. I think the difficulty with all statistice is that we cannot assess what is not there. The point has been made by other speakers that the degree of frustration felt by young people can be quite a worrying aspect of this problem. In London, however,
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there is no shortage of jobs. I have a job to offer someone at the moment. I know many people in London who have found that on telephoning the careers service they receive the answer, "We are sorry but we have no young people available at all for jobs". So there are jobs available in London.
It is often said that, although there was tremendous unemployment in the 1930s, there was no real degree of violent crime. I believe there has been a change in the standards of behaviour over these past years. There has been a change in standards of morality and in addition there has been the influence of TV images. Above all perhaps I must lay the blame in London at the door of the education system. There is something wrong with our education system if it is not giving a sense of purpose to young people. It is not creating interest or giving any incentive in life. I am sorry to say that in London at the moment this is a real problem. I hope that after May, when we have a directly elected ILEA, we shall see an improvement, because London has not always had that failure of education. It has had it recently, and it has it now.
I think that there is a need for change in the attitudes of society. There is a need for less selfishness and for more consideration of others. There is a need for a community which cares enough to support and protect its members. It has been said that it is foolhardy to try to help others in the moment of crime. Of course it is, when one is just one individual against a group or in a situation in which one is greatly outnumbered. It may be very brave but it is very foolhardy.
Yet recently I have seen the effect produced by ordinary people in the Philippines when they stood around tanks and actually stopped the might of those tanks. It can be done. If people are really willing to work together to stand against criminals and against attacks—not by exposing one single individual against the criminal, but by the community caring and working together and doing their best to support one another, to keep watch and ensure protection of themselves and their neighbours—then I believe that we shall see a decrease in violent crime.
5.33 p.m.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, we must remember that this great crime wave about which we are so worried is worldwide. It has occurred in third world countries and in Communist countries. It happens in all political systems, and so we must not think that we are alone in this situation.
There are many reasons for it. According to some statistics which I have seen, drug-related crimes seem to predominate, but lack of home discipline and bad environmental conditions for youngsters can also lead to crime in the future. In the big cities like Manchester and London I believe that no less than 35 per cent. of all children born are illegitimate. It is slightly less, something like 20 per cent., in the smaller towns. Obviously it varies. Where there is such a high number of illegitimate children, there are often one-parent families and mothers who are teenagers. The chances that the children have of growing up normally are surely very small. Of course some of these children grow up normally and some make a great success of life, but they are on a hiding to nothing in doing it and it is very difficult.

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In places like Liverpool, and indeed in all the big towns, there are many children who do not know the name of their father and many who do not know their mother either, because the young mother has handed the child over completely to her parents or to someone else. What chance does the child have in that situation?
These children probably lack parental discipline from day one. I do not know much about bringing up children, but possibly, perhaps, for example, they do not get a bottle regularly or receive the kind of discipline which gives them a good start in life. They may later get discipline in the wrong way, in the form of baby-battering or whatever. In this respect the NSPCC and local authorities are making an enormous contribution and perhaps they may save at least a certain number of the children. I wonder whether matters can be improved by training young mothers before the baby is born and whether pre-natal training could cover not only the time up to the birth of the child but also the bringing up of the child in its early stages.
When the child goes to school it must be subject to school discipline. The type of discipline depends very much on the teachers, their competence and their ability to control and influence the children without necessarily shouting at them and using undue verbal force. Undoubtedly, however, a few children are uncontrollable. They are probably truant and nothing can be done about them.
The other day in my part of the world certain parents appeared in court because they were not sending their child to school. They came up and explained that the child had been pushed back to school over and over again. They had taken the child to school and they had done everything that they could, but as soon as they left him he ran away. There was nothing the teachers could do about it apart from expelling the child and sending him to another school, from which he ran away again.
I believe that to deal with that sort of thing and with violence against teachers, which is now prevalent, there ought to be corporal punishment administered in schools. It does not do much good, but I believe its deterrent value has an effect when everything else has been tried and failed. There are teachers who say that they despair of some of these children because they have no sanctions which they can apply.
My noble friend Lady Faithfull talked about intermediate treatment. This is extremely good and has been very successful. With this intermediate treatment it is the first time that these children have had fair dealings from anybody. When they go to a detention centre it may be the first time that they have had regular, square meals. Intermediate treatment and some detention type systems for youngsters can be effective and can do some good for the child.
But featuring large in what is wrong in our society at the moment are the media—television and the films. Explicit sex is seen on television. Is it necessary? We continually see violence, violence against women and sadism, and we do not have to go far to buy a pornographic paper; you can even buy one on a Sunday. This may not affect most people, but if these things are so widely available I believe that youngsters
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particularly and even older people with weaker intellects may well be affected. There is no doubt about it; people re-enact the crimes which they see on television. Those responsible for television programmes say that these crimes do not influence people and that what people see on television has no influence. If, on that basis, advertising does not influence people, it is extraordinary that channels can exist entirely on advertising.
Crime on television poisons people's minds. It bends not only their minds but also their characters. When this happens early in a child's life, it tends to desensitise the child, who becomes more accustomed to crime and thinks nothing about violence. There was a case recently, again in my part of the world, that resulted in a policeman receiving the Queen's gallantry medal. He was on duty when two other officers were attacked by a man who was known to be a burglar, armed with a shotgun. They approached the man, who fired at them. Luckily, one of the policemen ducked, but even so his hat was blown off his head The policeman who gained the award disarmed the man. Later, the man said that he had seen on television a chap with a sawn-off shot gun who had gone out and done a job and that he had thought it would be a good idea to do the same.
One hears this sort of story over and over again. I believe that the liberals—I mean liberals with a small "I"—of the 1960s have much to answer for. They have damaged society in their efforts to be liberal. It is not, I believe, practical to legislate now against television violence. We have seen over and over again how legislation has failed in the courts. But this is possibly a matter where public clamour can be aroused. When sufficient people begin to say that all this violence on television is wrong, public demand will perhaps have effect.
Some criminals, particularly those who repeat crimes and who are also mature, wish to change. It was, I believe, the Cambridge rapist who said that he hated himself, that he was disgusted with himself, that he did not want to do it again, but that then some influence, probably pornography, took over, and he did it again.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, the Cambridge rapist wanted to change his sex. Was that in the noble Lord's mind?
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, I am sorry I missed what the noble Earl said. Did it relate to a change of sex?
Noble Lords: Yes.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, I do not quite see the relevance. If, therefore, some of these people want to change, are they able to do so? I would ask your Lordships whether we are able to change ourselves. Some of us do not regard ourselves as perfect. We know our faults and we should like to change. Is that possible? How many people can stop smoking? Some can but many of us here probably have not the willpower to do so. If it is difficult for us to overcome faults that we know we have, how can we expect some criminal, quite likely of lesser intellect, to overcome his natural instincts?

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There are, in addition, such things as Y chromosomes. I hope that there is no doctor in the House able to argue with me, because I shall not be able to take him on. I understand, however, that Y chromosomes exist within the body, that they distort the character and that they can leave someone with less control over himself. While criminals have to go to prison for the protection of the public, it is bad luck if they are built in such a way that they cannot help themselves. I should like to ask my noble friend the Minister whether any medical work is taking place in this field.
It is known, for instance, that if people who are aggressive receive female hormones they lose some of that aggression. It is, however, a clumsy way of going about things because of the great number of side effects that are totally undesirable. Yet one wonders whether in 50 years' time work may not have been done that will help those people who are physically unable to bring themselves within the law. Is any research taking place to target medicine towards helping criminals? If people could be cured or helped in that way, it would certainly be cheaper than sending them to prison.
One hears often in the House the inference that magistrates and judges send people to prison at the slightest provocation. This is absolutely untrue. Magistrates go to enormous lengths not to send people to prison. One is amazed sometimes to find that people with a long record of offences have never been to prison. Often, they have had to do community service. That is an effective scheme. About 70 per cent. of those undertaking community service do not offend again during the period of the order. Most are unwilling workers who do not carry out their duties very well. Yet, in some cases, where the community service involves work at schools or homes for the handicapped, the offenders realise that there are people worse off than themselves. Up to 3 per cent. wish to go on working at those places and so become reasonable citizens within the community.
All your Lordships agree, I think, that prison is a pretty hopeless place. It gets the burglar out of the community and out of people's hair, but it does not achieve anything else. Too frequently there is no work in prison and the prisoners do nothing while they are there. They go to prison without a trade. They are unemployable and able only to thieve. And they come out without a trade, still unemployable, and able only to go back to crime. This seems an extraordinary state of affairs. I wonder what plans exist to increase attempts to rehabilitate prisoners before they leave. There should perhaps be the option for prisoners to undertake some weeks of training before they leave prison. At least they would then be employable. This would be especially useful for youngsters and enable them to have the chance of employment.
5.47 p.m.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, I agree very much with the last words that fell from the noble Lord who has just spoken. I thought that I would agree with him earlier in respect of pornography. Suddenly, however, he swerved away and said that in that regard he did not believe in legislation. I hope that he will not adopt that
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attitude when Mr. Churchill's Bill comes to this House. I disagree totally with the noble Lord and also with the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, about corporal punishment. There has been a good discussion of that subject in this House lately, and I shall not embark upon it again. As both the noble Earl and the noble Lord are aware, it has been investigated again and again by various inquiries here and elsewhere, and all informed opinion is against it. This does not mean that I do not agree with all speakers about the gravity of the situation. It was brought home most vividly perhaps by the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner. But the noble Baroness, I am glad to say, did not then go on to adopt the extreme remedies suggested by some noble Lords. She has, however, made your Lordships very aware of the awful situation.
Like others, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, for the manner in which she opened the debate. I have ventured before now to call her a humanitarian mole sitting behind the Minister, well situated to do him down, so to speak. I think of her now as a kind of Sword of Damocles resting above the head of Mr. Tebbit. I am glad for his sake that Mr. Tebbit, the chairman of the Conservative Party, was not sitting there. He might have found it a discouraging experience. His views in recent years have been quite appalling—totally unlike those of the noble Baroness. All of us must give credit to the Conservative Party in these latter days for choosing the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, as its spokesman on crime and punishment. It is the most sensible action that the party has taken since I left it about 50 years ago. I shall not, however, proceed with further reminiscences. There are all sorts of aspects that cannot be pursued today.
Most of us on these Benches—and, I know, the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull—believe that alternative remedies ought to be made much more use of. My leader today, the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, would be the first to denounce the policies of the present Government and the effect of those policies in producing unemployment. I go along with anything that is said in criticism of the social policies of the Thatcherite Government.
I shall try to confine myself to slightly different matters.
A noble Lord: Why?
The Earl of Longford: Is that the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers?
Earl Ferrers: The noble Earl really must not accuse me of doing things that I did not do. I kept my mouth tight shut. I think that it was my noble friend who sits next to me.
The Earl of Longford: As it was not the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, I really do apologise, my Lords. It is the only thing about which I am going to apologise to the noble Earl, because I thought that his speech was so dreadful that I will not apologise for making that comment.
To come back to the main issue, in these few remarks I am going to concentrate on sentencing. It is the recollection of many of us here that a few years ago

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the noble Viscount, Lord Whitelaw—I gave him rather belated notice that I was going to say that, but it will not be the first time that I have said it, and it does not really require an answer—when he was Home Secretary began in the most enlightened way by expressing the hope that the judges and everyone else concerned would reduce sentences. Then the noble Viscount, in spite of the fact that he was and is perhaps the most popular member of the Conservative Party, went to the Conservative Conference in 1981 and got the bird in a very painful way, so he then abandoned any idea—this is history—of trying to reduce sentences.
His successor, Mr. Brittan, at that time at least was more canny; later his canniness deserted him, but he was at that time very prudent. Therefore, when he went to the Conservative Conference, he took a very different line and recommended the increase of sentences—in other words, exactly the opposite policy, which no doubt was popular for the time. That policy was adopted—namely, heavier sentences particularly for the violent criminals about whom, after all, we are speaking today. Those policies of Mr. Brittan, which I am afraid have been carried on up to now by the present enlightened Home Secretary, have been denounced by many people, notably by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, when we discussed these matters at the end of 1983, and by many others. Again I will not pursue that issue.
If we are talking about sentencing, we must realise that sentences in relation to violent criminals, with the abuse of the parole system, have been much increased in practice by the present Government. They are already the heaviest sentences known to anyone in Europe today. That is what the Government have done. It is no good anybody saying that this is not a party question. It is a question on which the Government are facing criticism by anyone, whether their own supporters or the Opposition. On this point, they are very much to be criticised.
I want to bring in here a little evidence which your Lordships will not regard as conclusive but which will, I think, be of some interest. I was going to suggest that it conflicted with the views of the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, but, anticipating that, he has, I think, fled. Therefore, I cannot say that this conflicts with his views without his being able to reply.
With regard to the effect of sentences on violent criminals—and I know that there are a lot of different kinds of violent criminals, as has been well explained to us by various speakers—let us take criminals who have committed some of the most violent crimes over a period of years. Very few of us in this House, my Lords, can put ourselves in the minds of those violent criminals. I have often heard noble Lords talking as though they perfectly understood the mind of a violent criminal. After many years' contact with them, I do not pretend to understand those minds but at least one can ask them for their point of view.
In the last day or two I have spoken to two of the most famous or notorious violent criminals. One served 18 years and the other served 19 years, and they are now both out of prison. One is prospering in legitimate business and the other is running a large club for young black people in East London. They are
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both in that sense making good, having been many years in prison.
I asked them for their views on the question we are discussing today, the causes of violent crime. Surely it is not a bad idea to ask some of the most violent criminals what they think is the cause of violent crime—at least they know more about it first hand than most of us. I asked one of them who had spent 18 years in prison—if I mentioned his name, your Lordships would all know who I was talking about but the name might be emotive so it is better not to mention it—what he would feel was the reason for the big increase in violent crime in recent years. This is an intelligent man who is doing well in business, as I said. He replied, "It goes back to 1964 and the irain robbers." I say this with proper respect for an old friend of mine who might have had some involvement in that particular matter. At any rate, as I have said, he said, "It goes back to 1964 and the train robbers. The 30 year sentences became a criterion and sentences lost their value after that. Prisoners began saying to themselves, 'If I go back to prison it will be for very many years, even for a minor offence', so to resist arrest they carry guns or knives."
That is a perfectly dispassionate opinion. This man had absolutely no axe to grind and nothing to get out of giving that opinion. That is an honest opinion given to me in the course of a long discussion in the last two days.
I spoke to the other man. He is helping to run a very successful club for young black people, where, I am glad to say, I am assured there is no violence whatever. He is a friend of the first man so they might be supposed to have similar views, but he did not know that I had put the question or what answer I had received. I put the same question to the second man, who has been out of prison for about a year, having spent 19 years in prison and having been in prison before that. I said, "Why do you think there has been this big increase in violent crime?". He replied, in just the same way as his friend, "Because of the tremendous increase in sentences". He developed the point at some length and he said to me, rather crudely perhaps, "If I were going to mug you and knew that I would get a sentence of many years in prison, I would knock you out to make sure that you would never recognise me".
That is an absolutely honest opinion which is the attitude of a man who has been involved in many violent crimes. My Lords, we have to pool our knowledge with other people bringing forward information from other quarters. I am laying before the House some up-to-date information on the attitudes among some of the most violent criminals to the increase in violent crimes, and they are both men, as I say, who are doing well now.
My Lords, these two men undoubtedly had a very difficult start in life. I agree, therefore, with everything that has been said about the need to provide a much better life for young people. I know that has been a special interest, among her many interests of the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull. When I was doing an inquiry for the Nuffield Foundation into the cases of crime 30 years ago, it was agreed by the experts—and they agreed about one point only—that the biggest single

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factor was the broken home. That was 30 years ago. Everyone is aware that in the last 30 years the proportion of broken homes has increased greatly, partly through legislation and partly maybe through a weakening of public morals. At any rate, there has been a great increase in broken homes, although in fact they cannot be held responsible for the lives of the two men whom I have quoted. But they are still the biggest single factor.
I shall finish in a moment, but that point brings me back to the position where I thought that I was going to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Gisborough. I think that philosophically I do, but his practical ideas did not seem to me satisfactory. When we are talking of any decline in morals we cannot ignore the effect of television. When I was involved in the pornography inquiry 15 years ago there was a good deal of resistance because people liked the idea of freedom of sex. But now, when there is freedom of violence, the public is a good deal more ready to smash it, to level a real war on pornography. I hope that the noble Lord will agree with this. I welcome the initiatives taken, for example, by Mr. Churchill and Ms. Clare Short. I welcome any other initiatives taken in that direction. In the long run those initiatives will bear fruit. At the moment we must deal with a great many detailed questions. For that and many other reasons I once again salute the noble Baroness. I do not know what we would do without her.
6.2 p.m.
The Earl of Cork and Orrery: My Lords, it is not the first time that I have had the privilege of succeeding the noble Earl, Lord Longford, and I must confess that I find it difficult. He has a way of couching his wisdom in so entertaining a form that anything I say is likely to be humdrum. I hope that the noble Earl will forgive me if I do not attempt to follow too closely—but there it is, that is showbusiness.
I am reminded instead of something that happened a long time ago. In 1969 we had a debate on this subject on the dangers of violence in contemporary society. In the course of that debate, Lord Stonham, answering at that time for the Government said:
"We should be thankful that, compared with the United States, we are at present a safe and orderly society; and we must keep it that way."—[Official Report, 12/2/69; col. 453.]
That was 16 years ago but perhaps it bears thinking about now.
I remember that particularly because it was I who inaugurated that debate. In doing so I became thoroughly aware of that great jigsaw puzzle that my noble friend Lady Faithfull has had to go through, researching into all manner of things, to produce the ramifications and the wide-ranging debate that she laid so expertly before us this afternoon. I use the words "jigsaw puzzle". Preparing for any debate I suppose is a jigsaw puzzle but this seems to be subject to the proviso that a jigsaw puzzle cannot be put together in the air. One has to lay it on a table. It needs a background of some kind.
The background to the jigsaw puzzle of contemporary violent crime, I suggest, is the spiritual climate of the age. That is something that among all
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the wealth of statistics that are deployed before us, and the measures that are suggested for dealing with them to reduce crime, and to protect the innocent person, tends to be forgotten. We have not heard much about it this afternoon. To my relief we had one allusion which came from the right place—that is the Benches of the Lords Spiritual on my left—when the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln touched upon spiritual matters. He slightly spoiled the effect—this is a slightly frivolous remark, I confess—by saying that it is not the province of Bishops to make sermons in the House of Lords. I am not altogether sure about that. I would probably be among the first to complain if it happened, but nonetheless I think that it does not happen often enough. Selected Bishops might well address a sermon to us from time to time. This is a complaint that I have to make against the Church, but I make it in a friendly way and I hope that both right reverend Prelates representing the Bishops will understand.
I shall not refer to statistics in what I shall say. I simply take it for granted that violent crime is on the increase and is very worrying and frightening. If that is not true —if in some respects it is decreasing—that makes no difference. I am absolutely certain that there is a great deal too much of it. I ask myself—and I should like to ask others for an opinion—as to how it came about. I am now referring again to the spiritual climate of the age in which we live. Spiritual matters are not my concern; but as nobody else seems to talk about them except for a glancing blow from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln, perhaps I might be allowed to have a thought. I am not in any way preaching a sermon but it is an inquiry.
I should like to go back a little in history to the Second World War. That war left a legacy of the most appalling violence that the world had experienced—deliberate violence, deliberate cruelty. There is no need to rehearse those facts again now. Then it stopped. It is my personal belief—I do not know whether anybody shares it or not—that there was a spiritual legacy left in the atmosphere of the world when that war came to an end from which we are suffering today. I shall not enlarge on that because I might well be told that metaphysics is not a fit topic for discussion in the House of Lords.
To continue, I spent four years abroad in that war. When I returned home, one of the things that struck me was a breakdown in manners. People were short tempered and "chippy" in Great Britain, in a way that was quite unfamiliar to me having been away for some time. I say that in no spirit of criticism. I did not feel critical about it at the time. It was perfectly obvious that it was a symptom of long drawn out privation, suffering and, perhaps above all, fatigue.
Time went on and we continued to have real deprivations in the form of shortages of rations. The rationing reached its lowest level, or highest intensity—according to which term one likes to use—two years after the war was over when we had potato and bread rationing. That may be difficult to believe now. However, that is when rationing was at its worst. Children were being brought up then, presumably by their parents, in an atmosphere of the black market and of fiddling under the counter. I remember this very well. I was not a child by a long

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way then. I was therefore able to observe other people's children and noticed how almost invariably they were subjected to the experience of hearing their parents talk about fiddling something—whether cigarettes, potatoes, petrol, clothing coupons, or whatever it might be. All over the country, at all levels of society I suspect, there was an atmosphere of petty dishonesty, pilfering, and getting the better of the establishment in one way or another. This is not a healthy atmosphere for children to grow up in.
And so it went on. Other more important factors came in about that time or soon after. We had a breakdown of family responsibility. Everybody complains sooner or later about the lack of parental responsibility for children. I suspect that this arose at about that time. Various factors may have contributed to it. I dare say that the coming emancipation of women may have done. Women insisted on their own womanliness and went to work in larger numbers and their houses became less closely attended.
Then in the 1960s we had what my noble friend Lord Gisborough has referred to as the liberals and the permissive society. There is no need to describe what is meant by that now. It is known well enough to everybody. This was probably the culmination of disaster. This saw the real breakdown of what up to that moment had been considered proper moral standards by which people should live. I suspect that the delay in seeing the result, the pay-off, of that collapse in moral standards has come right the way through the works as we are seeing them now. Forty years after the end of the war we have probably reached our lowest point.
Over all this there was superimposed the welfare state. We are greatly and justly proud of the welfare state. From time to time we tell ourselves that it is the envy of the world. I am not totally convinced of that; it may or it may not be. However, I am convinced that there is a price to pay for it. It is almost similar to the dilemma facing Germany in the days before the war, which Field Marshall Goering neatly summed up by saying that there was a choice between guns and butter, and he personally chose guns. There is plenty of butter in the welfare state because that is what it is for, but the price is a heavy one to pay.
The price stems from the fact that from the very beginning of life everyone is brought up to think that he or she has a right—I repeat the word "right"—to be looked after by other people. There we have a breakdown in responsibility—responsibility for one's individual self. Parental responsibility has broken down; personal responsibility to a great extent is flying out of the window after it. When Beveridge initiated the welfare state and the National Health Service I do not think that he envisaged a situation in which young people, coming down from school, college or university, should be cast upon the world without a job, and be paid for doing nothing. That was not his idea; he resisted it, but he was overruled. It is now possible for young people, finding themselves unemployed, to remain unemployed by choice. That is a great corruption of the spirit.
Somewhere along the lines we had something which was entirely new in our social system; it was an idea,
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hatched up I know not where, which manifested itself in the upper reaches of the trade union movement. It became accepted that every trade unionist had a right to an increase in pay every year. It had nothing to do with inflation or personal merit, but it was simply that a year had passed and therefore his pay ought to go up. It was known and is still known as the annual pay round. It was new and unjustified, and was a manifestation of what we had, and still have—the selfish society.
It is all very well to talk like this, whether or not anyone agrees with me, but we are supposed to be talking about how we should protect innocent citizens. Basically, we must do this by discovering the truth behind what I have been saying—the causes of all these things. It is all very well to think about methods of penal reform, longer sentences and all kinds of things. Hundreds of excellent ideas have been suggested in the speeches this afternoon. However, will they do any good, beyond being mere palliatives, or do we not have to discover the root causes, as I have been suggesting, and see what we can do about them?
Someone ought to speak up and say what has not been said in my hearing for a very long time, except by my noble friend Lady Faithfull this afternoon when, in her opening speech, she said that crime is wrong. How often do we hear anyone stand up and say that anything is wrong, except perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Soper? Surely it is a function of the Church to say that something is wrong, whatever it may be—not necessarily crime. Recently in conversation with me someone (he was not a Member of this House or another place) complained that he hears parsons and bishops say that they are saddened by this or that manifestation of society as it now is, that they grieve for situations of this kind, whatever they may be; but never do they say, "This is wrong". There must be people to stand up and say, "This is wrong". Who are they to be? It used to be the Church. By "Church" in this country, with its Church established by law, one has to mean the Church of England. Sadly, for various reasons I am afraid that the Church has lost a very great deal of its authority. I suspect that one reason for this is that from time to time it tends to throw up an odd prominent figure, a bishop, who thinks aloud. It is not a good idea for bishops to think aloud. They may talk aloud, but they should not think aloud. If they do some thinking and they have great doubts about dogma, about faith, or about the truth of their religion or their obedience, that would be a proper topic of conversation on the Bishops' Bench or perhaps in the smoking room of the Athenaeum. However, it is not a good topic for conversation in books, newspapers or on the wireless because invariably the result will be to destroy the faith of and to perplex large numbers of innocent people who look to such persons for their spiritual guidance and who find that they are actually being damaged. That is sad and, following my own precept of a moment ago and pretending to be a bishop, I will say that it is wrong.
The Lord Bishop of Lincoln: My Lords, I should like to ask the noble Earl who he means by the "Church"? He said that the Church should stand up and say this, that and the other. He is a member of the Church; the Church comprises the laity as well as the clergy and

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bishops, and I think that that needs to be borne in mind.
The Earl of Cork and Orrery: My Lords, that is a very reasonable criticism. I did say that the Church necessarily meant the Church of England. As to how this voice should be expressed is another matter, with which I shall deal in a minute. I will probably not deal with it in a satisfactory way, but I will deal with it in some way. I know that it is difficult to personify the Church and give it a voice, but I have hinted that I was thinking in terms of the House of Bishops at this moment. If the bishops speak with an uncertain voice, it is difficult to see who should arm himself for the battle.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, if the noble Earl will forgive me, is there any doubt throughout the United Kingdom, whatever the state of our citizenship, whatever our multiracial content, that crime is wrong? Who has to say this and to whom?
The Earl of Cork and Orrery: My Lords, if the noble Lord will be kind enough to let me get on with my speech, I shall tell him; at least I shall put forward an idea to that purpose. I am only eliminating one body, which I do with sadness, which I do not think is particularly well-fitted for this. I do not think that the World Council of Churches is well fitted for it either, because it is known to subscribe money to people who actually practise terrorism in Africa. I should like to see people, leaders of all kinds—and I am thinking particularly of religious leaders of all faiths and all obediences—not speaking for the Holy Catholic Church, the Church of England or the Roman Catholic Church or for any particular group of persons, but speaking as enormously authoritative bishops or enormously authoritative and respected rabbis or chief rabbis. I do not particularly want to know who they are or what they belong to; I want them to speak as individual voices, in harmony and unison.
I do not know how this could come about. I see no reason why it should not come about. I want to see all faiths—Hebraic, Islamic, Hindu, anything you like—not using any label, but speaking with the voice of the spirit. It should be possible and I believe it must be possible. Perhaps some people who might be qualified to join in such a chorus would bear that in mind. I hope that that goes some way to answering the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon.
I do not know where St. George lived or was believed to have lived.
Lord Harvington: Romania, my Lords.
The Earl of Cork and Orrery: Romania, my Lords? I thought it was somewhere in Asia Minor. Perhaps it is the same thing. It is wonderful what geographic facts one can learn from one's noble friends. Wherever it was, there was a terrifying dragon laying waste to, I think, a village. It was a dragon of violence and no doubt evil. In response to prayer, St. George (who I suppose was not a saint at that time) returned, posthumously in fact, and despatched the dragon. Today is St. George's day, who will speak for St. George?
6.20 p.m.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, my comments today may be brief but my feelings on this vital subject are immensely strong. I, for one, feel drained of compassion when I think of what parents, families and friends must suffer when little, innocent children disappear and then are found murdered, having been sexually abused. Coming from Yorkshire, as I do, I found something particularly tragic about the little girl from Morley who went down her street to fetch a loaf of bread and did not return. Perhaps it is the simplicity of the last message that she performed for her mother that has made the police forces come together. It seems a pity that they have not been working in closer co-operation before this. May I ask the Minister the question: why has it taken so long? Was this not the criticism which ran through the television films of Operation Julie, the drugs operation, which showed the difficulty of getting the police to work together?
With modern-day transport it does not take long to travel hundreds of miles, especially with the network of motorways. Crime travels fast these days. I, for one, do not think that the police can solve these terrible crimes without full public participation. But far more important is to stop them happening in the first place. Could the public not be more on the alert for suspicious characters and keep a watchful eye over the young and innocent?
Society has fallen very low when even members of the Church abuse children. Therefore, men might be held on suspicion if they are seen to be taking an interest in a vulnerable child, even if they are trying to protect it. Perhaps it will have to be the women who take a strong lead in protecting the little innocents of society.
A serious situation is developing. At this year's President's Conference of the British Red Cross Society I heard that there was a fall off of Red Cross cadets attending classes. Many of the classes are held in the evenings as this is the time the instructors are free. The drop in cadets is due to fear of abduction when returning home.
First aid and nursing skills are so important to encourage responsible basic health care, and this is one of the reasons why at the Committee stage of the Education Bill I moved an amendment to provide more health education in schools. With the growing expense of health care education is important on many aspects of health provision and particularly on the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse. Both these contribute to a more violent society. Education seems to be our greatest hope for the future. If we can reduce the demand, there will be less point in the evil marketing, which is still increasing.
Drunkenness is a large contributory factor to child abuse within the family. I have spoken with many young people from Borstal—now youth custody—over the years. Some fathers have told me that when they come in from the pub at night and hear the baby cry their reaction is to pick up the baby and shake it, which is a very dangerous thing to do. These at-risk fathers need training so that they understand that children may be hungry, cold, or wet and need changing. They need educating, and they do respond.

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But the violence and impatience which stems from drinking puts many babies at great risk.
May I ask the Minister whether the worrying problem of incest is on the increase, or is it being more talked about? Are the numbers of cases held nationally? This week I was told of a case in Devon of a father who had had incest with his six-months old baby. This is something no animal would do. Is it not time that there was a committed think tank to try to resolve some of these dastardly happenings? How much research is done on these matters? It really must be done.
Locking these criminals away in prison for 23 hours a day in a cell and then letting them out will not solve these problems. They may be much worse on discharge. Do they not need intense group therapy so that they may be able to put themselves right when they have looked at where they have gone wrong? May I ask the Minister whether some of the new prisons that the Government are now building are going to have systems like those at Grendon, which tackles some of these difficult problems?
I support schemes in the community, such as the tracking scheme which seems to be working, but today's Motion deals with violent crime. Closing prison workshops is one of the most depressing aspects of the prison problem at the moment. Should we not make the people who commit crimes pay back at least something to society?
Prison officers tell me that homosexuality is rife in many prisons and that the spread of the HTLV III virus is inevitable.The frustrated prisoner with AIDS may try to cut himself and spray blood into the mouths of prison officers.This I consider would be a violent act. Will the Minister, who is so fit and keen, not take this matter under his wing with some urgency and see that all members of the prison staff who so wish are instructed in what to do and in what protection is needed, so that panic and fear are eliminated?
Some months ago I asked the Minister, Lord Glenarthur, whether he thought that castration would be a deterrent against rape. As he is in the prime of life with a splendid zest and enthusiasm for living, he is the ideal person to answer this question. After that question I received hundreds of letters in support of the need for such a deterrent. Of course I would not want anyone to be castrated, but equally I do not want anyone to be raped. There would be a choice: to rape and take the consequences, or just not to consider it.
What makes me think that strong deterrents for the prevention of crime are necessary arises from being told by prisoners, when I was taking a discussion group in a prison, that they would go on committing crime as long as it paid. I argued with them that they were shut away in prison in cramped conditions away from their friends and freedom, but still they did not think that this was a strong deterrent.
Having sat through a showing of the horrors of the so-called nasty videos, I am certain in my mind that they have contributed to some of the violent crime, as I am sure have some of the violent scenes on television. May I ask the Minister whether these dastardly videos have been removed from the shops and whether they are no longer being made? What is happening to all
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those videos which have been around for years and may still be corrupting young people in their homes?
I have recently been shown round the Black Museum at Scotland Yard. There are many offensive weapons, which seem to be increasing, in the form of razor-sharp plastic knives, terrible round spiked objects on chains—all made to maim and harm. Should we not toughen up the laws to include knuckle dusters and many other horrible things?
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, for instigating this debate on a subject which is of such concern to so many people from all walks of life and of all ages. We should be aiming at prevention so that tiny children are safe in their cots, old-age pensioners do not fear that they will be beaten and robbed and young women can once more walk in safety without the fear that they will be jumped on from behind, robbed and raped. To sum up, I feel we need more education and more effective deterrents in society if it is to be better protected.
6.31 p.m.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, with regard to her earlier remarks perhaps I should tell the noble Baroness that, concerning the most unfortunate cases of maltreatment within the family, the NSPCC (with which I have the privilege of being associated) is building up its facilities for studying this all the time. In certain areas it is working jointly with the local authority. There is a tremendous amount of work going on to identify the problems about which she spoke.
We must all thank my noble friend Lady Faithfull for introducing this debate and for so cleverly ordering the right people to take part so that they balance their speeches one with another. I propose to base my speech mainly on my experiences in the Isle of Wight, which will perhaps give a slightly different flavour from the inner cities (for instance, in the contribution of my noble friend Lady Gardner), and because hitherto it has been one of the more tranquil counties in the country. I shall not speak about its prisons, of which we have three, two of which are major ones, as I wish to talk about the problems raised by this debate; the serious increase in violent crime in my country.
Crime generally in the Isle of Wight has increased by a third in just the last two years, 1984 and 1985, which is a great deal more than the national average given by my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor. The particular concerns of the police are violent crime—especially involving aggressive young men, usually well under 25—and drugs. Regarding the violent crime, in earlier years the island has always had problems in the summer months, with gangs coming from the mainland on holiday and having fun beating people up, mainly in the holiday resorts. Now, out of season there is a disturbing growth in violence of the same sort by local lads.
Drug-taking is also on the increase at all ages. I heard only yesterday from a man who was driving me of a girl of about 12 years old, who he had difficulty in avoiding and who was sniffing a cloth soaked in lighter fuel and wandering all over the road, just like a drunkard. She was a drunkard, a girl of only 12. Your Lordships will know of many such examples. That is

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an example of simple drug consumption, but, and perhaps because of it, hard drug-taking is also on the increase. Though drugs are not specifically the subject of this debate—and the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, has told us that they do not have the effect (if I understood him correctly) on violent crime that perhaps one might at first think—they are a contribution to violent crime in certain cases. It is therefore relevant to talk briefly about them, though I shall concentrate mainly on the other subject.
Drugs are increasingly available, so I am told, and at ever cheaper prices. With some success the police are endeavouring to identify and catch the pushers, but with the small drugs squad that a small island with a small police force naturally has, this is an uphill struggle because of the quantities of drugs in the market and the readiness of people to be pushers, which is a sad reflection on our community. I suppose it all comes down to money.
The police are also co-ordinating with the schools to put across to the young the very serious consequences of all types of drug-taking. One hopes that this may achieve results in the future, though it is early days and these things take time to work through. In the meantime, the example of those around them may delay the effect of the good messages being conveyed when the children are younger. It is difficult to see how the problem can be solved quickly.
There are many causes of violence, and varying points of view have been put to me from various sources. One of the causes of the violence of the young men about whom I was talking earlier is that they are following the example of the visiting gangs in the summer. That is straightforward. Another cause is seriously thought to be—and other noble Lords have mentioned this—that they are seeking the macho image of young men on television, both in soap operas and in real life at "demos".
It is significant to note this when one sees a demonstration on the television. I shall not have a go at television, for other noble Lords have done that, but I have been thinking about this matter. Pictures of demonstrations on television generally show the police charging with their batons to a much greater extent than they show the young men charging at the police and misbehaving. One can understand why this may be so; one has to protect the television cameramen. They are probably safer, and the police probably tell them that they are safer, behind the police lines than they would be if they were behind the demonstrators. This is a definite problem for which one cannot blame the television people entirely, but it is something that they should perhaps take into account.
My other point is that my advice would be that we do not particularly want the young demonstrators televised, because they have the macho image and they will be copied by other young men who will behave badly locally; they will follow them rather than copy the police. It is a complicated story, but it needs thinking out by the television people, because they have a responsibility, which I am not always sure they realise. However, that is a diversion.
My next point has been touched on previously, though I shall run over it quickly. It is the lack of
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parental discipline. However, both the police and the education people to whom I have spoken point out that imposed discipline and self-discipline have decreased throughout the community over many years. My noble friend Lord Cork and Orrery referred to this with great eloquence. It is partly due to increasing lack of respect for any sort of superiors. I suggest that this, in part, is brought about by the bad behaviour from time to time of some of those so-called superiors, some of whom have even on occasions sat in your Lordships' House. When they behave badly much publicity is given to that.
There has also been a slackening in personal discipline and high standards of honesty by many parents of all sorts. In some ways, although my noble friend Lord Cork and Orrery put this back to the immediate post-war period, I think that it has become rather worse and slacker recently, now that people have so much. Everybody has a television set on which to see what everybody else has, and they want the same. Expectations are higher and somehow honesty slips.
I suggest, however, that there are indications that this trend of parents is beginnning to reverse. My experience, gazing at a fairly wide section of the community, is that the young new parents in their mid-20s now have a better sense of responsibility than parents of their age had 15 years ago. That is a movement in the right direction. We have to hope for that, because the effects will be some time a-coming.
The schools, it is agreed, also make a contribution and there is no doubt that the national lack of self-discipline reflects itself among school teachers as among anyone else. The industrial action by school teachers has also unquestionably added to the tendency of children to lose respect for authority and for the rights of others to lead an unmolested life.
Outside the control of the schools there has been the lack of certainty of a job for the young school-leaver in recent years. This engenders a lack of hope and also makes it more difficult to teach uninterested teenagers of both sexes. Teachers in the past could encourage attention in class, especially during the last two years at school, by showing that the children could get better jobs if they were even partially educated. The lack of hope, without certainty of a job, which is more marked in the Isle of Wight than in the rest of South East England because of the exceptionally high unemployment, is a definite contribution to the lawlessness of some of the young.
Briefly, because we have heard from my noble and learned friend and we shall hear more from my noble friend the Minister of some of the things that have been done by the Government which could contribute to curbing violent crime, I pick out the many initiatives of my noble friend Lord Young of Graffham, especially YTS, which in its new form can bridge the gap between leaving school, finding a preference for a job and getting a stable one thereafter. That may help to deal with this problem of the lack of hope. There is no doubt that the school authorities think that there is a good chance of that, and that is hopeful.
We have heard from my noble and learned friend of the many initiatives that he has taken. I should like to

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suggest to your Lordships that he has taken them over two Parliaments in a steady progress of improving the structure of the law in a whole range of different ways. I presume to say that I think he should be congratulated on having done so consistently over the period in which he has sat on the Woolsack.
I shall not keep your Lordships long. The other two things that I should like to mention are the neighbourhood watch and the community consultative groups. The neighbourhood watch is just starting in the Isle of Wight and only in a couple of areas. The police tell me that they do not do anything unless the local community exercises its own initiative, which seems to me to be sensible. But it will grow.
The community consultative groups, on the other hand, are now the law and the police have been surprised even in our county at the warmth with which they have been accepted by other people of all walks of life who sit upon the groups. That is hopeful for the future, but there seems to be a gap at the moment, although it is early days, between what they and the parents can do and what the lawless young people do.
There is thus some hope that in communities like mine the rise in violent crime may be abated in the future. But that can happen only if, as the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, said towards the end of his speech—and I may say that I did not agree with the early part of it but I did with the end—the spirit of community responsibility is regarded as important. He gave us some excellent examples of community responsibility. I entirely agree with him, and if that can be encouraged and built upon, not only in our county where I hope that it is already, this spirit should spread through to the inner-city areas. My noble friend Lady Gardner gave us many examples in Westminster of where that is happening; where the local authority is working to do its bit to cure the problems. I hope that all is not hopeless and that the trend may reverse itself, but I cannot see it doing so quickly, and that is sad.
6.47 p.m.
Viscount Mersey: My Lords, I should like to thank my noble friend Lady Faithfull for introducing this debate and, as forecast by her, I should like to confine my remarks to what happens to a violent man after he has been arrested; for, as a prison officer said to me only last week, "Just because you lock up a violent man, you don't lock out his violence".
As I understand it, there are three periods of incarceration for a criminal which would be, first, the remand in custody awaiting trial; secondly, the period in a local prison after conviction awaiting transfer to what I think is now called a training prison; and, thirdly, the serving of the remainder of his sentence in that training prison. During each of these three periods, a violent prisoner can easily become more violent. This is because in the local prisons he is likely, as many noble Lords will know, to be "banged up" for 23 hours out of the 24 in very crowded conditions and he can also be, as they say, banged up in the training prison as training prisons suffer from staff shortage. But what I find puzzling is this. Just after the war, the inmate-to-prison officer ratio was 7:1. Now, it is only 2:1. How, therefore, can one explain the staff shortage with the vast increase in numbers of prison
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officers—that is, I think, from about 2,000 in 1947 up to 19,000 today?
If I may, I should like to look at each of the three periods of imprisonment, in turn, to ask questions and to make suggestions. The first period is waiting in prison to be tried. It is, of course, too long; it may be two years. It was therefore very heartening to read the speech made by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary to the Prison Reform Trust on 10th April to which my noble friend Lady Faithfull has already referred. It was an extremely good speech. In it he mentioned the introduction of time limits in four pilot areas: Birmingham, Bristol, Maidstone and Southwark. The limits last for 182 days between arrest and arraignment. Should the limit be exceeded, it will trigger (as he puts it) the termination of proceedings; in other words, the accused goes free. I think that is promising but I must ask my noble friend on the Front Bench why the period is so long and why it is only on a trial basis in a few areas, since the formula is already well tried in another country—Scotland—where they have the 110-day rule, which I gather has been working very well for many years.
The second period of detention is when a man is locked up in a local prison after conviction awaiting transfer. That can also last for more than a year. Once again, staff shortages make it likely that the offender will be confined to his cell. However, once again I am encouraged by another part of the Home Secretary's speech when he mentions the commissioning of an efficiency scrutiny to see whether escorting could be run more efficiently. It is a wasteful process to use prison officers for court duties. That point was made by my noble friend Lady Faithfull. We should perhaps examine the possibility of using another body of men for that task.
I suggest to my noble friend that prison officers are overqualified merely to sit beside the accused in the dock for eight hours a day. The only qualifications such a man needs are those required to prevent an escape and for that all he needs to be is strong, muscular and honest. I do not mean to be flippant but all we need is an honest nightclub bouncer.
One prison officer told me that he needed to be in court to gain information about the nature and extent of the crime, to listen to speeches by the prosecution and defence counsel, statements from witnesses and so forth. He said that he needed to relay those details back to his superiors. That argument does not hold much water with me. Do the prison authorities really need to know the details of the evidence? Could it not be that "GBH—10 years" is all they need to know? Even if that is not enough, surely all trial evidence is transcribed and if the authorities need to know the minutiae they can read them.
I understand that 40 per cent. of local prison officers are involved in court duties. If they can be released for normal duties, the "banging up" obviously lessens, workshops open, free association becomes possible and, it is to be hoped, a violent man becomes less angry and more manageable.
I come now to the third period of incarceration, which is the training prison. The reduction of violence there seems to be hardest nut to crack. It is good news that we are building 18 new prisons and refurbishing

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many more old ones, but their architecture seems to be wrong. My noble friend will surely agree with me about the old Holloway C1 Unit. It is odd that both prison officers and the Prison Reform Trust prefer the Victorian radial gallery prison to any of the modern, more humane ones. I can see their point because an officer standing in the centre of Strangeways Prison, for example, can see every gallery and bank of cell doors in that prison. If we close in the galleries and put corners in the passages it takes double the number of officers to supervise the same number of prisoners. That is perhaps why there are staff shortages in the new training prisons. It seems to be a design fault that makes those prisons so violent.
I quote an extract from a report on Holloway C1 by my honourable friends Charles Irving and Janet Fookes. They write:
"There has been a break with prison design and a move towards a hospital model. In our view the result has been disastrous. There is a very low level of daylight in the cells. There is no daylight to corridors and protuberances preclude observation by staff of inmate behaviour. There are drab colours: low ceilings, and little natural light giving a strongly depressing and claustrophobic atmosphere. Significant areas of the cell are not visible from the observation posts in the door. Washing facilities are made of delft and easily broken. Fittings such as lights, radiators etc. have sharp edges and are easily broken or used in self-mutilation"—
and then the clincher—
"The ratio of disciplinary staff to prison inmates is as high as 1–1. However court appearances take up so much time that confinement to cells is greater than anyone would like".
Holloway is for women and it is both a local and a training prison, but I refer also to Frankland, Wymott and Wayland. It seems that some of those modern training prisons are the most violent of the lot.
I do not believe that architectural mistakes cause the whole problem. In the speech which I referred to earlier, the Home Secretary is rather critical of the way in which the work of prison officers is broken up into separate tasks which discourage flexibility. He said:
"We are still too dependent on high levels of voluntary overtime workingand this hinders effective management and planning."
In addition, the 1984 Control Review Committee recommended a system of small units for long-term prisoners who present such serious control problems that they cannot safely be contained in the training prisons. It is heartening to know that the first of those has already been opened at Parkhurst, as my noble friend Lord Mottistone will know, and that another four or five are planned. I hope that their architecture will be satisfactory.
That apart, I have one other ray of light to shed on our Front Bench. Only yesterday the governor of Holloway Prison said to me:
"Since Lord Glenarthur got his paddle in the water a couple of months ago, things are really shifting".
I can only ask my noble friend to go to it, not just at Holloway but throughout the length and breadth of the kingdom.
6.56 p.m.
Lord Orr-Ewing: My Lords, I should like to add my thanks to those of other noble Lords for the manner in which the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, introduced this interesting and important subject. I should like to concentrate on the police and make one or two
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suggestions as to where there could be minor improvements. Matters certainly should be explored. I should like to thank those who at short notice have given me a great deal of information and have taken a great deal of trouble to provide me with facts and figures.
After 1974, the Labour Government were rather reluctant adequately to remunerate the police to keep the good men in the force. It was sad that between 1974 and 1979 we lost between 8,000 and 9,000 officers. They tended to be the brightest and the best of the sons of the morning, because they were offered jobs and they decided to vote with their feet and leave the force. I am glad to say that we were elected in 1979 on the promise that we would improve police remuneration and pay a good deal of attention to law and order. We have done that since 1979 and 1983.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the report of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Edmund-Davies, was submitted to and implemented by the present Government's predecessors?
Lord Orr-Ewing: My Lords, I am delighted to hear that. I do not know who implemented it. It was in our manifesto. The report was to hand. We were in a position to put it into action straightaway, as we did. I think that we took the right course and we did it on the platform upon which we had been elected. The point that I am making is that we lost some valuable people, and 10 years later the police are, to some extent, missing the middle management that those people would now have provided. I think that is sad.
People probably do not realise—I learned this as a result of my own inquiries—that a young policeman of about 22 years in London would now receive a basic salary of £9,075 per year, and overtime is often added to that. That is not a bad starting salary by any standards. It is a good and valuable career. I hope that in the future more good and true young men will be attracted to a career in the police.
I learned from the Sunday newspapers, as has been mentioned, that the Labour Party has now decided to make law and order one of the platforms of its policy. I am delighted about that. I think that the more that people are agreed about the need to strengthen and improve our police force and its organisation, the better. The more parties that can agree to that, the better.
I would remind the Labour Party that in its 1983 election manifesto—I looked this up—and as late as its party conference in 1985, it re-established its policy that, in future, police authorities will have to be elected. Those police authorities will lay down policing policies in their areas. In view of the Labour Party's enlightened approach I hope that it will drop that proposal, because it is a recipe that in some areas the Left-wing have used much to the disadvantage of the police.
I noticed in the party political broadcast last night that the punchline right at the end was a small, attractive young child of about five or six. She was going along and a rather sinister man started to follow her, so she ran up to a policeman and got a pat on the

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head. So already we are beginning to see the new Labour approach in their party political broadcasts.
I think that some of us did not realise—I certainly did not realise—that the strength of our police force in England alone is 120,000. The police force is now bigger than the army, the navy, or the air force in this country. There are one or two small but major differences compared with the armed forces. First, the police have no cadet college; and, secondly, they have too few reservists. I should like briefly to cover those two points. I feel some sentiment about the Hendon Police College because it was in my constituency, and I recently reread the history of it. It was extremely successful. It was founded by Lord Trenchard in 1934, and for five years it set a fine example. Two hundred cadets went through there, and your Lordships have only to look at the honours that they received in World War II to realise what a wonderful job was done in both selection and training; and there was only 15 months' training.
Of those 200, 184 earned honours, 40 of them Orders of St. Michael and St. George, with KBEs down to MBEs. Nine also had awards. Eleven of them received DFCs and four had George Medals in World War II. That is a fairly high figure from a moderately small intake. Unfortunately the Labour Government, and I think the police at the time, agreed not to set it up again in the same form after the war. I wonder whether, if our armed forces had abolished Sandhurst, Dartmouth and Cranwell, we would now be seeing leaders emerge with the intellect, drive, imagination and leadership qualities which those colleges achieve. I also wonder whether we ought to see if something like the old Hendon ought to be set up again.
I concede that the police pick and train their future leadership by accelerated promotion, which starts at about the age of 27, and they then go through Hendon or Bramshill. They have six months in the training school and one-and-a-half years as cadets. I wonder whether in that respect, with the need for people with good, trained minds, the degree of accelerated promotion might be extended and perhaps started rather earlier—young men are much more mature now—at the age of say, 25, rather than 27. That ought to be examined. I am not suggesting that we abolish what is already good, but I am asking whether the two could run in parallel. After all, half the officers in the navy come from the lower deck, and go through the ranks in the other services, so the two are not in contradiction. You could run the two in harness, and the services show what can be achieved with that sort of set up.
I have been looking at the latest figures, and I still believe that the police are not attracting graduates in sufficient numbers. The 1984 figures show that the metropolitan police attracted 122 in an officer force of 1,200, and that is not very large. Perhaps more cadets, or a different sort of cadet, would be attracted if we re-established a cadet college on the pre-war pattern.
I now turn to the reserves. It is very interesting that we have increasingly found that the territorials in the army do a wonderful job. I am not thinking just in terms of cost, but when exercises take place the reports generally say that the territorials showed a wonderful sense of responsibility, knowledge and enthusiasm;
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and you get eight territorials for the price of one regular. So you could increase the manpower quite considerably without increasing expenditure if there were more reserves of special constables in support of our police force.
The global figures are that there are 16,000 special constables in England out of a total force of 120,000, so there is approximately one reserve for every eight regular police. In London there are 1,600 specials in a force of 27,000, which is only one in 17. These reservists could be attracted and used. We see tremendous and good advertisements in our newspapers for territorials, but (perhaps I have overlooked them) I have never seen equal advertisements for specials to support our police.
There are various reasons why we should possibly increase the number of our specials. First, they could help to build bridges of understanding between local communities and the police force. If they are living and working locally, it is an extra method of trying to construct those bridges of understanding. After all, the need for that was underlined in the report of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman.
In fact, it is now a statutory duty to set up proper consultative arrangements with representatives of local communities. The specials could help in that process.
They could also be used—obviously, they have less experience than the regulars—in a situation like Brixton or Tottenham, where the regulars were on duty all through the night. The next day, the authorities contacted all the reservists and all the normal policing duties for that day were done by specials. Again, in the exercise last autumn the army territorials and the reservists were called up, and that is another example of the use to which people can be put.
The army treat their reservists with tremendous attention. They give them challenging jobs to do, they train them well, they keep their enthusiasm high and they put in charge a very senior regular officer. I am trying to be constructive. The police do not do this, and I wonder whether a regular senior police officer could be put in charge of the specials. I know that there are 43 independent police forces, but he might set the pace from the centre and encourage progress to make sure that reservists were being recruited, trained and given challenging opportunities all over the country.
I now come to an area which may arise during discussion of the Education Bill. We must try increasingly to make sure that policemen, and, perhaps even more importantly, policewomen, are allowed into our schools to spread the gospel, to encourage crime prevention and, incidentally, to teach road discipline in order to reduce road accidents. I am glad to see the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, nodding, because it cannot be right to keep the police out of our schools. That is where the community bridges should be built; and I particularly stress the need for women.
When you are trying to warn young girls of some of the dangers which I am afraid exist, there is no better person to do that than a woman. She can sympathetically explain the difficulties, whereas a man would be more inhibited in dealing with these problems. So there is a job to be done of rebuilding the

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community relationship with the police. When we discuss this aspect on the Education Bill I hope there will be support from all parts of the House so that, at least, we shall write into the Bill the need to allow our policemen to get into the schools and do the job, which can only improve the relationship and, in the long run, improve the morale of our police and the efficiency with which they act.
7.9 p.m.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, perhaps I may say at the outset that, despite the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, and I may differ about the report of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Edmund-Davies, and its timing, I agreed very much with what he said. We were discussing these issues only the other day on the Education Bill, and it is absolutely essential that they are dealt with, because young children are at risk of violent crime. It is vital that every possible step should be taken to safeguard them—certainly by means of policemen going to schools. I find it deplorable that in a limited number of schools in London, and now elsewhere, that has been made impossible as a result of the action of some members of the teaching staffs. I very much hope that the House will agree with that view when we come to discuss this matter again on the Report stage of the Education Bill. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, that that is fundamental.
I come now to the initial speech in the debate from the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull. It was particularly helpful that she raised this issue today from that side of the House because inevitably a number of us have become almost weary at the sound of our own voices when talking about criminal justice issues. Indeed when one is talking about this subject, this range of issues, one is slightly alarmed at the prospect that one may be repeating almost precisely the words that one used in an equally admirable speech only three, four or five weeks before. So it was helpful that the noble Baroness raised the issue. It has been a constructive debate and what has been particularly constructive is that a number of Members of the House who are not old criminal justice recidivists like some of us have participated in the debate and made some very interesting speeches. I refer particularly to the speech we have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing. I found myself very much in agreement with a great deal of what he said about the structure of the police service.
There cannot be much doubt that violent crime probably creates more anxiety in our society than almost any other issue, with perhaps the single exception of the problem of unemployment. But hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens are oppressed with the fear of being victims of violent crime. Politicians as a class tend to discover this when they are canvassing during by-elections because they find that elderly people in particular are very concerned even at answering their own doors after about half-past six or seven o'clock in the evening. That is a new problem. I do not believe that 15 or 20 years ago there was anything approaching the same level of concern. But it is now growing at a rapid rate
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and I think that we all have to recognise it and take action to deal with it.
I do not propose to discuss all the proposals which have been made by noble Lords in various parts of the House as to how we should deal with this. But perhaps I may refer to the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers. He will not perhaps be astonished to learn that I did not wholly agree with his solution to the problem—that of corporal punishment. I shall give two reasons for that. First, it would of course—and the noble Earl may not regard this as a decisive argument—be inconsistent with our obligations as a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights. There has been a decision in the European Court of Human Rights on precisely this issue—the issue of birching on the Isle of Man. We are a signatory and the present Government—in my view, rightly—have extended our relationship with that convention. They did so within the past 12 months for another period of five years. Therefore it would be impossible for us to reintroduce corporal punishment unless we were to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights. I should have thought that the number of people favouring such a course of action would be very limited.
The second reason is that every form of independent inquiry that has ever taken place on this issue has demonstrated that corporal punishment is not a solution to the issue of violent crime. There was for instance, the Cadogan report—I suspect that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor may remember it because I think it came out at just about the time he was Conservative candidate in the Oxford City by-election in 1938. That Report, of a committee set up during the period of the Premiership of Mr. Neville Chamberlain, demonstrated quite conclusively that this was not the way of dealing with the issue of violent crime. That general approach was incorporated in the Labour Government's Criminal Justice Act of 1948.
I understand the sincerity of the noble Earl's views on this matter and the very alarming cases that he cited of the victims of violent sexual attack. It is a terrifying problem. It scars the victims for life. But, with great respect to him, I do not believe that that is the way in which to solve the problem.
When we started the debate we had the good fortune to hear the speech of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. I found myself very substantially in agreement with him. The noble and learned Lord and I sat on opposite sides of the House for a period of five years when he was in Opposition and I was a Home Office Minister. We disagreed quite substantially on a number of occasions but during those five years he never made a trivial party point on the issues. I very much welcome that type of approach. On no set of issues is routine party point scoring less appropriate. One of the great advantages of this debate is that we have risen above that. There appears to be an immense gap between the kind of debate we have had in this House today and any similar debate taking place just down the corridor. From that point of view, there has been a useful and worthwhile discussion on a matter of great public importance.
I come now to one part of the analysis of a number of noble Lords opposite which in some respects would be shared by the noble Earl, Lord Longford, who,

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unhappily, is not with us for the moment. I refer to the view, shared by Mr. Tebbit, that some of the problems which we are now experiencing—the tensions in our inner cities and the increasing level of violent crime which we have been debating today—are in some way the responsibility of the "permissive society", as it is described, which was introduced in the 1960s. This formed a part of the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Cork and Orrery, and the noble Lord, Lord Gisborough. With great respect, I do not agree.
Let me say what should happen if indeed it is the view that the permissive society is the explanation for all our current ills. First, if that is indeed the reason, one has to explain why violent crime is rising in so many other countries which did not experience this permissiveness. Why has violent crime risen, as it has risen, in France, Germany and Italy? Each of those countries has experienced almost precisely the same set of difficulties as we have experienced in this country. But, quite apart from that, if it is the view that what happened in the 1960s explains what we are now experiencing in this country, let us look at what happened.
First, there was theatre censorship. Are we really going to suggest that, as a result of breaking the relationship between the Lord Chamberlain, who at that stage had some control over what was allowed to be shown on the stage in London, and the theatre, there has been some form of impact on the crime statistics?
Let us turn to a more controversial issue—abortion. Who actually wants to repeal the Abortion Act which went through in the late 1960s? Certainly there is argument—legitimate argument—about what the appropriate guidelines should be for medical practitioners. But there was abortion before that Bill went on to the statute book. Of course there was. If you had money there was no problem. The difficulty arose before the passage of that Act if you did not have money. What happened, as we know, was a whole series of destroyed lives of young girls who were victims of backroom abortionists who did the job with knitting needles. I do not want to go back to those days and I doubt very much whether even a significant minority in this House wants to do so either.
There is then the point of whether we should reopen the whole question of whether homosexual behaviour between consenting adults should or should not be a criminal offence. The recommendation of the Wolfenden Committee appointed by a Conservative Government and adopted by Parliament made a change that has, in my view, improved the quality of life in this country.
Lastly, there is the question of capital punishment. The question of capital punishment has been debated in another place on many occasions. In the present Parliament, with a Conservative majority of more than 160, the return of capital punishment has been rejected by an overwhelming majority.
Those were the central issues involved in the introduction of the so-called permissive society. I do not believe that there has been any significant move in either House of Parliament to turn back the clock. I do not believe that there is a simple relationship between what happened in those years and what has happened
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in the past few years in terms of the rapidly-escalating level of serious crime.
Nor do I believe the comfortable alternative theory, which is that everything is the fault of unemployment. I do not believe that for a whole series of reasons. First, there was a substantial increase in crime in the last quarter of 1973 and throughout the whole of 1974 and 1975—when there was a relatively high level of employment in this country. It would be impossible to say that the reason why crime was rising at that stage—and in one year it rose by no less than 17 per cent.—was because of unemployment.
On the other hand, it would be equally foolish to say that there is no relationship whatsoever. Of course there must be some relationship between crime and the hopeless lives that many young people have in some of our crowded inner-city areas, where they are experiencing a high level of unemployment. In Brixton, it is between 70 and 80 per cent. among some black school-leavers. In one ward in Liverpool the figure is 90 per cent. Of course there must be some relationship between that appalling situation and the level of crime. However, as I have indicated, this does not provide a simple explanation for the set of problems we have been discussing today.
Having said that, I turn now to the role of the police, which it is important to discuss, the matter having been raised, as it was a few moments ago, by the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing. It is common ground that the police can operate effectively only if they can work in a climate of co-operation with the community. We have to accept the fact that in recent years the police have been dragged into the political debate. The House will recognise that, particularly at a time when the role of the police is so relevant to dealing with the problems of serious crime in this country, that has shaken the morale of the police service very substantially. The police do not wish to be seen either to be supporters or opponents of any government. Their job is to uphold the law and, by and large, I believe that they do that job with considerable efficiency and still with the support of the overwhelming majority of the country.
There are of course some policemen who behave improperly. Certainly there are some racialists in the police service, just as there are some racialists among journalists, among politicians, and among social workers. It is not a problem that is unique to the police service in any way. Unfortunately—and this point was touched upon in our recent debate on the crime problem of inner London—we now have a group of publicly-financed so-called police monitoring groups whose central objective in many cases is to destabilise the police service. By doing so, they will make an already grave situation a great deal worse.
Some substantial improvements have been made, both during the lifetime of this Government and during the lifetime of their predecessors, as I as trying to say to the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing. The Government have undoubtedly provided more resources to the police, just as their predecessors did. Thanks to unemployment and, undoubtedly, to a substantial increase in pay, which was largely implemented by the present Government's predecessors, there is no particular difficulty in

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recruiting policemen. In fact, quite the reverse; there is a long queue outside the recruiting office door.
However, there are some substantial problems for the Government to answer. I hope that the noble Lord the Minister will touch upon one of them tonight: given the fact that it is now possible to recruit policemen far more easily than in the past, what does he propose to say now, following the debate we had two months ago, about the very substantial cuts in overtime that have been enforced upon the Metropolitan Police by the present Government?
As I indicated in that previous debate, there are serious problems facing the Metropolitan Police. Crime is rising at a very substantial rate, with 75 per cent. of all armed robberies taking place in their district. We deserve some indication as to whether we shall have an early answer from the Home Secretary to the request made by the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police for substantially improved resources to deal with the serious problem of crime in London.
I hope that the Minister will deal also with the question put by the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, as to what will be done about shotgun control. Shotguns are being used in more and more robberies, and yet there is no indication that the Government propose to strengthen firearm controls so far as shotguns are concerned. What do I mean by improved controls? First, I mean that there should be some form of control over shotgun ammunition. At the moment there is none. Secondly, there should be some obligation on the owner of a shotgun to look after it and, if it is stolen, he should be required to give a very satisfactory explanation as to why that has happened. Finally, I find it quite extraordinary that we are still subsidising the shotgun licence owner, because the Government has cheerfully agreed that the fees should not represent the cost of administering the service. It is the only major area of administration of license fees, as far as the Government are concerned (and I shall be interested to know if the noble Lord is in a position to contradict me), where a subsidy element has been tolerated not for one year, not for two years, but for four years. We deserve some explanation as to why that has been allowed to take place.
Finally, I come to an issue that has been raised by Members on both sides of the House, and that is the situation in prisons. At the moment, prison numbers are only just below 47,000, and certified normal accommodation is about 40,800. Unless there is a substantial change of policy we shall soon be passing a figure of 50,000 inmates. I believe that could happen, and that it would substantially wipe out such advantages as we are able to derive from the increased prison building programme.
That is a menacing prospect. I have indicated on a number of occasions in the past, although certainly a number of noble Lords on this side of the House do not share my view, that I am in favour of that prison building programme. There is a fundamental inconsistency if one says on one occasion that conditions in the prisons are intolerable, as indeed they are, and at the same time opposes a prison building programme that can make them better. For instances, the building of
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the new remand prison at Woolwich is of crucial importance in improving the position of unsentenced male offenders in London. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has on a number of occasions pointed out the appalling situation when men who have not been convicted of any criminal offence are held in conditions that are as deplorable as they currently are. I therefore very much welcome the fact that we are to have a new remand prison in Woolwich. I believe that to be right.
One should also recognise the immense pressure not only on inmates but particularly on the staff of the prisons under present conditions. That, no doubt, is one of the reasons, although not the only one, for the present dispute between the Prison Officers' Association and the Home Office. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, will be in a position tonight to give any indication about what is happening. I understand that there have been further negotiations which have taken place today according to the tape outside. I recognise, as I think Members in all parts of the House do, the admirable and devoted work done by many members of the Prison Officers' Association. They are working, as I have indicated, in thoroughly bad conditions. They have to face the awful problem of "slopping out" and the consequence of being present on those occasions when at 7.30 a.m. on a hot summer morning the chamber pots are brought out by hundreds of prisoners in our overcrowded remand prisons. I think that creates tremendous tensions as far as main-grade prison officers are concerned.
I very much hope that this dispute between the union and the Home Office will be resolved. However, I should say this. I very much hope that if there is a dispute there will be some form of restraint by the POA. The threats which have appeared in the press that in some cases they are going to stop visits by wives and children to men held in custody and the threat which is held out that lawyers are not going to be allowed to visit their clients, do not in my view enhance the reputation of the prison servicer. I hope those threats will be dropped and that there will be a satisfactory resolution to this problem.
Everything that has been said in this debate indicates the urgency of this problem. What I have said shows the need for a substantial further increase in the resources available for our criminal justice services. I understand, of course, the pressures on public expenditure. I also understand the view of the Government that one of the central priorities should be a further reduction in the standard rate of income tax. But when we have to make a choice between these crucially important areas in our criminal justice system, it would seem to me a very strange order of priorities were we to say that further cuts in income tax come before what is in fact the safety of the public.
7.33 p.m.
Lord Prys-Davies: My Lords, I should like to thank, as the whole House has been doing, the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, not only for having initiated the debate but also for the steering, or direction, which she gave in her opening speech. The noble Baroness is a distinguished social worker and is in constant touch with agencies, organisations and people who matter in

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this area of responsibility. The Government will no doubt pay due regard to the constructive proposals which she has advanced.
We had the privilege of listening to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor's detailed analysis of the recent statistics and placing them in their historical perspective. I also enjoyed the occasional statement of his underlying beliefs.
I do not propose to introduce any statistics. I think the essential facts have been rehearsed and referred to in many speeches. However, to summarise, I believe that we are faced with two main factors. First, the police force is almost up to its established strength: it is about only 2,000 short of the established figure. Of course we accept that the police have conducted themselves in a way which commands the respect and confidence of the public. We are grateful for that commitment. We therefore accept that it is imperative that they should be given the resources that they require.
The second factor is a worrying or baffling factor. It is this. After giving due allowances for changes in the reporting and recording practices, and indeed imperfect recording, crime and violent crime continue to increase. I think that except for the occasional year such as 1963, 1976 or 1979 it has been on an upward curve since the end of the Second World War. There is no hint that we are approaching the hoped for plateau. Indeed, the sad comment of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor was that we have not seen the improvement that we had hoped for.
It is no consolation to be told that violent crime has also been increasing in the Republic of Germany, France and some of the other EC countries, or to be told that we are holding more men in prison than is the case with the EC countries. Neither is it a consolation to know that, notwithstanding the increased lawlessness, we in the United Kingdom—except, sadly, for parts of Northern Ireland—are still living in a pretty humane society.
I go back to the first factor which I mentioned; namely, that the police are almost up to their establishment strength. I do not know how the authorised establishment figure for the police is calculated. Perhaps the Minister will confirm whether he takes fully into account all the relevant developments of the past 15 or 20 years. During the past 15 years terrorism has been imported into this country. How many policemen have to be employed to combat one terrorist? Is it one, 10, 100, or more? Again, we are only too aware of the racial tension and the racially motivated harassment in the inner-city areas which also impose an additional burden on the police. Moreover, the police—and we support them in this—are engaged in the development of crime prevention measures. Here again, this imposes additional demands on manpower and resources. For those reasons therefore we are entitled to ask whether there are good reasons for increasing the strength of the police.
Let me bring together the two main factors as I see them. On the one hand, the police are almost up to establishment strength; but, on the other hand, crime is increasing. Therefore, from that we may conclude
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that the police on their own cannot solve the problem of the increasing crime rate. We cannot ask the police on their own to cure that particular sickness in our society. Your Lordships will recall that that was the message that the Lord Chief Justice brought to the House about four years ago. Indeed, I believe it is the message that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor delivered to the House earlier today.
In the course of the debate there have been many references to the numerous possible causes of the increased rate of crime. I think we all agree that they are many and are often complex; there is unlikely to be a single cause. I have had handed to me a long list of at least 62 specific measures which, it is said, could assist in tackling the problem. I shall not trouble the House with the 62 measures; I shall leave it to the Home Office officials to work them out.
I was gratified that the noble Baroness, lady Faithfull, after reading the report of Mr. Kaufman's important speech in The Times of 21st April, acknowledged that, though the emphasis differs and varies, nevertheless there is much common ground. At least that is my interpretation of her interpretation of Mr. Kaufman's speech.
There have been references by a number of noble Lords to unemployment—and not just unemployment itself, but unemployment which in turn leads to poverty, hardship and stress. I have no wish to generalise or to sloganise about the connection or the interrelationship between the highest-ever level of recorded crime and the highest-ever recorded level of unemployment which coincides with it. We may not have a full understanding of the connection, but we believe that there is a relationship. The Government should not be at all surprised that many people, whether or not they feel safe on the streets, believe that there is a connection between the two.
Perhaps I should mention another factor which has been referred to by a number of your Lordships this afternoon and which was not so obvious 15 years ago. I refer to violence on the television screen and to the video nasties. We are gratified that the existing guidelines laid down for producers and editors are currently being reviewed by the BBC and the television companies. We trust that they will take fully into account the fact that almost 50 per cent. of those cautioned or convicted for violent crimes are under the age of 21.
There is a feeling—or possibly that is too weak a word; a growing conviction—that the weakening of the family unit, which after all is the oldest of our institutions and has served us throughout the centuries, may have something, or indeed a great deal, to do with increased crime. Of course we all know that there can be a great deal of discord within the family unit from time to time. Nevertheless, it is our conviction that the family probably offers the best chance for people to develop secure relationships, a sense of love and security, a sense of identity, a sense of belonging and a sense of responsibility. These are the very qualities that we want to support and strengthen us in the fight against crime.
But of course that begs the question: why is the family unit disintegrating? It is a very important question and one which is very difficult to answer.

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What steps can the government of the day take to strengthen family cohesion? What measures are available to the government of our day? Is there a case for appointing a Minister for the family whose task would be to ensure that central and local government policies which could strengthen the family were not pursuing conflicting ends? Is that a possibility?
It must also be recognised that it is very difficult for members of a family to stay together and care properly for each other if they are unemployed, poor and badly housed. These are the very factors which can lead to family breakdown; and if many families are breaking down, that leads to a community breakdown.
We agree that schools obviously have an important role to play. Education on drug abuse should be a part of the school curriculum. We also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, and with other noble Lords that there is a need for greater support for all agencies which are fighting drug and alcohol abuse. I noted with much interest and sympathy the recommendation of the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, that care and treatment orders should be issued in respect of drug addicts and glue sniffers. Thus the offenders—or patients—would receive care and compassion in secure accommodation.
Many of your Lordships have referred to the prison service. We agree wholeheartedly that there is a need to "de-overcrowd" our prisons and to improve facilities for work and education in the prisons, with better preparation for release and rehabilitation.
However, I return to the central theme of the debate, which is that the police on their own cannot deal with crime and that crime prevention needs the co-operation of all agencies and all people. The noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, argued the need for a joint framework for social policies at central government level, as recommended 10 or 12 years ago. Can the Minister tell the House how many of the ideas set out in the joint framework statement have been implemented? I shall also be grateful if the Minister can tell the House whether the Government have given, or will be giving, consideration to the appointment of a Minister with special responsibility for the family.
The noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, also argued the case for a justice and order council to be set up for every district, to work in common harness with the police. Again we agree that it is imperative that there should be a partnership. But I should have thought that there may be differences between our side of the House and Lady Faithfull. I believe that on these Benches we see the local authority playing the lead role in the partnership among the police, local authority and other agencies.
I turn to one of the matters referred to in the speech of my noble friend Lord Mishcon: namely, the award of compensation to the victims of violence. We must not neglect the victims of violence. If the offender can afford to pay the full amount of the compensation to his victim, he should be ordered by the court to do so. That would be one sure way of bringing home to the offender the consequences of his conduct. Can the Minister assure the House that the courts are making full use of the compensation powers contained in the
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Criminal Justice Act 1982? In conclusion, I would invite the Government to examine as a matter of urgency all the proposals and suggestions that have been advanced in the debate and to consider whether and to what extent they are acceptable to them.
7.50 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Glenarthur): My Lords, we have almost reached the end of a long and interesting debate, one that has been full of feeling and concern. It has been wide ranging, too, with many different sides of a seemingly intractable and frightening problem given an airing. Some diverse and interesting views have been expressed on how to lessen what my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor described as the social evil of violent crime and how we might deal with those who offend in such an intolerable way. I agree that my noble friend Lady Faithfull has done all of us a service by giving us the opportunity to debate the subject at a time when it is so regularly drawn to our attention by the media. I am grateful to my noble friend for giving me notice of some of the points likely to be raised in the debate. I hope that it means that I shall be able to answer some of them more comprehensively than might otherwise have been the case. But a great many points have been raised.
The Motion echoes the Government's concern about violent crime and our determination to enhance the protection of the public. I shall return to this important theme from time to time throughout my reply. My noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor referred to the broad scope of the Government's strategy against crime. He stressed that we must take steps to prevent crime of every kind taking place, that we must enhance its investigation and detection, and that, when offenders have been caught, they must be dealt with in a fair and effective manner. Two elements of that strategy are particularly relevant to today's debate. They have at their heart the interplay between the criminal justice system—the police and the courts—and the community with the aim of giving real stimulation where and when it is needed on a local basis.
The first area that I should like to mention is crime prevention and the wider role of the police in the community. I shall come later to the support of those who have been the victims of crime. Crime prevention must be a key element in any government's strategy. We have made important strides. In 1983, we set up a special crime prevention unit within the Home Office to develop and co-ordinate crime prevention initiatives and to create public awareness of steps that can be taken to prevent opportunist crime. And so much violent crime is opportunist. Support and advice have been given to many local initiatives generated through the work of police crime prevention officers, crime prevention panels and other local groups—the sort of initiatives to which the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, pointed.
Another indication of growing public awareness is the expansion in the number of neighbourhood watch schemes, mentioned, with particular reference to the Isle of Wight, by my noble friend Lord Mottistone. These now number over 9,000. They involve neighbourly supervision by householders and they

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represent, in that way, the grass roots of crime prevention. An evaluation of a scheme in Bristol showed a drop in overall crime of 22 per cent., not an insignificant figure. Such measures will also be likely to help prevent violent crime in the neighbourhood. Other crime prevention initiatives are being directed at specific types of violent crime, including attacks on bus staff, crime on the London Underground, violence associated with licensed premises, violence to staff in the workplace and commercial robbery.
Crime prevention, and its relevance to crimes of violence, also has a high profile nationally, stimulated by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister's seminar on the subject in January. Her purpose in holding the seminar was to mobilise the support of people outside the police and the Government to develop a range of initiatives aimed at reducing the opportunities for crime. The discussions by representatives of national and local organisations, industry, commerce, the trade unions, the police and the Government, of a variety of themes resulted in a number of firm objectives. We are determined to pursue these and to monitor them through the new ministerial group on crime prevention chaired by my honourable friend in another place, Mr. Giles Shaw. Like my noble friend Lady Faithfull, I hope that the group will serve its purpose. I am sure that my honourable friend will note the views that my noble friend Lady Faithfull has expressed about its expansion to cover other areas.
Two other crime prevention initiatives deserve a mention today. We believe firmly that the community itself has the ability and the desire to help in the fight against crime. So, with the support of the Manpower Services Commission, the Home Office crime prevention unit is actively promoting the use of resources under the community programme to fund local crime prevention projects in which the long-term unemployed will be involved.
Another important new initiative to harness local action against crime is the group of five local crime prevention projects announced by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary last October which will aim to involve a wide variety of local agencies, businesses and residents. I am sure this approach is right. We must encourage local people to identify their local crime problems, whether violent or otherwise, and develop suitable local measures to tackle them. My noble friend Lady Faithfull's idea for local justice and order councils is an imaginative proposal for channelling local concern about crime into practical action for preventing and dealing with it. Her suggestion would appear to have quite a lot in common with the approach adopted by NACRO's juvenile crime unit in tackling juvenile crime in 10 different parts of the country. The NACRO project has been financially supported by the Government and we are following it closely and with a great deal of interest.
I share to a great extent the concern of my noble friend Lady Faithfull about children. In developing what I am going to say now about the responsibility of parents, I include so much of what was said generally about the whole structure of the family. There can be little doubt that the single most important responsibility for ensuring that children grow up to
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respect the law and to behave as responsible members of society rests with parents. I agree with my noble friend Lord Gisborough that it is they who can best ensure respect for them, leading to self-respect for the child and hence for other individuals and society as a whole. In children's earliest years, parents' attitudes are a crucial influence upon the way that their children develop. Later, as children grow into the difficult years of their early teens when they are most at risk of offending, by encouraging love and respect and a clear knowledge of what is right and wrong with their children, built on the foundation of the first five years, parents play an essential part in helping them avoid that risk. Of course, broken homes, as the noble Earl, Lord Longford, described them, play a part in so many of the tragedies that later unfold.
My noble friend Lady Faithfull referred to a particular initiative so far as parents are concerned The Government are of course anxious to bring home to parents the extent of their responsibilities. That is why, in the Criminal Justice Act 1982, we strengthened the powers of the courts to make parents responsible for paying the fines and other financial penalties imposed on their juvenile children. As the criminal justice White Paper explains, we are also considering whether courts, in imposing supervision orders on juvenile offenders, should be able to impose certain requirements on the juveniles' parents. As my noble friends Lady Faithfull, Lady Gardner of Parkes, Lord Mottistone and others have said, schools have a vital role in helping children develop as responsible law-abiding citizens and helping them steer clear of delinquency. They represent children's first experience of institutional authority and the need for standards, discipline and respect for others to provide the essential self-discipline to steer them through their lives. We are anxious to enhance the contribution that schools make. The Education Bill now before your Lordships goes some considerable way to help put things right.
All these strands—community co-operation and involvement, parental responsibility for their children's proper development and the role of schools in encouraging good citizenship—are most important to deal with the harmful effects of what my noble friend Lord Cork and Orrery has referred to, and is widely known, as the permissive society. Whatever name one gives it, the past 30 years have seen a breaking up of community, a reduction in standards of parental care and control and a devaluation in the good influence of schools. We have seen the growth of individual freedom without a corresponding development of personal and collective responsibility. Now is the time for many traditional values to be re-established, and the Government will continue to take a lead in their encouragement.
I turn now to the police. Improved arrangements for inter-police force co-operation in the way that the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, wished it to be have been in place for serious crimes since the Yorkshire Ripper murders. The police well understand the need for a partnership with the people they serve. They are increasingly seeking to work with others in the community to tackle the criminal and social problems they come up against.

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Other local agencies, both statutory and voluntary, have a responsibility to support the police in this work. The police themselves have done a great deal in recent years to forge effective links with all sections of the community in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, would want them to. At the inter-agency level the police have in some areas helped to set up multi-agency panels involving people from local authority services such as housing, education and social services, as well as voluntary organisations, to combat the evil of racial attacks. In London the Metropolitan Police has set up five such racial attack panels.
Under Section 106 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 police community consultative committees are being established in all areas of the country. Such committees should become the focal point for liaison between the police and the community, and I very much hope that these consultative committees will become an important part of communication on policing issues of local concern. Local crime prevention initiatives, as well as involving ordinary citizens in the fight against crime, have brought the police into close contact with the public. This is a role that they have taken to willingly and with considerable imagination.
But, above all, we place in the hands of the police the responsibility for solving crime. It is a task with which they struggle to cope, so great are the other demands upon them. We hear many disparaging remarks about the decline in recent years in the rate of offences cleared up by the police. What is often overlooked is that the number of offences cleared up steadily rises—over 1 million in 1985—and that the great majority of violent and sexual offences, on which the police concentrate their resources, are cleared up. Seventy three per cent. of violent offences were resolved in 1984 and 72 per cent. of sexual offences.
I am sure that these figures could not have been achieved in the face of rising crime without the enormous additional resources which have been made available to the police since 1979, more manpower, more and better equipment, more and better training. As my noble friend Lady Faithfull said, the total manpower available to the police has increased by well over 13,000. We have encouraged police forces to use their resources more efficiently to get the most from them; for example, by employing more civil staff so that experienced uniformed police officers and others are available on the beat and for other operational work. To pick up a little of the theme that the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, was developing, we are examining how to ensure that adequate resources continue to be available to enable the police service to discharge its inceasing commitments along the lines that the noble Lord was developing.
My noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing drew attention to the valuable role of the special constabulary and the part that it can play. Let me assure him that the Government entirely share his view. We see an essential role for special constables in the police service both as a trained body of reserves to assist the regular police at times of unusual pressure and as a practical link between the police and the public they serve. It is for chief constables to decide how many specials they
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need, but we encourage them to recruit as many as they can usefully train and deploy. I am glad to say that after 10 years of continuous decline we have had modest but encouraging increases in the total numbers of specials in England and Wales in each of the last four years, and we shall continue to do what we can to sustain this healthy trend.
For some years the police service has been anxious to recruit more graduates. A total of 648 graduates was recruited last year, and 65 per cent. of recruits have educational qualifications of five O-levels or better. At the end of December there were 5,376 graduates in the police service, compared with 1,277 in 1978. There are opportunities for accelerated promotions, as my noble friend will recognise, through the special course at the Police Staff College at Bramshill. I note the point that my noble friend made about his desire for a cadet college.
In 1984 we issued guidance to chief officers of police reminding them of the need when they recruit to take account of the long-term needs of the service. They need to recruit people who can cope with the complex and changing problems that the police service will be facing in the next 10 years and who will become its leaders in the 21st century. My right honourable friend's police advisory board is looking at ways of improving arrangements for career development in the police service.
I turn now to victims.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, I asked the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, as he may recall, whether there was any possibility of his telling us the decision of the Home Secretary on the application made by the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis for increased resources. In our last debate two months ago, the noble Lord said that it was on the Home Secretary's table. What is the situation now?
Lord Glenarthur: It is under active consideration by my right honourable friend, as I think the noble Lord will expect me to say. Indeed, I think that it was the noble Lord, Lord Harris, himself who said that, if there was to be good news, he did not imagine that my right honourable friend would allow me to give it. I can only say that it is still under the careful consideration which the noble Lord would want it to be.
In the past it has often seemed that the victim of crime, the innocent party, has been ignored by the state, yet resources have been poured into dealing with the offender. But times have changed. We recognise that, if confidence is to be maintained in the criminal justice system, the victim's interests must be taken into account. The Government have been anxious to do all they can for the benefit of victims of violent crime. They certainly deserve the sympathy which the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, said they should have.
First of all, financial compensation is available to the victims of violent crime under the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board. In the year 1984–85 over £35 million was paid out to nearly 20,000 applicants from this source. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary recently announced in the White Paper—this may be of particular interest to the noble Earl, Lord Longford—the proposal that the

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scheme be put on a statutory basis, which will further strengthen the position of applicants who will have a legal right to receive compensation and which will provide specific parliamentary authority for expenditure.
In addition, the criminal courts may order convicted offenders to pay compensation to their victims, and we are actively seeking ways to encourage the courts to make greater use of this power. The Criminal Justice Act 1982 allowed compensation orders to stand as a sentence in their own right and to take precedence over fines. The recent White Paper announced the Home Secretary's proposal that the court should in all cases be required to give reasons for not awarding compensation to victims. But no amount of financial compensation can ever make up for the emotional and physical scars suffered by the victims of crime, particularly violent crime and such crimes as residential burglary. Many people feel vulnerable in every respect of their lives after the security of their home has been breached, however much or little has been taken.
That is why the Government have welcomed and encouraged the development of victim support schemes and have substantially increased the funding provided to local schemes and in recent years to their national association, which was particularly mentioned by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln. Although not every town or district has a support scheme, there are now 282 spread widely over the country, and we hope that they will continue to flourish.
A special kind of victim to whose needs we have given particular attention is the victim of rape, an offence which my right honourable friend the Prime Minister has rightly called uniquely barbaric. Police forces have made great strides in the sympathetic treatment of rape victims, which I have mentioned from time to time from this Box.
I should like now to pick up some of the points which have been raised today. The noble Baroness, Lady Masham, mentioned in particular crimes towards children. I certainly share, as we all do, her concern for horrible abductions of young children. They are particularly vulnerable, and parents naturally have the main responsibility—a difficult one to discharge—for their protection. Parents should always know where their children are, of course. They should teach their children to say "No" to strangers. The Home Office has a range of publicity material aimed at parents and children, including recent Peter Pan material, issued by arrangement with the Abbey National Building Society.
My noble friend Lord Gisborough and others referred to violence on television. It would seem surprising, with such a powerful and, some would say, even intrusive media, if there were no links between television violence and the behaviour of some of those who watch it. Until research is able to prove the issue one way or the other it would be right to err on the side of caution. This is precisely why the broadcasters are required to draw up guidelines on the portrayal of violence, and to be particularly careful when large numbers of children may be expected to be watching; and why the public clamour, to which my noble friend
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referred, is called for. No doubt that feature will be noted by the broadcasting authorities.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord which way his idea of caution works? As far as research is concerned, that will never prove anything conclusively in this field. But does caution mean caution about the violence displayed, or caution about interfering with the violence?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, the noble Earl may well be right in saying that it may be difficult for research to lead in some conclusive direction. The important thing is that the broadcasting authorities must be aware through the public clamour that was directed at them, because they have to draw up the guidelines to deal with this matter. They have the most enormous responsibility on their shoulders, and one which I am quite sure they will continue to take seriously.
The matter of prisons was raised by many of your Lordships. It is, of course, true that we have a large and increasing prison population. The fact that it is increasing in other parts of the developed world is also a concern. There are obvious limits on the action which can be taken by the Government to reduce the prison population. The courts must remain free to deal with the offenders who come before them in a manner which they deem appropriate. The Government have a duty to provide the powers and resources to enable the courts to perform their role. But we are seriously concerned about the size and cost of the prison population, and we have taken a number of measures which go towards ensuring that prison is reserved as the ultimate sanction when no lesser sentence is adequate. We have encouraged the use of police cautioning. We are developing a range of non-custodial options, and are encouraging that.
The noble Lord, Lord Harris, raised the question of the POA dispute. I note what the noble Lord has said. I hope he will understand if I do not comment on it because I can tell him that talks have been going on this afternoon and I do not know what stage they have reached.
On the question of court escorts raised by my noble friend Lord Mersey, yes, court escorting is a matter which seriously drains prison officer resources. This is a matter which is being looked at in a scrutiny at the present time.
So far as training for youngsters is concerned, I can assure my noble friend Lord Gisborough that training takes place within youth custody centres in a variety of different forms. People are able to take City and Guilds qualifications in such things as welding, bricklaying and so on. The sad aspect is that despite the major efforts made it does not always have the effect on youth recidivism that we all wish it to have.
The noble Baroness raised the question of AIDS. I certainly share her concern about that. However, there is a great deal of incorrect information about which must be put right. We do all we can to educate all those concerned in prisons about the question of AIDS.
I am not quite sure about the context of the introduction of the remarks by the noble Baroness about castration. I have to say to the noble Baroness that I am told it does not have the effect of removing

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the violent element in this sort of attack. But I can also say that my honourable friend Mr. Mellor is shortly going to write to the noble Baroness about it.
My noble friend Lord Mersey asked me about time limits. I can say that they are being used in test areas. The time limits reflect the average length of time that cases take to come to trial in those areas. The intention is to eliminate the most serious delays when the accused is remanded in custody and to encourage a general tightening up by setting realistic time limits.
The matter of drug offenders is a serious concern. I sympathise with the view expressed by many, including my noble friend Lady Faithfull, that those who cannot help themselves to kick the drug habit should receive help to do so. I am bound to say that there are serious moral difficulties about locking up any person, even with care and compassion, where no breach of the criminal law is concerned. At present this can only take place if the stringent conditions of the Mental Health Act are met. However, many of the features recommended by my noble friend are present within the scope of a probation order. The court may, when dealing with a drug offender, as most addicts are, make a probation order with a condition of attendance at a day centre or clinic which can help with the addiction. Such orders are administered with compassion and are not a punishment. For that reason the court may not make an order unless the offender is willing to comply with it.
My noble friend advocated use of the Scottish model so far as the juvenile justice system is concerned. The Government are following with interest the current debate about the juvenile justice system and the various suggestions for reform which have been mooted. These include proposals for transferring all or some of the present functions of the juvenile courts to a new family court. The Government established the interdepartmental working party to examine the idea of a family court. They hope to publish before very long—within the next couple of months—a consultation document which will make an important contribution to the discussion about these important questions.
The noble Baroness, Lady Masham, asked about incest. There were 277 cases reported in 1985, and 88 per cent. were cleared up. About the same number of cases have arisen in each of the last four years, so the figures are much the same.
Vandalism, and the fact that that can develop into serious crime, was raised by my noble friend Lady Gardner. That is an important area. The Department of the Environment's priority estates programme has shown that crime and vandalism on the most neglected estates can be significantly reduced by better management—for example, by increased caretaking and cleaning—and, as my noble friend said, better designs of new estates could also alleviate that problem.
I must also mention the elderly. We are concerned about the needs of the elderly, and much of the activity of local police crime prevention departments is directed at advising and assisting them. There are of course things that the elderly can do to reduce their
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susceptibility to crime, with which things my noble friend will be familiar.
The wide-ranging nature of today's debate bears witness to the complexity of the problem presented by violent crime and the measures required to deal with it. All the positive matters mentioned today have an important place in the strategy against crime. But they do not compromise the overriding concern of this Government—which is a feature of the Motion by my noble friend Lady Faithfull—that we must protect innocent people from the growing evil of violence in our society; or, as my noble friend Lord Ferrers said, a fear of it.
Our actions since we came to office are evidence of a determined stand against those who terrorise the innocent in the way that my noble friend Lord Ferrers so vividly described—and how much I agree with a lot of what he said! Many of the steps have already been mentioned today. The police are stronger in numbers, and training and equipment are deployed more effectively. Once the violent offenders have been caught we have sought to ensure that the courts have adequate powers to deal with them, which, in the case of the most serious violent crimes, means a sentence of life imprisonment. In the exercise of the Home Secretary's descretion to authorise the release of life-sentence prisoners the overriding factor has always been the protection of the public. In the very worst cases of murder that factor was given formal recognition in 1983 so that release in these cases is not considered for a very long time. After life-sentence prisoners are released they are carefully supervised so that public protection is always properly considered.
My noble friend Lord Ferrers suggested that available punishment for the most vile crimes is not adequate, and he went on to suggest corporal punishment for those who defile the body and mind. I am quite certain that many people in this country will strongly agree with what he says, but the issue raises all sorts of difficulties and I fear that quite often his views will be agreed with more out of emotion than out of rational consideration. As the noble Lord, Lord Harris, said, much research has gone into this, and in many reports that have come forward it has not been shown to be effective in the past.
My noble and learned friend spoke earlier of the severe punishment which prison represents, and there should be no doubt of the tough measures now available for dealing with violent offenders, nor of the Government's commitment to protecting the public by catching and punishing the criminal. But we must recognise that the police, the courts and the prisons cannot solve the problem of violent crime. As my noble friend Lady Faithfull said, by the time it reaches them it is too late. The remedy must be found at an earlier stage and it is for this reason that we attach so much importance to crime prevention, to engaging the support of the community in the fight against crime, and to the fundamental importance of family life as a basis to a law-abiding society. Only by pursuing these long-term goals can we create the kind of society in which we and our children can live in greater security.
I have grossly over-shot my time, but I fear that it has been impossible to cover every point that has been raised today. I shall study the Official Report with great care. This debate has provided the opportunity for two

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important themes to be developed. The first is that there is no quick or magical solution to the problems that we face. They have developed over time for many of the reasons spoken of today. No government can turn that trend round overnight, or in one, two or even three Parliaments. The sociological reasons for the trend are argued long and hard by the experts. However, common sense tells us all that lowering of standards, including the spiritual standard referred to by my noble friend Lord Cork and Orrery, and a less ordered sense of responsibility have in one way or another contributed towards the pernicious and remorseless increase in crime, of which crimes of violence form a small but serious and frightening proportion.
The second theme is that the Government are fully alive to what has taken place. They have encouraged research into it; they have taken and are taking positive steps to counter it; they encourage new ideas. In essence they have helped to create and develop the contemporary framework in which the community at large and individuals in particular can play their part to help bring about the change to the kind of values and social order which we all so earnestly desire. It is a major responsibility and an awesome burden for us all. The Government cannot achieve it alone, but what is in our gift we will not shrink from.
Baroness Faithfull: My Lords, the time is late. I should have liked to make many comments, but I shall not detain your Lordships' House, particularly as another debate is pending. First, perhaps I may say how privileged we have been to have my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor speaking in this debate today and spending so much time on the Woolsack. We are most grateful to him.
I should also like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, for speaking on behalf of the Labour Party at the beginning of the debate and the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, for winding up on their behalf. I am also most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich. I nearly missed him yesterday and I was delighted to see that he was to speak on behalf of the Alliance. I should like to thank all other noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. It has been a wide-ranging one. I have noted 18 points on which recommendations have been made—not 63, but perhaps I have missed some. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion for Papers.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

The Forestry Commission
8.24 p.m.
Lord Taylor of Gryfe Lord Taylor of Gryfe rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what is now their policy on the future of the Forestry Commission.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. At one stage in the discussion on future forestry disposals on 8th November 1984 the Secretary of State for Scotland made an important statement. At col. 7 he said:
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"The Government have decided that the commission's disposals programme should be extended to 31st March 1989 and that its main purpose should be the rationalisation of the estate."
He went on to say:
"The commission can now plan ahead on this basis without the uncertainty and attendant difficulties that frequent reviews can cause in achieving a coherent approach to the management of the enterprise."
I am sure the Minister will realise that, following that assurance in November 1984, there was some concern expressed in many areas as regards forestry about a leak in the Economist in February of that year which indicated that the Cabinet was seriously considering the disposal and privatisation of the entire forest estate, and they hoped that if they disposed of the forest estate, they could realise from the Treasury £1.5 billion. I am quite sure that any substantial disposal of that kind would be realised at a heavily discounted rate because of the large amount of land that would be placed on the margin.
I asked a Question of the Minister in this House on 12th March and he gave me some assurance regarding the acceptance of the policy of 8th November 1984, but he went on to say that of course that disposals policy is from time to time reviewed. This is not quite consistent and not quite as reassuring as we would expect, in view of the statement of the Secretary of State for Scotland that his assurances would banish the uncertainty and attendant difficulties.
Therefore, tonight's debate is largely to give the Minister the opportunity of reassuring us about the Government's future policy, particularly in the area of disposals. So far there is authority to dispose of land to the value of £100 million. The first disposals target was £84 million. This has now been raised to £100 million by 1989, and I gather that at the present rate of disposals £78 million has been realised. No one would object to a rationalisation of the forest estate. It is sensible that the estate should be looked at and that we should realise that in some areas there are no possible future development prospects; or, from an economic point of view, it may be sensible to sell off land to a neighbouring larger estate. That makes good sense. Therefore, we are not arguing against the £ 100 million target if it is to be realised by 1989.
However, we are deeply concerned about the possibility of further disposals. If this programme takes us to 1989, that would be a very appropriate time because it will take us pretty close to an election, when I hope that the privatisation mania, which seems to be an obsession with the Government, will have subsided and there will be a much more rational approach to these matters. I should like some assurance from the Minister that the privatisation programme, the disposals programme, which has been mentioned, will be determined by good land use management and not by the requirements of the Treasury in meeting its PSBR targets. That is important, and that is the important assurance that we should like.
Although I am speaking from the Alliance and there are other speakers who will participate in this debate, I do not regard this as a party matter. I refer the Minister to the statements released by the Timber Growers Organisation (TGO), the responsible private sector woodlands organisation, when the leak in the Economist was discussed in the press. The TGO said:

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"A strong Forestry Authority is a pre-requisite. Any action which could result in the diminution, or even dismemberment of the Forest Authority, should be most strenuously resisted".
It goes on to discuss the role of the forest enterprise, and says on the basis of its record:
"It has fulfilled [its] task exceedingly well".
What I am talking about tonight in arguing against a further disposal programme is not a party matter; it is a concern of the private sector as well as of those who are engaged in the state sector.
Forestry is interesting. It is the prime example of a mixed economy operating successfully and in partnership. The total productive woodland in this country in Forestry Commission estates is 892,000 hectares, and for private woodlands, 1,145,000 hectares. There is almost a balance between the private sector and the public sector. They do not operate in opposition or in conflict with one another. One of the great functions of the Forestry Commission is to encourage the private sector. It does that by making research facilities available. It is the authority for grant aid for forestry, for the dedication schemes and for reviewing private practice. It is a partnership and an understanding.
I am delighted to say that the partnership has been successful. One of the most important economic justifications for forestry is the degree of import saving. We are all concerned about the balance of payments and the decline of manufacturing industry, but we are still importing 90 per cent. of our timber requirements. The United Kingdom production last year was 3·8 million cubic metres; the import bill was for 39·7 million cubic metres. Despite the extension of forestry since 1919 and the active afforestation programme, private and public sector, we are still meeting only 10 per cent. of our requirements from domestic supplies.
Forestry is important as an employment creator. I am sure that the Minister, with his experience in the north of Scotland, will appreciate that, with the decision of the many oil companies operating in the North Sea to reduce their investment by over 40 per cent., employment opportunities in the north of Scotland are substantially diminished. The figure does not look large. The Forestry Commission employs over 6,000 people, the private sector almost 11,000 and the forestry and wood processing industries 25,000. It does not look like a big figure, but it is desperately important to rural communities.
As was discussed today on the Question on rural post offices, it is important to have some possibility of a survival, in a balanced and sensible economy, of opportunities for employment in the countryside. Not everyone wants to live in large cities. One of the most exciting things is to see people enjoying and working in rural communities; the small communities in the countryside.
It is important to realise too that forestry does not stop at the forest gate. It is only because there is a Forestry Commission that we have been able to encourage downstream investment. Before anyone builds up a pulp mill or a wafer-board factory—such as was visited recently by the Minister—he has to have guarantees of continued supplies. You can only get these guarantees where there is one large authority to organise them. Investment in pulp mills, wafer-board
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plants and plaster-board plant is only possible because guaranteed supplies were made available.
I thank all who are speaking in this debate—I understand that you do not do that at the end of an Unstarred Question—and particularly the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, my successor as chairman of the commission, and the noble Earl, Lord Radnor, whose distinguished father was a previous chairman. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Gisborough, and the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, because this is their second time round today in a debate. Both of them starred in the earlier debate.
Let me say a word or two about the other aspects of forestry. Concern has been expressed about the Forestry Commission neglecting conservation. The Forestry Commission has taken that on board, and I shall not read the documents that it has supplied to me in this connection. It is actively in discussion with the Nature Conservancy and with other responsible bodies to ensure that they discharge their responsibilities sensibly.
Noble Lords may have seen the recent declaration of policy in connection with broadleaved woodlands. The Forestry Commission, in its commitment to this new policy says:
"Broadleaved woodlands are an integral feature of the British Landscape heritage, and any apparent threat to their future produces an understandable outcry. But their importance goes well beyond their visual appearance".
There is no doubt that the Forestry Commission is responding to the criticisms that have been offered in connection with the conflict with the environmentalist.
In another document on conservation the Commission declares its objectives:
"One of these objectives is: 'To protect and enhance the environment'. Part of that objective concerns landscape design, and the Commission has set out what it is doing in a separate publication".
We learnt the lessons of the rather ugly and unattractive plantings of the immediate post-war period after the first war, from 1920 onwards. We are devising our forests and landscaping them in such a way that they are attractive to the eye and enhance the environment. I remember a Member of this House saying that the contours of a forest should resemble the shadows of passing clouds on the hills. If you look at some of the new forests, some of the forests that are now maturing, you will see that these considerations have been well learnt.
There is one other aspect, and it is an aspect which may be affected by any substantial privatisation. The Forestry Commission accepts its social responsibilities in the field of recreation. I know that my noble friend Lord Hunt will be saying a word or two about this in the course of this debate. There are 32 camp sites, 576 picnic places, 611 woodland and nature trails, 191 forest cabins and 20 arboretums. All of these are designed to get people into the countryside, to let them escape from the pressures of urban life and to see the beauties of the countryside and enjoy them.
That is an obligation the Forestry Commission has tactfully pursued and accepted, and I suspect that that might not be entirely so if the entire estate were sold off, although I must pay tribute to some private woodland owners who have accepted, as part of their dedication scheme, public access to these estates. But

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there is no doubt that the impact of public access in the countryside is generated substantially by the leadership of the Forestry Commission.
One final word about its obligations to the private sector. The Forestry Commission provides the research for the entire private sector. It administers the grants and it examines the plans of private planting to ensure that they are consistent with good forestry practice. It provides most of the training in the forestry industry. It would be a sad day if the contribution that it makes in these respects were to be diminished in any way by substantial government intervention.
I have heard the noble Lord, Lord Gisborough, before on the subject of encouraging private investment in forestry. When I left the Forestry Commission I became chairman of the Economic Forestry Group, which is designed to encourage private investment. But it concerns me a little that the balance between the private sector and the public sector should be maintained. I noticed, for example, that the planting programme of the Forestry Commission in 1978 was 14,000 hectares and for the private sector was 6,000 hectares. In 1985 the Forestry Commission planted only 5,000 hectares and the private sector had gone up to 16,000 hectares. I am not complaining about that. I think it is a good thing, but it is only possible because there is a generous tax regime available to make it attractive to plant trees. That, too, is a good thing because there are opportunities for investing in many things other than the Stock Market. If we have a tax regime that encourges private planting for the small immediate rewards that are available, taking a long-term view, that could be a good thing.
I initiated this debate at this late hour simply to seek the assurances that I mentioned in opening. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us these assurances, clarifying the situation and making it possible for this industry, which depends on taking a long-term view, to plan sensibly and on a long term.
8.43 p.m.
Lord Kimball: My Lords, the service of the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, to the forestry industry is well known. His concern has been well expressed tonight, even though I suspect in another capacity his heart may be elsewhere, at Wembley, on this occasion.
I have no doubt that I shall find myself in a substantial minority tonight. I rise to speak in this debate because I should like to see a sensible and viable curb on the increase in the forestry acreage in the United Kingdom. Above all, I should like to see no further large-scale planting in our upland areas and in particular in the Highlands of Scotland. I believe our moorland and upland areas are far more valuable than a large amount of the marginal livestock-rearing land elsewhere in the country. They are far more valuable from a conservation point of view, from an amenity point of view and from an employment point of view.
I should also like to see the Treasury take a hard and firm look at the tax concessions which it grants to private forestry. I should like to see these concessions limited to no more new planting. I do not want to destroy the marvellous forest units that many people have built up, but I should like the Treasury to say quite firmly that it will not extend the tax concessions
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to another new acre taken into forestry; it will continue to guarantee people what they are already used to, but it will not encourage planting of fountain forestry and economic forestry or encourage other people to take over vast areas of land to plant with more and more trees. After all, we had the argument not long ago on the Wildlife and Countryside Act. But why should we continue to use taxpayers' money to give people grants to plough up moorland and reseed areas of vital interest to people? I fail to see why we should continue to use taxpayers' money to destroy the amenities that so many people want to keep.
Then there is the damage in many areas of forest that large-scale afforestation can do to our rivers. That is covered in the Forestry Commission's report at paragraph 124. It admits there the large amount of water that trees drink up. Many of our rivers are being destroyed by the vast planting going on in our watersheds. A watershed today can take only so many acres of forest and we should be aware of the damage that is being done to our fishing and other valuable amenities in this country by increased planting in the uplands.
The reason that I am so much in favour of the sale by the Forestry Commission of its 2.9 million acres to financial institutions, which in their turn would offer shares in the woodlands to their clients, is simply that at a stroke the supply of private woodland would be increased by 78 per cent. It would be years before commercial investors wanted to plant another fir tree anywhere else in the United Kingdom. I hope that the Government will look carefully at these proposals and not draw back.
As the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, said, the Forestry Commission has a grant-aiding role to continue to play. It also has an important role in research and development, so the commission would still have a part to play. There is no certainty and no concern why the commission staff should be affected if the woodlands passed into private hands. They still have to be looked after, and so it is merely a question of changing the employers. The sale would raise, as the Economist estimated, some £1.5 billion, as against the present loss on the Forestry Commission to the taxpayer of £54 million a year, which we have to find after approximately £150 million a year has been raised by forest sales.
I feel also that if we had better commercial management of woodlands we should avoid some of the glaring mistakes that I see in the northern conservancy on my boundaries up in Sutherland. The Pinus contorta in Syre Forest in Sutherland were decimated by the pine beauty moth 10 years ago. Whole areas of the Syre Forest were killed off and were not replanted, yet the Forestry Commission—which is typical of a government department—moved 10 miles away to the Shin Forest and planted acres and acres of the same beastly lodgepole pines, which are now being defoliated and destroyed by the pine beauty moth. Great local concern is being expressed because the pines will have to be sprayed with some new chemical about which there is a great deal of concern.
However, private woodland owners in the same area have avoided the mistake simply because they do not plant on such a vast scale and they do not plant Pinus contorta on such a vast scale. Most of the private

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woodland owners in the area have done their planting in accordance with the existing vegetation with Sitka spruce and the Molinea flushes; larch where there was bracken. It has been much more sympathetically done and has avoided the problems that we have seen in both the Syre and Shin Forests.
As for the argument that the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, produced about employment, no fewer than two forestry commissioners have tried to persuade me to disgorge land in Sutherland to them. Had I done so, a desert would have been created. The clearance by the Forestry Commission in central Sutherland makes what was done by the dukes and earls of Sutherland a hundred years ago look like nothing. The clearance has created a complete desert in the centre of Sutherland. The Forestry Commission has moved its forest workers out to the coast and done nothing whatsoever to maintain communities. The local community of Altnaharra has been maintained because we have held our frontiers against the invasion of the Forestry Commission. I am sorry, but I do not think the record of the commission is all that good, certainly in the areas with which I am familiar.
8.48 p.m.
Baroness Nicol: My Lords, I want to look at the subject, as your Lordships will probably expect, from the point of view of environmental conservation, and to look particularly at the effect of afforestation on wildlife and the need to plan and manage forestry in an environmentally sympathetic way.
The noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, has done us a great service by bringing this debate forward tonight. We seldom have a chance to express our views completely on the work of the Forestry Commission, and this is a valuable opportunity, though I am sorry about the reason for his bringing it forward. He drew attention to the doubling of the amount of land under forestry since 1919 from 1 million to 2.2 million hectares. That was the figure I have and I think we are roughly in agreement. But I should point out that 70 per cent. of that is conifer and there is a sad decline in broadleaved woodland which I feel the Forestry Commission is not doing enough to replace.
The noble Lord mentioned—and I shall not bore your Lordships with repetition—the functions of the Forestry Commission. But I should like to add one small function of the commission which is often overlooked. That is the function of advising at local level. It is still possible, I understand, at local level to get advice on a single tree from the Forestry Commission if one is in need of it. I know that many of my friends have found this very valuable in the past and it is something that I think we should be very sorry to see disappear. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, has given us most of the figures for the increase in private sector forestry and has drawn our attention to the fact that it has been encouraged by a favourable grant and tax system.
The Government aid which has helped to encourage this shift is running at between £30 million and £40 million a year in grant aid and tax relief. That is a figure which has to be put on the other side of the sum when we are considering the cost of the Forestry
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Commission because that is a figure which perhaps we could question.
This drift to heavily subsidised private forestry has conservation implications which need to be considered also. Much of the new private forestry—and I emphasise "new" because I have no quarrel at all with private forestry that is properly managed by long-term forestry owners who have an interest in its future—is carried out as a purely financial exercise which is not related even to the value of the crop. Grants are available from the Forestry Commission and they are awarded:
"for and in connection with the use and management of land for forestry purposes".
The grant is available at an early stage and it is not repayable if the objective fails. All that is necessary is that they should discover that the ground is capable of growing trees. The quality is not questioned. Therefore, land which is basically ill-suited for forestry nevertheless can attract a grant and tax relief, which makes it a good proposition in cash terms from the owner's point of view but which yields little or nothing to the supply of timber for commercial use; and the environmental consequences can be grave.
Land which, in its unforested state, provided valuable wildlife habitat—and I shall come on to Sutherland shortly—is destroyed at public expense for no reward to the national economy. The system of grant allocation is open to question. Applications which are passed to the regional advisory committees whose duty it is to reconcile differences are sometimes decided by individuals with a direct interest in the result of the application. I can give examples of this although I shall not abuse privilege by so doing. But in some cases there have even been retrospective grants which have been of value to members of the regional committee.
Regional committees meet in private, do not publish reports and are not publicly accountable for what they do. It is essential that these committees should be restructured to ensure fair representation of all interested bodies and that there should be an input from the Nature Conservancy Council. I was very glad to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, that consultations are now taking place. But they are not taking place as of right and it still seems to me that it is important that there should be a statutory requirement for the Forestry Commission to consult the Nature Conservancy Council, and that the Nature Conservancy Council should, as of right, be included on the regional committees.
A constructive change, too, would be the awarding of grants for silvicultural management rather than solely for plantation establishment—which is what seems to be happening at the moment. I suggest too that reports from these area committees should go to the Minister rather than to the Forestry Commission so that there is a degree of public accountability in the whole exercise.
If we look for a moment at the new Agriculture Bill which is about to come before your Lordships, there is an important element in it which is the declaration of environmentally sensitive areas. Forestry will affect these areas and I understand, for example, that of a list of 19 sites which are shortlisted to be designated as

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ESAs on the Cambrian Mountains, about a dozen already have forestry applications outstanding which have been made in the past 18 months. May I ask the Minister whether there will be full consultation on forestry applications in these and in other environmentally sensitive area applications when they come?
The noble Lord, Lord Kimball, drew attention to the misuse of the uplands for forestry. Perhaps I could enlarge a little on the case of Sutherland and Caithness. Scotland has between 10 per cent. and 15 per cent. of the world's blanket bogs. These support a rich variety of flora and fauna, including a number of rare birds. We have an international, not merely national, duty to conserve them and yet they are being rapidly reduced by draining and by afforestation. Fountain Forestry and the Forestry Commission between them own about one-third of this area and one-sixth of that has already been planted with conifers.
The Secretary of State for Scotland was asked last year to consult about this particular problem and to impose a moratorium on further work until consultations were complete. This request was refused. The Forestry Commission will only consult normally with the Nature Conservancy Council on sites of special scientific interest and although this is very valuable, it is really only a very small part of the whole.
The Scottish Office has suggested—and it seems to me a very sensible suggestion—that, in this time of agricultural surpluses, it would make sense to realise Grade 4 agricultural land for forestry and possibly even Grade 3. But that, I think, would come at a later stage. This would need to be a part of a financial package to help tide farmers over in the meantime until there was some return; and, of course, the Forestry Commission budget could not support this. It would need to be agricultural money. But in order to protect what is left of the uplands, I think this is an essential exercise. There is no point in growing yet more on Grade 4 land to add to our already overwhelming agricultural surpluses. It would be a positive step towards solving the conflict between conservation of special wildlife areas and the needs of forestry.
We have tried on many occasions to put a duty on the Forestry Commission to consider the needs of conservation but with very little success. The words of the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, are very encouraging; and I know—and we are grateful for it—that within the Commission there are officers who have had a long-term interest in conservation and who have a feeling of responsibility about what they are doing. But there is no statutory requirement upon them to continue to take that attitude, and your Lordships will appreciate that that could change with a change of officer. I should like to express appreciation to those officers who have been very imaginative and very sympathetic in the past—and long may they continue!
Now we have this new threat to endure which the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, has outlined. The sale of forestry land authorised in the 1981 Act has made possible a creeping privatisation which is gathering pace. He has pointed out to us how quickly that pace has grown in the past year or so. This danger was foreseen in this House by noble Lords who, I am glad to see, are in the Chamber tonight; and despite the
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soothing words of the then Minister the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, at the Second Reading of the Bill, the reality looks like being even worse than those noble Lords feared at the time.
I look forward to the reply this evening from the noble Lord, Lord Gray of Contin, who may perhaps have some encouragement for us; although I am afraid I must doubt it. I have the greatest respect for those forestry owners who truly own and manage their forests, as I said earlier; but the unseen, twice-removed cash investors have no long-term interest in their holdings, and an increase in this kind of ownership cannot benefit the countryside in the end. The noble Lord's Question was well worth asking but I can only look to the answer with some foreboding.
9 p.m.
Lord Hunt: My Lords, I should like to join my noble friend Lord Taylor in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Gisborough, and the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, on their stoicism and stamina in enduring and taking an active part in two successive and long debates. It makes me feel duly ashamed because I was expected to take part in the earlier debate but I knew that I did not have the fortitude to do so and therefore I ratted on that one to join your Lordships in the debate on which we are now engaged.
I should like to thank my noble friend for putting down his Unstarred Question because it enables me to raise two matters with the noble Lord the Minister who is to reply. I hope that he will be able to reassure the House on these two points which arise from the Government's forestry policy and which are extremely important to national parks and to the wider arena of the upland areas.
The first point derives from the supplementary question that I asked on 12th March following my noble friend's Starred Question on that occasion on the matter that we are discussing tonight. My question reflected the concern of conservation and amenity bodies about future prospects for public access and amenities in our forests once Forestry Commission land had passed into private ownership in accordance with Government instructions.
My question was necessarily brief and it is no reflection on the perspicacity of the noble Lord the Minister that he mistook what I was trying to get at. He thought that I was talking about public rights of way and of course he was able to assure the House that those are safeguards after transfer of land ownership and do not lapse on that account. In fact, my question was intended to find out how those privileges of public access and amenities—the kind of amenities referred to by my noble friend and so generously and imaginatively granted and developed in many of its forests by the Forestry Commission—had fared since 1981. During that time 100,000 hectares of Forestry Commission land have been sold under the terms of Section 1 of the Forestry Act 1981. I also wanted to know what was likely to happen to public access and amenities during the current year when a further 10,000 hectares, as I understand it, are to be disposed of in the same way.
Perhaps I may remind your Lordships that the need to safeguard public interests had already been voiced

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five years previously. It was expressed most cogently and movingly by the noble Baroness, Lady Jeger, on 11th May 1981 when in Committee she moved an amendment to Clause 1 of the Forestry Bill. I shall quote her amendment which explains itself. It does not need to be put in context. The amendment read:
"(a) It shall be a condition of sale in any disposal"—
that is, of Forestry Commission land—
"that existing access and amenity provisions shall be maintained".—[Official Report, 11/5/81; col. 332.]
That amendment was cogently moved and received considerable support in Committee. In fact 78 of your Lordships voted for the amendment and 100 against. During the debate on that amendment I pointed out that we were legislating not for a matter of months ahead but for a number of years before any amending legislation could be expected.
We are now five years on since the Forestry Act became law and the need to safeguard the amenities and access has grown considerably. I think it was for that reason that on 12th June 1985 in Committee on the Wildlife and Countryside (Amendment) Bill, which is now law, the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, moved an amendment. It was designed to strengthen Clause 4 of that Bill which lays upon the Forestry Commission duties in regard to conservation. He, too, wanted to safeguard public access and amenities in that Bill which is now law.
The amendment was withdrawn by the noble Earl because of the urgent need to get the Bill onto the statute book and to prevent it falling because it was a Private Member's Bill. The record, which I have just read, shows that the noble Earl was less than satisfied with the assurances given by the noble Lord the Minister, Lord Skelmersdale. There was great urgency to get the Bill onto the statute book and the noble Earl withdrew his amendment.
Your Lordships will be aware that the Agriculture Bill, to which the noble Baroness has just referred, which is shortly to come to your Lordships' House, contains no reference to forestry. The matter was raised in Committee in another place on 28th January 1986 when Mr. Home Robertson pointed out:
"When land leaves the hands of the Forestry Commission the Government lose control over any activities on it".
Against that background, I have some questions for the Minister. I shall phrase them in two ways. Is it still true to say, as was stated by the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, during the debate on the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Jeger, to the Forestry Bill in 1981 that,
"If the Forestry Commission decides that public access is important, then it will not sell the area at all, but it will have a sale and lease-back, and in that way all amenities can be preserved"?
The noble Earl said:
"That is an important safeguard".—[Official Report, 11/5/81; col. 339.]
We will all agree with that.
I shall put my question in another way. Has that been the case during the past five years? In other words, has the Forestry Commission in fact withheld land from sale to safeguard public access and amenities? As a corollary will it continue to hold it under the Government's present policy of selling more
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land in the current year and in the future? That is my first point.
I shall move rapidly to my second point and deal with it briefly. Other noble Lords have touched on it. It concerns afforestation or new tree planting operations, whether carried out by the Forestry Commission or private owners in national parks and the less-favoured upland areas. The need to bring forestry under planning control analagous to agriculture has been argued during debates on both Wildlife and Countryside Acts and on other occasions inside and outside your Lordships' House, and that need, I contend, is much more urgent today than it was five years ago.
Conservation bodies were encouraged last year when the Department of the Environment agreed to consider sympathetically a recommendation made by the Select Committee on Agriculture and the Environment in another place that landscape conservation orders should be introduced for use as a long-stop measure to prevent action prejudicial to landscapes in national parks. Your Lordships will be aware that the Nature Conservancy Council already has such a power for habitats, for SSSIs, under Sections 28 and 29 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, and it is strongly held by myself and by those I represent that the Countryside Commission should have a comparable power as a last resort in regard to the wider environment.
Landscape conservation orders are highly desirable now with the prospect that many farmers, as was said by the noble Baroness, may be turning to alternative forms of farming or other uses of their land as a result of the new EC quota restrictions. Such alternatives may well include commercial planting and cropping of trees in upland areas and, in particular, in the national parks. I so agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kimball, because in certain landscapes—and I am thinking of the uplands—afforestation can be scenically undesirable and indeed disastrous to the landscape.
So I shall appreciate from the Minister any information on what progress has been made not in his department but in the Department of the Environment in consideration of that recommendation in regard to landscape conservation orders by the Select Committee in the other place.
9.10 p.m.
The Earl of Radnor: My Lords, I also am immensely grateful for this very opportune Question which the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, has brought before us and very grateful, too, that the question has been asked quite bluntly about the possibility of privatisation of the whole of the Forestry Commission's woodlands. I have always felt that the Forestry Commission was divided up into three different parts, the first being those outlying woods, which I assume come into the figure that the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, mentioned, that are being sold off at the moment. I always believed that that was probably the right thing to do and that they should fall back into private hands.
I have always felt, too, that at the other end of the scale the Forestry Commission, since its inception in, I believe, 1919, has owned various areas of quite exceptional beauty which it should retain and look

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after in such a way that they are enhanced, kept beautiful, used by the public and kept out of the hurly-burly of commerce, selling wood, providing employment, saving imports and all the various matters that have been mentioned by different people.
Then I believe that in the middle there is an enormous amount of woodland that has been built up, much of it since the last war though some of it, I suppose, between the two wars, that is of immense importance to the country and, as has already been said to the private owner. It has been said already that the private owner rides in on the back of the Forestry Commission. The Forestry Commission brings in the sawmills, and I am not talking about the little ones that you see at the side of the road here and there. We must have proper pulp and sawmills if the private forester is to maintain his forest in a sensible way and make a reasonable living from one generation to another. One must come back to that.
So I hope that this main block—and it is by far the largest area—will be kept in the hands of the Forestry Commission for as long as possible. In this day and age, I would not even make the commercial aspect the main reason for doing that, although it is a very important one. The most important reason is that we are a small island, we have a very large population and we must all be aware that there are people in our cities who do not have anywhere in particular to go, because the country is for the most part privately owned. In the future the Forestry Commission should look closely—and I say this quite carefully—at a much cleverer way of combining commerce and access. I know that it has tried very hard indeed. I know that a great deal has been accomplished. We have heard about nature trails and so on. But it is my impression—I live on the edge of the New Forest, a much used area—that there is much more imagination yet to be deployed and a much more intensive use, without, one hopes, making it appear intensive to the people who indulge in that use and enjoy it.
With regard to the future of the Forestry Commission, I should like to mention one tale about my father. When he had been chairman of the Forestry Commission for a little while I asked him whether he enjoyed the job. He said that he enjoyed it immensely. He liked the people with whom he was working and he enjoyed working with trees. He said that trees grew so slowly that he would be dead long before all his mistakes were discovered. I should like to say to my noble friend on the Front Bench that if there is any idea of privatising the large middle area of the Forestry Commission that I have described, I am afraid that the mistake will be discovered long before we are dead, and it will be a very grave mistake.
Another duty of the Foresty Commission has not been touched on as yet. I refer to its relationship with the private owner. I am not necessarily talking about the large corporate private owner whom the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, does not appreciate very much. In many ways I agree with her. I refer to the ordinary private owner. Back in 1947 the dedication scheme started. I was always led to believe that there were three elements to the scheme. One was that the owner should, so to speak, lock himself into a management plan, a five-yearly review with perhaps rather too much bureaucracy attaching to it. In return for locking
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himself into that situation he received grants, which have been mentioned, and there was as well the tax advantage.
My first question is one that I have asked before in your Lordships' Chamber. Perhaps I may point out that the grants from then to now have gone up by 440 per cent. I am talking of my own position. One of the major inputs—notably wages—has gone up by nearly 2,000 per cent. I should like to ask my noble friend whether Her Majesty's Government are thinking of reviewing the position. I asked my noble friend Lord Belstead this question some time ago. He said that it was being thought about. But the difference is so dramatic that I feel that it is wrong and that the bargain that was entered into in 1947 has not been kept, at least in spirit. It is worth noting too that the price of timber has been unsatisfactory over the years compared with ordinary forestry costs. The private owner has had a very difficult time indeed.
I should like to mention one small point. Whatever happens in the way of Government cuts in expenditure, I most sincerely hope that the Forestry Commission will keep its hands on a certain amount of research. You have to research into timber affairs as much as you do into farming ones. It is just the kind of research that would come up for the chop, so to speak, quicker than anything else, because people are not too aware of its importance.
There is not a great deal more to be said except to express the hope once more that nothing too dramatic will happen. But I should like to put in a little pita, not about the particular species which offends the noble Lord, Lord Kimball, so much up in Sutherland but about softwoods in general. Again and again—though perhaps not so much this evening—one hears the coniferous plantations being criticised. I have a suggestion to make. First, perhaps the reason why those plantations are criticised is because they are still relatively young. But when those trees grow to their full maturity, they can be the most beautiful things. I would cite Kyloe Forest, in Northumberland, Boldre Wood in the New Forest and Catheral Grove on Vancouver Island. All those are very beautiful indeed. It would be a good idea if the Forestry Commission looked at their woods now and laid by reasonably substantial areas, which ties in with what I said earlier about their sites of exceptional beauty, and managed them in such a way that the trees would be allowed to grow to their full stature and would not be cut down at what commercially would be the right moment.
I hope that my noble friend will be able to reassure the House that he is not thinking of destroying the Forestry Commission.
9.21 p.m.
The Countess of Mar: My Lords, I, too, am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, for bringing this subject forward as a Question. It would seem from the effects that the policies of this Government have had that they envisage the role of the Forestry Commission as a shrinking one. The reduction in staff and sale of Forestry Commission land would at least indicate that that is so.
May I suggest to the noble Lord the Minister that that should not be so, and at the same time expand upon a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol.

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In recent months we have heard a great deal about overproduction of food within the EC and the effects that recent policies have had upon farmers' incomes and the value of agricultural land. It is reasonable to expect that a fairly large acreage of marginal land will fall into disuse if a viable alternative is not offered to farmers. It would seem sensible to suggest that an alternative should be offered before the land reverts to brambles, bracken and scrub.
The farming community, despite some of the noble Lord's doubts, has become increasingly aware of the importance of environmental management, as opposed to exploitation, and the indications are that many are now considering forestry as an alternative to arable or dairy fanning. The present system of grants seems to be reasonably satisfactory for existing woodland owners, but I do not believe that it provides sufficient incentive to farmers to plant and, perhaps more importantly to maintain new forestry until it begins to show a return. As noble Lords will know, that can be anything from 20 to 40 years.
Farmers who have been used to sowing and gathering a crop and to receiving an income from it within one season will naturally be reluctant to accept the fact that their income will be minimal, if anything at all, in their own lifetimes. The present grant system, involving three payments—the first 70 per cent. at initial planting and then two payments of 15 per cent. at five-year intervals—may not provide sufficient incentive.
Experts believe that if 14 per cent. of agricultural land in the United Kingdom came out of production a balance between the demand for and supply of food would be achieved. Currently, agricultural support amounts to some £60 per acre. It has been suggested by forestry experts that if the Government would accept that liability on a limited acreage—say, that 14 per cent.—for a period of 25 years, with half the total sum to be paid at the initial planting and the rest in annual payments subject to satisfactory management by the owner and the forfeiture of any future right to agricultural grants, that would not only encourage farmers to change the use of some of their marginal land but would also go some way towards reducing the forecast severe timber shortage in the next century.
I know from experience that one cannot just plant a few hundred trees and expect them to grow. On our 10 acres of woodland, my husband and I spend most of our weekends, summer and winter, clearing brambles and other weeds from around young trees, pruning, and protecting them from damage by rabbits and squirrels. We do it for pleasure and do not apply for grants, but a farmer to whom the woodland is part of his business would probably need to employ someone to manage it.
The Forestry Commission, with its tremendous store of knowledge, could be made responsible for administering such a scheme and for ensuring that it was not abused. I realise that it would be no simple matter to plan and execute, but there is no shortage of expertise within the Forestry Commission and the private timber management concerns. The United Kingdom has some of the best timber growing conditions in the world, and yet our imports of timber cost in excess of £4,500 million a year. Only 10 per
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cent, of our land is devoted to forestry, and I am sure that the noble Lord the Minister will agree that, given the current deficit in timber production and the gloomy forecast for the future, any encouragement to farmers to change the use of some of their land under suitable circumstances would benefit both them and the nation.
May I therefore ask the noble Lord to speak to his right honourable friend the Secretary of State and ask him to consider seriously the promotion of such a scheme through the Forestry Commission? I am sure it would be welcomed by farmers, foresters and the general public, particularly if it is dealt with promptly, sensibly and sensitively.
9.26 p.m.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, for having asked this Question, because many people would like to know what is the Government's intention regarding the Forestry Commission. I should declare an interest as I am a director of a firm which deals in private forestry; namely, the Economic Forestry Group.
I was interested in what my noble friend Lord Kimball said. He certainly seems to have a "thing" about woods. At a time when agriculture is going through considerable difficulties there might have been some opportunities for forestry to have helped out in the areas where agriculture is finding peculiar difficulties in the more marginal land. But if that happens, clearly it would be against my noble friend's interest.
My noble friend did not think too much about the Forestry Commission, as I understood him, but I have always been an admirer of the Forestry Commission. I have admired the way it has looked after its woods and the enthusiasm of its staff. I have admired the competent way in which it has administered the state's function with regard to private woodlands. It has a reputation for uprightness, competence and specialist knowledge which has been of immense value. I am sorry it is answerable to three political masters—the Ministry of Agriculture, the Scottish Office and the Welsh Office—because that is hardly the most likely way to get precise and concise direction. However, that is one of the facts it has to live with.
The Forestry Commission has one drawback; that is, it is state funded. Therefore, it is always vulnerable to government cuts and whims. When money is tight the Forestry Commission is always likely to have its budget cut, and that is hardly the way to make the best use of its resources. There are those who take the view, "Why should taxpayers' money be put into the forests of the country?" The answer, of course, is that historically it has been so. That was necessary when the Forestry Commission first started. It is questionable whether that should continue now that privatisation is all the rage.
There was a row some five years ago when it was decided to sell off some of the Forestry Commission's assets. Noble Lords will remember that all too well. It had never been done before. Personally, unlike the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, I did not see any great harm in that. It was an absurdity to permit the Forestry Commission to buy but not to sell. It seemed perfectly reasonable that it should rationalise its

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business. It seemed perfectly reasonable for the Forestry Commission to return to the Treasury some of the money that over the years had been put into it. What is and would be wrong is to consider that here is a larder which can be continuously raided, year after year, as a means of providing money annually for the Treasury.
I remember when I had some small responsibility in these affairs that I wrote a note to that effect to some of my more hawkish ministerial colleagues, and I took great care over that letter, drafting it myself on a long journey all the way up to the North of England. Some weeks later one of my colleagues said to me, "Which civil servant wrote that letter for you?" I am bound to say that I was slightly numbed.
I see nothing wrong with selling Forestry Commission assets and reorganising the size and shape of the Forestry Commission, if that is necessary. I see nothing wrong in inviting public participation by putting capital into the Forestry Commission and privatising it in that way, as was done with British Telecom. What is quite wrong is that the Forestry Commission should be forced by the Government continually to sell off its assets and for the Forestry Commission then to be expected to manage an ever-decreasing rump. That really would be selling off the family silver.
Forestry is a long-term business. It is capital-intensive and it needs long-term investment. There is one source of substantial funds which can be and is required to be put into long-term investment. I hesitate to say it to the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, but in fact it is the institutions. Even though institutions have substantial funds, they have never put more than about 2 per cent. into forestry. I think that British forestry would benefit from the infusion of institutional capital. But that can only be done in one of two ways. One way would be for the Forestry Commission to sell off some of its productive woodlands, which of themselves are a reasonable size and would be a good investment. Institutions do not want to have small parcels of indifferent woods, or even small parcels of good woods. Of course I accept that this is anathema to the Forestry Commission and I quite understand why, but it might attract substantial funds of private capital and, ipso facto, it would release public capital.
The second way is to privatise fully the Forestry Commission by making it into a company and then selling the shares. In effect this would keep the business of running the state's forest in one entity as it is now, but private capital would be put into what might be described as the company, thereby releasing public capital. I shall be interested to know whether my noble friend can say that the Government have either of these courses in mind, whether they consider the status quo should remain or whether they have any other ideas.
I should like to ask my noble friend a question on a totally different subject. Much has been done to make some of the large forests, especially those in Scotland, fit more sympathetically into the environment by contouring. I wonder whether my noble friend can say whether the Government and the Forestry Commission are content with this measure and intend to continue it, or whether they will modify that particular system.
9.33 p.m.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, I also should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, for instituting this debate, which is certainly worth having. I must also declare an interest, as I am a forester and I let land to the Forestry Commission.
It is most interesting to note that in Norway, where they have farms of about 200 acres on the west coast, a farmer there will grow a certain amount of corn—probably quite a small amount—and he will have a certain number of animals, and then he will perhaps have 100 acres of trees. The trees will form an integral part of his farm, so that for some part of the year he will be tending trees and for some pan of the year he will be looking after his farmland. To my mind this is an extraordinarily desirable situation.
Before I leave Norway, I should like to say that, in spite of all those trees which are in the valleys and upon the hills, over the ages—not recently, for different reasons—the rivers have been extremely good, clean and full of salmon. It makes me wonder whether the presence of trees really does destroy the rivers, as my noble friend has suggested.
The same sort of thing happens in America. The standard size of farm is 160 acres and the farmers earn their living from the trees which they cut down and replant. I presume they cut down about 20 acres a year or so and this is a going concern for them.
I confirm what my noble friend Lord Radnor said about the beauty of trees. People spend a fortune to go to America to see the very same trees that, if planted here, would prompt remarks such as, "What terrible trees you are planting. You are planting softwoods." The same people would immediately buy an expensive ticket to travel to the West coast of America to see similar trees.
At the moment, England has one of the smallest proportions of land in Europe down to trees. Only Holland, I believe, has a smaller proportion It is forecast by the experts, who are almost always wrong, that in 30 years' time there will be a great shortage of forestry and that the price of timber will go up. That is calculated on estimates of the destruction of forests that is taking place and the world reserves of forestry. So we are probably heading for a great shortage. This will make the import bill even greater than it is now. It is therefore necessary to think about increasing forestry for that reason if for no other.
I would suggest an increase in forestry on the Norwegian model whereby trees are, so far as possible, owned, and certainly looked after, by the shepherd at a time of year when he is not busy with the sheep. Unfortunately for the farmer investment is taking too long. I would support the suggestion of the noble Countess, Lady Mar, if it can be shown to work. The problem is to persuade the upland farmer to plant. He will not do so unless he sees the prospect of a return fairly soon.
There is an alternative, however. Many more people, I believe, would be prepared to plant privately in small areas in conjunction with the marginal farmer. I have in mind a scheme whereby the City investor would come to an arrangement with a hill farmer. He would ask the hill farmer to plant the trees, thin them and clean them and do all the work

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necessary on them, for which he would pay the farmer an annual income, perhaps doubling the income of the farm. This would mean an assured annual income for the farmer. At the same time, the City investor would take the benefit of all the grants and tax relief and would have the final crop to look forward to or, rather, for his son to look forward to.
One is thinking in terms perhaps of a half, or a quarter, of a farm in trees, with most of it remaining in sheep grazing. There would be areas of forestry that could then be used for other purposes. The City investor might wish to put a caravan or, if he could obtain permission, a house in the tree area. Or the farmer might run a caravan site, hidden from view in the trees. The trees might form part of a sporting complex where the City man could have a shoot. What is important is that the farmer would be joined with the City investor for mutual advantage. This could be best encouraged by grants and best arranged by land agents in conjunction with CoSIRA and the Forestry Commission grants.
My noble friend Lord Kimball said that he did not like forestry. However, one has to take account of the fact that people will travel to the Black Forest to see fir trees. And there are masses of large forests in England that people visit a great deal. It is really a question of what one is used to. One likes what one is used to rather than what is new.
The Forestry Commission must continue to exist. No one wants to see it destroyed. It has an important role in the provision of grants and in research. To fulfil that role, it must own its own base. One must remember that the object of the Forestry Commission was solely to produce trees; it was not to produce income. As it is there purely to produce trees, the ideal—if not totally practical solution—would be for the commission to plant the land and then sell it immediately. It is not like selling the family silver. It does not matter who owns these trees—they will still go on growing. It is also nonsense to suggest that, if the Forestry Commission becomes private, employment will reduce, because the new owners of the forestry will continue to need labour.
Access, I believe, can be taken care of. If there is an area to be sold which has public access, there is no reason why the sale should not stipulate that access should remain. To say that all Forestry Commission land should remain with the Forestry Commission is a judgment more of sentimentality than of logic.
9.37 p.m.
The Earl of Dundee: I should like to join with others in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, on introducing this Unstarred Question. As the noble Lord is a past chairman of the Forestry Commission, we are very fortunate to have his advice on the subject, as indeed we are to be addressed by another past chairman, the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie.
With regard to the Government's policy on the future of the Commission, no doubt a distinction should be made between whatever these plans may be on the one hand and the Government's general attitude to forestry on the other. Owing to the nature of the industry it would be understandable if anybody,
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Governments included, should ever feel less clear about the one than about the other. There may, for example, be great confidence in the skill and efficiency of the Forestry Commission to grow and manage trees combined with little faith in the long-term value of home-grown timber. Conversely, there may be a clear vision of the eventual value to the country of homegrown timber combined with undecided views about how public and private forestry can best achieve that.
What signs are there, if any, that perserverance with forestry can ever significantly benefit the economy and the balance of payments? The results so far have not been too impressive. Only 9 per cent. of our land surface is afforested compared with much higher proportions in other western European countries. Current annual costs of imported timber and timber products are still in the region of £4 billion, to which the noble Countess, Lady Mar, referred. Nevertheless, given that the Forestry Commission, and a serious, national resolve to afforest, date only from the end of the First World War, no one would really expect a proper impact on the economy in as little as 60 or 70 years—that is, my Lords, no one who is aware of the different maturity rates of the British tree and the British turnip. However, unless one is Rip Van Winkle himself, significant changes can reasonably be expected over 100 years even in British forestry. In this respect, present indications are encouraging, and professional forecasts estimate that annual home-grown wood production will double from 4.5 million cubic metres today to reach 9 million cubic metres and achieve 15 per cent. self-sufficiency by the turn of the century.
If we accept that future timber yields are worth waiting for, what policy should the Government adopt with the various factors that need to be taken into account when the industry is expanded further? To begin with, there is a balance between private and public sector endeavours. Clearly the effect of Forestry Commission land sales is to alter that balance. Two separate lines of thought appear to be behind the justification of the disposals. If the commission's resources are overstretched, judicious sales are said to ease the pressure. Secondly, it is argued that, even if the commission's resources were not overstretched, the private sector is better able anyway to take on the management and marketing of established plantations.
An extension of this line of thought might be that all the functions of the commission should be taken over, including planting. No doubt the private sector might achieve consistent national planting targets when conditions were favourable for a year or two. But there only needs to be a fluctuation in land values, prices and tax incentives for the private sector, quite naturally, to be discouraged. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that, while sensible sales by the Forestry Commission can bring some obvious benefits, in regard to planting the correct balance should be that the commission should at least match annual private sector levels in favourable years for that sector, and that in unfavourable years the commission should be prepared to compensate for lower private sector levels? Recently, and since its asset disposals first occurred, commission planting levels have dropped below those for the private sector.

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Turning to the social effects of future forestry policy, there is the bearing on the general numbers employed in the industry, on certain communities in difficult areas, and on alternative employments such as sheep farming. Again, in relation to commission asset disposals, it has been alleged that these will cause fewer people to be employed than original numbers, and that remote communities will suffer the most. Equally, fears continue to be expressed whenever forestry replaces or integrates with sheep farming. The counter claim is that employment and local opportunities stand to gain in the long run. Certainly many communities have already gained from afforestation over the last two or three decades in areas where forestry has often substantially replaced sheep farming. Provided that the commission asset disposals are discriminate, there is surely no reason why employment should not benefit fairly soon afterwards rather than the reverse. But there are particular communities in Scotland, and no doubt elsewhere, which would undoubtedly suffer from indiscriminate sales. Can my noble friend the Minister give the assurance that such indiscriminate sales will not occur?
Then there is the need to protect the countryside and prevent untimely land use without unnecesssarily inhibiting afforestation. Already in this respect there have been a number of useful incentives, such as that contained in the recent broadleaf policy and such as
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the initiative to which the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, referred, to make forestry contours look like passing clouds. It would be interesting to have a progress report on that initiative.
On the whole, adequate controls are provided by the consultative procedure between the Forestry Commission and other bodies. EC agriculture surpluses are said to be one of the main reasons why the Government are reconsidering their guidelines to those bodies responsible for giving planting permission. Inevitably this will change, if only slightly, the role of the Forestry Commission within the consultative procedure. Can my noble friend the Minister say what new arrangements corresponding to the revised guidelines adopted there will be to minimise disagreement between the different bodies concerned?
The commission deserves a great deal of credit for what it has already achieved. Equally, it is clear that the important job it will have to do in the future is in no way diminished just because improved national timber yields are within sight. With the commission's assistance, a vigorous planting programme can continue well into the next century. A lead can be given with training, research and experimentation. And, as a result of its joint efforts with the private sector, increasing benefits are likely to come to the countryside and to the economy.
9.48 p.m.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, in rising to speak in the gap in the list of speakers, I make no apology for my name not having been put down because it was put down but did not appear on the list. I apologise most deeply and sincerely for my absence from the early speeches in this very important debate—a debate for which we are all very grateful to my noble friend Lord Taylor of Gryfe. I was engaged in another meeting in this Palace—a meeting to which I shall presently have to return. I shall therefore be very brief.
However, I wished to speak for two reasons. Your Lordships have heard two SDP voices raised from these Benches today in this very important debate. I should like it to be absolutely clear that there will be no discordant note by a Liberal vote being added to those two from the Alliance Benches.
I have always had something of a love-hate relationship with the Forestry Commission. Like all noble Lords, I love trees, but I have not always been in total agreement with the Forestry Commission about where to plant them. When I had some statutory responsibility for the preservation of the natural beauty of our countryside, occasionally I had to erect obstruction in the way of the Forestry Commission with regard to planting programmes in areas of outstanding natural beauty, in some of our national parks, and so on. Therefore, there has been a conflict.
In addition, I did not always approve of the way in which the Forestry Commission planted its trees. It seemed to me that its system of single species, even-age planting, later followed by clear felling, was a rather strange way of proceeding. Had the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, been replying to this debate—as at one time seemed possible—I would have reminded him of a conversation I once had with his father-in-law, Richard Coke, who was a forester of international renown. He once told us both that the system of forestry of single species, even-age planting, with clear felling, was only practised by two groups of people anywhere in the world—the Prussians and the Forestry Commission. Times have changed and, in view of the arguments that I have had in the past with the Forestry Commission, one of the reasons I wished to speak was to say that I personally should like to pay my tribute to the work of my noble friend Lord Taylor of Gryfe, and to the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, and their successor, Sir David Montgomery, for the work that they have done in recent years to change many of the attitudes which were formerly held in the Forestry Commission and which, frankly, sometimes made the Forestry Commission rather unpopular with some countryside lovers who were not madly keen on rows of regimented sitka spruce marching up and down their hillsides.
We have recently had some sort of a dispute on afforestation in Dunnendale in Cumberland, where I live. It is interesting to note that the compromise which has been arrived at there between the Countryside Commission and the Forestry Commission is clearly admirable. We now have a planting scheme which could not arouse any objections from anyone. In my time of interest in this subject I have seen the Forestry Commission change,
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with the planting of hardwoods and many species in a totally different and highly imaginative way. I have seen the Forestry Commission change in other ways. I can remember the days when Forestry Commission land was a "no-go" area for tourists. However, nowadays from talking to some members of the Forestry Commission one would think that they had actually invented picnic sites; not that they were something in which they reluctantly acquiesced as being totally inevitable in the end. Having done so, I think that they have carried out a truly remarkable job.
The other day we had an interesting debate in your Lordships' House about tourism. I do not think that any mention was made of the Forestry Commission in relation to tourism. It is right to say that some of the visitor attractions on Forestry Commission land in particular in Scotland, and one or two in England and Wales—interpretation centres for visitors—are an important part of our tourist attractions and have an immense importance to open-air recreational activity for our ordinary citizens. I merely wish to make those remarks, having occasionally found myself in opposition to the Forestry Commission.
I would join straightaway with the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, who made a most interesting speech. I am not saying that I shall never ever want anything changed. It is true that I was a little alarmed about the measure to which the noble Earl referred—the Forestry Act of some years ago. I was worried about what would happen to places like the Forest of Dean. I was a little worried lest some of our largely recreational forests, like the New Forest, were to be wholly taken over by some of the tycoons of the leisure industry. I also wanted guarantees that access to areas of land to which there had been public access for recreational activities would be preserved.
However, I would certainly agree with the noble Earl that if the Forestry Commission is allowed to buy then it must be allowed to sell. I also think that we must explore the other possibilities to which the noble Earl referred, and I do not object to any of those. They include the possibility of raising public money for the Forestry Commission by other means. An earlier speaker referred to the Forestry Commission being dependent on public funds. At present it is rather dependent on a lack of public funds, and it may perhaps have to look at other ways to get those funds.
However, the main point I want to make is as follows. The Forestry Commission has undergone this very welcome metamorphosis. Its attitude has changed in many ways. It now has plantings which are highly imaginative and immensely beneficial to our environment and our national heritage; immensely beneficial to the tourist industry, and to open-air recreation in general; immensely beneficial to the natural beauty of our countryside. It is not the time to start messing about with the Forestry Commission. I am not saying that we should not make any changes, but this is the wrong time for us now to talk about disbanding the Forestry Commission, or for some of the other draconian statements that I have heard.
I did not think many years ago that I would be standing up in your Lordships' House speaking

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passionately on the side of the Forestry Commission. However, the work they are doing, in terms of the things in which I have great interest now, seem to be of immense importance, quite apart from the commercial importance, the economic importance, of our timber industry. Much of the credit for all that must go to the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, and Sir David Montgomery and others who have led the Forestry Commission into new pastures in a different way. In those circumstances it would be tragic if we now caused unnecessary difficulties in the commission.
9.56 p.m.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, I apologise for not having put my name down, but I shall not detain the House for long. I should like the Minister to give us a little more information. We have had excellent suggestions put by the noble Countess, Lady Mar, and agreed with by the noble Lord, Lord Gisborough, that what we should be doing is trying to put forestry into the hands of the smaller people on the land; the people who live there and work on it. This is the sort of thing that has been talked about not only in his country but other countries as well. Certainly we are going to have land to spare.
What I should like to ask the Minister is, what sort of sums have they done? Have they counted the cost of the enormous tax concessions? How much money do the Government pass up in these tax concessions? I look with a certain amount of dismay and distaste at the way the big forestry groups—with apologies to noble Lords who have declared their interest in them—go about things.
My rich friends who have taken up their offers of saving taxation find that they may be saving taxation but they are paying out very large sums indeed to the firms doing this work for them. The Forestry Commission could do a great deal of this sort of thing much better than the private firms, even though the money could come from the institutions. It would be interesting to know just how much the Government are passing up through the tax concessions.
The other thing is that they have obviously done a forecast on the world resources of timber. We have had given in various papers and by noble Lords in this House tonight various forecasts of the shortage that is going to occur at the turn of the century. Perhaps the Minister will be able to give us the Government's forecast. If it is in fine with the ones we have had, it seems to be a poor time to sell off the maturing forests.
9.59 p.m.
Lord John-Mackie: My Lords, at this time of night I had intended merely to dot the "i"s and cross the "t"s of what the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, said, but so much has been said in this debate that requires an answer that I must go a little further. We are obliged to the noble Lord for putting down this Unstarred Question and giving us the opportunity to deal with some of these points. It is a pity that it had to be so late, but that is the way of things in your Lordships' House.
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The noble Lord made the point that the Forestry Commission and the private sector were a mixed economy, and I could not agree with him more. The noble Earl, Lord Radnor, spoke about his father enjoying the Forestry Commission; so did I. I enjoyed the type of mixed economy in which I took part. I visited private forests just about as much as I visited the Forestry Commission forests, and the co-operation between the two was very good indeed. I have talked to many private foresters since this wretched rumour started about the complete privatisation of the commission and I have not found anybody until tonight who was in favour of it.
Another matter that the noble Lord emphasised I should like to emphasise as well. One cannot run any of the mills and processing plants that make timber board and pulp without a guaranteed supply. Many large areas of forest are in private hands at the moment, but they are all immature and the only body that can give a guarantee is the Forestry Commission, which it has to the various mills that have started up recently. That is an important point. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Gray of Contin, takes note of it if he intends to give us bad news tonight, which, by the look of him, I do not think he will.
The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, also made a conservation point. I should like to emphasise, as other noble Lords have, that the Forestry Commission was given a remit in 1919 to make good the depredations of the war. In 1945 the Forestry Commission was given the same remit to rectify the depredations of that war by planting trees. It was not until 20 years ago, or fewer than 20 years ago, that it was given a remit on conservation and recreation. I bet my bottom dollar that many people who criticised the Forestry Commission never brought that up until recently. The environmentalists and the conservationists were quite quiet until recently for some reason. Since it was given that remit, the Forestry Commission, as most noble Lords today have emphasised, has done a tremendous job in the environmental and conservation senses. I wanted to emphasise that as strongly as I could.
The noble Lord, Lord Kimball, has a broad back. He will need it for a moment or two, because I propose to take him to task very severely indeed. He does not want any more large-scale forests. He makes the point because he will not take off the dark glasses of his salmon and grouse interests, although he said that he keeps some sheep. I point out, as somebody else did, though I forget who, that forests do not make any difference to fishing. There have been occasions when trees were planted too near rivers in the early days, but since the complaints the commission and private forestry have kept their trees well back from river banks. As someone pointed out, that does not harm the fishing.
The noble Lord mentioned the £54 million loss. I am sure that he does not mean that. As I am sure he realises, the £54 million that he mentioned has gone into trees, recreation and amenities and is a capital asset to the country. To say that that is a loss is a comment not worthy of him.
He picked out the lodgepole pine. That was not a big area compared with the whole area of forestry damaged by the pine beauty moth. One might say,

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"For God's sake stop keeping pigs!" because of the outbreak of swine fever a few years ago. We might stop keeping cattle because of the big outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in 1967 and 1968. Again, it is not worthy of him to make silly points such as that. The lodgepole pine in many areas is the only tree that can be grown. It is a perfectly good tree for pulp wood. If we are to have forestry in this country and use areas such as those, the lodgepole has to be planted. The noble Lord cannot get away with that.
The noble Lord went on about the labour question; that he employs more labour with his sheep, fishing and grouse. Two of those do not produce much. During my period at the Forestry Commission I made a lot of calculations and have done so since. For every person employed on a sheep farm, if that farm had a proportion of it, though not all, under forestry, the employment would be three times more; at least three men to one. That is borne out by anybody who has experience in forestry.
The other thing is, as the noble Lord knows, that I went up there and tried to persuade him to let or sell some land to the Forestry Commission back in around 1978. He was not very enthusiastic. He told me I was wrong. I took him away from some fishing on the banks of his stream. He had not been lucky. He was pleased to have a chat with me. If he had done that and done it intelligently, if he had taken advice of people who have done it and increased the production of sheep, got the advantage of the forest for shelter and got the advantage of the forest road to get to areas where he could seed and fertilise and things like that, he would have had a much more economic farm than he has today. I am sure that he is going to suffer for not taking my advice then. I would appeal to him to be very careful of what he says in the future; or I shall be harder on him still.
The noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, spoke on the environment and on the question of the conifer versus the broadleaf. I must point out to her (and, to a certain extent, to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt) that there are whole areas which I have been speaking about which will not grow conifers. Admittedly, you can plant them and you can get a scrub forest of no use to anybody, except perhaps some wildlife. If we are going to plant in the areas of low-grade land in the Highlands and elsewhere, the bulk of it must be conifers. You can sprinkle in some other trees and make it environmentally good: but it has to be conifers.
There are about 20 million acres of what we call rough land, hill land, in Britain and 30-odd million acres of arable land. Now, 3½ million acres of that land is in conifers. Most of the broadleaf trees are in the lowlands. The idea is, and has been, that if we are going to do any good with forestry at all, we must double our conifer plantation and double in the lowlands the areas of broadleaf trees. That goes up to 7 million acres, and leaves 13 million acres. Surely that is enough to give all the environmentalists all the flora and fauna they want. It is quite ridiculous in my opinion to go on "giming" (to use a Scotch word) about planting trees when there is all that land to be left for wildlife and everything else.
I remember that when I was on the commission there was a row about too much planting in north-west
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Wales because it was going to kill out the kites. I went to see the ranger there and I asked him about it. He said, "All I know is that I was here when there was very little forestry and I am here now and there are far more kites now than when I was first here with all the trees". It was just a scare about the kites and there was no truth in it. I do not think I can go much further there except to say that the mis-use of the uplands is an expression that I myself would not use.
The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, was quite worried about access if there is privatisation, and I would agree with him. It would be a pity if access was prevented following wholesale acquisition of land by the private sector. The noble Lord was also worried about the effect of forestry on the landscape and he thought that a lot was being done to improve it.
The noble Earl, Lord Radnor, was right to emphasise that just after the war the thing to do was to sell off the patches of land that were planted rather higgledy-piggledy. It was bad for management and everything else; and the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, mentioned that also.
The noble Earl, Lord Radnor, also mentioned the question of the tremendous value of the forestry to the country. He also mentioned the New Forest, and I shall come to that in a moment. I have mentioned the point about his father enjoying the work of the Forestry Commission, as I did. I enjoyed meeting the people. Foresters have something about them; they are so fond of trees and the outdoors and so on. They are first-class people to get on with. I am not talking about the gentlemen, noble though they are, in offices in Edinburgh. I am talking about the people on the ground, the conservators and the people who plant and look after the trees.
The noble Countess, Lady Mar, brought up an interesting point about trying to give farmers who plant trees a long-term return. She mentioned 50 to 60 years. That would have to involve conifers. I think that she was talking about land in Aberdeenshire that she and I know. It is low-class land and there would be a bit of a row if it had to be planted with conifers. It is a good scheme. I think it can be done only with public money. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, could raise any money for it. If broadleaved trees were to be planted, it would have to be done with public money because no private company would touch it, in my opinion.
The noble Lord, Lord Gisborough, emphasised the point about integrating forestry and farming, and I could not agree with him more on that. I have made the point to his noble friend Lord Kimball and he should have a word with him in private also, just to keep him in his place. The noble Lord, Lord Gisborough, also mentioned people who go to the Californian coast in North America to look at huge conifers. He said how much they enjoy them. They then return to this country and complain about them. If they do not want to spend all that money, I suggest that they go up to the Great Glen in Invernesshire and see the beautiful spruce trees that are now 60 or 70 years old. I think that they will then fall in love with conifers after all.
The noble Lord emphasised what could be done with the amenities outside forestry. The farmers could have caravans which could be hidden by the trees,

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unless they learned to paint them green. For some reason they must be yellow and white. I could never understand that.
The noble Lord said that the labour requirement would be the same whoever owned the forest. That is right if we talk about numbers. Private companies tend to have gang labour, whereas Forestry Commission labour generally lives in the area. There would be a change in the type of labour which, in my opinion, would not be too good for the area.
I do not think that I need to say much about what the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, said. He merely fired questions right, left and centre at the noble Lord the Minister and I shall leave him to answer. He said that the economic point was a difficult one, and I could not agree with him more. Broadleaved trees last for up to 150 years and conifers for up to 60, and it is difficult to make an economic assessment of the matter. We must just look at the situation as it is over the years and go ahead and plant trees. The noble Earl also mentioned the labour point.
The noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, said that he had fallen out with the commission several times over clear felling. He said that there were only two countries that clear felled. He cannot have moved about the world very much. I have been in Canada and a whole host of other places where a great deal of clear felling goes on.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, I was merely quoting Richard Coke, who is known to the noble Lord. I was merely quoting what he said about the system of even age single species planting followed by clear felling. If Richard Coke is wrong, the noble Lord should tell him.
Lord John-Mackie: My Lords, I stand corrected. The noble Lord said that he could see the advantages of the Forestry Commission and of imaginative planting, and he thought that the Government should not mess about with the commission. I could not agree with him more.
The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, gave a great many figures. They do not quite tie up with mine. But they are near to them. The total area of land belonging to the commission, including a number of farms and quite a lot of land that is not yet planted, amounts to—I can think only in acres, not hectares—just over 3 million acres. The value of the land and the trees must be enormous. I do not know what the Government think that is worth, but if they were to put it on the market, I think that it would depress the price of land and forestry all over the country. The figure of £1,500 million was mentioned. I think that that is a conservative figure; I think it will be much more than that. It is something that would need to be looked at before any rash proposals to privatise it were made.
The total number of people in the industry is quite large, nearly up to 30,000. I should like to emphasise that we have had the publicising of a change in the GLC and we have seen the host of things that have to be handed over to other councils or new quangos to run them. I should like to remind the Government that they would have a problem if they privatised the Forestry Commission. Who would look after the New Forest, and would they do it half as well as the Forestry Commission? There are 20 million visits made to our
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forests every year, so some people like forests and conifers. All these camping and caravan sites, which the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, mentioned, would have to be looked after. We have nine arboreta and someone has to look after them. May I point out to the Government that not everybody has the same aversion to public bodies as they have?
I should like to emphasise the part that forestry people—and the noble Lord, Lord Gray, knows this better than I do—play in public life. I should like to mention two in particular, Finlay McRae in Glen Affric and Bill Grant in Grisdale. These two men have done a tremendous lot for the public life in the area where they have been all their lives, and something would be lost if the commission was privatised.
Finally, I should like to stress that research can never be a success unless it is tied to the practical side. I know that there will be research in the private sector, but the fact that it is tied to the Forestry Commission means that the research is meaningful in every way. I may say that the same applies to the plant breeding institute in Cambridge. I hope that we shall get a very satisfactory answer from the noble Lord, Lord Gray, tonight. He must have noticed that, apart from the noble Lord, Lord Kimball, he will not have a friend if his answer is to the detriment of the Forestry Commission.
10.17 p.m.
The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Lord Gray of Contin): My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, for doing his best in his inimitable style to wind-up the debate for me and for leaving to me only the questions to which he himself did not know the answers. Nevertheless, I shall try to take over and deal in due course with some of the points that have not already been dealt with by the noble Lord.
But first I should like to join noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, for giving us the opportunity to talk about this very important and interesting subject of the Forestry Commission. We have come to expect from the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, a speech delivered with authority and feeling on the subject of the Forestry Commission. This is a reflection of the fact that not so many years ago he was its distinguished chairman, so naturally I listened with the greatest interest to what he had to say.
I claim no credit for anticipating to some extent that his Question on the future of the Forestry Commission was inspired by press reports, or should I say press speculation—and, indeed, that speculation has obviously been picked up by a number of your Lordships. Indeed, Ministers have been invited to say that the press have got it wrong and that nothing is further from the minds of the Government than privatisation. I gathered from some of the speeches tonight that much the same invitation has been offered to me. Of course, I cannot give such an assurance, not because the commission is about to be privatised but because, as the Government have already made clear, the policy under which the commission's assets are sold is kept under regular review.
As noble Lords will recall, the last such review resulted in the Statement in another place by my right honourable friend the then Secretary of State for Scotland, Mr. George Younger, in November 1984 to

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the effect that sales by the commission would be aimed at a rationalisation of its estate with a view to increasing its efficiency and commercial effectiveness. He made the point that the choice of properties to be sold—this point was raised particularly by my noble friend Lord Dundee—would remain with the Forestry Commissioners. I can give the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, the assurance that he sought, that there has been no change in this policy.
That Statement was broadly welcomed. I noticed particularly that the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, made reference to the policy, which he accepted, as I think most people do, that the Forestry Commission buys and the Forestry Commission must be able to sell. As I said, that Statement was broadly welcomed, and it showed that when we carry out a review it is in an effort to find the most practical way forward. No policy can, or indeed should, remain sacrosanct indefinitely. But what I can say to reassure your Lordships in the circumstances of this debate is that any change of policy towards the sale of Forestry Commission assets—if it came to be felt that some change were called for—would be reached only after the most careful consideration of all the implications of such a change.
I would ask noble Lords not to take my words as an oblique admission that changes are on the way. I have said no such thing. What I am saying is that forestry policy in general has evolved over many years and will continue to evolve. The new duty placed on the Forestry Commissioners through the Wildlife and Countryside (Amendment) Act 1985—to seek to achieve a reasonable balance between the needs of forestry and those of the environment—is an example of this. Certainly, no Government could be expected to agree that a policy should be decided at one point in time and then set in amber. I am sure that this is not something that the Forestry Commission itself would want.
The future of the Forestry Commission is of course very much bound up with the future of the forestry industry as a whole, and that I see as a bright one. This Government are fully committed to an expansion of the forest estate, in ways that are consistent with the needs of other land users. I make that point particularly for the benefit of the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, who is genuinely concerned, as many conservationists are.
The estate is growing now at a rate of more than 25,000 hectares a year. This figure is somewhat below the rate of expansion that we envisaged when we set out our present forestry policy in 1980, but it is still no mean achievement. The commission's forestry grant scheme has been a success, and now we have the added and welcome boost of the broadleaved woodland grant scheme introduced by the commission last October. The response to this scheme has been heartening—perhaps even better than we expected—and not only will this mean more tree planting but it will lead to a greater variety of planting, with a better balance between conifers and broadleaves.
At the same time, many of our forests, in both public and private ownership, are now reaching the production stage, and the amount of timber coming out of them is expected to increase by some 80 per
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cent. by the turn of the century—which, after all, is not far away. This means that we are in a position to go on attracting new downstream industries, with an assurance that our forests will be able to meet their needs. In recent times we have seen the establishment of a major pulp and paper mill at Shotton in North Wales and of a structural composition board plant near Inverness. There has been expansion by Thames Board Mills at Workington to increase cartonboard production, and we are also witnessing expansion in particleboard manufacture and in sawmilling. We have every hope that there is more to come.
So our expanding forest estate is leading to the setting up of new industries, with all that means in terms of jobs. I echo the remarks of a number of your Lordships this evening in paying tribute, as I believe it is right to do, to the crucial role played by the Forestry Commission. It has made those developments possible by means of its reliable forecasts of production and by guaranteeing supplies of timber through long-term contracts, and by meeting those guarantees in a highly professional way.
I pay that tribute not just because I happen to be the Minister who has responsibility for the Forestry Commission; I pay it because I myself have seen the quality of those on the ground who are employed by the commission and the dedication of its officials, right down to the forest workers who are employed throughout Scotland and indeed throughout the United Kingdom.
I now turn to another issue that could have a significant effect on forestry. This is the clearly identified need to deal with the mounting surpluses of some agricultural products by making changes to the CAP. The significance of that for forestry is of course the recognition that in the right circumstances forestry can provide an alternative crop that is not, and never will be, in surplus in this country or in the Community as a whole.
So far as reform of the CAP is concerned, the way ahead is far from clear at present, but it could well be that at the end of the day forestry will be called upon to play a greater role in the economy of our countryside and in the maintenance of our rural communities. That will provide both challenges and opportunities for our foresters and not least for the Forestry Commission—both in its role as the forestry authority and as the forestry enterprise.
The Earl of Radnor: My Lords, as to the question of surpluses and replacing with woods those acres that might go out of production, does my noble friend really believe that that is a practical proposition? We are talking of farmers, and surely there is a very severe cash flow situation for them—unless, once more, the Government or Brussels are prepared to subsidise the whole situation very strongly indeed; and as my speech brought out, those subsidies seem to be getting eroded.
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, I propose to deal with those points in due course. I will try to answer some of the questions that were raised and I assure my noble friend that I will return to the matter that he has mentioned.
I am well aware that the idea of an expanding and vigorous industry alarms some people. Indeed, we have perhaps had a whiff of that today from my noble

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friend Lord Kimball and from the noble Baroness. However, I believe that is because of the fear that forestry might damage our countryside. I must put my cards on the table because I do not subscribe to that view, which takes little account of the praiseworthy efforts of foresters in recent years to come to terms with environmental needs, to achieve the right balance, and to make our forests attractive places for both man and wildlife alike.
Foresters are among the first to recognise that there is much more to forestry than simply planting trees and watching them grow. Earlier I mentioned the new broadleaved woodland grant scheme introduced by the commission, and I take the opportunity to remind your Lordships' House that the commission has also taken the initiative of updating its conservation policy and making it clear that it wishes to work more closely with conservation bodies, to the extent of setting up local liaison groups.
The private sector, too, must not be forgotten, because it has announced its best intentions through the publication by Timber Growers United Kingdom of its booklet The Forestry and Woodland Code, which recognises that there are many interests to be borne in mind in establishing and managing forests. I must resist the temptation to speak at length on that particular subject, but I feel that much of the criticism that is directed against foresters by environmental interests lacks that essential balance and a proper appreciation of the many advances that are taking place. Indeed, the very rumour that the commission might be privatised has brought forth a chorus of protest from a wide range of people, including amenity and environmental bodies who, when they thought that the chips were down, were quick to acknowledge the high quality of the commission's stewardship of its estates. This served to confirm my own view that there is a deep underlying support for forestry in this country, provided it is carried out with the needs of others very much in mind.
In many ways forestry is coming of age and it is doing so under the forestry policy that the Government set out in December 1980 and which is working well. That policy has not changed. In saying this I am not giving your Lordships' House a coded message. I am simply stating the facts and I hope they will be accepted. If there should be any intention in the future to amend that 1980 policy your Lordships would certainly be informed in plenty of time.
My noble friend Lord Kimball was pretty harsh, I thought, on the Forestry Commission but I pay tribute to him as a landowner in the Highlands who provides employment on his estate and makes sure that it is not casual or part-time employment. He employs people on a permanent basis. Anybody who achieves that and the success on the sporting side of an estate which my noble friend has achieved must have the thanks of the community. Nine or 11 jobs in Altnaharra represent a sizeable workforce and my noble friend has done a splendid job in maintaining it.
I shall not defend the commission further because I think that was extremely well done by the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, with his knowledge as a former chairman of the commission. He dealt with the points adequately when he spoke.
My noble friend Lord Kimball and the noble Baroness were concerned about some of the planting
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which had taken place in Caithness and Sutherland. I am aware that there are misgivings, particularly in that part which is known as the flow country. But it is very large and not all of it can be of high conservation value. Properly considered and planned forestry schemes should not be incompatible with the needs of nature conservation. I can tell the noble Baroness that the commission now consults the Nature Conservancy Council on all afforestation proposals in sensitive areas in the flow country. We must try to get the right balance and the commission in its attitude is very much aware of this nowadays.
The noble Baroness also suggested that attempts to place a conservation duty on the Forestry Commission have failed. This does not fit the facts. The Forestry Act 1967 was amended last year by the Wildlife and Countryside (Amendment) Act 1985 to place a duty on the Forestry Commission to seek to achieve a balance in carrying out its functions.
The noble Baroness also asked about forestry in environmentally sensitive areas, known as ESAs. There is no cause for concern here. The Forestry Commission has made it clear that it will not grant-aid any forestry scheme which is incompatible with the aims and objectives of an ESA.
The noble Baroness asked a number of questions, which I shall try to answer. She said there was criticism of the decisions of the regional advisory committees. I am afraid that she is misinformed because the regional advisory committees do not actually take decisions; they simply try to conciliate in disputed areas. At the present moment the composition of the regional advisory committees is being carefully revised and I have no doubt that the conclusions will meet with the approval of the noble Baroness.
The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, also asked me a number of questions. I am sorry if I misunderstood his point on a previous occasion, and I hope I shall be able to give him the proper answer tonight. He asked me whether in the last five years the Forestry Commission had withheld sales to safeguard access. The answer is yes, the Forestry Commission has withheld properties from the market which otherwise would be eligible for sale under the rationalisation approach because of the heavy investment in recreational and public access facilities.
The noble Lord also asked me about the situation of properties for sale in consideration of public access. I have partially answered that question, but there is a further point. The selection of properties for sale within the overall policy laid down by the Government is a matter for the Forestry Commission. The commissioners have absolute control of this. The disposal programme is carried out entirely by the commissioners. They decide what properties they shall dispose of and the Government do not take an active part in that selection.
The noble Lord further asked me about the position of landscape conservation orders in national parks. This is still under consideration within government. I am afraid that since it is a matter for environmental Ministers it is not within my remit; but I have noted the question and perhaps I can arrange for a letter to be sent to the noble Lord to deal with that more fully.
The noble Countess, Lady Mar, I often feel deploys her arguments so effectively in such a short

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time that many of our colleagues who took part in the debate which preceded this one could well take a leaf out of her book. She asked me about replacing surplus farm crops with trees. To some extent this relates to the point to which my noble friend Lord Radnor also spoke. The Government are looking carefully at the question of tree planting as an alternative crop to agricultural products which are in surplus and at the broader role that the Forestry Commission might play in relation to changes in the common agricultural policy.
The EC Commission has floated a number of interesting ideas, though only in the broadest terms so far; it has not yet spelt out much in the way of detail. At this moment it is difficult to gauge the possible impact on forestry in this country, but the question of the contribution that forestry might make is being kept firmly in mind and suggestions such as those which have been made by the noble Countess are helpful in these matters and will certainly be considered.
The views of consultees on the report, Woodland as a farm crop, are now also being analysed. The consultation exercise has provided a great deal of material on which to work, and we are grateful to all those who responded to it.
My noble friend Lord Radnor asked me about grants under the dedication scheme and suggested that they have not risen in line with costs. I point out to my noble friend that the grants are not index-linked. They are designed to encourage the establishment of woodlands. The main criterion must be whether they are meeting the needs satisfactorily. However, the Forestry Commissioners will be reviewing the grant levels with effect from 1st October this year, and we shall take into account the points which my noble friend has made. I think that to bring them up to the levels at which he hinted may be a little difficult, but we shall consider the points which he has made.
My noble friend Lord Ferrers, along with a number of others, mentioned contour planting. This is a question of good landscaping. Forestry has not been short in many cases of good landscape planning. Some instances may not be as satisfactory as others. But the commission has the benefit of advice from landscape architects and, indeed, in one case from an eminent landscape consultant. As forests mature, are gradually felled and are re-stocked, the opportunity is being taken to make them more diverse, to plant away from streams and to get rid of straight lines and rather ugly square boxes that are not in the best interests of amenity.
My noble friend Lord Gisborough made an interesting proposal concerning the encouragement of joint ventures between farmers and forestry investors. The Government will take such proposals into account in their consideration of measures to encourage farm forestry. My noble friend Lord Dundee asked how consultation between countryside bodies could be improved. The commission has issued a consultation paper on the composition and procedure of regional advisory committees. The aim is to help these committees to do their job of reconciliation as effectively as possible.
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The noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, who has a habit of firing financial questions at me when I least expect them, asked me how much tax relief was given away through the commercial forestry policy. The best information that I can obtain for him is the 1980 Inland Revenue figure which at that time was £10 million a year.
The noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, whose leg I pulled a little at the beginning of my remarks made, as he always does, an extremely valuable contribution. It is an enormous advantage in these debates to have the experience and knowledge of former chairmen of the Forestry Commission, and we are grateful to the noble Lord for what he said. He said that he could not read his own writing. I have to be absolutely honest and say that I made another comment about his speech but I cannot read my writing! We are on a par.
In conclusion, I thank once again the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, for his interesting and constructive approach and for giving us the opportunity to paticipate in what has been a most enjoyable debate.

Yorkshire Water Authority Bill
Returned from the Commons with the amendments agreed to.
House adjourned at seventeen minutes before eleven o'clock.