Lords Sitting of 30 July 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 Sheffield.

Lord Bonham-Carter
Mark Raymond Bonham Carter, Esquire (commonly called the Honourable Mark Raymond Bonham Carter), having been created Baron Bonham-Carter, of Yarnbury in the County of Wiltshire, for life—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Lord Chitnis and the Lord Grimond.

Dounreay Incidents, 1984
2.46 p.m.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: 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 was the nature of the eight incidents at Dounreay in 1984 which were categorised as serious or significant.
The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Lord Gray of Contin): My Lords, in three of the incidents workers received respectively 150 per cent., 70 per cent. and 36 per cent. of the permissible annual dose; in two there were spillages in which no one received a measurable dose; in two others, an equipment malfunction caused a false criticality alarm; and in the last some 25 year-old low radioactive particles were found on a beach after a storm. All these incidents were minor and none was required to be reported to Ministers.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for that information. Can he tell the House what the situation is since that report?
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, I have no further information, but I shall certainly write to the noble Lord in due course.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the residents of Caithness have lived beside a prototype fast-breeder reactor for years, and that the majority of them do not want to see the nuclear industry reduced in their area, and that the tranquility in these matters has been disturbed recently only by the appearance of a radioactive cloud emanating from the Soviet Union?
Lord Gray of Contin: My noble friend is absolutely correct. Both he and I live a little more than 100 miles away. We know that the people within that radius are well satisfied with the performance at Dounreay over the past 20 years.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, is the Minister not aware that members of my trade union, and other
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trade unionists who work in this industry, are becoming more than a little concerned and angry at some of the statements that are being made about the so-called danger factor in the nuclear industry? In fact, its record of safety is probably the highest in the industrial league. Will the Minister take every opportunity to debunk some of the statements that are being made which are quite outrageously wide of the mark?
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, I recognise the considerable experience of the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, in his capacity as a member of a union which is involved with the power industry. I am sure that the whole House would endorse his confidence in the nuclear industry.
Lord Paget of Northampton: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the new French nuclear plant in Brittany is giving free electricity to its neighbours and that the new plant is highly popular?
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord is absolutely correct.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the way in which to keep down the rumours and to allay anxiety is to provide immediate and full information about any incidents—minor or otherwise—that occur?
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, it is the policy of the nuclear industry to be as open as possible about its activities. I doubt whether there is any other industry in this country which gives more information about any mishaps which may take place at its establish-ments.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the information which I have given is not rumour, but comes from the Government's own report on the subject? Is it not the case that the last report on these so-called "incidents" at Dounreay said that there were 194 such incidents, most of them, admittedly, of a minor character? However, there was a large number of incidents. That is why it is highly desirable to know about these matters as soon as possible. Will a further official report be made about what has happened between 1984 and today?
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, the noble Lord is absolutely correct to pursue his investigations of the nuclear industry because the nuclear industry is only too pleased to make all possible information available. If there is anything since 1984 about which the noble Lord seeks information, I shall ensure that it is made available to him.

Lancashire Enterprise Limited
2.51 p.m.
Lord Taylor of Blackburn: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.

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The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to encourage the local authorities to emulate Lancashire's Lancashire Enterprise Limited.
The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Lord Elton): My Lords, it is for the local authorities themselves to decide how best to promote local economic development within the framework of their existing powers and duties. As I told my noble friend Lord Harmar-Nicholls in a written reply on 22nd July, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State is now considering whether special provision for local authorities to spend on economic development is desirable or necessary and expects to come to a conclusion early in the New Year.
Lord Taylor of Blackburn: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. Will he inform his noble friend the Secretary of State for Employment what a good job Lancashire Enterprise Limited is doing? Since its formation it has created 3,176 new jobs, and it is providing 1,346 training places. It has done that at a cost of £2,876. This year it has made a profit of half a million pounds, and also this year it has started 14 new training places. Will the noble Lord inform his noble friend and colleague what Lancashire is doing?
Lord Elton: My Lords, in view of the distance which separates me from my noble friend, I think that I can undertake that task!

Industrial Training
2.53 p.m.
Lord Rochester: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are satisfied with the performance of the non-statutory training organisations set up after the dismantling of the majority of industrial training boards under the Employment and Training Act 1981.
The Secretary of State for Employment (Lord Young of Graffham): My Lords, the Government are satisfied with the general progress of the non-statutory arrangements which replaced the industry training boards. Most non-statutory training organisations are living up to the promises made to Ministers when boards were abolished and the Government expect these organisations to grow further in strength.
A progress report on the development of these arrangements was discussed by the Manpower Services Commission last week. A copy of that paper has been placed in the Library.
Lord Rochester: My Lords, now that the chairman of the Manpower Services Commission has acknowledged that a considerable number of these voluntary training organisations are not up to scratch in various ways, will the noble Lord accept that we on these Benches welcome the guidelines which the Government and the Manpower Services Commission
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are reportedly to issue, aimed at bringing the standards of the least effective organisations of this kind up to those of the best? Will he also assure us that if these guidelines fail in their purpose, the Government will reconsider whether some form of statutory framework should be set up aimed at ensuring that training to achieve clearly defined objectives is actually carried out?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I think that I can do no more than to quote from part of the paper which is in your Lordships' Library. It says:
"The non-statutory training organisations consider that training has improved significantly since the demise of the 16 industrial training boards".
It goes on to say:
"The bureaucratic boards, it is argued, gave training itself a bad name and it is only now that this animosity is being dissipated. One reason for the bureaucracy was the range of subsections which the board were required to cover".
I do not believe that anyone in your Lordships' House will yet be satisfied with the standard of training in this country. What we can say is that the non-statutory training organisations are improving that standard, and it will remain a priority of the Manpower Services Commission to continue that improvement.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, bearing in mind the considerable experience at regional level of the CBI, the TUC and the small businessmen's industrial associations, would it be possible for the Government to get those elements—the TUC, the CBI, and the small businessmen's associations—to co-operate at regional level in assisting the endeavours of the noble Lord the Minister himself?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Molloy. However, since we have looked at training on a sectorial basis so that individual sectors of industry are responsible for their training we have seen a substantial improvement. I am not sure how much further we could go by looking at cross-sectors with the CBI and the TUC.
Lord Taylor of Blackburn: My Lords, is the Minister aware of the work of certain enterprise boards, such as in Lancashire, that have started training courses to assist Her Majesty's Government in the way in which the Minister has been instructing us this afternoon?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, it may come as no small surprise to anyone in your Lordships' House that I have just recently heard from my noble friend Lord Elton about the great success of the Lancashire board, and I pay tribute to it.
Lord Mellish: My Lords, is it a fact that the construction industry's record over the years has been superb in the matter of industrial training? Will the Minister assure us that, whatever may happen as regards the present and the future, its performance will not be interfered with or damaged in any way?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, it is very difficult to give an assurance for all time. All I can say is that the construction industry training board has performed extremely well in helping with both the one-year youth training scheme and the two-year

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YTS, and it is a great credit to the industry. We shall do all in our power to encourage it to continue on those lines.
Lord Jacques: My Lords, does the Minister agree that what we need in particular is more and more training of a high standard, in which there is the discipline of an examination which is recognised by employers, for which they pay a premium?
Lord Young of Graffham: Yes, my Lords; I am very glad that the noble Lord has made that point. The review of vocational qualifications which led to the establishment of a national vocational qualification, which will come into being within the next two years, will be a significant step forward in the recognition of vocational qualifications. I hope that employers will recognise that in the most appropriate manner possible.
Lord Leatherland: My Lords, if I wished to avail myself of industrial training, how should I go about it? I am sure that many people do not know how to do so.
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, if the noble Lord cares to write to me, I shall ensure that he goes on the appropriate course.

PBI and NSDO: Costs
2.58 p.m.
Lord John-Mackie: 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 has been the yearly cost of the Plant Breeding Institute in the last five years, and how much surplus the National Seed Development Organisation had in the same period.
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, in each case the figures I give are millions of pounds and relate to the five-year period 1980–81 to 1984–85. Plant Breeding Institute: 3·3, 3·4, 3·4, 3·6, 3·2. Those figures represent the total cash grants made to the institute by the Agricultural and Food Research Council from the public funds received from the Science Budget and from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food for commissioned work.
National Seed Development Organisation: 0·9, 1·0, 0·9, 0·8, 1·8. Those figures represent NSDO's profit after deduction of tax and of royalties paid to the Exchequer, before payment of dividend.
Lord John-Mackie: My Lords, I thank the Minister for those figures. Is he aware that the Government's reasons for—and I paraphrase—transferring these two bodies to the private sector are to ensure the maximum benefit to agriculture and the United Kingdom economy? Is the Minister aware that the PBI has produced seed that is now growing 80 per cent. of the wheat in this country and 22 per cent. of the potatoes? Does he think that a private company in the past has anywhere near matched those figures, or is likely to match them in the future?
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Does he not think that the PBI should be left alone in view of these figures, especially as it is making a profit?
Is it correct that the noble Earl's figures for the NSDO do not include—at least I had this answer from his noble friend a few years ago on this subject—various royalties, which add up to a considerable amount?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, both I and my noble friend Lord Belstead have been over this ground a number of times with the noble Lord. I think that this is a matter, whatever answer I give to the noble Lord, on which he will have his opinion and the Government will have theirs. I see no way that I can convince him. The Government's policy in this area is to promote the fullest possible industrial and commercial exploitation of scientific discoveries. Despite past successes, which the noble Lord rightly mentioned, the Government believe that the private sector is best placed to commercialise the highly successful applied work at the PBI, which is carried out in part of the institute only.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, can the noble Earl give us some instances where the private breeders—and there are plenty in this country—have come near the record of the Plant Breeding Institute in the production of new wheats, new potatoes and other plants?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, I should be delighted to write to the noble Lord with that informa-tion.
Baroness Nicol: My Lords, can the noble Earl assure the House that in view of Sir Francis Pemberton's recent decision not to renew the lease on his 70 acres of the PBI site because he wanted it for commercial development, the new owners will be asked to give an undertaking that their part of the site will not be sold for commercial development?
The Earl of Swinton: Yes, my Lords, I can indeed give the noble Baroness that undertaking. That is something we intend to do.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, will the noble Earl confirm that the Agriculture and Food Research Council are extremely concerned about the Government's policy of privatising these two successful and important organisations? Will he say what consultations have taken place with the AFRC and what their reaction is?
Secondly, can he say how an organisation such as the Welsh plant breeding station in Aberystwyth will market and develop the seeds after this transfer has taken place? Is it not the case that there is a considerable danger that important and successful —and I mean successful in international terms and in relation to the third world—institutes will have to be closed in England, Scotland and Wales?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, so far as concerns the AFRC, certainly the officials I have met seem to be very happy with this idea. In regard to the future marketing of varieties produced in Wales and in other

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centres, we shall be considering with the AFRC the appropriate arrangements for the commercialisation of future varieties at other institutes.
Lord John-Mackie: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl, as we know that he has a report from Lazard on the situation, whether Lazard's figures agree with the figures he gave me a few moments ago?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, the Lazard figures are very confidential and in current negotiations, and I could not quote anything from them.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, can the noble Earl say whether, if the Plant Breeding Institute is sold to a chemical firm, which is one of the possibilities, he thinks that they will be absolutely impartial in the selection of disease-free wheats, or perhaps whether they might be biased in favour of those which respond to chemicals?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, that is a rather hypothetical question. There are a number of institutes and people involved in this matter, and these are the kinds of details we shall have to go into with them.

London Docklands Railway (City Extension) Bill
3.4 p.m.
Lord Hacking: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. In promoting and presenting to the House this Private Bill—which has already been passed by the other place—the promoters, London Regional Transport, seek authority for an extension of the Docklands Light Railway from Tower Hill to the Bank of England, to a new station which will, in effect, merge the present Bank and Monument stations.
Under the London Docklands Railway Acts 1984 and 1985, authority has already been granted by Parliament for the Docklands Light Railway to run from Stratford, which is to the north of the Isle of Dogs, and from Island Gardens, which is at the foot of the Isle of Dogs opposite the Royal Naval College of Greenwich, to Poplar, and then join together on a line to Towergate, which is the new proposed station at Tower Hill for the Docklands Light Railway. In other words, if one was to look at it from the City looking east, the railway will run into Poplar, which is at the north end of the Isle of Dogs, and then branch, one branch going north to Stratford and the other branch going south to Island Gardens.
The proposal is that the new Docklands Light Railway, which will be above ground throughout those parts of the line I have just drawn to your Lordships' attention, should go underground at a position alongside Royal Mint Street, which is to the east of the Tower of London, and should travel underground roughly on a route which will take it under Great Tower Street underneath Eastcheap, and will eventually leave it under King William Street with a runover tunnel under Princes Street.
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The length of that tunnel will be just under a mile, and the length of line which I have just described to Stratford from the Bank of England will be six miles; to Island Gardens four and a half miles; and to the apex point, which I also have described, it will be two and a half miles. The frequency of service—and the Docklands Light Railway is already largely constructed for those lines for which Parliament has already given its authority and which are expected to open in 1987—will, in ordinary hours, be a train every 10 minutes and in peak hours a train every 74 minutes, running in each direction.
After this extension, if your Lordships give approval to it, at peak hours there will be a train every four minutes from the bank and from the other two stations, Stratford and Island Gardens, and so at the apex point, which is roughly at the position of Canary Wharf, a train will be arriving every two minutes. Those are the present proposals of the promoters of this Bill, but of course if there is greater demand they are willing to put on a more frequent service. The journey time from the Bank of England to this apex point by Canary Wharf will take about nine minutes.
It is proposed that the trains should be automatic but manned. It is also proposed that the stations—or as they may be called "halts" because of the short duration that the trains will stop at them—will be unmanned. The railway will not be linked into the existing Underground network because of the choice of the light railway for it. This has larger carriages which would not fit into the tunnels of the existing Underground system.
Your Lordships may be asking: why choose a different railway, albeit using the same gauge, which will not fit into the Underground system? The reason for this choice for a light railway—which is a comparatively new concept for public transport—is that it has faster acceleration and deceleration because it is a much lighter railway. This will mean shorter journey times. It can cope with steeper gradients and tighter corners, all of which are essential for its journeys above ground in the docklands area.
Another major factor for the choice of the light railway is that it is cheaper to construct. Very rough figures are that the Docklands Light Railway, as proposed (both the original railway and the extension of it up to the Bank of England) will come to a figure just under £200 million, while an estimated figure for the Jubilee Line using conventional track extending into the same area would have been about £500 million. It is not exactly comparing like with like because the Jubilee Line was intended to go rather further east than the proposed DLR. However, it can be stated that the saving amounts to about half the cost of the building of a conventional Underground train track.
The need, my Lords, for this extension arises out of the proposal for a massive new financial centre to be built on what is now Canary Wharf on an acreage of about 71 acres. It will consist of three tall office blocks up to a limit, under the planning permission for them, of 850 feet, although I understand from the consortium that they are only proposing to build one of the towers to that height and the other two will not be as high. The consortium are proposing at the Canary Wharf development to provide a total space of

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12·4 million square feet, but not all of that space is usable or lettable. Indeed, only about 10 million square feet of that is usable space, and out of that, if your Lordships will allow me to give one other figure, 8·8 million square feet will be office accommodation. The rest will form shops, pubs, restaurants and other support services. It is proposed that these will be located in concourses perhaps rather like the Covent Garden concourse, although on a larger scale.
The consortium behind the Canary Wharf development are putting a massive investment into it—something in the region of £2·6 billion to £2·8 billion. I am told that is larger than the proposed contribution by the United Kingdom into the Channel tunnel. It is thought to be the biggest private investment project the world has ever known. For those of your Lordships who are interested in following the Guinness Book of Records, it will be larger than the World Trade Centre in New York (which is 10 million square feet) and larger than the proposed new World Financial Centre, also in New York (in the area of Battery Park, for those of your Lordships who are familiar with New York) which will be 6 million square feet.
When completed, Canary Wharf will accommodate 49,000 persons in the financial services industry, including all support services such as cleaning, catering and so forth. It will also create 8,000 further jobs off site, and therefore it will be creating or providing accommodation for no fewer than 57,000 jobs when it is eventually completed, which it is hoped will be in the mid-1990s.
The Canary Wharf development has the full support of the City of London, where it is recognised that there is a need for more accommodation for the anticipated increase in the workforce of the City of London. The present workforce in the City of London, I am told, is in the region of 300,000. Over the next 10 years, it is anticipated that there will be an increase of 200,000 to bring it up to a total workforce of 500,000. Therefore the Canary Wharf will be providing about one-third of the accommodation for that anticipated increased workforce.
There is also a need in the City of London for a different form of office accommodation. There is a need for very large floor spacing between floors for electrical equipment—all part of the new requirements for the financial services industry. For example, I refer to computer cabling, communication cabling and other cabled services that have now to be located between floors. When a building is not designed with that floor void it makes it almost impossible to put that equipment in, let alone maintain it. There is also another need in the financial services industry for large dealing rooms. Therefore the Canary Wharf development will enable the financial services of the City of London to expand without destroying the special characteristics of the City, its architecture and its environment.
This is essential for the City and for the Canary Wharf consortium that the complex is closely linked to the heart of the City. Without this essential link the Canary Wharf complex would become a satellite (if it ever went ahead at all), moving away into an orbit which could eventually separate it from the City of
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London. It is so important to the consortium that this link is established that it has regretfully stated that it would be unable to go ahead with the whole of the Canary Wharf development unless the light railway extension is built to the Bank, as proposed in the Bill. This will give it that essential link with the City of London, and keep it intact and part of the development of the City. That is not to downcry other proposals in transport communications such as the new proposed roads into the area, several of which had already been approved prior to the Canary Wharf consortium coming to the planning board. There is also water there for those who want to travel in a more leisurely way and there is the proposed new airport called STOLPORT.
The choice of Bank Station rests upon several considerations. It will provide direct interchange with no fewer than four other existing lines. I refer to the District and Circle Lines, which go through Monument Underground station; the Central Line and the Northern Line, both of which go through Bank. I refer also to the Waterloo and City Line which terminates at Bank station. To accommodate the arrival of the DLR, it is proposed that there will be other improvements at Bank station. There will be a new ticket office under Lombard Street, new low-level interchanges between all lines and—for those of your Lordships who have had to make the journey—part of these improvements will mean that passengers will no longer have to walk along the platform of the Northern Line as they do currently to travel to and from Monument station when changing from the Circle and District Lines to the other lines.
I mention those improvements because some concern has been expressed by the City and the Corporation of London over the problem of congestion. While expressly supporting the project of the Canary Wharf consortium, the City of London opposed this Bill in the House of Commons on strategic grounds, arguing that the Docklands Light Railway should go to Cannon Street and not to Bank, and also on safety grounds. But both those objections were not accepted by the House of Commons Select Committee and now have been dropped. It suffices to state that the promoters are satisfied that the Bank Underground station is the best station for the Docklands Light Railway to arrive into, and they are also satisfied that there is no danger factor. There is certainly not, as has been suggested in some quarters, any danger of closing the Northern Line.
There are also other benefits of the Docklands Light Railway. The Docklands Light Railway will greatly improve public transport for those who live in the region of Stratford, Bow, Poplar and the Isle of Dogs. It will also provide employment in that docklands area. It is estimated that of that total workforce of 57,000 there will be 21,000 new jobs available for people living locally in that area. As your Lordships know, there are very high levels of unemployment in the surrounding area. I am told the current figure in Southwark is 21,600; in Tower Hamlets it is 16,500 and in Newnham there are 17,600 unemployed. It is therefore estimated that the building of this project will reduce the level of unemployment by 15,000.
Those of your Lordships who remember an earlier figure I gave of 21,000, as the amount of local

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employment it should provide, may like to understand why there is a difference between that figure and 15,000. It can be simply explained that the figure of 21.000 is expected to include certain people such as wives and so on who are not currently registered unemployed. So it is fair to give a smaller figure for the reduction of unemployment in that area.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: My Lords, I hope the noble Lord will forgive me. It is in fact Newham and not "Newnham".
Lord Hacking: My Lords. I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord. From his days representing that constituency, he is in a better position than I to know. I apologise for my mispronunciation.
Not only will the Canary Wharf consortium project benefit London and the South-Eastern region—I have already mentioned that there will be 8,000 new jobs off site—there will also be tremendous opportunities for British industry throughout the country. I was given a dazzling figure for the amount of carpet, for example, that will be required for carpeting the whole of the complex. I am afraid I have forgotten that figure, so I am sparing your Lordships of one figure in my comments. Suffice it to say that when a project of this size is being undertaken and when the investment, as I have already indicated to your Lordshisp, is to the tune of billions of pounds, then, without my giving further statistics, I think your Lordships will be able to appreciate that there are many opportunities for British manufacturing industries throughout the country to get contracts, contracts for which they will of course compete against competitors overseas; it will be competitive, but nonetheless will give great opportunities.
Also, just to give another figure, during the construction period there will be 7,000 jobs available and. also, the construction of this project will greatly benefit England's construction industry firms, five of whom are already committed to this work, and also the consultants who will help them. I hope that that will provide some comfort to the noble Lord, Lord Sefton of Garston, and others. I note that the noble Lord, Lord Sefton, is chairman of the North West Economic Planning Council and in that capacity I hope that that will give him some comfort; although I notice that his proposed Instruction to the Committee is put on a narrower base.
Above all, I hope that the Bill will be judged as an essential ingredient in the expansion of the financial services of the City of London. Their record is good. Their contribution towards the balance of payments in 1975 was £1 billion and in 1985 it is estimated to be £7 billion. I am not going to give an estimate for 1995, but it will be most surprising if there were not large advances on the contribution of the City of London to the balance of payments out of the expanded use of its financial services. I am conscious that many noble Lords are due to speak in your Lordships' House today. I have tried to indicate to your Lordships the essential ingredients of this Bill and I commend it to your Lordships. I hope that your Lordships will agree to a second reading and I hope that this Bill will therefore be sent swiftly to the Select Committee. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Hacking.)
3.23 p.m.
Lord Sefton of Garston Lord Sefton of Garston rose to move, That it be an Instruction to the Committee to whom the Bill is committed that they have regard to the consequences of the proposals contained in the Bill on the rest of the South-East Region and in particular on the City of London.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I have gone through a fairly traumatic experience in the last two or three days, but I do not think that anything I have gone through in the last three days is as bad as the period I have gone through in the last 17 minutes. The last time I mentioned the London Docklands Development Corporation in this Chamber I said that I had been on a vist there, kindly arranged by the noble Lord, Lord Mellish, and that when I arrived there and was shown around I was terrified; it frightened the life out of me. The noble Lord, Lord Hacking, has just reduced that fright by comparison to minuscule proportions; for when he read out the details (which I shall study with great interest in Hansard) it seemed to me that what we were talking about was not the regeneration of London docklands; it seemed to me that we were talking about the creation of a new capital city one-third the size of London.
The noble Lord, Lord Hacking, did not disagree with that kind of general statement. One could not take anything other than that meaning from the figures that were read out. I got my details from the New Civil Engineer. That newspaper seemed to be particularly well informed, better informed than I was, on the question of London docklands; because, in spite of the fact that the papers in regard to the annual report for London docklands, were laid on the Table of the House several days ago, if not weeks ago, they are still not available in the Printed Paper Office in this House. If one wants details of the London docklands annual report, one has to turn to the Daily Telegraph of this morning. That is where I got some of the details.
When I first suggested that this Bill should have something said about it, one of my colleagues suggested that it was too late. After all, why should I oppose this now? Well, I have not said that I am opposing it. Why should we delay it any further? The noble Lord Lord Hacking, has given us a reason. My instruction is not hostile to the Bill. My instruction merely says, "Look again". Let me disabuse anybody in this House in regard to my record concerning development corporations. I am not the chairman of the North West Planning Council, although I held that office. But if everybody believed everything that is in Who's Who, they would believe everything in the newspapers, and that—
Lord Hacking: My Lords, my source of information was Dod's.
Lord Sefton of Garston: Well, my Lords, Dod's is just as bad as Who's Who. For 21 years I was in the new towns movement and for seven of those years I was the chairman of Runcorn Development Corporation. I was a member of (and later the chairman of) the North West Planning Council and the first proposal for development corporations in

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urban areas came to the last Labour Government over my name along with the name of every other political leader on Merseyside. So I am not antagonistic to the concept of urban development corporations—not in the least.
But this has ceased to be—and I would not have said this before today—merely a regeneration of London docklands. This has now become something extra, something much bigger. Let me tell your Lordships why I thought some words should be said about this Bill. I have no need now to go into the magnitude of the task that the London Docklands Development Corporation have set their hands to. Let me pose some problems. I apologise for any delay that has been occasioned to the following Bill. It seems that if I had not opened my mouth last week, this would have gone through on the nod—with all those proposals!
It is said that this is merely an extension of a line to link the City of London. Has anybody asked the question, why? The London Docklands Development Corporation do not ask that question. When I went on the visit there I asked a senior officer of the development corporation, "Who do you have on the staff who studies these proposals, such as Canary Wharf, to see what consequential effect it has upon the rest of London?" The answer was a shrug of the shoulders; they had nobody.
The Bill—and it is a bit misleading—uses the word "corporation". That could be taken to mean either the London Docklands Development Corporation or London Regional Transport; they are the people responsible for the Bill. The Bill says:
"of the said corporation that the works authorised and the powers conferred by this Act will advance the securing of such regeneration".
If London docklands is to be regenerated, it can be regenerated only within the context of the South-East and within the context of London. If any excessive provision for anything in the London docklands area is made to the detriment of other parts of London, that is not regeneration; that could have the opposite effect.
Who are the people who are going to travel on the extension? the New Civil Engineer—and, as I say, it is difficult to get information from the corporation itself—talks about 2,000 commuters an hour at peak daily times from the City of London east to the docklands area. I repeat: 2,000 commuters per hour east from the City of London. I always thought that a commuter was a person who left home, commuted a considerable distance to his workplace, and then journeyed back again. Is it suggested that the home site is in the City of London? There are not enough people living in the City of London to people the offices which are already there. So why does the commuter movement come from the City of London?
It poses another question. If the numbers of staff are to be accommodated in offices in the Canary Wharf development, where will they come from? And how long will it be before the pressures generated by the provision of those jobs in London's docklands lead to an intensification of the demand for new towns in the green belt around London? If that happens, it will not be regeneration.
Lord Mellish: My Lords, I am finding the noble Lord's argument very intriguing. First of all, as far as
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I can understand what he is saying, the regeneration of docklands has gone on too quickly and it is too big. If I may say so, that is a criticism that I never dreamt I would ever hear. That is the first point.
Secondly, the noble Lord asked where these people were coming from. As we have already heard from the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, it is expected that 57,000 will be new jobs. I repeat: 57,000. And there can be no doubt that there will be a great deal of interlinking between the City on the one hand and the Canary Wharf scheme on the other hand. Obviously there will have to be a network of transport in order that both sides can meet. This is not anti-City; this is a partner-ship with the City. Surely it is right and proper that facilities should be provided for people to do their proper job, call them what you like.
Lord Sefton of Garston: My Lords, I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Mellish, has difficulty in understanding what I am saying, but I should not have thought that many people shared that difficulty in this House. Let me first of all say that I have not said that this regeneration, so called, is too big. I have merely said that in my opinion there are grounds for belief that the regeneration is of the wrong kind. It could well be that the proper regeneration for London docklands would be to solve the housing problem that exists in the South-East and in London, and thereby in one fell swoop also solve the problem of the commuting periods in the present City of London. That may be an answer. Of course the noble Lord, Lord Mellish, does not agree that that is an answer, but I do not expect him to agree. The only time he has ever visited Merseyside is once in about 20 years, so he is very biased towards the City of London.
Lord Mellish: No, my Lords.
Lord Sefton of Garston: My Lords, I did not want to introduce that note, but it is a factor; and in listening to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, one could almost detect the belief that London is the most important place.
A noble Lord: Hear, hear!
Lord Sefton of Garston: My Lords, it might be right: I do not know. We talk of 25,000 passengers at peak time. What will be the consequences of that upon the travelling public in the City of London? Certainly we shall not get to the situation where either London Regional Transport or the London Docklands Development Corporation or anyone else will in fact study the consequences of these proposals upon the rest of the South-East of England and upon London.
One cannot discuss the regeneration of London's docklands, as I have just intimated to the noble Lord, Lord Mellish, without discussing housing problems in London. What a farcical situation we have when there are people in the United Kingdom talking even about moving into London the ships that were used as hotels in the Falklands in order to house London's homeless. That is the situation. How did we arrive at that situation? The noble Lord, Lord Mellish, intervened and said that this is going to be a partnership between the City and Canary Wharf; but is it?
Lord Mellish: Yes, my Lords.
Lord Sefton of Garston: My Lords, will financial institutions really continue along the lines that part of their operations shall be in the City of London and part shall be on Canary Wharf? Is that what we are being told? I do not believe that is credible. I believe that in time pressure will be brought to bear from those people that they should be sited in one place so that they can carry out their duties more efficiently.
What will happen then if they decide to concentrate on Canary Wharf? What threat will that be to the City of London? You cannot possibly talk about the kind of massive development that has been proposed for the City of London and which has been outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, without talking of the consequences over a very wide area indeed. Will London Regional Transport give some consideration to the effect their proposals will have on the rest of London? Of course they will not.
The noble Lord, Lord Mellish, keeps muttering away and says "They have done that". But London Regional Transport do not even consider the question of one-man operated buses when they are talking about the congestion in London which is caused by them. London Regional Transport do not even consider it worthy of note that the waiting time for buses has already increased during the first year that they have been in control. They do not seem to care, and I do not wonder at it because the Government have placed upon them the responsibility of making a profit. It is a great tragedy that the Greater London Council has ceased to exist, because that was the only organisation that was prepared to look at London-wide problems and the relationship between transport operation and the rest of the county area.
I referred to the fact that it has been a very traumatic experience. I did not want to make a long speech about this problem because, if I did, I would start going into the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, about the rest of the country and the effect this will have on the rest of the country. I merely wanted to keep to the Instruction printed on the Order Paper, which suggests that we ask the Committee to,
"have regard to the consequences of the proposals contained in the Bill on the rest of the South East Region and in particular on the City of London".
I should have preferred to speak last, because I did not want to reply in a debate about the general situation of the proposals of the London Docklands Development Corporation, because of course I would know that such a subject is so big that we could spend the rest of the day debating its consequential effect. All I wanted to do was to see whether or not there was opposition to the Instruction; but I am quite content that, if the Instruction is accepted, the Committee will have a look at this problem and then come back with a report. We could then perhaps debate the report.
I do not know whether anybody has read today's Daily Telegraph, in which the London Docklands Development Corporation's report seems to boast that London's land values have increased five times, with all the consequential effects on housing prices. I do not know whether anybody has considered the Halifax Building Society's report, which said that perhaps the only possible way to get house prices in London back
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to a normal state of affairs was to talk about decentralisation, and not the further creation of more and more jobs in a city already overprovided with jobs. Noble Lords may have read, also in the Daily Telegraph today, the comments of the Reverend Jim Kennedy, who said that he did not think the London Docklands Development Corporation was contributing to a regeneration, when in his area, covered by the London Docklands Development Corporation, the cost of a one-bedroom flat was now standing at £109,000.
Lord Mellish: Rubbish!
Lord Sefton of Garston: My Lords, of late years the noble Lord, Lord Mellish, seems to have become an expert on what he has just shouted out. Some of the stuff I have heard from him in the past few months has been worse than rubbish. Furthermore, it reveals a complete inability to have an open mind and to see what is happening and be prepared to admit that perhaps the London Docklands Development Corporation, of which he was the deputy chairman, has gone too far in one direction.
I make this statement against the background of a loss of 2,500 jobs in Weybridge. This does not concern anybody in Weybridge. Again, the Daily Telegraph this morning says that 2,500 jobs is no problem. Provided anybody can afford to live in Weybridge, they will get a job. Already employers have rung British Aerospace, wanting to take on their employees who are being sacked. There is no unemployment problem, and to create another 80,000 jobs is a step that should not be taken lightly—certainly not on the basis that the Government created the London Docklands Development Corporation to regenerate the docklands and then left them to it. Reasons should be given for doing these things.
People talk about unemployment in the South-East. It is only two weeeks ago that we heard that a newspaper advertisement and publicity for eight jobs in the south attracted 400 applicants, not from the south where these unemployed people are supposed to be, but from the north, and in the end eight people who volunteered to come all the way down south for a job were interviewed by the persons concerned. These are all underlying—
The Earl of Halsbury: Will the noble Lord give way? May I point out to the noble Lord that he has taken longer to move the Instruction to the Committee than my noble friend took to move the Second Reading of the Bill? Would it be possible for us to get on with our business?
Lord Sefton of Garston: My Lords, I am fully aware that I am one minute over the time of the mover of the Second Reading of the Bill. He also has a right of reply, and I hope that he will be able to answer some of the questions that I have posed. However, I am also aware of the fact that people who are oriented towards London cannot be bothered to speak about the problems that affect the rest of the country and that whenever anyone spends 18 minutes talking about those kinds of problems and the real problems that stem from the over-capitalisation of the South-East, those people get impatient and want the speaker to

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stop. Well. I am sorry, but, if these people have a conscience, I am prepared to torment them with it because there should be a conscience about what is happening in the South-East.
As I said before, the description given by the noble Lord. Lord Hacking, is a description not of regeneration but of the idea of creating a new capital in the South-East. I for one am not prepared to let it go without querying it and—
Lord Bellwin: My Lords—
Lord Sefton of Garston: No, I am not giving way, my Lords. I have just been told off for taking too long. I gave way to the noble Lord, Lord Mellish, who robbed me of two minutes, and I am not giving way to anybody else. If the noble Lord wants to contribute, let him put his name on the list and let us hear him. There is bags of time between the winding up and the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare. I wanted to put down my name to speak at that point but I was stopped because of the procedure of the House. If I had been allowed to put down my name at that point, the House would not have heard this speech. All your Lordships would have heard would have been an acceptance that the House was sensible enough to agree to this Instruction, and that, before we go any further helter-skelter into the problems that London docklands is putting in wait for us, at least we should have a look at this. I hope that the Committee will agree. I beg to move.
Moved. That it be an Instruction to the Committee to whom the Bill is committed that they have regard to the consequences of the proposals contained in the Bill on the rest of the South-East Region and in particular on the City of London.—(Lord Sefton of Garston.)
3.42 p.m.
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Aberdare): With the permission of the noble Earl, Lord Limerick, I shall intervene rather earlier than the point at which my name appears on the list of speakers in order to explain some of the procedural arrangements in regard to this private Bill in the hope that we might be able to abbreviate the discussion this afternoon.
I do not wish to give any opinion on the views that have been expressed about the merits of the Bill, but merely to express the hope that your Lordships will give it a Second Reading.
The fact of the matter is that, unlike the case of a public Bill, a Second Reading of a private Bill does not imply approval of its purposes, but it does allow the Bill to be referred to a Select Committee where a full investigation can be made of all the matters that have been raised by the noble Lord, Lord Sefton, among others. If your Lordships give the Bill a Second Reading, it will be referred to a Select Committee. There are 15 petitions against the Bill, and so the Select Committee will be hearing a wide variety of objection to it. I assure the House that these petitions cover a wide spectrum and will be closely investigated by the Select Committee.
As to the Instruction which has been moved by the noble Lord, Lord Sefton, I suggest that your Lordships should accept it and allow it to go to the Select
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Committee. The Select Committee will then be able to go into it fully. There is no objection to it in procedural terms. The Select Committee will make a special report to the House on its consideration of the Bill, on its consideration of the petitions of the Bill and on the Instruction, and it can then come back to the House and be considered on Third Reading.
Therefore, I very much hope that the debate can be somewhat shortened. We have listened with interest to what the noble Lord, Lord Sefton, has said. I suggest that it is far more appropriate that this is referred to a Select Committee where the whole matter can be fully gone into.
Lord Geddes: My Lords, may I ask for a point of clarification. If the Instruction is accepted, will it in any way delay the ultimate passing of the Bill, assuming that the Committee came back with a favourable recommendation?
Lord Aberdare: No my Lords; the Committee would have to go into the particular matter contained in the Instruction as well as the petitions, and it would then have to come back to the House. What the House does on Second Reading of the Bill is up to your Lordships, but there should be no unnecessary delay.
Lord Mellish: My Lords, would the noble Lord not agree that the best way to deal with this is for the Select Committee to get on with its job as quickly as possible and report back to the House as quickly as possible?
Lord Aberdare: My Lords, that is what I was trying to say, but the noble Lord expressed it rather better.
3.45 p.m.
The Earl of Limerick: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, has moved the Second Reading with his customary clarity and command of the subject, for which we are grateful. I rise to speak in support of the Bill. I have two messages. One is that many of these matters about which comments have been made this afternoon are for examination in the Select Committee. The second is that short speeches should be the order of the day. I wish, therefore, feeling myself like Roman Gaul to be divided in looking at the subject in three parts, to make some brief comments from these three points of view. The first is the City commercial, the second is the City corporate, and the third is the City property holder.
The City commercial I see from the point of view of the British Invisible Exports Council and of an international bank. The standard of life in this country depends upon our success in the invisible trades. I have cited figures in the House quite recently on that and do not feel called upon to do so again. I will give only one figure; namely, that the net surplus in the tradeable sector for 1984 was £7·5 billion—40 per cent. higher than the previous year—and all the indications are that this figure is still growing. It is obviously important that it shall grow yet further. For this purpose we need more space for the development of financial services, and the developers of this project have made it clear that they are not willing to proceed with it unless there is a railway to provide the level of communications that is required.

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What is the relevance of the Canary Wharf project? It will provide 10 million square feet of office space on 71 acres. That is a contribution towards the extra 30 million square feet needed for an estimated additional 200,000 jobs in the service sector which can in no way be provided in the City of London. The noble Lord, Lord Hacking, referred to the 49,000 new jobs expected to be generated, of which 21,000 will be for local residents. Those, of course, are within the 200,000 total estimated extra jobs.
The point that I think should be made in comment on the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Sefton, is that this project is not in any sense in competition with something else that might happen. Either it is going to happen or it is not. If it does not happen, we shall be denying ourselves the opportunity to provide the space that is required by those who are going to provide jobs and income for this country through the expansion of financial services. I can speak at length about that, but I will not.
How do people get there? They do not get there by walking from the north. They do not, except in very small numbers, get there by walking through the Greenwich foot tunnel; and they do not arrive by rowing-boat; they arrive by public transport. They arrive through the existing public transport scheme as it is going to be improved by the proposals in the Bill. It is expected that this railway will bring 80 per cent. of the commuters into docklands.
For that to happen there must be the procedures in this enabling Bill, and therefore I suggest that we should not risk any delay in those procedures by going into matters that are germane to this project. So much for the City corporate.
For the City civic, I should like to say very briefly that the position of the City of London, the Corporation, has been somewhat misrepresented in these discussions, and in the publicity attending them; and I have informed myself in detail on that position. The Corporation of the City of London has been represented as being opposed to the Canary Wharf scheme and docklands. That is not so. The corporation has consistently supported the regeneration of docklands, and indeed moved the Billingsgate fish market there at the beginning of this decade.
The Corporation has a public duty to look at the railway extension proposals not only on behalf of its ratepayers, but also on behalf of those hundreds of thousands who work in the City. Of course, as the noble Lord, Lord Sefton, knows very well, the population of the City of London is only 5,000 people. Everybody who works in the City is a commuter. The point of the transport extension scheme is that it will link in with existing transport extensions to enable people to get there other than by walking. The present Bill was introduced to make up for the strategic shortcomings of the existing docklands railway scheme and will, of course, ultimately be capable of extension to the Royal Docks, to the STOLPORT and to the regeneration area in the Royal Docks. However, and regrettably, there was no consultation with the City of London until the plans were finalised and that gave rise to the objection and to a good deal of misunderstanding.
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It was on the basis of the technical advice given by its experts that the Corporation was obliged to take the view that the scheme terminus under King William Street should be opposed on two grounds: first, that it was unsafe; and, secondly, that strategically it was in the wrong place. On first seeing the plans for the new terminus, the consulting engineers immediately expressed their concern about the safety of the proposal and the matter was the subject of a lot of professional consultation and advice. It is now to be hoped that the lengthy analysis of the engineering difficulties in the building under the Northern Line, and the significant changes made by the promoters, will lead to a safer docklands light railway running tunnels and station under King William Street.
Fourthly, the arguments put by the City Corporation were sufficiently meritorious for the matter to be put formally to the Opposed Bill Committee and after six days that committee rejected the Corporation's arguments by a majority. They may have been influenced in coming to that conclusion—it is not for me to say—by the closing speech for the promoters, when counsel said that if the Bill was not passed for the station at King William Street, London Regional Transport would withdraw the Bill.
Therefore, the position of the City Corporation is this. It has now formally and openly accepted the position of the Commons Committee and has announced that it will not be opposing the Bill further on these fundamental grounds. However, like other City institutions—it is one of 15 petitioners in the House of Lords—its petition has been lodged to enable the necessary negotiations to be concluded, to obtain the protection required for its highways and buildings and those who use them during the building of this new Underground railway in the City with its very congested environment. The petition is neither intended nor expected to delay the passage of this Bill.
Finally, the Corporation of London hopes that in due course further discussions can take place on its own constructive proposals for the "Greater Bank" option at Cannon Street. This follows the full feasibility studies undertaken by the consulting engineers for the extension to, and the terminus at, Cannon Street to make the integration of this railway more effective with the existing London Transport system. That is the position of the Corporation of the City of London and I thought it well that it should be on record.
I should like to make one last comment from the point of view of the City property owners. In that capacity—as a trustee of a charitable foundation—we were party to an objection at an earlier stage in another place concerned with the rights of property owners who might be time-expired for claiming compensation for developments in relation to the construction of the tunnel, and the inhibition that might be placed on them for their future developments. This is a technical matter and is best left to the Select Committee. I therefore have no hesitation at all in commending the rapid passage of this Bill through your Lordships' House.
3.55 p.m.
Lord Mulley: My Lords, I can be very brief, but I think it right to indicate support for the Bill on two

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grounds. First, together with other Members of your Lordships' House and Members of another place, I went on a parliamentary visit to Canary Wharf and saw it and its related developments. We were all very much impressed. But as the noble Lord. Lord Hacking, has already said, the Bill is not concerned with whether or not those developments should take place. The necessary approvals have already been given. Equally, the statutory approval for the railway has already been given and in both cases the construction is well advanced. This Bill is concerned only with an extension, because, quite clearly, if it is going to be a viable addition to the City, it is essential that there should be good transport from this development to the City of London.
Whether or not one likes what is happening in the City of London, it is going to happen and there will be a demand for extra space with which the limited scope in the City itself cannot possibly cope; and, of course, it is much better and will be much better to do it by railway, rather than by congested roads. Therefore, as a matter of principle, for what I think is the only major city in the world which has neglected its traffic development since the last war, it is very necessary that this should be a railway development.
My only other point has already been dealt with at great length and very ably and clearly by the Chairman of Committees, Lord Aberdare. I think it would be quite wrong, apart from the consideration that this Bill has passed another place, to vote or argue against the Second Reading of a Private Bill. That is a view I took for many years in the other place. I think that the promoters of any Private Bill are entitled to go to a Select Committee where they have to prove their case and where all the people who object have the opportunity of being heard. For these reasons, I hope very much that the Bill will pass.
I do not object to the Instruction, although from my point of view I would willingly have rejected that, too, because I think it is bound to take longer. In fact to do the job properly, as the noble Lord, Lord Sefton, has indicated, would not be a job for a committee on the narrow point of whether or not the railway should be extended. It would involve something like a Royal Commission to do a real study of the problems of the South-East and of the City of London. But I hope that the Bill will quickly go through.
3.57 p.m.
Lord Auckland: My Lords, the very helpful observations of the Chairman of Committees have enabled speeches to be much briefer than usual. I intervene for two reasons. First, I declare a non-financial interest in that I am the non-executive director of a small civil engineering company which will benefit by the construction of this light railway because it is in that area. Secondly, I believe there is a need for more organisations to move out of the City of London. Like the noble Lord, Lord Mulley, I have been very quickly round this area and it is very impressive to see the excellent way in which construction has gone so far. The light railway itself will of course be absolutely essential because the only transport at the moment is through a very antiquated railway system to places like Shadwell, Wapping, and
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so on, where the trains run very infrequently and can get very crowded. So for that reason alone, I believe that this light railway is needed.
Mention has been made of the terminus in King William Street. As one who uses that entrance to the Bank station fairly frequently, I think there is some concern about the safety problem here; but that is a matter for the Select Committee to look into. With those few words, and hoping that the Select Committee will study all these matters very carefully, I support the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, in his very clear moving of this Bill.
4 p.m.
Lord Geddes: My Lords, we are indeed indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, for the very able and technically detailed way in which he introduced this Bill. I am also conscious of the request (should I say?) from the noble Lord. Lord Aberdare, to keep the length of speeches to a minimum. I have therefore reduced mine to about 25 per cent. of its former length. Dredging up my almost non-existent knowledge of the Latin language, I recall that if you start a question with the word "non-ne" it assumes the answer "yes". I start this question not in Latin but with the word "non-ne".
Is it not to the advantage of the United Kingdom that the City of London should want not only to continue as the premier financial city of Europe but to expand in that role? Having already declared that I am assuming the answer "yes" to that question, it would seem to me quite extraordinary to forego the offer, if that is the right word, of a development at Canary Wharf as colossal as the one that the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, has outlined, and a very substantial contribution to the cost of the LDR extension; because that is effectively what would happen if a Second Reading was not given to the Bill.
I have worked in or about the City of London for a quarter of a century or more. Each year the pace of business life and therefore the cost of time becomes greater. If I may put it as simply as possible, the difference as I see it between the terminus of this railway being at Tower Gate or at the Bank is almost certainly the difference between one meeting or two meetings. Equally important in the longer term is the most important prospect of a direct rail link between the centre of the City at the Bank and the STOLPORT in the Royal Docks.
Finally, I have personal experience of the disruption caused to a city by construction of an Underground railway. I happened to be living in Hong Kong during most of the construction phase of the mass transit railway and I was a frequent visitor to Seoul in the Republic of Korea during that city's construction of an underground railway system. Let us not pretend that it does not cause inconvenience. In both cities there was inconvenience both to pedestrians and to vehicular traffic, but it was certainly not disastrous. The end result, certainly for Hong Kong, has transformed life, particularly for the travelling public. One thing is for sure: if a job is there to be done it must surely be done to the greatest effect, which in this context must mean a terminus—an interchange—at the Bank. I wholeheartedly support the Bill.
4.3 p.m.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Lord the Chairman of Committees for enabling everyone to be extremely brief in their speeches. I intervene from this Dispatch Box in an individual capacity to support the Bill for a number of reasons. First, noble Lords will recall that I was a member of the Select Committee which led to the formation of the Docklands Corporation. This is part of the development of that work. Without the light railway the full development of the Docklands Corporation could not have taken place.
Secondly, this will affect areas outside docklands. Here I must declare an interest, because I live at Buckhurst Hill in Essex. There will be a connection at Stratford, which is on the Central Line, into the docklands area itself, and, if the Bill is approved, through to the Bank. I believe that all the matters that have been raised by my noble friend Lord Sefton can be dealt with at the Select Committee. If the scheme at Canary Wharf is desirable then the extension must take place. An extension right into the City from where I live would be of great benefit as the people would not have to travel by the various routes they use now.
I hope that the Committee will look very carefuly at these directions. My noble friend Lord Sefton was right to raise them. The scheme affects the South-East and Greater London, but I believe the committee can look into that. I hope that the Bill will have a Second Reading and that we shall have the report from the committee fairly soon.
4.5 p.m.
Lord Hacking: My Lords, after your Lordships' House has laboured so hard and for so long over many long and complex Public Bills, it is not surprising that on the second to last day before the end of term your Lordships should show a certain impatience. Therefore I think the most appropriate course for me to take is to suggest that we adopt the advice of the Lord Chairman and send this Bill as swiftly as possible to the Select Committee.
I believe it was important to have this Second Reading debate. I believe it was important that the noble Lord, Lord Sefton, raised many of the points that he did. But the noble Lord having raised those points, I would suggest to your Lordships that the best course is for the Select Committee to give them consideration. Indeed, as the person who has introduced the Second Reading of this Bill I have no difficulty with the Instruction that has been suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Sefton. It would seem, indeed, to cover the matters that, in any event, the Select Committee would take into account when considering the Bill.
Perhaps, therefore, I may give advance notice and I shall have no objection—if that is any influence on your Lordships' House, although it may not be—to the Instruction being given to the Select Committee as drafted by the noble Lord, Lord Sefton. Therefore it falls on me to thank all noble Lords, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Sefton, for their contributions to the
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debate. This is an important Private Bill for reasons that I tried to explain to your Lordships in my opening words. We have now discussed it, and I beg to move.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Select Committee.
The Deputy Speaker (The Earl of Listowel): My Lords, does the noble Lord, Lord Sefton of Garston, wish to move his Instruction?
Lord Sefton of Garston: My Lords, I am advised that I should now move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. Before doing so, I think I should apologise to the House because of the unnecessary length of the debate that has taken place. Wait until you hear the reason for it! It would not have been that long if I had had my wish to speak at the end of the debate. It was not my wish to speak at the beginning, but having been compelled to speak at the beginning I thought I should put all the points that I wanted the Committee to consider in case anybody opposed the Motion. However, as nobody has opposed the Instruction I have great pleasure in moving the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. I beg to move.
Moved, That it be an Instruction to the Committee to whom the Bill is committed that they have regard to the consequences of the proposals contained in the Bill on the rest of the South-East Region and in particular on the City of London.—(Lord Sefton of Garston.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Housing and Planning Bill
4.8 p.m.
Lord Elton:My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
The Bill is designed to achieve a limited number of simple purposes within existing government policy. I shall in a moment describe them to your Lordships in the order in which they appear in the Bill. But before I do so I should like to reassure your Lordships that the Bill is not as long as it seems. That is because where it proceeds by amending existing legislation it does so where possible and appropriate by deleting the whole of the section to be altered and reproducing the whole of it in its amended form. This should make for easier work in this Chamber and easier comprehension by practitioners under the resultant law.
Part I of the Bill deals with housing. The Government are firmly committed to the encouragement of owner-occupation and to promoting it by means of the tenant's right to buy. Following the Housing Act 1980 and the Housing and Building Control Act 1984, sales to sitting tenants are running at about 100,000 a year and already total nearly 1 million altogether. Very few of the buyers, however, are people who live in flats. They make up only 4 per cent. of the total. This suggests that the terms of the scheme, and the way it is run, ought to be changed for their benefit.
Clause 1 accordingly increases the maximum discount available to tenants of flats from 60 per cent. to 70 per cent. after 15 years tenancy. This is the third time in six years that we have had occasion to use primary legislation to vary those percentages, and at a

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later stage we shall therefore be asking your Lordships to approve a simpler means of making such alterations should that prove necessary. The clause also reduces from five years to three years the period during which the purchaser of a dwelling under the scheme who sells it is liable to repay a proportion of the discount.
Of those people who have already bought flats under the scheme, a number have later been surprised by the extent of the service charges that they have later had to pay. Clause 2 therefore provides that the landlord will in future be required to give to a tenant who proposes to exercise his right to buy an estimate of service charges in respect of repair costs incurred in, broadly speaking, the first five years of the lease. The estimates will be binding apart from an allowance for inflation. The clause also limits the contributions that leaseholders of flats may, under their leases, be required to pay towards the costs of improvements. We shall ask your Lordships to amend the clause in Committee to make those provisions easier to operate in practice.
Clause 3 empowers the Secretary of State to make regulations giving the tenant of a flat, who has exercised the right to buy, the right also, in prescribed circumstances, to a loan in respect of service charges for repairs during the first 10 years of the lease. Regulations may also be made empowering certain public sector landlords to make such a loan in cases where the right to it does not arise.
However many public sector tenants we enable to buy the houses in which they live, a great many people will still need to rent their accommodation. The experience of thousands of them who are already tenants of local authorities has shown that some local authorities are appallingly bad landlords. Where such an authority is prepared to dispose of its tenanted housing to another landlord that can, therefore, bring benefits to the tenants. But such sales should not deprive those tenants of the right to buy and the associated right to a mortgage. Until now, rather complex legal agreements have been needed to achieve that. Clause 4 and Schedule 1 do away with that complexity but specifically preserve those rights. They preserve also the requirement that it must have the Secretary of State's consent for that purpose.
Many housing estates desperately need renovation and modernisation. That is often impossible while the tenants are in the building. Clause 5 will now enable a public sector landlord to seek possession where it is intended to dispose of the property to the private sector in connection with a specific renovation or modernisation scheme. The tenants are protected by two conditions. First, the Secretary of State must approve the scheme. Before he does so, he must take into account the views of tenants and the scope for them, or for those on the waiting list, to buy or rent the housing. The second condition is that suitable alternative accommodation must be provided. Where both those requirements are met and the scheme goes ahead, Clause 5 will allow home loss payments to be made to eligible tenants.
One way for a local authority to achieve more responsive local housing management is to delegate it. At present local authorities can delegate their housing management functions only to a tenant management
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co-operative and to no one else. Clause 6 enables them to delegate those functions to any body or person by means of a management agreement. Both the body and the terms of the agreement will have to be approved by the Secretary of State, and tenants will remain local authority secure tenants with all their existing statutory rights. The authority will delegate its powers but not its responsibility. It will remain legally, politically and financially accountable for the actions of its agent. One of the amendments we intend to bring forward at Committee will, if your Lordships agree to it, give tenants the right to be consulted individually on any such proposals.
Delegation can transform over-centralised or unresponsive management, but it relies on the local authority taking the initiative. Clause 7 provides tenants with a say in the future of their housing. It requires local housing authorities to consider proposals from a qualifying tenants group either for a management co-operative or for the disposal of the properties to the tenants group. It requires the authority to give a reasoned response to those proposals within six months. That will put co-operatives on the political agenda and give the Government a clearer idea of the extent of any frustrated demand for management or ownership co-operatives.
Clauses 8 and 9 deal with the assured tenancy scheme, which allows bodies approved by the Secretary of State to let newly-built dwellings outside Rent Act controls. Although market rate rents may be charged, the tenant retains a measure of security. The limitation of the scheme to new dwellings has reduced its impact, and Clause 8 extends it to existing dwellings that have been substantially improved or repaired, or have been converted at a cost greater than a prescribed amount. Those dwellings must meet a basic standard of fitness and must also have been empty when the works were carried out.
Clause 10 provides for a new type of home improvement grant available towards the cost of works required for the improvement and repair of the common parts of a building containing flats. The detailed provisions are in Schedules 2 and 3 of the Bill. Your Lordships will recognise that some provisions in that part of the Bill will encourage new forms of housing management. It is likely, especially where tenants themselves are involved, that they may need some specific training initiative and that financial support may be needed to get them off the ground. That is provided for in Clause 11.
Clause 12 and Schedule 3 make minor and consequential amendments to housing legislation. We propose at a later stage to introduce to that part of the Bill a provision facilitating the transfer of new town housing stock to a permanent owner other than a local authority. We have particularly in mind housing associations and private sector trusts. At Committee stage I shall ask your Lordships to add provisions to promote shared ownership, which is one route by which the private sector can help to widen housing choice. I shall also ask your Lordships to make provision to allow registered housing associations to provide agency services in connection with the repair and maintenance of homes.

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I now turn to the planning provisions in the Bill. Many of your Lordships have emphasised to me the slowness and the expense of planning procedures. They provide a necessary protection and we have already done much to accelerate them, especially in contested cases; but they are still too slow and we have already seen that where they can with safety be curtailed, economic benefit follows. It is for such cases that we make formal provision, in Part II of the Bill, by means of simplified planning zones. In those zones a scheme will specify the types of development that can be carried out, without the need either to apply for individual planning permission or for the payment of fees. It will be made by the local planning authority and the details will be subject to consultation and, normally, a public local inquiry.
The main provisions are in Clause 13, which introduces three new sections and a new schedule to the Town and Country Planning Act 1971. Those provisions place a duty on local planning authorities in England and Wales to consider the need for simplified planning zones in their areas, and provide the powers necessary to establish and alter them. There are equivalent provisions for Scotland in Clause 14; Schedule 4 sets out detailed procedures.
SPZ schemes will last 10 years, thus giving developers a considerable degree of certainty and freedom of action within the terms of the scheme. They can vary in size and content to suit the area in question. They will be particularly appropriate in run-down urban areas needing a stimulus to renewal; but they will also be useful elsewhere. The Bill contains a power for the Secretary of State to direct a planning authority to prepare a simplified planning zone scheme. That power will be available if, and only if, a planning authority has failed to do so at the request of someone else. It is intended for use where an area quite clearly has development potential and the authority's refusal is without good reason. It would still be for the authority to prepare the detailed proposals for the scheme; the requirements relating to public consultation and public inquiries would still apply.
I know that your Lordships are very anxious that the protection of normal planning procedures shall not be lost where they are most needed. Section 24C(1), added in another place, prevents simplified planning zones from being established in national parks, areas of outstanding natural beauty, national scenic areas, conservation areas, sites of special scientific interest, or a green belt. Under that clause the Secretary of State also has power by order to prevent particular areas or types of development from being subject to SPZ provisions.
In Committee we shall ask your Lordships to agree to amendments to enable local planning authorities to serve completion notices to ensure that development that has been started but not finished when a SPZ scheme expires is finished within a reasonable time, and to make the same provision for enterprise zones. Another amendment will prevent authorities from reversing the intended effect of these zones by imposing restrictions detracting from the freedoms of the general development and use classes orders.
Your Lordships are, I am certain, well aware of the formidable problems with which the retreat of
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traditional industries faces us in our cities. In departing they leave behind not only unemployment but also the debris of outmoded production. Abandoned works, like abandoned workings, are not only an eyesore; they obstruct development and new employment. Part III of the Bill adds to our armoury for dealing with this. It confers on the Secretary of State a widely drawn enabling power to give financial assistance towards urban regeneration. The text of Part III needs little by way of explanation. It is self-contained and provides well precedented flexible powers. Our immediate intention is to use them to establish a new urban regeneration grant. We want the private sector to tackle comprehensively the great swathes of land left derelict in the role of industrial decline and to bring them back into use. To start with up to £20 million will be available for this purpose.
Part IV of the Bill is concerned with hazardous substances. Its purpose is to ensure that land may be used for a purpose involving the presence of a significant quantity of any of those substances only after both the safety implications and the wider implications for the community have been considered by the responsible authorities. The provisions proposed arise from recommendations made by the Advisory Committee on Major Hazards which was set up by the Health and Safety Commission following the Flixborough disaster. At present the Health and Safety Executive assesses the risks but it does not control the location of such installations. In 1984 the advisory committee recommended that the planning system should be used as the means of controlling location. This followed from its view that, while it is the function of HSE to keep to a minimum the risks entailed by any proposals to use hazardous substances at a particular site, the decision whether those risks are acceptable at that site should be taken by a local authority. At present it is possible within the existing planning permission to introduce a hazardous substance onto land.
Part IV of the Bill, therefore, provides by additions to the Town and Country Planning Act 1971 that such a use of land requires "hazardous substances consent" from the planning authority. It will be administered in parallel with normal planning control, and where both planning permission and hazardous substances consent are required the two applications will normally be handled together. Clause 18 provides that the local planning authority which deals with planning applications for any land will also be the hazardous substances authority. The detailed provisions are in Clause 19, which introduces 12 new sections into the Town and Country Planning Act 1971. I particularly draw your Lordships' attention to the new Section 58A on page 35, which sets out the scope of new control and defines its limits.
Consent will be needed when any one of a list of specified substances is present on land in a quantity greater than the "controlled quantity". Both the substances and their controlled quantities will be specified in regulations. We intend to specify the kind of substance which is highly toxic, reactive or flammable and which, in an accident, could seriously affect areas surrounding the land on which it is kept. The Government will look to the Health and Safety Commission for professional advice on precisely

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which substances to specify. I understand that the starting point for their consideration is likely to be the list of substances and quantities contained in the 1982 notification regulations.
Where there are effective controls already in existence we do not intend that this Bill shall either duplicate or replace them. Our intention is simply to deal with hazardous substances that are not otherwise controlled. The consent procedure will not, therefore, be applied to explosives, because the keeping of explosives already requires a licence from the HSE under the Explosives Act 1875. Equally the keeping and use of radioactive substances and the disposal of radioactive waste are already strictly controlled under the Radioactive Substances Act 1960, which need not be duplicated here. For those reasons we intend to make regulations to exempt waste substances as defined in both the Control of Pollution Act 1974 and the Radioactive Substances Act 1960 from control under this Bill.
Clause 20 of the Bill provides for the service of contravention notices. There will be a right of appeal and a power for the local planning authority and the Secretary of State to apply a stop notice. Clauses 21 and 25, together with Schedule 5, deal with consequential amendments to other legislation.
Clause 22 contains transitional provisions designed to ensure that existing lawful uses of hazardous substances can continue unless specific action is taken to discontinue them. If such action is taken, compensation will be payable. The CBI is concerned that the detailed provisions of this clause do not provide adequate flexibility for existing users; we hope to be able to meet its concern at Committee stage. The CBI also expressed concern that the new Section 58C, in Clause 19, would give a local authority responsibilities beyond that authority's expertise. Again, we intend to deal with this point at Committee stage when we will also put down amendments making special provision for ports and harbours and for public gas suppliers.
Clauses 23 to 26 make equivalent provisions for hazardous substances control in Scotland. Your Lordships will not wish me repeat it all.
Part V of the Bill deals with opencast coal. The provisions in Clause 27 and Schedule 6 amend the Opencast Coal Act 1958 to complete the transitional arrangements for bringing opencast coal working under planning control, which are set out in Circular 3/84. They also remove an unnecessary duplication of consent by repealing Sections 1 and 2 of the 1985 Act. Consequential amendments to other provisions of the Opencast Coal Act are set out in Schedule 6.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, before the noble Lord leaves Part V, can he indicate what impact he thinks these provisions will have on the future level of opencast coal mining?
Lord Elton: My Lords, if I may, I should prefer to reflect on the noble Lord's question as I depart one minute late from platform five and give him an answer in the wind-up speech.
Arriving at Part VI and Clause 28,I should say that this clause is, in effect, an index to the amendments
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concerning listed buildings and conservation areas found in Part I of Schedule 7.
Paragraph 1 of the schedule, on page 134, deals with an anomaly. At present if you want to put up a new building within the curtilage of a listed building, you can do so without listed building consent. But if you want to knock it down again, you have to get listed building consent. The paragraph removes that necessity if the new building was put up later than 1st July 1948.
Your Lordships will, I think, be more interested in paragraph 9. The background to it is that although the Secretary of State is empowered, under the existing Act, to make directions as to which planning applications local authorities do not have to refer to him, the Act specifically prevents him so directing when it comes to applications for consent to demolish a listed building. I should make it clear that demolition, in this context, does not mean only knocking down the whole of a building, but also knocking down any part of it. Even if you want to knock down a small part, such as the top of a chimney entirely out of public view, the local authority must forward your application to the Secretary of State; it cannot decide straight away itself. The result is that no less than 2,057 applications came to us last year, and only 34 of them proved substantial enough for us actually to call them in for the Secretary of State's decision. As relisting proceeds the number of applications is certain to increase further and the delays and expense of the procedures will increase with it. Our proposal is to delegate decisions on applications only for partial demolition of only unstarred Grade II listed buildings and only to local authorities of the Secretary of State's own choice. In Committee I shall also undertake, if your Lordships agree, that he will not do so at all without first consulting English Heritage—the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England.
Much of the remainder of the Bill is made up of more than 20 detailed amendments to planning legislation designed to simplify and improve procedures. In legislative terms they are relatively minor, but they have a useful contribution to make toward achieving policies relating to speed, efficiency and simplification, as set out in our White Papers Lifting the Burden and Building Business Not Barriers. I shall not detain your Lordships by going through each of them but I should mention that the amendments that I shall put down for the Committee stage will include a redraft of Clause 30 in order to make the provisions clearer and easier to understand.
With the exception of Part I the provisions of the Bill extend to Scotland as well as to England and Wales; but Clauses 36 to 38 relate specifically to Scotland. Clause 36 introduces amendments to listed buildings and conservation area legislation. These either bring Scottish legislation into line with that for England and Wales, or make amendments equivalent to those introduced by Clause 28. Clause 37 enables the Secretary of State for Scotland to give grants towards the cost of repairing buildings of architectural interest in town schemes. Clause 38 introduces a number of minor changes to the Scottish planning legislation. One or two of these are purely Scottish. In particular, a definition of national scenic areas is added to the Town and Country Planning (Scotland)

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Act 1972, and there are amendments to provisions for the enforcement of planning control in Scotland. When we come to the Committee stage the Government will be tabling an amendment covering the termination of certain specific planning grants in Scotland.
I realise that some of your Lordships will be anxious about your preparations for the Committee stage, given that, thankfully, the House is to rise tomorrow and will reassemble only shortly before we return to discuss the Bill. The Printed Paper Office will of course be open on working days throughout the Recess except. I should mention, on 26th August. However, I intend tomorrow to table most of the substantive government amendments relating to housing—that will be first on our agenda when we return—and indeed a fair proportion of the remainder of all our amendments. I also intend that if there are no unforeseen difficulties, we shall have tabled all our substantive and other amendments to the Bill by 27th September.
As one found in the Bill, the total volume of these amendments will seem a good deal larger than it actually is. This is, firstly, because every amendment to any part of the text to Parts II, IV and VI has to be reflected by a similar amendment for Scotland, though the principles are the same for each. Secondly, it is because in a couple of instances we are proposing to reprint the amended passages entirely rather than to deal with them piecemeal, which I think your Lordships will prefer. Thirdly, it is because in a technical Bill of this kind we are, inevitably, discovering that quite a number of small adjustments are needed to the drafting. In the main these do not alter the intended effect of the Bill, but they often bring a shoal of amendments in their wake. Of course, some of what we shall propose will be substantive, but I ask your Lordships not to be daunted or deceived by the volume.
The remainder of the Bill consists of formal provisions. I wish to draw attention only to Clause 40. [ should have said this before I launched into the passage exhorting your Lordships to be of good heart in the holidays, but as I did not do so, I shall say it now. It relates to the commencement. A number of provisions in the Bill cannot be brought into operation until regulations have been made, and we therefore propose to table an amendment at Committe stage to provide that the whole of the legislation, except for certain technical provisions, will be brought into operation by commencement order, so that we can commence as appropriate.
My necessarily rather dry summary of the Bill introduces a measure of some practical importance. It will increase the numbers of those who will buy their council flats. It will improve the management of many housing estates that z`are now run by local authorities. It will encourage shared ownership. It will provide a release from unnecessarily detailed planning controls where they are least necessary and most damaging; it will give a new impetus to urban regeneration; it will provide for better control of hazardous substances; and it will do much to improve other planning functions as well. It is a useful measure. I beg to move.
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord a question before he sits down? I understand that this Bill does not apply to Northern Ireland. I am rather surprised and should like to know why not?
Lord Elton: My Lords, as always, I prefer to answer questions at the end of the debate. No doubt the noble Lord does not wish to keep himself in anxious doubt for so long, and indeed he may have a train waiting. I think my answer is that the planning regulations in Northern Ireland are a good deal different from those in the rest of the United Kingdom; but really 1 should like to give him the right technical answer, which I can do only later.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Elton.)
4.35 p.m.
Baroness David: My Lords, I should like to thank the Minister for explaining this long Bill to us. and I have listened to the reasons he gave for its length. I should also like to thank him for telling us that we shall have the amendments in fairly good time, though I am a little daunted to hear that there will be so many of them. Even so, it is a long Bill. There are 42 clauses and 10 schedules.
However, I have to say that in spite of its length I think that this Bill is a gigantic irrelevance in face of the actual situation in the country today. Its provisions do nothing, literally nothing, to combat the crisis in housing which confronts us today—and "crisis" is not too strong a word. There are over 1 million households registered on local authority waiting lists and the numbers are growing. New house building in the public sector has fallen from 133,000 completions in 1975 to 33,000 in 1985. The condition of the housing stock, both public and private, continues to deteriorate. The DoE's own estimate is that £ 19 billion needs to be spent on the public sector, and the condition of the private sector is even worse, with an estimated £26.6 billion needed. There are 344,000 houses in multiple occupation and 53 per cent. of those are in unsatisfactory condition. The number of families who have been accepted as homeless by local authorities rose from 53,110 in 1978 to 93,980 in 1985. The DoE's own information bulletin Press Notice of 1 lth July reported local authorities as accepting responsibility for 25,230 households in the first quarter of 1986 compared with 23,590 in the last quarter of 1985. We all know the huge cost of bed and breakfast accommodation. The net cost after recovering money from families, housing benefit and so on, rose from £8 million in 1982–83 to £15 million in 1984–85—almost double. I wonder whether the Minister can give us a figure for 1985–86.
What a ridiculous waste of resources that expenditure represents! Those resources should be put into new building of houses and hostels. We have had two major reports in the last year, those of the Duke of Edinburgh and the Archbishop of Canterbury, but they seem to have made no impression on the thick hide of this Government.
In the light of all this, it is not surprising that even the Government seem to have shown no enthusiasm for this Bill. It must be shaming to have to produce it.

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It emerged from another place on 1 st May and now, three months later, at last we have a Second Reading, the date of which has been changed five times. Clearly it is the Bill that the Government were most prepared to lose and no doubt thought that they might have to lose, owing to the congested state of the parliamentary timetable. We on these Benches should not at all have minded it being lost, for not only does it fail to do anything to improve the housing situation; it does a certain amount to make it worse.
The Government are concerned that so few flats have been sold under the right to buy legislation. By making it easier to buy council flats—in fact almost giving them away—the local authorities' stock for renting will be further reduced. We cannot agree to the increased discount, nor to the acceleration of discount entitlement, nor to the proposed reduction in the discount pay-back period. Not only that; local authorities will be forced to carry future liabilities in respect of service charges and will also be forced to make loans to prospective purchasers.
Surely it is not unreasonable to expect prospective homeowners to carry out a proper survey before they purchase property and not expect the local authority to pick up the tab for future problems. Will the Government consider the possibility of giving local authorities a discretionary power to make a loan and not make it a mandatory duty? Presumably such loans would have to count against local authorities' increasingly scarce HIP resources. I wonder whether the Minister, when he comes to reply, will respond to that.
Our strongest objections are to Clause 5, which gives local authorities the legal right to remove tenants from their homes simply in order to sell the property to private developers. Those sales could be subsidised by central government through urban development grants. Local authorities have not asked for those powers; indeed, most would oppose them.
It is of course possible that a housing authority may want to rehabilitate a whole terrace of houses or block of flats. For that reason it is sensible to move a tenant temporarily and to give him the chance to return when the work is done. But there should always be consultation and negotiation. To be able to evict a secure tenant in order to sell to a private developer seems entirely wrong, and indeed wicked, to us.
These are tenants' homes. I am aware that there can be home loss payments, but those are usually only for a few hundred pounds and tenants who have not lived in the area for five years can claim nothing. I am also aware that courts may order possession only if suitable alternative accommodation is available, but the stories that one has heard do not lead one to have any confidence that that will be at all satisfactory. Tenants must be consulted before estates are sold off and a majority must be in favour. We shall be moving amendments in Committee to make provision for that.
It was alarming that the Court of Appeal ruled in the case of Mrs. Eileen Short v. Tower Hamlets that a council did not have to consult or even inform tenants on its Waterlow estate in Bethnal Green before putting out to tender the refurbishment for sale of their homes by a developer. I have had a number of documents in
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the past few days showing how strongly tenants and tenants' associations feel about that.
We are not opposed to management agreements with other bodies, as proposed in Clause 6, provided that there are adequate safeguards. In fact, the more that tenants can form their own co-operatives and manage their own properties and lives the better. But if local authorities transfer the responsibility to outside agencies, there must be consultation and a majority of tenants in favour. I understand from what the Minister said just now that the Government are going to bring in an amendment to effect that consultation. We are pleased about that.
But we want to make sure that there are adequate safeguards and, if there is a transfer of ownership, we do not want the remaining local authority tenants to suffer, because the right to move to that other estate will be lost, and, what is even worse, they may find themselves subsidising the transferred estate through the writing-off of existing debts. We believe that there should be the right to a public inquiry if there is strong opposition to a handover. It is clear that in some schemes already undertaken—for example. Stockbridge Village Trust in Knowsley, Merseyside— there was insufficient detail available and consequently few safeguards for tenants agreed in advance.
Members of your Lordships' House have during the passing of various housing Bills been very anxious to keep local authority housing for rental when that housing was suitable for the elderly, even if it was not originally built specifically for them. It would seem that the amendments that we have passed to previous Acts to ensure that have been undermined by the operation of the exemption schemes. Appeals to the Secretary of State have been too readily agreed for what would appear to be quite ridiculous reasons. I understand that the Minister has refused 84 per cent. of applications for exemption from the right to buy. The amount of correspondence involved is fantastic, and I shall have pleasure in recounting the details of the Burnley case in Committee.
In a Birmingham case, the department asked for information in as much detail as possible on the following:
"You state that there are steps on the approach to the bungalow; could you please inform us on whether a handrail is provided?
"In what way (if any) are the WC and bath specifically designed for safe and easy use by an elderly person? Are handgrips provided beside the WC?
"Please state the distances to nearby bus stops. (Please be precise). Also, please supply information on the frequency of the services and the destinations. Is the walkway from the dwelling to the shops or bus stop uphill?
"What are the precise heights of the kitchen working surfaces, shelves and cupboards?".
and so on. Some people must have quite a lot of time to spare in order to compose such letters. I hope that when we move amendments in Committee to strengthen the position of housing authorities we shall have the same support from all around the House that we had on previous occasions.
Before I finish with the housing section of the Bill, I should like to ask why the Government have not seen fit to introduce a new clause or two to implement the recommendations of the Nugee Report. It would seem to have been an ideal opportunity.

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I turn to Part II of the Bill, "Simplified Planning Zones", which were forecast in last July's White Paper, Lifting the Burden. They are an extension of some of the concepts first tried in enterprise zones and are part of the Government's strategy of assisting enterprise by removing and simplifying administrative and legislative regulation. I think that we should be wary. There is no evidence that the relaxed planning regimes in enterprise zones have encouraged development or job creation.
The June report from the Public Accounts Committee on those zones is not encouraging; indeed, it is very critical. The idea was for new firms to be set up, but existing firms got windfall benefits amounting to £50 million over 10 years for rate exemption alone. In the second round, tighter boundaries and smaller zones helped to limit uncovenanted benefits, but those still seem likely to cost the Exchequer a further £20 million for rates exemption, making £70 million in all. Between 4 per cent. and 12 per cent. of wholly new firms might not have started but for the zones, but about 75 per cent. to 85 per cent. of incoming firms would have been operating in the same county or region had there been no zones.
The Department of the Environment in its analysis showed that warehousing, which does not provide many new jobs, accounted for as much as 46 per cent. of occupied space. All those facts suggest caution. Local authorities will find the preparation of SPZ schemes complex and time-consuming. As my noble friend Lady Nicol is to speak on them, I shall leave her to develop the theme.
I turn now to Part III of the Bill, "Financial Assistance for Urban Regeneration". The objective is admirable. We all want the dead areas of our cities to be regenerated. Can the Minister tell us whether those grants will be used for areas of deprivation and dereliction not in inner cities? Can he also tell us whether those grants will be in addition to the existing urban development grants? I understand that those grants will be paid direct to private enterprise, and that marks a considerable departure from normal practice. Until now, the local authority has acted as the agent for urban programme grants, except for specific areas which have come under urban development corporations. In a way, that is a further erosion of the local government interest. It bypasses the partnership principle, which has been looked on as a good way forward.
Can the Minister assure us that there will be proper consultation with the local authorities before the Secretary of State uses his powers under Part III of the Bill so that there will be no danger of conflict with or duplication of existing local initiatives? We believe that anyone requesting financial assistance under Section 15 should have to send a copy of that request to the local authority concerned when submitting it to the Secretary of State, and that the Secretary of State should not decide to make that financial assistance available without notifying the local authority so that that the local authority will be fully informed of what is happening in its area.
I want to ask the Minister whether the estimated expenditure of £10 million to £20 million in 1987–88,
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which is mentioned in the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum, will be new money or whether it will be hived off from other schemes. I hope that he can answer that.
Part IV of the Bill has the heading, "Hazardous Substances". So far as I can see, this part of the Bill in strengthening overall control under the town and country planning legislation is to be welcomed and greater confidence is given to the public. I know that the Royal Town Planning Institute has been pressing the Government strongly since 1981 for planning control over hazardous substances to be properly dovetailed with health and safety legislation. It is of course pleased at the outcome, but it has some concerns about the additional staffing requirements that will be placed upon local planning authorities and the Health and Safety Executive. It is also anxious that special pleading by the industry might cause the provisions of the Bill to be emasculated. It would be good to have some reassurance from the Minister when he replies on that point.
Part V of the Bill is entitled, "Opencast Coal". Again, we can give a welcome to this part of the Bill as it reverses what has been happening with this Government. Clause 27 will end the requirement that British Coal should apply to the Secretary of State for authorisation of opencast sites and remove his power to grant deemed planning permission for them. The responsibility will lie with the local authorities. They will have more say in the choice of sites and will ensure that the NCB's forward programme is taken into account in general planning considerations. Our only anxiety is about the repeal of Section 3 of the 1958 Act which makes British Coal have regard,
"to the desirability of preserving natural beauty, of conserving flora, fauna and geological and physiographical features of special interest, and of protecting buildings and other objects of architectural or historic interest".
We shall propose that that section be not deleted.
We shall have a few points to raise on Part VI of the Bill, the miscellaneous provisions part. In fact, as I listened to the Minister, it seemed that this is a miscellaneous provisions Bill. But there are a few minor and worthwhile amendments in this part. There are, as the noble Lord said, a number of matters to deal with listed buildings and local plans where we shall be bringing forward amendments. But as I know that my noble friend Lord Stallard is to speak on these matters, I shall not take up the time of the House by mentioning them myself.
Well, my Lords, I have found a few things to praise. But the major parts of the Bill will have taken up a great deal of parliamentary time for very minimal impact. This is a cumbersome Bill that will do nothing to alleviate the chronic housing shortage in the country, to improve the massive number of dwellings, public and private, in need of repair, or to improve the lot of millions of people, either homeless or living in unsatisfactory and often insanitary conditions. Houses should be homes.
On the planning side, the new measures, besides reducing still further local authority powers, which will not improve the already poor relationship between central and local government, will not be powerful or well enough funded to regenerate derelict areas of our cities. The Bill tinkers with the country's problems. It

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is not surprising to me that the Government are so backward in bringing it forward.
4.51 p.m.
Baroness Stedman: My Lords, from these Benches we, too, should like to thank the Minister for the way that he has explained the Bill and for the assurances that he has given regarding amendments and the timing of them. I speak as a somewhat inadequate substitute for the late Lord Crawshaw who was going to handle the Bill from these Benches. I lack his housing expertise and knowledge. I shall, however, do my best to fill the void. On a happier note, I look forward to hearing the maiden speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Hesketh, and of my noble friend Lord Davies, who brings to the House a lifetime's experience in civil engineering and the building industry. We welcome his intervention in our deliberations, and we look forward to his taking an active part in the Bill as it proceeds through the House.
The right-to-buy has been very successful in respect of semi-detached houses with gardens. It has been less successful in respect of council flats. We can understand the Government wanting to sell more flats. In that sense, we can understand their approach to increasing discounts and trying to deal with the problem of service charges. But we still believe that people will be reluctant to buy flats because of the general environment of the average blocks of council flats. Citizens are not going to put up their life savings or mortgage their future where blocks of flats are continually vandalised, where the lifts do not work, where graffiti abounds and where the services for which they pay are not available. Many of these properties are in desperate need of renovation. Indeed, the Building Employers Confederation has said:
"Only if substantially more public resources are provided specially targeted to the renovation of flats is the rate of sales of council flats likely to increase".
On these Benches, we are strongly in favour of devolving management of council housing. We would also like to see decentralised management with mangement co-operatives giving tenants real control over their estates and their environment. We would welcome the establishment of trusts involving tenants and outside interests. We shall watch with interest the progress of the Thamesmead Trust.
This Bill also floats the idea of complete privatisation of ownership. We believe that there is a continuing need for rented housing. But we doubt whether the private sector can be assured of what it would deem an adequate return on capital investment involved in purchasing and renovating rundown estates. Only last year, the building societies were warning that rent control would have to be abolished to make it financial sense for them to take over tenanted council estates and to continue to provide rented accommodation. There is a risk that the Bill might only aggravate the demand for what council property. will remain. There is still no compensation for local authorities for loss incurred when additioal housing stock is sold under the right-to-buy. I believe that this is a fundmental defect in the right-to-buy programme. Local authorities desperately need that money, and they ought to be able to spend their capital receipts.
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The housing side of the Bill is mostly about management. Given the state of some housing management, we do not quarrel with the importance of approaching some of the problems that flow from it. We would encourage the housing co-operatives as a useful contribution towards giving people more control over their own homes. We welcome the acceptance of assured tenancies and of the need to find new forms of rented accommodation. But we do not believe that the extension of the discount range by 10 per cent. on the sale of flats will achieve what the Government are after. It might work in attractive three or four-storey blocks where tenants still have a sense of community. But we doubt if it will result in any greater number of flats in tower blocks being sold.
I too do not like Clause 5. It attacks the rights of tenants, with councils having the power to remove tenants from their homes so that whole estates could be sold with vacant possession. That is, I believe, going too far. It reduces substantially the bargaining power of tenants. We have to remember that tenants are not just numbers placed in units of accommodation. They are real people living in their own homes in the real world.
I turn briefly to the part of the Bill dealing with hazardous substances and opencast mining. Basically, the proposals on hazardous substances seem to have met with general approval. But the local authorities are still concerned about the scope allowed to the Secretary of State in defining substances and the quantities of those substances to which the provisions should apply, and also the exemption in the Bill for hazardous substances in transit. Earlier this year the Health and Safety Commission undertook a consultation exercise proposing lower levels of notification to it. Surely, those regulations might be more appropriate for the implementation of the written consent procedures. There is also concern in local authorities about the use of the phrase "temporary presence" relating to storage of hazardous substances while in transit. There is only a limited provision of lorry parks specially designed to cater for vehicles carrying dangerous loads. We shall return to that matter at Committee stage and try to persuade the Government to be more specific about the time period in which the "temporary presence" of hazardous substances can be allowed.
As to opencast coal mining, we would prefer to see Section 3 of the Opencast Coal Act 1958 retained. The Bill removes the need for the Secretary of State to give consent to opencast working. It puts those developments under normal mineral planning control. This will inevitably increase the workload of the local planning authorities. There is considerable concern about whether county councils will be able to cope. Opencast mining is one of the most environmentally destructive operations that goes on in our country. During the Committee stage, my noble friend Lord Hanworth will no doubt raise some of these questions.
We also concerned that paragraph 1 of Schedule 9 paves the way for the abolition of the local highway authority's power to refuse planning permission or impose conditions on road safety grounds. The existence of this power has not led to any delay for developers. I believe that the local highway authorities have made wise and effective use of it over the years.

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In effect, the Bill transfers that responsibility to planning authorities who do not have the same interest or the expertise to assess the potential hazard to road safety of the design and siting of access and new developments to the highways. In European Road Safety Year this is surely not the time to take such a serious retrograde step for road safety.
The Government have not produced any realistic evidence to support the idea that essential development is being hindered by the existing planning procedure. It is unrealistic to point to the enterprise zones because they involve a tax incentive. It would have been more sensible to try these simplified planning zones perhaps in inner city areas where there is a real need to encourage new employment and development. The tools to do something about the regeneration of our inner city areas are available with the current winding up of the new town development corporations. On all their staffs there is the expertise of their small planning and marketing team who are used to putting together packages involving private and public investment. Over the past 20 years or so these small teams have built on their skills and expertise. I believe that they ought to be kept together and used to help in our depressed inner city areas.
Part III concerns urban regeneration. Perhaps we should be doing more to use public money and investment as a lever to attract more private investment. However, the financial provisions of the Bill refer only to the £10 million to £20 million in 1987–88, which will not do very much towards solving problems in our inner cities. May I also ask the Minister this question about this sum of money? Is it extra money or will it be at the expense of the other urban programmes?
There is no evidence that planning zones as proposed will be an incentive to investment in the inner cities. We are concerned about the possible misuse of the power of the Secretary of State to direct the making or alteration of the scheme in Schedule 4. It seems unreasonable to us that an individual should be able to apply direct to the Secretary of State for a direction that the local authority prepare an SPZ scheme. It could lead to vexatious and sometimes frivolous requests. On these Benches, we would rather see this power dropped altogether. But if it is to remain, will the Government consider that it might be accompanied by a considerable fee, following the precedent of the planning application charges, or the use of planning appeals machinery, if a local authority refused the request? We are worried that the Secretary of State can make the ultimate decision, whatever the view of the local democratic planning authority.
The president of the Royal Town Planning Institute is on record as saying:
"SPZs do not represent a relaxation of planning. In fact they increase its importance while at the same time reducing the need to make planning application".
Mr. McDonic went on to say:
"Research into the effects of enterprise zones show that a reduction of planning control has not been a significant factor in attracting development in most cases. Fiscal advantages have been far more important".
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He argued that there is nothing to suggest that the SPZs will guide development where there are existing development pressures, and the SPZs, I believe, are not of the central importance that the Government ascribe to them.
At present, environmentally sensitive areas may not be the subject of an SPZ. This includes, as the noble Baroness and the noble Lord said, the conservation areas of the national parks, areas of outstanding natural beauty, and the SSSIs. But when such land is identified, after an SPZ has been adopted, it is not automatically excluded from any SPZ within which it may lie. To do this we would have to go through the procedures outlined in the Bill to alter the SPZ scheme. I think this is just another layer of bureaucracy to investigate the same proposals twice.
The Government have said that they want to lift the burden. They want to make the planning system less onerous and to prevent hindrance to economic development. But we believe that the SPZ will prove to be just another complication to an already complex system of controls. Companies and developers will have to discover whether the sites are within the SPZs, and what conditions or limitations are to be attached to them. They will have to consider making representations when SPZs are proposed so that they are drafted in a manner which may be more helpful to them. Companies established within the proposed SPZs may have conflicting needs to firms which are seeking to establish themselves under a new relaxed regime. These processes could prove much more onerous than obtaining planning consent for particular developments.
The SPZs have no fiscal incentive attached to them. Without a financial incentive, will the companies be flocking to establish themselves in the simplified planning zones? I believe that companies are more concerned with corporation tax, income tax. VAT, employment regulations, site conditions and what grants are available than with planning regulations. I do not believe that the SPZs will do very much to redirect development pressure towards the depressed regions. Neither will they act as a catalyst to generate any job-creating development. They are irrelevant to the real solution for our economic problems.
The local authorities are not happy about them, but if we have to have them they would rather see their designation for a trial period of five years—which is the period of validity for full planning proposals—than for the 10 years as proposed in the Bill. We shall be returning to that at Committee stage.
The department of the Environment is undertaking a review of the effectiveness or otherwise of the enterprise zones following doubts which were raised by the Comptroller and Auditor-General, and, indeed, by the Commons Accounts Committee. Will the SPZs in due course also be subject to such a review? The relationship between them and local and unitary development plans is unclear. I believe that it would be better if consultation about these special zones took place as part of the local plan exercise. Then the public would be better able to assess the problems of the area and the options that were available. The local authorities do not like giving powers to the Secretary

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of State to override the wishes of the democratically-elected local councils and the views of the public which have been established by them through consultation.
The enterprise zones have financial incentives. These will be absent from the SPZs. The local authorities again believe that there is evidence to suggest that funding institutions prefer strong development control powers which protect the value of their property investments. In essence, the local authorities believe that the SPZs will be very complex but that they will be ineffective and that they will duplicate the existing local plan procedures. The Committee of Public Accounts in another place has also been examining the Comptroller and Auditor-General's report on enterprise zones which was set up in 1981. I know that they are different from the proposals in this Bill for the simplified planning zones. But I think that their success or otherwise might influence our thinking. It would seem from both reports that it is too soon to evaluate properly the benefits and the costs. Both reports also stress the need for special attention to any adverse effects of an enterprise zone on the other areas.
The same problems may also arise in respect of the simplified planning zones. We are sceptical of these proposals. We believe that the Government are expecting far too much from them. We doubt that they will make as big a contribution as the Government are expecting.
At present, the local planning authority can grant permission only in response to an application by a developer except where the land belongs to the local authority, or the authority itself is the developer. This means that the local planning authorities cannot plan positively or implement actively, especially where the potential development sites are not within their ownership. Surely a much more practical way to achieve the Government's objective would be to relax the restrictions on the local planning authorities' powers to grant permission. Local authorities prepare the local and the action area plans, and the detailed development briefs that go with them, so surely it would be a logical step for them to have wider powers to make planning applications for development within their area which accord with their adopted local plan.
I am sure that we shall want to return to this matter in considerable detail at Committee stage. I hope to persuade the Government that the suggestions of the Royal Town Planning Institute for off-the-shelf planning, as they call it, may well be preferred to the most cumbersome plans for the simplified planning zones. Planning control is a matter for local determination. The simplified zones will be subject to ministerial control. This is central government intervention in local development issues and I believe that it is both unnecessary and undesirable. We should like to see planning control where it belongs—with the local authorities.
5.11 p.m.
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I crave your indulgence for this my maiden speech. Having a small interest in development, I thought that this debate would be easier than some others in which to make my maiden speech. However, having risen to my feet I am now somewhat uncertain!
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I welcome the Bill before your Lordships today. It takes the first steps in carrying out some of the proposals laid down in the two White Papers Lifting the Burden and Building Business not Barriers. My only regret is that a number of the excellent ideas laid out in those two documents are not incorporated in the Bill.
The more that I have had the privilege of being in this House, the easier it has become to understand why Rome was not built in a day. Changes—particularly when it comes to planning—are a source of extreme nervousness to all people of all dispositions. It is an intersting development that all local newspapers now appear to be obsessed with planning, whatever one's point of view. It is a righteous concern. My only concern is that there are many things that have not happened in this country that could or should have happened. They are not big things; they are probably small things.
I know that the defence of our heritage, our countryside and the environment of the individual citizen is paramount. However, at the same time I believe that we must view planning as an object not only to protect but also to proceed with—that is, to proceed with in the development of a healthy, robust and financially successful country. Over the years the complexity of planning regulations when taken together has proved to be more of a problem than the intentions of each individual change in the regulations. One only has to look at the size of the documents required if investigating a planning application to appreciate the problem with which the smaller man, or woman in particular, is faced.
Medium and large concerns have been able to respond to this increase in regulation and complexity by the fact that they have the resources to employ the professionals who are required to provide the assistance and lay the trail through the maze to achieve an objective. My concern is the smaller entrepreneur, the self-employed man or woman, the small business that is starting out—for they do not have the resources, or, put more plainly, the money to go to hire an expensive solicitor or adviser when dealing with a more difficult problem. Moreoever, they would wish to engage all their time, if they could, in developing their business.
I know that talking about small businesses is sometimes like speaking to farmers about marketing—their eyes glaze over. However, it is important, particularly as in the last few years the expansion of employment in this sector has been extremely large. Indeed, 600,000 more people now work in this sector than did three years ago. I feel that, if at all possible, the difficulties that are faced by these people should be eased. Half the problems have been taken away from small businesses by new technology, which is a most exciting development. You can now buy a small cheap computer which will do your PAYE, national insurance contributions, tax, stocktaking and paperwork. That is very good for any small business because it removes the unproductive overhead, the element of cost which has for many, many years been the undoing of small companies in this country.
However, the gentleman who wishes to find and set up a workshop to employ himself or one or two others

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is faced with a problem—a problem not of the planner's making but of the world which exists in this country today. The problem is this. If a planner and a developer get together and decide to create an industrial park which will be for the benefit of the community and which will fulfil their duties to provide employment, the developer will probably go to his bank manager to borrow the money. His bank manager will not lend it to him unless he will build the kind of factories that he can let on a reasonable covenant. The developer, having let the buildings, will not be able to sell them to an institution or pension fund unless they also have a reasonable covenant.
There are tens of thousands of people in this country who wish to start their own business. Their only assets, if they are lucky, are the part of their house which they own which is not already mortgaged; their savings, if any. and a loan, if they have a friendly bank manager. They certainly could not sign a 21-year lease for a factory on a new industrial estate without risking everything they have and their families.
The difficulty which they then face is how they can set up in business on their own premises. The laws and regulations are extremely complex in this regard; indeed, so much so that I would only recommend a planning officer who was taking early retirement to consider setting up in business on his own premises! It is a problem which is becoming more important because work practices in this country are changing. Twenty years ago no one would have thought that British Aerospace would use seven engineers and seven different houses connected by computer modems to do a design project together without ever meeting each other. That is the reality and it will increase and not decrease.
People using their own premises for their own work, whether it be as employees or as self-employed, will face an ever-increasing problem because they are existing as illegal people. They do not want to be illegal. Many of those to whom I have spoken would very much like to pay rates. I am sure that other businesses which do pay rates would be very pleased to have those rates paid and the burden lowered generally across the board. At present, although the White Paper suggested those changes—and I am sure that they will come—they are not with us.
The phenomenon of working from home will increase as the years go by. I just hope that this House will see before too long the arrival of something to make it that much easier. However, what I have already seen in the Bill goes at least part of the way. Even more important, what is in the White Paper is really encouraging stuff. Therefore, the key that I find in the Bill is this. An important part of freedom is choice. The Bill increases choice, and because of that I hope very much that it will receive your Lordships' support.
5.19 p.m.
Lord Stallard: My Lords, it is my privilege, as the speaker following the noble Lord, Lord Hesketh, to congratulate the noble Lord on his maiden speech. I certainly do not think that he need apologise, as he seemed to do at the beginning of his speech, for lack of knowledge, because as he developed his speech I certainly gained the impression that he has a great deal
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of knowledge about the matters in the Bill and he has obtained much of it from personal experience. I look forward to his further contributions on this Bill and on many other aspects of our work in this House.
The Bill begins its process through this House against the backcloth of the worst housing situation this country has faced for many decades past. The noble Baroness, Lady David, gave some telling statistics that I shall not repeat, except to add that capital spending on public housing has fallen by 43 per cent. in real terms since 1979–80, and council house building is at an all-time low of 20,000 new starts in 1985. It is estimated that it would require £50 billion to urgently repair houses in all sectors that are in a state of dilapidation. They are relevant statistics in any Bill dealing with housing.
The proposals appear to be more concerned with accelerating the right to buy of some properties and facilitating the disposal of public sector housing to new types of landlord, who will have no accountability to the local authority or to anyone else, than with seeking to do something to deal with the situation that I have mentioned and which has been described by previous speakers. I am only too well aware from previous experience in other places of the campaign, for instance, for council tenants' security of tenure and the long arguments that took place on that. Certainly this Bill seriously undermines the progress that has already been made in that direction.
Part I seeks to strengthen the rights of tenants to buy local authority rented housing, particularly in the case of flats. The noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, dealt with some of the worrying aspects of the purchase of some flats. It also introduces new powers to evict council tenants if the local authority wishes to sell a block of flats or an estate.
Speaking to the Institute of Housing in June 1985, the then Secretary of State for the Environment declared that the age of council management was over. I think that this Bill seeks to enshrine the spirit of that declaration in legislation, with all that that means to the new-found security of tenure for council tenants. No wonder that there is widespread concern over the proposals contained in Clauses 4, 5 and 6, and that tenants' organisations, local authorities, and voluntary organisations are almost at one in their protests against the proposals which, if implemented as set out, could result in the loss of thousands of rented homes in areas where there is desperate need for cheap, rented accommodation.
Age Concern, for example, has expressed deep anxiety about the fate of many of the estimated 3 million pensioner council tenants who could lose their security of tenure, and are likely to have to leave their homes against their wishes. This is a traumatic experience at any age. During the Committee stage in another place, the Minister gave assurances that the consultative process involved would be strengthened. I should like to ask the noble Lord three questions on that.
First, is the Minister able to give more details about possible government amendments in this direction? Secondly, can he assure us that disposal of homes will definitely not occur where the majority of tenants are opposed to it, and will this be written into the Bill?

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Thirdly, will transferred tenants to private ownership from public ownership retain the right to rent in the same way that other tenants have the right to buy under Clause 4? These are only a few of the many questions that remain to be asked arising from these clauses. Together with other noble Lords, I look forward to the more detailed discussion that will take place during Committee stage.
I should like to pass to the planning proposals contained in the Bill. I had some experience as a member of a local authority for nearly a quarter of a century, and for part of that time as chairman of planning and development operating the old 1947 planning system. That was fairly new when I first went into a local authority and was developing through experience. It is that system of planning, and planning controls, that the Government, under the now familiar guise of simplification and improvement, are seeking to alter quite drastically, if not demolish in parts. It is an important change.
The most important change has already been mentioned. That is the establishment of simplified planning zones—SPZs—as part of the Government strategy to assist enterprise by removing, or simplifying, administrative and legislative regulations. This strategy was set out in a White Paper last July, Lifting the Burden, which has been mentioned by previous speakers, and therefore I shall not bore your Lordships with the appropriate paragraphs. It is, however, Chapter 3, paragraph 6(1). They propose to introduce these SPZs to extend to other areas the type of planning regime already established in enterprise zones. Again the noble Baroness, Lady David, dealt with that aspect in her excellent opening remarks, and I shall not repeat what she said.
On the question of simplification, it is worth listening to a few other opinions. For instance, the Royal Town Planning Institute, in a paper I read recently, said this:
"It has been suggested that the only thing which is simple about Simplified Planning Zones is the catch title of SPZs as the procedures included within the Bill are likely to prove so complex and lengthy that they will do little to secure the Government's stated objectives and may raise false hopes with would-be developers. Nevertheless, concern must remain that SPZs could be seen to be the thin end of the wedge for further wholesale deregulation if the Secretary of State liberally utilises the reserve power to direct local planning authorities that SPZs shall be prepared."
That is the RTPI on simplification.
Writing in the Estates Gazette—which is a paper that comes to me and other noble Lords fairly frequently—in December 1985, Adrian Stungo, who was the chairman of the Royal Town Planning Institute's development control panel, writing in a personal capacity, considered these SPZs in detail. He wrote:
"if SPZs are meant to lift the burden of additional legislation, they clearly fail. New legislation will be needed."
My Lords it is here. He said:
"no existing controls will be eliminated. Instead a new type of planning area will be created to add to the plethora of special areas… each of which is subject to a different and distinctive planning regime."
He contended that,
"procedures will become more, rather than less, complicated."
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He went on to say a lot more about the SPZs. He and other experts obviously do not agree that the Bill succeeds in simplification and improvement, as said by the Government spokesman.
What I find equally worrying is the proposal that any individual can request the Secretary of State to direct a local authority to declare one of these SPZs. I read recently another quotation from a review of the consultation paper in July 1984 when it was first discussed. It was in an issue of the Journal of Planning and Environmental Law. This compared SPZs to the American system of zoning control. It concluded:
"The SPZ scheme is certainly worth a try. It offers to developers the certainty of a planning permission, prior knowledge of its terms, and relief from payment of application fees. The only difficulty we see is the relationship of SPZs to development plans."
I should like the noble Lord to tell me whether a developer or his agent, fearing a refusal of planning consent from a local authority, could request the Secretary of State to make that site, or sites, an SPZ, thus giving the DoE, in effect, planning power over these SPZs? Is that a possibility as the Bill stands? It seems to me at first reading that it is. Even though at all stages of the procedure to create SPZs there are consultative provisions, at the end of the day the Secretary of State retains great powers of intervention in this matter.
The Minister mentioned at the beginning use classes orders, which are not exactly contained in the Bill. I find it difficult to separate any changes in the use classes orders and the proposals for SPZs and the other changes in the planning laws. I think the two are bound to intermingle. I am concerned about and interested in the proposals that the Government intend to make to change the use classes orders. I understand that the consultative process ends in the middle of our Recess, on 15th September. I am not saying that was deliberate. I should like the Minister to tell me, if he can, whether the outcome of the deliberations on that consultative process will be ready before we reach the Committee stage of this Bill. I believe they are relevant. Can he confirm, too, that the proposals to allow small businesses to set up in residences, if the number employed does not exceed five persons, have been dropped? I should be grateful if he could give me some information on that.
I want to conclude quickly, but before I do I should like to mention some of the miscellaneous proposals that are tucked away at the end of the Bill under Part VI, "Miscellaneous Provisions". It contains a number of very important proposals concerning listed buildings. Clause 28 and Schedule 7 would remove from listed building control free-standing objects—in his opening remarks the noble Lord mentioned this—as long as they were erected since 1 st July, 1948, within the curtilage of a listed building.
However, he did not mention whether the Bill proposes to control the erection of new free-standing buildings within the curtilage of a listed building. For example, the owner of a single family house which is a listed building may wish to erect a new modern garage. This would be permitted development under the general development order, but it might have a very adverse effect on the general appearance of a listed building. I think we ought to consider this, and some of us will be proposing an amendment for listed

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building consent being required for the erection of such a free-standing structure if its appearance and location were likely to affect the character of a listed building, unless the Minister can say at this stage that that is already in his mind.
Clause 29 and Schedule 7 involve almost the complete rewriting of the legislation on local plans. We are all concerned about this. For example, quicker procedures are to be introduced for the adoption of relatively uncontentious local plans. I have never heard of a plan that was uncontentious. In my experience, to put up an advertisement panel anywhere has always been contentious. There is no such thing as an uncontentious local plan. I should like to hear the comments of the noble Lord the Minister on that.
We are also concerned and some of us have had correspondence (I certainly have) from conservationists who are worried about the enabling provision allowing demolition permission to be given by local planning authorities in respect of listed buildings. I do not know whether this is something that the Government intend to press, but it is hoped that the Minister will listen to representations being made to him, I believe, by the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission, on the new procedures it would like to recommend to lighten the many workloads and to speed consents with safety, before the Committee stage of this Bill.
I have one final word on paragraph 8 of that schedule, which suspends the obligations on the Secretary of State to make decisions upon listed consent applications within 28 days. In effect, this gives the Secretary of State unlimited time to deal with the applications for listed building consent. This is in direct constrast to the various pressures that are being put on local authorities from central government and elsewhere to speed up decision-making. The decision to give the Secretary of State unlimited time at the same time as that seems totally illogical to many of us, and I hope the Minister will remark on that. It also contrasts with a new power that the Secretary of State has in the case of written representation appeals and called-in applications.
I hope that the Government, having had second thoughts on this matter, may bring forward suitable amendments. All in all, I consider that the Bill amounts to a further dramatic erosion of local democratic planning powers. I can agree with some of the powers, but not with the erosion of the local accountable controls. The powers of the Secretary of State will certainly operate to the detriment of the social and environmental considerations, which he cannot possibly understand as well as the local people. I hope we can reduce by amendment the potential damage that this controversial omnibus Bill will inflict if it goes through unamended. I look forward to the Committee stage.
5.36 p.m.
Lord Davies: My Lords, it is a great honour to be addressing your Lordships for the first time. I must first declare an interest in that I own and manage a construction company operating in rural mid-Wales which may be affected in a small way by some of the
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welcome improvements to the planning system contained in the schedules to the Bill. It will not be affected by the main thrust of the Bill, which is directed to urban areas.
I must also apologise to your Lordships if, in catching the last train home, I miss the end of this debate. But before leaving the rural areas I should like to bring to your Lordships' attention one glaring anomaly in the planning system which much affects rural mid-Wales and other such areas. The Upper Severn Valley is not an area of outstanding natural beauty in planning terms, although it would be so described in the language of ordinary people. Planning permission is required for the most humble dwelling and is virtually ruled out outside the existing villages and towns—quite properly. In the adjoining national park a hotel sign, perhaps visible from 100 yards, is refused planning permission. Yet no planning permission or any other permission has been required for the hundreds of miles of rural farm roads which have been built throughout the whole of rural Wales largely at taxpayers' expense, at a cost in the year 1984–85 of £5½ million.
Some of these roads have caused great gashes across the hillsides which can be clearly seen for tens of miles. This desecration has largely ceased due to the changes in grants, but the scars remain. I urge that provision should be made and funds provided for the Countryside Commission to be responsible for identifying the worst offenders and at least alleviating the scenic effects by applying grass-seed to the exposed surfaces, which would have the added benefit of assisting with the protection from erosion of a substantial investment of taxpayers' money.
Returning to the urban areas and the main thrust of the Bill, I am sure that all sides of the House will support the Government in their attempts to encourage and promote urban regeneration. However, the size and scale of the problems are immense and the solutions proposed in this Bill can best be described, like the waves at Blackpool, as piddling and small. It would appear that no extra resources are to be committed to the cause, but only moved around within the existing urban aid programme.
It is doubtful whether the simplified planning zones proposed in the Bill will either be used or be successful without the financial incentives of enterprise zones. But we must ensure that the bureaucratic business of their designation cannot become so longwinded and time-consuming that the areas in question become blighted for any development for a substantial period while that is being done. Otherwise, we shall cause the opposite effect to that intended, in the same way that the housing repairs grant scheme is now doing. When the grants were first announced, large numbers of householders put in grant applications and many worthwhile housing repairs were undertaken. But now the money has all but run dry, while large numbers of grant applications still await acceptance. The result is that much work which, in the normal course of events, would be undertaken is held back by the householder in the hope that the grant will eventually be forthcoming. I urge the Government either to release a steady flow of funds into the scheme or to redefine the scheme so that the present log-jam can be released.

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With regard to the clauses in the Bill concerning assured tenancies, it is doubtful whether the changes proposed will have any more success than before in bringing rented accommodation on to the market. But is they are to be helpful, it would surely make sense if the scheme were to be open to properties owned by approved persons as well as approved bodies. If there are empty properties awaiting the improvement which this clause intends, surely that are as likely to be owned by persons as by bodies. Surely it is not being suggested that bodies are potentially any less wicked than persons.
Can we be assured that if the clause turns out to be a success the department has sufficient resources to issue speedily the necessary approvals? The extensions of the rules for financial assistance for urban regeneration to give support directly to persons must be welcomed. But we have been told that no extra money is to be forthcoming, and the amount earmarked for this clause is £20 million to £30 million—not nearly sufficient to make any real impact. In addition, we have the extraordinary and perhaps unique caveat that consent from the Treasury must be obtained in each case. I can readily imagine the "Yes, Minister" interdepartmental bargaining which went into the drafting of that.
The problem posed by the decay in our housing, in our urban environment and in our infrastructure is growing and will have to be tackled sooner or later. Now must be the time really to start that process. We have the manpower, we have the industrial capacity, and we have the resources. If we leave it until the time, if it ever comes, when the economy is really expanding and the PSBR is a relic of the past, the capacity and manpower will be applied elsewhere and any attempt to pump more money into this process then will simply rekindle the old fires of inflation. If we were to leave it until after the oil ran out, resources would no longer be available and we would be condemned to continuing and increasing decay.
May I ask the Government just how much in total they intend to commit to the urban regeneration programme? We have read much press speculation about the urban taskforce. Can the Government tell us when it is going to be announced and assure us that it will be provided with real powers and resources to undertake the huge task before it?
5.43 p.m.
The Marquess of Salisbury: My Lords, it is my good fortune to be the first speaker to follow the noble Lord, Lord Davies, on the occasion of his maiden speech. I say this because he has given us a notable contribution to our considerations today. He clearly has a very deep knowledge of the subjects we are discussing and he has made many useful comments which I have no doubt will be taken fully on board by the Minister when he comes to reply. I should like to add my personal congratulations to him and I should also like to congratulate my noble friend Lord Hesketh, whom I have known for a great many years. I am delighted to see him here. Again, he has made a considerable contribution to our discussions today, and I hope that we shall have the pleasure of hearing many more contributions from both noble Lords in the future.
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I want to speak on only one smaller area of the Bill, and that is Clause 28 and Schedule 7 on the listing of buildings. Here I must declare an interest. I should also like to ask your Lordships' indulgence if I am unable to stay until the end of the debate. I hope to do so, but it depends upon how long it goes on. As your Lordships are aware, almost any building more than 100 years old can be listed as a result of previous legislation. We are faced with a situation under which an inspector comes round and looks at the building, or wall, or whatever it may be. He does so without notification to the owner and the first that the owner knows about it is a letter, addressed probably to the occupier with a request that it should be passed on to the owner, notifying him that the building, or wall, or whatever has been listed and that he is to take note that he may make no changes without permission.
Furthermore, it is possible for the owner to be ordered to maintain the building at his own cost and he has no recourse but to obey that order. If he does not do so, he may find that the local authority takes over the job and sends him the bill afterwards. Either course can be very expensive. It therefore seems to me that the time has come when we should review the present situation and that we should try to find a more satisfactory solution. For instance, it is not always so that the inspector gets the right answer. I have personal experience of two inspectors in different areas listing walls which I myself had put up and which I feel sure do not come within the area of the Bill. Furthermore, one of them is a chalk wall and, so far as I know, the art of building chalk walls is a lost one. I cannot see the point in listing a building or whatever which cannot be restored or rebuilt. I would hope we can have a rather more satisfactory arrangement in the future.
I have had a very considerable correspondence with the noble Lord, Lord Elton, and I should like to thank him for the very sympathetic response that I have received. Indeed, he has offered a code of conduct under which new arrangements would come into force by which inspectors would have to give proper notification before visiting a site and would also be given certain instructions on how they should behave. This seems to be a notable advance, and I am very grateful to him for the offer. I suggest to your Lordships that in this matter which affects personal rights it would be better if these arrangements were incorporated in an Act of Parliament because we know that times change and that otherwise, perhaps at a later date, the code of conduct could be altered. It does very little more in many respects than instil a code of good behaviour, of courtesy and of good manners—something which one might have expected a schoolmaster to teach the third form or lower in early days.
The other thing in respect of the code which I hope could be incorporated is this. At the moment there is no standard throughout the country and it would surely be preferable to have some uniformity. In some areas rather odd things happen. For instance, in Nottinghamshire there was a Victorian cottage, or what appeared to be one, for which planning consent was asked to improve it and put it in order. This was granted. On subsequent inspection it was found to contain an earlier building of Elizabethan origin. The order was amended so that the instruction was that the

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whole building had to be rebuilt more or less as it might have been in Elizabethan times, at a very substantial cost—approaching £100,000, for a building which was probably lettable or saleable only at a considerably reduced amount. There was a case of a very similar kind in Bedfordshire.
I believe some authorities more or less automatically list any building over 100 years old, whether that is desirable or not—and, as your Lordships will know, many of these buildings are not of very high calibre. This seems to me to be a case of the bureaucracy taking the opportunity to seize as much control over these matters as they can.
I also think that we should consider whether we ought not to have the right of appeal against listing. It is surely a normal democratic right that one should be entitled officially to express one's view; one might almost say that in this case it is an appeal against a sentence under which one is compelled to spend a great deal of money. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, has kindly pointed out that there is a means of appeal within the ministry, and I am very pleased to hear it. However, all I can say is that I have never heard of it; nor has anyone I have asked about it. So there does not seem to be very much advantage in it.
I do not know how this would work, but I know that in the case of my chalk wall I wrote to the ministry over two months ago. I have had two acknowl-edgments, but I still have not had an answer, and it does not seem to me that this is a very good basis on which the appeal might be regarded.
Lord Elton: My Lords, if the noble Marquess will let me have the dates of his correspondence, I shall ensure that he does get an answer swiftly.
The Marquess of Salisbury: My Lords, I am most grateful.
I should also like to ask: what is the position about the listing of gardens? This is a comparatively new development, and I believe it came up under the countryside Act. The procedure is similar to that of listing buildings. In the past I have received certain guarantees from the late Lord Avon, which appeared to be entirely satisfactory, being covered also by a Question for Written Answer and by a letter from the noble Lord, Lord Montagu, as chairman of English Heritage. Since then a pamphlet has been produced by one Professor Bodfan Gruffyd on gardens in Oxfordshire, where he proposed the listing of a substantial number. He suggested that they should be compulsorily looked after and maintained and that if the owner had not the means to do that, grants should be available for the purpose. That seems to me to have some bearing on the matter because the suggestion is supported by the Garden History Society who, in turn, are used by the department in an advisory capacity. I would ask whether the guarantee given by the late Lord Avon is still valid.
Finally, I should like to ask what the position is about grants for these buildings because, so far as I know, the grants bear no relation to the costs of carrying out repairs and maintenance. So it is possible to have an order which compels an owner to spend a great deal of money which is entirely uneconomic and
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against which he has no recourse. If it is as important as that, it is only reasonable that central government should bear some reasonable proportion of the cost of carrying out the repairs; at any rate, I would hope that would be so. I heard the other day of a church which had been listed as Grade 1, which presumably means that it is of national importance; but an application to English Heritage for a grant was turned down on the grounds that it was not of sufficient interest. It seems that there are two conflicting views on that type of building.
I do not think I am asking the Minister for very much. He has already conceded the principle in the points I have made, and I very much hope that he will be able to see his way to incorporating something along these lines in the Bill at the Committee stage.
5.54 p.m.
Viscount Craigavon: My Lords, I should like briefly to raise a fairly minor matter which is not dealt with in the Bill as it now stands, and that is the environmental blight which is caused by estate agents' boards. The problem occurs mainly in London and seems to have been exacerbated by the recent large increase in property prices. This has caused estate agents generally to lose any gentlemanly insticts for fair play that they might still have possessed. So much is at stake, especially when agents are trying to expand their businesses, that such things as voluntary codes of practice are quite inadequate. I understand that many, if not the majority, of estate agents would welcome major restrictions on boards, or even a total ban. But if a few agents behave irresponsibly, others often feel that they have to behave in the same way.
There are two aspects to this problem. First, there is the difficulty, in terms of manpower and time, of enforcing the existing regulations. Secondly, there is the question of whether those regulations are themselves adequate. There have been a steadily increasing number of complaints from the public, who usually do not know what is technically legal and what is illegal. So in fact complaints are received about boards in both categories.
Like many of your Lordships, I have been able to witness this problem in many parts of London, but I have detailed knowledge particularly of Westminster and of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, where I live. Part of my interest in this matter stems from the fact that I happen to live in an area which is also a conservation area, a small part of which has recently been allowed to be declared an experimental board-free area.
Since the trial period of one year started on 1 st June, I have personally been able to see a marvellous transformation around the square in which I live, following the total disappearance of all the boards. My enthusiasm is shared by all those neighbours I have talked to. For the first time one is able to see whole vistas as the architects intended and to realise what a disfigurement were the enormous boards we had been brought up to believe were a necessary part of the scene.
May I congratulate the noble Lord the Minister and his department on allowing some experimental board-free areas to be designated, and may I say I hope that

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they will now feel freer similarly to designate further and larger areas—and also perhaps to do it slightly more quickly?
My interest in this matter stems also from being the friend of an architect who is one of the organisers of a small but effective pressure group in this area called CLASH, which stands for the Campaign to Limit Agents' Signs and Hoardings. Obtaining members and support from all over London, they have been active in encouraging people to articulate their individual and general complaints to the right quarters, as well as feeding back what they hear on to a more political level, to town halls and politicians.
They have also attempted, with little success, to approach some of the worst-offending estate agents directly. The aim of CLASH, as can be seen from their title, is a limitation and not a total ban on boards. Also, I believe they think, as I do, that in the present climate estate agents have shown themselves unable to impose any form of effective voluntary self-restraint. And with so much at stake financially, the roguish attitude of some agents, not to mention the separate firms of board erectors, makes it increasingly difficult to enforce the existing inadequate regulations. To prove a single offence in court requires considerable manpower and time from a planning department that has many better uses for its resouces.
In practice it is widely accepted that one of the main effects of boards is as free general advertising; and some of the worst abuses of boards arise when an agent (sometimes a seemingly respectable one) is expanding into a new area and simply floods it with boards—quite illegally. This area of the law is in danger of becoming like parking regulations—continually flouted because enough manpower and court time is never going to be available to enfoce the regulations, however sensible they may seem to be on paper.
My Lords, why should we allow free advertising to disfigure our streets in this way? I believe it is accepted that most estate agents are in favour of boards disappearing. The public, as is shown by the level of complaints, is becoming increasingly aware of the environmental blight caused by boards under the present regulations. I am sure that it is no part of the policy of the Government to allow a small group—namely, estate agents—to benefit from what is mainly free general advertising at the environmental expense of the rest of us. If not through this Bill, then with more stringent use of existing regulations, I hope that the Minister will encourage his Department to move faster in this area, even perhaps towards the general banning of boards.
6 p.m.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: My Lords, like my noble friend Lady Davies and my noble friend Lord Stallard and others who have spoken, I would say that the Bill will do nothing to create one new house to benefit those thousands of people who are on local authority waiting lists and the homeless.
The figures that I give will be brief. If we consider local authority approved tenders for 1985 there were 14,000—less than half the 1983 figure—so within two years there has been a cut of 50 per cent. of new
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housing provided by local authorities. That is not the only cut in houses to rent. The annual report of the Housing Corporation, which is a government quango, also reflected a cut although not of the severity of the cuts in local authority spending. When the Housing Corporation was launched in 1979, it had 40,000 starts. That dwindled to 33,000 last year, only 25,000 of which were for rent. As the chairman of the Housing Corporation, Sir Hugh Cubbit, said in the annual report:
"Increasing demand is coming from the elderly, single people, low income and one-parent families, ethnic minorities and rural communities".
This is exactly the same demand that the local authorities are trying to meet, only the local authorities are having to meet it with both hands tied behind their backs and the housing corporations with only one hand tied behind theirs.
Taking into account the sale of council properties, I would ask the Minister whether the sale of those properties has not reached saturation point. Does he really expect to sell many more properties, given the suggested increase on the rebates that he announced today?
I can give him some interesting figures that come from Birmingham. In 1981, housing benefits were being received because people were unemployed because they were working tenants on low wages or because they were on supplementary benefit. In 1981, 54 per cent. of tenants living in council houses were in receipt of rent rebates. In 1985–86, that number has risen to 76·9 per cent. of the people living in council properties in Birmingham who are on supplementary benefit or on the standard rent rebate schemes. That leaves a very small percentage of people who can purchase properties.
An interesting figure, of which the Minister may not be aware, is that when rent rebates are being given to a city the size of Birmingham, the annual rent roll which is collected comes to £157,800,000 per year. It has to receive back from the Department of Health and Social Security in the form of the means tested benefit £93,800,000. One can see that the higher the rents the Government are asking local authorities to put on their tenants the larger amounts of money they are having to pay out in housing benefits.
With regard to the selling of council flats, I ask the Minister what research has been done to lead the Government to think that an increase in discount will bring about more buyers. The largest percentage of flats will be in the large cities—in Manchester, in Sheffield, in Liverpool and in Birmingham. I hear one of my noble friends say Camden, but I said the large cities, and Camden is surely part of a large city. Some of these flats obviously will be included for demolition, and some are unsafe or too costly to repair.
If I may give figures regarding flats in Birmingham, all 429 multi-storey blocks have been surveyed. Over 80 blocks have been identified as being in need of urgent attention. Two blocks are in the process of being demolished, and a further 126 have protective scaffolding to the base of the blocks to prevent falling debris from injuring the public.
One would ask oneself: is a tenant going to purchase a flat in Birmingham? In my view any local authority

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has a responsibility to tell a tenant when he seeks to purchase the potential problems that will arise in the structure of high rise blocks and that that might make future management an extremely costly business. Five years is nothing in management costs; it is a question of what will happen in 10 to 15 years' time. Conditions like this will obviously make it very difficult to sell one's property.
The Minister is no doubt fully aware of the difficulties raised by members in the other place regarding the various types of concrete houses built in Birmingham. The people who bought them in good faith under the Government's buy scheme are in a difficult position in that they have crumbling blocks of cement round them instead of housing and cannot sell them. All these difficulties continue to occur because the Minister has not accepted that all the different types of building involved are entitled to consideration for compensation.
How does the Minister envisage a satisfactory way of building consultation requirements into disposals? Is it the Government's intention to draft a code of conduct to ensure that all tenants are properly consulted? When the Minister is taking disposals into consideration, will he consider not only the very important needs of the tenant, but also the needs of the local community—in particular, the provision for the homeless and the badly housed, bearing in mind that housing for people with special needs now accounts for one third of all public sector starts?
It used to be said that the Englishman's home is his castle. I feel sure that there are some noble Lords in the House who come into that category, although I hasten to say that I am not speaking for myself. The removal of security of tenure takes away a fundamental right; in other words, the Englishman's home will not be his castle in future. Surely it is more equitable that possession should continue to be sought by consent and through negotiations. If local authorities have well-tried and satisfactory means of consultation, will they have to adapt or change their methods to conform to the relevant clauses in this Bill?
I speak as a previous chairman in Birmingham, and the arrangements that we made, when we doing a terrific amount of slum clearance, were some of the best possible on consultation procedures, on removal expenses and on the initial furnishing with carpets and curtains. The very fact that people were being compelled to move out meant that there was some of the best consultation. One hopes that that pattern will not have to be destroyed by this Bill. For the elderly, a move for possession can be especially traumatic and I sincerely hope that the patterns of consultation, where the social services and the housing departments work in liaison, are not lost.
Somebody described assured tenancies to me as a very inferior form of security of tenure. Because they are based upon market rents, those tenancies will be beyond the means of most people whose housing needs are greatest. As assured tenancies will have rents higher than the present controlled tenancies, will it follow that people will not be considered for housing benefit? Will people not be able to claim housing benefit, because they have gone into an assured tenancy of higher rented property?
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In my view, the Bill is irrelevant to solving the housing problem and it fails to meet the known housing need. I forecast that the long-term intention of the Government is to break up local authority housing as it is known and appreciated by the thousands of people who lived in council houses for many years and were so satisfied that they bought them. I feel sure that it is the Government's intention to transfer local authority housing into social service housing, providing only for the welfare groups in our society, which is against all the philosophy of a social mix as we know it.
Turning to the planning part of this Bill and the simplified planning zones, there is concern that the Secretary of State proposes to reserve for himself the powers to create an SPZ if a local authority refuses to create one. Obviously we see the whole of that part of the Bill as an attack on local autonomy.
Financial assistance for urban regeneration is an important part of the legislation. We already know that the Secretary of State for the Environment will be having the same power to provide direct grant-aid to the private sector as have the Secretary of State for Trade and the Secretary of State for Employment. I hope that they get their act together, because normally when anything goes wrong it is because the various departments have, somehow or other, gone up different gum trees. Any legislation that increases the amount of money being spent in the inner areas of our large cities, so long as that money is a net additional resource, is to be welcomed. In other words, we welcome the net additional amount, as long as other programmes are not reduced to enable urban regeneration grants to be offered.
I am a little concerned and a little unclear as to the relationship between the URGs and the Secretary of State's intentions regarding urban development corporations, because to a certain extent the urban regeneration grants and the urban development corporations will be working in the large cities. Perhaps the noble Lord the Minister could say how those two might clash. I may know better tomorrow, because I understand that the Secretary of State is visiting Birmingham today and his speech will no doubt be relayed on the local radio, as well as contained in the local paper. So if the Minister does not have the answer tonight, perhaps I shall read it tomorrow. The noble Lord the Minister said that the URGs could be small or large. I do not know what he meant—
Lord Elton: My Lords, I think that the noble Baroness is recalling something I said about simplified planning zones, not about the urban renewal grant.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: My Lords, I apologise. Finally, coming from an area with large inner city problems which require massive funding to bring them up to a developable state, I consider that SPZs should be regarded as a specific and a further tool to be used in very specific conditions. If those conditions are connected with the very large derelict land sites in inner cities, because factories have been demolished, and if industrial development can take place on those sites, we hope that in the long term—if this Bill is

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enacted—there will be an increase in employment prospects for thousands of people. So I give the Bill a guarded welcome if it is to achieve those desires.
6.18 p.m.
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, may I begin with an apology to your Lordships and to my noble friend, because I fear that I, too, may not be able to stay until the end of the debate? I add my congratulations to my noble friend Lord Hesketh and to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, on their maiden speeches. I, too, thought that they were quite splendid and that they augur very well for what we look forward to hearing from them for, I hope, a long time to come.
I want to talk about just three aspects of the Bill—a subject which, as I am sure your Lordships will appreciate, is very close to my heart. First, I want to say a word about the planning proposals; secondly, about housing, and, finally, about the urban regeneration factors; and is it not nice for me to be able once again to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Fisher, in debate?
As regards planning, I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, who said that planning is not really a problem generally; but I have to tell her, and anyone who thinks like that, that it simply is not so. You have only to attend any meeting of a federation, of a conference or of people concerned with building of any kind, to know that it is the delays in planning which are almost the major problem with which they have to contend as an industry.
Indeed, I recall that on coming into government in May, 1979, we then estimated—and the figures will undoubtedly have changed now—that there were some £8 billion of building contracts for which planning applications had been made at any one time. We figured out that if one could increase the whole proceedings at the rate of 10 per cent., it would mean that there would be an additional £800 million of work in the country at any time—and what a bonus and prize that would be! I do not know what the figure is today; it would be interesting to know just what it is. If this does nothing else, it highlights that planning is a desperately important aspect of what concerns us.
I, too, have my reservations about the proposals in the Bill for simplified planning zones—not about the intentions, because anything that will speed up the process has to be right. But I fear that the procedures in preparation for zones being specified will lead to drawn out delays in time and that the benefits everyone in your Lordships' House should like to see may not come about to the extent that the Government hope. If I am wrong, I should be delighted because I certainly welcome the intention behind the Bill.
Perhaps I may make another observation about the present position where there exists great concern which I have already mentioned. I refer to the written representations made when applications are turned down. A report came out in May on which the Government will give us their observations shortly; but I have to say that while the average time being taken to deal with appeals has come down from about 23 weeks to 19 weeks, that is only the average. The larger applications for planning which involve more
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jobs and more investment take much more time. It is important for us to take this opportunity to ask the Government to look at all aspects of the planning process and the time it is taking because this is having such an adverse effect on so much that is going on and it creates enormous frustration. All of us would like to see that done.
With regard to the housing proposals in the Bill, on the right to buy we always knew that flats would be much more difficult to sell than houses. I hope the record will show that I said that when I had the privilege of introducing the right to buy in the Housing Bill 1980 which later became the Housing Act. I hope the record will show that I said that at the time; I certainly thought it. Of course there are problems pertaining to buying flats which do not arise when you buy a house. Nevertheless there is no doubt that it is an important part of the right to buy and I am glad therefore that the Government are bringing forward these proposals.
I think that there ought to be one or two additional safeguards in the proposals. For example, where authorities sell to a tenant in a flat in a block, part of the proceeds ought immediately to be put into some kind of sinking fund which could take care of some of the costs of maintaining the common parts and even deal with structural repairs that may be called for as time goes on. This is something the Government might think about. I think also that where even one flat is sold in a block, from that moment on the whole of the management of the block should be turned over to the tenants or to the private sector. There are some marvellous examples of the private sector managing public housing. I am all for it. It works, and it is good, and I should like to see it extended in regard to the purchase of flats. We might well look at that.
I have to get used to the fact that in speaking in debate I am not answering all the points that others have raised as I used to have to do so much in my former incarnation, if I may put it that way. I shall try to resist that inclination. Generally, I welcome what is proposed with regard to the sale of flats under the right to buy. I also welcome the right to a loan. I say "yes" to the new improvement grant proposals. I welcome most of the other proposals. I think that the assured tenancy scheme after renewal is very good.
I should like to say a few words on the other housing points that have been raised. I welcome the urban regeneration scheme for grants. That is good. I was, and still am, a very staunch advocate of the urban development grant which, as your Lordships may know, for an outlay of £87 million has levered (if I may use that American term) just under £400 million from the private sector. That is the answer to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, who said that on the urban regeneration figures that have been put about we are talking of only about £20 million or £30 million. The test of its success will be how many more millions of pounds it produces by way of income from the private sector. That will be the test. If it does that, that is fine. If it produces five to one, six to one, seven to one or eight to one, you are talking real money. If it does not, it will not succeed and it will not achieve what Government hope for it.
One of the weaknesses of the urban development grant, with nearly £400 million, was referred to by the

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noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, when she said that she wanted to see flexibility. The one thing we have not had in the urban development grant is flexibility. It has not achieved the recognition and the acceptance in the private sector that many would have wished for it. Part of the reason is that it has to go through the procedure of obtaining local authority approval as well as obtaining Government approval. While this may have virtues of the kind mentioned already, it means that the procedure is tortuous and drawn out and takes time. The kind of people who want to invest and undertake developments are not the kind of people who want to hang around for months or for however long it may take.
I know all the arguments. I sat there in another capacity and had to adjudicate on many of the applications when recommendations were made to me. Therefore I know the reasons. Some of them are very proper, and one has to be very careful when applying public money to something that will benefit the private sector. So I understand; but I still say that the lessons we have learnt from the urban development grant really ought to be considered when we contemplate what will happen with the new scheme.
The new scheme is far broader and wider. It is meant to cover larger areas. I welcome it very much, but I hope that the facilitators and the appraisers who are at present needed to help government with the urban development grant will be equally available in the application of the new grant that is proposed. I am sure that my noble friend Lord Elton will give that some thought.
I do not want to make a long speech, but I wish to say a few words about the inner city scene generally. One hears so much debate about it. It is such a critically important part of what we are about. It is what urban regeneration grant and all the other grants are about. In its paper Faith in the City the Church carried out an excellent analysis of the problem. The hopelessness and despair were very well brought out and were well conveyed. However, what that paper did not do was give solutions that were practical and serious. That is often the case in the whole matter of inner cities. There is no one answer, and anyone who believes that there is is deluding himself. But there are major steps and attitudes that the two main sides—that is, local and central government—must be willing to adopt if we are to solve the problem. Because time is short, I make no mention today of the other sectors such as the voluntary bodies, housing associations and so on, although they have a very important role to play, and I acknowledge that.
The local authorities must, first, stop expecting government to do it all for them. They will not do so because there is not the money. If anyone had said seven years ago that we would put up £1 billion—that is, £ 1,000 million—into the inner cities, then everyone would have said that it was marvellous and magnificent that at last the Government were putting some money down. In that time, £2.2 billion has gone into inner cities. Does anyone say that that will solve the problem? Of course not. That is because no one factor will solve it. I say again that local authorities must be prepared to consider the use of every agency.
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They must do something to stop people moving out of the suburbs and into other areas.
The way to do that and to encourage a good mix of people in our inner cities is to make land available to builders. I do not care if they are small builders or large builders. Local authorities must make land available, in many cases before the houses are sold, to pay for when the houses are sold. They must enable the building of houses for new, first-time buyers, for starter homes. That is the way to tackle that aspect of the problem.
Local authorities must be willing to stop all the nonsense of pouring money down an open drain. I refer to ridiculous committees that have nothing whatsoever to do with local government. Your Lordships all know of them. Your Lordships know of the nonsensical peace committees, nuclear committees, women's committees (and what about men's committees?), equal opportunities committees, police committees and gay committees. There is massive spending on public relations, with millions of pounds poured down the drain on campaigns. That whole area is a nonsense in terms of local government. How can we complain about lack of resources to repair property and return it to a state of habitation, and how can we moralise and talk about caring, when we know that such committees are a priority for spending? Meanwhile, there is property left empty and not being brought back into use.
If one wants to deal with the problem of waiting lists, one must look at the thousands of houses that are already vacant. I know of one local authority in London that has several thousand empty houses. They have been empty for so long that one could weep. What does that local authority do? It spends more than half a million pounds on public relations and on campaigns. It spends vast sums of money on such items. That must stop if we are seriously to talk about the money that we need to solve the real problems of the inner cities.
Local authorities must be willing to keep rates down. Anyone who says that rates do not matter is living in a dream world all his own. Only time prevents me from quoting case after case of people in area after area who say that they will not move into local authority areas where there are massive rates imposed. That situation affects jobs, employment and investment, which we must get back into the inner cities.
Central government, too, have their role to play. For example, I am one of those who, like others who have spoken today, would like to see an increase in the 20 per cent. use of capital receipts. If there is a problem with the Treasury—and I know that there is—then at least some kind of percentage increase would have a great psychological impact upon local authorities, who would come to feel that the Government really are prepared to do something. I know the limitations upon my noble friend in making any movement in that direction, but this is something that I would commend to the Government: to consider that aspect within the limitations that exist. I believe that is a priority.

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I would also plead for the lifting of VAT on house repairs. That imposition has had an adverse effect upon the rehabilitation and repair of housing. I know of so many people in the industry who are sad that that has come about. I wonder what it means in terms of money to the Treasury. I wonder whether there is any way in which we might achieve some alleviation of that tax, which would also help very much in what needs to be done.
I am all for more urban development corporations. Bearing in mind what has happened in the docklands and on Merseyside, which were in the main cleared sites, I acknowledge that such development will not be easy in areas where there are great numbers of people in occupation. That is why I would ask that an approach be made only to those authorities who actually want to see development; authorities that really are concerned about bettering the lives of people locally, rather than about political indoctrination and activities of that kind. There are many such authorities. I could quote Labour authorities having marvellous leaderships who would be only too delighted to consider such development. I commend the example of Teesside to my noble friend. That is an area where there are wonderful people who would do anything to improve the lot of their community. That is their concern, and I would encourage such local authorities.
I should like to go on, but I hope that I have taken a broad view of the subject. One thing is certain—that solutions will not be found in the short term. The problem did not come about quickly and it will not go away quickly. If we raise expectations too high, we shall be disappointed. But if the will is there and if everybody will abandon the old shibboleths and start to consider what must be done, then a solution can be found.
6.37 p.m.
Viscount Ridley: My Lords, I refer to Part V of the Bill, which deals with opencast coal and states that the Bill will repeal Sections 1 to 3 of the Opencast Coal Act 1958. The repeal of Section 1 ends the special provisions giving British Coal power to apply direct to the Secretary of State for Energy for authorisation to work land for coal, thus bringing coal into line with all other minerals. That must be correct. It is a very desirable end and it is much to be welcomed.
Although I realise that a Bill of this size cannot at this stage be drastically changed, I am sorry that the opportunity has not been taken to consider the 1958 Act as a whole. For example, even if British Coal now needs planning permission, like anybody else, to work coal, it still has a monopoly under the 1958 Act that empowers it to license private operators for any site over 25,000 tonnes. Furthermore, it levies a royalty of £16 a tonne on such operations. One wonders why it is able to do that. Also, it can refuse a licence and it has compulsory powers to acquire or requisition land. As far as I am aware, those powers have never been used since 1958.
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It surprises me very much that that side of British Coal's operations has never been a target for privatisation. Leaving that aside, I merely note that private operators now account for about 10 per cent. of the nation's opencast coal output. However, licences are not infrequently refused by the Coal Board, but when it does refuse because British Coal itself wants to work the land at some future date, there can be considerable uncertainty. Planning blight can be an intolerable burden for any owner or occupier of such land, sometimes for many years.
I hope that the Government will at some stage take the opportunity to force British Coal—and I apologise for getting its name wrong; but it has only just changed and that is a little unfair on us—to acquire the land on the open market only by agreement and to work it with planning permission over a given period; to license it within another certain period; or, thirdly, to ensure that the planning authority should have power to say that such a site will never be available for working and so stop the blight.
So far as concerns Section 3 and protecting the environment during the working as well as during the restoration, I find myself not for the first time in agreement with the noble Baroness, Lady David, who would like to see that section retained. I shall not read it out, as the noble Baroness has already done so, but both the Association of Metropolitan Authorities and the Association of County Councils are very dismayed at the prospect of the loss of this section which has given local authorities considerable power to enforce conditions and to protect, for example, listed buildings. The record of the National Coal Board, as it was, on consultation is not such that we should lightly withdraw this protection.
Open cast coal is a very emotive and destructive process. Neighbouring communities suffer from the noise, dust, and blasting; as I well know myself. They must be protected as far as possible from both public and private operators. I very much doubt whether the circular which the Minister promised in another place during the Committee stage in March will be an adequate substitute for an Act of Parliament. I should like to see this section kept in being as important, too, in the law. I would further add that repealing Section 3 will give the impression that the Government are relaxing their controls over these workings after they have satisfactorily, or more or less satisfactorily, operated for the past 28 years.
I have had over 40 years experience of open cast coal working and over 600 acres of my own land has been affected one way or another during that time, and so I speak from some experience. Indeed, I still live on top of a great coal deposit. It takes at least 20 years, even with the best possible restoration, for restored land to return to its former agricultural state. Without constant and detailed supervision the Coal Board or its contractors can easily cut corners and the land can be almost valueless for a longer period than that. We cannot afford to relax protection in respect of open cast coal because it is, if only due to its vast scale of operation, different from other minerals in its extractive processes. As former chairman of a county

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planning committee dealing with much detailed work on this matter of Coal Board applications, I can recall the difficulties of getting protection established. Therefore, I ask seriously that the Government think hard before they repeal Section 3 of the 1958 Act.
I turn briefly to the question of listed buildings, to which my noble friend Lord Salisbury referred. There is considerable concern at the moment because almost everything that does not move is getting listed. There is much feeling that things should not be listed without the approval, or at least the knowledge, of the landowner or the owner of the buildings concerned. It is right that we should have a statutory provision that listing should be a process in which the owner has a right to know and, if necessary, is consulted at the time. I am not sure whether an appeal should be possible.
In conclusion, I should like to give an example. Recently, in tradition which I hope is appropriate to a backwoodsman from this House, I constructed a Gothic folly in the garden, partly as an exercise for an apprentice stonemason. It was only by the merest chance that it was not listed six months later. I think it would have been listed had the stonemason not carved " 1985" on the back of the building and had the authority not found the man at his work.
My right honourable kinsman the Secretary of State for the Environment was himself at one time an apprentice stonemason, but even he never had the distinction of having his buildings listed. I hope he will see the force of the argument and agree that we should not forget the landowner when listing is likely to happen.
6.43 p.m.
Baroness Nicol: My Lords, I wish to confine myself to Part II of the Bill regarding the simplified planning zones. At first sight the concept of the SPZs seems a useful addition to the tools of a local planning authority. Clause 13 sets out the framework for the creation of SPZs, and their subsequent management and termination, in reasonably clear and unexceptional terms. But we agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, that the time allowed—namely, 10 years—for what is an untried scheme is too long. We, too, will be returning to that in Committee.
We welcome the list of exclusions from SPZs in Clause 13, but we are concerned with one provision which I hope the Minister will be able to clarify when he winds up. I refer to the provision on sites of special scientific interest. The Bill states on page 29, at line 27:
"Where land included in a simplified planning zone becomes land of such a description"—
that is, a SSSI—
"subsection (1) does not have effect to exclude it from the zone".
That sounds fair enough until one realises that there are large numbers of sites of special scientific interest which had been declared before the 1981 Act but which have not yet been renotified under that Act because of the backlog of work which the NCC has had to do.
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Therefore, it seems that a special effort should be made to exclude these particular sites from the provisions of the Bill. I am sure that the Government would not wish that those sites should be lost. Perhaps the Minister can answer that. If he agrees with me that the Bill reads as I believe it does, will he say whether or not he means to bring forward an amendment in Committee to correct it?
We then turn to Schedule 4, which explains the provisions of Clause 13 and gives the further provisions. If we include Scotland, which we do in all our remarks, we have 15 closely written pages of further provisions. I do not propose to read them at length, but I shall paraphrase them, as quickly as I can, because it is important that your Lordships should realise the complexity of what is proposed. We find that an authority which decides to make or to alter an existing SPZ is required to give adequate publicity to their proposals and that all persons who may be expected to wish to make representations about the proposals are made aware of their right to do so and are given adequate opportunity to exercise that right. Their representations must be considered in the prescribed period.
There is then a complicated and lengthy procedure of lodging documents with the Secretary of State and with superior local authorities; and, where appropriate, highway authorities. All action is to be reported to the Secretary of State, who will satisfy himself that the procedures carried out are correct and that adequate consultation and publicity have been secured. If the Secretary of State is not satisfied, he can order further steps to be taken. Where objections are made by the public, the local authority must hold a local inquiry or other hearing by a person appointed by the Secretary of State in the usual manner. All this is right and proper, and my reason for emphasising it is to remind the House that the creation of a simplified planning zone is not, in itself, a simple operation. It is not a quick and easy job.
Against that background there are major faults in the proposals. The noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, has already pointed out to your Lordships that it only requires "a person" to ask a local authority to make or amend a SPZ scheme. It does not have to be a person who is normally resident in the area or who owns property in the area, or even a person who has an interest in the area—simply "a person". If, following the request, the local authority refuses or fails to make a scheme within three months of being asked then, on the request of "a person" the Secretary of State can, after ascertaining the authority's reasons, instruct the authority to make a SPZ.
We must remember that under the provisions of Clause 13 every authority will already have been obliged to consider its whole area with an instruction to make SPZs where appropriate. So, if they have not done so, that is a conscious, informed local decision. As the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, and my noble friend Lord Stallard have so ably reminded the House, there are many local considerations affected by these proposals about which the local authority would know the most. If it has made a decision, for any reason, not to have a SPZ, there is usually a good reason for that.

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Another point to remember is that nowhere in the schedule is there guidance on the minimum size of a SPZ. Presumably this means that it could be one household, one plot. The dangers are obvious. Any person can decide that it would suit him to have his holding declared a SPZ, thereby avoiding planning restrictions and charges. He could set in motion the whole expensive and cumbersome machinery which I have outlined. Any person could challenge the decision of the local authority not to create a SPZ, and by doing so he would give the Secretary of State the power to override the wishes of the local authority to whatever extent the Secretary of State wished.
As I read the provisions of Schedule 4, once he has gained the power to override the local authority, the Secretary of State is not bound to stick to the boundaries of the original proposal made by a person, but can then do whatever he likes. This cannot be right. Local authorities must be allowed to conduct their affairs for their own communities. After all, if they do not like the way it is done they can change their representatives at the next election. They always have that right.
Finally in regard to SPZs, discussions in another place on whether or not declarations were to be obligatory produced a categorical statement from the right honourable Minister which I think is worth quoting. In response to one of the Members for Dorset he said:
"I understand the deep concern of those of my hon. Friends who represent counties such as Dorset. I appreciate that they do not wish planning powers to be abused. In responding to an earlier intervention. 1 attempted to explain that it will not be the duty of councils to define simplified planning zones at all costs. It will be their duty to ascertain whether any areas within the borough or district would benefit from simplified planning zone status. That is the whole, complete and utter story."—[Official Report, Commons, 4/2/86; col. 161.]
That seems to me to be a very categorical statement and when the Minister replies I hope that he will say whether or not the Government still stand by it or whether the rights of a person will perhaps be used too often to override the local authority.
As the Bill is drafted at present it could give such sweeping powers for deregulation to the Secretary of State on the intervention of just one person in each local authority—or even from Dorset. Vexatious persons are not hard to find, nor are ambitious ones. We are concerned that such reassurances as were given during proceedings in another place were all aimed at Conservative authorities in the south of the country. Are we about to embark on yet another attack on local authorities whose politics are not to the liking of the present administration? If any noble Lord present is disturbed by my question, I beg him to study the progress of this Bill in another place before we reach Committee stage in this Chamber. The Minister has much to do to reassure us and I hope that he will make a start this evening, because what on the face of it is a useful planning tool could so easily become yet another weapon in the Government's armoury against local democracy.
6.53 p.m.
Lord Margadale: My Lords, first of all I should like to refer to the speech of my noble friend Lord
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Salisbury and to support him very warmly in everything that he has said, and also to support my other noble friend Lord Ridley in what he said towards the end of his remarks. I should like to raise a small point with regard to the listing of buildings and gardens. This matter came to my notice when I received a lengthy document, stretching to three foolscap pages, with comments on my house, garden and the surrounding area. This was the first time I knew anything about this point. My house was completed only 12 years ago, and the garden, though it is quite a nice garden, is not a historic garden. I saw no reason whatever why either the house or the garden should be listed as an historic fact, because they are not historic. If a list of historic places is being compiled, there is no point in putting in information which is inaccurate.
So I had these sheets of paper with a lengthy description of all kinds of things, and there were inaccuracies in every other line. I did not know what had happened—indeed, it happened behind my back—but it appeared that some people had been sent down from Yorkshire and had carried out a survey. They were very bad indeed—that is all I can say. I have had an apology from Lord Montagu and one from Doctor Thacker, who was the man in charge then, though not to begin with. I asked him, "Why don't you speak to people about this and then you might get it right?" He said, "It was laid down—though now it has all been changed—that we are not allowed to speak to anybody". I think that is very silly, if I may say so. They are more likely to get their facts right if they speak to people.
So I have had my grumble. I am very glad to learn from the remarks of my noble friend Lord Salisbury, that he has received a letter from the Minister which seems to be a step in the right direction. When I look at this "little book", which we are starting to discuss on this third day of what might be called a parliamentary holiday, I hope that the Minister will go a little further than his statement in that letter—otherwise it could be a longish time before the Bill goes through.
I do not wish to detain the House any longer. I was brought up by my father who sat in another place for 13 years and during the course of those 13 years made only one speech. He said: "If you are ever foolish enough to try to get into the House of Commons, remember two things—never speak for more than 10 minutes and, when you are supporting a government"—and I am supporting the Government, funnily enough, although I am criticising it—"preferably speak for much less than that".
6.56 p.m.
Lord Foot: My Lords, I shall bear those last words closely in mind and try to adapt myself to the noble Lord's proposition. First of all, however, even though it is some time since we had the pleasure of listening to them, I should like to join in the congratulations which have been so deservedly offered to the two maiden speakers. It does not often happen in this House that in one debate we have the pleasure of listening to two maiden speeches of such quality, demonstrating such thoughtful understanding of the subject of this debate, and, if I may say so, delivered with such eloquence. In

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particular, I want to welcome to these Benches my noble friend Lord Davies and to congratulate him upon his speech.
I owe the noble Lord the Minister an apology, because owing to a misunderstanding of the timetable on my part I unfortunately missed his opening speech. I regret it for the obvious reason that one always regrets missing any speech from the noble Lord. However, on this occasion I was particularly anxious to hear what he might have to say—and I shall now have to wait until tomorrow to read . it in Hansard—about the part of the Bill with which I am solely concerned this evening, which is Part IV dealing with hazardous substances. I particularly wanted to hear what the noble Lord had to say about that topic because of the anxieties that have been expressed about this part of the Bill by the Planning Law Committee of the Law Society, which is the committee that is specially charged with advising the Law Society upon matters of planning and environ-mental law. It has very carefully considered this part of the Bill and has expressed considerable concern about some of its terms.
The main concern of the Planning Law Committee is that this part of the Bill, as it thinks, does not measure up to the problem which confronts us in the control of dangerous and hazardous substances. I think that it will be generally agreed that it is most important in this area that the law should be clear and the responsibilities of the different authorities which control and manage dangerous substances should be clearly denned. I do not suppose that there will be much argument about that. But the other proposition is this. As matters stand today, there is a great deal of uncertainty in the law. The Law Society at any rate takes the view that it is a great pity that the opportunity has not been taken on this occasion to rationalise and consolidate the law and in particular to bring all the law affecting hazardous substances into one enactment, so that the areas of responsibility of the controlling authorities and the obligations on all persons concerned in dealing with and managing dangerous substances are clearly denned.
One reason for our concern is the way in which the matter is being dealt with in Part IV of the Bill. The control of dangerous substances is only marginally a planning matter. Planning law has to do with the use of land. But the law on dangerous substances is primarily concerned with public safety and the protection of the public. That is matter of scientific expertise, and yet Part IV of the Bill sets up a whole new scheme of control by the curious device of making a series of amendments to the Town and Country Planning Act 1971. No fewer than 18 pages of the Bill (pages 34 to 52) are new sections to be slotted in in different places in the 1971 Act. There has been no attempt whatever at a comprehensive restatement of the law or a consolidating enactment.
All that is happening is that on the present procedure and on the present system by which we control dangerous substances there is being superimposed yet another layer of authority in the form of what are called dangerous substances authorities. The law is complicated enough on this matter, for a variety of reasons. First of all, there are a
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whole host of enactments and statutory instruments which deal directly with or impinge upon the matter of dangerous substances. There were the Explosives Acts of 1875 and 1923, which are no doubt largely out of date but unrepealed. There is the Petroleum (Consolidation) Act 1928 and the Radioactive Substances Act 1960. The Minister shakes his head.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I was merely reflecting that the Act of 1875 is alive and well, and then recalling that the noble Lord was not here at the beginning to hear me say so.
Lord Foot: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for that intervention. The only other Act to which I need refer—but it is one of the most important ones—is the Control of Pollution Act 1974. How does the system work now, with this multiplicity of enactments, all bearing upon the subject, and of course all the planning legislation which relates to hazardous substances?
Let me give the House two brief examples. When an application is made today for planning permission for some kind of hazardous development, there is an obligation on the plannning authority to seek the advice of the Health and Safety Executive. That is quite right, and everybody would agree that it is proper. It is the Health and Safety Executive which is responsible for seeing that the installation, whatever it may be, complies with the requirements of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.
Similarly, under the Control of Pollution Act of the same year, the issue of waste disposal licences is a matter for the waste disposal authority. Here again the planning authority is concerned only with the general planning considerations—landscaping, visual amenity and the like. But it is the waste disposal authority which has the obligation and duty to consider when it is proper to issue such a licence.
That division of function between two bodies in the consideration of any application relating to hazardous substances and the importance of defining clearly the responsibility of each body has been long recognised. In more than one government circular attention has been drawn to it. It may be sufficient if I quote from Circular No. 55 of 1976, which relates to disposal licences:
"It has long been accepted that planning control should not be used to secure objectives for which provision is made in other legislation, and conditions attached to new planning permissions should not therefore extend to matters which are more appropriate to the disposal licensing system".
How do those new provisions contained in this part of the Bill affect that situation? Do they in any way simplify it? Do they make it any clearer where the lines of responsibility between the different authorities are to be drawn? Do they in any way assist the individual to know to whom he should make an application or to whom he should apply for permission? I think that they do not help at all.
As I understand it, the duties and powers of the various authorities remain just as before. The Bill has superimposed upon those authorities, with their disparate obligations, yet another layer of authority by

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the creation of these new hazardous substances authorities, empowered to issue hazardous substances consents. The Bill sets out in elaborate detail how they are to perform their duties and obligations.
As I understand it, the new creation is not intended to supersede the existing authorities but is to operate side by side. There will be at least four authorities which will be intimately concerned with the whole question of control. One is the new authority, another is the planning authority, another is the waste disposal authority and the fourth is the Health and Safety Executive. Normally the new hazardous substances authority will be the same authority as the planning authority. How in the world it makes it more simple to understand or makes it better to give the same authority two separate names in two separate obligations, I do not understand. I hope therefore that when we come to this part of the Bill in Committee, the Minister may be able to allay some of these apprehensions.
7.10 p.m.
Baroness Faithfull: My Lords, in the area of social policies—housing, health, education and unemployment—housing policies can positively affect health, employment and education. There is ample evidence, too, that many of the unemployed who wish to be in work could move to areas where there is work but for the lack of housing. Bearing in mind the basic importance of housing, may I ask my noble friend the Minister a number of questions? Some arise specifically out of the Bill. Others are connected with housing and planning, but are not perhaps specifically mentioned in the Bill.
On the question of planning, I speak with some diffidence. There have been so many good speeches, and our two maiden speakers are both experts on planning. I should, however, like to ask a question in respect of the simplified planning zones. Do not the proposed procedures for declaring simplified planning zones duplicate existing local plan procedures especially with regard to consultation? Would it not be better if consultation concerning SPZs took place as part of a local plan exercise where it would be easier for the public to assess the problems that the area faced and the options available to resolve them? Like my noble friend Lord Bellwin, I have been involved in local consultations. Unless there is acceptance and consensus among local people on plans, something is bound to go wrong. I should like to ask my noble friend a small, simple question. If the SPZs go forward, does it mean that there could be planning that would be against the interests and against the feelings of local people? If a factory, built near to where people live, causes noise or bad smells, what right have local people to express their views?
Schedule 9, paragraph 1 removes the powers of county councils as highway authorities to direct local planning authorities to refuse planning permission on highways grounds. I come from Oxford, a small place, really, in terms of its population of 110,000 and consisting of an area of 13 square miles. What occurs on surrounding highways affects very much what happens in the city. If a local authority is allowed to
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develop within the city without reference to the highways and to the county councils, will this not mean a great deal of trouble? Would not county councils be unable to ensure that developments did not prejudice road safety, disrupt traffic conditions or create environmental problems? Would they not also lose the means now available to them as a strategic planning authority to ensure that structure plan transport policies are not undermined? What will be the financial implications?
Part III of the Bill deals with housing. I am given to understand that my noble friend the Minister, at a later stage of the Bill, is to introduce—I hope that this is the case—a very imaginative plan called the stay put scheme. Under this scheme, the powers of the housing associations will be extended to provide services of any description for owners or owner-occupiers of houses in carrying out works of maintenance, repair or improvement or encouraging and facilitating the carrying out of such work. Should my noble friend bring this forward at a later stage, it will be welcomed by many people.
During the war, when I worked with local authorities, it was necessary to requisition properties. As the noble Baroness, Lady David, I believe, mentioned, there is in the country the most enormous number of empty properties. Local authorities have 2·3 per cent., of the empty properties and housing associations 3·8 per cent., while those that are privately owned amount to 4·2 per cent. But the central government proportion is 6·9 per cent. I recognise that many of us would not want to live in Centre Point. Nevertheless, there are these empty properties. Would it not be possible under the Bill, bearing in mind the need to house homeless families, to consider requisitioning empty properties—houses that are deteriorating in both the public and private sectors—and use them to house homeless families? Unless we build more houses, everyone agrees, I am sure, that we shall be in trouble. I acknowledge the Government's present policy of not allowing all the money that is paid into local authorities through the sale of council houses to be used. At the moment 20 per cent. can be used, I believe, towards the capital programme, but no more. I wonder whether my noble friend the Minister is willing to consider whether this figure could be raised. I realise that it cannot be raised to the maximum, but it would help local authorities enormously if it could be raised to some extent.
As regards the problem of homeless families, I believe that local authorities—I say this with much diffidence—are wasting an enormous amount of money on bed-and-breakfast accommodation. This is happening when they could be requisitioning local houses both in the public and private sector. The local authority could become the tenant and let the houses to licensees. I make these suggestions simply because it is vitally important to meet a housing problem that is a very real problem. I recognise that everything cannot be done within one Bill. But it would have been a wonderful opportunity if the Bill could have been extended in order to deal with those problems.
7.19 p.m.
Lord Auckland: My Lords, this is a complex Bill. The more housing legislation that is introduced—this

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happens under governments of all political complexions—the longer the Bills seem to become in respect of both clauses and schedules. I intend, however, to be brief. I shall confine my remarks to a few observations about Part IV of the Bill. I have an indirect interest as vice-president of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, which is concerned about matters linked to all kinds of hazardous substances. At least 38 pages of the Bill are taken up with this. Although my noble friend the Minister has I think stated that there would be some amendments in Committee from the Government Benches on this matter of Part IV, I hope that there will be some definition of hazardous substances. In none of the 10 schedules to the Bill is there any indication of this.
I am not very clear as to which authority will be empowered to enforce this part of the Bill. I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Foot, made an extremely apposite point when he urged for consolidation of this whole question of hazardous substances and allied problems. There has been a great deal of legislation concerning pollution and hazardous substances, but this does not seem to fit into any particular Bill and it seems to cover a number of Government departments.
As far as I am aware, this is the first time in a housing Bill that we have had a very detailed exposition of hazardous substances. With the growth of the chemical industry, and with more of these substances being used by both local authorities and private house owners, I think that part IV of the Bill is to be widely welcomed.
I also hope that the Government will clarify Clause 20, which seems to be very difficult to follow, with regard to who will enforce this part of the law and what "hazardous substances" really means. Both local authorities and private owners—whether it involves factories, waste disposal units, or people working in their gardens—must emit these substances. Although we have 38 pages on this part of the Bill, I must say that some of the drafting is obscure, at least to the layman. I hope that by the next stage of the Bill we shall have some clarification as to what is a very vital part of this long and far-reaching measure.
7.23 p.m.
Viscount Falmouth: My Lords, I shall not be very long at this very late hour. I must congratulate the two maiden speakers on their excellent contributions. It is the lifeblood of this House which courses through our veins that we have specialists among our Members. That is the one factor which creates the greatest possible respect outside this House. There is always somebody here who knows what he is talking about.
I must declare an interest in regard to this Bill. I shall talk, but only for two minutes, on Part VI of this Bill—the miscellaneous provisions—which deals with listed buildings. All I shall say, following my noble friend Lord Margadale, is that I completely agree with what my noble friend Lord Salisbury has said: that the owners of these buildings should be served with a statutory notice of an intention to survey a property with a view to inclusion on a list. This would mean
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that a building could not be pulled down or altered until the decision was made as to whether the building should be listed or not.
Secondly, as my noble friend suggested, there ought to be a right of appeal in law against listing. For someone who has a building listed it is probably his greatest possession—his own home. He should have a right to a fair hearing before a tribunal independent of the Secretary of State.
My last point is that too much listing debases the currency of listing. A most responsible owner—who is, I believe, a Member of your Lordships' House—has just written to me and said that when a field worker was asked the reason for listing a farm building, the only reason given was that it was slurried. It seems that putting cow dung on the roof of a building makes it liable to be listed. At least the owner was obviously consulted there.
I shall say no more, except that the wording is that the Secretary of State, before listing, will have consulted those persons who to him are appropriate as having special knowledge and interest in such buildings. This must surely include the owner. He must be regarded as the principal in all such cases.
7.27 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, first, I wish to join previous speakers in complimenting and congratu-lating our two new Peers, the noble Lord, Lord Hesketh, and the noble Lord, Lord Davies, on what I think we all agree were excellent contributions to this debate, We hope that on numerous occasions in the future we shall have the benefit of their wisdom and experience.
If I were to pick out one point from the maiden speeches of the two noble Lords, I would say that the noble Lord, Lord Davies, encapsulated what is perhaps the chief component of our present poor housing situation when he talked about the need for resources, without which the situation will continue to deteriorate.
Noble Lords will forgive me if I confine my remarks to those parts of the Bill which deal with housing. The parts concerned with planning were adequately and excellently covered on behalf of my party by my noble friend and colleague Lady Nicol. I do not think therefore that I need to spend any time on that aspect.
I have, I regret, to begin my remarks on the same note as the noble Baroness, Lady David, when she opened this Second Reading debate on behalf of my party. The Minister said that it was not a Bill that contained major proposals, but that it dealt with existing legislation and brought it more into line with the Government's thinking. I think it is regrettable that the Bill does nothing at all to deal with the housing problem which we are now experiencing.
Over the past two years a succession of not only overwhelmingly non-political organisations but organisations with expertise as regards housing have concluded that urgent government action and assistance is required to deal with the problem. I shall

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certainly not read out the extensive list of those bodies. However, three of the most important reports which came out recently were the Audit Commission's report (the Government's report); the Duke of Edinburgh's report last year; and the report entitled Faith in the City.
Those reports all pointed the same way and said that there was a deteriorating situation which required government action—in other words, an increase in government financial assistance. Not all of those reports just called attention to the serious situation in the public sector housing stock. They also drew attention to the fact that the owner-occupied sector, which in percentage terms accounts for 62 per cent. of our housing stock, was sliding rapidly into the same state of disrepair. Although those properties are owner-occupied, if that trend continued it would cause an erosion of one of the basic wealths of the nation.
It is regrettable that the Government's record and response so far certainly does not give the impression that they are not aware of the situation, do not understand it or, by deliberate political decision, do not want to do anything about it. I understand that just before his departure, the last Secretary of State put in a bid for £1·25 billion extra to deal with the situation. I also understand that the first action of his successor who is now in office—Mr. Nicholas Ridley—was to reduce that sum by a quarter of a billon pounds. That is happening at a time when local authorities have had their bids for financial resources considerably reduced. I shall give two examples to indicate to your Lordships the dimensions of what is happening.
For 1986–87, Manchester asked for £109,500,000. It received a government allocation of £27·8 million—a quarter of the bid which it submitted. The same can be said of Leeds. Leeds asked for £81·4 million and received £22·4 million. There is no point in the Government making out that the main culprits of the deterioration of the tenanted section of the public sector is the local authorities, because had they been accorded over the past seven years the financial support which they were receiving in 1979, I suggest that most of the houses which have deteriorated most would certainly be in far better condition. It is a little naughty for certain people associated with the Government continually to use the local authorities as their whipping boys in this connection.
It is regrettable, but I wonder whether we are right in assuming that this Bill will be the last major housing Bill in the present Parliament and that the Government do not intend to take any further major action to deal with the present situation. Let us consider the main provisions of the Bill. I must express my appreciation to the Minister for the concise way in which he explained a very complicated Bill in the time available. He did it in his usual first-class manner. The main provision of the Bill is to increase discounts and to provide financial benefits to council house tenants to enable those who have not already done so to buy their council houses. As the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, pointed out, we are talking mainly about flats. Could it be that this is just a naked attempt to arrest the decline in the sale of council houses now that the better properties have been sold off?
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One does not need to be a genius or to have any hindsight to say that we now find ourselves in the situation which many of us said we would be in when the policy concerning the sale of council houses was put into operation. We predicted that the first properties to go would be the better council houses and that people would be extremely reluctant to buy council flats. I point out to your Lordships that in some of the London boroughs and in other big cities—certainly in a large area of Manchester—60 per cent. of the people are receiving partial or total support towards their council rent and they live in what we call deck access flats. I suggest that not one of them will ever be sold.
It is not a situation in which the first buyer of the property is involved just in buying a home. Do not forget that when we buy our own homes we consider whether it is an investment. I suggest that if a person were fool enough to buy some of these council flats he would be loading himself with an albatross, because when it comes to resale he would not have a customer. I had experience of that when I was a Member of Parliament for Leeds. People tried to sell their council houses, the building of which had been semi-industrialised. The properties had been deteriorating and they had put them right. However, nobody wanted to touch them even though they had been fully vetted by a variety of estate agents and valuers and found to be perfectly sound. So far as buyers were concerned, they were a dead duck.
The Minister said that the Bill dealt with existing proposals and put them in line with the Government's present thinking. The most dangerous proposal is the one regarding the disposal of council houses or council estates to a private developer. I listened as carefully as I could to what the Minister said. Naturally, the Minister will understand that I shall have to read the detail of what he said in Hansard tomorrow, but there is no doubt that the biggest worry that the Bill has engendered among ordinary people concerns their security of tenure.
A few weeks ago, in one of your Lordships' committee rooms, I had the privilege of chairing a meeting of that type of tenant. I can give your Lordships every assurance that it was not a meeting of Rent-a-crowd. They came from a wide area. Some came from the London boroughs, some from Sheffield and Leeds and some from the smaller communities in Lancashire, such as Accrington and so on. Some of the people were middle-aged. Some of the men had gone through the last war and had been lucky enough to get a council house on their return from the army. They were scared to death that they would lose their security of tenure and become the tenant of a landlord not of their own choosing.
With your Lordships' permission, I shall read a few lines of a letter which I received in the post this morning. It begins: "Dear Lord Dean and Lord Scarman". I do not know what connection the writer thinks I have with the noble and learned Lord, unless he thinks that I am his PPS! However, it says:
"Dear Lord Dean and Lord Scarman, Please, please do not let the developers buy our houses. We have been in our house 32 years and we are in our 60s. We have always paid our rent and do not want to move".

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I can assure your Lordships that that is a genuine letter. To prove that it is not from any form of revolutionary, at the conclusion it says:
"PS. What a lovely Royal Wedding. I am very proud of our Queen and her family, and everyone was so happy".
That is the type of person involved. There are hundreds of thousands of such people in our council houses and this particular piece of legislation is scaring them to death.
As I have said, 1 shall have to read what the Minister said, but he indicated that the Secretary of State would have reserve powers. My noble friend Lady David, when opening the debate on this side of the House, said that we would be looking at the situation in the Bill quite carefully and would possibly try to write into the Bill an absolute copper-bottomed guarantee to people in council houses that, as they have assumed quite rightly throughout history, if they behave themselves and are reasonable tenants and pay their rents, they will have a home for life. This is the first time in living memory that legislation has threatened them in that situation.
I want to put another point to the Minister. The noble Lord said that certain facilities would become available—the right to apply for loans, management co-operatives, that type of thing, and that financial assistance would be forthcoming. In the brief time we have available, I should like to ask the noble Lord whether it would be correct to assume that this money would have to be found by the local authorities? If it has to be found by the local authorities will this be something else that comes out of their diminishing, in real terms, housing investment programme? If it does, I would think it absolutely and grossly unfair.
The Bill has had a good debate today. It is a much more complex Bill than it appeared to be when it was in another place. I am going to finish shortly because of the time factor, and because I think that during the Committee stage your Lordships will debate in depth most of what we have been talking about. However, I should like to give notice that we are not in any way convinced that the proposals regarding assured tenancies contained in this Bill are of any benefit whatsoever. They will increase the growing pool of people who will once again find that their security of tenure is threatened.
We believe, and I think most people believe irrespective of their political persuasion—and a growing number of the Government's supporters believe—that the answer is to put more government money in, pound for pound with the local authorities, and to release on an increasing scale the frozen £6 billion held by the local authorities in order to help them deal with their problems.
There are a number of organisations whose professional credentials are beyond reproach and who are expert in their analysis of what is happening. The most conservative figure being used as necessary to correct the damage at present, or arrest deterioration, is £19 billion just for the public sector. But, as I have said, instead of getting increased allocations, the financial resources allowed by the Government this year in real terms are a substantial decrease on last year.
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I am not so blind as to believe that there are not faults with local authority housing. I was a chairman of a large authority myself. But the overwhelming number of tenants who live in council property have had the benefit over the years of being in good, or reasonable, houses with good landlords, although sometimes they could be better. However, historically certainly better than landlords in the private sector.
The deterioration of thousands of flats and houses is due to two factors. Some of the accommodation should never have been built. However, there is no question but that the acceleration is coming now in houses where an investment of £5,000 to £6,000 could give another 30, 40 or 50 years of life. If the Government are not prepared to do it, there is no evidence that the private sector will unless the Government step in on a partnership basis.
I would accept that private money has to be brought into the urban development corporations, but it would be a disastrous way for the Government to proceed to attempt to create non-elected boards that could take decisions vitally affecting the people in those areas without consultation, or without forming a partner-ship with the elected local authorities who represent the people of those areas.
We shall have an interesting time on the Bill in Committee. I hope during the Committee stage we may be able to persuade the Government of our major fear regarding tenants of long standing—and they are not rent-a-mob tenants but hundreds of thousands of genuine people—and we hope that when we have finished the Bill they will know that they have the guarantee that the home they occupy cannot be disposed of against their wishes.
7.45 p.m.
Lord Elton: My Lords, when the noble Lord, Lord Dean, promises an interesting time in Committee, I recall that in classical times the worst thing you could be wished was to be born into interesting times. I hope he has a friendlier approach than that.
In rising to reply to this interesting debate I should like first to echo Lady Stedman's regret that we have not today heard, as we had hoped and expected to hear, the voice of our late noble friend Lord Crawshaw of Aintree. He was a good man, and we regret his passing. The noble Baroness herself, however, did very well in his place—perhaps rather ominously well from my point of view.
Two voices we heard, and for the first time in your Lordships' House, were those of the noble Lords, Lord Hesketh and Lord Davies. I join other noble Lords in congratulating them on their first voyage on the waters of your Lordships' House and the success of those voyages, and I hope they often find the journey necessary in future. I would also raise my metaphorical hat and make a courteous bow to the seat of my noble friend Lord Bellwin. It was a pleasure to hear again that familiar and persuasive paeon, and to imagine for a moment that I was privileged to recline on the Back Benches while he suffered the rigours of replying from this Box. To save time, I refer the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, to the transcript of my noble friend's speech for the answer to the first part of his.

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I am departing from my usual practice because there are so many points of substance that your Lordships have raised. A great deal of what I have to say in the remaining minutes will be stitched together from notes. But I ought to say that this is a Bill dealing with a variety of important subjects, and that the housing provisions affect both the public and the private sectors. They seek to promote the sale of flats under the right to buy. I drew your Lordships' attention to that at the opening of this debate. The noble Baroness, Lady David, in her opening of the debate, asked for figures on housing, and in particular the number of households in bed-and-breakfast accommodation. At the end of the first quarter of 1986 the figure was 4,940, and I take no pleasure in that.
To pick up a point that she made shortly afterwards, I would say that her claim that the loans that local authorities will be obliged to make under Clause 3 in respect of service charges for repairs will be an added claim against authorities' HIP allocations is not exact. The local authorities' HIP allocations set a limit to the capital expenditure they may incur, but the right to a loan will not cause them to incur capital expenditure. In the case of a local authority tenant, it will be a right to leave the service charge outstanding and pay by instalments. The authority will thus be kept waiting for its money, but it will not have to make a cash advance.
Baroness David: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that. It was not a claim that I made; it was in fact a question I asked.
Lord Elton: My Lords, if the noble Baroness pays as much attention to the small print in Committee as she does at Second Reading, we shall indeed have a perfect Bill when we finish.
The noble Baroness, Lady David, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Stedman and Lady Fisher, spoke on the general issue of housing. Sales to sitting tenants are still running at about 100,000 a year. The Bill is aimed at selling more flats. Fewer than 3 per cent. of tenants of flats have so far bought. That is hardly a saturation point, as I think one noble Baroness suggested, and 97 per cent. of the 14 million council tenants who live in flats I think contain a number who are interested in buying.
As to special needs, we have asked local authorities and housing associations to concentrate their investment programmes on special needs. Housing capital expenditure has held up better since 1980 than under the previous Government. Right-to-buy receipts have substantially augmented capital allocations. In effect, proceeds from the sale of general needs housing are being recycled to meet special needs.
Our stock position survey showed a backlog, but it was off 19 billion and not the £50 billion estimated by the local authorities, as I think I heard one of the noble Baronesses say. Authorities are spending more than ever before on renovation and maintenance, currently £2,500 million. Resources have increased by £200 million this year to help them tackle this problem, but we urgently need to tap more private sector resources,
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as the noble Lord, Lord Dean, himself agreed, to help tackle the problem of renovation in the public sector stock, and this is one of the aims of the Bill.
My noble friend Lord Bellwin sought an increase in the proportion of a local authority's capital receipts which can be added to the capital expenditure allocation in one year. He received some support from the other side of the House. Local authority capital expenditure increases the PSBR, even if it is funded from capital receipts, so the use of receipts has to be phased. Receipts not used are not lost and they can be used both to redeem debt and, or I should say or, to be invested and to earn interest.
Your Lordships will recall the extended discussion on the procedures for exempting elderly persons' accommodation from the right-to-buy, on which the noble Baroness, Lady David, made some weighty comments. It is difficult to arrive at what is suitable for the housing of elderly people, as the Act requires, without discovering whether an elderly person can reach the top shelf or get up the steps without falling over. I accept that this is a cumbrous procedure, but we have to go through something like it.
Clause 5 has within it a power to obtain possession which rendered Lord Stallard very anxious. The power will not be used to dispossess large numbers of tenants, I can reassure him. It can only be invoked when the Secretary of State himself approves a development scheme and where he is satisfied that vacant possession is necessary. Even then (and this is the assurance that I think the noble Lord put more trust in) the court has to grant an order for possession, the court will take account of the tenant's circumstances and the court will need to be satisfied that alternative accommodation is to be provided.
Transfers of tenanted property to the private sector also require the consent of the Secretary of State. I can give a firm undertaking that we shall introduce amendments to require consultations with tenants before such transfers take place and to provide that the Secretary of State cannot give consent if he has evidence that a majority of tenants oppose a transfer. In other words a right of veto for the tenants of local authorities in those circumstances affected by the transfer proposals will be provided.
I ought now to turn to the provisions in the Bill which relate to urban areas. If we are to tackle the problems of those areas we need not just the resources of the private sector but also its ingenuity and responsiveness. Since we came to power we have taken a series of initiatives aimed at encouraging the private sector to invest in urban areas. These include the introduction of enterprise zones, urban development corporations and urban development grant. Urban regeneration grant will complement these initiatives by encouraging area based renewal led by the private sector. The powers in Part III will enable the Secretary of State to respond flexibly to particular problems without needing further legislation.
It has been apparent from the large number of questions on SPZs that I did not offer a satisfactory explanation of them in the introduction to this debate. Your Lordships know the general development order very well. Special planning zones are in effect general

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development orders applying only to the zones for which they are set up. In all cases, whether the Secretary of State is involved or not, they will be prepared by the local authority in question and that local authority will itself have to consult locally. We must not forget that SPZs will be conferring planning permission. It is therefore important as my noble friend Lady Faithfull said that all those who might be affected by such permission should be able to object to such proposals before they can be adopted and that all relevant issues should be given an airing. The procedures are similar to local plan procedures, but many local plans are up to date and in existence and it would not serve our purpose if we were to call them all in and tell local authorities to start again simply to pick up the PSZ points.
The noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, said that, once an individual has brought him in, the Secretary of State can do as he likes. I hope I have briefly reassured her with the paragraph I have just delivered to your Lordships, but in addition I can repeat the assurance given by my noble friend in another place, which she asked me to do.
I next assure the noble Baroness, Lady David, that almost if not quite all her concern about SPZs, as I understand it, was misplaced, because her concern rested not upon changes to the planning procedures, which they would bring about, but changes to the fiscal arrangements, which they cannot. It was to enterprise zones not planning zones that the Public Accounts Committee report—to which she referred—addressed itself and that was a question of the fiscal, not the planning, regime. We must always be cautious, but not quite so cautious as the noble Baroness wanted us to be, and certainly not so downright cagey, suspicious and incredulous as was the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman. I hope we shall enlighten her on the subject in Committee. To relieve her mind during the holidays I should say that SPZs enable local authorities, whose interests she wishes to defend, in all cases to determine what consents shall be made unnecessay in a zone in their area, even if they are making the zone under direction from the Secretary of State.
Having said that planning zones will not carry with them fiscal incentives as do enterprise zones, I ought to add that it will be possible for local authorities to combine them with other measures in some of the more depressed areas. For example, the simplified planning regime could be packaged together with derelict land grant, urban development grant or the new urban regeneration grant. This will, as the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, generously accepted, provide another useful tool for local planning authorities to use.
I want to say only one thing in defence of the planning system, because I agree with noble Lords that it works slowly; it is very difficult to run; it causes a great deal of frustration and the longer it takes the more expensive it gets. I want to thank my noble friend Lord Bellwin for referring to the fact that we have a number of reviews in progress. They are yielding dividends. He referred to the shortening of the median time for appeals by a further week in the first quarter of this year. So that we get full value from his compliment I should tell your Lordships that the rate
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of appeals has gone up 16 per cent. in the last year and this acceleration has been achieved against the current of that river. We have not finished; we must do better.
I have considerable sympathy with what my noble friend Lord Hesketh said in an admirable maiden speech about the needs of small businesses. Planning is very difficult for them. That is why we have produced a very commodious and simple guide for small businesses of which I shall send him a copy after this debate. I think he will agree that it makes life easier for them.
The noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, I have already referred to the statement. I do not need to reassure her again on that.
The noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, suggested a fee for an application for SPZs to deter frivolous application. I think it was to be a hefty one. But one of the attractions of the SPZs is that there will not be a fee payable for planning application. It would be inequable to expect those who wish to precipitate an SPZ to pay when exercising their right to ask for a direction from the Secretary of State. I think we can sort out frivolous applications as well as the noble Baroness could when she was behind this Box. If I have trouble I shall ask her to help. One of the other attractions of an SPZ is the stability of the planning regime that they offer to developers. For that reason I cannot really look with favour at the suggestion that their span should be reduced from 10 years to five.
The noble Baroness was also concerned that my right honourable friend would use his power to direct or be triggered by frivolous proposals. I will only say that he will only give a direction to make an SPZ scheme where there are clear reasons for doing so; that is, where a person has identified valid developmental potential in an area but the authority had refused—and I emphasise—without good reason to make a scheme. But, as my noble friend Lady Faithfull would wish, they can with good reason refuse.
To the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, I say that I think that one of his specific questions, of which he was kind enough to give me notice, has already been dealt with in what I have said. He was anxious about the use classes order. The deadline for comments on the Government's proposals for modernising the order, as he said, is 15th September. I expect to be considering the responses to the consultation document during October and consulting with colleagues in other government departments as necessary. I do not think that the linkage with the SPZ provisions of the Bill is such as to make this a difficulty. I rather wonder whether it is not the GDO provisions, which we are not changing, which the noble Lord had in mind.
We have decided not to change the law on working from home. My noble friend Lord Hesketh, in spite of his anxieties, will I think agree that there is a fair degree of flexibility already; and we drew attention to this in Circular 2 of 1986 and our booklet to which I have already referred. The noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, is concerned with the effects of SPZs on sites of special scientific interest. She is quite right to point out that any existing SSSIs not renotified under the Bill would not be automatically protected from an SPZ;

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but I can assure her that the Government will wish in practice to ensure that an SPZ is not set up on a site which has not yet been considered for renotification.
If an SSSI was so threatened, the Secretary of State has two defences for it available without the further amendments which he thought might be necessary. He can either make an order under Section 24C(3) (which is referred to in Clause 14 of the Bill) excluding the area from being designated as an SPZ, or he can make a nature conservation order under Section 29 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. That gives the area the equivalent of SSSI protection. I hope that this will set the noble Baroness's mind at rest.
The noble Baroness, Lady David—and this has come slightly out of sequence—wanted the local authorities to be informed of grant direct applications and payments. My department is very ready to discuss with representatives of local government how Part III will be administered. Indeed, my officials had a meeting this morning on this subject with representatives of the Association of District Councils. Part III does not affect planning controls. Developers carrying out schemes which receive Part III assistance will still require planning permission in the normal way. I do not envisage that individual application will be the subject of consultation. Applications for grant will contain commercially sensitive information. As is normal with the Government grant regimes, we would respect that confidentiality.
My noble friend Lord Ridley was concerned that there was a need for a wider look at the Opencast Coal Act 1958 and the policy in this area. In the consultation paper issued by the Department of Energy in July 1984, it was proposed to repeal Section 15 of the Opencast Coal Act 1958, which deals with the temporary closure of rights of way, and to retain the NCB's (British Coal's) compulsory rights and powers for a limited period only. However, it had then been intended that these proposals would form part of a separate Bill on opencast coal. In the event, this was not possible and it was decided to include just the essential provisions in the Housing and Planning Bill to effect the administrative arrangements already put in hand whereby the board applied for planning permission for their opencast proposals to the planning authority.
Section 3 puts on the board a duty to have regard to the preservation of amenity in formulating proposals and restoring sites, and my noble friend was anxious about that. I can tell him that the requirement will not in my view be necessary any longer as the whole intention of the provision is to bring the NCB's opencast operations wholly within the ambit of the planning system. They will then be determined by mineral planning authorities in the same way as for other mineral operations. Mineral planning authorities already have power to refuse permission or to grant it subject to conditions including those designed to minimise environmental disruption and ensure that proper provision is made for the restoration of the site. I reserve my views on the level of opencast mining results by simply saying that the planning implications, as I have just explained, are minimal.
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The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, asked about Northern Ireland. I shall write to him, because he is no longer with us. The noble Lord, Lord Stallard, was concerned about new provisions for local plans and referred to the proposal in Clause 29 to substitute new provisions about local plans for those in Part II of the 1971 Act. May I emphasise that most of the new material in Part I of Schedule 8 simply re-enacts existing procedures. I tried to explain why it was such a long Bill, if your Lordships will remember, in my opening. The intention is simply to clarify the present law, which is becomig encumbered with many amendments and some dead wood and needs the sort of codification that the noble Lord, Lord Foot, has been urging us to carry out.
I shall have to discard a certain amount of material but I think that I should say to the noble Lord, Lord Foot, that he will find that my opening speech does reassure him in most of the matters on which he expressed concern almost in terms. Therefore, I pass on (or back) to the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, who keeps us on the hazardous substances matter and is concerned about the temporary presence of substances in transit. We considered this matter very closely and carefully in drafting the Bill. I actually considered it myself.
There is a difficulty, because what is temporary varies from case to case and imposing a single fixed time limit could lead to very unsatisfactory results in some instances. But many of the instances which I suspect occurred to her as they occurred to me relate to substances in transit and I remind her of the fact that hazardous substances in vehicles and vessels—by which I mean sea-going or river-going vessels—are subject to effective control under other powers even when they are in sidings or tied up at a jetty.
The noble Baroness was also interested, as was the noble Lord, Lord Foot, and my noble friend Lord Auckland, that the definition of hazardous substances should be apposite and precise. As I said earlier in this debate, we agree that this should be the subject of professional advice and we shall be advised by the Health and Safety Executive on what should be included. The regulations will be subject to parliamentary scrutiny in the normal way. It is our intention in responding to the representations of the CBI to ensure that industry is restricted only so far as is necessary for the protection of neighbouring land. We are consulting the local authorities associations and the RTPI on the main amendments which we have in mind.
As I draw to a conclusion, I will say that I listened with close attention to my noble friend Lord Salisbury and to the speech of my noble friend Lord Margadale. I am happy to bring forward a code of conduct for field workers engaged in listing buildings for the Secretary of State. I think there would be disadvantages in writing it into statute with which your Lordships perhaps are familiar from many debates on this subject. I hope to persuade them in fact that a voluntary code will be as effective as or more effective than a statutory code because they will be able to improve it as it goes along—which you cannot do with a statutory code unless you wait sometimes for years and years.

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My noble friend also raised the question of appeals against listing. He rightly said that such an appeal exists. It is true that it is not generally known. I was advised that this was the case when I took office and I then arranged that everyone whose house was subsequently listed should be advised that if he felt it was wrongly listed he had but to send his reasons to my right honourable friend to have it reviewed and, if appropriate, struck off the list. I believe that is quicker and cheaper than anything which could be achieved by statute.
My noble friend pressed me on the matter of grants. I must remind him that these are now made by English Heritage and it is entirely for them to determine each case and the amount to be paid—usually calculated as a percentage of the actual cost. On the question of historic gardens, I am happy to repeat the assurances given by my late noble friend Lord Avon.
The Bill, it is true, changes the time limits on the Secretary of State for giving his decision on listed building consent appeals. That is because at present he can extend the period of 28 days, but only once. In order to be certain that he does not overrun and get caught in the open, as it were, he has to set a very long period. That of course is not conducive to swift action by officials in the department who see a lengthy date ahead of them. It is better to have the flexibility so that we can set a realistic and shorter date, and thus expedite the process.
I regret that convention means that I ought to leave out much that I would otherwise say. There are times when I do not like the support of my own Front Bench in that matter. However, in concluding, I must refer to the speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Craigavon. I understand and share his concern about the detrimental effect which the unrestrained display of estate agents' boards can have. Nevertheless, the noble Viscount will be pleased to know that this is one of the issues that we have recently been examining, and my department is today publishing a consultation paper setting out proposals for amending the regulations. These include proposals to reduce the permitted area estate agents' boards that may be displayed with deemed consent for sale or letting of residential property, substantially to ensure that not more than one such board may be lawfully displayed for each sale or letting. "The measles"—as I think he might have called them—from which his area suffered, will be cured, I trust.
My Lords, I apologise for giving you a thing which is
"a thing of rags and patches",
but I hope that it has answered the concerns of many of your Lordships. I spare the House the rhetoric with which I reaffirm my conviction that this is not only useful but beneficial legislation; and, with your Lordships' patient but not, I hope, dilatory help in Committee, I believe that we shall have it even better by the time we have finished.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

National Health Service (Amendment) Bill
8.12 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Baroness Trumpington): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
This short Bill contains provisions on three important health issues. Although dealing with different aspects of health care, all the provisions demonstrate the Government's continuing commitment to promote the interests of patients, while making the best use of available resources.
Clause 1 seeks to apply the food hygiene legislation to health authorities and thus remove Crown immunity from hospital catering. This will make hospital catering subject to hygiene standards in the handling, storage and temperature control of food. Lifting Crown immunity will also give local authority environmental health officers a legal right to enter health authority premises. Hospitals and other health authority premises will be subject to the same food hygiene requirements, with the same enforcement powers, as apply to other premises where food is stored, prepared and served.
I want to make it clear to your Lordships that these changes should not greatly affect the day-to-day position in the vast majority of hospitals, which maintain high standards. Health authorities have been in the habit of inviting local authority environmental health officers to inspect kitchens at will, and to make appropriate recommendations. However, environ-mental health officers have not been able, because of Crown immunity, to enforce the food legislation.
The removal of Crown immunity in respect of the food legislation will make an important contribution to the continuing process of raising food hygiene standards in hospitals. But it should not be taken as an instant "cure-all" to food hygiene problems. It will provide a firm basis for action. Revised guidance to health authorities will also be issued; once again to emphasise the standards which must be accomplished and to reinforce the need for staff to receive adequate supervision and training. Together, these measures will help and support general managers in their task of ensuring that proper standards are achieved and maintained.
There can be no substitute for effective management and supervision in hospital kitchens. I would like to pay tribute to all those staff who play their part in ensuring that patients and fellow members of staff get a decent service. The numbers involved are, as may be imagined, vast.
I now move on to Clause 2. This proposes to change the arrangements for allocating NHS pharmacy contracts to retail pharmacists. It provides powers for family practitoner committees to grant an application for an NHS contract, only in circumstances where it is necessary or desirable for the NHS to pay to ensure the adequate provision of patient services.
At the outset, let me say that the new arrangements will apply to retail pharmacy only. There are about

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25,500 working pharmacists in Great Britain. The 6,700 or so who work in hospitals, in industry or in education will not be affected by the new arrangements.
The present situation (and it is just as well to spell it out) is as follows. Retail pharmacists are contracted with the NHS on a cost-plus basis; that is, they are reimbursed the costs of dispensing NHS drugs plus a margin for profit. Their total payment consists of a number of elements: the ingredient cost of the drugs used in dispensing NHS prescriptions; a container allowance; a differential on-cost allowance, based on the average cost of prescriptions dispensed; and a dispensing fee of 55p for each NHS prescription. For those pharmacies in England and Wales in contract on 1st July 1980 or who have entered into contract since that date and are located at least 1 km from the nearest pharmacy, a basic practice allowance of £3,000 a year is awarded. There is also an essential small pharmacy allowance for those pharmacies considered essential to the wellbeing of the community in sparsely-populated, mainly rural, areas.
Under our new proposals, the following changes will take place: a flat rate on-cost allowance of 5 per cent.; and an increased dispensing fee ranging from £1·20 to 62 pence, depending on the number of prescriptions dispensed.
The basic practice allowance will be abolished, since it has no relationship to the amount of NHS business undertaken by a pharmacy and does not increase the efficiency of a pharmacy. The essential small pharmacies scheme will be financially strengthened.
Let me set out the background that has led us to this situation. In 1985, after more than a year of negotiations, between the retail pharmacists' negotiating body, the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee and officials, agreement on a new NHS contract for pharmacists was reached. However, in the light of legal advice, the Government decided not to proceed with the new contract until new powers in primary legislation had been obtained. Clause 2 provides those powers.
The overall aim of the new contract is clear: to develop a pharmaceutical service that will better satisfy the interests of the patient, the profession and the taxpayer.
Under the present system any pharmacist can apply for an NHS contract. Except in rural areas, where special arrangements already operate, that application must be granted. At present the local family practitioner committee has no discretion in the matter. Because contractors are paid on a cost-plus basis, every additional NHS contract automatically adds further costs to the NHS, to be met by the taxpayer. Therefore, under the existing arrangements there is little to promote efficiency, innovation, or improved services for patients.
Over the past five years, the net rise in the number of pharmacies with NHS contracts has been about 150 a year; and the present rate of increase is higher still. Most of the increase has been in urban areas, where provision is, in many cases, already excessive. An
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excessive supply of services serves no useful purpose: it merely consumes scarce resources that could be put to better use elsewhere in the health service.
Under the new arrangements new contracts will be granted only where family practitioner committees consider that it would be necessary or desirable for patient services. This will enable FPCs to make progress towards a more suitable distribution of pharmacies which will better meet patient needs without being extravagant of NHS resources. Independent FPCs are responsible for planning local primary care services. Deciding the level of pharmaceutical services required is clearly within their remit.
I should like to emphasise that the new arrangements would exercise no control whatsoever over non-NHS retail pharmacy. Failure to obtain an NHS contract does not take away anybody's right to set up a dispensing pharmacy. The Government would not wish to interfere with private enterprise and we are not doing so now. The issue here is about paying taxpayer's money to award contracts to provide a public service, and how to avoid the cost of over-provision.
The proposed new arrangements on the allocation of contracts are not the only feature of a contract negotiated as an integrated package of measures. First, there will be more frequent and effective cost inquiries, with annual remuneration settlements to limit the potential levels of under- or over-payments to pharmacists, which were a significant feature of the previous arrangements. Secondly, there will be a new payment structure which is simpler to understand, and some modest savings. Thirdly, there will be greatly enhanced financial support to essential small pharmacies in sparsely populated rural areas. In addition, pharmacies will be encouraged to be more efficient through changes in the pattern of remuneration.
Some of those savings that I mentioned earlier will be available to develop the pharmacist's wider role, following consideration of the Nuffield report into pharmacy and the Government's primary care discussion document.
I am very pleased to note the Nuffield report's general endorsement of the new contract arrangements, arrangements which the report considers are "basically well conceived". One of Nuffield's three reservations on the new contract concerned the appeals system under the proposed new arrangements for allocating contracts. There was a constructive debate in another place about the appeals system. Some thought that a national appeals system would be the best way to proceed.
As a result of the debate, the Government agreed to look again at the appeals system. We have considered carefully all that was said in another place. We have considered carefully the representations of interested parties and the views of the Nuffield report on this issue. We have also considered carefully the views of the pharmacists' representatives.
We still think, following this discussion, that a locally convened appeals procedure is the best solution for three solid reasons. First, it is consistent with the

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functions of FPCs. Secondly, we have built in a number of important safeguards against bias. Thirdly, a local system can operate quickly; a centralised system would be a serious bottleneck, which is in no-one's interest.
In another place, the possibility was raised that bias and collusion could creep in when new contracts were being considered by the family practitioner sub-committees. The new arrangements have been specifically designed to avoid just these possibilities. Let me give one example. Although pharmacists will have a role on the family practitioner sub-committees, there will be special quorum arrangements so that they can never be in a majority. It is not unusual for a profession to have a role in such decisions: for example, doctors are involved in deciding applications to enter general practice through the medical practices committee.
Your Lordships will be interested to note that we have decided to change the appeals system to respond to the two recurring themes of the representations received. They are, the need for consistency, and the need to avoid vested interest in decision making. The first change is that chairmen and members of appeals panels will be drawn from a national list of persons, unconnected with the local FPC, approved by the Secretary of State for Social Services. This is instead of regional lists. Secondly, pharmacists on the appeals panels will be present to give advice and guidance; but they will not, as originally proposed, have a vote. These changes strike a balance between the need for consistency and independence, and the need for appeals to be dealt with promptly, with local circumstances in mind.
I am sure that it is common ground that we are seeking the right aim: to provide an appeals system that is objective and fair to all parties involved, one that meets the needs of local people. The overall principle is not in question; there is only a difference of view on how best to achieve our aim. The Government simply wish to ensure that the best possible system is implemented. We have considered this issue vey carefully. We are confident that we have got it right.
The new contract is not a rigid, centrally-planned scheme. We have deliberately put the emphasis on local needs and local decisions. I should be surprised if differences between the need for public service and the commercial instincts of pharmacists wanting new NHS contracts will turn out to be as great or as frequent as some fear. There should be no conflict between the successful businessman's need to provide a decent service for customers and the ethics of public service. Combining business motivation with public service is one of the great strengths of community pharmacy in this country.
The new contract offers many benefits and a substantial improvement on the current arrangements. Patients will have a service which more accurately reflects their needs; some of the expected
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savings will be available to finance the development of the pharmacist's wider role; and the taxpayer will get some small savings and better value for money.
Clause 3 deals with the remuneration and reimbursement arrangements for the NHS contractor professions, general medical and dental practitioners, opticians and pharmacists.
Since the NHS was set up, the principle underlying payments to the contractor professions has been that they should receive their average costs plus an element for profit or professional remuneration. Their true costs can only be established retrospectively through periodic inquiries. In the interim period, payments are based on cost estimates and forecasts. Under such an arrangement it is only fair, both to the professions and to the taxpayer, that there should be a mechanism for correcting past payments which are shown to have been either inadequate or excessive. Payments to contractors include some £2.5 billion a year to reimburse the average costs of the service they provide, so even small margins between estimated and actual costs can represent considerable sums due to one side or the other.
These arrangements, which have been established and operated for many years, have recently been challenged by legal action. Let me briefly explain the position.
The 1977 National Health Service Act gives health Ministers powers to make regulations and determinations for the fees payable to the four contractor professions. In 1984, the legal basis of the long-standing arrangements was challenged by the body which represents retail pharmacists—the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee. The High Court ruled against this challenge and in favour of the existing arrangements. But, in order to make the statutory position clear, the Government, as part of the 1984 Health and Social Security Bill, amended the 1977 National Health Service Act. This amendment had a single intention: to clarify the arrangements as they have been understood and operated by the professions and successive governments for many years.
The Government and most professional interests believed this had been achieved, but the Association of Optical Practitioners and the Federation of Optical Corporate Bodies, two organisations representing opticians, challenged the use of these powers in both the English and Scottish Courts. They questioned the Government's attempts to recover some £11 million over-reimbursed for NHS spectacles. As a result of the courts' consideration, the 1984 legislation was shown to be defective in that it did not achieve what had been intended. The aim of this clause is to re-establish the position so that the long-standing remuneration and reimbursement arrangements can continue. This clause does not represent any change in policy. It does not change our firm commitment to full negotiations and consultations with the professions, as appropriate. It simply seeks to put beyond reasonable doubt the statutory basis for the NHS contractor professions'

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remuneration arrangements, in the interests of both the professions and the taxpayer.
I should like to remind noble Lords of two assurances that have been given during the passage of this Bill, so far. First, there has been the assurance that this Government would not use these powers to make an attempt to recover the £11 million over-reimbursement to opticians, which was the subject of the recent court proceedings.
Secondly, there has been the assurance that there is no intention whatsoever to use this Bill to change the current system for determining the pay of medical and dental practitioners, which is based on the recommendations of their independent review body. I think that these assurances simply confirm the point that this clause does not represent any change in policy.
Finally, I should point out that, although the remuneration systems of the contractor professions are similar in principle, there are significant differences in detail and this requires, in some cases, flexibility and discretion. The aim of this clause is to put beyond doubt the statutory basis for the long-standing remuneration arrangements for the contractor professions. I think that it achieves this aim in a way that is fair to both the professions and the taxpayer.
I should like to take this opportunity to remind your Lordships of the Government's intention to introduce a new clause to the Bill at Committee stage. During consideration of the Disabled Persons (Services, Consultation and Representation) Bill the Government gave an undertaking to secure a reserve power to provide for the statutory regulation of joint planning of health services in Scotland. This power could be used should the present administrative arrangements prove ineffective after a proper period of trial.
Attempts to secure an extension to the Long Title of the Bill on disabled persons, so that the provision could cover all priority groups, proved unacceptable to the House authorities.
My noble friend Lord Skelmersdale announced, during Committee stage of the disabled persons Bill, that the Long Title of the National Health Service (Amendment) Bill would be amended and a new clause moved to secure the power on joint planning committees for Scotland to which I have referred. This will fulfil the undertaking given to the sponsors of the Bill on disabled persons and to this House.
The provisions of the National Health Service (Amendment) Bill reflect the Government's continuing commitment to the National Health Service: on Clause 1, a commitment to take action to safeguard the interests of patients, rather than to sit back and hope the problems will go away; on Clause 2, a commitment to implement new policies where the interests of patients require new thinking; and on Clause 3, a commitment to preserve existing arrangements which continue to serve the needs of patients.
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Your Lordships will be aware that we have a time problem this evening. I hope that your Lordships will understand my situation and will allow me to write to far more noble Lords than I had intended. I apologise and I know your Lordships will agree that we will meet again, and we do know where and when. I commend this Bill to your Lordships. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Baroness Trumpington.)
8.34 p.m.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, may I first thank the noble Baroness for her very clear explanation of the Bill and say to her that I shall read very carefully what she had to say in her concluding remarks about the new clause concerned with the Bill on disabled persons, so that I may fully comprehend what is to be done.
As the noble Baroness said, there is no clear principle running through the Bill, dealing with three issues, though I suspect that the Government hope to carry through Clauses 2 and 3 on the back of Clause 1, which I think we shall all welcome. I believe that pressure from both sides of your Lordships' House played its part in influencing the Government to propose the ending of Crown immunity in NHS kitchens. This was an issue which was raised many times from both sides of the House and I naturally welcome the decision of the Government to introduce this part of the legislation.
The tragic outbreak of salmonella at Stanley Royd Hospital last year created the occasion to take action, which had already become urgent after the report of the environmental health officers in which they said that their evidence showed that there were 97 NHS kitchens which would have been closed if it were not for the fact that Crown immunity protected totally unacceptable standards of hygiene.
In September last year a paper was presented to the Congress of the Institution of Environmental Health Officers, who have, of course, been strongly campaigning on this issue, which gave these examples:
"The kitchen at a leading teaching hospital had jelly containing bird droppings, rice coated with bacteria, infestations of ants and several large dead oriental cockroaches. Sparrows were flying around the restaurant at Charing Cross Hospital, London. Slicing machines were thickly coated in grease and gullies in the wash room were choked with debris and slime".
So reported the Hammersmith Environmental Health Officer, Mr. David Rowley.
He continued:
"A cutting board was on the floor next to a dead cockroach and mouse droppings littered a disused oven. Live cockroaches were near the washing machines and a week after the management decision was taken to bring in pest controllers the place was still infested".
I am not suggesting for one moment that that is typical of NHS kitchens, but the fact that such a situation should occur shows the urgent need for this legislation. In any case it is not tolerable that patients

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should be treated any worse, so far as hygiene is concerned, than they can expect to be treated in a public restaurant. But I do not understand why the Government have limited their action to the kitchens. Staff and patients should also be protected by the health and safety at work legislation—a point of view taken by the British Medical Association and a number of other organisations.
May I quote a paragraph from representations that I have had from the Royal College of Nursing in which they say:
"Staff, and in particular nurses, are exposed in the NHS to an unacceptable degree of risk from a wide range of sources—physical, chemical and biological. RCN members continue to express their concern about the lack of safe systems of work, equipment and protective clothing. For example, the lack of safe systems for the correct disposal of clinical waste from NHS hospitals is well known and well documented: not only does this endanger the hospital staff, but the general public as well".
I, too, am concerned about some of the waste disposal procedures which can put patients and staff at risk. It is sometimes said that a hospital is the most likely place to become the victim of infection. I think that the noble Baroness, when she winds up, must produce some convincing reason why the advance, which we welcome, has been limited to kitchens. I am sure that we shall want to come back to this in Committee and that the views which I have expressed are not ones which will be limited to just one party.
Perhaps I may now turn to the much more controversial clause, Clause 2. I have heard the case of the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee which negotiated this agreement with the DHSS, and I have to say that there are a number of issues which cause me concern. It is now for the Government, not the PSNC, to convince the House that what is now proposed is in the best interests of the public and of the profession.
It may be that I take more convincing than some other noble Lords, because it was I who was personally responsible for the present system of remuneration, including the special protection for small pharmacies and the arrangements made in the rural areas. That was at a time when the number of pharmacies was decreasing at a very dangerous and disturbing rate. I should like to express my concerns through a series of questions to the Minister for her to deal with when she replies, or at a later stage if she feels that time does not permit tonight.
First, is it the Government's view that there are too many pharmacies, bearing in mind that there are 3,000 fewer than there were 20 years ago, and that with the exception of Switzerland, the United Kingdom has the lowest number of pharmacies per head of the population of any of the Western countries? Do we think we have too many pharmacies? Secondly, is it not in the interests of the consumer, particularly the elderly and the disabled, to have pharmaceutical services as near to their homes as possible? Thirdly, did the Government agree with the conclusions of the Pharmaceutical Society and the PSNC in August 1984 that;
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"financial incentives and disincentives alone were sufficient to bring about a better distribution of pharmacies"?
If they did agree with it then, what led them a year later to introduce this regulatory system? I do not understand.
Fourthly, was there consultation with the whole profession? The noble Baroness said in her speech that this did not affect other pharmacists. I submit that it does because other pharmacists who may be working in hospitals or in other fields may decide that they wish to go into a high street pharmacy; and in a sense to go into business. Their opportunities of doing so are obviously limited by the terms of the Bill. If they were not consulted, should they not be consulted? We are after all talking about 34,000 pharmacists. Is it not proper that they should be consulted about something which affects them as well as simply the contractors alone?
Fifthly, if there is to be some system of controls as proposed in the Bill, do the Government agree with the Nuffield Report on pharmacy, referred to by the noble Baroness and quite recently debated in your Lordships' House, that,
"we think it wrong that pharmacists should play so large a part"—
this is in terms of the licensing system, if we may call it that; since,
"they are inevitably interested parties [and] should have no vote".
I certainly agree that they should not have a vote, I should be interested in the views of the noble Baroness because if you have a committee on which there are three pharmacists it will be thought, be it true or not, that they are in a sense protecting their own interests and discouraging competitors.
Sixthly, in assessing the estimated savings of what I think the Government have said is £4 million, how many pharmacy closures do the Government expect to achieve? Clearly part of the purpose is to reduce the number of pharmacies. I was seeking to do exactly the opposite and increase the number of pharmacies. Does the noble Baroness expect 300 to close, 500 to close, or 1,000 to close? Surely the number of closures will affect the amount of saving, because it will directly affect the amount of compensation that will be given to those who are encouraged to get out of the game. Why do the Government want to put these skilled and experienced pharmacists out of business? How will this benefit consumers? What is the estimated cost of the administration of the local licensing committees? I think it was suggested that there should be 100 of them. They will require servicing. How is the estimate made of savings of £4 million?
Having put these questions, perhaps I may briefly indicate my own concerns. First, if there is money to be saved for the NHS then of course I welcome it. We would all want to see an increase in efficiency and a saving in costs. But is there to be a saving in costs?
Secondly, I have no interest in subsidising chain-stores such as Underwoods, Boots or anyone else. What concerns me is the effect on the high street

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pharmacists, who have such an important role to play, as was outlined in the Nuffield Report. Many of them perform an invaluable service, and, so far as I am concerned, the nearer the pharmacist for an elderly person the better for that person.
Many of these pharmacists are extremely concerned about their future. I have had, as I expect have other noble Lords, a considerable amount of correspondence in which they express their concern. Perhaps I may give a few examples. I have one letter from a London pharmacist who says:
"A reduction in pharmacy numbers will not benefit the public as we supply many other services besides dispensing. The smaller contractor is more likely to remember the drugs that individuals take, and so is more likely to spot errors in prescriptions where one GP prescribes a drug for a patient and a different GP in the same practice prescribes an incompatible drug for the same patient".
This is the great advantage of the local pharmacist who understands his or her patients.
Perhaps I may give another example, which comes from Swanage in Dorset. The pharmacist writes:
"We are an old established family business of over 60 years. I know from 36 years qualified experience and thousands of patients all well wishers … that we give an outstanding personal service, especially for the urgent out of hours patients. People phone in from 30 miles away such is our reputation for helping when needed".
The letter states earlier:
"Without the Basic Practice Allowance we will almost certainly go to the wall".
Perhaps I may quote a third letter, although there are many other letters I could quote. It says that,
"this contract, if implemented, will affect the future prospects of all pharmacists, not just existing shop owners, but employee pharmacists, and those working in hospitals and industry. All of these equally qualified pharmacists could one day wish to set up a shop. So why is the majority of pharmacists not being represented at all in this matter?"
I have received representations which fully support the proposals that are now before your Lordships' House but all the individual pharmacists who have written to me have expressed anxiety. The House should know that. My noble friend and I and others on these Benches will decide what action to take in Committee in the light of the answers which the noble Baroness gives to the questions that I have put forward and to others which will no doubt be asked by my noble friends.
Finally, and briefly, I shall deal with Clause 3, which the Government have introduced because they were found to be acting illegally in their implementation of Clause 7 of the Health and Social Security Act 1984. Your Lordships will recollect that Section 7 of that Act (then a Bill) was strenuously opposed in your Lordships' House because of its retrospective effect on the remuneration of pharmacists and opticians in particular. I remember speaking in rather sharp terms when this was being debated. I should add here that there have been several instances in the past of large arrears of pay accumulating. I am told that most recently in 1983 the department owed opticians £90 million for the period 1978 to 1983. As an aside, this
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was introduced because, as the noble Baroness said, the Secretary of State was caught acting illegally. I think I shall table a Question some time to ask how many times the Secretary of State has been found to be acting illegally since he took his post.
In conclusion, may I ask the noble Baroness for an assurance that the retrospective nature of this clause will apply only back to the date of its implementation? The noble Baroness dealt partly with this but I am not quite certain whether she gave that absolute assurance. Such an assurance, if she gave it, must in my view be inscribed in the Bill and I shall certainly table amendments at Committee stage to ensure that we can avoid the sort of misunderstandings and disruption that have led to the need for this clause in the Bill.
8.49 p.m.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, were a thoughtful person wholly unconnected with politics to learn that this evening, the day before your Lordships disperse for the Summer Recess; the House was remaining here to unsocial hours to debate a new Bill dealing with the National Health Service, then such a person might jump to the conclusion that at long last some of the major deficiencies in the National Health Service of which we are all so very much aware were being attended to. Not so.
As the noble Baroness said, this Bill deals with three specific points that will not materially affect the National Health Service so far as concerns ordinary folk, save in one or two ways to which I shall come presently. As the noble Baroness has also made clear, the Bill deals with three particular matters. It makes a very limited start on phasing out Crown immunity. It introduces a new contract for pharmacists. Finally, it will amend the law regarding remuneration to members of the contracted professions who are under contract to family practitioner committees. All those things probably need to be done but I personally have doubts about them all, and I shall express one or two of them.
First, there is the matter of Crown immunity. There have been at least four attempts by private Members in another place to introduce Bills to abolish Crown immunity althogether. The Bill does so in a very limited fashion, and that arises very largely from the outbreak of salmonella at the Stanley Royd Hospital. It is of course right and proper that Crown immunity should be removed from those concerned with hospital food.
What about other aspects of the law? I should have thought that the whole operation of the Health and Safety at Work Act ought to apply to persons working in the National Health Service. There are other matters. I believe that we have moved into a state of society in which the presumption should be that there is no Crown immunity save in certain areas where it is found to be absolutely essential. I accept that Crown immuntiy may be essential in certain limited areas, and I am sure that that is a matter to which my noble friend Lord Wigoder may return when he comes to his

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speech. I shall merely say that having taken that little step, it is a pity that we have not gone much further in removing Crown immunity, in particular in relation to the National Health Service in all its aspects.
I now turn to the new contract for pharmacists. When we debated the new Nuffield Report we welcomed the new contract, for many of its provisions are very necessary. It is true that when we discussed this matter in relation to a rather curious Scottish Bill, the title of which I now forget, some of us resisted the idea of placing restraints upon the right of a properly qualified and experienced pharmacist to enter National Health Service practice as and when and where he wished. Some of us were rather suspicious. We felt that it was introducing a closed shop, and that there was a possibility that that closed shop would be controlled by those who were already happily in the shop.
It seemed rather strange to us that a Government who appeared to be wedded to the operation of market forces were not prepared to allow market forces to operate in relation to this matter. Indeed, to some of us it seemed that were it found to be unnecessary for a pharmacist to set up in a certain area, he would not be able to make a living and so he would not establish himself there.
However, since then, and I say this with all the clarity that I can, I have listened to all the arguments and have read all the debates very carefully. I have had endless discussions with the different bodies about which we have spoken—the PSNC, the British Pharmaceutical Association and the Pharmaceutical Society—as well as with individual chemists. I am bound to say that I am now convinced by the arguments that such a measure is necessary. We have changed the system of remuneration of pharmacists, and indeed we are changing it still further, so that such a measure has to some extent become necessary.
If we were to revert to the original system under which the pharmacist was paid purely by piecework, then a pharmacist who set up in practice where he was not needed would not be doing any piecework and so he would not be receiving any remuneration; whereas now that we have basic payments and an allowance a pharmacist setting up where there was no need for that particular pharmacy would still receive a basic remuneration from the National Health Service. It would merely be receiving a subsidy to operate a cosmetics business, a camera business, or something of that kind. So such a measure is justified on that ground.
Having said that, I have certain anxieties. The noble Baroness's comments have reassured me about some of them but I should not like to think that the initial arrangements, never mind the appeal—to which I shall come later—and decisions as to whether or not a person or a new pharmacy is necessary in a certain area would be too much in the hands of pharmacists and the family practitioner sub-committees that will
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be responsible. I should like to feel that there will be some form of consumer representation on those bodies. It is an area in which the community health council ought to be able to say a word. It is not only for the professionals to say that there is a need but it is for the patients to do so as well. I hope that at a later stage of this Bill we shall be able to explore the extent to which there is a consumer voice to be heard somewhere in the decisions as to who may or may not enter into National Health Service pharmacy practice.
With regard to the appeals, I certainly look forward to seeing the new arrangements. I hope that they are rapid, as the noble Baroness said, and I hope also that they are relatively local. I hope that they will be detached from vested interests in the way the noble Baroness said they would be. I hope also that even in the appeal bodies there will be a consumer voice to be heard.
I move rapidly to the whole question of amending the law regarding remuneration of the contracted professions. It is complex and there are many matters that we shall wish to examine when we come to consider the Bill further in Committee.
At the moment, I do not want to say very much more, save to return to one specific point concerning pharmacists. The noble Baroness may recollect that when we debated that matter recently I put to her certain anxieties I had with regard to hospital pharmacists, who are no longer able, for one reason or another, to do work that they were formerly doing. An additional load is therefore being placed on general practitioners. Patients individually are being caused much inconvenience and distress. Instead of being able to obtain their drugs as outpatients from the hospital pharmacy, they are now told to go to their general practitioner, who must then hold an unnecessary consultation. The patient then has to go to the pharmacist. The pharmacist, who is under contract to the local family practitioner committee, dispenses the prescription. That system saves the hospital money but it actually costs the public purse money, because it is probable that the cost of a prescription provided in that way is higher to public funds than it would be if it was provided by the hospital.
The noble Baroness was not able to deal with the various points I raised on that previous occasion. However, I have had a great deal of correspondence since I raised them. I am aware that that particular aspect is not dealt with in the Bill but I am absolutely certain that the Long Title of the Bill covers such matters fully. Therefore, should there be a need to do so I could ventilate those matters at a later stage of the Bill, and I give warning of that now.
I may say also that I received a letter from an officer in the Guild of Hospital Pharmacists dealing with the point I have made. It states:
"There is now a very real problem in recruiting hospital pharmacists, such that in many hospitals the remaining pharmacists who are providing essential services to in-patients are unable to maintain the out-patient dispensing service".

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The letter goes on to underline some of the points that I made in our earlier debate. It continues:
"The only solution to this problem is to resolve the recruitment problem of hospital pharmacists. The main causes of this problem are the serious differentials between hospital and retail salaries and the fact that hospital pharmacists are still not being paid for the provision of out of hours service".
The Bill does not deal with hospital pharmacists, but if there really is a problem in their recruitment then one would really like to hear what the answers are and whether the Government intend to do something. The noble Lord, Lord Ennals, asked many questions. I look forward to hearing the answers to his questions in due course. In view of the noble Baroness's earlier remarks, I doubt that I shall hear those answers tonight. However, I assure her that I shall want to hear them some time. If I do not hear them tonight then I shall be pressing for those answers on other occasions.
The noble Lord, Lord Ennals, asked in particular how many pharmacists are needed, and he asked also what was to be done about this, that and the other. I may add another question. In anticipation of the new legislation a great many properly qualified pharmacists, feeling that there will presently be an impediment to their setting up in practice in the district of their choice, are now making haste to do exactly that while there are no constraints. What provision does the noble Baroness have in mind to undo the mess that may arise from precipitant action of that kind, taken by people in the belief that it is necessary for them to take such action in order to pre-empt the effects of this particular Bill? I shall say no more, save that I look forward to renewing this discussion at much greater length, and possibly at a much later hour, when we return, restored to health, after our holidays.
9 p.m.
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: My Lords, I have in the past declared an interest in optical matters as President of the Federation of Optical Corporate Bodies. Today, I declare the same interest except that, following organisational changes within optics, the FOCB has now become known as the Federation of Ophthalmic and Dispensing Opticians. Altogether the members of the federation are responsible for almost half the optician activity in this country and do therefore make a very significant contribution to our optical services. I will confine myself to Clause 3 of the Bill although, of course, it concerns not only opticians but also other health service professions as well, including doctors, dentists and pharmacists. First, I should like to welcome the very fair undertaking given in another place on behalf of Her Majesty's Government, and confirmed by my noble friend, that the new powers in this clause will not be used to deprive the opticians of their victory in the High Court last year. The fact that such a small profession should have been driven to seek a remedy in the courts is something to be regretted but so far as that
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issue is concerned it is now water under the bridge and I believe that it is probably right to let bygones be bygones.
Nevertheless we are looking at a very important clause which Ministers have claimed:
"simply seeks to put beyond reasonable doubt the statutory basis for the NHS contractor professions remuneration arrangements in the interests of the professions, the taxpayer and the users of the NHS".
Not only will it set the statutory framework for the future but the clause also contains a retrospective element, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, in so far as it covers "earlier determinations", which have been defined so as to include determinations made before the passing of the Act. Because of the importance of the clause for the NHS contractor professions and because of the apparently unfettered nature of the powers which the Government are seeking, the federation thought it prudent to seek the opinion of senior counsel as to the effect of the clause. Counsel has advised that, as it stands, the clause gives the determining authority or the Secretary of State powers to do all the following.
First, to recover at any time moneys which on further thought it considers to have been "overpaid"—however long ago the alleged "overpayments" occurred and without the agreement of the professions involved. Secondly, to do so despite the fact that every part of such moneys must have been paid under a determination of the authority itself. Thirdly, to do so despite the fact that such determinations gave individual contractors who rendered services relying on such determinations as part of their contracts a right at law to be paid such moneys.
Fourthly, to recover such moneys, not specifically from the persons who actually received them, but by way of adjustment or reduction of future fees for work to be done by them or others (and which may be in a different category). Fifthly, to do so despite the fact that such a system must inevitably produce at least one result which is unjust and unfair; that is, that part of the moneys allegedly "overpaid" would be "recovered" from people who did not receive some part, or indeed any, of the "overpayments".
Sixthly, all that has to be shown by the determining authority is that, if the earlier determination had been made at the date of a later determination, it would have been made on the basis of "different information". This seems to be regardless of whether the persons to be penalised had any responsibility for the fact that the determining authority did not have that information nor even any knowledge of it.
These are very sweeping powers which the DHSS is seeking and yet I see in another place Ministers appeared to be saying that it was "not seeking additional powers" (col. 104, Standing Committee E, House of Commons, Tuesday, 13th May 1986). If additional powers are not being sought, why is the clause necessary?
Much has been said by Ministers in a soothing tone of reasonableness about the need for balancing

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arrangements which are fair in the interest of the taxpayer and the professions. I agree with that, but at the end of the day it is, of course, the determining authority and the DHSS who decide in their discretion where that balance lies. The DHSS may choose to say at the end of a long round of complex negotiations, "These are the terms on which we are prepared to do business—like it or lump it. We have all the powers and we are entitled to take any of the six courses of action outlined above." That does seem to me to leave the health professions in a most unequal bargaining position in the context of their remuneration negotiations.
In conclusion, while I do welcome the assurance which the Government have given about their intentions in regard to the use of the powers in this clause, nevertheless I would wish to see some restrictions placed on those powers. I do not like retrospective legislation, so I feel concerned about that
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aspect. Nor do I feel that I am alone in my dislike of retrospective legislation; the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, I know, agrees with me.
I should also like to see the nature of the "different information" much more clearly defined. Again, it would perhaps provide some safeguard and reassurance for the professions if a duty upon the determining authority to fix fair and reasonable remuneration were to be written into the clause.
I hope that some response will be made to these points of concern regarding the drafting of the clause and that suitable amendments to that effect will be presented at the Committee stage.
[For Continuation of Proceedings see Official Report for Thursday, 31st July 1986.]
9.8 p.m.
The Earl of Buchan: My Lords, I rise to congratulate the noble Baroness and the Government on this very necessary Bill. Anything to do with the National Health Service must cast its own special, warm glow, acknowledged momentarily even by those who have to find the money to pay for it.
I want to address your Lordships briefly on Clause 2. I feel most anxious about Clause 2 and so I believe do many supporters of the Government. I acknowledge what the noble Baroness has said and the frequent use of the words "costs" and "savings". I was so perplexed by this clause that I was reduced to looking at it in terms of who gains from it and who loses. The losers are numerous and the gainers are very few indeed. Among the losers must be supporters of the Government and on 10th June a Back-Bencher in another place really said it all. I quote:
"I look to my noble Friends in another place to make it a better Bill and one more fitting for a Conservative administration to introduce".
Who else might be a Conservative and object to this Bill? What are those people to make of this denial of market forces, which was a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley? I cannot believe that Conservative supporters are in favour of the establishment of many small monopolies. Most certainly they would be against any more bureaucratic interference and the creation of more dreaded quangoes. I accept the assurance given by the noble Baroness about the change of the appeals system here. I also have read the Nuffield Report and I have a quotation from it in rather a different style from that of the noble Baroness. The Nuffield Report said about the remuneration package that it was a "thoroughly retrograde step".
There is really nothing in this clause for consumers. They will find their choice restricted as competitors are kept out of the business. Casual observers of the High Street will have noticed the arrival of many new companies, such as Sharedrug, Superdrug and Underwoods, which has already been mentioned, not to mention the many smaller concerns that have been started up by enterprising Indians and Pakistanis, many of whom, incidentally, were ejected from Uganda and who are only the latest of enterprising exiles whose gingering up of the lazy and "opaque" inhabitants here has been so very beneficial. I speak as a Scot. Others who have done this for the English include the Normans, the Huguenots and the Jews.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: What about the Welsh, my Lords?
The Earl of Buchan: My Lords, strangely enough, another objector to this Clause 2 is the Office of Fair Trading, of all organisations. It has expressed major reservations about attempts to restrict entry into the
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pharmaceutical trade. And what of the patients? They will get scant comfort from the fact that the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee decrees that a new pharmacy in an urban area is not necessary or desirable if it is within one kilometre of another. A kilometre is 1,180 yards and it is a mighty long way when one is not feeling well. In fact it is the distance from Parliament Square to Leicester Square. Most certainly I should not want to run that distance with a broken leg in order to get my prescription completed. The point that was made by the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, concerns what I refer to as budding or trainee pharmacists. They will certainly feel that their opportunities to start up in business are damaged by Clause 2.
Having mentioned some of the losers from Clause 2 perhaps we may then look at the gainers. Possibly the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee members will be gainers; possibly the Treasury will be a beneficiary—and the rather wild figure of £4 million has been mentioned, but I shall believe that when it happens; possibly members of the new quangoes may feel that they will benefit. I hope that your Lordships will not feel that I am being unnecessarily tart when I say that it does not take much imagination, knowing the cosy nature of British professional organisations, to see how they might work: "an inclination to keep out" is putting it mildly. I speak with some knowledge of this matter as for many years I worked in a trade which very loosely might be said to have been bound by a form of professional restrictive practice. I refer to the Stock Exchange's fixed commissions which are now all to be blown up in the Big Bang. What was cosy before may well be bracing afterwards, and none the worse for that, but I see no Big Bang coming in the pharmacists quango.
Nearly finally, what is the position of Boots the Chemist, known to us all, which has approximately 14 per cent. of this business? I believe that it is fair to say that it is strongly in favour of competition.
To sum up, therefore, I consider that a very strong case indeed can be made against Clause 2 of this Bill; and may I remind the noble Baroness of the good work done by the Government in the cause of breaking the opticians' monopoly? Surely sauce for the opticians' goose must be sauce for the pharmacists' gander.
Very finally, I can offer a minute crumb of comfort to the noble Baroness and the authors of this clause. HOLAAS (the House of Lords Abolition of Acronyms Society) approves of it. It can make nothing of the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee or the pharmacy practices sub-committees, if only because of the absence of vowels. They may mean, incidentally, something in Polish.
9.14 p.m.
Lord Bruce-Gardyne: My Lords, I very much agree with the comments of the noble Earl, Lord Buchan, on Clause 2. I also intend essentially to confine my remarks to that clause. I am sure that there are many other excellent aspects of the Bill, but I share the noble Earl's considerable reservations about Clause 2.
I must say that my noble friend did what I would call a splendid sucking dove job on this clause, as indeed does the Bill itself, and I congratulate her upon it. It

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would be hard to deduce very much from what she told us about the clause, as indeed it is impossible from the Bill. But, as I understand it, the end result of the passage of this clause is that access for new pharmacists wishing to set up in business in a given area would depend on the say-so of a committee of seven, of whom three would be pharmacists; three pharmacists out of seven, and at the first stage they would all have a vote.
I recognise that they would be exclusively concerned with the wellbeing of their area and it would never enter their heads to wish to control the trade in their own interests. If my noble friend needs reassurance on that aspect, she should consult what Adam Smith had to say in the Wealth of Nations about what happens when two or three traders get together.
I accept that there are legitimate grounds for anxiety in my noble friend's department about the present arrangements for automatic access to the right to dispense NHS drugs. I equally accept that there is a great deal to be said against the cost-plus contract. But, so far as I understand it, we do not get rid of that element in the new contract. We should have learnt by the experience of the Ministry of Defence the entire folly of cost-plus contracts a long time ago in this as in other areas.
But, as I see it, this new contract does not deal with that problem at all. The provision of an effective veto—for that is what it amounts to—in the hands of a profession about who should and who should not be able to enter that profession is, as the noble Earl said, an extraordinary proposition, as it seems to many of us, coming from my right honourable friends. The noble Earl referred to the judgment of the Office of Fair Trading. It expressed strong reservations, and well it might.
I was grateful to my noble friend for what she had to say about the proposed adjustment in the appeal procedure. But I do not feel entirely comfortable with the idea that the appeal will still pass to what one might call the adjacent hunts—the neighbouring committees of the same type. The pharmacists at that level would not have the right to vote, but again I find it hard to believe that they would not have (shall we say?) some judicious influence on the appeal committee which was to settle the fate of those who had been turned down at the committee of first instance.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I pointed out that the appeal committee would consist of people who had nothing to do with the local FPCs; and, furthermore, those who were pharmacists would not have the right to vote. But the important point is that they would come from places far distant from the local committees.
Lord Bruce-Gardyne: My Lords, of course one will want to study this proposition with care. My noble friend will think that I have a suspicious mind. It is not unknown, I believe, for pharmacists, like the rest of us, to indulge in telephonic and personal communications with members of their own profession.
Baroness Trumpington: Like journalists, my Lords.
Lord Bruce-Gardyne: My Lords, I do not find this a matter of total reassurance. All that I want to say to my noble friend is that 1 personally hope that between now and when we return in October, she will consider very carefully the comments, particularly those of the noble Earl, Lord Buchan, that have been made.
When we had a not dissimilar proposal to this, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, in a piece of Scottish legislation a year ago, I found myself in the uncomfortable position of having to march into the Lobby behind the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock. I have no doubt that the experience was even more uncomfortable for him than for me. I appeal to my noble friend, in the watches of the summer recess, to consider this clause most carefully so that we might be spared a similar experience when we come back for the Committee stage.
9.21 p.m.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, it is clear that noble Lords are faced with dilemmas and conflicts against what they believe their party ought to do. As the last two speakers in the debate have indicated, they are appalled at what they see to be as a betrayal of basic principles. If indeed—
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, only one of those speakers was from our party. I should like to draw the noble Lord's attention to that fact. The other was a Cross-Bencher.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I am glad that the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, is in such good form—and before she has said a word on the Bill! I look forward with interest to what she has to say. The previous two speakers have expressed their astonishment at what is contained in the Bill. The speaker before the noble Lord, Lord Bruce-Gardyne, reported what was said by a member of the party of the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, in another place. And he certainly shared those views. Perhaps, for the same reason that those noble Lords have expressed such astonishment, I see a great deal of merit. Indeed, noble Lords will not be surprised that these matters should be viewed from strictly party or partisan standpoints.
Like other noble Lords, I have to declare an interest. I am a director of the Enfield and St. Albans Co-operative Society. We have pharmacy businesses. I also represent and declare, an interest in the Co-operative Movement. Those who follow these matters will see that on the negotiating committee, among the 25 members, there is a member who represents the interest of the Co-operative Movement. The movement has about 400 to 500 pharmacies throughout the country. Some are organised in a national chain. Some, like those in my own business, operate individually, It is not easy to say that there is a uniformity of experience on which to decide what is best in totality. There has been reference—I have read the documents—to the synthetic nature of the democracy or the negotiations. I am certainly aware of the frailty of a person speaking on behalf of all the members of a large organisation. It is very difficult. Yet, looking at the documents, we are told that the body that supports this in the main claims to represent 98·5 per cent. of all pharmacy proprietors.
Lord Ennals: Proprietors, my Lords.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, proprietors have an interest in these matters. Those proprietors collectively own more than 10,000 pharmacies. Whatever other interests noble Lords have in these matters those people have an interest in the matter as well.
As I understand it, we wish to see what is in the best interests on a number of aspects. Reference was made by the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley—I was glad that he did—to the apparent absence of any direct reference to the best interests of the consumers. They are the patients, the users, of the service. I should want the noble Baroness tonight, and in Committee, to take that on board.
The Co-operative Movement has more experience than almost any other business in seeking to remain in isolated communities long after other traders have decided that they should pack their bags and go. There are communities throughout the country where the Co-operative Society—once part of a big market but where the market has gradually changed by virtue of the car-borne shopper and the expansion of the big town—hangs on and on. I am attracted in the arguments that I have read by the desire to make the access to pharmacies and pharmacists more equal. That is held out to be one of the attractions here. There are a great many premises built into the. documentation that we have received which will need to be tested. The noble Lord on the Cross-Benches paid due tribute to the diligence, hard work, enterprise and entrepreneurial skill of a range of people. I see nothing wrong, in an urban situation, in more and more businesses attempting to establish themselves. However, if we are told that there is a better arrangement, not for the urban area, but for the country as a whole, I am certainly prepared to look at it.
We are told that there is the possibility of saving money. We have heard reference to the figures by the previous speaker. There will be turmoil at the end of the day. It will result in a miserable saving. It would be unworthy of the Government to put forward, for the House to accept, that part of the nexus for doing this is to save the Treasury money.
Lord Bruce-Gardyne: My Lords, I apologise for interrupting. The noble Lord will correct me if I am wrong. My understanding is that the saving of £4 million, to which reference was made, is divided between the profession and the Treasury. The only saving to the public purse is £2 million.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I am very grateful. The noble Lord has doubled the value of my argument by halving the amount that I thought was going to be saved.
The point I make, which I believe the noble Lord, Lord Bruce-Gardyne shares, is that this exercise cannot possibly be built upon a premise that it is due to save public money. It may or may not save a fraction in the event. We have to look for other reasons why this is a good thing to do. One of the arguments is that there is a genuine attempt to improve not only the accessibility or availability but also to improve the standard that the public enjoy. There is built into these
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arrangements the opportunity better to monitor and better to scrutinise the quality of the service which will be made available. In the event that may or may not turn out to be true.
So far as I am concerned and so far as the Co-operative Movement is concerned, we should like to take the opportunity of this Second Reading debate to indicate general reactions to the proposals. The Co-operative Movement considers that this Bill would be in the best interests of consumers and in the best interests of those who are professionally involved in its provisions, and to that extent I certainly give the Bill a welcome at this stage.
9.31 p.m.
Lord Wigoder: My Lords, I hope that those noble Lords who have been taking part in this very interesting discussion on Clause 2 of the Bill will forgive me if I do not follow them and if I go back to Clause 1 to deal with the point of principle that appears to arise on that clause. As your Lordships know, that clause applies the food legislation to health authorities and health services by removing Crown immunity. In other words, it deals, so far as hospitals are concerned, with kitchens and catering. I welcome the removal of Crown immunity for the reasons so admirably set out by the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, and I have no doubt that all your Lordships will welcome it too.
However, I want to consider for a moment the very basic issue as to whether or not it would be wise to extend the removal of Crown immunity from the catering and the kitchens and to ensure that the health and safety legislation applies in future to the whole of hospital premises. In other words, Crown immunity should be removed in toto from the hospitals. In a sentence, the reason for that is quite simple. There has been in recent times an increasing recognition of the very great importance of occupational health—in other words, ensuring that people are fit to work in their place of work and that their place of work is made fit for them and is so organised as to ensure maximum health and safety and efficiency for all those who use the premises.
The provisions of the Health and Safety at Work Act apply to public employers and to private employers as well. They apply, for example, to private hospitals and it is quite right that they should do so. However, for historical reasons they do not apply to National Health Service hospitals. Yet if one were to consider what type of premises are appropriate to come within the ambit of the health and safety at work legislation, perhaps hospitals would rank among the most suitable.
Inevitably, by their very nature, many hospitals are old and extremely difficult to keep hygienically clean. In many of them there are bound to be fire hazards as a result of their antiquity. There are, of course, germs that are liable to spread and cause cross-infection. There are also dangerous drugs which have to be kept secure under lock and key and properly looked after. There are also dangerous instruments that have to be properly safeguarded. As the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, pointed out—and it is really self-evident—there is a problem in relation to noxious waste and refuse which is perhaps peculiar to the scope of hospital work.

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I need hardly say that my observations are not intended in any way as a criticism of the National Health Service or its hospitals. Of course they are not. However, when one looks at the hospitals and at the records of recent incidents, it is clear that there is a very substantial risk to all those who work in them—that is, to doctors, to nurses, to the ancillary staff and and also to the patients who are treated in them and, indeed, to the members of the public who visit them. In those circumstances it seems that we may perhaps have a duty to all those people to ensure that the conditions of work inside hospitals are conducive to the public safety. As your Lordships will know, at present it is attempted to ensure that by means of the Crown notice system under which inspectors may go in and may serve notice on the relevant authority to carry out certain improvements. I am bound to suggest that that system is not working adequately or entirely satisfactorily so far as concerns hospitals.
There are perhaps four reasons why one can say that. First, under the Crown notice system a visit can only be made by the inspector by agreement with the local health authority. There can be no question of surprise visits, which really are the crux of the enforcement of the legislation, unless the health authority agrees to what it calls in advance the surprise visit. Secondly, no time limit can be imposed for the enforcement of any notice which the inspector cares to serve. Thirdly, there can be no compulsion in the carrying out of any work which the inspector deems to be necessary. Fourthly, as a result of all those discouragements it is clear from the figures that the system is not working. For example, in one year, 1984, there were only some 32 notices issued in relation to some 2,000 hospitals.
One might, I suppose, say that that proved that therefore the overwhelming majority of hospitals are working in entirely satisfactory conditions, but I believe that all one's experience disproves that, and the real reason that so few visits are being made and so few notices being served is that the inspectors realise that they are much better employed in visiting premises where they can enforce their notices than those where they have so little effect.
In those circumstances I would suggest that a strong case is made out for extending the removal of Crown immunity proposed under Clause 1 of this Bill from the kitchens and the catering to the rest of the hospital premises. I do not believe that the Government object to that on the grounds of expense. Indeed, one of the more astonishing observations in the Bill is in the Financial Memorandum that even Clause 1 has no financial implications. So even removing the Crown immunity from the kitchens and the catering is apparently to have very limited financial implications. I am sure that the noble Baroness would not want to say that the cost of extending the removal of immunity to the whole of the hospital would be any very substantial sum.
At the same time, the noble Baroness will perhaps concede, on reflection, that the fact that it has been necessary in Clause 1 to remove Crown immunity from the kitchens and the catering shows that the Government are not able any longer to rely on the
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Crown notice system as working entirely satisfactorily in relation to the kitchens and the catering. If that is so, I would suggest equally that the Government can no longer have any great confidence in that system in relation to the hospital as a whole.
In those circumstances, I hope that when we come to Committee stage your Lordships will consider with great care the proposal that will be put forward that the removal of Crown immunity should be extended to cover the whole of the hospital premises in future.
9.38 p.m.
Lord Rugby: My Lords, I listened with great interest to the words of the noble Baroness in introducing Clause 2. I picked on the words that they are really aiming to improve efficiency, innovation, and initiative in the pharmacies. That is to be welcomed. In this situation I should like to say that I come from a rural area, and the rural chemist, or provincial chemist, is an important and integral part of our community.
I would even say that he is like a part of the furniture. He is recognised by everybody, and trusted by everybody. In this situation, as your Lordships know, I have taken a big part in trying to open up the market whereby the consumers can get their optical prescriptions dispensed much more easily than in the past, especially since the opticians do not find a very congenial habitat in the country. One is more likely to find them strung out rather like a murmuring of starlings along the high street.
It is difficult for people in the country areas to get their prescriptions dispensed. I can think of no better person in this regard than the local pharmacist, who is used to prescriptions. He is a thoroughly responsible man. He understands exactly how these things should be dispensed. All he requires is a focimeter. As I understand it, the rural pharmacist is being funded with quite large sums of money just to be there. I should have thought that it would be simple, instead of giving him such a large funding, to present him with a focimeter presented free, gratis and for nothing, so that the local residents in his area could come with their prescriptions, which they own (they are their property) and he could send these to the prescription houses to be made up. He would then check that they are correct when they arrive and hand them over. I am sure that would be beneficial. I hope that the noble Baroness will take that into consideration because it would provide an extra string to the bow of pharmacies who may be finding it rather difficult to keep themselves in business. That would be of great help to them from that point of view.
With regard to the comment about the £11 million, I think it would be just as well if it were forgotten about. It was a most salutary lesson on how these things should be funded. I agree wholeheartedly with the noble Lord, Lord Bruce-Gardyne, that this should not be on a cost-plus basis because in such circumstances one will find that clandestinely the costs will always be minimised and there will always be some way in which the plus side will be maximised. Business people are very good at doing that. I am pleased that the noble Baroness will remove that loophole with her Bill. With those remarks I shall wait until we reach the next stage of the Bill.
9.43 p.m.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, I welcome Part I of the Bill because I remember so clearly when my husband contracted salmonella abroad and was admitted to an isolation hospital that he found that all the other patients there had contracted salmonella after being admitted to hospital. It is good to know that Clause 1 will deal with that.
My main concentration will be on Clause 2, which is the most controversial. I feel that there is a lack of understanding on this point. When I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, I thought he was absolutely spot on when he said that it will not make very much difference to the National Health Service as a whole over the whole nation. I agree with him on that. I agree because we have both been in general practice of different types; therefore we are both grass-roots practitioners as opposed to all the people who are discussing the theory of these matters.
The noble Lord, Lord Ennals, made an interesting statement about how he introduced the present system of payments. I remember when he did that. He did it because at the time the small pharmacies could not survive. They were going out of business. All round London we were most concerned that the small pharmacies were closing up. It was necessary to do what he did.
As time has gone by, the system has worked too well. People have found that it has reached a point where it is profitable to set up a small pharmacy because they are given such good allowances. This is why we have had such a proliferation of pharmacies in the attractive areas where they are not really needed. In other areas, where they are needed, the people are more deprived. That is why it is now time to be considering these matters again. These requests have come directly from the pharmacists themselves. There have been considerable consultations and individual pharmacists have expressed anxiety and have written to the noble Lord. I know that people are anxious.
On 4th June in our debate, at col. 1029, I said I understood that in this new Bill there was an agreement to provide benefits and early retirement for such pharmacists as were really anxious and could not continue. I understand also that a number of pharmacists find themselves locked in to small, inefficient, unsaleable businesses and would be very glad to be able to close up and go, leaving it to others near them who are more successful. The noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, made the point that if pharmacists were paid simply on a piecework rate, as are dentists, without any of these extra allowances, then the situation with this open competition would exist which the noble Lord, Lord Bruce-Gardyne, and the noble Earl, Lord Buchan, were talking about. But there is no open competition. These people are having all their basic costs met. When I had a heartrending letter from Underwoods I did not feel too moved by it at all. It said how upset they were going to be. I see that in Queensway they have two huge lots of premises already and have just opened a third.
Does that mean that three lots of premises owned by the one concern in the same street within four blocks are all being paid a basic allowance to be open because they happen to be dispensing national health
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prescriptions? If those three of theirs are complemented by at least two more independent pharmacists in that same four blocks—and there are only four blocks if you count one side the street and three blocks if you count the other side of the street—it is a fairly small area to have all those pharmacists each getting that basic allowance.
So it is only right that there should be a saving on those basic allowances which are being paid to people so that that same money can then be applied to helping people, the very people whom the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, spoke about—the Co-op, which is staying in areas from where other people have gone. That is the very type of pharmacy that I understand will be helped by this Bill; so those isolated communities will be better off.
There has been a lot of talk about how these people have had no say on their pharmaceutical groups. But of these people on pharmaceutical services negotiating committees, 14 are elected by the pharmacists themselves—14 for England and also one for Wales. So everyone has a right to a vote. If everyone is interested enough to work their way up to a point where they themselves can stand for election, then every pharmacist has a right to stand for election. Those pharmacists who write in and say, "I've never had any say and no one has ever asked me" have probably never taken any active part in the working of their local pharmaceutical committee.
When other points are being considered, it is important to realise that this new system is intended to provide a network of pharmacies located where they can best serve the needs of patients without the extravagant use of NHS resources. I was quite fascinated by the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Bruce-Gardyne. He said that this majority of pharmacists can vote any way they like to restrict people—and that they are three out of seven. I thought that four out of seven was a majority and that those pharmacists who were three out of seven would be the minority. So I am slightly lost by his figures, when I know he is normally better at figures than I am. Does the noble Lord wish to say something?
Lord Bruce-Gardyne: My Lords, I apologise for interrupting. If I did refer to three as a majority, it was a slip of the tongue. I am aware that three does not constitute a majority out of seven. But I have to say to my noble friend, nevertheless, that three members of a profession in a group the rest of whom are made up of non-directly interested parties are likely to carry a considerable amount of weight.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, that shows that the noble Lord has never been in national health practice; because I can tell you that that is not so at all. Usually, those lay people gang up very hard against the professional people and I think you would find those four to be fairly effective. To quote him, what he said was that they would be an effective veto. He did not actually say that three was a majority. He said that they would be an effective veto. I just followed the argument through.
It is intended that this Bill will give greater incentives for economy and efficiency and disincentives for oversupply in the service. Also, I

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believe that this Bill will provide safeguards for the funding of essential small pharmacies. There are special arrangements to enable small pharmacies adversely affected by the contract arrangements to withdraw from their NHS contracts, as I have mentioned to your Lordships. In June, the pharmaceutical services told me that compensation could be as high as £22,000. I have not had the figures confirmed, but they certainly seem very generous and I think that many pharmacists will welcome that.
So I really think that all these stories about the concern for people and how hard done by everyone is going to be are exaggerated; and when the noble Lord, Lord Bruce-Gardyne, says that this is a restriction I would re-emphasise that it is not a restriction on a pharmacist as such. Any pharmacist will be able to set up anywhere. It is simply that if you want that NHS money you will have to go to a practice committee, which the doctors have had for many years and which has worked perfectly well. I believe that before many more years we are going to see the dentists requesting something of that type. I support this Bill.
9.51 p.m.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, I have to declare an interest as a vice-president of the Association of Optical Practitioners. I have not very much to add to what my noble friend Lord Cullen of Ashbourne had to say. Like him, I should like to say how grateful I am for the assurance that was given, to which my noble friend the Minister referred, that the Secretary of State would not seek to recover the moneys which had been the subject of a successful court case last autumn. But notwithstanding that, I am puzzled to read on the front of the Bill that,
"Clause 3 makes provision to put beyond doubt the legal basis of the longstanding practice of adjusting future payments to offset past underpayments or overpayments when determining … remuneration …".
and so on, My noble friend Lady Gardner said, as did my noble friend Lord Cullen, that the Government were not seeking additional powers.
My noble friend Lord Cullen spelt out very carefully six points. There are those six areas—and I could add to them if there were time—in which it seems to the optical practitioners that long-standing practice is not being adhered to. New practices are being introduced, and the new practices being introduced are faulty in the respects detailed by my noble friend Lord Cullen. That of course will be the subject of many amendments in order to pursue the Government on the matter.
My noble friend said (and I understand this) that because there is further business we could not spend undue time on this Second Reading. If she intends to write to my noble friend Lord Cullen of Ashbourne to spell out the Government's thoughts on the six points to which he referred, may I ask her to be so good as to write to me too?
Lord Ennals: And to me, my Lords.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, I have no doubt the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, would also like to have a copy, as would other speakers who have touched on
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this subject. These matters are crucial. Speaking from these Benches, I hate to say it to the Government, but it strikes me that there is a bit of skulduggery going on which the statements on the front of the Bill are trying to pretend is not going on. I would hope very much that my noble friend can completely convince me about that or, alternatively, accept amendments which really will put beyond doubt the long-standing practice as heretofore adopted. I shall look forward to hearing much in the meantime, but otherwise to a nice, energetic Committee stage.
9.54 p.m.
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, broadly speaking, we support the aims of this Bill, although our level of enthusiasm varies in the three main parts and we question, in two clauses at least, the means by which the Government seek to achieve the aims.
No one, as the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, together with other noble Lords, has said, can quarrel with Clause 1 so far as it goes on the removal of Crown immunity from the provisions of the Food Act 1984 and also the food and hygiene regulations. The terrible toll of life taken as a result of the food poisoning at the Stanley Royd Hospital in 1984 would alone furnish pressing grounds for this step. Of course, that was not an isolated instance. It was alarming to learn the claim by the Institute of Environmental Health Officers that 97 hospitals, or 16 per cent. of those it surveyed, would have qualified for prosecution under the Act had it applied to them. The remark of the catering manager of the Royal Free Hospital that cockroaches in the chicken stew were harmless if properly cooked may raise a smile, but is evidence an attitude that hardly commands confidence for the future.
Obviously, a great deal can be achieved by better managment and improved inspection, backed by statutory sanctions. The noble Baroness Lady Trumpington said that there was no effective substitute for management. She has a point there. There is also the question of resources. Hospital kitchens have long been a low priority for capital expenditure. Some of them, as has already been said, date back to the nineteenth century. It is hardly suprising that they should attract certain inhabitants into their woodwork.
Can the noble Baroness say whether the Government agree that there are resource implications that will have to be faced in addition to the question of Crown immunity? Can she say what provision the Government propose to meet them? I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, that Crown immunity itself has no resource implications, but I submit to the Minister that there are some resource implications.
As the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, has also said eloquently and authoritatively, there is the question whether the clause goes far enough. There are other aspects of health not necessarily related to kitchens. He referred particularly to the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. It was my understanding that this was not imposed on the National Health Service in 1974 because it had just gone through the throes of two reorganisations and the general concern at that time was with patient care rather than the well-being of employees. It was also argued that it was not possible

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always to identify who would take responsibility under that Act nor where the managerial responsibility would lie.
These objections no longer apply. The National Health Service is the largest employer in the country and should not be outside this legislation. As the result of the Griffiths Report, each regional health authority and district health authority has been required to appoint a general manager and a clear line of management structure is now being laid down. Management should therefore be in a position to cope with the responsibilities under that Act as has already been said, a visit to any hospital would provide examples of disregard of the Health and Safety at Work Act—laboratory conditions, storage of materials, collection and disposal of rubbish, fire hazards and ventilation. While breaches of the Act may be pointed out by the health and safety inspectorate, there is no compulsion on the health authorities to put the condition right at present.
Another point that I should like to bring to the notice of the noble Baroness is that general practitioners who employ more than five people are subject to the Act. Hospitals in the private sector are similarly constrained, as are local authorities. Therefore, surely it is appropriate for the National Health Service to be brought into line with the requirements placed on other health professionals and health providers. I think therefore that I can almost certainly say that we will be tabling an amendment to this effect in Committee.
The kernel of the Bill to which most noble Lords have addressed their remarks is Clause 2, which is to effect the proposed new pharmacists' contract. Our position, as my noble friend Lord Winstanley has indicated, is that we broadly support the concept of a more rational distribution of community pharmacies. The current arrangements are expensive to the National Health Service, cause clustering and leap-frogging in the High Street and discourage the opening of new pharmacies in less favoured areas.
The new proposals have been carefully negotiated over a longish period with the negotiating body representing the profession. Against this there have been criticisms from a number of quarters, some of which have been voiced this evening. The noble Earl, Lord Buchan, spoke of a denial of market forces. Reference has also been made to this being an action in restraint of trade. But I am bound to say that there was not much free trade going before, with indiscriminate state subsidies to anyone wishing to become an NHS contractor. Subsidising chain stores such as Underwoods and Boots is not my understanding of free trade. I very much agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, on this occasion, that it is absurd that large chain stores like Underwoods, with a huge turnover on other goods such as gifts and toiletries, should qualify as small pharmacies and obtain a basic practice allowance. So I do not think that the strength of the free trade argument really holds up.
I thought that the worries of the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, had more substance. I do not share all of them, or not to the same extent, but to my mind the crucial tests of the package proposed by the Government lie in
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two areas. The first is the appeal system. The original proposals for pharmacy practice sub-committees of the FPCs were obviously unacceptable and the appeal to an immediately adjacent area was quite inadequate. The noble Baroness has acknowledged that the Government now propose a modification of these arrangements whereby the membership of the appeal panel will be drawn, as I understand it, from a national, not a regional, list and the pharmacist members will not have a vote—
Baroness Trumpington: Correct.
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, I suppose that that is an improvement, but it is hard to see how national members will be able to travel round the country attending regional appeal panels, and it appears that there is no ultimate court of appeal beyond the regional appeal panel, if I heard the noble Baroness aright. I rather share the scepticism of the noble Lord, Lord Bruce-Gardyne, about this. Will these national appeal members be paid, will they get expenses and how will it all work? We need to hear a great deal more about it. We shall have to read carefully what the noble Baroness said, but my impression is that the Government's proposals do not remove all the unease which has been expressed, and my suspicion is that what the Government are proposing falls a good deal short of a proper national appeal system.
The second crucial test of the package is whether it really results in a better spread of pharmacies. This is surely one of the main objectives. I share some of the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, here. Currently, we gather from the Government's notes, there are 1,380 small pharmacies, some of which will presumably close, of which only 135 are defined as "essential small pharmacies". It seems to me of the highest importance that the incentive should be adequate for this number to increase, whether in inner city areas, on housing estates, in rural communities or in any other deprived area.
I heard the noble Baroness say—I noted it down and I think I quote her correctly—that
"the essential small pharmacies scheme will be financially strengthened",
and elsewhere she spoke of, "greatly enhanced financial support". I shall be most grateful, when she comes to wind up, if she can respond expand on that a little further or if, as she has already indicated, she cannot do so here and how perhaps he will write to me and other noble Lords who are interested in that aspect of the Bill.
Turning rapidly to Clause 3, this is primarily motivated by the case brought successfully against the Secretary of State by the Federation of Optical Bodies, in which it was ruled that he did not have the right to claw back the £11 million of "unintended profits", by cutting sight test fees and dispensing charges, thus, in effect, punishing all opticians for the supposed over-payment which had been fixed by the DHSS itself. It is right for us to be on our guard against special pleading by any of the professions and some kind of clawback mechanism is probably necessary. But at the same time a fair system of remuneration has to be established for the health professions if they are to fulfil their functions.

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It therefore seems far too sweeping—I think that was the word used by the noble Lord, Lord Cullen, who is not in his place, but I agreed with it—to legislate for unrestricted retrospective recovery, not specifically from persons who actually received the fees, but by way of adjustment or reduction of future working fees for work done, quite possibly, by people who were not concerned in the first place. The noble Baroness talked about re-establishing the position, but it appears to me to go further than the existing position. She said that there was no change in policy. That may be so, but there certainly appears to be a change in powers in the Bill.
The grounds on which the Secretary of State is permitted to decide on clawback as set out in Clause 3(2) appear to let him act virtually on whim. Having made an earlier determination, presumably on the basis of all the relevant information available to him at the time, he is allowed to change it if he decides later that he should have made it on the basis of different information. This empowers him constantly to change the ground rules as he goes along. I find all this rather unsatisfactory and it is simply a further instance of giving the Secretary of State virtually unbridled powers. 1 can forecast that there will be some amendments in Committee designed to put a time limit on the clawback and to ensure that the basis of determination is fairer than is provided in the Bill.
We agree that action needed to be taken in all the areas the Bill tackles, but we are not satisfied (to use the phrase of the noble Baroness) that the Government have it entirely right. From this debate this evening it is clear that, although there are only three clauses of substance in the Bill, we shall have a lively Committee stage in which we on these Benches shall certainly play an active part.
10.6 p.m.
Lord Prys-Davies: My Lords, it is a late hour and I shall not detain the House long as I am sure noble Lords are anxious to hear how the Minister will respond to the many points of concern and also the arguments which have been advanced in the course of the debate.
There has been support for Clause 1 as far as it goes, but it will come as no surprise to the Government that my noble friend Lord Ennals and the noble Lords, Lord Winstanley and Lord Kilmarnock, are asking why it does not go further, and indeed are asserting that it should go further. It would have been a very much better clause had its scope been extended so as to apply the provisions of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. We promise to return to this clause in Committee.
The debate has really concentrated on Clause 2, which is controversial. The arguments against this clause were advanced in this Chamber in the debate on an Unstarred Question in June last year and again on 22nd October last year when a similar clause which appeared in the Law Reform (Scotland) Bill was rejected by your Lordships' House. Those arguments have been repeated tonight.
The clause should really be read in conjunction with the new contract for community pharmacists. It has to be recognised that the contract weakens the financial
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position of the small pharmacist unless his business is classified as an essential small pharmacy, in which case its financial position will be strengthened by the Bill. The letters which I have read—and I received one today from a pharmacist in my home town of Pontypridd—express concern and indicate a depth of feeling that pharmacists will lose out. This has been referred to by my noble friend Lord Ennals, but it is something which the noble Baroness the Minister did not acknowledge in her opening address. If a small chemist writes to me and says that this Bill will be extremely damaging to his position as a small contractor, is the Minister saying to me that his fear is unfounded?
My noble friend when he was Secretary of State for Social Services took the initiative to change the system of payment by paying more per prescription to the small chemist. This principle is still recognised in the new contract. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the small chemist will be paid less than now, and in some cases substantially less.
We are right to ask the Minister whether the department has calculated the number of small chemists outside those classified as essential small pharmacists who will no longer be financially viable when the new contract comes into operation. If the department has worked out its sums, then the Minister should be frank and give the House those calculations. Indeed, she should reply also to the number of questions that my noble friend Lord Ennals addressed to her on that aspect.
The heart of the clause is concerned with limiting entry by dispensing chemists into retail pharmacy businesses. It will be more difficult for a dispensing chemist to open a successful business, yet setting up in business is a basic objective that the Government claim to hold dear. I do not propose to cause any more embarrassment to the Government on that issue; but it simply is not good enough for the Government to deny that the contract prevents any chemist from setting up his own business. In reality it does so because the chemist will be unable to undertake any NHS dispensing.
I believe with all the other Members of your Lordships' House who have spoken to Clause 2 that the applicant who is unable to obtain a contract to dispense NHS prescriptions should have a right of appeal to a body that is objective and fair. The new appeals procedure outlined by the Minister appears to be adopting the right approach, but we shall have to study the wording carefully. We are particularly anxious that the consumer should be given a strong voice in the appeals committee. Lay people should be able to speak for the consumer's point of view, as to where pharmacies should be located.
If I understand the Minister correctly, there will be three professional members of the committee and three lay members. However, I fear that the professional members could well dominate the thinking of the appeals committee. Obviously, we shall have to study carefully what the Minister has said about the appeals procedure but I have a feeling that we shall come back to this matter in Committee.
I return to the principle of control of entry. There is evidence that some districts are by now over-endowed

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with high street chemists, each with an NHS contract in his pocket, while there remain rural areas and large housing estates—and in Wales we have large rural areas and large housing estates—where there is under-provision. However, it appears that with this Bill we could be moving towards a planned distribution of retail pharmacies, which I for my part would welcome. The new contract, by limiting entry by dispensing chemists into retail businesses in areas of over-provision, could substantially increase the chance—and we put it no higher than that for the moment—of pharmacies opening in rural areas and on large housing estates. That would bring benefits to many patients in many parts of the country. Such patients would gain from the contract.
If the mechanism of appeal is right (and that is a big "if), if the essential small chemist scheme is reviewed, and if the savings, modest though they may be, are redistributed within the NHS and the pharmacy industry, then, as the dean of a faculty of pharmacy indicated to a friend of mine, Clause 2 could be heading in the right direction.
Finally, I turn to Clause 3. I agree with noble Lords who have asserted that it is fair and just that a government should be able to recover from those who have benefited when there have been overpayments in the past. I believe that as a statement of principle that must be fair and just. Notwithstanding the assurances given by the Minister that the clause is not intended in any way to change the existing practice, considerable concern has been expressed by noble Lords—my noble friend Lord Ennals, the noble Lords, Lord Cullen of Ashbourne, Lord Mottistone, and Lord Kilmarnock—that the clause is too wide, to vague and too sweeping.
The noble Lord, Lord Cullen of Ashbourne, concentrated on six points of difficulty which had been identified by a leading counsel. I hope that the noble Lord will send that counsel's opinion to the department for its consideration and enlightenment. Basically, what is wrong with the clause is that it could authorise recovery from the wrong people. There is an element of subjectivity in one of its subsections which could be hazardous. There is a feeling in the House that the Government should not be entitled to reopen a settlement at any time in the future. After a length of time—and there may be difficulty in determining what that period should be—the settlement should be accepted as settled in the interests of certainty and finality. Therefore, we shall return again to Clause 3 in Committee; but I believe that I should now make way for the Minister.
10.17 p.m.
Baroness Trumpington: I agree with the assumption of the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, and the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, that the tragedy of Stanley Royd was a factor which contributed to the legislation in Part I of the Bill.
Many noble Lords have raised wider issues concerning Crown immunity, and these points are, of course, important; but in no instance has the case to lift Crown immunity been made with the same strength as was made for food hygiene legislation. I believe that for the time being the most effective way of tackling the
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problems is to continue the efforts we have been making to strengthen management procedures rather than by way of a general listing of Crown immunity.
Various noble Lords, asked why should not Crown immunity be removed from health authorities in respect of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act. Health authorities are liable to comply with the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act in the same way as private bodies but they may not be prosecuted. However, where health and safety inspectors consider that changes are necessary, they may issue Crown notices which must be complied with. Failure to do so may be referred to the Secretary of State. Although over 300 notices have been issued since 1980, in no case was it found necessary to take action. That suggests that health authorities are fulfilling their responsibilities. That view is supported by the Health and Safety Commission.
Much has been achieved by co-operation and good will between health and safety inspectors and health service administrators; for example, in the setting up of time scales for improvements which take account of the need for local authorities to continue to meet the needs of patients. The Crown notice arrangements provide adequate safeguards to ensure that health authorities comply with health and safety legislation and the Government do not at present intend to remove Crown immunity in this field.
With regard to the financial implications of Clause 1, mentioned by the noble Lords, Lord Wigoder and Lord Kilmarnock, a statement that the financial effect of Clause 1 has no implications for public expenditure means that no further public money is being allocated for Clause 1. It is up to health authorities, if necessary, to consider re-ordering their priorities within their budgets to take account of Clause 1. Incidentally, I was most grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Winstanley and Lord Kilmarnock, for their general welcome for Clause 2.
Turning to the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Ennals—and I shall touch at the same time on points raised by other noble Lords—he asked whether it was the Government's view that there were too many pharmacists. No; the Government are saying that the pattern of distribution is not meeting changing patient needs. The noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, asked about pharmacists who were buzzing in before the legislation was made. My reply to him is that those pharmacists who are trying by opening now to beat the results of this Bill are free to do so. When the change comes they, like others, will have the same financial changes. If they have sufficient business they will make a go of it; if not, like any other commercial enterprise they must diversify, or the result will be not so happy. But above all, the interest must be for the patients. The interests of the patients ar paramount. The overriding criterion is, "What is necessary to meet patients' requirements?"
In answer to a question of the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, about why there should be a regulatory system, the new contract is a package which consists of a new remuneration system together with the controls on entry. The overall aim of the contract is to ensure a distribution of pharmacies which is appropriate to patients but which is not extravagant of NHS

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resources. Under the present arrangements, any pharmacist can open a pharmacy knowing that his NHS costs will be met by the taxpayer. Change is necessary.
The noble Lord, Lord Ennals, asked whether the whole pharmacy profession should have been consulted. Negotiations on the new contract were conducted between the department and the PSNC. Since that time, discussions have taken place with the PSNC, the PSGB which represents the profession as a whole, and other interested bodies such as the British Retailers Association.
I have so many answers that I shall reply to something which I read in the newspapers during the course of the week—that the Minister certainly was well briefed. I found that I suddently lost my sense of humour when listening to the noble Earl, Lord Buchan, and to my noble friend, Lord Bruce-Gardyne, and I found myself thinking rather wistfully about the Big Bang—whatever that is—that was mentioned by the noble Earl.
I have an answer to his points about fair trading. There are six points that I should like to make. The new arrangements would in no way exercise any control over non-NHS pharmacies. There seems to be no reason in principle why the NHS as a contractor should be denied the right, which is open to other contractors, to be selective in its award of contracts, so that an efficient and effective service can be provided for patients. This is the main objective—to provide adequate patient services while avoiding the cost to the taxpayer of excessive provision.
In the supply of pharmaceutical services most of the normal market mechanisms necessary for effective competition do not operate. The pharmacists cannot compete by offering a better price or a better quality product. Also, the overall level of NHS work that is available is outside the pharmacist's control. The DHSS and the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain are considering what progress needs to be made on the description and maintenance of standards of pharmacy practice. Changes in the pattern of remuneration will encourage pharmacists to be more efficient and there will be added incentives for the better practices.
I was interested in the ideas of the noble Lord, Lord Rugby, for widening the future role of the pharmacist. That is certainly something that I shall want to have noted in our primary care consultations. My noble friend Lord Mottistone will not be surprised to learn that I shall write to him on his charge of skulduggery. I find myself frustrated by not being able to answer all the questions of noble Lords.
The aims of the Bill are to improve the quality of the service provided to patients at the same time as ensuring value for money. I am confident that those aims will be achieved in a way that is fair to those who provide health services, to the taxpayer and above all to the patient. I urge noble Lords to give the Bill a Second Reading.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group
10.25 p.m.
Lord Hatch of Lusby Lord Hatch of Lusby rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what action they propose to take after receiving the report of the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, it may be of value to the quality of our discussion if I try first to define the objective of the question. It is not to ask whether sanctions should be applied against South Africa; they are already being applied. Let us not be mealy-mouthed; let us talk about "sanctions" and not about "measures". The Question is not about whether comprehensive, total or punitive sanctions should be applied. I have no desire to punish anyone in South Africa, and both comprehensive and total sanctions are probably impossible to apply, at least in the short term. The objective is not to destroy the South African state or the South African economy.
In view of what has been said in previous debates, let me say that the objective is not to hand over South Africa to Communist-dominated organisations. I point out at the beginning of the debate that I was in South Africa when the suppression of Communism legislation was passed in 1950, and part of the definition of "Communism" in South African terms is any action which aims at the encouragement of feelings of hostility between the European and non-European races of the Union. Anyone could be deemed a Communist by the Governor-General, as he existed at that time. In other words, the term includes anyone who opposes the system of apartheid.
Neither do I intend to discuss the mission of Sir Geoffrey Howe, except to say that its outcome confirms what the Eminent Persons Group reported to the Commonwealth and what many of us have been saying for years, that President Botha and any white regime in that country have no intention whatever of altering the basic principle of white supremacy.
The Question that I ask is based on the Eminent Persons Group report and in particular on a section which has been quoted before but which is worth requoting:
"The question in front of Heads of Government is in our view clear. It is not whether such measures will compel change: it is already the case that their absence and Pretoria's belief that they need not be feared, defers change. Is the Commonwealth to stand by and allow the cycle of violence to spiral? Or will it take concerted action of an effective kind? Such action may offer the last opportunity to avert what could be the worst bloodbath since the Second World War".
I am asking the Government to state their response to that conclusion of the Eminent Persons Group report.
The question of sanctions can be divided into two items. First, what is the target of sanctions? Secondly, how can they be used effectively? I suggest that the target is to bring the South African Government to negotiate with the genuine representatives of non-Europeans for the future of South Africa. It is also to reduce the South African state's powers to kill, to maim and to silence its opponents and to refuse the human right of equal participation for every individual in the government of their society. Such negotiations have been demanded by Africans for 80 years. They have been met by bullets, batons,

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imprisonment and torture. If any noble Lord wants to examine the attitude of the Africans today towards negotiations, I suggest that they read not only the Eminent Persons report but also the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Barber, in our last debate on South Africa.
For 80 years discrimination has been fuelled by Western investment, by Western trade and by Western diplomacy. To those who say that it is only by increasing the value of the economy of South Africa that apartheid can be undermined, let us point out that apartheid was at its most severe and most extreme during the period, particularly the 1960s and the early 1970s, when South Africa had the highest economic growth of its history.
I should like to ask the noble Baroness who is to reply whether it is not the case that it has now been revealed by United States officials that intelligence has been shared, up to and including last year, by the intelligence security organisation of the United States and of this country, particularly GCHQ, with South Africans, and that South Africans attended a conference only last year of the intelligence officers of the United States and of Britain. I would also suggest that the action taken only this week by the United States Administration of increasing textile imports from South Africa to the United States is further evidence that this subsidisation of apartheid by the West still continues. Yet, let us note that during the past 12 months, at a time when the rand fell sharply as a result of lack of international capitalist confidence in South Africa, minor reforms were made by the South African Administration. Yet. at the beginning of this year—in January and February—when debts were rescheduled as a Swiss gentleman acting on behalf of the South African Government succeeded in getting some financial support for the rand, and for the South African economy, the South African Government displayed the intransigence witnessed time after time in the Eminent Persons Group report.
The African revolt has become inevitable—inevitable because of the stubborn adherence to the main principle of the South African white community, particularly the Afrikaner community, that there shall be no equality in church or state, written into the constitutions of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State last century and continued ever since. It has become inevitable because of the constant and consistent refusal of the South African white regime to allow any constitutional means for change, added to the policies of the Western countries in passing by on the other side when appealed to consistently and constantly by Africans and other non-Europeans.
I hope that the noble Baroness can tell us that there will be no further postponement of approaching this problem directly: that the British Government will not tell the Commonwealth mini summit this weekend to wait until the next EC meeting in September. Postponement has been used to give the South African regime further time—now 12 months—to prepare for the imposition of sanctions, to stockpile and to prepare for the future. So much, my Lords, for the target of securing conditions in which the negotiations for which the blacks have been asking for 80 years are
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put into effect between all the communities—and here I would include Chief Buthelezi as well as other African leaders, the genuine representatives of all the communities in South Afica—to determine their future.
With regard to the effectiveness of the use of sanctions for this purpose I would suggest—and I would agree with the Government here—that, to be effective, sanctions have to be universal. In other words, we have to plug the leaks that have already appeared in the present sanctions measures, from Britain, the United States, West Germany, France and Israel. Therefore, the only way of applying sanctions effectively and universally is through the authority of the Security Council of the United Nations.
I shall give some examples of sanctions which could be effective in undermining the present white regime, in reducing its ability to terrorise the majority population, and encouraging those within the white regime who have the imagination to see the non-racial future of that country. I would suggest that there are a number of forms of sanctions which have been proposed and discussed. I shall give a few examples.
The most important are financial sanctions. I have already pointed out that the independent financial action of the world's banks 12 months ago had some effect, as well as what has been asked for within the Congress of the United States: the disinvestment of the great multinational companies which are based outside South Africa but which operate in support of the South African economy. I would also suggest a mineral boycott, including coal and diamonds. I mention again—as I did in the last debate—that here we need the co-operation of the Soviet Union, which is being urged at the Security Council to use its influence in its great diamond trade with South Africa. The boycott of minerals would also be effective in reducing the state of the South African economy. Sanctions on agricultural exports—on fruit and vegetables and so on—would effectively reduce South Africa's foreign trade and its ability to purchase imports.
The airways have been mentioned. Certainly the refusal of landing rights would bring home, particularly to the white population in South Africa, that the world regarded them as a pariah. There could be action on visas. Why should South Africans be treated as though they were commonwealth citizens travelling either to this country without visas, or indeed to the United States?
I am glad that the subject of gold sales has been raised because 1 have always suggested that if the United States and the IMF were to begin to sell gold on the open market, the reduction in the price of gold would be such that it would have a dramatic and instant effect upon the South African economy.
Above all, we must tighten the military ban which has been in force now for some 10 years. We must deal with matters like computers for use in Land Rovers by the police. In this connection, I would also specifically ask the noble Baroness why it is that the British Government, although they have withdrawn the British military attache from Pretoria, allow the South Africans to keep three such attachés in this country—a military attaché, a defence attaché and an air force

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Attaché—who I know are able to attend defence shows in this country making contacts and purchasing so-called defence (but in fact aggressive) weapons. Those are some examples, but they are only examples. I believe that the Commonwealth secretariat is sufficiently well-manned to work out the best methods of applying economic sanctions.
We must pledge ourselves and organise ourselves to assist the neighbours of South Africa who will be under attack. The South Africans are already blackmailing us. They are not saying that they will attack us; but they are saying that they will use force—particulary economic force—against their neighbours. We need to pledge economic and military aid to the front line states. We must, during what is bound to be a long struggle, keep close contact with the ANC, the UDF and the trade unions. After the years that have been wasted in hypocritical refusal to meet or to talk to the representatives of these people, I am glad to see that, first, Mrs. Chalker and then Sir Geoffrey Howe at least asked to meet the ANC. Why did it not happen 12 months or two years ago?
I hope that we shall hear no more about the accusation that it is immoral to advocate the use of sanctions against South Africa. Those of us who have advocated them have done so on the grounds that they are likely—and only likely—to reduce the period of violence which we have now seen has come, and come to stay. I hope that this weekend the British Government will take a deliberate, a considered, an organised—but above all a committed—lead through their position in the Commonwealth, through their position in the EC, alongside both Houses of the United States Congress and above all in the United Nations.
This is an issue of British economic self-interest as regards future trade with the whole of the African continent. There is a British political interest in shortening the period of the inevitable violence which has arisen throughout Southern Africa and which has arisen from 80 years of discrimination. There is a British moral interest in the values—if we still hold by the values—of justice, of human rights and of freedom. There is a British interest in influencing the character of the world that we bequeath to our children and our grandchildren.
10.44 p.m.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, we seem to be quite intent on making our last evening a long evening. The noble Lord, Lord Hatch, has introduced a very important subject. I intend to break the rule which I have always held, which is that unless you have been to South Africa you really have almost no right to express a view upon it. I have not been to South Africa and therefore I do not have a view upon apartheid that I would care to divulge or discuss, because I have always been of the view that whatever opinion you may have about that particular regime, if you went to South Africa you would return with a different view. It may be a stronger view; it may be a more understanding view; but it would be a different view. What I am concerned with is not to speak about apartheid but about our reactions to it.
It is convenient and easy to take a view and to criticise a regime and a principle when you are 8,000
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miles away, and when happily you do not have those circumstances applying in your own country. Everyone has clamoured for sanctions to bring pressure on South Africa to remove apartheid. The noble Lord, Lord Hatch, said this evening, "Don't let us postpone sanctions any longer". He said that he did not wish to hear anyone say that sanctions were immoral.
I am afraid that I am going to disappoint the noble Lord, because I take the view that it is morally indefensible to so conduct yourself as to try to bankrupt another country and bring it to its knees, in the hope that having done so it will change its ways. I do not believe that is a reality. I do not believe that sanctions will work that way. They never have done. They did not in Rhodesia and there is no reason to suspect that they will do so in South Africa.
My intervention this evening is. in effect, to congratulate, if I may do so without impertinence, the Prime Minister on saying in the midst of a sweeping tidal wave of demand for sanctions. "No, these won't work". It would have been the easiest thing to join that clamour and say. "Yes, we ought to apply sanctions". In fact, it took a great deal of courage to say, "No, we should not do this. There are other ways that ought to be tried". I believe that there are other ways that ought to be tried, and I congratulate the Government and the Foreign Secretary on having done their best to achieve another route.
Of course the trouble is that because the Prime Minister has said that she is against sanctions, that has been translated as being for apartheid. That is a travesty of the truth. That fact is that sanctions will not work and will not have the desired effect that everyone wishes, which is to see a change in South Africa. They may give some moral satisfaction to the participating countries, who will feel that they have thereby done their bit to try to encourage change, but they will not produce that change.
Worse than that, in my view they will have a reverse effect. I remember that as a child at school one was taught Boyle's law, Ohm's law, and Faraday's law. and I coined a law which modesty compelled me to call Ferrers' law. That simply says that everything has the reverse effect to that intended. Sanctions will have the reverse effect to that intended. They will unite South Africa in self-protection.
Countries frequently come to a sense of achievement far greater than they expect when they have a common enemy. During the war we had a common enemy when Hitler and the German armies were all facing the United Kingdom. That created a sense of unity in the United Kingdom which far outweighed numbers. We had a common enemy, if one recalls, back in the three-day week in 1974 when people were determined, because of the electricity cuts, to keep their firms going and their offices open. What was the effect? We achieved more in three days than we had achieved in five days. With the common enemy of sanctions, South Africa will find itself in many ways united. With such a prospect, a country rises to heights of self-preservation which it does not achieve without the stimulus of a common enemy.
If we or the Commonwealth or Europe or the world put sanctions on South Africa we will provide that

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common enemy syndrome which will have the reverse effect to that which is intended. Those in South Africa—and there are those who wish to see and to initiate change in South Africa—can only do so if they can mould public opinion in their country and bring along with them others who are less naturally so inclined.
One cannot change these things overnight, much as we may wish it to be done, but one can encourage change. Let the world apply the economic tourniquet and that flickering flame of change will be turned into a barrier of self-defence. Sanctions will not help the blacks in South Africa; will not help the neighbouring countries; will harm other countries and those who apply them, not least ourselves because of the scarce minerals and other commodities which we get from South Africa. The fact that all that will happen may be de minimis, though it is an important aspect.
I merely congratulate the Government on trying their hardest to negotiate and to do it by peace. We do not know yet officially how the Foreign Secretary has got on. It does not look as though he will be able to give a very exciting account of success, but that does not mean that the effort was not worth making. I hope that the Government will do all that they can to continue a dialogue and to continue persuading and not resort to the course of sanctions which I believe will have the opposite effect to that which is intended.
10.52 p.m.
Lord Chalfont: My Lords, I should have liked to take the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, very much more at length than I shall be able to at this late hour of the evening. I should, however, at the end of my remarks like to take up one specific point that he made. Before I make my brief contribution to tonight's debate I offer my personal congratulations to the right honourable Gentleman the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary for the patience, courtesy and fortitude with which he carried out a mission which was probably one of the most difficult missions ever undertaken by a British Foreign Secretary and which was undertaken in circumstances of enormous personal difficulty.
If the Government is being asked by the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, to take into account the report of the Eminent Persons Group in formulating their policies towards South Africa or in changing their policies towards South Africa, may I suggest also that they should take into account the recent report of the Foreign Affairs Committee in another place, which seems to me to be an equally lucid, equally cogent, equally persuasive report, but one which comes to certain different conclusions?
First, I take a few moments to consider certain aspects of the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group report itself and to make one or two comments upon it. I should make the point that I think that the introduction by the Commonwealth Secretary General should be totally ignored. It is not a part of the report, as was pointed out recently in your Lordships' House by the noble Lord, Lord Barber. It is emotive, it is intemperate and it attempts to translate and interpret the report in a way which was not intended, as I understand it, by the Eminent Persons Group.
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I want then to refer to a sentence at the top of page 23 of the report, where it says quite starkly:
"None of us was prepared for the full reality of apartheid".
That seems to me to be a strange and very significant comment because, if none of them was prepared for this, it seems to me to imply that none of the Eminent Persons was at all familiar with the state of affairs in South Africa before they went there; and I would suggest that if they had been—if they had, for example, been visiting South Africa frequently, as I have, over the last 20 years—they might also have noted and recorded the very considerable and substantial changes which have taken place in that country over that period.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, does the noble Lord not recall that Lord Barber pointed out to us that he had been travelling to South Africa for many years in his business capacity and therefore had had an opportunity, if he wished to take it, to see all the aspects of apartheid and the changes which the noble Lord is now suggesting have taken place.
Lord Chalfont: Precisely, my Lords. That is why I am surprised at the remark:
"None of us was prepared for the full reality of apartheid".
It seems to me that anybody who had been visiting that country regularly and who had seen what has taken place there over the last 20 years would have been even more impressed by the reality of apartheid 15 or 20 years ago than he would be today. That is precisely the point that I was making.
May I go on to comment on another sentence, again at the head of a chapter, on page75? They seem to be very good at producing dramatic sentences at the beginnning of chapters.
"It is not for our Group to attempt to prescribe what the future constitutional structures of South Africa ought to be".
I regard that as an eminently acceptable and admirable statement and, indeed, it is not for anyone outside South Africa to prescribe what the political arrangements of that country should be. Yet, certainly over recent months and over recent years, it seems to me, from Commonwealth countries, from the anti-apartheid movement, from a whole range of protest and political activist movements, we have heard nothing but prescriptions as to what the Government of South Africa should be—one man, one vote, in a unitary state. I think that we should take very careful note of what the Eminent Persons Group has said. "It is not for our Group"—or for this House or for this country or for any other country outside South Africa—to prescribe what its future political arrangements should be.
I move to Chapter Eight, the conclusions of the report. I was struck by the statement that:
"We were able to travel freely throughout South Africa, to visit black townships normally not accessible to outsiders and to talk to a diverse spectrum of opinion including opposition parties, trade unions, church leaders".
and so on. I find that a very significant remark because I wonder where else in Africa a group would have been able to present itself from elsewhere in the world and receive that kind of treatment. Not in many countries, even in the Commonwealth, because in many black

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Commonweatlh countries in Africa there are no opposition parties to visit. There are no trade unions. Many of the Commonwealth counties of Africa outside South Africa are one-party states where there is no opposition, there are no political parties, to visit.
Finally, may I refer to the section at the end of the report which reports the views of the Government of South Africa. It begins—and I shall not read the whole of the section, for obvious reasons—
"The Government told us categorically that it was prepared to contemplate negotiations with a completely open agenda where everything would be on the table".
That seem to me to be a fairly straightforward and unequivocal statement and yet it was not accepted by the Eminent Persons Group and is evidently not accepted by a great number of other persons in this country. I wonder why. It seems to me that when this group went to South Africa it was able to accept and to swallow without too much difficulty the statements made to it by leaders of the ANC and by leaders of other activist groups, but it was not able to accept what seems to me to be a fairly unequivocal statement from the Government of South Africa.
I think these points are worth picking out of the report, but 1 want especially to refer to its conclusions; and here I want to say something before moving on very briefly to the report of the Foreign Affairs Committee in another place. What the Eminent Persons Group referred to in its conclusions was the possibility of, the desirability of, perhaps even the inevitability of, "economic measures"—not "sanctions". The noble Lord, Lord Hatch, says, "Let us not be mealy-mouthed, let us call them sanctions." No. The Eminent Persons Group knew perfectly well what it was writing. If it had wanted to write "economic sanctions", it would have written "economic sanctions". The translation comes in the extraordinary and quite remarkable introduction by the Commonwealth Secretariat, which translates the word "measures" into "sanctions". There is a difference, as I shall now attempt to indicate.
Perhaps we may move briefly to the Sixth Report from the Foreign Affairs Committee in another place. I simply want to give two brief quotations from it. One, I think, is useful in terms of the background to this debate. At paragraph 7 it says—and this is an all-party committee with representation from all sections of another place:
"We do not believe that the choices to be made by Her Majesty's Government involve—as so many seem to believe—straightforward responses to straightforward moral questions. Even given our repugnance at apartheid, there can be no certainty that any one set of policies… may achieve…"
what they set out to achieve. I think that confirms to some extent what the noble Lord was saying in his speech a moment ago.
But let me go on to the section of this report which deals with what are called "positive measures". Quite clearly—and again for obvious reasons of time—I cannot go deeply into the report, but it is available for everyone to read. One of its important conclusions is that there are, in dealing with South Africa, such things as "negative measures", in which they include economic sanctions, punitive sanctions, comprehensive sanctions, and "positive measures", in which they
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include a whole range of other possibilities such as, for example, what they call a Marshall Plan for the black Africans of South Africa.
I make this point simply to say that it is quite wrong, quite misleading, and often deliberately misleading, to suggest that the only measures the British Government can take in respect to South Africa are negative measures, punitive measures. There are many positive measures that can be taken and I should have dearly liked to outline one or two, had there been time.
However, I want to make one penultimate point, which really confirms and underlines what the noble Earl was saying. It is this. Sanctions will not work in South Africa. I am not interested at the moment in whether or not they did in Rhodesia. I am not interested in whether the black people of South Africa want sanctions or do not—although I think Chief Buthelezi has made it quite clear what he thinks about that. My point is simply this. I know the Afrikaner reasonably well and it is my considered and quite unequivocal opinion that any attempt to coerce the predominantly Afrikaner Government of South Africa into changing their policies by this kind of pressure from outside will have precisely the opposite effect to that which it is meant to have.
I do not argue about whether it will hurt the blacks more than the whites; I do not even enter into the somewhat sterile argument about whether you can hurt the whites without hurting the blacks. My point is that if this is attempted, it will have quite the reverse effect, and I say to your Lordships' House quite solemnly that if we attempt to coerce the South African Government in this way, they will bring the whole thing down about their ears and about the ears of all the inhabitants of South Africa, with disastrous results for that country and for the rest of the southern part of the continent.
I want to take up briefly one point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hatch. He used the word "mealy-mouthed" in talking about the difference—or, as he would have it, no difference—between sanctions and measures. I should like to suggest that we should equally not be mealy-mouthed about the ANC. The noble Lord was suggesting that he was not interested in the argument about handing over South Africa to a Communist-led organisation. I would simply like to point out and to reinforce something that I said in a debate in your Lordships' House recently. The ANC is the body which everybody wants to be, as they call it now in the new language, unbanned. The ANC is the party of Nelson Mandela whom people are seeking to have released unconditionally from prison, and I think that we should not be mealy-mouthed about what that party, what that organisation, is.
The ANC is a group which has a military wing which murders and intimidates and terrorises the people of South Africa, in many cases the blacks of South Africa. It has close links with the Communist party. I am sorry that this point has to be made over and over again. Of the 30 members of the council of the ANC, 23 are members of the South African Communist party. My Lords, if one is not going to call them Communists, what is one going to call them? Furthermore, of those 23, eight—more than 25 per cent. of the total council—have been trained in the Soviet Union, three of them for more than two years.

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This is a Communist organisation; it is a terrorist organisation. I think that one of the lessons of history is that those who seize power by terror will usually rule by terror when they get that power.
I want to finish, if I may, with another brief quotation. It is a quotation from Gatsha Buthelezi. I will not quote it at length. In a recent letter to the Wall Street Journal, Gatsha Buthelezi said that there is a way of bringing about change in South Africa:
"We can behave like civilised people. We can bring together blacks of the South Africa to sit down and negotiate a settlement which will bring shared power to all the people, black and white, of South Africa."
It seems to me that perhaps we would be better engaged in a dialogue with Gatsha Buthelezi and Bishop Maqueno, who between them have at least as many followers as the ANC, than in attempting to give legitimacy to a terrorist organisation in South Africa.
11.8 p.m.
The Viscount of Falkland: We on these Benches are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, for giving us this opportunity of speaking yet again on the subject of South Africa and apartheid, and the attitude that we on these Benches have against that horrible repressive regime which exists in South Africa today. It is a pity that on the occasion of the excellent debate which we had in this House on South Africa we had to compete with supporting events which gave us the minimum publicity; and we have now to give voice to our feelings at a late hour when most of our internal clocks are not geared to bringing out the best.
I think that the document that we are here to talk about —and I shall talk about it briefly—is a historic one. I sense that so far tonight some noble Lords have reservations about it. We on these Benches—I cannot speak for everybody, but those with whom I have spoken at some length—see it as a document that is expressed in very clear and balanced prose. I accept that the foreword is somewhat emotive, I do not think, however, that one should ignore it. It is part of the document. It was, after all, inspired by the Commonwealth.
It is for that reason that I intervene tonight because we on these Benches value the Commonwealth. We have moved on alarmingly since we had our debate in this House towards a feeling in this country that the Commonwealth has lost some value; that the Commonwealth is a talking shop. The Commonwealth may produce emotive forewords to documents such as this, but at least it is a place where people talk, where they sometimes talk in terms which are strange and unwelcome to us, but it is a forum where international problems can be threshed out; where we can at least take time to consider all the aspects of international problems which affect all the members of the Commonwealth. It is a sad thing that in recent days we have seen the Commonwealth become a less united body.
It seems to be in fashion tonight to quote parts of the report. On page 129, in the chapter entitled, The Regional Dimension, the document sums up the future problem. It states:
"Nobody who cares for the future of a free and non-racial South Africa, rich in resources and productive in its trade and commerce.
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would wish to see the destruction of its economic and industrial base. Yet that will be the consequence if the continuing failure to dismantle apartheid and peacefully negotiate a political settlement is allowed to run in parallel with an external policy of conflict and destruction, involving the whole sub-continent.
"Apartheid South Africa poses a wide threat well beyond its borders."
That is the message which has not been fully understood by people in this country. I think that this report should be circulated to every school in the country. Everybody who can read should be encouraged to read this document.
I have experience in black Africa, very close to South Africa. I have not yet crossed over the borders, but I feel, like the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, that I am entitled to express a view, because many of the countries with which I am familiar have close relationships with South Africa and I have spent many hours with people who have lived there. All the injustices that take place in South Africa, the deprivations, are very calmly stated in this book and yet the British Government have put themselves in a difficult position.
I cannot criticise, and yet I cannot congratulate, the Foreign Secretary. I cannot see how he could have done otherwise. I have heard the view expressed twice today: why did we send such a popular and able politician and statesman to be met with such a rebuff? But how could we have sent anybody else? If anybody else had gone, we would have asked: Why did we send somebody without the necessary weight? We sent the best man we possibly could. The press have been very unjust. A lot of popular newspapers gave a cheap description of his venture and of the reception he had there.
I suppose that almost everybody who has to deal with this problem has read this document. I am quite sure that the Foreign Secretary has read it. He must have known that his mission was virtually hopeless. As we said from these Benches during our debate, and it was echoed by my noble friend Lord Walston in a letter to The Times, the situation now in South Africa seems to have reached an absolute impasse between the two implacable interfaces. I am sure that the Prime Minister feels that. It will be interesting to know from the noble Baroness whether there has been any change of view since we had our debate. It was our view, and the view of my noble friend Lord Walston, that the situation is beyond recall and that we are bound to have a very violent conflict in South Africa. When it gets beyond a certain line other countries will be brought in and we shall be placed in a difficult position. Sanctions will not work—I would not disagree with that. The mechanics of sanctions will not work. South Africa has tanks of oil which by present calculations will last 10 to 12 years. They will be able to fuel everything except the blacks' motor-cars. They have been working on the possibility of economic sanctions certainly seriously for five years. They have worked out that they can pay for what they need in gold which will cause havoc on the markets and exchanges of New York.
Where further can we go? If sanctions will not work, and if people do not approve of sanctions, what else can we do? Argument does not work; persuasion does not work; where are we left? Are we just to turn our

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backs and say. "They must sort out their own problems? We are", as the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, said, "8,000 miles away. It is difficult for us to know what goes on in a country". We know perfectly well what goes on in a country. We know that a country with a majority of black people has suffered repression, eloquently described by the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, on this and many occasions.
To those on these Benches the situation is intolerable. It is intolerable because the principle of depriving one section of the human race of normal human rights because of its colour is abhorrent to us. It is also unacceptable to us because if we do not do anything about it, the problem will escalate. It will draw us into all kinds of other problems. I am perfectly sure that the right honourable lady the Prime Minister has the very best motives and I am quite sure that she spends sleepless nights over this problem. But where are we to make our impact? Where are we to make up for the lost opportunities—and there have been lost opportunities?
In black Africa since independence our record has been poor, as I have said before in our debate on this subject and in other debates. Our record has been poor. Surely we must now make an additional effort apart from pressure on South Africa, whatever that pressure may be—and I am not going to advocate sanctions here tonight or argue about sanctions. What are we going to do about black Africa in general? What are we going to do about people who in the year 2000 will amount to about 13 per cent. of the world's population—13 per cent. of the world's population who are becoming more and more educated, more and more motivated, and more and more dissatisfied?
How arc we going to cope with this problem? It is this which concerns us on these Benches. It is this which would concern the public at large in this country if they knew exactly the dangers. It has to be tackled. I cannot disagree absolutely with anybody who has spoken so far in this debate. But this is so urgent that we shall need to know—and I hope that the noble Baroness will be able to tell us—what is in the mind of the Government, although I understand that a Statement is due in your Lordships' House at some time in the near future. Can she give some indication of what we can now do. having come back from South Africa and having had further evidence of their intransigence? Not only our future, but the future of the world depends on solving this problem and on showing black South Africa that we care and that we are prepared to do something about it. If it is not sanctions. what else? I think that this is the most important matter that we have to decide in this country.
11.19 p.m.
Baroness Elles: My Lords, having had a major debate, an excellent debate, in this House on 4th July, I think the noble Lord. Lord Hatch, was singularly lucky in choosing this date today since it is the day that not the Foreign Secretary but the President in office of the Council of the European Community returned from his visit to southern Africa. It should perhaps be borne in mind that Sir Geoffrey Howe undertook as President of the Council to go on behalf of the European Community member states to see what
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further negotiations could be reached with all those involved so as to find a peaceful way forward in South Africa in order to end apartheid. As was said by my noble friend Lord Ferrers, we on these Benches certainly welcome back Sir Geoffrey Howe, having made a most courageous visit and having withstood insults from the beginning almost to the end of his visit. He remained ever courteous and calm. I am sure tha our message should go from this House to Sir Geoffrey.
One or two points should be made, because on Sir Geoffrey's return he made a statement that has been published in the paper only today. It is interesting that Sir Geoffrey came to the same conclusion as the EPG in one particular respect. He emphasised that there had to be a matching commitment from the ANC to call a halt to violence and to begin peaceful negotiations. That is precisely what Nelson Mandela is reported to have said on page 112—and we all seem to have done our homework today. There, Nelson Mandela confirmed his desire to see violence end and peaceful conditions prevail, so that fruitful discussions could be held between black leaders and the Government. Those are both very laudable sentiments, but what are the realities?
Can we really imagine that anyone, even Sir Geoffrey Howe, could go to see President Botha, and. on asking him to release somebody from prison, would receive the answer. "Yes, of course I will. Here are the keys". It is unimaginable. We must at least wait until 12th August, when President Botha has his party conference, to see what reaction is forthcoming there. It is well known, as President Botha himself has stated, that the president wishes to release Nelson Mandela on conditions of renunciation of violence. Surely that in itself is not an unreasonable wish.
In the EPG's report, Mrs. Helen Suzman, who of all people is renowned for her fight against apartheid for more than 20 years, states that her own efforts and those of her party, which received 250,000 votes at the last election in South Africa, were practically ignored. She herself recognises the enormous changes that have taken place in South Africa. They include the scrapping of influx control and of forced resettlements. Even the odious pass laws have been abrogated. Altogether, about 34 different laws have been repealed. Yet nobody seems to give credit to the South African Government for having achieved that. Of course it is not enough, but it should be acknowledged that much has been done over the past two years in an effort to improve the situation.
I am not sure why the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, referred to "even Chief Buthelezi". After all, he does have more than 1 million members in his party, Inkatha, and he is chief of more than 6 million blacks in South Africa. I should have thought that that would be sufficient to honour his title, considering that the ANC has only 9.000 members. The difference in size is surely quite considerable. In any event. Mrs. Suzman and Chief Buthelezi both deplore the prospect of sanctions, and both deplore the idea of disinvestment. Neither wants to see the economy of South Africa destroyed.
Chief Buthelzi attended at my invitation the European Parliament and told members there. "Half our population is under the age of 15. It is no use to us

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having an economy that is destroyed if we take over or share power as we hope to do in the near future. That would be no good for our citizens. We do not want to become another state similar to those neighbouring us, where they still queue for soap after five years of independence".
We must therefore examine what may be done. As the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, said, much can be done in looking for positive measures. The EC is giving 10 million ecus, which is about £6 million, to the victims of apartheid. That may be peanuts, but how is it being done? Through trusts run by the Churches. I understand, for instance, that Chief Buthelzi and Inkatha are not receiving any money from those funds. I should like to see massive investment into black Africa, perhaps through an urban foundation to set up businesses. That is what is needed far more, if we genuinely mean to help the black people of South Africa.
Let us consider quickly those who are pressing for sanctions. What countries make up the world community pressing for sanctions? The front line states, which would be the last to observe sanctions because of their geographical position, are indeed those into whose coffers money from our country and from multilateral aid flows. At the same time, thousands of their black citizens are escaping from those countries—from violence, poverty and famine—in order to go to that very country which their governments are condemning; that is, South Africa. We know that thousands are doing that—they are known to be from Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and so on—in order to survive.
Has not the sanctions story lost all credibility when Colonel Mengistu, at the last OAU meeting, demanded sanctions urgently? That one country has massacred thousands of people on purely racist grounds—the Tigré and the Wollo tribes. People have been dying of starvation yet that country has received 3 billion dollars in aid over the past few years. How can anyone support that demand when such people are making that demand?
Finally, I refer to the ANC—the people who are perpetrating the most vile and odious torture and murder on the streets of South Africa. I regret to say that, on the very carefully worded amendment in the European Parliament just to condemn those acts of violence by the ANC, and particularly the necklace method of assassination, the British Labour Group fell in full honour and glory and refused to support even that amendment. If the Labour Party supports violence, I do not believe that all Members of your Lordships' House who are members of that party do support that violence in their turn; but I should like to hear it contradicted so that we can be reassured that it is not the stand of all members of the Labour Party.
Is there a way forward? I believe that the Prime Minister's stand is the right one. She has had the courage to say no to sanctions but she does not say no to other methods and other steps. Could it not be suggested to our Commonwealth friends, to those who want sanctions, that they say to their comrades in the ANC, "Why do you not stop violence in order that Nelson Mandela can be released? The key we all look
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for is his release." I put this to my noble friend the Minister to suggest at the weekend to the Commonwealth that they say no to violence by the ANC and then we might reach a situation where negotiations can go forward in South Africa in peace. There will never be negotiations while we have the war, violence and chaos that exist today.
11.27 p.m.
Lord Caradon: My Lords, I should like first to say a few words, with due restraint, to my old friend the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont. We worked together in the United Nations. I wish he had spent a little longer in the United Nations and perhaps not so long in South Africa. He put forward tonight a view that I do not think for one moment can be accepted. He said that we must not do anything further in regard to measures or sanctions; that nothing will work because of the intransigence of the South African Government.
But the intransigence of the South African Government was shown yesterday with the insulting reply which was made by that government to our representative. I ask the noble Lord to think again what steps can be taken to make the South African Government realise that they must be prepared to answer the practically universal request for them to allow the black majority of their country to participate fully in their government. I hope that the noble Lord will give his mind further to the matter and that when he has done so he will realise that it is essential at this stage that there should be an international unequivocal demand that the situation of white domination in South Africa should be ended. If they are prepared to say that, the whole situation for the future will be changed.
Lord Chalfont: My Lords, before the noble Lord leaves that point, I want briefly to say that if the noble Lord will read Hansard tomorrow, I think he will find that perhaps he may somewhat have misinterpreted my remarks. I did not say that I do not think that any measures should be taken in the case of South Africa; I suggested that there were certain positive measures. I did not even say that we should not apply sanctions; I said that if sanctions are applied, let us be in no doubt but that they will not work. That is all I said.
Lord Caradon: My Lords, I am glad that I have had some effect on the thinking of my noble friend, who. in effect, in the comment that he has just made agreed that measures, even sanctions, may be necessary to bring about the right result.
I myself declare an interest—if I may be vain enough to declare an interest in such a vast matter. When I was 21 years of age I went to work in certain countries which were emerging from domination by other countries and were beginning to govern themselves. I have worked in Arabia, in Africa and in many other territories. I have worked in Jamaica and in Cyprus, both of which withdrew from the Commonwealth Games, I noticed. Over a period of 20 to 30 years I sought to work in full understanding with the peoples of those countries, and I agreed with them that they should run their own affairs and exercise self-determination. In the end, I saw throughout the wide empire an advance to the goals which had been set. I

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know the peoples of Africa. I know the peoples of the other countries in which I have served, and I have a great regard and respect for them. The fact that they feel so intensely on this racial issue does not surprise me. So far as they are concerned, it is the biggest issue of all.
It is not only a question of South Africa but it is now a question of the possible break-up of the Commonwealth and the dissolution of this great enterprise. In passing, perhaps I may just say that I resent hearing in this House unpleasant criticism of the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, who, in my own knowledge and experience, has performed a magnificent task. We are now faced with a division of the world on the basis of race, with the Commonwealth (and other countries too) swinging into opposition to the rest of the world on this racial issue, and, I hate to say, with our own country on the wrong side.
I believe that tonight, in this less than full House and at this late hour, we have before us an issue which is as important as anything in the world. It is the issue of whether the peoples of the world are encouraged to participate in the running of their own affairs and are not racially disregarded and treated with contempt. Therefore I believe that this is a matter of the greatest importance. The fact that in this Parliament there are some who would not take any action or advocate any action in respect of Namibia—it has been under mandate to South Africa which was granted by our country to South Africa years ago and has been left without any action being taken—is an example of the kind of action by our Government which has excited the animosity of the great majority of people in the world.
What we are discussing is of tremendous consequence and importance for the future. It is of course wider than that. We have seen lately an attempt to disrupt the United Nations—not to turn to the Security Council, which is meant to deal with such matters, but an endeavour by the United States by veto, by denying the necessary funds and by opposition to UNESCO and the law of the sea. We are seeing an attempt to destroy the international authority. This is part of that bigger problem.
Surely we in this country must justify what we have been saying to the people of Africa and elsewhere to my knowledge for so long. People should have the right to run their own affairs and the United Nations has a vital role to play. We have no time to go into every aspect of the issue tonight, but what we are talking about is the danger and the dreadful damage which will be done if we allow this to pass with a few polite remarks, hoping that matters will improve. We have to take strong, vigorous and decisive action at this time in order to achieve a purpose which will save the world from a bloody division.
11.36 p.m.
Lord Monson: My Lords, I start by congratulating the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, in particular, on his speech. Although he has never been to South Africa, he understands human nature far better than do the opponents of the Government; and human nature is much the same the world over.
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So often when one is speaking at the end of a long debate late at night one finds that everything that one wanted to say has been said. But where South Africa is concerned that principle rarely seems to apply
I think it right to do the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby, the courtesy of starting by discussing the Eminent Persons Group report specifically rather than South Africa in general. But before getting down to the report itself, it may be wise to correct a common misapprehension. Too many commentators both in this House and elsewhere, in trying to disarm Conservative or right-of-centre criticism of the report, have described the group's leader, Mr. Malcolm Fraser, as a Conservative. That is incorrect: he is a Liberal. Nor is it true that the Australian Liberal Party is the precise equivalent of the British Conservative Party.
Baroness Seear: Neither is it the equivalent of the British Liberal Party, my Lords.
Lord Monson: Indeed, my Lords; I do not dissent from that judgment for a moment.
Moreover, I suspect that Mr. Fraser is a Gladstonian Liberal, at least so far as foreign affairs are concerned, with all that such a description implies. While on the subject of Mr. Fraser, I was shocked to hear him describe on the "World at One" today President's Botha's insistence on the maintenance of group rights as unacceptable. I ask: unacceptable to whom? What business is it of outsiders effectively to order minority groups of other countries to put their survival at risk? In particular, how can they justify trying to impose one law for South Africa in respect of group rights and quite different laws for the Indian sub-continent. Sri Lanka, Quebec, Spain, Ulster, Cyprus, Lebanon and what, 40 years ago, was called Palestine?
To return to the report: one great weakness of the document is that no comparison is made with the rest of the African continent. Three and a half months ago I met a highly experienced and widely travelled black West African journalist, who approximately five years ago had undertaken a comprehensive tour of South Africa which lasted several weeks. Unlike the Eminent Persons Group, he had frequently alternated nights spent in four- or five-star hotels with nights spent in black townships. His conclusion, much to his surprise and contrary to his initial preconceptions, was that whereas South Africa undoubtedly compared badly with Western Europe and North America in terms of freedom and prosperity for the majority of its people, it really compared pretty well with the rest of Africa, in respect of which he went on to give many examples of corruption, police and army brutality, poverty and so on.
Having said this, there are, of course, a great many shrewd and sensible observations in the report, but apart from the basic defect I have mentioned, it is by no means free of error. I hope that if the suggestion of the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, is adopted, the booklet is revised before it is issued to schools. For example, it makes the customary, knee-jerk, left-of-centre condemnation of the self-governing states or homelands, as they are otherwise known—without having bothered to visit them—accusing the states of not being genuinely self-governing, an allegation that

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could easily be refuted if time permitted. I might only say that when Bophuthatswana became independent, the chief justice, an admirable individual, set to work repealing over 420 apartheid laws and other discriminatory laws. Only today the Guardian reported a strong attack by President Lucas Mangope on apartheid, by no means the first time that he has done such a thing, together with an attack upon the state of emergency coupled with complaints that Bophuthatswana television was being jammed by the South African authorities.
It is true that the South African authorities occasionally jam Bophuthatswana TV. Nonetheless, it has to be said that the Bophuthatswana press, television and radio are as free to criticise the Government of South Africa as the Finnish press, radio and television are at liberty to criticise the Government of the Soviet Union.
The report alleges on page 31 that blacks are paid much less than whites for doing the same jobs. This is simply not so. It certainly was true in the bad old days over 20 years ago when I first went to South Africa, certainly in the public sector: the private sector has always behaved much better. But it is no longer true today, thank heavens. Pay parity for all races has now been achieved in the medical and teaching professions, for example. I would not deny that it should have been done a great many years ago. But surely better late than never!
One particularly dangerous error, of far more than academic significance, is the assumption that white living standards, generally, are exceptionally high by the standards of Western Europe, North America and Australasia. This assumption, too, is simply not correct. Of course, there are very wealthy areas in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg and on the Cape peninsula—just as there are wealthy homes in Belgravia, Sunningdale, the upper east side of Manhattan and the seiziéme arrondissement. But, by way of contrast, many whites live in tiny bungalows of the sort one might see in Clacton. Fifty-five per cent. of whites earn less than £6,000 a year before tax: I am using the pre-crisis exchange rate which is more realistic than the present artifically depressed exchange rate. Ninety per cent. of whites earn less than £10,000 a year before tax—hardly a fortune, I would have thought.
That is why talk of cutting off all inter-continental air services to South Africa is so stupid, as well as being immoral and indeed aggressive, in my view. The sort of people to be hit by such a move would be the English-speaking population and the Jewish community, most of whom are liberal in politics anyhow. Most Afrikaners and other nationalist supporters and supporters of parties to the right of the National Party, who largely comprise those earning less than £6,000 a year pre-tax, simply cannot afford to travel abroad even if they wanted to, certainly not to Europe or to North America.
How, then, do we try to influence people in this group—the less affluent group of the white community but also, paradoxically, those with most to lose because they have the least skills? They do not speak foreign languages at all well—present-day Dutch bears very little relationship to Afrikaans—and they have
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nowhere else to go. The trouble is that most of the white population, not only the Afrikaners, now suspect that the Western world does not give a damn whether they survive or perish as a community in the medium to long term.
They suspect that the West is more concerned with striking moral postures, with currying favour with various third world countries—few of whom have clean hands themselves—and of using South Africa as a convenient scapegoat for diverting the world's attention from their own sins of omission and commission in the racial sphere. This last point applies particularly to the United States, where it has just been revealed that blacks on average own only one-twelfth in value of the personal possessions that whites do.
It would be nice if my suspicions were unfounded, but I fear they may be all too accurate, bearing in mind the almost total lack of Western concern when minorities in their millions were pushed out of other parts of Africa, and bearing in mind the relative lack of concern that 750,000 Africans have been murdered in Uganda (as the Ugandan President revealed yesterday) over the last 20 years, or about the many fewer killings in Sri Lanka which nevertheless are much more numerous than those which have taken place in South Africa over the last two years both proportionately and absolutely. (It is not that I blame the Government in Sri Lanka, who have inherited a terrible problem, just as the South African Government have done.)
If I am wrong in my assumption that the West does not care about the future of minorities in South Africa, I think it is vital that those of positions of influence and authority in the Western world start trying to convince the Europeans and Asians in South Africa of the sincerity of their concern for their long-term wellbeing, beginning with an assurance that they are not demanding the creation of a one man, one vote of equal value unitary state in which the black population explosion would very soon swamp the minorities. That is the only way that friendly persuasion has any chance of working.
In the absence of friendly persuasion we are left with bullying, otherwise known as the imposition of sanctions. Apart from the fact that it would be hypocritical and contemptible to impose punitive sanctions upon one tyranny and not upon other far worse tyrannies—whether Communist, Fascist or Islamic fundamentalist—I think it is well documented that most educated, numerate, long-standing opponents of apartheid are convinced that sanctions would be wholly counterproductive. I have to say that I would rate the collective judgment and economic realism of Mrs. Helen Suzman, Mr. Colin Eglin, Mr. Gavin Relly and Chief Buthelezi above the collective judgment and economic realism of Bishop Tutu, Mr. Oliver Tambo, Mrs. Winnie Mandela, and Mr. Neil Kinnock in this matter.
Sanctions, if they were effective, would drive out those whites and possibly a number of Asian and coloureds with internationally marketable skills, skills which South Africa badly needs if poverty and misery are not to escalate as a result of the economic slump, disinvestment and the population explosion. They would cause increasing unemployment and suffering

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among those blacks who are not funded from abroad and are therefore immune, and among other races also, thereby almost certainly precipitating hatreds which, happily, scarcely exist at the moment in contrast to most other countries beset by intercommunal rivalries.
Sanctions would kick from the ladder the rapidly increasing black middle class which is one of the most hopeful recent developments in South Africa. They would also tend to strangle at birth friendships increasingly being made across the ethnic divide, especially among women; women have perhaps more things in common which transcend ethnic and cultural barriers. After all, when people are desperate, civilities tend to fly out of the window.
The Foreign Secretary, through no fault of his own, was sent four or five weeks too early on his mission. No Head of State anywhere in the world can afford to be seen taking orders from abroad. Until after the National Party Congress due to start in two weeks' time it is too early to come to any firm conclusions. For heaven's sake, let us wait and see the results—which may be quite significant—coming out of this congress before any kind of decision is made.
11.50 p.m.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, anyone listening to this debate would think that the House was deeply divided on the issue of South Africa. I do not believe that that is so. I believe that everybody in your Lordships' House wants to see an end to apartheid. It is perhaps a pity that we have not focused on that aspect of the problem and talked less about the rights or wrongs of people who are arguing in favour of sanctions without defining what we really mean by sanctions.
It is perhaps unfortunate that we are having this debate tonight, as I assume that we shall be getting a statement from the Secretary of State, Sir Geoffrey Howe, who has returned from what must have been a most challenging and gruelling expedition. Indeed, I think that we must thank him for what he was prepared to undertake in the face of the most appalling difficulties. Whether or not he should have gone is another matter, but that he did his utmost while he was there is surely clear.
We are discussing today the report of the Eminent Persons Group. I remind your Lordships that the Eminent Persons Group went to South Africa as a result of the Nassau Conference in which it was said that there were certainly conditions which needed to be fulfilled if the Commonwealth as a whole was not to take further action against South Africa. The Eminent Persons Group went to South Africa. They had a list of matters that they were requesting. Those matters had all been seen and presumably agreed by this Government before they went. They went over with a reasonable list and they came back saying that they had been totally unsuccessful in carrying out the mission with which they had been entrusted at Nassau by the Commonwealth and Her Majesty's Government.
The issue upon which they focused, and which seems to me to be the centre of the argument and which makes it so incredibly difficult to see how we are
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to make progress, is that the crux of the matter is not the improvements which have been made—the Eminent Persons Group admit freely that there have been changes for the better and that some of the most hideous aspects of apartheid have been removed—but the question of whether there shall be a transfer of power based on democratic rights. How can any country of the West which stands for democratic values deny the importance of democratic values being extended to South Africa?
I know it was said in the debate that we had four weeks ago—and it will be said again and again—that African countries which have had their freedom and their ability to establish their own governments have not been models of the democratic process. That is perfectly true. But the fact remains—and the Eminent Persons Group underlined this—that the heart of the matter is: where will political power be? On that matter, the South African Government are absolutely adamant. It is very difficult to see how there can be compromise on that.
There have been speakers tonight who have asked how President Botha can negotiate unless Mandela and the African National Congress'agree to renounce violence. Suspend violence, yes. Ask people who do not have a right to vote, who do not have access to the democratic methods of bringing about political change. That is the heart of the matter. People who do not have access to ways of bringing about peaceful change cannot realistically be asked to renounce violence indefinitely, come what may. Suspend violence during negotiations, yes. However, if, as a result of any negotiations, there is no move towards other means—democratic, peaceful means—to bring about change, then nowhere in the world would people agree indefinitely to renounce violence. There is a very great difference there.
The problem is—and it is a pity that we have not been discussing it tonight—that we all want to bring about change; but how are we to do it? There has been a great deal of negative talk tonight, and it has been said that sanctions will not bring about change. However, I have not heard a single speaker say how it is to be done. The Government have said, "Let's try negotiations". It was stretching matters a bit after the Nassau understanding to say that we would leave it for six months and then take stronger action or stronger measures. The noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, did not define for us the difference between measures and sanctions, but I am happy to settle for measures if they will bring about the result that we want.
We asked four weeks ago—and we asked from these Benches—that given what we had said at Nassau, given the report of the Eminent Persons Group, what were we waiting for? The Prime Minister said, "Let us have another go at negotiation". She sent Sir Geoffrey Howe, and he had another go at negotiation. Where have we got to? So far as we know absolutely nowhere.
Negotiation has been tried again and again. Listening to some of the speeches tonight you would think that nothing had been done up until now; that there had been no attempt to persuade the South African Government to change. I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, and to all those who have said, "What business is it of ours to interfere in what

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goes on in a foreign country?" that that is what we said when Hitler was beginning to murder the Jews.
Surely we have established that there is a degree of abuse of human rights which transcends the rights of sovereignty, and that if that abuse reaches a certain level, we challenge the right of a sovereign power to go on abusing rights to that extent.
Lord Monson: My Lords, surely the noble Baroness would not claim that what is happening in South Africa is worse than what is happening in Afghanistan? Surely the Afghan situation is a hundred times worse than anything happening in South Africa.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, I do not like either of them. I certainly would not say it is a hundred times worse. It is bad. I hate it. They both are bad. But the racial element in the South African issue is of transcendent importance in my view.
We have tried negotiation. Are we going to say that we go on trying negotiation if again and again the door is slammed in our face? What do we do? We can of course do nothing. We can say that we have tried negotiation, it has not worked, and we will pull down the blinds and pretend that nothing is happening in South Africa. It will not go away if we do that.
What will it mean if we say that we now do nothing? We shall be—and I tried to say this four weeks ago, and I feel it even more strongly now—letting down those moderate leaders in Africa who passionately want a settlement without violence, who want the bloodshed to stop. But we all know that behind those leaders, those moderate, patient men, are violent people.
If the moderate leaders fail to deliver, if the people who want violent measures can say to them, "Look, you waited for the West and the West never came. You relied on the democracies and the democracies let you down", then those men will be swept aside and the men of violence will take their place. Then, indeed, we will have such a bloodbath in Africa that we shall be ashamed that we took no part whatsoever in stopping that happening. If we stand aside and do' nothing, we shall have let those people down. What else will it do? It will mean if there is a resort to violence—and there will be—that Africa as an economy will be hopelessly weakened for decades, and Africa as an economy matters to our economy. We want to save it.
I have not recently been to Africa. My family were Rhodesian for quite a long time, and I must say I was stunned to find that I had a relation by marriage who was the only woman officer in Ian Smith's army. I went to South Africa and to Lesotho, and I have seen it, but I would not claim any great knowledge. But if we stand aside and leave it to violence, let the country decay—that rich country; and potentially it is an enormously rich country, a country that could be a great trading partner that could mean a great deal to us—what will its economic future be? A pretty poor one.
But there is more to it than that. At the moment, whether we like it or not—and it may be very unfair—we have put ourselves on the wrong side in the eyes of the Commonwealth. The eyes of the Commonwealth may be seeing things distortedly, but unquestionably that is how they are seeing it. I would
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echo what the noble Lord, Lord Caradon, said—that the Commonwealth is an instrument of great importance in a very divided world. It is a great multinational multiracial force. It is a remarkable achievement. What other world empire was ever succeeded by anything like the Commonwealth? Do we want to throw that away? We surely do not and we must act in such a way that the power of the Commonwealth can be sustained. Therefore we must show what is in fact true: that we are against racism, that we are against apartheid and that we are prepared to show this in deeds as well as words.
I am with the people who say, "Let us be positive as well as negative". I believe we must take measures. It is no use negotiating if they know at the end that they will say, "No" and that nothing whatsoever will happen. We must have power to show them that we mean business, but we also have two hands and at the same time can we not do much more to strengthen that economy? I do not believe for one moment in disinvestment, but I beg the Government and the European Community to look again at what they can do in some kind of Marshall plan, particularly to start with training and education for blacks who sooner or later will be filling the important positions in industry and in politics. They are still woefully behind in the skills and experience that they need.
Let us now, while the Commonwealth leaders are here, show them that we really do mean business, helping in their own institutions through the multinational companies that are there who are in a position to take a lead. Many of the best of them have been taking a lead in developing those skills. Through the use of our own educational and training institutions in the United Kingdom and in the rest of the European economy let us go with both hands with the determination to use measures but also with the determination to help Africa to reach a position in which it will be possible for a genuine multiracial community in Africa to build the strong economy which the South Africans are capable of doing.
12.2 a.m.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, we are grateful to my noble friend for affording us this opportunity to look again at events in South Africa. This is particularly opportune against the background of Sir Geoffrey Howe's return from his impossible mission. I do not criticise Sir Geoffrey personally. I admired his coolness in the most difficult and at times provocative circumstances. In my view, his own personal reputation has not been diminished one whit by the thankless task he was asked to perform.
Nevertheless, because of the British Government's position, particularly because of the Prime Minister's obdurate stance, he should never have embarked alone as the Community's representative. I think that the Dutch or French Foreign Minister or both should have gone. It would at least have spared the Foreign Secretary the humiliation of a public lecture by another head of state.
It must also be said that the Prime Minister's public utterances during the Foreign Secretary's mission were less than helpful to him. In view of the late hour and the fact that the background has been fully covered in

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this House in two recent debates on 30th April and 4th July, I shall be brief and try to concentrate on the immediate problems.
First, although we wished him well we feared that the Foreign Secretary was unlikely to succeed in his mission: that is to secure the unconditional release of Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners; to lift the ban on the African National Congress; the Pan African congress of Azania and other political parties and generally to try to get a dialogue started between the African leaders and the South African Government.
At an early stage in Sir Geoffrey's mission there appeared to be some faint hope that Mr. Mandela might be released, but this was soon rudely destroyed. It is now clear that the Foreign Secretary's meeting with the South African President was one of the least productive international negotiations of recent years. The President's prejudices and fears clearly made a constructive exchange of views between Sir Geoffrey and himself quite impossible. President Botha said:
"Let there be no question about it. I can never commit suicide by accepting threats and prescriptions from outside forces and hand South Africa over to Communist forces in disguise".
He bluntly rejected the unconditional release of Nelson Mandela and warned that he would wage economic warfare against all the front-line states if sanctions are imposed. Furthermore, he made plain that he would in no circumstances consider a move towards universal suffrage.
The Foreign Secretary himself dealt with these points in a comment that he made after the meeting with President Botha when he said:
"The blunt truth is that sooner or later all the people of South Africa will have to get around the negotiating table. It is plain common sense that it should be sooner".
It was a realistic response, and I agree entirely with Sir Geoffrey Howe in what he said.
The prediction in the report of the Eminent Persons Group, now even more important than before, I think, has been confirmed. They said that the South African Government are,
"not yet prepared to negotiate fundamental change".
They went on to say:
"there is no genuine intention to dismantle apartheid".
And President Botha has made that very plain during the last few days.
The question is: what next? Where do we go from here? I fear that there is no broad highway. The Prime Minister's policy of persuasion is as dead as a dodo as, indeed, is President Reagan's idea of constructive engagement. President Botha and his party are not going to move, and the West must now consider the effective measures recommended by the Eminent Persons Group.
The Times today reports that
"the Reagan administration was clearly stunned by the virulence of President Botha's attack."
and that the White House will bow to the immense Congressional pressure to impose tough sanctions.
The Commonwealth Meeting, which is to be held here in a few days' time, must concentrate the minds of the Prime Minister and her colleagues on the steps
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that Her Majesty's Government are now prepared to contemplate. Attempts at further delay would, in my view, be disastrous and would drive people to the conclusion that Her Majesty's Government support white rule in South Africa at any cost. That would be sad—and it would also be wrong—as I do not believe that that is the view of the noble Baroness who is to reply to this debate and it is not true of the great majority of her colleagues, either.
Sir Geoffrey Howe's account of his visit will be considered by the Cabinet in a few hours' time. I hope that they will now accept the reality of the position. The reality is described objectively by the Eminent Persons Group and so many other responsible observers. The Cabinet will have to decide whether to join our friends and allies in imposing effective sanctions. We have been told many times that this will hurt the black population, that it will hurt neighbouring black states, and that eventually it will hurt us in this country. The black leaders, as we know, urge that sanctions be imposed, on the grounds that they prefer to be hurt now than to endure their present conditions for ever. Chief Buthelezi, it is true, is an exception, but all the others take this view. It is an inescapable conclusion that sanctions now are infinitely preferable to,
"the appalling chaos, bloodshed and destruction"
predicted by the Eminent Persons Group in their report.
Whatever his denomination may be—and he is certainly on the Right of the political spectrum—Mr. Malcolm Fraser summed up the position ably in his article in last Sunday's Observer when he said this—and I think it is worth quoting:
"The unhappy fact is that the West has withheld substantial support for the blacks for so long that there is now no course that can guarantee peaceful change in South Africa. If the West does nothing, as I have indicated, we can be certain that change will be achieved through a very bloody struggle. If the West does offer substantial support through sanctions, there is a reasonable prospect that the level of bloodshed and killing will be very much less.
"If the West fails to act. the loss for the United Kingdom would extend far beyond its strategic and commercial interests in South Africa. The effectiveness of the Commonwealth would be destroyed by the withdrawal of many members or by moves for the withdrawal of Britain.
"For the UK. and the US in particular, there would be other consequences. Both countries through recent history have supported and reinforced great liberation movements. The moral integrity of great free world powers is important in the constant battle for ideals. Failure to give unqualified practical support to the cause of racial equality in Africa will destroy that integrity. Then we will all lose.
"Practical and sensible leaders must understand that on this issue self-interest and morality march hand in hand."
That, in my view, was a notable statement.
The Cabinet will realise, and the noble Baroness. Lady Elles, must surely know, that the great majority of our European Community partners—perhaps all of them by now—and the entire Commonwealth, old and new. will want effective action and the United States Congress will most probably pass a Bill authorising heavy sanctions very soon. The question is: can we do less than join them? I do not think that, with honour, we can do less.
Action must therefore be taken now. There is no time to be lost to show the South African Government that Europe and the United States are in earnest; that

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we want to see a peaceful negotiation and measured evolution towards democratic government in which all races can play a full part. We do not want to see violence; we do not want to see ten years of bloodshed; we do not want to see the experience of Rhodesia rehearsed all over again. We want to see a peaceful South Africa, in which Afrikaner, those of British descent and the great black majority play a full part. That is the only hope for South Africa. There is no other expectation; no other real hope; nothing that will bring peace. The consequences of failure for Europe and for this country could be disastrous. We know what the right way is. It is the only way ahead for South Africa; and that is the way of bringing maximum pressure without military violence on the South African Government so that they at last will recognise the only sensible way ahead.
12.12 a.m.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Young): My Lords, this is the third debate since the end of April that we have had on the subject of South Africa, and I should like to begin by thanking my noble friends, Lord Ferrers and Lady Elles, quite particularly for their remarks in support of my right honourable and learned friend the Prime Minister and my right honourable and learned friend the Foreign Secretary. I will see that their remarks are brought to their attention. I should also like to say to the. noble Baroness, Lady Seear, that we are all agreed that we should like to see an end of apartheid. The question is: how to achieve that peacefully?
The report of the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group was published on the 12th June. Your Lordships may recall that on the 17th June my right honourable and learned friend the Foreign Secretary gave the Government's reaction to the report in another place. He stressed the Government's respect and admiration for the expertise and experience which the Commonwealth was able to offer in setting up the Commonwealth Group of Eminent Persons and for the hard work which the group put into their task, which enabled them to make far more progress than many at the time thought possible.
He pointed out that the Government considered that the objectives which were set for the Commonwealth group's mission remained valid. Finally he said that the Government were considering urgently, in concert with their major economic partners, how best to take the process forward. Before turning to the details of that, I should like to say to both the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, and to the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, that naturally we endorse the importance which they both attach to the Commonwealth. But it is inevitable that opinions will differ among 49 members; and indeed, I think it is good to argue that the strength of the Commonwealth is that within it we can discuss matters quite frankly.
I should like also to say that I found the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, if I may say so, characteristically thoughtful. I should like to endorse specifically the point he made—that it is not for us to prescribe the future political order in South Africa. The European Community mission that my right honourable and learned friend undertook was aimed
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at establishing the conditions for dialogue. It did not set out to prescribe a solution.
At last month's European Council meeting at the Hague, we discussed the situation in South Africa in depth with our European partners. The European Council fully recognised the importance of the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group in furthering the objective which the Commonwealth, the European Community and everyone in this House shares, which is to promote dialogue in South Africa and to achieve peaceful change.
It was because the European leaders wished to renew the momentum of the work of the Eminent Persons Group that they asked my right honourable and learned friend the Foreign Secretary, as President of the Council of Ministers, to undertake a fresh mission on behalf of the 12 European nations. The specific objectives of that mission, as set by the European Council, are in line with those of the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group. They are the unconditional release of Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners and the unbanning of the ANC, the PAC and other political parties, a point to which the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, drew attention. At the same time the European Council agreed that the Community would enter into consultations with the other industrialised countries on further measures which might be needed.
At this point I should like to endorse what has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, and by the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, on the importance of positive measures, and to draw attention—because we do not perhaps say this often enough—to the fact that we now give £22 million in existing aid mainly for transport projects to the front-line states, we have given £2·9 million for educational activities in South Africa and we have made a modest contribution to trade union training. We have also undertaken a new commitment of £15 million over five years. An amount of £12 million will be mainly for education and training for non-white South Africans and £3 million will be for transport projects in the front-line states.
In order to carry out the mandate given to him by the European Council—and I am very glad that my noble friend Lady Elles drew attention to the fact that my right honourable and learned friend was sent by the European Council and not, as the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, suggested, by the Prime Minister—he visited southern Africa in the early part of this month for consultation with President Kaunda of Zambia, Prime Minister Mugabe of Zimbabwe and President Machel of Mozambique. He was able to have full and effective consideration of all the issues with those heads of government.
He returned to southern Africa on 23rd July and has since had lengthy discussions with President P. W. Botha and Foreign Minister Pik Botha in South Africa, with President Kaunda of Zambia, with President Masire of Botswana, with Prime Minister Bhekimpi of Swaziland, and with King Moeshoeshoe and General Lekhanya of Lesotho. He has also had a whole range of meetings with black and white South African business leaders, with Chief Buthelezi—and I noticed again that both the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, and the noble Baroness, Lady Elles, drew attention to

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the importance of this—and with other influential groups in South Africa.
He flew back to London this morning. The Government will be giving careful consideration to the outcome of his discussions in southern Africa in preparation for the Commonwealth review meeting which begins in London this weekend. I will be making a statement in the House tomorrow afternoon after my right honourable and learned friend has reported to the Cabinet.
Both the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, and the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, said, well, really, the mission was a failure. No, my Lords, we do not see it that way. The Foreign Secretary was given a mandate by the 12 to see whether there was a chance of establishing conditions for peaceful dialogue in South Africa. Given that alternatives to peaceful change are terrible to contemplate—a point that I think everyone who has spoken today made—it was absolutely right that this chance should have been taken.
My right honourable and learned friend was under no illusions about the difficulty of his task. He was well aware of the South African Government's attitude towards the outside world in trying to bring its influence to bear. But he did not see that as a reason for not pressing the Community's case for dialogue and, although the responses received so far do not constitute the progress that we have been looking for, the mandate entrusted to the Foreign Secretary is not yet over.
The noble Baroness, Lady Elles, asked an important question. She asked whether the Commonwealth should not urge the ANC to come out against violence. I can confirm that the Government have always argued that dialogue and negotiations should take place in the context of a suspension of violence on all sides. This was part of the Nassau mandate to the Eminent Persons Group, and it has certainly been a point made by my right honourable and learned friend in the course of his mission.
The noble Lord, Lord Hatch, asked what action the Government propose to take after receiving the report of the Eminent Persons Group. I have gone through the events since the publication of the report of the Eminent Persons Group in some detail, to show that the Government have not been sitting idly by since they received this most important report. They have already proposed and executed a whole range of actions specially designed to help further the key objectives which the Commonwealth Heads of Government laid down at their meeting in Nassau last October, and which the Eminent Persons Group strived so hard to meet. Now we will be discussing the outcome of those actions with our partners in the Commonwealth and the European Community and with certain other countries, with the aim of ensuring that the momentum is maintained.
The noble Lord, Lord Hatch, asked me three specific questions. First, he said that the emphasis of the Eminent Persons Group was on the fact that there was an absence of measures and that this had deferred any change. What we must all recognise is that it is the failure to concert action which would cause
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bloodshed, and if any kind of measures are to be at all effective they need to be ones taken in concert.
Indeed, we have taken a great many measures. At this late hour I shall not go through the whole list of them, but they are quite considerable. I think it is often forgotten by those who talk about this subject that for some time we have had the Gleneagles agreement, the United Nations arms embargo and the Luxembourg package of 25th September 1985. which included a whole group of measures plus those agreed at Nassau.
The noble Lord, Lord Hatch, asked whether it was not true that there had been intelligence co-operation between the United States, ourselves and the South African Government. As he will know, we do not comment on intelligence matters, but he and other noble Lords will have seen the comments by senior United States officials.
He finally asked me about the three military attaches in the South African embassy. Yes, my Lords, that is, in fact, true. It is also true that we ourselves have recalled our military attaches accredited to South Africa and we have refused to grant accreditation to further military attaches from South Africa. As for the three here, they, like all the other measures, can be considered at any time at a future date.
The noble Lord, Lord Monson, asked whether or not we were concerned about minorities in South Africa. We want to see proper safeguards for minorities—that is a universal principle—but, as I said in agreeing with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, it is not for us to prescribe solutions to ensure that. Again, that is a universal principle in this case. There is one point that I should like to mention, which was made by the noble Lord, Lord Caradon, who was critical of our policies over Namibia, and maintained that we had done nothing. That is not. in fact, the case. We as a government have worked hard to secure the only agreed independence settlement endorsed by the United Nations Security Council Resolution 435 as one of the five contact group countries, and we continue to press the South African Government to implement that plan.
Some noble Lords this evening have asked: why keep on saying the same things to the South African Government—they will not listen? This was the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn. The fact is that the South African Government have made one important step forward in that they have explicitly recognised that apartheid must end. They now need to find the courage to follow that recognition through to its logical conclusion and to do so quickly before all hope of peaceful change is lost. As my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary made clear in Pretoria last week, the South African Government cannot ignore what is happening in South Africa today. To all those outside South Africa the writing is clearly on the wall. The question is no longer whether South Africa will change, but how far and how fast that change will come. Will it come in peace or in deepening violence, and will the end result be a democratic, prosperous and non-racial society, or one torn by racial conflict?
The international community has a responsibility to face up to those questions. If there is a chance that we in the free world can do anything at all to help bring

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about peace and reconciliation in South Africa, we must seize that chance, even if it means that sometimes our message appears to fall on deaf ears. As my right honourable and learned friend the Foreign Secretary has said:
"At some time some South African Government is going to be persuaded by somebody to take the key steps".
However much the South Africans resent the influence that the rest of the world is trying to bring to bear, that is no reason for our not continuing to press them to take the steps which have to be taken. We must keep on driving home the case for dialogue and for peaceful change.
House adjourned at twenty-seven minutes past midnight.