Lords Sitting of 12 May 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 Gloucester.

The Lord Chancellor: Leave of Absence
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone): My Lords, before the commencement of business, I take the opportunity to inform the House that I have accepted an invitation to attend upon Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Gloucester when she opens the new offices of the Asthma Research Council on Wednesday, 21st May 1986. Accordingly, I trust that the House will agree to grant me leave of absence on Wednesday, 21st May.

Video Recordings Act 1984: Implementation
Lord Ashbourne: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the position with regard to the implementation of the Video Recordings Act 1984.
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, Sections 9 and 10 of the Act are in force for works first sold, let on hire or offered for sale or hire to the public in video form after 31st August 1985. Those sections prohibit, subject to certain exemptions, the supply, offer to supply or possession for supply of unclassified works in video form. We intend to bring those sections fully into force in a series of stages up to 1st September 1988 as the backlog of older works is classified. The remaining provisions of the Act are fully in force.
Lord Ashbourne: My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount the Minister for his helpful reply. Perhaps I may ask him whether he will consider having a word with his right honourable friend in another place to see whether this whole process could not be expedited; because in practical terms until the Act is fully in force it is extremely difficult to walk into a video shop (if that is the right term) and evaluate exactly whether the proprietor is or is not breaking the law. It can be done, but only with a lot of research. May I ask the noble Viscount whether he will ask his right honourable friend to consider allocating possibly public funds, perhaps on a loan basis, so that the BBFC can employ more personnel to get this whole operation done more speedily?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I shall certainly convey my noble friend's remarks to my right honourable friend. It was necessary to allow some time for the backlog to be cleared by the British Board of Film Classification before the criminal provisions of the Act could reasonably be brought to bite on all video works. The board is making good progress and the timetable for implementation is on course. I have
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no reason to doubt that the board has sufficient resources to complete on time the work of classifying the backlog. It is of course open to it to take on additional staff if necessary.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, when the Act came before the House as a Bill and met with all-party support, did we not have in mind in particular the nasties? Can the noble Viscount the Minister indicate to the House whether the Act has been implemented to the extent that those nasties are now no longer appearing and are under control?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I think that the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, will be pleased to know that, according to reports from the police, most objectionable material has already virtually disappeared from the shelves of video dealers.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, may I ask the noble Viscount whether he has any information regarding the scale of newly-published videos which are requiring current attention? Is he aware that something like 9,000 new films for video are likely to come under review in the near future and that many more thousands represent the backlog? Is this not a task which to begin with was never foreseen in its magnitude and which cannot be accelerated with any pretence of looking carefully at the films to be classified?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I agree that it is a task of some considerable magnitude, and that is why the implementation of it has been phased in six-month periods, starting on 1st September this year and being completed on 1st September 1988. I understand that there are between 10,000 and 12,000 titles in circulation at the moment. The BBFC had already classified 2,816 works by 30th April 1986. I can only repeat that it is satisfied that it is on target and on course.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, may I ask whether the noble Viscount the Minister is aware that later today we shall be discussing the pirating of copyright material and that video tapes are among the items which are regularly pirated? Does he know whether the process which is being gone through here will be of some assistance in ensuring that pirating, when it is carried out in this country, is perhaps reduced in future?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I am afraid that I cannot answer the noble Lord's supplementary question.
Viscount Ingleby: My Lords, may I ask the noble Viscount whether he has seen the extracts from some of these videos which Scotland Yard showed here at my request two years ago?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I have not, but I have heard about them and I think that they are of the type about which the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, asked. As I said to the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, according to the police, they have virtually disappeared from the shelves of video dealers.
Viscount Ingleby: My Lords, would the noble Viscount be willing to see them?
Viscount Davidson: Yes, my Lords.

British Rail: Government Subsidy
2.43 p.m.
Lord Gainford: 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 level of subsidy is currently provided for British Rail's provincial route network, and what proportion of this subsidy is intended to support the super sprinter train on this network.
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, the Government do not pay grant to the British Railways Board in respect of particular services or particular types of investment. We pay subsidy towards the cost of the whole of the grant-aided railway, including its investment needs, which the board allocates between the passenger sectors. For 1985–86 the board estimated that £437 million was required for provincial services. We have approved investment of £151 million in sprinter vehicles of all types.
Lord Gainford: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that Answer. Has he any information on what are the trains that are known as super sprinter types and on what line they are likely to run?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, the vehicles which are dubbed by some people as super sprinters are not in existence at the moment. It is the sprinters that are sprinting! They are at a very early stage of development and in fact British Rail are looking at the possibility of developing a more advanced type of sprinter train with higher maximum speeds, lower weight, greater fuel efficiency and further reductions in maintenance costs, coupled with higher standards of passenger comfort and amenities.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, is the noble Viscount at the same time going to look at the track? Personally, I find the sprinting on some of our tracks at present quite frightening enough without having any faster trains on them. Ought they not to get the track right?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I am afraid that I have not had the same experience as the noble Baroness, but I shall certainly look at the track if she wishes me to do so.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, as the sprinter services are intended to replace units which are now between 25 and 35 years old and which must be replaced, can the noble Viscount indicate how many of the new sprinter units have been constructed and when the programme will finish? Also, can he say whether the curtailment of the expenditure limit will either restrict the sprinter services coming into operation or cut down other essential features of British Rail's investment programme?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, British Rail have on order 170 20-metre sprinters and 298 23-metre sprinters; whether or not one type goes further than the other I do not know. Further to the 120 sprinters now in service the allocation to particular routes is a matter for British Rail. The Government stand ready to approve any worthwhile investment with a sound prospect of improving the railways' finances. It is for the board to bring forward investment proposals and to allocate rolling stock within the passenger network. So far the Government have approved all proposals for new rolling stock put to them by British Rail.
Lord Mowbray and Stourton: My Lords, will the noble Viscount perhaps advise the railways board that giving a train a name like super sprinter is somewhat tempting fate?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I am not sure who devised the name sprinter; I believe that in fact it was done by a journal, not by British Rail.

Business Successes: Publicity
2.45 p.m.
Lord Rodney: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are satisfied that sufficient publicity is given to business successes in order to create the right climate to encourage initiative and enterprise.
The Secretary of State for Employment (Lord Young of Graffham): My Lords, creating the right climate for initiative and enterprise is a prime objective of this Government. It requires many different changes in our society. Attitudes towards business and to success are important elements in creating this climate. In this respect the Government support the efforts of all those involved in Industry Year 1986 in their objectives of emphasising the importance of wealth creation in our society.
Lord Rodney: My Lords, I should like to thank my noble friend the Minister for that Answer. May I ask whether he has seen the excellent leaflet put out by the CBI called British Success? Also, does he think that perhaps the medium of television might be used more to beat the British drum?
Lord Young of Graffham: Yes, my Lords, I have seen the leaflet, and I should like to congratulate the CBI on producing it. But, alas, I often feel that the media—both television and newspapers—are more interested in news stories, and news stories by their very nature are more concerned with failure than they are with success.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that his first Answer to the Question put down by his noble friend Lord Rodney gave the true clue to the position, in that he did not in his first reply refer to publicity at all? Is he aware that publicity is not

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the principal element in creating the right climate? It is, of course, the availability of risk capital at this time. Will the Government give the House the assurance that they will take measures to ensure that more risk capital is readily available at lower rates of interest to the entrepreneurs and inventors concerned?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, if I may confess it to your Lordships, I always try to give a clue to the correct answer in my answers to questions put by noble Lords. In the Answer I gave just now I said it was a prime objective of Government policy to change attitudes, and it is attitudes which must be changed before we come on to the availability of risk capital. Concerning the availability of risk capital, there is no country in the industrialised world which has an equity capital scheme so advantageous as the business expansion scheme. That is a scheme which is being taken up to an increasing extent and one which will have a great deal to do with the future success of our nation.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, will the Minister appreciate that notwithstanding his efforts to reduce unemployment, the real and most massive failure of this Government and of his department is their hopelessness in trying to bring down unemployment, particularly among the youth of Great Britain?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, if the noble Lord were to inspect the youth unemployment figures of countries in Europe he would find that what we are doing certainly bears comparison with the efforts of any other country, without resorting to such devices as conscription. The success of this Government's policies must be looked at in the unemployment figures, and those do not need repetition by me once more.
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, since the noble Lord has referred to the business expansion scheme, can he say what changes have been made to it and with what result? Is it not the case that there was some criticism of it in the earlier phases as being not adequately funded?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, that is certainly another question, but changes have been made to the business expansion scheme in order to ensure that we were talking about equity risk capital investments rather than any other form. That, I believe, has been successfully achieved by the last two Budgets.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that people are more likely to risk their capital if they can feel it is still the policy of the Government to reduce taxation if that risk proves to be successful?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, whether or not we reduce taxation—and I certainly hope we do—what governs people's desire to risk their capital is the thought that we shall continue to have a strong and growing economy, and under the policies of this Government we shall assuredly do so.
Lord Mellish: My Lords, is the Minister aware that private enterprise has shown it is prepared to risk
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capital provided that the Government, for their part, invest money to make land available where that is practicable and to provide the necessary services, and so on? There have been examples of where billions of pounds have been invested by private enterprise—their money for their future—provided that the Government have, in the first instance, spent wisely and well.
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, if we wish to come back to the original Question, I am sure all your Lordships will know that the London Docklands Corporation—
Lord Mellish: I did not mention that, my Lords.
Lord Young of Graffham:—is certainly an example of success and is one which receives sufficient publicity.

Afghanistan and Middle East:Foreign Troops
2.51 p.m.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will seek the support of the United Nations and the EC in order to secure the withdrawal of foreign troops currently occupying Afghanistan and part of the Middle East.
The Minister of State for Defence Support (Lord Trefgarne): My Lords, we and our European Community partners fully support the efforts of the United Nations Secretary-General to secure a settlement in Afghanistan on the basis of successive UN resolutions, the key issue being the withdrawal of Soviet forces. We hope the current talks in Geneva under UN auspices will bring that about. We and our European Community partners are also working in all appropriate fora to promote peaceful solutions to the problems of the Middle East and a withdrawal of unauthorised foreign forces, in accordance with the relevant UN resolutions.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord the Minister for that informative and encouraging reply. I think we must agree that when one looks at all forms of terrorism, it usually has a territorial reason. Does he therefore agree that the ideal of this Government to get rid of people who are occupying somebody else's country, whether in the Middle East or in Afghanistan, is the only way not merely to produce peace in the areas involved but also to make a big contribution to reducing terrorism?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, the question of terrorism per se perhaps goes a little wide of the Question on the Order Paper. But so far as concerns withdrawal of unauthorised military occupations, the best way forward is surely for people to comply with the relevant UN resolutions.
Lord Bottomley: My Lords, while I welcome the comments of the noble Lord the Minister, does he agree that the United Nations and the EC should, as a matter of urgency, see that foreign troops are withdrawn from Lebanon?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, there is of course more than one body of foreign troops in Lebanon. We certainly think that the people of Lebanon should be allowed to decide their own future.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, the noble Lord referred to the United Nations talks on Afghanistan which are currently proceeding under the chairmanship, I understand, of Mr. Cordobes. Would it be right to say that those talks are in fact proceeding apace and are likely to come to a conclusion fairly soon? Is the noble Lord able to tell the House that he believes there could be a successful conclusion to those? Secondly, on the Middle East, can he say a word about the initiative taken by President Mubarak in bringing the PLO and King Hussein closer together? Is that matter making progress?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, if I may deal with the first of the noble Lord's points, we hope that the Kabul regime and its Soviet backers will now cease prevaricating so far as the talks in Geneva are concerned and agree to a satisfactory UN timetable for the withdrawal of Soviet troops, which is the crucial issue now being discussed, and then implement it forthwith. In regard to the position vis à vis the Egyptians and the Jordanians—and the noble Lord referred to the possibility of the PLO being brought closer to the Jordanian authorities—I think that is hardly a matter for the United Kingdom, but we shall be supporting any move which contributes to security and progress in that area.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, while I share the thrust of the Question by my noble friend Lord Molloy, will the Minister take this opportunity of condemning the imperialism of Libya, of Syria, of Iraq and of Morocco, who all occupy sovereign territory of neighbouring Arab states?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, that sounds a rather catch-all supplementary question, if I may say so, and I should want to consider the exact implications of it before giving the noble Lord the assurance that he wants. But he will well understand that we disagree with unlawful occupation wherever it may occur.
Viscount Mersey: My Lords, with regard to the new regime in Afghanistan, I wonder whether my noble friend can tell us whether it differs from the old regime and, if so, in what way? Is it better or is it worse?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, our view is that the new regime in Kabul is no better than the previous one—a ramshackle collection of rogues with no claim to legitimacy.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, in so far as we support the United States of America in its condemnation of the occupation of Afghanistan, will we make it transparently clear beyond all peradventure that we
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equally condemn the occupation of the West Bank, the Golan Heights and other lands stolen by the state of Israel? At the same time, will we make our contribution to seeing that Israel itself also achieves the peace and security to which it is entitled, but Which it will not get until—like the Russians must with raw from Afghanistan—it withdraws from its occupied territories?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I am afraid I have to tell the noble Lord that the position in the Middle East is a good deal more complicated than the one in Afghanistan, which was a patent example, if ever there was one, of naked aggression.
Lord Mellish: My Lords, is the Minister aware that it is really ironic that the Government of the day of Britain are being asked to take some initiative? All we can do is support resolutions. That is no trouble at all; anybody can support resolutions. The great question that must be asked of those who criticise Britain and its defence policy is: what happens if Russia, for example, refuses to take the slightest bit of notice? What are we supposed to do?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I am not sure that the prospects of some progress, so far as Afghanistan is concerned, are wholly dependent upon our doing something, as the noble Lord says. As the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, mentioned just now, there has been a little progress in the talks in Geneva and I hope that they will come to a successful conclusion.
Lord Annan: My Lords, does the noble Lord agree with the remarks of Mr. Austen Chamberlain in 1924, when he said:
"It does us ill to become the scold of the world"?
Does he agree that Mr. Austen Chamberlain was a far better Foreign Secretary than Lord Curzon, who never lost an opportunity of telling other nations how wrong-headed and misguided they were?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I dare say that the noble Lord is right in his historical analysis, but how far I can apply those precepts to the present is another matter.

Business
2.57 p.m.
Lord Denham: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 this afternoon my noble friend Lord Trefgarne will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement that is being made in another place on relations with Syria.

Business of the House
The Lord President of the Council (Viscount Whitelaw): My Lords, I beg to move the first Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the debates on the Motions in the name of the Baroness Nicol set down for 21st May, and in the name of the Lord Benson set down for 4th

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June shall be limited to 5 hours and that Standing Order 35 and paragraphs 10 to 13 of the Rules for the Conduct of Short Debates shall apply to the debates with the substitution of "5 hours" for "2½ hours" and "25 minutes" for "20 minutes".—(Viscount Whitelaw.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Business of the House
Viscount Whitelaw: My Lords, I beg to move the second Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That Standing Order 38 (Arrangement of the Order Paper) be dispensed with on Friday next to enable the Motion standing in the name of the Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos to be taken before the Motion standing in the name of the Lord Glenarthur.— (Viscount Whitelaw.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Televising of Proceedings of the House
2.58 p.m.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter Lord Boyd-Carpenter rose to move, That this House takes note of the report of the Select Committee on Televising the Proceedings of the House and resolves that the public televising of its proceedings should continue on the basis outlined in Part III of that report until the House otherwise orders.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I think all your Lordships would like to express the gratitude that I am sure we all feel to the noble Lord the Chairman of Committees and to the Select Committee over which he presided for producing, after what was obviously a great deal of hard work, the exceedingly interesting report which they have laid before us. We are most of us doubly grateful to them for this, because whatever view one takes of the merits of this matter it plainly is one of very great importance to the House—to the House as a whole and to the future of the House.
The Motion suggests that televising should continue until the House otherwise orders. That is a very proper safeguard. But after the fairly prolonged experimental period and the close examination of its working which the Select Committee undertook on our behalf, it would be reasonable for your Lordships to consider that if televising is to continue it should continue at any rate for a reasonable period. The safeguard is there in the proviso at the end of the Motion; but one can hardly expect those concerned to undertake the quite substantial expenditure in respect of improvements in lights, cameras and the rest unless there is at least a reasonable expectation that your Lordships' decision would last for at any rate a fair length of time.
That view is supported by one fact that stands out very clearly from the mass of documentation that we have seen on this matter. I refer to the large, and to the broadcasting agencies quite surprising, degree of public interest to which the televising of this House has given rise. The figures up to the time of the Select Committee's report are contained in the report (and I shall not weary your Lordships by repeating them) but
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since then the figures have gone on improving. The late-night programme now regularly broadcast has an audience rating of some 300,000 people, and for its repetition the following afternoon 200,000 people. It is significant that those are larger figures than the broadcasting agencies themselves anticipated, and are apparently also larger than for the programmes not connected with this House which the broadcasts of our proceedings have replaced.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, may I ask a question?
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: Of course, my Lords. I have hardly started, but if my noble friend cannot contain himself—
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, my noble friend very quickly went over a most important point. Is he aware that unless he defines what is "a reasonable time" his Motion will give permanent authority for this House to be televised? If we want to be certain that it comes back to the House when time can be allocated to it, the period after which it has to be brought back again should be included and it should not be left in the hazy phrase "a reasonable length of time" unless that is defined.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, I am afraid I do not agree with my noble friend. The Motion provides that it shall continue until the House otherwise determines. That seems to me a much more effective control than the suggestion of my noble friend that there should be a fixed period, which presumably could not be diminished. I therefore wholly disagree with my noble friend. It leaves the matter for the House, in its own good sense, to decide on that future occasion, as I hope it will decide this afternoon.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, but may I—
Noble Lords: Order!
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, my noble friend may well be aware that it is my view that we are accepting something almost unwittingly on this very important point. My noble friend talks about the House eventually deciding. Unless he can guarantee that those who may want the House to give consideration to the matter will be given parliamentary time for a decision to be made, it is in no way effective.
Noble Lords: Order!
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, my noble friend has not in fact put down his name to speak. I know—and I respect it—that he has strong views on this subject, but, if he will allow me to say so, by that intervention he shows a singular lack of understanding of the way this House works. If the House were at any time to form a predominant and prevailing view that the televising should for some reason be brought to a stop, I really do not believe that either the present Leader of the House or any possible successor of his would deny the House the opportunity to debate a Motion to that effect. If they did, there are many of

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your Lordships who are more than capable of finding a way of compelling them so to do. Therefore, I really do think that my noble friend is trying to raise a suggestion which has no substance. In other words, I say to him, "That hare won't run!"
When my noble friend endeavoured to assist me—and I am most grateful for all assistance—I was dealing with the interesting figures for the audiences that your Lordships' debates have commanded. Apart from the late-night summary and the repeat in the afternoon there have been live debates whose average audience viewing figures have been 650,000. The items which have appeared in "Newsnight" have attracted audiences of 1 million, and your Lordships' debate on Libya was watched, not over its whole length but from time to time, by up to 3 million people. Whatever else it indicates that shows that there is a very considerable interest outside in your Lordships' proceedings; and I suggest, particularly in view of the fact that these figures show a tendency to rise, that there would be a great disappointment if the broadcasting were to stop, as it would stop if your Lordships decided not to accept the Motion now before the House.
We see this increasing interest in many ways. I was spoken to in Hampshire last week-end by someone who I had no idea had any interest in public affairs. He said to me that he had been watching. He said, "Now one can see it, I have become interested"; and that is reflected in innumerable ways. It is reflected, as your Lordships will see, in the lengthening queues for your Lordships' Public Gallery. It is reflected sometimes—some of your Lordships may think that this is a counter-argument, an argument against me—in the increased correspondence from all over the country which I think a great many of your Lordships have received, and which I know I have received, almost on the scale that I used to receive it when I was a Member of another place. All this is an indication of a great increase in interest in your Lordships' House, and the reason, it seems to me, is quite clear.
Before this began the idea widely held by the public was that your Lordships' House was rather dull, rather stuffy and rather prejudiced on public issues. The public have now had the opportunity to see and hear your Lordships' debates; to hear the tone of reasoned argument which in general prevails in your Lordships' debates; and to see also the fact that whatever subject, is selected there is always to be found among your Lordships one or two noble Lords whose expertise, whether the subject be scientific, political or technological, is acknowledged world wide—and your Lordships' House in fact includes a great many experts in almost any subject that can be discussed. All this has been revealed to the public through the medium of television. I stress this because—and here I come to delicate ground—this public understanding and appreciation may at some time be very important indeed from the point of view of the survival of your Lordships' House.
It is the fact that at one time there was a proposal for the abolition of your Lordships' House. Given public illusion as to what your Lordships' House was like, to which I have referred, I am sure that that proposal had a great deal of support. I should be very surprised
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indeed if it had that support today. I should be very surprised if it were possible to rally much public support for the idea that your Lordships' House was obsolete and should be abolished. If I may put it in terms that your Lordships' will understand from a former Member of another place, I believe it is clear to most thinking people that today that proposal is not a vote winner.
I turn to some of the objections, which will no doubt be expressed in debate and which it is right that I should seek to anticipate. First, it has been suggested that your Lordships' House will behave differently in front of the cameras and under the lights; that noble Lords who otherwise would not think it necessary will seek to intervene. I concede that on the first televising of this House in January of last year that seemed to me to be the case and that that happened. But equally—and I speak with due humility as a fairly regular attender of your Lordships' House since then—I have been unable to detect any such effect. Your Lordships' House has tended to continue as it always did, regardless of the fact that it was or was not on television.
There is then the question of the lights. I will not pretend that they have not been something of a hardship to some of your Lordships, particularly during long sittings. Your Lordships will observe that today, for the first time, two of the sidelights have been extinguished and that their effect for television purposes has been replaced by strengthened lighting in the chandeliers. I do not know what your Lordships feel about that change, but sitting where I do certainly there is distinctly less glare in one's eyes. It is my understanding—and the noble Lord the Lord Chairman of Committees who is to follow me may be able to confirm this—that if televising of your Lordships' House continues, it should be possible to replace the existing lighting by the end of the Summer Recess with something along the lines of the present lighting in the middle of the Chamber, possibly assisted by some side lighting of fairly modest intensity.
At any rate, that is an indication that, if we accept the Motion, we are not saddled for all time with those powerful and rather ugly sidelights in our windows, but given the security that the passing of the Motion would give, it is reasonable to expect that improved and less tiring lighting would be installed. A great deal of thought has also been given to the appearance of the cameras, but I believe that the noble Lord the Lord Chairman of Committees will refer to that aspect. As I understand it, his speech will deal with what he so nicely describes as the nuts and bolts of this matter; I only refer to it so as not to appear to ignore it.
Some noble Lords were concerned about the possible behaviour of those operating the cameras; that they might swing their cameras around in order to show some of your Lordships concentrating, shall we say, by closing your eyes. But we had a very good example of the responsible attitude of the cameramen on the first day that the House was televised. Your Lordships may recall that on that day—and it was not coincidental—there was a disturbance in the Public Gallery. The Cameramen remained quite calm and kept their cameras on those who were speaking from the Floor of the House. None of them diverted their

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cameras to take a view of the gallery. I must say that that gave me very great confidence in the way in which the camermen would—and do—carry out their duties.
I now come to perhaps the most difficult objection of all—the suggestion that there may be, that there could be, and that there is political bias in the editing of our debates in the selection of which noble Lord should appear and which should not appear in the televised programmes. None of us is wholly objective on that subject. We all of us tend to feel that it is a pity that our own magnificent speech was not televised, whereas a terribly dreary speech by a noble Lord opposite was shown at great length. It is human nature to feel that way.
I admit that editing is an extremely difficult thing to do. I myself believe that it has been done in good faith. Equally, I do not believe that it has always been done perfectly. If one talks to the television authorities, one can sometimes get from them an indication that they feel with hindsight that they might have edited differently. But it is an immensely difficult job, and I for my part believe that the broadcasters attempt, subject to the human limitations to which we are all prone, to do it as fairly as they can.
I remind your Lordships that even if the House takes a different view by excluding the cameras from this Chamber you will not exclude the possibilities of political bias in connection with television. If the cameras are excluded, it would still be possible for the television authorities to select one or more of your Lordships for interviewing on television. In that case, their selection is absolutely free. If there is a political bias, it is much more easily exercised when it is simply a matter of selecting a noble Lord to be interviewed and to give his views than when the editors are at least limited by the fact that they can transmit only the speech of a noble Lord who has actually spoken in the debate.
I appreciate the sincerity of the apprehensions that some noble Lords have on the question of bias. I appreciate that it may be possible to quote examples, when perhaps things might have been done differently. However, your Lordships should bear in mind that one does not avoid bias by excluding the cameras, any more than one can exclude it in the press. No one can control those newspapers that report your Lordships' proceedings in reporting one noble Lord and not reporting another. I am sure many noble Lords have sometimes felt that the press has made mistakes or misjudgments in what they have done.
Indeed, only Hansard and the official reporters are able to ape what Philip Guedalla once called,
"The dreary impartiality of the recording angel".
The main argument on that point curiously reflects, if your Lordships will look at it, the arguments of two centuries ago and more as to whether the press and the official reporters should be admitted to report the proceedings in your Lordships' Chamber. If your Lordships will look at the records, it will be seen that there was great argument at the time, that the press and others would report only the news that they liked and would ignore that which they did not like; in other words, that there would be political bias in the editing. So that argument goes back two centuries.
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It is perhaps of historical interest that the admission of reporters by this House took place two years before they were admitted to another place. That is perhaps an indication that even in that era it was regarded as a matter that each House should decide for itself. Your Lordships' House, as ever, was the more progressive of the two.
As I have mentioned Hansard, I come to a very interesting study undertaken by the Hansard Society which, as your Lordships will know, is entirely impartial on public matters. I shall not quote the whole passage, but your Lordships may see that at the end of the report it is stated that:
"After 15 months of monitoring the output from both the BBC and ITN, we have concluded that an upward learning curve is really apparent in the development of programmes, editing, presentation and camera work, and … it would be unfortunate if for the second time in 20 years the learning which has clearly taken place in an experimental period of Parliamentary broadcasting should be wasted. It would be doubly unfortunate if at some later date a new generation of broadcasters, editors and technicians had to start from scratch yet again".
That seems a very wise comment from the Hansard Society.
Finally, one comes to what seems to be the question of principle, which I believe will weigh very much with your Lordships. On that issue I cannot do better than quote the memorandum to the Select Committee by the Cable Authority which states:
"The public galleries of the Houses of Parliament serve a valuable purpose in enabling a number of people to gain a limited impression of the work of the legislature … However, the numbers are insignificant in relation to the people in both categories who would be able to view parliamentary proceedings through the medium of television. The benefits in greater awareness of the nature and operation of our democratic institutions, understanding of social and political issues and the law-making process, and closer identity with the way in which decisions are reached are considerable".
That makes, in better language than I could, the point of principle that I want to leave in your Lordships' minds.
This House is not a private debating society: it is a House of Parliament with still very considerable powers and perhaps even greater influence. It plays its part in the public life of this country. If your Lordships care to cast your minds back to the beginning of modern systems of government, to classical Greece, you will recall that public business at that time, in classical Athens for example, was discussed in the agora, in the market place, where any citizen could wander up and listen to the proceedings and the debates of his representatives and of those in charge of his society.
Modern technology has now enlarged the market place enormously. Modern technology has made that market place nation-wide. I suggest to your Lordships that we should have sufficient confidence in ourselves and in our debates not to turn our backs on the possibilities which technology offers but boldy to say that we are prepared to allow our fellow citizens to see and to hear what we do, conscious as we should be throughout that the further Select Committee which the report recommends to supervise the process will be there to supervise it and see that it operates fairly. I think your Lordships' House has this afternoon a very great opportunity; I hope it will take it.
3.22 p.m.
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Aberdare): My Lords, I should like to begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, for his very kind references to me and to my committee. I should like to pass on those thanks to the committee Members because we had to work hard, especially towards the end of our deliberations when affairs started to move rather quickly.
Perhaps I may also express my gratitude to the broadcasting organisations—the BBC and the IBA. It was not all smooth running. There were problems and there were criticisms, but the problems were solved with good will and with co-operation from both sides and the criticisms were received sympathetically and constructively so that we worked well together.
I refer also to the way in which the cameramen—and sometimes camerawomen—have behaved. I say only that their sartorial elegance has blended indistinguishably into these noble surroundings. Only this afternoon I was asked by one of your Lordships if I could identify a certain Peer and when I could not I was much relieved to see that the answer came when he mounted one of the camera rostrums.
The report is in three parts. The first part is entirely factual. It gives an account of the experiment and it is backed up with three appendices covering matters to do with the broadcasting programmes, their use overseas and the viewing figures as far as they could be obtained. I do not intend to say anything more about Part I.
Part II covers the long term. We thought there was a possibility at some time—indeed, even a probability—that both Houses of Parliament might be televised and we thought, therefore, that it would be a pity if some of the experiences and lessons that we had learnt in the course of the experiment were not recorded. So Part II of our report applies to a long-distant future when perhaps Parliament as a whole agrees to be televised.
There has been a great deal of discussion in sound broadcasting about the provision of a signal by a parliamentary unit; that Parliament itself should take the responsibility for the initial signal. If that were to be applied to television, it would entail a great deal of responsibility in Parliament because a parliamentary unit would be a very complicated, expensive and difficult unit to establish. We came across a possibility that it might be within our bounds to find a private company—a facilities company we call it in the report—which could do this work under contract to Parliament. It would provide what we came to call the "clean feed". The clean feed is defined in paragraph 35 of our report which states:
"When televising is in progress, there are several cameras in the Chamber and the producer in the Control Room can select from them and determine which of them is broadcast or recorded on tape. Only one signal goes out live or is taped. This the Committee have referred to … as the 'clean feed'."
The suggestion we make in the report is that a company under contract to Parliament could be responsible for the production of this clean feed. Parliament, after all, is ill-equipped to do this for itself. It would require a specialist staff which would need to
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be recruited and trained, with some sort of career found for them. This solution would avoid that. We would have one company under contract and our control would be complete under that contract. The contractor would then be responsible for selling the output to broadcasting organisations at home and abroad, including possibly television on cable in the future. I think this is a matter worth considering in the long term.
I now come to Part III, which deals with the medium future and which is of the greatest relevance to this afternoon's debate. We decided as a committee that we should make no specific recommendation. We felt that it was very much a matter for the House itself to decide, and that is what your Lordships are faced with today. We were only a small committee and we were not particularly representative of the House. If we had tried to make a recommendation, we might well have been divided, and we thought it would be better to produce a unanimous report, putting before the House the factors relevant to your Lordships' decision.
The two facts that faced us most squarely were these. The first was that another place had decided not to embark on a television experiment at the moment and the second, with which we are all familiar, was that we have no money. Therefore, the only basis on which television could continue is the one on which we have hitherto conducted the experiment which we have come to know as the "drive-in" basis whereby the broadcasters can come when they like, go when they like and televise what they like either live or recorded. They can then put it out in their programmes as they wish, excluding only those Statements made in another place which are repeated here, the televising of which, for very obvious reasons, would be undesirable. Other than that, and subject to the Charter of the BBC and IBA Act, they would have complete freedom, as they do now, to televise in the Chamber.
It is not easy to predict what the future will be. The first 10 months of the experiment were, in my opinion, well used. A number of different programmes were tried out. There were live programmes; there were taped programmes, subsequently edited; there were summary programmes; there were items in news programmes and there were items in regional programmes. But all this ceased on 20th November last year when another place decided not to have television. It was as though the broadcasters were stunned by an unexpected shock and suddenly the amount of coverage that this House was receiving was greatly reduced. However, by December they had recovered their breath and since then we have had even more coverage than we had previously.
As your Lordships are no doubt well aware, ITN is now here for four days a week. It broadcasts on Channel 4 every evening about midnight a quarter-hour summary programme, which is repeated at 2.15 the following afternoon. The BBC is now broadcasting a weekly summary. The first programme of a quarter of an hour went out last Friday on BBC 2. So at the moment our proceedings are being very well covered and the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, gave us some viewing figures. Both organisations have guaranteed that this will last until the Summer Recess. Of course, what happens after that is still in doubt.

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ITN is financed by the independent programme companies; the BBC has its own financial commitments, but it, too, has agreed to continue until the Summer Recess.
I imagine that much will depend on the audience reaction to these programmes and the willingness to find further finance. All that can be said I think is that the broadcasting organisations themselves are enthusiastic and hopeful.
The most unsatisfactory part of the experiment, as the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, has already indicated, has been the lighting. Unfortunately, in the time that was available before the experiment started it was impossible to do better than to instal the rather hideous panels which we have so far had to suffer. They were the best that could be done under the circumstances, but they were very unsightly and the sort of support that they require with scaffolding is liable to cause damage to the building. We have been experimenting with alternative forms of lighting, for which I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord On-Ewing, who was the chairman of a sub-committee of the Select Committee that worked out the technical details with the broadcasters and with the Property Services Agency. I should like to thank them and the Department of the Environment for the speed with which they have produced alternative chandeliers, because they are not unlike those that we had before, they are not unsightly and they seem to be able to produce at least some of the extra light that is required by the broadcasters. The committee has reason to hope that by the adaptation of our existing lighting we shall be able to satisfy the needs of the cameramen without damage to the appearance of the Chamber in the long term.
The Select Committee recommended that certain conditions should be attached, if your Lordships give approval to this Motion. Sound broadcasting was controlled by resolutions of both Houses of Parliament, and I understand that if your Lordships agree to this Motion, the noble Viscount the Leader of the House will table a similar resolution which will govern television broadcasting of this Chamber. The committee also recommended that one single committee should be established to control both sound broadcasting and television, which seems a natural and sensible procedure.
So far as concerns televising the committees of the House, during the experiment we allowed access to certain committee proceedings and ITN took advantage of this to do some broadcasting from the Select Committee on Overseas Trade. We think that this should be allowed to continue, if your Lordships agree to allow television, and we think that possibly at least one of the committee rooms might be adapted specially for television, which would overcome some of the undesirable features that occurred during the experiment on the last occasion.
Finally, the only other point I should like to make is that we hope that the broadcasters can be better accommodated than they are at present in their vans and portakabins in Black Rod's Garden, because that is not really very suitable accommodation for them in the long run.
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Perhaps I may sum up by saying that I believe that the experiment has been well justified. At least it has produced plenty of evidence which is available this afternoon to enable your Lordships to come to a decision. If your Lordships agree, television broadcasting will continue on the same basis as at present, at the expense of the broadcasters and largely at their discretion. We hope to make significant improvements in the provision of adequate lighting, but in other respects we can expect things to go on much as they are at present, if your Lordships will it.
3.36 p.m.
Lord Ardwick: My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, has said, this is a very serious decision that we have to make this afternoon; and indeed the committee of the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, on which I was privileged to sit, has put in many hours of very serious labour.
But as the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, has indicated, the subject also has its lighter side. I have been casting my mind back 18 months to the time when the great television experiment was in prospect, and there were all the nagging doubts and agonising apprehensions. Some of us with a touch of photo-phobia perhaps feared that we should be dazzled by the brilliance of the lighting required for television. Others believed that the lights would create a stifling heat beyond the capacity of the air-conditioning system to cool down. Then there were those of us who feared the broadcasters themselves: would these young men make mocking fun of our venerable frailties, of our amiable eccentricities and of our quaint and stately customs?
Those gloomy and fearful speculations were fortified by newspaper cartoonists, who portrayed ancient and decrepit Peers—fully robed, of course—applying greasepaint to their rubicund faces as though they were about to take part in a theatrical performance. Even more apprehensive were those of us who feared that we might be seduced by the camera and the limelight into making fervent and frequent theatrical speeches which the broadcasting presenters would not be able to resist. As Thackeray put it:
"How very weak the very wise,
How very small the very great are.
Vanitas vanitatum"
—or, as the noble Lord, Lord Broxbourne, would no doubt translate for us, "Vanity of vanities".
Eighteen months ago a few of us thought that television was a rather vulgar thing and that the very presence of the cameras and their operators would detract from the dignity of the Chamber. Surely we should preserve our last privacy! The press have been here since 1795, writing down all that we say; and we were once very dubious about that. In recent years our voices in the Chamber have been broadcast to the wide world. Now it has been proposed that we should submit ourselves to total exposure, to be portrayed in action—or worse, sometimes in total inaction, in the arms of Morpheus—and to be portrayed in vivid colour.
I too have had my apprehensions. I was always in principle in favour of televising the proceedings of this Chamber, but I doubted the practicalities. My

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apprehensions developed after I had seen the television records of an experiment made in our own Chamber a decade before. Those fears were strengthened after I had seen a number of videos of other Parliaments, including Commonwealth Parliaments, whose procedure was recognisable to us old Westminster hands. What I feared was that to the viewer our proceedings would be infinitely boring; that the subjects of our debates would be too esoteric for the general public; and that our parliamentary procedures would be totally baffling. In that I was wrong, just as the other timorous Peers were wrong in their apprehensions.
Let us take, for example, the lights. I know that one or two noble Lords have found them rather trying, but they are less bright than they were and, as we have seen today, if we convert all the chandeliers to this experimental type we shall be, as Wordsworth said, "apparelled in celestial light", to the discomfort of nobody. As for the heat, the air-conditioning engineers have been more successful in keeping it down in summer than they sometimes are in keeping it up in winter.
When we come to the question of whether our frailties and our customs have been exploited we have to admit that the broadcasters have operated in complete good faith. If a sleeping nobleman has appeared from time to time in the background, that has been inadvertent and inescapable. As the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, said, our conduct has not changed. We have not yielded to the temptation to act up to the cameras. Of course, as in every parliamentary chamber in the world, we have a tiny minority who feel that they have a contribution to make on a very wide variety of topics; and we have another tiny minority who are oblivious of the clock. But they were always like that before we had television and they always would be like that even if television never appeared again in this Chamber.
Most of us come to this Chamber rather late in life, when our styles of composition and delivery have long been formed and fixed. Even Saatchi and Saatchi's best operators could not get us to change our ways and could not make us into television stars. Few of us have the enviable gift, as the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, and the noble Lord, Lord Soper, have, of being able to speak without notes. The rest of us appear on television not as stars but most of the time with our heads down, because, although none of us ever reads a speech in this Chamber, many of us find it necessary to keep a pretty sharp eye on the text!
As for boring the viewers, there is no doubt that we shall never have a large audience. But there is no doubt either that we give solid pleasure (entertainment of the higher kind) to a minority whose numbers in any context other than broadcasting would be regarded as considerable. For most of them this is their only experience of the parliamentary system and they find it fascinating, as we all know from what our friends have told us. They and we ourselves should give great credit to the professional broadcasters. They are becoming more and more adept at explaining clearly and succinctly the context in which our arguments are taking place and also the procedure of the debate.
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This is a very difficult House to report, and here I speak as an old newspaper reporter. To sit up there in the Gallery for hour after hour listening to speeches which often have a literary and an intellectual content, and then to produce before the deadline falls a brief newspaper, radio or television report calls for the highest professional skill. Of course, nobody can get it right all the time. One has to take the average—the long run—in making a judgment. As I listened the other day to the superb debate that we had on education I thanked God that I did not have to report it. Nobody could have the time or the space to do full justice to its excellence.
This has been a modest experiment and the proposal to continue televising is modest, too, though it is not inadequate. As the noble Lord said, Channel 4 is doing a 15-minute stint late at night—very late at night; early in the morning; 12.30 a.m. I think will be the time of today's debate—and early in the afternoon, well out of peak viewing time; and the BBC is providing not 15 minutes but I think something like a 40-minute review of the week, once a week, very late at night. Of course, when there is something of compelling news value to the nation or to the region, that will justify additional treatment.
What I want to argue is that an operation of these dimensions at these times of day and night is neither a display of pride by us nor a challenge to the other place. It will show both the opportunities and the limitations of parliamentary television. When the Commons admits the cameras, as it will one day some time in the future, there will be a number of cameramen and presenters with a profound experience of parliamentary broadcasting, and that must be good.
It took the newspapers many years to establish themselves in Parliament. My version differs slightly from that of other people. My source says that this House did not accept reporters until three years after their grudging admittance to the other place. And when we let them in in 1795 we kept the poor wretches standing at the Bar taking notes.
Political broadcasting has had a hard life. There was a time not far away when broadcasters were not allowed to debate a topic that was coming up in Parliament in the next 14 days. Parliament was most jealous of its privilege. Today that rule has long been abandoned and the media are highly politicised. Radio and television provide debates on the great political subjects of the day that mean much more to the mass of people than what goes on in the Chambers of Westminster, and that is wrong. I hope that the televising of Parliament will one day redress the balance. The paradox is that by giving up its privilege completely Parliament will regain it when every minute of its proceedings every day that it sits will be within the sight and hearing of every citizen.
Parliamentary democracy, like justice, is not a cloistered virtue. Today those who turn their backs on television turn their backs on life. I fervently hope that we shall in this Chamber keep the lights, keep the cameras, keep the esteem of viewers and continue in the way that the broadcasters now propose.

Syria
3.48 p.m.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, with your Lordships' permission I shall now repeat a Statement being made in another place by my honourable friend the Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs about the request by Her Majesty's Government to the Syrian Government to withdraw three members of the Syrian Embassy from London. The Statement is as follows:
"This action followed a meeting between the Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Sir Antony Acland, and the Syrian ambassador, Dr. Haydar, on 1st May. Sir Antony raised with Dr. Haydar allegations about Syrian involvement in certain terrorist activities in this country. On behalf of the police Sir Antony asked that the ambassador should waive diplomatic immunity of three attachés on his staff to enable the police to ask them questions about these allegations. On 5th May, the ambassador replied that the Syrian Government were not willing to allow diplomatic immunity to be waived but would permit interviews with members of his staff on Syrian Embassy premises.
"The Foreign and Commonwealth Office informed the Metropolitan Police of the terms on which the Syrian Government were prepared to allow questioning to be carried out. After careful consideration the Metropolitan Police concluded that interviews under such conditions could not result in evidence which might be used in court and could not assist their investigation. When the ambassador called on 10th May the Deputy Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Mr. Ewen Fergusson, therefore told him that the refusal of the Syrian authorities to meet our request for a waiver of diplomatic immunity to allow the allegations against three members of his embassy to be fully investigated was unacceptable. The ambassador was then told that the British Government required the withdrawal of the three attaches within seven days.
"Yesterday the Syrian Government requested the withdrawal of three members of the diplomatic staff of our embassy in Damascus. This retaliation is regrettable and totally unjustified.
"We are now considering whether there is cause for any additional measures against Syria. It will be necessary to take into account all factors affecting our bilateral relations with Syria. These include the level of the diplomatic staff whom the Syrians have asked us to withdraw, and the need to protect British subjects in Syria. We shall of course bear in mind the commitments entered into by EC Foreign Ministers at Luxembourg and by the economic summit in Tokyo. We shall also take account of the continuing investigations into the responsibility of various countries for terrorist activity."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Lord the Minister for repeating the Statement. Like his right honourable friend, we totally condemn international terrorism and will support all
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effective steps taken to stamp it out. I also agree with the statement that the Syrian Government's retaliatory action is totally regrettable and unjustified.
May I put two or three short questions to the noble Lord? First, were the Government satisfied beyond any doubt that the three members of the Syrian embassy staff were involved in the E1 A1 bomb plot? Can he say whether the British Government have evidence, in addition to any evidence provided by Israeli intelligence? Is the trial of the man arrested in connection with the E1 A1 bomb to be proceeded with? Is there any truth in the report that the Syrians and not the Libyans were in fact responsible for the Berlin bombing in early April? Again, is evidence accumulating that Syria is more involved in international terrorism than any other Arab country at the present time?
Against that background, is it not also necessary to advise caution so as to avoid an escalation of the threat to regional peace in places such as the Golan Heights and South Lebanon?
Lord McNair: My Lords, we, too, thank the noble Lord the Minister for repeating the Statement. With regard to the conversations with the Syrian ambassador, we support the action that the Government were trying to take and which they did take. We deplore the not unexpected refusal of His Excellency to waive immunity in order that the allegations against certain members of his staff could be further investigated. We deplore also the ritual tit-for-tat expulsion of our diplomats from Damascus.
The most interesting part of the Statement is of course the final paragraph, which says:
"We are now considering whether there is cause for any additional measures against Syria."
If there is such cause, may the measures be diplomatic or economic? They could be bilateral on a Community basis or by the United Nations. We on these Benches are convinced that of our defence forces it is only the intelligence services which can be usefully, sensibly and effectively used against terrorism. We should be most interested to hear whether that is also the view of Her Majesty's Government.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I am most grateful to both noble Lords. There was no real mystery about the remarks towards the end of the Statement to which the noble Lord, Lord McNair, referred. What was being considered was a response to the expulsion of the three British diplomats from Damascus. We are considering whether that calls for any further reaction from us.
As for the questions put to me by the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, he will be aware that one person is in custody with regard to the attempt on the Israeli aeroplane. I can say nothing more about that because that matter is of course now sub judice. As for the three Syrian diplomats whom we have asked to leave, the matters about which the police wished to question them were of course for the police and not for Her Majesty's Government.
Lord Thorneycroft: My Lords, if there were any evidence which linked those Syrians with anything so grave as the actual plot against the E1 A1 aeroplane, is

977
there any rule of diplomatic privilege or otherwise which would inhibit their arrest and charges being made?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, my noble friend is of course posing a purely hypothetical question. At this stage nothing is proved.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that Syria has a worse record of state-supported terrorism than Libya, especially in its support for the Abu Nidal group which presents a serious threat to leading Palestinians, apart from anyone else? Will the Government also carefully note that for wider reasons an opportunity to attack Syria with American support might not be unwelcome to the Israeli Government?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, we have made clear on a number of occasions our concern about continuing reports of Syrian provision of facilities for the Abu Nidal group, to which the noble Lord refers. The Syrians have assured us that they do not support Abu Nidal's terrorist activities.
Lord Kilbracken: My Lords, will the noble Lord answer the important question asked by my noble leader about the suggestion we are now hearing that the bombing of the Berlin discotheque was attributable to the Syrians and not the Libyans?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I have heard those allegations but I am not in a position to comment upon them.

Televising of Proceedings of the House
Debate resumed.
3.56 p.m.
Lord Aylestone: My Lords, perhaps we may now return to the debate on the televising of this House. The decision of the House in July of last year, which was probably the third or fourth debate on the televising of the House that we had had, was on a Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Soames, who was merely in favour of continuing the experiment which had been going on for six months until such time as the Select Committee had reported, giving the House an opportunity to come to a decision.
Despite some opposition at that time (and so far as I can recall the amendment was in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Peyton) the House generally approved the continuation of the experiment. That was a wise decision because it enabled the Select Committee for a period of about nine months further to interview broadcasters and take evidence from those people who were interested in giving it to us. I was privileged to serve on that committee. I know how valuable to us was the information that we obtained during that period. Had the amendment been carried, the Select Committee under the noble Lord the Lord Chairman of Committees would have been doing its work in a kind of vacuum with no televising taking place in the Chamber. The House made a wise decision at that time.
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During that debate in July the noble Viscount the Leader of the House, in his usual frank and courteous manner, made plain that no public money was to be provided by the Government for the televising of the House or even for a part of its cost. That was somewhat of a shock to those of us who thought that at least part of the cost of televising this House would be met from public funds. In fact, our work was overtaken at that point by the decision of the other place on 20th November. It decided by an extremely narrow majority not to have televising of the other place and its Chamber.
I would hazard a guess—in fact, it is more than a guess; it is almost a certainty—that had the other place decided otherwise and resolved that television should take place in that Chamber as well as in this, then public money would have been readily available. We might even have gone as far as having a broadcasting unit, mentioned by the noble Lord, the Lord Chairman of Committees. But that was not to be. The other place turned it down by, as I say, a very small majority, and that was the end of any idea of a broadcasting unit. The Select Committee had to work on the possibility of no money at all. This was a natural disappointment to the broadcasters, the BBC and the IBA.
Some noble Lords to whom I spoke made clear at the time—I was more or less inclined to agree—that this meant perhaps saying goodbye to cameras in this House; that it was the end of television here in this Chamber. It was felt, and stated, that the broadcasters were concerned, if not entirely then certainly mainly, with the broadcasting of the other place. Having had some experience of television I can assure your Lordships that it would perhaps have been rather more interesting on occasions. But it was not to be. Nevertheless, although we saw little of the cameras it would be untrue to say that the broadcasters lost interest completely in broadcasting this House. It is fair to say that at that point they had to take cost into consideration.
Our report says, as already mentioned by one speaker, that ideally the House should provide the necessary "clean feed", or signal, if that word is preferred, to be selected by producers for transmission in television programmes. Of course, a broadcasting unit of some sort, as envisaged by the noble Lord, the Lord Chairman of Committees, in his speech, would have been ideal. However, we have enough experience, as politicians of whatever party, to know what happens to ideals. They often get lost when no money is provided, as did that particular idea. I am really saying that we must take things as we find them, and perhaps not as we should like them to be.
There has been a problem in respect of lighting. It was mentioned in detail by the noble Lord, Lord Ardwick. That problem, although not perhaps solved, is nearing solution. Noble Lords will have seen the experimental chandeliers above our heads, with greatly increased candle power, taking the place of some of the side lights. It one multiplies the two by five, that may be an answer to the problem. There were questions, too, about the level of heat generated as a result of the introduction of the cameras. If spring or summer ever comes we shall be able to make a judgment when the new lighting is installed. We are

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told, however, that the new lighting is not likely to be installed even on the basis of the current lighting experiment—it is still only an experiment—before the end of the Summer Recess.
Smaller, remotely controlled cameras are, in my view, and also in the view of my colleagues on the Select Committee, a rather long-term prospect. Such cameras would have to take their feed to units outside. There would be something like a desk operating the control of the cameras from outside the Chamber, with the cameras themselves slung perhaps under the Galleries. We do not know the cost, but it is fair to say that it would be something like £750,000. The question also arises as to whether these cameras are available. They are in fact more available than when we started talking about them, but even if we had the money at the moment I doubt whether they could be bought and put into position in less than 12 to 18 months. I am sure that the new chandeliers will not offend against our aesthetic sense, as the present scaffolding, which is ugly and horrible in every respect, does.
It seemed earlier this year that the most that we could expect from the broadcasters without any contribution from public funds would be the occasional "drive-in". While a drive-in during the early stages of the experiment was extremely useful and provided a great deal of news coverage, it did not, in my view, give sufficient regional coverage. Much more could be done in that respect. Regional television should be developed by the broadcasters, given the opportunities that exist, to a greater extent. What is a vital problem in one part of the country is not so important in another.
Appreciating that the costs of any television can be heavy, it is gratifying to know that the broadcasters have continued to examine the possibilities. This means that we now have the proposals before us that will certainly take us up to the end of the Summer Recess. I hope that, at that time, a Select Committee, if not the present Select Committee, will be ready for further discussions with the broadcasters, in the light of the knowledge that they have gained during the additional experimental period that concludes at the end of July this year to see what programes are worthwhile in the period beyond that.
One should bear in mind that taking the live feed out of the Chamber at present would cost something like £500,000 in a full broadcasting year. The arrangement at the moment is that the BBC and ITN between them meet the cost. The ITN part, we understand, is to be borne by the Independent Broadcasting Authority. In saying that the broadcasters, between them, meet the cost, I should make clear that it is probably divided according to the extent to which the feed is used by either of the two broadcasters. The clean feed (an expression that I find myself using again) or signal will be used by ITN for some live coverage. Such coverage is very important on special occasions. But the important additional programme is the one that has been transmitted since Easter—the late-night 15-minute programme on Channel 4 that is repeated in the afternoon on the next day. It goes out on the evenings of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and is repeated at 2.15 the next afternoon.
980
The cost of the Channel 4 production is thought to be about £270,000 over the period. It is already drawing a remarkable audience. The noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, mentioned 300,000 watching at night and 200,000 the repeat the next afternoon. The BBC programme, called "The Lords this Week" is of longer duration, probably of 35 or 40 minutes, whereas the Channel 4 programme lasts at present for 15 minutes.
Given the financial circumstances, and after hearing the evidence, the broadcasters have in my view made a generous offer that we should accept. Of course, the House could change its mind at any time, as the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, mentioned. We could say that we have had enough; or the broadcasters could say that they have had enough. Let us hope that at least there will be no need for further experimentation. That is unnecessary. We now know what is possible in view of the finances available—which is almost nothing.
I believe that during the period since the beginning of last year television has led to a greater knowledge of this House than there ever was previously. It has been mentioned in one report from one opinion poll that while there had been a fairly high percentage of people in favour of the abolition of the House of Lords—the Second Chamber—that opinion has swung completely round. Perhaps I may tell your Lordships of one short, rather cryptic letter received by the committee which read,
"Dear Sirs, In making your deliberations you ought to consider the abolition of the House of Commons".
It is worth recording that the smallest audiences that we have had in programmes covered in this Chamber since the experimental period started could completely fill our galleries for 25 years. That is why we are becoming fairly well known.
Today we can end the televising of the House more or less forthwith if we reject the Motion by the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter. I think that we should accept the best that the BBC and ITN can offer us. I hope that the House will not feel it necessary to divide and I urge that we accept the Motion.
4.12 p.m.
Lord Thomas of Swynnerton: My Lords, I was also privileged to be a Member of the Select Committee chaired by my noble friend Lord Aberdare. I must say that I regarded it as a privilege and an instruction. I learned a great deal from his lucid, balanced and statesmanlike chairmanship. I trust that if a Select Committee is set up for the future discussion of what form television in this House should take—as is proposed in the report—that committee might take its style and inspiration from that presided over by my noble friend Lord Aberdare.
The essential points in the report which we have before us are contained in paragraphs 28, 53 and 73. Paragraph 28 makes the fairly neutral comment that the committee felt that the experiment had been useful. I think that none of us was churlish enough to deny that the experiment had been other than useful. Paragraph 53 makes it plain that we have now before us a choice. Paragraph 73—the summary of conclusions—suggests what that choice might mean if we were to decide to continue to have television in the House.

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Before we make our decision we ought obviously to bear in mind one or two background matters. All inventions throughout history have had beneficial and adverse consequences. We can all think of disadvantages of almost every step forward. Let us take, for example, the invention of gas. There is no doubt whatever that gas lighting helped to make the streets of the cities of, first, Europe and then the world safer. It therefore helped the diminution of crime in the nineteenth century. On the other hand, gas also enabled factories to be run 24 hours a day and therefore made it possible for factory owners to overwork those who were employed within them. This is a point to be borne in mind in relation to television: the control of the invention is the essential question.
When we come to the question of televising the proceedings of the House, it seems to me, speaking generally, that the invention has not been with us long enough to make the rather extravagant claims made by the noble Lord, Lord Ardwick, a little earlier, when he said that he who turns away from television is turning away from life itself. We have often heard hyperbolic remarks in this House, but that surely must be one of the most extravagant. A recent opinion poll in France—a country which is twice as rich as ourselves, according to statistics—suggested that if there were to be a television-free day, 40 per cent. of Frenchmen would be quite happy; and a substantial number of Frenchmen would be quite happy if television were not to be available at all. I believe we are at too early a stage to make the judgment which the noble Lord, Lord Ardwick made so extravagantly just now.
I confess that I am prejudiced so far as television is concerned. I recognise that television is a comforting friend to those who live alone. It has marvellous programmes of an educational nature. Its entertainment is frequently stupendous. On the other hand, I think that it has emphasised the continuance of a decline in reading, particularly in schools. I think that it has had an ambiguous attitude towards crime. It has encouraged populations in the industrialised world to be sedentary.
With regard to politics and television, I am even more critical. Television has enabled many people to see what politicians are like, though very often what they see on television is not what they are really like. Many noble Lords will remember in one of our many debates in this House my noble friend Lord Ferrers contrasted a notable speech which was being made by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, in this House with the impression which that speech made when it was seen more or less at the same time on a video in the Moses Room. There is no doubt that politics have been enhanced by great television discussions and debates. On the other hand, most of us would feel that television has helped to destroy local constituency meetings. It has had a generally adverse effect on local politics—
Lord Ardwick: My Lords, will the noble Lord forgive me—
Lord Thomas of Swynnerton: One moment. It has—particularly in the United States—made politics
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a part of the media. I think that it has also had a "nationalising" effect. Those of us who have sought to try to bring this country to an understanding of the European Community of nations have had no encouragement whatever from television. This is the background against which we must consider whether to continue televising the proceedings of this House.
Lord Ardwick: My Lords, when I said that turning a back on television was turning a back on life I was thinking particularly in the context of a user. For example, if one turned one's back on television last week, one would have seen neither the very exciting Cup Final nor the terrible events in the Soviet Union.
Lord Thomas of Swynnerton: My Lords, it is also possible to read of these events with imagination in the press. However, I recognise the point of the noble Lord.
Coming to the question of whether we should continue the televising experiment in this House I have to recognise, as have other noble Lords, the tact with which both producers and cameramen have carried out their task. I also recognise that the lights today are a great improvement, and we have heard some encouraging news that they might continue to be improved.
So far as I have been able to observe, no noble Lord has sought particularly to change his personality because of the fact of television, though I must say that there is some question as to whether or no that will always be the case in future. Noble Lords present today have established their personalities over many years in the non-television age. Whether or not that will always continue in the future with new Peers in time to come is a different matter. So far as I know, no Peer has yet been created specifically because he is good on television. I am sure that noble Lords would agree with me in hoping that that will always be the case in the future.
It is also a matter of comfort that the committee felt able to say that the committees of this House did not alter their procedures because of the presence of television. There can be no doubt, as my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter said in his speech initiating the debate and as was also said by the noble Lord, Lord Aylestone, that knowledge of this House has certainly increased beyond all belief since the introduction of television. I dare say that my noble friend is right in saying that that will be a useful barrier against any new consideration of early abolition. However, thinking in the long term, I must say that if abolition is no longer considered, I suspect that the question of the composition of this House may well be considered in consequence of the attention drawn to it because of television.
I have some other doubts about this innovation. I do not agree with the comparison which my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter drew between television and the agora of ancient Athens. After all, the average Athenian when he listened to the debates heard them from afar; he did not see them in his own house with the cheeks of the speakers exposed to him as if they were his own brothers. I think we all realise that we have television in this House not because of our beaux yeux, but because the television companies essentially

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want to have a foot in the door of the Palace of Westminster so that ultimately they can secure a foot in the House of Commons.
What will happen to the televising of the Lords after television is permitted in the House of Commons? That is a question which your Lordships must consider when debating this Motion. I do not think that we can always be certain that producers in future will conduct themselves with the tact that they have hitherto when, understandably, they have been on their best behaviour in the hope that they will be here permanently or that they will secure that entry into the House of Commons about which I have just spoken.
Because of those doubts—and I have some others—I think that there are likely to be long-term consequences for the character of the House that will be damaging to its peculiar blend of ceremony, intimacy and mystery. I would still vote against the introduction of television if that matter were put to the vote. Nevertheless, I have become, perhaps due to the influence of my noble friend Lord Aberdare, realistic and I would not initiate a Division on this question, not only for the reasons that I have just given, but also because I should like weight given to two suggestions in relation to the work of the Select Committee which is proposed in paragraphs 61 and 63 of the report.
First, it is important—and I am sure that noble Lords who may not necessarily have agreed with my argument will agree with the proposition that I am putting forward now—that the Select Committee should be as balanced as the Aberdare committee and should include sceptics such as, for example, the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon. Secondly, the Select Committee should pursue all the possibilities, including financial possibilities not discussed in the report, whereby the superior recommendations made in paragraphs 36 to 45, which would give us our own system, could be introduced if necessary before the Commons have pronounced on the matter again. I cannot help feeling that in the future it would be thought surprising if this House, the senior House in the Mother of Parliaments—though not perhaps, as the King of Spain told us two weeks ago, the oldest of Parliaments; nevertheless one of the oldest Parliaments in the world—had on a permanent basis a system which was recognised by ourselves as being second best. Surely if there is to be television in the House of Lords, we should have the best type of television available to us.
4.26 p.m.
Lord Mellish: My Lords, it is a privilege to address your Lordships on a subject of this nature. I know that there may be some who would say that it is an impertinence for a new Member of the House to say whether or not the proceedings of the House should be televised. However, perhaps I may crave your Lordships' indulgence. I was for 36 years a Member of the other House and I had some experience of the debates which took place there about televising their proceedings and about sound broadcasting. It is as a result of that experience and also the experience which I have had since last July when I became a Member of this House that I intervene today.
First, let me put it on record that I am an enthusiastic supporter of the Motion tabled by the noble
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Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter. If there were a vote—and I hope that there will not be—I should most certainly vote in favour of the Motion. Let me tell your Lordships why I would take that course. As I have said, what I am about to say is based on 36 years' experience in the other House and I believe that that qualifies me to take part in this debate.
Looking back on the attitude of Members of Parliament as opposed to Members of the House of Lords, the situation runs something as follows. A Member of Parliament is elected by his people; he is there as a result of votes. He is literally terrified of the future. Fortunately, I had a constituency where I had an overwhelming majority and so it never occurred to me. However, I remember that it certainly occurred to many of my colleagues at the time. They were appalled by the picture that would be presented because it represented crosses on a ballot paper. Indeed, that is still the case today as regards many of those people.
With great respect to the previous speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, the argument was never about the quality of television or the way in which it was carried out, the editing and so on. The argument was about their own fear that the television pictures might affect their own position regarding votes. I mention that because it has nothing to do with your Lordships' House. We are lucky because we are not here as a result of any votes. Nor are we bound by the views of others as to whether we continue our membership. To be frank, we are in a very fortunate position. No one recognises that more than I, because I took part in 12 general elections. Therefore, I am simply saying that, first, we are able to look at this matter in a way that is quite independent.
The one thing which I have learned about the procedure for televising our debates—and I also include sound broadcasting—is that some mistakes have been made. When Parliament was first put on radio we immediately set up a committee to see how it was running and what comments could be made. We were very keen to allow the BBC, as it then was, entirely to have control of the running of the broadcasting. However, very quickly and early on mistakes were made; one or two of the regional programmes—and it was only the odd one or two—made terrible blunders and expressed their own views. With great respect, we thought that that was impertinent.
The public themselves used to speak about, and I believe are still speaking about, the noises and so on in Parliament, and there is some criticism. But I do not believe that anybody, even in the other place, would accept the argument that we should abolish sound broadcasting; they would not dream of it.
They just have not got the courage to do what, in my view, they must do, and that is to see that their proceedings are televised. Of course you can strictly control it; and here I put a suggestion to the Leader of the House, and I know he will agree with it. If the time comes when television is permanent in the House of Lords, we shall have to ensure that we have a first-class committee whose job it will be to oversee the way in which it is done, to deal with the complaints, the editing, and all the rest of it.

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There is one other aspect I want to put to your Lordships, and again I am speaking personally. I am very much a new boy here. I came to the House of Lords with some deep feelings about parliamentary privileges and the rest. May I say a word about that? When I first entered Parliament 36 years ago I suppose I could have been described as a bit of a Left-winger, because I did all the Left-wing guff. I opposed tradition and parliamentary privileges. I though that it was rubbish and nonsense. I thought that Black Rod was just about the silliest thing I had ever heard of. But it is a fact that I had not been in the House of Commons very long before I became a very strong supporter of the privileges of the House.
I shall tell your Lordships why. Abolish them; abolish Black Rod and all that the Civil War meant; abolish the whole idea of the relationship between the Lords and the Commons, and the rest of it; abolish all that, and what have you got?—a local government chamber. Is there anything more dreadful? Is there anything more deadly? Is there anything so deplorable as to see a thick mayor? In fact some of them now refuse even to wear robes or anything of that kind. It makes them democratic, or is it Left; I am never quite sure.
I am simply saying that I became a very strong advocate of what I call the parliamentary privileges of the Palace as a whole. When I came into this House the one thing I learnt above all else was the quality of your Lordships. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, is listening to every word of this. The quality of your Lordships is not to be underrated.
There are people in this House—and I am not one of them—who have a lifetime of experience that has been obtained only through living it, and they are now in a position where they do not have to rely on the crosses of people to vote them in and out of office. It would be a tragedy if that is not exposed to the public as a whole. Let them see the quality of the membership and the type of people there are everywhere you look.
I recently took a party of Lords down to my beloved Docklands. What pleased me more than anything was that the officers of Docklands were quickly put in their place by the Lords who had gone down there because the Lords knew more about planning, about land, about procedures, than anybody down there. It did them a power of good. That is the sort of thing that your Lordships can contribute.
We do not have to apologise for being here; we are part of a Second Chamber. Whether the constitution or the membership are right are not for me to discuss or dispose of today, if I were able to. But to say that we shall not be televised, that we should be so reactionary as to say that the public must not see us—who is it who says that? Who gives them the authority in the 1980s to say that?
What we have to be concerned about is the way in which it is portrayed. We have to be certain that there is editing of the kind I mentioned earlier. A committee of this House must be in virtually permanent session to make certain that neither the BBC nor the ITA abuse their position. I repeat that I hope very much that it does not come to a vote, but by heaven if it does I shall certainly vote for this Motion.
4.34 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, already the mood of your Lordships' House appears to be in support of the Motion—a Motion which proposes to mark the end of the experimental period and to establish a provisional measure of permanency for the televising of proceedings of your Lordships' House. Like the noble Lord, Lord Mellish, whom I have the privilege to follow, I, too, hope that this will not be put to the vote. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Aylestone, also expressed that view. As I understand the position my noble friend Lord Thomas of Swynnerton, notwithstanding certain reservations that he has expressed, would not, as at present advised, wish to divide your Lordships' House.
As my noble friend Lord Aberdare said, these services are provided in various forms because of the grant of "drive-in" access. It is at no cost whatever to the Exchequer. The plain fact of the matter is that no television company could afford to apply to a continuance of that grant unless there were sustained public demand. Public demand, established by monitoring, that is viable and likely to increase, may not be rebuffed by any arbitrary refusal. These must be reasoned grounds of justification. Personal preferences; prejudicial preconceptions, however well motivated; inchoate fears of frivolity, however sincerely entertained; indeed, the doubts expressed by my noble friend Lord Thomas of Swynnerton; and those unexplained long-term consequences—these afford no substitute for reason.
The reasoned realities of the situation in support of this Motion rest upon the assumption that, as other noble Lords have said, the experimental period has now already served its purpose without in any way operating to the detriment of the intrinsic value of the work of your Lordships' House, and indeed without any hint of conflict with another place because, by mutual accommodation, such matters as ministerial Statements have been arranged.
Therefore, the fundamental question is, as the report of the Select Committee recognises, whether we are to continue with television or whether we are not. If we are to continue, then the proposals as envisaged in Part III of this report are the only reasonable basis, the only acceptable basis, upon which one can continue. And this so that advantage may be taken of some of the trappings of provisional permanency. I refer to the removal of those monstrous instruments, those obtrusive obscenities, strung up on scaffolds, and that we should instead have modified chandeliers and low-light cameras with remote control. These would be a mere peck of inconvenience. We should also have some form of reasonable accommodation for the broadcasters and even restore Black Rod's garden to Black Rod.
But these are all domestic matters in which the public will have scant interest. Few of the public, of whom the noble Lord, Lord Ardwick, spoke so eloquently, will read that admirable report of the Select Committee any more than they will read Hansard. Some will be content with their newspaper; some will be content with their radio; some will be content with their access to the Galleries. But those who watch by the twist of a knob or the touch of a

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button will not be content. And those who watch these proceedings will watch in wonder at why the continuance of what is to them a newly-found pleasure should even be called in question. Some will watch in bewilderment, remembering that on more than one occasion it was by their vote that they saved your Lordships' House from the threat of abolition. Of course, if there were some justified reasons which made sense to them, they no doubt would understand; they would accept the deprivation with good grace, albeit with reluctance. But they have heard no good justifiable reason and they shall hear none because none exists.
Dealing, as this is a debate, with the points made by my noble friend Lord Thomas of Swynnerton, those, I suggest to him with respect, are no reasons at all. First of all, he says that there is an inevitable disadvantage in any progressive step. That is very learned but I suppose that at the end of the day it means that we do nothing, anyway. Then he says there is a problem of control. Where is the problem of control? If the control as it has been exercised is satisfactory to the sense of your Lordships' House, though not perfect—and few things are perfect—then where is the problem of control?
Lord Thomas of Swynnerton: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for giving way to enable me to correct what was clearly a misunderstanding of what I said—which simply was that with most innovations there are disadvantages as well as benefits.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend. That is exactly what I understood him to say, and I am content that Hansard should read for itself. He then went on to say, as a ground or reason, that we are not like what we really are. What, with respect, will those who watch these proceedings think of that explanation as a justification? Then my noble friend says that it destroys constituency meetings. I do not know much about it but I had an idea—and other noble Lords will know better than I—that they were pretty dreary affairs, anyway. But, in any event, what is the point? Before the televising of your Lordships' House I assume that they were pretty dreary affairs; and after the televising of your Lordships' House presumably they are equally dreary affairs. What has the televising of your Lordships' House to do with it at all? As I say, it is learned stuff, but what does it add up to?
Then my noble friend talks about the effect in the United States of America. They do not have a House of Lords, so what has that got to do with it? Then he talks about Frenchmen watching television. What are they watching on television? I do not know. Perhaps they prefer to watch things on television that television companies do not provide. But, again, they do not have a House of Lords, so what has that got to do with it? Then we get as the final, reasoned justification for opposing this Motion, if you please, that there is some fear that Peers will be created because they are good on television. Well, really, my Lords, I was about to say that the mind boggles; but somebody has said that before.
There is no reasoned justification. Those who watch have heard no reasoned justification and they never
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shall because there is none. Of course, it is a matter of conjecture as to whether this sustained public demand will remain if and when the cameras are admitted into another place. I concede that straightaway. If the public demand does not remain viable then cadit questio there is no basis upon which the television companies would wish to seek continuance of the grant of access. But we are not concerned today with matters of conjecture. We are concerned with making a practical decision on a matter of no little public consequence. My hope, as is the hope of other noble Lords on other sides of the House, is that your Lordships' House shall not divide on this subject today.
4.45 p.m.
Lord O'Neill of the Maine: My Lords, at this stage in the debate most of the ground has already been covered but I should like to add a few words. Like everyone else, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, for giving us this opportunity of considering this problem. I have no doubt that before too long all deliberations in the Palace of Westminster will be televised. I am glad to think that your Lordships' House has shown the way.
Most people supplement their news from the papers with radios and television. Not all that many read the parliamentary pages of those papers which have them. Indeed, I have often been surprised when talking to friends to find how little of the news in the newspapers they read. We who have been or are in public life tend to read our papers pretty thoroughly but a lot of people do not. They rely on radio and television for their news. May I suggest in this context that consideration should be given to a slight extension of the radio coverage of Parliament? Perhaps another five minutes on "Today in Parliament" or "Yesterday in Parliament" would be useful. Those of us who visit our Gallery in another place know from personal experience the noise that can go on, especially at Prime Minister's Question Time. It is open to argument whether television would have a good or a bad effect in this respect in another place. Though it has nothing to do with me or perhaps even with your Lordships' House, surely an experiment should be made to see how things turn out.
Lord Mellish: My Lords, will the noble Lord give way for a moment? There was a time not so long ago when Mr. Denis Healey was Chancellor of the Exchequer and it was decided that the day had come when the Budget speech should in fact be broadcast. He was under request or instruction not to speak for longer than one hour, not to be controversial, if he could avoid it, and all Members of Parliament were to keep quiet. That broadcast took place and was voted to be the dullest broadcast that had ever been heard from Parliament.
Lord O'Neill of the Maine: My Lords, nevertheless those of us who have attended Prime Minister's Question Time and have seen how the Prime Minister has to shout to make herself heard must question whether the way we deliberate is perhaps not a little superior. If I may mention the question of ministerial Statements, I appreciate the arrangements which have

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been come to under which the cameras in your Lordships' House have to be switched off when a ministerial Statement is made. But at the same time of course the television companies can get round this by interviewing the person who has made the ministerial Statement, perhaps half an hour after it has been made, and then the whole thing is played together in the evening and people watching do not realise that the Statement was not made in the House. I think that is something which should be considered. I realise, of course, that another place would be very sensitive about it.
Finally, like other Members of your Lordships' House, I think the change that has come about in this House in, say, the last 10 years is wonderful. Ten years ago if you hailed a taxi and said, "House of Lords please", as likely as not you would be taken to the House of Commons. Now that very seldom happens. What is more, I find that taxi drivers are very interested in what is going on in your Lordships' House. The status and position of your Lordships' House has improved out of all recognition, and television is merely the latest example of your Lordships' enhanced situation. Like everybody else, I hope we shall not divide but, if we do, I shall support the Motion put down by the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, with all my heart.
4.52 p.m.
Lord Orr-Ewing: My Lords, I think most of us would wish to congratulate my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter on a masterly introductory speech. It was full not only of good knowledge and good sense but good humour as well, and it set us off on what I think has been a most admirable debate. I think I am appointed in this position rather as a sweeper. Those of you who watched the Cup Final will know that the sweeper is behind the stars, picking up the odd ball here and there and making sure it is not too dangerous to his own side.—
A noble Lord: A wicket keeper.
Lord Orr-Ewing: My Lords, yes, I was a wicket keeper but I gave that up a few years ago. I wanted to pick up some of the points which have not been covered very fully and perhaps to touch on others and enlarge on them. I wanted to cover four points. The first concerns the lights. I was honoured to be the chairman of the sub-committee and I should like to say a word on that. Secondly, I should like to touch on what the rest of the world has done, because sometimes we seem to live on this island as a sort of closed circuit: we do not look sufficiently outside this island to see what is going on when parliaments are televised elsewhere. I also want to say a word on editorial control and, lastly, a word about the future.
I enjoyed working on the sub-committee, partly because I had tremendous co-operation from the BBC and the IBA; but there was co-operation and speed of action, which I had not expected, from the PSA. The very fact that they managed to produce today the restructured light so that we would at least have a chance of seeing what might come about, I think, reveals the speed of the action. They were fitting them
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up over the weekend so that your Lordships' House should be able to see them as they are likely to be. But of course it will take some time to replace all the chandeliers.
I joined the BBC in 1937 and I have always been haunted by lights. I was later in charge of outside broadcasts and of course in those days things were rather easier and the unions less tight. We were allowed into the theatres of London and I remember that we had to pile on a really enormous amount of light. It was very expensive to fit the lights and very unpleasant to sit under them. Television cameras have become much more sensitive and of course the better the camera the lower the light level it needs. Some of us who have had to sit for endless hours at party conferences were always being told that we were sitting under television lights: nowadays films need more light than television but that has not shifted the blame. It is getting better every day and I always found, if I may pursue the point a little here, that lighting engineers in the BBC and other organisations, when in doubt, just add light, because then the picture is clearer, just as the ordinary photographer prefers to take his photographs in sunshine. The colours are better, the grain is less evident and you have a better picture. Incidentally, I always think that we are a little unkind to Her Majesty the Queen. We really put a tremendous amount of light on the Royal Throne for the State Opening. In fact Her Majesty has to sit under three times as much light as we find necessary for the Chamber during television broadcasts.
The amount of light the television authorities say they want is that of 30 foot candles—that is roughly what we have got today—when not reinforced by daylight, by the way. At the moment the sun is shining, or it was a second ago, and so it would be rather a distorted measurement. But when there is no outside light they need 30 foot candles, or roughly 300 lux. It is a strange thing—we have only just become aware of it, I think—that when we are back under our normal lighting, this is rather a dreary and ill-lit Chamber. That is a shame, because it has been redecorated; it is a beautiful Chamber and in wonderful condition now, especially our ceiling, and we never see it at its best.
It is strange also that the standard for government conference rooms in the Whitehall area and elsewhere demands just twice the amount of light that we sit under here every day that we sit. That is why we find it rather dreary, so, even if we do not have television in the future, we shall have improved and updated the lights. What has been done is to redesign; to take the 200-watt bulbs out of each of those fittings (and there are six in each chandelier) and replace them by bulbs of 500 watts. These can be faded under control, so if it is too much for the general lighting when television is not taking place it can be reduced.
I should like to make one point about cameras, because in paragraph 46 of our report—and that went to the printers in March—a reference was made to new cameras. Something has happened since then, because these super-sensitive cameras were going to be supplied by RCA, and although, as we said in our report, they decided not to go ahead with it, Sony have now picked up the design. They tell me that they will

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soon have cameras which are called charge-coupled-device cameras. They are super-sensitive and need only half the amount of light as the present ones. They tell me that these will be available to be demonstrated in this country to European standards (625 lines and PAL system) this September. They should be on the market towards the end of the year. We said in our report—at that time we thought it to be right—that the cameras would not be available for two or three years. That invention is now coming forward, and we shall have less need of high light in the future.
Secondly, I want to turn to see what the rest of the world has done. If your Lordships look at the OECD countries, which I suppose epitomise the more highly developed and rich countries of the world, the vast majority of them have for many years allowed television into their parliaments. All members of the EC, with two exceptions—Ireland and Britain—have for many years allowed their parliaments to be televised. Strangely enough, although we initiated television—we had the first public service television in the world in 1936—we seem to be lacking confidence, although now, as a result of the experiment, I hope we have overcome that. Somehow we did not quite seem to trust the people involved, the producers and so on, enough. They have shown by their example and the people have shown by their enjoyment that the experiment has been well worthwhile. But it is strange that the Austrian Parliament has been televised for over 30 years; Denmark for 36 years; France for 22 years; Sweden for 28 years; Switzerland for 29 years; and West Germany for over 30 years. I hope that we do not have a Division, but if we do I hope the message will go out that at least we are joining the club and are going to have television in the future.
The United States House of Representatives has been televised since 1979, and there they use six cameras. I sometimes wonder whether we are not a little bit under-camera'd here because we always get the same shots from the same angle, with the same people (either very lively or sometimes less lively) in the background. It would be nice to have a change of shots, and perhaps, in due course, we shall have rather more cameras. By the way, in the House of Representatives all the cameras are remote-controlled. My noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway said that they did not have television in both Chambers, but the Senate is starting a six-week experiment on 1st June.
Thirdly, I re-read over the weekend the report of the debate in the House of Commons when the Motion was only very narrowly defeated by 275 votes to 263. It was a very substantial vote, and there was just a dozen in it. It was evident in that debate that there was a good deal of anxiety on all sides of the House as to whether those in editorial control could be trusted to produce a true and fair political balance. I think that both the BBC and the ITA have done their very best during this experiment and have produced a good political balance. There have been glaring examples of where people who we know are leaders in their subject have been missed out of the summary, but somebody will always be missed out and it is only a question of experience. Only by experience does one know that somebody is leading a committee or is an expert on a particular subject, with something worthwhile to
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contribute. In the meantime, there are bound to be a few mistakes.
I very much like the proposed solution. I am glad that the committee did not favour the in-house parliamentary control unit. It is too small a unit to offer good career prospects. It may start very well, but I have a feeling that as it grows up people will be unable to get promotion or the opportunities they want, and they will soon leave it. You do not want a bureaucracy and you do not want the Civil Service doing this. I very much welcome the long-term idea that we should have a contractor or a facilities unit which comes and does it under contract to us and which we have an opportunity of changing if it does not meet the needs. We cover that in paragraph 39 of the report, and I shall not go into it more fully.
What worries me more is what happens when the Select Committee is set up. I hope that it will be set up and that it will be effective, because it has important duties; but what happens if the BBC and the IBA come under such financial pressure that they find it too expensive to carry on, if the House of Commons start their television and reverse the decision, or if the public do not show the interest which they have shown during the experiment? It will be a very difficult moment to say, "Enough is enough". Then, it may be that we feel that those two organisations, admirable as they are, are not spreading the sale of the output to the Commonwealth and to other English-speaking countries who could be interested in it.
Another interesting factor is cable, and I should have mentioned that C-span in the United States has cable television of their House of Representatives all the time, and has done for some years. Maybe that is a solution in the long term, when we have many more channels. But all these factors could vary the position, and no-one here will pretend that we have found the perfect solution which is written on tablets of stone and is not changeable. This is a flexible, temporary solution, not a permanent one, and I hope that the House will feel, as many of us do, that the moment has come when Britain can take the step of televising the House of Lords on a more stable footing and that we should not be overruled by the fact that the Commons is not doing it. It is a sad decision of theirs, but let this House go ahead on the lines that the Select Committee proposes.
Lord Sefton of Garston: My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, who must have thought that he was the sweeper-up of this debate. I did not put my name down because I wanted to hear how the debate went. It has been very favourable to televising the House, and I am certainly not opposed to that. As more than 50 per cent. of the committee have spoken, or will speak before the debate ends, one should not be surprised that the debate is taking the shape of complete support for the committee's recommendations.
Some while ago I asked a supplementary question in this House, and, as some supplementary questions do, it did not relate to the original Question. But I prefaced my remarks by referring to a supplementary question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Mellish, and replied to by the Minister. The reply from the Minister seemed

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to welcome the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Mellish, that it was not a bad idea to have a London Docklands Development Corporation establishing—as Hansard stated—38,000 new jobs. So I asked the Minister whether he did not consider that excessive development of that kind would have a harmful effect on the rest of the regions in this country. The upshot of that was that the noble Viscount, the Leader of the House, told me off in no uncertain terms. I had not the slightest objection to that, because I replied to the Leader of the House later in the debate last week on the same issue.
But that is not the point of my intervention, which will be very brief. The point is that I was asked when I arrived home what kind of a fool was I to ask a question which had no relation at all to the original Question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing. It was a very important question and it hinted at some very wrong malpractices in certain areas of London. I should have thought that television would cover that question, and would stick to it, but it did not. They saw fit to show on television that night merely the altercation between myself and the Leader, which had nothing to do with that important subject. All it had to do with was how this House is controlled, which I suppose is a laudable subject at the right time.
However, I am not allowed to take out of Hansard anything I say out of context. I am, of course, allowed to correct a slip of the tongue or to correct a few words in the wrong place, but, according to the privileges of this House I am not allowed to remove from Hansard a question that I have asked out of context. If I place a question in a certain context, that is how it will go in Hansard. Therefore, on seeing that what I had said had been removed from its context, I complained to the Leader of the House and we have him to thank for the fact that I am intervening. I did not particularly want to intervene in this debate, but he said that he had not seen the programme and perhaps I should complain here in this Chamber. Therefore, I am complaining, but please do not blame me.
I also wrote to the television people who were responsible, saying that they had taken my question out of context. They denied it. They said:
"I find that the only part of your remarks which we omitted, in the item we broadcast, was the following: 'My Lords, arising from the reply of the noble Lord the Minister to the noble Lord, Lord Mellish'.".
They admit that they took that completely out. The reply went on:
"The reason we did not include these introductory words of yours were that neither the supplementary question by Lord Mellish nor the reply by Lord Brabazon of Tara were included in the broadcast item.".
Because they were not in the broadcast item, the television people thought that something I had said should not be included. If that is not a frank admission that they will mould what is said here in order to improve their programmes, or to produce good television, I do not know what is. The reply continued:
"it seemed to us that it might be confusing to viewers if these initial words were included."
That is just too bad. I was not speaking to viewers, I was speaking to the Chamber. If the budding Norman Tebbits on that side had allowed me to say a few more words I should have explained it that day, but they
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prevented me. The letter goes on to quote what was said on television—that,
"Lord Sefton complained that the South of England was getting more money at the expense of the North".
I said no such thing. I pointed that out when I interviewed the person they asked me to interview. The letter then says:
"It, therefore, appears to me that your question was not taken out of context and was appropriately placed within a sensible framework".
That is as good as telling me that I cannot place my questions in a sensible framework in order to get around this problem with supplementary questions that are not related to the original Question. I resent that personally but that is not important. The letter continues:
"If it would be helpful to reassure you on this point"
and then they ask me to meet a Miss Jackie Ashley.
I wrote again after meeting this person and said that I was not reassured and that I believed they had taken it out of context. I am still convinced that they took it out of context. My only reason for intervening today is that the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, mentioned the question of editing. Another noble Lord had reservations. Another noble Lord said that we would have to be very careful. We shall become slaves to good television if we are not very careful.
As the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, pointed out, this Parliament has a long tradition of privilege. I share with the noble Lord, Lord Mellish, a growth of loyalty to the kind of tradition and to the kind of privilege that have established this Parliament as the best one I know. I am not opposing the Motion but I am suggesting that the next time the committee meets it should give some serious consideration to the editing of programmes and to ensuring that the BBC does not do something which we as Members cannot do with Hansard, and does not twist the programmes in order to suit what they consider to be a sensible programme or what they consider to be good television. We have to be careful, and if we are not careful the only way around it will be to have television here all the time, on tap, so that members of the public who want to see this Chamber and the other Chamber can look at it whenever they want—and they will pick the subject.
5.12 p.m.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, after that interesting unscheduled excursion I feel that I should say to the noble Lord, Lord Sefton, that I frankly doubt whether the British public would be willing to allow total, complete and continuous broadcasting of all the proceedings of your Lordships' House merely to ensure that the noble Lord, Lord Sefton, is not upset just occasionally. But I am sorry that he was upset; and I do remember—
Lord Sefton of Garston: My Lords, all the noble Lord would have to do would be to press a button or a switch.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, I recall the incident to which the noble Lord, Lord Sefton, refers. I was here at the time. I also happened to see the programme. I do not know whether it was the BBC or ITV (and I am not

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even sure whether the noble Lord, Lord Sefton, knows which it was) but I frankly doubt whether those hard-worked people went to all that trouble (and perhaps some expense) quite deliberately in order to damage the noble Lord, Lord Sefton. Frankly, I do not regard that as credible. I regard it as a mistake for which I am quite sure the broadcasters are sorry. As the experiment has gone, we have all lived and learnt.
I need say little in winding up this debate on behalf of my noble friends on these Benches. We have a free vote. My recollection of when I have spoken from this Front Bench on previous occasions when we have had a free vote is that my noble friends in the Liberal Party in their undying devotion to freedom tend to feel that a free vote necessarily means that they must automatically vote the opposite way to that recommended by whoever is speaking from the Front Bench. I hope that on this occasion they will perhaps follow my advice.
I must also make a most sincere apology to the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, for not being here at the beginning of his speech. I arrived at the very end of it, having motored more than 300 miles from the Lake District in order to be here. I always enjoy immensely the noble Lord's speeches—I do not always agree with them—and I was looking forward to an occasion when the noble Lord's well-known debating talents and his wit were to be used in support of my case rather than against it. I am so sorry that I missed what would have been for me a very happy experience. I hope that the noble Lord will accept that.
What are we doing today? We are not suddenly slamming any doors; nor are we suddenly opening the doors for ever. People have asked whether this is permanent. We live in a very impermanent world. Nothing is permanent. At any time the broadcasters could be free to say, "We want no more of this". At any time your Lordships' House is entirely free to say, "We have had enough; we do not like the way they do it". It can never be permanent. When finally centuries ago after much argument we admitted the press, it was not permanent. It has proved to be relatively permanent—they still come. They could go if they wished. When I look at the papers which some of them represent and I read through the columns in search of anything about either of the Houses of Parliament and find nothing, I sometimes wonder whether they have in fact gone, but at least they have to come along in order to provide stuff to be spiked—somewhere else, I understand. But it is not permanent.
At any time your Lordships' House could say "No" to the press and at any time the press could say "No". So what are we deciding to do? We are merely deciding to continue to do what we have been doing hitherto now for some months, during which time we have all learned a great deal. We have all come to terms with television in your Lordships' House. The public have learnt a great deal more about your Lordships' House and are better informed about it than they were before. And I am bound to say this—the broadcasters themselves have learned a great deal and have learned continuously. I do not want to comment on any particular programmes but I feel that, as time has gone on, the broadcasters, whether it be Independent
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Television or the BBC, have gradually found methods of reflecting more accurately the mood of your Lordships' House and its true role than perhaps they did initially. That will change and will continue to change, as indeed, as other noble Lords have said, the lighting will change.
One effect of the lighting—and I think the noble Viscount the Leader of the House referred to it at one time—was that once the lights went off some noble Lords were rather dissatisfied with the normal lighting. If noble Lords read the report of the Select Committee, of which I had the honour to be a Member, they will see in evidence given by the PSA in answer to a question that the normal lighting in your Lordships' House does not reach the standard required in a working environment by the Shops, Offices and Railway Premises Act. We are not prosecuted because we are exempt from the provisions of the law in those ways but there is no doubt that our own lighting has improved as a result of the additional lighting for television. Some of us whose vision is not quite as good as it once was have benefited therefrom.
We are in a rapidly evolving and changing situation in which new techniques arise constantly. We shall find presently that perhaps very little extra lighting is needed. I remember that your Select Committee saw some video tape taken with no additional lighting. To me it looked entirely satisfactory. It was not satisfactory to the broadcasters because they do not look at pictures. They look at meters which show them a level of lighting and when they see that it is not up to what it should be they say the picture is no good. They have other standards. It is right that they should all be, as it were, perfectionists, aiming for absolute perfection all the time. But sometimes they cannot have it.
When I asked why they needed this additional lighting and whether the pictures were not entirely unsatisfactory, they said "Yes, but very often these programmes will have to be repeated and recorded and re-repeated. That means we need a much higher quality of picture initially". I then reminded them of a clip of a television programme that has been repeated over and over again. It was, as some noble Lords will remember, the last over of the Gillette Cup semi-final at Old Trafford in Manchester. David Hughes scored 28 in the last over to win the match, almost in the pitch dark. I was in the pavilion. You could not see the match at all. You could just see it on television. That has been repeated over and over again. The lesson is that probably the level of lighting actually required by the viewer, though not perhaps by the broadcasters themselves, is sometimes rather less than the professionals in broadcasting would think.
Nevertheless, we are in a changing situation in which new technology is rapidly developing. As the noble Lord On-Ewing has said, new cameras are on the way. I have no doubt that the time will come when we shall have them. For the moment, I believe that the camera operators and cameramen have done a splendid job. They have been wholly unobtrusive and I do not imagine that any noble Lord anywhere in your Lordships' House has had any kind of complaint against anybody working for either of the broadcasting organisations during the time that they have been

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televising our proceedings. It is possible that there could be better cameras and better lighting. We must all wait and see. Things will change and things will evolve.
One noble Lord queried what would happen if another place began having its proceedings televised, and he wondered whether all broadcasts from this House would stop. Look what has happened with radio. Both Houses are continuously recorded for sound radio. The fact that the other place is recorded does not mean that your Lordships' House never receives any attention on sound radio. Indeed, an analysis of those programmes has shown that, despite the coverage of another place, your Lordships' House receives quite a lot of coverage on radio, because the broadcasters themselves find that it offers interesting material and because their market research shows that listeners like to hear it.
I suggest that we shall have the same experience in respect of television if another place is eventually televised as well as this House. We may not receive as much coverage, but, as and when the proceedings in your Lordships' House are of particular interest, I believe that the broadcasters will be sufficiently perceptive and sufficiently understanding to see that they have something that is of value and something that will be appreciated by the viewing public. I believe, therefore, that we shall continue to receive television coverage.
The noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Swynnerton, was extremely suspicious of the broadcasters. He said that they had of course been on their best behaviour because they knew that they had to be—that they were on trial and that somehow we could bring the experiment to an end. The broadcasters will always be on trial. The noble Lord is quite right to be suspicious. If there was no kind of eye kept on on the broadcasters by anybody, then standards could change. I do not mean to say that they would change deliberately, but of necessity.
It is true that independent television is controlled by the Act and that the BBC is controlled by its charter, to present an impartial and wholly fair and balanced picture. Further, I believe that there might occasionally be lapses, although not deliberately. But, if we want our proceedings to be televised, we must accept that it is a professional job and that we must trust the broadcasters to do it. If we cannot trust them to do it, then we should say "No" and stop. It is not something that we can do ourselves.
I do not need to say any more, save to express the hope that so many noble Lords have expressed, that we shall not have a Division and that, if we do, it will be carried very substantially. In the very early debates that we had, I said that noble Lords were being asked to vote for an experiment and the fact that they were being asked to vote for an experiment in no way preempted their right to take a different decision in the future.
I repeat that, if there are noble Lords who still believe that it is wrong to televise our proceedings, then they would be right to say so. However, I think that the experience we have had of many months of televising your Lordships's House has done everything possible to allay anxiety. I myself do not believe that
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there is any noble Lord who would wish to say "No" here and now.
To say "No" in the first place to having television here at all is very different from the public point of view—having had television here for many months with obvious public appreciation of it—from suddenly turning round now and saying, "No more." That could be very damaging to your Lordships' House and I hope that we shall not do it.
5.23 p.m.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede: My Lords, perhaps I may, as on the occasion of the two previous debates that we have had on the televising of this House, start by saying that I am of course expressing from this Dispatch Box a personal view on this question and not an official view on behalf of the Opposition.
I should first like to add to the thanks that other noble Lords have expressed to the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, for his very skilful chairmanship of the committee, which managed to produce a unanimous report. I can assure noble Lords who did not serve on that committee that that required a considerable degree of statesmanship from the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare.
We have already covered most of the ground, if not all of the ground, in our debate this afternoon. Your Lordships, rightly, take the proceedings of this House very seriously. We believe that we have a heavy job to do in revising Government legislation. We believe that that is a worthwhile job, particularly when the Government listen to what is said. We do not believe that this House is a rubber stamp. Mercifully, there is a time in our proceedings for mirth and lightheartedness, but that should not belittle the main thrust of our work. We also perform the very important role of acting as a forum in which to raise issues of public concern.
In so far as the television producers reflect the balance of that work I believe that your Lordships should on the whole be happy with the experiment and should support the Motion that the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, has moved this afternoon. I may add—and I think this has already been said—that I found myself more in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, on this occasion than I do normally.
If your Lordships were to find that the producers were trivialising our affairs, you would take a very different view this afternoon. Certainly there were times during the experiment when I was fearful that that might be about to happen, but I am satisfied that in recent weeks that danger has largely disappeared. The daily programme "Their Lordships' House" and the recently introduced weekly BBC programme are both responsible programmes that reflect well on the work of this House.
Although we do not have any figures as yet for the BBC programme, we know, as the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, has said in his opening remarks, that 300,000 viewers watch each evening and 200,000 watch on the subsequent day when the other programme is repeated. There is an obvious public interest in our proceedings. The noble Lord was right to frame his Motion in the way that he has done. If the

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programme makers should fall from their present high standards, your Lordships can reverse the decision that I feel sure the House will reach today.
It is perhaps ironic that one of the major problems that the television companies face in the televising of this House—and it is one that your Lordships face and are about to face with a vengeance—is the unevenness of your Lordships' programme of work throughout the year. Since the beginning of the experiment we have witnessed the intermittent televising of our proceedings during the autumn and winter months and the regular broadcasting of our proceedings during the summer months. I suggest that that is a pattern that is likely to continue in the future.
As I understand it, money has been provided by the independent television companies to continue to the Summer Recess, as has already been outlined by the chairman of the committee, the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare. No doubt that depends on the public continuing to support the experiment by viewing our proceedings. We have no evidence that that will not continue to be so.
During the debate today several noble Lords have mentioned the question of bias. Certainly I am aware of many complaints made to me about that aspect. I am also aware that many complaints have been made by noble Lords on the other side of the House about the question of bias. If complaints are made about bias on all sides of the House, I for one take it that, taking one programme with another, there must be a fair degree of satisfaction that the programmes are being fairly edited.
We have today had many references to the question of lighting. The new lights are good and allow us, as the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, said, to comply for the first time with the Offices, Shops and Railway Premises Act. However, it is important that the temporary lighting be removed as soon as possible. It is offensive that a Chamber on which so many millions of pounds of public money has been spent should be rendered so ugly by the intrusion of these lights and the scaffolding. I think the preservationists need not worry about the new lights—that they are not fully "Puginised"—because no doubt they will recall that the original lights in the Chamber were gas lights which were very different in design from the electric lights which we enjoy today.
Another matter of concern to noble Lords has been whether the behaviour of noble Lords has changed with the advent of lights. For myself, I agree with those noble Lords who said that, by and large, since the experiment has settled down they have not noticed any particular difference in behaviour by noble Lords during debates which are being recorded and broadcast later. However, I would make a slight reservation about behaviour during live broadcasts. I may say that I have had frequent requests from noble Lords who wish to speak early when they know that the programmes are to be broadcast live for only a limited period of time. As to that, I take the view that I should ignore the fact that the broadcasts are to be live and arrange, so far as it is within my power, the speakers' list in the same way as if the debates were not being broadcast live. The noble Lord, Lord Thomas of
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Swynnerton, who I see has reappeared, questioned whether this would always be so. I have a marginal agreement with him when we come to the question of live broadcasts.
The noble Lord, Lord O'Neill of the Maine, raised the vexed question of ministerial Statements. This is a problem which I know worries the producers considerably. We sometimes have ministerial Statements initiated in this House, particularly when statements are made by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Graffham, and I would have thought that on those occasions the broadcasters should have an opportunity of broadcasting Statements made in this House. Under the rules they are, of course allowed to do so. I may add that in this context I am sometimes slightly annoyed that when a Statement is made in this House by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Graffham, the sound broadcast programmes report the repeat of the Statement in another place rather than the original Statement being made in this House which, of course, can be broadcast and can be televised.
Another question not raised today but which has been raised with me on various occasions is whether it is right that this House should continue televising when another place has voted not to admit the cameras into its Chamber. There could have been something in that argument if the way the experiment was being conducted portrayed this House as a rival to another place. Fortunately, the good sense of all involved in this experiment has meant that that problem has not arisen. I believe that your Lordships, the television companies and everyone else involved have behaved very responsibly in this experiment and that it would be right for it to continue.
5.34 p.m.
Viscount Whitelaw: My Lords, we last debated the televising of our proceedings in July last year. On that occasion I said that we would have a full day's debate on the question of whether or not to continue permanently with television once the Select Committee had reported. The Select Committee has reported, we have had our debate this afternoon and in a short time we shall reach a decision.
Before that, perhaps I should start by thanking my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter for the way in which he introduced the debate, which has been widely praised on all sides of the House this afternoon. I believe that the obvious success of the debate is due very much to the way in which he introduced it. I should like also to associate myself with my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter and with the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, in thanking the chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, and the members of his committee for all their work. They have produced a report which has provided your Lordships with all the material which we needed to enable us to reach a decision on the future of televising. Whatever the result may be I think the debate this afternoon, which has covered nearly all the points that the committee put before us, has done a great deal to show the value of what the committee has done. I am sure the House would wish me, on behalf of all of us, to thank the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, and his committee very much indeed.
Noble Lords: Hear, hear.
Viscount Whitelaw: My Lords, my own views on televising are well known to your Lordships as I have expressed them in debate on previous occasions. I can assure your Lordships that I am not going to bore you again with them except to say that I have for a long time wanted to see the televising of Parliament; and I say advisedly, of Parliament. Nothing that has emerged from our experiment, which has now been running for some 15 months, has led me to change my views.
Perhaps I may start by referring to one point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby. In expressing any views about another place, I believe that the less time you have been away from it the less you must say about it, or someone will take you up and complain bitterly about your behaviour. Therefore, I shall not do that except to say—and this they cannot complain about—that it is a very different place from your Lordships' House. It would create very much greater difficulties for televising for editorial control, and for many aspects of broadcasting than does your Lordships' House. I think that goes a long way towards making us realise that the problems of televising your Lordships' House and televising another place are, in my judgment, very different indeed.
I should like to turn from that aspect to one point raised by the noble Lord, Lord O'Neill of the Maine, and something for which I am largely responsible; namely, ministerial Statements. This point was also raised by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby. I am sure that your Lordships realise that if I were now, with some of my colleagues, to raise this question in general, in view of the decision by the other place about televising, I would, to put it mildly, be treading on delicate ground. It is sometimes necessary for me, on behalf of your Lordships, to do just that; but I prefer not to tread on delicate ground when I do not have to do so. The only way to avoid that difficulty is not to raise the question of ministerial Statements in general. However, I accept what the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, said about the position of my noble friend Lord Young of Graffham, and I think I might pursue that point. The best way I can do that is to use that favourite phrase in politics and say, "I shall see how I get along". I do not see any reason in principle why that should not be the case and I should like to think that it could be.
The noble Lord, Lord Ardwick, in a most amusing speech, raised some of the doubts and apprehensions that many people had at the start of the experiment. The question he first raised was that of different behaviour—a point also touched on by my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter. One observation made by the noble Lord, Lord Ardwick, was that he had not noticed that attention to the clock had actually diminished or increased as a result of the televising of your Lordships' House. Had there been even less attention paid to clocks than before, I am not sure that my noble friend the Chief Whip would have remained quite so fervent a supporter of televising the proceedings of this House as I know him to be.
As regards the question of those who appear to have a major contribution to make to your Lordships' House on a very wide and extensive variety of subjects, I can only say that that is their affair and it is not a matter for the Leader of the House, unless they go
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further than the Procedure Committee or the House wishes. I think I should be wrong to comment further than that. I do not think that televising the proceedings of your Lordships' House has made the slightest difference, at least to my notice, to much of that. I think the position is very much as it was.
The lights have been referred to by my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing and by the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley. I am glad to hear that your Lordships think that the new chandeliers are an improvement. I must say I feel that they are an improvement. As I sat here this afternoon, I found that I had more trouble from the sun shining straight at me than I had from the lights. Of course, as I come from the North of England I am not used to the sun, so I understand only too well that what I find something of a strain may be felt somewhat differently by other noble Lords.
I think that I should now turn for a moment to the costs. The Select Committee believes that the cost of the clean feed method, which it describes in its report, is impracticable unless both Houses decide on the permanent televising of proceedings. I think that must be correct. I must repeat what I have said before: that there is, one might say, no extra money likely to be provided by the Government in the current circumstances. If I referred to treading on delicate ground so far as ministerial Statements are concerned, your Lordships can imagine my position if I were to raise with the Chancellor of the Exchequer the idea of some more money for the televising of your Lordships' House. I must say that I think I know what the answer would be and I do not believe in asking questions to which I know the answer, particularly if that answer is likely to be, no. I think we must accept that that is the position and that therefore we cannot go forward with the clean feed experiment, which would be costly if another place decided against it.
As set out in Part III of its report, the committee then turned to the solution, which of course is largely a continuation of existing practice at no cost to the House. Improvements that are still within reasonable finances can be made to the lighting of the Chamber, as I think we have seen this afternoon to some extent (I hope it can be continued) and to fitting out a committee room for television broadcasting. I found extremely interesting, as I am sure your Lordships did also, the report of the televising of the Select Committee under the chairmanship of my noble friend Lord Aldington, and I think it gave some lessons for the future. Speaking purely for myself, I hope that there will be opportunities to televise more of the Select Committees, as I think that is a very valuable part of the work of our House. Therefore I hope that this may happen.
Then there is the question of finding accommodation in the House for producing a signal and editing, so as to allow broadcasters to discontinue the use of the portakabins in Black Rod's garden. I did not know where Black Rod's garden was until it was suggested that I might go and make a television broadcast in one of the portakabins. As a result, I must agree with both proposals. I think that Black Rod's garden should be returned to Black Rod and be returned to its state of a garden again. I do not believe your Lordships would think it is that at the moment with the presence of the portakabins. As for the portakabins, the older one

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becomes and the larger one is, the more difficult one finds it to get in and out of portakabins. If I could make my broadcasts without getting in or out of a portakabin, I should be much happier.
I understand that the cost implications of the proposals before the House are modest and may amount to an eventual expenditure of the order of £100,000 at the outside. I understand that there is also the possibility of some contribution from the BBC and ITN toward lighting costs, and that some additional provision may have to be made in the future PSA estimates. However, I think one is here not talking of large sums of money and I think that that can be achieved.
I turn to a matter that has been raised by many noble Lords—that is, the question of editorial control. This subject was raised most particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, at the end of his speech, where he stressed—very rightly in my judgement—the extreme importance of successful editorial control. In the course of our experiment I myself have received a number of complaints relating to edited material and the use of footage. One of the complaints has been given good publicity this afternoon: the one that I received from the noble Lord, Lord Sefton.
Perhaps I may say to the noble Lord, Lord Sefton, that I do not think he came quite so badly out of that exchange as he thinks. Perhaps I may tell your Lordships my side of the story, which may make the noble Lord happier. I met a man in the North of England who said to me, "You interrupted that Peer from Liverpool". I said, "Yes", and he said, "You had no business to do that. He knows much more about Liverpool than you do"; to which I replied, "Yes, he most certainly does". My efforts to explain the position of the Leader of the House, the need to preserve the wishes of the House and the procedures of the House and to uphold the Select Committee on Procedure in your Lordships' House, did not have much effect on this man, whom I do not think I can describe as my friend. All he said when I had explained it all was, "Well, anyway, I would much rather listen to that man from Liverpool than I would to you". So I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Sefton, can feel that he did too badly out of that exchange.
However, while of course I agree wholeheartedly with the Select Committee that there can be little dissatisfaction with the standard of editing and the balance which is achieved within specific programmes by those responsible, obviously if your Lordships set up the committee (a matter which I shall turn to in a moment) we shall there have the opportunity for that committee to keep considerable watch on complaints, particularly complaints about editorial control. I agree very much with the noble Lord, Lord Aylestone, about more regional coverage. I hope that the broadcasting authorities will consider this point, because I think that it will be extremely valuable. If the House decides to go forward and if we give them more stability, I think that is something they may be able to do.
I now turn to the whole question of the committee. The noble Lord, Lord Mellish, if I may say so to him in view of our past association in another place, in a typically robust and determined manner said that he
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hoped it would be a good committee. Both he and I have had in the past some experience in picking Members to sit on various committees in another place, and I can assure him that it is very important indeed—and I am sure the usual channels will make sure of it, as I think they did for the committee which produced this report—that there will be a balanced committee and that it will take into account the views of those people who are against televising just as much as the views of those who are in favour of it. So, if your Lordships agree to the Motion in the name of my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter I shall in the near future—possibly before the Whitsun Recess—move the setting up of a Select Committee to supervise these matters.
I think that the suggestion of the Select Committee that this supervisory committee should look after both television broadcasting and sound broadcasting and take over the functions of our existing Sound Broadcasting Committee is a good one, and unless other representations are made for me to consider that is what I shall be proposing to the House. That of course is what was proposed by my noble friend Lord Aberdare and his committee.
Finally, I should like to say something on the permanence of the arrangements for televising the proceedings of our House. The Motion of my noble friend proposes that televising should continue until the House orders otherwise. Of course that power must always rest with the House itself. The House itself has the right to discontinue its broadcasting arrangements or to adapt them further in the course of time, if that is what the House wishes.
My noble friend Lord Harmar-Nicholls, who I think has left the scene, wondered how that would come about. If a substantial body of opinion wanted the matter raised again in another debate, I say to the whole House that it would be my duty through the usual channels to arrange a time. I give the House that absolute assurance.
There are those who wish that we had never embarked upon the endeavour, like my noble friend Lord Thomas of Swynnerton. He referred to the decline in reading as a result of people watching much more television. I am sure that that is true. If everyone wrote as well as he does, the loss would be even greater, but, alas, not everyone does. I should prefer to watch television than read some of the things that I sometimes have to read elsewhere. But I understand his reservations and those of many others. That is why it is important that we should make clear, on the one hand, where the power of the House lies if the Motion is passed, and, on the other, what is likely to happen in the future. If the Motion is passed, your Lordships may feel that it would only be reasonable for us to give the broadcasting authorities a good run and thus some stability on which to plan their programmes for the future. That is a thought that I put before your Lordships.
It seems that your Lordships now wish to come to a decision. In view of my own feelings, I naturally hope very much that it will be in favour of continuing the broadcasting. But as Leader of your Lordships' House I hope that I have made it clear how we would seek to proceed if the Motion were passed.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, this has been a good debate and a particularly good humoured debate, with a large measure of agreement as to what we should do from noble Lords on all sides of the House. That, among other things, has the happy consequence of eliminating the necessity for me to inflict a second speech on your Lordships.
I wish to say only a few words in connection with the one doubting speech which was admirably made, if he will allow me to say so, by my noble friend Lord Thomas of Swynnerton. I hope that he will allow me to say that I believe that your Lordships generally liked the moderation with which he expressed what are undoubtedly strongly held doubts. I was glad to hear my noble friend the Leader of the House say that he would meet the point that he made about the composition of the Select Committee that is to monitor and supervise the broadcasting, if it continues. My noble friend asked for sceptics to be included, and I should have thought that that is sensible, practical and very much in accordance with the general practice of this House.
I hope, too, that the Select Committee will consider and discuss with the broadcasting agencies in particular the point that has been raised about facilities for regional broadcasts. In the nature of things people who live a long way from London have less opportunity to come into our Galleries to listen to our debates. Therefore the advantage to them of programmes dealing with their regional problems may be of special importance. I hope, too, that the committee will consider the broadcasting of Select Committees. The experiment with that presided over by my noble friend Lord Aldington aroused great interest. As your Lordships know, our Select Committees, particularly in the European field, do a remarkable job of work which I think it would be of interest to our fellow countrymen to see. Finally, I hope that the Select Committee will closely consider what was touched on in the debate—the possibility of cable broadcasting which, if the evidence of the cable authority is accepted, could be designed to provide a continuous programme on cable of your Lordships' proceedings. Having said that, I commend the Motion to your Lordships.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Copyright Material: Protection
5.55 p.m.
Viscount Blakenham Viscount Blakenham rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in view of the problem caused to British industry by the sales of pirated copyright material, they will take immediate steps to ensure that the protection of intellectual property is accorded the highest priority on the international commercial agenda and in particular will give it prominence in the forthcoming GATT negotiations.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, are your Lordships aware that this country is now forgoing over £1,000 million a year in lost sales and royalties as a result of the piracy of British intellectual and industrial property in overseas markets, and that, far from its being a problem confined to certain notorious
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countries in the Far East, piracy is now a problem world wide? I think that a lot of noble Lords cannot have known that or they would not have left the Chamber.
If I describe a country where virtually every item of computer software and every film, video, book and best-selling recording is available in pirated editions, and where English language textbooks are systematically reproduced, bound, distributed and sold by commercial organisations on all university campuses, I could just as easily be talking about Turkey as Taiwan.
My purpose in raising this Question is not only to alert your Lordships to the seriousness of the problem but to point out to the Government why and how Britain's intellectual property can and must be protected. Before doing so, I should declare an interest in the intellectual property industry. I am chairman of the Pearson group of companies, which includes book, film and newspaper publishing interests, all of which are vulnerable to piracy. Recently I have become chairman of the United Kingdom Anti-Piracy Group, under the umbrella of the Confederation of Information Communication Industries (CICI), which represents almost the entire UK information industry.
Secondly, it may be helpful if I attempt to define both "intellectual property" and "piracy". "Intellectual property" is a term that covers all innovative and creative output, whether new industrial products or literary, musical or artistic works. It embraces industrial design, broadcasting, videos, computer software and electronic databases, as well as poetry, prose and paintings. As such it represents an area in which we in this country have achieved significant success and particular distinction.
The UK information and copyright industries provide employment for over half a million people. They have a turnover of nearly £16 billion in gross sales and contribute £6 billion in gross value added terms to the economy. That represents approximately 2½ per cent. of our gross domestic product. Patent production of course represents an even larger part of the economy, but it is copyright products with which I am primarily concerned today.
"Piracy" is quite simply the reproduction of protected intellectual property without the consent of the rights holder. Unfortunately, one common feature of intellectual property is that its origination costs are disproportionately high in relation to reproduction costs. The consequence of that is that a work can be reproduced very cheaply if the origination costs and the royalties owed to the creator are not paid. To some extent this has always been true, but intellectual property has become far more vulnerable in recent years as a result of the wide dissemination of low-cost reproduction equipment such as offset printing presses, photo-copying machines, audio cassettes and video recorders.
How many times have we heard it said that the British are good at inventing products but allow others to develop them? Part of the problem may be that we do not market our ideas as successfully as we should, but neither do we always secure the protection for them in other countries that would enable us fully to benefit from the investment that we have made. It is

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the proper exploitation through legitimate sales that earns the returns to pay for the investment of skills and money in the original product and for developing new products in the future. That is important. It is in information and invention that Britain has particular skills which will be the basis of our future economic growth and an increasingly large part of our whole economy, yet it is that which is being increasingly being put at risk by piracy.
The industries affected by piracy have been particularly hard working in protecting their interests by investigation, litigation and negotiation. It was action in Singapore by the British and United States industries, including expensive legal action, which led to the Singapore Government's welcome intention to introduce new copyright legislation and to extend its protection to British works. Similar progress is being made in Taiwan, but there is a limit to what individual companies and industries can do. For instance, they can only take legal action in countries where there is a law that protects their products, and even where there is legislation, litigation may be pointless if the sanctions are likely to be too feeble to constitute any sort of proper deterrent. Action is needed at government level. The important interests at stake demand a co-ordinated policy by Her Majesty's Government.
In the past, the Government have persisted in regarding the issue of intellectual property protection as a technical and legalistic problem rather than the vital trade issue that it is. The standard response to requests for Government action against piracy has been to ask for evidence of the scale of the problem. Evidence is the soft underbelly of piracy allegations because it is so hard to come by. Pirates do not keep accounts or, if they do, they do not publish them. However, the anti-piracy group has recently compiled a report entitled International Piracy—the Threat to the British Copyright Industries, which sets out the position for just two industries in only eight territories. In those eight territories alone, the publishing and recording industries are foregoing at least £.158 million per year in lost sales. The report details preventive measures taken by the copyright industries and requests specific action by the Government.
The Department of Trade and Industry has agreed to study that report and to respond to it and there has been, I am glad to say, a discernible improvement in the Government's readiness to respond to calls for assistance. We very much welcome, for instance, the Prime Minister's undertaking to raise the issue in her recent talks with President Chun Doo Hwan in Korea. But a willingness on the part of government Ministers to raise that issue directly and forcefully in bilateral talks with offending governments, while essential if the governments involved are to be convinced that the United Kingdom attaches real importance to the matter, is only one of the options open to the Government.
The Government must have a coherent and constructive policy and should not limit their activities to reacting on a case-by-case basis. The defence of our intellectual property is of such importance to our trade and to our future economy that it must be given a far higher priority on the international commercial
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agenda, and the best place to start is the forthcoming GATT negotiations. GATT remains the principal international organisation concerned with substantive issues of trade policy and is the international organisation best placed to enforce and reinforce international protection, yet the British Government have shown a reluctance to widen the scope of GATT to include the basic protection of intellectual property for fear of overburdening it.
The Government have indicated that they prefer to leave international enforcement to the United Nations agencies, the World Intellectual Property Organisation in Geneva and UNESCO in Paris, which have the job of administering the international conventions. I am sure that they do it very well, but they do not have any sanctions to enforce protection. We are talking about international trade and there is no reason why countries should enjoy trade preference without giving proper internationally accepted protection to the trade in intellectual property of their trading partners.
To be fair, the Government are, according to their recent White Paper, prepared to support a GATT code against counterfeiting to enable customs authorities to take action against counterfeit imports bearing an unauthorised trade mark, but that does not cover the piracy of intellectual property in general and is only scratching the surface of what is a major international scandal. We are dealing with theft on a grand scale.
It is generally recognised that this country's economy will increasingly be innovation- and information-based. It is time the Government shifted their priorities accordingly. If they decide to do so, they will be doing no more than following the example set by current United States Government policy on that issue. Mr. Clayton Yeutter, the United States trade representative (the equivalent of our Minister for Trade) announced last month that the Reagan Administration would:
"seek to conclude, in the new GATT round of multilateral trade negotiations, an enforceable multilateral trade agreement against trade-distorting practices arising from inadequate national protection of intellectual properties".
Unfortunately, Her Majesty's Government seemed disinclined to follow that important lead and hence my question today.
The Americans are our chief competitors in the intellectual property market and our sound recording and book publishing industries at least are competing very successfully with theirs. The United States Government clearly appreciate the importance of protecting their intellectual property industry. Is it not time for Her Majesty's Government to accord the issue a similar priority and to demonstrate that by clear, unequivocal action, particularly in the important GATT round starting this autumn?
6.10 p.m.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, I should like to congratulate the noble Viscount on raising this important Question. Most people are, I believe, aware of the revolutions that have changed the nature of our society. Most people are conscious of what the internal combustion engine has done to us. Most people are ready to talk about Caxton. But what is not generally realised is the extraordinary changes that have taken place as a result of the capacity to reproduce in

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quantity written material and other material, and also the consequences of the capacity, by mechanical or electronics means, to reproduce human performance—musical performance and other forms of performance. This has had a most profound effect upon the nature of our society. At one time, even when I was young, the possibility of producing 100 copies of something that was written was completely out of the question. Now, millions of copies are produced all over the world.
The same applies to the question of performance, in which I am particularly interested because of my long association with the British Actors' Equity Association. It has been an amazing revolution. At one time, in order to enjoy the process of communication, the performer had to appear in the same building as the audience. The numbers of people were relatively comparable. There were perhaps 10 peformers or, with an orchestra, maybe 100, on stage and about 1,000 or possibly up to a maximum of 3,000 in the auditorium. Now, through the means of gramophone recordings—the first example of mechanical reproduction—the performance is reproduced, repeated and so forth.
My interest arises not only in relation to copyright, although that is important, but also in relation to contract. We have had to look afresh at the whole problem of copyright in terms of the author and of performers. Your Lordships will be well aware that some performances are even more important than the object that is performed, whether this relates to a book, a play, or television. The performer is directly concerned. It affects him in relation to copyright and in relation to contract. He makes a contract with the original purchaser of his performance, perhaps the BBC, which says that it will pay him so much for televising, for sound radio, for reproducing, or whatever it may be, and that if it is done on further occasions or transmitted elsewhere in the world, he will be paid further sums. However, should the performance be pirated, the performer will see no further sums. Obviously, if a performance is taken off in another country and reproduced there without any remuneration to the original producer in this country, the original producer has no liability whatever; nor can he be expected to pay any further remuneration to the performer.
This is, therefore, a matter that concerns all of us, not only those who are concerned with the business of providing art or entertainment, but also those involved in the reception of art and entertainment or the experience of art and entertainment. If we find, in the kind of world in which we live, that pirating becomes the norm, this must, in the long run, depreciate the quality of the original object. It cannot possibly be avoided. It is therefore important to the entrepreneur and to the conveyer, to the artist, to the musician and to the actor, that there shall be some integrity in the whole process. That is what has been lost. Not primarily in this country, although it has, to some extent, been lost here, too, but over the entire globe a situation has arisen requiring some action to be taken to try to introduce some rationality.
I have received a letter for which I am, I suppose, responsible in part, although it could also be attributed
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to suggestions of your Lordships that I should take an interest in these matters, from the Confederation of Information Communication Industries. The noble Viscount is, I believe, chairman of its anti-piracy group. The organisation seems to me to consist largely of producers. I want to suggest to the noble Viscount that it might be a good idea for him to approach the organisations of writers, performers, and so forth in order to establish a common front in this area. It seems to me that those, as I have tried to suggest, who are concerned in the actual job are just as much involved as those who are producing. I believe that there would be a perception among performers' unions and writers' organisations that they have a common interest.
It is difficult to find the right word. The word "intellectual" frightens people in this country terribly. It is rejected almost as firmly as the world "culture", I once wrote a book which I mistakenly called The Culture Gap. It created a record in failing to sell. All that I can tell your Lordships is that it is still in print; so there is still hope. But the notion of information really does not convey the whole story. The notion of intellectual property is a little off-putting. One has to find the right approach to this problem if there is to be the depth and width of appreciation and support that it clearly deserves.
I have little interest these days in newspapers. They seem to me to have declined horribly, so that they are no longer entitled to the name "fourth estate" or any other estate. I am, however, concerned with books and with films. I am even concerned with video. That does not necessarily have to be a video nasty. Such organisations, concerned with this revolution, are entitled to receive from the Government an interest that I do not want to suggest that they have failed to receive. The noble Viscount is, however, entitled to make the point that the interest expressed by the Government in their own document, which, I think, is a good one, needs to be supported by more in the way of action. That is, I believe, what the noble Viscount is calling for. I support him in that call. I hope that we shall receive from the Government this evening the sort of answer that will persuade us that they are taking the matter as seriously as it deserves to be taken.
6.18 p.m.
Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran: My Lords, I wish to join in congratulating the noble Viscount, Lord Blakenham, on raising this important matter. The noble Viscount has made a realistic, valuable and important speech, in a wide international context clearly pointing out the problems for British industry and the United Kingdom economy caused by this scandalous and ruthless international piracy. I agree that the noble Viscount summed up the position of the Government very clearly and in happy phraseology when he indicated, if I recall his words correctly, that the Government have hitherto dealt with the matter by taking a technical and legalistic view instead of treating it as a vital trade matter.
Before joining the noble Viscount in throwing a few small pebbles at the Government, I should like to congratulate the Government on certain generalisations to be found in the White Paper, Intellectual Property and Innovation. At paragraph 1.12 on page 7 the Government state:

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"The Government therefore intends that a higher priority and profile should be given to publicising the value of intellectual property".
Sometimes I share with the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney, the associations with the word "intellectual". It used to be called "industrial property" covering patents, trade marks, designs, know-how and copyright. But this became rather mixed up with the law for building factories and other buildings. It was therefore decided to set up a world intellectual property organisation, known as WIPO. I think that "intellectual property" is quite a good name for property based on ideas, as this is.
At this stage I ought to declare an interest. For the whole of my adult life I have been concerned internationally at the Bar with nothing but intellectual property in its widest sense. I am so glad to see an old protagonist of mine, the noble Lord, Lord Cawley, in his place in the Chamber tonight. I do not practise in the courts, but I have a great interest internationally in the problem raised by this kind of piracy.
If one looks at the opening paragraph of this White Paper it would appear that the Government are again inclined to deal with the problems in a narrow and legalistic way without considering how important it is for trade. Paragraph 1 states:
"Intellectual property is about creative ideas … Widespread dissemination of these ideas benefits society as a whole and stimulates further creative activity. However, once ideas have been made public they can be copied by others, so that if their originators are to control and obtain remuneration from their use they can only do so within a secure legal framework which creates property rights in those ideas".
That is not sufficient with regard to the subject which we are discussing this evening. It is not merely a legal framework that is necessary. However, as the title to this debate indicates, the matter should be put on an international agenda.
As the noble Viscount said, the GATT discussions by the Government should be accompanied by a forceful approach on this question of copyright, as well as counterfeiting in relation to trade marks. There is this world international property organisation, known as WIPO, which is much concerned with patent and trade mark law, but not so much with copyright. Although attempts were being made at meetings of WIPO recently to extend its international functions, having regard to this piracy, the reports which I have received of recent meetings do not encourage me to think that very much will come from that quarter for at least some time.
It seems to me that it is necessary to have firm diplomacy. The Government must act in the way I believe the Prime Minister acted on the recent visit abroad to which the noble Viscount referred. Firm diplomacy is necessary at government level in view of the extent of this piracy. It is necessary for the Government to raise these matters forcefully in the EC, not only in the context of some directives—to which I shall refer later—but generally in the spirit and within the scope of competition law, of which I have had considerable experience during these last 25 years.
In my view the Government should press for proper laws to protect the rights of British industry in this country and abroad. They should put diplomatic pressure on governments both bilaterally and through
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organs such as the EC. There is now an EC regulation which provides for concerted action against illicit trade practices. The Government should join their EC partners in exploring the possibility of using this against the worst offenders. I understand that an action has been taken by an individual organisation in this country, but it is necessary under the EC rules, in order to make the attack more formidable, to join with a member state. I understand that an organisation known as the International Federation of Phonogram and Videogram Producers (known as IFPI) wrote to the Minister some time ago in respect of this matter. I gave notice only a couple of hours before this debate that I shall ask the Minister to make some comments about that memorandum during the couse of his reply or at a later stage.
I do not want to take up the time of the House this evening in amplifying the important matters so ably and coherently summarised by the noble Viscount in introducing this matter. Apart from a legal framework, to which the Government refer in the White Paper, what is required is a firm diplomatic effort by the Government to stop an international scandal. I would respectfully suggest that there is such an opportunity within the context of the EC, with the directives which are now being discussed. I understand that there is a regulation on counterfeiting under consideration by the Council of Ministers, and that should include copyright. I strongly support the matters raised by the noble Viscount in his speech.
6.27 p.m.
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, you will probably by now appreciate that piracy is not dead, for although the traditional form of maritime piracy has gradually faded as this century has progressed, a new form of piracy called publishing piracy has now sprung up to take its place. As yet, and as far as we know, flashing sabres in the hands of ferocious swashbucklers are not in order, but the loot, the treasure, is—even allowing for inflation—just as great and is most certainly much easier to come by. Perhaps at this juncture I should decare an interest, not—your Lordships will be relieved to learn—one of a piratical nature, but rather as a director of a United Kingdom bookselling organisation.
In my maiden speech, not all that long ago, I talked of another form of publishing piracy which at that time was strongly rumoured to be an evil glint in the Chancellor's eye; that of a possible value added tax on books. With immense relief to the industry that was eventually scuppered. We now have to scupper another. This form of piracy, however, is altogether different since it is very distant from our shores and is dependent upon the ability of Her Majesty's Government to persuade, gently to coerce, and to cajole foreign governments to legislate and prosecute these publishing pimps.
The British book publishing industry lies immediately behind the United States publishing industry in size and thus it is the second largest publishing industry in the world. It contributes £1.95 billion to the economy and employs 45,000 people. Such figures alone—and not even allowing for the enormous value of the knowledge and culture it imparts—must surely demonstrate its importance to

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this economy. But that industry is being raided and, moreover, its profits eroded by pirates who, with scant regard for who owns the copyright, mass produce hundreds of millions of books each year. The industry is raided by plunderers whose profits from each book can amount to some 70 per cent. of the retail price, while the average profit of the United Kingdom equivalent is a mere 10 per cent. There is up to 70 per cent. profit for someone who only has to buy one book, copy it and reproduce it by as many times as he thinks the market will stand. There is up to 70 per cent. profit for someone who has only had to copy, to reproduce all the talent, all the skill, all the capital investment and all the risk that the originator, the British publisher, has had to put into his publication. In every sense is it not a pretty cheap way of making money?
So, too, is their defiant defence pretty cheap. They say, "Our work is in the national interest", and setting themselves up as some type of self-styled Robin Hood they go on to say, "We provide cheap books for those who cannot afford the West's prices". Tell that to the authors and publishers whose works litter the pavement outside the Regal Cinema in New Delhi—works all aped and worth not one penny of income to either author or publisher in this country.
I mention India since the pirates in many of the countries in South-East Asia actually export these unlicensed copies of books into vital British markets. Such pirated books have been found in India, China, Indonesia, the Middle East, Nigeria and East Africa. Now in Pakistan, whereas 20 years ago there was a thriving British publishing presence, today only one publisher remains—Oxford University Press.
Publishers are losing many millions of pounds of revenue each year which could be used for publishing more books. However, it should be realised that this piratical damage is not only restricted to developed countries but is also to be found in developing countries. What incentive is there, for instance, for a Pakistani publisher to publish a student's textbook by a local author when, if it is of any merit, it will be pirated or, at the least, will almost certainly have to compete with cheaper pirated editions of foreign bestsellers? Moreover, piracy may very easily place badly printed medical textbooks into the hands of students, and in so doing will probably stifle and indeed kill off local and indigenous books thereby ensuring that students are exposed only to foreign ideas and alien cultures. What irony!
I believe that it would try your Lordships' patience to continue to give more examples of these piratical practices across South-East Asia. Suffice it to say that not only do they exist in frightening numbers, but they are also on the increase. Unless, therefore, there is concerted and speedy action by the West, the risk we run is that this monstrous unfairness will continue and in so doing will allow these publishing plunderers to assume the mantle of respectable Mafia. That must never be the case.
Happily, however, I understand that, while Western legislative forces are already on the march, the United States is still very much the forerunner as regards the bold and positive moves it is making. I know that the British Government are increasingly concerned, but I
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have the feeling that at times the arguments are found to be somewhat dull and arid. Therefore, I really urge my noble friend the Minister and the Government to take an even longer and harder look at what can be done to increase the help we already give to our allies.
We need at all times to give our friends from the brave new world our help and moral support whether it be in endeavouring to deter acts of aggression by hostile nations or, as in these commercial circumstances, in helping them to scupper this armada of publishing pirates.
6.35 p.m.
Lord Hardinge of Penshurst: My Lords, I know that we are all grateful to my noble friend Lord Blakenham for raising this very important subject. I must declare an interest. I earn my living as an employee of a major UK book publishing company. I shall make this brief. I have read quite a lot of papers on this subject, as I am sure other noble Lords have done. The worst that one can say of this form of commercial lobbying is that it has produced a most horrific crop of acronyms.
A recurring theme in these documents is an exhortation to the Government to do something: higher priority is to be given to the protection of intellectual property; protection is to be introduced as a result of bilateral talks, and so on. I do not denigrate or underrate those possibilities, but they can have only long term results. In the near future they are not likely to do much to discourage the entrepreneur in India or Korea or wherever who happens to have a modest photo-litho plant at his disposal. He will go on copying our books until somebody stops him.
There was one point in the documents that struck me as interesting, and that is really the subject of my intervention. I note from the documents that the only people who have actually achieved anything as regards this particular problem are the Americans, to whom my noble friend Lord Arran referred.
Some think that the agreements which they have obtained, or are in the process of obtaining, will not necessarily be to the advantage of UK publishers. Of course we all understand the danger—the danger that they will obtain terms not necessarily profitable to publishers who are not themselves American. However, I think that we should regard American results in this field as an extension of the pax Americana, and that some type of order is preferable to anarchy and theft.
I now come to the methods that the Americans are using to obtain results. With your Lordships' leave, I shall read two extracts from the documents to which I referred earlier. The first has the acronym CICI and comes from their 1986 survey, Section 3, paragraph 4. It reads:
"US Government influence at a high level and the threat to remove the general system of preference (GSP) trade benefits and initiate punitive '301' actions under the US Trade Act were undoubtedly main factors in the Singapore and Taiwan Governments' belated decision to give attention to the problem "
I imagine that there is scarcely one of your Lordships who is not familiar with the punitive Section 301 and its detailed provisions. However, I had to learn its meaning two days ago from a paper called Anti-Piracy News, from which, with your Lordships' permission, I shall quote the following extract:

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"Section 301 empowers the US Administration to take retaliatory trade action if a foreign government fails to correct unfair trade practices that discriminate againt US products. In this case the administration has threatened to stop the importation of Korean cars to the United States if the Koreans do not take adequate measures to protect US intellectual property by October 1986.".
So that is what the Americans are doing, and it seems to me to be the only thing likely to work in the short term.
This is not the time or place for any kind of discussion about protectionism. In any case, I lack the knowledge to judge whether we should or could follow the American example. I support the wording and intention of this Question. This is the very least that the Government can do, and I hope that they will go ahead and do it.
6.39 p.m.
The Viscount of Falkland: My Lords, I too should like to thank the noble Viscount, Lord Blakenham, for allowing us the opportunity to air our views on this subject. I also very much agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, in his summary of the history leading up to the position that we have today, where copying has become such an enormous growth industry. As the noble Earl, Lord Arran, said, it has become so easy to make cheap money. It has grown to such proportions in the record industry and the video industry that I should like to confine my remarks—and I am happy to say that I shall be brief—to those two areas and to ask the noble Lord the Minister whether, in his reply, he can give answers to two specific points as regards each area.
In the record industry the owners of copyright are losing approximately £70 million a year. This is growing as the technology improves. It is a fact of this particular business that the reproducing technology of pirates grows apace with the technology of the hardware and of the other technology which goes into producing the legitimate article. We are losing £70 million in the record industry. The Government in their White Paper—which is an excellently written document and full of interesting and encouraging remarks; and it also goes a long way to drawing the public's attention to this matter—have now taken to the idea of the levy. The levy is something we discussed in your Lordships' House during the Films Bill: the wisdom or practicality of a levy on video tapes.
A levy on blank tape for recording is a good idea and a bad idea. There is no doubt that it will inhibit some people, and it will produce some revenue for those people who would lose from their copyright being infringed. But are we not here—and I ask the Minister to comment on this—in a way legitimising copying by producing a levy? When you have paid for a tape with a levy, have you not in fact paid the price to copy? Are you not then encouraging not just the small back-street man who reproduces in his spare time and goes out to Camden Market at the weekend and sells on a trestle table, but also the rather larger organisations to go into the business of copying because there is a new legitimacy about it? That is something which strikes me as a possibility. Current estimates in the record industry are that after the levy about £6 million will be clawed back through this levy. That is an enormous shortfall from the £70 million which it is estimated is being lost at the present time, and which is growing.
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The other question I should like to ask the Minister on the subject of the piracy of records is whether it is possible nowadays to persuade hardware manufacturers—and I am aware that most hardware manufacturers are unfortunately not British; this is a part of the decline of our British industry which has gone overseas, mostly to the Far East because the technology is there to be used—like car manufacturers, to bring their equipment to the specification that we require, which would make it impossible for duplication to take place.
I am told that it is perfectly possible with chip technology to have tapes and hardware matching in such a way, with certain quite cheap components, as to make it impossible for reproduction to take place. I am aware that there is a difficulty here in compelling hardware manufacturers to follow this line, because they have an enormous market in the illegitimate trade. It is really a case of, should one industry benefit to the detriment of another? There is something which needs to be explored here.
I do not find in the White Paper—and I have read it cursorily—and I have not heard in discussion any views on this matter. It would be an important departure for us, and it may well enable us to take a lead in Europe in encouraging a uniform kind of practice to bring together the interests of the hardware manufacturer and the artist and the intellectual side. That is all I have to say on records.
Videos are another huge industry, and we discussed this matter during the Films Bill. It is possible for people to hire a video, fill a room and watch it, and copy it and show it to more people. I do not think that anybody is going to chase somebody who does that. What is needed is some kind of brake on the people who do this for reward; who create a business out of doing it; and it is a growing business. The Copyright Amendment Act 1983 may have something to do with the fact that a lot of the work done in chasing people who illegally reproduce videos is now being done by an ex-head of the terrorist squad. Since 1983 there has been a reduction, so I am told, from losses of £100 million down to about £45 million. That is significant. That has been done because the police were given powers under that Act. Usually where you find the duplication of video recordings you find that pornography is involved, though not always. Under the new powers that the police have to get search warrants since 1983 they have had 300 uses of search warrants with 95 per cent. prosecutions.
That leads me to another question I should like to ask the noble Lord the Minister relating to the White Paper under the heading "Remedies". Under "Remedies" there is a lucid and clear account of what happens in civil actions against infringements of copyright. What is now inhibiting the police in a criminal action when they pursue somebody who has been illegally running a business duplicating video recordings—and I wish I had had a chance (I was quite late in the House) to consult my noble friend Lord Lloyd on this, because he might have been able to give me the answer—is that it is so much more difficult under criminal law to prove copyright. This has inhibited a lot of the prosecutions that have taken place.

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As I understand it, you need primary evidence. It does not matter whether the film is obviously a film made by Lucas or Spielberg, or whoever; when you get into the criminal court you have to produce the kind of evidence which requires Mr. Spielberg, or Mr. Lucas, or whoever, to produce that evidence. That seems to be extremely cumbersome and quite a brake on prosecutions under the criminal law of people who are doing good business and making easy money, as has been said by a noble Lord, out of this particular business.
Those are the only two points I should like to make. I should also like to tag on to this, because it has just occurred to me, that in this country we have the boom technology in the new compact disc industry to create an important new manufacturing boom in that area. I know that the people who are interested in producing compact discs, which would employ quite a number of people, are not prepared to do so because of the likelihood of Japanese equipment being imported into this country using digital tape, which is solely for the use of copying. It can have no other use.
It is highly efficient equipment. I have not heard it myself, but I am told that if you have access to a compact disc player for an evening and you have this machinery from Japan, you can reproduce any amount of compact discs with exactly the same quality. There is no decrease in quality. Therefore the opportunities for the pirate are obvious. This is inhibiting potential manufacturers in this country from investing in this kind of enterprise. What is the point of their doing that if the pirates are going to come in and make their business less profitable then it may have been?
To sum up, it is a terrifying business, and it is growing. I am grateful to the Government for producing a clear White Paper and I hope that some teeth can now be given to legislation.
6.50 p.m.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, we on this side of the House are most grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Blakenham, for having introduced this particular debate. As has been said, the term "intellectual property rights" is a dehumanised expression which does not readily attract public sympathy. This evening there have been some most interesting and constructive contributions, and these have covered, quite properly, the interests of the publishers, the interests (in the case of the acting profession) of the performers, and indeed some reference has been made to authors. All of these have been most adequately covered and, with your Lordships' permission, I should like to narrow it down still further and deal with the position of the authors.
It is the authors of these pirated works, particularly in the publishing field, who are the most vital factor of all in our country. It is the work of the authors and inventors of new ideas which sooner or later has to be reduced to writing or to diagrams or to sketches that lies fundamentally at the root of all the progress that we make as a society; and, somewhat characteristically, of course, in the perverse way in which rotten societies develop, it is precisely these people—the people who have creative force, creative ideas which
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they try to articulate or draw and convey—who get the least reward of all.
It is on these, the creative people of our population, sometimes referred to contemptuously as "intellectuals", that the whole basis of creative movement and progress in all spheres of our society is founded. Authors, it is well known, are remunerated largely by royalties on the percentage of their works that are sold. Therefore any diminution in their circulation, particularly by theft (which is what piracy amounts to) immediately has a very adverse effect upon them. Whether in the field of design, biology, immunology, physics or chemistry; whether in the field of medicine; whether in ordinary or electronic engineering, inventors are generally ordinary individuals. It is this particular creative segment of our society that dedicates itself not always, I fear, to profit—because some people in our society have as a principal aim not the accumulation of wealth—but to leaving its country a little better placed after its members have died than when they entered it.
This is the idealism, the purpose and the dedication that lies particularly behind technical writers, writers of new treatises, writers of learned articles, writers restlessly using their brains to explore their new ideas for advancement. These people are sometimes employed by large firms and therefore do this work in their spare time only. Some of them work on their own on a particular subject of interest. But, apart from those who achieve very great eminence, perhaps by accident and sometimes with the aid of patronage, most of them in one year can look forward to an income—an income earned by a technical publication which advances knowledge and learning and progress in their own field—well under the amount that they would receive per annum if they were unemployed.
This is a very depressing fact. I very often wonder whether, when we see some technical work in an area in which we may perhaps have only a very general knowledge, we realise the work that the author has to put in in order to produce, shall we say?, between 3,000 and 10,000 words on the particular subject in which he is seeking to make progress, in which he is seeking to obtain recognition and seeking further to advance in the field of his own particular subject. There are hours and hours spent in research, all at his own expense. There is the search through libraries, there is the writing to other authors whose minds have been working in the same way. Fortunately, these days, although not without expense, those who have access to computer outlets can get their works of reference readily referred to them by getting on to one of the information networks. But still all the works have to be read and after that the ideas have to be formulated.
Even Members of Her Majesty's Government, I believe, occasionally have unto themselves what is called "think time", the time when perhaps they are observed to look vacantly into space and when people think that they are doing nothing but when, in fact, they are exercising their brains on the information they have at their disposal in order that they can further the purposes that they have in mind. Authors work very hard indeed. I am well aware that, particularly in the fiction field, the prospects of success are very often a little greater in monetary terms; although

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the amounts gained by best-sellers—unless the author happens to be a person like the present vice-chairman of the Conservative Party—are not all that great.
The question is how much do we value this activity? No one is asking—and I am not venturing to ask this afternoon and I have no interest to declare—that they should get a greater percentage royalty from their publishers. I am bound to say that although I have no personal knowledge of the firms of publishers that are represented here this afternoon, distinguished as they may be, I know that publishers also have a very strong sense of public spirit. There are many small publishers known to me who publish works in the foreknowledge that they are for the advancement of science and the advancement of knowledge, and that their prospects of obtaining a vast and profitable circulation are small. Therefore, I should like to pay tribute to the publishing profession as a whole, which, by and large, carries out its functions in the United Kingdom with a far greater degree of scruple than I could observe in many other departments of industry, commerce and finance at this time. But I am still concerned with the author.
What can the Government do about this situation? What has been suggested in essence this afternoon is that the Government should put some punch behind their approaches to other countries in this matter similar to the kind of punch that has been put (and it was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Hardinge) in regard to the action of the Singapore pirates.
The difficulty is that authors have no lobby. I do not want to be too unkind to Her Majesty's Government in this matter, and what I have to say goes for past Governments of a different political persuasion also; but there is a tendency in politics and a tendency in government to pay heed only when the very large concerns make protest to the Government. For example, I shall quote now from a small piece in the Daily Telegraph which appeared as recently as 3rd May:
"Pressure on the Japanese to open up the Tokyo Stock Market to British banks wishing to trade shares on a world basis will be paramount for Mrs. Thatcher and Nigel Lawson, the Chancellor, during the Tokyo summit".
I can understand that: bankers and large and powerful industrial interests have a ready access to Governments—not only to this Government but to previous Governments—and Governments tend to pay attention to the big lobbies, who are virtually free, through their leaders, even to visit Downing Street from time to time. The Government pay heed to the big battalions in the City and to what remains of British industry, and certainly to British agriculture.
What we now require is a slight change of direction and the development of a different set of values so that those who derive their income mainly from the buying and selling of debt or the buying and selling of equity investments in property—the great casino—who have so far had so much preference, not only in this Government but in other Governments, too, should take it on board that if they are to act in the national interest as such, which it is their duty to do, then they really must protect those creators of new ideas that lie at the whole basis of the British economy itself.
We do not want to be told, as we are so often told, that these matters are under constant review. We do
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not want to be told that a high priority is being given to their consideration. What we want is an indication of some action, and I should like to ask the noble Lord who is to reply to answer specifically the following question. In answer to a question on 10th December in another place Mr. Geoffrey Pattie, in referring to the report to which the noble Viscount, Lord Blakenham, referred this afternoon, said this at col. 558:
"I am concerned that our support should be as effective as possible and we shall be looking at ways in which it might be made more so."
That was five months ago. I want to know, after looking into the report which has been referred to this afternoon and which has been furnished to the Ministry, after five months, precisely what the Government are going to do about it.
7.6 p.m.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I should like to join other noble Lords in thanking my noble friend Lord Blakenham for raising this important issue today. He and others, particularly my noble friend Lord Arran, have spoken graphically of the damage done to United Kingdom intellectual property industries, particularly the publishing and record industry, through piracy of copyright material in overseas markets.
Since pirates and counterfeiters do not publish statistics, it is impossible to be entirely certain of the scale of this problem, and all estimates must to a degree be a matter of informed guesswork. Nonetheless, the Government fully accept that that copyright piracy, along with the allied scourge of counterfeiting of branded and trade-marked products, are real, widespread and increasing problems. I can assure the House that the Government take both problems very seriously. I congratulate my noble friend on the work of the Anti-Piracy Group, of which he is chairman, in bringing together the available information in their excellent report International Piracy—the threat to the British copyright industries. The detailed studies they have made of copyright piracy in eight countries where the problem is at its most intractable are extremely valuable. As my noble friend told the House, my honourable friend the Minister for Industry and Information Technology is currently looking into ways in which the Government might strengthen their support for industry on this issue, and is studying the proposals in the report carefully.
The House will recall that within the frontiers of the United Kingdom itself the problem of video and audio piracy has been largely brought under control by the Copyright Act 1956 (Amendment) Act 1982 and the Copyright (Amendment) Act 1983, and we hope that the Copyright (Computer Software) Amendment Act 1985 will do the same for the emerging problem of computer software piracy. In addition, as noble Lords have reminded us, in April the Government published a White Paper, Intellectual Property and Innovation, which contains proposals for the reform of United Kingdom copyright law. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, for his kind words on this subject, and I listened to his criticisms with interest.
Among the proposals are those to extend to all categories of copyright material the increased penalties

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for copyright infringement which were introduced in relation to video, audio and software piracy in the enactments I have just mentioned. Powers to obtain search warrants in respect of criminal offences will be similarly extended, and the criminal offence of knowingly being in possession of infringing copies by way of trade will likewise be extended to all categories of copyright material. Further provisions will be included to ameliorate the difficulty faced by copyright owners when a defendant in an infringement case makes an unreasonable challenge to the presumptions as to subsistence and ownership of copyright.
I note the points made by the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, about the blank tape levy and the difficulties of proof in domestic criminal actions. I would, however, this evening prefer to concentrate on the subject of this debate, on the activities of international commercial pirates rather than on the domestic legal system. I would simply say that our proposals in the White Paper were arrived at after much detalied consideration and have been broadly welcomed by copyright owners. The measures proposed in the White Paper and those already in force are, however, of little direct help to British exports of books, videos, sound recordings and software; to the performers whom the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, mentioned; or indeed, to the authors to whom the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, referred. However, I do believe that they will have some value as a model to other countries of the legislative package required to get this problem under control. Exporters must rely on the copyright laws of the importing country to fight any piracy of their material which occurs locally.
A large number of countries throughout the world recognise the damage to creativity caused by piracy and give substance to that recognition by adhering to one or more of the main international copyright conventions, such as the Berne Convention or the Universal Copyright Convention. A central feature of these conventions is that in addition to binding their member states to provide a certain minimum level of protection they require that these states make that protection available within their territory not only to works of their own nationals but also to works of nationals of any other member state.
It has been said, however, that in a minority of cases even adherence to the conventions does not guarantee that a copyright work is safe from piracy. Protection may be available under local law in theory, but in practice legal procedures may be bureaucratic and ineffective and penalties inadequate. More serious is that group of countries, mainly in the Far East, which do not belong to the conventions and which, by failing to protect foreign works, allow piracy to flourish, not merely for local consumption but for exports.
Developing countries sometimes contend that unauthorised reproduction of copyright material is justified because the price of text books is high. This is an unreasonable and unfair argument, because it does not take account of the extra expenses borne by publishers in the original publication of their editions. Furthermore, it does not take account of the willingness of most British publishers to make cheaper editions of their works available to developing
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countries and to offer advantageous licensing terms to local printers.
But, in any case, although educational works are often a significant target for piracy, a large proportion of the copyright material pirated throughout the world is not for the educational market at all. It is straightforward entertainment works of various kinds—popular music on record or cassette, feature films and popular novels. No country can reasonably defend the pirating of intellectual property of this sort in the name of education or on any other footing. It is, as most noble Lords have said, quite simply, a form of theft, and the absence in some countries of legal rights protecting foreign works or performers does not render it any less so.
The task we face is how to bring about the adoption of comprehensive and enforceable copyright and allied law in those countries which lack it, and improvement of the law where, as is too often the case, rights are inadequate or not available to foreigners, enforcement procedures are unwieldy and penalties for piracy insufficient to deter. This evening's debate has focused on the possible scope for use of trade weapons, and the role of trade agreements, in pursuing this objective, and I shall address myself to this aspect first.
The United Kingdom is active in a number of fields: as a signatory to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and as a member of the European Community, and also within the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), which alone, or jointly with UNESCO and the International Labour Organisation, provides the secretariat for the main international conventions in the field of intellectual property. In the forthcoming GATT round of multilateral trade negotiations, we hope to be even more active, and to achieve finally some of the very elusive objectives that developed countries have been pursuing in this field since the 1970s.
Much has been said in debate outside, and indeed in your Lordships' House this evening, about the need to make progress in the forthcoming GATT negotiations. We agree, and my noble friend Lord Blakenham and others I hope will be pleased to note that at last month's ministerial-level meeting of OECD countries it was agreed, in the words of the final press communiqué, that the new round should address trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights. The question of quite what aspects are trade-related and of how to address them, falls to be answered in the GATT Preparatory Committee now at work in Geneva. But it will be heartening to all those eager to strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights overseas to have this clear and united declaration of the industrial countries' commitment to this objective. I hope it will encourage the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, to know that this was endorsed once more at the Tokyo summit.
Work in GATT is already under way. The UK, our Community partners and the US have all been pressing since the Tokyo round for agreement on a code designed to restrict international trade in goods that infringe registered trade marks. The proposed code would require other countries' customs authorities to impound suspected counterfeits giving the trade mark owner the opportunity to take effective

1023
legal action. As those who follow the subject closely will know, developing countries have opposed them very firmly, arguing that GATT is not competent to make rules on issues affecting intellectual property, even on trade-related issues in that field. But the argument about competence is a cover for these countries' very different commercial objectives.
It is one of the United Kingdom's high priorities in the new round finally to overcome those essentially legalistic objections and to achieve agreement on a code. We would also be well pleased if we could agree that the code might, either from the outset or after a period running in, be extended to cover international trade in goods infringing copyrights as well as trade marks. None of this will be easy, but we believe that with a little luck it may be possible.
As to activity within the World Intellectual Property Organisation, the role of the conventions it administers, either jointly or with UNESCO and the ILO, is of the greatest value in setting standards for intellectual property rights. It is not the fault of WIPO that not all countries are willing to join these conventions. Where the standards seem inadequate, WIPO is looking at possible ways of strengthening them. Current work on "model laws" and principles for the guidance of governments in formulating their own intellectual property laws should encourage wider application of those standards. But WIPO must proceed by consensus, and its initiatives hitherto in tackling the problem of piracy have met with little success. Representatives of some countries, particularly those from developing countries, have failed to grasp, or, if they grasp it, to accept the urgency of the need perceived by the copyright industries in the developed world for better intellectual property protection.
Multilateral organisations such as the WIPO and the GATT move rather slowly, since there are many members with widely divergent interests. It is therefore important that the Government pursue particular problems more rapidly both bilaterally with countries primarily involved and through the Community. Noble Lords have referred to this strand of policy, and I am glad to be able to report that efforts on this front, too, continue unabated.
In the European Community we have been pressing our partners to agree to a possible Community instrument on broadly the same lines as the GATT draft anti-counterfeiting code. The outcome will be to require Customs authorities in other member states to block consignments of suspected fakes, pending legal action. Progress is being made, and, I can assure the House, will continue if anything at a faster rate under the UK presidency of the Council which begins in July. Our aim here is to make it harder for imports of counterfeit goods from outside the Community to undermine British manufacturers' markets in other Community countries. I think the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, pointed out that other Community trade policy instruments exist which can be useful in attacking piracy in certain circumstances. The IFPI are in touch with officials about one such problem to establish whether a case can be mounted.
Finally, we should not belittle what can be achieved on a purely bilateral basis. Although the United States
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may carry more clout in the international market place than the United Kingdom, direct discussions with the governments of countries where piracy flourishes have a considerable role. We have made representations for several years to the Government of Singapore over the need for improvement in the protection offered to UK intellectual property. A new Bill has now been published there which we are glad to see takes account of a number of the points we have made and the Singapore Government have promised that the new law will apply to UK copyright works. There are, however, a number of points on which we think the Bill could be further improved, and discussions will continue.
In July last year Taiwan also introduced a new copyright law, which provides for the protection of foreign works on a reciprocal basis. The United Kingdom has already taken the necessary steps to meet this criterion of the new law, by making an Order in Council that applies the protection of the Copyright Act 1956 to works first published in Taiwan. A new copyright law is under consideration in Malaysia, and we are watching the situation closely, with particular regard to the need to ensure adequate protection for foreign works. We have also made known to the governments of Korea and Indonesia the importance we attach to the introduction of laws there which will adequately protect United Kingdom copyright owners against piracy of their works. Again, we shall be maintaining contact on these issues. In the case of all these countries we shall continue to press the desirability, and long-term benefits to creativity in the country itself, of multilateral copyright protection through membership of the copyright conventions.
I hope I have demonstrated sufficiently that the Government take this issue very seriously indeed. It would be idle to suppose that any quick solutions are to hand, or that the copyright industries will obtain any early relief from the need to continue their own local monitoring and to pursue infringers through the legal processes that may be available in the countries concerned. But we shall continue to keep under general review the measures that government can pursue in support of the copyright industries, in the light of progress within GATT, the Community, WIPO and elsewhere, and to provide support in every way we can.

Civil Protection in Peacetime Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.
Consumer Safety (Amendment) Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.
Safety at Sea Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.
Blyth Harbour Bill [H.L.]
The Queen's Consent signified; Bill reported from the Unopposed Bill Committee with further amendments.

Clifton Suspension Bridge Bill [H.L.]
Reported from the Unopposed Bill Committee with an amendment.
House adjourned at twenty-two minutes past seven o'clock.