Lords Sitting of 14 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

Hydro-electric Power in the Highlands
The Earl of Cromartie: 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 it is true that any profits made by the North of Scotland Hydro-electric Board are paid into the Treasury: and, if so, whether they would consider using this money for the further development of hydro-electric power in the Highlands.
The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Lord Gray of Contin): My Lords, the North of Scotland Hydroelectric Board retains its profits to finance its capital investment programme and to reduce its debt. It is up to the board to make proposals for further investment in hydro schemes where these can be economically justified and the Government will consider such proposals carefully.
The Earl of Cromartie: My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister. I am delighted to see that somebody knows the part of the country I am talking about. I should like to ask my noble friend another question. Many years ago before the first world war my father started the first hydro-electric scheme in Britain for the benefit of the Highlands, so that they would have cheap power. This was carried on, but he had to give it to the Scottish Power Company and it was carried on by them, as it was when the first hydro-electric board was formed, when that great man Tom Johnson was Secretary of State. Then, quite suddenly, without any particular reason, all this was altered. It was taken away. One thing that was also taken away was the headquarters which were supposed to be always in the Highlands. They are now in Edinburgh. Apart from that—
Noble Lords: Question!
The Earl of Cromartie: My Lords, the headquarters are not in the Highlands, and are well out of the hydroelectric area. What is more, the Highlands do not get the benefit which they were supposed by all the founders to get. I should like my noble friend to give me some answer to this, if he would.
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, what a pleasure it is to see my old friend Lord Cromartie with us and to have a Question on the North of Scotland Hydroelectric Board, which I know holds a place of such affection for him. The Government are, of course, constantly faced with competing claims for scarce resources and, given the constraints on public
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expenditure, the development of run-of-the-river hydro schemes was not high enough on the north board's own list of priorities to justify inclusion in its capital investment allocation. I can assure my noble friend, however, that should the North of Scotland Hydro-electric Board, having satisfied itself with an up-to-date evaluation of the present situation, again decide that it might consider going ahead with such a scheme, the Government will consider it very carefully at that time.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, the Minister used the phrase "reduce its debt" with regard to where the profits were going. Can he tell me to whom this debt is owed, and what proportion of the profits go towards this as against capital development?
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, I cannot give the noble Lord that anwer without notice, but obviously the debt is a borrowing debt and the proportion of profits which goes towards the reduction of borrowing debt must in the long term be in the best interests of those who are within the north board's area.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, does it borrow from the Treasury?
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, originally the debt would have been a Treasury debt.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, will the noble Lord the Minister tell us whether it is the Government's intention to privatise the North of Scotland Hydro-electric Board?
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, there are no plans to do so at the moment.

Whooping Cough Immunisation
2.40 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are satisfied with the numbers of small children being vaccinated against whooping cough.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Baroness Trumpington): My Lords, no, the Government are not satisfied. Although the percentage of children immunised against whooping cough in England has risen steadily in recent years, much remains to be done if we are again to achieve the high rates of the early 1970s. The department advises parents and the health professions that the risks of vaccination are greatly outweighed by the benefits of immunisation.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for her reply. If the Government consider that the risk of any side effects from the vaccine is much less than the risk of death or damage from whooping cough, which is what I assume from her reply, will the Government make a special effort to publicise the

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desirability of this vaccination and encourage it? I am of course referring not only to England but to other parts of the United Kingdom. I noted that her reply was only for one part.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy. Of course, I meant to say the United Kingdom. The Health Education Council is presently running a major publicity campaign to inform parents of the current whooping cough epidemic and advise them on immunisation. The Government gave the council an additional £480,000 in 1985–86 which the council supplemented with £100,000 of its own funds to finance the campaign. We are evaluating its success and considering whether further action is needed.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, in supporting the noble Lord. Lord Campbell of Croy, may I ask whether the noble Baroness recalls that when this issue was considered on a Question by my noble friend Lord Molloy on 28th April, I referred to the court case for compensation for vaccine damage, which I said might have an adverse effect on the take-up of pertussis vaccine, and to whether the department had contingency plans for such a situation? The noble Baroness quite rightly said that because of the court case it would be inappropriate to comment. Now that the court has found in favour of compensation for a plaintiff, does the Minister feel that she can now state what are the special publicity measures—if there are special publicity measures—to counter the inevitable effect of a successful plea in the courts?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, we are aware that a number of cases have been brought where vaccine damage is alleged. In seven of them, proceedings have been issued against the department. As one case is currently before the courts, it is not appropriate for me to comment further. We shall consider whether any further action is needed in the light of the judgment.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, will the noble Baroness emphasise that the need for immunisation against whooping cough is primarily in very young children who are particularly at risk from this disease? Will she also bear in mind that most doctors believe that whooping cough in older children is so trivial a disease that it does not warrant the slight risk in relation to the pertussis immunisation? With regard to the risk factor, will the noble Baroness accept that general practitioners at the moment are in some difficulty because of the different figures being published by different authorities on the precise risk involved in pertussis immunisation? It would be immensely helpful if the department were to disclose fully all the information in its possession on this point.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, regarding the first part of that question, I would confirm that whooping cough remains a serious disease among children, especially infants. It may be complicated by bronchitis, pneumonia, collapsed lungs and convulsions. In the two most recent epidemics, there were nearly 200,000 cases and 38 deaths. On the
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matter of advising parents on possible risks, the department helps fund the Health Education Council literature which explains the risks for parents. The risk is very slight compared with the safety that a vaccination will give.
Lord Morris: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that on national television news some months ago a spokesman for the medical profession stated quite clearly that only one child in 100,000 would be exposed to the risk of brain damage as a result of whooping cough vaccine? I ask my noble friend whether, if she had grandchildren, she would expose those children to that risk.
Baroness Trumpington: No, my Lords, I would not expose my children or my grandchildren (which is probably more suitable) if I had any, to the risk of non-vaccination. I think that the Prince and Princess of Wales gave a very good lead in that aspect by having their children vaccinated.
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, does not the noble Baroness agree that there is everything to be said for vaccination, because if anything goes wrong you can now get compensation but if you are not vaccinated there is an almost equal chance of getting the same side effects for which there is no compensation available?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I do not know whether noble Lords understood that question. I actually did not.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: My Lords, may I—
Lord Mellish: My Lords, will the noble Baroness—
Lord Elwyn-Jones: My Lords, the noble Lord has a louder voice than I.
Lord Mellish: Yes, my Lords, and I happen to have seven grandchildren. Will the noble Baroness please issue figures showing the actual number of children who were hurt or at risk as opposed to the number of children who have had the vaccine and are not at risk? This is the kind of action that will convince the public that it is right to have the vaccine. Figures will do the trick. Will they please put the matter in proportion?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I should be delighted to see that those figures are published and made available in the Library.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: My Lords, as a grandfather of nine grandchildren, may I therefore stake a claim? Is it not the case that the quality and efficacy of this vaccine has improved considerably in recent years?
Baroness Trumpington: Yes, my Lords; and I hope that one day I catch up with the noble and learned Lord.
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, will the noble Baroness comment on the fact that there is a dilemma here? In the case of this and many other preventable diseases, once we have vaccinated down to a certain

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level then the risk from the vaccination itself becomes greater than the risk from the disease. We then cease to vaccinate; the danger of the disease then becomes greater and there comes a fluctuation. Is there any way of getting past this point?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, until we reach a 100 per cent. take-up of vaccination I do not see that it is possible to reverse the picture. It is my hope that we shall reach the 100 per cent. take-up level very soon.
Lord Kilbracken: My Lords, the noble Baroness referred to an infant. As the father of a four year-old and the grandfather of a 14 year-old, may I ask the noble Baroness to tell me how old is an infant?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, it is my belief that an infant is under five. Until your fifth birthday you attend an infants' school.
The Countess of Mar: My Lords, can the noble Baroness say whether the doubts about the whooping cough vaccine have affected the take-up of other childhood vaccinations such as tetanus, diphtheria and polio?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, the NAO Report commends the results achieved in immunisation against diphtheria, tetanus and polio. That has led to the near elimination of those diseases. However, high up-take rates continue to be necessary to ensure that this success is not lost, and we expect health authorities to bear this in mind in setting targets.

Gas Industry: NALGO Ballot
2.50 p.m.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the appropriate government departments were ever informed of the result of the ballot for or against the privatisation of the gas industry organised by the National Association of Local Government Officers (NALGO), of which approximately 50 per cent. of all gas employees are members.
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, we are of course aware that NALGO held a ballot in March among its British Gas members, proposing that they take industrial action against our proposal to return British Gas to the private sector. The members voted against industrial action. I applaud their good sense, for they must recognise that privatisation will be good for the industry and good for those working in it.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, I am most surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls, has not asked a supplementary question. In the light of the Answer that he has given, I hope that the Minister will disown the attempt by the noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls, to use the Order Paper to mislead the House. Noble Lords will note that the ballot asked
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members of NALGO whether they would take industrial action, not whether they were for or against gas privatisation—and that is quite a different question.
Is the noble Lord aware that in November last year a Gallup poll was taken among the British nation, asking whether or not people were in favour of gas privatisation? Of those who answered, 57 per cent. said that they were against privatisation. Under those circumstances will the noble Lord now drop the Bill?
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, I should have thought that the action taken so far as the NALGO ballot was concerned, and the silence from NALGO since then, spoke volumes in themselves.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that if anybody has tried to use Question Time to spit out propoganda, it has been the noble Lord who has just asked a question?
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: Not at all, my Lords!

Employment and Unemployment: Statistics
2.52 p.m.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: 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 increases there have been since 1983 in the numbers of the labour force in the United Kingdom, in new employment and in unemployment.
The Secretary of State for Employment (Lord Young of Graffham): My Lords, the number in the employed labour force increased by 990,000 in the United Kingdom between March 1983 and December 1985. That is progresss on new jobs unmatched by our European competitors. During that period, the seasonably adjusted total of unemployment, excluding school-leavers, rose by 309,000.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, if I heard the noble Lord correctly, I do not believe that he has answered the three parts to the Question that I asked. Has the noble Lord given the House the increase in the labour force since 1983 as well as the figures for new employment and for unemployment?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I have given the increase in the labour force, which was 990,000. I have given the increase in unemployment, which is 309,000. But the increase in new employment is not a statistic that is normally kept, because new employment is a figure that can vary day by day.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, the Minister has constantly stood at that Dispatch Box and boasted of the figures of new employment that he has created during his tenure of office. What is the figure that he uses when he is claiming that the Government are creating new employment?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I am proud to boast that I have never on behalf of this Government claimed credit for creating any new jobs by the Government. What we have always done is claim credit for creating the climate that will enable people to create jobs for themselves. That is the function of government.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, does the noble Lord not agree that, stripped of all the statistics and rhetoric, the figures for unemployed are appalling? They are disgraceful, they are ongoing and they are increasing. When will the noble Lord tell the House what measures the Government intend to take, and take soon, to reduce the total of unemployed? Has the noble Lord seen the TV-AM programme entitled "Divided Britain"? What does the noble Lord propose to do to remove the shocking regional imbalance between the unemployed in this country?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, if I stripped the rhetoric from the noble Lord's question I should find little to answer. I believe that what the Government have done is self-evident. We see the United Kingdom creating jobs faster than any other country in Europe. We see, both since 1978 and since 1981, unemployment increasing in this country at a rate either less than or comparable to that in Europe. We see in this country a determined effort to deal with the evils of unemployment by the only route possible, which is the creation of new jobs. That was the purpose of the Question of the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby, and that is the Answer I gave him.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord the Minister will now give the figures required by the Question. Perhaps he will now state without any propaganda or equivocation what are the figures for new employment.
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I can gladly state that since 1983 we have seen 1 million new jobs come into being. I can say also that I accept that since 1979 one can find a drop in the employed labour force of 1 million. And, of course, one has seen a drop in the employed labour force throughout the whole of Europe. What I cannot say is what proportion of the 23 million working population across this country are in new jobs. Do we mean new since 1st January, or new during this decade, or do we mean new during this century? What we have is a rapidly changing employed population. It is very difficult to define new jobs. We customarily define them by the increase in employment.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, then perhaps in future the noble Lord will leave new employment out of his answers to the questions that are addressed to him. In any event, there is a finite date set in the Question on the Order Paper; it mentions 1983. There is therefore no difficulty.
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I always endeavour to answer the questions that are put. The Question put concerned,
"the numbers of the labour force in the United Kingdom, in new employment and in unemployment".
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I have given the increase in the number of jobs. I was asked whether I could say which of the 23 million jobs in this country could be classified as new. That is not a statistic that is kept by my department or, to my knowledge, by any department.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, would it not be constructive and positive sometimes to concentrate on employment as against unemployment? Is it not a fact that per 1,000 of the population there are more people in employment in Great Britain than in any other European country except Denmark?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I always find it helpful to concentrate on constructive aspects of the employment question. I do not always get the opportunity to do so in your Lordships' House. I hope very much that I shall have such an opportunity in future. In an endeavour to help in that regard, I remind all in your Lordships' House that of all the adult population of this country of employable age, no fewer than 65 per cent. are in paid employment. That compares with 60 per cent. and 59 per cent in France and Germany respectively.
The Countess of Mar: My Lords, perhaps I may ask the Minister how many of those 1 million jobs are full-time jobs for women and how many of them are part-time jobs for women.
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, we have had surveys that show women are looking very much for part-time jobs.
Noble Lords: Oh!
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, the jobs that we have are not jobs that have been created by anybody but are filled by those who wish to have part-time jobs. Before noble Lords look down on those who take part-time jobs—
Noble Lords: No!
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, such noble Lords should ask those people who fill them, because those jobs are very much wanted.
Lord Orr- Ewing: My Lords, will my noble friend say whether he has had any clear indication what Her Majesty's Opposition are going to do about unemployment?
Noble Lords: Yes!
Lord Orr-Ewing: My Lords, when may we expect facts and figures of a constructive nature about tackling this problem from the Opposition, who only criticise?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I am quite happy to answer for the Government but I am most unhappy to answer for the Opposition.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, is the noble Lord not aware that the policies of this party on the creation of new jobs is well known and clearly stated?

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Also, will the Minister tell the House what proportion of the new jobs he has stated are part-time? Is he aware that we welcome part-time jobs as being better than unemployment and the very high rate of unemployment that this Government have created since 1979? Will the Minister be good enough to clarify the position and to indicate clearly how many of the new jobs are part-time?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I shall be delighted to do so. I should of course prefer to have a Question on that particular point, but I shall arrange to have an answer placed in the Library.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that from the figures he gave me originally, with an increase of nearly 1 million in the labour force and an increase in unemployment of more than 300,000 it would appear on a rough calculation that one in three of the new labour force has joined the ranks of the unemployed? When the Minister is talking about comparable figures, will he tell the House what other country among the industrial countries of Europe has a higher unemployment percentage figure than does this country under this Government?
Lord Young of Graffham: Yes, my Lords. Certainly Spain has a higher percentage unemployment figure. Ireland has, as have others. It depends how you define unemployment. It depends very much on the social systems which support unemployment and it depends very much on the size of the labour market itself. This is a complex matter which is not best served by having quick answers to questions. If the noble Lord wishes to ask that as a particular Question, he should do so.
Lord Diamond: My Lords, is that not a disgraceful answer when the figures have been published? Is it not unfortunate that the noble Lord the Minister seeks the whole time to avoid giving the true facts, never disclosing the number of part-time jobs? Is it not the case that figures have been published on European comparable bases, comparing like with like in all countries, and that they show that out of the 21 relevant countries, 18 have unemployment at a lower percentage than this country and only three—the three the noble Lord mentioned—have unemployment at a higher rate?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, it is also true to say that United Kingdom civilian employment rose by 4·2 per cent. between 1983 and 1985, compared with rises of 1·5 per cent. in Japan, 1·3 per cent. in Italy, 0·9 per cent. in Germany and an absolute fall in France. Indeed, rises in United Kingdom employment contrast with a fall in employment in the rest of the European Community as a whole between 1983 and 1984. I have already said that we have one of the highest proportions of population in employment. I find the noble Lord's use of the word "disgraceful" to be unfortunate.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, does not the Minister agree that the figures he has given us depend entirely on what is the level of unemployment in a given country at the time at which that figure is measured?
Lord Young of Graffham: No, my Lords. The absolute figure is the level of employment. The level of unemployment is the difference between the number of people in employment and the number of people available for work, or the working population. We live in a world where, for example in France, the number of people available for work is shrinking. In France, they actually have rising unemployment in a reducing workforce. In the United Kingdom, we have rising unemployment in a fast increasing workforce. That is a very different matter indeed.

Business
3.2 p.m.
Lord Denham: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 this afternoon my noble friend Lord Young of Graffham will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement to be made in another place on British Shipbuilders. This will be followed by my noble friend Lady Young who, again with the leave of the House, will repeat a Statement on the Foreign Affairs Council on 12th and 13th May.
With the leave of the House, I should like to say a few words about the two short debates standing in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Henderson of Brompton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol. Going on the principle that the mover is allowed approximately 15 minutes and that the Minister should rise to reply not less than 20 minutes before the scheduled end of the debate, in the case of the short debate in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Henderson of Brompton, this means that all other speeches should be limited to a maximum of 11 minutes and in that of the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, to 12 minutes. If any noble Lords should speak at greater length it will be at the expense of subsequent speakers in the debate.

Disability: Prevention
3.3 p.m.
Lord Henderson of Brompton Lord Henderson of Brompton rose to call attention to the importance of preventing disability in the United Kingdom and in developing countries; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I rise to move my Motion on the importance of preventing disability in this country and in developing countries. I see from the list of speakers that 12 noble Lords have put down their names to speak on this Motion on preventing disability and another 11 noble Lords—I do not call them a second XI—have decided to speak on the Second Reading of the Bill concerning those who are already disabled. I think that is an index of the interest and concern of this House from noble Lords, in all parties and in none, about the problems of the disabled.
I can illustrate the extent of disability in the world by referring to the United Nations estimate in 1983 that 450 million people in the world are severely disabled; and that is mostly in the developing countries. It is about one-tenth of the world's population, or eight times the entire population of the United Kingdom. I

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suppose that since 1963 the world population has increased to some 5 billion, so the estimate for those who are severely disabled would now be more like 500 million.
In this country alone the proportion of the population that is severely disabled is about one in 20, or 2.5 million, and more like one in 10, or 5 million, if lesser disabilities are taken into account. Much of this disability is avoidable and I hope the House will agree that two-and-a-half hours of its time is well spent on discussing means of avoiding disability by prevention or control of prevalent disabling conditions; at home through existing health programmes and in developing countries through the United Nations and its agencies. Your Lordships will see that by the use of the word "avoidance" I have included measures both of prevention and of control.
Let me now briefly say a few words about the origin and growth of a remarkable but far too little known organisation called IMPACT. Soon after the International Year of Disabled People in 1980, Sir John Wilson—who is himself blind but one of the world's visionaries—suggested that a team of those most interested in the prevention of disability, which was one of the ideas of the IYDP but not much pursued during that year, should be drawn together to meet and to prepare a plan of action, which it did at Leeds Castle. This had the backing of the DHSS, I am glad to say, and had the immense advantage of having the noble Lord, Lord Home of the Hirsel, as its chairman. Incidentally, the noble Lord would be here today but for a prior engagement in Edinburgh.
It is from that conference at Leeds Castle that the IMPACT programme was developed. This was presented to the General Assembly of the United Nations by Sir John, with Foreign Office backing. I am glad to emphasise for a second time that this has had government backing. It was then adopted by the United Nations as part of its decade of action concerning disabled people. Now, in 1986, we are halfway through that decade and already much has been achieved by three agencies of the United Nations: its development programme, UNICEF and the World Health Organisation, as well as other programmes on water and food shortage.
The IMPACT programme was launched in India in 1983, in Africa in 1984, in the Asian and Pacific region in 1985; and this year there will be a launching in Latin America. So there has been rapid action in the hope that, if this is continued, avoidable disability world-wide may be substantially diminished, if not eliminated, by the end of the 20th century. Success will depend not only on skill and determination but on political awareness, administrative competence and the creation of reliable and cheap delivery systems.
I give some examples of the successful programmes in developing countries achieved through simple systems of delivery at low unit cost: first, vaccines. The size of the problem is indicated by the fact that 3.5 million children are disabled each year by polio, TB, measles and neo-natal tetanus. It costs about £3 a child—an incredibly low figure—for full immunisation if it is done on a massive scale and if it is done with full local co-operation, as was done recently
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in Madras. So we hope that the Madras example will be followed world-wide.
Secondly, there is malnutrition. I do not think that it is at all widely known that famine disables many more people than it kills. I hope that famine relief agencies will build into their programmes specific cost-effective delivery systems for disabilities, especially in children, consequential upon famine, and I hope that someone who has the ear of Bob Geldof is listening.
Examples of what can be done cheaply are: the delivery of vitamin A to children to save them from a disease which blinds 200,000 children a year; or iodine added to drinking water to prevent thyroid deficiency, which cripples 100,000 children a year through deafness and mental handicap. The cost per child is negligible.
Then there is blindness. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Vickers, will be talking about blindness and so I shall say no more than that there are eye camps that have been established for cataract operations at a unit cost of £5 or a little more. Similarly with deafness, middle ear operations—believe it or not—have been done in camp conditions for about £10 per unit in India and Thailand. Likewise, there are walk camps in India and East Africa where grossly crippled grovelling people can be enabled to stand upright and walk with the use of quite simple, cheap calipers, crutches and artificial limbs which are made to an internationally tested standard by village carpenters.
This is all most encouraging and heartening. I have no time to give your Lordships more examples, but I ask the Government to consider helping the international programme in the following ways. First, I hope that the FCO will encourage British representatives at meetings of the United Nations Development Programme, WHO, and UNICEF to speak in support of IMPACT programmes, and—for goodness sake, why not?—to give credit to this country for what is essentially a British initiative. Secondly, I hope that the ODA will earmark some of its funds specifically for disability programmes in the developing world, and will also allocate a small sum to the United Kingdom IMPACT foundation to cover the overseas travel and expenses of those who, for the most part, give their services free.
I turn to the topic of avoidable disability in the United Kingdom. The February seminar this year organised by IMPACT concluded that at least 20 per cent. of the disability in the United Kingdom was preventable or remediable through existing health programmes—I emphasise through existing health programmes, because that is by far the cheapest and most effective method of proceeding. However, it requires a full and firm commitment across departments of the Government to a coherent, national and regional strategy and also the same kind of commitment on the part of health authorities, local authorities, the medical and rehabilitation services and, not least, the voluntary organisations of and for disabled people.
Very briefly, the programme should include screening, the provision of reliable data, the elimination of excessive waiting time in hospitals, health education, medical training, participation of

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disabled people through their organisations, and of course research. In passing I may say that the February seminar supported the recommendations of the Warnock Committee on research into genetic disorders. There is also the need for genetic counselling for young parents and continuing research into congenital infections (those congenital infections which in fact are the biggest cause of multiple disability), environmental pollution, especially by lead, the prevention of accidents in the home, the street and the place of work, and so on. The list is endless and I have no time to go into details. I hope that those speakers who will follow me in this debate will do so.
I should like to make one exception and recall the debate on speech therapy in this House last summer. In a courageous speech, the noble Lord, Lord Smith, described his own aphasia, as a result of a stroke, and how the help of the Chest, Heart and Stroke Association had enabled him to recover his power of speech. Aphasia, which is a severe disablement and is common after a stroke, is often not treated at all and the victims are regarded as though they were mentally afflicted. So in this one small sphere much improved rehabilitation for stroke victims, involving neurologists and rehabilitation experts, is called for.
Arising out of the February seminar of IMPACT I should like to ask the Government to give encouragement and guidance to all the relevant authorities and organisations in undertaking cost-effective action in the vitally important role of preventing disability, and in addition to undertake a screening programme to detect potentially disabling conditions in time for effective prophylaxis. I know that sometimes these screening programmes have been tried and phased out—your Lordships will remember the mobile chest X-rays, for example—but there are other conditions which do demand screening.
Secondly, I ask the Government to provide an information programme. The statistics are wildly out of date. It is a long time since the Amelia Harris survey. It would be well worth while investing a modest sum to discover the causes, extent and distribution of disability in the United Kingdom, which in itself would lead to better allocation of resources and better formulation of priorities. I believe that there should also be ad hoc special studies based on random sampling.
I have referred already to the need to cut down waiting time in hospitals, especially for surgery. Better systems of referral from one region to another without administrative impediment or penalty for the region which accepts the case are surely necessary. There is far too much unnecessary waiting for relief for people who are blind or deaf in some regions where there is a full waiting list, while others have spare capacity. I should like to see the National Health Education Council have as a specific objective the avoidance of disability. I do not believe that it does so now. As regards research, in addition to fundamental research I should like to see operational research into the application of existing knowledge.
Finally, in relation to these requests to the Government, I believe that there really should be an expert analysis of the economic and financial benefits to the nation of fuller measures to prevent avoidable
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disability compared with the cost of allowing it to continue.
I have had in this speech various recurring themes of cost-effectiveness, research into getting priorities right and the need for effective delivery systems in time to detect incipient disability and in order to seek out those most in need of such detection or relief. The lower you are in the social heap, through ignorance, poverty, or despair, the less able you are to help yourself. This applies both at home and in developing countries.
In this debate I hope that something will be done towards alerting the general public and the Government to the need for a new drive in preventive medicine at home and in the developing world. Both public pressure and political will are necessary. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.20 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I should like to be the first to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Henderson of Brompton, on having chosen this subject and on the way in which he has introduced it in a speech which most fluently covered a whole range of the most important points. I agree with him that we spend a great deal of our time concentrating on those in our community who are already severely disabled. It is as important that we should give our attention to another aspect of disablement and take every opportunity that we can to prevent disability from occurring.
In this short debate I shall concentrate on two subjects, both within the United Kingdom rather than in the rest of the world. The first concerns ante-natal precautions and the second immunisation. Because of advances in medicine and technology with scanners and other equipment it is now possible to know a great deal about the unborn child. Even in the early stages of pregnancy serious deformities, brain damage or mongolism can be detected. Screening in earlier pregnancy is encouraged by the Government, the health authorities and certainly by the medical profession.
I should like to ask my noble friend Lady Hooper, who is to reply, how widespread is the availability of screening with the modern techniques and equipment. It is no good encouraging women in early pregnancy to go for such screening if there is only limited availability or if a long distance has to be travelled in order to reach the appointment.
Where there is a serious deformity and that deformity or another defect is found, difficult decisions have to be taken. One option is abortion. That is a controversial subject and raises issues of principle and religion; I certainly understand and respect that. But I hope we can all agree that it is important that as much information as possible should be discovered at the early stages, if it can be, and that decisions can then be taken before birth, with advice from the medical profession and a picture being given so far as it can be of what the child's future is likely to be if it is born alive.
Those decisions are difficult. I can speak only for myself, and if as a prospective parent I was told that a

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very deformed or brain-damaged child was likely to be born, I should opt for abortion at an early stage rather than knowingly bring into the world a seriously deformed child. But I make it clear that I say that for myself only.
I reiterate that nowadays a family should have as much information as possible beforehand rather than experience the shock and distress of the sudden discovery after birth of a severe malformation. Nature reacts and responds automatically in many cases. It is estimated that about 65 per cent. of potential mongols are naturally rejected by miscarriage.
I must emphasise that many of the children born with serious handicaps are lovingly looked after and accepted by their families. In other cases that is not possible. I know of families where there have been severe strain, an overwhelmingly burdensome daily life and the break up of the marriage in certain cases. Perhaps in those cases the children should be institutionalised. I am glad to say that there are places in the country where such handicapped children can be well cared for and looked after. My point, which I cannot overemphasise, is that if we can reduce the number of such disabled people born into the world, more resources will be available for those who need the care.
That brings me to the research side. A great deal is being done with research into crippling diseases and conditions, but I believe that more could be done. I should like my noble friend today, if she can, to tell us more about what the Government are doing or encouraging others to do. There are many calls on private contributions for various good causes—and medical ones of different kinds—but research into cures for crippling illnesses should be a high priority.
Even at Question Time today we were discussing the matter of vaccines, and I now come to my second subject—immunisation. Vaccines or other forms of innoculation early in life have in the past 50 years gradually eliminated some of the most lethal and crippling diseases. Perhaps the most notable one is polio, but there are now vaccines for measles, whooping cough and other serious diseases that can leave disability. There must be proper arrangements for the rare cases where the vaccine has caused serious damage to someone who is vaccinated. We cannot pursue that now because, as we were reminded at Question Time, there is still a case before the courts. Clearly there should be proper arrangements. It is exactly what those arrangements are to be that needs eventually to be decided with the help of the courts.
When I was Secretary of State for Scotland in the early 1970s and therefore responsible for health as well as many other matters, I launched a campaign concerning rubella (German measles). It is a mild illness, but if a woman has it during pregnancy, it raises grave risks of a child being born with severe defects. I am glad to say that that has been carried on, and I think that it is now pretty widely known that, as a precaution, girls should have that vaccination in early life.
When I was Chairman for Scotland of the International Year of Disabled People in 1981 we gave special attention to prevention as well as the other aspects of disablement. Our particular Scottish project
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was an immunisation programme for children in the Sudan. We raised many thousands of pounds for that. It has proved to be timely, given the developments in that part of the world more recently.
There are other aspects of the subject; for example, prevention of accidents, health education and early remedial treatment before a temporary condition becomes permanent. I also should like to mention the case of the noble Lord, Lord Smith, who made his first public speech, after having had a stroke and being unable to speak at all, in the debate a year ago that I initiated on vocal disabilities. I am glad to say that he has been able to continue speaking since then. That is a remarkable case of someone overcoming a disability which in many similar cases has been permanent.
Prevention is an important part of the subject of disablement. I commend to the Government what the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, said and I hope that they will give the highest priority to the prevention of disability.
3.30 p.m.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, I join the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, who speaks with a great deal of authority on these matters, in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, on the initiative and the originality which he has displayed in introducing this Motion. Since he became a Peer, the noble Lord has had so many compliments heaped on him that he may become a bit bored. I shall not break the sequence altogether. He has performed the extraordinary feat (unique in my time) of moving from the world of officialdom to that of a Life Peer. The only thought that occurs to me now is how boring it must have been for him during all those years to have been helping us to make speeches which were not as good as the ones he could have made himself. I thought he spoke effectively today, as always.
I know that the noble Lord and others will forgive me if I concentrate on muscular dystrophy or more particularly Duchenne muscular dystrophy. I suppose that I should mention my special reason for taking a more than ususal interest in that aspect of disability, although I have often spoken, as so many others have, on matters affecting the disabled.
Barbara, an old friend of mine, had a brother who when a small child developed muscular dystrophy. His muscles gradually faded away and he died when he was 16. By that time, my friend had had four children—two boys and two girls. She then discovered that she was a carrier of that fatal disease. It was also then discovered that although the affliction had mercifully passed by her two sons, both her daughters were carriers. One of the daughters is my godchild and another is my wife's godchild. I can therefore speak with a certain personal interest.
I have called the disease fatal, and so it is at present and will be for the foreseeable future. I do not for a moment rule out possibilities to which we cannot look forward just now. At the moment the disease is incurable. It is a muscle-wasting disease which takes three or four years to manifest itself, by which time the mother may have produced more than one child with the same affliction. There is no cure at present and no

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cure in sight. I hope that one will be found in years to come.
By the age of 10 or 11, the boy is usually in a wheelchair. He becomes progressively weaker until his muscles are so wasted that they can no longer perform their function—for example, breathing—and he dies. That used to happen at about the age of 15—I mentioned that my friend's brother died at the age of 16—but physiotherapy and a good diet can extend that to the early twenties but not beyond at the moment.
The mother with a defective X-chromosome, speaking generally, has a 50 per cent. chance of passing the disease to her daughters or her sons. A daughter who acquires the affliction may be what is called a low risk or a high risk carrier. I shall not go into that point at the moment. The daughter becomes a carrier and the son becomes a victim.
How do I relate that to the subject of this Motion—the prevention of disability? It is clear that if a person containing that defective X-chromosome chooses not to reproduce himself or herself, that is one way of preventing the disability being passed on. For that to happen, it is necessary for the first person to know that his or her body is defective in that way. In the case of men, although the vast majority suffering from the disease die young, the disease is all too obvious. In the case of women, it is not by any means obvious. It has only recently been possible to acquire the knowledge necessary to decide with reasonable confidence who is or who is not a carrier.
Last summer, I took the liberty of approaching every Member of this House—I am afraid that it was an impertinence—on behalf of the Westminster branch of the Muscular Dystrophy movement. I take the opportunity now of expressing my heart-felt thanks to the several hundred Peers who so generously responded. The genetic research towards which your Lordships' money went is devoted to finding as many ways as possible of knowing with certainty that a woman is or is not the carrier of a defective chromosome. I take leave to quote a slightly technical passage from Dr. Paul Walker, executive director of the Muscular Dystrophy Group of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. He said:
"In the last four or five years the techniques of molecular biology have made it possible to investigate the whole genetic make-up of the X-chromosome. Our scientists … have discovered that there are 'deletions', that is, small pieces of the chromosome which are missing, in about eight or nine per cent. of the boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. In those cases it is now possible, with about 98 per cent. accuracy, to tell the female relations who may be at risk whether they are carriers or not".
That applies to a relatively small number of those concerned, but Dr. Walker and his colleagues consider that that is an enormous break through. That is an addition to the much more rough and ready methods which have prevailed. As I explained earlier, my friend was diagnosed as a carrier a few years ago.
I shall quote one or two other sentences from Dr. Walker. He said:
"We should realise this is only an intermediate stage. The purpose of the research going on into genetic diseases is, first, to find out what the gene is, then what it does and then to find a way of treating the disease which will reverse the harmful effect of whatever it is that goes wrong".
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I am sure that Dr. Walker would not want me to exclude any possibilities for the future; but at the moment we are faced with the fact that unless one favours abortion, which I do not, the only way of preventing the disability being passed on is for those who are diagnosed as carriers to decide not to have children.
That is a decision which I should not dream of suggesting to anyone. I shall not say to those young women placed in that poignant position that I know best and that they should follow my advice. That would be gross impertinence. The decision must be their own. It must be their decision not to have children.
My family's two goddaughters have chosen not to have children. They are both fine, healthy, vigorous young women and that is their decision. I do not say that other people may not reach some other decision. If we say, looking at the matter nationally, that for this terrible disease to be prevented from going further we call for great, lifelong sacrifices from a number of young women, the least we can do is to make some small sacrifice ourselves by promoting the research that will make the disease less dangerous.

British Shipbuilders
3.40 p.m.
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement on British Shipbuilders that is being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. The Statement is as follows:
"As the House will know, British Shipbuilders won only 23,000 compensated gross tonnes of orders last year. This was little more than a tenth of the amount forecast in its corporate plan. This was not for lack of government support. The financial support for individual orders is not the problem. The problem is that orders are simply not there to be won. In Sweden, for example, which a few years ago had one of the most modern merchant shipbuilding industries in the world, the entire industry is closing down. This reflects the latest downturn in the shipbuilding market, which has resulted in capacity reductions and redundancies across the world. Despite government support of over £1,400 million since 1979 and the recent increase in the level of support for new orders, it has proved impossible for British Shipbuilders to maintain its current capacity in the absence of new orders.
"British Shipbuilders has therefore today announced measures which deal with this overcapacity. They include a decision to close by the end of the year Smiths Dock, the Troon shipyard of Ferguson-Ailsa and the Wallsend site of Clark Kincaid. In addition, British Shipbuilders has, as part of its wage negotiations, proposed a two-year deal which will seek to match manpower and capacity more closely to demand. The Government regret that these necessary measures will lead to total redundancies of some 3,500 people by March 1987. British Shipbuilders hopes that a substantial number of these will be achieved by voluntary redundancy.

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"The Government propose to provide to British Shipbuilders immediate support of up to £5 million in the current financial year to enable it to set up a new subsidiary, British Shipbuilders Enterprise Ltd. This will provide expert and practical services for those facing redundancy. It will ensure that they have at their workplace counsellors with the skills and resources to guide them towards retraining and redeployment opportunities, and to provide financial support to take advantage of those opportunities. It will also offer financial help and advice to those wishing to take the initiative of setting up their own business.
"In addition, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Employment has asked the Manpower Services Commission to provide a further £1 million specifically for the retraining of redundant employees of British Shipbuilders in direct co-operation with the new Enterprise Corporation. He will also make available £1 million via the city action team for job creation measures and to stimulate enterprise in the North-East.
"The community programme is already being expanded in the North-East from its present level of 22,000 jobs to 29,000 jobs at an extra cost of some £30 million. My right honourable friend has asked the Manpower Services Commission to explore urgently new ways in which the resources of the community programme and the enterprise allowance scheme can be used in order to lead to permanent jobs in the North-East.
"In addition to these measures, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment has reviewed the derelict land reclamation and urban programmes in the areas affected. At £13 million, the reclamation programme in the North-East region this year is already substantial, but this will be increased by a further £1 million. My right honourable friend also proposes to allocate an extra £2 million under the urban programme, adding to the region's £35 million programme this year.
"The British Shipbuilders Enterprise Corporation will also operate in Scotland. My right honourable and learned friend the Secretary of State for Scotland will consider urgently additional measures to help the areas affected by the redundancies announced today.
"The measures I have outlined will be in addition to the existing regional aid programmes, including assistance via English Industrial Estates for which the areas concerned are already eligible."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Lord for having repeated the Statement made by his right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in another place. Indeed, on first looking, I was under the impression that the Statement might be repeated in your Lordships' House by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth. The fact that this is not the case relieves me of the necessity to point out that this Statement bears all over it the fingermarks and footmarks of the
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noble Lord himself. It is nothing more than a political patter littered with the usual ambiguities for which the noble Lord is famous.
The noble Lord himself will recall his statement in this House yesterday when he claimed the remarkable success of the Government's economic policies. Today's Statement just shows how valuable that observation is. In regard to the shipbuilding industry, in 1979 the labour force stood at 33,000. It has since been reduced by two-thirds and, before this announcement was made, stood at 10,000. It will now be reduced to 6,500. So much for the success of the Government's economic policy!
The fact of the matter is that the Statement is not concerned with the British shipbuilding industry at all. By the whole tone, tenor and content of the Statement the Government have given the country notice that they have completely abandoned the British shipbuilding industry. It is all very well to say, as indeed the noble Lord has said, that the Government have provided £1,400 million of taxpayers' money in support of the shipbuilding industry. That should be compared again, oddly enough, with the noble Lord's statement yesterday in reply to another question, in which he revealed that out of the taxpayers' pocket nearly £7,000 million had been paid in support of the common agricultural policy. He ought to be reminded of that.
The Government are always prepared to give way at the drop of a hat to the demands of the City. We have the Bank of England formally reproving the Chancellor of the Exchequer for introducing a tax on American depositary receipts. Now the Government are going to climb down on that. They are entirely in the hands of their City masters, and the Statement only underlines that.
The Government could and should have come to the aid of this industry a long time ago on matters that they cannot even apprehend. The Government know perfectly well that in France, Japan and Germany package deals for shipping are offered that are much more favourable than those that British Shipbuilders is able to offer. The Government also know perfectly well that they could have maintained the capacity of British shipbuilding by causing forward orders to be placed, by our requirements for fishery protection ships and other ancillary vessels for the Royal Navy, and so on. They could have exerted themselves to preserve and enlarge the British shipbuilding industry, but they do not care to do it. They have written off the shipbuilding industry.
Moreover, the rump that remains can hardly be encouraged by the fact that the world knows that the British shipbuilding industry has been abandoned. It is likely therefore that even the rump that remains will receive many orders from the outside world in the full knowledge that the Government themselves have no confidence in the industry? The noble Lord knows quite well that the Government could have offered special concessions to shipowners to build their ships in the United Kingdom, as happens in other countries where in some cases there is 100 per cent. take-up by foreign shipowners from their own shipyards. The Government choose to do none of these things.

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The Government complain from time to time—or the Government's supporters complain—that there is nothing wrong with the policies; it is only their presentation that is at fault. The noble Lord is a past master at the art of presentation. But no presentation on his part can mask the fact that in this one most vital industry in the country of enduring value the Government have backed down. They prefer to follow the policy that has been announced, often in raucous and strident terms, by the Prime Minister of free competition all over the place, even though other countries do not do so.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, we on these Benches share many of the preoccupations of the Labour Opposition. Perhaps I may start by saying that we are glad to see that an enterprise company has been set up immediately and without struggle or difficulty. We remember the long period of struggle and difficulty that we, on these Benches, and in another place, experienced in trying to get the same done for the coal mining industry. I am glad that this time the successful precedent of British Steel has been followed up without further ado. We welcome also what are, I take it, no less than five tranches of new money that will help this enterprise company and other government programmes up there. It is good that this has been done promptly. We can understand why it has been done promptly. We are happy that the results of our labours, as shown up in recent by-elections, should have led the Government, in this, their seventh year, to do the right thing so promptly this time.
I have three questions, two relating to the short term and one long term. My first short-term question is to ask whether the noble Lord can remind the House of the last recipient of a government shipbuilding order. Was it private or public sector? The second short-term question is to ask whether the Government will join us on these Benches in wishing Mr. Graham Day better luck with British Leyland than he has had with shipbuilding. The long-term question is to ask whether the Government agree that, in the long term, the solution to the problem is an equitable sharing of the burdens of shipbuilding, as well as the burdens of shipping, world-wide, in some kind of internatioanl system agreed by all the countries concerned. Will he agree that what is needed in this country to back that up and to provide the data and initiative for it is that the Government should at long last get a firm grip of the totality of national maritime policy, which includes shipbuilding as much as shipping and all other forms of seafaring activity?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, for recognising that the success of the Government's economic policy can be seen today in facing up to reality and not in looking at problems and wishing that the world were different. I know that noble Lords opposite often resent my talking about other countries and imagine that we are not only an island but also a universe to ourselves. I am forced, however, to remind your Lordships' House that Sweden, which once had the most modern facilities in Europe, has effectively abandoned merchant shipbuilding; that in Holland the Dutch Government refused support to their
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industry to build a sister ship to the large North Sea ferry won by Govan, and that even the Japanese are having to adjust to the shortage of orders. The Japanese have been cutting capacity since 1979. Today they are considering a reduction of one-third in larger yards and contemplating 20,000 job losses.
The Germans have cut their shipbuilding capacity by half since 1976 despite the widespread use of soft credit to finance sales to developing countries. France is also cutting capacity. I can tell your Lordships that we are bound by the fifth directive on shipbuilding aids to the credit terms in an OECD understanding. It is true that some Community countries are allowed more generous terms, but their direct production subsidies are lower.
We must face reality. The simple reality is that this year British Shipbuilders, the corporate plan of which calls for 200,000 tonnes of orders, has so far received orders for 23,000 tonnes. Above all, we must look forward and not back. In the plans outlined today we are looking for ways in which we can utilise the skills, the expertise and the energy of those employed in British shipbuilding in other occupations in the future. This has nothing to do with depositary receipts or many other things in the City. I would remind your Lordships of Glengarnock, a steel mill closed six or seven years ago. At that time it employed 700 people. Today, as a result of British Steel (Industry) and the Scottish Development Agency in setting up a Glengarnock Valley task force, over 1,100 people are employed. We have to look forward. The package outlined today is a way of dealing with a world-wide problem, a way of looking towards the future.
I know that in 1977 there were 38,000 people employed in British Shipbuilders. But there is an enormous world surplus of capacity in shipbuilding. Third world countries are becoming shipbuilders, and we have not seen the end of it yet. We are not giving up shipbuilding. We hope very much that, in its new form, we shall see British Shipbuilders as a viable and active company.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, for his comments. I shall have to write to him and place in the Library the answer to his short-term question relating to the last order received from the Government. I can, however, say this. At present it would be wrong to go down the route of Polish ship orders, of providing a considerable subsidy and incurring further losses on ships that are simply not required. If we want to help British shipowners, what we must not do is help further to increase the surplus capacity of ships on the world market. What we must do is find ways of looking ahead, realising that the world goes forward and not back, and so find a way to utilise the skills of our work force.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord or anyone in the Government, with the possible exception of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, realises the effect that this further body blow will have on the North-East of England. As I have pointed out to your Lordships' House so often, the North-East has by far the highest unemployment in Britain. Middlesbrough has 28 per cent. unemployment. The county of Cleveland in which it is

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situated has 22 per cent. unemployment. And now this!
My noble friend has pointed out the contrast in regard to the Government's treatment of the agricultural industry. How many economic farms are there in Britain? Not one. Farms throughout the country are growing grain that no one wants. The Government are quite happy about that. Why the different treatment of these marvellous men? Let me tell the noble Lord that once the labour force of a shipyard is dispersed, it can never be re-assembled. This is dispersing one of the most valuable national assets of a maritime country. The Government committed the lunacy, the sheer idiocy, of privatising the paying parts of the industry engaged in naval work. Now, in spite of what he says, the noble Lord knows that they are abandoning the shipbuilding industry.
This Government are finished. They are bereft of ideas, bereft of policy, and discredited. They are clapped out. Why do they not go, before they ruin the rest of the economy?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I am grateful for the noble Lord's observations which I shall take as they were offered to me—surely in jest. The noble Lord does not seriously believe that government policy can create ship orders from nowhere. The noble Lord does not seriously believe that cross-subsidies will actually save industries. The noble Lord will surely accept that the world changes and that we have to look ahead. Of course, there is a surplus at the present time in the production of grain in Europe, and that will have to be dealt with through the Community. But it is an entirely different matter. If we see that there is to be—I hope that there will be—a return to building ships, we shall have in British Shipbuilders a facility to do so. But we cannot sit by and build castles in the air. There must be orders before ships can be built.
4 p.m.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, can my noble friend say whether British Shipbuilders has given to the Government and himself any explanation of its apparent inability to match the delivery dates of its foreign competitors which resulted inter alia in the loss of the contracts for the refitting of the "QE2" and for the building of the new P and O cruise liner? Has that inability to match foreign delivery dates and to be sure of keeping to them anything to do with the demarcation disputes between the unions concerned which certainly in the years in which I was involved in this matter did immense and apparently permanent damage to the shipbuilding industry?
Is my noble friend also aware that some of us very much resent the personal observations about himself which the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, saw fit to make?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend. I often feel that our generation has inherited the world's oldest industrial buildings. We have also inherited the world's oldest industrial relationships; and a relationship based on conflict was, I suspect, the legacy of the Trade Disputes Act 1906 which led to demarcation disputes. It led to our losing
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orders across a whole field of industrial activity in which shipbuilding has proved to be the one that has paid the greatest penalty.
I very much hope that in the future—and I prefer to look forward—we shall leave the age of demarcation disputes behind us. I hope very much that in the future we shall build quality products to time.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, has the noble Lord forgotten that on 2nd May your Lordships had a debate on the EC Committee's report on maritime policy? Has he forgotten that it was made quite clear that we cannot deal with maritime policy without dealing with shipping, shipbuilding and ports? Yet the whole of his Statement today has dealt solely with shipbuilding.
Does the noble Lord accept the arguments advanced by the British Council of Shipping, which are in line with those of the trade unions; and that nothing he has said in his Statement has anything to do with the policies advanced by your Lordships' EC Committee dealing with maritime policy in the UK and in Europe?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, my Statement today is dealing with a more limited matter; that is, providing a future for those who unfortunately will face redundancy in the years to come as a result of the lack of orders in the shipbuilding industry not only in this country but also I am afraid world-wide. That is the immediate problem. My concern is that those who are to become redundant are given, at the earliest possible opportunity, a chance to do something different, to use their redundancy to look towards the future. That is where I think your Lordships' House should be looking this afternoon.
Lord Greenhill of Harrow: My Lords, is the Minister aware that departments in Whitehall have been arguing for years—and I say literally for years—about the building of a new ship for the supply of St. Helena? This ship will eventually be required. Why can the order not be placed now?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, the noble Lord has a far greater memory of Whitehall than I do; but I shall certainly look into the matter. However, I assure the noble Lord that orders that could be placed now have been placed. It is only with the greatest reluctance that we face the situation that we have today.
Lord Orr-Ewing: My Lords, will my noble friend bear in mind that sometimes the French build small ships which they hope to sell to third world countries for coastal defence purposes and if they do not sell them, they absorb them into the French Navy? If they sell them, it helps to retain an element of shipbuilding in France in this very difficult market.
Will the noble Lord press his noble friend the Minister of Defence to reconsider whether we could not start building some small ships on the same pattern? I do not know whether he saw in this morning's paper a report that following the position where Japan had half the world shipbuilding market and has now had to cut right back South Korea, this

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very morning, had an order for a third Norwegian car ferry. So Norway, which was also a first-rate shipbuilding country, in now losing its market to an up-and-coming South Korea.
In the face of this competition we recognise broadly that the noble Lord has to make temporary provision. We only hope that he is keeping the organisation going so that it can expand to meet the needs when world demand for ships expands.
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend. There are one or two orders in prospect. There is one for a fisheries' protection vessel, and a new ferry for services to the Scottish west coast islands. Both British Shipbuilders and United Kingdom private sector yards have been invited to bid. I have no doubt that a decision will be made before very much longer.
We must be very careful that we do not perpetuate the existence of a yard by building products which are no longer required for any purpose. It is more in the interests of the workmen themselves, and everybody in the yard, that we begin to look forward to finding them a productive future. I am told that even Korea has now ceased to make further investment in shipbuilding and is looking very hard and very competitively for new orders. I have no doubt that one of these days Korea will be in the same position as ourselves. There will then be other nations coming forward. The simple truth is that the effects of the Industrial Revolution, which started in this country 250 years ago, have so far gone only halfway round the world; the other half still lies ahead.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, the noble Lord is very fond of preaching to the House about facing reality. Does he not accept some responsibility by the Government for creating the reality that he talks about? I have asked the Government many times over the past 12 months about their policies towards the collapse of the British Merchant Navy. As the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, has said, this is a part of the whole of maritime policy historically in this country. The Government have always fobbed me off by saying that while there may be a temporary lull everything is all right. About an hour ago the noble Lord was telling me that the Government cannot create jobs. Apparently the Government can destroy jobs, take jobs away from men.
Can the noble Lord answer this question? He is constantly telling us about the success of the Government's economic policies. Can he tell us why the most profitable parts of the British maritime organisation have been sold off from national control and put in private control? Can he tell us how government support for the shipbuilding industry in this country compares with that in other countries? It is nonsense to suggest that there is no longer any need for shipbuilding in the world. There is a great need for shipbuilding. It will go on. It may fluctuate, but it will continue. Why are we not retaining our share of it?
The noble Lord gave a figure of £ 1,400 million since 1979. That averages out at £200 million a year. Can he tell us how that compares with what the Germans, French, Japanese and Koreans are paying to subsidise
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their shipbuilding industry? The noble Lord gave the game away when he said that the Germans were making 20,000 shipbuilders unemployed. That figure of 20,000 is double the total number of those who were in work today before the cuts. How can the Germans afford a shipbuilding industry which employs that kind of number whereas this country, with a much longer tradition of shipbuilding and maritime expertise, is apparently going to be destroyed by the clear action and policies of this Government?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby. First, I must tell him that I do not claim that I have ever preached to the House. However, I have asked your Lordships, and the noble Lord in particular, to face reality on occasion and I would ask him to face reality today. We must look at a world in which the Government have invested £1,400 million to little avail—since the outside world has not changed. We must look at British Shipbuilders, which has succeeded in winning only 23,000 tonnes out of 200,000 tonnes, which in the reduced circumstances is the requirement in order to break even. We must look at a world in which not the Germans but the Japanese are contemplating a reduction which would involve 20,000 job losses; they have already taken 10,000, and a further 20,000 are a possibility. We must look at a world in which ship orders are simply not available—and all the wishing in the world will not bring them back. We must face reality. We must look forward. We must look for other occupations for many people who were previously engaged in shipbuilding.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, will the noble Lord answer my question about privatisation?
Lord Young of Graffham: Gladly, my Lords. Surely, the one thing that makes no difference in the real world is whether you have a profitable warship-building company put together with other shipbuilding companies that cannot get orders, or whether you keep them separately and allow a privatised and revitalised company to go ahead from strength to strength. If we really want to see shipbuilding continue, then we should allow the warship-builders or the others to have full access to the private sector and to the market; but that does not deal with the real problem and it is only trying to avoid reality to say so.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, I intervene again mainly as a result of the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, in which he accused me of making a personal attack upon the noble Lord, Lord Young of Graffham. I make a point of never attacking individuals, although I may attack what they say with some vehemence. However, I think that the noble Lord, Lord Young of Graffham, knows that what I say is conviction and not malice.
The noble Lord has not addressed himself to the question. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, gave him some hint of it when he asked what steps the Government were taking as regards advanced orders. That lies within the sphere of government. If the Government are interested in the British shipbuilding industry, they know quite well that, in the same way as

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they pour thousands of millions of pounds into piling up grain which nobody wants, they can make useful expenditure in producing shipping that is required now; namely, fishery protection vessels, ferries, and ancillary ships. The noble Lord knows that that can be done.
It is not we on this side of the House who are not facing up to reality. We face up to the reality of this miserable Government which is very real indeed. Why does not the noble Lord address himself to the problem of the shipbuilding industry in a country that has been renowned for centuries for its shipbuilding skills? Are we to understand that the Government are prepared to abandon it completely? That is the impression which they give. In view of what has happened this afternoon, will the noble Lord convey to his noble friend the Leader of the House the fact that it is quite indispensable, in view of the nature of the Statement this afternoon, that the House has an opportunity to debate the whole of the shipbuilding question in the United Kingdom?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, if one matter has become absolutely apparent it is the Government's attitude and the Government's determination and desire to see that shipbuilding continues in this country. However, we have to face reality. We have to ensure that the volume and capacity of shipbuilding accords with the likely body of demand. In taking the steps that we are taking today, we are facing reality, we are defending the shipbuilding that we have, and we are not giving up as has Sweden (which was a great shipbuilding nation) and as have many others in Europe. We are looking at what we have in a different and changing world. It may well be that those opposite would very much have wished a few years ago to have kept blacksmiths' forges in operation. The world changes. They had to be turned into garages. Today we must look at shipbuilding and see whether many of the skills of our people can be turned to something useful.
Lord Annan: My Lords, as raucous and strident questions seem to be in order this afternoon, I wonder whether the noble Lord would permit me to put one to him following what the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby, said. The noble Lord said that it was the Government's fault and that theirs was the responsibility for destroying the shipbuilding industry. Is it not a fact, as the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, said, that this industry was sold down the river, destroyed and demolished during the 1950s and 1960s by constant strikes, constant demarcation disputes and constant pilfering in the yards; and that the unions bear a very heavy responsibility for this—the unions, not the Labour Governments of the past, nor the Conservative Governments of the past? Was it not an example of trade unionism having run riot?
I wish to put another question to the noble Lord. People are disturbed about unfair competition. It occurs in many fields. Only the other day British Leyland were complaining of it in regard to restrictions put on their imports into Japan. Are the Government contemplating making a study of which countries discriminate against our exports? The noble Lord may
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reassure opinion to some extent if an inquiry of that kind were launched.
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord. Although I suspect that the unions must bear some part of the blame for the conduct in the 1950s and 1960s, there is no question that even if we had a very efficient shipbuilding industry, such was the competition from the third world, such were the prevailing wage rates and other matters, I suspect that we would have found the industry in decline in any event. Nevertheless, we are very much aware of the problem of unfair competition; and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry only a few days ago set up an internal unit which is closely monitoring this matter and will ensure that steps are taken where they are deemed necessary.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, as I have been referred to personally, I should like to ask the noble Lord whether it is not a fact that for several years all the unions concerned with shipbuilding and with the maritime industry as a whole have been making representations to the Government about their fears of the collapse of the whole industry?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I hear what the noble Lord says. The time to regret a hangover is not when you experience it; you should slow down the night before. I wish that perhaps we had moderated our behaviour in the 1950s, because we may have suffered less in the 1980s.

Disability: Prevention
Debate resumed.
4.18 p.m.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, I hope that after that interesting excursion into maritime affairs, noble Lords will not have forgotten the three fascinating speeches that we heard a short time ago on the important Motion which was so ably moved by the noble Lord, Lord Henderson of Brompton. We are all most grateful to the noble Lord for introducing such a very important subject. As I have said, I hope that noble Lords have not forgotten the three most interesting speeches that we have heard. The noble Lord, Lord Henderson, is to be particularly congratulated for giving this interesting and important debate the international flavour which it undoubtedly needs. I was so glad that he referred to the excellent work of Sir John Wilson and the emergence of the organisation IMPACT following that important meeting at Leeds Castle, because the international dimension in the whole question of the prevention of disability is vital.
The noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, looked rather more widely into the subject as can only be expected from a former Secretary of State for Scotland who was also Minister of Health for Scotland, among other things. The noble Earl, Long Longford, referred to an area of immense importance—that is, the area of genetically transmitted diseases; congenital defects of one kind or another—to which I shall shortly return.

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I should like to try to put this whole subject into a slightly different context. We must look at the complete picture. If we look the world over we find that health care resources worldwide do not match health care needs. There is a gap, and the tragic fact is that the gap is continuing to widen. There was a time when we all had great optimism. At the time that the National Health Service was introduced people tended to feel that once the financial barrier between the patient and medical care—whether it be hospital care or the general practitioner or whatever—was removed, somehow miraculously ill health and disease would disappear from the face of the world.
Of course that was totally false. What we found was that certain diseases disappeared—and I shall mention them in a moment—but we also found that as we learned to treat things which formerly we could not treat, as we learned to keep alive people who formerly would not have remained alive, we constantly increased the overall workload. Therefore, we have in our society worldwide people living and requiring regular medical attention who formerly would not be living. So the burden, the workload, continually expands.
One hopes that resources will expand; but I do not think that anybody can expect resources to expand to the extent to which all those engaged in the provision of health care believe advisable. Indeed, medicine and medical care could consume all the resources available if we allowed them so to do. There has to be some kind of establishment of priorities, and we have to find some other way of bridging the gap. We are talking about how we bridge the gap between the resources that we have for dealing with disability and the needs which those disabilities pose.
If we look at what has happened there is an immutable law of medicine that, as we get rid of old diseases—and we have got rid of many—new diseases always seem to rise up to take their places. When we look at the old ones we have got rid of, we seem largely in western society to have got rid of the old deficiency diseases such as rickets. There was a time when we could recognise anybody from my part of the world, Lancashire, by the way they walked, because they all had rickets. The deficiency diseases of the past have now largely gone in our society, although they have not totally gone in the developing nations to which the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, referred.
We have got rid of all those diseases which were perhaps water and sewage-borne, such as cholera, typhoid and things of that kind. We have got rid of many infectious diseases. For example, tuberculosis. At the beginning of this century it was referred to as the captain of the army of death, and now it is hardly a threat at all. It disappeared largely as a result of improved housing conditions and an improved environment in general. It disappeared as result of the new methods of chemotherapy which have resulted in the fact that people once infected do not remain infectious for very long, so fewer people are exposed to that infection. That is another disease which has largely disappeared.
The noble Lord, Lord Henderson, and others, referred to immunisation. Let us look at what has happened regarding smallpox. A vaccination
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programme was very successful. On the take up of smallpox vaccination, it might be worth mentioning in passing that it is interesting to note that when there was compulsory smallpox vaccination by law, the take up was never as high as when it became voluntary. There are lessons to be learned from that. The fact remains that we have now virtually abolished smallpox. I do not think there is a case anywhere in the world, and it may be that we shall never see another case.
It might be possible to do the same with certain other diseases. Reference has already been made to rubella. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, referred to that, and to the fact that a great many seriously handicapped children are born as a result of their mothers contracting rubella during pregnancy. Immunisation has largely put an end to that particular problem; and having done so, it has put an end to a great deal of disability. So it goes on and on, with old diseases disappearing. As they disappear, new ones rise up. One of the more frightening facts that I notice when I look at the scene as a whole is that in our modern, mechanised society, accidents of one kind or another, as a cause of death and disability, now rival the great killers like cancer and heart disease. Those are accidents in the home, on the roads, at work, and in the social environment in general.
There is something that can be done in the way of prevention. Nobody could dispute that these accidents lead to an enormous number of deaths. That is of course a form of disability—it is the ultimate disability. Secondly, they lead to lifelong disability for a great many people. I would not pretend that all accidents could be done away with; that we could avoid them all. But I have no doubt that with proper consciousness of the problem the total toll of accidents could be substantially reduced.
We also have in modern society the emergence of what are called stress diseases. It is a rather ill-defined term, and those who use it do not always know precisely which diseases are stress diseases. It is nevertheless a fact that a life from which all stress was removed would not be a very satisfying life. Indeed, we know that an element of stress is necessary in a person's life for full health. But stress which is excessive, or stress with which the individual cannot cope, is of course a potent cause of disease and disability, and perhaps ultimately chronic illness and therefore a form of chronic disability.
We then have the emergence of the vast toll of disease and disability and death from cardiovascular disease. That is clearly related, as many studies show, to the change in our lifestyle which has taken place over centuries; to effects related to our diet; to our lack of exercise; perhaps the lack of fibre in our diet; excessive animal fat, and things of that kind. One can argue about those aspects; but there is no question that the high incidence of the disease is clearly linked to the modern lifestyle.
We have had much advice from the Royal College of Physicians, and others, and from the Health Education Council, about ways in which we can change our lifestyle by taking more exercise, eating rather better, and so on, and that that would substantially diminish the incidence of cardiovascular disease. It would also, I have no doubt, diminish to some

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extent the incidence of cancer, which is one of the other major scourges of the modern world.
Then we have to look at things like smoking. That is self-induced disease. I am bound to say, as somebody who knows a certain amount about it having smoked originally, stopped for 10 years, and then started again—which shows that this is a form of addiction; addiction to nicotine is like an addiction to alcohol or anything else, nobody is wholly safe; once addicted you are always in danger—that the only real cure of that problem is somehow to persuade people never to start.
The sad fact is that we are not being very successful in that regard. Some research that I did two or three years ago showed that of new entrants to universities only one in 10 ever smoked at all. Of new entrants to shop floor jobs in industry—this was done at a time when there were some shop floor jobs and there was some industry, and not all that long ago—nine out of 10 were already established smokers. It is sad information. It shows that the propaganda has not got through to certain social groups among young people—and that is where the hope really lies. It lies in persuading people never to start, and never to develop an addiction which could be difficult to deal with later.
Time is moving on, my Lords. We have referred, of course, and we must refer much more, to preventive medicine in one form or another, and to the kind of thing that the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, mentioned such as screening and things of that kind. The noble Lord, Lord Henderson, used a phrase that I noted down. He talked of, "simple systems of delivery at low unit cost". Here is something we must underline. It is all very well to talk about preventive medicine and to assume automatically that everything we spend with the object of prevention is necessarily well spent.
In preventive medicine, as in therapeutic medicine, one really has to carry out some kind of cost-effective studies. Modern medicine being what it is, if you once adopt a practice and it becomes regarded as necessary for everybody so that they are all exposed to this particular test or to that particular test, and so on, that kind of thing is apt to creep into medical practice like some ritualistic form of religious observance so that it is difficult to stop. A great many people involved in health care the world over are at the moment doing things which are frankly unnecessary, and from which not a great deal of benefit emerges.
When we introduce new techniques like screening, we must look at what we are doing. Are we creating extra work for no obvious benefit? We must do cost-effective studies. May I give examples, my Lords? There are many people in society suffering from diabetes which is undiagnosed. It is perfectly simple to test urine for sugar. That does not consume vast, highly-trained resources. It does not take much time. That is the kind of thing that can be done easily. Equally it is simple to teach women how to palpate their breast in a sensible way so that they feel a lump if there is one. If they feel the wrong way with their finger ends there will always be a lump, but the Health Education Council has been teaching women how to feel their breasts properly so that they can diagnose
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something early. That is simple. It consumes no resources. However, we have had things such as the mass miniature radiography scheme which consumed vast resources but which gained almost nothing in the way of real benefits because the results were unreliable and in the end all it did was create a false sense of safety and security. Finally it was abolished.
If we talk about screening do not let us fall into the kind of American trap of some of the insurance health care schemes where perfectly fit and healthy patients go along and are subjected to blood tests to the point of extreme exsanguinity; and at the end what have we benefited? Let us make sure that before we introduce a new technique of prevention we examine it carefully, make sure it does not consume resources which are in short supply and are needed for other essential purposes, and make sure that some benefits flow from it in the end. That is the way we have to look at these things.
Before I finish perhaps I may say a brief word about the great importance of genetic diseases of one kind or another. It is a sad fact that modern society seems to have taken evolution by the scruff of the neck. Darwinism and the survival of the fittest no longer applies. We take, and rightly, the most strenuous steps to ensure not only that the least fit survive but that they survive and multiply. We are now finding a very worrying increase in the numbers of congenitally and genetically spread diseases of one kind or another. The noble Earl, Lord Longford, referred to one. We need a great many more genetic counselling centres so that people can seek advice and so that some of these avoidable conditions can be avoided.
We also need to do further research along the lines which have been discussed very thoroughly by the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, and her committee. I hope that we shall take some active steps. The first thing I should like to see is the establishment of a statutory body responsible for licensing work in the field of embryonic research and responsible for supervising it in general. Having established that first stage, let us then slowly build on but do not stop it altogether. If we once stop it we shall be losing an opportunity of stopping a great deal of disability and preventable hardship. I have spoken for too long. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Henderson of Brompton, and I await to hear other speakers.

Foreign Affairs Council: 12th-13th May
4.34 p.m.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Young): My Lords, with the leave of the House I shall now repeat a Statement on the Foreign Affairs Council on 12th and 13th May which is being made in another place by my honourable friend the Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Mrs. Lynda Chalker. The Statement is as follows:
"With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a Statement about the meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council which took place in Brussels on 12th and 13th May 1986. I represented the United Kingdom.

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"As a precautionary measure following the Chernobyl disaster, the council agreed a Commission proposal for a regulation to ban the import of certain foodstuffs from the USSR, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. The ban entered into force on 13th May and will last until 31st May. It will be reviewed on 29th May taking account of the latest scientific evidence. In addition, member states have undertaken to set contamination standards for intra-Community imports which are no higher than those for domestic produce, to limit the contamination level in exports to other member states to that acceptable to the recipient state, and to lift national controls on imports.
"The council discussed Community strategy in preparation for the launch of a new GATT round of trade negotiations. The council discussed improvements to the Community's mandate for negotiations with Mediterranean third countries on the adaptation of their co-operation and association agreements following the accession of Spain and Portugal. There will be further discussion at the June council. The council reviewed the steps being taken to normalise the Community's relations with Turkey in preparation for a meeting of the Association Council which is expected to take place in the early autumn.
"The text of a joint declaration by the council, member states, Commission and Parliament against racism and xenophobia was agreed.
"The council also had a further general discussion of the current budgetary situation in the Community, during which the Commission outlined their plans for a 1986 supplementary budget and the 1987 preliminary draft budget.
"An Association Council with Malta was held in the margins of the council. The operation of the EC Malta Association Agreement and the possible implications for Malta of the enlargement of the Community were discussed."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Baroness for repeating the Statement on a matter which is of great concern to the people of this country.
Perhaps I may deal first with the Chernobyl disaster. Did the Minister note the comment in the Financial Times which reads as follows:
"The whole exercise intended to reassure EEC citizens about their safety has rebounded as the member states have been shown incapable of agreeing on safe levels for often purely commercial reasons"?
Does she not agree that the safety factor is more important than the commercial factor? Can she indicate what the source of the disagreement referred to in the Financial Times was, if any?
Can the noble Baroness further say what are the implications of the provisional decision to allow member states to choose their own level of radioactivity in food, for the flow of goods between member states? Do Her Majesty's Government anticipate any further repercussions for British farmers on this? Can she also explain how the permissible
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radiation level in Britain compares with those in other European countries? Does she not agree that an agreed radiation level is desirable and should be sought urgently? Finally on this point, is there not a danger that the attitudes at the meeting appear, as I have just said, to be based on commercial considerations and not on the safety factor since they seem to have applied a blanket ban on Eastern countries with no reference to those countries in the West over which the radioactive cloud passed? Does she not therefore agree that this is the time for close co-operation among all countries which have nuclear power stations, on the simple ground that emissions from those stations know no national boundaries? Does she not agree that there is no Eastern or Western radiation cloud—there is a radiation cloud? That makes it difficult to understand the list of countries that she has given in the Statement.
May I ask the noble Baroness about another matter? I welcome some of the things that have been said, such as the declaration against racism and xenophobia, but can she say a word about the budget and the problems that may arise? Can she say what are the prospects of a settlement on this matter? I shall say no more because it is a complicated Statement which will require a good deal of definition. But is she satisfied that we are on the road to an agreement? If no agreement is made we are facing an extremely serious budgetary crisis.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, I too should like to thank the noble Baroness for repeating the Statement. There is not a great deal that one can get out of the second half, because it consists mostly of a list of chats which have been had without any conclusion being reached. But matters look ominous when it appears that the Commission has outlined its plans for a supplementary budget which I assume arises from the surpluses and the disposal of them against American competition, bringing down the price. Perhaps the Minister would care to say something about the problems of a new round of GATT talks.
The beginning of the Statement is extremely important in regard to the Chernobyl disaster. The Foreign Ministers have obviously discussed a great deal more than has been written here. I understand a little why the countries specified are mentioned, and not others. I assume it is because they are nearer the accident and subject to a higher degree of radiation. I do not quite understand why East Germany is not mentioned along with Poland, as it may be in the same category. Perhaps above all the noble Baroness will tell us what plans there are for international standards being set and for the setting up of an international body to monitor arrangements for safety and to make arrangements for the disasters which appear to occur even in highly organised countries. I think they must have discussed this, and perhaps the noble Baroness can tell us something about it.
Could she also say what we in this country are doing to give confidence in the pronouncements of the Government? I think it is very important that the Government should come clean on all the levels of radiation and what dangers they present, even though that may raise panic in some people's breasts for a

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time, as long as the people of this country can believe that the Government are telling the absolute truth. I think that it is very important to establish this standard, and I should very much like to hear the noble Baroness give us an assurance that they are considering these points.
Baroness Young: My Lords, I should like to thank both noble Lords, Lord Cledwyn and Lord Mackie of Benshie, for what they have said about this Statement. Both have referred in considerable detail to the first part of it, which concerns the Chernobyl disaster. If I can, I shall try to deal with the questions that they have raised. First of all, the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, asked me about a possible source of disagreement on the safety levels. I can confirm to him that the original figures on safety levels proposed by the Commission posed some technical difficulties for some member states, but the experts are now meeting on that matter. As far as the question of safety levels and intra-Community trade is concerned, experts are meeting this afternoon in Brussels to agree on safety levels on the basis of scientific data for intra-Community trade.
The noble Lord, Lord Mackie, raised quite particularly the question of East Germany's exclusion. I can assure him—because this has been a point which I know has been raised in another place and has been of concern—that yesterday my honourable friend was given a firm assurance at the Foreign Affairs Council that food exports from the GDR would be strictly controlled by the FRG authorities and would be subject to the same tolerance limits as the very strict domestic levels applied in the FRG itself.
I was also asked about the future and about cooperation between countries in order to be better prepared should such an eventuality happen again. As was agreed at the Tokyo summit meeting, we shall press in the International Atomic Energy Authority for an early negotiation of a convention permitting parties a rapid exchange of information on nuclear emergencies. On the point that the noble Lord, Lord Mackie, made at the end of his remarks about standards of information in this country, I am sure that he will have studied what my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment said in another place yesterday in the debate there about giving the fullest information as soon as possible on these matters.
If I may turn to the other matters that were raised, the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, welcomed the declaration on racism. On the question of the budget, which both noble Lords raised, may I say that, as to the question of the supplementary budget, the proposed supplementary budget is within the 1.4 per cent. ceiling. It will include a further 500 mecu (or £230 million) in addition to our 1985 abatement; and the proposed additional provision for agriculture primarily reflects the fall in the dollar and the recent EMS alignment. The price-fixing has actually saved money this year, but we shall, of course, be scrutinising proposals for possible savings.
On the particular problem of the budget, the ECJ judgment on the 1986 budget will be agreed in July and the Fontainebleau agreement and the own-resources decision make no provision for increase in
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the 1.4 per cent. VAT ceiling before 1988. I think this is the point which concerned both noble Lords on the future of the budget. I hope that I have covered all these detailed points in answering the responses to the Statement.
Lord Parry: My Lords, will the noble Baroness accept that there is a massive irony in the fact that the Government's Statement has fallen in the middle of a debate on the prevention of handicap both within Britain and worldwide? Did she see the "Panorama" programme on Monday evening, where disquieting information was given as to the levels of radiation that might or might not cause handicap in children? Did she also see conflicting evidence from doctors, which has been published in the last two days, as to the treatment of vegetables in Europe that have been exposed to radiation fall-out as a result of the Chernobyl disaster? Do the Government intend issuing fresh instructions specifically, for example, as to how to treat green vegetables so exposed?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I am afraid that I did not see the television programme to which the noble Lord has referred, but I can tell him that what the Community have decided to do is to ban the import of fresh fruit and vegetables, live domestic animals, fresh meat, milk and milk products and freshwater fish from the USSR, Romania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia from 13th May until 31st May. This is a precautionary measure, and it is to be reviewed on 20th May in the light of the latest scientific evidence.
The question may well be raised as to what is the scientific justification for this ban, and there has been a great deal of discussion in the media on the effects of the fall-out from Chernobyl. The fact is that there is no scientific evidence to justify so sweeping a ban, but, in the absence of information from East European countries, it is difficult to establish firm data about contamination levels in Eastern Europe. The Community thought that it was prudent in those circumstances to introduce this short-term precautionary measure until the full scientific information was made available. The application of the ban of course remains subject to review.
On the other detailed points about the effect on the health of individuals, I hope that the noble Lord will appreciate that this was not an issue, I think, specifically discussed at the Foreign Ministers' meeting yesterday. I shall of course draw his remarks to the attention of my right honourable friend.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, are we to take it from the last reply of the noble Baroness that no tests have been made on the food arriving from the countries that she has listed? However, if tests have been made, what is the level of radioactivity of the most contaminated foods?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I think that it would not be true to say that no tests have been made because tests have been made in Europe, as they have been made in this country, concerning levels of contamination. What I think one does not want to do in what is really a very difficult and new area for

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everyone is to make statements which might give cause for an increase in the anxiety of people unnecessarily. The Community have taken this view because they feel that it is right to be prudent. It may well be that the whole thing is in fact unnecessary, but as in all matters of health I think it is right in these circumstances to be careful; because, as we know, this is a new situation and it would be a terrible lack of responsibility if, because the Community had not taken these precautions, many people suffered. I wanted to explain precisely the circumstances in which these precautions had been taken. As I have indicated, they are subject to review and the ban will be lifted on a given date.
Lord Auckland: My Lords, as I understand it we are concerned here with imports of food. Can my noble friend the Minister say whether other imports from the Soviet Union, such as toys and other items which could be subject to radiation, are included?
Baroness Young: No, my Lords. The matters which are covered are the list of items which I have just read out to your Lordships.

Disability: Prevention
Debate resumed.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, it might be for the convenience of the House if I announce that the new revised time for the end of this short debate is now twenty-eight minutes past six.
4.51 p.m.
Baroness Faithfull: My Lords, I seek to elaborate on the last recommendation made by the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley. A few weeks ago at Conservative Central Office I attended the launching of a discussion paper called When Nature Fails—Why Handicap? It was written by Mr. Peter Thurnham, M.P. and his wife. Sarah, who have adopted a handicapped child. They are also founder-members of Progress, a campaigning group which supports controlled research into human reproduction, infertility and congenital handicap.
This booklet recommends that pre-14-day embryos should be given special legal status and that any research should be strictly regulated by licence, such research to be undertaken to prevent hereditary handicap and to help those couples unable to conceive. I agree with this report and I think that it is morally and ethically just, as well as practically beneficial. More than 14,000 babies in England and Wales were voluntarily registered as congenitally malformed within one week of birth in 1984, and 250,000 miscarriages before three months of pregnancy were due to chromosomal abnormalities in the embryo.
There has been set up a voluntary licensing authority, to which the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, referred, under the chairmanship of Lady Donaldson, funded by the Medical Research Council and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. On the Floor of the House of Commons, the Prime Minister praised the first year of work of this authority.
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I should say that already research work is being carried out by Professor Williamson at St. Mary's Hospital. His special interest, anal the interest of many of us, is in preventing cystic fibrosis. I wonder whether Mr. Enoch Powell, when introducing his Unborn Children (Protection) Bill in the other place, banning pre-embryo research, fully appreciated the disaster it would be both to research and to the one in 10 couples having difficulty in conceiving, and to the one couple in 50 who are at risk of giving birth to a handicapped child.
Therefore, I ask my noble friend the Minister, first, are the Government going to set up a working party composed of experts in order to clarify and define the legal status of a human embryo and to examine the areas in which beneficial research could be encouraged, and to monitor the work of the licensing authority which is already established? Secondly, will Her Majesty's Government either make a substantial contribution to the work of the present voluntary licensing authority or, alternatively, set up a statutory body to do this work? These recommendations were supported by Mr. Brian Rix of MENCAP in a speech which he made in February 1986, in which he said:
"Legislation, under the recommendations of the Warnock Report, should be introduced to allow research on pre-embryos to prevent handicap".
I pass on to the whole realm of prevention of mental handicap and I should like to say that the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, and the noble Lord, Lord Renton, would have spoken on this subject had they been able to be here today. There are 1·25 million people with mental handicap in Britain. That equals 2 per cent. of the whole population and is one in every 45 people.
MENCAP, under the secretary-generalship of Mr. Brian Rix, have made 10 recommendations and perhaps I may bring them to your Lordships' attention. They say:
"Britain should establish a national policy on prevention of mental handicap, setting out specific targets and guidelines for both national and local action. This should include:
"1. Health education should be a part of the core curriculum, with emphasis on using the Health Service for health"—
not only for illness.
"2. All tobacco products should carry a warning that smoking during pregnancy can damage the unborn child.
"3. Efforts must be made to increase both professional and public awareness of the importance of individuals knowing their own family histories.
"4. Genetic counselling and screening must be made widely available"—
a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy.
"5. Positive discrimination in favour of vulnerable women, who are at risk during pregnancy, for social, economic and health reasons, should be introduced.
"6. Good standards of obstetric and neonatal care must no longer be a matter of 'geographical luck' ".
I think it is well-known, for instance, that in Oxford, where there is first-class medical help and preventive medicine, there are many more children born healthy as compared with a place such as Liverpool, and that cannot be right. To continue:
"7. Screening newborn infants for hypothyroidism should be mandatory.

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"8. Legislation, under the recommendations of the Warnock Report, should be introduced …
"9. A standing committee on prevention should be set up, with the stature of the US President's Committee on Mental Retardation. Its findings should be subject to annual, public reviews".
There is not time to elaborate on all these individual recommendations, but I put them to your Lordships' House. I take this opportunity to thank the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, for enabling us to make these recommendations.
4.59 p.m.
Lord Rea: My Lords, we are all indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, for raising this very important matter and for his explanation of why it is particularly relevant today. It is a vast topic. In fact, just one segment of this topic—the prevention of mental handicap—is being discussed at the Royal Society of Medicine in two weeks' time. That is a two-day conference with 30 papers by acknowledged experts on the subject, and it is only one facet of the whole problem of disability.
Disability can result from almost any serious disease process if people do not reach the ultimate disability, which the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, mentioned, of perishing. This can occur from before conception until after death, if one considers the damaging effect that bereavement can have. Disability affects all the peoples of the world with different afflictions, according to climate, geography and the stage of economic and social development.
In third world countries severe handicaps are much easier to spot than in our society. Blind or severely disabled people are glaringly obvious, often begging for money from affluent visitors. It is a sad reflection on how poor some countries are that a strategically placed polio victim with useless contorted legs can sometimes collect a great deal more money than the average able bodied citizen, though often the money is taken from him by an organiser in the background. In contrast to the situation in industrial societies such as ours, where new cases of disability are mostly due to congenital disease, accidents or degenerative disease, in third world countries the majority of the disabled are the victims of easily preventable infective disease often made worse by co-existent malnutrition, as was pointed out very succinctly by the noble Lord.
The key to the prevention of most forms of disability lies in the efficient working and availability of appropriate health services to all the people—I emphasise "everybody". This applies at all stages of development. It is reflected in the call of the World Health Organisation for "Health for all by the year 2000", through the provision of primary care. Even more important perhaps than health services are literacy, the provision of clean water and an adequate food supply. I should not like to see one-off campaigns—for example, to eliminate poliomyelitis or measles by immunisation—dissociated from efforts to provide primary care and community development in the developing world. These form the basis of permanent improvement in the health of underprivileged communities in the third world.
In our society, too, good primary care is vital in the prevention of disability, whether this be primary
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prevention (by immunisation, good ante-natal screening, as has been pointed out, child care and health education), secondary prevention, which spots the early manifestations of disabling disease and prevents or slows its progression, of tertiary prevention, which enables disabled people to make the best use of their lives. Primary care teams of doctors, nurses and others must be aware of what is available in hospitals and special units and make use of new discoveries for their patients, but they are the first port of call—if you like, the eyes and ears of the health service. The Green Paper on primary care recently published by the DHSS makes some useful suggestions with regard to improving preventive services in primary care, although the Royal College of General Practitioners has for some years been making very similar noises. In fact, forward thinking members of all the health professions are acutely aware of the issues about which we are talking this afternoon.
I should now like to turn to the much discussed question of congenital handicap and its prevention and follow along the lines first mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull. I am very sorry, incidentally, that we have not been able to entice the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, here today, since I feel that her words of wisdom would have been very valuable in this debate.
As noble Lords are aware, owing to the pioneer work of Drs. Edwards and Steptoe it is now possible to collect human ova (or eggs) from a woman's ovary through use of the ingenious instrument the laparoscope. In a suitable culture medium these can be fertilised in vitro—that is, outside the body—by human sperm and then reintroduced into the womb of a woman whose fallopian tubes have become blocked. A proportion of these pre-embryos then implant in the womb and develop normally. Well over 1,000 test-tube babies have been born in many centres throughout the world. Sometimes more ova are collected than are necessary from the infertile woman; sometimes spare, unwanted ova can be collected from women who are undergoing laparoscopic sterilisation because they have completed their families. These are known as donor ova or pre-embryos if they are subsequently fertilised.
The Warnock Committee suggested that these spare ova or pre-embryos could be used for experimental purposes, but only up to 14 days after fertilisation. It is then that the "primitive streak" appears. This is a collection of cells which is the first identifiable sign of the developing human being; in other words, the true embryo. It is also very difficult to culture embryos after this stage. The committee agreed, as the noble Lord and the noble Baroness have pointed out, that any experiments on these embryos must first be licensed by a statutory licensing authority with half of its membership being lay people.
What kind of experiments can be done on pre-embryos? First, there can be experiments to improve existing methods of in vitro fertilisation, to improve a woman's chances of successfully bearing a child. Second (and conversely) experiments can be used to investigate new methods of contraception aimed at the egg or the sperm; and, thirdly, experiments can be devised which are aimed at developing methods of preventing genetic and chromosomal defects, which is

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what concerns us today. I should like to quote Dr. Ann McLaren, who was a member of the Warnock Committeee. She said:
"Research could determine whether such defects in a pre-embryo can be diagnosed before implantation. It might also help to elucidate the causes of the chromosomal defects that appear around the time of fertilisation".
One per cent. of babies born in Britain suffer from a genetic or chromosomal defect. There are other congenital handicaps due to conditions that occur during pregnancy, but these ones occur at the time of or before fertilisation; that is 7,000 babies each year.
A number of these conditions can be identified from examination of the nucleus of pre-embryonic cells by special methods. Methods of detecting other genetic defects are likely to be developed. It should be possible to develop methods of detecting affected embryos with, for example, Downs' syndrome or fibrocystic disease, which was mentioned by the noble Baroness, so as to be able to replace in the womb only unaffected pre-embryos. These types of experiments are only illustrations of the work that might be done to help to reduce the incidence of handicap. New lines of research would evolve, but all research projects would have to be carefully scrutinised by the licensing authority.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, has pointed out, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the Medical Research Council have already sponsored a voluntary licensing authority along the lines suggested by the Warnock Committee. That authority has already visited all 26 centres in this country that are involved in in vitro fertilisation; 10 of those centres undertake research. All the research projects that have so far been submitted to that voluntary authority had already been approved by a local hospital or university ethical committee. Most of the experiments were of the first type that I have mentioned, to try to improve the efficiency of in vitro fertilisation itself, and thus improve the treatment of infertility.
Pre-embryo research, far from leading to the birth of human monsters or genetically-engineered clones such as envisaged by Aldous Huxley in Brave New World, should result initially in the reduction of the proportion of handicapped children born to couples known to be at risk, and it might well lead eventually to a reduction in all genetically determined disability.
It is said that the legislation that will arise from the committee of the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, will be very complex and that is why no government Bill has been introduced. But I join the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, in asking the Government to think very seriously about introducing such legislation soon.
It is not true to say that complex legislation must wait for a very long time. Complex legislation was introduced very quickly two years ago to abolish the Greater London Council and the metropolitan counties. I hope very much that the Government will find time to introduce that much needed legislation in the next Session. Might it be possible to have even a slice of the cake and not the whole cake; the slice that sets up the statutory licensing body? Such legislation will be very important in averting yet another Private Member's Bill that might attempt to forestall it.
5.12 p.m.
Lord Auckland: My Lords, the House is very much indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Henderson of Brompton, not only for initiating this debate but also for the very cogent way in which he has presented this very important subject, It is a subject of which Parliament should always take account because disablement, despite the progress of medicine, will always be with us—be it congenital, be it at source, or be it already established.
Many noble Lords have personal experience of disability, as can readily be seen. Thirty years ago I certainly could not have made this speech in your Lordships's House, because I had a most terrible stammer. I still have traces of it. During my National Service in the Army my commanding officer gave me a certain amount of help which, together with that of my dear wife and some self-discipline, has made my stammer less noticeable. But mine is a very minor disability compared with some of the disabilities of childhood with which children are afflicted from birth.
I want to say a word or two about research because I believe that research is absolutely fundamental here. The Medical Research Council has done a marvellous job, not only in this sphere but in other medical spheres as well, However, it is worrying to see how depleted is the council of funds currently. If there is ever a body that should be well funded, it is the Medical Research Council. A nation free from disability as far as that is possible, is a healthy nation. Therefore, it is a nation that can be at work, even in times such as these when unemployment is a major problem.
According to the Office of Health Economics, in 1982 the Medical Research Council was given a grant in aid (and I am never quite sure what that means) of £120 million. In 1984–85 that grant was increased by 15 per cent., but as I understand it, and allowing for inflation, there is still a £1·4 million shortfall. I have not given my noble friend the Minister notice of this question, but I wonder whether those figures could be checked and whether the whole question of the grant to the Medical Research Council could be looked into. It seems to me absolutely fundamental to the question now before us that if we are to look into the causes of disability, whether in the United Kingdom or in the third world, research is absolutely vital.
I should like to put one specific question to my noble friend regarding the marrow bone transplant unit at Westminster Hospital. There are conflicting rumours as to what is to happen to the unit. Perhaps the Government themselves are not too sure. However, I believe that both your Lordships' House and the nation are deeply concerned with the implications of what might happen, because the work done at that unit is essential to preventing the real disabilities of blood cancer and other conditions.
One knows of the problems facing the health service at the present time. That brings to mind the question of ante-natal clinics. Much has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Rea, and others about pre-natal scanning and that kind of screening of pregnant women who can undergo tests to establish whether there is danger of their child being malformed. Those units are essential and it would be a very great shame if there were to be

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cuts in that field. It is fundamental to those women's peace of mind and also to the number of disabled and handicapped children that there might be, who would require to be looked after.
The noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, made reference to accidents. I am honorary vice-president of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, and the subject of accidents in the home has always been one of my main interests. The noble Lord is absolutely right. There are about 6,000 fatal accidents in the home every year. Here is the position of disability at source. A man may fall off a ladder at the age of 20. He may previously have been perfectly fit but might then be disabled for life. Accident prevention is largely a question of education. It is essential that schools, from primary schools upwards, should be seized of the need to teach children, particularly with the modern methods of video, of the dangers of climbing frames and so on that they cannot manage, and of drinking strange liquids out of strange bottles, which is the cause of much disability.
This has been a useful debate. It is always much harder to discuss the source of something, what causes disability, than it is to do something once the disablement has taken place. But that is to follow, and I believe that your Lordships' House, and particularly the noble Lord, Lord Henderson of Brompton, has done a very fine service today for Parliament, our nation and and the third world.
5.20 p.m.
Lord Parry: My Lords, in beginning to speak to this Motion I start with a tribute to the lifelong courage of the noble Lord, Lord Auckland, who has demonstrated again the way in which handicap, with care, education and support, can be overcome.
In the hot summer of 1976, during the Recess, I came into this House and passed through the Prince's Chamber to find, to my surprise, a beam crane. The Clerk to the Parliaments, the then Sir Peter Henderson, serving not as Clerk to the Parliaments but as clerk of works, was moving back into position two items of statuary which had been missing from their plinths in the Prince's Chamber for many long years. The statutes of Mercy and of Justice had been held to detract from the majesty of Queen Victoria and had been banished to the cellar until Sir Peter Henderson, historian and Clerk to the Parliaments, had them restored with the help of the committees. I arrived to see one statue in position and the other hanging on the crane. I then heard the remark, which I have cherished ever since, from the then Clerk of the Parliaments. He said, "Parry, you will notice that I have had much more trouble with Justice than I have had with Mercy."
It is a fitting point at which to begin and to tell the House that on Monday of this week, with the Lord Bishop of St. Davids and Mr. David Dell, the newly-elected showman of the year of the Showmans Guild of Great Britain, I spent the entire morning at the Portfield Fair, the May fair, riding the roundabouts and swings with some 50 handicapped children from Pembrokeshire. Two-thirds of those children need not have been there, and some of us need not have been there either if 75 per cent. of the knowledge we have
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had been applied to them in the period before and immediately after their birth.
The tragedy of our handicapped is that so much handicap is preventable, and the tragedy also is that although we know it we have not yet, despite the great agencies working to secure it under any government, regardless of politics, succeeded in bringing home the message on which the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, is focusing in this debate. It is therefore a privilege to rise with him and bring forward one or two items.
I discovered when I looked at the statistics that in the hot summer year of 1976, perhaps because of the climatic conditions, there were 655,503 births in England, Scotland and Wales in that year. Of those babies, 6,338 were still-born and a great many more were born handicapped because in the period immediately before, during and after their birth they were in some way or other neglected to the point where they became handicapped. The scientists and the doctors in the perinatal clinics in Wales tell me that one of the great tragedies of our time is that here in Britain, in this Western civilised country, in the perinatal period we are handicapping "compost grown", beautiful babies who would otherwise have been perfectly formed. My emphasis, therefore, is on that area where I have shown particular interest: on spasticity and the causes of it. But I am not going to outline those here or dwell upon them because I want to assure this House that certain countries have awoken to the fact that there is self-interest so far as the nation is concerned in giving careful support and care to the handicapped and to the prevention of handicap in the newly-born.
When President Pompidou became President of France that statesman looked at the books, as all governments do when they come into office; and, as all governments are, he was horrified by what he found. He was particularly appalled to find that a very great deal of money was being spent on support for the handicapped—an item in the budget that his country could ill afford and yet to which it was totally committed. He sent first for his statisticians and his economists and said, "What is this figure? How can we cut it down?" They said that it could be done by preventing spasticity, mental handicap, and by preventing injury in the perinatal period. He did not know what the perinatal period was. He sent for his doctors to advise him. They told him that during that period a great deal of damage was done but that it was avoidable to a very large degree.
So President Pompidou set them to work. He told them to produce a system for France which would reduce all the havoc that was being caused. They set about it. The simple product of their investigation was the maternity book which was a presentation to all women who registered in pregnancy. The earlier they registered the better were their chances, so the French Government paid them to register early. It was a simple little payment made in three tranches so that the girls—working-class girls, unemployed girls—during the period of their pregnancy could, through those registrations, be identified as either at risk or as healthy potential mothers. The maternity book became their property and it went with them. If they moved they presented it to the authorities so that their registration could be continued.

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The result was dramatic because France, from having had some of the lowest good figures in Europe—conversely, some of the highest bad figures—moved very quickly up to scale of good providers and showed splendid progress in avoiding perinatal damage.
I was given, as were other Members of your Lordships' House, some figures from IMPACT, the international initiative against avoidable disablement. Since we have talked about Britain and about France I wanted to outline that in Africa it is estimated there are over 40 million disabled people in that land and that two-thirds of their disabilities could now be prevented or indeed cured. In Madras, in India, between April and August 1985, 216,000 infants were immunised against poliomyelitis in a city-wide campaign in which the Indian IMPACT foundation collaborated with state and city authorities, and others. They achieved an unprecedented 92 per cent. coverage of those people. It is estimated that that campaign alone saved over 800 of the city's children from paralysis during an epidemic of poliomyelitis.
I shall just mention the fact that France, Africa, India, Latin America and South-East Asia could all give examples of tackling the problem in a way that we would wish to see—with a new urgency. That is not criticism of existing government policy nor does it require defence, because I say it as someone who believes that we care alike for the underprivileged in our society and that we try to plan, whatever view we take of society, the best use of our resources in aid. But we are also much more likely to listen to the articulate. We are much more likely to listen to the organised. The voices of those who are well placed in society, who are well educated and well endowed, can be heard and facilities can be created for them sometimes even at their own expense; but I am not making any reference to that.
What does not happen—and it has already been said in this debate—is that sufficient of the resources moves down through society. It was Sir Anthony Eden, a Conservative, who once said that we have not yet succeeded in creating in this country a democracy. All that we have succeeded in doing is to broaden the basis of the oligarchy. At the bottom of the pyramid there are a great many pregnant women in Britain who, because young girls try to hide their pregnancy and because poorer girls try to work longer and will therefore register later, will have babies that are born handicapped.
The core figure is this: if a handicapped child grows up to be a handicapped adult, then between the ages of 16 and 60 he handicaps the economy of the country by £250,000 at least. So the prevention of that handicap would prevent the loss of £250,000 per head. If one adds to that the fact that if that person had lived until the age of 60 as a healthy person, who was at work, paid all his taxes and was able to make the same average contribution as other people, one sees that he too would make a similar contribution to the economy. So one handicapped child saved adds £500,000 to the economy of the country. That makes good sense. It also shows that the country can balance in the swings both Mercy and Justice and put them both back on their plinths.
5.30 p.m.
Baroness Vickers: My Lords, I too am delighted to join in this debate, particularly as we are being introduced to IMPACT, which will be a very valuable organisation in the future. Their present consultant in this country is Sir John Wilson, whose wife is the chairman of the National Rubella Council. I have worked with Sir John Wilson since 1951. When he was 11 years old, he was blinded during a science experiment at school. He was a brilliant pupil who went on to Oxford where he met his wife. The two of them together have sustained a marvellous career over many years, and I should like to wish them luck in the future. I wish that there were more people in the Chamber to listen to this debate. Sir John himself would have liked to be here, but he and his wife are both doing research work in America at the present time.
I shall talk about only two things: first about rubella, which was mentioned earlier by my noble friend. and secondly about blindness. I should like to draw particular attention to rubella because this disease can so easily be overcome. If a woman catches German measles, that is, rubella—which is quite different from ordinary measles—in the first three months of her pregnancy, there is a strong possibility (over 50 per cent. if it occurs during the first month of her pregnancy) of the child being born handicapped. The child can be born deaf, blind, brain damaged, and have congenital heart disease or cerebral palsy. I understand that no developing cell is safe from attack by the virus and very often the foetus is miscarried or the child is still-born. If the mother catches rubella at a later stage of her pregnancy there is a chance of her having a child who is deaf only.
I should also like to say that this disease affects women of all races. It is not confined to European or African women. In 1951 when I was in Northern Rhodesia I came across an epidemic of rubella. The women, who carried their children on their backs, were even more badly affected because they caught the sun in their eyes as well.
In this country there were 120 rubella damaged children born in 1978–79, and there were 1,400 abortions associated with the disease. That is a shocking figure. In 1982–83 I am glad to say that there were fewer abortions associated with rubella—500 in fact. The disease is highly infectious, but it is sometimes very difficult for the victim to realise that she has the disease because its symptoms are quite mild and do not make her feel very ill. There would be no trouble at all, however, if women could be immunised before pregnancy.
The National Rubella Council in this country consists of 11 voluntary organisations which are concerned with the effects of rubella together with the Health Education Council and the Department of Health and Social Security. In 1983 the Minister of Health gave a grant of £1 million for a period of three years, and it is hoped that the number of young people at school who are immunised will go up. I gather that the uptake is about 86 per cent. at the moment. We should aim at 100 per cent. Everybody must work hard for this particular cause so that the blighting of young lives becomes unnecessary. I should now like to

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mention blindness in overseas countries. Blindness affects about 40 million people in the world today. At least 75 per cent. of them live in developing countries where the prevalence of blindness is 10 to 40 times higher than it is in the developed countries. Four out of five cases of blindness in developing countries could either have been prevented or can now be cured. If the present trend continues, the number of blind people in the world could double in the next 25 years.
The causes of blindness are universal, particularly cataract, glaucoma and trauma. Other major causes of blindness-nutritional blindness, river blindness and trachoma—are found extensively in the developing countries. These causes have almost been eradicated from developed countries as a result of improved standards of living and access to health care.
Over the past 15 years the Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind medical teams have been restoring sight to nearly 2 million people across Asia, Africa and the Caribbean and have treated the eyes of nearly 20 million people who are threatened with blindness. In India and Bangladesh alone last year the medical teams conducted over a quarter of a million cataract operations. I can still cite a cost of £4 for each operation in an Asian village, for example. Surely this is worth doing, and helping these people.
The organisation that I am at present discussing, the Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind, works in 38 different countries. There are certain places in Ghana, for example, where there are whole villages whose people are blind through river blindness. There is quite an interesting book telling how very disappointed the people were when visited to hear that the visitors were protecting themselves with mosquito nets. "What is the good of mosquito nets?" they asked, "We do not need them". Yet this was the reason for their blindness. Nonetheless, they were still very cheerful.
I should like to make one final point. In September this year we shall have the big CPA conference held in this country, and there is a book by The Commonwealth Association for Mental Handicap on developmental disabilities. This subject can be brought up during the conference. My noble friend and I are both delegates to this conference, and we hope that there will be a good response and more help will be given to the mentally handicapped in countries overseas. It is an excellent idea for them now to have an association, and I hope that we shall be able to further their interests in the coming weeks.
5.38 p.m.
Baroness Lane-Fox: My Lords, the worthy aim of this Motion is of prime concern to experts and thinkers on health and economics both at home and overseas. The universal value of a healthy person both mentally and physically can be sky high, whereas the cost to any society of the crippled left-overs of accidents, disease or any other condition can be colossal and relentless. Probably it is only those of us who have fallen victim who can calculate fully the individual cost in frustrated purpose and virtual inability to be more than a burden; the cost of support from families and siblings, partners and offspring. Just one victim can handicap a whole family.
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It was in the mid-50s that we heard the magic news that Salk vaccine from the USA was to be available to keep people safe from poliomyelitis: that scourge with its ability to maim and kill unsuspecting people could now be wiped out. There was never any deception or attempt to conceal the fact that there existed an infinitesimal degree of risk of vaccine damage; but compared with the risk of catching the virus that was indeed small. Then in every town and in most villages there were ugly, living reminders of the pre-immunisation era. The need to immunise was clear for all to see, and the figures progressed satisfactorily. It was when those horrifying effects began to disappear—when, like the dinosaur, only a few old examples remained preserved—that those immunisation figures were in jeopardy. Worse still, the cruel blow of vaccine damage obviously shattered people's confidence.
On the face of it, immunisation figures have kept up remarkably well, though in-touch organisations like the British Polio Fellowship are constantly worried. May I ask my noble friend the Minister whether in her reply she can tell us whether there is further research into the safety of vaccines and the suitability of the recipient's health? Anything to reduce the spectre of damage will boost the immunisation campaign. Action Research for the Crippled Child is always promoting prevention. It is now interested in measuring public reaction to immunisation, and that should lead to further useful progress. To think of the multitude still being paralysed overseas today through polio leaves one with only one light to shed on that dark subject. That is, the drives that are made to increase vaccine take-up by, for instance, Save the Children Fund, boosted by support from enlightened young people who follow Princess Anne's example in promoting immunisation overseas.
While vaccine is a highly scientific and clear-cut method of preventing disability, there is another weapon to which I should like to refer. It is rugged and basic but it is of vital importance and it is too often forgotten. I refer to the teaching of genuine health education within active school life. From their television viewing children have cultivated a superficial sophistication. They understand—they have to—much more about the physique than did earlier generations. After viewing TV programmes about the less fortunate aspects of existence, children are apt to ask, "Could that happen to me?". Positive answers given at school can encourage lasting self-help. It is my belief that by learning about the make-up of their bodies children can make the most of prophylaxis and protection. A message needs to be planted in the conscious and subconscious that damage can be avoided by proper use of the self. There should be an understanding of the variations in human structure and skills, and I support the remarks of my noble friend Lord Auckland.
Elementary anatomy, physiology and psychology need to be made known to pupils. That also applies to kinesiology, which concerns movement patterns and habits in relation to energy and for lifting and handling objects; indeed, all daily movements and activities. Where else but in school can most people get that kind of information? Of course that information is best absorbed after physical activities when the mind and

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body are relaxed and receptive. Already through the efforts of education authorities, physical education associations and voluntary organisations there are many centres dedicated to sport. There is some dichotomy between sport and attention to physical problems when surely there should be a great connection between the two.
Certainly it is in school that physical disorder can best be spotted. The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy and the Health Education Council are conferring to seek positive methods to promote health and prevent disability. They also seek the co-operation of GPs as essential and a central point in health. There are physical disorders which are best spotted in schools and which are sometimes missed by parents and GPs. They can be equally unaware of a disorder that may grow and change into something which will be of great importance in maturity and old age, such as bad feet, pseudo-rheumatics, back pain and bad postural habits. Unless those conditions receive accurate attention in childhood, adults may suffer pain and severe discomfort later on. To start with, people hate to admit such things; they take pain-killers and probably end up in NHS beds, to everyone's cost.
One result of the tension and pressures of everyday life can land children in avoidable difficulties and threatened situations. Smoking, glue sniffing and drugs all got going in many districts before grown-ups could step in. That must be a pointer to the authorities to provide the full story of how to keep well and to put some of the responsibility on the children themselves. Such a campaign could well be backed up by videos and every other modern aid to assist with interesting and enthusiastic teaching. I hope that the Department of Education and Science will take note of those requests.
The need of this as a subject of teaching has become obvious to many people. Children have never been more interested in self, and that interest should be well targeted now.The climate for such teaching is favourable and I believe the ground for it is fertile. If only the ground is tilled properly, I firmly believe that health education can have a profound effect on the object of the Motion—the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, which I beg to support and on which I wholeheartedly congratulate him.
5.47 p.m.
Lord Prys-Davies: My Lords, I too join with noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, for giving us the opportunity to discuss the need to prevent disability or impairment before they occur. I thank him for his stimulating opening address. When we recall that in the United Kingdom—and our problems pale into insignificance compared with the developing world—one in 20 people is suffering from severe disability, it is evident to those of us who believe that the human race should live in happiness and should be free from suffering that prevention of disability must be a basic part of any radical approach to disablement.
The hopeful message that the noble Lord brought to the House is that much can be done to prevent disability. I believe that he was supported in that central message by my noble friend Lord Parry. I may have
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misinterpreted the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, but I thought that he was a little more pessimistic about our potential to prevent disability. If I am wrong, I am sorry about that.
Lord Winstanley: The noble Lord is wrong, my Lords.
Lord Prys-Davies: I am wrong, my Lords. Good! It is probably true to say that in a developed country in most situations the responsibility for preventive health care lies with the individual to the extent that he has a real choice in controlling his behaviour.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, that the lower down the heap we are the more difficult it becomes for us to take the right decision. Nevertheless, it is the individual who decides on his diet, within the limit of his means; it is the individual who decides whether he will give up smoking; and it is the individual who decides whether he will drink and drive.
I agree with my noble friend Lord Winstanley that attitudes and lifestyles change slowly, unless of course we are confronted by a drastic problem such as exposure to the risk of radiation, following the nuclear disaster in the Ukraine. We need to give high priority to health education campaigns to promote public awareness of the risks. That is the theme which was developed by the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, who referred to the need for health education in schools. For the young, the responsibility for preventive health care must of necessity lie elsewhere. It lies with the parents. The message which the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, who made a very courageous speech, and others brought to the House was that there is a responsibility on parents.
During our century, environmental health services have reduced remarkably the environmental causes of childhood morbidity and disability. Today, infant disability and handicap are in considerable and significant part genetically determined. It is therefore all the more desirable that as few infants as possible should at conception carry a genetic predisposition to physical and mental handicap. We have heard again this afternoon the message that there is a need for accurate genetic counselling, if they want it, for those parents who are at risk of having a disabled child. The advice must be available but the decision whether to take the advice must be for the parents and not for the community or even for the doctors.
As the consequence of disability for an infant is so great and continues throughout his lifetime from the cradle to the grave, we have a moral responsibility to use our knowledge of genetic endowment in the interests of the coming generation. That point was first made this afternoon by my noble friend Lord Longford, who told us of his acquaintance with the horrors of muscular dystrophy. It will not be lost on the Government that that point was reinforced by a number of speakers, including the noble Lords, Lord Winstanley and Lord Rea, and the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull.
I very much look forward to hearing the reply of the noble Baroness the Minister to the questions addressed to the Government by the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull. We want to know the answer to the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy,

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about how widespread is the availability of genetic counselling facilities.
I found myself in some sympathy with the cautious approach taken by the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, towards the wholesale adoption of screening facilities, but nevertheless I accept and follow the plea made by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, and others who said that it is still necessary for parents to protect their children against preventable diseases by vaccination. After the first year of life, accidents become the major cause of handicap. That point was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Auckland. It has been said that the home can be highly dangerous for every young child. Dangerous toys lying about the place are a cause of anxiety. Some household products can be highly dangerous in the hands of an infant. Unstrengthened glass doors in the home are highly dangerous, and not only for children.
The noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, reminded the House that for the citizen of working age in developed countries road accidents and accidents in work, many of which could be avoided, are the major cause of serious injury. The cost of road accidents and accidents in work are immense for the individual and his family in terms of pain and suffering. They are also immense for the community in terms of lost output and medical costs. Those points were made by my noble friend Lord Parry.
There have been one or two implied references to the urgent need to reduce dependency upon tobacco and alcohol. The Minister for Health recently described alcohol abuse as a disaster. The debate could have been constructed on the need for action based on the agenda produced by Action on Alcohol Abuse.
In the United Kingdom and the developed countries, in contrast to the developing countries, because medicine has succeeded so well in saving and prolonging life the old constitute the largest single group among whom the incidence of severe handicap is high. I understand that disability of some kind affects 25 per cent. of those over the age of 75. The prevention of disability among the elderly is in a sense, as the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, said, a method of control rather than prevention. We must concentrate on the early detection and treatment of disease with a view to a return to improved health.
The potential effects of improved procedures for the detection and treatment of arthritis and dementia are tremendous. We are immensely grateful to the IMPACT foundation under the leadership of Sir John Wilson for its education campaign spelling out that effective measures for the prevention of disability are now physically possible. I join with the noble Baroness, Lady Vickers, in paying tribute to Sir John and his good work. We are of course indebted to many other organisations which have been working in that area, but the recent IMPACT document Preventing Disability in the United Kingdom amounted, in my view, to a bold attempt to assess the United Kingdom's immediate requirements.
The national seminar held by the IMPACT foundation in February made at least 27 recommendations for the reduction of disability in the United
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Kingdom. It called for measures to clear the backlog of 20,000 cases of remediable deafness, particularly among children. It called for measures to cut the waiting lists of the 7,000 people who are needlessly blind for the want of a cataract operation. It called for a determined effort to reduce the waiting time for hip replacement operations. Has the department considered the suggestion that patients on the waiting list in one region should be transferred to hospitals in an adjoining region where there is spare capacity?
It should be repeated that the seminar's main conclusion was that the incidence of disability in the United Kingdom could be reduced by at least 20 per cent. by the application, through the National Health Service, of existing technologies and facilities and better management. That is an astounding conclusion.
The seminar's expert analysis and conclusions streamed into the DHSS just over three months ago. Will the Minister tell the House whether they have now reached the Secretary of State? Are they on his desk? Has the department picked a team to consider the recommendations? When does the department propose to be in a position to respond to the regulations? If any of the regulations are rejected, I am sure that the House and the public will want to know how the department responds to the evidence on which the regulations are based. I am without time to dwell on the need for more research, but one obviously supports the need for more research.
I must mention briefly the problems of disability in the third world. One person in 10, not one person in 20, in the under-developed world is affected by severe disability. I do not think that we in the United Kingdom can be concerned exclusively with disability in this country. IMPACT again has drawn our attention to what can be done outside the modern acute hospital of the United Kingdom with simplified technology to intervene massively and effectively to prevent disabilities in the under-developed world in order to restore sight, to restore hearing and to restore movement. The noble Lord, Lord Henderson and my noble friend Lord Parry have underlined some of the startling statistics in the IMPACT document.
In conclusion, I want to support very strongly the appeals made by the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, to the Government on behalf of the under-developed world. I found it rather difficult to believe that any British representative serving on an international committee concerned with the problems of disability would not already have appreciated the quality of the papers produced by IMPACT foundation; but it is conceivable that a British representative may not be aware that IMPACT is in a real sense a British initiative. I therefore agree with the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, that a timely word in the right place at the right time would be helpful. Indeed, the Foreign Office and the DHSS have helped in the past.
The noble Lord, Lord Henderson, then made a plea for a modest contribution of £25,000, and no more, to the IMPACT foundation to help with the expenses incurred by British experts travelling overseas to give voluntary service to the disabled. We urge the Government to give sympathetic consideration to this appeal.

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One's final thought at the end of this interesting and stimulating debate is this. The fact that so much can be done to prevent disability which is so widespread and often characterised by pain, distress and frustration makes the fact that it is still tolerated even more scandalous.
6.3 p.m.
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, first I should like to add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, on choosing this important subject for our debate today. Disability as such and the treatment of disabled people is of course a topic to which this House has rightly given a considerable amount of attention in recent years. However, I believe that we have not previously concentrated in our deliberations on the vital topic of the prevention of disability. As has been said, the reason that we are doing so today is a direct consequence of the valuable initiative by the UK IMPACT foundation in arranging a seminar on the subject last February which had the full support of the Department of Health and Social Security. Like many of your Lordships, I wish also to pay tribute to the foundation and to the vision and energy of the chairman, Sir John Wilson. The seminar was clearly a very useful occasion and the admirably succinct summary of the conclusions, which most of us here today have seen, represents a valuable conspectus of the very wide range of issues involved in the prevention of disability. These are issues which the Government have taken and will continue to take very seriously.
The international repercussions of the IMPACT initiative have been referred to by many of your Lordships. I should like to start therefore by making some brief remarks about those international aspects of the prevention of disability.
The World Health Organisations' global strategy for health enshrined in its action plan to achieve health for all by the year 2000 focuses on primary health care. World health strategy is now therefore increasingly emphasising the importance of prevention of ill-health, removal of health risks and promotion of health. Developing countries in particular can now be expected to do more to prevent disabling conditions arising from, for example, poor perinatal care, malnutrition and infections. A net result should and we hope will be a reduction of new disability among children and infants.
Various successful examples of projects carried out in the last decade were quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, in his opening speech. Because of this increasing emphasis on prevention and the fact underlined by the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, among others, that health care resources do not meet health care needs, the United Kingdom Government attach great importance to the prevention of disability in the ODA's bilateral aid programme. We approach this through the provision of basic health services to the community, including mother and child health services, immunisation and adequate nutrition.
A major proportion of the £20 million which the UK spends annually on the health sector in developing countries goes towards preventive medicine. This includes the provision of medical personnel and facilities such as clinics and research into the causes
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and eradication of disabling diseases. It does not, however, include expenditure on water supplies, disaster aid, population activities, main contributions to the international organisations and other related matters which affect health and would bring a total to well over £100 million. I hope that this goes some way to reassuring the noble Lord, Lord Rea.
I can assure noble Lords, and the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, in particular, that British representatives at international organisations already refer to and promote the IMPACT initiative wherever possible. In response to his other question in this area—the request for funds for travelling for voluntary organisations and in particular IMPACT to attend conferences and seminars, funds for this sort of activity are not of course unlimited; but I am sure that the Overseas Development Administration is willing to give consideration to any application and indeed has done so.
We also contribute to a number of multilateral programmes which focus on the prevention of disablement. One of these, the World Health Organisation special programme for research and training in tropical diseases, was launched in 1976 to stimulate action by the international community to control the six major tropical disabling diseases including malaria, leprosy and river blindness. The United Kingdom played a prominent part in setting up the progamme and has been a major donor since it began having contributed a total of almost £3 million. Much of the programme's research is undertaken in the United Kingdom. Other World Health Organisation programmes to which we contribute annually are the expanded programme on immunisation, which aims to immunise all children against six common infectious childhood diseases— diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, poliomyelitis, measles and tuberculosis—by 1990; and the action programme on essential drugs and vaccines, which helps developing countries draw up lists of essential drugs and establish local manufacturing and distribution facilities wherever possible.
From the international scene, I turn to the prevention of disability in the United Kingdom. This was the main focus of the IMPACT seminar in February. Let me say first of all that promoting positive health generally through health education and preventive medicine programmes is, and will continue to be, high on the Government's list of priorities. This was made clear in Care in Action, the handbook of the Government's policies and priorities for health and personal social services published in 1981. As we have seen, action to combat disability abroad concentrated on specific, effective measures against, for example, tropical diseases. Similarly, we must be as specific in our actions to combat disability in this country. The position here, however, is very different from that obtaining say, in parts of Africa. Disability here often arises out of our comparatively affluent lifestyle. This was a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley. We are rightly concerned about heart disease, the effects of smoking, stress, the abuse of alcohol and drug addiction. We need to focus better on particular issues and to think incisively about priorities and deal effectively with the problems that face us in a logical way.

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I can perhaps refer at this stage to the question raised by my noble friend Lady Faithfull concerning the MENCAP proposals for strategy on the prevention of mental handicap. These bring together usefully a number of the themes—health education, lifestyle advice and genetic counselling to which I shall be referring later. They apply to many other different kinds of handicap, not just mental handicap. To make people aware of the dangers and risks to health that they can face in everyday life and to ensure that each individual understands as much as possible—the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies emphasised that this was ultimately the responsibility of each individual—the Government fund the Health Education Council to enable it to carry out a huge programme of public health education. This year the Government are giving some £10 million to the council. The council's range of activities is extensive. It sees its educational role as encompassing campaigning on healthy life style issues, sponsoring research and training health educators. Its main role is to make widely and easily available authoritative and sensible advice on a wide range of issues linked to good health. These include the effects of smoking, alcohol and drug abuse, family and personal health, and the prevention of coronary heart disease. Education and advice on health are available to all, from mothers-to-be through childhood and adulthood to old age.
Health education is also being taken to the workplace through the Health Education Council and its publication and project entitled Look After Yourself. More and more employers are taking part in this campaign which includes special workplace training courses and covers smoking, diet, exercise and stress management and other ways in which employees can look after their health, the practical effect in many cases being the prevention of injury and accidents. This must be an important step in the right direction.
Health education and, by implication, work on the prevention of ill health start from an early age. I trust that this will reassure my noble friend Lady Lane-Fox. The Health Education Council has a continuing programme of developing materials and providing training to promote an awareness of the importance of health among young people aged from four to 19. The White Paper Better Schools, published in March 1985, made clear that the Government regard health education as an essential curricula element. Health education continues into old age. The council's five-year programme related to health in old age was launched last year. Its aim is to enhance the potential of older people to live independently healthy lives in the community. The programme has set out to improve people's knowledge and understanding of health issues in later life in areas such as dental care, the value of exercise and nutrition. One of the features is an Age Well drive that focuses on ways of promoting health activities for and with older people with the emphasis on participation and self-help.
Sensible eating can, of course, contribute to a healthy life and counter the risk of heart attacks and disability. Much is being done in this respect. It may be of interest to noble Lords to know that, in addition, all National Health Service regions included policies for
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prevention in their 10-year strategic plans submitted to the Government last year. In turn, regions encourage and help districts carry out health education and monitor progress. Ministers can and do raise with regions questions about their progress in health promotion in the yearly round of ministerial reviews.
In the broad sense measures to avoid disability, therefore, are an inbuilt part of both the Government's and the Health Education Council's objective to improve the nation's health. Preventable accidents were referred to by a number of noble Lords, in particular the noble Lords, Lord Prys-Davies and Lord Winstanley. I should like to focus in particular on accidents to children which are the commonest cause of death of those over one year of age and account for one-sixth of hospital admissions between the ages of one and 15. Responsibility for different types of accidents is widely spread among Government departments co-ordinated by the Child Accident Prevention Trust. The DHSS takes the lead in providing financial support to this organisation and currently has allocated grant aid of about £70,000 a year over three years from 1985 to 1988.
Turning to pre-natal care, raised by a number of your Lordships, health education in the widest sense of the word is only part of the story. I must therefore refer to specific medical and other services that have an important role. First, I shall say something about pre-natal care and then something about surveillance and preventive services for children. Vaccination of schoolgirls and women of child-bearing age against rubella is an important element here. I shall say something in more detail about vaccination and immunisation later. It is now possible, in a number of inherited conditions that cause disability, especially in children, to give couples precise advice on the risk of having an affected child. A number of your Lordships, including my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy and the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, have referred to screening. Recent advances in clinical genetics can permit informed counselling sometimes before conception or, failing that, early in pregnancy. Already it is possible to counsel those parents at risk of transmitting disorders of haemoglobin. Once a pregnancy has been confirmed some handicapping conditions can be diagnosed pre-natally; for example, neural tube defects or chromosome disorders. A range of tests and procedures is widely available, in addition to specialist genetic advisory centres throughout the country where couples with a family history of a condition can receive expert advice. The techniques to detect various congenital abnormalities and inherited disorders have changed dramatically in recent years. Most notable among the advances are, first, the development of gene markers which permit recognition of the carrier state or of an infected child. These will become increasingly important in the prevention of cystic fibrosis and Duchenne muscular dystrophy, to which the noble Earl, Lord Longford, explicitly referred. I can inform him that support is available in the research field. For example, there is Government support for the grant of £10,000 a year to the Muscular Dystrophy Group towards its welfare services. The second important advance is the use of high resolution ultrasound scanning, and the third the

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development of the techniques of fetoscopy and of chorion biopsy. With these methods it is now possible to detect a very wide range of conditions in the foetus that could not have been identified as short a time as five years ago.
For a few conditions treatment of the foetus in utero may be possible; in other cases arrangements can be made, where appropriate, for the baby to be delivered in a hospital with the best facilities for care after birth. The ability to predict and identify genetic defects in the pre-natal period has led to increased demand for specialist advice from couples who have a suspected or known family history of inherited disease. Such advice can inform parents of the prenatal diagnostic tests which are available in their particular circumstances and help them to make an informed decision on the basis of the possible outcomes, including treatment at or even before birth.
On this point, the noble Lord, Lord Parry, referred to the French system based on financial incentive. I must say to him that in this country we have preferred not to introduce systems of maternity care which smack of compulsion. But I should remind your Lordships that perinatal mortality figures in the country under our own system are continuing to fall.
We recognise that the likely rapid advance in medical knowledge in this very specialised field as new techniques are developed and refined will lead to an increased demand for advice and screening tests from "at risk" couples. To ensure that this demand is met in an efficient way, the department is currently funding a development project in three centres (two in England and one in Wales) together with a separate evaluation. This initiative is intended to provide a guide for health authorities in reviewing the genetic advisory services they are providing, and in planning future developments.
Screening to detect possible handicap is not limited to the time before birth. Every health authority is responsible for monitoring the health and development of all children living in its area. Preventive and advisory services are provided for pre-school children through a network of clinics and the health visiting service. These child health surveillance programmes aim to monitor the development of children, including their intellectual development. These preventive services also continue after children start school. In the early stages of a child's school career they will focus mainly on the continuing need to monitor vision, hearing and growth. As the children grow older the focus moves on to health education to encourage children to adopt positive attitudes to health and accept responsibilities for their own health.
References have been made to the role of the general practitioner. I would refer your Lordships to the importance which the Government give to this area and the review of family practitioner services and community nursing services which my noble friend Lady Trumpington announced to your Lordships three weeks ago. While we are talking about screening and surveillance perhaps I can report briefly to your Lordships on one or two interesting developments on screening for visual and hearing impairments—two areas on which the IMPACT seminar focused particularly, and to which, in particular, my noble friend Lady Vickers referred.
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First, I refer to visual impairment. The commonest cause of adult blindness in this country are senile macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy. There are encouraging developments in the treatment of these diseases, including the use of lasers. Many patients can be effectively treated if they are diagnosed sufficiently early. The Government are concerned that detection and treatment should be as effective as possible. We are therefore funding a research study to evaluate different methods of screening for diabetic retinopathy. The department's chief medical officer recently asked a group of experts to report on developments in the treatment of senile macular degeneration. We hope that these initiatives will enable us to advise health authorities about the development of these services.
Time is against us, but much was said about vaccination and immunisation. Such programmes have a major part to play in the prevention of disability. Perhaps I can cite, as other noble Lords have, the near total elimination of poliomyelitis—one of the great success stories of public health since the Second World War. In 1955, the year before the first introduction of the poliomyelitis vaccine in the United Kingdom, over 4,000 cases of the disease were notified. In the five years 1978–83, there were only 22 cases in total.
However, in too many cases children are still not being immunised, especially against measles, whooping cough and rubella. This leads in some cases to serious disability. Some progress in improving uptake has certainly been made, but much more still needs to be done if we are to reach the high standards of achievement in many European countries.
I could not leave this subject without pausing to add my support to the comments by my noble friend Lady Vickers and others on the work of the National Rubella Council and its chairman and moving spirit, Lady Wilson. The council is a unique grouping of 11 voluntary bodies, including the Health Education Council and health departments. It has made a major contribution in this area.
I regret that in view of the time I must swiftly pass over one or two points and just refer to the need which was emphasised by a number of noble Lords for more research. In particular, I am aware of the interest of many of your Lordships in the subject of research involving human embryos. My honourable friend the Minister for Health will be meeting representatives from PROGRESS very shortly, and we shall listen very carefully to any suggestions that they put forward. We have fully recognised for some time that the question of research using human embryos has been the cause of deep concern to many people. As my noble friend Lady Trumpington told the House recently, it remains the Government's intention to legislate on the matters covered by the Warnock Report as soon as practicable, but I cannot speculate on the timing of any legislation. Nevertheless, I can reassure noble Lords that their views, and indeed the view of IMPACT, will be taken into account.
We have covered a lot of ground, and I apologise if, because of lack of time, I have not been able to respond to all the specific points raised. However, your Lordships may be sure that we shall follow them up. I

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should end, however, by once again thanking the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, for providing us with the opportunity for this important and, I think, constructive debate. I hope that I have been able to indicate to your Lordships that the Government are making some progress in the right direction.
Lord Parry: My Lords, without wishing to detain the noble Baroness as she sits down, could she please explain to me how a system that is voluntary and depends on graded payments to encourage "smacks of compulsion", which I think was the phrase that she used?
6.28 p.m.
Lord Henderson of Brompton: My Lords, I think that I have but a minute to reply to the debate. I am sure that the noble Baroness will write to the noble Lord about that matter.
I have to thank with my whole heart everyone who has spoken throughout this debate, on all sides of the House. I must say that it was very nearly a broken-backed debate in view of the two bites taken out of it by Statements. Nonetheless, we are still walking—we are not paraplegic. We have come to the end of this debate with a highly informative and responsive reply by the Minister. With that, I should like to beg leave to withdraw my Motion for Papers.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Agricultural Research and Development
6.29 p.m.
Baroness Nicol Baroness Nicol rose to call attention to agricultural research and development; and to move for Papers.
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I rise to move the Motion standing in my name. Before getting on to the subject of the debate, I am sure that the House will wish to know that the reason my noble friend Lord John-Mackie is not here to debate this subject—in which he has such a keen and active interest—is that he has suffered an injury. I know that he would wish me to give his apologies to the House. The Front Bench will be in the capable hands of my noble friend Lord Prys-Davies and I do not think that we shall suffer on that account.
We have been waiting for this debate since last summer when I first put it into the ballot, but I have not been fortunate until now. However, I believe that the debate is still relevant. I believe that the questions which I would have asked at the time are still largely unanswered.
In January 1985 cuts were announced in agricultural research amounting to £10 million in 1986–87, and a further £20 million in 1987–88. That was in addition to cuts already made in the science budget of the Department of Education and Science following the Rothschild Report, which affected agricultural research and development quite severely.
Speaking in a debate in another place on 13th March 1985, the Parliamentary Secretary to the
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Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, at col. 413 of the Official Report, said:
"The reductions in 1986–87 and 1987–88 are provisional and will be influenced by the scope for industry support of research carried out by the public sector".
The honourable lady then went on to explain the work of the Priorities Board to advise on the allocation of resources and she followed that up, at col. 414, with these words:
"When we have that advice we shall consult the industry about the mechanisms which might be appropriate for securing the greater involvement that we wish to achieve, and we shall be taking our decisions about the future direction of the research programme".
That suggests to me that the Government are not deciding which areas should properly be their responsibility, but are seeing how much they can hive off first, and will then make their decisions on what is left over. I hope that I am wrong about that, and if I am wrong I am sure that the noble Lord opposite will put me right at the end of the debate. However, that does not seem to me to be a responsible approach to strategic research.
Questions in this House on several occasions led us to expect that the Priorities Board would report towards the end of the summer. The report finally appeared in December 1985. When it came, as expected it merely suggested emphasis on certain areas within a reduced budget. It is interesting to note that the report commented:
"We believe that the scale of cuts will allow the essential research base to be maintained".
But it went on to say:
"but that a longer-term phasing would have allowed more efficient management of their introduction".
That again is a point which I hope the Minister will take up at the end of the debate, because the speed with which those cuts were inflicted on certain institutes has led to great disarray.
During all the time while awaiting the report, and indeed up to the present day, the various establishments under scrutiny have had to live with no certainty at all about their future prospects. If the Government had deliberately set out to destroy the morale and motivation of those loyal and dedicated teams they could not have found a more certain way of doing so. It is hardly surprising that some of our best and brightest scientists and technologists have taken other more secure opportunities with consequent damage to the projects that they have left. For example, the Plant Breeding Institute at Cambridge was working on a drought-resistant wheat which could have been of great benefit to some famine areas. However, when a key member of staff left they dared not replace that person because of other uncertainties, and so the project has ended. It is a very sad loss not only to us in this country but perhaps to other areas of the world where this research is desperately needed.
The cuts are already biting hard. I am indebted to the Institution of Professional Civil Servants for an up-to-date summary of the losses so far, and I shall quote from its factsheet. In ADAS in 1985–86 the sub-centres at Shardlow, Bangor and Cardiff were all closed, as was the Lasswade Veterinary Laboratory. The veterinary investigation centres at Moulton, Leeds, Cardiff, Gloucester, Liverpool and Chester were all closed. Indeed, 17 animal health offices and

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various area offices are planned for closure, and the planned job losses in that little group will amount to between 500 and 600. This is at a time when ADAS is to have greater responsibility than ever before under the Agriculture Bill, and will need not cuts but expansion.
As regards the AFRC, already 600 posts have gone and the Weed Research Centre and the Letcombe Laboratory have been closed. In 1986–87 a further 600 posts are to go. The Soil Survey of England and Wales has been reduced to a half. It has been renamed and it is now available for privatisation. The Plant Breeding Institute has been reduced and is also available for privatisation. I propose to return to the Plant Breeding Institute later in my remarks.
The National Farmers' Union is very concerned about those cuts and the proposed new cuts at what is a very difficult time for the farming community. Surely there cannot have been a worse time in at least the past quarter of a century at which to ask farmers not only to take cuts in the advisory services available to them, but to give more money for the basic research which should really be the Government's responsibility.
What is the future of the National Vegetable Research Station, the Poultry Research Centre at Edinburgh, the Glasshouse Crops Research Station in Sussex and the East Malling Research Station, to name but a few? What of Aberystwyth, on which we have had many debates in this House? I know that my noble friend on the Front Bench will want to speak on that matter and will want an answer.
A report from the Institute of Aquaculture in Stirling University draws attention to the inability of the institute to make long-term strategic research plans due to the Government's failure to keep university funding at the promised level. That has implications for fish farming, which is a growing industry in this country and a matter about which we should be concerned.
The Plant Breeding Institute at Cambridge was established in 1912 and has a world-wide reputation. Its long list of successes means that it more than pays for itself. It accounts for 83 per cent. of the NSDO's income and its breeding programmes account for more than 80 per cent. of Britain's winter wheat and a substantial part of potato, oilseed rape, winter barley and field bean acreages. It is now one of the leaders in work to apply molecular biology and other sciences to the development of disease-resistant and pest-resistant arable crops.
The British Veterinary Association has expressed anxiety about the effects of continued cuts on animal disease research. It is concerned about the number of staff seeking jobs abroad and about the difficulties of recruiting young people to research as a career because of the uncertainty of the future. It points out that our research base is being destroyed, that it would be difficult to restore it and that certainly it could not be done quickly enough to deal with an emergency situation. In a country which is supposed to care about animal welfare, that is a very sorry tale. It is essential that this work should continue if we are to reduce our future use of chemicals.
Coming back to the Plant Breeding Institute, which is no stranger to the world of commerce, I point out that it has substantial outside contracts and cheerfully looks to this side of its work continuing and improving. The Plant Breeding Institute is not resisting the privatisation to which it is accustomed and as regards which it has already been very successful. However, it is seriously concerned about the uncertainty surrounding more basic research about which it has been unable to get any specific assurances.
So why do we need publicly-funded research? The original main reason arose from the need to aim at self-sufficiency in food production. We have now achieved 80 per cent. self-sufficiency in indigenous foods, but overall self-sufficiency is still only 62 per cent. All developed countries give support to their agricultural industries. I understand that this year the French intend to increase by 10 per cent. their contributions to agricultural research and development.
As price supports are withdrawn and competition increases, research and development becomes even more important. This is recognised in the poll which is now being conducted by the Home Grown Cereals Authority into the willingness of the industry to finance a proportion of research and development through the authority's statutory levy. On the poll form they list the aims of industry-funded R & D. I imagine that not everyone who is listening will have seen this form, so I propose to quote a little of it at length because it gives a useful guide to what might be considered the Government's strategy.
They say:
"The aims of industry-funded R & D will be to enhance the competitive position of UK cereals by improving:
the efficiency of production, distribution or processing of UK cereals;
the qualtiy of UK cereals and cereal products on a cost-effective basis and in line with market needs
"Value for money will be a key factor in developing a programme. Generally speaking, industry-funded projects will be market oriented, lie at the development end of the R & D spectrum and have a reasonably short time horizon for potential pay-off. Research which is related more to public or Government interest than to potential commercial application will not normally be supported by industry funding".
Excellent, my Lords—exactly what you would expect to find in a document of this kind.
But then they go on to say:
"Examples of the subject areas which may be appropriate for industry support are:
development of new and existing uses for cereals;
breeding and ancillary work including variety trials;
work in connection with cereals quality and, in particular, the evaluation of quality, techniques for producing grain to required quality standards and the avoidance or control of adverse characteristics in grain".
They talk about techniques of processing—and again that is fair enough—and storage and drying, which again is fair enough, and,
"the efficient use of fertilizers and other agrochemicals and other work in connection with the control of diseases, pests and weeds; cultivation techniques and the application of machinery or other equipment;
crop handling (including straw disposal and utilisation);
if the possibility arises, levy money may be used to secure the future of the Plant Breeding Institute (PBI) as a research organisation working for the cereals industry".
There seems to me to be a conflict between the opening remarks in that particular document and the list I have just read out, and particularly that last sentence. This would seem to leave very little which the Government consider to be of sufficient general importance for them to assume complete responsibility. The last sentence seems to me to throw doubt on the continued existence of the PBI despite earlier assurances that we have constantly sought and gained in this House. But what happens if the farmers say no? And even if they do not say no, are we to assume that only those areas to which the industry is willing to contribute will receive government help? Or are the Government going to pick up the tab for those things that we all know are essential to the industry in the long term and must be continued?
I am running out of time so I shall be as brief as I can. It is vital that there should be unbiased support for areas of work where the commercial applications may be a long way off, or where such an end is not presently obvious but where final applications could bring environmental benefits. I understand that the time required to launch a new strain of wheat can be as long as 10 years from the beginning to the time when it is in sufficient quantity to market. Surely that cannot be expected to be funded privately.
Is it reasonable to expect an organisation whose main income is derived from the sale of chemicals to encourage and fund research which would reduce or eliminate one of its major markets? This is one of the points that will have to be taken into account when parts of the PBI are offered for sale, which is the present intention. I understand that some chemical industries are interested in them. It would be useful to have government reassurance that privatisation will be careful in its application and not simply a matter of putting everything up for grabs.
When will we be told which programmes the Government feel are essential and will continue to support? Repeated questions have failed to get answers. When will a decision be taken on the allocation of government funding for research and development in 1987–88? That is still not known. Can the Government assure us that at the end of this painful and destructive exercise there will be a clear indication of their long-term intentions, and a logical administrative system which can be understood by the industry? That, again, is something that we do not have at the moment. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
6.45 p.m.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, for at last finding the time—or the Government finding the time—to debate this problem. I agree with practically every word that she said; but I am sorry to say that I can only offer to my noble friend Lord Belstead vinegar, because I am highly critical of, and deeply regret, the cuts that the Government have made, and are indeed making, in agricultural research for the following reasons.
We lead the world in agricultural research, and it is a pity to lose that lead if only for the reason that such
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research is a benefit to all mankind, and not least the third world, about which I thought we were supposed to care. Secondly, the cuts were carried out too quickly, with disastrous effects on the work in hand and on the morale of the staff, resulting in the loss of many of our best scientists, which the noble Baroness pointed out.
Thirdly, the policy was short sighted, for the world will always need food efficiently produced. To say, as some do—I do not think that my noble friend does—that there is no need for agriculture to become more efficient because we are producing too much is to confuse production with productivity. Fourthly, it is wrong to state that agricultural research claims too large a slice of the research budget, for if the Government do not fund it, there is no one else to do so (a point that the noble Baroness made) whereas in most other research areas there is an identifiable person or firm that will have direct financial gain from doing so. For that reason I think it was incorrect to make AFRC direct some of their energies and funds into food research.
Such research can, and should, be funded from the food processors and sellers. No doubt some money will be channelled into AFRC from these firms, so I hope that my noble friend will be able to say that little—I would hope he would be able to say none—of the existing funds of AFRC will be diverted into food research.
There is one other point why agricultural research is so important, because it does not just concern itself with agriculture. I shall give one small example. Medical research, for instance, into AIDS-I believe a rather "popular" disease today—was much helped by veterinary research on the sheep disease maedi visna, a point I raised with your Lordships about six years ago. Therefore, perhaps others than farmers may in the end regret the cut back that is taking place in the AFRC on animal diseases. It is a large cut back, as I see from the blue book from the AFRC that I have here.
So much for my criticism. However, I believe that it is no good crying over spilt milk so I would ask my noble friend to look at ways that could perhaps help to alleviate the immediate problem. First, I would refer your Lordships to the 1984 Select Committee on Science and Technology report on co-ordination of agricultural and environmental research, a point that I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Adrian, will deal with because he was its eminent and good chairman. This report was critical of the oganisation of publicly-funded work in this area of co-ordination between environment and agriculture. I hope that the Government will encourage further support for such projects from the Economic and Social Research Council, the National Environmental Research Council and the universities, for I cannot see such work being funded by the farmers for the reasons that the noble Baroness has already said or indeed from individual firms. Indeed it is possible that to do so might be against their short term interests, even if farmers were flush with money which they are not at the moment as a result of having newly to fund organisations like Food From Britain and ADAS which the noble Baroness spoke about.

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There is, however, an immediate step that the Government can take; that is, to make quite sure that the proposed commercialisation of ADAS, as proposed in the Agriculture Bill now before your Lordships' House, does not lead to lack of information on environmental matters getting to the farmer free of charge; likewise on the other side of this story lack of feedback from the farmer through ADAS getting back to AFRC, an important part.
I hope the Government will accept this point and accept that such an undertaking be written into that Bill. The importance of these grass roots views is clearly stated in the AFRC corporate plan 1986–91 in paragraph 2.10.
There is also the question of the timing of the cuts. I ask my noble friend to accept that if the remaining (I hope they are really the remaining) cuts are to be implemented in 1987–88 he will realise that notices will have to be given to staff this autumn. This is really far too short and much too short for new funding to be found. Can the Minister please look again at this timescale? I am sure he can alter it slightly. Last, and perhaps most important, I reinforce the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, and ask my noble friend whether he can assure me that if R and D is funded from outside, which we all hope, the Government will not respond by simply making further cuts.
6.52 p.m.
Lord Walston: My Lords, the time for this debate is limited and so I hope the noble Baroness will forgive me if I do no more than thank her very briefly for giving us the opportunity of discussing this enormously important subject and congratulate her on the admirable way in which she opened our discussion. I hope that she and other noble Lords will forgive me if I do not remain until the end of the debate. Unfortunately I did not realise (perhaps I should say I miscalculated) the length of time the two Statements would take. I have an appointment at eight o'clock for which I shall undoubtedly be late, but I do not know whether I can make myself late enough in order to stay until the end of the debate. I offer my apologies should it transpire that I have to leave.
This debate is being held under the shadow of surpluses of food in the Western world. "Shadow" is a curious word to use in regard to surpluses; rather it is a question of the glare and the warmth of the sun. It is fantastic that we should look on surpluses as something to decry and be afraid of rather than revel in surpluses and fear shortages. Although there are surpluses in this part of the world, in the world as a whole there are no surpluses. If everybody had enough money to buy the food that they needed for nutrition and that they wanted for their own satisfaction, there would be no surpluses whatsoever.
Let us remember that by the end of the century the world population will have increased by one-and-a-half billion people—one-and-a-half billion extra mouths to feed. At that time North Sea oil will be close to exhaustion, our industrial production will not have shown very many signs of increasing and our balance of payments will present serious problems. We must always have that in the forefront of our minds when we are talking of subjects of the long-term nature of both
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farming and research. Do not let us forget that it was not so many years ago—some 40 years or so—that we were short of food in this country. Even when the war was over we had to introduce bread rationing. It was largely because of the efforts of farmers and, above all, the successes of scientists in the 1920s and 1930s that we were able to overcome shortages. Surely there is a lesson to be learnt from that. It is that agricultural research must continue at least at the present level for the safety and for the wellbeing of the country, looking ahead over a 20-year timescale as indeed we must.
Quite apart from food production, there is biotechnology, about which we hear so much. I do not believe that biotechnology will help the immediate problem of food shortages, but I do believe that in the years and decades ahead it can make a very great contribution to our economic well being. The possibilities from this type of work, from the genetic engineering associated with it, are almost without limit. Other countries are working at it; we must be working at it ourselves. As environmental considerations increase in importance and as nonrenewable resources become dearer and even exhausted, we must look ever more to raw materials from renewable resources; in other words, from agriculture.
Let us press ahead far more urgently than we are doing with research into biotechnology. It is not only the question of the time lag that is important. What is also of enormous overriding importance is the relationship between basic and applied research. There is no hard and fast division between these two. One cannot just draw a line and say that on one side the research is basic and on the other it is applied—we shall deal with the applied in one way and the basic research in another.
Rather more than 50 years ago I was privileged to learn the then very new techniques of tissue culture at the Strangeways Laboratory in Cambridge. Who could have imagined then that even such a mundane thing as the breeding of new varieties of potato would be helped to a great degree by the technique of tissue culture, quite apart from the far more important matters of improvements and new techniques in medical science. What about synthetic pyrethrins? Investigations into the nature of natural pyrethrins started in 1948 (quite a long time ago) in a purely academic way. In 1965 new compounds were synthesised. Now, some 20 years later, those new compounds are present in 25 per cent. of all insecticides used in agriculture. They account for a turnover of very nearly £400 million a year and over £10 million in royalties to the British Technology Group. There has been basic science, basic research, and after 20, 30 or 40 years we have seen very real applied results from that.
I shall take one more example; and I could go on and on. In the early 1950s work was being done on a purely academic basis on amino-acids not incorporated into proteins. As I say, it was purely academic research. This has now led to a means of producing hybrid wheat which has potential advantages akin to those of hybrid maize, stemming from this academic research of 30 years or so ago. We cannot afford to forgo such research; yet in the past six years the staff of AFRC has fallen from 6,500 to 3,200. This has

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obviously—and the noble Baroness has touched on this—a disastrous effect on the morale of the people working there. Some have already gone into industry; more have emigrated. Still others, particularly young ones, have decided against a career in agricultural research at all—and agricultural research is today the loser. In 20 years' or 30 years' time we shall all be losers.
The noble Baroness has mentioned the Plant Breeding Institute, and I hope that your Lordships will bear with me if I say a few words about it, As we know, it has a worldwide reputation and it is founded upon truly magnificent work based on the closest collaboration between basic and applied research. I repeat that it is impossible to draw a line between the two. We have heard accusations by my noble friend Lord Diamond and the noble Earl, Lord Stockton, about selling off the family silver. That is bad enough; but it is sheer vandalism to break up the silver teaset and to sell off the teapot to one person and the milk jug to another, so that what has been built up over generations is dissipated.
Yet that, I fear, is what the Government are facing if they are intending—and I hope that the noble Lord the Minister will tell us more about this—to sell off the practical part of PBI but retain the basic research. No matter how great may be the need of the Government for ready cash, there are certain principles, whether for the Plant Breeding Institute or any other research institute, which must be adhered to.
In the case of the Plant Breeding Institute it must not pass to any group whose main interest is in selling products other than seeds for agriculture—products which might well compete with new varieties; for instance, as we have heard, disease-resistant strains. It must be controlled by people who are not looking for quick profits but who are prepared to wait 20 years or more for a return; and these people must also be concerned primarily with United Kingdom agriculture. It must belong to, and be controlled by, people who are prepared to give freedom to scientists of all kinds, the best and the not so good, to pursue their own line of research even though the commercial significance of that research is hard to quantify at any given moment.
But, above all, the basic and applied research must not be separated. The line between them, I repeat—and it cannot be repeated too often—is very hazy. But even if it could be drawn, the contract between the pure and the applied sciences is absolutely invaluable. For that reason, if for no other, I say very firmly from these Benches that we are adamantly opposed to the selling off of the Plant Breeding Institute and I very much hope that the noble Lord will be able to give us some news on this when he comes to reply.
If the United Kingdom is to retain its leading position in agriculture of which the noble Lord, Lord Stanley, reminded us, if agriculture is to continue to serve the country's needs, the present trends must, first, be halted and then reversed. Only in this way will established scientists remain in their present jobs, will morale be improved, will enthusiasm once more be
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seen; and only in this way will the high flyers of the future be persuaded to take up jobs at home.
7.5 p.m.
Lord Somers: My Lords, my first duty must be to follow the noble Lord, Lord Walston, in one thing, and that is to apologise to your Lordships if I have to leave before the end of the debate. I apologise particularly to the noble Lord who is going to answer, but I can assure him that I shall read every word that he says. I am going to confine myself to one aspect only, and that is what is known as intensive farming, or factory farming, as it is sometimes called. This has not gained very great acceptance in our country. It can be found but it has not spread very widely; although in France it has spread so widely that the old-fashioned farm is almost a rarity. I am hoping that we can do something to prevent that from happening here.
The main object of it is financial. It is a money-making concern, although actually there are signs that it is becoming less easy since the equipment that has to be purchased in order to start it is extremely expensive; and also they are not getting the same price for their products as they used to get. There are three reasons why it must be objected to. One is humanitarian; one is the quality of the product; and the third is the economic, including the effect on the third world. I will not dwell too heavily on the humanitarian because I know that when it is a question of making money that is not considered to be of very great importance. But it is extremely important to those who are worried about it. The animals are crowded together in quite unnatural conditions; they have no daylight at all, merely artificial light; they have no natural food, merely composite foods; and they have no freedom of movement. That does not make for a very healthy animal. I will leave it at that.
The next point—the quality of the product—is of some importance because one has to remember that when one eats an animal one also eats what that animal has been fed on and what it has been given. Hormones are used not only for battery birds but also for calves and other animals. And, of course, antibiotics are used widely. The trouble with hormones is that they are completely unspecified, nobody quite knows which hormones. Some can be very harmful and some not. There was a time not so long ago, only a few years ago, when a product was injected into calves which was later found to be cancer-producing in humans. That sort of thing, I am glad to say, has stopped now; but, on the other hand, one must be very careful about what these animals are eating.
There has been a good deal of research into battery eggs. It has been very difficult to show a scientific difference between the two types of eggs, but I have recently been translating a French book on the whole subject of battery farming and the value of that book is that it approaches the whole question in an entirely factual way, without being in any way emotional. The book includes a paragraph by the president of the French gastronomic press, Monsieur Edouard Longue, which reads:
"Laying hens, immobilised, over-fed, light during the night, give eggs of which the smaller yolk is less biodynamic, while the white

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contains a large amount of coarse albumen, whence comes a difference in digestibility very noticeable to the middle-aged or elderly".
I am not a great egg eater myself, but I shall be very careful after that to see that I eat free-range eggs.
Of course, too, one must consider the make-up of composite foods. The hens are given a mixture chiefly of cereals. In 1980, in France, they consumed 14 million tonnes of composite food, of which four and a half million was maize, two and a half million was wheat and one and a half million was barley, and other cereals, as well as foods such as powdered milk, lactose, molasses, fatty materials and mineral vitamins.
That is all very well, but it is certainly not a natural food for any creature, and it is given purely for the purpose of making them grow faster and lay more. But one must remember, too, that the colossal amount of cereals which is used in these foods would do a very great deal to relieve famine in the starving countries of the East. Therefore, as I said, it has its effect on the third world.
I have always had the greatest admiration for farmers. They are a gallant race, and they fight what is almost a losing war against our very changeable climate. But I would hate to see them turned into a race of factory managers. I sincerely hope that we will do something to prevent it.
7.13 p.m.
The Earl of Selborne: My Lords, I should first declare an interest as chairman of the Agricultural and Food Research Council as well as being a farmer. As such, I must resist the temptation, much as I should like to do so, to dwell on the problems that research councils are facing in these times of severe cuts. I am sure that the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, and the noble Lord, Lord Stanley, will be appreciated by those who are affected so directly by these cuts.
I should like to take a step back and look at the justification for publicly-funded agricultural research in the context of our civil research programme in this country. As the noble Lord, Lord Walston, reminded us, this has to be done in the context of agriculture as it is perceived by the public at the moment. These are times of surpluses; times when the agricultural industry itself is in some respects, striving to find its new role. The Government are certainly casting a new role for it, which is why their support has been radically modified.
The particular disfavour that the Government have with the present support system refers to the CAP. Previous Administrations have tried unsuccessfully to get a Common Agricultural Policy which is appropriate to our needs and, for that matter, to the needs of Europe—and I speak of the consumer as much as of the producer. All Administrations have failed. Successive agriculture Ministers and finance Ministers have had to accept that the majority view in the EC has prevailed. Inevitably, the national government have turned to the area of the support package, which is within their control, and have cut fiercely and predictably into the national support system. So capital grants, arterial drainage and advisory services
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have all been cut, and will possibly face more cuts. Inevitably, also, research and development was in line for those cuts.
In that context, the Government have looked at the entire package and have said, "We have got to go right through the list and cut." I think that they were mistaken not to have thought through quite clearly enough what is the strategy in these changing circumstances, where production for production's sake is no longer desirable. What is the role for the rural areas? What is the role for the producers of raw materials? What does the industry expect it will need in the very changed financial climate? I do not believe that this has yet been clearly thought out.
Going back to the role of research and development for agriculture and looking at what, at the moment, is included in public expenditure terms under this very wide umbrella that is described as "agricultural research", it is very important to remember that, as other speakers have already reminded us, it covers a far wider field than support for the producer—the grower, the farmer. It includes food research. My noble friend Lord Stanley would apparently like to see less of that. I disagree with him, because there is a continuum between production and the food processor, and it is very often difficult to determine when you are doing research, even in the field, whether the benefit is to go to the producer or the consumer. If you breed a milling wheat, that may be an advantage to the arable producer as well as to the baker. So I accept the Government's recognition of the need to underpin the food industry, which they did a year or so ago in response to the report of ACARD—The Advisory Committee for Applied Research And Development. I only hope that the funds will allow that initiative to continue.
Agricultural research also includes support for the agricultural engineering industry. Your Lordships have in the past referred to the great need to underpin this successful industry, remembering that we export more tractors than any other country, but an industry which in sectors other than tractors has often faced very severe times. The noble Lord, Lord Somers, referred to the animal welfare interests. Again, these are covered in part by the agricultural research budget, as indeed are veterinary interests in a wider field.
A subject on which the noble Lord, Lord Adrian, has chaired a report for your Lordships is the environment and agricultural research. By no means all such research will come out of the agricultural research budget, but much work on, for instance, nitrates in water supplies, slurry disposal and the like comes under it, as it should, because the agricultural research services carry out research into these areas most effectively. But these are all areas in which I believe there will be very wide public support for continuing, or increasing, expenditure, whatever your Lordships may think of underpinning production research.
It may surprise your Lordships to know that some aspects of human nutrition come under the agricultural research vote. Work at the Rowett research institute in Scotland, for instance, is funded by the Department of Agriculture for Scotland in a figure which will come under public expenditure on agricultural research. Again, that is logical, because it is an end-use for the food, and much of the composition of

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food can be influenced back through the production and storage chain. So whatever your Lordships' view may be about production research and the need to underpin the producer, I think there will be a wide measure of agreement that, within the total budget for agricultural research, there are many areas which will command wide public support.
Secondly, there is the underpinning of the biological sciences, to which the noble Lord, Lord Walston, has also referred. He referred to biotechnology and to other areas which are of great strategic importance to this country. It is not true that agricultural research has a monopoly of such underpinning research in the biological sciences, but it nevertheless has a very important part. The biotechnology programme within the research service is an extremely large and important part of the national biotechnology programme. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Walston, is right to say that it could be of enormous importance to us, not in the next two or three years, perhaps not even in the next decade, but certainly thereafter and well into the next century.
Today, when we have listened to a sad Statement from the Front Bench on the British shipbuilding industry, it is so important for us to identify and remember which industries are going to be helping us in 10 or 20 years' time and which are the growth industries. I would hazard a guess—others may disagree with me—at electronics and the biological sciences, and would say that those are the two areas on which we can put our money with some degree of conviction. If you have within the agricultural research umbrella a strong biotechnological programme, for goodness sake you would not wish to see it cut.
It may have been a misnomer to have described such work as agricultural research in the first place. After all, this biotechnological work, at a cellular level or wherever, could well eventually not only benefit the food industry or the producer but could produce replacements for our present energy sources. It could help the pharmaceutical industry, the chemical industry, feedstocks for industry and the textile industry—who is to say? This is a demonstration of how far-reaching these biological sciences could be in reshaping our industry. Noble Lords may say, "So much for that, but that is not what we meant by agricultural research". I have to say that that in part is what is meant by agriculture in public expenditure statements.
But I make no apology for saying also that the case for supporting production in this country is as strong as it ever was. I have to accept, standing as I do on this side of the House, that there will have to be cuts in support for agriculture. I will accept that there must be a greater sense of self-help by farmers. It is right that they should be paying more for research in the future. Other industries look with some surprise at the relatively modest amounts farmers contribute compared with other sectors of industry. The farmer, having in some ways been led up a blind alley by the Common Agricultural Policy, will have to face surpluses which depress the world price, and he is now being told by government that he will have to rely more and more on selling at something nearer world prices. He will have to face much fiercer competition
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than he has ever known before, at least in my lifetime. Perhaps those who can remember back to the 1930s will say that history will repeat itself in some respects.
Those agricultures in Europe and elsewhere around the world which will compete effectively are those which will implement the most relevant technology and will have the greatest aptitude for implementing such technology. I have the greatest confidence in the farmers' ability to implement technology, because whatever the British farmer has done he has been extremely successful in doing it. I have also—and here noble Lords may say that I am speaking from a vested interest—every confidence in the research service delivering the goods.
My noble friend Lord Stanley was correct in telling us that agricultural research in this country has been a success story. Against a framework of expansion encouraged by numerous governments, going back to food from our own resources, and by more recent Administrations, the requirement has been to increase production. Now the requirement will be to reduce costs—it may well be at lower inputs—to produce higher quality food, to do so with greater respect to the environment and neighbours, to find new markets in the world and to compete efficiently and effectively with other producers around the world. I believe that agriculture can do that. I believe that the British farmer will do it. Whatever other support he will need, he will need technology, and I beg my noble friend on the Front Bench to tell us that, whatever other support is to be removed, the research and development budget will be retained.
7.25 p.m.
Lord Tedder: My Lords, before proceeding further, I must own that I have an interest in the organisation of agricultural research in Scotland. I am a memorialist (or trustee) of the Macaulay Institute for Soil Research in Aberdeen.
The Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland has suggested, among other proposals, that the Hill Farming Research Organisation and the Macaulay Institute for Soil Research should be combined to form a single research institute, concerned with land use, particularly in the hills and uplands. In addition, it recommends a transfer of some staff from the Macaulay Institute to the Scottish Crop Research Institute and to the colleges of agriculture.
I think it is fair to say that the majority if not all the members of the Council of Management of the Macaulay Institute, would welcome the merging of the Hill Farming Research Organisation and the Macaulay Institute to form an institute of land usage. However, there is dissension as to where the new institute should be sited. The possibilities are on the land owned by the Macaulay memorialists in Aberdeen or on the Bush Estate in Midlothian owned by Edinburgh University, some 10 miles out from the centre of the city. A major objection to the move to Midlothian is that it would involve the transfer of the larger of the two units. The staff at the Macaulay Institute is approximately 221 compared with 120 at the Hill Farming Research Organisation.
I am a little concerned by the paper produced by the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland entitled, Strategy for Agricultural Research and

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Development. This paper lists a number of organisations on the Bush Estate which it is hoped will establish links with the new Macaulay Institute. No mention is made of the collaboration which at present exists between the Macaulay Institute and other research institutes in Aberdeen which include the three laboratories belonging to the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland, and several departments of Aberdeen University, including the soil, forestry and land economy departments whose basic research would particularly underpin that of the new institute. The collaboration lost by the move of the institute from Aberdeen to the Bush Estate is likely to be considerably more significant than future collaboration with units already on the Bush Estate. There appear to be more links to be severed by the move of the Macaulay Institute from Aberdeen than there would be by the move of the Hill Farming Research Organisation from the Bush Estate.
It is very hard to understand the justification of a large transfer of staff and resources from the Macaulay Institute to the Scottish Crop Research Institute as proposed by the department. It seems clear that both institutes need similar expertise, even when they are seeking different objectives. At present the relationships and the collaboration are excellent. Why interfere with this first class collaboration, particularly when it would involve splitting up expert teams?
The department's proposals are too rigid, and insufficient attention appears to have been paid to the need for flexibility. The new remit for the Macaulay Institute must enable the new institute to cope with changes in land use other than those associated with animal husbandry in the highlands and uplands. It is urgent that the staff should be versatile and that teams of research scientists with special expertise should not be fragmented, especially at this time when so many cuts are being made. The Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland must look to future flexibility and the ability to respond to changing circumstances.
I return to my main concern. The transfer of the existing staff and equipment belonging to the Macaulay Institute from Aberdeen to the Bush Estate would be a far more difficult and costly operation than the transfer of the Hill Farming Research Organisation from Midlothian to Aberdeen. If the new Macaulay Institute were to be established at the Craigiebuckler site in Aberdeen, few members of staff would be required to move.
My other point is that it is by no means clear what would happen to the Craigiebuckler site if the department went ahead and transferred the staff and equipment of the existing Macaulay Institute to Midlothian against the considered judgment of the memorialists. It must be hoped that the use of the Aberdeen site—the Craigiebuckler site—will be settled with the agreement of all concerned.
It seems clear from every point of view that it would be of the greatest benefit to agriculture in Scotland if the Hill Farming Research Organisation were to join the Macaulay Institute on the Craigiebuckler site, where its animal husbandry resources would be supported most by those of the nearby Rowett Research Institute, which is a world leader in that area. The present Macaulay Institute collaborates
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extensively with the Rowett Institute, and the relationship between the two is close and productive. Let it remain so.
So far, I have been concerned with a particular example of agricultural research in Scotland. I repeat what I have said so many times in your Lordships' House; the future of this country depends on the quality of its research in science and engineering. Let us do all that we can to promote good science in agriculture.
7.31 p.m.
Lord Blease: My Lords, coming as it does at a very critical stage for the agricultural industry, I welcome the timeliness of this debate and the very positive, practical and thoughtfully progressive proposals put forward by noble Lords during it. I especially commend the points made by my noble friend Lady Nicol when she opened this debate. I am pleased to be following the noble Lord, Lord Tedder, who spoke for Scotland so cogently and progressively. I wish to express an interest on behalf of the Northern Ireland community and also the many others in Northern Ireland whose life, work and future prosperity is closely tied to the agricultural industry in the province.
Agriculture is Northern Ireland's largest single industry. In 1984, which is the latest year for which I have figures available, some 10 per cent. of the total working population were directly involved in agricultural production. In addition, about 4 per cent. of the working population are employed in industries and services directly related to farming activities, such as food processing, packaging, feed stuffs, machinery, transport, and other forms of indirect employment. In Northern Ireland, the role of agriculture in the economy is relatively more important than it is in any other part of the United Kingdom. Agriculture is based predominantly on the natural resources of the province and it makes a significant contribution to employment, output and exports.
I believe therefore that it can be fairly claimed that agricultural research and development is, on a population basis, eight times more important to Northern Ireland's future prosperity than it is for the rest of the United Kingdom. We have heard the importance of research and development emphasised by the noble Lord, Lord Tedder, in general terms, and I was pleased to hear it. I consider that it is even more important in respect of Northern Ireland. I am not making any special pleadings, but I ask that the situation there be looked at.
I am pleased to say that Northern Ireland has over the years developed a highly sophisticated and expert range of research and development facilities. The development schemes are incorporated in legislation and cover agriculture and horticulture. Research provisions and facilities are provided by Queen's University and the Universityof Ulster, by agricultural colleges, and by research centres provided by the Northern Ireland Department of Agriculture. They have been very well documented in reports of the Northern Ireland Economic Council and the Public Service Alliance, which is the trade union for research and agriculture workers in general, and by the Department of Agriculture in Northern Ireland.

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I realise that some of the matters I wish to deal with this evening are already contained in issues arising in the Agriculture Bill that is currently being considered by this House. Perhaps I shall have the opportunity to deal with those points in more detail when that Bill reaches its Committee stage. However, on broader and more general matters, I take this opportunity to emphasise that the small family-owned and run businesses that are a feature of the structure of farming in Northern Ireland have the usual difficulties of maintaining a reasonable cash flow and generating funds for new development. Their needs for technical and economic advice are of a different nature from those of large farm businesses, which can more easily purchase expertise and fit the costs into their normal financial budgets.
The farmer with a relatively small area of land, unless he has recourse to other employment has frequently to maximise his family's and his own labour inputs into his farm to maximise his profitability. That requires him to be knowledgeable about the very complex and rapidly changing technology that characterises farming today, and to be able to implement the results himself.
In addition, the role of the agricultural development and advisory services in Northern Ireland in low-cost farming systems is likely to be very similar to if not more vital than that which has been required of them during the past 10 years. Changes in the common agricultural policy designed to reduce surpluses will no doubt accelerate the search for increased efficiency. The absolute and relative importance of agriculture to the Northern Ireland economy makes it imperative that farming in Northern Ireland remains viable; that Northern Ireland products become even more competitive in the United Kingdom, EC and world markets; and that total production, and therefore employment, is maximised so far as possible, commensurate with those requirements.
Sadly, as in the rest of the United Kingdom, there are ominous signs looming darkly on the horizon for agriculture. Northern Ireland perhaps has more difficulties, as has already been stated, in respect of huge bank overdrafts, which have been publicised in the press and other media. They are now a feature of the Northern Ireland economy. There are also the difficulties of last year's winter and the problems already arising for agriculture because of the late spring conditions. Additionally, there are the proposals in the Agriculture Bill, which have already been mentioned, for wider and additional financial charges for vital advisory and research services that are critical and necessary to progressive developments in the farming industry.
In those circumstances, I wish to have an assurance from the Government that development and research in Northern Ireland will be reinforced to enable an increase in the efficient use of available resources; a reduction in the level of purchased inputs while maintaining output on farms of sufficient size to meet family income needs; and, I stress again, to ensure that developments in research in Northern Ireland will be maintained and improved to promote employment and prosperity for the Northern Ireland agricultural industry.
7.40 p.m.
Lord Adrian: My Lords, as has been anticipated already by the noble Lord, Lord Stanley, and the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, I want this evening to say something about the relationship between agricultural research and environmental research. Before I do so, I should like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, for introducing this debate. If I say nothing about the difficulties faced by the Agricultural Research Service and ADAS it is not because I do not recognise them. I am directly involved in them as chairman of a governing body of an AFRC- and MAFF-funded research institute. It is one, like many others, which has had to face many difficulties. The noble Baroness has already said very much on that score and I agree with all that she has said.
I had the privilege in 1984 of chairing a subcommittee of your Lordships' Select Committee on Science and Technology. Its remit was to examine the borderline between agriculture and the environment. We said then that awareness of the environmental dimension ought to be written into the remit of all those concerned with agricultural research; both Government departments, as customers, and the AFRC and the Scottish agricultural research organisations, as contractors. I believe that events since that time, especially within the common agricultural policy, have confirmed the importance of that message. It is not necessary to dwell here on the problems of the CAP. They are huge, and feverish activity is going on to work out how production in Community agriculture can be contained.
The transformation of agricultural production from dearth to surplus in a quarter of a century is a striking tribute to the success of agricultural R & D; but this success has had its cost. I believe that the cost is felt particularly in marginal areas of poor agricultural land. These lands have increasingly been ploughed up for cereal production. But the factors which had made that land unattractive for agriculture were of course often the same factors which made it valuable for amenity or nature conservation. For example, roughness of terrain, low nutrient values or poor drainage. Therefore, land has been turned from a regime which respected those environmental qualities to the exclusive production of crops; crops which are now unwanted here in Europe because their supply is excessive.
The implications for agricultural R & D are substantial. As the CAP policy-makers look for alternatives to their present policies, research is urgently needed both to inform their decisions and to support farmers in the new conditions in which they find themselves. So emphasis in R & D is moving away from the pursuit of maximum production at any cost. This shift has been under way for some time and is likely to gather momentum. It is not possible to generalise about what alternative goals will be sought; but I am sure that more attention will have to be paid to the relationships between agricultural inputs and agricultural outputs. Instead of high input-high output regimes, there are many advocates of regimes that maximise the output but from substantially lower inputs. I believe that this may help to reduce the problem of surpluses without harming the farming community in a way which quotas and other draconian measures obviously do;

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moreover, there will be substantial benefits for conservation of the countryside.
The inquiry by the Select Committee on Science and Technology, to which I referred, was concerned with the organisation of research rather than specifically with its content. We wanted to be assured that agriculture and the environment were not seen as distinct entities. They cannot be separated. Therefore, it is necessary to ensure that the Ministry of Agriculture and the Department of the Environment, for instance, or the AFRC and NERC, are acting in collaboration rather than in isolation from each other. We were also keen to ensure that research projects on the borderlines between agriculture and the environment did not suffer. Furthermore, we drew attention to the importance of bringing the Economic and Social Research Council closer to agricultural research in order that the socio-economic issues in new agricultural policies were properly considered.
I am glad to say that the Government's response to our report was a most positive one and I believe that the research councils have also taken full note of our recommendations. I particularly welcome the new duty accepted by agriculture Ministers, now proposed in Clause 12 of the Agriculture Bill before this House, to seek to achieve a reasonable balance between the interests of agriculture, conservation, recreation and the social and economic needs of rural areas. This is a very important development because, as the Select Committee said, the key to a proper balance in agricultural research depends largely on the customer. The agricultural departments must accept their obligation towards the whole environment and must promote research on the environmental effects of agricultural practices, whether or not such work appears likely to have benefit in terms simply of farming economics. That recommendation has been accepted by the Government, and we are grateful.
I am also aware of moves to bring the research councils closer together. The AFRC, in its corporate plan, for instance, states that it is exploring with ESRC and NERC ways of integrating research programmes more effectively and of giving clearer guidelines to universities on the research councils' interests and their responsibilities in applied biological research on agriculture, land use and the natural environment. I welcome the establishment by the research councils of a joint policy working group to encourage joint programmes in institutions and universities. I wonder whether the Minister can tell the House what progress is being made and whether the working group has yet become active.
No speech about agricultural R & D these days can fail to mention the subject of finance, and I have two questions for the Minister on that subject. First, the Select Committee recommended that MAFF should significantly increase its funding of strategic research. This has been one of the victims of recent cuts and I know that the priorities board said that, while it accepted a degree of industry funding of R & D as an active method of securing industrial commitment,
"it is likely that the industry will most readily fund work at the applied end of the R & D spectrum".
Since the Government's policy is to rely more heavily on industrial funding for agricultural R & D, I seek
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assurances that the funding of strategic research not fall by the wayside.
The Government's response to the Select Committee said that agriculture Ministers would be taking their decisions on the future direction of research effort in the light of the report from the priorities board and would bear the views of the Select Committee in mind. What conclusions have been reached? Perhaps I should give one example of the many strategic areas which need support; for instance, in soils the long term sustainability of rural resources and the preservation of soil fertility. This area, which was mentioned in our report, must be adequately covered by research.
The Government's response also said that MAFF was considering the funding of socio-economic research in agriculture in conjunction with the ESRC and the DoE. What decisions have been reached and has additional effort been put into this area?
Finally. I come back to the environmental effects of agricultural practices. The Select Committee recommended that the agriculture department should introduce a mechanism for identifying these effects. Otherwise, we did not see how Ministers could fulfil their responsibility to promote research into the effects. This is still the case. The environmental duty in the Agriculture Bill cannot be complied with unless Ministers have the facts on which to judge what is a reasonable balance between the interests of agriculture, conservation and the other needs of rural areas. The committee did not try to lay down what mechanisms should be adopted to identify environmental effects of agricultural practices; but we did recommend, as a contribution to that mechanism, a small and highly selective network of projects, perhaps modelled on the North Farm project of the Game Conservancy.
This excellent study of the grey partridge revealed some unexpected trends in the population dynamics of wild species, especially invertebrates, and potentially damaging ecological side effects which can flow from pesticide regimes and cropping practices. Strategic monitoring of this kind is needed to give early warning of environmental consequences and so to prevent pollution. Comparable projects are needed in other locations of different soil types and for different ecosystems.
In their response to this recommendation, the Government said that studies were being undertaken at Boxworth Experimental Husbandry Farm where the influence of different pesticide regimes is being assessed. NERC and AFRC were said to be exploring the possibilities of a number of studies within existing and proposed research programmes, which could provide a potential basis for a selective network of projects. 1 should be very grateful for a progress report on this matter, though I realise that in a short debate of this kind there is a limit to the number of questions which the Minister can answer. I should be perfectly happy to receive an answer to this question in writing if that would be a preferable way of doing it. However, I hope to hear that some kind of selective monitoring network is in process of being established for what I believe to be an important purpose.
7.51 p.m.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, this has been an extremely important debate and the House is fortunate that the noble Baroness was lucky in the ballot. She has introduced the debate with her usual great competence and the amount of work that she obviously does on these occasions and the excellent way in which she presents it to your Lordships' House always make me a little ashamed.
Every speaker has stressed the importance of research and development in their different ways and all of them have expressed—some more violently and some more tactfully than others—their astonishment that the Government should be cutting back on research and development at a time when the incomes of farmers are down—for example, in Scotland by some 80 per cent. this year. Many farms in my own area are up for sale simply because the farmers cannot retain them. Research and development is enormously important.
The whole history of my native county of Aberdeenshire is tied up with the development of the college of agriculture there. When I went to my present farm, which is in the good lands of Strathmore away in the deep south, at least 50 miles south of Aberdeen, I remember that the previous farmer said to me: "You must remember, laddie, that this is real farming country. It has been farmed for five hundred years, whereas Aberdeenshire has been dragged up between the stones in the last one hundred and fifty years". This is perfectly true of my native county. That history of the dragging of it into one of the biggest and best agricultural areas in Scotland is a history of research and development in agriculture.
The use of lime has been known for many years. It was propagated by the college. One of the great advances in the increasing fertility of land and flow of food from Aberdeenshire came from the introduction of wild white clover and the fixing of the nodules of nitrogen to increase fertility of the land. It was a tremendous advance. Then we went on to the new seeds and the new techniques. There was the work of Mr. James Findlay of the North of Scotland College of Agriculture who observed and measured sowing dates and crops for 40 years and, with a typical scientist's caution then said: "I think it is apparent that after 14th April in Aberdeenshire, with a crop of oats, every day you delay sowing on average loses a bushel a day". This sort of work that is undertaken over many years by the college and which is suitable for the area is of immense importance.
I do not think that research and development can be concentrated in one centre. It has to be spread throughout the country, be close to the practical farmer and suitable for the purposes of that area. In Northern Ireland just after the war Professor Morrison of the university there and his team were way ahead in the development of silage as a suitable winter crop for a wet area. That shows the value of local knowledge in the development of the many new practices that we can use. My noble friend Lord Tedder has spoken already of the unease that is felt in the Macaulay Institute and, I suppose, in the Hill Farming Research Organisation, at the combining of the two institutes in one establishment. The Government must realise the harm that is being done and the delay which is caused
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by moving a whole institute with its personnel (taking families and children from their schools) to a new location. Obviously, it must be done in a way which causes the least upset to the very important work that is being done in that area.
In Scotland as a whole, which of course I know best, we are suffering a great deal from the rundown—in fact the cutting out—of the Scottish Institute of Agricultural Engineering. I hope that in its new role, which has been much reduced because of the cuts in the colleges, it can once again be built up and continue to do the very important work that it undertakes for Scottish conditions; such as, for example, not producing potato harvesters which can work in the Fens but cannot possibly work in the rather stonier Scottish ground. There is also the Farm Buildings Institute which is extremely important for the development of any system. If we are going to move—which in my view we must do—to a system of lower farming, lower inputs, and perhaps healthier inputs, we shall need a great deal of research.
I hope that this will not mean that the fall in the price of land and the fall in the price of goods will result in great parts of England tumbling back into the kind of buttercup pastures which I am sure was not what the noble Lord, Lord Adrian, meant when he said that conservation was important. I am sure that we can do better than that. But it needs a great deal of research to see the kind of grasses that are required and the kind of conservation that is needed for the winter feed in that area and again to see the sort of buildings that are required to house the stock comfortably and properly in winter. It all ties in together.
I must say that I was delighted when my noble friend Lord Walston said that we were wholly against the privatisation of the Plant Breeding Institute. It is difficult to understand what the Government are doing. Privatisation does not appear to depend on competence or service to the community; it depends on being able to sell to somebody. It does not appear to me to be a good basis for the support of an industry as important as agriculture is and will continue to be. It is nonsense to think that agriculture can be an industry which will make the countryside pretty for people to visit. It is an industry which is of enormous importance and which at the present time is saving in imports some £2 billion a year more than 10 years ago. It will become more important as our oil exports decline. It needs to be supported by established institutions.
The Plant Breeding Institute, because of its close association with more basic research, has been able to produce 80 per cent. of the new wheats which are producing the surpluses (which are a good thing and not a bad thing) in this country and 30 per cent. of the rest of the cereals.
It is ludicrous to think about privatising an establishment that is already losing people because of lack of confidence in the future. The Government should think again. It is a good thing to make the National Seed Organisation more competent and to get it to export its excellent products. But to interfere with the Plant Breeding Institute as it successfully is at the moment appears to us to be stupidity of a high order, and influenced only by the doctrinaire thoughts

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of the Government which are already running them into trouble.
I could say a great deal more; in fact, if I find my notes, I will. The noble Lord, Lord Walston, stressed the importance of keeping up research into biotechnology, genetic engineering and all the other new features. I hope and trust that the Government will do that, will not rely on getting all the money from an industry that is being impoverished in other ways, will realise the importance of confidence and will do their duty instead of their doctrinaire worst, which is what they appear to be trying to do.
8 p.m.
Lord Prys-Davies: My Lords, I am sorry that my noble friend Lord John-Mackie is not at the Dispatch Box to wind up on behalf of the Official Opposition, but my task has been made considerably easier by the masterly opening speech of my noble friend Lady Nicol and also by the guidance that she has given me. She described carefully and accurately the nature and the magnitude of the crisis facing agricultural research and development in the United Kingdom and its long-term repercussions. She also identified apparent inconsistencies, if not contradictions, in government statements, and she asked a few awkward questions. Noble Lords who speak with great authority on the subject—the noble Lords, Lord Stanley and Lord Walston, in particular—have in powerful speeches reinforced her analysis of the crisis. The Government have a great deal to answer for.
The House listened with great interest to the speech delivered by the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, chairman of the AFRC and a farmer. I am sure that his speech, which amounted to a justification for publicly-funded agricultural research, will be studied with great interest and will also be quoted by an audience far wider than that present here this evening. The noble Earl steered clear of discussing the immediate cuts that are around us, but I recall his explaining clearly to the House two or three years ago how at an early stage he recognised that the Government's policies bore within them the seeds of danger. In 1984 he warned that the cuts could be devastating and were more far-reaching than might then have appeared. I believe that that message delivered in 1984 has now been driven home.
The profound effects of the crisis are reflected in three paragraphs in the AFRC's corporate plan for 1986 to 1991; namely, paragraphs 3.6, 5.3 and 5.5. It is well worth repeating the essence of those three paragraphs. Paragraph 3.6 tells us that, assuming that costs are rising at 5 per cent. per annum, there will be a drop in volume of agricultural research of 26 per cent. over the eight-year period 1983–1991. Paragraph 5.3 tells us that in 1984–85, 600 posts were lost in AFRC institutions. In 1985–86, 580 posts will be lost; and in 1986–87, in the words of the document "another 600 will go". That means a reduction over three years of about one-third of the AFRC manpower resources. Paragraph 5.5 tells us that the corporate plan is unable to make a prediction of staffing levels beyond 1986–87, because that will depend on the level of funding available and that is an unknown factor. The crisis may not necessarily be over in two years' time.
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There is no doubt that the dismantling of projects, the closing of research institutes, the redundancies and the threat of continuing uncertainty have drastically affected the morale of the research workers, who feel that they are remote from the planners. The point has been made by a number of noble Lords this evening that all that undermines morale. We accept that agriculture is confronting major challenges; it is in a changing situation. That was spelt out clearly by the noble Lord, Lord Adrian, in a notable speech.
In such a period when the skills and the learning of the scientists have so much to offer to resolve the difficulties and the challenges, does it make sense to make them redundant? Is that not yet another example of government stubbornly and fervently pursuing a short-term policy of reducing public expenditure at the cost of jettisoning long-term benefits? It has been said that it is the wrong policy at the wrong time. The noble Lord, Lord Stanley, called it a mistaken policy. We hope and trust that the Government will rethink some aspects of their policy.
The noble Lord, Lord Tedder, spoke of the Scottish experience, as did the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie. My noble friend Lord Blease referred to the Northern Ireland experience. On those precedents I believe that I am entitled to refer to the Welsh experience! Some noble Lords will recall that in February 1984 in your Lordships' House we debated the future role of the Welsh Plant Breeding Station, which is the only agricultural research institute in Wales. It is described by my noble friend Lord Cledwyn as a national institution. We see that station as one specific victim and one example of the drastic reduction in spending on agricultural research.
In 1983–84 it was feared by the scientists and the research workers at Aberystwyth that the removal of the breeding project, and in particular the barley breeding project, and the consequent redundancies would seriously weaken the capacity of the station to undertake effectively its continuing remit and make it vulnerable in the future round of cuts. The staff at Aberystwyth put up a good fight against the 1984 cuts, but I am not sure what was achieved.
The staff at Aberystwyth were concerned about the future, but the Secretary of State for Wales took a different view. He announced to the world that there was a firm future for the Welsh Plant Breeding Station. He claimed that the loss of the barley breeding and some other programmes would be balanced by the station's new remit which would offer it an expanding role in improving hill and upland pasture. The anxieties of the research workers were not allayed. Some were made redundant. Others, fearing the writing on the wall, left the station and took up new and assured appointments, sometimes abroad. That has been a sad loss for the Welsh Plant Breeding Station.
Notwithstanding the optimism of the Secretary of State for Wales in 1984, the Welsh Plant Breeding Station now faces another round of cuts. On the morning of 18th April, research workers at the station were surprised to read in the Farmers' Weekly that five of their projects were on what the journal described as a hit-list of 22 projects which could be axed if the

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Ministry planners carried out their threat to slash funding in 1987. It is interesting to note that the five projects identified in the journal included a programme which the Secretary of State for Wales was building up two years ago as a substantial part of the 1984 expansion. Does that not suggest "ad hocery" and piecemeal planning? Naturally, the staff at the Welsh Plant Breeding Station turned to their director for reassurance but the director confessed that he too had been surprised by the article. He does not know whether or not it is soundly based.
If the Farmers' Weekly article is reliable it would appear that the Ministry planners want to decommission projects in at least seven institutes in England, and a similar number in Scotland. We know that they want to privatise one or two institutes in England.
Given the widespread concern in the country which has been expressed in the House this evening—I know that it would have been voiced by my noble friend Lord Cledwyn, the Leader of the Opposition, my noble and learned friend Lord Elwyn-Jones and my noble friend Lady White, I shall be grateful if the noble Lord the Minister will answer a few questions.
First, will he confirm whether the article of 18th April is soundly based? Secondly, if the article is reliable, or substantially accurate, what is its significance for those projects which industry is unable or unwilling to finance or support? Will those programmes be terminated? What will become of the disbanded research? Thirdly, on what have the planners at the Ministry in London based their evaluation of the threatened programmes? For example, have they taken into account that terminating a project will have repercussions on the institute's remaining remit and undermine the institute's capacity to discharge that remit?
Fourthly, at what stage in the planning process will the Ministry planner discuss his proposals with the management at the institute—the management will know better than anyone else how the termination will affect the institute—or is it not the intention to consult the management? Is it right in this day and age that research workers should be told first by the Farmers' Weekly that their projects are at risk? Fifthly, and this point has been touched on by a number of speakers this evening, why is the Ministry in such haste to decommission projects, bearing in mind that haste can be achieved at the expense of consultations and adequate preparatory work?
Sixthly, will the Minister listen to the reasonable demands of the AFRC and of the research workers that the department should announce at an early date the level of public funding that will be available to the council as and from 1987–88? Will the Minister identify the areas of agricultural strategic research which will remain publicly funded for the foreseeable future? That is the question to which the noble Baroness seeks a reply.
Lastly, I return to Wales. Will the noble Lord the Minister confirm whether or not the consent of the Welsh Office will have to be given before any current project at the Welsh Plant Breeding Station is decommissioned?
8.17 p.m.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Lord Belstead): My Lords, I should like first to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, for giving us this opportunity, the second in 10 days, to debate agricultural matters. I am only sorry that the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, is not with us this evening to debate agricultural research and development. The noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, suggested that the Government are not giving sufficient priority to research and development. That was a view which was followed by others of your Lordships.
On behalf of the Government I say that there is no lack of understanding on our part of the contribution which research and development make to the economic health of the agricultural and food sectors, and the economy as a whole. However, we believe that it is right to look carefully at the way in which such work is funded and the areas to which the Government's resources should be directed.
The noble Baroness questioned the timing and basis upon which expenditure on agricultural research has been planned by the Government. My right honourable friend made it clear well over a year ago that although there would be no changes in the financial year 1985–86, nonetheless, as part of our public expenditure policy, research and development budgets would have to be reduced for this financial year and for the financial year 1987–88. Those reductions reflect our view that there are limits to what the Government can fund and our belief that it is right to seek a greater contribution from industry towards the research from which it benefits. We believe that there is scope for a successful collaborative effort between industry and government, not only in the funding of research but in helping to determine the shape of the programme and ensuring that results are taken up even more rapidly and effectively than before.
I should like to point out that in 1987–88 we still expect to be spending almost £200 million on agricultural and food research and development. That is a major commitment by any standards and a clear demonstration of the importance that we attach to that work.
The noble Lord, Lord Adrian, reminded the House that the fourth report of the Science and Technology Committee, under his chairmanship, had asked for assurances about funds continuing to be deployed for strategic research. The Government are fortunate in having available the advice of the independent and highly qualified Priorities Board. In accordance with the advice of the board, the Government will increasingly be concentrating their funds on basic and strategic research and on work in such areas as safety, welfare and environmental protection.
In reply to the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, who was critical about moneys being spent upon animal welfare, my advice is that some £80 million a year is being spent on research and development into animal welfare and some £25 million a year into animal disease research. I have no doubt that there is some overlap between those two figures, but they represent a substantial proportion of the total research and

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development expenditure on agriculture. As to short-term work where there is likely to be a clear and rapid benefit to the industry, that is where we would expect to see the industry's funds concentrated.
In the past year the Government have held intensive consultations with all sectors on the part that industry might play in future funding arrangements. Of course, some sectors, as your Lordships will well know, already fund a considerable volume of research. I am thinking, for example, of milk, potatoes and, indeed, sugar beet. We have recently had an encouraging response from the horticultural sector, which has declared itself willing to fund R & D. Subject to the approval of Parliament, we hope to be establishing a horticultural development council for this purpose as rapidly as possible.
Your Lordships will recall that we are also seeking mechanisms through the Agriculture Bill to allow the cereals and livestock sectors to play a larger part in the R & D programme. I should like to emphasise that it will be for each sector to decide on the level of funds that it wishes to provide and on how the money that it raises is spent, and to link it with the publicly funded effort in a programme of research that will serve each sector and ultimately each and every grower and producer to best effect. The response so far has been encouraging. We look forward to working closely with each sector to bring the new arrangements into effect.
My noble friend Lord Stanley drew attention to the importance of research into agriculture and into the environment meeting, as it were, as one, which is, of course, a theme brought out by the Select Committee on Science and Technology of two years ago. I very much agree. We must, I realise, be particularly mindful of the fact that, as over 80 per cent. of the land in the United Kingdom is farmed in one form or another, so farming must have a considerable influence upon the environment. Therefore, a prime aim of R & D is to achieve a more environmentally acceptable agriculture. Indeed, when the Ministry submitted evidence to the Select Committee under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Adrian, I seem to remember that we included a seven-page list of R & D commissions with environmental objectives.
In this context, may I say in passing that your Lordships will be very well aware that in the Agriculture Bill now before your Lordships' House the power to designate environmentally sensitive areas, to which £6 million is to be committed in a full year, will enable farmers in areas under particular pressure to farm in ways that will help to preserve the landscape value and habitats of those areas.
I very much hope—this is the context in which I was wanting to mention the matter this evening—that this system will enable us to learn more about the environmental effects of different agricultural methods. In this context of environmental and agricultural research, the Government certainly accept that there is a need for R & D to have a better understanding of the biological interaction that in many habitats determines which species can survive and which species cannot. Here we believe in co-operation with others who have a particular expertise in these matters. One example of this is the study that is just about to begin in the Somerset levels where the Ministry of Agriculture has joined the Department of the Environ-
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ment and the Nature Conservancy Council to commission research into the effects of nitrogenous fertilisers on the botanical composition of herb-rich lands to be found in that area. We are also commissioning research with the British Trust for Ornithology in which we are supporting a statistical analysis of the common bird census to try to find out more about the relationship between habitats on farmlands and bird populations.
From the speech that the noble Lord, Lord Somers, made—although I realise it was more directed towards livestock—I think the noble Lord may be interested to know that in our research programme there are also studies on biological control of insect pests, the more efficient use of pesticides, the use of natural compounds for pest control, the treatment and disposal of animal wastes and research into alternative crops and land uses. Through these and other protects, we are examining the role of farming in the environment, and seeking solutions to the problems that we have.
The noble Lord, Lord Adrian, reminded the House that the Select Committee under his chairmanship wanted also to be assured that the Ministry's research programme is not planned in isolation. Indeed, it is not, and I think that the noble Lord was generous in his remarks in this way. We do have discussions with the Department of the Environment. However, it is also important to note that the research councils—namely, the AFRC, the NERC and the Economic and Social Research Council (the ESRC)—are setting up a joint policy working group on agriculture and the environment, which was mentioned by the noble Lord, to determine R & D needs and to devise co-ordinated programmes. Both the Ministry of Agriculture and the Department of the Environment are represented on that working group.
The noble Lord asked also about socio-economic research. One example of the collaborative effort in the socio-economic field is the establishment of a rural data bank at Essex University. We are looking forward to developing this co-ordinated approach even further in future.
My noble friend Lord Selborne, if I may say so, made a most interesting speech about the role of research and development and its aims and objectives, and gave from his great experience several interesting examples. The noble Earl made an eloquent plea for the research and development budget to be continued at least at its present level. Indeed, that was the essence of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Blease, from the point of view of Northern Ireland. To both my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Blease, I have to say that I cannot give any undertakings beyond the period of the three-year public expenditure survey published in the Command Papers.
I feel that I must say, with my noble friend Lord Selborne in your Lordships' House, that I recognise that the reductions in the programme of commissioned work with the Agricultural and Food Research Council, under my noble friend's chairmanship, have led to some hard decisions by the AFRC and, indeed, by the Ministry. In that context, let us nonetheless remember that the Ministry is still going to be spending around £48 million with the AFRC on commissioned work in the current year. It

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will be about £43 million in the next financial year. In addition, the AFRC will be able to compete for funds through the open contracting arrangements that we have started. We hope that significant new resources will be forthcoming from the industry, also.
In making the changes to our research programme for the present financial year, we followed the advice of the Priorities Board in accordance with the advice given in the context of the resources that government are going to make available. We sought to achieve the savings that we had to make as far as possible through a rationalisation of the present effort and through identifying work that appeared to be of lesser importance. All along we endeavoured to have discussion between the Ministry and the AFRC management. Wherever possible, programmes were scaled down without losing the essential core in order to preserve a research capability for the future.
The research about which we are talking, if I may say so to my noble friend Lord Stanley, does include rather more emphasis on food research, which, as my noble friend Lord Selborne quite rightly pointed out, if I may say so, is of benefit to the producer as well as to the consumer.
I should like to say a brief word about the enormously important area of ADAS R & D. It is worth bearing in mind, when the noble Baroness is critical of this area, that the advisory services in England and Wales run 19 experimental husbandry farms and horticultural stations, and R & D represents a major part of the work of the agricultural science laboratories and the Central Veterinary Laboratory. The contribution of such work to the economic health of the industry is fully appreciated, but I have no doubt that there is scope for economies.
The noble Baroness mentioned, as she has every right to do, the closure of some laboratories and certain veterinary investigation centres. In each case this was a rationalisation, and the work that was done on those sites will be continued elsewhere. For the future we would expect ADAS to attract a proportion of the R & D commissions that will be financed by the industry. After these economies the cost of R & D work by ADAS will still be over £40 million a year and the total annual cost of running ADAS well over £100 million a year.
I would add that the agricultural departments and the AFRC are now considering the changes that may need to be made in the publicly funded programmes in 1987–88 taking account of the advice of the priorities board and the level of funds available. That consideration is being undertaken jointly by the sponsors—that means the government departments that sponsor—and by AFRC, with the aim of achieving the most rational and cost-effective use of resources. I believe that this joint approach marks a significant step forward in the management of the R & D programme.
In the time available I should like to try to answer some individual questions. The noble Lord, Lord Tedder, and the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, spoke about the proposed amalgamation of the Hill Farming Research Organisation and the Macaulay Institute for Soil Research. I listened with great care to
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the noble Lord, Lord Tedder. I shall most certainly draw the noble Lord's speech to the attention of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland. As the noble Lord probably knows, no decision has been taken yet on the future location of the new combined institute. The respective advantages of location in Aberdeen or on the Bush estate near Edinburgh have been acknowledged and recognised. The noble Lord expressed concern that the strategy for agricultural research and development does not mention collaboration with the Macaulay Institute, which the noble Lord said can exist so well in Aberdeen. I would reply that a feasibility study is under way to assess the options in detail. This will consider all relevant scientific, administration and financial aspects, and assurances have been given that all points made have been noted and that no decision will be taken until the feasibility study has been completed and only after full and careful consideration of the options.
The noble Baroness, the noble Lord, Lord Walston, and the noble Lord, Lord Mackie, all spoke about the proposals of the Government for the Plant Breeding Institute and the National Seed Development Organisation. I can only say, in the time available to me this evening, that I have no fresh news on our proposals other than that known to your Lordships. The merchant bankers to whom we have gone for advice, Lazards, are expected to give us advice, I would hope, even before the end of this month. I would also add that, contrary to the expectation of the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, several private organisations are indeed interested in bidding for this work.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, does the noble Lord expect to get any other advice from a merchant bank other than that privatisation is possible? To ask it to give any other form of advice is rather like asking a cow to lay eggs.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I did not go into detail because I have covered several times in your Lordships' House the reasons for the Government's proposal. We are not going to a merchant bank asking it to approve our reasons. We are asking for advice on how best to carry out the policy that we believe right in this respect.
The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, asked a series of questions based on an article, I gather, in Farmers Weekly about the Welsh Plant Breeding Station. In 1986–87 the Welsh Plant Breeding Station will be receiving public funding of just under £3 million. This, with respect to the noble Lord, is not a drastic reduction but a marginal reduction over last year. The efforts of the director and his staff have more than covered the difference by securing contract research from a variety of sources. The total value of these contracts amounts to more than £500,000. This will make a substantial contribution to the running costs of the Welsh Plant Breeding Station.
The noble Lord put to me a list of questions based on the Farmers Weekly article. I can only say that the direct statement in Farmers Weekly, as represented by the noble Lord, is not correct. What was said in the article represents options for possible industry funding

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and possible reductions. I do not have this evening any announcement to make about reductions relating to the Welsh Plant Breeding Station. Indeed, I hope that what I have said about the present funding of the Welsh Plant Breeding Station has put the context of the funding of the station into the correct light.
Three of your Lordships, the noble Lords, Lord Walston, and Lord Mackie of Benshie, and my noble friend Lord Selborne each mentioned the question of biotechnology. This new science, by which it is possible to probe genetic material, identify desirable genes, extract them individually and recombine them with the genetic material of other cells is enormously exciting. Even more exciting is the possibility of transferring genes from one species to another that could not possibly cross breed by conventional reproduction mechanisms. This means in practice, as many of your Lordships know better than I, that we can greatly accelerate the pace of genetic advance. Crops may be improved to give better yields for lower inputs and have increased resistance to pests and diseases and greater resistance to cold, together with extended cropping seasons. There is also the possibility of new crops yielding valuable compounds of interest to the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Similarly, livestock may have improved qualities of growth, fertility and leanness and resistance to disease. Equally important in these developments are the new enabling technologies of tissue culture and micropropagation for plant breeding and the bulking up of plant materials.
Amid the considerable amount of criticism heard in this debate, which I realise stems from genuine concern, it is very heartening to consider that industry is well seized of the opportunities that are presented by this new science and is already matching interest with funds where it appears that developments might be successfully exploited. On that encouraging note I say to the noble Baroness that while not agreeing with a great deal of what she says, none the less I thank her genuinely for instituting the debate.
Baroness Nicol: My Lords, it remains for me to thank everyone who has spoken in the debate. We have heard some well informed and thoughtful comments. The Minister has answered the debate with his usual charm and courtesy. I must say, however, that there is little comfort in some of his remarks for those directors of institutes who are trying to see their way ahead. In spite of some of the encouraging things the Minister had to say about funding, we are left in some doubt about the Government's own attitude to their prime responsibility. I hope that this can be answered on another day. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion for Papers.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Disabled Persons (Services, Consultation and Representation) Bill
8.40 p.m.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
It is a privilege that the honourable Mr. Thomas Clarke, who sponsored this Bill in another place and
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who so ably negotiated its procedure through another place, saw fit to entrust it to me to take it through your Lordships' House. As a fellow member with Mr. Clarke of the All-Party Disablement Committee I can say that your Lordships will know how much support this Bill has had from all members of the committee and from all political parties. The Bill has many supporters from all over the country, and if Care in the Community is going to be meaningful it is legislation such as this which will help successful settlement and integration of many disabled people. Many of the provisions of this Bill are already being undertaken—and even more than is in the Bill. Regional health authorities, in conjunction with social services departments and voluntary agencies, like my own regional health authority in Yorkshire, are making great progress.
The Disabled Persons (Services, Consultation and Representation) Bill comes to your Lordships' House in the tradition of other Private Members' Bills before it, most notably the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Bill 1970 introduced in another place by the right honourable Mr. Alfred Morris—on which I made my maiden speech, as did my noble friend Lady Darcy (de Knayth)—and the Disabled Persons Bill 1981 introduced in another place by the right honourable Mr. Dafydd Wigley, and which I was pleased to take through its stages in your Lordships' House. Both Bills were improved in your Lordships' House because there never seems to be enough time for full discussion at all stages for Private Members' Bills in another place. I hope that with this Bill your Lordships will be able to make the improvements necessary without changing its agreed clauses. Should any changes be made which were not in the agreement in another place, the Bill could be lost.
The Bill comes to your Lordships' House with a list of distinguished sponsors and all-party support in another place. There has been no division on any aspect of the Bill and I hope that we can proceed with the same level of agreement in your Lordships' House. As I have said, the Bill has very wide backing outside Parliament too, not just from the voluntary associations which one would expect to be behind such a measure but also from the local authority associations, from professional bodies and—perhaps most important—from organisations of disabled people. The Bill recognises that disabled people are no longer passive recipients of service. They are no longer clients with needs. They are seeking the right to be involved in decisions about services that are to be provided for them, and in decisions about planning and developing of those services. The Bill is founded on those principles.
In assessments under Clause 2, disabled people have a formal opportunity to say what their needs for services are and a right to make further representations to a local authority if those needs are not met. Under Clause 7, where a person with special knowledge of needs of disabled people is co-opted to any council, committee or body that co-option shall only be made after consultation with organisations of disabled people. In the same vein, the Bill also makes provision for those disabled people who feel unable to speak out for themselves. Clause 1 gives them the right to appoint a representative to accompany them or speak

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for them in relation to services provided by social service departments.
To clarify any doubts, it may be useful to emphasise that the Bill applies to all disabled people to whom Section 29 of the National Assistance Act 1948 and subsequent amendments apply; namely, persons who are blind, deaf or dumb and other persons who are substantially and permanently handicapped by illness, injury or congenital deformity or who are suffering from a mental disorder within the meaning of the Mental Health Act.
Before I deal with the provisions of the Bill clause by clause, I should like to draw your Lordships' attention to a further key principle of the Bill. This is embodied in Clauses 3 and 4 where there is provision for an automatic assessment of need: for young people before they leave special education, and for people who have been in long-stay mental handicap or psychiatric hospitals before they are discharged. The assessments involve social services before crises occur. It is a small starting step in a move from crisis management to crisis prevention. At this traumatic point in people's lives, and at this point where there is a transfer of responsibility of care between agencies, the assessments will ensure a smooth transition and proper planning.
The Bill does not ensure that services will be provided unless there are existing statutory duties as, for example, under the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970. But it ensures for people that at key points in their lives their needs will be recognised.
Clause 1 is the newest legislative ground that the Bill covers. It gives disabled people the right to appoint representatives to accompany them or to speak on their behalf in relation to services provided by social services departments. It also allows this right to be extended to health authorities and other local authority services by the Secretary of State. Nothing in the Bill forces a disabled person to appoint a representative. This is the paramount principle: it is up to the disabled person whether or not they have a representative and it is up to the disabled person who their representative shall be.
There are of course people who, because of their disability, will be unable to appoint a representative themselves. These are arguably the people who most need someone independent of service providers to look after their interests. In subsection (7) of the clause the Secretary of State can make special arrangements to meet this need. Detailed discussions are already taking place between the DHSS, local authority associations and voluntary organisations as to how this may best be done. When the clause is fully implemented—in other words, when there is the right to appoint a representative in relation to health services and other local authority services—it will achieve what was envisaged in the original Bill. I hope that the Government will consult and proceed with this as quickly as possible. I ask the noble Baroness the Minister to give a firm indication of when they intend to initiate and conclude the consultation.
For many disabled people the quality of their housing and a modest level of nursing care are the most important factors in being able to continue to
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live in the community. In both those areas a disabled person cannot at present appoint a representative. At a time when many services, in particular for people with mental illness, are being provided in the community by both social services and health authorities it makes no sense to retain this rigid distinction between the two. In considering legislation, we are constructing a framework for the future and not codifying increasingly obsolete administrative divisions.
Clause 2 lays down a formal procedure for assessment when the local authority determines the needs of a disabled person for statutory services under welfare enactments. These are defined in Clause 12 as Part III of the National Assistance Act 1948, Section 2 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970, Schedule 8 to the National Health Service Act 1977, and, in Scotland, Section 27 of the National Health Service (Scotland) Act 1947, the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 and the Mental Health (Scotland) Act 1984.
The clause is extremely welcome. It standardises what can be highly variable assessment practices from authority to authority. However, more than that, it lays out clearly in statute the right of the disabled person to be involved in the assessments being made for services to meet his needs. It recognises that the decisions are usually taken for, and not with, disabled people and that disabled people have views as well as needs.
It is also an important logical step forward. Many of us—and certainly the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington—will know of people who have assistance from their local social services department, but who find the services provided to be less than fully appropriate. Taking note, as this clause obliges local authorities to do, of what a disabled person says he needs will lead to the provision of more appropriate services.
Subsection (1) gives a disabled person or his representative a formal opportunity to make representations as to his needs for any services when the social services department is undertaking an assessment. Where representations have been made, and the local authority has decided which services will be provided, a disabled person or his representative can request, under subsections (2) and (3), a written statement from the local authority. The statement will (a) specify the services that the authority proposes to provide; and (b) give an explanation of the proposals.
As the clause is currently drafted, a disabled person or his representative can request a written statement from the local authority only when he has previously made representations on what are his needs for services. Also, as the clause is currently drafted, a disabled person or his representative will have a right to make further representations only where the local authority does not propose to provide any services to meet a need identified by a disabled person. They cannot, therefore, make further representations if their needs are partially provided for or inappropriately provided for. However, I understand that it is not the Government's intention to restrict the rights of disabled people on those latter two points, and that it is simply a matter of drafting. I look forward to

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amendments in Committee which will clarify these points.
I turn to Clause 3. I am delighted that the Government accepted the clause in this form in another place. It was drawn up after considerable consultation with officials of the Association of County Councils and the Association of Metropolitan Authorities and it has their full support. It is an important advance in the notion of shared care by local education authorities and social services departments of young disabled people with special educational needs. The clause ensures that before a young person leaves school at 16 years of age, or full-time further education at 19 years of age, the social services department will undertake an assessment of need for any statutory services under the welfare enactments.
Some technical amendments will have to be made on the timing, but at the start of the young person's final year at school or further education college the local education authority must inform the social services department of the likely leaving date. The social services department will then be obliged to complete an assessment of needs at least three months before the leaving date. I expect technical amendments in Committee to deal with these two points. The first will be to ensure that young people leaving full-time further education at 19 (when technically they may no longer be children) are covered by the provisions of the clause. Secondly, to ensure that the same provisions apply to young people in Scotland an equivalent Scottish clause must be drafted.
Clause 4 is perhaps the most complex clause in the Bill and it is probably easiest to begin with the position which is now being agreed between the sponsors of the Bill, the local authority associations—the Association of Metropolitan Authorities and the Association of County Councils—and the National Association of Health Authorities (NAHA) and which was implicit in the speech of the health Minister at Report stage in another place. The principles reflect long-standing Government policy and existing best practice. The first principle is that no one should leave a hospital for the mentally handicapped or a psychiatric hospital after lengthy in-patient treatment without a full assessment of his or her needs and a proper plan involving all relevant services. Secondly, it is agreed that the hospital should initiate the assessment process, but that the social services of the area where the person is to live must be involved. Those two aspects are specified in the clause as it stands. However, the Minister, Mr. Barney Hayhoe, was worried that the duty on the social services to co-operate in the assessment was not strong enough. Discussions are continuing and I am sure that all noble Lords will agree to improving the Bill by laying such a duty on local authorities—a duty which the local authority associations want.
The third point is the extent of the assessment. As it stands, the Bill refers only to welfare services. However, if the hospital is involved in the assessment, it would obviously be sensible—indeed, I should have thought automatic—to consider what health services were needed. I hope, therefore, that it will also be possible to reflect that in the wording of the Bill.
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The Bill refers only to people who have been in hospital for a continuous period of six months and only to those with a mental disorder. I know that there are many who are worried about the "revolving door syndrome" and would wish to see these statutory assessments extended to people returning to hospital regularly but never there for a full six months. There are problems over defining that group in legislation. However, I see no reason why once the system is in operation other patients could not be included on a voluntary basis.
There has also been pressure to include people with any disability, but we are forging new legislative ground here and to include everyone who had been in hospital for six months would vastly increase the number of hospitals involved and also the proportion of people for whom special assistance was not needed. I accept that the last argument is not overwhelming, but I believe it is right in this Bill to concentrate on the two groups where the need is greatest and the failure of existing community care policies most apparent.
There are a great number of technical details to be tidied up, and I am sure that the noble Baroness will refer to these in her speech, but I commend the principle and purposes of this clause most warmly to your Lordships.
Everyone acknowledges the immense debt that the country owes to the millions of people, mostly women, who devote their lives to caring for elderly and disabled friends and relatives, yet because the debt is so large it remains unpaid. Where there is a carer the social services often feel that they are excused from their responsibilities, especially where the carer is a married woman and can be "expected" to be at home anyway. And we all know that this has been the attitude of successive governments to the payment of the invalidity care allowance—an attitude soon to be formally declared unlawful by the European Court, we hope.
What is needed is a genuine partnership between informal carers, government and the social services. If, as a country, we are to meet the challenge of the increasing elderly population in a manner we would all wish, it seems extraordinary to me that in 1986 carers are practically ignored in legislation. This Bill is a small opportunity to mark the essential contribution of carers and provide a basis on which I hope governments will build in the future.
I must acknowledge that the Bill is weaker than I would have wished. In essence it only enshrines not best practice but universal current practice, which is why there have been no bleats about resources from local authorities. When a local authority is assessing the needs of a disabled person and that person is receiving a substantial amount of regular care, the authority must "have regard to the ability" of the carer "to continue to provide such care on a regular basis". As your Lordships know, the phrase "have regard to" is about the weakest formulation, which is often used. Nevertheless, while I am sorry that the Government have not agreed to a rather more positive approach, I am certain that this clause will prove a bridgehead, and that we shall return to this subject on many future occasions in later legislation.

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Clause 6 extends the scope of the information that a local authority social services department is required to provide to any disabled person who receives any of their services. Many local authorities provide excellent booklets on local services, and I hope that this clause will encourage all councils to do the same. The list of what may be included is endless, but would obviously include all the activities of voluntary organisations, transport schemes, leisure opportunities, and I hope also education and employment opportunities. Basic information on benefits should be included as well as all the personal services provided by the council and the National Health Service. Naturally it must be up to the council to decide how to provide the information. One guide may be sufficient for a London borough whereas several may be needed in a large rural county.
Clause 7 builds on those sections of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970 which require certain bodies to consider the appointment or co-option of disabled people on committees. I shall not list all the bodies here but they include local council committees and various advisory bodies. Indeed, your Lordships' House has been instrumental in extending the list in the Transport Act and the Telecommunications Act, and no doubt will do the same in the Gas Bill.
No one can doubt the value that has arisen from these appointments. There is nothing like first-hand experience when decisions are being taken. Yet there are some organisations of disabled people who feel that some appointments are of "safe" disabled people who may know little of other disabilities and do not always have close links with representative bodies. This clause would ensure that nominations were invited from organisations of disabled people, and I am sure that this will improve even further the flow of information and guidance between disabled people and decision makers.
Clause 8 obviously links very closely with Clause 4, since it requires the Secretary of State to provide detailed information on people receiving treatment for mental handicap or mental illness, and produce an annual report on the development of community services for them. Although the community care policy is nearly 30 years old, if one dates it from the 1959 Act or from the right honourable Mr. Enoch Powell's "water tower" speech, we seem to be trapped in an eternal experimental stage. I hope that these reports will do much to evaluate experiments and move our community care programme from the experimental into the developmental stage.
Clause 9 simply puts beyond doubt that the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970 applies in Scotland to people who are mentally ill or mentally handicapped. There has never been any doubt of its extent in England and Wales, but apparently there have been doubts north of the Border, which I am happy to be able to resolve in this Bill. Clause 10 is another clause added at the request of the Scottish Office. It includes a number of minor improvements to the law relating to disabled young people, which I am sure that the House will welcome.
Clause 11 was included in the original Bill as a marker for substantial improvements in the joint
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planning mechanism in Scotland which a number of groups there wish to see, in particular the Care in the Community Scottish Working Group. Unfortunately, agreement with the Scottish Office was reached only at the last minute, when Mr. John Mackay announced that he would ensure that a suitable extension to this clause, or a separate new clause, was brought forward in your Lordships' House. He also said that he wished to extend this clause to elderly people—something to which I am sure no one will object, but which requires an amendment to the Long Title. I know that one or two noble Lords wish specifically to address this issue and we shall obviously have a full debate in Committee when we have the Government's amendments before us. Clauses 12 and 13 are purely technical, but I should like to say a brief word on Clause 14.
First, the Bill leaves the dates of implementation totally to the Secretary of State, Clearly he must consult a number of organisations, but I hope the noble Baroness the Minister will during her speech be able to give us some idea of the dates on which the clause will be brought into force. It is my regret that the Northern Ireland Office has shown resistance to extending the Bill to Northern Ireland. It took eight years before the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, managed to persuade it to accept the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970. but happily the Disabled Persons Act 1981 was extended by order soon after Royal Assent. Clearly the different structure in Northern Ireland would mean adaptations to the Bill. But I certainly feel that Clauses 1 and 2 are needed as much in Northern Ireland as in England, Wales and Scotland.
Finally, in commending the Bill to your Lordships, I should repeat what I believe is the key to this Bill—that is, partnership—an equal partnership between disabled people and public bodies based on information and full participation in decision making. It is only through such a partnership that we can meet the challenge of the next century.
Many of your Lordships have a great fountain of knowledge on these matters—far more than I; and I am delighted that so many noble Lords and Baronesses are to speak on this Second Reading. The noble Lord. Lord Stallard, has been a great supporter of this Bill from the start. I am also so pleased that the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood, is giving her support. She has been a trojan supporter over the years of the needs of disabled people. I am grateful to all noble Lords who are here to take an interest in what is a very important Bill. I hope your Lordships will give the Bill a Second Reading. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Baroness Masham of Ilton.)
9.12 p.m.
Baroness Elliot of Harwood: My Lords, I am sure that all your Lordships wish me to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, on the brilliant way in which she has presented the Bill to all of us. It is absolutely excellent and has my full support. Any contribution that I can make will be short but enthusiastic.

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Your Lordships have already had a long debate this afternoon on the vital importance of doing everything to prevent disability. This Bill suggests many vital ways in which people with disabilities can become fully integrated into the community (so far as their disabilities allow) both in England and in Scotland. I speak tonight as having had all my experience of this in Scotland.
There is no doubt that a great change has come over the general public about disabled people. They now understand and want to be certain that the disabled have just the same opportunities as those who are not disabled, although there are difficulties that they cannot always be able to accept. It is there for the taking, so to speak. People are not segregated, put into special places and then almost forgotten by the community. That has gone, thank goodness! We all care desperately that the community shall show responsibility and care for the disabled.
The Bill has put forward many suggestions which, if agreed, will help enormously to bring disabled people into the ordinary community. First, there must be cooperation among all the services, whether national or local, voluntary or state. There must be co-operation between medical and hospital care and the community care through the social service departments of local authorities, through the health authorities and also through voluntary organisations. I was chairman for something like 15 years of a social work committee in a county area. I know that it is not always easy to get that kind of co-operation. Yet if we are going to get effective help for disabled people, co-operation is absolutely the keynote. One of the things about cooperation is to know when people in hospital are discharged to live in the community. It was often difficult to find out because there was not that cooperation between the social services in the area and the hospital and the health people. Then it was difficult for us to know what aftercare was needed. Sometimes it failed and this was disastrous because the person generally had to go back into hospital. Co-operation as recommended in this Bill would stop all that. If community services were not available, the person could appeal to local authorities in order to get some satisfaction for himself or herself.
I think that possibly this is more so in Scotland than in England but too many people with mental disabilities can be kept in institutions when, if there were real community care, they could live in their own homes and be cared for in day centres of different kinds. In the area in which I live, in the Borders, I managed about 15 years ago to start a day centre for handicapped people of all kinds. There was great opposition, I may say, from the locality because they said that it was going to cost too much money. Actually, compared to what it would cost today, it cost very little.
It has been an enormous success. From all over the county, buses run to this centre at Hawick (which is where it is) every day and it has made all the difference to the handicapped people. This could be repeated very easily in many areas. I dare say that it has been. But I happen to know about this one because I was responsible for starting it. During all those years that I was chairman of the committee my great desire was to keep people in their homes but, during the daytime enable them to go to the centre—in the case of the
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disabled, this centre; and in the case of old people, an old people's centre—which meant that they could live at home, be with their families; but in the daytime they were elsewhere and were looked after in the community. This was an enormous success.
One of the things which pleases me very much about this Bill is that it recommends that kind of treatment. I think that that is something which would make a tremendous difference to handicapped people and also to the community. In Scotland, again if I may say so, it is essential for the Secretary of State to know and to be able to intervene if, in the efforts to get co-operation from all these many different interests, there are disagreements. Of course, there will be disagreements. We all know that. It happens always in any community. At times, you have to be quite certain that someone has the authority to bring the people together and to see that the work is carried out.
In Scotland I think that it should be the Secretary of State, and I hope very much that this will be organised through the Bill. All this is covered in Part III of the Bill. I hope that this will be implemented. Part III is the Scottish section of the Bill. There is much more that I could say but it is late and there are a number of speakers. We are going to discuss in the Committee stages other suggestions, some of which the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, has already suggested.
I hope that the Government will give time for the passage of this Bill, that we shall be able to discuss it, and that before too long this Bill will be on the statute book. It will be a great step forward in the whole organisation of the community, bringing in the disabled people just like any other of us in getting all the opportunities that we all share because we are fortunate enough not to be handicapped. I strongly support the Bill.
9.18 p.m.
Lord Stallard: My Lords, I, too, should like to congratulate the noble Baroness on agreeing to sponsor this Bill through your Lordships' House and on the very full and comprehensive outline that she has given us of the provisions of the Bill. I should like to join her, too, in congratulating all those responsible both in government and in opposition for the passage of the Bill through another place—not an easy feat. The sponsor in another place, Mr. Tom Clarke, and his advisers, Mr. Peter Mitchell and Mr. John Healey, together with members and officers of the all-party Disablement Group aided by voluntary organisations, many of them—organisations like the Spastics Society, MENCAP, RADAR, the Forum on Disability in Glasgow and many others—all played a part in achieving what to me, at any rate, is a real and quite unique Bill and in getting it through the other place. I hope that we shall be able to assist in the process of aiding it on to the statute book.
The noble Baroness has outlined the Bill, as I have said, and her reservations. I agree with almost everything that she said in that respect, so I can be mercifully brief and concentrate on one or two points that are of particular interest to me. As I read it, the main purpose of the Bill is to improve the services received by disabled people, not necessarily by the direct provision of more resources but by ensuring that

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existing resources are exploited to the full. The Bill aims to achieve this by giving disabled people a far greater say in the assessment of their needs and of what is provided for them.
In my view, Clauses 1 and 7 probably represent the biggest advance in this connection. I have been connected with disabled people and their organisations for something over 35 years now, and while I, and many others like me—for instance, quite a number of your Lordships have much more experience than I have in this field—have tried our best, over and over again, to understand and articulate the needs of disabled and handicapped people, we could never hope fully to understand the multifarious problems that they and their families face day in and day out.
I know only too well what frustrations this has caused among disabled people, even when they felt they were trying to get something to which they were entitled but which seemed to be just beyond their grasp. There was something missing; there was a power or a duty that was not there; or they did not have enough personal access to the kind of bodies and committees that they felt could really help them. So I was made aware many years ago of the need for something more; something with the weight of statute law behind it; something like this Bill, which has come along in the nick of time.
Many of my disabled friends have said that they are sick and tired of being done unto; of waiting outside in the corridor while their case was argued, albeit with the best will in the world, by people like me. Now, under this Bill, they have to be consulted about all issues affecting them, either personally or by their own representative. This, I consider, is the major breakthrough in affairs affecting handicapped and disabled people since the 1944 Act. It certainly takes them a great step forward, and if for no other reason I think I would be keen to support the Bill almost as it stands—and I emphasise the word "almost". But certainly that step in itself is, to me, a tremendous achievement. Of course, as the noble Baroness said, there is room for improvement, and perhaps in Committee we shall be able to improve the Bill. But the basic framework is there in those two clauses that I have mentioned, and I welcome them.
The noble Baroness mentioned Clauses 3 and 4, and I certainly look to the new procedures of assessment for those needing special education and long-stay mental handicap hospitals to help two forgotten groups of people. First, there are the young disabled school-leavers, and noble Lords and Baronesses will remember the short debate that we had only a few weeks ago, when we discussed the problems affecting young school-leavers when they leave special education schools. Secondly, there are the people being discharged from institutional care into the community. The statement mentioned in the Bill would form a vital part of a planned programme of individual care. During that short debate I gave some examples that I had received from the Spastics Society, and if I had time I could give many more similar examples where Clauses 3 and 4 will be of immense value.
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I should like to ask the noble Baroness who is to reply for the Government whether she is yet in a position to tell us what technical changes there will be. It always worries me when I hear about technical changes. Does that mean dropping out a clause or putting in a new paragraph? How technical are these changes to be, and what technical changes might be made at Committee stage? Has the noble Baroness any inkling of what they may be?
I want also to mention Clause 5 and the question of carers, which the noble Baroness mentioned as being one of the other vital issues dealt with in the Bill. We all know from previous debates on social services about the invaluable service that is rendered by carers. We shall certainly hear more about this issue as the recent judgment in the European Court, which was mentioned by the noble Baroness, proceeds in discussion and becomes finalised.
I imagine that other noble Lords will have received, as I did, some literature from the Alzheimer's Disease Society. I can do no better than to quote the Society's views in its letter to me because they so coincide with my own. I hope that other noble Lords may be prepared to consider these views between now and Committee stage. I quote:
"The Alzheimer's Disease Society aims to support the estimated three to four million people suffering from Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia and their carers. The carers, numbering at least another three to four million, have to operate on a 24-hour-a-day basis broken only by intermittent bouts of sleep. Most carers wish to carry on caring for as long as they are able. There comes a point, however, where the strain of so doing becomes unbearable and help is sought from the statutory services. But even with domiciliary and day and respite care support available the time comes for many where residential care for the sufferer is the only means of averting a breakdown for the carer, and for this reason we consider that the original Clause 5 of the Disabled Persons Bill, which placed an obligation on local authorities to carry out an assessment of a carer's ability to go on caring when requested to do so by the carer, is the very least that can be asked if carers are to hope to secure access to services when they need them".
I fully concur with the views expressed by the society. It would obviously like the original clause restored. I shall come back to that in a moment.
Before I finish I want to mention briefly two other points that troubled me as I tried to keep in touch with the proceedings in the other place. Noble Lords will probably agree with me that the changes were fairly rapid—a little too rapid for us perhaps to keep up with all the time—and changes occurred right up to the last minute. Before the publication of the Bill and its arrival here there were changes. I understand that changes are still taking place, and so it has been a little difficult to keep up all the time with what has been happening.
I should like to express some qualms about some of the things I have read. I shall mention only two. First, the Minister of Health said on 11th April, at col. 543 of Hansard:
"The Bill has to go to another place. If the other place and those responsible for the Bill there have the same skill, moderation, realism, patience and consideration which the honourable Gentleman has shown I see no reason why the Bill should not become law and receive Royal Assent".
I can of course agree that the sponsor of the Bill in another place has all of those qualities, but I think we should resent the fact that the Minister seems to be putting some kind of condition on how we discuss it.

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Is he saying that we do not have those qualities, or is he saying that if we dare to change it—this is the most important point—if we dare to amend it in a way that he considers not to be in line with those criteria, he will reintroduce the delaying procedures that threatened the Bill at some other stage? Is he saying, as the noble Baroness said in her opening remarks, that if amendments are carried here, the Bill may not get through the other place?
That is what he seems to be saying. It sounds funny at first, but there is a serious implication behind those words. I hope that in her reply the noble Baroness will be able to reassure me that that is not what he meant, that he recognises the revising role of this Chamber, and that we do not need such restrictions put on us. I have certainly accepted that most Members of your Lordships' House are here because they have the very qualities that the Minister mentioned, and they have them to a far greater degree than is perhaps thought to exist in the other place. I should like some assurance that that is not what he is saying and that we can carry on in our normal way to revise, if we think fit, any piece of legislation that comes from the other place.
The other point that I want to raise was again mentioned by the noble Baronesss in her opening speech. In the same issue of Hansard to which I referred earlier, the Minister stated also:
"As I have explained, the Government will make commencement orders to bring into effect those of the Bill's provisions which have significant resource implications when the necessary resources are available".—[col. 542.]
I shall quote also, with the leave of the House, a letter from the Prime Minister to a Member of another place, in which that point was underlined. The Prime Minister wrote:
"The Bill represents an important development of existing provisions for disabled people and as such it has significant cost implications. The Government have made it clear that if the Bill is enacted it would not be possible to make commencement orders to bring into effect the provisions of the Bill which have significant financial implications until such time as the necessary funds could be made available".
Again, there seems to be a hint that the Government might consider a provision as having serious financial implications when this House or the country generally may not consider it to have such implications. As I have already said, I take the view that there are no direct resource implications in the Bill. What we are doing is trying to make fuller use of existing provisions.
I know that great reservations were attached by government spokesmen to the resource implications of the Bill when it was passing through another place. I have maintained throughout that any increase in demand for services as a result of better assessment of need as outlined in the Bill would be a demand to meet needs that already exist. By replacing crisis management, as it has been called, the Bill will help services to become cost-effective and care-effective. Whatever expenditure is incurred—and I hope noble Lords will agree—such expenditure is surely an investment in the lives of disabled people.
I hope that the Government will ensure that the modest resources needed to implement the Bill are made available, and that measures are introduced without unreasonable delay. I hope that we can agree to specify some dates for the enactment of certain
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clauses during our discussions on Clause 14. If we can do that, and can consider some of the further points that I and other speakers have mentioned, we shall have a Bill that will make an important difference to the lives of many thousands of disabled and handicapped people and their families.
9.32 p.m.
Lord Banks: My Lords, I welcome this Bill most warmly on behalf of my noble friends. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, for the very clear and comprehensive explanation of the Bill that she gave the House. I also pay tribute to Mr. Tom Clarke, who piloted the Bill through another place and who was successful there in reconciling different views. Before I say more, I apologise for the fact that I may have to leave the House before the end of this debate because I have to catch a train. I am particularly sorry about that because it will be the first time that I have left early a debate in which I have been speaking.
The Bill is concerned, as we have heard, with services provided to a large extent by local authorities to and for disabled people. The Bill is designed, as the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, said, to ensure that existing resources are used to the best advantage. But it must also involve some additional resources.
When the Bill is on the statute book it will not stand alone. It builds on other Acts affecting the disabled; for example, the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970 and the Education Act 1981. The Bill deals with representation. We have heard that the disabled person is to have the right to appoint a representative to represent him in connection with social services. That representative is to have the right to all the same information as is available to the disabled person. However, a local authority has the power to withhold that information where it is considered that it would be harmful for the disabled person to disclose it. I understand that it is intended to use that power only in extreme cases. However, if one has a power of that kind there is always the danger that it could be used less discriminatingly eventually, and that must be guarded against.
The Bill deals with assessment procedure, and disabled persons or their representatives can compel reconsideration by the local authority where no services are offered. However, there is no appeal against the nature of the provisions where services are offered, and it might be appropriate to consider such a right in Committee.
The Bill deals with consultation, and I welcome the fact that where persons are appointed to bodies and to committees to represent disabled people they will be appointed after consultation with organisations associated with and representing the disabled.
The Bill deals with crisis prevention. The object is to prevent a crisis arising in the care of a disabled person by anticipating in advance and providing in advance. In that context, as we have heard, it deals with those leaving special education and people leaving hospital. The noble Baroness, Lady Masham, pointed out that this latter procedure is restricted to those who have suffered mental disorder or handicap. I wonder whether these procedures should not be extended to all who leave hospital with a new physical impairment.

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Where disabled people are living at home and receiving care from another person the local authority must have regard to the ability of that other person to continue to provide care on a regular basis. As I understand it, this is intended to discover, among other things—I repeat, among other things—what the carer needs to enable the disabled person to continue living at home. Perhaps that should be made clearer in the Bill and the carer given the right to ask for an assessment of the disabled person's needs.
The noble Lord, Lord Stallard, pointed out the importance of carers, and I think we would all agree with that. Incidentally, I am sure that we would feel, too, that as soon as possible it is desirable to have a decent income for carers, including married women, though I realise that that is beyond the scope of this Bill.
I have one question affecting what the noble Baroness said about Scotland. The question is really for the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington. Is it the intention of the Government to table an amendment in Committee to make joint planning in Scotland a statutory requirement, as it is in England? When the Bill was considered in another place the Government supported the principles but at Second Reading expressed reservations. There was then discussion in Committee and then consultation between the sponsors of the Bill, the Government, the local authorities and the voluntary organisations connected with the disabled. As a consequence, amendments appeared on Report with general agreement. I imagine that this House will not wish to try to upset that basic agreement, while seeking, nevertheless, to improve on it here and there.
The Government's reservations were, of course, about resources and it is no good laying extra duties on local authorities if the resources to carry them out are not provided. It might be assumed, in view of the agreement reached in another place, that the Government are satisfied about the provision of resources required by the Bill. However, I note that the health Minister, Mr. Barney Hayhoe, said in another place on 11th April, reported in col. 542 of Hansard, that,
"the Government will make commencement orders to bring into effect those of the Bill's provisions which have significant resource implications when the necessary resources are available".
That last phrase has a familiar and ominous ring about it. Which of the Bill's provisions are regarded as having "significant resource implications" and how long are they likely to be delayed?
This is not a major piece of legislation and in many respects it does not go as far as its sponsors would have liked: but it is a useful and important addition to the existing legislation dealing with disabled people, and as such it is to be welcomed.
9.40 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Gloucester: My Lords, I should like to give a general welcome to this Bill and I believe that others who might have spoken from this quarter of the House would certainly want to do likewise and indeed to add our tribute to the untiring work of the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, and to express the
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hope that perhaps the passage of this Bill will be a crown to her efforts.
What I want to say now is perhaps mainly, though not exclusively, applicable to mental rather than physical disability. It seems to me that the existence of disability and handicap, whether mental or physical, has engendered a variety of responses from other members of the community. It is perhaps possible to trace the sequence of those responses in different societies. In our earlier debate today on the prevention of disability worldwide we were reminded that in some societies there is still a great deal of indifference and apathy in the face of disabling diseases or mental handicap—what one might call the wrong kind of acceptance.
Then this attitude tends to give way to a more sensitive yet hopeless and inadequate response, which is mainly one of anxiety and fear. It is a fear which isolates and alienates the sufferer. This response avoids accepting realistically the fact that a proportion of the members of any society are bound to be handicapped or disabled, and it prefers to keep them at arm's length, hidden away in institutions or elsewhere.
Though it is now over 20 years ago, I remember vividly the sense of shock when, as a parish priest, I discovered by accident that the middle-aged widow whom I had regularly visited for months, if not for years, was keeping in the house a mentally handicapped daughter who was probably by then in her twenties or even her thirties. Until that moment neither I nor, I believe, any of her neighbours were even aware of the existence of her daughter, who literally never went out of the house.
We might be rash to assume or assert that such a thing could not happen today. I do not know. I know that in the diocese of Gloucester (and no doubt this happens in other dioceses as well), there is a priest who acts for me as chaplain to the mentally handicapped. Certainly he tells me constantly that there is still far too much fear, anxiety and guilt around when dealing with the handicapped in the community. Thankfully, this attitude in turn has been giving way to a much larger and more general compassion, which has now perhaps become the dominant attitude.
However, this Bill leads us further still, for compassion itself can be distancing and even condescending toward those who are its objects. I believe that there are signs in this Bill that we are moving on beyond simple compassion into a positive appreciation of the contribution that people with disabilities and handicaps make to our common life. They are not just people for whom we should feel compassion; they are members of the community in full right.
The occurrence of mental or physical handicap, particularly when congenital or hereditary, will always constitute, I suppose, not only a social problem but a moral and a theological problem as well. Christian theology can never wholly explain, let alone justify, why such things should be. It can, however, affirm God's power to bring creative good out of tragedy and handicap, disability or disaster—to recognise both the contribution which disabled people make to society through their humanity, gifts and personalities and

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also the many ways in which their life and presence within the community nourish goodness in others.
It is in that context that I hope that we may read, for example, the provision in the first clause of the Bill for a disabled person to appoint his own representative to take a more active part in assessing his needs, or the reference in Clause 7 to consultation with "organisations of disabled people"—"of" and not "for" disabled people. In this legislation I believe that we are beginning to come to the truth that disabled people are simply people like the rest of us within the community.
Another good principle seems to me to be embodied in the Bill; namely, as other noble Lords have mentioned, that prevention is always better than cure. I refer particularly to the mandatory assessment of the needs of young disabled people leaving special schools and of those leaving mental hospitals after a prolonged period there. That, together with the suggestion in Clause 5 that the burden shouldered by those who care for the disabled at home needs also to be taken into account, represent a hopeful move into the realm of planning to anticipate problems rather than waiting
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for them to erupt and then dealing with them as though they were always a crisis.
If, as I am sure many of us hope, this Bill completes its course through the House without damaging amendments, it will represent another step forward in the general movement towards policies of community care. Generally speaking, the Churches are in support of such policies. Of course, as several noble Lords have already asserted, there must be difficulties and no doubt differences of opinion about resources. But may I offer the thought that resources do not have to be drawn so tightly as almost to be identified exclusively with financial resources? There are already enormous resources within the community through voluntary societies—resources of care, love and voluntary service.
I believe it to be true, and I hope that noble Lords will agree, that church-going Christians, along with many other men and women of good will, are time and time again to be found active in the voluntary organisations that work with and among those who, like all of us, are disabled or handicapped one way or another. I wish the Bill every success.
9.48 p.m.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, I too should like to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, for so clearly introducing the Bill. I should also like to congratulate the Bill's sponsors in another place for so painstakingly bringing it so far. I welcome the Bill in principle. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester, who has just spoken, expressed more clearly than I can much of why I do so. It has been a privilege to follow him.
I must remind the House that I am advised by the National Schizophrenia Fellowship. Accordingly, I am particularly interested in how the Bill affects persons who are mentally ill and those who care for them, who are usually the close relatives. I am also concerned with the practical effects that the Bill may have on local authorities. In those connections the Bill seems to have several gaps, and that leads me to a series of questions. I am concerned about the relationship between the authorised representative introduced in Clause 1 and members of the disabled person's family in circumstances where one of the latter has not been appointed in accordance with subsection (8).
For example, does the nearest relative, as defined in the Mental Health Acts, have the right to receive information and see the documents referred to in Clause 1(2), as well as the disabled person and the authorised representative? The nearest relative may well be caring for the disabled person at the time even if the latter, being mentally ill, sometimes resents it. The carer could well be further hampered in a well-nigh impossible task which sadly it too often is, if important information is withheld from him or her. In that general theme, what is the position of the carer with regard to Clause 1(3)?
Moving to Clause 1(7), when the mentally ill person is unable to appoint an authorised representative because of mental incapacity, can the nearest relative appoint himself or herself or, if more suitable, someone else to that position? In connection with those points, the Mental Health Act 1983 provides that any substitution of someone else for the nearest relative has to be authorised by a court. How does that affect the introduction of the authorised representative, because I observe that the Bill has no schedule of repeals or amendment of other legislation? Finally with regard to Clause 1, will my noble friend the Minister explain what she has in mind for the regulations under subsection (6)?
On Clause 2(1), if the local authority does not consider that an occasion has arisen on which it should initiate action as described in the subsection, can the disabled person or his authorised representative or, if different from the latter, the nearest relative call for such action to be initiated?
Clause 4 seems to presume, because in subsection (1)(a) and (b) it calls for consultation between the local authority and other appropriate authority, as defined in subsection (4), that the mentally ill person will go only into authoritative care. What happens when the local authority does not have the facilities to satisfy the assessed needs and the only available care is the person's family? Should they not also be consulted? In
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any case, Clause 4 has no obvious conclusion. What is the point in assessing needs if that will not lead to some kind of action?
In regard to Clause 7, the people who have a great deal of special knowledge of the needs of disabled persons are members of their families. May I be reassured that those persons will be considered as appropriate for co-option within the terms of the clause?
Although I have the doubts that I have expressed, I am in sympathy with the Bill's aims, as I said earlier. However, notwithstanding the assurances given by the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, when she introduced the Bill, about discussions with local authority organisations, I fear, unlike the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, but perhaps like the noble Lord, Lord Banks, that the Bill could put on local authorities yet another large burden for which they are unlikely to be granted adequate resources for some time, whichever government are in power. Councillors, for example, may be under embarrassing pressure to provide caring facilities which could not be immediately obtainable, in the event that an assessment says that such caring facilities should be provided for the patient. I shall be grateful, therefore, if my noble friend the Minister can give some idea of how she sees the problem, and what her thoughts are about when the power in Clause 14(2) might be used from a rather different point of view.
I have provided my noble friend the Minister and the noble Baroness with a summary of my questions. I hope that they will be able to give answers to at least some of them. Depending on those answers, I shall have to consider tabling amendments to tidy up the Bill or at any rate perhaps asking questions again, However, I still hope that the House will give the Bill a Second Reading.
9.55 p.m.
Baroness Darcy (de Knayth): My Lords, I should like to give a warm welcome to the Bill, which gives disabled people more control over their lives and should result in a better assessment of their needs and more co-ordinated services. The noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, has asked me to say that she, too, welcomes the Bill most warmly.
I add my congratulations to my noble friend for a clear and comprehensive introduction of the Bill. I am very pleased that it is she who is its sponsor. Not only has she done a lot to help disabled people, with her first-hand knowledge of problems, but she has always shown that she cares very much about those who are less mobile and less able to speak for themselves than she herself is.
I think that the Bill will be of particular benefit to those severely and multiply handicapped people who could do with some extra help. Therefore, I very much welcome the right to representation provided by Clause 1. However, I echo my noble friend's hope that the Government will be able to introduce substantive amendments to subsection (9) to provide in statute form the extension of the right to representation in connection with health authority services. Surely this is only logical when we are already allowed the same procedure with social services.

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I recognise that in another place the Minister for Health felt that there were problems where health authorities are involved, but that he included the power contained in subsection (9) because he believed that those difficulties could be overcome. The Minister said at col. 519 of the Official Report of 11th April that the intention is to find a route to follow. I very much hope that the correct route will be found in the passage of the Bill through this House.
The principle of "a representative across the board" is, predictably, strongly supported by the voluntary organisations. But the professional bodies, such as the Royal College of Nursing, and some regional health authorities—for example, the North West Thames and North Western Regional Health Authorities—also believe that no distinction should be made between the health authority and social services.
Even the National Association of Health Authorities, in its response to the Government's consultation document on the Bill, said that the NAHA,
"does not support the Government's proposal that the hospital and the family practitioner services shall be excluded from the terms of Clause 1. It considers that special provision in this respect for disabled people would be justified and that any practical problems would be overcome."
I am particularly concerned that those in long-stay mental handicap hospitals will not otherwise have the right to representation. Many people with cerebral palsy are in such hospitals, and they have communication problems. The director of the Spastics Society has commented:
"We believe that these 'forgotten people' must not be denied the rights extended to those who are already in the community."
These are some of the people who are perhaps most in need of help. I hope that the noble Baroness the Minister will be able to ensure that the "forgotten people" are recognised, remembered and given those rights before the Bill leaves this House.
Clause 2 is most welcome in that it gives disabled people much more say in decisions affecting their lives. The British Deaf Association, whose members will probably be the largest single group affected by the provisions for the interpreting and communication services in the Bill in subsection (6), however, has some worries over this subsection. As the subsection stands, the local authority, not the disabled person, determines, first, whether assistance in communication is required; secondly, what services will be provided to facilitate communication; and thirdly, the person who will fill the role of interpreter or facilitator.
This is inconsistent with the rest of the clause and the rest of the Bill, which recognise, first, that services are likely to be more appropriate if the disabled consumer is involved in deciding what the services should be; and, secondly, that disabled people have a right to be involved in decisions about services to be provided for them. It is therefore really only a question of shifting the emphasis on to the disabled person to decide whether assistance in communication is required, what form this assistance will take, and who will do it. I hope very much that the Minister may be able to offer hope of changing the emphasis of this subsection and will bring it into line with the whole
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philosophy of the clause and the Bill—the responsibility of the disabled person to make decisions.
I welcome warmly Clauses 3 and 4, dealing with the assessment of people leaving special education and those discharged from hospital, which ensures that the necessary help will be continued at a time of life which, as my noble friend said, can be very difficult. I recognise and appreciate how helpful the Government have been in respect of these clauses.
Along with most noble Lords who have spoken, I wish briefly to mention carers. As my noble friend has said, Clause 5 is a start in that it recognises carers. I appreciate that I am venturing into a sensitive area. I shall leave my noble friend Lord Allen of Abbeydale to deal with the matter further as he has perhaps a more delicate step. I shall leave it to my noble friend to ask the question already touched upon by the noble Lord, Lord Banks. I await the answer eagerly.
I should, however, like to add a few words of appreciation for carers, many of them elderly and sometimes stretched almost to breaking point and physically exhausted by caring for a severely physically handicapped person or emotionally drained by caring for someone with, for example, Alzheimer's disease, or some other form of dementia. If the carer cracks up, that means two people out of the community and in hospital.
Once again, I warmly welcome the Bill. I appreciate what the Government achieved on Report in another place. I hope that the Government will be able to make one or two further improvements in this House. I wish the Bill a safe, smooth and speedy passage.
10.2 p.m.
Lord Swinfen: My Lords, like the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth), I welcome the Bill and wish it a speedy passage. I wish also to speak about Clause 5, as she did, and to follow the noble Lord, Lord Banks, who mentioned that the Bill was an exercise in crisis prevention. Many people who look after disabled people at home do not realise what a great financial service they are performing for the community. Some of them who look after people with huntington's chorea may not have simply one disabled person in the family to look after; they may have several. The may even themselves be in the early stages of the same disease, knowing that they themselves, shortly, in perhaps a matter of years, will be in the same position as those they are looking after. That must be terrible strain and very depressing.
Should those people who are disabled be given up by their families, they would have to be taken into care. At the moment, the allowances paid by the Government are £180 a week for a disabled person in care. By my reckoning, that is £9,360 a year, not forgetting that a number of instances—not in all—the local authority will provide additional topping up over and above that figure. These sums that I am talking about are minimum sums. Thinking for the moment purely of the financial aspects and the benefit to the community, do not those carers themselves need some form of care?

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Even if one bounces a rubber ball up and down forever it reaches its own breaking point. Carers are not rubber balls; they are flesh and blood like the rest of us. There may be other strains within their family, apart from the disabled person. There are other members of the family who demand their attention and time. Perhaps they are looking after a disabled husband or child while at the same time, 30 miles away, they have a parent gradually getter older who needs more and more attention as well. Even without the additional strains, looking after one disabled person, where one is never getting a full night's sleep, brings one to the verge of breaking point. If that is allowed to happen—as another noble Lord said, I am afraid I do not remember who it was—one would end up with two people in care: the disabled person and the carer.
Respite care is surely the answer. While the family who are looking after the disabled person go and have a holiday and recover so that they can look after that person for another period of time the disabled person goes into an institution and is looked after for, say, a fortnight. If that is done at the very least, say, a fortnight a year, costing what the Government claim that it costs to look after a disabled person—£180 a week—that is £360 for a fortnight. If one takes that away from the cost that the carer is already saving the community—a minimum of £9,360—that only reduces the saving to £9,000. I have here a letter from one of the Welsh county councils seeking from the organisation for the disabled for which I work funds to take a man suffering from huntington's chorea into a home for a fortnight. The charges in that home are only £85 a week and so the savings may well be more than £9,000.
I think that it is a very short-sighted view on the part of the Treasury—not the noble Baroness's ministry, because I know she would like to do more. I recognise that the noble Baroness is aware of many of the problems. But surely she should take it upon herself to persuade the other Ministers in her ministry to hammer on the Treasury door, to get inside, and to knock some heads together, because the saving to the community would be very considerable. If we do not care for the carers and make certain that that is provided for under Clause 5—I do not think that it is as the Bill is written at the moment; I feel that it needs amending in this respect—we are not doing the right job.
Another point upon which I need elucidation is Clause 6. As I understand the clause, the information to be given to disabled people and their representatives is only on the services available within the local authority's area. But not all local authorities provide all services; some of the services are very specialised. I should have thought that it was essential to have the means to find out and provide information on specialised services anywhere in the country to disabled people and their representatives.
With those remarks I wish this Bill a speedy passage.
10.9 p.m.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale: My Lords, at this stage of the evening I shall be very brief, particularly as most of
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the points that I was thinking of raising have already been extremely well covered in the speeches made so far. I want to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, for introducing this important Bill and explaining it so clearly.
I am glad—and I speak especially as chairman of MENCAP—that Parliament is able to have this opportunity to take a really effective step forward to improve the quality of life of some of the most disadvantaged members of the community. I look upon the Bill as a further significant step in seeing that resources for the disabled are used to the best advantage and that disabled people are themselves given a say in the improvement of services available to them. I recall that the International Year of Disabled in 1981 had the aim of, "full participation and equality". Five years later this Bill represents an important move to that end.
It would be wrong not to express appreciation of the Government's attitude to the Bill. Some of us trembled for its progress in another place, and although the Bill as it emerged and is before us today falls short of perfection, it is certainly a good deal better than at one stage I, for one, had feared. For a Private Member's Bill it is a very substantive document, and I am lost in admiration of Mr. Tom Clarke's skill in piloting it through another place.
I am conscious of the shortage of parliamentary time and of the pressure on the legislative programme. I realise that in practice—in full deference to what the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, said a little earlier—there is only limited room for manoeuvre in changing the Bill without putting the whole enterprise in jeopardy. But I hope that the Government who, as has been explained, were still brooding about a number of issues when the Bill left another place, will themselves seek to strengthen and improve it during its passage through this House. We shall be only too glad to help and encourage them in so worthy a purpose.
Mention has already been made in the opening speech of the noble Baroness, and in other speeches, of a number of points of comparative detail which will require to be looked at in Committee. I should like to add my own few words to the points which the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, has just been making about the provisions in Clause 5 relating to carers. I have been looking at the Answer given by the noble Baroness the Minister to a Written Question about extending invalid care allowance to all married women in the light of the proceedings going on before the European Court in Luxembourg, I am referring to col. 815 of the Official Report for 8th May. The Answer seems to me to be somewhat Delphic. That is not an adjective that one would normally apply to pronouncements of the noble Baroness. However, it makes a point of referring to the valuable work which the carers do. It is valuable indeed, as has been well illustrated by the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, and others who spoke earlier.
This group, many of them elderly women with very few resources of their own, make possibly the greatest contribution of all in looking after the disabled in the community; and, as has been said, in so doing they save the Treasury a great deal of money. The cost of state and local authority provision would run into billions of pounds if they all gave up overnight. I hope

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therefore that further thought will lead the Government to add to this clause for two reasons: first, to make more specific the purpose of seeing what help the carer needs to enable the disabled person to continue to live in the community; but secondly to enable the carer to ask for an assessment of the needs of a disabled person.
This is a Private Member's Bill but I shall listen with care to whatever the Minister may volunteer about implementation, and particularly the possible timetable for bringing the various provisions into force. I know that this is an issue of the greatest possible interest to all of us this evening. Although, as I understand it, the original hope was that the main objects would be achieved by using existing resources more efficiently, as the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, explained, I go along with those who believe that there can be no blinking the fact that additional resources will have to be found by central and local government if the provisions of the Bill, either in its present form or, as we hope, extended and improved, are to be brought into effect and produce worthwhile results.
I take comfort from the fact that the Government have declared time and again their compassion and deep feeling for disabled people and their families. I feel that they can hardly fail to seize this opportunity to translate those feelings into practical reality and to demonstrate, as I think must now be one of their main objectives, that they are indeed a caring and compassionate Administration.
10.17 p.m.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, one of the most encouraging factors about this debate has been the unanimous support from all parts of the House for this Bill. I certainly want to add my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, for her presentation of it, and for what is going to be quite a difficult task in piloting this Bill through your Lordships' House. I should also like to give my praise to Mr. Tom Clarke, the Member of Parliament who introduced it in another place; to those voluntary organisations who helped and advised him; and also to the Minister of Health, Mr. Barney Hayhoe. It was important that they managed to put together a package, and if any of us try really seriously to destroy that package, the Bill may suffer as a consequence.
I do not take the view expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Banks, that this is not, if I have his words right, a major piece of legislation. Rather do I go along with the noble Lord, Lord Allen, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester that this is an extremely important piece of legislation. It may not mark the same watershed in services for people with disabilities as the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970. I was deeply involved with that Bill but I recognise what its weaknesses were.
It gave disabled people rights but did not do enough to ensure that they were able to obtain those rights. This Bill builds on the experience of the 1970 Act and recognises that in the intervening years disabled people have ceased to be just recipients of services and are demanding their full rights as citizens, as was said by
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the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot—full say not only in the provision of those services but in all aspects of the life of the community. They are not now tucked away. They are part of us, and they demand the same rights as we accord to ourselves, and as we should accord to them.
Clause 1 gives disabled people the right to appoint their representatives, and that is a tremendous step forward. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, that there seem to be gaps in this that we shall have to deal with in Committee. Perhaps the noble Baroness will make some points which will show the way to tackle those problems. As the clause stands, representatives will only operate in relation to the social services.
The Secretary of State can extend that to the health service and to other local authority services. I certainly hope he will. I think it is absolutely essential that the same opportunities for representation are available in the health service as are available in local authorities. I hope he will not drag his feet about this. The clause builds on the successful work of the Advocacy Alliance, whose main field of operation has been long-stay hospitals. I think that they take some of the same points of view as those presented by the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone. The key issue in the health and social services is the movement from hospital to community care. To allow representation in one section and not in the other would be absolutely absurd. I am glad that this is the view of most of the health bodies which have responded to the DHSS consultation paper.
There will be difficulties in implementing this clause in relation to people who are incapable of appointing a representative. I know that this is an issue which has been discussed only today at a seminar organised by MIND. I wish I had been able to be there as chairman of MIND to see what conclusions they reached, but we will have details of their conclusions and this may help us in Committee. We shall have full and constructive debates on this. I shall not go further at this stage.
Clause 2 gives disabled people explicit rights to put their views to the social services when their needs are being assessed, to have a written statement on decisions and to ask for a review if they are not happy. As the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, said, as drafted the clause restricts these rights in a rather illogical way so that, for example, a person can appeal against non-provision of a service but not under-provision of the same type of service. I understand that the DHSS and local authorities have agreed to widen the clause and we look forward very much to what will come either from the Minister tonight or through amendments at Committee stage.
The clause still, however, does not go as far as I should have liked. I should have liked to see some breach in the compartmentalisation which disabled people have to face; I have in mind, for example, some of the most intractable problems surrounding the question of adapting or rehousing with responsibilities split between district and county councils. As it stands, the written statement encompasses only social service functions. Quite clearly there are problems that go way beyond the health and social services.

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This is an issue which arises again on Clause 4, when housing for discharged patients must clearly be on top of the agenda. We cannot have people discharged from long-stay hospitals without proper, good, decent accommodation into which to move, with the sort of community support they will need.
Clause 3 is the first of two clauses which seek to move from what we might call crisis management to crisis prevention. It requires a social service assessment before disabled children leave full-time education. Here again there are still a few details to be sorted out, but I understand that agreement has been reached with all the parties concerned and I look forward to the appropriate amendments coming forward at Committee stage.
Clause 4 seeks to achieve the same result for people who have been treated for mental handicap or mental illness in hospital for at least six months. It is in my view an absolutely key clause of the Bill, since it obliges authorities actually to implement policies to which governments have been paying lip service for years. The clause has been through a number of transformations. Originally it was similar to Clause 3 involving notification by the hospital of the date of discharge and the subsequent social services assessment.
On Report in another place, the Government submitted a new clause which would have changed this solely to notification without any duty on the social services to do anything, a procedure described by the AMA as almost a waste of paper. Mr. Clarke, after agreeing with the local authority associations, proposed an alternative, which is what we see in the Bill now. The hospital managers are required to undertake an assessment in conjunction with the social services. I think that that is a very fair phrase and it means that it will have to be done in conjunction with the social services. The clause was accepted by the Minister, whose main criticism was that the drafting did not place a sufficient duty on the social services to co-operate in the assessment. I think that that was right.
Perhaps I may quote from two paragraphs from Mr. Barney Hayoe in col. 497. He said:
"It is right that social services should contribute to assessments, but hospital authorities with current responsibility for the patient should normally be in the lead."
That was a good statement. Then he said in col. 499:
"It fails to make clear what the extent and duty would be of hospital managers when a local authority failed to participate in the arrangements for an assessment. What will happen if the local authority's social services department is unco-operative? That is not clear in the present formulation. Clearly, hospital authorities have no power to direct local authorities to participate in the assessment of needs".
Quite clearly, this question of the relationship between the health authorities and the social services authorities is going to be central to our discussions in Committee. I must say that I am waiting with great interest to learn from the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, what precise amendments the Government will be suggesting to the Committee. I do not mean that she is going to suggest the precise amendments now, but she may give us some inkling of what will happen.
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I think that there should be a general agreement not only in this House but among local and health authorities that current best practice is a multidisciplinary assessment involving both health and social services and possibly other bodies as well—voluntary organisations too. Obviously we want legislation which will require authorities to provide the best possible care for patients but we do not want to tie their hands to a precise formula. Possibly the solution would be to lay separate duties on each authority, health and social service, to assess for their own services but to co-operate with each other when they do so.
Clause 5, the carers' clause, I shall not say much about. It has been touched upon by the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, by the noble Lord, Lord Allen, by the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth), and also by the noble Lords, Lord Mottistone and Lord Stallard. All of them have expressed concern about the carers' clause. My concern goes along with all they have said and I shall not repeat what has been said. It is a problem. We know that we are not going to be able to put into this Bill something with massive resources but I must say that one sometimes feels sad as one hears constant tributes to the noble—and I agree noble—work which is carried out by the carers; but it is accompanied by an almost total lack of action. We have to see in some other way that there really is action in this field.
I should like to record my regret that the clause which would have increased the influence of disabled people when local authorities were drawing up structure plans seems to have disappeared altogether. Given the procedures in the other place, it was inevitable that non-DHSS clauses would receive a rather wooden response from Ministers. It may be that in Committee here we may hear directly from the noble Lord, Lord Elton, to explain the rather negative briefs which I felt that his department had provided in the field that concerned him.
In col. 536 on this notable and historic day, Mr. Tony Newton, the Minister for Social Security, said:
"If it transpires that the attention of planning authorities needs to be directed more closely to the needs of disabled people, that could be done in the form of guidance from the Department of the Environment. I understand that my colleagues there are considering whether such guidance might be helpful."
In my experience, where disabled people have been involved at an early stage great benefits have accrued not only to them but to many other members of the public. I suggest that authoritative guidance, perhaps formulated in conjunction with the Access Committee for England, would be of immense value. I hope that the noble Baroness may be able to up-date the House on the progress her colleagues have made on this issue since 11th April.
I also hope—and this is the last point I want to make—following on from the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Allen, that the noble Baroness may say something about timing, because we do not want to see this House following on from another place, passing the Bill and then waiting for years for something to happen. I see no reason why Clause 5 and Parts II to IV cannot come into force immediately, Clauses 2 and 3 and most of Clause 1 next April and the rest of the Bill the following year. That is the sort of timetable that I should like to set.

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The only complicated matters are setting up procedures for authorising representatives for people who are legally incompetent and preparing the ground for joint assessments of people coming out of hospital. As requested by the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, I hope that the noble Baroness the Minister can give some fairly precise indication of the Government's thinking on timing, though I appreciate that discussions with the authorities will be continuing during the process of this Bill through your Lordships' House.
I want to give the Bill every possible support and to assure those on all sides of the House that these Benches will seek very positively to see that what I think is a very important initiative, and this agreement which was hammered out in another place, are carried through into reality and into practice, ensuring that so many disabled people are able, by joint planning and with their own consultation and their own representatives, to be settled effectively and properly as full citizens in the community.
10.32 p.m.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, perhaps I may first add my congratulations to those that others have offered to the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, on so eloquently bringing this Bill before us today. This Bill certainly represents a very important development of the legislative structure within which services are provided for disabled people and we are indeed grateful to her.
The Government have made it clear throughout that we endorsed the principles that the Bill seeks to enshrine. But we were concerned that in the form that it was originally introduced in another place it would have imposed inflexible, impracticable and bureaucratic burdens on local authorities. The Government consulted widely on proposals for amending the Bill to produce more workable measures, and substantial amendments were subsequently tabled. After a certain amount of what I can best describe as constructive give and take between the Government and the Bill's sponsors, the Bill in its present form emerged from another place. I think we have now got what is basically a most worthwhile Bill, although, in our view, as I shall outline briefly in a moment, some bits of it still need a bit of further refining and tidying up.
The noble Baroness, Lady Masham, referred in her opening speech to the most important changes envisaged, as discussed between the DHSS and those advising the Bill's sponsors. May I assure the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, that we have no intention of any radical rewriting. I should like to make one other brief introductory comment. I should like to say that I particularly enjoyed listening to the speech of my noble friend Lady Elliot of Harwood. Her foresight and her own hard work have resulted in so much help being offered to so many people in Scotland.
Before I talk briefly about some of the individual provisions of the Bill, I should like to touch on the subject of costs. The Bill represents a substantial
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development of services for disabled people. As such, it has been clear from the outset that it would have substantial resource implications for local authorities. The additional costs would reflect not only the new administrative procedures which the Bill would require local authorities to undertake, but there would also be the cost of meeting the need for additional services which those new procedures—specifically for assessment and for representation of disabled people—would bring to light. It is this latter element which would be the most significant element. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Allen, thought that my reply was Delphic. I am afraid that I cannot even claim to be a Vestal Virgin; therefore I have nothing to add.
What the cost of the Bill would be cannot at this stage be stated at all exactly. We asked the local authority associations to estimate the costs of the Bill if it were amended on the basis of the proposals set out in the consultation paper issued by the Government in February. The answer they came up with was a minimum of £100 million in a full year, though it is clear that it would take at least a year or two after implementation for the costs to build up to that level. We now need to take into account the fact that the Bill in its present form does not in some respects reflect the proposals in the Government's consultation paper. It seems likely—and I must make it clear that we are still discussing this with the local authority associations and others—that Clause 4 at any rate (on the assessment of the needs of people discharged from long-stay psychiatric hospitals) could be significantly more expensive in its present form than if the amendment originally proposed by the Government had been adopted.
The upshot of all this is that, as Government Ministers have made quite clear in another place, it will not be possible, if the Bill reaches the statute book, to make commencement orders bringing into effect those parts of the Bill that have significant resource implications until such time as the necessary resources can be made available. But do not despair, my Lords: what I have said does not mean that parts of the Bill could not be implemented reasonably quickly after the Bill is enacted. I should hope it would be possible to implement those parts of the Bill which do not carry significant resource implications not too many months after Royal Assent. I should hope, for example, that Clause 3 (disabled school leavers), Clause 5 (carers), Clause 6 (information), Clause 7 (co-option of disabled people to committees etc.) and Clause 8 (reports to Parliament) could be implemented on that sort of timescale.
However, I must say in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Banks—and I understand his absence—that Clause 1 (on representatives) where in any case there will be regulations that will need to be the subject of further consultation before they are made, Clause 2 (on assessment) and possibly Clause 4 (people discharged from long-stay psychiatric hospitals) will have to await the availability of the necessary resources. I hope this also answers a specific point raised by my noble friend Lord Mottistone.
I should like to make some comments from the Government's point of view on some of the more important provisions of the Bill. I first of all turn to Clause 1, on representation of disabled people. This is

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a very important step forward. For the first time disabled people are given the right to appoint people to represent them in connection with the provision of services by local authority social services departments. As some of your Lordships may be aware, the department has been funding a pilot scheme for the provision of advocates for disabled people, run by the Advocacy Alliance. I hope it will be possible to build upon the experience of that scheme in developing statutory arrangements under this clause of the Bill.
I now turn to Clause 2, on assessment of need. This again represents an important development. For the first time disabled people are to be given, as of right, the opportunity to make representations about their need for social services as they perceive them to be and, arguably more importantly, to receive a written explanation outlining the services to be provided and make further representations if they are unhappy with the outcome. The clause also requires local authorities to provide interpretation services to disabled people or their representatives who are unable to communicate normally because of disability. Following discussions with the Bill's sponsors we have it in mind to bring forward some relatively minor improvements to the clause, to improve the way it works. I am confident that those measures will command the support of the House.
My noble friend Lord Mottistone asked whether a disabled person or someone acting for him could call for the local authority to consider the needs of a disabled person if the local authority had shown unwillingness to do so off its own bat. The clause does not make specific provision for that, but the question of whether clarification of the local authority's duties in that respect is requested is one that we are looking at anyway at the request of the Bill's sponsors. If we conclude that it is necessary or appropriate to do so, we shall bring forward an amendment at a later stage.
The noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth) asked, in regard to Clause 2(6), whether more weight could be given to the disabled person's views in deciding whether interpretation of services is needed. We shall certainly consider that point. On the face of it a local authority must take the final decision as to what is needed in the way of interpretation of services to enable it to discharge its functions. I certainly take the point that the views of the disabled person should be given weight.
The noble Lord, Lord Ennals, asked for an assurance that the right will be extended to allow rights of representation against under-provision as well as non-provision, and I can give such an assurance.
Clause 3 deals with young disabled people leaving education. It puts a duty on the local authority to assess the young person's needs for social services at what is generally recognised to be a particularly significant milestone in his or her life. The provisions of the clause go beyond the proposals in the Government's consultative paper issued in February. However, having considered the views of the local authority associations and others, we now accept that the clause in its present form is an improvement on our original proposals. Again, we shall be bringing forward some minor tidying up arrangements which I do not expect the House will find in any way controversial.
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I anticipate, however, that we shall need to give careful consideration in Committee to Clause 4, on long-stay patients discharged from psychiatric hospitals. That again goes beyond the Government's proposed amendment to the original Bill, which envisaged only a requirement on hospital managers to notify the social services department in the area to which the patient was likely to be discharged. We now have a provision requiring the hospital managers to "make arrangements" for the needs of the patient for social services to be assessed before he or she is discharged. The overall intention here is one which we wholeheartedly support.
On the other hand, the clause as it stands does not seem to be at all clear as to what would be the precise responsibilities in the assessment process of the hospital managers and the social services department (or, in some cases, departments) concerned. In reply to the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, I am unwilling to go into that rather complicated area in any more detail, as we are still studying the implications of the clause—including, as I said earlier, the resource implications—in consultation with the Bill's sponsors and others. But, as I said, we shall certainly need to spend some time on this clause in Committee.
My noble friend Lord Mottistone asked whether the disabled person's family would be involved in the assessment process. I agree that as a matter of good practice that would indeed be highly desirable. I am not convinced however that it would be practicable to make it a statutory requirement. I have a feeling that it would not be desirable to cover matters of professional practice of this sort in legislation. However, I shall study most carefully what my noble friend said.
My noble friend also wondered what was the point of assessing needs if this would not lead to some kind of action. I believe that in practice an assessment would lead to action in virtually every case if unmet needs were disclosed. The identification of those needs would necessarily act as a trigger for the exercise of the authority's existing powers (and, indeed, in some cases duties) under the relevant legislation.
Clause 5 puts a duty on local authorities to take carers' abilities into account when considering whether services need to be provided for a disabled person. This provision has rightly attracted a lot of attention and was the subject of much discussion in another place. On that occasion my honourable friend the Minister for the disabled, in proposing the government new clause which has now been incorporated in the Bill, undertook that the Government would consider carefully whether further amendments needed to be brought forward in this House to clarify the purpose of this clause. We have indeed given further consideration to this point, and have had further discussions with the Bill's sponsors. We remain unpersuaded that further amendments are necessary or desirable, but we will of course carefully consider the points which have been put forward today.
The noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth) spoke most movingly about the role of carers, as did other noble Lords. My noble friend Lord Swinfen asked about the implications of Clause 5 for respite care—providing care for the disabled person while

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carers have a well-earned rest. Local authorities can, and of course already do, provide such care under existing legislation and the Bill would not impose any new powers or duties in this respect. What the Bill does is require the local authority to have regard to the ability of the carer to continue to provide regular care when it looks at the disabled person's need for services.
Clauses 1 to 5 represent the meat of this Bill. The remainder of the Bill contains a number of useful minor improvements in provisions for disabled people which the Government generally welcome. The only clause to which at present we are minded to suggest substantive amendments is Clause 11, on co-operation in planning in Scotland. My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland undertook in another place that an amendment would be introduced to meet the concerns of the Bill's sponsors by giving statutory powers to the Secretary of State to prescribe for joint planning committees and their activities for use if the present administrative arrangements should prove to be unsatisfactory after a fair trial.
The noble Lord, Lord Banks, asked about joint planning in Scotland and whether it would be put on a statutory basis as it is in England. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State's undertaking was to introduce a reserve power in support of the administrative arrangements. The precise formulation of that power is still under consideration by Scottish Ministers. He also undertook to seek an amendment to the Bill's Long Title to enable services for elderly people to be covered in this context. We also intend to introduce a clause that would apply the principles of Clause 3 of the Bill concerning children with special educational needs to the particular circumstances that apply in Scotland.
My noble friend Lord Swinfen asked whether local authorities should not have the duty to get specialised information from whatever source, not just information in their possession. We considered this point at an earlier stage but decided that it would put an unreasonable and unenforceable burden on local authorities. I agree that they ought to provide this sort of information, but it would be wrong to put them under a statutory obligation to do so.
My noble friend Lord Mottistone raised a point on Clause 7 which deals with the appointment to various committees and other bodies of people with special knowledge of the needs of disabled persons. I can assure him that the clause will in no way preclude relatives of disabled people being appointed to such bodies. What it will do is ensure that before such appointments are made there shall, in appropriate cases, be consultation with organisations directly representing disabled people themselves.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester mentioned the use of the word "of" in Clause 7. Personally I could not agree with him more, but I am no parliamentary draftsman.
I should like to conclude my remarks by once again congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, on sponsoring this important Bill and by expressing the hope that the House will agree that it should be given a Second Reading. I wish the Bill an easy and speedy passage through this House. I am quite sure that,
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subject to minor amendments on the lines which I have suggested, this Bill is potentially a very important milestone on the road toward better services for disabled people, which is a goal that we all share.
10.50 p.m.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, the lights are dim, the hour is late and there is another important debate to follow. I shall be very brief.
We have had a very full and constructive debate and I am most grateful to all the noble Lords and Baronesses who have taken part. Though the Bill is a modest measure in terms of direct resource implications, it represents a change of direction in society's approach to people with disabilities, the significance of which will be demonstrated in the coming years. I should like to congratulate all the speakers who have made such valuable and knowledgeable points.
I am particularly grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, the Minister, for her very helpful and constructive speech on behalf of the Government. I think it right to put on record the immense help that the sponsors of this Bill have had from the Government and their officials not only in the Department of Health and Social Security but also in the Department of Education and the Scottish Office. I should also like to pay tribute to the Association of Metropolitan Authorities, the Association of County Councils and the National Association of Health Authorities for their invaluable and essential contributions in forging a Bill on which there is now universal agreement and which we can therefore be confident will be implemented with enthusiasm by local and health authorities throughout the country.
I should like to give a special word of thanks to Mr. Peter Mitchell of the Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation and to Mr. John Healey of MIND who have worked extremely hard and have been most helpful. Much work goes on behind the scenes with a Bill such as this. I hope that noble Lords will forgive me if at this late hour I do not comment on all the detailed points that have been made in the debate. The Chief Whip would be furious, I know. However, I can assure your Lordships that they will all be carefully considered and can be debated further in Committee.
The noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, expressed some of the concerns put to him by the National Schizophrenia Fellowship. Although the Bill is primarily concerned with giving a greater say to disabled people themselves, the position of those who care for them in the community is very much a concern of the sponsors. In relation to Clause 1, the Minister for Health in another place said that the position of the family would be considered in the regulations, and I am sure that the fellowship will be invited by the department to give its views at that stage.
The only other clause on which I wish to comment is Clause 4. I hope that we can achieve a satisfactory outcome at the Committee stage. It is most important. I also hope, as the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, suggested, that the noble Baroness will hammer hard

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at the Treasury's coffers. She understands the problems; she is, I feel, one of us who care. I hope that your Lordships will now give the Bill a Second Reading.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Hong Kong: Vietnamese Refugees
10.55 p.m.
Lord Chitnis Lord Chitnis rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to improve the present living conditions and resettlement prospects of Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. I am aware that at this hour I should not assume your Lordships' formal consent. However, I tabled this Question after a visit to Hong Kong in February as chairman of Refugee Action, together with the director of that organisation and a Vietnamese-speaking member of its council. Refugee Action is one of the two main organisations in this country which has the problem of resettling Vietnamese refugees who come here, and we felt that it would be useful to go to Hong Kong to see the conditions from which they were coming, the better to be able to understand their problems when they arrive here.
What we found was a complicated problem which the Hong Kong authorities have laboured manfully to deal with over the past years since it started, the root of which I realise the Government can do little about. The root of the problem of the Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong is the conditions in Vietnam itself. Were those conditions different, there would not be a problem. But in Vietnam at the present moment there is harassment of religion, there are political education camps in which some people spend many years, there is compulsory military service for a very nasty war, there are food shortages, and there is malnutrition.
None of your Lordships would happily live in Vietnam. Indeed, Her Majesty's Government I think agree with me on this point, in that they said in their reply to the Home Affairs Committee of another place that people would continue to leave Vietnam as long as conditions there continued to be intolerable, which was the word that they used. I think that the people who manage to escape from the country deserve every sympathy and consideration.
What happens to them when they enter British waters? After a dangerous and difficult journey in normally inadequate craft over the South China Sea, they are not even allowed to land in Hong Kong. They are taken to a pontoon in the harbour and there they are given what I can only describe as "a verbal going over". During the two weeks that we were in Hong Kong no boat happened to arrive, and so I cannot claim to have seen the process myself, but I have had it described to me by the Hong Kong authorities and I have seen some of the briefing material that is given to those who talk to the refugees.
Certainly the process is enormously effective in the sense that, after that tremendously dangerous journey
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on which some of the people concerned died following enormous deprivation, nearly half of the 2,000 people who arrived in Hong Kong in 1985 and who were subjected to that process decided that they would sail on. The Hong Kong Government refuel their boats, they equip them with food and water, and they are sent out to sea again. As I understand it, no record is kept of them other than their numbers, and nobody knows what other landfall they reach. It is a reasonably fair assumption that some of them die. I think that perhaps the claim of the Hong Kong authorities in the material which they issue and which was referred to by the Minister in another place last week, that no refugee has ever been refused political asylum, rings a little hollow.
What happens to those who stay? The new arrivals are now put into closed camps. I hope that tonight the Minister will not spend time defending the closed camp policy. Although it is arguable whether it was necessary and is effective, I do not intend to argue that point tonight. The figures of refugees coming into Hong Kong were falling anyway, before the policy was introduced. It is a matter of fact that over the past several years not one refugee has gone missing from an open or a closed camp. If it is said that public opinion in Hong Kong insists that the camps be closed, I do not believe that the Government should bow to that pressure. During my time in Hong Kong I found an enormous degree of sympathy for the refugees among the population.
I accept that the Government have decided that the closed camps are here to stay, but if that is so, one must next consider what the conditions in the closed camps should be. The present system is that the camps are run by the correctional services department of the Hong Kong Government—what we would call the Prison Department. Because they are run by people who were trained to run prisons the camps are run as prisons. The camps are full of prison staff who call the people within them by their numbers rather than their names. There are very many of them and there is the whole atmosphere of a prison institution in the camps.
It seems to me that there are two possible remedies to the problem which I think is undesirable, both of which have the merit, apart from anything else, of saving money. First, there are voluntary organisations working in the camps at the moment. They are doing splendid work, but they are doing particular work. The Save the Children Fund, or whichever organisation it may be, will run the school or the workshop. Is there any reason why instead of the Prison Department handling the camp administration—while it may control the camp perimeters—within the camps the administration could not be carried out by the voluntary organisations? I know that many of them are prepared to fulfil that task, and were they to do so, it would civilianise the administration, get the prison officers out of the camps, and make for a much more relaxed atmosphere within them.
There is an even more adventurous solution which is—again, I do not argue that the prison officers should not guard the camp perimeters—that the administration within the camps could be given to the refugees. There are closed camps in other parts of South-East Asia where within the perimeter the refugees run their own affairs.
I recognise that the result of that would be that the buildings they are in would be slightly less clean and spick and span than the correctional services department in Hong Kong would like them to be, but it would mean that people who at present are being reduced to mere numbers in an institution would have some kind of control over their own lives and, more to the point, would be better equipped to face life outside the camps when eventually they are resettled. That, of course, is the main point. If those refugees could be swiftly resettled, conditions within the camps would be considerably less important.
The United Kingdom is taking some 50 refugees a month during 1986 as part of an agreed family reunion programme. The Government said recently that they would relax the criteria for the family reunion programme and would not insist on the rigid and close degrees of relationship which had sometimes operated. In view of my experience of the administration of that programme I hope that the Government can confirm that that remains their policy.
The main point is that before I went to Hong Kong, and while I was in Hong Kong, I talked to representatives of the other settlement countries—the Canadians, the Australians and the Americans—and I am convinced that they would do a great deal to solve the problem if the British Government would do a little more than they are doing.
I believe, for example, that if the Government were to agree that the present flow into this country of 500 a year could be continued into 1987 and 1988, the other settlement countries would do even more than they are doing to make a big dent in the problem. Is there any chance of that happening?
I wish to ask one question. Will the Government exempt the refugees from the new supplementary benefit regulations which are currently before us? The proposed changes in the single payment regulations will make the resettlement of those refugees in this country much more difficult than it need be. The regulations are reasonably drawn up with the British population in mind.
The refugees coming into that situation have very particular problems. It would surely be possible to exempt them from this.
The world is full of problems. By the standards of famine in Africa or the number of refugees from Afghanistan and Pakistan and so on the problem of the 9,500 Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong is a tiny one. But this is a situation where an act of will by Her Majesty's Government on the sort of matters about which I have spoken could make a very great difference to one little problem in a small part of the world. I very much hope for a positive response.
11.6 p.m.
Lord MacLehose of Beoch: My Lords, while I do not wish to detain your Lordships long at this late hour, I want to thank the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, for tabling the Question and speaking to it so forcefully. I am also very glad that he is personally taking an interest in the problem. I have the most vivid recollection
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of the beginning of this problem with people arriving in very great numbers, not knowing how many were coming and wondering whether the crowded city would be swamped by the potential numbers from Vietnam. I remember extremely well how staunch the Hong Kong public were in those days and how magnificently the public services coped with this invasion that just could not be turned away.
I listened with great interest to what the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, had to say about what was going on in Hong Kong and about what should be done for the refugees. I have also read a recent report by the Oxfam working party that came out at much the same time that the Question was tabled. As I understand it, the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, and the Oxfam working party have much the same things to say. They do not question the basic policies of the Hong Kong Government, but they have criticism of administrative practice and recommendations for change. I cannot comment on that. It is over four years since I was in Hong Kong, and the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, has been there quite recently.
However. I would record a gentle plea to be guided in this by the Hong Kong Government. The public is humane, the Oxfam report was largely drafted by Hong Kong people, and the record of the territory is exemplary in Asia; so I suggest no exhortation. However, if something practical can be offered, I am sure that would be a very different matter.
I have a few questions to ask. The first stems from the fact that Hong Kong never had a fair share of the resettlement places on offer. I made this point as forcefully as I could to the Geneva conference in 1979, obviously without effect, because I notice that the Oxfam report says that this remains the situation—28 per cent. of the problem, and a very small share of the solution. First, can anything be done to improve Hong Kong's share of the places offered, whether by representations to other host countries or by the United Kingdom leading the way, as the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, has said?
Secondly, is there a prospect of repatriating to Vietnam any refugees who now wish to go? I listened to what the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, said about conditions in Vietnam, but the fact is that some have been able to return; I think that the Oxfam report said at least 25.
The report also made a point that I have heard from others; namely, that while the early refugees were genuine refugees—that is to say, people in danger of life or liberty because of their race, religion or political beliefs—more recently the emigration has been stimulated more by accounts from relations and friends abroad of the much better conditions that they can get abroad as against in Vietnam. This is a slightly different situation. I was ambassador in Vietnam at one time. It is a harsh country, I know. I wonder whether the Minister would agree that if any wish to go back, their repatriation would be a desirable objective. I believe that this problem is best dealt with by slow and steady erosion, not by some dramatic terminal gesture. The latter might only touch off a further stream of emigration. After all, the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, mentioned that there were only 9,000 and how small that number is. Yes, but how many millions

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of people are there in Vietnam? The last thing that one wants to do is to suggest to them that they have only to come somewhere else and their problems will be solved. The world will not solve them. That has been proved.
If a policy of erosion is to be followed, this requires a steady net offtake. My last question is therefore to ask whether the Government can do more to improve and continue the rate of resettlement. That is all that I have to say. I hope, however, that the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, will persevere in his interest in the problem, because it can be rather forgotten in this country. It is very real in Hong Kong, to the Vietnamese refugees, of course, but also to the government and people who have borne this burden all these years.
11.12 p.m.
Lord Oram: My Lords, whenever the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, speaks in this House he does so on the basis of expert knowledge and sincere dedication to the causes that he espouses, and never more so than on this occasion when he has raised the question of the Vietnamese refugees. The noble Lord has raised this subject in his capacity as chairman of Refugee Action, following, as he has explained, an intensive study of the problem on the spot a few weeks ago. My own knowledge of the problem is not a direct one. It is derived from my reading of the report of the Home Affairs Committee of another place, the Government's reply to that report, and, most useful of all, the report of the delegation that the noble Lord led to Hong Kong. It is indeed a formidable document.
The first two documents necessarily deal with the major policy questions and with the recommendations from the Home Affairs Committee for the solution of the refugee problem. What distinguishes the report of the noble Lord and his colleagues is that from its pages one not only derives a view of those major issues and what should be done about them, but one gets also a vivid series of intimate details of life in the camps, both those that are closed and those that are open. It is typical of the report and indeed of the noble Lord's speech that although they are highly critical, and rightly critical, of the conditions they saw, they acknowledge that it is a most complex situation and that the authorities are wrestling with most difficult circumstances. Throughout the report, which I have read with care, it is clear that the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, and his colleagues have endeavoured to be objective and fair in their assessment of the situation. It seems to me all the more important therefore that the Government, and indeed the Hong Kong Government, should examine carefully every sentence in this report and ask what can be done to alleviate the conditions which are described in it.
There are two parts to the noble Lord's Question this evening. One part concerns living conditions of the refugees and asks what can be done to improve those conditions. The other part of the Question concerns the prospects of resettlement of the refugees. I suggest that even if the Government have good reasons, which we shall no doubt hear from the noble Baroness, for not accepting the main recommendations either of the Select Committee or of the
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delegation of the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, in respect of resettlement prospects, there is a very great deal that can be done on the basis of what they have described, and a great deal that ought to be done, to improve the living conditions, particularly in the closed camps. The picture which emerges is indeed that of a bleak existence going on year after year for those who have been living in these camps simply because they cannot satisfy the complex criteria which determine their prospects of resettlement.
The monotony of their lives comes through from this report, the almost complete lack of recreational or educational facilities in many cases, and the frequent problems arising from the lack of interpreters leading very often to misunderstandings, are factors which could surely be alleviated even if the major problems of resettlement policy cannot be overcome.
However, I am not satisfied that it is impossible to overcome those major problems. We can acknowledge that the Government have accepted the first of the recommendations of the Select Committee; namely, that there should be a relaxation of the criteria governing family connections. Like the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, I hope that the Minister when she comes to reply can give a satisfactory report on the numbers who are being admitted to Britain as a result of that relaxation: and the assurance that was asked for by the noble Lord that that relaxed policy can be continued beyond this year.
I hope too that careful note will be taken of the instances reported by the delegation on hard cases of refusal of admission through misunderstandings. May I quote from page 5 of the report with regard to one particular case although it is said that there are other cases of this kind. The report says:
"We were introduced to a man who had not been settled because he was deemed to have rejected a British offer. In fact he had merely overslept on the morning of his interview. There was a cross against his name on the British list with no explanation. This meant that no other country would consider him."
There are other hardship cases of that kind. Surely it is at least possible to accept the recommendation of the noble Lord and his colleagues that Britain should review these 200 cases—or a number of that order—of refusals which put a stop on their being considered by other receiving countries.
May I make two points in connection with the Home Affairs Committee of another place? The first is the recommendation that the closed camps should be abolished. The committee reported that many of those in open camps secure employment and become pretty independent and almost resettled in Hong Kong itself. That is surely a strong argument for enabling those who are at present in enclosed camps to have a similar freedom.
I know the arguments on the other side, and the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, has put them forward. The arguments are that the closed camps were necessary as a so-called humane deterrent to prevent a further influx of refugees, and that abolishing the closed camps would give preferential treatment to Vietnamese refugees as against those Chinese who come illegally from the mainland. There may be some validity in both those arguments, but surely it is a matter of judgment as between opposing arguments. It

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is not a black and white situation. I am by no means convinced that the Government have reached a balanced conclusion on that particular matter.
My second point in relation to the report of the Home Affairs Committee is again one that was touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, in his speech—namely, if the British Government can reconsider their position, they will provide a good example to other receiving countries, particularly Australia, the United States and Canada. As Britain has clearly the major constitutional obligation because Hong Kong is a British colony, it seems to me understandable that those other receiving countries should expect us to give the lead.
I support the view that has been put forward that a more generous attitude by our Government would enable the others to relax their conditions as well. I hope that when the noble Baroness comes to reply she will give some attention to those points. They are not my points, but points which are raised in the report of the Home Affairs Committee.
In conclusion, I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, would agree with me in saying that we recognise how difficult the whole problem is and that the Government have not been entirely unsympathetic in seeking a solution to the problem. As I have suggested, all along the line it is a matter of judgment. We feel that so far the Government's judgment has erred on the side of caution and restriction, and that there is room for still further relaxation in the numbers who can be admitted. We hope that we shall hear from the Minister when she replies that the Government can now review the situation and take some further steps forward to a solution of what, after all, is a very tragic human problem.
11.24 p. m.
Baroness Young: My Lords, I am sure that we are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, for tabling this Unstarred Question and it is a matter of regret that it should come on at so late an hour. The noble Lord is right to draw attention to the problems which have been caused by the enormous exodus of refugees from Vietnam in recent years. I do not think we need to be ashamed of the part we have played in the efforts to solve this problem: most of the burden has, of course, fallen on the authorities and people of Hong Kong.
The problem is still acute. Hong Kong still has more boat refugees than anywhere else in South-East Asia. But we are making steady progress towards a lasting solution: the permanent resettlement of refugees. The number of Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong was over 50,000 in 1979. It dropped rapidly to under 13,000 by the end of 1981, and more gradually since then to just under 9,000 at present. We shall continue to do all we can to help these unfortunate people to find a secure future, and to make sure that the conditions in which they live are as humane as possible. The Government very much hope that the resettlement of all Vietnamese refugees can be completed as early as possible.
Perhaps some figures would illustrate the present position in Hong Kong. On 5th May there were 8,661 Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong, 4,005 in open centres and 4,629 in closed centres. In the past year the refugee population has fallen by 2,542. Since 1st
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January 1,451 refugees have departed Hong Kong for resettlement compared with 1,135 in 1985. This is a result of increases in the numbers taken by the United Kingdom and other countries, to which I shall refer in more detail. Five hundred and twenty-five refugees have arrived in the same period, against 314 in 1985.
All those noble Lords who have spoken in this debate this evening have asked about what the United Kingdom has done. Since 1975 the United Kingdom has resettled some 12,500 Vietnamese refugees from Hong Kong. A White Paper published last September in response to the report of the Home Affairs Committee, entitled Refugees and Asylum with Special Reference to the Vietnamese announced the Government's agreement, in accordance with the committee's recommendation, to accept some 500 Vietnamese refugees, about 420 of them in Hong Kong, under relaxed immigration criteria for family reunion. The Government also agreed to consider accepting further limited numbers from Hong Kung in the future.
So far, 250 refugees have been resettled in the United Kingdom out of the 420 from Hong Kong whom we expect to qualify under those relaxed criteria. This programme is proceeding satisfactorily at the rate of about 40 people per month, thanks to excellent co-operation between officials in Hong Kong and the United Kingdom and the voluntary agencies.
In line with a recommendation of the Home Affairs Committee we are making major efforts to persuade other countries to take additional refugees from Hong Kong to maximise the effect of the decisions to resettle further numbers of refugees in the United Kingdom. The noble Lord, Lord MacLehose, made the point that Hong Kong never had a fair share of the places that were on offer, and asked whether this could be improved and whether we could do more to stimulate resettlement—a point that the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, made in his opening remarks. I can assure both noble Lords and the noble Lord, Lord Oram, that we have raised the matter with Ministers in other countries, and this has been supported by regular representations by our diplomatic missions. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees accords priority to the resettlement of refugees from Hong Kong, and has taken up the matter with many governments who seek his advice when allocating their refugee resettlement quotas.
I am glad to be able to say that so far Australia has agreed to accept a further 200 refugees, Canada 50, Finland 70, the Netherlands 80, New Zealand 10 and Sweden 100. The United States, which resettles more Indo-Chinese refugees than any other country, is currently accepting refugees at an annual rate of some 1,800, 200 more than the previous year's ceiling. This is a most encouraging initial response to our diplomatic campaign. We are grateful to all those countries for their efforts to help Hong Kong. Several other countries are likely to respond favourably. We are continuing to press the rest for a similar response.
Both the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, and the noble Lord, Lord MacLehose, asked me about further resettlement in the United Kingdom, and indeed the report of the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, recommends that we should accept 40 refugees per month after the

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commitment to family reunions is fulfilled. I have to tell the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, that our priority task for the moment must be to complete the resettlement of the 500 refugees whom we have already agreed to accept. Whether we might be able in future to take further refugees from Hong Kong will be decided in the light of the willingness shown by other resettlement countries to respond to Hong Kong's needs and all the other circumstances at the time.
We are studying the report of the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, carefully. We share a common aim—that is, to see a permanent solution to the problem of the refugees in Hong Kong and one which is in the refugees' best interests. The noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, made a number of criticisms of the present circumstances in Hong Kong and I should like to take these points as he has given them and see whether I can give an assurance about them.
The first was a criticism of refugees arriving in Hong Kong. I think his words were that they were given a verbal "going over". Refugees reaching Hong Kong are advised on entry into Hong Kong waters that if they wish to land they will be allowed to do so and will be accommodated in a closed camp until they are resettled overseas. Almost 11,000 of the 13,000 reaching Hong Kong since the closed camps were introduced elected to stay, indicating that a majority regard these camps as preferable to the alternative of sailing somewhere elsewhere, generally towards Taiwan or the Philippines where camps similar to Hong Kong's closed centres exist. Those who wish to sail on may request to have their boats repaired and re-victualled by the Hong Kong Government at its own expense.
The noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, also criticised the role of the Correctional Services Department. The Hong Kong Government consider the Correctional Services Department to be the service best suited in Hong Kong to perform the difficult task of running the closed centres. The CSD administers a variety of institutions, not just prisons, for example, training centres for young offenders—and most CSD staff working in the closed centres are recruited for this task and are not trained prison officers. Indeed, many have social welfare qualifications.
The record of past continuing disturbances in the open centres, which are run by voluntary agencies, leads the Hong Kong Government to believe that closed centres need to be managed by an experienced and disciplined service such as the CSD. When Mr Hartley, until recently the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, visited the closed camps last May he commented that they were well run, and in particular he praised the efforts of the CSD's staff.
The noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, also commented that the refugees ought to be able to play a more meaningful part in the running of the camps. In each closed centre there is a refugees' management committee, with two representatives elected from each dormitory. They meet the Correctional Services Department senior staff daily and participate in all major decisions. They also meet regularly with representatives of the voluntary agencies, and are encouraged to participate in centre management. I have to say, however, that the response is poor.
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The noble Lord, Lord Oram, also criticised the camp administration, and I can say that the daily affairs of each centre are run in close consultation with individual centre committees composed of elected representatives from each hut. However, attempts by both the Hong Kong Government and voluntary agencies to involve the refugees in activities other than those which they perceive clearly to help their chances of resettlement sadly often bear little fruit. The committees are constantly encouraged to play a greater role in the life of the closed centres; but the difficulty is that the better-educated refugees, who are willing to participate in management, are generally those who are accepted for resettlement. Those left behind are often unwilling to participate in the management of the closed centres. The work done by voluntary agencies in the refugee camps in Hong Kong is of great importance and I should like to pay tribute to the commitment and compassion of the people involved who give frequently of their time in a multitude of ways.
The noble Lord, Lord Oram, also commented on the recommendation that the closed camps be abolished.
We have always made it clear that the policy is not intended to be a permanent measure: if the flow of illegal departures from Vietnam were to be reduced to a trickle, such deterrent measures would no longer be necessary. We should be ready to discontinue the policy at once if circumstances permitted. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, knows, and as he said in his opening remarks, large numbers of Vietnamese will continue to attempt to leave so long as the social and economic conditions imposed by the Hanoi Government make life within Vietnam intolerable. Without some policy of deterrence—and the closed camps policy is the only humane one open to us—Hong Kong will continue to be viewed as a convenient gateway to the rest of the free world.
The noble Lord, Lord Oram, also commented on particular hardship cases. I can say to him that I shall draw this particular point to the notice of my right honourable friend the Home Secretary. The noble Lord, Lord MacLehose, also asked about the possible repatriation of refugees to Vietnam. I understand that there has been a small number of voluntary repatriations—approximately 20 out of 100,000. Of course they are free to return if they so wish.
I should like also to say to the noble Lord, Lord MacLehose, that we are of course studying the report which has just been published by the Hong Kong Oxfam group under the title Hong Kong Cares for Vietnamese Refugees, but we have only just received it; and we are studying the report of the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis.
In closing, I should like to express the Government's admiration for the quite remarkable efforts made by Hong Kong in caring for over 110,000 Vietnamese refugees since 1975. No refugee has ever been turned away. Hong Kong is the only place of first asylum in South-East Asia to introduce a policy of local resettlement. It has absorbed some 500 refugees from the camps and has in fact resettled a total of 14,500 Indo-Chinese displaced persons since 1975. In the light of a recommendation by the Home Affairs Committee, Hong Kong has agreed to resettle up to

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250 more ethnic Chinese refugees from the camps in Hong Kong. This is a courageous measure given the difficulties that I have mentioned for Hong Kong in being seen to give Vietnamese refugees better treatment than illegal immigrants from China. Hong Kong is the only place of first asylum in the region to contribute towards the upkeep of its refugees. Last year it gave 100 million Hong Kong dollars—two thirds of the money spent on refugees in Hong Kong—and that came from the Hong Kong Government itself.
The noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, asked me about the new social security regulations. I must say that I think I had better write to him on that point because it is one that is new to me. In the words of Mr Poul Hartling, the last UN High Commissioner for Refugees, at a press conference in Hong Kong a year ago:
"We are very grateful to Hong Kong—to the authorities, the Government here and to the people—because Hong Kong has given asylum and never, never refused to give asylum to refugees coming here and never forced them back against their will, and has treated them well, but of course, they would like as we would like to see a solution, a durable solution, for these refugees."
I think that those are good words on which to end what I think has been a short but very useful debate.

South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Bill
Committed to an Unopposed Bill Committee.
House adjourned at twenty-one minutes before midnight.