Lords Sitting of 5 November 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 Ely.

NHS: Hip Replacement Operations
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 how many hip replacement operations were carried out in the United Kingdom in 1955 and in 1985, and how many in each case were within the National Health Service.
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, the estimated number of hip replacement operations in National Health Service hospitals in the United Kingdom in 1972, the earliest year for which figures are available, was 21,680. In 1984, the latest year for which information is available centrally, the figure was 45,030. We do not have information on the numbers of operations performed in private hospitals.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his reply. Is he aware that within 30 years this ingenious operation has come to the relief of many who would otherwise be severely handicapped or in pain, largely thanks to the dedicated work of the late Sir John Charnley and others? Do not this and other new and expensive forms of treatment add substantially to the costs of the National Health Service in a way which was simply not anticipated in the 1940s when the health service was being introduced?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Campbell is absolutely right. Hip replacements are an example of an operation that was virtually unheard of 30 years ago but is now widespread. More patients can be treated in a way which greatly enhances the quality of their lives. There are many other examples of this same feature, among them coronary artery by-pass grafts. The opportunities for expansion in treatment are almost limitless, but resources never can be. Priorities have to be set. Hip replacements are one such.
Lord Bottomley: My Lords, can the noble Lord recollect that his honourable friend said on 15th October that from 1979 to 1985 there had been an increase of 24 in the number of consultant rheumatologists? Can he confirm that in the same period there was a reduction of seven in the number of senior registrar rheumatologists? If the Secretary of State is to reach the target, which he promised at the Conservative Party conference, of 50,000 operations a year by 1990, much more must be done to recruit rheumatologists. What are the Government going to do about it?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his question. I am afraid that I am unable to answer the first part, but will note it and will hope to be able to provide an answer for him at a later time. However, in 1978 32,000 hip replacements were carried out. The figure for 1984 was 45,000, which is an increase of 40 per cent. under this Government.
The Lord Bishop of Manchester: My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that the very beneficial effects of this remarkable development in hip operations—my wife is just recovering from one—also underlines the need to persuade people to pay more taxes to improve the health service?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I am very grateful for the question. However, I think it is slightly beyond the remit which I have.
Lord Orr-Ewing: My Lords, has my noble friend noticed since his promotion to the Front Bench and taking up his effective ministerial responsibilities that whenever we ask for statistics in this House the time taken to get them together gets longer and longer, while computers get faster and faster? Why are the latest available figures for 1984 in an area where the technique is advancing so fast? We want up-to-date figures, not figures that are three years old or even one year old. Should it not be possible to have in every field of government more accurate information in areas where decisions are currently being taken?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend for his question. His question to me is very similar to the one which I ask myself. I hope that we shall be able to benefit from computerisation and be able to provide much more accurate and up-to-date information as soon as possible.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, may I congratulate the noble Lord and also his noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing on asking the right questions? Does the noble Lord agree that it is important to have up-to-date statistics? When he asks himself the question, can he also try to find out what is the balance between the National Health Service and the private sector? Does he agree that, inevitably, as we see such new developments coming in, there has to be a steadily rising income for the National Health Service to meet them?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I am again grateful for the question. With regard to the first part of it, I must remind the noble Lord that there is a point of diminishing returns with acquiring facts and information because we may finish up with more people counting outside the operating theatres than people going in. With regard to the second part, it is a very similar question to the one which I asked. The answer I was given was that until this time it has never been thought that there should be any reason why the private sector should report to the National Health Service on the numbers. I am sure that that matter will be reviewed.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, while the number of these hip operations has increased greatly, which is of course to the credit of all those concerned, including

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the department, is not the waiting list for such operations growing at a faster rate than the operations are being performed?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, to the best of my knowledge waiting lists are actually falling. However, the figures, if noble Lords would like them, are these. On 30th September 1985, the latest date for which we have a figure, 154,000 people were awaiting in-patient treatment in the specialty of trauma and orthopaedic surgery, many of them waiting for hip replacements. Unfortunately, at the moment we do not have a breakdown of those who are waiting for hip replacements or other forms of this type of surgery.
Baroness Macleod of Borve: My Lords, can my noble friend the Minister tell the House how much each hip replacement operation costs the National Health Service?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that question, which I can answer very simply. The average is £3,000.
Lord Wallace of Coslany: My Lords, can the noble Lord explain why figures are not available from the private sector? Is it not in the Government's interests, and in the country's interests, that these vital statistics are obtained for comparison purposes?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, as I replied to a similar question earlier, it has never before been thought necessary to have these figures available. However, I am sure that in the not-too-distant future I shall be able to answer that question.
Lord Ironside: My Lords, in view of the fact that this is now a very popular type of operation and that people are beginning to return for a second replacement, can my noble friend say what proportion of the 45.000 operations in 1984 were actual replacement operations?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that question but, unfortunately, I cannot give the break-down figure.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, can my noble friend confirm that it is correct to say that at the time of the Beveridge Report it was thought that the cost of the National Health Service would decrease because the nation's health would improve? Is it not correct that, in the event, medical and scientific advances have introduced new treatments and operations requiring very expensive equipment?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I can only confirm what my noble friend Lord Campbell has said and agree with him.

Acid Rain: Control Measures
2.44 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name
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The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are yet in a position to publish the details, including the commencement, of the measures to be taken to reduce the incidence of acid rain, as announced by the Prime Minister during her recent visit to Norway.
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, the Government have authorised the Central Electricity Generating Board to install flue gas desulphurisation equipment to 6,000 megawatts of existing generating capacity, equivalent to three 2,000 megawatt power stations. The programme is to commence with the recently completed extension to the Drax station and will be phased over the period 1988 to 1997.
This authorisation is subject to the necessary detailed engineering studies, appropriate financial arrangements and consultations with planning authorities. No final decision will be taken to commence installation of the equipment until next spring's report from the Royal Society and the Scandinavian Academies of Science on surface water acidification has been received and studied.
The Government have also decided to require any future coal-fired power stations to be fitted with flue gas desulphurisation to the requirements of the national industrial air pollution inspectorates.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the Minister for that detailed and technical reply. I am also grateful because it indicates that the Government are taking definitive action on this problem. Of course, I do not accept that coal-fired power stations are the sole villains of the piece on this matter of acid rain.
Is there any particular system that the Government or the CEGB prefer for power stations as there are, I understand, there or four systems at present available? Can the Minister tell the House what the programme will mean, when it is fully under way, in terms of jobs per thousands of pounds spent, bearing in mind the present unemployment situation?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, the type of flue gas desulphurisation process to be employed will be a decision for the CEGB in the light of its detailed engineering studies, consultations with local planning authorities, and so on. However, there is another new technology that will help to reduce emissions, which is called pressurised fluidised bed combustion. There is a £28 million project at Grimethorpe to develop this promising technology, co-funded by the CEGB and British Coal.
As regards employment, all I can say at present is that United Kingdom industry will benefit from the orders for construction of plant and equipment that will be necessary for the FGD programme. Indeed, manufacturers have been evaluating flue gas desulphurisation systems in conjuction with the CEGB for some time now, so that they can both respond promptly to any requirement to fit flue gas desulphurisation.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, my noble friend has not mentioned emissions from motor cars.

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Should not my noble friend be a little less modest and announce the Government's programme for removing lead from petrol, so that in the course of a few years one of the main causes of acid rain will be removed? Is not my noble friend being too modest?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I am delighted to be accused of being too modest. However, this is a slightly different question. If my noble friend would like to table a Question I should be very happy to answer it.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that he is completely wrong? Emissions from motor cars using petrol with a lead content are a major cause of acid rain. Therefore, is not my noble friend wrong in not acknowledging that it is a major cause and that he has a very good programme for dealing with it?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I certainly agree with my noble friend.
The Earl of Halsbury: My Lords, can the Minister tell the House whether Her Majesty's Government are in receipt of any responsible scientific advice explaining why this kerfuffle over acid rain is taking place when we are burning only half the coal that we burnt pre-war?
Viscount Davidson: My, Lords, the advice which the Government are receiving is from the Royal Society and the Scandinavian Academies of Science report on surface water acidification, which will be received in the spring.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, may I put a further question to the noble Viscount, because his earlier reply was not quite clear? Do the Government now accept that it is the emission of sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxides from British power stations that is causing deforestation and barren lakes in Scandinavia? I should very much like to know that.
Can the noble Viscount also tell the House how many more power stations, apart from the 6,000 megawatt power stations he mentioned, would need to be retrofitted so that the United Kingdom complies with the 60 per cent. reduction by 1995 which is implicit in the large plants directive of the EC?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I think it goes without saying that the United Kingdom is determined to reduce the emission of sulphur. In fact the United Kingdom's record in reducing sulphur emission to date is a good one. We have already achieved more than a 40 per cent. reduction since the peak year of 1970. We are confident that in the longer term the problem will be resolved through the introduction of new combustion and emission control technologies., and anything that we can do to speed up that process, the better.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, can my noble friend say what will be the on-cost to energy prices as a result of these extra fitments? Also, are we to understand that the Government are now satisfied as to the origin of acid precipitation which may fall on one loch and not on another three miles away?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, the cost will ultimately fall to the electricity consumer, although this may be partially offset by the sale of products of the flue gas desulphurisation process. The effect on electricity prices cannot yet be accurately assessed. As regards the second question of my noble friend, I am afraid that I am not technically qualified to answer that.
Baroness David: My Lords, can the noble Viscount tell us whether there has been any discussion with the Irish? I understand that the pollution in the West of Wales and West Scotland is said to be because of emissions from Irish power stations.
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I cannot answer that question but I shall write to the noble Baroness.
Lord Paget of Northampton: My Lords, is the real solution that we should transfer to some nice, safe source of power, such as nuclear power stations?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I thought we were doing that.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, I am sorry to come back, but the noble Viscount did not answer my first question. Have we now accepted that it is emissions from British power stations which are causing deforestation and barren lakes in Scandinavia? Have we now accepted that argument, or is there further research to he done?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I thought that it was the noble Lord's second question that I had not answered. In reply to the noble Lord's first question, I thought I said that we accept that there is a contribution towards the problems in Scandinavia from our emissions here.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that the policy which was recently adumbrated by Her Majesty's Opposition, to do away with nuclear power stations and revert to coal-fired stations, will in fact add to an already bad situation?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I do not particularly want to become embroiled at this moment in party political discussion on this subject.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I am grateful for the details that the noble Viscount gave regarding progress since 1970, but will he please understand that all of those who are interested in this problem and the discussions which are taking place with a variety of people across the board hope that once a decision has been reached it will be implemented as speedily as possible? Obviously, even a small emission will still be a contribution to poisoning the atmosphere.
Viscount Davidson: Yes, my Lords, I can certainly confirm that.
Lord Mellish: My Lords, is it not a fact that most of the sulphur which creates acid rain comes from Russia? Would it not be a good idea to ask some of our Left-Wing friends who reside in this country to ask their colleagues in Russia to pack it up?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I have pleasure in passing on that message.

Professions: EC Sectoral Directives
2.54 p.m.
Baroness Robson of Kiddington: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in view of the lack of progress on the draft directive on the recognition of higher education diplomas (4109/86), they will urge the European Commission to resume working on sectoral directives for those professions where negotiations are already well advanced.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Lucas of Chilworth): My Lords, the Government attach importance to ensuring freedom of establishment for professions in the European Community. We support the objective of the proposed general directive for accelerating progress in this area. The proposal is under active consideration in Brussels. At the same time, we understand the preference which a number of professions in this country have expressed for a sectoral directive and we agree that this is an option that should not be ruled out.
Baroness Robson of Kiddington: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply and welcome the Government's intentions regarding the general directive. Is the Minister aware that there is great concern among the profession, who are either close to or have achieved general agreement on a sectoral directive, such as the lawyers and physiotherapists? In particular the physiotherapists appear to be ready to proceed and the hold-up seems to lie with the Commission. In view of the fact that we have sectoral directives for doctors and nurses and that all the health related professions are perhaps more directly concerned with the safety of individuals in each country—in other words, with the safety of patients—it seems that a sectoral directive for physiotherapists would be a suitable course to pursue. Can the Minister tell me whether I am correct in saying that the brake on the proceedings for physiotherapists lies mainly with the Commission at the moment?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I am sorry to tell the noble Baroness that in fact she is not correct. I think that she and her colleagues on the Select Committee will know that sectoral directives have taken variously from 19 to 17 years to bring to fruition. Certainly it is not clear which directives—either that for the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy or indeed the lawyers—are at a sufficiently advanced stage to be capable of an early agreement. The Commission has suggested that faster progress is likely to be made if we pursue the objective of the general directive to which Her Majesty's Government agree.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale: My Lords, what the Minister has said emphasises the need for getting on with the general directive, because I assume that there is very little effort left over to complete the sectoral directive. May I ask him this question: the United Kingdom presidency will be coming to an end quite soon. When it does, what can we say we have achieved during our presidency as regards advancing progress on this important directive which could be so beneficial to this country? In particular, does he think that by the end of this year it will be possible for the Government to announce whether they have come to any view on the solution propounded by the Select Committee, which we debated on the 10th October?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My; Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his questions. I do not think it will be possible by the end of this year—in fact just short of two months—for us to state categorically our conclusion as to the Select Committee's report, which we found of great value, as indeed I intimated to your Lordships in our debate on the 10th October. So far as concerns the general position on the directive, by the end of our presidency we shall have achieved progress in identifying and segregating a number of practical problems, particularly those which 1 associate with the Answer that I gave to the noble Baroness. We shall have established that the route to recognition of various qualifications will be a common one, we have achieved recognition that we are talking about professional activities and not professions and we shall have completed nine meetings at official level.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale: My Lords, is the Minister saying that both the general directive and the sectoral directives are months, if not years, away?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I think that sectoral directives are in fact quite a long way away. We hope that we shall be able to adopt a general directive before 1987 is out.
Baroness Robson of Kiddington: My Lords, may I ask the Minister a supplementary question? I understand that the definitive text of the general directive has not yet been published because there appears to be a discrepancy
Noble Lords: Question!
Baroness Robson of Kiddington: My Lords, there is quite a discrepancy between the English, French. German and Greek texts. May I ask the Minister whether a definitive text is expected and, if so, when? I understand that the Council has met once, and I am sure that the House would be very interested to know whether any preliminary conclusions were reached at that first meeting, and when the next meeting of the Council on the subject will take place.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, as I said to your Lordships, there have been eight or nine meetings at official level. It is those meetings which determine the differences in the texts, which are natural in such matters. One would anticipate a definitive text being available for Ministers' consideration during the course of next year.

Magistrates: Appointment of Disabled Persons
3 p.m.
The Earl of Longford: 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 how many magistrates at the present time are physically disabled.
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone): My Lords, I am sorry to have to tell the noble Earl that the information for which he has asked is not available.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, without being astounded by that Answer, may I ask the noble and learned Lord whether he agrees that in view of the wonderful contribution that the disabled make to this House, facilities should be provided for them so that they can perform a similar service on the Bench?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, speaking generally, disability is not a bar to service on the Bench, but certain types of disability are; for instance, total deafness would be. I speak as someone who is disabled. I notice that at least one other person who has asked a question is disabled. Neither of us by virtue of either of those disabilities would be debarred. We do not ask magistrates whether they are disabled. We ask them whether they are in good health, whether their sight and hearing, with spectacles or hearing aids as required, are adequate to perform their duties and whether they will be able to do their duty on the bench 26 times a year. That would not yield the information that the noble Earl wants.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: My Lords, are not many physically disabled magistrates already making a valuable contribution to the work of the courts? May I ask a further question? I know that it is not allowed, but I shall take the risk. In the building of new courts is care being taken to provide access to the courts and to the Bench for the physically disabled?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, those were two well formulated and short questions. So far as I know, a large number of disabled magistrates are in service and perform their duties to general satisfaction. As regards the building of new courts, as the noble and learned Lord is well aware, I am not departmentally responsible for them, but I am assured that the local authorities, which are, take into account the needs to which he has referred.
Lord Paget of Northampton: My Lords, the noble and learned Lord has reassured us as to the blind, the deaf and the lame. What about the daft?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I fear that that is more a question of opinion than of fact.
Lord Henderson of Brompton: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble and learned Lord agrees that the
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Question relates to the physically disabled and not to the mentally disabled. That perhaps is the answer to the last question. Does he also agree that many disabled people, whether justifiably or not, believe that they are discriminated against? They may have gained comfort from the answers that the noble and learned Lord has given today. Will he seek to obtain from those who advise him on the appointment of magistrates some indication, if possible, as to whether those whom they are putting forward are disabled so that he may appoint and be seen to appoint those who are disabled? That may give comfort at least to those who feel that they are being discriminated against and who would like to know that on publicly appointed bodies such as the magistracy there is a representative number of disabled people.
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, disability takes many forms and is of many degrees. The difficulty with the physically disabled is that magistrates' courts have rather elderly and archaic buildings which are not well suited to disabled people. That is a matter which can be remedied only by a good deal of effort in individual cases over a period of time. I am assured that in those cases the needs of the disabled are remembered and that where one can—one makes alterations wherever one can—the needs of disabled people are considered. Even where the courts are unsuitable, one can, with special arrangements for individual magistrates, often get over the difficulty. I have a case in mind, which I shall not go into in detail, where arrangements can be made despite the court not being physically suited to disabled people.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, does the noble and learned Lord agree that representations from the various bodies involved with the disabled should be sympathetically considered by advisory committees?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I am sure that they would be, but the important factor in the long run in every appointment is not this question as much as temperamental suitability for the Bench. I am sure that advisory committees would be only too glad to receive representations, particularly if they were locally based.

Immigration Rules: Statement of Change
3.6 p.m.
Lord A vebury Lord A vebury rose to move, That the Statement of change in Immigration Rules presented to the House on 8th October (Cmnd. 9914) be disapproved.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, at the outset of the debate I want to address an appeal to the noble Lord who is to reply not to repeat the allegation which has been made by the Tories on so many occasions when immigration has been under discussion that we on these Benches are against all immigration controls or that we favour much laxer controls than we have. The Minister repeated that insinuation on the last occasion that we talked about visas.
My party is in favour of controls which are effective but non-racist either in substance or in effect, while the Tory Party is content to open the door to millions of

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so-called patrials and allow them to reside here indefinitely, without restrictions on employment. If we had a genuine non-racist immigration policy we should not continue to allow Commonwealth citizens with one British grandparent to come here freely and to take jobs. Apart from EC citizens looking for work, the remaining quota voucher-holders, close relatives of persons who are already settled here, including spouses, and refugees who come here from places where they may he imprisoned without trial, tortured or even murdered, we say that no further settlers should he admitted to this country.
As the Minister knows, we are not talking about that subject today. We are discussing only people who are entering for a limited period, mainly as visitors or students. It was grossly misleading to refer to those categories of person as "immigrants". as the Tory-controlled press and ITN did.
We are talking about visitors from the five countries where a visa requirement has been imposed—India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Ghana and Nigeria. We are not talking about persons who come from those countries to settle but about those who come as short-term visitors. Because those were countries from which many people came to settle when there were no controls on migration within the Commonwealth (of which Pakistan was at that time still a member), there are now many visitors from those countries coming to see their friends and relatives in the United Kingdom, as one might expect. The build-up of numbers is a function of the population in Britain of families originating in those countries and also, I suggest, of their purchasing power, since those people resident here frequently pay the fares of their visitors at this end. There is nothing peculiar or sinister about the increase. Even according to the Governments' own statistics, fewer than 2 per cent. of the 450,000 visitors from the five countries were refused admission during 1985.
While there was this increase in the number of visitors coming here, there was, I understand, no increase in the number of' immigration officers to parallel the number of arrivals. I am informed that between mid-1984 and the end of 1985 only one additional officer was appointed at Heathrow Terminal 3, the busiest terminal for inter-continental flights. Some additional staff were in place during 1986. According to the Minister in another place, there were between 12 and 20 more up to the middle of October, although he did not say from what previous time that increase had taken place. Certainly, however, it was not pro rata to the number of passengers. We have spent hundreds of millions of pounds on the extension of Heathrow but there has been no commensurate increase in staff or accommodation for the secondary examination of passengers when a query has arisen at the front desk.
The Home Affairs Select Committee made strong criticism of the facilities for secondary examination and detention at Heathrow in its 1985 report on the immigration and nationality department. In particular, the report singled out the Queen's Building as grossly inadequate. The Home Office promised to close it, but has not done so. Thus, the Home Office, knowing that there was a large and continuing increase
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in the number of visitors, failed to make provision for their examination by neglecting to recruit the immigration officers or to ensure that they had space in which to work. In this way the scene was set for the imposition of visas, which could be presented as a response to the intolerable pressure of numbers on a system that was unable to cope with them.
Let us see what the figures published so far show about visitors arriving up to the end of May 1986. That is as far as we can go. By far the largest number of visitors, as usual, came from India. Again. I hope that the Minister agrees that one would expect India, as the origin of the largest number of settlers, to show the largest number of visitors. Your Lordships may be surprised to learn that for the first five months of this year the number of passengers from India was up only 4·8 per cent. on the corresponding period of 1985. For Pakistan, the increase was a mere 3·4 per cent. Bangladesh, admittedly, showed a big rise of just over one-fifth. However, many fewer passengers originate in Bangladesh; those people accounted for only just over 2 per cent. of the five countries.
Of the two African countries, Ghana showed a modest increase of 6.8 per cent. while Nigeria, alone among the countries in the announcement still not to have had visas imposed, showed a marked increase of over 40 per cent. If the case relies on showing that the number of visitors was increasing unexpectedly, Nigeria is. I suppose, about the only country that might have justified it. There were, however, specific reasons for the growth of traffic, including the artificial exchange rate of the Naira, so that holidays in Britain appear very cheap to Nigerian tourists if they are able to obtain sterling.
However, the Home Secretary has added another argument. Not only is the number of visitors increasing but also the rate of refusals, although he emphasises that no recent amendments have been made to the instructions to immigration officers. That proves, according to him, that evasion is on the increase, because the alternative that stricter controls are being applied at the port of entry without any variation in the instructions is unthinkable. He goes so far as to say that the onus of proof is on those who prefer the hypothesis about the way that the tests are applied at ports of entry.
If one prefers the evasion hypothesis, one has to explain why there has been a sudden and substantial rise in bogus visitors from these five countries, with their widely varying political and social environments, between 1985 and 1986. If one takes India, there was a 62·5 per cent. increase in the number of refusals in the first five months of 1986 compared to the same period of 1985, with hardly any increase in the number of passengers. Over the Indian sub-continent as a whole, there was a 5 per cent. increase in the number of passengers and a 53·4 per cent. increase in the number of refusals. For the two African countries, a 36·2 per cent. rise in passengers may be compared to an 81·4 per cent. rise in refusals.
Are we to take seriously the proposition that, for reasons completely unknown, there was a simultaneous and marked increase in the propensity to evade our immigration controls among the people of these five different countries starting at the beginning of

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1986? That is the only way of accounting for the figures if one excludes greater strictness of interpretation of the guidelines at ports of entry. This is apparently what the Home Secretary wants us to believe.
It would be interesting to know what has happened to the refusal rate in respect of other Commonwealth countries. My impression is that a steep increase has occurred recently for citizens of, for example, Sierra Leone, Mauritius and Australia on which visas have not been imposed. If so, do the Government say that the conspiracy to evade our immigration controls extends to those countries, and at what point are they, too, going to be made subject to visas? Another indication of greater strictness is that on Monday this week there were no fewer than 54 people who had visas or entry certificates awaiting the outcome of appeals against refusal at Heathrow and Gatwick.
Again, the number of people in detention following refusal is just as great as it ever was. Today, I am told, there are 75 persons in Harmondsworth, which is full to capacity; 13 or 14 in Harmondsworth annexe, 65 in Blantyre House at Goudhurst, Kent and 30 in Stoke House, Devizes. Far from the imposition of visas and the resulting slowdown to a trickle of persons coming without authority from the five countries solving the problem of congestion of the machinery at Heathrow, there are still long queues there. There are still many people being referred for secondary examination and having to be detained for shorter or longer periods in places far afield, and no longer just at Harmondsworth, as they were only 18 months ago. There has been a big change in the last 18 months that is not limited to the five countries we are discussing today.
The only evidence of the evasion hypothesis given so far is the story told by the Home Secretary about a group of Bangladeshi entertainers granted leave to enter for a visit on the representations of an MP, some of whom then proceeded to overstay. Obviousy, in any system of control applying to half a million people a year, there will be some who evade the regulations and remain after their permitted time. But there is no evidence to show that people granted entry as visitors seek to remain in significant numbers. If they did so, sooner or later their history would come to light. Indeed, from time to time, an overstayer who has been in the United Kingdom for many years will come forward and seek to regularise his status. There have been cases also where the police and the immigration service have apprehended a number of overstayers at their place of work—an operation facilitated' by their concentration in low wage occupations such as catering and retail grocery.
It is not true, as frequently stated by Ministers, that we rely only on controls at ports of entry. There are checks at various points in the system such as when a person seeks employment, when he enters the social security system and when he wishes access to medical services. There are also small numbers of people arrested for some other offence who are then identified by the police as overstayers. Yet, in spite of all these checks and the vigilance of the immigration service, with its specialised intelligence unit and million pound computer systems, the Home Office itself says,
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"It is impossible to draw any conclusions from the figures about the extent of overstaying by a particular nationality in relation to any other.".
Where we do have positive evidence is in relation to passengers refused entry but then granted temporary admission on the representation of a Member of either House. In 1985, 8,500 passengers were granted temporary admission but only 338 did not leave at the end of the period granted, 220 of them from the five visa countries. In the first six months of 1986, according to the Home Secretary, there were said to have been 250 so-called absconders. But we know from the evidence of a Member in another place in the debate last week that one of those persons included in the figure had left Britain voluntarily before the expiry of his temporary leave to enter and, as anyone who does casework will confirm, this is fairly common. It is also fairly common for passengers to appear late when summoned for interview or for removal. I believe that they are also included in these statistics of so-called absconders.
The other day I had a case where a passenger was told to report on a Sunday for interview. He turned up on the Monday because of a misunderstanding which was caused by his representatives. The representative admitted this in a telephone call to the chief immigration officer, but the passenger was nevertheless detained and my application for him to be granted temporary admission was refused. He was no doubt counted as one of the 250 absconders in the Home Secretary's figures. However, my experience of asking for temporary admission generally has invariably been that the passengers do leave, as I am sure Mr. Waddington would confirm.
I have some anecdotal evidence myself of a tougher attitude by the immigration authorities on temporary admissions which bears out the argument that higher refusal rates were the result of subjective changes in the perception by the officers of travelers bona fides In several cases recently the immigration authorities have refused to grant temporary admission although I am sure that they would have done so in similar cases in the past. I have been told of cases where a person has been travelling at regular intervals to the United Kingdom and has never had any problems at the port of entry. Yet, for the first time this year, when there has been no change whatsoever in the passenger's circumstances, he or she has been stopped at Heathrow or Gatwick.
The reasons that passengers come under suspicion appear to fall into a standard set of rules. If the passenger is young, male and single he is deemed likely to be coming here to meet a potential marriage partner. The Immigration Rules say that the parties to a marriage must have met, so that where a marriage has been arranged, or is being arranged, between say, a woman in Britain and a man in India, then either the girl has to go to India or the man has to come here as a visitor. Since the girl would have to be escorted it is cheaper and simpler for the man to come here. But if, when he arrives at the airport, he omits to say that his visit is for the purpose of meeting a girl to whom he may later wish to get married, he would be failing to disclose material facts and this would rule him out as a visitor. It is the suspicion that this is the reason that the young, single men come here which causes the

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immigration officers in large part to refuse them entry, although there is nothing wrong with coming here in order to meet a potential marriage partner. That is not prohibited within the rules. If in addition the young man is unemployed or self employed on family land, he is then treated as having an economic incentive to break the rules and to seek to remain.
None of this needs to be made explicit, however, unless the passenger appeals from his country of origin against the refusal. Of course he seldom does so because of the difficulty of presenting a case from many thousands of miles away. However, the fact that many of the appeals that are lodged are successful, in spite of all the odds against the appellant, should be noted carefully. The immigration service is not infallible and many of the 6,000 passengers from the five visa countries who were refused entry in the first six months of this year were undoubtedly genuine visitors.
On one matter, however, I agree with the Minister—having discussed it with him frequently, both in person and in writing; that is, that a system which relies so heavily on the representation of Members and which places huge burdens on the Minister and his office, is profoundly unsatisfactory. It seems that if the passenger or his sponsor is unable to get hold of the Member he may be sent back on the next plane. That means also that the length of stay of somebody who is granted temporary admission depends on the time that the Minister takes to reply to his correspondence. It means that although the passenger may be able to spend a few weeks at home with the relatives, he collects a refusal stamp on his passport which is bound to make future travelling much more difficult.
Nevertheless, to make this change in the right of representation of members without any previous discussion or examination of the implications, I think, is wrong and shows a lack of respect for Parliament. I believe that it will create some difficulties. I wish to give the Minister one example, and to ask him this question, of which I gave him very short notice. What happens in the case of persons who arrive here at an airport and claim the right of asylum as political refugees? Let us say that they are citizens of one of the five visa countries. They come here irregularly—as they must do if they are genuine political refugees, because they would not approach the British Consulate in the country of origin and ask to be given a visa formally if they knew they were under the threat of attack by the authorities in their own country. They therefore come here, for example, with false passports from some third country. They present themselves at the airport. They are identified as citizens of one of the five countries and they are automatically refused admission.
What happens then, when the Member of Parliament makes representations? Unfortunately the wording of the new rules regarding representations is obscure. Although the change comes into effect on Monday, Members in another place have told me they do not have the faintest idea how it will operate. I feel that unless it is clarified it will create a great deal of difficulty both in the offices of Members of another place and in the Minister's office.
I think that it is incumbent on us to make some alternative suggestions. What I had been advocating, with some agreement from the Minister, was that passengers who arrive without entry certificates to stay with relatives would normally be granted leave to enter for a limited period, but that they would not be given a right of appeal against refusal of an application for leave to vary or extend their stay. If this had been coupled with a system of overnight appeals—such as was advocated by the distinguished former Minister, Mr. Timothy Raison, in the debate in another place last week—I believe that the pressure would have been substanially eased. When a passenger asks for a stay of one or two months on arrival at Heathrow, the immigration officer had to bear in mind, until the visas were introduced, that if that person was not a genuine visitor then he could use the appeals system to extend that two months to six or more. While he never acquires a right to stay permanently he may at the end of that period have established himself so that he could continue to be here illegally for a long while.
The Minister was not altogether unsympathetic to that scheme but said that it would be unacceptable to the agencies acting on behalf of visitors. They would have been against any change that, as they saw it, deprived passengers of any rights of appeal. But a person arriving without an entry certificate had no right of appeal against refusal of leave to enter anyway. The most he could expect, if refused, is six or eight weeks on temporary admission waiting for the Minister's reply. The agencies argued that most people who arrive without ECs were given leave to enter and they would have lost their rights of appeal. But would that not have been preferable to the system that has now been adopted, where the whole examination process has been transferred to the countries of origin, and representations by Members eliminated in all but a handful of cases?
The result of conducting the examinations overseas and of the visa system as a whole will be to exclude a great many genuine visitors, to clog up the appeals system still further, and to increase public spending by £14 million a year. Severe hardship will be caused to hundreds of families whose reunions will have to be postponed or even cancelled for the sake of excluding the handful of evaders. Our relations with India in particular have been damaged and our Commonwealth links weakened. Encouragement has been given to extremists who were always conjuring up false visions of the black hordes threatening to descend on us from all over the world. Finally, at what is supposed to be the world's foremost airport, we presented a disgraceful spectacle, one which was more reminiscent of a refugee camp in the third world.
This is not a happy episode for your Lordships, the Home Office, or the large communities of people in this country from the five countries. Even at this late hour I hope that the Home Office will think again about this scheme. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Statement of change in Immigration Rules presented to the House on 8th October (Cmnd. 9914) be disapproved.—(Lord Avebury.)
Lord Harvington: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down perhaps I may put a point to him. I think

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that inadvertently he misled the House. I checked quickly in the Library to make sure that I was right. Liberia was never part of the Commonwealth, and we do not owe any responsibility to it. In fact, the president of Liberia, the country being under the protection generally of the United States, paid a state visit to Her Majesty the Queen not so long ago. Therefore, I think that the noble Lord will agree that Liberia ought not perhaps to be included among the various Commonwealth states that he said might be affected badly by this policy.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, I think the noble Lord may have misheard me. I was talking about Nigeria, not Liberia.
3.31 p.m.
Lord Reay: My Lords, it surely serves the cause of humanity if those who travel long distances to visit this country do so in the knowledge that when they arrive they will be admitted. Apart from the money which is squandered on air fares by the rising numbers of those who are refused entry—and we have heard how the numbers have risen, from 13,000 in 1981 to 22,000 in 1985, over half of those people coming from the five countries now under discussion—there is the anxiety felt by many tens or even hundreds of thousands more who never know until the very last moment whether they will be admitted. That situation has been remedied by the introduction of a system whereby visas will be issued before departure.
The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, raised the question of evasion, saying that he doubted whether the propensity to evade had risen. He quoted the example which the Home Secretary gave in another place of the groups who purported to be Bangladeshi performers, of whom he said some had been given permission to enter but had disappeared. In the example quoted of the figures given by the Home Secretary, out of 201 who applied for entry, 138 were granted permission to enter and 103 disappeared. That is some percentage.
It seems to me that sooner or later some government or other were bound to act when faced with the excessive burdens on the present system produced by the relentless pressure of people from third world countries to reach these shores. As the Home Secretary said in another place, it is a pressure that has manifested itself in surges, periods of relative calm and then large numbers coming in. Over the last few years at different moments we have had surges from Sri Lanka, from Bangladesh and this summer from West Africa.
To give an example of how overburdened the present system has become, it was revealed by a former Minister of State in the debate in another place that the Minister of State at the Home Office had to adjudicate on some 4,500 visitor cases a year where Members of Parliament had exercised their right—they will stop—and where the Minister of State therefore had to decide whether to overrule the immigration officer's refusal of entry at this end. The situation was becoming intolerable for all concerned, not least for the immigration authorities, which have an extraordinarily arduous and grinding job at which they may be busy at all hours, as many noble Lords will have seen.
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Obviously, Heathrow itself does not have the capacity to accommodate an indefinitely expanded immigration service. I doubt very much whether a future Labour Government would repeal the visa system, just as past Labour governments never repealed the Immigration Act 1971. However, the Government have been accused of acting in a racist manner by singling out for treatment five countries whose populations are not white. The problem has been caused by the influx from these countries. Therefore, the Government had the choice of taking action to deal only with those countries which were presenting the problem or they could require visas for visitors from all countries. There was hardly a third course. The Government could not have pretended that certain other specific countries were also causing a problem when they were not. This would have been met with general ridicule and some offence would surely have been taken by those countries which had been falsely identified.
If the Government had made the visa requirement universal they would then have been acting as France recently acted, when visas were introduced even for visitors from the United States. as part of the French Government's actions to counter terrorism. If such a requirement had been introduced by the British Government in this case—and I have my doubts whether it would have been possible to sustain such a policy against pressure from countries in respect of which there were plainly no good grounds to apply the system—it would have had the advantage of preempting any future but now unforeseeable need to introduce visas for visitors from yet more countries in the future. The Government chose the British rather than the French way—to deal only with the problem in hand. They had a perfect right to do so. To say that it is racist to do so is to my mind nonsense.
It is not an accident that the problem has been caused by those five countries. They are among those which have provided enormous numbers of immigrants to this country in the post-war period. Then we operated a free immigration policy for Commonwealth countries and there are still great numbers of people who would like to join immigrants from those countries already here—generally their direct families and other relatives or people who want simply to visit them. To a large extent the law allows for that but it sets limits. That is the background to today's pressure. I do not think the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, will disagree with that.
The second accusation which is made against the Government, although it was only touched upon by the noble Lord, is that they mishandled the introduction of the system, thereby giving rise to the general misery that we saw at Heathrow on those three days in October. I do not know whether Her Majesty's Government could have foreseen the aeroplane loads of people who came in to beat the deadline, particularly from third countries, in the Gulf and elsewhere.
I am inclined to give the Government the benefit of the doubt. Not all situations are foreseeable. No doubt there were unscrupulous entrepreneurs scaring people into trying to beat the deadline. On the other hand, the Government had to take into account the needs of those bona fide travellers with long planned journeys for whom the sudden introduction of a visa require

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ment, when the mechanism was not in place for the issuance of visas, would have been tantamount to cancelling their journey. Perhaps that is what the Government should have done. However, it was a question of balance; it was not an easy calculation. I do not think the Government should he harshly criticised.
In conclusion, I think that the introduction of visas seems to be another one of those steps no doubt regrettable in an ideal world but necessary in the real world to maintain control and to suppress abuse of the immigration laws of this country.
3.39 p.m.
Lord Brockway: My Lords, the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, was so thorough and comprehensive, and was supported by such a remarkable citation of facts, that I can be brief in my contribution to this debate. I shall confine myself to incidental comments. Perhaps I may first apologise to the noble Lord. Lord Reay, for my inability to hear, which prevented me, despite his strong voice, from following the whole of his speech: therefore, I shall be unable to reply to it point by point and in detail. What I heard impressed me as making a case which it is desirable to answer, and I have not often regretted my lack of hearing more than when I listened to the noble Lord. I hope that some of the comments which I shall make during my remarks may be accepted by him as being some reply to his contribution to this debate.
My first remark must be to say how appalled I was by the reception given at Heathrow to the many visitors from India who anticipated the day when visas would he applied. Surely the Government must have foreseen that. Surely, when a government take action they have a duty to look at the consequences of that action. All who know what happened at Heathrow are disturbed by the kind of reception given to visitors to this country.
Secondly, the inability to have a staff to deal with those who were coming to this country makes me sound the warning that I hope the staff at the British Commissions and Embassies in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ghana and Nigeria will be adequate to deal with the problems arising from the applications for visas. I say that with some reason, because when the decision was taken by the Government to require permits from those who held British passports in East Africa and in India, the delay was often shocking many people travelling many miles to the High Commission or the Embassy, and remaining homeless in New Delhi for days because the staff was not adequate to deal with their problems. The warning has now been given that if, instead of personal appearance, they write letters, that may mean delay, and I ask the Government very sincerely to take steps in order to prevent what might otherwise occur.
The Prime Minister of India has been criticised for describing the imposition of these visas as racial. How can it be otherwise described when it is applied only to five nations which are non-white in character, and not applied at all to any white nation? How can it be regarded as otherwise when we now impose the necessity for visas on five non-white countries, three or four of them being within the British Commonwealth,
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and at the same time freely admit into this country without visas residents of the United States of America (although that country requires visas from us), residents from the Dominions and other countries of the world which have white governments? How otherwise could it he regarded by the Prime Minister of a non-white country? I even believe that, although permits have been demanded from those who hold passports from East Africa and India, they are not demanded from those who hold passports from South Africa. In view of those distinctions, how can this be described otherwise than a racial measure?
I want to conclude with a very earnest appeal to the Government. It may be that in present situations the system of visas is a better system than the arrival of persons in this country who may be turned back. However, if the system is to be adopted, I beg the Government not to have racial discrimination as part of it, but rather to make it general, to make it apply to white governments as well as to non-white governments, because it is only by acting in that broad way that there will be a realisation that this Government stand against discrimination on the ground of race.
4.47 p.m.
Lord Saint Brides: My Lords, I shall begin by paying a tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, for the sincere and eloquent speech to which we have just listened. There are some points he made with which I strongly disagree; and indeed having looked at this matter as objectively as I possibly can, I must say that I believe that the Government have acted rightly and sensibly, and in a way not designed to obstruct legitimate visits to this country, but to make the whole process more manageable by our own authorities and less harassing and less uncertain for the would-be visitors.
I base this belief on my 13 years' experience as a British diplomat post-independence in Pakistan and India—I spent five years in India and eight in Pakistan—and also on my experience in the Commonwealth Office in Whitehall. At that time Pakistan was a member of the Commonwealth and Bangladesh was still part of Pakistan. Nearly seven of those 13 years were spent as a High Commissioner, first in Pakistan and later in India. So far as I have been able to discover, no other ex-member of any diplomatic service in the world has headed his country's missions in both countries one after the other and, as it were, lived to tell the tale.
Throughout my service in the sub-continent, immigration from both countries into Britain, movement from both countries into Britain, was an important and highly sensitive element in our relationship and at times a source of much grievance and difficulty. Successive British Governments of both major parties, and we, their representatives in the field, laboured hard both in India and in Pakistan to dispel misunderstandings and to allay sore feelings, not always with success. The sore feelings came, and still come, from the disquiet and distaste with which members of those two proud and gifted nations hear or read reports of their fellow-citizens being quizzed and scrutinised, and, as they see it, harassed, at Heathrow and elsewhere so as to ascertain their suitability

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in terms of British law in the past for permanent settlement in this country, or now for acceptance as legitimate visitors. If the roles had been reversed, we too in Britain would have found the situation disagreeable.
The sore feelings which our measures inevitably arouse in South Asia can only he met by patient explantation of the compelling reasons that have led Parliament here to establish machinery for controlling and limiting immigration and visits into Britain, even from countries with whom we enjoy, and wish to maintain, a longstanding friendship. It is necessary to combat with firmness the odious and quite mistaken notion, I would say to Lord Brockway, that the British people or any British Government, including Her Majesty's present Government, are opposed for racist reasons to immigration from Asia, Africa and the Caribbean as such.
It is, or by now should be, generally understood that the reason why we have had to limit immigration for permanent settlement here even by our traditional friends is that, with the best will in the world, our ability to add to our workforce from abroad by large—and I stress the word "large"—infusions is perforce not inexhaustible. I believe that we have developed over the years what is on the whole a fair and effective system for sifting applicants and determining their entitlements under law, and the priorities between them, and for dealing with all would-be visitors.
It was always apparent that, except in the easiest and most straightforward cases, the job of sifting could well be better done in the applicant's country of origin—that is to say, before his or her departure for Britain rather than on arrival. This is because the necessary interviews and inquiries can be quite searching and detailed, and it is far easier for the applicant to introduce the evidence that may be called for by the interviewing officer in support of his or her claim before leaving his or her home country than in a queue at Heathrow after a long and tiring journey by air. The language problem alone can be formidable. Here too it is in the interests of all concerned, including the applicants, that good interpreters should be on hand. These, as I know from long experience, are bound to be more readily available locally than they could ever be at Heathrow.
For all these reasons, the then British Government in 1969 made mandatory so far as dependants were concerned application through the system of entry certificate officers which had been established in our High Commissions and Embassies, so as to simplify and localise the task of establishing entitlement to work and settlement or to visits. This arrangement was thus, after 1969, a halfway house towards the full visa system that has now been introduced in respect of the five countries.
As has already been mentioned in this debate, there is a complicating factor in India and Pakistan that I think is perhaps not always sufficiently taken into account in this country. A certain proportion of would-be immigrants and of would-be visitors are, and have long been, not what they claim to be, and have been encouraged in their attempt to circumvent
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our controls by crooked travel agents in their countries who make a business out of gulling the innocent. In my time, these agencies would offer to lend the unwary villager in Gujarat, Sylhet or Sheikhupura the rupees with which to buy at vast—and quite improper—cost, a passport, an air ticket to Britain and the promise of a job if the operation succeeded. The loan would be repaid in sterling from the applicant's earnings or welfare receipts here at the exorbitant rates of interest which for long have been what moneylenders in South Asia charge. I understand that this kind of sharp practice is still going on. It stands to reason that immigrants who are being exploited and victimised in this way can be identified and helped more effectively by processing their applications in their country of origin than by waiting until they get here to do so.
As I have said, my firm belief is that the Government were right in what they did. Experience shows, however, that steps of this kind are very apt to cause umbrage or worse in the countries—especially the Commonwealth countries—whose citizens are affected. I hope that the noble Lord the Minister, when he comments on the Motion, will be able to tell us that full advance information about this new step was sent to our posts so that our High Commissioners could give timely warning to the governments concerned, and so that our information officers in these countries could brief the local media. Of course, such measures are not always wholly effective in allaying local resentment, but they go some way, and sometimes a significant way, towards doing so.
My Lords, I am sorry that whatever advance information was given to the Prime Minister of India did not deter him from accusing our Government of racism. For my part, I regard this statement as unjust and ill-founded.
3.57 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Manchester:: My Lords, I support Lord Avebury's Motion, and am very grateful to him for bringing it forward. The noble Lord, Lord Reay, has rightly pointed us to the background to today's pressure of people wanting to come to Britain for whatever reason. Without wishing to be unduly personal about the average age of the House of your Lordships, I suspect that the great majority of us grew up in the last days of the British Empire, and we realise all too well that it is because of those days of Empire, and not least because of the English language, that the very considerable number of people from Commonwealth countries, as the Empire evolved into Commonwealth, have come to live and work here. Many of them came in the days of the industrial boom—in some ways a false industrial boom—when after the war they were wanted in our country's factories and many of them in the Health Service and the other fields of British life.
The result is that we now have substantial communities of ethnic minorities in various parts of the country, many of whom have relatives in the countries that we are discussing today. Quite a number of those are in the Greater Manchester area, the area for which I have diocesan responsibility. Our vital concern must surely be for good race and community relations in our country. We also have to show that we are glad that Britain is a multiracial, multicultural

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society today. We believe that these communities substantially enrich our life, and we are glad to have them here.
This point is not irrelevant to questions of visa regulations or what we do about immigration procedures. These must be seen against the great need for improving racial relations in our country today. There is a very deep concern among many sections of the churches about race relations in our country at present.
A statement is being released to the press today, I believe, signed by quite a number of us—I have signed it myself—"Immigration and racial justice: Christian statement". Among the many points that it makes, it expresses,
"our deep concern about the racism in our society and its increasing reflection in our immigration laws and practices … Existing legislation already strikes at the root of the family life of our coloured brethren—demand for further legislation can only in the end degrade the society which requires and enacts it even more than it does its victims".
The statement goes on to deplore what the Government have now brought in front of us and imposed.
"We therefore deplore the imposition of visas on people from four Commonwealth countries … and on people from Pakistan. We cannot avoid comparing this with the fact that South African citizens, who are neither Commonwealth nor EEC nationals, can enter this country freely, whilst all visitors from these five countries, many of whom have the closest family connections with people living here, are to be subjected to the rquirement that they should apply for permission before they even leave the country where they live".
The matter of race relations, and in particular the terrible situation of racial harassment and attacks, is not unconnected with immigration procedures or what we do about visas. I had discussions last week with officials of the Manchester City Council Housing Department in which we were looking at the awful situation of racially motivated attacks, normally white on black although sometimes it can be the other way, in council housing property, which in some ways is becoming increasingly segregated: a most dangerous situation.
This is not unconnected with what we do about visa regulations and immigration procedures, because signals are sent out to our population as a whole by what is done there. If the signals are that some British people in this country' are undesirable, then this simply encourages the latent racism in our society today.
Of course we must have immigration procedures. Of course we must have restrictions on immigration, as the noble Lord, Lord McBrides, has made clear. But the point that worries many of us is that we are in danger of imposing restrictions which are not fair and which are by no means non-racial across the board, and so we send the wrong signals to our community as a whole.
Already we have problems of this kind facing coloured people, black and Asian people, coming to our airports. I do not suppose that we want to be too anecdotal about this, but if I may give just one example to your Lordships, I was fortunate enough, earlier this year, to go on study leave to India and Bhutan. When I was in Bombay I was taken around the city by a delightful Moslem woman who was in fact brought up and educated in Manchester, at a grammar
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school there, and who speaks perfect English. She told me, sadly—she is now resident in India—that she hesitated a great deal to come to Britain again because she felt that she had experienced such rudeness and discourtesy in immigration procedures when she came to Heathrow Airport.
We had another example of this too—and admittedly I can give only one side of what must be a complex story—when we had a visit from young people from the diocese of Bombay. They came here just a few weeks ago to visit my own diocese. My youth officer went down to meet them at Heathrow Airport—and I have given full details of this incident to the Minister—and they encountered similar discourtesy. Although we understand that there are great pressures, and that this is one of the things that the visa system is supposed to be designed to meet, their treatment was, from my reading of it, quite inexcusable. The point I make is that we have a problem over racism deeply embedded in our society, and it shows particularly at points of entry when people come from overseas. This is not a situation with which any of us on any side of the House can be satisfied.
Perhaps visas could be justified if the system was really going to deal with these kind of difficulties that we experience at airports now, or if widespread abuse could be proved. But I believe that the noble Lord. Lord Avebury, has given the answer to that in the figures with which he started this debate. Whatever abuses there have been, they could not possibly be described as being widespread. None of us would deny that there is such abuse and that it must be watched and checked where possible.
I would go along with the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, in saying that if it was decided that visas were necessary in order to meet situations of this kind, then they should have been imposed universally and right across the board. Otherwise it has laid this country wide open to the accusation of racism. I was not personally surprised—although I was sad—to see the comment of the Prime Minister of India on this matter.
What we are doing by bringing in a visa system for these selected countries is bringing it in to countries where it is most difficult to operate. Whatever has been said by the noble Lord, Lord McBrides, about the value of having interpreters in these other parts of the world so that people can be properly interviewed before they decide to come to Britain, there are all sorts of other factors there which make it extremely difficult for people to get visas without undue hassle.
May I, with your Lordships' permission, simply read from an editorial in the Guardian recently which some of your Lordships may have read and which was quoted in the House of Commons. They sent a reporter out there to live with Bangladeshi communities:
"It wasn't, he found, like queuing for a US visa in Grosvenor Square. To the contrary, it was a battered, inevitably, cynical, mess. We don't send our best people to Dhaka, said an FO mandarin in Whitehall…. The secretarial back-up was pathetically inadequate, the job itself pulverisingly arduous. Endless travel, endless queues—around 12,000 long; endless waits and—in a land where paperwork is naturally scanty—judgments which time and again, could be based on no more than whether the supplicant immigrant seemed 'shifty or not.'

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We are now proposing to translate a visa system into that situation where already there is great difficulty. I have had personal experience of this, to the extent that one of my clergy spent time in Bangladesh meeting families out there, and also our community relations officer did the same. He is a Baptist minister in my area. I have myself sat down with the Bangladeshi Divided Families Association in my own diocese, and with the help of an interpreter listened to situations where they were trying to get members of their own family in through the maze of restrictions, with very great difficulty indeed.
I think of those people whom I was interviewing —this was some time ago now—and of the problems that they are going to have when their relatives want to come in order to join them for family occasions. I think that all of your Lordships would agree that this is something that any British person, or those with residential qualifications, have a right to expect to be able to do.
I should like to ask whether the Government in fact consulted with the leaders of ethnic minorities over this matter which is so vital to their welfare and happiness and security in this country. Whom did they consult? Sadly, to the best of my knowledge we do not have leaders of ethnic minorities, with perhaps one exception, represented in your Lordships' House. I look forward to the day when perhaps there is a reformed House of Lords and that is put right. But at the moment this does not apply.
This makes it all the more necessary that governments should consult with those who are genuinely leaders of their communities and who know the situation on both sides of the oceans and can see how this would operate overseas. I know that members of the Government are concerned about some of the factors that I have put before your Lordships this afternoon, and particularly the matter of good race relations in this country. I would support the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, and ask, even at this late stage, whether there could not be a withdrawal on this one and the setting up of some kind of proper inquiry or commission in order to meet the admitted abuses, but in order as well to produce a system which is fair and non-racial.
4.9 p.m.
Lord Thurlow:: My Lords, I am afraid that I cannot share the views just expressed by the right reverend Prelate about alleged racism. I spent some 20 years or so serving in different Commonwealth diplomatic posts, and I strongly repudiate the suggestion that any of the members of our diplomatic staffs and, within my experience, faithfully serving immigration officers, are racist in outlook. Indeed, I fear that the right reverend Prelate has been carried away emotionally by what must be great pressures from the large Asian population in his diocese.
I endorse the views of my former colleague Lord Saint Brides, on the advantages of going over to the system of visa control in these five countries from which there has been substantial abuse of our regulations. I know that it is always possible, if you take five coloured Commonwealth countries and you
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do not have the same rules applying to the former dominions, to allege that there are racist motives. We constantly hear this kind of talk. It is normally a question of comparison, of like with like, and it is certainly not in these cases.
The right reverend Prelate gave us the ancedote about the difficulties of his friend in Bombay. I hope and believe that the effect of the introduction of visa controls in Delhi and Bombay will be greatly to ease the difficulties, to enable bona fide cases to come to this country with courteous treatment at the High Commission offices, without too much delay and with great advantages compared with the system of the past, with these appalling pile-ups at Heathrow. As Lord Saint Brides said, the staff at Heathrow are not as well equipped as our immigration officers at our diplomatic posts to handle difficult cases.
I should like to draw attention to one aspect of the controls that inevitably carries risks. Immigration officers have to exercise a great deal of discretion. It is necessary to have the help of classifications of classes of people who can be accepted and approved; rules as to the periods of stay that can be approved. But no rules of thumb can go more than a certain distance in covering the wide spectrum of cases. So immigration officers have to exercise a great deal of discretion. In periods of pressure it is difficult for them not to slide into a negative attitude.
How are we to guard against this? What we are talking about is basically a question of fundamental human rights: the human right of free movement for legitimate purposes. This human right is of the utmost importance and of growing importance in the world today to enable all countries to have a healthy circulation of ideas and cross-fertilisation. It is easy for an immigration officer to have difficulty in understanding the reasons for which some applicants may wish to come, if they wish to come not to study at established higher education institutions or to work, sponsored by commercial firms, but to find individuals with whom they wish to work, such as writers or artists, whom they can only choose for themselves, where they wish to do their work and what influences they wish to work under.
I had experience in India of being subjected to visa controls at the time when the Government of India felt themselves obliged to introduce visa controls for all Commonwealth citizens because of the great problem they had three years ago with infiltration by Sikh terrorists from this country and Canada in particular. I was working with 25 others on an important research project. I personally was there for 18 months. We were free, thanks to the previous liberal regime of the Government of India, to come in when we wished, to stay as long as we wished and to go where we wished on the subcontinent. This was a great benefit. Then, as an incidental result of the Sikh problem, visa controls were imposed. We had to queue up in Delhi, Bombay or wherever we were. We had no assurance on how long our colleagues would be able to stay. To cut a long story short, we had to bring our project to a premature end. I quote this to illustrate that it is inevitable with a system of controls that there will be results that the Government themselves for their part might never wish to promote.

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So, when controls are introduced, Parliament has a greater responsibility to keep the respect for the fundamental human rights in the front of the minds of officials. I recall, as many of your Lordships will recall, that Mr. Bevin, as Foreign Secretary, looked forward to the day when passports would he totally abolished. That day was obviously distant at that time, and is more remote now because the dangers and difficulties of our society have increased. Nevertheless, let us not—in confronting the necessity to deal with the problems of abuse—lose sight of the overriding priority of principle that governs the human right of free movement across frontiers for legitimate purposes.
4.19 p.m.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, at the conclusion of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, I noted with respect and some admiration that he quoted a former Foreign Secretary of this country, Mr. Ernest Bevin, as expressing a wish that is the wish of the idealist ever—that we should reach a stage in world affairs where no passsports were necessary and when anyone could travel across boundaries and across countries without let or hindrance. I hope that with due longevity we may reach that stage, but I doubt it. Therefore, because of the necessity for immigration control especially in this island home of ours, crowded as it is, I say at the very outset that immigration control has unfortunately to be effected. I make no provisos. I utter no qualification except for one: that it must be effected with justice and without the suspicion of racial bias. Having said that, may I at once make it clear that we on these Benches support the Motion so ably moved by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury. Indeed, we would have put it down ourselves had he not with great perspicacity and promptitude done so himself. I do not want, from this Dispatch Box, to throw across the Floor accusations of racialism. I do not think it would do any good, I do not think that very probably it would have any justice in it. What I do throw across the Floor from this Dispatch Box is the accusation against a government who have done it before, of ineptitude, insensitivity and a dangerous lack of diplomacy.
Perhaps I may turn for a moment to the very experienced speech, if I may so describe it, of the noble Lord, Lord Saint Brides—and he will note that I have given him his correct name, unlike another participant in this debate, who thought that he ought to have either a Scottish or an Irish ancestry—a speech in which he gave this House the benefit of all his diplomatic skill and experience. He reminded us that he was High Commissioner in both India and Pakistan. I am going to say quite frankly that he would not have handled this matter as the Government handled it, whatever the rights or wrongs of the Immigration Rules that we are discussing.
Do your Lordships recollect what happened some five and a half years ago when we were debating in this House the British Nationality Bill, suddenly rushed upon a world and upon the Commonwealth without any consultation at all at proper levels and which, (because the Bill had already been passed in the other place) led at Second Reading to my noble and learned
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friend Lord Elwyn-Jones and myself not opposing the Second Reading but asking that consideration of the measure be adjourned until proper consultations had taken place?
I venture to do something which is almost unforgiveable. It is to quote a very short portion of the speech which I ventured to make to your Lordships on that occasion. I wish that I could quote somebody else's speech: it would be much more courteous and forgiveable; but I rather like the paragraph that I am going to quote to your Lordships and I cannot resist the temptation. It was a speech made on 22nd June, 1981. This is how the Official Report reads:
"We have heard speeches tonight about Gibraltar. The noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter"—
and I am delighted to see him in his place—
"is a man of temperate habits and temperate speech. He is a master of the rounded phrase and we were all absolutely delighted to hear him. What did he say that Gibraltar felt about that Bill? 'A smack in the face', were the words the noble Lord used. What a great exercise in public relations, when good, old, loyal, Gibraltar, putting up with all it has put up with over the past years, regards a Bill of a Conservative Government, of all Governments, as 'a smack in the face'! And Hong Kong. Forget the ethnic minorities in this country for a moment. What does the official document say? We heard the noble Lord, Lord Geddes"—
again from the Government Benches, I say in parenthesis—
"on this matter. We were all delighted with his speech and with the speeches of others who spoke of Hong Kong and of Gibraltar. What does Hong Kong say in an official document that I received from the Hong Kong Government Office?— 'There is fundamental, deep-seated and emotional opposition to the Bill among Hong Kong people'. What a great exercise in public relations has the Government carried on in order that Hong Kong people should feel that way!
"No consultation with the dependent territories, no consultation at top government levels with the countries of the Commonwealth, leaving poor Mrs. Thatcher to go to India, having to argue with Mrs. Gandhi that the Nationality Bill was not as bad as she thought it was; that it was not really racialist; and unfortunately, whatever else she achieved on that visit (and I am sure that she achieved much)—not convincing Mrs. Gandhi before she left that it was not a racialist Bill and that it was not in fact a very bad Bill".—[Official Report, 22/6/86; Col. 946.]
And, my Lords, the Government learnt no lesson. No consultation on the Nationality Bill! We had to come back on Gibraltar. With the help of various Members of this House who refused to vote—on whipped lines, if I may say so—we achieved British nationality for Gibraltar. We had a debate in this House on Hong Kong where we tried to undo injustice and to achieve from various government undertakings some amount of justice for the Hong Kong ethnic minorities and for other citizens of Hong Kong. These were matters that could have been dealt with if only there had been proper consultation and consideration before the British Nationality Bill was passed by Parliament.
The Government, with equal ineptitude, lack of diplomacy and insensitivity, rushed through these Immigration Rules and gave eight days' notice of the effective date, with all the horrific and uncivilised results that occurred at Heathrow Airport bringing a lasting shame upon our nation!—words which I say without any hesitation at all. And, not Mrs. Gandhi this time but her son has to talk, because of lack of consultation, about the racialist element of these Immigration Rules. My Lords, insensitivity, ineptitude—and I am taking it for granted that it is all

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necessary for the purpose of my submission to your Lordships—five nations, all of them with black citizens, selected and one other African nation left out. South Africa! South Africa insists upon every one of your Lordships who wants to visit that country having a visa. And when they come here—and it is only white people from South Africa who can leave those shores except in the most extraordinary circumstances—white South African citizens today, and on the day of Heathrow Airport's shame, enter this country without any need for a visa at all.
Forget the question of injustice, forget the question of racialism and just think for a moment of the effect jointly of the Nationality Bill brought in without consultation and of Immigration Rules of this kind brought in without consultation! Just think of the effect upon the black communities of our Commonwealth!
It does not need a lot of imagination. Before you label those who handle these rules—and I am not talking about their effect and their eventual justice—in this way, the Government deserve the greatest criticism because it is not the Government who are so thought of in the black communities, in Africa, in the five countries concerned and among the black citizens of our own multi-racial country here: it is the British people who incur the criticism and the belief about racialism. And so the Government have done it to all of us, not just to themselves.
What are we left with? I could wish, as I know the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, could wish, that this House could express its view tonight on these rules. The change has been passed in another place: it has been brought into effect already. It may be that a favourable vote would be obtained but it is hardly likely that the exercise would he worth it. I say frankly that I should prefer, rather than have a vote which might be against this Motion—although I do not think it would be a very substantial vote against—that this House. with its reputation for justice and for acting in a responsible way towards the Commonwealth and towards the world outside, should not have a vote registered against this Motion.
What do we do? My Lords, we turn to the Minister and we say this. The Government did not consult before. For Heaven's sake have such consultations now as will make these rules work with some amount of understanding. See to it that the 39 officers the Government are sending abroad as visa enforcement officers (at a cost incidentally of £14 million, as was admitted by the Minister—not money worthily spent) and the arrangement set up in the various countries concerned are as humane as possible. Tell your immigration officers in this country, many of whom are worthy, patient souls doing a difficult job, that, if there is one example such as was mentioned today by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester and by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, of racial offensiveness or indeed of any offensiveness at all to a would-be visitor to this country, whatever his colour, it will be a serious disciplinary offence and it must stop if it is occurring—and it is occurring. In future, if we have to deal with this question of immigration, as we have to, do not let us blunder as the Government have allowed us to blunder on this occasion.
4.34 p.m.
The Minister of State, Home Office (The Earl of Caithness): My Lords, we have indeed had a useful debate on this very important subject and I am grateful to all your Lordships who have taken part. The changes we are discussing here today were debated in another place last week. On that occasion there may have been more heat than light. Some of the comments which have been made elsewhere have been misleading and caused unnecessary fears, particularly in the minority communities. I hope that some of those people will read what your Lordships have said today and particularly the very notable speeches of two noble Lords who have served this country so well overseas. I shall return to that in a moment.
The changes in the Immigration Rules before your Lordships apply a visa requirement to the citizens of Bangladesh, Ghana, India and Pakistan. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary has announced that a visa requirement will be applied to citizens of Nigeria in due course. I must make it absolutely clear that what we are discussing is not a question of immigration policy: it is an administrative measure.
A visa requirement means that those citizens must obtain a visa, whatever the reason for their journey to this country. A visa is one form of the documentation which immigration law describes more generally as entry clearance. Entry clearances are issued by British missions abroad to applicants who wish to come to the United Kingdom to show that they qualify for entry. Entry clearance is mandatory both for visa nationals and for everybody who comes here for work, settlement, marriage leading to settlement or as the dependent of a person in one of these categories. In other cases entry clearance is available but optional.
The new visa requirements affects mainly visitors and students of the nationality concerned. Most people coming here temporarily from non-visa countries choose not to obtain an entry clearance but instead make their case for entry on arrival. For the citizens of Bangladesh, Ghana, India and Pakistan (and in due course Nigeria) this is no longer an option. They must instead apply abroad for a visa. Applications for visas to come here for a visit or study are considered under exactly the same criteria in the Immigration Rules as claims at the ports of entry for a visit or study. This is not a tightening of immigration control, because the only effect is to move the point at which the decision is made.
There is no operational reason for requiring people legitimately living here to obtain re-entry visas whenever they wish to leave the country, perhaps for a holiday or a business trip. We thought that it would be better instead to exempt them from the visa requirement. The same arrangements will apply to citizens of Nigeria, when that visa requirement is introduced. These arrangements also replace the previous more limited exemptions for Sri Lankans.
People who are exempt do not need to take any action to obtain the exemption; they can be admitted without a visa after a trip abroad. However, in order to ensure that possible difficulties are reduced to a minimum we have introduced a new arrangement whereby people who are planning a trip abroad may

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obtain a passport endorsement confirming the exemption. Natually,—
Lord Avebury: My Lords, will the noble Earl allow me to intervene? This is an important question, and the agencies do not know the answer to it: that is, where the person goes when he is a returning resident to obtain the exemption stamp on his passport. Does he have to go and queue at Lunar House or is there a simpler procedure that can be adopted?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, information has been sent out and it is a point to which I replied in an earlier discussion on this matter.
Naturally the details of the exemptions, particularly for workers and students, are quite complicated and are necessarily set out in the Immigration Rules in legal language which may be less than comprehensible. In order that they can be easily understood by all, we have produced a comprehensive information leaflet which explains the exemptions, and other aspects of the arrangements in simpler language. A copy is in the Library of your Lordships House and copies have gone to a number of advisory organisations and can be obtained by individuals from the immigration and nationality department.
Having transferred the point of decision, what is crucial is that there should be satisfactory arrangements abroad for issuing visas quickly and efficiently. As your Lordships know, staff reinforcements are being sent to the British missions in the Indian subcontinent and Ghana, which are establishing new visa-issuing operations. All except one of the first group of 31 officers from the immigration service are now in post. In India we have opened a new visa-issuing office in Madras in addition to the three other Indian offices, as well as two in Pakistan and one in Bangladesh.
Applications can be made either by post or in person and interviews are not often necessary. So far we have been able to deal with most applications on the day they have been made. It may be that at peak periods in future there will be short waits for visas. We are determined that these should be as short as possible. There may be cases where a person requires a visa at short notice because he has to travel urgently. In cases of dire emergency missions have arrangements to issue visas out of normal working hours, and priority would be given to cases where a visa was needed quickly for unforeseen reasons.
I should like to turn from the effect of the new visa requirements to the reasons we had to make the change. The cheapest and generally the most effective form of immigration control is to check every passenger arriving at the point of entry to the country. The control at the ports is very good for checking large numbers of passengers quickly to ascertain either that they have the right of abode here, or, if not, that they qualify for entry. The bureaucracy is minimal. However, the control must distinguish from the flow of passengers the few who cannot be allowed to enter the country. These passengers have normally had long journeys and friends and relations may be waiting outside. If the outcome is that the passenger is refused entry he has to go, having wasted much time and money. This is distressing and such cases should be
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kept to a minimum. Our ports of entry were never designed for large numbers of cases which entailed detailed interviews and lengthy inquiries. I agree with my noble friend Lord Reay that these difficult cases must be resolved overseas before departure wherever possible. That is why in 1969 the Labour Government of the day, with Conservative and Liberal party support imposed such a system for dependents coming to join men settled here. Now the case of any person coming for work or settlement is decided abroad.
The problem now is basically the same. In the past 18 months there have been a series of problems at the ports. In May last year there was a rush from Sri Lanka which led to the imposition of a visa requirement on Sri Lankans. Since then there have been substantial increases in people arriving in the United Kingdom posing as visitors but whose real intentions have appeared to be to establish themselves here. In late summer and autumn last year there was a rush from Bangladesh. From the beginning of this year the increase has been more sustained.
Although major airports can cope with considerable flows of passengers, the Immigration Service found extreme difficulty in coping with the substantial increases in the number of difficult cases, as they require disproportionate staff time. The changes in the pattern of passenger traffic caused serious congestion at the ports this summer. Our detention accommodation was full and on occasion passengers who needed detailed interviews had to sleep in the terminal building overnight. This was only avoided as a general practice by the routine use of hotels. Because there was no detention space passengers who had been refused entry but could not be removed immediately had to be given temporary admission, even if the Immigration Service judged that there as an undue risk of absconding.
This state of affairs clearly could not be allowed to continue and we had to act. We therefore examined carefully a number of options, including that of providing more immigration staff at airports. The amount of money spent in sending extra staff abroad would provide considerably more staff at home. Unfortunately, this would not have solved the problems. That is why we decided to extend visa requirements. It was unncessary to introduce a univeral visa requirement when the problems at the ports were caused by only a few nationalities. The citizens of Bangladesh, Ghana, India, Nigeria and Pakistan accounted last year for about half of all cases where a passenger was removed after refusal of entry. These were the, only nationalities which each accounted for more than 1,000 such removals. The increase in arrivals of doubtful passengers in the first months of this year was largely accounted for by these nationalities.
The figures from Heathrow and Gatwick of passengers refused leave to enter were 68 per cent. higher for these nationals in the first six months of 1986 than the same period in 1985. This is only a very small proportion of the total passengers arriving from these countries, but it is these difficult cases which cause the problems at the ports. The selective extension of visa requirements was an operational response to the cause of the operational problems and was influenced by no other considerations.

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The need for the new visa requirements was shown starkly by what happened after my right honourable friend's first announcement on 1st September of the Government's decision. The pressures on the ports soon began to build up further; we were unable to interview all the passengers whose claims were doubtful, and many had to be released on temporary admission after a short interview at the initial control with a future appointment for a detailed interview.
Let us consider the figures from Heathrow Terminals 3 and 4 of passengers who needed a detailed interview. For the citizens of the three Indian subcontinent countries, these increased from 262 in the week before my right honourable friend's announcement, to 677 in the week ending 27th September and 1,152 in the week ending 4th October.
In view of these problems my right honourable friend announced on 6th October that the visa requirement for the Indian sub-continent nationalities would take effect on 15th October. This was a little earlier than we had hoped for but, as I have explained, the staff abroad made commendable efforts and the new arrangements there were working well in time. Your Lordships have previously discussed the rush to Heathrow to beat this deadline. I do not wish to dwell on that except to point out that what happened then was no more than a compression of the problems which had been building up during previous months.
The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, began his speech this afternoon with some party politics. I must return that ball to him. The Liberal party has said that it will replace the 1981 British Nationality Act with a new law giving one class of citizenship to all citizens in the United Kingdom and its remaining colonies. What the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, did not tell us was that effectively what the Liberals are proposing is the right of abode in Britain for millions of people who neither have it nor expect it, such as about 3½ million British dependant citizens in Hong Kong.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, that is absolutely untrue. If the noble Earl read the document more carefully, he would see that special arrangements were made for Hong Kong. I wrote the document and I can remember that Hong Kong was not included in the category of British citizens in dependencies to whom full citizenship would be granted.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, the noble Lord's party has said that it will repeal the 1981 Act, and that is the consequence of it. However, we are at long last getting a little more detail from the noble Lord opposite, because his party is very good at knocking down some bridges but not very good at putting anything in their place.
The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, asked about immigration staff at Heathrow, and said, if I remember rightly, that it had increased by one. In August 1985 there were 587 immigration staff at Heathrow and in August 1986 there were 654. I fear that the noble Lord's figures are wrong, and I brought that fact to his attention on 17th October. The noble Lord also quoted some detention figures but of course I am sure that he, among all your Lordships, will be aware that of the figures he quoted 72 remain in detention having been refused entry before 14th
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October. Of course there are others who arrived earlier, and there are the after entry cases as well.
Perhaps I may also correct the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, with regard to absconders. Absconder figures do not include people who report back a little late or leave voluntarily. A person is only recorded as an absconder if he fails to report back and cannot be found. If he is subsequently discovered and removed, he is taken off the absconder record. Perhaps I may bring the House up to date on absconders. The latest national figures for absconders from temporary admission for January to September 1986 show a total of 620, of which 530 were from India, Bangladash, Pakistan, Nigeria and Ghana. This compares with a total for the whole of 1985 of 388.
The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, asked me about asylum. Our obligations under the United Nations Convention and the internationally agreed refugee procedures remain unaffected by the new visa requirement. The present arrangements under which those applying for asylum remain here while applications and representations made on their behalf—including those of honourable members and noble Lords—are fully considered, will continue. I should stress, however, that if there is evidence that our procedures are being abused simply in order to evade the new visa requirement, we shall have to consider whether any change in those procedures is necessary. I hope that clarifies that point for the noble Lord.
The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, and indeed the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, quoted overseas reaction to what we have done. Of course the reaction in India to the change in visa arrangements was not universally condemnatory but showed some understanding for the reasons the Government had to take this action. The Hindustan Times reported:
"It is expected that the new system will mitigate the unpleasantness that has obtained on account of what has often been described as race-driven partiality among British immigration officials. There will no longer be grey areas since the coming and not coming of people for those countries that will require visas will be clear and definite".
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, before the noble Earl, who is always courteous, goes on to another point, can he give a simple explanation to the House as to why consultations did not take place beforehand? There might then have been newspapers in India other than the one he has managed to single out which gave favourable comment. Are not the Government's public relations very bad?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, if the noble Lord will wait a few moments I shall come on to consultation because that point was raised by the noble Lord and others.
On 4th September the Nigerian Prime Minister, Major-General Babangida, said as regards visas for Nigeria, that this was a "technical and administrative" matter:
"It is not political. That's the way I look at it".
The noble Lords, Lord Avebury and Lord Brockway, and the right reverend Prelate, said that what we were doing was racist. I cannot agree with that. It is quite clear that it is not racist by any reasonable standards. Visas are already required for

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the citizens of Poland, China, the Congo and Burma. I make that white, yellow, black and brown. To say that what we are doing today is racist is utter nonsense.
My noble friend Lord Reay rightly brought once again to the attention of the House the problems that were faced by people arriving from the Indian subcontinent but not direct from there. I said earlier that I hoped that I would be able to give your Lordships' House some of the figures. The approximate figures are that on 14th October 400 people arrived on Kuwait Airways; 250 came on Gulf Air; 150 came on Egyption Airlines; 290 came on Thai Airlines; and 100 came on Aeroflot or Polish Airlines. One must remember that those flights land at Terminal 2. So in total about 1,400 arrived by indirect routes in addition to the 1,500 who arrived direct.
To say that we could forecast that is staring a little too carefully into the crystal ball. Notwithstanding that, as your Lordships will he aware, over a period of time the number of immigration officers at Heathrow was increased from between 12 and 20 extra staff, and for the final period 24 additional officers were at Heathrow on 14th October.
The noble Lord, Lord Brockway, mentioned the situation at Heathrow. We have already discussed that in some detail and I think it would be wise not to go back over well-trodden ground. He said in particular that the Government should take care to make sure that our overseas posts work well. I can confirm that reports from our posts in the Indian sub-continent and Ghana indicate that the visa regimes are operating smoothly. All personal applicants are being seen and more than 90 per cent. are being issued with visas on the same day. In addition, a substantial number of postal applications are being processed on the day of receipt. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Saint Brides, will be pleased to hear that, and that the right reverend Prelate might believe me rather than what he reads in the press.
The noble Lord, Lord Saint Brides, made a very telling speech, and I am grateful for his support with his enormous experience of 13 years in India and Pakistan. He mentioned in particular the interpreters, a point we discussed earlier in our debate. I am grateful for that observation because they are a very important part of the immigration scene. I should like to congratulate the noble Lord who, according to Dod's, is the noble Lord, Lord Saint Brides, of Hasguard in the County of Dyfed. He now becomes the noble Lord, Lord McBrides, and becomes Scottish and joins me. I hope that the Church christens people a little more accurately in the future.
I come now to consultation, a very important point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon. Of course we should always prefer to consult those who may be affected before making important changes, but it would not have been practicable to undertake consultation on a matter such as the extension of visa requirements. This would have prolonged the period in which people were tempted to anticipate new arrangements, and this carried a substantial risk of further increasing the pressure on immigration control and precipitating the visa decision. When the initial decision was taken on 1st September the four high
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commissioners and the one ambassador were immediately invited to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to be told. Steps were simultaneously taken to ask British representatives abroad to inform governments.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, if the noble Earl will once more give way, I promise not to intervene again. Is he saying that courtesy to the representatives of these dominions in this country did not dictate any prior notice of what was happening and any opportunity for giving views about these immigration rules? Is that the standard of courtesy that Her Majesty's Government are now extending?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, anybody in a responsible position who looked at this carefully would have seen that the situation could not continue because of the extremely difficult circumstances that occurred at Heathrow. In order that this situation could be remedied as soon as possible it was quite right for Her Majesty's Government to take the action that they did. Furthermore, for the nationals of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh an information sheet for everyone affected was issued. Copies also went to organisations which represent or give advice to the minority communities, and are being sent to all entry posts abroad.
Lord Home of the Hirsel: My Lords, during the 13 years in which I was in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office there were continual contacts with these governments on the question of immigration. It was the one question on which they would never co-operate and never had any sympathy for our desire to limit the numbers. We told them constantly that it would make social conditions impossible here if we took too many. So there was consultation and contact all the time.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I am extremely grateful to my noble friend for that comment and for that piece of very useful experience.
The right reverend Prelate said that he had written to the Government, and indeed I have already replied to him. Perhaps I may remind him that the Manchester Council for Community Relations in the report of its visit to Terminal 3 which lasted 2## days found that there was no racism in the attitudes of the immigration officers. The right reverend Prelate asked me to take this back and look at it again. No, my Lords, the facts clearly speak for themselves. I am glad that the Church is concerned because many of us are concerned about the Church. I am particularly grateful for the vast experience that the noble Lord. Lord Thurlow, brought to our debate, particularly because of the time he has spent in Ghana and in India. The Government are grateful for his support.
The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, said once again that we handled this badly. I do not think that I shall ever convince him. I have tried to put clearly on the record the situation and the action that my right honourable friend had to take, which we believe was the right action. Of course we would have been criticised for whatever we had done because it is impossible to get the timing just right. If no notice was given there would

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have been justifiable criticism of introducing requirements heartlessly and without adequate preparations. Too long a period risked scenes even worse than those witnessed at Heathrow. The Government therefore settled for a period of notice consistent with giving everyone adequate warning and being sure to have all the necessary arrangements in place abroad.
The decision to extend visa requirements was announced by my right honourable friend more than six weeks before the first change took effect and we gave eight days warning of the actual implementation date for the Indian sub-continent. This is a longer period than has been possible on previous changes in visa arrangements. The extensions to Argentinians and Sri Lankans took effect immediately after the announcement, and seven days notice was given of the date when Iranians would need visas.
The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, mentioned as did other noble Lords, including the right reverend Prelate, the question of South Africa. The reason no visas have been imposed is that they are not required as an operational measure, and we are not in the business of punitive measures. I believe that the noble Lord was wrong in saying that South Africa requires visas for British citizens. It does not. Of course, there are a number of Commonwealth countries whose citizens still do not need visas to come to this country. There are many on my list and I name just a few: the Bahamas, Zambia, Swaziland and St Lucia. Therefore, to say that our action was discriminatory against the Commonwealth countries—Pakistan is not, of course, a member of the Commonwealth and has not been since 1973—is erroneous.
I am pleased to be able to report to your Lordships that the new system has begun successfully. The ports still have a backlog of work to clear but all the signs are that the new visa requirements have considerably improved the situation. Few passengers who need visas are arriving without them. The ports are less congested. The few passengers who need detailed interviews are no longer experiencing the delays that were commonplace. This is better not just for the passengers but also for friends and relatives waiting to meet them. People with visas can travel here knowing that they are unlikely to experience difficulties on arrival. Normally they need just a brief interview. They can be refused entry only in limited circumstances—for example, if a visa was obtained by fraud—and then can appeal while still in this country. The changes will benefit all who have genuine reasons for coming to this country, at the expense only of those who would like to establish themselves here when they are not so entitled.
I recommend the changes in the Immigration Rules to your Lordships.
5.1 p.m.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, the noble Earl did precisely what I asked him not to do at the beginning of my remarks. He introduced extraneous and false allegations about the immigration policies of other parties when obviously he has not had the opportunity of studying them closely. I do not want to go into this in detail now but if I send him a copy of the paper to which he referred. in which we deal with nationality
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issues for Hong Kong and British dependencies, and if he reads it carefully, I hope he will withdraw the allegations that he has made this evening in as public a manner as he has made them, because they are completely false.
Apart from that one discordant note I feel that this has been an extremely useful debate. It has been just as useful from the speeches which supported the Government as from those which were against the Government. Several valuable points were made which I hope the noble Earl will take on board. For example—the noble Earl did not reply to this point—both the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester and the noble Lord, Lord Reay, said that it would have been better to extend visa controls over the whole spectrum of countries rather than confine them to the five. The example of the French, who have introduced a system of that kind, was quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Reay. I believe that the number of refusals is increasing
Lord Reay: My Lords, will the noble Lord give way for a moment since he quoted what I said on this matter? I did not say that the French system would have been preferable. I said that it was an alternative which the Government could choose but that they were perfectly entitled to make the choice they did. It would be quite wrong to describe the Government's choice as racist.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, of course I accept the correction and that the noble Lord merely said that it was one of the alternatives open to the Government. However, it is an alternative that has not been properly examined by the Government. I hope that the noble Earl will take on board—because the suggestion came from two participants in the debate—whether it would not be preferable to have a universal system of visas rather than lay the Government open to the charge (which, by the way, I did not make in this debate although the noble Earl attributed it to me) that this measure is racist.
It is not so much a question of whether the Government's intentions were racist or whether they were being racist, in effect, but of how they were seen by the community. That is what the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester was speaking about. If the Minister consults community relations councils, the agencies who represent immigrants and leaders of the black communities in this country, as well as the authorities in India, which have been quoted in this debate, he will find that the impression left in the minds of these people is very different from that which the Government seek to convey. That may be simply a question of presentation or it may be that the information was not given in proper form to our high commissions and embassies, as the two noble Lords who were formerly in our diplomatic service in those parts of the world suggested should have been done. As the noble Lord, Lord Saint Brides, said, full information ought to have been in the hands of the posts in advance so that they could immediately have explained the implications to the heads of Government in those countries.
The noble Lord, Lord Brockway, made a point of some importance. He said that the proper numbers of

1137
staff should he in post in the overseas countries. The Minister replied to that indirectly by saying that so far most of the applications for visas had been dealt with on the same day. He hoped that except in periods of undue pressure that state of affairs will continue. But it is not just a question of applications for visas; it is also the increase in the number of appeals which will have to be dealt with in overseas posts and the preparation of explanatory statements for those appeals by, presumably, the same entry certificate officers who are looking at the visa applications.
I do not think that we have explored that matter this afternoon and there is no time to go into it now. However, I hope that on some other occasion the noble Earl or his colleague in another place will he able to confirm that we have not only taken care of the immediate problem of receiving and processing visa applications from the five countries but also that they will not suffer the long backlogs in the preparation of explanatory statements that, unfortunately, applies to dependants and others who have been required to apply for entry certificates since 1969, as has been said in this debate.
The situation for them was not just a transfer of the place where the examinations are conducted. What happened after 1969 when these applications were processed overseas was that the rate of refusals increased substantially and that the number of appeals also increased. Delays at each stage in the process went out into the middle distance and people who were subsequently found to have a perfectly legitimate claim to come to this country—for example, the children of persons already settled in the country—had sometimes to wait upwards of two or three years before they could substantiate their claim.
It is appalling that a family should be divided for such a long time. In the case of a visit it destroys the whole objective. If applicants have to wait for two or three years for an appeal to be processed, the reason for the visit vanishes into the distant past. I hope that on some other occasion the noble Earl will be able to say that we have a system in place not only for dealing with visas but also for processing appeals.
I think that now we are at the end of this debate we have to consider carefully the words of the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon. We must ask ourselves whether it is worth while testing the opinion of the House or whether we should accept the verdict of the other place, which has already been passed, and try to make the most of a bad situation. I am sorry to say that I feel we have no alternative but to do the latter and to watch very carefully how this system works. We cannot share the optimism of the Minister. We have already seen that the number of people in detention has not gone down, in spite of the 72 persons that the Minister says are left over from cases that arose prior to 14th October. That still leaves a larger number of detentions, excluding those people, than there was 18 months ago. In addition, the noble Earl has indirectly revealed a fairly shocking fact. There are 72 persons now in detention following a refusal of leave to enter who have been in detention for about four weeks. If that is the way the system is operating, there has not
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been much of an improvement since the introduction of visa requirements.
However. as I said, it is late in the day. Not only is it late in the afternoon of this debate but late in the process of the introduction of visas, which has already come into effect. Much as I should have liked to test the feeling of the House I feel that our duty now is to watch the way the system is operating. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

International Fund for Ireland (Immunities and Privileges) Order 1986
5.10 p.m.
Baroness Hooper Baroness Hooper rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 27th October he approved. [33rd Report from the Joint Committee.]
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I beg to move that the International Fund for Ireland (Immunities and Privileges) Order 1986 be agreed to. Your Lordships will recall that an agreement between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland was signed on the 18th September 1986 to establish a fund to promote the economic and social development of those areas of both parts of Ireland which have suffered most severely from the consequences of the instability of recent years. The two governments have agreed that the fund should give priority on a value-for-money basis to the stimulation of private sector investment and to projects of benefit to people in both parts of Ireland, in particular to improve communications and greater co-operation in the economic, industrial and research fields.
They have also agreed that the money should be used to improve the quality and conditions of life for people in areas facing serious economic and/or social problems and to provide wider horizons for people from both traditions, including opportuniities for industrial training and work experience overseas. Approximately three-quarters of the fund's resources will be spent in Northern Ireland. The agreement was published as Cmnd. Paper No. 9908 and presented to Parliament on the 27th October. The United States has made available to the Fund a sum of 50 million US dollars in the United States financial year just ended, Canada has promised 10 million Canadian dollars over 10 years, and New Zealand has pledged 300,000 New Zealand dollars. Contributions from other countries may follow. These resources will be administered and disbursed by an independent board to be appointed jointly by the two governments. The board will be formally appointed when the agreement establishing the fund comes into force. We intend to appoint Mr. Charles Brett, a successful Belfast solicitor and past chairman of the housing executive to chair the board. Its other members will be six people from both parts of Ireland who have appropriate administrative and business experience.
Articles 5(2) of the agreement provides that the fund shall have legal capacity to contract, acquire and dispose of property and to institute legal proceedings. It shall have power to enter into agreement with any

1139
donor consistent with the provisions of the agreement, provided that neither government has indicated any objection. Without these powers the fund would find it difficult to carry out these tasks which we have set in the agreement. The fund shall also have exemption from taxes on income and capital gains. We are not seeking any other form of immunity but we believe it right that the Government should not take part of another state's contributions through taxation. The order before the House would give effect to these undertakings and enable the fund to work efficiently and effectively. I beg to move.
Moved, that the draft Order laid before the House on 27th October by approved. [33rd Report from the Joint Conitnittee]—(Baroness Hooper.]
5.15.p.m.
Lord Prys-Davies: My Lords, we are grateful to the Minister for explaining the background to the order and also for the information which she has given the House about the board and the allocation of the fund between the Republic and Ulster. We welcome the fund and the draft order, and particularly the draft order because it gives legal personality to the International Fund. In our view, it is one of the happier consequences of the Anglo-Irish Agreement.
Therefore, we unambiguously welcome the promise of co-operation between the United Kingdom Government and the Government of the Republic to promote economic and social development north and south of the border. We also welcome the international support for such co-operation, which is necessarily implied by the existence of the fund. It seems to me that when one looks back to 1921 one sees that it is one of the tragedies of Northern Ireland that no serious attempt was made by successive administrations in the United Kingdom or in the Republic to encourage co-operation one with the other. However, with the Anglo-Irish Agreement and with the International Fund we think that this situation if beginning to change.
The names of the six board members and the Chairman who will manage the fund were announced a month ago. They are distinguished men who bring many gifts to their task, and we on these Benches are grateful to them for accepting their new responsibilites. Already the board—I believe it is the board—is moving speedily toward identifying the initial priorities to which its efforts will be directed.
I have just a few questions that I should like to ask the Minister, which are really for information. First, can the Minister confirm that when this order is approved by the Privy Council all the procedures in connection with the setting up of the fund will have been completed at least in the United Kingdom, and if that is so, when will the appropriate procedures in the Republic be completed? Secondly, the Minister has told us that donations are forthcoming from other countries. Will the arrangements governing those donations be published in an agreement between those countries and the two governments? Thirdly, can the Minister confirm how the funds made available to the two investment companies for venture capital will be distributed? Are we to accept that two thirds—or is it three quarters?—will go to the investment company
1140
operating in Ulster and the remaining quarter or a third go to the investment company operating in the Republic?
My next question is concerned with the advisory committee. Is it envisaged that in practice applications for assistance under Article 7 of the agreement of the 18th September will be determined by the board and its advisory committee, or will they be determined by the sole decision of the board? Having regard to the wording of Article 6 of the agreement, can the two governments, acting jointly, give instructions to the board in any circumstances, or is that ruled out by the provisions of Article 6? Again, can the Minister tell the House when the members of the advisory committee and the joint chairmen will be appointed? Finally, can the Minister give us an indication of the manpower requirements of the board? Will it have an office in Ulster and an office in the Republic?
I should be grateful if the Minister would respond to those few questions or, if that is not convenient, if she will write to us. We shall come back persistently in the future to probe the activities of the board and the fund, as well as to prompt and to encourage. Meanwhile, we believe that the order will provide a stimulus for cooperation between the two governments and we therefore give it our support and our goodwill.
Lord Hampton: My Lords, I. too, should like to thank the noble Baroness for introducing this order, which we on these Benches welcome unreservedly. It is clearly a most welcome change that money from the other side of the Atlantic should be devoted to what we may well call constructive ends, unlike the funds subscribed to Noraid that have gone to promote violence, disruption and destructive purposes.
This aid looks like being generous and valuable, and we can thank the Anglo-Irish Agreement that is so much maligned by the Unionists for helping to bring about the necessary arrangements. I believe that only those people will object for whom the whole idea of co-operation and understanding between the two parts of Ireland is objectionable and total anathema.
I should like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, two questions. The noble Baroness touched on the point, but I should be grateful for rather more detail on what the proposed sum in aid is likely to be and whether it will be ongoing for a number of years. Secondly, to what end is it proposed that the funds should be put? The noble Baroness touched on that point. She mentioned communications and the quality of life in impoverished areas and how the projects will be checked by those in control. With that, I repeat that we support the order.
Lord Blease: My Lords. I support and concur with the points made by my noble friend Lord Pry's-Davies and by the noble Lord, Lord Hampton. I welcome the token of friendship and practical goodwill presented by the order's principles—principles of international concern for the economic and social advance of the peoples of both parts of Ireland.
I should like to take the opportunity to express my confidence—confidence has also been expressed by my noble friend Lord Prys-Davies—in the seven men who it was announced on 1st October have accepted

1141
membership of the International Fund for Ireland Board. I have confidence in their integrity and their independence of party-political motivation or influence. They deserve the warmest commendation for their public spirited action in accepting the daunting and difficult work which will arise from this challenging and international body. It is an international organisation which has sadly been misrepresented and subjected to political controversy. The standing and reputation of those men in public, commercial and community life in Ireland are beyond reproach. I wholeheartedly concur wth the remarks already made about their deserving of our warmest praise for their assistance in bringing the organisation into operation.
While that confidence and support are wholehearted on this side of the House, I consider it prudent, in the general public interest, that the board's operations and results should be subject to an annual report to the United Kingdom Parliament. Can the Minister give us any information about what is intended in that respect?
Article 10 of the agreement was referred to by the noble Baroness. It relates to the advisory committee. How will the advisory committee be made up? The Article mentions two representatives of the Government. Are those ministerial representatives or representatives from the Civil Service or the secretariat? I again concur with my noble friends on this side of the House and give the order my wholehearted support.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office (Lord Lyell): My Lords, I am sure that we are all grateful for the attention to detail which has been paid by all noble Lords who have spoken in this little debate. We are also grateful for the welcome that has been given to the fund. Your Lordships will agree that that is very much in line with all the efforts that have been made to set up the fund. I am sure that the report of your Lordships' debate will go out to the United States, Canada and New Zealand. I am also sure that what has been said will be carefully noted.
The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies said that he wished to ask me a few questions. As we all know, he does his homework thoroughly. I shall attempt to fill him in tonight, but if I miss anything I shall accept his invitation to write to him. First, he asked about the fund and its legal personality. As he pointed out, the fund's legal personality is provided for in Article 5(2) of the agreement. That provision will come into force when the steps necessary for the implementation of that sub-paragraph are completed. That will be when the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom have completed the various procedures. In our case that involves the approval of the draft in your Lordships' House and another place where I understand that has already taken place.
The order then has to be submitted to the Privy Council. The date of the coming into operation of the order then has to be gazetted in London, Edinburgh and Belfast. That date will be agreed with the Government of the Republic. I hope that gives some indication of the fund's legal personality. I understand
1142
that for constitutional reasons the agreement will have to be submitted to the Dail and an order on the question of legal capacity and tax exemptions would be made. That order is subject to annulment by the Dail. That is the procedure for the Republic of Ireland. The United Kingdom procedure is as I explained it to the noble Lord. I understand that the important aspects of what is stated in the order and in Article 5(2), are the legal personality, legal capacity and the tax exemptions. I understand that the legal capacity and the tax exemptions are needed to make the order bite. Does the noble Lord wish to intervene? I see him looking keenly.
Lord Prys-Davies: My Lords, can the Minister assist? Can he give us an indication, in terms of weeks or months, as to when the board will be active in the market place?
Lord Lyell: My Lords, I was coming to that matter. I was snared by the legal procedures, the legal personality, the legal capacity and the tax exemptions. If the noble Lord has any further points on that perhaps I may write to him.
The noble Lord has raised a number of points, and I hope to cover most of them. We hope that the fund will come into being as quickly as possible. We hope that all the necessary procedures will he completed here and in the Republic before Christmas. I understand that that is the target date.
The noble Lord asked when we might start the fund moving. I understand that the board will invite people with commercial experience, especially in the international field, to participate in the management of the two companies which are mentioned in Article 9. Those companies will identify risk capital needs for ventures of existing or indeed new commercial and industrial enterprises. They will provide, on sound commercial criteria, equity capital or loans. The companies' aims will he to stimulate viable and self-sustaining growth in the private sector of both parts of the island of Ireland.
A query was raised about the split in Article 3 on page 4. I quote from the agreement contained in Cmnd. 9908:
"Because of the special problems in Northern Ireland associated with the instability of recent years, approximately three-quarters of the resources of the Fund shall be spent there".
I hope that this will be of some help to the noble Lord. There was also a query about the board and its independence. The noble Lord, Lord Blease, was interested in this matter. I stress that the board is independent. Any question of the Government's involvement in the administration of the board will be covered by the independence of the board.
I have to say that the Government will have the right to offer advice through an advisory committee. We expect that there will be detailed work to evaluate possible projects. It would normally be the case—I stress this advisedly—that this would be carried out by government departments. But the board would be free to seek any other advice it wished. The board has power to enter into agreements with any donor consistent with the provisions of the agreement provided that neither government has raised objection.

1143
There was also a query about the composition of the board and its administration. If your Lordships House follows another place by approving these arrangements, we would hope to appoint the seven people—Mr. Charles Brett and the other six members—who, I understand, have been designated. There are, however, further procedures that have to be gone through before we can say that they, are in practice members of the hoard and that the hoard will be functioning.
The fund will be administered by the board. The board, appointed jointly by the two governments, will serve according to terms and conditions agreed by the two governments. I was asked when we might see legislation passed in the Republic of Ireland. I had said that this would be achieved by, Christmas. I have now another note which says "In the very near future". I hope that this covers the query. Another question related to offices and manpower. Meetings will be held initially at various venues. There will be no permanent offices. The meetings are likely to be held in Belfast or Dublin but there will be no permanent offices for the holding of meetings. The meetings will take place on an ad hoc basis. They will be held initially at various venues.
The noble Lord, Lord Hampton—we are grateful to him for his remarks—asked about the amount of the fund. We have so far received definite commitments from the United States of 50 million United States dollars, as my noble friend stressed, and 10 million Canadian dollars over the next 10 years. Half the sum from Canada will, I understand. be in the form of loan contributions. New Zealand is contributing a sum of 300,000 New Zealand dollars. I am advised, too. that other countries may wish to contribute. At the moment we have those three amounts.
The United States Congress has also approved an authorisation Bill that provides for a contribution of 120 million United States dollars in the period up to 1988. The sum of 50 million United States dollars has already been approved and appropriated in the United States fiscal year, ending, I understand, on 30th September this year. The Bill will authorise another 35 million United States dollars in the year to 30th September 1987 and a further 35 million United States dollars in the year to 30th September 1988. I hope that this information assists the noble Lord. I was asked how the sum might be used. This will be for the board to decide on the basis of each application. Various persons and organisations will be able to apply to the board. Indeed, we hope that they will apply for finance from the fund.
In general, we expect the fund to give priority, as my noble friend stressed, on a value for money basis, in four main areas. The first is the stimulation of private sector investment. The second relates to projects of benefit to people in both parts of Ireland, north and south. One example is improved communications. Then there is greater co-operation in economic and educational research. The third covers projects to improve the quality and conditions of life for people in areas facing serious economic or perhaps social problems. The fourth includes projects to provide wider horizons for people from both traditions in Ireland including opportunities for industrial training
1144
and work experience overseas. That is a fairly wide spread of examples of what we see the fund being used for. But decisions will be taken by the board. We place our trust in its considerable judgment.
We are grateful for the support shown by the noble Lord, Lord Blease. I am advised that there will be an audit, although whether there will be a formal report to your Lordships, or indeed to Parliament, I am not able to say today.
5.30 p.m.
Lord Prys-Davies: My Lords, that information is given, I believe, in Article 12 of the agreement.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, I am indebted to the noble Lord. There will be an opportunity to present an annual report that will also go to donors to the fund. I understand that there will be a professional audit and that this will be the responsibility of the board itself. I hope that these remarks complete any answers to queries raised by noble Lords. If any points have been missed. I shall write to noble Lords. I commend the order to your Lordships.
Lord Blease: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, I have not had an opportunity to consult my noble friend on the Front Bench. I must say, however, that I am less happy now than I was when the order was introduced. I am particularly, concerned about the Minister's reference to ad hoc arrangements for the board. I feel sure. knowing fairly well those who will comprise its membership, that they will be unhappy with an ad hoc arrangement over meeting places. There was also mention of the manner in which the Government would interfere with decisions of the board. I uphold the right of the Government to correct a subordinate body. But the manner in which the noble Lord described the position did not accord, I believe, with the spirit of intent that should exist between the two governments as contained in the agreement. I hope that when I read the Minister's remarks I shall see them in a different light.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, I should like to place this matter beyond doubt. I have already stressed twice, but will stress again, that the board is independent. I did, however, say that the Government will have the right to offer advice. I hope that the noble Lord will take that remark in the spirit in which I put it forward. I do not believe that there will be heavy-handed advice or anything approaching the darker thoughts that may have been in the noble Lord's, or anyone else's, mind. We would have the right—this does not mean that either or both governments would in fact carry this out—to offer advice through the advisory committee. But again we would expect the detailed work to be evaluated by government departments. That is usually the case.
However, I stress once again that the board will be free to seek and to take other advice wherever it wishes. The board will have the power to enter into any agreement with the donor which is consistent with the provisions of the agreement: that is, provided that neither government has raised any objection. I think that is also consistent. But there is certainly no question of either government interfering with any decisions of the board.

1145
The noble Lord asked about this matter. I stress again that accommodation will be provided but we do not think that a permanent headquarters would be appropriate, especially after what I have said.
Lord Blease: My Lords, that is much better than ad hoc arrangements.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, I reiterate what I said earlier. But there is no question of either government interfering with the decision of the board. I hope that that reassures the noble Lord.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Highlands and Islands Development Board Area Extension Order 1986
5.41 p.m.
The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Lord Clenarthur)The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Lord Clenarthur) rose to move, That the order laid before the House on 21st October he approved. [33rd Report from the Joint Committee]
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move that the Highlands and Islands Development Board Area Extension Order 1986 which was laid before your Lordships on 21 st October be agreed to.
The purpose of this order is to extend the area in which the Highlands and Islands Development Board can exercise its statutory powers and responsibilities. The areas to be included form part of the district of Moray in Grampian Region.
Your Lordships may recall that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland announced the extension on 6th June following a request by the Committee on Scottish affairs in another place, in their report published in March 1985, in which they asked the Government to consider altering the board's boundaries to include areas of Grampian, Central and Tayside Regions which have natural links with the board's area. Many representations have been made in favour of an extension of the hoard's area and I can assure your Lordships that these views have been very carefully considered.
My right honourable friend is required by Section 1(2) of the Highlands and Islands Development (Scotland) Act 1965 to have regard to the character of the areas to be included and their proximity to the board's existing area in considering any extension to the board's area.
Six main criteria are used. To be included within the extended boundary any area should be contiguous with the existing area, have close economic linkages with the Highlands, have an unemployment rate which is at least as bad as the average for the board's area and which has persisted for some time, have a narrow employment structure with considerable dependence on primary activities and with limited development of manufacturing, possess a population structure reflecting characteristics of out-migration and ageing, and be remote from service centres and markets.
My right honourable friend made a most careful examination against these criteria of the areas
1146
adjoining the HIDB boundary. Although some of the adjoining areas met some of the criteria, most of the areas did not have natural links with the board's area, nor did they display similar characteristics. Furthermore they did not show levels of social and economic disadvantage which were as bad or worse than the average for the Highlands and Islands. My right honourable friend therefore concluded that only in the case of those parts of Moray referred to in the order was the combination of circumstances sufficient to justify an extension of the boundary.
Perhaps I may now turn to the areas to be included within the extended boundary. There can, I think, be no argument about the claims of Inveravon and Kirkmichael in Upper Moray. Both parishes were considered for inclusion in Highland Region at the time of local government reorganisation, although they were eventually excluded. The area suffers from a number of problems similar to those experienced within the existing area: extreme remoteness, sparsity of population, high altitude, a high proportion of poor quality land and, apart from agriculture, a dependence on the whisky industry and tourism.
The other parishes in Upper Moray, while more populous, also have a high proportion of poor land, an even greater dependence on whisky distilling, shortage of alternative industrial employment and a poorly developed tourist trade. As your Lordships will appreciate, the whisky industry has been undergoing a significant contraction in the area and tourism continues to suffer from a short season. The weakness of the economic base, therefore, alongside the natural disadvantages of Upper Moray make it a prime candidate for inclusion in the HIDB area.
The problems of the Forres area are somewhat different and are primarily economic. There is an extremely high unemployment rate, the manufacturing base is narrow and very weak, and the service industry is suffering from increased competition especially from Inverness and Elgin. In addition, the southern part comprises a very large area of poor quality land.
We believe that the natural disadvantages and the economic problems of these areas are best dealt with by the kind of comprehensive measures which are within the powers of the Highlands and Islands Development Board. We are also satisfied that the proposals are in line with both the letter and spirit of the requirements of the Act to which I referred earlier. Also under the terms of the Treaty of Rome the Government have to inform the Commission of any intention to extend the regional aids administered by the Highlands and Islands Development Board. The Commission has no objections to the changes proposed.
The decision has been taken after a most careful consideration of all the relevant factors and all the representations made. Inevitably there will be disappointment among those who are not to be included in the extended area. The Government recognise the support for an extension to include the whole of Moray District and other areas. But these other areas do not exhibit the same combination—and I stress the word combination—of adverse conditions which would justify their inclusion within the HIDB

1147
boundary. That is why the extension order is restricted in the way that it is. I commend the order to your Lordships. I beg to move.
Moved, that the order laid before the House on 21st October be approved. [33rd Report from the Joint Committee]—(Lord Glenarthur.)
5.45 p.m.
Lord Ross of Marnock: My Lords, I take a rather paternal interest in the Highlands and Islands Development Board. It has just come of age. It was 1965 when the measure was eventually passed. I can well remember the kind of speech to which I had to listen from the Conservatives of those days. One of the arguments was that it was rampant socialism. When one thinks that the wide-ranging general functions of the board were preparing, concerting, promoting, assisting and undertaking measures for economic and social development in the Highlands and Islands, one can well imagine how Conservatives in those days felt about it. But, worse than that, it was characterised as Marxism. Then we had the howl from certain people when the power was provided to extend the areas. I remember a speech suggesting that it was creeping socialism to cover the whole of Scotland with this Marxist organisation. I also suggested at that time that if the speaker was worried about it we would take out Argyll, the area that he represented, but the response was not very forthcoming.
It is now 21 years after 1965. In, I think, 1975 we first made a dent into the old county of Nairn. The suggestion then was that the whole area covered by the new Highland Region should come within it. We also took in the Island of Arran which is virtually an extension of the Highlands.
In 1979 another change was made with the islands, first of Bute and Arran; and then Cumbrae was also included. We have here another extension order. However it is laudable for those who inspired the original Act to find the Minister telling us that people were disappointed that they did not achieve the protection of the Highlands and Islands Development Board. One can look at that both ways because if it needs the protection of the Highlands and Islands Board it shows that the economy of that area is not in the best of health. It will come as a surprise to many in your Lordships' House that Dallas has now become so impoverished it has to have the protection of the Highlands and Islands Development Board. I speak of Dallas as one of the 13 parishes included in the area.
The next time noble Lords hear these fatal words about blockages of snow on that best known of all roads. Cork Bridge to Tomimtoul, they will know that, thanks to this order, the greater part of that road is going to be in the Highlands and Islands Development Board area.
I should like to congratulate the Government on listening to the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs. This was the last of the recommendations that they made after a very searching inquiry into the Highlands and Islands Development Board and the exercise of their functions over 20 years. This was the last recommendation that they made. The Minister was right to express his regrets about some people being left out because there were demands that the Upper
1148
Banffshire area should he included along with what has always been considered a real part of the Highlands, the upper Perthshire area which is the area that Rob Roy MacGregor flourished in. These regions are not included.
I listened with interest to what the Minister said about this. He will appreciate that once one draws a line and extends that line further and further to the East (as he has been doing) then one gets complaints from the people who are just the other side of that line. One must remember that when we talk about the Highlands and Islands the area itself is not all that remote. The Spey Valley, which this area covers, is about two and a half hours by road from Glasgow and about two hours from Edinburgh. One can understand the feelings of those just on the other side who have been left out. If additional help is given in the one area and there is the possibility of attracting industry or development of some kind, then the 13 parishes which have now been included have a considerable advantage over the other areas. I can understand why at least one of the Members in another place was concerned about how his area will be affected. I think it is inevitable.
However, what concerns me more is what was said in the report of the Select Committee. The Select Committee were so concerned about the rural areas in Scotland. namely, the difficulties in areas which may not be adjacent to, or contiguous with the Highlands and Islands Development Board area, that they suggested that a rural development fund ought to be started in Scotland:
"Accordingly, we recommend the establishment of a new Rural Development Fund, to he administered by the SDA with an annual budget of at least £25 million".
What have the Government to say about that? It was stepping outside their remit to consider an area as wide as the rest of Scotland. The Government have recognised that the board's area was already very extensive and a further expansion would merely dilute the effectiveness of the board's financial and manpower resorces. I can hear the Government saying. "Yea" to that.
One should remember that when the searchlight was brought on to the board's finances by the Select Committee, it was discovered that the support from the Government had increased barely enough to cover inflation, but not enough to cover the changes that the Government were making in relation to regional policy. What the SDA could do within the Highland area was greatly reduced due to changes made in relation to the assisted areas policy intermediate areas. Nine areas were completely dropped. It was suggested that the Government would need to increase funds.
Having discussed these changes the Select Committee states at paragraph 154:
"In the light of these figures we consider the underlying level of the board's buget may need to he further increased in future years when the full effects of the assisted area changes become apparent; and so we recommend".
However the Government did not make any increase. Now one hears that the Government are giving them more responsibilities, by adding a new area, the Grampian region. There are 13 parishes, which have the difficulties outlined by the Minister.

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However, I understand that the Government will not make a single penny more available to the Highlands and Islands Development Board. Therefore those who are being left out need not he concerned that they will miss anything, if the Government will not spend any more money or if they are going to rob some other area in order to do something there.
Perhaps I may repeat what the Select Committee actually said about many of these areas, namely, that they should increase development of the more remote areas, and the islands which felt that they had been left out. That was the finding of the department, and not that they should have another area within the mainland. I shall not object to that and I would not object to it, provided the Government face up to the realities. If one says something is to be done, then the means for it to be done must he provided.
There is only one other point I wish to cover. I was very very interested to hear what was said about the board itself, remembering what was said at the start of it and the hopes expressed. The committee were disposed to discount glowing tributes about the work of the board. There were tributes from the local authorities and other public representative organisations. The CBI considered the board had made a significant contribution to the economy of the region. The STUC, the National Farmers Union of Scotland, said the hoard had made a significant and vital contribution to the maintenance of employment in the remote rural areas. The Highland Regional Council said that it had developed the highest regard for the work of the Highlands and Islands Development Board. No wonder the committee said in paragraph 149:
"For a Government agency to establish this sort of reputation and relationship with the people in this area is a considerable achievement".
I too can understand why certain of these areas are disappointed because they are not being given the protection of the Highlands and Islands Development Board. However, I say that if we want to retain the reputation of the hoard, it must be given the funds to do the job that the Government hope it will do. I anxiously wait to hear from the Minister of State. No doubt he has been throwing his weight around in Scotland, and in the Scottish Office, hopefully effectively. so he will he able to tell us "Yes, we shall get the money to do the job".
6 p.m.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, I have listened with great interest to the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, and he deserves great credit for his achievements in the past because he was certainly the gynaecologist who delivered the board and gave birth to it. However. I think I can claim that the Scottish Liberal Party was in at the conception, which is normally the better part of the procedure. I remember also that we had published very good booklets and had done a great deal of work. The most the Labour Party could do at that time before the election was to rush out a little sheet of black and white paper copying our vital statistics. However, we were very glad of it and very grateful to Mr. Ross (as he then was) for delivering the baby which we happily thought we had conceived.
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I must say that the extension is interesting, right and proper. However, the way in which we set about it then was entirely wrong. It was rather like the making of certain African states. We took the counties which were called Highland counties and put them into the Highland board. Great areas of Aberdeenshire, Angus, Kincardine and Perthshire, which were purely Highland in their makeup, in their land and in their difficulties, were all omitted simply because they were not in what were called the Highland counties. I think that this is rather a small extension.
It is curious that the coastal parishes have been included. There is some rather good land there. For example. just beside Pluscarden there is a priory, and priories were always sited on good land. In the old days the monks knew a thing or two. There is the area of the Cabrach; it is one of the places where farmers on good arable land wake up screaming in the night if they ever dream that they are farming in the Cabrach. It is the worst sort of nightmare that one can have. It is absolutely right and proper that that should he included. The famous Cock Bridge is not included and Glenbuchat is not included. All the land down by Braemar is not included.
It is high time that we had a logical extension to that area because the whole of our rural area will need a great deal of government work. If agriculture goes the way of reducing labour and everything else, as is the case, we shall need an extension to cover the whole of our countryside in order to keep the people there; we shall need help to establish small businesses and tourist areas. That sort of thing must happen throughout Scotland, and indeed in many parts of England as well. Therefore, I obviously welcome the extension, which is right and proper. However, it does not tackle the real problem of the Highland area down the east side of Scotland. At some time or other that will have to be included.
Even if the money available is not increased, the extension will be good for this area. Certainly a great deal of money has been spent in the rest of the Highlands, and if the board is as good as we think it is, that should he bearing fruit. A little money could certainly be spent on new areas, even though the money available will not be increased. However, the Government will have to increase the money: they cannot go on cheeseparing and expect to get results. Therefore, I welcome the small advance. I do not think that it tackles the major problem of the Highland area on the east side, but we must be grateful for smallish mercies.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I am grateful to both noble Lords for their comments. To a large extent I think that the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, answered the substance of the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, when the noble Lord, Lord Mackie, described his feelings that the east side of the country ought perhaps to be included together with the West Kincardine and Deeside District. The difficulty of actually meeting the needs in line with what the Act describes and the criteria which I gave earlier was pointed to by the noble Lord, Lord Ross. For example, West Kincardine and Deeside District is not contiguous to the Highlands and Islands Development Board area. It does not have economic

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linkages with that area. Unemployment is lower than in the HIDB area. The economic structure may be weaker than that in the HIDB area, but the ageing population is rather greater there than in the HIDB area. Therefore, there are a whole number of different factors which point to it not being included, and other arguments apply to the noble Lord's own part of the country.
I should like to clarify one point for the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock. I believe that Upper Banffshire is included because it has been renamed Upper Murray. I could give a number of reasons to explain why Upper Perthshire is not included, but they are largely along the same lines of not matching the criteria which apply to. the other areas to which I referred just now.
When we consider the finance of the HIDB it is important to remember that there has been a significant increase in expenditure by the board over the past seven years or so. It has increased by some 16 per cent. in real terms. It is also important to bear in mind that for every £1 that the board invests, it attracts £3 of private sector investment. Therefore, to that extent one is not talking about pure finance to the board; one is talking about the board being a catalyst to attract other finance. I believe that that in part answers the noble Lord. Lord Ross.
Ministers have consistently said that decisions as to the level of funds to be made available to the board cannot be taken outwith the context of public expenditure as a whole. In 1986–87 the board will spend upwards of some £35 million fostering the social and economic wellbeing of the Highlands and Islands, and it is satisfied that that substanial sum will enable it to carry out its responsibilities within the enlarged area. It is a matter for the board to adjust to that extension in the way in which it would be expected to and in a way which I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Ross, would have expected it to do when he set it all up nearly 21 years ago.
As to the rural development fund for Scotland, to which the noble Lord, Lord Ross, referred, we concluded that a rural fund would be unlikely to offer any significant benefits to rural areas over and above the present very extensive measures of support. We are convinced that the future interests of rural areas are better served by maintaining the present structures of assistance rather than by creating new administrative machinery, such as the rural fund. The range of assistance already available to rural areas is very much in excess of the £25 million proposed by the Scottish Affairs Committee as an annual budget for the fund.
The board was established—and I certainly acknowledge the responsibility which the noble Lord, Lord Ross, has towards it—to deal with the fragile Highland economies. It maintains a certain amount of flexibility to try to deal with that particular area. The noble Lord referred to quotations by my party in the debates that set up the Highland board and said that it had been referred to by some as "rampant socialism". I am certainly very pleased that I have the responsibility in the Scottish Office for looking after that particular part of the world. It is a big responsibility and I have a great deal to learn about it, so I certainly would not start throwing my weight
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around. I have to get around and learn about it before I can play a fuller part, but that I certainly hope to do soon. However, in relation to such quotations, I expect that one day I shall be able to remind the noble Lord, Lord Ross, of claims he has made about this party's legislation, and I shall try to carry out my researches into that.
However, I think that this extension will benefit the areas that have been designated. I believe that it will help them enormously. I believe that the Highland board is perfectly capable of coping with the financial situation. Of course, there are many who would like more money for this sort of thing, but the fact is that they have to use their own resources and spread them around in a way which will best suit them. They have to do it in line with public expenditure constraints and public expenditure arrangements as a whole. I believe that this is a beneficial order and I commend it to your Lordships.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Domestic Heating Standards
6.10 p.m.
Lord Ezra Lord Ezra rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are satisfied with the standard of heating in British homes, particularly in the cases of elderly people and of people on low incomes.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I submit that the Question that I have put down tonight is relevant in two regards. First, it is relevant because we are once again at the approach of winter and, in spite of long experience of the subject, we seem to suffer from excessive cold in our homes, particularly in the homes of the elderly and of people on low incomes. Secondly, I believe that this is an appropriate subject for us to discuss because it raises a long-term issue. Much has been done in recent years to improve the standards of heating in this country. The initiative taken by the Department of Energy in my opinion is to be commended, but a great deal remains to be done
In the statistics that the department has put out as part of this campaign, it estimated that some £3 billion can be saved by more efficient usage of energy in the homes of Britain. Furthermore, in an analysis of insulation standards, it has been shown that of 14 million homes with cavity walls only 2 million are insulated, and that could make a great deal of difference to heat loss. One in 13 houses have not insulated their hot water cylinders; that is, there are still some hot water cylinders that have not been insulated. A high proportion of houses still do not have adequate loft insulation, and 12 million have no draught stripping. These are all figures that I have taken from documents issued as part of the energy saving campaign.
It is clear, therefore, that there is a long way to go to achieve reasonable standards of energy efficiency in the homes in which we live. How far we can go has been demonstrated by the Energy World Exhibition at Milton Keynes. A number of houses have been built there by different contractors and organisations, including the fuel industries, to demonstrate how, by keeping to reasonably traditional forms of housebuilding, energy costs can be reduced to one half and sometimes even to one third or one quarter of

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what they are now. Thus not only are we talking about weather stripping and insulating existing houses, but there is a longer term challenge, which is to build new houses that are much more efficient.
I have been in touch with the major fuel industries supplying fuel to the domestic market to find out how they are seeking to deal with the problem. I can say that in all cases they are taking this very seriously. They consider it their job not only to sell their fuel but also to see that those who use it use it efficiently. I think that it is desirable and satisfactory that they take that point of view.
In the case of coal, for example, the industry uses the Solid Fuel Advisory Service as a means of providing free technical advice to those who use its product. It has issued a leaflet entitled "All about keeping warm", which brings people up to date with the facilities offered. In the case of the gas industry, there has been for some years now a project known as "Gas Warm Homes", which seeks to provide the most efficient way of warming houses using gas and Heat Saver schemes. The industry has recently been experimenting with modular heating systems, together with good insulation, to bring heating costs down even further.
In the case of the electricity industry, a scheme has been innovated that is still on trial entitled "The budget warmth system". That is directed particuarly at the elderly on low incomes. The system aims at achieving an adequate level of heating a main room, a living room: it is remotely controlled from the electricity centre, the amount of heating provided varies according to the weather and the cost is spread equally through the year. This has a great deal to commend it. I believe that it is intended to extend the scheme to different parts of the country in due course.
In spite of those efforts—the efforts of the energy efficiency office and of the fuel supply industries—in my opinion there is still more to be done if we are to tackle the problem of achieving better warmth and more economic heating in our homes. Let me raise first the question of heating standards. Until we have a firmly determined and officially recognised standard of heating to go for, we do not know what we are aiming at. It is generally considered in all the literature at which I have looked that a desirable level of heating in a pain room where people sit and are, therefore, not active is 21 degrees C or 70 degrees F. If that is so—it is certainly so in the case of older people—I should have thought we ought to say that that is what we should aim for, and we must provide the facilities for that to be achieved in the case of people with low incomes. There are corresponding levels on which most people agree for other parts of the home.
Secondly, a system of home energy audits was tried out, I believe, some years ago. The intention was to encourage people to have an inquiry made into the total heating operation in their homes; that is, not only the heat source itself, the number of radiators, etc., but to consider the heat losses and to undertake the necessary insulation. These total energy audits, if related to agreed standards of heating, could do a great deal to transform the comfort of British homes and to inform the public exactly what they should be doing.
Next there are building regulations that affect the capability of new structures to be more energy efficient. I understand that these are now being reconsidered in relation to energy efficiency. It would he helpful if the noble Baroness could let us know when these regulations are likely to he published, and reassure us that they will lay down improved heating standards compared with the present regulations.
On the subject of standards, the British Standards Institution is bringing out codes and guides for energy efficiency in buildings. I understand that a housing code is expected early in 1987. This could be very helpful in determining the standards at which we should be aiming.
Finally, I wish to refer to the question of home improvement grants and home insulation grants. There have been a number of changes in the way these grants have operated in recent years. When the home improvement grants were initially introduced in 1982, the) were freely available up to a level of 90 per cent. of the cost where they were relevant. This was reduced in 1984 to 75 per cent. At the same time, however, local authorities were restricted in the amount of capital that they had available and, therefore, the grants are less easily available to carry out the improvements where required in suitable cases
The same is true of home insulation grants. There have been reported to be difficulties in certain areas in getting these grants even where people are entitled to them. All this needs to be looked at. I contend that in the generality of houses if some of the things I have mentioned were done in a determined way—setting down agreed standards and providing the facilities for achieving those standards—we could translate into practice the very good advice being put out under the energy efficiency programme.
I should now like to turn to the specific case of those who are aged and on low incomes. First of all, to deal with the aged, it is always harrowing to read about those who may have died from the cold. That this should happen in our country, a country which is highly developed, which has more than a sufficiency of energy and which has an enormous amount of energy technology at its disposal, is disturbing.
Another of the difficulties in tackling this problem is that we do not know precisely the size of it. The medical certificates where death occurs would indicate that they are relatively few. One is too many, but there are of the order of about 500 in a normal winter. However, there is little doubt that hypothermia contributes to other ailments and can be an important aggravation when people are suffering from other diseases, particularly of respiration.
If one looks at it another way and compares the mortality rates of elderly people as between summer and winter, we find that there is a much larger difference in Britain than in other developed countries. I have taken for comparison countries which have noticeably colder weather than our own, such as Canada and Sweden. Whereas the swing in Britain between summer and winter is of the order of 24 per cent. on the latest figures that have been supplied to me by Age Concern, in those two countries it is of the order of 6 per cent. I am told that in Denmark it is pretty well even. Therefore, it looks as though, while

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they have a colder climate, we have colder homes. This is a problem we have to try to resolve. It is a serious social problem, and we should not still he suffering from it.
It is estimated that there are 6 million homes occupied by people living on supplementary benefit, and included in that 6 million are 2 million pensioners. Therefore we have the order of magnitude of the problem. We know what we are talking about. We know that it is still very serious. We need now to mobilise the necessary resources and effort in order to deal with it once and for all over a finite period.
There are two ways of dealing with the problem. They are complementary and ought to be taken together as part of a total strategy. The first and the most important way is to make sure that these homes are supplied with an adequate source of heat, well insulated. It is far better to do that, in my opinion, than to apply an ever-increasing second solution, which is to keep on having to give people more and more grants to survive the winter because that does not solve the problem at all. It may save them in the short term, but it does not solve the long-term problem. But the two have to he seen together.
Let us see what is happening under these two headings at the present moment and consider how we can achieve greater and faster progress. In the case of insulation there is an organisation known as the Neighbourhood Energy Agency, with which I happen to be closely concerned and which was started in 1975 by two energetic and resourceful persons, Mr. David Green and Mr. Robert Davies. They started it up in Newcastle as a small venture of a voluntary nature, and now I am glad to say, with government and private support, they are managing to insulate at a rate approaching 200,000 houses a year.
That is a remarkable achievement. All these are the homes of people on supplementary benefit, and a large number of them are the homes of older people. I have been around some of these houses. I have seen what a massive difference it makes to people to have a suitable degree of insulation, which they could never put in themselves or even afford. It can transform the whole situation. But Neighbourhood Energy Action could not undertake to do the whole 6 million homes. At its rate of progress, even if it doubled up, it would still take the best part of 20 or 30 years, and that is far too long. We cannot talk in those terms.
I submit, in view of the proven benefit that can be achieved by a suitable degree of insulation in the homes of people on supplementary benefit, that additional means be devised for promoting this work. I think that we ought to have the aim of making sure that these 6 million homes are suitably insulated within a period of five years as an objective to try once and for all to deal with the problem.
Secondly, as I mentioned, there is the question of payments. There are two sorts of payment for people who cannot afford to pay for their heating. One is the heating addition, which is suitably increased for people over the age of 80, and there is the severe weather payment. These two between them ought to be able to help people to meet their additional heating bills, particularly if they also have better insulation.
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Unfortunately over recent years particularly the severe weather payments have been subject to a complex system, and it has been difficult for these older people to understand the system, let alone to claim under it. I tried in preparing my remarks for tonight to work through the procedures, and I must admit that I should have found it difficult to know exactly what I had to do.
Fortunately for the coming winter the system has been somewhat simplified, and a weekly sum will be provided once the weather temperature falls below freezing point. I think it is minus 1½ degrees centigrade, so that makes it easier. But I should like to propose that the recommendations made by Age Concern be seriously considered by the Government. They are to simplify the method by which the older, poorer people can be given the necessary financial assistance.
I should like to remind your Lordships that there are other countries which have had to deal with this problem. One of them is the United States of America. I should like to mention briefly how it set about it. It has two financial schemes for which its Department of Energy is responsible, and so they are integrated. The schemes are, first of all, the low income weatherisation programme. I am sorry to mention such a word at this hour. It means insulation, but the Americans call it weatherisation. This is to install energy conservation measures, and they regard that as the more important part of the assistance. Then they have the low income energy assistance programme, which is to help people with their fuel bills. They strongly stimulate the energy providers to top up these arrangements. This has a simplicity which surpasses the methods that we adopt here.
I am very concerned that the various measures to deal with the problem are handled by three separate departments in Britain. They are the Department of Energy, the Department of the Environment and the Department of Health and Social Security. They all aim to do the same thing; namely, to improve heating standards and to make them bearable for people in reduced circumstances, particularly the elderly, but they do it in different ways with an apparent lack of effective co-ordination. I submit that there is a case for the Government to consider bringing them all together so that the whole approach is subject to a unified strategy. One department should handle the matter. Perhaps the Department of Energy is the appropriate one to take on the role of seeing that the physical improvements are carried out and that the necessary payments that have to be made to help people, in spite of the physical improvements, are related to the rest of the strategy. I feel we should gain enormously by doing that and above all by having a simplified system that the elderly and those on low incomes can understand.
I conclude by issuing your Lordships an invitation. Between 21st November and 1st December there will be a week of action on cold homes which is supported by Age Concern, the Child Poverty Action Group, Help the Aged and a large number of other bodies including Neighbourhood Energy Action. During that week it is hoped that 400 Members of Parliament and Members of your Lordships' House will be prepared to draughtproof in their constituencies or home areas the home of somebody aged and on a low income. I am

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sure you are all skilled in this craft, but in case you are not there would he somebody on hand to assist you. I shall certainly he following up this oral invitation by sending a proper invitation and asking where you would like to perform this worthwhile task. You would know that at the end of that week there would be another 400 people in their homes who would he able to go through the coming winter with a much greater sense of assurance that they will be warmer and more comfortable than they were last winter.
6.33 p.m.
Lord Auckland: My Lords. not for the first time the House will be extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, for drawing the attention of your Lordships to a very serious social problem. The pity of it is that there is not a much fuller House and that there are not more speakers because this is a subject of the utmost importance. The House will have been particularly interested in the noble Lord's final invitation. I shall be returning from Australia on 1st December with a parliamentary delegation. No doubt there the temperature will be higher than here, but I hope. even on 1st December, to be of some help to the noble Lord because I believe this is an extremely resourceful and practical step to get Members of both Houses of Parliament involved in what is a very important matter.
I should like to approach this matter from a slightly different angle from the noble Lord, who we all know had a very distinguished period as chairman of the National Coal Board: so he is very much in tune with these problems. I declare my own interest as an honorary vice-president of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents. At least two distinguished past presidents are members of your Lordships' House and they have been very active in this field. One of the problems has been not so much the standard of the heating but the quality of the heating.
I remember many years ago moving the Bill on oil heating which was sponsored in another place by the late Sir Gerald Nabarro. I wonder whether my noble friend the Minister—I gave her notice that I would he raising the question of safety—has any evidence that there are still some of these old and dangerous oil heaters in some residences where old people and people on low incomes live? We still read of accidents to children and of old people being burned to death or suffocated by faulty heating. I do not have the experience of the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, in the technicalities of these matters, but it is very much a matter of concern to local authorities, to health authorities and to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents to avoid some of these accidents in people's own homes which can be caused through heating which is itself substandard. I wonder whether my noble friend has any information on that.
So far as residences are concerned, in sheltered homes and others, are night storage heaters sufficiently used? Is there a grant for night storage heaters, which are just about the safest form of heating because children cannot turn them over? We have them in our own home. They are much too heavy to overturn, whereas electric fires, even the modern ones with guards, can he overturned. If they fall on to a carpet one can imagine what disasters can take place.
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It is the multi-occupied homes, both in London and in the less salubrious areas, where many of these accidents occur. There are often many people living in one or two rooms with heaters which are just not safe. I believe this matter is germane to the question which the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, has put.
A word about conservation: the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, mentioned Scandinavia, a part of the world of which I have some knowledge, notably Finland. I have been to Finland several times. It is a fact that most homes there are double if not treble glazed and, far from suffering from hypothermia, people can suffer the other way round. It is a fact too that in Scandinavia it is a much drier cold. It can he minus 40 degrees centigrade and will feel rather less cold than minus 1 on a really cold and damp London winter evening or earlier in the day. I wonder whether the Government, all governments, have borne in mind that we in this country, particularly in the cities, suffer from a damp rather than a dry cold.
The noble Lord mentioned insulation and draught proofing. I wonder whether the Minister can give the House some information as to what grants are available to old people, particularly old age pensioners and people on low incomes, to avail themselves of these amenities, particularly as they not only offset hypothermia and arthritis, which is a very common complaint among old people, but also help to conserve energy.
I hope very much that this subject will be returned to, perhaps in the next Session. because, as the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, has said, winter is approaching. Last winter we had a spell of extremely cold weather, a number of old people suffered and a number died from hypothermia. While these tragedies cannot be completely avoided, I believe that any government can save money, because they can save hospital beds, if they can really tackle this subject which the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, has so adequately raised.
6.41 p.m.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Auckland, I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Ezra for raising this Unstarred Question tonight. I had not intended to join in this debate until some informatin reached me this morning with which I shall deal in a few minutes. Since I am speaking, I think it would be right to say that the word "hypothermia". which is now frequently used, I first heard many years ago. I think it was actually coined by Dr. Geoffrey Taylor, who at that time was a candidate for the Yeovil constituency of a political party that I do not need to name. I am not making a narrow political point here but I should not like the opportunity to go by without remembering Geoffrey Taylor, who campaigned on this subject for many years in the days when nobody was taking a great interest. It was he who managed to raise our consciousness of this great problem. It is a serious problem and it continues to be a serious problem. I am grateful to my noble friend for putting such positive solutions in front of your Lordships tonight.
I hope that when the noble Baroness the Minister comes to reply she will give a very clear "No" to the question, whether the Government are satisfied. I cannot believe that anybody can be satisfied with the

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position as it is at the moment. Rightly, my noble friend stresses the need for insulation and particularly cavity-wall insulation, draught proofing, loft and cistern insulation. It was put to me some time ago that the way in which we deal with heating our homes in this country is like getting into a bath which is full of holes. If we want to keep the bath water hot, we simply turn on the hot tap—when it really would be much more sensible to put the plug in or to block up the holes—which is what we are doing when we are putting more and more calories into our homes and letting them leak out through the walls, the windows and the cracks. Not only is some proper solution sensible from an energy point of view but it is sensible from a jobs point of view. We have said many times that a lot of jobs could be created in the building industry by increasing the amount of insulation in our homes. This is a job which could be done by many people who at the moment are in our dole queues and who could be employed in making a useful investment in the country and at the same time saving the lives of elderly people who are exposed to hypothermia.
My noble friend rightly points to the long-term solution of this problem, but I want to draw to your Lordships attention an initiative which I heard of this morning from the local council of Adur, which is in West Sussex. It is a short-term palliative, admittedly, but nevertheless an important one, and one which one might commend to other local councils. I should be grateful if the noble Baroness would care to comment. What Adur is doing is inviting the local community to back a scheme to help protect the district's elderly from hypothermia this winter. At a policy resources committee last night, the council launched a campaign with the objective of providing a £20 fuel gift voucher to 1,500 elderly residents most at risk during this winters cold weather.
What they are trying to do is to persuade the local community, both individuals and industry, to contribute to this fund which the council will then match pound for pound. Segas and Seeboard, the electricity board and the gas undertaking, have both agreed to accept these vouchers as payments for heating bills, and the Solid Fuel Advisory Service has indicated that local businesses supplying other fuels such as oil, coal and paraffin will also accept these vouchers. I am told that they have made initial contact with Age Concern and with Warm Aid and that both organisations are enthusiastic about the scheme. The local newspaper and the local radio have both agreed to accept donations via their offices and will be working with the council to help with the publicity.
As I say, the objective is to provide 1,500 fuel gift vouchers at £20 each which will be issued in January, to selected elderly residents. The basis on which they will qualify is that people who are in receipt of unified housing benefit and/or supplementary benefit, and who also qualify for the supplementary benefit "single payment" system, will be given priority, the vouchers being issued on a descending age basis. It seems that this is a useful initiative which might well be copied by councils in other parts of the world. We have heard some pretty critical comments of local government in the last few months, particularly from the government side.
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I hope that the Minister will look at this scheme and see if it is not worthy of commendation by the Government, because it is a way in which local government, local people and local industry can get together to help to solve, at least for this winter, the problems of a number of people who are at risk. I recognise that it does not offer a long-term solution, and I commend to your Lordships the long-term ideas that my noble friend has put forward. In the meantime, I think that any palliative to get people through the winter without the risk of hypothermia is to he commended.
6.48 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, perhaps I may first compliment and express my appreciation to the noble Lord. Lord Ezra, on introducing this particular subject for debate as we start to move into the winter months. Those of us who are, as it is termed, well shod and well housed and able to provide ourselves with warm homes do not welcome winter but we do not particularly fear it because we have the capacity to cope with it. The noble Lord, Lord Ezra, gave some figures which I believe have been revealed before. He spoke of 6 million people who are not in that position. I think he said that some 2 million of them were elderly people. One would assume, therefore, that as to the other 4 million, we are talking in the main about people who are unemployed or who have to be supported by social benefits of various kinds. I would suspect that a high percentage of those particular families include small children who are also at risk.
Anybody who has been a Member of another place and has held regular surgeries, as I have, and any noble Lord who has done the same thing will know that during the winter you get very sad cases, more often than not of young women with young families who are in danger of having their electricity supply turned off simply because they do not have the money to pay their electricity bill. That situation, unfortunately, is still with us. As a nation, I do not think that we ought to be very proud of that. I am not in the main talking about people who waste electricity but about people who try their best but cannot cope and who are badly housed in houses which need a high amount of electricity or gas for heating purposes.
I shall not deal with the technical side that was given by the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, but I support everything he said. It makes absolute nonsense, when we are an energy-creative country and have more energy than perhaps most nations in the world at our disposal, that we perpetually waste more than we use. It seems nonsensical. I think there is a tremendous social case which was put by the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, and there is also a sound economic case for dealing with this as a matter of urgency—not only because it would deal with the problem and stop properties deteriorating but because it would also do something that some of us are very keen on and something which perhaps even the Government are keen on, which is to reduce unemployment. However, I do not wish to talk about that particular side of it. I should prefer to dwell in some respects on what it means to people.
The noble Lord, Lord Ezra, mentioned Age Concern. I have just been given a report which has been issued by them and, with the leave of your

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Lordships, I will quote what they say in a passage on "Old and Cold-. It gives as a headline "The Scale of the Problem" and says:
"In an average year, 40,000 more elderly people will die during the winter months than during the summer, a situation once described by Paul Lewis of the National Right to Fuel Campaign as 'an annual cull of the old'.
"The colder the winter, the higher the death toll. In the first quarter of 1985 nearly 16,000 more people died than usual, most of them elderly. For the whole of 1985 mortality in most age groups showed little change, yet 22,000 more people aged 75 and over died.
"Perhaps the most dramatic cause of death from the cold is hypothermia. Hypothermia is the condition that occurs when the body's defence mechanisms against the cold are overwhelmed by extremely low temperatures. As a result the temperature of the deep body (heart, lungs and brain) begins to fall. When it drops below 35.5 degrees Celsius hypothermia sets in.
"The symptoms of hypothermia make it difficult for the victim to take remedial action and often someone finding an elderly person with hypothermia may not interpret the symptoms correctly.
Hypothermia is a killer. In the first four months of 1986, 571 people died from hypothermia. Of these 491 were aged 65 or over. Malcolm Wicks, the Director of the Family Policy Studies Centre, has suggested that the official statistics may not reveal the full extent of the problem. Speaking at the launch of the Health Education Council's campaign, 'Your Right to he Warm'; he suggested that 'There is considerable stigma attached to hypothermia. The mention of hypothermia on a death certificate spells loneliness and neglect. Often, to spare the feelings of the family, a doctor will describe the cause of death in a different way'.
"Wicks' own research in 1972 found that 10 per cent. of the elderly population had early morning bedroom temperatures that put them at risk from hypothermia".
Of course we know that most of these deaths are recorded in what are colloquially known as the "agony columns". I can go back some few years when the agony columns in November and December were absolutely chock-a-block with mainly: elderly people who had died as soon as we had the first severe fog. The nation dealt with that. We now have very little fog. It was a costly exercise but—never mind the politics of it—the nation dealt with the problem and old people who suffered from bronchitis and asthma no longer had to suffer to anything like the degree that they had up to quite a few years after the war. Thank God that the pea-souper and so on are now things of the past—but it was because man decided to deal with them. I believe that this problem ought to be dealt with on a similar basis.
I should like to make some other quotations which give some very interesting statistics from a publication called Still Out in the Cold: Combined Heat and Power in Britain. This small passage is under the heading "Fuel Poverty", and it only goes to 1983, so that the figures now will be even more adverse than those that are mentioned here. It says:
"Ever since the oil crisis in the early 1970s, the number of people finding it difficult to meet their heating bills has been on the increase. Fuel prices have rocketed even faster than inflation: in 1982 electricity cost about 50 per cent. more in real terms than it did in 1974 and gas prices rose by 10 per cent. in real terms between 1979 and 1982. The problem of fuel poverty, particularly in relation to electricity, has become a nationally recognised phenomenon. Nearly 100,000 electricity consumers a year in England and Wales are disconnected by the electricity boards because they have failed to pay their bills."
As I said, obviously those families are at the bottom end of the social scale. Having dealt with some of them personally, 1 can well understand the appalling misery that children are subjected to when the plug is taken out and switched off and when they are living by
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candlelight and their mother is struggling to provide them with a warm meal. I will continue with the passage from this document:
"Another measure of the problem is the number of social security claimants who have fuel payments made directly to the gas or electricity boards because of financial difficulties. In December 1983 there were nearly 140.000 claimants in England and Wales on electricity direct arrangements and 92.000 on gas direct. In extreme cases the cold suffered from trying to save on heating bills can lead to death from hypothermia, the incidence of which",
as we have recognised. is on the increase. There has been some talk about the system of payments being reviewed but it is not being reviewed to the satisfaction of the people who are in fact dealing with the problem. Only today I was given by my noble colleague on the Front Bench, Lady Jeger, a Written Answer which talks about a 1.5 degree change in temperature below a certain figure, which the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, talked about. It says that the Government are currently considering the committee's response to the proposals—that is the Social Security Advisory Committee. My information is that the Secretary of State has only had the report for seven days and so there has not really been any time to take the necessary action.
I availed myself of a report commissioned by all the local authority associations: the Association of Metropolitan Authorities, the Association of County Councils, the Association of District Councils, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the London Boroughs Association. It deals with this particular problem and they make certain recommendations that would at least assist in this matter. They say that each claimant ought to have the right of a quick and urgent review by post. a periodic review after six months or a year on benefit, linking provisions with the DHSS offices and the attendance allowance claims sections to ensure that local offices are informed of an SB claimant's right to receive one of the special benefits—because there always seems to be a lag between the need being established and the money being paid. And of course most of us know that people are reluctant: sensible people who are in need do not want to get into debt because they are proud and they do not do it deliberately. The situation is that they have no idea at all how far they can go with using electricity to look after themselves or their family.
In fact, as late as 25th September there was a news release from the Association of County Councils, which is one of the organisations which I mentioned, which states:
"Call for new deal on heating bills for the disabled and elderly".
The report continues:
"Higher levels of benfit paid in cold winter months could best help the elderly and disabled cope with their heating bills. The Association of County Councils (ACC), which represents 45 social service authorities in England and Wales, is putting the two level benefit plan to the Department of Health and Social Services. Many county councils, including the Welsh Counties Committee, have expressed their concern to the ACC about fuel problems in cold weather.
"Although a higher level of winter benefit would mean an increase in payments, it would reduce bureaucratic costs. Chairman of the ACC's Social Services Committee, Martyn Long (Conservative) said: 'This alternative scheme would help reduce anxiety about winter heating needs among elderly people and be a real step forward in securing care in the community policies. Such payments should be automatically available to all those receiving supplementary benefit on reaching the age of 65, families with very young children and disabled people in receipt of supplementary benefit'."

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That is the report from one particular local authority association. It is supported in spirit by all the others. Make no mistake about it. it does not really fall upon Government to look after elderly people in their own homes in an area. It falls on local authority social service departments. which unfortunately have had to bear the brunt of cuts and the substantial diminution of rate support grant. I believe that those authorities, if they were given a chance and if a more simplified and urgent form of payment was available to claimants, would carry out that job and look after those people for us. I think it is to our eternal shame as a nation if we do not start this winter to treat this as an urgent matter.
I find it totally illogical, as I said at the time, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer decided to put VAT on such things as double glazing and adaptions to buildings which were, I believe, a part of the package that the noble Lord, Lord Ezra. was talking about.
I think that now is the time for action. I express my appreciation to the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, for bringing this matter forward. It is a pity that this has been a short debate. There is so much to be said that I am sure we could have filled a day on this subject, but I am delighted to have been able to make a contribution.
7.4 p.m.
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, for putting down this Question, which highlights an important area of social policy at a time of year when people start thinking about their ability to achieve a standard of heating in their homes which will enable them to keep warm in winter, particularly in the case of the elderly and those on low incomes.
In order to take appropriate action it is necessary to have information. There is a quantity of information now available on the condition of the nation's dwelling stock in respect of its energy requirements and on trends in improving its energy efficiency. For example, information on heating appliances and insulation is available for England from the quinquennial English House Condition Survey carried out by the Department of the Environment, the last survey having been carried out in 1981. This showed that just over half of all households lived in dwellings which had central heating. Not all households keep their homes fully heated, whatever the heat source used. Only one third of households heated all their rooms during the winter months and a further third heated less than a third. A quarter of homes had no loft insulation. Less than half of elderly households had central heating and just over one quarter had loft insulation. Over 40 per cent. of these households experienced problems of condensation and dampness. The 1986 English House Condition Survey, which is currently under way, will increase the scope of data available on heating and insulation. It will provide data on heating standards for people on low income, in particular heating facilities, heating patterns, fuel costs and the temperature of homes in winter.
The noble Lord, Lord Ezra, and indeed other noble Lords, quoted a number of deficiencies which were shown up by the energy efficiency campaign. I must
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point out that the energy efficiency of the stock is steadily improving. In the first five years of this Government, 6·3 million more homes have well insulated roofs; 2·2 million more have insulated hot water tanks; 1·8 million more have cavity wall insulation; 2·4 million more have double glazing; and 2·6 million more homes have central heating. This process of improvement depends on separate decisions by several million different landlords and individual owner-occupiers. It is vital that they are well informed about the opportunities and benefits. The Energy Efficiency Office provides much advice and information on cost-effective energy efficiency measures which householders can take. These will improve—often dramatically—the comfort levels of homes and reduce energy costs.
In response to the challenge of the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, we are not sitting back in self-satisfaction. We are applying and intend to continue to apply our minds to improving the situation. This year is, as has been mentioned, Energy Efficiency Year but the campaign will continue after this year. The Monergy campaign, which my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Energy launched a year ago, has been strongly supported by all sectors of the heating industry. The Energy Efficiency Office has worked with the industry to inform householders how to reduce their fuel hills or to raise their standards of comfort without increasing their fuel bills. Modern heating systems with proper heating controls—especially thermostats and time-clocks—are much more efficient than those of 10 years or more ago. Of course insulation standards in the home should be improved at the same time and, provided that that is done, modern heating systems can often pay for themselves in lower fuel bills. That is the Monergy message which Energy Efficiency Year is delivering. The advertising campaign on television and in the press will reach its peak this month. We are expecting a big response and we are ready for it with information to help householders to improve the heating in their homes. Noble Lords who live in cold ancestral homes are welcome to benefit from this campaign too. All they need do is ring the Monergy Freephone, and advice will be on its way.
With the benefit of this advice most owner-occupiers are well able to make their own arrangements for whatever improvements they consider to be worth while to the heating and insulation of their homes. But what is being done to help those who may not be able to help themselves, either because they do not own their homes, or because they lack the necessary resources? To examine this we need to look separately at the public and private sectors.
In the case of local authorities, it is for them to determine whether the heating systems installed in their own dwellings are adequate and, within the financial resources available to them, to balance the need for improvements against other competing priorities. The Government expect local authorities to give high priority to the renovation of their own stock, and in many cases this will include improvements to heating. Clearly, where tenants are vulnerable to cold, or where dwellings are exceptionally difficult to heat we would expect authorities to give a high priority to improvements to heating.

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One of the practical ways in which the Government are offering help to local authorities is through the Department of the Environment's Urban Housing Renewal Unit, or UHRU, as it is widely known. A common feature in many of the packages of measures which UHRU is promoting is improved heating systems and insulation on run-down estates. In 198–87 UHRU is targeting £50 million Housing Investment Programme (HIP) resources on a wide range of measures for improving run-down estates.
So far 73 individual schemes have been approved for additional resources by UHRU. Of these about one-third involve specific measures to improve heating and insulation, such as the "warm and dry" packages on the Kirkholt estate in Rochdale. As part of the comprehensive improvement packages on estates at Abbey Park, Calderdale; Ocean Estate, Tower Hamlets, and the Huncoat Estate. Hyndburn, new and improved heating systems are planned to he installed. These measures, combined with other physical refurbishment and management initiatives on the estate all form part of the package approach which UHRU is now actively promoting to transform formerly difficult-to-let and difficult-to-heat housing into attractive, comfortable homes where people want to live. I am sure that noble Lords will appreciate the direction in which Government help is going in this way.
Of course, an increasing number of public sector tenants live in housing association, rather than local authority, accommodation. The Housing Corporation provides guidance and criteria on building design for new housing and renovation, to ensure that housing association tenants are warm and comfortable in their homes. The design criteria provide for warmer rooms for the elderly in sheltered accommodation and for people in wheelchairs. The cost criteria system is a flexible one, and in the department's view adequate heating standards can be met at costs at which projects can be approved for Exchequer support through housing association grant. Grant is also available for packages of remedial measures for electrically heated homes, designed to reduce running costs while maintaining heating standards.
The Government also provide practical advice to local authorities and housing associations on improving the heating and insulation of their dwellings, and on related measures to reduce the risk of severe condensation and mould. Much of this is based on research carried out at the Building Research Establishment. For instance, last year the Department of the Environment organised 60 regional seminars for local authorities and housing associations on the results of BRE research on remedial measures for severe condensation. The Department of the Environment has recently published advice on the "Energy Efficient Renovation of Houses". Many defect action sheets, published by the Building Research Establishment, also give advice on how to avoid future technical defects in the heating and insulation of new housing and renovation.
I now turn to the private sector. The noble Lord, Lord Ezra, referred to homes insulation grants. Homes insulation grants and home improvement grants are available to owner occupiers, landlords and tenants as well. The homes insulation scheme provides grants for
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the installation of insulation in roof spaces in dwellings where there is no insulation or where the insulation is inadequate. A higher 90 per cent. rate of grant is available for the elderly or disabled on low incomes and 66 per cent. for general householders. Houses and flats improved or provided with the aid of an improvement grant must have adequate heating facilities under the so-called "Ten point standard". This will continue to be a requirement of any simplified target standard as proposed in last year's Green Paper—Home Improvement—A New.Approach. In addition we have encouraged local authorities to be particularly helpful to the elderly by offering home improvement grants for better heating facilities, and for the provision of central heating in purpose-built old people's dwellings.
Baroness Jeger: My Lords, can the noble Baroness, with her usual courtesy, tell the House what has been the response of the Government to the report of the Social Security Advisory Committee on the Government's plans for helping with heating costs in severe weather conditions? I cannot find out what response the Government have made; and as the winter is getting very near, it is very important to this debate tonight.
Baroness Hooper: Yes, my Lords, it is indeed most important. If the noble Baroness will permit me to come to it a little later in my response, I shall certainly do so.
In addition we have encouraged local authorities to be particularly helpful to the elderly by offering home improvement grants for better heating facilities, and for the provision of central heating in purpose-built old people's dwellings. And improvement grants can also be made available for other types of insulation work, such as draughtproofing, if that work forms part of a comprehensive scheme of improvement.
The problem is not only of resources but of making sure they go to those who need them most, particularly the elderly. Government policy is to encourage elderly people to stay in their own homes so far as possible; and to encourage as wide a range of choices as possible for those who need or want to move. Research carried out by the Department of the Environment has shown that elderly people rate heating and insulation among the improvements most likely to enable them to stay put. But many elderly people can no longer cope with the hassle of organising such work even if they can afford it. It is here that agency services, like those which care and repair and others have pioneered, can be of help. The Government have amended the Housing and Planning Bill which recently passed through this House to enable registered housing associations to provide agency services, and we hope that they will respond positively. But the Government are also considering what they can do to encourage agency services by the industry and voluntary sector, and so to speed the process of getting help to those who need it most.
I should like to acknowledge the contribution being made to our efforts to care for the old by the community insulation projects. There are now more than 300 projects operating all over the country, and the number is expected to rise to more than 400 by the end of this winter. So far, more than 200,000 homes of

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pensioners, the disabled and others on low incomes have been made warmer and more comfortable by the work of these projects. I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, on the contribution that Neighbourhood Energy Action, of which he is chairman, has made to the success achieved, and to assure him of the Government's continuing support for that organisation. There is a lot of Government support for that movement. The Department of Energy is providing £1 million this year in grants to NEA and to launch new projects. The Department of Employment is providing all the labour costs through the community programme. The Department of the Environment and the Department of Health and Social Security are providing through grants or single payments the funds for the insulating and draughtproofing materials used by the projects. It is an excellent example of the way in which different departments can contribute to a national programme.
The question of hypothermia was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, and by every noble Lord who contributed to the debate. I emphasise the Government's concern in this area. But it is a complex problem which cannot be solved by the social security system alone. We are currently investigating the causes of excess seasonal mortality and in the meantime we are taking steps to see that elderly people and those caring for them get advice on how to minimise the effects of cold. In particular, the Health Education Council is developing a comprehensive pack of training materials and information on this subject for those in contact with elderly people.
A number of noble Lords have drawn a comparison between England and other countries in this respect. It is true that there is evidence that the seasonal excess mortality is greater in England than in some other countries which have severer climates. The reasons for this are unfortunately not clear. My noble friend Lord Auckland outlined some of the difficulties but the position has improved in recent years. Central heating does not seem to be the crucial factor. It is a complex problem which cannot be solved by the social security system alone. Many other issues are involved, including the attitudes of elderly people and other members of society.
The noble Lord, Lord Ezra, also asked why we do not specify minimum standards for heat. The maintenance of a minimum standard on heating depends as much on the readiness of the householder to pay for the heat as on the provision of appliances which can provide this heat. In relation to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, on building regulations, I can assure him that building regulations are being reviewed, including those on energy efficiency. The object of the review is to seek an increase in overall standards that combine much more flexibility for builders in ways they can use for reaching the overal standards. The aim is to issue a consideration document before the end of the year; so the matter is underway.
My noble friend Lord Auckland, in his capacity as the honorary Vice-President of RoSPA, also raised a specific question about safety of heating appliances. Generally speaking, there is thought to be more than adequate legislation to ensure that household heating
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appliances meet an adequate standard of safety: for example, Gas Installation and Use Regulations which are administered by the Health and Safety Executive; the Electrical Equipment (Safety) Regulations 1975; the Fire Guard Regulations 1973 and the Electric Blanket Regulations 1971. However, many old people rely on old free-standing appliances powered by a variety of fuels, and misuse is common. Many of these appliances can be easily overturned and, sadly, many deaths due to fire and/or asphyxiation have occurred. The only way in which we can combat this problem is by publicity aimed at persuading the elderly to replace old and worn-out equipment and to use the apparatus they have sensibly.
The Government provide substantial help with the heating costs of those on low incomes through the supplementary benefit scheme, to which a number of noble Lords referred. The most important help is the regular weekly help to all claimants through the scale rates which are intended to be used for all day-to-day expenses, including fuel. Scale rates increased by more than 6 per cent. in real terms between November 1978 and November 1985; and there was a further uprating of benefits in July 1986.
Claimants who need to spend extra on heating—for example, because of age or ill-health—receive extra weekly payments known as heating additions. The noble Lord, Lord Ezra, referred to that. Expenditure on the heating additions in 198–85 was some £400 million.
The Government have introduced automatic entitlement to a number of heating additions to target help on those most likely to be in need of extra help with heating costs. The lower rate heating addition, worth £2·20 a week (£1·20 after deducting available scale margin) is now payable to householders aged 65 or over and to sick and disabled householders on the long-term scale rate. The higher rate heating addition worth £5·55 a week (£4·55 after deducting AMS) is paid to the severely disabled and to householders aged 85 or more.
Latest data—available at the end of 1984—show that over 60 per cent. of all supplementary benefit claimants are getting a heating addition and nearly 90 per cent. of elderly claimants are getting this extra help.
The noble Baroness. Lady Jeger, referred to severe weather payments. These are covered by single payments of supplementary benefit which are available to help with the cost of extra fuel used in periods of exceptionally severe weather. This year pay ments have been available from DHSS local offices throughout Great Britain with the sole exception of Lerwick, Shetland.
Proposals for a new system of giving extra help with fuel bills during a period of exceptionally severe weather have been referred to the Social Security Advisory Committee. The proposed arrangements would introduce a standard single payment of £5 for each week in any local office area where the average temperature falls to minus 1·5 degrees centigrade, or lower, over the benefit week. These payments, subject to the normal £500 capital rule, will be made available to supplementary benefit households containing anyone who is under 2, over 65 or chronically sick or disabled.

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This system will be easier to understand, simpler to operate and will more fairly direct help to those in need. In particular, claimants will know what extra help will be available as soon as a period of exceptionally severe weather has been declared. The fact that help will be triggered by a single temperature level of minus 1·5 degrees centigrade means that help will be directed to the coldest parts of the country rather than those where the weather is simply colder than usual.
As I said, and I hope it will reassure noble Lords, the Government are currently considering the Social Security Advisory Committee's report on these proposals and intend to lay regulations shortly so that the new provision can be in place before the full onset of winter. It would not, therefore, be appropriate for me to comment on any more detailed points at this stage.
Baroness Jeger: My lords, the noble Baroness is being very helpful, but is it a fact that these plans will not come into force before the Social Security Advisory Committee has made its recommendations? What will happen if the committee disagrees with the Government's plans?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, as I understand the position, the Social Security Advisory Committee has already made recommendations in its report. and it is on that report the Government are basing the regulations they plan to lay before the House.
The new income support scheme which will replace supplementary benefit in April 1988 will continue to provide help with day-to-day living expenses including heating, but will avoid the complexities, anomalies and intrusive questioning of the present scheme. Extra help will he directed more effectively through premiums to pensioners, sick and disabled people and lone parents; extra help will also go to families, to which the noble Lord, Lord Dean, drew particular attention. The Government intend that the amount spent on heating additions will be included in the resources for the new scheme.
There were many references to Age Concern. The difficulty faced by elderly people in coping with the severely cold weather is not a problem which can be solved by the social security system alone. It involves everyone in the community and requires a response from us all. The action taken by Age Concern earlier this year is a good example of the way in which the voluntary sector can step in to complement the statutory services. Following the severely cold spell this year, Age Concern issued on 3rd March 1,000 emergency cold weather kits in areas where elderly people were said to be most at risk from the cold. The kits where worth about £20 each and included fuel stamps, soup and drink packets, thermal garments and advice leaflets. The voluntary organisations can play a vital role in this way. To provide maximum assistance, all agencies involved with elderly people need to work closely together, and this is a trend we have all observed and welcomed.
I am aware that there is always considerable concern in winter that those who, for whatever reason, fail to pay their gas or electricity bills in winter may get
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disconnected. I emphasise that the gas and electricity industries do their utmost to avoid disconnections. They operate a code of practice which is designed to assist people who are having difficulties in paying their hills and which gives specific protection to the most vulnerable groups such as the elderly. Both industries operate schemes to help customers to avoid fuel debts arising in the first place, or to enable debts to be repaid, and they publicise them widely. Their main aim is to help customers avoid the hardships of disconnection; and only in the last resort to disconnect. I would urge all householders facing difficulties to contact their local fuel board or consumer council at the earliest opportunity—and well before problems get to the stage where disconnection is being considered.
Before finally summing up, perhaps I should refer to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, who suggested that in order to give help to low income households with their heating problems one department should be responsible. Inevitably, however, the problem concerns more than one department. Many of the low income householders are in local authority housing which requires investment by those authorities, as well as social security benefits, to enable them to pay their fuel hills. What is needed, I accept, is co-ordination of these responsibilities; but not centralisation in one department.
We feel, without complacency, that the energy efficiency of the housing stock is improving steadily. In the majority of homes the decision to make further improvement lies with individual owner-occupiers. The Government's main responsibility here is to make sure that they have access to good, impartial advice on the opportunities and benefits. I have touched on the role of the Energy Efficiency Office in this respect and on the major promotional campaign now in progress during Energy Efficiency year; but I share the concern of all of your Lordships about those in all tenures who are unable, for whatever reason, to make those improvements themselves.
In the public sector the main responsibility lies with local authority or housing association landlords, although the Government recognise that they also have a role to commission research and provide advice. In the private sector the picture is more diffuse and the responsibilities and opportunities for providing help where it is needed are more difficult to orchestrate effectively. I hope that I have convinced the noble Lord of the Government's concern to continue to play their part in providing this help and where possible to expand it. In closing I should like to thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate for the contributions that they have made on this extremely important subject.

Public Order Bill
Returned from the Commons with the amendments agreed to.

Housing (Scotland) Bill
Returned from the Commons with the Lords amendment in lieu of a Lords amendment disagreed

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to by the Commons agreed to; with the Lords amendment to a Commons amendment in lieu of a Lords amendment disagreed to by the Commons agreed to; and with the Lords consequential amendments to the Bill agreed to.

Housing and Planning Bill
Returned from the Commons with the Commons disagreement to the Lords amendment on which the Lords had insisted not insisted on.
House adjourned at twenty-nine minutes before eight o'clock.