Lords Sitting of 29 April 1987

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Newcastle.

Lord Johnston of Rockport
Sir Charles Collier Johnston, Knight, having been created Baron Johnston of Rockport, of Caversham in the Royal County of Berkshire, for life—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Lord Ingrow and the Lord Sanderson of Bowden.

Scientific Research Spending
2.48 p.m.
Lord Kirkwood: 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, if ancillary costs over which the research councils have no control rise significantly, the science budget will be correspondingly increased to protect the level of basic and strategic research.
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, the Government review the the science budget each year in the course of the public expenditure survey and have shown themselves ready to provide extra resources when urgent needs are identified. But there can be no automatic supplementation to meet rising costs.
Lord Kirkwood: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that somewhat short reply. I am sure that the whole scientific community welcomes the Government's action in providing further cash for research. But would the noble Baroness not agree that adventitious events such as the £4 million salary increase award to the scientific Civil Service and the change of exchange rate, which caused an additional burden on the science budget and a further contribution towards European research, cannot promote good management of the remaining budget for UK civil research?
Baroness Hooper: No, my Lords. In fact, the United Kingdom Government spend more on university and research council research as a proportion of gross domestic product than some of our competitors, notably Japan and the United States of America. But industry in those countries spends more on research than does industry in the United Kingdom.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, would the noble Baroness tell us how many scientists have departed this country in the last year? Also, would she not try to agree that the reason they depart is not their personal incomes, but the fact that programmes in which they are vitally interested are being cut? Is it not the case that without an automatic rise these programmes must be cut?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, I shall try my best to answer that question as positively as possible. In fact, academics will be getting a very substantial pay increase in terms of the 24 per cent. which is to be phased over the period from 1st December 1986 to 1st March 1988. Employers will also have discretion to pay more to the best people. So our policy of selectivity and concentration will mean better facilities for outstanding groups who are most at risk of being drawn overseas.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, would the noble Baroness answer the question on the numbers who have left this country?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, I regret I am not able to do that without notice, but I shall endeavour to find out and let the noble Lord know.
Lord Sherfield: My Lords, I understand that the deficit on international subscriptions in 1986 was £20 million. I understand, too, that the Government rightly insist on good and indeed better management of science. Would the Minister not agree that a deficit of this kind makes wise and good management extremely difficult, and that while the present system may make good Treasury practice it does not make very good sense?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, we do indeed recognise the many commitments involved for people running budgets in this particular field. But I should like to emphasise that the Government are not reducing, and have not reduced, the science budget in any way. In fact, the expenditure plans announced last November allowed for a cash increase of £39 million or 6.3 per cent. between 1986–87 and 1987–88. Since then, the Government have also agreed to provide an additional £17.5 million over the next three years for AIDS research as well as the £15 million announced on 1st April this year. The science budget for 1987–88 now stands at a total of £676 million, an increase of 14 per cent. in real terms since 1979–80. We hope and expect that the institutions involved will be able to manage better as a result.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the noble Baroness referred in a previous answer to the increase in academic salaries. I am sure that that is most welcome. However, does she not agree that the full amount of the increase in the science budget which was announced on 1st April of this year, with the exception of the special amount for AIDS, will be taken up by the increase in salaries, leaving no room at all for additional projects? If I am wrong about that, will the noble Baroness tell us how much money will actually be available for new research projects over and above the additional costs of salaries?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, the £15 million which was announced on 1st April is intended to be additional money to buy more first-class science highly selectively. That is the Government's policy.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, I recognise that the Government have made further moneys available and are producing a significant proportion of

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what is required, but will my noble friend consider, and ask her right honourable friend in another place to consider, whether it is possible to increase the fiscal incentives to the many firms that make no contribution whatsoever to the research side so that they may be more inclined to come up to the level of the firms in this country that are very generous on the research side?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, I shall pass my noble friend's comments to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State. That matter and the whole subject of scientific research is kept under constant review by the department.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the noble Baroness will recognise that she gave no answer to my previous question. Perhaps I may put it more precisely. What increase is expected in the proportion of research projects which are alpha-rated by the research councils as a result of increases in the science budget?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, the Government believe that we must get the best value from the substantial funds which are available. I have already referred to the fact that the funds for 1987–88 stand at a total of £676 million. It is the hope of the Government that those funds will be concentrated on outstanding research groups and will provide more selectivity in the areas which we support. The important matters in this area are that there should be a great deal of competition for the resources available and that there should be new ideas and new initiatives. The challenge is to concentrate on getting the best possible results.
Lord Bonham-Carter: My Lords, in the light of the answer which the noble Baroness has given us and in the light of the competition for resources which she mentioned, does she recognise that the most important matters are human resources and human abilities? Those are the worrying matters. Although she cannot give the figures, it is alleged in the United States of America that the greatest haemorrhage of scientific workers of the first order leaving Europe, and particularly this country, for America since the Nazis were in power in Germany has occurred in the last few years.
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, there is always a drain; sometimes the drain goes in both directions. However, we understand that it is not significant. It is most important in areas of advanced research on any subject that there should be international liaison. That is all part of it.
Lord Bonham-Carter: My Lords, is the noble Baroness denying that there has been a haemorrhage of leading scientists from this country to the United States of America in the last two years? If she is really saying that, the Government are living in Cloud-cuckoo-land.
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, we are prepared to acknowledge, and I have already acknowledged, that
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some of our scientists have moved. Nevertheless, we have a number of first-rate, top-class people who still operate in this country and who are producing very sound and successful results.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, perhaps the noble Baroness can then tell us what benefits flow back to this country from the United States from the drain of scientific workers.
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, the noble Lord, speaking from the Benches from which he speaks, will recognise the importance of international co-operation and the movement of peoples. I think that the results must be self-evident.
The Earl of Bessborough: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that there is a benefit to this country through the various grants, such as the Fulbright scheme and other grants, under which a great many Americans come to this country?
Baroness Hooper: Yes indeed, my Lords. I said previously that there is a two-way flow.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that in so far as there is an appalling gap between British high technology and the technology of Japan and the United States, anything that might close that gap ought to be welcomed by Her Majesty's Government?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, I must emphasise that the most recent study, which was based on facts and figures then available and which goes back to 1982, showed that the output and influence of British science was still ahead of that of all the other OECD countries except the United States.

Share Ownership
2.57 p.m.
Lord Brougham and Vaux: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what new information is available on the extent of share ownership in the United Kingdom.
The Secretary of State for Employment (Lord Young of Graffham): My Lords, a survey commissioned by Her Majesty's Treasury and the Stock Exchange shows that 8½ million people or one-fifth of the adult population now own shares. Share ownership has now trebled since 1979.
Lord Brougham and Vaux: My Lords, may I thank my noble friend for that very informative reply? Does he agree that the initiatives of the Government to encourage employee share schemes have contributed to share ownership?
Lord Young of Graffham: Yes, my Lords. The number of approved share schemes has grown from around 30 in 1979 to over 1,200 today, and 1½ million people have now benefited under those schemes.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, what does the noble Lord have to say to those members of the public who, in endeavouring to follow the Government's advice in this matter, have lost their money as a result of investing in shares which are supported by the Government because the money has fallen into unreliable and dishonest hands? Can the Minister comment on that?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, on this particular occasion the noble Lord's question passes me by. From time to time we have always warned those who buy shares that they are speculating. We believe that shares are a good investment, but anything that goes up can come down, and I am sure that those who buy shares are fully aware of that fact.
Lord Monson: My Lords, will the noble Lord agree that the very much higher minimum commission charges currently being imposed by banks and stockbrokers as an indirect consequence of the Government's Big Bang legislation will make direct investment in ordinary shares very much less attractive for the small investor than if he invests via the medium of unit trusts?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, if those who are concerned with this business charge fees that are too high, they will find that they lose business, as I have no doubt others will come along and charge more competitive rates.
Lord Diamond: My Lords, it does not need saying from these Benches that we are wholly in favour of the spread of private share ownership. The Liberal part of the Alliance said so many times long before the Tories took it up. Is the noble Lord aware that 8½ million—very good figure though it may be—is somewhat less than 55 million, which is the number of shareholders in all the companies which have been privatised by the present Government? Is the Minister also aware that it is not our task to criticise the spread of share ownership, but to criticise, first, the way in which shares of privatised companies have been disposed of, and, secondly, the lack of investment of the proceeds of the sale of capital?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I should have thought that the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, would be aware of the way in which the Stock Exchange operates and would know that one of its purposes is to provide the means for both direct and indirect investment in companies. The noble Lord will also be aware that in each of the last four years records of investment in this country have been broken.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that settlement departments of all the major firms on the Stock Exchange have been overwhelmed by the vast number of small bargains which have resulted particularly from the TSB and British Gas issues? What steps can the Government take to ensure that small shareholders can deal properly and without excessive cost or delay?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I am well aware that as the market opens up, as the number of
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individual shareholders in this country increases and as we have a successful return to popular capitalism, there will be strains as demands grow in the market. As I said in reply to an earlier question, the market has a habit of taking care of that situation. If the systems are not competitive, then systems that are competitive will come through.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, will the Minister agree that a difficult social situation has been created by the fact, which can be welcomed, that shareholders have increased three-fold since 1979? Unemployment has increased even more. People who have been unemployed for the past few years simply cannot afford to buy shares. It is no joy for the unemployed whose number seems to increase to be told that many people can afford to buy shares.
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, it may have escaped the noble Lord's attention that in the past eight months unemployment in this country has fallen by 180,000 and is still going down. I suspect that it will continue to go down. It has also escaped the noble Lord's attention that the economy is doing well and will continue to do so. For the unemployed to return to work, the economy must grow in a strong and wealth-creating manner. In that way we can afford not only the caring society that we all want but also see people return to work. There is no other way.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that if there is to be social cohesion in this nation one cannot be proud of a three-fold increase in those becoming better off and a three-fold decrease in those whose standards of living are continuing to fall—namely, the families of the unemployed?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I fail to recognise the description given by the noble Lord. However, I must confess that, as good as our progress has been, I should like to see a further three-fold increase in the number of shareholders. We have to concentrate on wealth creation which is, I suspect the quickest way to deal with the problem.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, while we welcome the news that the noble Lord has given—obviously, it is very gratifying to know that the number of shareholders is rising—can he say how we compare with our competitors and friends in the United States and West Germany in this respect?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, there is no strict comparison, but the New York Stock Exchange estimates that 20 per cent. of the total United States' population own shares, including unit trusts. In this country we know that 20 per cent. of the adult population hold shares, but that excludes unit trusts. All I can say is that there was a great difference a few years ago, and that difference is narrowing very rapidly indeed.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, further to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, will the Minister tell the House how much the British people have lost per annum by way of the payments which were previously paid to the Treasury by industries that have

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been privatised? For example, can he tell the House how much British Telecom paid to the Treasury annually before it was privatised?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I must tell the House that throughout the nationalised industries sector—"the commanding heights of the economy", as I believe they were once described—in 1979–80 the British taxpayer contributed substantially. As an aggregate the nationalised industries lost billions of pounds each year. All the companies that have been denationalised are making profits. The funds have gone into the Treasury and the interest on those funds contributes towards the taxpayer. If the noble Lord would like further details I am sure he will put down a Question, in which case I shall he more than delighted to give him a full and detailed reply.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, reverting to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Diamond—evidently on the Road to Damascus—is my noble friend aware that, in so far as the public sector borrowing requirement has diminished from some £9 billion or £10 billion in the days of the Labour Government to £2 billion or £3 billion now, this is reducing the additions to the national debt and therefore is specifically adding to the capital welfare of the country?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord will answer my question. If he does not know all the figures, I can, for example, give the figures for Cable and Wireless. I know how much that company paid to the Treasury, and it is paying nothing now. In so far as concerns the question of the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, the investment programme—
Noble Lords: Question!
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that we are extremely proud of the investment programme of publicly owned industries during the time of the Labour Government? We should like to see that kind of investment programme now.
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, the noble Lord will forgive me if my figures are slightly inaccurate but they are from memory. I am aware that when Cable and Wireless was privatised it had a market capitalisation of some £460 million. I am also aware that at the time the Government sold off the last 20 per cent. of the shareholding it was worth rather more than £460 million. I am also aware that this company's capitalisation now approaches £4 billion and I suspect that the contribution it will make in tax to the Treasury will be far greater than the dividends it has paid in any decade in the past.

EC Research and Development
3.8 p.m.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
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The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government why they do not support the EC research and development programme.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Lucas of Chilworth): My Lords, Her Majesty's Government do in fact support the concept of a framework programme for Community research and development as they consider such a programme to be an effective means of assessing priorities for European Community research and development activity and for monitoring its implementation.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, will the Minister answer the Question? Are they supported or are they not? Is the answer simply yes or no? It seems to me that the answer is no. Can the Minister say that I am wrong? I shall give way if he wishes me to do so because the attitude of the present Government is extremely myopic and dangerous and could have a deleterious effect on industry and British research.
Noble Lords: Order! Question.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that it is opposed by all political parties in this country and by every one of our Euro-MPs in every party, including the six Conservative Members, who have endeavoured to get the Government to see sense? Does he not agree that one of the vital aspects of the whole idea is that European high technology could in a few years' time catch up with that of our chief opponents and competitors in high technology—the Japanese and the Americans? There should be praise of and approval for this scheme, which the Government with their myopic decision are turning down. They are missing a first-class opportunity for the British people.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, my original Answer was not intended to be discourteous to the noble Lord. As he put his question in a similar way and asked for specific replies, the answers are yes to the first part and that he is wrong on the second.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the Government's refusal to support the European programme, together with their unenthusiastic response to the report of your Lordships' Select Committee on Science and Technology and the Answer given by the noble Baroness to a Question on a similar topic, are all rapidly giving the impression that the Government are anti-science? It is that impression above all that is causing the scientific brain-drain from this country.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, the noble Lord is quite wrong. There is no refusal on the part of the Government to support the European Framework Commission, as I said in my original Answer. Indeed, we have proposed increases of 47 per cent. in the ESPRIT programme, 41 per cent. in the BRITE programme and a very large new RACE programme—that is, the telecommunications programme. The Government are not anti-science in any way. Our contribution to the European

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framework has been concrete and determined. It has given employment to a number of companies, researchers, their scientists and technologists in this country.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, is the noble Lord saying to the House that recent press reports on the Government's refusal to support the last and most recent phase of the European research programme, when Mr. Geoffrey Pattie's name was specifically mentioned, are totally erroneous, that they are in fact supporting all these projects and that the press has it all wrong?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I am saying that there is no refusal on the part of the Government to support the EC framework programme. The framework programme was introduced at £5.486 billion. Our analysis of the necessities and of the resources available in the Community determined, and we suggested, a programme that would cost £2.98 billion. Since then the Belgian Presidency has introduced another suggestion costing £3.97 billion to which we have not yet responded. In no way can that be seen to be a refusal by the Government to support the EC framework programme.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, I have a specific question arising from the noble Lord's reply. Will he confirm to the House that Her Majesty's Government will resist any endeavour to cut the Commission's proposal for funding of the JET project at Culham? Will he also confirm that that project, and the Commission's proposals for it, have Her Majesty's Government's full support during the current year and will have in the next budgetary year covering appropriations?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, that is a specific question which is rather wide of the original Question put down by the noble Lord, Lord Molloy. If the noble Lord tables a specific Question he knows that I shall be delighted to answer it.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, is the Minister aware that we now have a very serious situation? He has made a statement in this House which is totally contrary to what Mr. Pattie and other Ministers have said in the other place. We must ascertain who is telling the truth. My understanding from the press, as the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, said, is that Mr. Pattie is quoted as giving a very forthright reason why we will have nothing to do with the programme. Eleven countries are for it and Great Britain is the only country against it. Can the Minister tell us whether we should believe Mr. Pattie, the press or what he told the House this afternoon?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, it is for the noble Lord and his colleagues to believe that which they wish to believe. I am giving facts to your Lordships' House in direct response to his Question. My honourable friend said that we do not agree with the current EC proposals. We do not believe that they represent the best value for money when there are scarce resources in the Community. Our analysis suggests that the various priorities for research and development in certain areas against the resources
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which are available are, as we have costed, £2·98 billion. There is therefore a difference of some £2.5 billion between the Community and ourselves.
The Belgian Presidency has proposed a different programme at some £3.7 billion—a difference of £1 billion between us. We are studying those proposals to see where we can agree so that policies can be continued.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that that is the answer he should have given in the first place instead of trying to pretend that the Government fully support these proposals? They have a perfect right to criticise proposals which they consider are extravagant but the Minister has no right to pretend that that is not what they are doing.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: The noble Lord is being very mischievous, as I specifically answered the Question, which is:
"To ask Her Majesty's Government why they do not support the EC Research and Development Programme?".
I answered that we support the concept of the framework. There can be nothing more clear than an answer of that kind. Other noble Lords asked for figures and I have given those figures.

British Rail: Travel Agents' Commission
3.17 p.m.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will consider referring to the Office of Fair Trading the action of British Rail in making cuts in the level of commission payable to travel agents on the sale of British Rail tickets, in order to ascertain whether the cuts constitute an abuse of monopoly power.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I understand that officials of the Office of Fair Trading have recently considered this matter in relation to the provisions of the Competition Act 1980 and do not consider such action to be anti-competitive in effect or intent.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. Is he aware that British Rail are imposing this cut without any meaningful negotiation or consultation with the travel agents? To describe what has happened as negotiation or consultation is a travesty of what actually took place. Is the Minister also concerned that the reduction in the commissions, which are already at a low level, will diminish the number of travel agencies that sell British Rail tickets in the high streets and that this will undoubtedly react against the best interests of the travelling public?
Finally, will the Minister accept that public services such as British Rail have responsibilities not only to the public but also to travel agents, and that besides depressing the margins of commission it may be that this action will drive the travelling public from rail to coaches? That could well be to the detriment not only of British Rail but also the taxpayer.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, the noble Lord asks three questions. I remind him that British Rail engaged in discussions with ABTA at the convention in November 1986. There were then discussions with the agents' representatives in January and again in February. Therefore, I suggest that there were adequate discussions. On the noble Lord's second question, British Rail are suggesting a reduction of between 8 per cent. and 11 per cent. to 7 per cent. and 9 per cent., reflecting the lower costs in ticket selling.
British Rail are in a very competitive industry because they compete with air and road transport for business. They have to respond with lower prices, which they have done, which in turn reflects in the income of some selling agents. I recognise, as do British Rail, that there is a social responsibility for providing adequate travel. As I said, taken alongside air and road travel I believe that that social responsibility is discharged.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, the Minister referred to British Rail being in competition with air and coach travel. Is it not a fact that the commission payable by airline and coach companies is now far more than British Rail will be offering? Does he agree, as my noble friend suggested, that they have a responsibility to the public; that the amount of money generated by British Rail through ABTA agencies is about £110 million; that a good proportion of first-class travel is sold and that therefore it is not just a question of helping British Rail? It is a question of helping the travelling public who by this policy may be denied some of the outlets from which they can purchase tickets.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, knows, commission rates, whether they are 7 per cent., 8 per cent., 9 per cent. or whatever they may be, should not be looked at in isolation; they should be looked at alongside the cost of selling, the cost of the product being sold and the volume of the product being sold. I believe that the travel agents who engage in this business have the commercial resource to determine whether they wish to continue. British Rail can assess the value or otherwise of the number of outlets the noble Lord suggests that there are.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, will the Minister reflect carefully on the quality of the information that British Rail have given him? To say that the travel agents were consulted at the ABTA conference in Australia and subsequently is not only a travesty but, I believe, a deceit. The travel agents were told by British Rail what was going to happen. At no stage were the travel agents involved in negotiating or pleading for a change in the commission. All that happened at those meetings was that there was an attempt to delay the implementation. Will the Minister go back to his advisers and say to them that ABTA rejects completely the idea that there has been any meaningful consultation? It is a disgrace.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I do not like contradicting the noble Lord, Lord Graham, because he knows a great deal about this business, but I am sorry to have to say to him that what he has said is just
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not true. At the ABTA convention in November 1986, British Rail gave notice of their intention to do certain things. That was discussed again in January and a formal letter was sent seeking the views of the association and its principals. They were considered, and British Rail decided the commercial line that they were going to take.

Business
3.23 p.m.
Lord Denham: My Lords, it may be for the convenience of the House to know that the noble Lord, Lord Kissin, does not propose to ask the Unstarred Question standing in his name on the Order Paper today.

Brighton Marine Palace and Pier (Finance, Etc.) Bill
Read a second time, and committed to an Unopposed Bill Committee.
Pontypridd Markets Fairs and Town Hall Bill
Read a third time, and passed, and returned to the Commons with amendments.

Trade Union Powers
3.24 p.m.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter Lord Boyd-Carpenter rose to move That this House takes note of the Green Paper, Trade Unions and Their Powers (Cmnd. 95).
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Green Paper which this Motion asks the House to take note of is of course a consultation document in respect of matters on which, as I understand it, the Government have come to no firm conclusions, and upon which they are seeking by way of consultation views from all quarters. We are still in the consultation period which, as I understand it, expires on 5th May, by which time, I notice with some amusement, comments have to be sent to the third level of my noble friend's Ministry. I do not know the significance of the third level.
We are still in the consultation period. That seems to me to be an advantage, just as it is an advantage to proceed in a matter of this kind by way of Green Paper and by way of inviting and listening to the views of all concerned before governmental decisions are taken.
The purpose of this Motion is mainly to enable your Lordships' House to take part in that consultation procedure and to offer, from varying points of view, whatever advice it thinks fit to Her Majesty's Government. I must admit that the only disadvantage in the procedure affects my noble friend the Minister, because in the nature of things, as we are still in the consultation period, he cannot reply to the debate with the precision and definiteness that we are accustomed to hearing from him on almost every other issue. I am afraid that that poses something of a problem for him. On the other hand, I hope and believe that he will welcome the opportunity to hear the views of your Lordships' House.
Your Lordships' House is especially well fitted to offer advice on these matters. Your Lordships' House contains a great many people who have vast experience, and current experience, of industry and the trade union side. It is notable that we are to have the pleasure of a maiden speech by a very distinguished trade unionist, the noble Lord, Lord Basnett, whose speech I am sure all your Lordships are looking forward to warmly. We are also looking forward to hearing speeches from two other major trade union leaders.
I could not help but reflect and consider the interesting change which has taken place in that respect over the years. When I was first involved in public life, leading figures in the trade union movement came into Parliament; but they came into another place. Great figures such as the late Mr. Bevin and Mr. J. H. Thomas served in another place, whereas today it is in your Lordships' House that the most distinguished figures in the trade union movement sit, and it is to your Lordships' House that they can contribute. That is an interesting development—I do not know whether it is a constitutional or a social change—not wholly irrelevant to the decision to hold this debate.
I was sorry to see that the TUC, as reported in The Times yesterday, had stated that the Green Paper was what it regarded, in a rather curious phrase, as "a charter of harassment". I hope that your Lordships will not take that view. I am sure that it is not so intended. I prefer on this matter the view of a former leader of the party opposite whom I am happy to be able to refer to as Sir James Callaghan. I am sure that all your Lordships were delighted to see that Her Majesty had conferred upon him, in the light of his long career of public service, the highest order of chivalry. All of us wish him many years happily to enjoy that great honour.
Sir James, as we must learn to call him, is reported as having said the other day in a Channel 4 interview that the unions were given every chance to reform themselves and failed. He said:
"To that extent they invited the legislation which was eventually visited upon them".
He went on to say:
"I had no doubt that public patience ran out in the winter of discontent of 1978–79, and a number of the legislative Acts that have been put on the statute books since then have carried a large measure of public support".
I hope that in the party opposite, as with the public generally, that more balanced view will attract more support than the rather off-the-cuff comment that the Green Paper proposals amounted to a charter of harassment.
Lord Jacques: My Lords, will the noble Lord give way? Will he further add that what Sir James said he objected to was the hostility shown to the trade union movement?
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, he refers in a very balanced speech to that, as he does to other matters. The point on which I was inviting attention was his very specific observation to the effect that the legislative changes which had been effected had been virtually invited by the unions by reason of their
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conduct in a period of which, after all, Sir James had more direct—if you like, more painful—experience than perhaps any of your Lordships. I do not therefore think, with respect to the noble Lord, whose interventions are normally relevant, that that has anything to do with the matter.
The Green Paper follows the step-by-step procedure which the Government have followed in respect of trade union legislation. The Acts of 1982, 1984 and 1986 each took the matter further step by step. As I understand it—the Minister will no doubt confirm this when he speaks—it has been the policy to proceed in this important, sensitive and very difficult matter not by some tremendous onslaught, not by showing (as the noble Lord opposite seeks to suggest) hostility, but step by step to secure improvements, to see how they worked, and to see what basis there will be for further improvements.
As I understand it, this Green Paper follows that procedure. That procedure is working. No one with any experience of industry can dispute that the atmosphere in industry is infinitely better today than it has been for many years. The time lost in industrial disputes is enormously less. Indeed, it seems nowadays almost entirely to be confined to certain aspects of the Civil Service. However, in industry proper there has been a degree of understanding, consultation and progress without strike action that for many of us our memories would have to go a long way back to be able to equal. Therefore without claiming—as it would be foolish to do—that this is due entirely to the legislation, as if the legislation has been consistent with that steady improvement, I suggest that it has played its part. But no one with any experience of these matters believes that legislation alone can either cure the evils or create a good situation. However, it can contribute, and contribute substantially.
That is not only a view that many of us hold, but is confirmed, I suggest, by what has happened in these last seven or eight years. It is against that background that we look at this Green Paper because there is quite a long way still to go in improving our industrial relations further. We still have some way to go until we reach the situation, for example, that exists in the United States where on the whole the unions are overtly anxious to see the firm which employs them prosper in order that they may be able to get a bigger cut out of the profits, very properly, as a result. This was brought home to me vividly when I visited an American company in Pennsylvania which was a subsidiary of a company of which I happened then to be chairman. There I saw that the local union representatives had put up in the works a large sign saying, "Customers make payday possible". I think that we still have something to learn from the American industrial scene.
It may be—here I touch quickly and delicately on a sensitive matter—that this is helped by the fact that the American trade unions do not regard themselves as being tied to any political party but support such political party as at the moment seems to suit their interests at any particular election.
As your Lordships will know, the Green Paper is not concerned with the balance of power between employer and employed or between unions and government. It is almost exclusively concerned with

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the balance of power between the union officers, committees and leadership on the one hand, and the union membership on the other. In other words, it is concerned with the balance of power within the unions. The objective that seems to run through the separate possibilities which the Green Paper adumbrates is that of restoring control of the union to its members.
This leads one to refer—as I do very briefly—to one or two of the individual items which I suggest support the general proposition that I have just ventured to make. Chapter 2 of the Green Paper deals with the position of union members called upon by their union to strike. The Green Paper brings out very vividly the difficulty of a union member who is doubtful as to the wisdom of the strike yet is called upon by his union to take industrial action. After all, the union itself—provided that it carries out the ballot required under the 1986 Act—is immune from legal proceedings. The individual union member is not. He is open, if anyone so wished, to legal proceedings, and, far more important from a practical point of view, by taking part in a strike he is putting himself in the position that he can be dismissed without compensation.
Therefore some thought is demanded of the position of a union member who may find himself (as he might put it) between the devil and the deep sea: between a union calling him out on strike and threatening him with expulsion from the union, with all that that involves, if he continues to work; or, alternatively, striking and submitting himself as a result to positive legal action and to the probability of dismissal. That is not a happy position for anyone to find himself in. It is therefore proposed as one of the matters for discussion that it should become illegal for the union to expel from membership a man or a woman who refuses to take part in a strike. If a union's officer so misjudges the situation—as one or two of them have over the years—that he calls a strike which his members do not want to support then probably the answer is to get a new officer. Certainly the answer is not to cause a number of people genuinely concerned with their own future to be expelled from their union and suffer all the inconvenience, unpleasantness and loss which that could involve.
That leads to what the Green Paper calls, I think very properly, a question of principle. It says:
"More important, however, are the issues of principle. The Government believes that a decision to take industrial action should be a matter for the individual. Every union member should be free to decide for himself whether or not he wishes to break his contract of employment and run the risk of dismissal without compensation. No union member should be penalised by his trade union for exercising his right to cross a picket line and go to work".
That is obviously an issue of very great importance in principle which I am sure some noble Lords will wish to discuss.
There are other very important aspects of the Green Paper. Chapter 4 deals with the closed shop. The 1976 Act—for which the party of noble Lords opposite was responsible—had a very curious provision in respect of the closed shop. The only grounds on which a worker could be excused from joining a union in the closed shop situation was that he belonged to a religious sect which disapproved of trade unions. No doubt there are
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some sects. There are sects which believe anything. But I cannot think that they are a very significant section of our society. I doubt whether noble Lords opposite would wish to argue that either. But apart from those somewhat eccentric people, the closed shop could be imposed.
There are very strong feelings about the closed shop. It is perhaps a reflection on some of the unions concerned that they should feel that the attractiveness of their membership is insufficient to encourage voluntary membership and that it should be made a matter of compulsion that someone should join the union in order to do the particular job.
I believe that the number of closed shops is on the decline, but it is our experience that the worst industrial relations and abuses have been in closed shop industries. The classic example which all your Lordships will immediately have in mind is that of the printing trades, where enormous damage was done by the excesses of the unions there.
I had experience of that when I was Member of Parliament for Kingston. A constituent of mine who had worked for the local paper as a printer went abroad. When he came back after some years his union membership had lapsed. His old paper wanted to take him back but it had a closed shop situation and the local branch of NATSOPA, the union concerned, declined to take him into membership, which he was quite willing to accept. It said he should not be allowed to rejoin because it wished to put somebody else into that vacancy.
That seemed to be quite intolerable interference with the rights of a citizen. I am glad to say that as a Member of Parliament at the time I had certain leverage. I spoke to the regional secretary of that union, indicating to him that unless my constituent was properly elected so that he could go into the job the matter would be raised in the House of Commons. By a curious coincidence the next day he was elected and all was well.
I should like to mention the matter of the proposed new commissioner. It is no use giving legal rights to individual union members if they cannot enforce them. It has been said that the courts of law are open to all, like the Ritz Hotel. The fact is that the ordinary union member cannot possibly contemplate taking his union to the courts. With the unions' equipment of lawyers and resources it would be a hopelessly unequal conflict. So the general thinking is that if you are going to give legal rights to the individual, if necessary against his own union, you must give him some effective means of enforcing them.
Some of your Lordships may remember that when this House was discussing provisions to deal with trespassing some time ago several noble Lords with legal or professional backgrounds said that you did not need to give the police powers to remove trespassers because all the farmer or smallholder had to do was to get an injunction from a judge in chambers. Some of us pointed out that if you lived in the country and happened not to have a regular lawyer, and if this occurred at a weekend, it was not necessarily easy.
The same point arises here. As I understand it, the object inter alia of setting up the new commissioner would be that if an appropriate case arose he would be

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able to offer legal, professional and technical support to the union member if that member desired to take proceedings and if he, the commissioner, thought that they were sensible. That seems to be a necessary part of the provision, since without it this would be quite ineffective.
Perhaps I may mention postal ballots briefly. It is rightly proposed that these should be properly supervised. If they are not, there is risk of abuse. We know of recent cases where there has been abuse, and they would cease to be a safeguard if they can be abused. There is also the small but quite necessary provision to ensure that re-election of union officers by postal ballot is not frustrated after five years if they simply give up their voting rights. A device of that sort makes nonsense of what was the intention of Parliament. I think that this would put it right.
There are a number of other issues, but I know many of your Lordships are desirous of speaking and I do not wish to take up too much time. I would only add that I hope that the union movement will not regard the Green Paper as hostile. I am perfectly certain that a great many union members will not. They will realise that there are a series of proposals which would, if enacted, shift the balance of power not away from the unions but away from the union leadership towards the union membership, towards the democratic side of the unions.
Years ago that may not have mattered much, but those of your Lordships with trade union experience will know that the new generation of trade union members, the younger ones, the ones in younger industries, are taking a much more acute and intelligent interest in the way their unions are run, and would be glad, if they differ from their leadership, to have some powers to express those views and if necessary to restrain their leadership. I think that there is a considerable movement that way and that the proposals in the Green Paper would give a legal framework to it.
There is much to be considered, but all that I would venture to say, particularly in the light of what the TUC has said, is that this is not a situation in which one can stand still. Like the rest of us, the trade unions have to move and adapt to changing circumstances, changing needs and changing popular demands. Although I have often thought that the trade union movement was far more conservative than any Conservative I have ever known, it has to accept the necessity and the desirability, in its own interests as well as those of its members, of continuing change and adaptation to the differing needs of today.
I conclude with a few words which are often misquoted but which I believe to be true and relevant to this:
"The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt".
I beg to move.
Moved, That this House takes note of the Green Paper, Trade Unions and Their Powers. (Cmnd. 95)—(Lord Boyd-Carpenter.)
3.48 p.m.
Lord Young of Graf ham: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter for intiating the debate this afternoon and for his thoughtful contribution. It was right that he should remind us that jobs go with customers. I was also interested in his reminder of the political affiliation, or rather the lack of political affiliation, of labour unions in the United States of America. It sometimes occurs to me to ask how well the leadership of unions in this country today reflects the real political views of the members, because I think there is a connection with the decline of membership which we have seen in recent years. However, that is not the subject for today.
I am glad to have an opportunity of returning to the Green Paper, Trade Unions and Their Members. When I made my statement on 24th February there was a clear feeling in the House that these important matters called for fuller discussion than was possible on that occasion. Several noble Lords have since been in touch with me to express interest or to seek clarification of particular points. The intervening weeks have allowed time for the paper to be studied and digested and for some of the first knee-jerk reactions of the critics to be reconsidered.
These are serious matters which deserve and require the careful scrutiny which they have been traditionally accorded in this House. A central feature of our economy and society has been a minimum of legal control of the collective bargaining by employers and trades unions of working conditions and pay in our various industries. On the basis of their negotiating position, unions have been able to play a determining role through collective bargaining in a number of areas where other countries impose more rigid institutional and legal requirements. Provided that the rules of the game are established in a way which provides a sensible balance of bargaining power, this system has an inbuilt flexibility which is highly desirable and which can assist the process of adaptation to economic change. Our system of sweeping legal immunities has in the past given great power to the unions in that bargaining process. That power imposes great responsibilities, however, upon the unions, not only in respect of the bargains struck with employers but also in their relationships with their members. To speak plainly, they must not—indeed must not be allowed to—sacrifice the individual on the altar of collective interests.
This is what lies at the heart of our Green Paper which is intended as the next step in our careful step-by-step reforms. It has little to say about the law on collective industrial action, but a great deal to say about the way in which unions treat their members. It is designed to correct undoubted abuses. Some of the cases which influenced us are displayed in the test. We took care to remind the public of some well-recorded recent cases when we drafted the document, although some noble Lords understandably could not contain their incredulity that anyone should question the evidence of abuse in respect of union discipline. I myself thought that the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, strained logic in questioning the evidence of abuse of the statutory election requirements in the same breath as he described a proposal as "the Scargill clause".

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The protections we propose for individual union members do no more than guarantee what they are entitled to expect as members of self-proclaimed democratic, voluntary organisations in a free society such as ours. If all unions always reached the standards of democratic conduct on which our proposals are based it is difficult to see in what respect our proposals could cause any difficulty whatsoever. I shall be interested to hear whether those who oppose these measures continue to claim that they are unnecessary because there is no problem or argue that their operation will be oppressive, thereby implicitly admitting that abuses occur.
We must be prepared to tackle issues of evident and real public concern as they arise. This lies at the heart of the step-by-step concept. In 1980 we had to put right the worst features of the laws which had helped throw society into chaos during the winter of discontent. In 1982, it was clearly right to bring trade unions themselves within the scope of legal actions for injunctions and damages for organising unlawful industrial action. In 1984 we took another major step to ensure that strikes could not be called by trade unions without support from those involved in voting in a secret ballot if their immunities were to be retained. The public—and I believe the great majority of responsible trade union members themselves—have applauded these measures and they have been of obvious, practical effect. All this is part of the step-by-step process referred to by my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter. Last year the number of strikes were at their lowest level for 50 years.
We have throughout worked within the framework of existing law, and common law principles in particular. We have left it to those who actually suffer (or who might suffer) the harmful consequences of unlawful acts to seek remedy and redress. The Government have provided the means for others to take action, but have not sought to impose themselves as an active party. This approach has avoided the cry of "the state against the trade unions". It has preserved the fundamental principle that at the heart of an employment relationship there lies an implicit or explicit contract between the employer and the employee.
In all that we have done we have consistently aimed to allow more scope for market forces to operate. We have dismantled legislative provisions which have interfered with the bargaining process, such as the so-called, and misnamed, "employment protection" law—Schedule 11 of the 1975 Act—which could be used to impose rates of pay which were inappropriate to particular enterprises. We have drastically reduced the powers of wages councils and done away with the unworkable and disruptive statutory recognition procedures. Alongside these actions, we have done all we can to encourage the spread of good practice and realistic bargaining through stimulating debate about matters such as profit-related pay, local bargaining and better communications between employers and employees.
The benefits of our approach are now clearly visible. It can be no coincidence that over recent years we have seen historically very low levels of days lost due to strikes. But the figures are only part of the story. Just
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as significant is the hard evidence that overseas investors are now looking with confidence at the prospect of putting their capital into our country. We hear much less about the "British disease" of strikes, stoppages and lost production. It is my fervent hope that this Government will see the establishment of a new British tradition—that of a productive, flexible workforce able and willing to respond to the demands of modern industry, services and technology. I returned only yesterday from a short visit to the United States of America. Employers and investors there are very well aware of the change of climate in the United Kingdom.
Much has been done, but much still needs to be achieved. Guided by our experience over the last few years, we put forward in the Green Paper Trade Unions and Their Members a number of proposals which are really all about the sort of trade unions and trade unionism that we will need in the economy and society of the future.
I should like briefly to remind the House of some of our key proposals and of their implications. First, we propose giving a right to trade union members to restrain their unions from calling on them to take industrial action without a proper secret ballot. This right will complement the arrangements of Part II of the Trade Union Act 1984 which give employers, their customers and suppliers the ability to take legal action against trade unions authorising or endorsing unballoted industrial action. The proposal has been designed in such a way that it should have no untoward consequences for the bargaining process. We do not propose to give individual union members the right to insist that a ballot should be held, but only to get the court to restrain the union from acting in certain ways without a ballot. I am pleased to note that there is now general acceptance of the importance of pre-strike ballots and we believe that the member's right must be properly enforceable. Looking to the future, I am encouraged by the fact that unions which have the strongest balloting tradition are among those which most rarely proceed to strike action.
I should add that in order to avoid a restraining order a union would have to hold a ballot that met all the standards laid down in Part II of the Trade Union Act 1984. In future those who actually take part in a ballot will have the right to enforce the legal requirements, covering such elementary but vital matters as secrecy and effective entitlement to vote. This should help to flush out abuses which employers may find it very difficult to detect.
We also want to give individual union members protection against being disciplined by their unions if they choose not to go on strike. I cannot believe it is right that employees should be intimidated into breaking their contracts of employment by the threat of such discipline or expulsion. We understand the arguments about collective action and strength through unity. Nothing which we propose will prevent workers from coming together in a common purpose, and we do not seek to undermine legitimate union discipline generally. We are minded, however, to restrain organisations from forcing their members into breaking their contracts of employment.
In a highly technical chapter of the Green Paper we propose a series of measures to enable members to

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exercise effective control over the financial affairs of their unions and ensure that they keep within the law. Most union leaders are no doubt acutely aware that their organisations depend upon members' contributions and exist for their benefit. It ought to be profoundly shocking that measures of the kind proposed need even to be considered. But I shall be interested to know if any noble Lord thinks that we are tilting at windmills of our own invention. I do not think any Member of this House will dissent from the standards envisaged, which should govern the behaviour of any democratic and law-abiding trade union.
We propose taking further steps to remove the basis of legal support for post-entry closed shops, and to make it easier for employers to resist trade union pressure to establish or maintain closed shop practices. This Government have always believed that individuals should be free to choose for themselves whether or not to belong to a trade union. It is objectionable in principle to allow anyone to coerce an employer into putting someone out of work (or denying employment) on the grounds that he does not belong to a union, or to a particular union. What we want is to give individuals real freedom to choose. The law already offers employees unqualified protection in case of dismissal or other discriminatory treatment on grounds of union membership. It is right that nonunion members should benefit from equivalent safeguards.
Our proposals on trade union elections represent a modest extension of the requirements of the 1984 Act. We see a need to maintain respect for the law by blocking a loophole which has provided a temptation to misplaced ingenuity. On balloting procedures we have seen some unions struggle not very successfully to put their house in order while others hardly struggled at all. More therefore needs to be done. On the other hand, the unions have now had ample time to compile the registers of members required under the 1984 Act, and it is therefore practicable, as it was not in 1984, to require them to adopt fully postal balloting. Unions will be required to have these ballots independently supervised; some already do so. And here, as in so many other respects, we are doing no more than generalising existing good practice.
Finally, I ought to say a few words about the proposal for a trade union commissioner, not least because there have been some misunderstandings about the Green Paper proposal. What we are after here is a means of helping individual trade unionists secure observance by their unions of statutory duties which they owe to their members. The commissioner's support in legal actions will not come into play unless and until there is a union member who wants to bring a legal action. He will have no roving brief to initiate investigations but will facilitate the enforcement by members of certain key rights through the existing machinery.
The commissioner will have discretion in many cases to decide whether or when to offer support. Only where a union was clearly flouting the terms of a declaration issued by the certification officer, who had found the union in breach of a statutory duty in respect of elections, would the commissioner be under a duty
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to provide support to an individual. Further, the commissioner's role, at least initially, will be confined to supporting certain defined types of complaint. I should be quite content if the commissioner's services were hardly ever sought, provided that this was because trade unions were in practice observing the relevant statutory duties and their members consequently had no cause for complaint.
In the debates and comment on the Green Paper proposals we have heard a lot of what I can only call (and here I am being kind) poor and inappropriate analogies with company law. People have claimed, for example, that we are seeking to regulate and control trade unions, while letting companies in the City go their own way. The foolishness of claiming that companies (and for that matter City institutions in particular) are free from legal constraints—and even direct interference by government departments—will, I am sure, be apparent to all in your Lorships' House who sat through the recent debates on the Banking Bill and much of the other legislation that governs the City. The Green Paper proposals are designed to be relevant to the affairs of voluntary associations which are concerned with collective bargaining and cannot be read across by analogy to companies whose purpose is the application and combination of capital in a business venture.
I commend to the House the proposals set out in Trade Unions and their Members and to which I have just briefly referred. Together they should help to ensure that trade unions in this country evolve in the direction of modern, democratic, genuinely voluntary organisations. This is a Green Paper. We have invited comments and many have been received. I shall consider them all, as I shall consider the contributions of all in your Lordships' House. In the end we look for a movement which will be strong and healthy, responsive to the wishes of working people and capable of inspiring their loyalty. It will then be truly representative and able to contribute fully to the response of our economy and society to the challenge of our times.
4.5 p.m.
Lord Murray of Epping Forest: My Lords, I welcome this debate not least because it provides the occasion on which an old friend and colleague will have the opportunity of making his maiden speech in this House. I look forward very much to hearing the way in which my noble friend Lord Basnett negotiates, as it were, a non-controversial way through a difficult and barbed subject, one which is perhaps less of a Green Paper than an instalment in the Conservative Party's election manifesto.
In introducing the debate the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, set out the case for the Green Paper in all its stark reality. My main complaint about this document is that the proposals are based on no serious analysis of industrial relations systems or of trade union systems, or even of serious defects in those systems. It seems to me to be based at best on misunderstandings and at worst on misrepresentations. Indeed, we are offered legislation by anecdote.
The noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, reminded us of occasions in the past when predecessors of mine found their way on to the Benches of the House of Commons. Indeed, this was true. At that time the

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Opposition Benches were graced by people such as Churchill, R. A. Butler, Macleod and, a little earlier, Walter Monckton. I sometimes wonder what those great leaders of the Conservative Party would have made of the increasingly ideological approach of the present Administration towards industrial relations and trade unions. It seems to me—and I say it with regret—that the passage of this legislation has been marked more by considerations and interests of class than of nation. That would never have commended itself to those leaders.
We are told that the result of these proposals would he to increase the freedom of the individual. On the contrary, my view is that taken as a whole and in part—I shall come to some of the parts, although I cannot cover every detail—their result would be to reduce the opportunity of the individual employee of receiving fair treatment at work. They are based on a preconception of what happens which in my experience bears far too little relationship with reality to command the emphasis and weight which has been attached to it.
When the first Secretary of State for Employment of the 1979 Administration, the predecessor of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Graffham, first spoke to the TUC about the Government's proposals, I gave him a blank piece of paper and invited him in all seriousness to write down his complaints and criticisms of trade union activity in industrial relations. This was to give to the TUC and the CBI jointly the opportunity of starting on the basis of seeing what was wrong and what needed to be done, not ruling out legal support where that was appropriate, but starting from industrial relations as they were. I regret very much that that was rejected. I repeat the suggestion now that, instead of going through what I fear is a charade of consultation, the Government should invite the TUC, the CBI, the Institution of Personnel Management and the BIM, if they like, to sit round a table and argue it out on the basis of evidence and of needs.
The impression that has been created—the noble Lord helped to create it—is that this document is the response to some great surge of popular demands from working people. All that I have ever seen of such popular demand has been in a column penned by two of your Lordships dealing in particular with complaints made by one man, who happened to be the chairman of the national trade union committee of the Conservative Party. He had occasion to complain to the certification officer about deviations and defects in his union, NALGO. Of the 14 complaints, three were upheld, two being minor technical matters, and the third was corrected by the union itself.
I ask again, where is this great surge of demand from working people? Of course, if there are complaints they must be examined and the evidence must be put on the table. I hope that it would be rather better than the evidence for change as suggested in paragraph 2.13 of the Green Paper, which discusses the matter of unions disciplining their members. It says:
"In the summer of 1982 … the NUR disciplined about 120,000 members."
At that time, according to the TUC's record of affiliation, the NUR total membership was 150,214. I
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hope that the evidence on which other parts of the Green Paper are based is rather more substantial than a statement of that sort.
The Secretary of State reminded us that this is a consultation document. I cannot help but say that my confidence is hardly enhanced by previous experiences in this field. The TUC and the unions concerned were offered consultation on GCHQ. We know the outcome of the labours that were put into producing an agreement. So, to his cost, does the Secretary to the Cabinet, who helped produce a joint agreed statement. We know the outcome of previous consultations on reform of trade union law. Let me be fair. Some of the proposals put forward in previous Green Papers were indeed dropped—gone, but not forgotten, like ballots for trade union officers without a vote on the executive.
What we have to a considerable extent between the covers of this document is a collection of seconds, as it were, pulled from under the counter, only slightly used, put together by some Arthur Daley of the second-hand Green Paper trade with a lick of paint, and all in the name of defending the rights of workers—I am sad to say this—from a government who have repeatedly weakened and, indeed, removed the ability of workpeople who have been unfairly dismissed to get redress for it; a government who, as the Secretary of State has reminded us, although he did not use the verb, have emasculated wages councils, who have even watered down the rights of employees to be told about impending redundancies; and we are told that there are yet more on the way.
What the Government are doing in effect is offering in compensation to employees who have lost rights at work the ability to take action against their own unions, seeking to strengthen the rights of dissident members and dissident groups against their own unions. The Government in effect are offering here litigation against unions as a substitute for protection of workpeople against unfair treatment by their employers.
The rights of individuals at work were established and have been sustained by collective action by collective organisations created by those workpeople. The aim of these proposals, as with the preceding proposals, has been to weaken the organisations which workpeople themselves have established and sustained.
The Green Paper, at paragraph 2.26, talks of providing,
"assurance to trade union members that they could not be deprived of the right of reasonable access to the courts in case of breach of their common law or statutory rights".
I do not object to that at all. But where is there any evidence of a union seeking to do that or succeeding in doing it? I for one would never defend it. This document is paraded before us as if there is some practice which needs to be dealt with and extirpated at the roots, seeking to create that impression, whereas I search in vain for proposals in the Green Paper for the protection of workers who are victimised by their employers for complaining about employers' breaches of their rights or for making representations to their own unions. On that there is not a word.
In a sense these are ill-considered trifles compared with the attempts to increase the pressure on unions

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and their leaders by disaffected groups and individuals. With all respect to the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, I believe that the only phrase is "an invitation to harass". I would not ask for sympathy for trade union leaders—they never got much from me in my time—but they do not lie on a bed of roses. It is a rough old life. Very often—indeed, usually—they have to make decisions that upset minorities; for example, standing outside ACAS or Congress House at one o'clock in the morning after reaching agreement, telling—in the old days instructing—the members that the return to work would take place at half-past seven the next morning, with a howling mob of Trotskyites demanding the ballot before they go back to work; or on the factory floor the trade union representative having to tell a member that he has no case, no grievance, against a foreman, thus creating a dissident minority.
The Green Paper proposes to offer to dissident minorities the right to take action against the unions to undermine the collective disciplines by which unions solve industrial relations problems and to that extent put employers in their debt. It will be more difficult for unions to resolve disputes, whether collective or individual, if this is done. We have a valued tradition that minorities abide by the decision of the majority. It is a tradition of trade union democracy and I should have thought that it is a tradition of democracy generally.
Now it is proposed that where a majority ballot for industrial action, the minority can ignore the result. Paragraph 2.10 of the Green Paper states (this has been referred to already):
"The right of the individual to choose to go to work despite a call to take industrial action is an essential freedom".
There is no qualification. There is no damned nonsense about the merits of the dispute and the merits of the industrial action. There is no damned nonsense about consultation: this is an assertion. The right is an essential freedom. One might be tempted to ask about the right to go to work of 3 million people who have no jobs. Whatever happened to the right of British workmen and women not to go to work except on terms and conditions that have been agreed with their employer? It is the right which sets us apart from dictatorships, and which defends us against attempts to be taken over as agents of the state or as marionnettes who jump to some employer's whistle.
What is an essential right is the right to expect those who are opposed to a decision to abide by the results of a fair vote. We expect it in your Lordships' House, and what is good enough for us is good enough for a trade union branch leader. What is the point of holding a ballot if dissident minorities are then to be free to ignore it?
On the other hand, in relation to the closed shop, in previous legislation the Government said, "Let there be ballots", and lo, there were ballots with monotonous regularity. There were majorities exceeding 85 per cent. in favour of maintaining the principle that an individual who wanted to receive the benefits from that particular place must pay his whack of the contributions. Now we are to have second thoughts. Now we are told that no individual can fairly be dismissed if he persists in holding out his hand for
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the benefits and refuses to pay his fare or to pay his sub. But where are the individuals who have ever been dismissed for doing that? One can count them on the fingers of a hand. What about the more than 3,000 individual workers who every year prove to industrial tribunals that they have been unfairly and illegally dismissed by employers? The word "intimidation" was used. Where does intimidation lie?
Again—and this must be my last illustration—there is the proposal that all members of executives, including those without a vote, must be elected by postal ballots. I would make heavy weather of that proposal. This is known as legislation ad hominem and we all know the name of the man. I hold no brief for Mr. Scargill. The Secretary of State described this as a modest extension. Let me make a modest prophecy. If that law is placed on the statute book, the resentment created will increase the support and the votes which Mr. Scargill receives from his members.
These proposals could almost have been designed to bring the law itself into disrepute. This is where one finishes when one goes down that road, instead of starting from the industrial relations system and starting from trade unions as they really are, and when one fails to ask what are the purposes of the industrial relations system; what are the purposes of the trade unions; how can their defects be corrected? In that context, what is the role of law? The law has a place and a purpose in industrial relations and in trade union affairs. It is needed to protect the individual against abuse or exploitation. Yes, to protect him from the abuse of the power of his union and, yes, from the abuse of the power of his employers. It seems to be the concern of the writers of the Green Paper to throw out the baby of trade unionism but to keep the bathwater of exploitation by unscrupulous employers.
The second role of the law is to generalise good practices in industrial relations and trade union matters. This paper makes no contribution to that. I repeat that what is needed there is representatives of employers and workers to sit down and examine the changes that are needed. I should like to think that the TUC and the CBI might try again as they did in the late 1960s. They very nearly succeeded but for the nonsensical Green Paper or White Paper (whatever it was) In Place of Strife, and subsequently the takeover by the Industrial Relations Act 1970.
If the TUC and CBI cannot achieve that, perhaps some people should reflect upon the value of the Mond-Turner discussions of the 1930s, and upon the values that those broke down and the progress that was made through them. The point is that bad currency such as this drives out good efforts to include industrial relations. With deep respect, industrial relations are far too important to be handed over to lawyers and certainly to be handed over to journalists, who lie at the root of this matter. They are too important to be handed over to politicians who are seeking party advantage.
The danger of the Government's approach is, I believe, that it could well provoke equal and opposite reaction. It could lead to ping-pong legislation in the industrial relations and trade union field. It could lead to ever-widening swings of the political pendulum. That is no good for industrial relations, for industry or for our society.
4.29 p.m.
Lord Rochester: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, for having introduced this debate and thus enabling the House to take part in the consultative exercise now proceeding on the Green Paper. My noble friends and I are looking forward to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Basnett, whom I used to face across the negotiating table 25 or 30 years ago.
Hitherto we have given broad support to the Government's gradual approach to reforming the law relating to trade unions—for example, in 1982 on closed shop ballots and the limitation of union immunities and in 1984 on the extended use of secret postal ballots in electing members of union national executives. Indeed on that matter I should remind the House that we wished to go further than the Government in advocating not simply that postal ballots should be the statutory norm but that, if there had to be workplace ballots, the onus should be placed on trade unions to satisfy the Certification Officer that requirements as to secrecy, convenience of voting and freedom from interference and constraint were met rather than that responsibility for challenging dubious electoral procedures should be borne by individual trade unionists.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, may I ask a question? The noble Lord has said "we" on three occasions. Can he say whether he is talking both for the Liberal Benches and the SDP Benches?
Lord Rochester: My Lords, I gladly confirm that today I am speaking for the Liberal/SDP Alliance. To continue my speech, it is better late than never on the part of the Government. We continue to feel strongly, as the Government now agree, that trade unions should use fully postal voting procedures under independent supervision for elections to their principal executive committees and these should extend to the distribution, the receipt and the counting of ballot papers. The chief officers of unions, in our view, should also be required to submit themselves for reappointment at regular intervals either by the same electoral means or, at the very least, by the votes of members of principal executive committees who have themselves been properly elected.
The cost to unions of employing outside bodies to supervise ballots in this way will nevertheless be very considerable; so when the Secretary of State comes to reply I should be grateful if he would say whether, as in Section 1 of the Employment Act 1980, the Government contemplate trade unions being able to recover such costs from public funds.
I turn now to the section of the Green Paper dealing with industrial action and the rights of union members. When the 1984 Trade Union Bill was passing through this House I expressed the view that, although secret pre-strike ballots were clearly desirable in the case of major national stoppages, the effect of the measures then proposed by the Government might be to encourage even more unofficial action than there already was. In the event, I gladly acknowledge that the last three years have shown that unofficial strikes are no longer the predominant form of industrial action and the beneficial effect of the legislation in a
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number of industry-wide disputes in the public sector has been plainly demonstrated.
It is now proposed that individual union members should be enabled to take legal action to restrain their unions from authorising or endorsing industrial action which has not been validated by a ballot. We sympathise with the view that such a right should be seen as a natural development of those already accorded to employers, customers and suppliers under the 1984 Act.
However, the Government also now propose that individual union members should be protected from disciplinary action by their union if they refuse to take industrial action, even when it has been endorsed by a prior secret ballot. It is said that the individual should be afforded this legal protection since in taking industrial action and thus breaking his contract of employment he may render himself liable for dismissal.
On the other hand, it is argued by the Institute of Personnel Management, whose members have to carry the can in handling industrial relations in the front line, that the form of question now required on the strike ballot paper tends to remove the employer's existing discretion to treat strike action as a breach of contract. This, combined with the economic pressures on employment, may effectively denude the employee of the right to strike. Unless there is some counter-balancing, collective right to strike in certain circumstances, the scales appear to be very heavily weighted against trade unions.
As the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Epping Forest, has already mentioned, it said in the Green Paper that the right of the individual to choose to go to work despite a call to take industrial action is an essential freedom. But is there not also a case for limiting the extent to which employers are now able to seek ex parte injunctions, while trade unions are unable to take legal action collectively on behalf of employees, even though the employer may be threatening flagrantly to break the terms of an employment contract? What about those employers who by setting up a maze of artificial companies have been able to turn otherwise legitimate strikes into secondary action in a way which was not at all intended under recent legislation?
The CBI considers that the principal argument against this proposal of the Government is that it could undermine the balloting process itself in so far as it was seen to provide a formof statutory protection for those refusing to be bound by the results of the ballot. It concludes that the Government should not pursue the proposal, and I think they are right.
On the question of the post-entry closed shop, your Lordships may recall that when the Employment Act 1980 was being debated we opposed the immediate abolition of closed shops on the grounds that such action would simply drive them underground. Since then seven years have elapsed. In the case of many large companies closed shops which were already in existence have not been put to the test of a ballot and therefore they do not qualify for legal immunity now.
Where ballots have been held and have produced the required majority in favour few, if any, problems have arisen. Where the necessary majority has not

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been achieved, closed shops have been dismantled without adverse repercussion. In other words, for various reasons the practice is gradually withering away. Why not therefore simply let it die of inanition? If the Government are looking for a real restrictive practice to go at, what about the much more illiberal pre-entry closed shop, on which the Green Paper is strangely silent?
In the section of the Green Paper dealing with the control of trade union funds, it is proposed that members, accompanied by professional advisers, should have a right of access to their unions' detailed accounting records. Under the Trade Unions and Labour Relations Act of 1974 unions and employers' associations already have to make an annual return to the Certification Officer and keep proper accounting records which give a true and fair view of their affairs.
Rather than giving union members this new statutory right, with all the administrative burdens that could impose, why not simply require both employers and trade unions to disclose to their employees or members financial information, as was envisaged in the Industrial Relations Act 1971 in relation to employers?
There is another aspect to this matter. Companies are not legally obliged to provide the kind of detailed information which the Government apparently now have in mind for trade unions. For example, shareholders have no right to financial information on a plant-by-plant basis, nor to inspect their company's books. If I am right in my understanding, I must ask the Secretary of State or the Government to justify this proposed distinction between the members of trade unions on the one hand and the shareholders of companies on the other.
The last section of the Green Paper relates to the enforcement of statutory duties. It contains proposals designed to assist individuals who might otherwise feel deterred from pursuing their complaint because of the financial costs involved, or for some other reason. To help them it is proposed that a new commissioner for trade union affairs should be appointed. But his would surely be a highly controversial role since no limits appear to be set on the extent to which trade union members could call him in aid.
In the Green Paper the proposed commission is compared with those concerned with equal opportunities and racial equality, but those commissions can offer legal assistance only if a case raises a question of principle or is complex, and it is unreasonable to expect the applicant to deal with it unaided. Accordingly, I must ask the Secretary of State on what grounds trade union members are to be singled out from other citizens as recipients of this new kind of institutional help.
So far I have confined my remarks to the merits of the specific propsoals in the Green Paper, basing them on the Government's supposition that further trade union legislation is now called for. However, in the time that remains to me I wish to pose some fundamental questions relating to the Green Paper as a whole. First, is this really the time for the Government to be embarking on further union legislation? To judge from the response of the Institute
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of Personnel Management, the answer is, no. It believes that another round of major employment legislation at this time could be inappropriate and counter-productive. The institute considers that trade unions should be given more time in which to reform themselves. It considers that the rate of change was always bound to be slow and that more time should be allowed to make a fair assessment of the present laws before adding to them. The institute does not consider that, based on practical experience, there is justification for more legislation in the field of industrial relations. It refers to the growing number of companies where employers, unions and their members have been able to develop initiatives to improve industrial relations and hopes that these encouraging signs can be developed further within the existing framework rather than introducing new legislation which will be seen as unnecessarily controversial and adversarial.
If, in the view of those best qualified to judge this is not the time for introducing further legislation, why are the Government proposing to do it? Here one cannot help suspecting that they are less concerned with the need gradually to improve industrial relations by encouraging co-operation between management and employees than with a desire further to cripple the effectiveness of trade unions. The Government may think that this will rebound to their advantage in the forthcoming general election, but I warn them that it may do just the opposite. We on these Benches believe in trade unions as an essential means of enabling employees to join together to protect themselves from unscrupulous employers and generally to keep management up to its job.
I should next like to ask why the Government are showing themselves to be so discriminatory and lacking in even-handedness in their approach to regulatory legislation generally. Just over a month ago the noble Baroness, Lady Turner of Camden, introduced a Bill which sought to provide new rights to information and consultation for trade unions and their members involved in takeovers and mergers. In our view it would have been better if it had applied to employees generally; but never mind. On that occasion the debate centred on how in such situations the interests of employees and indeed of the general public could best be protected. I said that effective voluntary action was preferable to legislation, but that the trouble with voluntarism was that there had to be volunteers. If they were not forthcoming, legislation was all that remained.
In their response the Government referred to the review of law and policy on mergers and restrictive trade practices that is now taking place and assured us that the rights of employees in takeovers was one of the matters under consideration. However, I suggest that that slow moving, deliberative approach to further regulation of the City is in sharp contrast to the apparent imminence of further legislation on trade unions.
If there is need now for more trade union legislation, there is surely no less need for some statutory limitation to be placed on the current excess of speculative capitalism that is directed towards short-term gain rather than the long-term improvement of our industrial performance.

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My last general question is as to why we read so much in the Green Paper about the duties of trade unions and the rights of their members and nothing at all about the need for employers to do more to improve communication with their employees. It was to go just a little way towards providing some balance in these matters that five years ago my noble friends and I persuaded the House and ultimately the Government to accept what is now Section 1 of the Employment Act 1982. That is the section which requires companies employing more than 250 people to include in their annual reports a statement describing the action taken during the financial year to develop employee involvement in a number of ways.
Again, if there is thought to be this immediate need for further detailed regulation of the conduct of trade unions, why should the Government not build at the same time on what is already the practice of our most successful companies by giving employees the statutory right to be informed on matters of concern to them as employees and consulted in the making of decisions that affect their interests?
This debate is about the Government's Green Paper. The House today is not discussing the Labour Party's approach to the subject of further legislation affecting trade unions. However, having expressed our misgivings about both the timing and the unbalanced nature of the Government's proposals, I am bound to add that the Labour Opposition's intention to put the clock back by reversing so much of the legislation of the last few years would, in our view, have disastrous effects on British industry.
To mention but one example, the TUC Labour Party pamphlet People at Work: New Rights, New Responsibilities states that the new framework envisaged in it would,
"in no way give employers, or their customers or suppliers, any opportunity to seek injunctions and damages against a union".
I cannot believe that the majority of trade unionists, never mind the electorate generally, will shortly vote for a return to the chaotic conditions that such a reactionary proposal would bring in its train. Certainly the Alliance will use whatever influence it may have in the formulation of policy in this field after the election to ensure that nothing of the kind is allowed to happen.
We believe that there is now a strong case for moving towards a system of positive rights for trade unions and individual employees in place of the current system of union immunities. This might well define the conditions under which there would be rights to union recognition and for individuals to strike, but we are also sufficiently realistic to recognise that such a major upheaval in the law would have to be managed with enormous care and would require the widest possible consultation and acceptance before it could be implemented.
To sum up, we think that there should now be a breathing space in which the legislation of the last few years, much of which we have supported, can be digested and management and employees can increasingly develop the interests that they have in common. Trade unions must continue to operate within a framework of law, but when the time is ripe for a revision of that legislation, let it be fair and let it be balanced in the interests of the community as a whole.
4.50 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Manchester: My Lords, I am very grateful, too, for the opportunity to debate the Green Paper. I believe that trade unions play a very vital role in our society these days. I am very conscious that the issues raised in the Green Paper are complex and that there are people present in your Lordships' House who have lived with them, perhaps from both sides of industry and commerce, for many years. We have already benefited from hearing some views, and I look forward in particular to hearing the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Basnett. I am not quite sure how long this debate will go on. Your Lordships might say that that rests partly in my hands along with other speakers. I should like however to apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Young, if I am not in my place for the concluding stages. I hope to be here, but I shall have to see how it goes.
On study leave in India last year, I found myself in a silk factory in a major city. The factory was producing the most beautiful silks, fabrics and saris in the most terrible working conditions; and wages were clearly very low. Talking to the owner of the factory in the steaming heat, although it was supposed to be the cool season, I asked various questions about the workforce. How many? About 200. How many women employees? About 20. It was not very suitable for them. How many belong to unions? The owner put his hands together, raised his eyes piously to heaven and said, "We have no unions in this place, thank God." Market forces were truly at work.
It is important in a debate such as today's to remember something of the history of the trade unions and how they grew up in this country. I could not help being reminded, seeing conditions in India, of what conditions were like in Salford, in Manchester and in the other industrial cities of Britain back in the 19th century, and of the really vital role which trade unions then played to improve the standard of life of working people and, I believe, to help us generally forward into a better form of society.
It is very easy to build up ill will against unions in the sort of society in which we live today. The press can have a field day when something goes wrong in the conditions surrounding strikes and it is very easy to arouse a great deal of public anger. All of us have personal memories of the winter of discontent. Along, I am sure, with many of your Lordships, I was horrified by some of the things that happened, some of the incidents on picket lines. But we need to remember that trade unions arose in response to the power—the overweaning, almost unbridled, power—of employers, and to help the poor and the underpaid.
The role of the unions back in the 19th century—in the early years of their history—was necessarily defensive and protective. Their eyes were fixed on the welfare of their own members. This remains a prime consideration. But, naturally, the call today is for a wider role for unions and a greater consciousness of the kind of society in which they are operating—a call to which, I believe, they are responding.
It is necessarily part of the role of governments of every political complexion to make sure that the

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power of organisations and institutions in a country is not abused. All of us, I believe, ought to concede this. Personally, I give a welcome to some steps taken in recent years, as the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, has indicated, to achieve greater democracy in unions. It is right for governments to be concerned over abuses of power and particularly with the protection of the public. One is aware, when the public are endangered by some industrial dispute, of the awful humbug that goes on—humbug from those who are on strike and also from those opposing the wage claim, or whatever it may be, when it is argued that the intention is not to hurt the most vulnerable in our society and that the responsibility is all on the other side. That simply will not do. The innocent, the weak and the poor can get very badly hurt in such disputes. It is necessary therefore to watch for abuses of power and to encourage greater responsibility in unions along with other institutions in our society.
The trade unions are only one group of the organised institutions in society, and there are others, who exercise self-interest readily enough. My worry about the Green Paper is that there does not seem to be any awareness as to how many different groups operate in our society. It may be said that this is the responsibility of Green Papers in other fields, of discussions in other fields or of legislation brought forward, for example, to regulate the City. I do not think that that is an adequate reason for such a one-sided document now before us. Government departments can abuse their power; great multinationals, especially if they have monopoly powers, can abuse.
As regards professional associations, I should like to quote an example of what happened back in 1974—not all that long ago.
"Hospital consultants imposed sanctions to bring pressure to bear upon the Government in the case of a dispute over pay and began working to contract. In one month, a quarter of a million hospital appointments were cancelled. Support for the work-to-contract was total. Mass resignations from the National Health Service were prepared and more than half the consultants registered with private medical agencies in order to contract their skills to the National Health Service at rates fixed by themselves. The disputes rumbled on for over a year altogether before a satisfactory conclusion was reached. Where their seniors had led, junior hospital doctors and ancillary staffs followed. Grievances about pay and status were felt keenly enough for the conduct of the NHS to be in jeopardy and for considerable pain and suffering to be caused".
I make no comment on the actual causes of that dispute or to what extent people were justified. I simply show that as one example of a power group in society prepared to misuse its power. All the attention should not be concentrated on the unions. Market forces themselves can lead to very great abuse, and I was not wholly convinced by the refusal of the noble Lord, Lord Young, to consider analogies between what happens in commercial companies and what happens in the field of the unions.
A main criticism, then, of the Green Paper is that it is far too one-sided and the trade unions are, I think, entitled to react on that basis. There is no recognition of the positive value of unions and their role in society, although I was very grateful to hear the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, and also the noble Lord, Lord
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Young, himself, make a reference to this. It does not seem to appear in the Green Paper.
There is no recognition of the various centres of power in modern Britain. The comments of the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, on companies in relation to shareholders were a good example of how power can be abused. All the emphasis is on individual rights. Individual rights are, of course, very important. It is a vital part of the Judeo-Christian tradition to care about individuals over and against the state or other power groupings. But group rights also matter. And they can indeed protect the individual worker which is what they are often designed to do. I do not think one can accept too readily a situation where individuals simply contract out.
There could be a parallel here which your Lordships may or may not accept. I have been put under a good deal of pressure in recent years to join the peace tax campaign. The idea is that individuals who do not agree with nuclear weapons or the purchase of Trident should be entitled to withdraw their taxes and to put them aside so that they can be used for good purposes, such as world development. The idea is splendid in theory but I have always declined to join because I believe that in a democratic society where you have a democratically elected government to make decisions—even those with which you do not agree—you still have a responsibility because of your group membership, your membership of the community, to go along with them. If individual rights are to be exalted above all else, one might well ask why we have party Whips operating in this House and in another place. I do not say that, because we do not have one!
Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
The Lord Bishop of Manchester: My Lords, perhaps I may say to the noble Lord, Lord Denham, who is now present, that I was speaking of the value of party Whips—at least on one point of view!
If we look at paragraph 2.22 of the Green Paper, we see that it states:
"The Government believes that a decision to take industrial action should be a matter for the individual. Every union member should be free to decide for himself whether or not he wishes to break his contract of employment and run the risk of dismissal without compensation".
I believe that that is far too simplistic and that the balance between individual and group rights is much better argued through, as, for example, in a document which came from the Church of England Board for Social Responsibility a few years ago which dealt with understanding the closed shops. What I shall now read to your Lordships relates to closed shops and compulsory union membership. It states that a Christian:
"will feel an obligation to work for the development of laws and institutions in society which respect the conscience of the genuinely dissenting individual, without weakening them so much that those institutions cannot perform their legitimate function. The tension here between freedom and order may be particularly acute, but the Christian should be realistic about the need to live with conflicting claims … motivated by the demands of love, should feel the need to be concerned with obligations towards others and not simply with the rights of individuals on their own. He will recognise too that true freedom has more to do with responding to the obligations inherent in relationship with others than with independence and self-centredness".

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I commend those words to your Lordships' consideration because I believe that they are an attempt to wrestle with the difficult question of the balance between group rights and individual rights in modern society. I am bound to say that the unions themselves have, to my mind, sometimes given too little consideration to these difficult questions and I hope that they will consider them more in the years ahead. However, that is no excuse for the Green Paper to do the same. I am not surprised in the slightest at a TUC reaction which referred to "a charter of harassment".
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, on the need for change. That applies to every human institution, including the Church of England. However, there are great dangers if change is pushed in certain directions and if it seems simply to increase divisiveness in society. We are already threatened with a society which is divided in many ways, such as in the share of our resources and in health, as we have seen recently. To legislate along those lines could be a further move down that dangerous road. Co-operation for any government of whatever political complexion with the unions in the years ahead will be essential.
Incidentally, I do not recognise the rosy picture of industrial relations which has been given to us this afternoon by the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter. I do not think that it is sufficient simply to measure industrial relations in terms of the numbers of recorded strikes. There is a great deal of fear and many strained relationships, especially where unemployment is very high.
My last point for the consideration of your Lordships brings me back to the international scene, where I started when I mentioned visiting a silk factory in an Indian industrial city. One of the things that is happening in our increasingly concentrated world—a world which is shrinking year by year—is that the great multinationals are able to manufacture products in countries where labour is dirt cheap. There is a tremendous need there for the growth of the kind of organised union activity which we saw in Britain in the 19th century in order to give people a fair share of resources and to improve their standard of living. We in Western societies suffer very much from the fact that unions are weak in other parts of the world. Surely that is something to which any responsible government ought to give attention in the years ahead.
5.6 p.m.
Lord Basnett: My Lords, the sense of relief which I feel at now making my maiden speech is more than met by the sense of privilege and honour I feel with membership of your Lordships' House. The privilege is all mine; the honour belongs to the trade union movement and to its members, past and present, for the freedoms they have forged for the working people of this country and for the service they have done to our nation. One pleasure is perhaps unique to myself. It is the opportunity, after 40 years as an active trade unionist, to make a non-controversial speech on the subject of trade unions and the law. I can only say that I shall try.
I shall use the opportunity, not to address myself to the individual parts of the Green Paper, but to suggest
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two questions against which the proposals in the Green Paper should be judged. The first question is, "What have been the effects of the laws passed since 1979?", and the second is, "What would be the effect of the proposals within the Green Paper?". The Green Paper makes a number of claims for improvement. From its introduction I quote the two most important claims. First, it is stated that:
"there has been an avoidance of much unnecessary and damaging industrial action".
Secondly, it is stated that:
"there have been initiatives to improve industrial relations".
I am bound to recognise that there are arguments which have been advanced with great strength to support those statements. However, from my experience and involvement in the period since 1979, I cannot accept either of those statements as complete or wholly correct. While it is commonly accepted that the unions are now more cautious in their approach to industrial disputes, it is generally accepted that the major influence has been the depressing level of unemployment and, in many cases, rises above the rate of increase in the cost of living.
There have indeed been changes in industrial relations practices. I shall argue that they were occurring before 1979 and would have continued without the law. However, there is no argument about the changes in some of the unions produced by the 1984 Trade Union Act. What that Act did was not to create any major new practices but to promote the common adoption by all unions of practices which existed and which were followed by some of them. Those changes had a basis within the trade union movement. They were known; they were experienced. The Green Paper proposals, however, are not within the experience of any union within this country or indeed within any country. As my noble friend, Lord Murray, has said, they are not supported by any substantial analysis and on occasion they are supported by facts which are suspect.
In those circumstances, I am sure that your Lordships would wish to be assured that there was a general desire and a particular need, or even a general benefit, to be gained from those proposals. So the second question becomes: "Who wants them, who needs them and who would benefit from them?" No doubt at the close of the period of consultation the Government will give us their answers. In the meantime, I should like to address myself to a few points.
Neither side of industry has asked for these proposals. The CBI, while supporting some of the proposals, has totally opposed others. As has been mentioned by a number of noble Lords, the TUC describes the proposals as "unbalanced, one-sided and hostile". Within the Green Paper there is not one shred of evidence that trade unionists themselves want these changes.
Your Lordships may consider that the only wholehearted support for all these proposals comes from their authors. However, it is possible, even if there is no general desire for these changes, that there is a particular need for them. On the one hand it is possible to argue, as does the Green Paper, that the proposals provide a necessary protection for individu-

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als and for individual freedom. However, on the other hand it is possible to argue that they provide a licence for individuals to undermine the collective action and collective freedom which is so essential for the wellbeing of all trade unionists. I should like to give one example, which was also mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter. Having required secret ballots to establish majority decisions before strike action, they suggest a protection from disciplinary action which must encourage individuals or minorities not to abide by these decisions. Perhaps instead of the TUC's description of these proposals, and this proposal in particular, as harassment, the CBI's description that the Act would discourage democratic procedures would be more acceptable. I am certain that noble Lords would like to be sure that these proposals are even-handed. This point has been dealt with by a number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Rochester.
Finally, who would benefit from them? Certainly not industrial relations. Our system of industrial relations remains a voluntary system which in the past has relied on the self-regulation of both parties. As my noble friend Lord Murray has said, laws have worked and produced positive changes when there has been some basis for their introduction and some acceptance of them. When they are not accepted, even if observed without enthusiasm, they have never produced constructive or new initiatives. For instance, in 1974 it was a voluntary initiative that produced orderly picketing in the miners' strike of that year. In 1984 the new laws did not ensure peaceful picketing.
However, there is a need for new initiatives. The most successful OECD economies with strong trade union movements have, almost without exception, some form of industrial democracy or co-determination. The major thrust of any law or government intervention should be to seek to assist trade unions and employers to base their workplaces on the principles of social partnership, with unions and employers working to the same ends. They should assist unions to protect workpeople in industry and should reflect the genuine needs which exists in our society for their protection.
Trade unions respond to their members' needs and react to public opinion. They reflect, as must the law, the needs of the society in which they operate. The failure of either of them to do that could bring them into disrepute. I am sure that your Lordships and the general public will agree that a law not reflecting genuine and obvious needs would suffer, and would deserve to suffer, that fate.
5.16 p.m.
Lord Thorneycroft: My Lords, it is an honour and a privilege to speak after the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Basnett. It falls to me very genuinely to compliment him on the quality of his maiden speech. The noble Lord quite rightly said that he would make a non-controversial speech, but it was no less powerful a speech because it was non-controversial. The points the noble Lord made were made from deep knowledge and with great sincerity and I think they made a deep impression upon the whole House.
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I agree with my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter, to whom we are indebted for this debate, that it is indeed an asset for this House to have noble Lords such as the noble Lords, Lord Murray, Lord Basnett and others, who are able to contribute to what is an amazingly important and complex subject. I hope that we shall hear them speak on future occasions and that the noble Lord, Lord Basnett, will often contribute to our discussions.
The debate concerns the Green Paper on trade unions and their members. It is a fairly highly technical paper. I am not a wild enthusiast for every proposal that it puts forward. It is a perfectly good debating paper, a consultation document, but I would agree with the noble Lords, Lord Murray and Lord Basnett, that we ought to listen to what they and other noble Lords have to say before we come to any final conclusion about it. In any event, it is only a continuation of a policy which exists; it adds something to it.
I should like to discuss—and I say this in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Murray—the principles that underline the paper. What are we trying to do to the trade union movement? What is the purpose of the trade union movement, and are these proposals going to help or hinder it? The purpose of the trade unions is not to help a government. It was not the purpose of the trade unions to help Mr. Heath and it is not the purpose of the trade unions—nor should it be—to help Mrs. Thatcher. It was not the purpose of the trade unions to help the noble Lord, Lord Wilson. Anyone who has read Jim Callaghan's book would know that it was not the purpose of the trade unions to help him. If I may say so, if ever there was a man who deserved the help of the trade unions it was Jim—or Sir James as I should now call him.
Lord Murray of Epping Forest: My Lords, does not the noble Lord agree that the fact that the trade union movement helped the government of the day—including Mr. Callaghan's government—to bring down inflation from 28 per cent. to 8 per cent. over three years is a service not to that government but to the nation?
Lord Thorneycroft: My Lords, that may be so. Nevertheless, I pursue my argument. If ever there was a man who deserved that assistance, even in the terms which the noble Lord, Lord Murray, has just stated, it was Jim Callaghan. He had devoted his life to preserving the immunities of the trade union movement. He had challenged his Leader, Mr. Wilson, as he then was, who, let us remember, introduced In Place of Strife with Barbara Castle.
For a moment we all thought that at last the Labour Party would do what it was peculiarly fitted to do—introduce some orderly legislation for the trade union movement. Who defeated that? It was not the Tory Party; it was not us in opposition. We all know who defeated that. It was Jim Callaghan. He absolutely wrecked it and tore it to pieces. If there was any man who deserved the help of the trade union movement in any terms that the noble Lord, Lord Murray, would like to describe such help, it was Jim Callaghan. In fact, we had the winter of discontent. The very moment when he most needed help he was abandoned.

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I am not criticising the trade unions but trying to face the facts of life. The job of trade unions is not to help politicians but to help their members, and if we are speaking about principles it is as well to get to the reality of them. If that is the attitude of trade unions what should be the attitude of all governments?
I cast my mind back rather a long way—pre-Thatcher—to when Mrs. Thatcher was in opposition in a Shadow Cabinet and the Labour Party was in power and to the situation which then confronted us. We had an income and wages policy. They were under control—more or less under control; rather a "Solomon Binding" sort of control, but control of some kind. We had bargained away the freedom of dividends, so wages were under control and dividends were under control. If you wanted to pay a man more money it was not possible to do so. In industry we were buying men from one another. If a firm was successful it could not pay higher dividends and attract more capital. It could not pay higher wages and attract more men. We were all fixed under a highly centralised system of control.
Inflation was high and inflationary expectations were higher still. I do not want to exaggerate, because the country was not run as badly as all that. Actually the IMF was brought in and was running things rather well. Denis Healey was still in post as Chancellor of the Exchequer. I do not think he was allowed to leave the country but he was still there. On balance it is right to say—because one must not exaggerate—that the position was not too bad. However, no one on this earth could have said that we were living in a free society.
It was against that background that the Conservative Party had to think out the policy that it should pursue. It wanted—and I ask the noble Lord, Lord Murray, to accept this as genuine—a free society. It wanted to get the unions back to a position where there could be free collective bargaining. Obviously we could not have free collective bargaining then; it would have been suicide. The Labour Party was not prepared to concede that; no one could with inflation going through the roof. We could not possibly have that. We wanted a high profit, high wage society. We wanted people who were successful to get more money. We wanted workers who were successful to be paid more money. That does not seem to me to be altogether unreasonable.
How did we set about that? We believed that there were two courses we had to pursue. First, we had to lower inflationary expectations. That is one of the principal actions on which we have been engaged over the past eight years. Unless you can lower inflationary expectations no form of trade union policy can succeed. If everyone with a job expects the price of everything to go up and up the next morning, no trade union leader—after all, they are human—can hold the situation. We tried our best and I am bound to say that over eight years this Administration have shown a remarkable degree of success.
That was one leg of the policy. The other leg was to reduce a little the immunities and powers of the trade union movement. I must say to the noble Lord, Lord Murray, that we did go slowly on that. Your Lordships
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can have no idea of the caution exercised. Jim Prior, who was right, pursued a policy of slowly, slowly. We were pressed all round, mainly by trade union members, to go faster, but the world of the sympathetic strike, the closed shop, the triumvirate in which transport, coal and steel were going to be able to unite together to force their views, all those things were upon us. However, gradually, very gently, we have been enacting legislation until it is now accepted.
This Green Paper is a suggested extension. To tell the truth, I have not the faintest idea whether we should go forward. I think we should be careful about that. However, on the principle I am saying that over a period we made some dramatic changes, very quietly, very carefully, and we matched them with a reduction in inflationary expectations.
What do we do now? The Conservatives will stick to this policy. They will continue to try to hold down inflation. There are many reasons for doing that, but one is that a free society is impossible unless inflation is kept down. There cannot be a sensible trade union movement with inflation going through the roof. Therefore, we shall continue to do that. We shall hold on to the legislation that we have on trade unions. I am sure that Ministers will look very carefully at and listen closely to the lucid, fair and sensible arguments that have been addressed on the suggestions for expanding it in certain fields. No doubt in some cases they will expand the legislation a little and they will reject other suggestions as unnecessary or positively harmful. However, the broad line of the legislation—and that is what matters, not the detail—will undoubtedly be held.
What will the Labour Party do? I want to put this as fairly as possible. It seems to me that it will increase the public's inflationary expectations. I do not think anyone who examines even the most modest account of what a Labour Government would do if returned to power can doubt that there would be an increase in inflationary expectations. What will they do about trade union legislation? It is felt by many that they would begin to erode it. If inflationary expectations are to go up, the immunities are to be returned and the legislation is to be abandoned, there would be a dangerous situation.
I turn to the Alliance. In some ways it seems to me that the Alliance has the most fascinating policy of all. It has set it all out. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, has read it in this admirable little book about the two Davids. It is great stuff. The Time has come is good reading. I recommend it.
David Owen praises General de Gaulle. I do not think he knew that the first thing General de Gaulle did was to abolish proportional representation. Nevertheless, it is frightfully good stuff. I cannot put it down. It goes on to economic policy. But the Alliance's economic policy seems to me to be deeply flawed. It too will increase inflationary expectations. The Alliance admits it frankly. I do not think it would spend as much as the Labour Party, but it will borrow a great deal more money. It asks, why not. It says that we could spend more money. The real flaw in the Alliance's policy is that it says that it could spend more because it will have an incomes policy. This is where I came in. It will have an incomes policy. It will set counter-inflationary limits.

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I hope the noble Lord, Lord Murray, is listening to what I have to say. Counter-inflationary limits are just what poor old Jim Callaghan had. That is what we had the winter of discontent about. That is what left rubbish all over the parks and the dead unburied. We do not want to have it all again. I should have thought that by this time we would have learnt one thing—that wages policies do not work.
I think that the trade union movement will agree with me about one thing. It may like or dislike trade union legislation; it may think that this Green Paper is good, bad or indifferent but it would wear almost anything rather than have its right to negotiate the wages and conditions of its workers taken away. After all, that is what trade unions are for. That is what the row in the education unions is about at present. I yield to no one in my admiration for Kenneth Baker, but I do not think that his greatest admirer would suggest that the system of wage fixing in the education world should be translated into the rest of manufacturing industry. That is exactly what the Alliance proposes to do.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, who was talking rather lightly about crippling the role of the trade unions, that the one thing that will cripple it is not whether we do or do not have one of these proposals in the Green Paper but whether we take away its power to negotiate wages and conditions. That is what the Alliance proposes to do. It proposes to introduce the most centralised system of wage control that one could devise. At the back of it it will have an inflation tax.
Really, Roy Jenkins! Roy Jenkins was a member of the Labour Party. He was a party to all that went on. It is true that if one reads Dod's one would not think so. He admits to having some faint association with the Fabian movement, but he leaves out all the stuff about his role in the Labour Party. He was in it all. The noble Lord, Lord Diamond, was in it. He was in the Treasury. They know about these things. To suggest today that the Social Democratic Party should try to sell that to its innocent friends in the Liberal Party over there is a bit too much.
One should learn as one goes forward. One should learn from one's own experience or, perhaps better still, from other people's. We have all made a mess of this already. The Labour Party has made a mess of it. The Conservative Party has made a mess of it. I almost invented the thing. Years and years ago when I was a young and innocent President of the Board of Trade, I introduced something called "Three wise men" under Lord Cohen, who sat up all night thinking about what people should be paid. I confess this blushingly to the noble Lord, Lord Murray. That is the sort of thing I did. I was not alone. That is the type of rubbish that every party has done, and now the Alliance wants to do it all over again.
I make this appeal. The Alliance may have a role in government. Not now and with this policy, but one day it may have a role. I beg it to try to get matters somewhere on the level, to have some type of policy, or no policy at all! I think that no policy at all is good for an opposition. It should try to reach the position where it is not hooked on a policy which will play all
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over again a gramophone record which we have already heard much too often.
5.37 p.m.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, I wish to join in the congratulations to my noble friend Lord Basnett on a most competent and impressive maiden speech. My noble friend Lord Murray, as a former general secretary of the Trade Union Congress, addressed the House with great authority and from great experience. It is remarkable, as the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, said, that this afternoon, for the first time I should imagine, we have a former TUC general secretary and three former members of the TUC general council on the list to make speeches. We have a current serving member of the general council in my noble friend Lady Turner, who will be speaking later. That is a pretty good turnout from yesterday's men and today's women. It shows that trade union leaders never die. They do not even fade away; they turn up in your Lordships' House, where they should be.
I have long been in favour of adding Lords industrial to Lords Spiritual and Temporal so that the viewpoint of a responsible body should be put in your Lordships' House, and, moreover, that they should be held accountable to your Lordships' House for what they do. I see no reason why the Bishops should have 26 seats in this House and the Trade Union Congress none at all. One day the composition of this House will change. I have no doubt that it will become more representative.
The noble Lord, Lord Thorneycroft, in his usual bantering and blustering speech which we all enjoyed, said that everyone had made a mess of things. I think that that is probably true, because the history of trade union law reads like a parliamentary scrapbook that has been accumulating for the whole of my lifetime and beyond. One can lay that beside a political calendar where Conservative, Liberal and Labour governments have all come into the picture on trade union legislation. What worries me is what lies ahead in this matter of trade union law, organisation, supervision and control.
We are on the eve of a general election. How will this Green Paper fit into the programme for the future? Bear in mind also, my Lords, that we shall have three party manifestos. Each will presumably contain intentions of policies for future government regarding the trade union movement. Does it mean that we shall have a trade union Bill every Session in the foreseeable future? Shall we undo a great deal that has already been done and have an entirely new approach from a new government? Are we ever going to be free of trouble, difficulty and controversy over the law of trade unions? This is what worries me. I do not think that it will help the trade union movement if it is perpetually on the parliamentary and political slab being dissected by the various political parties in order to decide what the ultimate shape of the body politic shall be. We ought to turn our attention a little more closely than we have done to how we shall deal with these matters.
It is obvious from what my noble friend Lord Murray said that consultation between the Government and the Trades Union Congress on all these trade union Bills has virtually broken down. Today we have a Green Paper containing a

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considerable number of tricky and sensitive proposals with a date fixed for representations to be received. Then, as the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, said, the Government will consider what the final shape of their proposals will be.
I do not know what message the Minister will take to the Government from this debate on the Green Paper. It will be very mixed in many respects, I have no doubt. I cannot see any clear mandate emerging so far which the Government can regard as so important that they should give it priority in the next Parliament if they are still in government. I believe that if we get future Bills on trade union law we ought to insist on more adequate consultation. We ought to insist on examining these Bills in a Select Committee, or other machinery for the purpose, so that we can deal with these matters after consultation and discussion between the parties concerned.
For example, let us take ballots on the election of executive councils and officers. This House approved an amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, that we should have postal ballots. The Government then had to reconsider the measure because they had serious misgivings about whether obligatory postal ballots would hold. After some delay between stages of the Bill, the Government said that they had consulted with the trade unions and that postal ballots were a sheer mechanical and administrative impossibility with the existing state of the trade union records.
The unions had to know at least the private addresses of their members for postal ballots, and many unions did not have them; contact was at the workplace. We therefore reached a modified proposal that while the conventional ballot should be by postal ballot, those who could not comply with that requirement should be given a dispensation to have ballots at the workplace. I believe that that is the position today.
Some problems have already arisen in connection with these ballots. I do not deny that before very long it may be necessary to consider whether they can be made uniform. Can we have an electoral system outside the national and local government electoral systems which will be clean and efficient? We may need a separate authority to oversee ballots which are undertaken—especially those undertaken by requirement of the law—to ensure that the ballots are properly conducted and to make a report to that effect to all concerned.
There are other aspects of ballots where difficulties have already arisen. I shall give an example. There are four Civil Service organisations that have previously been involved in discussions with the Treasury on pay in the Civil Service. Since they have not reached agreement on the latest offer it was decided by the four associations concerned that they must ballot their members on industrial action. Two of them received a favourable ballot and two did not.
The result is that that consortium has had to break up. One has four unions, each tied now by the result of a ballot taken in their respective unions, rendering their executive committees absolutely helpless in an endeavour to overcome this deadlock. I do not know who is pleased about this situation, but anybody who looks at it dispassionately must be very worried that two organisations are going ahead with strike action,
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with a ballot behind them, and two are staying out because the ballot was against strike action. How does this dispute get settled? Who can conciliate? Who has the authority to do a deal with anybody on any matter in the present circumstances?
I mention this only because this is a new situation, which will have to be resolved somehow, which the observance of the pre-strike ballot has created. We have to bear in mind the strange situations that a simple proposition for ballots before strike action can create.
One proposal in the Green paper attracts me considerably: that for a commissioner. However, I wonder whether a more elaborate organisation than a commission would be suitable as an independent body to take over the responsibility for discussions with the trade union movement and others on trade union organisation, administration and finance. Some people may be horrified at this. They may think, "Oh my God, we are going to have a new bureaucracy looking after the trade union movement". But I suggest that there has to be more accountability to Parliament by pressure groups, organisations, societies, unions, and those who are exerting power and authority and political influence in the community. I believe that all power should be accountable. The greater the power, the more accountable it should be. That is the essence of democracy. It is very difficult indeed for some bodies to be directly accountable to Parliament when Parliament will probably be far too busy to attend to the matters which may arise.
I quote as my example the creation of the Building Societies Commission. I know that one cannot compare the building societies with the trade unions, but they are derived from very similar origins. However, when the building societies were seeking an expansion of their range of activities and entering into financial power and operations far beyond those envisaged by earlier building societies Acts, the Government said that they can have such powers only on condition that there is to be a supervisory body. That statutory body, representative and independent, will have the power to look at organisation, management finance, personnel, and matters of that kind, and will give directions where they feel it to be necessary. Such a body of commissioners might have similar rights to those of the Building Societies Commission to promote statutory instruments for the introduction of regulations dealing with matters which are more suitable to be dealt with by regulation than by statute law.
Do not let us rule out anything in our approach to the trade union problem. We have been at it for a long time. As the noble Lord, Lord Thorneycroft, said a few moments ago, nobody can be very proud of what has been done. I do not think the history of trade union law is any tribute to our glorious past. It is mostly the result of legal judgments, imposing on trade unions intolerable burdens of statute law from which immunities have had to be provided, or of political change. We now see yet again the see-saw of trade union legislation.
Can we go on like this? Is there no end to it? Is one political party going to undo what another has done? Is a third political party going to undo what the other

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two have done? What is the sense of going on like this? Since we are so busy organising everybody else's lives and that of bodies outside this House, why can we not give more attention to the obsolescence of many of the procedures in this House and of our way of doing business?
These matters are not suitably debated across the Floor of the House except in unreasonably long hours of Committee stages. After having had recent experience, I am convinced that a Select Committee is much the best way of going into problems in depth, sorting them out so that when they come to your Lordships' House much of the thinking has been done and all of the evidence has been taken.
There have been differences between the two sides of the House on trade union Bills in the past. Amendments have been carried which the Government have not liked and which they have wanted to change. I have already given an account of an occasion of that kind. I hope that we can consider these problems a little more closely before the time comes when we have to deal with another trade union Bill.
The trade unions are entitled to a period of relative stability. As the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, said, a lot has to be digested from the legislation which we already have. All these propositions in the Green Paper are arguable. Some of them appeal to me much more than others. I think we are right to look at questions of individual liberty in the trade union movement as well as elsewhere. We are right to look at the treatment of dissenters in the trade union movement, as we have to look at the treatment of dissenters anywhere else. I have a strong disposition towards dissenters and I am very interested in how they are treated.
I fought hard in the Parliamentary Labour Party and succeeded, as noble Lords will recall, in getting rid of the religious conscientious objection for three-line Whips there, and the trade union legislation regarding exception from closed shops. I have made a stand for people who want to dissent on grounds of deeply-held personal convictions no matter whether or not they believe in God. We must stand up for individuals everywhere unless, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester said in a most excellent analysis of the situation, granting tolerance to dissenters and to minorities is a substantial injury to the interests of the majority.
I think the interests of the whole must take precedence over the rights of the few, especially when in many cases the remedy of the rights of the few is for them to get out of and remain outside the body with which they would otherwise be required to conform. I hope that we are not going to be bothered with this piece of legislation for the time being, but I profoundly hope that if there is a change of government the new government will consider whether it will be in the interests of the trade unions or those of anybody else to start turning over what has already been done without giving a fair trial to the legislation on the statute book. This is a matter of political judgment. The time will come when both Houses will have to deal with the consequences.
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There is much else that can be said about trade unions, but time does not permit and some of them are not germane to the Green Paper. However, I think they will have to be debated very widely before long. I sincerely hope that we can discuss these things with reasonable calm and lack of controversy. Your Lordships' House is probably the most unbiased assembly for debating trade union matters that I know of, because everywhere else it is one-sided. One might say that almost everything is one-sided which comes forward on behalf of trade unions, from wherever it comes. It is one-sided if it comes from a Conservative Government; it is one-sided if it comes from a Labour Government; it is one-sided if it comes from the TUC.
The Labour proposals on the future of trade unions are stuffed with rights. Now and again I like to see a reference to duties and obligations when one is establishing rights. All that went by the board when we had the Bullock Committee and there was an attempt to find a basis on which a new era of co-operation could be formulated, with good will on all sides, and based on the experience of Europe. That was no more successful than the attempt of the Labour Governments' In Place of Strife in 1969. There followed the Conservative Act of 1971, and that was repealed by the Labour Government in 1974. And so we go on.
I plead for some inward looking, some self-criticism, in Parliament itself about the way in which we are handling these matters. Let us ensure that they are properly discussed elsewhere if we cannot spare enough time to do it ourselves.
6 p.m.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, it seems to have escaped the notice of your Lordships that the whole of this debate is out of order. The Order Paper refers to a Green Paper, Trade Unions and Their Powers. The title of the Green Paper which has been expounded to us by the Minister is Trade Unions and Their Members. However, I propose not to avail myself entirely of the licence which being out of order offers but only a little in order to take up some of the general points made first by the noble Lord, Lord Murray, and then by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester.
Both of them talked about the idea of trade unionism, of the ideas that went into discussing matters affecting the trade union movement, about legislation concerning it and also about its history. I thought that they were not sufficiently radical in their appreciation of the degree of change or of the nature of the anxiety which may exist in sections of the public about the trade unions in their current position. It has been well established that the real Green Paper dealing with trade unions and their members continues a line of legislation in certain detailed respects which has been argued about. One may or may not accept that as valid, or one may accept it in part and reject it in part, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, does.
But this is to assume that the problems of trade unionism are those that were described in relation to the last century—of the development of corporate action, of collective action, to deal with exploitation by private employers in search of greater profit. The ideology of trade unionism, like other ideologies which have existed for a long time, cannot altogether escape

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its origins. Yet the trade union movement today as it affects most citizens is not the trade union movement represented in private industry or commerce. It is that very large section of the trade union movement which represents people in public employment. The problems there created do not seem to me to be addressed by the Green Paper. There is no particular reason why they should be, but they ought to be ventilated at a time when we are considering legislation that may or may not come before a future Parliament.
The most important of these changes seems to me to be that there has been some departure from the original principle of trade unionism that was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Basnett, in his notable maiden speech and by other noble Lords—the principle that trade unions and the leaders of trade unions are primarily concerned with the physical and to some extent, if you like, moral welfare of their members. They were there to defend their members. But it is now clear that in some trade unions, or in parts of some trade unions, a rather different approach has been adopted; namely, that it is also proper for trade unions, or parts of trade unions, to use their bargaining powers to affect the policies of the bodies that employ them, irrespective of the immediate and direct effect of such policies upon their conditions of employment or their remuneration. It is obvious that this is the case in aspects of local government.
It is indeed curious—this is the only point I should like to put to the Minister—that the long and detailed report of the Widdicombe Committee on the operations of local government nowhere considers under that particular head the effect which may have come about in aspects of local government from the increasing influence of trade unions, either through elected councillors or through co-opted members of committees. Whether or not one regards that as a desirable development, it is certainly a relatively new development. It is one we shall certainly not seek to legislate about and perhaps can hardly debate unless we have an inquiry at least as detailed and thorough as that which the Widdicombe Committee made into other aspects of local government.
One is bound therefore to take anecdotal examples. One which is familiar is the position of certain members of the teaching unions in ILEA. We have been told by Mrs. Frances Morrell, who is not, I hasten to add, a natural pin-up of Conservative Central Office, that the ability of ILEA to make the best use of its undoubtedly and always necessarily limited resources has been handicapped by the unwillingness of trade unionists in the teaching profession to be redeployed from schools where the demand is falling to those where it is rising. That is to say that the ability of a local authority to carry out the policy for which presumably, as it was an elected body, it has a public mandate is frustrated by union action which is not directly concerned with the traditional motives of trade unionism.
I think I would go further than that and take up again a point made by the right reverend Prelate: that is to say, that it may be that the ideology of trade unionism—of collective action which was and remains wholly appropriate for certain occupations or certain groups of citizens—may become much more question-
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able when taken up by others. I think that for members of the medical profession to behave in the way which was described to us by the right reverend Prelate suggests a corruption of the professional conscience by motives which I think are inappropriate there, though they might well have been appropriate to other groups of employees.
I am certain that this is the case in respect of the present disputes in the teaching profession. I believe the teaching profession has suffered enormously from the imposition upon many of its members of an ideology of trade unionism which is inappropriate in a professional context and which allows its members to behave in ways which a generation ago would have been regarded as wholly inappropriate and unprofessional. For trade union leaders to pride themselves, as Mr. Fred Jarvis does, upon finding ways by which teachers can withdraw their work and disrupt the education of their pupils without suffering financially (as they would in a genuine strike) seems to me something which, if the trade union movement were to look into its heart, it might find it possible roundly to condemn.
There is all the difference in the world between men who have been employed saying to their employer, "Rather than put up with your conditions or your wages, we shall go out on strike; we shall put up with the financial consequences, with the losses that we shall suffer", and for a group of allegedly professional people to say, "We have found a way by which we can make the lives of our clients intolerable without sacrificing anything".
It is said that this kind of thing is all right because it has the backing of a conference. This is where there is some link between our consideration of secret ballots or other forms of balloting and other forms of decision-making. I am not inclined to think that the fact that a conference has decided upon a course of action of this kind exonerates the members or their leaders from responsibility. The teaching profession in the schools—I am thinking now of the secondary schools in particular—has rightly said that the new secondary school examination, the GCSE, involves considerable changes in their practices; it involves learning new syllabuses; it involves preparing lessons and methods of appraisal of a different kind. The teachers have said loudly—there is no doubt a foundation for it—that they have been very pressed for time. Professional people pressed for time in respect of their professional avocation, with a week's holiday and more in the case of teachers at Easter, would have spent that time getting up these new skills and learning these new requirements rather than trotting off to the seaside to pass resolutions.
Noble Lords: Oh!
Lord Beloff: I know that conferences have been the lifeblood of the trade union movement, but this again is an historical fact and an historical accident. It was splendid no doubt for people who had been down the mine or on the shop floor to find a reason to have a week at the seaside. It is hardly necessary for those workers in the teaching profession who enjoy the longest holidays of any employed group in the country. Their complaints about lack of time would

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ring more true if they did not apparently find their time so easy to dispose of on matters of this kind.
It is therefore an important aspect of what we are considering to wonder whether the whole notion of collective bargaining and corporate action should be looked at again in the light of a society which is totally different from the society of the first half of the 19th century, to which the right reverend Prelate referred, in which employment is in different ways, in which the pattern of society is different and in which people's lifetime experience is different. I can only echo what I think was said by another noble Lord. While at times people may have been worried by the radicalism of the trade union movement, today the major worry must be its conservatism. It is its conservatism which prevents those consultations which, like the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, I think should and always should precede changes in the law. But for consultations to proceed, they must proceed from a common grounding in the facts and a common appreciation of where we are and where we are going.
6.12 p.m.
Lord Denning: My Lords, I think that I am one of the first to speak from the Cross Benches, apart, of course, from the right reverend Prelate. The theme I desire to develop is that we have quite enough legislation on the statute book at the moment and we do not not want any more in the next Parliament, whenever that may be.
I view it—as a judge I have had to view it—historically, because trade union legislation has been the to and fro of politics for the whole of this century. It is well to know the conditions. I start with the Taff Vale case where the railway workers at Cardiff were grossly underpaid. The union agreed upon a strike in order to improve their conditions. What was the result? The Taff Vale company brought the celebrated action against the union and the House of Lords held that the union itself could be made liable for damages and that those damages could be taken out of the funds so laboriously collected to benefit the men in their ill-health, old age or unemployment.
The country would not stand for the trade unions being penalised in this way when they were only defending and hoping to preserve or improve the conditions of their members. And so, in the Trade Union Act 1906, the Liberal-Labour alliance gave complete immunity to trade unions in respect of any action for wrongdoing; not only that, but, for their leaders, immunity concerning any action which they might take—and these are the golden words:
"in contemplation of furtherance of a trade dispute".
That was the 1906 Act.
The Act did a great deal of good, if I may so. It enabled collective bargaining and collective action in support of those who were downtrodden. The trade unions did it well for a long time. That is the real role of trade unions—to look after their members, their terms and conditions of employment, and so on. That is what they did.
Unfortunately, it went too far. In the succeeding years—I jump here from 1906 to 1970—the unions increased their powers enormously by operating the closed shop not only with a single employer but
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throughout a whole industry. There was the case of a musician, Mr. Bonsor, who did not pay his union subscriptions regularly. As a result, he was expelled from the Musicians Union. As the musical sphere is a closed shop, he could not get any work and he was left removing the rust from Brighton pier. In the case of Mr. Bonsor, a trade union was taking its powers too far. It penalised, turning out of his job a little man who quite innocently had forgotten to pay his subscriptions. I forget the date of the case, but there it is. It was not the only case.
We have had cases in the courts of insistence on the rule book, expulsion of members quite unjustly, their removal from office and the like. Unions went too far in regard to their own members but also in regard to the population at large. There was action not only against employers but secondary action against other businesses and firms and picketing of their businesses. There was blacking. There was no end of abuses of trade union power. That was why, in 1970, when the Conservative Government came to power, they did their best by the Industrial Relations Act 1971 to put the matter right.
I do not want to criticise anyone. Their efforts were well intentioned but the Act did not work. I have often been accused of being against trade unions. Not a bit of it. In the Heaton case we decided, on the wording of the statute, that the trade union, its officers and people in London were not responsible for what the shop stewards did without authority on the ground floor at the port of Hull. As a result, a newspaper—I think it was The Times—came out with the statement:
"Trade union politicians on the left and the right had no doubt that the judgment of the Court of Appeal had driven a coach and horses through the Industrial Relations Act".
That was our decision; So I would hope that I am quite independent.
As the trade unions could not be sued, the Industrial Relations Court took action against the individual dockers going so far—because they stayed outside the gates of some factory or other—as to send them to prison for contempt of court. The first three dockers were let out; then another five were released. However, the unions had gone too far in putting working people into prison for asserting what were their rights. Naturally, the country did not stand for that.
A new government, elected in 1974, went too far, repealing the 1971 Act of the Conservatives and extending immunities by Acts of 1974 and 1976. They went too far in giving trade union immunities.
So to 1978. I am afraid that I got into trouble then. I said in a speech in Canada:
"The greatest threat to the rule of law is posed today by the big trade unions. One of the biggest problems is how to restrain the misuse or abuse of power".
It got back to England, and the Haldane Society said openly in the press, "Lord Denning should resign because of the extreme anti-trade union attitudes revealed by a series of recent decisions." My Lords, I did not resign.
The position—the real reason for an alteration—was that the trade unions had gone too far. They had abused and misused their power. Innocent people who took no part in any strike were damaged and inconvenienced beyond reason. Then the

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Conservative Government came into power. It was said at the time, if I may quote Shakespeare,
"Oh! it is excellent
To have a giant's strength, hut it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant."
That is what the trade unions had done.
I will not go much further because I have almost finished my story. We have had the trade union Acts of 1980, 1982 and 1984. In my judgment they have done a great deal of good, but they have not gone far enough. I need not go through them all. The analysis is well set down in the consultation paper.
Balloting before strikes is, of course, excellent. Although there are a few matters which need not be dealt with now, let me take that one. To repeat the quotation from the Green Paper to which the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, referred:
"More important, however, are the issues of principle. The Government believes that a decision to take industrial action should be a matter for the individual. Every union member should be free to decide for himself whether or not he wishes to break his contract of employment".
My Lords, just think! That, it seems to me, would be destructive of collective action, collective bargaining—one of the foundations of trade union authority and power. It is only because people in the old days worked together and agreed together to go on strike, or whatever, that they had the power and the influence. Collective bargaining, collective action—that is essential in modern society. It is one of the pillars of the trade union movement. I am afraid that this provision, if it were introduced would be destructive of a most important role of the trade unions: collective bargaining, trade union recognition, and so forth. I merely offer this and other matters for thought.
The closed shop has been one of the foundations of trade union power. No one could take employment unless he were a member of the union. To go contrary to that meant that he could be dismissed from his job. It has been controlled by statutory provisions. There has to be 80 or 85 per cent. agreement beforehand on the closed shop. Does that not go far enough?
It is now suggested—this is in a provision on the closed shop—that there should be immunity for any action in regard to a closed shop. The Green Paper says that,
"immunity should be removed from all industrial action designed to create or maintain a closed shop".
I do not think that that would be right. A closed shop is a feature of the trade union movement. If it has been approved by 80 to 85 per cent. of workers in the industry, why should it not remain?
I throw these matters out for consideration. I suggest that, good as the document is—and one has now had the benefit of listening to the arguments of both sides—it is better to let things settle down a little. The trade union statutes passed in 1980, 1982 and 1984, if I may say so, are first class. Let them work their way through. Is it necessary to go further? Certainly not without consultation.
There are two remaining points that I should like to make. The rule book of the trade union is not a contract, as the courts have said. The courts have held that any man who signs on in a union is bound by the rules in the rule book as if it were an agreed contract.
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Those rules give the power to expel if members do not go on strike. The rule books are really not contracts; they are a series of bye-laws laid down by the authorities of the trade unions. They ought to be revised. If there were a trade union commissioner the rule books ought to be reframed and put into good, sensible terms so that people can understand them. The power should not be used in any harsh or oppressive way. I should like to see all trade unions adopting a modern rule book.
As the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, suggested, a trade union commissioner could look into these matters. If wrong was done to a member, he could inquire into it. I have one thought arising from what the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, said. Ought there to be some restraint on those who seek to strike in an essential industry, whether it be water, electricity, health or education? Ought not consideration to he given to putting some limit on the right to strike in essential industries?
Those are my thoughts. To sum up, as I said earlier, perhaps the best way is not to interfere with the present legislation. Let it settle down and let us go into the next Parliament, whenever it is, without this again being made a subject for political controversy.
6.30 p.m.
Lord Irvine of Lairg: My Lords, in the forefront of the Green Paper is the proposal to give union members a statutory right, in all circumstances, not to be disciplined by their union for failing to take part in industrial action. So a union has a secret ballot; a major vote in favour of strike action; the democratic decision is for a strike. As the noble Lord, Lord Basnett, put it in what was a commanding maiden speech, the minority are to have a statutory licence not to take part. The union is to be powerless to enforce the will of the majority.
What an extraordinary vision of democracy that is! According to the Government, the correct principle is that:
"a decision to take industrial action should be a matter for the individual".
That proposal exposes hostility to effective collective action where a democratic decision has been arrived at. The essence of effective collective action is solidarity. Effective collective action cannot be mounted if a dissident minority is given a statutory licence to do as it chooses, as the noble Lord, Lord Basnett, said.
Surely a dissident minority should not be allowed to undermine the decision of the democratic minority. Surely the minority is being undemocratic in refusing to support the decision of the majority. The whole point of a ballot is to determine the majority view. That view should then prevail. There is no justification for allowing a person to remain a member of a union, not subject to any sanction, to be an active participant in its decision-making processes, to enjoy all the benefits of membership, while at the same time refusing to support the decision of the majority after a lawful and secret ballot. I was delighted to hear the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, bring all the authority and experience at his command to identify the dangers of the proposal, if carried into effect, and

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what injury would be caused to free collective bargaining.
At the outset of the debate I heard the noble Lord. Lord Boyd-Carpenter, assure the House that the proposals contained in the Green Paper were not concerned with the balance of power between the employer and the employed, but were concerned with ensuring a proper balance within unions. With respect, I beg to differ. A proposal which diminishes a union's capacity to call effective industrial action in which all its members will join is plainly concerned with the balance of power between employers and employed, and it reduces that balance to the disadvantage of working people.
I also heard the noble Lord and the Minister extol the virtue of the proposal in the Green Paper to have a commission to ensure that union members can enforce these new statutory rights against their unions. The Green Paper provides that the commissioner would underwrite the plaintiff's legal costs involved in the court action. It might also be possible as an alternative that the commissioner could act in his own name on the complainant's behalf or jointly with the complainant. This is in sharp contrast with the continued refusal of this Government to make legal aid available to complainants for compensation for unfair dismissal against employers who, equally in breach of statutory duty, have unfairly dismissed them. Therefore public funds are to be made available to support legal action by workers against their union, but there are no funds available for legal aid for workers claiming against their employers compensation for unfair dismissal and for reinstatement in their jobs. In these circumstances, it is perhaps not surprising that many regard the proposals in the Green Paper as one-sided.
The proposal is fundamentally unsound for the reason that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, identified. In the Green Paper the Government seek to bolster a fundamentally unsound proposal by bad argument. First, it is stated that strikers are liable to their employer in damages for breach of contract. In practice that is not a very serious point; such actions are very rare. More seriously, the Green Paper provides that the employer, if he dismisses all employees for striking and does not selectively reinstate any of them, is by statute immune from unfair dismissal claimed. That is quite true. It is undoubtedly a mighty weapon in the hands of employers. It puts strikers at grave risk of permanent loss of livelihood.
The argument in the Green Paper runs in this way. An individual should be free to decide for himself whether or not to run those grave risks. To my mind, it is a form of argumentation which relies on old injustices to justify new injustices. Surely the correct principle should be that if a strike is approved by the majority in a lawful and secret ballot those who strike should be deemed not to be in breach of contract. The employer should not be able to dismiss them all with impugnity. In order that I need not be reminded, I shall acknowledge that employers have had the right to dismiss all strikers with impugnity under the legislation as it stood under previous administrations.
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However, the question today, when we are being consulted and asked for our views in principle, is: is it right or wrong in principle? We are told that this debate is part of a consultation process. I enjoy being consulted; I am accustomed to being consulted. On this point I offer the following advice to the Minister. It must surely be wrong in principle for statute to lay down, as it does, that it is automatically fair to dismiss strikers who have acted in accordance with a majority decision, arrived at by secret ballot in accordance with procedures laid down by Parliament. The industrial tribunal should be allowed to decide, in the circumstances of every case, whether it is fair or unfair to go to the extreme lengths of dismissing all the strikers. The arguments in this part of the Green Paper will persuade the enemies of any effective industrial action. They should persuade no one else.
6.38 p.m.
Baroness Faithfull: My Lords, it is with some diffidence that I intervene in this debate. I propose to take trade unions down to the local level, dealing with local trade union members. I shall deal with the position of those local level employed trade union members as touched upon by my noble friend Lord Beloff. From the outset I make clear that even now I am a trade union member and I have been president of my local trade union in Oxford. I therefore wish to speak not on high politics, not on high law, but on the ordinary person at the grass roots.
I seek to make two points. The first is the power of the minority over the majority in relation to local committee structure. Some years ago when I was working as a chief officer in local government I had a deputation from all my staff. I could see that something was very wrong and they accused me of altering their method of pay, although at that stage not the figure. I said that it had nothing to do with me. I said that I was a chief officer, a trade union member, and that their trade union had asked for it to be done.
I went on to say, "Your trade union negotiated this with the treasurer's department and therefore you are grumbling about your own mistake". They said, "Well, we are very busy. We are hard-worked, we have not got time to attend the local committee and anyway, if we do, that committee goes on for such ages and talks such rubbish that we simply have not time to stay". I said, "But that is hardly my fault, and if you will not attend your trade union meetings or find out what your local trade union has done, please don't blame me, as your employer".
I make this point, hoping that perhaps something may be done. I agree with my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter that legislation does not put everything right, but a climate of opinion does put things right. I enjoin all trade union members at local level to take part in their trade union meetings. I do not think it is right that a number of people should belong to a trade union and benefit by what it brings for them without having any duties towards that union and towards doing work for that union. If the minority stays on until twelve or one in the morning, talking a lot of balderdash in order to get through the committee something which they know their colleagues would not want, I can only say that it really is the members' own fault. Therefore I enjoin trade union members to

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remember that if they belong to a trade union they should experience the responsibility of doing so and should not allow the minority to control the majority.
I have to say that in many cases where I have had to deal with strikes in my department—I am thankful to say they did not often happen but, speaking as a director of social services, it was a very serious thing when it did happen—many of the trade union members came to me privily and said, "We don't want to strike but we have to strike". I was tempted to say to them, "Well, why didn't you speak up at an earlier stage, at an earlier level in your local committee?" I quite realise that this is somewhat outside the Green Paper, but I would ask my noble friend the Minister and also my fellow trade unionists—that is to say, I belong to a trade union—whether we cannot somehow engender a good local committee structure which is democratic. That is my first point.
My second point is one which was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Beloff; that is, the relationship of the trade unions to professions and to professional workers. Some time ago during a debate in your Lordships' House I asked the Minister on the Front Bench whether consideration could be given to the creation of a social work council. In this country there is no council for social work that makes social workers accountable. I ask for a social work council, first, to accredit social workers; secondly, to set standards; and, thirdly, to deal with difficulties arising in the social work field.
I have made this recommendation in your Lordships' House after consultation with eight social worker professional organisations both in the statutory and in the voluntary sectors. It is with very great regret that I have to say a high official in my own union said, "We are not going to have that". I said to him, "But this is a professional matter; it is a matter for our profession; it is for us to set professional standards—and goodness knows they need to be set—and I do not think this is the role of trade union officials".
The matter has become very confused as to what the role of the trade union is. The noble Lord, Lord Chapple, is to follow me and I hope that he will tell me what the terms of reference of a trade union are. I have always understood that the trade union was there to look after the wellbeing of its members and to promote their welfare, but I have tried to look up in the Library today where it says that the trade unions shall take part in the professional decisions, professional work, professional advice and professional structuring of any work, whether it be teaching, social work, medicine or nursing. I think it is very important that this point should be clarified. At the moment there is great confusion as regards the world of the professions and for those at the grass roots. In particular there is confusion for those of us who have had to run large departments. Therefore I would say just two things. I hope that somehow and at some time we will not allow the minority to control the majority. Secondly, I hope that we will be quite clear as to what the role of trade unions is.
6.46 p.m.
Lord Chapple: My Lords, I must first apologise for having missed the first four speeches of the debate.
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Then I must go on to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Basnett, on the sincerity and the passion of his maiden speech. However, I must say that in 50 years of trade union membership my experiences are different from those of my colleagues, although the experiences of my union replicate the experiences of all other unions. Despite the numerous mentions that my union gets in this Green Paper, I do not share the view that what we were able to do in our union is not possible in any other union because the membership of our union is more stable than the membership of all the other unions.
I cannot understand those who say that you cannot have postal ballots in trade unions because their administration is so chaotic that they simply will not work. I just do not understand how anyone can be serious in attributing, as my colleagues do and certainly I have done, great motives and great purpose to the trade union movement—in some misplaced actions trade unions have even threatened the very existence of governments—and then say that they cannot have postal ballots simply because they do not have a decent administration. That simply does not make sense or hold any water.
I hope that if the noble Lord, Lord Murray, did not explain it to the House, perhaps the noble Baroness who is to wind up the debate for the Opposition will tell us how we came to have the policy of accepting government money for education purposes and numerous other things, but saying it was wrong to take government money in order to have a decent postal balloting system. I know that policy has changed, but it would be interesting to know how we came by such a policy in the first place. Why was it so objectionable for the rank and file members of a trade union to have a ballot at their home and vote upon who should be the leader of a particular trade union?
Therefore, as I say, although my personal experiences are different from the experiences of my colleagues, my union's experiences are similar to the experiences of all other unions. We have had our share of difficulties over operating agreements both in respect of employers and of recalcitrant members. However, my own experience in respect of ballots is not the naïve one portrayed in this paper, which says that with workshop ballots one gets a greater participation. It goes on to list the instances.
The problem with the investigations that have taken place into this and into the malpractices of certain unions in recent times is that they were not deep enough or serious enough. The people who talked about workshop ballots being the way to greater participation simply had not had my experiences of being offered ballot papers of other unions to fill in when certain elections were on. Everyone knows that the shop steward whose member tells him that he does not want a ballot paper helps him out by filling it in for him or goes round collecting them out of the waste-paper baskets in the office where they have been thrown and fills them in.
It may be difficult to police that practice. Therefore the notion of postal balloting is, in my view, the only sensible one if one wishes to have reasonably fair electoral practices in trade unions. The noble Baroness, Lady Turner of Camden, who will wind up

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the debate for the Opposition may enlighten us on why it is right to live in an electoral democracy but not have the right to elect people who can seriously affect the decisions of the government of the day. I have never understood the view taken by my colleagues.
There are a great many technical matters contained in the Green Paper. I agree with a part of the comments made by my noble friend Lord Irvine of Lairg in respect of balloting before strikes. I say at this point that I have never agreed with the notion that every tiny dispute that ever occurred necessitated members being balloted before it took place. However, I have agreed that disputes which threaten major portions of industry, or perhaps the whole country, should be balloted.
However, having said that, then to say that the union, having conducted a ballot, then has no power at all over the member who wishes to go to work is carrying it too far. To say that this is a free country and that the man who does not agree with the decision of the ballot should be allowed to go to work is one thing, but then to say that the union cannot take any action against him, that it must allow that member to continue his membership of the union, even though he has gone to work after a ballot in which the majority of his fellows have decided that a dispute should take place, is an attitude that cannot be sustained.
What is more, in the long run I believe that it will prove dangerous to the development of good industrial relations and it may prove in the end to be dangerous to democracy itself. I agree with what my noble friend Lord Houghton of Sowerby had to say on this point. I worry about the amount of legislation and changes in the existing legislation that the Government seem to be proposing in this document.
Again, it is not stated in the document, but the implications are that the unions have been responsible for all our economic ills and are now in a position where the Government can give them the coup de grace. It is implied that the unions are down and out and the Government can now wipe them out. I do not believe that that is possible. The unions may decline as regards numbers of members due to changes in their industrial status and changes in industry itself. The unions themselves will have to make changes to meet those changes. However, if the majority of the population gets the impression that the Government are merely acting punitively against the trade unions to disadvantage them in their negotiations with employers, that situation will soon change.
I do not believe that there is any electoral merit in projecting such a view. If all the proposed changes in this document are carried through, with the exception of altering the issue of balloting arrangements for the leaders of the unions, there could well be not just greater industrial unrest but a threat to the democratic institutions of the country itself.
6.54 p.m.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I shall begin, as has every noble Lord who has spoken in the debate following the maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Basnett, by extending to him my deep thanks and appreciation for bringing not just to this debate but to I am sure all the debates in which he will participate
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during the time that he will be with us the wisdom and sagacity which was a hallmark of his active trade union life. I am certain that when this debate is read, as it will be by many people outside the House, his contribution will be seen to be one of the wisest in a debate which I believe is notable for effective contributions from all sides of the House. I am very grateful and privileged to have the opportunity of speaking in the same debate.
I also wish to begin by saying what a pleasure it was to listen to the experience and wisdom of my noble friend Lord Murray of Epping Forest who spoke from the Labour Front Bench. Without going into the detail of the many points that he made, he left the very deep impression upon the House that what counts just as much as what is said is what one knows, has experienced and has seen.
The noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, who opened the debate, stressed that the Green Paper was a consultative document. He placed a very heavy responsibility upon the Minister to interpret fairly the word "consultation". Those who were in the House earlier today will recall that I took part in a short exchange with another Minister on what I think was a parody of consultation with British Rail in respect of fares and commissions. It all depends what one means by that. I am directing my remarks to the Minister who has been helpful to me on many occasions over the past two or three years. He has a very serious responsibility to ensure that all of the illusions, the fears and the allegations which have been made about whether the Green Paper is a charade and whether the Government are serious and have made up their mind can be put at nought. He must ensure that the consultation will be meaningful, that our words will be listened to and that the submissions from trade unions, employers and others will be given due weight by the Government. If his ministerial colleague winds-up by stressing the point that there will be genuine consultation which, to be fair, the Minister made when opening the debate, we shall have had a useful discussion.
In reading in the newspaper this morning—it is not the Guardian so the Minister can relax!—the comments of some of the Guardian writers who have moved to The Independent, I read the article by Mr. Peter Jenkins. That stated that the:
"Green Paper, on which the CBI and the TUC have now made their views known, contains only what look to be the scrapings from the bottom of the barrel served up in the hope of keeping the union question going as a vote winner".
That view is widely shared. One must question why the Government have a compulsion and an obsession regularly and periodically to review trade union legislation. I say to the Minister as a life-long paid-up trade unionist to this day of the National Association of Co-operative Officials that the trade union movement looks with real suspicion at the Green Paper. In that regard my noble friend Lord Basnett asked some very fair questions. He asked who was demanding this legislation and who it would benefit. I declare a direct interest as I have an association with the Union of Shop Distributive and Allied Workers. It may be helpful to the debate and to the Minister to relate not merely arguments but the direct impact on one trade union if many of these proposals are acted upon. The Union of Shop Distributive and Allied Workers and many others firmly believe that it is the

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intention of the Green Paper—if it ever becomes a Bill—to reject the principle and theory of collective bargaining and activity.
We have illustration after illustration of the nonsense that a trade union, whether it likes it or not—and many unions were dragged to this situation—is now in a position where it can comply with the law, where it can carry out its obligations and duties and where it has an obligation, by virtue of a mandate given to it by a compulsory ballot, but cannot operate its rules.
Let me tell the House of a number of ways in which I find this Green Paper objectionable. The Minister will have a job to reassure me, but I shall listen to him. The Green Paper gives workers a legal right to cross a picket line where the majority of members in a union have voted for strike action. I think that is wrong. The Minister can help to convince us on this. The Green Paper denies trade unionists the right to implement their disciplinary rules where individual members break union rules. A union will be denied the right to operate its own rules.
The Green Paper gives individual members the right to look at any union's financial accounts at any time. If I am misinterpreting the Green Paper, the Minister will tell me. It seeks to end the closed shop even where 85 per cent. of the employees have voted for it under the Act. It seeks to force trade unionists to vote only by postal ballot for union elections, regardless of union rules, and to elect general secretaries every five years by this method. The Green Paper gives individual members who are unwilling to accept the will of the majority the right to government financial support in bringing legal action against their union. The Minister has a very serious job in convincing me, the Union of Shop Distributive and Allied Workers and the trade union movement generally that the Green Paper is fair, just, equitable and necessary in 1987 or 1988.
Let me tell the Minister and his advisers who I know are well briefed, of the conflict which exists in the shop workers' union. On the question of members being disciplined or expelled for refusing to act on a call for industrial action from the union, there is a definite conflict with the rule book as it stands.
The rule book of the shop workers reads under Number 32:
"Disputes and victimisation:
Section 1: … the Executive Council may call upon all members of the Union directly or indirectly concerned, or any part of them, as may be deemed necessary, to withdraw their labour. Should any member refuse to obey such instructions he shall forthwith be expelled from the Union".
If the Green Paper is enacted in legislation, that rule will be in contradistinction to the law. That is a rule that has been freely negotiated, entered into and approved and no doubt over the years amended and consolidated by the majority of the union.
The Union of Shop Distributive and Allied Workers is democratic, is accountable and is responsible. I happened to be at its annual conference in Blackpool this week and the union is very concerned about the way in which the rights of members are being whittled away in a range of ways. The Minister must give us some more concrete evidence as to why a union should
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be faced with a conflict of that kind. The noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, who is invariably in her place, asked: what is the purpose of a trade union? It was a legitimate question which we all ask, even if we feel that we know the answer. Its purpose is to protect, to strengthen, to give an effective voice and to articulate the will of the majority of its members.
No organisation or association can ever say on behalf of 10 million or 1 million members that it speaks for them all. There are divisions. But in our democracy, which I think the Minister respects, as we all do, there is a minority and a majority. What we are saying is that the effect of the Green Paper, whether by design or not—and I make no allusions—will be to destroy the basic principle of solidarity. I am not talking about secondary picketing and so on. I am talking about the solidarity of a trade union and its members who feel that they are able to act as one.
On the question of the general implications and the major legal limits, the Green Paper gives a legal right to members to continue working despite the majority having been in favour of a strike. I simply say to the Minister that that is not only unacceptable; it is un-understandable, particularly in the light of what this Government have said for seven years has been the raison d'etre of the change in the way trade unions are organised.
Let me raise again the question of the rule book and the matter of acceptance. When anyone joins a trade union—and we realise that many people join far too lightly—and the question of reading the rule book arises, he signs a form which says in effect that he has understood. In the Union of Shop Distributive and Allied Workers, as in many others, an individual declares that he will abide by the union's rules and regulations. Yet the Government's proposal denies this element of free association by making unlawful those parts of the rules and regulations made and agreed by the members which seek to impose penalties on members who flagrantly breach their conditions of membership.
May I very quickly turn to the question of union funds? I wonder whether the Minister and his advisers have taken on board the conflict for the trustees of union funds. A statutory duty will be imposed on all trade union trustees to prevent funds being spent in defiance of court orders. Yet in the rules of many trade unions, and certainly in the rules of USDAW, there are clear obligations upon the trustees to act in accordance with the advice, requests and instructions of the executive committee.
Let me quote from Number 13 of the rule book of USDAW, which states in Section 4b that trustees shall be required to,
"pay over to the Executive Council, or to such persons as they may appoint, such sums as may be required for the claims and expenses of the Union from the funds applicable thereto".
I say to the Minister that if there is to be genuine consultation there must be a period when those with responsibility in these matters have an opportunity with colleagues to argue the implications for the union, because it is not just a question of putting a piece of legislation on the statute book.
I now want to talk about inspecting the accounts. I wonder whether the Minister has taken on board the

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mischief that can be caused. In the shop workers' union there are 400,000 members, and in some unions there are 700,000 or even 1 million members. Those who wish to do so will have an opportunity to disrupt, disaffect and interfere if there is an an untrammelled right to ask at any time to inspect any aspect of a union's accounts, knowing that on many occasions the accounts may be unaudited. They may not yet be in correct order. We are not talking in terms of anything untoward. We are simply talking in terms of the state of preparation of a set of accounts. The Minister and his colleagues ought to take that point on board.
Finally, the Government may very well feel that what they have sought to do is to return a union to its members and to make them more interested in democracy. Yet all the indications I have are that in postal ballots, which have happened since the previous legislation, there are not more people taking part but fewer. I raise the question of making the mainspring of this proposal the postal ballot. I believe in postal ballots, as do most if not all of your Lordshsips. However, they should not be the sole answer in every trade union and in every circumstance. It may well be that there are other ways in which such matters should be raised.
I believe that the Government have made up their minds that there are many people outside your Lordships' House who believe that there is a missing piece in the jigsaw for reforming trade unions. I happen to share the view of many people who wonder why the Government have rushed the Green Paper out in advance of what clearly, even in February of this year, was seen to be a pre-election period. I believe that the Government genuinely felt that this issue would be a vote winner and that there are people who will wish to continue the gradual undermining of the trade union movement and trade unionism by this Government over the past seven years.
I believe that the more people look at the unfairness, inequity and injustice of many of the proposals, the more they will say to the Government, "Although we wish to support you, you should think again about this aspect of the matter". I look forward very much to hearing what the Minister or his colleague may have to say tonight or at any other time.
7.13 p.m.
Lord Elibank: My Lords, I think that there is a fair measure of consensus in this country that some of the economic decline that we have suffered over the past three or four decades has been due in part to the behaviour of the trade unions and their members. That is not the only reason. However, it is one of the main reasons and it follows from that that the present Government have embarked on the various legislative measures which they have undertaken. That is why we have in front of us today the Green Paper which seeks our views on proposals for new legislation.
On the whole, I should like to support the proposals in the Green Paper. However, I add the comment which the noble Lord, Lord Chapple, has made and which I think is a very fair and apt one: that any steps taken should be steps looking to the present and to the future and should not be seen in any sense as
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punishment for the past. I think that that would be counterproductive.
When one comes to consider bodies as powerful and influential as the trade unions, and when one contemplates legislation to regulate their procedure, it is worth spending a little time trying to look, however dimly, into the future to see what is likely to happen to those bodies in relation to changes in our economic and commercial life. Something which has happened already is the decline of the manufacturing base of this country which was traditionally the centre of power for trade unions. I should think that that is unlikely to return.
As regards organisations, we are seeing the breakdown of the large monolithic type of corporation into smaller units. Again, I think that that is a development which is likely to continue. We have seen an enormous growth in telecommunications and information technology which in turn means that large congregations of people in one place are no longer necessary and that it will be more possible, practical and pleasant to work either from the home or from the locality in which one lives.
There has been a dramatic change in work patterns with the introduction—which is fairly widespread at the moment—of flexitime, changes in working periods, job sharing and the like. Finally, young men and women now change their jobs at much more frequent intervals than they did in the past. When I embarked on an industrial career, it was normal to consider that on joining a company one would serve with it for the rest of one's working career. I should have thought that any such view now would not only be wrong but would be considered to be eccentric.
Against this background of change in our economic and industrial society, what is the future of trade unionism? It is my personal view that there will be a steady decline in influence and numbers, leading probably to the disappearance of trade unions in the early part of the next century. I see them being replaced by the sort of professional bodies we have already for engineers, doctors, lawyers and the like. On the other hand, I see a great increase in worker participation in management of what will then be much smaller firms.
Nonetheless, the Government have to deal with the situation as it is today and they must come forward with proposals which are relevant in today's climate. When we come to look at the Green Paper, the most prominent section is that relating to strikes. That is hardly surprising because strikes have been the principal point of contact of the trade unions with the public in general. Most members of the general public think of strikes instantaneously when the word "trade unionism" is mentioned.
We have heard of the provision for balloting before strikes which is a wholly admirable provision. However, at the present time a union executive is perfectly entitled to call a strike without a ballot. Of course it would run certain risks in law, and it would probably be ill-advised to do so. But it may do so if it is prepared to take the risk. As I understand it, the proposal is that a right of action should be granted to individual members of a union to insist that a ballot be taken before strike action. That seems to me to be an

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admirable proposal, not so much because strikes in themselves are bad but because the unions are in the habit in this country of calling strikes at the drop of a hat. There is no proper time for consultation and consideration of the issues in many cases, and anything which puts in an interval of time for consideration and conciliation is a progressive proposal.
The other proposal concerning strikes, upon which there has been a certain amount of debate in your Lordships' House today, relates to the right of an individual member to refuse to accept the view of the majority and to insist on working, even where a majority has passed a properly conducted ballot in favour of strike action. I must confess that I have more difficulty with that proposal. We are accustomed in this country in many ways to voting, to the majority having the power to put in laws, rules or procedures and to the minority having to accept them.
One particularly painful aspect occurs when one's political opponents are in power. They pass taxation measures with which one probably has little sympathy and they may then proceed to spend the proceeds on measures with which one has no sympathy whatsoever. Nonetheless, one is bound by the democratic process to accept that. The same is true of clubs. If one is a member of a club and the majority pass regulations, if one is in the minority which objects one must still obey the regulations and follow them or run the risk of being ejected from the club. For those reasons, I have some sympathy with the objections raised to the proposal and I should certainly like to consider it in more detail before coming to a conclusion.
There are some interesting proposals which are made about the control of trade union officials and the funds of a union. We have seen a number of prominent cases recently in which there were proceedings for damages, contempt or even the indemnisation of officials after the event. Those matters have received coverage in the press. As I understand it, the proposal is that there should be a measure of control over executive members of trade unions who risk their union funds in those ways. After all, they are the management of the union and traditionally management has a power over funds. I should need to be convinced that this was a fairly widespread abuse of trade union privileges before I felt that legislative action was necessary to control it more closely. It is something which we shall all have to watch, but at the moment I suggest that it is not a particularly widespread abuse.
On the subject of the closed shop, the most significant figures are those shown in the Green Paper. These figures show that the number of closed shops has dropped from 5.2 million in 1979 to about 3 million today—that is to say, the number has nearly halved. That being so, I can only agree with I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, that if it is an evil—and most of us feel some distaste for the concept of a closed shop, whether pre—entry or post-entry—it is declining fairly rapidly and at the present rate is virtually likely to disappear in another decade. In those circumstances, I do not see any pressing need for legislation to hasten it on its way.
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Referring to ballots, the proposal is for postal ballots for the election of officials and for the allocation of political funds, leaving workplace ballots to decide whether strike action should be taken. This seems to me to be an entirely sensible proposal, but it should be borne in mind that ballots tend to be rather expensive, depend for their efficiency on an up-to-date and accurate register of members, and also require a measure of independent supervision. Unless these are forthcoming a ballot can be a good deal less effective than some form of action in the workplace. However, on the whole one's sympathies are with the postal ballot. Although it probably produces a smaller turnout than a workplace ballot, it is considerably less liable to interference.
In general, with one or two minor qualifications which I have mentioned, the proposals contained in the Green Paper are sound and I hope that in due course the Government will see their way to bring forward the necessary legislative provisions.
7.22 p.m.
Lord Wyatt of Weeford: My Lords, I should like to add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Basnett, on his splendidly delivered speech. I have met him several times in the past and I am glad to say that we have had occasional agreements. I know that he will he giving us many wise and well-informed speeches in the future and I shall look forward to them.
The Green Paper is another stage in the process of turning the TUC and old-fashioned trade union leaders into reluctant democrats. We have had some evidence of that reluctance today. We are not quite there yet, but there have been considerable advances in the powers of union members to choose the leaders they want rather than those foisted on them by defective systems of election, easily manipulated by communists and other desperadoes.
Curiously, when the transformation initiated by the Conservative Government is complete the chief beneficiaries will be the Labour Party, the TUC and the unions. Accurate reflection by union leaders of members' wishes will mean that union block votes at Labour Party conferences will gradually not be available to support dotty notions, such as more nationalisation and one-sided nuclear disarmament. That will give the Labour Party a more modern look and make more attractive the unions which have been losing members by the million because of their obsession with long dead 19th century problems and because of their refusal to deal imaginatively with the problems of the present century and the next.
I do not think that the future of the trade unions is bleak at all. It could be very much better than what it has had so far. The Labour Party and the TUC ought to erect a statue to Mrs. Thatcher in gratitude for the reform which she has introduced. I welcome the Government's proposals with reservations. For instance, like others I wonder whether it is necessary to do anything more about the closed shop. The law is that they have no legal sanction unless they have been supported in a secret ballot either by 80 per cent. of the employees affected or 85 per cent. of those voting. Obligingly, the TUC has advised union members to boycott such ballots. Consequently there are now hardly any approved closed shops and non-union members have legal protection against the unlawful

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ones. Thanks to the TUC the closed shop is on its way out.
I am worried about the suggested taking away of a unions' rights to discipline members who will not abide by majority decisions to strike when there has been a properly conducted secret ballot. The working miners went on working because the NUM had broken its own rules by not holding a strike ballot. I was assured by representatives of the working miners that they were loyal members of the National Union of Mineworkers and that if there had been a ballot decision for a strike they would have accepted it and not gone on working.
Unions are collective institutions and are effective only if they work collectively. They are entitled to require their members not to break ranks in situations where the members have been able freely to express their majority view. I am glad that the Government are at last proposing that all significant union elections should be conducted by secret home postal ballot under independent supervision. As some of us have been warning the Government since 1979, any other form of election, such as a workplace or branch ballot, can be fiddled too easily.
There have been many recent scandals. For example, there was the scandal of the election of the general secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union in 1984. Among other peculiarities, more people voted in Ireland in 1984 than voted in 1977, though the membership there was down by a quarter. It was claimed that over 90 per cent. of members in Ireland had voted, though many complained that they had received no ballot papers. In London, one branch cast 799 votes out of 800 for the successful candidate.
Recently, in the general workers' section of the Transport and General Workers' Union 98 per cent. of the Irish electorate voted for a seat on the executive. Not even Stalin in all his glory ever claimed higher support than that! The electricians and plumbers' union has long had a secret home postal ballot sent out by, and returned to, the Electoral Reform Society. That is why it has such sensible forward-looking leadership in tune with its members' aspirations.
The engineers also have a secret home postal ballot, though it is not independently supervised. That has given them too a modern approach. Your Lordships will not be surprised that both these unions are accordingly very unpopular with the TUC.
A number of unions are not yet complying with the provisions of the 1984 Act for secret workplace ballots, preferring some form of block vote which commits members who are not even present to having their votes cast in a manner decided by the extremists who are present. The National Union of Public Employees, the National Health Service union, CoHSE, the National Association of Local Government Officers, the General and Municipal Workers' Union and the communist-dominated union, TASS, are important defaulters. The Certification Officer to whom complaints can be made is having a long and complicated struggle to get these unions over the first hurdle towards genuine democracy.
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That brings me to a serious failing in the Green Paper. A victim of the British vice of creating another commission whenever there is a tricky problem, the Government propose a new parallel authority to the Certification Officer in dealing with complaints from union members. At present, if the Certification Officer issues a declaration that a union shall comply with the law and the union takes no notice, as has been happening, the complainant has to go to court. That can not only be fantastically expensive but is alarming for unsophisticated trade union members.
Therefore the Government say that the aggrieved member can instead go to a strange new person—he might have been invented by Gilbert and Sullivan—the commissioner for trade unions. Having liaised with the Certification Officer and discovered that the complainant has good grounds, the trade union commissioner will fight his case and pay for it. That is said to be analogous to the Commission on Racial Equality or the Equal Opportunities Commission, but those more or less harmful organisations are greatly loved by the hard-Left wing. Someone who can get their support in the courts is a hero or heroine to those who make a profession of shouting at and intimidating their fellow workers. An ordinary member who took his union to court through the trade union commissioner would be instantly marked out for victimisation with the usual tyre slashing, bricks through the window, excrement through the letterbox, and the rest of it.
The motive of the Government is that they want to say to the unions, "Oh, it is not us who are enforcing the law against you; it is one of your own members". That is a cowardly game to play. Ordinary union members should not be put in the position of being law enforcement officers. I suggest something rather different. There should not be a trade union commissioner but the staff of the Certification Officer should be substantially expanded. The Certification Officer should have the power or duty, when a union refuses to remedy a complaint as set out in the declaration of the Certification Officer, to take the union to court without the original complainant having to pay anything.
Not only that, to avoid victimisation a complainant having established that he is a genuine member of the union concerned should be allowed to remain anonymous when he approaches the Certification Officer. It would then be a function of the Certification Officer to make inquiries, as would the police in a case of suspected drug pushing anonymously reported to them. The Certification Officer can then proceed accordingly if the complaint seemed well founded. The Government have created the laws about trade unions, not union members. They should not expect union members to do the high profile work of law enforcement, thus setting union members against each other.
The Certification Officer has not so far received frivolous complaints. I do not see why he should receive many, or any, if the system I suggest were adopted. A beefed-up Certification Office should also have the function of an independent supervisor of union elections. This should require unions to submit for approval their plans for complying with the electoral laws. The office should satisfy itself that those

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plans have been honoured. The Certification Office should act of its own volition to ensure that defaulters among union leaders are made to comply with the law, following up any information it receives even if it is anonymous.
One rule applying to postal ballots should be that each candidate must include an election address stating his political views and allegiance. The great majority of union members do not have the slightest idea of the background of the candidates presented to them. In my column in the News of the World I regularly print the names of those sane and sensible candidates for whom union members would be wise to vote. I receive numerous letters reminding me that I have not yet published the list for a particular election and asking whether I will please hurry up. They know nothing whatever about the candidates concerned.
I see that the Labour Party intends to remove all the new democratic rights which are already greatly valued by the ordinary union member. It has issued a programme, in conjunction with the TUC, called People at Work—New Rights, New Responsibilities. The present legislation is to be destroyed and replaced. Not only would the rights of employers to protect themselves by injunctions and court action against unlawful strikes be abolished but there would be a new law laying down general principles for union rule books. These would include secret ballots for union executives. However, there would be no way in which union members could go to the courts to enforce their democratic rights. Instead, and I quote:
"A Labour Government in consultation with the TUC would establish a new independent tribunal that would have the duty of acting on complaints by union members that the statutory principles had been breached".
The idea of a tribunal operated by or connected with the TUC being independent is highly suspect, if it is not a downright joke. I spent years, beginning in 1956, trying to get the General Council of the TUC to deal with the well-documented fraudulent vote-rigging of the communists who had seized power in the electricians' union. The TUC General Council told me that it did not want to wash its dirty linen tri public. Eventually, it was the High Court in 1961 which had to get rid of the communist gangsters because the TUC General Council was either too frightened of, or too sympathetic to, the communists. To rely on a body like that to set up an independent tribunal to deal with complaints from union members is a farce.
I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Young, on his Green Paper. I hope he does not take it amiss that I have suggested what I think could be some improvements.
7.38 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, at the outset I too would like to be allowed to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Basnett, on his excellent maiden speech, which was delivered with authority and sincerity and which has greatly enhanced the order of our debate today.
I generally support the Green Paper proposals as a relevant, requisite and imaginative basis for discussion and for the way forward in a modern, free, democratic
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society. It is seldom—I think it is the first time in any debate—that I have used the word "democratic". I use it today because it is clear that it means something wholly different to me, who concentrates upon the rights of the individual, and to those trade union officials who concentrate upon the rights of the group.
This Administration, largely because of the concentration of rights upon the group, inherited a state of affairs akin to anarchy. Let us not forget that. I agree that they have already established a viable measure of industrial peace, and that is to the credit of the Administration. This Green Paper, as my noble friend Lord Thorneycroft so aptly put it, as he always does, is a continuation of government policies. It is no more than that. It is a recognition. It is a form of consolidation of the Government's achievements so far by recognising certain of the rights of trade union members.
At the outset this is a Green Paper which invites comment. Of course it goes without saying that there will be consultations before any proposals for legislation are made. As I understand the position when those consultations have taken place there will be a White Paper setting out the proposals, with all the implications to which the noble Lord, Lord Graham, referred, which can then be debated before any legislation is laid. That is as I understand the position. It is not some terrible party ploy, put forward to pre-empt what is put in a manifesto. Assuredly, that is not how I see the position at all. As I understand it, but I do not necessarily know, it is as I have stated. It is straight up.
At all events, on account of the measure of achievement towards industrial stability, there is no immediate hurry. There is time for discussion. There is time for consultation. The worst possible legislation is hurried legislation, especially in a sensitive sphere such as this. In due course legislation will be introduced.
The notable contribution in the Green Paper, which I support, raises the very question of the conflict between the rights of the individual and the interests of the group. I accept this, and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Murray, will accept it too, but inevitably one's reaction must depend on where one sits in the House. It is a political question. That does not mean to say that one cannot discuss the matter with total objectivity, as I propose to try to do, having declared which side I am on.
Put simply, the matter concerns the right of any man or woman, whether a member of a trade union or not, to work or to withhold labour according to an uninhibited individual will. That is a right which has not been recognised by trade unions. It has indeed been opposed by trade unions, which represent the group versus the individual. It is a right which has as yet not been recognised by the common law.
The question is whether your Lordships should endorse that as a fundamental freedom; as if, so to speak, today we were assembled at Runnymede and tomorrow there could be some new charter for a modern, free society. Or should we accept the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Murray, supported by the noble Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg? What is the object, they say, of holding a ballot if the dissident

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minority is ignored? Is that acceptable? As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester put it, the individual ought not to be allowed to contract out of the group. I think he should. I endorse individual freedom. The reason I do that does not spring from any particular theological concept; it comes basically from one's political stance.
I always support individual freedom in a conflict between individual freedom and the group. I always shall. It is not that I do not see the other argument; I just do not agree with it. I do not agree with it in this context because the time has come when trade unions, in their modern guise and in the discharge of their modern role, which is terribly important and which I have never denigrated in your Lordships' House but on many occasions have risen to support, must realise that they are the servants of society, in the sense that they are the servants of their members and are never again to become the masters.
Furthermore, unless we establish that fundamental freedom, I fear that the members' wishes will not be respected, but as in the past—I have to say this, I hope without causing any personal offence—they will be ignored. They will be manipulated. They will be abused by intimidation, disciplinary penalties, social pressures and other forms of oppression. That is why I support the individual fundamental freedom proposed in this paper.
The second point of conflict is the closed shop provisions. Although in a sense the closed shop is on its way out, it is taking a long time in the dying. It continues to exist. I shall be corrected by the noble Lord, Lord Murray, if I am wrong, and I invite correction, but I believe that there are millions of workers working today under closed shop agreements.
Legal immunity for industrial action to force an employer to create or maintain a closed shop will now be withdrawn, and so all that will be removed are the pressures to which exception is taken, and hence the source of much hardship for trade union members will be removed. The cause of much industrial action—the recognition, manning and demarcation disputes—will be removed. The hardship on the members, of which my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter gave but one example, was recognised by Ray Gunter when he was Minister of Labour in 1965 (at Volume 706 of Hansard, col. 1019–1020).
The principle of the closed shop was called into question by Frank Cousins writing in the New Daily on 12th February 1961 when he said that he had never favoured the idea of making a man join a union. It is contrary to Article 20(2) of the 1948 United Nations Convention on Human Rights. It has given rise to problems in the European Court of Justice. The desire to maintain the closed shop is related to concentration of power. Ray Gunter said—and I respect his opinion—that the main reason for his opposition to the closed shop was,
"that throughout the whole of my trade union career … it meant too great a concentration of power".
So much for what the noble Lord, Lord Murray, stylised as legislation by anecdote. I rely on the reactions of such great leaders as Ray Gunter, Frank Cousins and so forth.
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There is no doubt, your Lordships may think, that Ray Gunter sensed that one day this great concentration of power would be abused, and so it was, first, to oust a Conservative Government, then a Labour Government and then in an attempt to topple the Thatcher Administration.
We have heard a little today in this debate about abuse of power. But never let us forget the realities of the background from which we debate the Green Paper today. It springs from a massive abuse of power to set up a form of government contrary to the constitutional traditions. The hope must be that the trade unions may soon accept that their influence and status may be enhanced only by abdication of this concept of the closed shop. It is true that it is a concept which in the distant past served a valid and justifiable purpose. However, it is no longer of relevance. Times change.
If today the trade unions are to discharge their functions in accordance with their true role—a role which affords a valuable, positive contribution to society, as expounded by the noble Lord, Lord Basnett, in that notable maiden speech—they have to recognise that they must be the servants of their members. In addition, rules which conflict with statutory requirements to be implemented by any future proposals must be made void by statute. This will afford the trade union member the right to apply to the court for a declaration.
On the suggestion of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, that we ought to have model rules, 10 years ago I thought the same. Ten years ago I went to the Department of Employment. I have been there on various occasions since. That department, in good will and consultation with the trade unions, has been trying to devise a set of model rules. It is impossible to do so, not because the trade unions are obdurate or incalcitrant, but because there are so many types of trade unions that it has become a very difficult and impractical task.
One has the craft unions with a few members, the vast national unions and so on. With the best will in the world, it is very difficult to achieve model rules. If one cannot achieve this then one has to go about it another way and enact that any rules of the union which stand in contravention of the statutory requirements are void and unlawful.
I wish to say a word about the indemnification proposals. I do not think that anyone has mentioned them yet. Indemnification of officers for unlawful acts should surely not extend to such categories of conduct as violence or contempt of court in the context of industrial action.
On balloting procedures before industrial action, yes, the workplace ballot should be subject to independent supervision. As the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, said, perhaps a separate authority should be set up. Perhaps a panel of independent supervisors such as justices of the peace, accountants or other suitable persons should be established. Perhaps assistance to the independent supervisors could be provided by ACAS. The union could select any person from the panel as a supervisor and the whole operation could be organised and funded by the department, one of whose officials would be designated for such a

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purpose. The proposal to graft the right of enforcement by the individual member on to Sections 10 and 11 of the 1984 Act would include the right to have independent supervision of the ballot.
Finally, there should be a reconsideration of the role of the certification officer and the commissioner. I would suggest respectfully that the role of the Certification Officer should be vastly extended. He should have power to make declarations which have no legal effect. In this area the role of conciliation—which is not supposed to exist within Part I of the Act of 1984—should be expressly recognised by statute. The conciliation procedures should be extended in this way because the concept of conciliation should permeate enforcement by public authority. My suggestion is that it is only if the conciliation officer with powers extended in this way should be unable to achieve a satisfactory acceptance by the union that he should refer the matter to the commissioner.
I do not accept the criticism that has been made by the noble Lord, Lord Wyatt, about the commissioner being a Gilbert and Sullivan character. He may be, but he is a very useful one and can play a very important part. He would be of the greatest possible assistance to the trade union member. The commissioner should be the person, not the Certification Officer, who in his own name and at his own expense can initiate proceedings in court where the union is in default. Those are the only suggestions that I have.
Lord Bonham-Carter: My Lords, may I say to the noble Lord before he sits down that I have been profoundly impressed by the strong case he has made of the detriment to the public and to its members which the closed shop brings. Would he agree that the same principles which he urged on the unions might perhaps be applied for benefit to members of the English Bar?
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, time is short. I am a member of it.
8 p.m.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, first of all I too should like to congratulate my noble friend and distinguished colleague, Lord Basnett, of Leatherhead, on a very notable speech. Like the rest of the noble Lords who have spoken in the debate and who have commended Lord Basnett on his speech, I too hope that we shall hear a lot more from him. He has a great deal to offer this House, and a great deal of experience from which to offer it.
I want to express deep concern that the Government have seen fit to introduce this Green Paper. I question the necessity for it. I question the necessity, as indeed the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, has for another piece of so-called trade union reform. One wonders why the Government have decided to do it. Why have they thought it desirable at this time to bring forward these proposals? Do the Government really think that trade unions are so unpopular that a further attempted interference with them is a general election winner? That has been suggested by a number of noble Lords already in the debate. If they do think
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so, I sincerely hope that they will be gravely disappointed.
As your Lordships will know, I have an interest in this. As I have declared many times, I am in employment as a trade union official. I have been an official of ASTMS, the large white collar union, for over 25 years. I am also currently a member of the TUC General Council, and I have to say to the House that despite unemployment, despite unremitting hostility from almost all sections of the media, despite hostility from this Government—and government attitudes have a considerable impact on public thinking and the general climate of opinion—over 8½ million people in the United Kingdom still belong to trade unions. If you add to that number the families of those union members, it will be seen that a very large number of people in this country have an interest in what unions do, and they look to unions for their protection.
Despite the difficulties which this Government have put in the way of trade unions to try to hamper them in their task of looking after their members, still a very large part of the population voluntaril—and I stress voluntarily—puts its faith in collective organisation. Moreover, that 8½ million are in unions affiliated to the TUC. There are other collectives registered as trade unions which are outside the TUC but which nevertheless in their own way indicate the level of support that exists for collective representation. It is this idea of collectivity which is anathema to the present Government. That is at the root of their ideological approach and that, among other reasons, is why we have this Green Paper.
Yet employees need the protection of unions as never before. Mergers and takeovers threaten job security. We have discussed this before in your Lordships' House. Changes in technology threaten jobs. The great multinational companies may move their operations where they choose without being accountable to anyone. These are the forces that wield real power in our society. Nothing is done to inhibit their use of unrestricted power. It is they, the boards of directors normally completely unknown to the public and not unions, who make decisions against which unions can only react.
The idea that unions possess substantial power and that individual members have to be protected against the misuse of that power, which lies at the root of this Green Paper, is a myth, in my opinion. It has been sedulously cultivated in order that the opportunity will be there to bring in further legislation to undermine the ability of unions to protect their members.
Since 1979 Conservative Governments have set about removing from legislation all those measures which assisted unions to resolve issues in a reasonable way. No trade union official willingly enters upon a trade dispute if any other means is available to sort out that industrial problem. Long disputes in particular mean hardship for members and diminish union resources. We look for other means if we can as a way of resolving problems. Unfortunately there are fewer ways of doing this open to us now than at any time since 1945.
Since 1979 the Government have removed from legislation—the Minister made reference to

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this—Schedule 11 to the Employment Protection Act under which a union could refer to arbitration a claim that its members were being paid below the general level. Section 11 of that Act, which gave unions some method of establishing the right of recognition by employers, has also been removed. The Fair Wages Resolution, in existence since 1945, has been expunged. Wages councils have disappeared or have been emasculated. The role of the central arbitration committee has been diminished, I believe deliberately. In any event, it is fairly clear to me that this Government have little time for arbitration.
In such circumstances unions are left with only one ultimate weapon, that of industrial action, or else a tame acceptance of conditions that their members find unsatisfactory. Here the legislation we already have is intended to make this action as difficult as possible. Most unions anyway were in the habit of balloting their members in advance of strike action. We now have to insert on the ballot paper as a frightener the information that, in striking, members will be breaking their contracts of employment. Incidentally, I question why that should be so. In many countries in Europe the contract of employment is simply suspended during dispute action and not terminated. But even so, it is not enough for this Government that unions lose their immunity if they do not ballot their members in advance of strike action.
In this Green Paper, even if there is a ballot and a majority of members is clearly in favour of dispute action, individual members who are against it and who work normally are to be given protection by the Government against disciplinary action by their union. The Government are out to undermine effective and cohesive union action. Not only is there to be a secret ballot—and I have no quarrel with secret ballots—but people are to be encouraged not to abide by the outcome even when the majority favour industrial action. It is interesting to note that the CBI is not at all happy about that, and has said so. Members of the CBI to whom I have spoken say they think it demonstrates that this Government simply do not understand the facts of industrial life.
It is my experience in my own union that disciplinary rules are used very sparingly. Most union executives are well aware of the fact—mine certainly is—that they must apply their rules in accordance with the requirements of natural justice and that if they do not there can be grounds for action in the High Court. What the Government are now proposing, however, is a legal right to strike break. That is a very different matter. The TUC has pointed out that if this were applied in reverse it would justify minorities in taking strike action despite a majority vote against a strike. Clearly no sensible person would support this, just as every sensible person knows and understands the principles of majority rule in voluntary organisations. The Government are guilty here of exhibiting bias and double standards.
The Green Paper has some proposals to make about union funds. Among other things it is proposed to impose a statutory limitation on the ability of trade unions to indemnify officials against fines and damages. However, trade unions as employers are surely responsible for the actions they require their staff to take. Union officials do not in general act other
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than under instruction from elected executives. It is by no means unknown for other employers to indemnify employees acting on their behalf, sometimes by way of insurance cover. There is also a proposal that there should be a statutory right for union members to be allowed access to inspect their union's accounts with professional advice. There is already provision in many union rule books for such individual inspection, although not necessarily with professional advice.
My noble friend Lord Graham of Edmonton has dealt with that in some detail, and I agree with what he had to say. One is entitled to ask why the Government wish to impose on unions requirements that do not exist in regard to other institutions.
In the section dealing with union membership agreements and arrangements, the Green Paper proposes outlawing industrial actions to establish or maintain union membership agreements and, further, makes any dismissal for non-membership of a union unlawful. However—this has already been mentioned in debate by a number of noble Lords—there are already stringent provisions relating to union membership agreements. There is no scope at all for lawful dismissals unless the agreement has been approved in a secret ballot during the preceding five years by 80 per cent. of the employees covered by it or 85 per cent. of those voting. So why is it felt necessary to have further legislation so soon?
On the questions of ballots, we have further attempts in the Green Paper to interfere with the internal democracy of unions. I emphasise the word "democracy" because unions really are among the most democratic institutions in this country. They are governed by elected executives accountable to annual conferences or sometimes to biannual conferences, and to membership pressures of various kinds in between those conferences. The officials are responsible to elected executives, whether they are appointed under ordinary contracts of employment or, as in some instances, elected generally by the membership. The legislation now in place requires executives to be elected by individual postal ballot, or, where workplace ballots can meet the same statutory requirements as postal ballots—I emphasise the phrase "the same statutory requirements as postal ballots"—by workplace ballots. Even here there is some official discouragement given to workplace balloting. I understand that public funds cannot be claimed towards the cost of a mixed ballot; only where there is an entirely postal ballot.
In some unions there is more membership participation and a higher ballot return if there is workplace balloting. So there really is no justification for removing this option. Even in the cases to which the Green Paper refers, the Transport and General Workers in particular, there were investigations by the union when malpractices were brought to light and independent advice and assistance were sought with a view to putting the malpractice right. I repeat there is no justification for introducing legislation to do away with the workplace option.
The Green Paper also proposes that independent supervision of ballots should be required. This is already the case in many unions. My own union uses the Electoral Reform Society. However it is an expensive business. I repeat the question put by the

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noble Lord, Lord Rochester, about the costs of such a service. The evidence of malpractice in my opinion, in any event, is relatively rare and remedies already exist. Therefore, why is it necessary to make this a statutory requirement?
Then there is the proposition that all non-voting members of executives should in future be required to stand for election. I suspect that this is to "catch" as the Government see it one particular union president. However this clearly has not been properly thought through. Why should not a major institution like a union have a chief executive employed on an employment contract like the chief executive of any other large institution? The 1983 Green Paper actually acknowledged this when it said that a requirement to stand for election would be inconsistent with the nature of the job where a union had found that its needs were better served by selecting a general secretary for appointment on the basis of expertise and experience.
We do not in this country elect our civil servants. We expect them to pass examinations. Trade union administration has become a much more professional job than it used to be. The chief executive may require to have qualities and sometimes qualifications that may not be forthcoming if the post is filled by election on the basis of popular support, or as a result of political caucus activity and media intervention. As we have seen, this can very often take place. The earlier Green Paper got it right and the Government have no basis for departing from that concept.
In my view, a disagreeable aspect of the paper is the proposal to establish a new commissioner for trade union affairs to assist and fund legal action by members against their unions. My noble friend Lord Irvine has already pointed out that such assistance will not be available from the public purse for employees who wish to sue their employers in unfair dismissal and similar cases. Clearly the role envisaged for this official is that of trade union harassment officer. The Government want to destabilise union activities and to undermine union ability to act on behalf of members. They foresee involving unions in constant litigation. Indeed the Green Paper may well be the product of disappointment that previous legislation has not produced a spate of cases by members against their unions; so the Government want to encourage some more.
The Green Paper is the product of prejudice and malice. If the Government are really interested in individual employee rights, then why has their legislative approach constantly been directed to undermining those which previously existed? Why, for example, have the Government made it harder for employees successfully to pursue claims against employers for unfair dismissal? Why have they reduced the period for advance notification of redundancy from 60 to 30 days for redundancies involving 10 to 99 employees? Why have they weakened employees' protection in respect of deductions from wages, as they have with the passage of the Wages Act?
Why do the Government continue to block EC directives on matters like parental leave and leave for
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family reasons? Why will they not take steps to protect the rights of part-time employees? Why do we get improvements in sex discrimination legislation only when we are told we must do so by the European Court? Why do the Government, for example, oppose the Vredeling directive which would provide at least some rights of consultation to employees and some small measure of industrial democracy? Why do the Government oppose giving employees some rights in merger and takeover situations? Why are rights for employees constantly denied by this Government on the plea that these would represent a burden on business?
These are the real threats to individual employees. In the Green Paper the Government are seeking to make some electoral mileage out of further attacks on trade unions on the spurious argument that unions have powers that must somehow be curbed. In reality the Government are out to curb collectivity—the only response that employees have to the unrestricted power of monopolies and those with real power in our society. The Government should not proceed with these ill-judged proposals.
8.15 p.m.
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I have listened with great interest to the speakers in this debate. I am grateful to all for the careful attention with which they have examined our proposals and for the courteous and measured ways in which their views and criticisms have been voiced. When we published our proposals two months ago I emphasised that they were in the form of a Green Paper on which we would welcome comment. We have received a number of comments from diverse organisations and members of the public as well as from the TUC and the CBI and we are now considering these. We will consider with special care the expert views expressed in the House today. I see this debate as a very key part of our consultation process.
If I were to attempt now to deal in detail with all the points which have been raised, it would be a wholly inadequate response. Those who have contributed to the debate are entitled to expect that we shall examine their views with the same seriousness as they formulated them. Nevertheless, there are some comments I should make. I wish to make some contribution at least as an initial reaction if not always to the particular points that were made. The noble Lord, Lord Murray of Epping Forest, to whom it is always a pleasure to listen, asked whether this was an instalment of our manifesto. At least I can assure him this is a real manifesto and not an unreal manifesto, if he follows me from the last 24 hours, that his friends, I am, alas, afraid, have been guilty of passing off in the absence of any other alternative to put before the people.
Some of the points the noble Lord and many other noble Lords have made about the right to continue to go to work when the majority of your union votes for a strike, I can accept appears at first sight to be curious. I have listened with great care to the points made by many noble Lords. All stand up save in one respect. With a pre-entry closed shop, it is difficult to say to an individual who does not believe in a strike in which the majority does believe, "If you go out on strike you run

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the risk of being dismissed but you can maintain your union card and perhaps try to get another job. However, if you go into work to protect your job then you can lose you union card and not be permitted to work anywhere else". This is a very real problem. It is a problem we shall have to look at seriously: it is one that I hope we shall all consider seriously before any action is taken. The problem of closed shops and pre-entry closed shops in particular is one which bedevils our society.
I listened with great interest to the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, who asked about the cost of refunding postal and other spending connected with a postal ballot. Our intention is that this scheme should continue to operate broadly as of now. Since our proposals would require trade unions to make more use of postal ballots, they would be in a position to claim larger refunds from public funds. That, I think, would be a sensible response to these proposals.
The noble Lord, Lord Rochester, asked why in the Green Paper there is so little about the rights and duties of employers. This Green Paper is simply about unions and their members. It is only about the relationship between unions and individual members. Nowhere was this focused on more sharply than in the speech of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, who apologised that he could not stay until the end of the debate. Indeed this point was taken up by a number of noble Lords opposite and gives me a cause for great personal concern.
The right reverend Prelate said quite rightly that individual rights are the foundation and the very basis of our rule of law and can be traced back to Judeo-Christian times. Of course, individual rights are the basis of the rule of law and I say with great temerity and respect to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, that any society that puts group rights above individual rights ends up building a wall to keep its people in. The one essential difference between our society and others is simply that we respect individual rights and in no way will we allow group rights to overtake individual rights in the interests of justice.
Lord Murray of Epping Forest: My Lords, does the noble Lord not distinguish, on the one hand, between the use of collective action to enforce the rights of an individual, and, on the other hand, the development of some spurious sense of collectivity? What trade unions are concerned with is the development of organisations so that the individual can get his rights through the support of his mates.
Lord Young of Graffham: Yes, my Lords, but there are many countries in the world which claim that the individual's right is best supported by the collective. What the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester was advancing, as was the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, was that collective rights should have equal if not as great a status as individual rights. I welcome with great pleasure the noble Lord, Lord Basnett, who made his maiden speech in your Lordships' House. I have had the pleasure of sitting opposite him or diagonally opposite him on the NEDC round table for many years. I look forward to many great contributions to our debates. I have a faint suspicion that I shall not always agree with him, at
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least at the beginning, but I hope that in the fullness of time we can perhaps try to convert him a little more to our side of he House, as an eternal optimism is the one guiding principle of my life.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: He will convert you.
Lord Young of Graffham: That may well be, my Lords. I am indeed grateful to my noble friend Lord Thorneycroft who, in a very entertaining way, reached the very heart of what this debate is about. He reminded us that the purpose of trade unions is not to help government and he reminded us about so much of the recent past and the errors we have made and warned us about ever wishing to repeat them.
The noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, also entertained your Lordships' House. Alas, I fear that we shall have to disappoint him. He asked whether we are going to have entirely new legislation from an entirely new government. The answer is no and no; and I suspect that you are going to have the same legislation subject to consultation from the same government in the fullness of time. But that is not a decision in which anyone in your Lordships' House takes a part. We shall just have to see.
The noble Lord raised an interesting point and one from which at the moment, in holding the function of my office, I am suffering. There is, alas, a strike going on within two of the Civil Service unions. It is true that of the four unions, all voted. Two voted to strike and two voted not to strike. I suspect it is an advantage that two are back working whereas in another system perhaps all four would be on strike today. At least we have the satisfaction or not of knowing that those on strike voted by a majority to strike. That is the wish of their members. Although I regret greatly the effect of the strike on perhaps the most vulnerable section of our community, I respect totally their right having decided to take that action. I shall consider seriously his suggestions about a body of commissioners in some way or other, as I shall consider seriously all the suggestions that have been made today.
My noble friend Lord Beloff drew attention to the relationship of unions and local government and in particular to the effect of trade unions on teachers. This is a difficult situation. I could not help to cool the passions by commenting on it but few of us could feel anything but concern in seeing some of the recent steps that have taken place with the teachers' unions and look upon teaching still as a real profession.
I was grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, for his history of trade unionism. The noble and learned Lord said that at the moment we have gone far enough and that we should stop. That is the purpose of the consultation. It is to consider the steps—admittedly small steps, although much has been made of them by noble Lords opposite. Those small steps are important in the relationship of individuals with powerful organisations in our land. I hope that the consultation will reveal that. We shall have to see after a suitable interval, and perhaps after other events, what comes forward.
The noble Lord, Lord Irvine, contrasted the commissioner for trade union affairs with the lack of legal aid for industrial tribunals. I take and understand

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that point. Industrial tribunals have always been intended to provide a quick, formal and easily accessible way of resolving disputes. Our view, which I must tell noble Lords was shared by our predecessors, is that introducing legal aid before tribunals would militate against that aim. Indeed the TUC itself made the point that the end result might be more legalism in the tribunals and that would defeat its very purpose. The cases that the commissioner is intended to support would be cases appearing in the High Court. It might be unrealistic to expect an ordinary trade union member to bring a case in the High Court without help and support. That is the proposal we have outlined and I shall read with great interest all the representations that have been made and are still being made.
My noble friend Lady Faithfull reminded us of the importance of attending trade union meetings. Nothing is more important than that, and I saw noble Lords opposite agreeing vigorously. What can he done to ensure that more people attend trade union meetings I am not too sure. In some countries of the world I suspect they are compulsory but I cannot see anything there. It is not a question of attending meetings but of playing an active part in trade unions. I suspect that in the fullness of time our postal balloting procedures will do as much to ensure that members take a real interest in the affairs of their trade union as any one single Act. Indeed the noble Lord, Lord Chapple, drew attention to both the advantages and disadvantages of voting by ballot. He knows well what an important part union meetings play in the life of a union.
I took seriously the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton. The purpose of the Green Paper is to strengthen the rights of members of a trade union and not to whittle them away. The noble Lord drew attention to some of the financial provisions of the Green Paper. Without commenting in great detail, the trustees of any voluntary organisation must act in accordance with the order of the court and not with the rules of the union. If the two were in conflict, surely, under the rule of law, the order of the court must be complied with.
As for mischief being caused by members wanting to look at the books, when a union, for example, the National Union of Mineworkers—I know it is a name that often comes up but perhaps it is a name that will not come up so often in the future—changed its rules in 1985 to deny professional help to its members when they go to inspect the books, I think we have to look at this with some seriousness, as there may be some members of the National Union of Mineworkers who thought that those books were worth inspecting. I do not know. We should remind people that the property of the union is the property of its members as are the funds of all voluntary bodies. We are doing no more than that.
My noble friend Lord Elibank looked ahead to a time when unions would evolve into professional organisations. My noble friend is not with us now—I apologise, he is with us now. I am not sure that I am as far-seeing as he is. I suspect that we shall always have trade unions with us. I hope we will always have trade unions with us. I hope we will always have trade
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unions with us, playing a proper role in looking after the affairs of their members.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, the noble Lord referred to the wrong person. I was not taking that point.
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I thought I had said the noble Lord, Lord Elibank.
Among some of the other images that this afternoon's debate has conjured up in my mind is the thought advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Wyatt of Weeford, of the TUC joining the Labour Party in constructing and presenting a statute in gratitude to the Prime Minister for the contribution that she and the Government have made to trade union democracy. I am not sure whether that would come about—I suspect that this is not something we would in fact see.
What was interesting was the thought that the noble Lord advanced about the relationship between secret ballots and forward looking leadership of unions. I would not make any claim that the contribution made by government legislation towards secret ballots had any effect on leadership of the unions. But I do make a claim that it added a great deal to what we had to say about democracy within unions and, indeed, the record should speak for itself.
I listened with great interest to the concept advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Wyatt, of a beefed-up—I use his expression—Certification Officer. I am not sure whether that would work, but I will examine it carefully.
I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway, who displayed his enviable grasp of the legal as well as the industrial and political aspects of these matters. His points reveal not only the depth of his experience but the care with which he studied the Green Paper. I particularly appreciated his wise remarks on the subject of the closed shop and his concern about strike ballots held at the workplace. I believe that the vigilance of individual union members will provide an important safeguard of voting standards when they are given the right to enforce the balloting requirements.
As to his suggestion of a conciliation role for the Certification Officer, I should like to take time to reflect on that as, indeed, on all the comments made today on the role of the Certification Officer.
We then come to the contribution made by the noble Baroness, Lady Turner of Camden. I could not help thinking when I listened to that contribution that it was in itself justifying much of the legislation of the Government in the 1980, 1982 and the 1984 Acts. To say—I took down the words carefully—that the Government have removed all those measures that enabled unions to settle disputes in a reasonable way is to me a surprising statement. I can still remember, being of that generation, the 1970s. I know that last year we had the lowest number of strikes for 50 years, and I know that at present we have the lowest number of days lost by strikes for the last 20 years. I know that I am the first holder of my office to have spent so little time in industrial disputes possibly in this century.

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I suspect that what we are seeing is not something created by unemployment since, if unemployment was driving down the number of disputes one would expect it to have some effect on wages. Yet year after year wages have gone up by 2.5 per cent. in real terms. Last year it was 5 per cent. in real terms, and in the last five years we have seen wages go up by 17 per cent. in real terms. That does not ally with any concept of a world in which workers or working rights are pushed down by economic matters. Unions are among the most democratic institutions in the country. I welcome that. Unions have absolutely nothing to fear from the proposals in the Green Paper.
The noble Baroness asked a series of questions which I should like to answer. She asked: why are the Government not welcoming the concept of parental leave; why are the Government not welcoming the statutory rights for part-time employees; why do the Government not welcome the Vredeling directive, and why do the Government always take the view that the rights of workers end up as a burden on business? It is because of the essential difference in the way in which the two sides of your Lordships' House look at the world. The union quite properly is concerned with the affairs of its members, and concerned with all its members who are employees. My job is to help those into work. Therefore all these matters will be a clog on the growth of employment in the country.
Anything that acts as a clog on the growth of employment in the country will not help to reduce unemployment. Parental leave will do nothing for jobs in small firms, nor will statutory rights for part-time employees when we have such a growth of part-time employment in the country and such a lack of growth in those countries which have statutory rights. Vredeling has made no great contribution towards the changes which we have seen in the City. As to rights, it is my earnest task to continue only the statutory rights that I can with safety, in the interests of promoting employment and seeing unemployment go down.
I have said what I have said. None of that has any effect on the seriousness with which we shall consider all that has been said in your Lordships' House today and the many representations now amounting to 50 or 60 from many institutions and organisations and, indeed, individuals which have been made and will continue to be made.
I hope that in the fullness of time when the proposals come back to your Lordships' House, your Lordships will see that we have listened and listened carefully. I hope that then your Lordships will agee that we are acting wisely.
8.37 p.m.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, today's debate has brought out two matters of genuine importance with which I think most of your Lordships will agree. The first is the value of the Green Paper procedure and the opportunity that it gives to all of us to express views on difficult and complicated issues before the government of the day have committed themselves for or against them. The second is the value of your Lordships' House as a debating forum for the discussion of issues of this sort. No one who like myself has sat through the
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whole of the debate could regard your Lordships' House as being the body which takes any narrow or restricted view of these problems since almost every aspect of them has been expressed with clarity, vigour and sincerity. I am sure that this helps to build up even further the very high reputation that your Lordships' House has been establishing for itself over recent years.
I think that the only person who may be a little less pleased than I am with that is my noble friend the Secretary of State since we have undoubtedly given him a great deal of work to do and many points to consider. He and his officials, hard-worked as I know they are anyhow, will be even more hard-worked in the weeks to come.
We have had a valuable debate. If it is not an impertinence, I should like to thank all those who took the trouble to take part in it; and in particular, if I may, the noble Lord, Lord Basnett, whose notable and remarkable maiden speech was the great feature of the day. It will I think be long remembered.
I am tempted, having sat through the debate, to deal with a number of points, which I appreciate might not enhance my popularity. What Oscar Wilde said I often feel applies to me:
"I can resist anything except temptation".
However, I should like to yield to temptation on one point on a matter personally raised with me in the most pleasant way by the noble Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg. He seemed to think that I was wrong in suggesting to your Lordships that the debate was predominantly about the relationship between union members and their leaders. He took the ingenious point that, if one protects the individual union member from victimisation when he refuses to take part in strike action, one may well be weakening the effect of that strike action or the threat to the employers by the union.
There is clearly some force in what he says, although I do not think there is very much. If the number of union members not taking part in the strike is very small, the effectiveness of the strike and the threat of it are hardly diminished. If it is very large, the idea of victimising quite a number of people because they will not take part in it seems to me, in human terms, in legal terms and in constitutional terms, infinitely so much more important than its possible effect on the unions' bargaining ability that I think the general statement which I ventured to put as to the effect of the Green Paper proposals is right. I dealt with that matter only because I respected the noble Lord's speech and I thought it fair to give him such answer to it as I could.
We have had the discussion and we have now formally to take note.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Agricultural Training Board Bill
8.40 p.m.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
This Bill was successfully piloted through another place by my honourable friend Mr. Gerrard Neale. As is so often the case with agricultural matters, particuarly in your Lordships' House, my honourable friend

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had the support of all the political parties and also the Government, so I hope that your Lordships will be able to give the Bill the same help in order to get it on to the statute book as soon as possible.
There can be no noble Lord present this evening who is unaware of the changing circumstances that face agriculture today, and because so much food is being overproduced there is a vital need for the industry to diversify. It is for that reason that this Bill has been promoted by my honourable friend with the full support of the Agricultural Training Board.
The Bill has two main objectives. First, it will enable the Agricultural Training Board to provide courses in non-agricultural skills, so helping the industry to diversify. Secondly, it will enable the Agricultural Training Board to provide courses in amenity activities to those outside the industry. These provisions will mean that the Agricultural Training Board will be able to offer courses on subjects such as food processing, bed and breakfast accommodation, leisure pursuits, small craft enterprises and ecological and conservation subjects.
Perhaps I should draw your Lordships' attention to Clause 1(2) which adds to the 1982 Act, and in particular to Section 5A(1)(b), which will allow the board to offer courses to those outside agriculture in amenity skills. I should point out that the board will not—indeed, it is not empowered so to do—instruct those outside agriculture in agricultural skills. Therefore your Lordships have no need to fear that there will be courses for those outside agriculture on, for instance, how to grow a four tonne crop of wheat and so add to our surplus. The courses and facilities will be as defined in new Section 5A(2)(a) of the Act which will be for sporting, recreational and environmental work and in paragraph (b) for courses for the rearing of animals including birds and fish. However, again I must draw your Lordships' attention to the words in brackets:
"(excluding the training of animals for any such purpose)".
That will mean that the board cannot become involved in the training of racehorses, homing pigeons, greyhounds or indeed circus animals. I am sure that that will please the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby.
New Section 5A(3) obliges the board to consult the Minister before providing courses which will act as a reinforcement to the consultation required under 4.1(bb). That provision requires the board to have regard for any courses or facilities otherwise available. This is a commonsense provision because no one wants to see the Agricultural Training Board running identical courses to, say, CoSIRA. Subsection 5A(4) imposes a duty on the board to act commercially with the aim of meeting its costs from revenue raised and it must maintain separate accounts and records. This, in effect, means that the Bill will not increase public expenditure. Perhaps I should add that the initial funding for those new courses will be met from the board's own finances, and it is anticipated that after a suitable settling in time the new courses will show a profit. If they do not, Ministers are empowered, under existing legislation, to terminate involvement in the proposed new activities.
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Finally, I should like to pay tribute to the work of the Agricultural Training Board. I remember very well that it had a somewhat difficult start. Indeed, I have a nasty feeling that I refused to pay its levy under its initial funding methods in 1967–69. However, since then I, my farm staff, and the agricultural industry have benefited enormously from the courses which they have and which they continue to run for us. The standard of instruction is first class. I should like to put on record my thanks not just to the board but to their instructors, and for the voluntary work put in by farmer groups.
I am sure that these new provisions will enable the board to go from strength to strength and to provide a much-needed new service not just for farmers but for the rural well-being. I commend the Bill to your Lordships. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time—(Lord Stanley of Alderley)
8.47 p.m.
Lord Walston: My Lords, I should like to say at the outset that we on these Benches welcome this Bill as a valuable addition to the activities of the Agricultural Training Board. I should also like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Stanley of Alderley, not only for introducing the Bill but for the succinct and clear way in which he explained to those few of your Lordships who are still present the importance of the Bill and what it attempts to achieve.
As the noble Lord said, the Agricultural Training Board has already carried out a valuable service and has proved its worth. It came at the time when there was undoubtedly a certain amount of opposition to it. Many farmers asked: what is the need for it; we have got on very well in the past; we have a highly skilled labour force so why do we need a new board? That has been proved to be wrong.
It is perfectly true that in the old days farm workers were extremely skilled. They learnt their skills if not with their mother's milk at least from their father's feet and sometimes at their father's fist. They became a highly skilled labour force. With the advent of modern types of agriculture something more was needed and the Agricultural Training Board filled that gap in an admirable way.
As the noble Lord, Lord Stanley of Alderley, has rightly pointed out, agriculture is going through a very difficult transition. Whereas in the old days, in any village in almost any part of the country 90 per cent. of those who were gainfully employed were engaged in agriculture, today it is rare to find villages where even 10 per cent. of the people are engaged in agriculture. The number of people so engaged is diminishing slowly but steadily. If we are not to have our villages denuded, and some are already suffering from that, it is essential that agriculture should diversify. That has been accepted by all those who are concerned with this matter. If it is to diversify, clearly those who have worked in it or wish to do so—those who live in the villages and those who would like to live in them—must learn not only the old-fashioned or semi-old-fashioned arts of driving combine harvesters and using milking machines but also entirely different arts connected with rural life, of benefit to the rural

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community and of course also to the urban community who want to come and enjoy, if only temporarily, some of the more comfortable aspects of country life.
This Bill will enable that to be done. For those reasons I add my commendation to your Lordships that this Bill be accepted and implemented with the greatest speed possible.
8.50 p.m.
Lord John-Mackie: My Lords, I should like, first and foremost, to congratulate my noble friend (if I may so call him) Lord Stanley, who, as the noble Lord, Lord Walston, said, explained the position so succinctly and clearly that it could be understood by all your Lordships who have stayed to listen to the debate on the Bill. We are very grateful to him for what he said.
I should also like to confirm what the noble Lord, Lord Walston, has just said about skills in agriculture. Thinking back to my youth in the mid-twenties, there was very little training at all: simply experience and nothing else. But of course that was what was required. You could not learn to plough with a pair of horses and a high cut of plough, as we called it in Scotland, except by long experience. But today there is a great difference: there is new machinery, chemicals and everything else, so that training is absolutely essential. And of course that has to be done quickly. A boy leaving school and wanting to go into agriculture simply cannot get a job unless he has these skills and is prepared to go on courses where he can learn them. However, the courses do not provide everything and there has to be experience as well.
From all quarters—I need not go into them in great detail—we have been told to diversify to help our incomes—and, my goodness, our incomes need help. You cannot pick up an agricultural paper or go to an agricultural meeting without hearing about all these things. Listen to any speech and the matter comes up. The suggestions cover a very wide area indeed, from tea and coffee mornings, as the noble Lord mentioned, to artificial ski slopes and from bed and breakfast to clay-pigeon shooting. The variety is legion.
The noble Lord specifically mentioned the training of animals. We are asked to develop our shooting and it would be a pity if we could not get any instructions on the training of dogs in respect of that shooting. Perhaps at the Committee stage the noble Lord might manage to introduce a shooting dog in connection with the training of these animals.
On the question of amenity, it is important that the industry should be given some instruction about this. Many people need it, I would agree. I live in a very nice area just on the edge of Epping Forest, with a beautiful view over the Lea Valley—for that matter, I can see St. Paul's over the top of London. But that does not pay dividends. I think it is important to remember that on the amenity side there are no dividends. Someone might say, "You can charge people if they want to walk through the farm". Unfortunately I have four public footpaths right through the farm and people can get all they want for nothing; so I cannot do anything about the amenity side.
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When I told my wife that I should be late tonight she asked why, and I explained about this important Bill we are dealing with. She asked what it was about and, in trying to simplify my answer, I said that the Government were now prepared to send somebody out to teach the farmer's wife how to provide bed and breakfast. I think that hurt a little and she said, "I can do that without any government interfering". So, my Lords, the address is Harold's Park, Nazeing, Waltham Abbey; and the price will be unreasonable!
The whole question is very important indeed from the economic point of view. I tried yesterday morning to sell some oilseed rape forward and found that I had to take a price of exactly £40 per tonne, which is about £60 an acre less than last year. That makes a very big difference indeed and of course it applies not only to oilseed rape but to a whole lot of other products. Although the cereal market has held up well this year I do not think it will continue to do that next year; so there is the necessity for diversification.
If we do not get that diversification—and it is happening now, as the noble Lord, Lord Walston, pointed out—a number of men will be paid off because of the economic situation. We do not want that to happen. The number of people leaving agriculture and leaving the villages is too high in any case and we must hope that if farmers can get this diversification we shall be able to keep people in the countryside.
However, farmers must not rush into things rashly: we farmers are rather inclined to do that sometimes. That is why the powers now to be given to the training board will be so helpful to farmers; and they must take that help because otherwise a lot of money could be lost. I heard only this morning of money being lost by somebody who had rushed into something they knew little about, and so I welcome the suggestion as being very necessary and very helpful.
However, I think the situation, quite frankly, is becoming critical. I have had letters from the Scottish NFU and from Wales, and it seems that in some areas matters are very parlous economically. To delay this would be a pity. I have no real criticism of the Bill itself except for the point about the dogs and one other to which I shall refer later. It was given a fair ride in Committee in another place and an interesting point was raised. The noble Lord, Lord Houghton, has now left the Chamber but there was the question of hunting with dogs. I am talking about hunting deer with dogs: I think you hunt a fox with hounds and I am never quite sure about the difference between a hound and a dog, in my ignorance of these matters. One would need to be careful about this question of hunting, particularly hunting deer with dogs, because it will raise hackles in certain places.
The noble Lord mentioned the problem about the cash and that the board will have to raise the first lot of money from their present finances. I hope they have got that money, because otherwise it would cause delay. The Government want the industry to raise it themselves ultimately. That might be all right, but at the present moment I hope the board have got enough money so that there will be no delay in giving farmers help in connection with their diversification problems. I think that if the money is not available the Government should finance the schemes to begin with

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and, if necessary, get the money back later. I understand, however, that when a Private Member's Bill is concerned government money cannot be involved. I am not sure about that point and perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Hesketh, will be able to help us there.
I want to raise one point and I must declare an interest. I farm in the green belt and it is quite extraordinary how difficult it is. I have been discussing with my neighbours the difficulties that we have in getting the local council—the district council in our case—to give way on their rigid attitude to the green belt. I made an application to it. The council's objection to my application was stated on one page as being that it would create a precedent, but on the next page it stated that everything would be judged on its merits. If ever there were a contradiction of two things, that is it. Although the council denies it, it was a blanket refusal. It insisted that if I wished to take the matter further I had to appeal.
Appeals cost a lot of money and something should be done about this. When I told my district council what Mr. Baker said when he was in the Department of the Environment and what the present Minister, the Minister of State, Mr. William Waldegrave, and the Minister of Agriculture had said, I was told that those were just personal opinions and had nothing to do with the clause in question in the Bill on the green belt. I appeal to the Government to see what they can do on this matter.
I now wish to mention the case of farm workers who wish to set up a business. I have a foreman with a very good wife whose family is growing up. Would she be allowed to start a bed-and-breakfast business? My immediate neighbour, a small farmer, had to wait three years before he was allowed to do that. It is important that farm labourers, as well as farmers, should be brought into the picture in this regard. The workers' section of the TGWU is very impressed with the Bill, but it has expressed some reservations on that point.
I could add other remarks, but I shall leave it at that. We give our blessing to the Bill, but we hope that some of the points we have raised can be dealt with in Committee in due course.
9.2 p.m.
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I am honoured to have been asked by my noble friend Lord Belstead, Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, to speak on his behalf on this matter as he is engaged in other business and is unable to attend today's proceedings. I start by saying how grateful I am to my noble friend Lord Stanley of Alderley for introducing the Bill to this House and for giving such an able and eloquent presentation of the Bill's aims and merits. As my noble friend has already mentioned, this measure has attracted all-party support in another place and I very much hope that your Lordships will give it a Second Reading here tonight.
I was most interested in the comments both of the noble Lord, Lord Walston, and of the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, and I shall try to answer some of the points raised. I feel that the noble Lord, Lord
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Walston, particularly put his finger on the pulse of the Bill by saying that it will facilitate change. Change there must be in the countryside and the opportunity to, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, "keep our men", depends on our finding new ways to provide employment not only for those who are in agriculture today but also for their children. As we are all so well aware, in the past the children of those who worked on farms used automatically to assume that there would be a job for them. We shall not be able to do that without diversifying our industry.
The noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, asked me on two occasions about dogs and hunting and the difference between gun dogs, dogs in pursuit of deer and hounds in pursuit of foxes. The ATB will not be involved in dogs of any kind. I am sure that the noble Lord will be pleased to know that it can train the families of those who are working in agriculture. He gave the example of a foreman working for him. The ATB can help that farmer, or his wife, who wishes to find another extension of agricultural activity.
With regard to the comments of the noble Lord concerning planners, the green belt is something to which the Government are dedicated. He will have to deal with his local planners and I fear that he may have to go to the expense of an appeal. However, the Government have already, with the help of CoSIRA, tried to encourage the conversion of buildings and to assist with diversification.
The noble Lord also raised the point of funding for the ATBs. The government grant for the current financial year will amount to about £7·75 million, but, as he also rightly pointed out, there is no Money Resolution to the Bill and to press the matter could endanger what is an important, and we believe useful, piece of legislation.
The Government fully support the intentions of the Bill and believe that, if enacted, it will result in considerable benefits not only for the farming industry but also for a whole host of non-agricultural workers involved in land-related activities.
The intent of the Bill, as my noble friend has said, is two pronged. The first main provision relates to diversification training to aid the farm business. As the House will know, the Government attach great importance to the encouragement of diversification of enterprises and the role that such diversification can play in sustaining farm incomes in the difficult times which are faced by the industry.
The other main provision of the Bill is in some ways more far-reaching in that for the first time the ATB will be able to offer training beyond the farm gate. In other words, it will be able to train non-agricultural workers in rurally-related subjects. This is obviously a major departure for the board but it has been made desirable by the changing needs of society. Increased leisure time and a heightened awareness of the environment have led to greater demands on training facilities for land-related skills. Some facilities are already available but more are needed. The ATB is eminently placed to offer this training.
I am sure I need hardly remind your Lordships why the board is so well placed to offer this training. It has over 20 years' experience of training those in the agricultural industry in skills related to land-based

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activities. Over that period it has built up a system of training based around local groups of like-minded employers who organise the courses themselves. What the board does centrally is to devise the course content and to train the trainers. These training groups to which I have referred have been enormously successful and now number some 650 throughout Great Britain. This local organisation of training, together with the board's particular expertise and experience, works very well for agriculture. I am pleased that the Bill proposes that others may now also benefit.
Quite rightly there are safeguards in the Bill which are intended to help avoid unnecessary duplication with other agencies. There is the requirement before a course is considered to have regard to existing courses which are already available. There is a requirement to consult Ministers before diversification courses are offered. Finally, there is the catch-all provision in the 1982 Act that Ministers may issue a direction to the board; that provision remains.
One very important part of the Bill is that all the new training activities, whether diversification or amenity skills, must be run on a fully commercial basis. This means that all costs incurred by the board in the development and execution of a training course must be fully covered by the final price paid by the trainee. There will, therefore, be no additional cost to the public purse and those likely materially to benefit from a centrally provided service will be seen to pay for it. Finally, I should once again like to thank my noble friend Lord Stanley of Alderley for bringing this Bill forward and I commend it to this House.
Lord John-Mackie: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, did I hear him aright that government funding this year will be only £7·7 million, because last year it was £19·1 million? Is that just an initial sub?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, the noble Lord was right that I said £7·75 million.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lords, Lord Walston and Lord John-Mackie, for their very warm support. Both pointed out how different agriculture is today from what it was, say, 30 years ago or indeed only 10 years ago, and the vital need for skill training as opposed to learning by following Dad. I should also like to thank my noble friend Lord Hesketh for his support and for answering some of the awkward questions about dogs and suchlike.
I do not think—and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, will agree with me—that this is the moment, and certainly I am not qualified so to do, to talk about the rights and wrongs of country sports. Suffice it to say that such activities are within the law, and certainly in my area they have brought in a lot of money and have given employment, which I certainly welcome.
The noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, spoke about planning. He initiated a debate on planning not long ago and it seems that the same problems are going along. I do not know whether I am entitled to say so, but the Under-Secretary of State for Agriculture, Mr. Thompson, in another place, gave very sound advice
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(at col. 1164 of Hansard for 23rd January) on this Bill, which I am sure, knowing the conscientious manner of the noble Lord, he will have read. I have also had problems over planning very similar to those of the noble Lord, and all the advice I can give is for him to try and try again. I am sure that in the end he, like my friend, will succeed. Once again, it is a pleasure to see all sides of the House pulling together to help try to solve the agricultural problems that we face today.
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, and with the leave of the House, I should like to amend an error. The sum of £19 million is correct; the £7·75 million is the direct grant component.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

AIDS (Control) Bill
9.11 p.m.
Lord Stallard: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
I am particularly honoured to have been asked to sponsor this Bill through your Lordships' House and I hope that I shall be able to do justice to the gravity of the cause that it espouses. I am also particularly honoured because we are to hear later a maiden speech from the noble Lord, Lord Trafford, who is a recent newcomer to your Lordships' House.
I certainly look forward to his speech. I know his background and I feel already some affinity to the noble Lord, strange as it may seem, because I know that he is the consultant physician to the Brighton Health Authority and has been since 1965. That was the year when I moved over from the smaller inner London local authority of St. Pancras to the larger authority of Camden and became chairman of the health committee there and a member of the health authority in Camden.
I remember when we were struggling with our designs to build health centres that Brighton was one of the places that we had a look at. We had discussions with the people of Brighton, because I know the record of Brighton Health Authority on the question of health centres; as indeed, when I had experience of some other facilities in Brighton in the North Chailey district, I was able to see some of the work. That must give a great deal of satisfaction to the noble Lord, Lord Trafford.
I also knew of him when he was a Member in the other place when I was there, and we saw each other from time to time in that place. So I certainly welcome him and look forward to his contribution to this debate and to the whole question of the Bill that we are discussing tonight.
AIDS, or, to give it its full title, acquired immunity deficiency syndrome, is a new disease. There were no known cases of the disease before 1981. So rapidly has the disease and our knowledge of it spread in this country and in most of the rest of the world that it now poses a health threat unparalleled in our time. I know that none of your Lordships will underestimate the seriousness of that health threat. The disease could

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have a major impact on our social, economic and political affairs, increase the cost of hospital care, result in a loss of human resources and have an effect on families and communities which would undoubtedly create many problems.
The purpose of the Bill is to provide information to help to control the spread of the disease in the United Kingdom. It is rare for a piece of legislation to relate exclusively to a specific disease and I should like to begin by saying something concerning the future and current situation in the United Kingdom and in other parts of the world, based on expert opinions and statistics.
By the end of 1986, 74 countries had diagnosed cases of AIDS. Europe had recorded 3,500 cases and the United States of America had recorded 25,000 cases. That might not seem alarming in the face of a far greater number of deaths caused by other diseases. However, the problem is not only a matter of the disease of AIDS itself. There is a bigger problem. AIDS results from a virus known as human immunodeficiency virus—HIV—which destroys the immune system of the body. That means that the body is no longer able to resist infections and diseases with which an otherwise healthy body might cope. People with AIDS die of infections rather than because of AIDS. Examples of such infections are rare forms of pneumonia and skin cancers.
It is therefore to the spread of HIV that much attention is turned, and quite rightly so. One of the key factors in combating AIDS is to establish the percentage of people with HIV who will go on to develop full-blown AIDS. The presence of HIV is detected by testing for HIV antibodies in the blood. People with HIV can remain quite ignorant of the fact that they have the virus. In fact, I understand that the virus incubates in the blood for an average of five years before developing into AIDS or such generally less serious conditions as AIDS-related complex.
During incubation, a person carrying the virus may quite unwittingly pass it on to others. In the early days of AIDS it was thought that around 10 per cent. of the people with HIV went on to develop the full-blown disease. However, as the years have passed the estimates of that vital percentage have increased. The Government now place the figure at between 25 per cent. and 30 per cent., although that seems low in respect of other world-wide estimates. The United States National Academy of Science and the Institute of Medicine believe that the current figure lies between 25 per cent. and 50 per cent. Others, notably scientists in West Germany, speak of 75 per cent.
The problem with estimating the percentage is that AIDS has been known for about four years in this country. The magazine New Scientist in its issue of 26th March 1987 reported research that had taken place over five years. That showed that 15 per cent. to 20 per cent. of people known to be infected with HIV had developed AIDS within three years and that 25 per cent. to 30 per cent. had developed the syndrome within five years. The percentage is expected to rise as time goes on and there are some scientists who believe that the figure will eventually reach 100 per cent.; in other words, all those people who have HIV will one day develop AIDS. It is a frightening prospect.
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The World Health Organisation believes that there are between 5 million and 10 million people in the world who are infected with HIV and who are known as CO positives. I expect that many noble Lords will have heard about or read reports of the World Health Organisation conference which is taking place this week. Yesterday it was reported that it had been said that 50 million to 100 million people will be infected with the AIDS virus by 1991. It was also said that the magnitude and impact of the world AIDS epidemic had been seriously underestimated and under-appreciated.
We know that America already has a massive AIDS and HIV problem. The Lancet of 6th December 1986 carried a study report by Ron Brookmeyer and Mitchell Gail showing that the United States could expect 102,000 new AIDS cases between1986 and 1991, based solely upon the number of people infected with HIV by the end of 1985. If more recent infections are included, the estimate reaches 207,000 cases in the United States by 1991. Such projections are backed up by other studies. Perhaps the most authoritative are those carried out by the Harvard School of Public Health and the American Academy of Science. They estimate a cumulative total of 179,000 deaths in the United States by 1991, with 54,000 deaths in that year alone.
In Africa there are an estimated 2 million sero-positive cases, and it is in that Continent that AIDS can wreak its worst havoc. Because of a lack of screening and an inadequate supply of syringes and medical equipment, as well as inefficient means of education and communication, the situation there will rapidly worsen. Already the risk of receiving blood contaminated with HIV through a transfusion is much higher than it is in the West.
At the moment the situation in Britain is less dramatic because the virus was introduced into these islands a few years after it appeared in America. We are fortunate to have had the benefit of their experience with the casualties. However, the potential for similar developments over here during the next few years is just as worrying and horrific. Indeed, roughly speaking, we are at the stage now that America was at four years ago. Further, the situation outside London is similar to the situation in London four years ago. We need no further warning as to why appropriate action is needed, and needed immediately.
As at the end of March in 1987 the total number of people who had developed AIDS here was 734. Of these, 405 have already died. The Secretary of State for Social Services said recently that the best available estimate shows that the number of AIDS cases here will rise to about 4,000 by the end of 1989. In a recent publication the BMA estimates that 30,000 people could have the virus and that unless people stop spreading it now there could be 10,000 cases of AIDS and 1 million people infected in this country by 1991.
It is against this background that this AIDS (Control) Bill comes before your Lordships' House this evening. It is a modest measure which will be only a part of the fight against AIDS. However, it is a vital one and needs to be in place quickly. It will fit alongside the work already being done by the Government, by the health authorities and by

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voluntary and non-statutory bodies. The advertisement campaign, the educational campaign, and educational material, the action on dirty needles and the £14 million extra resources being ploughed into research are all positive and very welcome measures already initiated by the Government.
This Bill is another urgently needed measure. Noble Lords who have followed the passage of the Bill through the other place cannot fail to have been impressed by the co-operation between the sponsor of the Bill, Mr. Gavin Strang, Member of Parliament for Edinburgh, East, and Mr. Tony Newton, the responsible Minister. Their efforts ensured that both their names appeared above the amendments at both revising stages of the Bill, and that is quite a unique experience on a Private Member's Bill. The result has been a vastly improved and practical measure.
The Bill is the result of substantial consultation with over 50 individuals and organisations involved with the disease. They include health authorities, environmental health officers, community medicine specialists, voluntary organisations and of course the DHSS AIDS units which have done sterling work both on the Bill and in other respects.
The Bill has been welcomed and supported in all quarters, notable among which are the Health Education Council, as was, and the British Medical Association, which wrote to all Members of the other place and to many Members of your Lordships' House expressing its commitment to the Bill's measures. The Bill was introduced because it became apparent last year, as a result of a number of meetings up and down the country that were reported and read about, that there was no clear picture of what was actually being done at a local level in the fight against AIDS which was available to interested parties.
Many organisations within health authorities and boards were doing and continue to do large amounts of good work on AIDS. For instance, London and Edinburgh have considerable experience in dealing with HIV and AIDS. Indeed, Edinburgh had a particular problem to deal with in Hepatitis B, which is transmitted remarkably similarly to HIV. Their experiences would be extremely valuable to areas which are just beginning to cope with the AIDS problem. Unfortunately, people working within one area often have no idea of some of the initiatives taking place in other areas. Further, within many authority areas some organisations concerned with AIDS have no idea of each other's existence, let alone what they are doing. That is particularly true of some voluntary and non-statutory bodies.
How will the Bill help that situation? The Bill is mainly an enabling clause and a schedule. That is the nub of it. It places a duty on all 191 district health authorities in England, the nine authorities in Wales and the 15 district health boards in Scotland to produce a report on AIDS and HIV in their areas at intervals at present envisaged as yearly but which as time goes on might become more frequent. The reports will be published and made available to those who want to see them. They will also be collated by the 14 regional health authorities in England and the Secretary of State for Wales to provide a further tier in the structure.
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Each authority and board will have to report on a number of areas, including the number of AIDS cases that their services have diagnosed and whether the persons are alive or dead. The original Bill included a similar breakdown for HIV figures but that had to be dropped because it has not yet proved possible to find a means of providing district-based HIV figures that is compatible with the Communicable Diseases Surveillance Centre's system of reporting. However, appropriate wording is now being sought in consultation with all interested parties in time to be added to the schedule well before the first reports are due. This is one illustration of why the Bill provides the Government with the power to amend the schedule. Clause 1(5) gives the Secretary of State the power to make these necessary amendments.
The area of AIDS is such a fast-moving one—it is extremely rapid—that the schedule to the Bill that specifies details of the report may need amendment as the situation develops. I think we all appreciate in the circumstances the need for some very early action. Clearly, with the Government publishing monthly national and regional AIDS figures, some of these statistics may be slightly inaccurate by the time the report is published. That does not affect their importance. They will serve as a record which over a number of years will indicate local trends as well as being vital in the allocation of resources in the future.
I should like to emphasise the importance of confidentiality and anonymity for people with HIV and AIDS. Any intrusion may make life even more difficult for those affected as well as deterring people from coming forward for testing and treatment. For that reason the schedule specifies that if any area has a total of between one and nine people with HIV or AIDS that is all that should be stated in the report. In that way it is less likely that a person with AIDS can be identified than if it were known there were just one or two cases in any area. The Minister in the other place gave further assurances that we may touch upon later.
HIV and AIDS statistics are but a small part of the report that will be required. They will be useful data against which the bulk of the report can be read and interpreted. The authorities and boards will have to state what services they are providing in relation to all facets of AIDS and HIV and these are spelt out in the schedule. This relates to testing, treatment, counselling and caring for people with HIV and AIDS and also to what steps they are taking to prevent the spread of the virus. In addition, the authority is expected to look beyond its own provisions and services to include those of non-statutory and voluntary bodies operating within its area. That is vital, because it is often those agencies which are bearing the brunt of the task.
The Bill also recognises the demands on the people implementing these services as well as the skills required by the services. It states that the report shall include reference to what is being done to train those people who will be working not just with members of the public with HIV or AIDS but in the community in general.
The collation of reports and the reports themselves will facilitate the recommendation of guidelines for good practice. They will highlight areas of need and those where there may be some duplication of

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resources. If enacted, the Bill will allow financial and resource targeting locally and nationally. AIDS will prove a costly burden on the National Health Service. The Office of Health Economics estimates that hospital care alone costs £6,838 for each AIDS patient. That adds up to £2.25 million for the care of AIDS patients who are known to be alive today. With the number of cases doubling roughly every 10 months at the moment, great resources will be needed in the future. It is therefore incumbent on all of us to see that the money which needs to be spent is spent where it is most effective and with as little waste as possible. The Bill will help that process.
The Bill represents the first long-term approach to AIDS and will lay down the framework that will be of use for years to come. It will help the depiction of the fight against AIDS and HIV locally, regionally and nationally. The Bill will provide an information base for people and organisations associated with AIDS. They will be able to learn from the successes and failures of others. The duty to produce a report should have a galvanising effect upon those authorities, if there are any, that believe that AIDS cannot happen in their areas as well as those striving to cope with the problem.
The report will serve as a handbook for members of the public who may be worried that they have HIV. In the report they would find organisations to which they could go for a test and advice and be assured of confidentiality.
I know that noble Lords recognise the gravity of the situation. I hope they will recognise the value of the Bill and provide it with a speedy passage through this Chamber. I commend the Bill to the House. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Stallard.)
9.32 p.m.
Lord Trafford: My Lords, I welcome this Bill. First, I must thank the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, for his kind remarks. If I had had a sense of déjà vu as he has, having met in another place, he has upstaged my memory by going back to the 1960s. I welcome the Bill for the obvious reason that it requires that reports and information are brought forward, are made public and are usable. Without information no plan of action can be formulated and no exercise of useful value can take place. Knowledge strengthens the arm of any authority or government who have the difficult task of coping with such an epidemic.
We are not unfamiliar with epidemics. There have been small and large ones in the past. We have the classic example of the great pandemic of influenza after the First World War. It is reputed, incidentally, to have killed as many people as the First World War. We had of course the Black Death, which was reputed to have killed one-third of the population of Europe in the 14th century. So great was the economic damage from that epidemic that it resulted in the introduction in this country of the first incomes policy. History relates that it was not too successful.
There is one fundamental difference with this epidemic to which we are addressing ourselves tonight.
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With all the others, the diseases struck, they killed, or did not kill, and they departed. With this one, so far no person suffering from AIDS has survived. If but one person survived the disease, the epidemic would disappear from the point of view of danger and proportion similar to the famous example of lassa fever. All we need is one person who has survived, who has the correct antibodies and who can therefore deal with this problem. This has not happened and the disease so far has resulted in 100 per cent. mortality.
It is said that somewhere between 10 per cent. and 14 per cent.—the figure given by the noble Lord is not one I would dispute—of infected persons subsequently develop the disease. But I agree that as time goes on, the very pattern of this disease—the mode of infection and the type of viral involvement—suggest strongly that this is a low estimate and that the higher estimates will turn out unfortunately to be the correct ones.
In your Lordships' House tonight we have already heard that between 50 million and 100 million people worldwide may even now be infected with this virus. These are horrendous figures. If one refers to the figure of 1 million, people can identify this figure with one city. With the figure of 100,000, people can identify this with a large town. But 100 million—the combined population of France and the United Kingdom—is an unimaginable figure. However, it gives weight to the size and seriousness of the problem.
It is estimated that in the United States 1.5 million people are infected. From the Americas as a whole, 86,000 deaths have already been reported. It is thought on very good authority that in France 150,000 people are infected. In this country estimates vary between 30,000 and 100,000.
One of the points of this Bill—the acquisition of information, which has not so far unfortunately come forward—means that we have to use such rather vague figures as between 30,000 and 100,000 simply because we do not know. But in Western Europe the rate of progress of this disease has been a little slower than in other parts of the world. We may look upon this as encouragement or—if we are somewhat pessimistic—we may say that it is only early days. However, we still have a chance to prevent a truly grim situation arising. We maximise that chance with knowledge. From the figures of those infected with AIDS and the methods by which they have been infected, there appears fortunately still to be some barrier at the heterosexual spread level. This is not true of Africa where it is well known that the spread is now largely heterosexual. In this country this has not apparently so far been the case.
I would draw to the attention of noble Lords that there is here both a message and a clue: a message from the point of view of action; and a clue from the point of view of further surveys and research. Of course we always need to know more. I do not know of any field of medicine in which we do not need or would not like to know more. If one speaks without knowledge, one ends up pontificating from prejudice rather than from a reasoned opinion. Fortunately, we are quite good in this country at collecting health statistics.
The point already raised of confidentiality is critical, particularly in relation to this disease. It is not by chance that no sexually transmitted disease in this

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country is a notifiable disease. We must not lose the co-operation, not only of the victims of AIDS, but of those who might be infected or who fear that they might be infected. Confidentiality is therefore critical. I am very pleased that by and large one can say that the manner and method of collecting health statistics have so far managed not only to preserve that confidentiality but give some confidence for future co-operation from those concerned.
May I interpolate a sad and worrying point which is relevant to the broad aims of this Bill and the debate although not directly related? It is the fear that the victims of this disease seem to create in others. One is hearing endless stories of people declining to go to the houses of those who have AIDS, who will not help them, who will not deliver to them, or who want to put on gloves, masks or special equipment before they deal with them. Worse still, one hears stories of nurses, nursing patients with AIDS, who are ostracized by other members of the general public and to a lesser extent by their own profession in this connection.
I can assure your Lordships that there is no medical or scientific justification whatever for any of this. It is a trend which must be very quickly reversed; otherwise, we shall have large groups of pariahs in the land and we shall have developed a caste of untouchables of our own. This is false, and we must take every step to stop it. At the same time, we must allay those unfounded fears which afflict people when they are faced with a rapidly spreading epidemic.
This Bill goes some way to helping ensure that information is brought forward. It helps us in resource allocation, to which the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, has already referred. It also helps us to prevent misallocation. By that I mean putting money in the wrong place when it is needed elsewhere. It also allows us to present some resistance to what I call the bandwagon syndrome. The bandwagon syndrome means that when a sum of money becomes available, too many people find that their work is in some way related to it and they put in for a slice of that money, which may not be totally justified. Many examples of that abound.
I am sure that the sponsors of this Bill would not claim that it is in any way an answer to the problem of AIDS, but it is certainly a welcome move in the right direction. Of course we need a vaccine. Of course we need an effective therapy. These matters are being actively pursued. But we also need this type of information and these sorts of reports to find out what is happening at present in the land so far as concerns dealing with patients, developing hospices and developing community care of the afflicted. The collection of information is the best chance of containing a very serious situation, and with good fortune—I emphasise with good fortune for we need it—we shall be able to avert what could easily become not just an international disaster but an international catastrophe.
9.42 p.m.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, I am particularly privileged tonight in that it falls to me to fulfil the very pleasant and welcome task of congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Trafford, on his truly excellent maiden speech. I assure him that I take pleasure in doing this
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not merely because it is customary but because congratulations are merited and well deserved in his case. We have listened to an important, highly informed and very wise speech. We are all most grateful.
As a doctor, I am always delighted to welcome any additions to our ranks in your Lordships' House, but when the doctor is so distinguished and comes to us with such a high academic and professional record my delight is doubled. The noble Lord will soon discover that we spend a great deal of time in this House discussing medical matters, and he may come to realise that the Government are often in need of advice on these matters. I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, will tell him that she gets a great deal of advice. Sometimes she heeds it, but I venture to express the hope that now that she will get advice from her own Benches, and from one who has served in another place as well, she may take even more notice of it. I am sure that we all hope to hear from the noble Lord on many occasions in the future.
I have little to say about this Bill, which I support warmly, save to ask why it should be necessary at all. It seems to me that the Secretary of State already has powers to do what is required in the Bill. Frankly, I believe that he should have been doing these things for the last three or four years. Perhaps the noble Baroness at the end of the debate will be able to tell us that the Secretary of State and Ministers have been using their powers to collect this absolutely vital information.
As the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, has rightly said, information is absolutely crucial. The BMA has pointed out that one cannot plan public information services unless we have proper information about the extent of the disease, its geographical distribution and other matters of that kind. There are, as the noble Lord said, many other things which we need to know as well. Noble Lords will remember the first time we debated this subject in the House quite a time ago. I remember saying that one of the things we needed to know as soon as possible was the incubation period. The noble Lord, Lord Rea, who is to speak tonight, said that we already knew that. I said to him, and he will recall this, that I was aware that many people thought they knew, and apparently he believed them but I did not. It is now becoming clear that we cannot yet place an upper limit on the incubation period. We do not yet know. It will be helpful when we know matters of that kind.
The part of the Bill that I particularly welcome and should like to say more about is set out in paragraph 4 of the schedule that concerns not merely the number of cases, but the number of cases that have occurred in different districts and the number of people working for health authorities and district health authorities and the people:
"known to [the authority] to have been provided in its district or area by others".
The words "by others" very often mean people from voluntary bodies.
Counselling is specifically referred to. The Bill refers to:
"facilities and services … for the treatment, counselling and care of persons with AIDS or infected with HIV".
Much of that burden falls on voluntary bodies of one

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kind or another. They are having great difficulty in fulfilling those functions. I think I am right in saying that Sir Gerard Vaughan in another place has been working actively to raise funds for counselling and has been having meetings with Ministers on this subject. We are concerned not merely with counselling in the earlier stages of the disease and assisting relatives but sometimes with terminal care. We have seen some of the voluntary bodies set up institutions for the terminal care of these tragic cases and we have seen them getting into very serious financial difficulties.
There are serious problems with regard to counselling. I have said this before and I say it again: counselling is not just a matter of being a good Samaritan. It is a highly professional job requiring professional and proper training. It is a dangerous job, not because of the possible danger of contracting the disease. I think the noble Lord, Lord Trafford, illustrated this. The disease is not as easy to catch as all that. People must realise that it is quite difficult to catch AIDS. We must not encourage any lack of thought about it, but the fact remains that some people who have been exposed to it for a very long time have not contracted it. It is unfortunate that the public should be encouraged to have this idea that once they set eyes on a person who is infected with AIDS they will automatically be infected.
The danger to the counsellor is that he is attached to a patient. He gives emotional support and develops a relationship with that patient over a continuing period until the patient dies. Then the counsellor is moved on to another patient with whom he or she develops a relationship, gives the support that is necessary to that case and to the relatives until that patient dies. Then on goes the counsellor to another patient. The possibility of very serious psychological trauma from doing that kind of work is immense. That is the reason why—as the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, would say if she were here—that we need professionally trained counsellors and we need to make absolutely sure that the voluntary bodies providing counselling services have the resources with which to effect the necessary training of the people concerned.
I particularly welcome that part of the Bill that will do something that has not yet been done. It will properly quantify the number of people working voluntarily in different areas, it will show where they are and give us an opportunity to see what support they need. One should also say perhaps in general—and I think the noble Lord, Lord Trafford, again hinted at this—that all the information that is available should be made properly public. I am aware of the dangers of knowledge. We often hear about this. We are told that we must not frighten people but I say from all my experience practising medicine over a long period that the dangers of knowledge are nothing compared with the perils of ignorance. We must make sure that this information is properly disclosed.
Once it is properly disclosed we may very well see that there are hopeful signs on the horizon. I understand from my medical colleagues that there are possibilities of new therapeutic substances coming along in addition to the one already pioneered by Wellcome—others for which great hopes are held. The
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noble Baroness may perhaps be in a position to tell us more about them. If there is a new therapeutic substance, first, that can treat cases, and, secondly, that can render them non-infective, we are on the way to getting something very important done. Be that as it may, it is still very important indeed that information should be collected on a regular, systematic and continuing basis and that it should he kept by the department and disclosed where necessary to the public who need it.
In that connection let me say, too, that it is necessary to be aware that we have to preserve a careful balance between frightening people unnecessarily and failing to remind them of dangers to which they might be exposed. It is a difficult path to tread, and I say straight away that I believe so far that the Government have trodden that path pretty accurately and kept roughly in the right position. But there are dangers.
I am old enough to remember—other noble Lords may remember too—the time in the early days of the war when we had certain draconian measures. We were very frightened about the escalation of venereal disease. Emergency powers were taken whereby people notified other people of the contacts from whom they could have obtained the disease, and in certain circumstances there were emergency powers whereby people could be called into hospital for compulsory treatment.
One of the effects of that campaign—and I saw it when I was practising medicine both in the civilian population and in the forces—was that we had a great deal more work and trouble from people who thought that they had venereal disease but who had not than from people who had actually had. People with guilt feelings as a result of some act they had committed harboured guilt of a profound degree. We had a great many suicides in those days by servicemen and other people who thought somehow that they had contracted syphilis and we could not assure them that they had not. I am told by consultants in this field that we are not yet seeing that phenomenon in connection with AIDS. I find that very encouraging because I feared with publicity that has been spread we might already have had a number of people suffering from the kind of neuroses which developed on that other occasion.
Finally, let me give just one other warning. A great deal is now said about the lifestyles and morality of people, the permissive society and so on. Perhaps it is right that people should be given warnings about their personal conduct. This is right. But we do not wish to return to the Victorian attitudes towards sex that we had at the beginning of this century and from which my profession suffered a great deal. An enormous amount of work arose in the psychiatric field from distorted attitudes towards sex as a result of fear being, as it were, established in the community quite wrongly.
It is a difficult path to tread. I believe that the Government have trod the right path so far, but I say this. Information should be made readily available. In particular good information should be made available. When all the facts which will be collected together as a result of this Bill and as a result of other steps being taken are examined, we may well find that the

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situation in this country at the moment is, frankly, improving in terms of the growth being delayed rather than accelerating in the way we thought. We may find that we are doing better than we feared a year or two ago. That would be helpful news. I do not think it would make people careless. I do not think it would stop people having any regard to the situation. But I think it would be useful information if that information exists.
I welcome the noble Lord's Bill and I hope that it passes speedily on to the statute book.
Lord Rea: My Lords, since the noble Lord mentioned my name at the beginning of his speech, perhaps I may hark back to a debate we had some two years ago about AIDS. If he looks at Hansard he will find that I never said what he attributed to me. He said that we knew nothing about it. I said that one thing we know about it is that it is extremely variable, and I think that that still applies.
9.55 p.m.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, I should like to add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Stallard. I hope that he will enjoy the wonderful companionship of your Lordships' House. I wish him good speed with the Bill. The noble Lord is a very caring person—the ideal person, I am sure, to take this Bill through your Lordships' House.
I should like to welcome the Bill as far as it goes. Last week I was present at a regional health authority seminar where health districts reported to the regional health authority members their plans for the future. Only two districts out of 17 mentioned that they were considering their strategy for AIDS. It is interesting how priorities differ considerably over HIV. The Bill will make the health districts and boards get themselves organised and enable health regions to collect information which can be made available to the Secretary of State. If the legislation is not implemented quickly, I think that some districts and regions will be slow to provide these important reports and will not organise their provisions speedily.
I see a serious omission in the Bill. I ask the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, and the Government this very important question. How do they intend to get the information relating to AIDS and HIV from the prisons and other penal institutions and from the armed forces? These institutions do not come under the Bill at present. Unless the number of AIDS cases and the relevant problems of the prison population, a high risk group, and the armed forces, who travel abroad and can also be at risk, are collated with the information from health regions, there will be an incomplete picture of the country at large.
If these groups are left out, should there not be added to the Bill the requirement that the Home Secretary collects AIDS and HIV information and reports to the Secretary of State at the DHSS, and that the Secretary of State for Defence does likewise?
For the past year I have been dealing with a very serious health problem on behalf of the mother of a remand prisoner. The health problems within prisons seem to need a great deal of improving if this
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complicated case is anything to go by. The prisoner concerned, when his mother last telephoned me, was on life support and in a coma, having been transferred to a National Health Service hospital from prison.
With regard to AIDS and HIV I feel that the prisons need legislation just as urgently as the health authorities. Are they going to treat dying AIDS victims in prison or send them out? If they are to be treated in prison, there should be special wards to do this with trained staff, otherwise numerous problems will result. Is not adequate health care in prisons a human right?
With the World Health Organisation's prediction which was in the papers yesterday that there may be millions more cases in the future than was previously predicted, prevention of the spread of the virus must not be neglected in any way.
The prison population and that of youth custody and detention cover thousands of males who often have their hair cut. Many of these people suffer from acne and spots. The barbers use clippers, which I am sure are not sterilised. I have spoken to the governor of the institution to which I am attached, and he thought that that was a valid point.
Are the prison population offered blood tests for AIDS? Those who are sero-positive should not be in the same cell as non-sero-positive prisoners. When prisoners are locked up in a cell for 23 hours a day, I am told that homosexual acts often take place. All efforts must be made to stop the HIV virus spreading.
Recently I have spoken with some doctors who are most concerned that some sero-positive people have such a grudge against society that they want to infect as many people as possible. This is a terrible thing and it needs careful psychology and diplomacy to change this serious conduct.
I have met some very caring and dedicated doctors and nurses who are working with the AIDS patients, which is highly commendable. All patients who need treatment and care should have it in the best way possible. I am beginning to hear from seriously disabled people statements of worry that so much effort and money is being channelled into AIDS that they are wondering whether their needs will be pushed out. The noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, understands what serious disability can mean. Research must also continue for such diseases as multiple sclerosis, motor neuron disease and rheumatoid arthritis, to mention just a few of the many. The care of those very severely disabled people is vital.
I received a letter only last week saying that seriously disabled patients from a specially adapted ward, which I officially opened some years ago at Poole Hospital in Cleveland, were being transferred to a less suitable and inferior ward. The patients are most upset. The chairman of the district has written to tell me that this is to save money because of the nurses' pay, not under the recent award but under the previous one. The Minister will receive a letter from me, but I sincerely hope that she will give an assurance that the interests of these disabled patients will be safeguarded. As the AIDS situation develops demands on the Health Service will increase.

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One now sees advertisements in papers for private AIDS counselling and testing. Maybe many people will prefer to have themselves checked by private arrangements. Will these clinics be registered? Will they give numbers of sero positive people to the Government to count in with their figures? AIDS is teaching doctors and health care staff how to counsel. That has been a neglected subject up to now. I hope
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that it will also teach government departments to cooperate and work together over this matter in a quicker and more efficient way.
I should like to end by congratulating the Government for their efforts so far on combating these complicated viruses. It is something that the whole community should be helping with, with the greatest possible co-operation.
10.3 p.m.
Lord Colwyn: My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, for missing the beginning of his speech. I am grateful for the clear and concise way in which he explained the Bill. I am sure that the Minister will agree that it is very important that the information specified is made available. To that extent, I support the Bill.
I am aware that we are not here this evening to go over the many aspects of AIDS again. However, in my brief intervention I feel that it is right for me to take the opportunity to continue to try to persuade the Government to look at the problem from a far wider point of view. Perhaps this Bill could be extended in order to include the kind of information that I consider absolutely vital when assessing the scale of the problem and the best way to deal with it.
The large amounts of money available for research, confirmed by the Secretary of State for Social Services in the debate in another place on 25th February this year, are very impressive. The public information campaign is certainly having the desired effect, even if it has created an atmosphere of minor panic. We know that the AIDS virus reduces and ultimately destroys the efficiency of the immune system—thus reducing the natural defence mechanism and making the AIDS victim susceptible to all manner of infection—which invariably, we are told, results in an early death.
Where I feel the Government are wrong is in their concentration on the research for an anti-viral therapy or a vaccine rather than on research into ways of improving the efficiency of our natural defences. Conventionally we are told that we are all vulnerable to the AIDS virus, yet this is patently untrue. The virus certainly triggers off a rapid breakdown of the immune system, but very little seems to have been said on why certain people with the virus should exhibit serious symptoms while others do not.
A recent article by Carolyn Reuben, published in East West in September 1986, referred to a study of the histories of AIDS patients in the United States. There were 10 factors which seemed to show up in most cases. I shall not list those this evening but I would be happy to let any noble Lord see the article or take a copy. All these factors, ranging from a history of bottle feeding, incorrect diet, removal of tonsils and the extended use of antibiotics, had a weakening effect on the patient's immune system.
While congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Trafford, on his excellent maiden speech, I fear I must disagree with him. Telling people that AIDS is always fatal is both untrue and, I believe, misguided. This is to ignore the fact that many patients have experienced remissions and now lead normal lives. Equally important, it is an entirely negative approach. The will to live is a key element in the fight for survival. AIDS patients must be allowed to live in a wholly positive atmosphere in which their self-healing capacity is encouraged and enhanced.
In the public mind at least, complementary therapies have been largely ignored. This is rather curious, not just because orthodox medicine seems to have very little to offer to AIDS patients, but mainly because there is already a substantial and growing
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body of evidence that a number of integrated therapies are improving the quality of life for many AIDS patients, and indeed starting them on the road to recovery in several cases.
As an example, some of your Lordships may have seen an item on ITN on Tuesday, 21st April, where the International Society of Biophysical Medicine (of which I must declare my membership) was reported to have discovered a new diagnostic method for AIDS by means of electrographic imaging and a resultant treatment method for the reduction of stress, which was having very encouraging results. In my excitement at this discovery, I was guilty some days earlier of ringing the office of my noble friend the Minister, but I regret to say that the enthusiasm shown in the office did not match that of the Americans, who are now considering financing this major British development, in the diagnosis and treatment of the disease.
In conclusion, while welcoming this Bill and hoping perhaps that it might be altered in order to widen the scope of the information that is to be reported, I beg the Government to broaden their perspective and to realise that an individual self-healing capacity is the key to the problem. Government finance should be directed away from the discovery of powerful synthetic agents and focused instead on ways of enabling people to maintain their own inner strength and health.
10.9 p.m.
Lord Young of Dartington: My Lords, I should like to join in the general congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Trafford, on a most powerful speech. I was most impressed, as I am sure we all were. I am also sure that the noble Lord would not want to be left with the impression on this occasion that we are always in agreement. That certainly would not be giving the right impression and I am not going to join in the chorus of praise for this Bill. I am afraid I am going to disagree with everyone who has spoken so far.
So lift up your hearts, there is still hope for us. I shall take as my text, at least in the first part of my brief remarks, something that Mr. Newton said in the other place when the Bill received its Second Reading. He said of the Government (in the Commons Hansard of 23rd January 1987 at col. 1191):
"We could perfectly easily have thought of endless reasons for not having the Bill and for seeking to prevent it being passed. I am bound to tell the House, if only as a matter of propriety, that, strictly speaking, we do not consider that the Bill is needed. Quite apart from the existing accounting arrangements for reporting within the Health Service, the National Health Service Act 1977 already contains provisions that enable the Secretary of State to direct local authorities to provide him with certain information".
He continued with a non sequitur which I completely failed to follow:
"Having made those points, I certainly do not intend to use them as reasons for advising the House not to proceed with the Bill".
The heart has reasons that the mind knows not of. The noble Baroness who will reply to the debate later is well known in this House and elsewhere for her heart. I hope that we shall be able to vouchsafe that what comes out of that heart will support reason and do it in a more convincing way than the Minister for Health was able to do on that occasion. I found the whole thing most mysterious.

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Perhaps the most important question is whether the Government were or were not right in the past to refrain from using the powers that they had to require district health authorities and the rest to provide all the information that the Bill will now make compulsory. I think that the Government were right then and have been wrong since in supporting this Private Member's Bill.
There has not been any complaint as far as I know. There certainly has not been any complaint voiced in this debate tonight, nor was there in the other place in any of the sessions about the way, manner and the accuracy of the figures that have already been collected about the incidence of AIDS. The figures are collected in what seems to me a properly English and very reputable way. They are collected throughout the country in a voluntary manner without using compulsion and are reported to the Communicable Diseases Surveillance Centre. That gives the country an adequate picture, broken down geographically into quite small areas, about what is happening with the incidence of this disease.
There has been no complaint about that, but now, because of this Bill, in what I think of as a fussy, Germanic way laid on top of our decent English ways, there will be compulsion requiring the district health authorities to do what within considerable limits they have done perfectly well so far in providing us all with the vital information which we need about the disease.
I fear that the danger is that the Bill will not make the statistics better but worse, because introducing compulsion into a scene that has been dominated so far by the voluntary principle could undermine the confidentiality which the noble Lord, Lord Trafford, talked of so well. This is a matter where the psychology of sufferers is vital. Some AIDS sufferers may fear that if their individual case has to be reported by law to district health authorities, it will not be treated as confidential.
This is not a realm in which reason generally prevails. It did not prevail with the Government when they decided to support the Bill and it has prevailed perhaps still less among many people who are stricken with the disease. They may withdraw their cooperation and not supply information, or not even let on about symptoms and so on, if they fear that there will be any breach of confidentiality; and I fear that this Bill will give some reason to people to think that the confidentiality principle may be broken.
The most vital part of any statistical collection is the voluntary basis of it. Unless people are prepared to provide the basic raw material, statistics as they are aggregated will be that much less good. To lay a statutory hand on statistics, whose supply is voluntary anyway at the root, could be to undermine the voluntary spirit.
There is a very grave omission from the Bill, which is that there is no guarantee of confidentiality. It would have done something to allay any fears people might have had on these grounds if a guarantee of confidentiality had been written quite specifically into the Bill. That at least would have been reassuring. I should have welcomed it if, in addition to that, provision had been made against discrimination in
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jobs and housing and on the insurance market, which is already affecting AIDS sufferers. But there is nothing of this in the Bill and I think that is one reason why, despite what the BMA may have said earlier on, when I do not think they had taken the full measure of the Bill, there is a good deal of growing disquiet among doctors concerned with AIDS.
I do not know whether other Members of this House have been written to by people at the Middlesex Hospital on behalf of Professor Adler, Dr. Ann Johnson and others there, but they are quite alarmed about this Bill, partly because they are afraid of what it might do on this issue of confidentiality. There is also some disquiet in the Faculty of Community Medicine. There obviously is not unanimity on this, and I do not think there is unanimity either way. But the fact that some eminent doctors who are in the front line of the fight against AIDS are worried about it is something which should give us pause.
Another fear is that the Government do not treat and trust voluntary bodies for the voluntary principle as they should. It is many months now since the Secretary of State was asked to help in setting up a national AIDS council for the voluntary bodies in this field, like the Terrence Higgins Trust, Gay Switchboard, Body Positive, the National Council for Voluntary Service, the College of Health, of which I have the honour to be chairman, and others. They could all do more good work with proper coordination and support. But in reply to the overtures that have been made to the department on this matter, the silence has been almost deafening. It is a serious matter which should be raised in this House and elsewhere on another occasion.
The delay is encouraging several voluntary bodies, and important ones, to think about going it alone and with a critical stance to the DHSS, which would be the greatest of pities. What we want is co-operation and not conflict and any bad feeling. We want it partly because if this Bill is to do some good, as well as any harm—which I am afraid it may do—then the cooperation of the voluntary bodies will be essential because, very strangely, the duty is laid on district health authorities in the schedule to this Bill to collect information about the work of voluntary bodies in their own area. It will not be possible to do it in any reasonable way unless much more energetic steps are taken at national and at regional and district levels to gain the fullest co-operation of the voluntary bodies, to support them and to give them sustenance over a very wide area.
So I am afraid that for those reasons I cannot possibly support this Bill. I am sorry that it has come to us and that it went through the other House. I hope that even at this late hour in the proceedings the noble Baroness will show that not only does she have a heart but she has a mind, and that mind is able to listen to good reason.
10.20 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Newcastle: My Lords, I should like to add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Trafford, on his notable maiden speech and to say what a pleasure it was to listen to a speech of so much expert content delivered with such clarity.

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At this late stage in the debate there is just one point I wish to make with regard to the Bill. It is a point close to one upon which the noble Lord himself touched. In the schedule attached to the Bill we find mentioned twice,
"treating, counselling and caring for persons with AIDS or infected with HIV".
There is general agreement that the counselling of such persons and their care in the wider sense—that is, wider than nursing or medical care—needs deft and expert handling. The noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, has already touched on that subject and it needs no underlining. Equally deft and expert handling is needed with regard to the counselling and care of the families and friends of those who are suffering from the disease and with regard to the care and counselling of those who have been bereaved as a result of it. Expert counselling is also necessary for those who have nursed persons suffering from the disease, whether they are professional nurses or not.
I gather that pressure on hospital beds may mean that the terminal stage of this illness, when the sufferer is heavily dependent on care and support, will not infrequently have to be spent at home. I am sure that families and those closely associated with persons suffering from this disease will need help of a depth and a quality beyond that required by those who watch death approach or suffer bereavement from other causes.
Understandably, family and friends in particular are likely to suffer a conflict of doubt, guilt, anxiety and anger and a veritable turmoil of thoughts and emotions, both rational and irrational, which it may be that only time can heal. Many of them will need—and will, I trust, receive—expert personal and pastoral care and support from the caring agencies and, I like to think, from the clergy. But, of course, there will be no answer to their distress, grief, rage and anxious reproaches—that is, no answer capable of crisp formulation.
There will be no answer because this disease and the problems associated with it bring us all face to face with some of life's inscrutable mysteries. Any sickness or grief, any suffering or death—in a word, any tragedy—brings us up against deep questions about the meaning of existence and about the good governance of the universe. But this disease and the problems associated with it present those questions to us in a particularly intractable and uncompromising manner.
Do we not all know that tragedy is inseparable from life? That is why we go to performances of "King Lear"' and "Hamlet". That is why we read the Greek tragedians or Racine or parts of the Bible. The tragedy is not removed by these performances or by reading. However, we come to see our tragedy as part of a much wider context of tragedy and so we are enabled to live with it and are sustained to cope with it.
Similarly, expert care and counselling, provided for those who watch those close to them suffering from this disease or who have watched them suffer and die as a result of it, will not cure their hurt. However, it may help them to live with it. I have heard of a London borough which, thanks to a charity, has been
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able to appoint an AIDS care organiser. I believe that he or she has responsibility, among other duties, to organise and provide care for families and friends, co-ordinating care from medical sources, the social services and the voluntary agencies.
In a word, we need to broaden our understanding of those who need support. Reference needs to be made to a dimension wider than that to which this Bill explicitly refers. It needs to refer to the needs of relatives, friends and nurses of AIDS sufferers and provision needs to be made for that. Why should this type of provision not be included in the schedule attached to this Bill?
10.25 p.m.
Lord Rea: My Lords, I should like briefly to say that, like all other noble Lords except the noble Lord, Lord Young of Dartington, who has made some very good points, I support this short but very useful Bill. I also confirm that it has the backing of the BMA.
By requiring the publication of the annual reports and defining their content and format the Bill will make available a great deal of information which will be extremely useful to health care planners and advisers in the National Health Service, the social services and the voluntary sector. The Bill will not greatly advance our epidemiological knowledge of the disease because we already have a pretty effective system running through the Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre which is based at Colindale. As the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, said, the information will also be very helpful to sufferers and their friends and families.
I believe that "publication" is the key word in the Bill, implying as it does that the information will be available to all—the public, in fact. Regions and districts which, as might appear from the report, apparently are not allocating resources appropriate to the size of their problem locally will immediately be called upon to justify their action or inaction. If lack of finance is blamed, then public pressure can be brought to bear to correct this through Parliament, local authorities and the media, both national and local.
I am glad that the Bill does not go into great detail in the schedule and specifically allows the changes to be made by the Government in keeping with the rapidly advancing knowledge of the nature of the problem and its complexity. I wish that I was as optimistic as the noble Lord, Lord Colwyn, about encouraging regeneration of the patient's own immune system.
There are a few problems in the Bill, to some of which the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, has referred. For instance, are districts the appropriate size of authority to be making reports, especially as they may not coincide with the size of the Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre's areas? They may contain very few cases, and some may contain even none. Another problem relates to the long incubation period. The district where the disease is diagnosed may not be the patient's district of residence where he may finally be looked after in the terminal stage of his illness. However, I am aware that there are methods of handling this problem which may be written into the Bill at a later stage.

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As the noble Lord, Lord Young of Dartington, points out, confidentiality is quite a worry. However, I think that this has been anticipated in the Bill, particularly in paragraph 3 in the schedule which provides that if the number of cases is from one to nine in any district, fewer than 10 shall be stated.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Trafford, who pointed out in his excellent and clear maiden speech that it is of the utmost importance to allay people's irrational fears about the disease and to combat the danger of making AIDS patients into social pariahs.
10.30 p.m.
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, if I were strictly to follow the Companion to Standing Orders I should not be congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Trafford, because previously that was a duty reserved only to the first speaker who followed a maiden speaker. However, in recent years in your Lordships' House all speakers have tended to join in genuine congratulations on remarkable maiden speeches, so I shall not allow myself to be left out on this occasion just because Standing Orders tell me that I cannot do so.
This Bill comes to us with a fair wind from the Commons and it seems to me from what I have heard that there is little desire to impede its passage. I was going to say there is no desire but my noble friend Lord Young has expressed some severe reservations about it. The noble Lord, Lord Stallard, referred to the collaboration between the promoter of the Bill in the House of Commons, Mr. Strang, and the Minister for Health and their joint sponsorship of some of the main amendments. That is an impressive fact which we must take into account. We have cross-party collaboration on this subject which I am keen to preserve.
The noble Lord, Lord Stallard, said this is basically a Bill about information on a single disease and he gave us a great deal of background statistics for which we are grateful to him. There is only one figure on which I take issue with him. He mentioned a figure of something in the region of £6,000 each for AIDS patients. I suggest that that is an underestimate and possibly refers only to hospital expenses. It is, I believe, an underestimate of the cost of an AIDS patient from diagnosis to death. Perhaps the Government will back me up on that because it does not accord with the figures which are at present being studied and collated in St. Stephen's and other London hospitals. All I am saying is that I think the figure given by the noble Lord is an underestimate.
My noble friend Lord Young is concerned that the Bill is unlikely to add substantial relevant information. I think he called it a fussy, Germanic Bill, if I have his words right. I am not going to agree fully with him, and that is a further illustration that this is an entirely non-party matter; and long may it stay so. We do not have to speak with identical voices from the same Bench and that is a healthy factor in our approach to this terrible disease.
My noble friend was mainly concerned in his remarks with the number of cases, whether information would be improved on that and whether confidentiality could be preserved. I am not going to follow him down the confidentiality road because I
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think that is a complicated one and perhaps needs further consideration. However, it strikes me that the Bill is an improvement so far as concerns paragraphs 4 and 5 of the schedule. My noble friend did not like them particularly but it appears to me that paragraph 4 of the schedule will help to provide a clearer picture of the AIDS-related activities within a district and by whom they are provided.
I think my noble friend will allow me to say that he saw some limited good there in that it would at least bring more to the attention of the Government the level of voluntary activities that exist and probably also accentuate rather more clearly their need for support. That would become rather more apparent in the long term. I think my noble friend saw a tiny ray of light there. However, I take the point made by my noble friend that what the voluntary bodies need is not just year-on support but a clear view over a longish planning period of where they are going and what they can hope to get.
It also seems to me that paragraph 5 of the schedule will show the actual number of people each authority is deploying to cope with the disease. It may be said that this paragraph 5 information is already available to those who seek it, and no doubt that is true; but I believe it will be of considerable value in manpower planning and will show the areas and particular hospitals in which the whole burden rests on very few shoulders indeed. There is a real danger of the burnout of small, dedicated teams. This clause may help the Government recognise that danger. One can only hope that they will act upon it.
Lord Young of Dartington: My Lords, I hate to ask of a valued colleague a question that could be thought to be in any way critical. Does my noble friend accept that that there are many people employed by authorities to provide the services mentioned in paragraph 5 who, while concerned with AIDS patients, are not wholly or mainly engaged with them? They are members of wider teams in hospitals and employed by district health authorities. One of their jobs is to deal with AIDS patients. Merely to pick out those who are wholly or mainly dealing with them could surely give a wrong impression. Does that cause him some disquiet?
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, I respect my noble friend's intervention. There are three or four London hospitals which are bearing the main brunt of the disease at the moment. There are wards which although not originally designed to deal with AIDS, are now doing so. They find that there is severe pressure on recruiting for that work. They cannot obtain registrars because the work does not count towards the credits that young doctors need to allow them to proceed to the next stage. If my noble friend looks into that, he will find that there are some problems, especially on those wards.
I want to probe the Government about two points. The first concerns the duty of districts to report to regions as laid down in Clause 1(1). It is important that the current system of voluntary reporting to the Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre should not lapse. Here I am in agreement with my noble friend. Currently it provides our most reliable source of information.

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It is also important to remember that reports to regions from districts will properly be concerned with manpower and resource implications. The reports will spell out the aggregate for each region and the region will pass that on to the Secretary of State. On the other hand, information fed to the CDSC is much more relevant to the research effort and to plotting the spread of the disease nationally.
I understand that at least one region, and there may be others, is looking at the possibility of adopting a dual form, giving the demographic, epidemiological and clinical data of each AIDS case. The suggestion is that one copy should go to the region and the other to the CDSC for the rather different purposes that I have indicated. The probability, the authority suggests, is that the present reporting by busy clinicians, which is often recognised to be under-reporting, would improve. I should like to ask the Government whether the idea of a dual form—one copy to the region and one to the CDSC—is one that the Government consider worth pursuing.
The next point I wish to make concerns paragraph 6 of the schedule. The Bill was substantially rewritten in Committee in another place. The equivalent paragraph, numbered 5 in the earlier version, said that the report must include:
"an estimate of the facilities or services which the authority or board will require"—
I stress the words "will require"—
"in the next twelve months for persons under treatment for AIDS as inpatients or outpatients".
The difference I want to stress is that in the present version of the Bill the phrase "will require" has been removed and the phrase "will provide" has been inserted. It is a rather crucial difference. An authority may need or require to provide all kinds of things, but actually be restrained by its likely funding level from providing anything but, let us say, a quarter of an AIDS prevention officer. That presumably will be all that it can report under the Bill as it is written.
That takes me back to the criticism I made when the Secretary of State required all authorities to state to him their plans for AIDS by the end of last year. I said at the time that these plans would depend on the level of additional funding that he would find. In other words, he had to speak first, and he did not do so. That criticism still remains. In my view there should be a strictly controlled fund to which authorities can make bids according to the development of their needs and the problem in their districts, and that does not yet exist.
As a halfway house, this Bill might have acted as a vehicle whereby authorities could state their estimated requirements. That was written into the first draft of the schedule, and I rather regret that this change has been made. It will be extremely useful if under paragraph 6 they could set out in one column what they required and in another what they could provide. Any discrepancy would then have a high claim for speedy attention.
As the noble Baroness knows, there are some very serious discrepancies. The Riverside Health Authority is to get £900,000 for AIDS this year, which is £300,000 more than last year but is only a quarter of
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what it has asked for on a rising tide of cases. It seems likely that £400,000 of that may be withheld for community nursing and housing in the community—very necessary purposes also—but they are all to come out of the same pot. As the Wellcome Foundation drug AZT comes on stream in this country it will quite properly absorb increasing sums of scarce money for which allowance will have to be made.
The noble Lord, Lord Trafford, in his remarkable speech, referred to a bandwagon syndrome. There is always a danger that if there is something to be bid for people will bid for it. But I do not see the danger as being as imminent as he does. The greater danger with health authorities is that where funding for AIDS is insufficient there will be a temptation to switch money from other purposes into the AIDS field, building up rivalries among departments and shortages of resources. I do not agree with his argument that it is an immediate danger.
I am not suggesting at this stage that there should be any amendment to the Bill. The Secretary of State has a rolling power to amend the schedule. That is set out in Clause 1(5)(b) and subsection (6). Subsection (7) specifies the negative procedure in Parliament. The Secretary of State can therefore amend the Bill in the light of experience. That seems a sensible provision. I should ideally like to see paragraph 6 of the schedule amended to read, "will require and can provide". This would give a truer picture of the situation in districts and any discrepancies between resources and needs.
The general feeling in your Lordships' House is clearly that the Bill should go through as it stands. We need to keep a careful eye on it and to bear in mind that the Secretary of State has power to amend it by the negative instrument. We are all interested in these matters. We should keep a close eye on the Bill and make suggestions on it in the future where we feel that there are inadequacies. With that proviso, I support the Bill.
10.44 p.m.
Lord Prys-Davies: My Lords, the House is grateful to my noble friend Lord Stallard for his explanation of this short but important Bill and its background. I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Trafford, a distinguished doctor, for and congratulate him on his illuminating speech with admixture of realism and hope. By any standard the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Trafford, was a major contribution to the debate.
The number of AIDS sufferers is relatively small in relation to the incidence of many other illnesses, but it is recognised that the illness will almost certainly be the biggest threat to public health in this country and in many other countries during the rest of this century. That is why it requires urgent attention. That is why there is very strong public interest in ensuring that we have up-to-date and reliable information about the impact of this new disease, its concentration in various areas of the country and its spread into new localities from year to year, and we hope one day about its contraction. The information will help the departments of health of the United Kingdom to prepare and assemble the facilities to fight the disease where they may be required.

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The point has been made that AIDS cases are already being reported on a national confidential basis, but that reporting does not rest on any legal requirement. The Bill provides the legal requirement. That is its primary significance. The hope is that because it rests on a legal requirement the incidence will be fully reported.
The Bill places a statutory duty on each district health authority to collect and publish the information which is specified in the schedule and which has been referred to by my noble friend Lord Stallard. The schedule may be imperfect but it has been said by my noble friend Lord Rea and the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, that the Secretary of State has reserved to himself the power to amend the schedule, or indeed to amend the Bill in the light of experience.
The Bill is supported by the British Medical Association. It has been supported by the many organisations referred to by my noble friend. That is reassuring. Yet we cannot ignore the fact that the Bill has led to misgivings. That is my word for it. I would not use the word "alarm", which was used by the noble Lord, Lord Young. It has led to some misgivings among one or two of the leading medical people in the front line in the battle against AIDS. I am sure that we must take note of those misgivings, so I trust that the House will bear with me and that my noble friend Lord Stallard will forgive me if I press the noble Baroness for two assurances, of which I have given prior notice to the Minister and also to my noble friend.
My request is based on the advice which I sought and obtained from Professor Michael Adler of the Middlesex teaching hospital. Professor Adler has already been referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Young, and I am sure that the House would like to take this opportunity of paying tribute to the work of the professor and his staff on behalf of AIDS patients in London.
There is concern about confidentiality. That is an obvious problem. The noble Lord, Lord Trafford, referred to it as a critical problem, and it was also raised by the noble Lord, Lord Young. If—and I underline that—there is a weakness in my noble friend's Bill as drawn, it lies in the possible threat to confidentiality.
It is important that an AIDS sufferer or an HIV carrier whose self-esteem may be low should not be deterred in the slightest degree from seeking advice, tests or treatment at the earliest possible moment. He or she should not be deterred from taking such advice, because he fears that confidentiality and trust will be breached and that a breach of trust will lead to adverse local publicity. If a breach of confidentiality were to occur, one fears that this would lead to under-recording, not to improved recording, and that would weaken the fundamental objective of the Bill. It is to be regretted that nowhere in the Bill is there a specific injunction to the health authorities to observe individual confidentiality.
I accept that it may not be an easy task to draft the wording of such an injunction with perfection, but I think that my noble friend Lord Stallard has already indicated his belief that the right form of words may
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well find its appearance in regulations or guidance to be issued by the department. I understand that the department for its part accepts that there is a need at all times to preserve confidentiality, but it would be reassuring if the Minister, when she replies to the debate, will confirm that the Secretary of State will take steps to ensure that the need for confidentiality will be brought home to and respected by the health authorities and their staff.
As the Bill reserves power to the Secretary of State to amend these provisions—and we have already indicated that this may be beneficial—we shall press the Minister to go further and to give us an assurance that the power to amend the Bill and the schedule will not be exercised in any way that will endanger, threaten or weaken confidentiality. I hope that the Minister can give us an assurance along those lines.
I move on to the next area of concern. As I understand it, there are only two areas of real concern. According to Professor Adler, the second is that we could be lulled by the Bill into a false sense of activity simply because the reports are being written and sent to the departments or the regional boards without giving attention to the content of the reports. Professor Adler has a valid point. I think it is right, subject to the issue of confidentiality, that each area health authority should record the information correctly but that statutory requirement should not be an end unto itself.
The information, with due deference to the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, should not merely be kept: it should not remain untouched by human thought. The health departments must constantly inquire of themselves to what extent the facilities available in their areas are appropriate or effective. This was stressed by my noble friend Lord Stallard when he said that this should lead the authorities to galvanise themselves into action.
My second question to the Minister is: will the noble Baroness assure the House that the reports will be studied by the department and that it will take the appropriate action where necessary to ensure that the facilities are in the right place at the right time? I shall listen with interest and great attention to the speech of the noble Baroness in reply to the debate.
I have just one other question for the Minister. I am interested in the position of Northern Ireland because AIDS recognises no boundaries. It does not recognise the Irish Sea either. Can the Minister tell the House how long the Province will have to wait for an Order in Council that will replicate the provisions of the Bill for Northern Ireland? It would be helpful if the Minister could tell us something about the intended timetable for legislation in Northern Ireland and the adoption of the provisions of the Bill. Is it intended that the appropriate order will be introduced before the end of this year; or, as is often the case, will the Province have to wait a couple of years for similar legislation?
Those are the few questions that I have to ask the Minister. I know that my noble friend, and it appears to me all Members of your Lordships' House apart possibly from the noble Lord, Lord Young, are anxious that this Bill should become part of the law of the land with due dispatch. It comes here with the support of the Commons and I should have thought

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that if the Minister can deliver the assurances which I have sought, that should satisfy even the noble Lord, Lord Young, also.
Lord Young of Dartington: My Lords, emboldened by what has just been so well expressed, may I add just one point, if the House will bear with me? Mr. Newton did extraordinarily well in the other place in coming together with Members there to improve the Bill. Can I ask the noble Baroness in all sincerity whether she would be prepared to consider putting some suitable guarantee of confidentiality into the Bill at later stages. It may not be possible easily to get it right. If the noble Baroness were prepared to work with sympathetic people in this House, it might be possible to produce some kind of guarantee, or at any rate statement, about confidentiality that would go a long way to allay fears and might do a great deal for the way this disease is handled in the coming years.
10.57 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Baroness Trumpington): My Lords, perhaps I may begin by paying tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, and to the honourable Member for Edinburgh East who introduced this Bill in another place. They have put a vast amount of hard work into getting it to this stage and I can only admire their achievement. Next, I should warmly like to add my voice to those who have congratulated my noble friend Lord Trafford. He is a most welcome addition to this side of the House and I know that his future contributions will be eagerly awaited.
We have had a very useful debate on the Bill and a number of very constructive points have been made on all sides. This, I am sure, reflects the seriousness with which we all view the threat of AIDS not only for the present population but for generations to come. First, let me say to the House that the general principles of the Bill, so ably set out by the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, have received all-party support not only in another place but also in your Lordships' House, despite the noble Lord, Lord Young of Dartington. I am so sorry that he takes the view he does, but I hope that he is a lonely little cuckoo in his nest.
Lord Young of Dartington: My Lords, I cannot really let that go—the lonely little cuckoo. I feel that on this issue of confidentiality, which baulks in many people's minds, there would be a good deal of support for an attempt to do something. I rest my case and implore the Minister to consider that, if not tonight, then at any rate on some future occasion, as a constructive way forward.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, if the noble Lord would give me a chance to pursue my arguments, I was sad that he said that he was totally against the Bill.
The Bill represents a very important contribution in the fight against AIDS. Although its Short Title is the AIDS (Control) Bill, it is intended to cover not only full blown clinical AIDS but also other conditions which result from infection by the human immunodeficiency virus. Your Lordships have
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listened to the impressive words of my noble friend Lord Trafford. There is no cure or vaccine for AIDS. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, it is true that a number of pharmaceutical companies are devoting increasing resources to develop therapeutic drugs. I am hopeful that new, helpful palliative drugs will emerge from this work. Your Lordships will appreciate that commercial confidentiality prevents companies making the details public.
The most effective weapon that we have in the fight against this terrible disease is public education. The more people know about AIDS, the better they will be able to deal with it. The detailed and accurate reports envisaged in the Bill will make an important contribution to the dissemination of information locally. This can only assist in getting over the vital facts—literally vital—and dispelling some of the myths that have unfortunately arisen.
Your Lordships may find it useful at this stage if I give the number of AIDS cases as known in this country. At the end of March, 734 cases had been reported, of whom 405 have died. The April figure will not be available until mid-May. United Kingdom cases, as Lord Stallard said, are doubling every ten months. These figures reinforce the need for the Bill.
Your Lordships will understand if I confine my remarks to matters that concern the Bill. There will, I know, be many future opportunities to debate more general matters. There are a few points on which I should like to touch to clarify the Government's position. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, for giving me advance notice of the questions that he intended to raise.
The noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, and the noble Lord, Lord Young of Dartington, asked about the powers to provide information. Under the existing powers, Ministers have already asked health authorities to provide details of their action plans for dealing with AIDS. These plans have come into the Department of Health, where they are being analysed. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Rea, has said, the important difference that the Bill makes is to provide for the publication—that is the important word—of comprehensive reports on what is being done in the local areas.
The Bill, said the noble Lord, Lord Young of Dartington, introduces unnecessary compulsion, and may lead to the loss of confidentiality. The Government welcome the Bill because it sets out a clear and comprehensive set of requirements for information to be provided by health authorities. If these prove to be inappropriate, Clause 1(5)(b), which gives the Secretary of State power to make amendments, can be involved.
On confidentiality, paragraph 3 in the schedule will ensure that it will not be possible to identify individuals in areas where there are few cases. Furthermore, health professions are bound by a code of professional ethics which requires them to keep medical information confidential.
The Secretary of State has announced a code of confidentiality directed at health authorities which will ensure that all health authority employees are required to keep medical information confidential. It is very important that I stress that, while the Bill

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requires this information about AIDS and HIV for authorities and boards, it also provides safeguards to maintain the confidentiality of the individual. I want to take this opportunity to underline the categorical assurance given in another place about confidentiality. None of the information which the Bill specifies should be included in the reports will threaten individual confidentiality. Nor is there any intention that the powers under the Bill to make orders and directions will be used in a way that could undermine confidentiality.
Secondly, the timing of the reports will be the same throughout the United Kingdom. We are still considering the precise timetable, but it is likely that it will be linked to the financial year to tie in readily with other information used by authorities and boards for planning purposes. The timetable for the reports is not specified in the Bill because it is sensible to retain an element of flexibility. Indeed, the provisions of the Bill generally have been drafted to avoid establishing a rigid framework which could become quickly out of date and which could be altered only by means of primary legislation.
A third point I should like to mention is that there remain a few details still to be ironed out. For example, on the content of the reports as the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, mentioned. But I am confident that these will be sorted out well before the first reports from authorities and boards are due during 1988.
I wish to add that the preparation of the Northern Ireland legislation is in hand and the necessary Order in Council relating to Northern Ireland would be made as soon as possible after the Bill received Royal Assent.
The Bill's purpose is to ensure the information is provided as a basis for proper action to be taken at local level to control the spread of AIDS, together with an assessment of future requirements for planning purposes. And of course having these reports produced by authorities and boards will enable us to take action, where necessary. We must therefore make very sure that the information to be provided is needed and useful.
I should like to amend the figure given by the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, regarding government expenditure on research. The figure of £14·5 million, to which the noble Lord referred, relates to funding of the MRC for directed research. In addition, a further £3 million has been allocated elsewhere for research in 1987–88.
The noble Baroness, Lady Masham of Ilton, was worried about prisons and the armed forces. The essential purpose of the Bill is to impose a duty on health authorities to report on what is happening in their areas. Separate arrangements already exist for the reporting of cases of AIDS in prisons and the armed forces.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle said that the Bill does not require health authorities to describe what help is provided for the families and friends of AIDS sufferers. I am confident that health authorities will consider the needs of families and friends as they do in relation to those who suffer from other serious diseases and who may need support and
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counselling. If any express reference is found to be needed in this respect, it would be open to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State to amend the schedule using his powers in Clause 1(5)(b).
The noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, spoke of the present reporting system and the CDSC. That system will certainly continue. An expert group has been set up to consider ways of improving the available information on AIDS and HIV. It will be looking at the reporting system and may consider the suggestion of dual reporting form which was raised by the noble Lord.
The noble Lord is correct in noting the change in wording. This reflects the view taken in another place that it was more important for reports to give details of what was actually going to be provided by authorities. The previous wording asked authorities to give just an open-ended statement about what they thought might be required, with no indication of how this was going to be provided in practice—or even whether it was.
There can be no doubt that the threat we face from AIDS is one that we simply must overcome. This Bill is a fairly modest measure but it is nonetheless important. The Government are fully committed to the Bill and the necessary action will be taken to ensure that the first reports go out next year. I wish the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, a speedy passage through your Lordships' House.
11.10 p.m.
Lord Stallard: My Lords, at this stage I merely want to say that I am most grateful to all those who have participated in the debate. I should particularly like to add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Trafford, for his excellent maiden speech—excellent far beyond my expectations. I am very grateful indeed for what he said. I should also like to thank your Lordships for the constructive criticisms that have been made. They have supported the Bill in principle, and I know the noble Lord, Lord Young, will understand (as most of us do) the difficulties involved in getting any Private Member's legislation through Parliament.
He has mentioned some of the problems: for instance, that the Minister, Tony Newton, had said one thing on Second Reading and then had changed later. It is of course obvious that there was a Committee stage, the purpose of which was to try to persuade people to change whatever attitudes they may have held in the first place. Also, a great deal of discussion went on between the Minister and the Bill's sponsor, with the department, the BMA and other interested bodies. At that stage all this changed the Bill quite dramatically; and that accounts for the apparent change of view on the part of the Minister in the other place.
I should also like to say that this is a voluntary system. So far as I am concerned, the Bill does not in any way impinge on the voluntary system of reporting or collecting information. It simply requires the publication of the totals. It does not impinge on the voluntary aspect that now exists for the collection of these statistics. I would say, too—
Lord Young of Dartington: My Lords, may I interrupt for one moment? Will it be the case that voluntary bodies will be compelled in any way to

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provide information about the facilities they are making available for counselling, treatment, care in hospices, and the like? That will not be compulsory.
Lord Stallard: My Lords, I see no provision in the Bill for that kind of function at all. On the contrary, we would all hope that there would be complete cooperation from the voluntary organisations in the compilation of these reports and statistics. That has not been lacking so far in many of the fields in which I have been involved and I do not think it will be lacking in this field. On the contrary, I think they will be only too pleased to co-operate in the way the Bill envisages.
I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for her support and assistance and for the replies she has given—including the correction to my figure for research, which I gladly accept. She has repeated the assurance which was given in the other place on two separate occasions by the Minister on the points of confidentiality and the compilation of the statistics.
As regards confidentiality, it was made clear from the beginning in the other place that the schedule is quite deliberately worded. The Secretary of State has powers and these are not lightly given by either House, in my experience.
The Secretary of State has some extraordinary powers to amend the schedule in view of the seriousness and gravity of the matter with which we are dealing. That means of course that he has to lay a statutory instrument and any Member in either House can pray against that, and there will be a debate in the House before it is put into the schedule. Therefore, there are safeguards in that respect as well; but it means that the Secretary of State can, from time to time, vary the schedule and the requirements that are necessary according to the reports and so on and take care of the question of the confidentiality that has been raised. I understand from the discussion that I had with the CDSC and the BMA that they are well aware of Professor Adler's very valid criticisms on that point. It was their intention to contact and write to him and also to have some discussion to enlarge on and explain to him their support, the kind of reservations that they have and what they intend to do about them.
However, in no way did they think that that ought to impede the progress of the Bill on to the statute book. From there we can proceed in a normal way, and with the Secretary of State's new powers we can amend and add whatever we think may be necessary from time to time. I am exceedingly grateful for all the help and support that I have been given and for the way in which this debate has been conducted. I hope that your Lordships will give the Bill a Second Reading and that it will have a fair and speedy passage. I commend the Bill.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

University College London Bill
Reported from the Unopposed Bill Committee with amendments.
House adjourned at seventeen minutes past eleven o'clock.